Archive of Our Own ^beta

Steve stared in bewilderment at the frankly gigantic assortment of spices in front of him.

Who on earth needed this many spices? What were they all for? Surely most of the little green ones would taste the same, right? No need to get multiples? Shit, he really should have researched this a little more before going to the store; he was completely out of his depth here.

Steve was a simple man, with simple pleasures. He’d grown up on a steady diet of boiled vegetables and roasted meats, and he never found any reason to complain. He wasn’t what he’d exactly call a culinary expert, but he knew at least the basics of meat, pasta, and the occasional egg-based breakfast dish.

This was Sam’s fault. If his brand new roommate didn’t have such a problem with Steve’s cooking, he wouldn’t be in this mess. And there was nothing wrong with his cooking anyway — Sam was just picky.

“That’s it, I’ve had it — enough!” Sam had thrown his fork onto the table dramatically. “You see these?” He pointed a forefinger at his dry eyes. “Tears, Steve. Literal tears from this plate of bland, boring-ass white-people food. Have you never heard of spices?” Steve rolled his eyes.

“There’s salt on the chicken,” he reasoned.

“No, I’ve had enough. If I’m going to be living with you from now on, either learn to cook, or let me do the cooking from now on. I’m not subjecting myself to one more brand of meat and potatoes without even the slightest hint of rosemary, or thyme, or tarragon, or something.”

And so here Steve was. In the middle of a supermarket, staring at the hugest range of spices in the world. With a groan, he realized he probably looked like some idiot college freshman on his first ever grocery shop, the way he was staring in bafflement at the rows.

Did he even have a spice rack at home? How was he supposed to store these? Did some of them need refrigerating?

Steve found himself so drawn into his internal struggle with the assortment of seasonings that he almost completely missed the new addition to the tiny throng of people bustling up and down the aisle: a tall blonde woman, and her even taller brunet boyfriend.

Shit.

She hadn’t noticed him yet. Maybe he could turn and leave without them noticing — Sam would understand. Sam was the most empathetic person he knew, he wouldn’t scold Steve for coming home spice-less to avoid an awkward encounter with an ex. Surely.

They drew closer.

Fuck.

Please don’t notice me, please don’t notice me, please don’t notice me…

“Steve?”

Fuck.

Steve’s whipped his head around as if completely surprised at the call, mustering the most convincing, delighted smile he was capable of. “Sharon? Wow, hi!” He almost outwardly cringed at how completely phony his voice sounded.

She let go of her boyfriend’s hand in order to throw both arms around Steve’s shoulders and give him a hearty squeeze.

“It’s been ages!”

“Yeah, almost… what is it, five, six months now?”

Yep, Steve thought. Five or six months since Sharon “I don’t feel like I’m enough for you” Carter decided that she was uncomfortable dating a bisexual man. Not that he was bitter about it.

“Six,” her boyfriend oh-so-helpfully amended, and there was no way in hell Steve could actually be imagining that smug upward twist of the mouth, right? He wasn’t just smirking at him — that was a sneer. He was being sneered at.

“So how have you been?” Steve pressed on, firmly ignoring both the look on the guy’s face, and his own intense desire to punch it right off of him. Just — right off.

Sharon, who was either ignoring her boyfriend’s attempt at revving up a pissing contest, or simply hadn’t noticed it, continued smiling pleasantly. “We’ve been doing good,” she said offhandedly. “I got a promotion at work. Brock and I are planning on moving in together in the next few weeks or so.” She spared a second to shoot him a wide smile. “How about you? How’s everything going?”

Oh, yeah, he thought. Everything’s grand. Single, barely employed, living with someone who may or may not be the significant other of a Russian assassin, and trying to work out the difference between oregano and basil in the middle of a fucking grocery store. He was doing just dandy.

“Uh… fine. I’m fine,” he settled on lamely. “That’s really great about the job, Sharon. I, uh… I know you really wanted to make detective.”

“Well, she worked her ass off to get there, didn’t you, babe?” her boyfriend said, cutting her off before she could get a chance to mouth open to speak and winding a hand around to grasp possessively at her hip.

Aha ha — fuck this guy.

“So are you seeing anyone at the moment?” he then asked him, a little too casually, and really, it was a wonder that the guy’s arrogance wasn’t visibly oozing out of him from every orifice. Steve wasn’t altogether sure if he was imagining the condescension in the man’s tone or not, but one way or another, his mouth suddenly went dry.

“Oh, yeah.” Sharon perked up a little. “Is there anyone special, Steve? No lucky girl? Or… guy, I suppose,” she added, almost conspiratorially.

The guy was smirking at him again, face arranged in that stupid, smug look — plainly aware that Steve was inarguably without companionship at this point in his life.

Before he could get as far as opening his mouth to reply, however, he jolted in surprise at the feel of something sliding into his back pocket.

“Hey babe, sorry, I had to arm-wrestle some old lady for this pineapple.” A tall, dark-haired man with a cleft chin and a crooked smile was, sure enough, holding aloft a single, whole pineapple triumphantly in one hand. His other was snaked around Steve’s waist and placed firmly on his ass. “Who are your friends?” he added politely.

“Uhm…” Steve gaped wordlessly, drawing a complete blank.

“I’m Sharon, this is my boyfriend Brock,” Sharon said smoothly, her eyes subtly roaming up and down the man’s form with interest. Steve didn’t blame her — the guy was spectacularly handsome.

“Nice to meet you,” the guy smiled again. “My name’s Bucky.”

And boy-oh-boy if that didn’t ruin his image a little.

“Bucky?” Brock said derisively, and Bucky’s smile fell instead into a sheepish grimace.

“Ah, yeah,” his gaze shifted a little, embarrassed. “James Buchanan Barnes. Parents were big history buffs.”

“At least you weren’t named Grover Cleveland Barnes,” Steve joked weakly, trying to make it seem at least a little natural-sounding.

“Or Ulysses S. Grant Barnes,” Bucky grinned, and oh dear, that smile was really, really handsome…

“Okay…” Brock sounded confused.

“So how did you two meet?” Sharon cut in — her light, conversational tone the epitome of politeness.

Bucky didn’t even pause before answering her. “Through friends,” he said easily. “My roommate is a friend of Steve’s from work; she introduced us.”

Sharon nodded, feigning genuine interest in his boring story the way only adults with incredibly boring co-workers can do. “So your friend’s a writer then? What kind of stuff does she do?” she asked.

After taking a moment to admire her impeccable Boring Adult Conversation Skills™, Steve tensed a little as he remembered that Bucky had absolutely no idea what kind of job Steve worked at. As he prepared for the entire charade to come crashing down around them, however, Bucky only took it in stride — giving Sharon a charming, easy smile as he replied, “to be honest, I think Steve’d probably know more about that than me. My roommate and I don’t really talk about work stuff very often.”

Nice.

Sharon smiled blandly, buying it with ease. “Well, I’m glad to hear it. I know you were having trouble finding work for a while there,” she looked at Steve as she said it, and he wondered for a moment if he should be offended. “You know, Steve, my aunt Peggy’s been missing you a lot lately. You should come round for dinner some time. Bring your boyfriend, too, Peggy would absolutely love to meet him,” she continued.

Oh no. Abort. Abort.

Bucky smiled. “That sounds like fun,” he said, “I’ve heard a lot about Peggy from Steve, actually. It’d be nice to finally meet her.”

“Great!” Sharon enthused. “We should get together and organize it soon then. Your number’s still the same, right, Steve?”

“Yeah,” Steve affirmed, at once feeling a relief so exquisite that it damn-near left him boneless.  His social skills may not have been the greatest, but even he knew that vague-ass plans for confirming a get-together like that was basically the first lesson you get in How to Blow People Off Politely 101.

“Great,” Sharon smiled. “Well, Brock and I are gonna head to the checkout, are you both done here?”

“Yep!” Bucky said, holding aloft his pineapple once more with a proud smile.

Steve stared mournfully at the spice rack. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re good.”

They exchanged pleasantries all the way out of the grocery store — Bucky’s charismatic smile and easygoing demeanor leading the conversation with ease, being careful to keep the subject on Sharon, rather than on himself or Steve.

As they exited the store and watched Brock and Sharon walk off with plastic bags of groceries still in hand, Bucky finally stepped out of Steve’s personal space, looking sheepish.

“Sorry if I took you by surprise back there,” he sounded genuinely apologetic. “I was eavesdropping on your conversation one aisle over, and it was causing me actual physical pain to watch you. When she mentioned you were into dudes as well, I just kinda jumped in without thinking it through.”

“You put your hand on my ass,” Steve said accusingly, smiling at him to show that he wasn’t serious.

Bucky grinned right back, shameless. “Yeah, well, can you really blame me?”

Steve snorted, blushing.

“Seriously though, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” he added sincerely.

Steve waved him off. “No, no, you’re fine.” Really, really fine. “Actually, I owe you a thanks. I think I might’ve actually died from shame if I’d gone on by myself any longer.”

“Trust me, I could tell,” Bucky grinned. “Anyway — here,” he tossed Steve the whole pineapple he was holding, and Steve caught it awkwardly between both hands. “Call it a consolation prize. I’ll see you ‘round, Stevie.”

And with that, Bucky shoved both hands in the pockets of his jacket, sent him a final heartbreaking smile, and walked off in the opposite direction without another word.

Still reeling from the whole thing, Steve walked back to his apartment in a kind of stupor. It wasn’t like it had been a traumatic experience, per se, but he definitely felt a little shell-shocked. Five hours a week of cardio, and he didn’t think his heart rate had ever been higher than when he was sweating bullets trying to act natural with Bucky Barnes’s hand on his ass. Perhaps that was why his brain felt so fuzzy now: all those endorphins and adrenaline from a life-threatening fight or flight situation. He didn’t think he’d feel that stressed again if a literal nunchuck-wielding ninja-bear came bursting through his living room window.

“Hey, how’d it go?” Sam asked brightly, throwing down his paperback and jumping eagerly to his feet to see what Steve had bought.

Dazedly, Steve handed him off the pineapple, shaking his head and stripping his coat off to hang over the back of the nearest kitchen chair.

“Steve,” Sam stared down hard at the pineapple, frowning. “I know you’re new to this whole ‘spices’ thing, but as your friend, I feel like I should be the one to tell you that pineapples are not one of them.”

Steve fell into the kitchen chair, buried his face in his hands, and groaned. “I don’t even like pineapple,” he moaned.

Sam looked disappointed, but nonetheless amused, and he set the pineapple on the counter with a very confused look on his face.

Steve scrubbed his hands over his face and groaned, but before he could make a move to start explaining his afternoon to Sam, his phone buzzed in his pocket, and he fished it out to check.

Oh no.

Oh, god fucking damn it.

Sharon C:
Hey Steve! It was really great catching up with you today. James seems really nice. I called Peggy to let her know that you were interested in having dinner one night, and she said she’s really looking forward to it. Should we make a time? Say, week after next? Let me know!

Oh, god fucking damn it.

How the hell could this be happening? He knows he did not misread that situation — that was a prime example of being polite about not actually wanting to see someone. How a person like Sharon — who is very well-versed in the art of being a Responsible Adult™ — completely undermine that system?

He didn’t know how Brock could possibly be the one to blame for this, but he chose to blame him anyway.

“You okay, man?” Sam asked.

Steve groaned again in response, and lowered his face to press hard into the table.

Despite Steve’s ongoing and now constant anxiety following the still unanswered text from Sharon, Sam had remained unyielding in reminding him that the house was still very much without spices. Or really, groceries of any kind.

“The agreement is,” Sam reiterated for him patiently, “that whoever does the shopping-slash-cooking doesn’t have to pay for the food.”

“I know, Sam.”

“We have no food in this house, Steve. None. Not even bread. We barely have any condiments, except for that ridiculously huge bottle of ketchup that I have no idea how you intend to use up. Seriously, we’re not running a hotdog stand here, Steve. Nobody needs that much ketchup.”

“Ketchup goes on everything,” Steve insisted.

“Ketchup goes on like three things. And, anyway, you’re ignoring my point — if you don’t go out and buy us some food today, I’m going to do it. And I’m taking your money with me.”

“Aw, Sam, c’mon, you know I can’t afford food on top of rent right now.”

“Great!” Sam said brightly. “Then I don’t have to steal your wallet and do it my damn self. You have the money, and you have the list — I’ve already done half the work for you. Now go. Go now. Go, go, go,” he gave a light shove to Steve’s shoulders, shepherding him toward the door.

Steve screwed up his face in protest and gave a long, petulant groan as he put his jacket on as slowly as humanly possible in order to drag it out and be more annoying. Sam glared at him the entire way out, and Steve allowed himself a childish smirk when he finally exited the apartment.

By the time he found himself at the grocery store again, staring hard at a selection of different kinds of bananas for sale, his mind was back on Sharon.

Perhaps he could feign sickness — it wasn’t so unlikely; she knew that he used to have a list of ailments as long as his forearm growing up. Maybe he could feign an asthma attack before dinner.

Or maybe he could say that Bucky had had a family emergency, and he needed to go with him to Chicago, or Sacramento, or something like that. Somewhere far away.

Or, fuck it; maybe he’ll just fake his own death. Jump a freighter and see the world. He could keep his belongings in a bindle at the end of a long stick — learn to play the harmonica for tips. Or maybe the banjo.

“Steve?”

No. No fucking way.

Lit up like the fucking sun, Bucky Barnes stood before him — hand still outstretched midway toward a large barrel filled with pineapples.

“You’re here,” Steve said dumbly. “I mean, you’re at the supermarket again.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, you took my pineapple.” Bucky gave him that stupid adorable impish grin again and plucked a pineapple off of the pile.

“You gave me your pineapple,” Steve reminded him indignantly.

“Semantics. Either way, I don't have any pineapples, and I need one for tonight,” he held it up triumphantly.

“What? What for?”

Bucky only smiled at him again.

Steve wanted to pry, sure that there was something he was missing there, but looking back down at Bucky’s pineapple, he suddenly remembered Sharon’s text, and his mood soured once more.

“You really screwed me over the other day,” he said without thinking. He flushed at his own callousness, and Bucky’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“What?” he said, clearly taken aback. “What do you mean?”

Steve flushed a little further, but held firm nonetheless, glaring. “Listen, I know you were just trying to help and everything, but I think you might’ve made it worse than if I’d just admitted that I was single in the first place. After you covered for me with Sharon, I got home, and she texted me.”

“What?” Bucky said, sounding just as genuinely flabbergasted by that as Steve did. “But we didn’t even organize a roundabout date! She said ‘we should get together and organize it soon’ — that’s code for ‘this was awkward; let’s never talk or see each other again’.”

See? See? This guy gets it.

“Yeah, well, I thought so too, but now she’s gone and told her aunt about us, and now she wants to meet up for fuckin’… I dunno, brunch or something. If it was just a courtesy follow-up text, I’d’ve ignored it, but she’s gone and involved Peggy in this now. She said that she’s ‘really looking forward to meeting you’.” He curled his fingers around quotations for the last part.

As much of a train wreck as his relationship with Sharon had turned out to be, the best thing to come out of it by far was probably him meeting Peggy. An ex-military officer during the Vietnam war, Peggy was probably the most badass human being to have ever lived; she told the best stories Steve had ever heard — she’d even given him his first ever scotch on the rocks, despite him being only nineteen at the time, and told him not to be such a ‘ninny’ when he ended up choking on it. He respected Peggy.

“Steve,” Bucky said.

“I have to lie to Peggy,” he emphasised seriously. “Nobody lies to Peggy. This is what you’ve reduced me to.”

“Steve,” Bucky tried again patiently.

“And if I can’t get out of dinner, I’ll have to go alone. I’ll have to say that you dumped me, and then I’ll be way worse off than where I started on the patheticness scale-”

“Steve,” Bucky interrupted firmly, a little louder this time. “I can be your boyfriend.”

Okay, that-

Hold the fucking phone.

“Huh?” he asked weakly.

Bucky smiled. “Your ex-girlfriend’s aunt — I can tag along to dinner and pretend to be your boyfriend for one night if you really need. I mean, it’s mostly my fault you’re in this mess to begin with, right?”

Again, Steve reiterates: huh?

“What? Why?”

Bucky shrugged, a small smile tugging up the corners of his lips. “I got no plans. And, I’ll be honest: this entire situation is hilarious, and I’d kick myself if I didn’t stick around to see how it plays out.”

“You’re serious?” Steve asked doubtfully.

Bucky only shrugged again. “Why not?”

Steve could probably think of about eleven different reasons why not, but he didn’t say any of them.

“You’re serious?” he said again.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Look, do you want my number or not?”

Okay, so there were a myriad of reasons why Steve should probably say no.

Even ignoring the fact that Bucky was practically a complete stranger, there were about a hundred different ways that this entire thing could blow up in their faces. It was one thing to not show up with anyone at all, but bringing along a fake boyfriend was just sad. Not to mention that if they did end up being caught in the lie, it’d leave him a thousand times more humiliated than if he’d just admitted to being single in the first place — god, Brock would probably laugh so hard that he’d end up cracking a rib.

Too bad for Steve, none of these things were on his mind as he blurted out his answer anyway. “Yes! Yeah. Absolutely,” he said far too quickly, and then cleared his throat awkwardly as he realized how overeager it had come out.

Bucky grinned. “Great. You have a pen?”

“No." Who the hell carries pens around with them?

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Here — put your number in my phone then.” He held out a slim cellphone for Steve to take.

“You’re not going to use my number to sign me up for Greenpeace or whatever, are you?” Steve asked, only half-joking.

“You’re a very suspicious person, Steve, anyone ever tell you that?” Bucky said pleasantly.

Steve frowned, and didn’t look up from where he entered his details into Bucky’s phone. When he was finished, he handed it back slowly, and Bucky slipped it into his back pocket with an almighty grin.

“Great!” he said brightly. “It’s a date then.”

After a strange moment wherein Bucky only stared hard at Steve’s face with a considerate squint, he reached out, and plucked a second pineapple off of the pile, tucking it into the crook of his arm along with the other one.

He grinned again. “Catch you later, Stevie.” And with that, he winked, turned on his heel, and left without another word.

Steve stared after him for a moment — utterly dumbfounded and wondering to himself what the fuck he’d just gotten himself into. Briefly, he entertained the idea of finding out what Sam would have to say after hearing about this whole thing, but quickly decided against it. His vision of Sam rolling his eyes so hard that they actually fell out of his head felt a little too plausible for his liking. Sam should never know.

Eyes falling back down to the greenish bananas lining up and down the produce display, he flicked his gaze from kind to kind and grimaced. What the fuck even were the difference between Lady Fingers and Cavendish? Why were the Lady Fingers smaller than the other kind, but more expensive?

He sighed and looked down despondently into his baskets of groceries. Two baskets were enough, he decided, dropping a random bunch of greenish bananas into one. Any more than that and he might not be able to carry it all home. He didn’t think he’d forgotten anything…

After setting both of his baskets of groceries onto the register, he gave the pretty, blue-haired cashier a polite smile as he began to unload the first few items onto the conveyer belt.

It took him a solid few seconds to realize that she was eying him warily, and he felt his smile drop instantly when he finally took notice.

“Everything okay?” he asked slowly, brow furrowing in concern.

The cashier gave him a suspicious look for a moment, and then, slowly, she reached beneath the counter to pull out a single, whole pineapple.

She held it out in front of her warily, as if worried it might explode. “Uh, there was a dark-haired guy in a red shirt who said to give this to you. It’s been paid for and everything,” she added, sounding just about as baffled as Steve felt.

Steve stared hard at the pineapple for a moment. “How’d he know I’d come to this register?” he asked.

Her look of confusion only deepened, and she tilted her head and stared at him like he was an idiot.

“Thank you,” he said hurriedly instead, taking the pineapple from her and holding it to his chest like it was a very sharp, and oddly-shaped baby.

Sam was reading again by the time he returned home, three bags of groceries in his hands.

Steve dumped them gracelessly onto the kitchen island, and then slumped over with his elbows on the counter, burying his head in his hands and groaning softly while he ground his palms in over his eyes.

“You’re doing it again,” Sam’s voice informed him in a tone that was one part amused, one part annoyed. Like a cocktail of pure exasperation.

“What?”

“The face! You’re making that face again! What do you keep seeing at the grocery store that is so damn traumatising? Are they performing donkey shows in the produce section?”

“Why is that the first hypothetical example that comes into your head?” Steve said, hands dropping from his face to stare at Sam in horror.

“What can I say, going to South America with my brother was a terrible idea,” Sam joked, and then spared a moment to grimace. “Seriously, what happened?”

Steve groaned again, grasping at tufts of his own hair.

“Is that another pineapple?” Sam noted with a distinctly dry tone, staring hard at what was clearly a pineapple imprinting its shape into one of the plastic grocery bags.

Steve groaned again.

“Steve, why are you wasting food money on something you won’t eat? I had to eat the whole thing last time — it dissolved the first two layers of skin from the inside of my mouth.”

“That’s really gross, Sam.”

“Don’t talk to me about gross until you’ve experienced your tongue peeling,” Sam said seriously.

Steve made a face at him. “I didn’t buy the pineapple,” he said, and then sighed. “Or the last one.”

Sam raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you shoplifting pineapples?” he guessed. “You know, of all the ways you’ve been arrested before, this will probably end up being the dumbest.”

“I’m not shoplifting the pineapples, Sam. It’s a long story, I’ll explain later,” he lied. “And I’ve only been arrested twice.”

“Mhm. Remind me why those were again?”

“Justice, Sam.”

Sam rolled his eyes, and began unloading the grocery bags onto the island, appraising each item with a telling expression reflecting what he thought. So far, the packaged chicken breasts seemed to go over pretty okay. The canned peas, however, not so much.

Steve’s phone chimed, and he pointedly ignored Sam frowning at him while holding a jar of generic mayonnaise as he fished his cell out of his pocket to check it.

Oh lord…

“Steve?” Sam said slowly, fingering around inside the last of the plastic grocery bags. “Where are the spices?”

Steve’s head fell onto the table, and he groaned again.

The thing about taking a nap in the middle of the day is that it only ever seems like a good idea before you do it. No matter how many times Steve has woken up after five hours, totally disorientated, and occasionally with sharpie artwork on his face and arms, he never seemed to learn his lesson.

Naps were the best. Naps were always the best — until you actually have one.

A week after Bucky’s text, which had been returned with nothing but an unamused face emoji, Steve was woken up by some kind of rolled up paper thing smacking him in the shoulder.

He snorted loudly, probably indicating that he’d been snoring, and peered up drowsily at what looked like a sleep-blurred mess of curled red hair and slinky black dress. Natasha.

He blinked heavily for a moment and attempted to say something, but all that came out was a sleep-garbled string of nonsense that made absolutely no sense.

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Come on, Rogers, get up.”

Steve made a noise of assent, but made no move to comply.

Natasha huffed, and her perfectly manicured hands went to her hips. He saw a rolled up magazine clutched in one. “Rogers, come on, get up. You sleep more than a newborn. Get up.”

Steve held out a hand and snored pointedly.

The magazine smacked him again. He made a noise of outrage.

“You made a commitment, Rogers.”

Urgh. Of course. Saturday.

Steve inhaled heavily, and groaned as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, still blinking blearily.

“Where are we going again?” he sighed dejectedly, eyeing Natasha's extraordinarily high heels with an expression of pain as he realized that he’d probably have to wear something just as fancy and impractical.

Natasha leaned in to him real close and scowled. “We’re going to the book launch, Rogers. Your book launch.”

“It’s not my book launch, Natasha. I didn’t write the thing, I just did the cover art for it,” Steve grumbled sheepishly, but got up off the couch anyway, holding a cushion to himself and squeezing it. “And stop calling me ‘Rogers’. You know it creeps me out.”

“Rogers, if you are not dressed nicely and looking as fine as I know you’re capable of in twenty minutes, I am going to break off a toe for every minute you spend dawdling over that time frame. If you take longer, I’ll move on to fingers.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but hopped to it quickly. While he knew in all reality that there was no way Natasha would ever actually hurt him, his ‘don’t poke the bear’ survival instincts always prevented him from disobeying any direct order she gave him. A fact that she exploited regularly.

Sure enough, thirty-five minutes later, he was dressed in his best (and only) tailored suit, and exiting a cab with Natasha and Sam in tow.

The book that the publishing house was launching that afternoon was nothing much to call home about. Just a generic drama/romance novel that would no doubt do quite well with middle aged women with flexible standards for literature, but poorly with everyone else. Not hugely anticipated enough to draw enough people in to warrant the publishing house hiring out a separate venue for the event.

Despite Steve’s near-certainty that the author had at no point in their entire life visited the country, the book was set in the rural Australian outback — narrating the fictionalized life of some twenty-something American girl falling in love with a dirty, standoffish prick in a flannel shirt. While the romance angle was played up a lot, the mystery plot actually wasn’t half-bad, considering.

Regardless, the publishing house wasn’t particularly huge, but it did have a very handsome hall on the ground floor for a variety of functions. High ceilings, shiny polished floors, and a long table with a clean, white tablecloth and a large assortment of bite-sized foods that Steve could never hope in a million years to identify what they were. Some kind of gunk on fancy crackers seemed to be the most popular, judging by the dwindling supply.

While Sam and Natasha were technically his guests, any outsider would probably have guessed that the opposite was true, the way Steve tailed them about from conversation to conversation, allowing himself to be introduced to one fancy author or editor or publisher after the other. Natasha had a flawless way of moulding herself to fit any crowd — a skill that was common in most professional adults, but especially true of Natasha. Sam, on the other hand, was inherently likeable to all groups, no matter how they differentiated, and found no need to put on a false smile and pretend his way through every interaction the way she did.

The two of them could probably have gone on the whole night without wavering, but Steve found himself exhausted of the whole thing after only an hour.

Yes, he thought bitterly, I am the artist who designed the cover art. Yes, it took him a while. No, he did not know the author personally. No, he did not do caricatures. Honestly.

While Sam and Natasha mingled effortlessly with a small throng of rich men of varying ages, who all wore very similar-looking suits, Steve found the opportunity to yet again slip out of the conversation unnoticed and sidestep his way back to the buffet table.

With one hand, he loaded up the other with assorted snack-bits, intermittently stuffing them into his mouth to try and think of what they could possibly be made with. So far, all he’d managed to do was get the ‘try the grey stuff — it’s delicious!’ line from Beauty and the Beast stuck in a loop inside his head.

He was definitely not sophisticated enough for this.

Licking away whatever tasty leftover goo he had on his forefinger and thumb, he eyed the crowd contemplatively and tried to think of which ones in the crowd looked like they would actually be willing to read the book they were celebrating the launch of.

“What the hell is -?” he heard a voice say.

He turned to see Tony Stark standing beside him, frowning in bewilderment at what appeared to be a small greenish circle covered in goo, topped with something red that was rolled up in a tube and garnished with a glob of white.

Stark side-eyed him with a look of hesitation. It looked like he was silently asking Steve whether or not he should brave it.

Steve merely raised a cautious eyebrow at whatever the it was. Stark apparently took that to mean ‘go for it’, because after one last suspicious look at the thing, he took in a breath and shoved it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

He tilted his head, a surprised look on his face. Swallowed. “Not bad,” he decided.

“What was it?” Steve asked, impressed and horrified.

“No idea — but I’m pretty sure that what I thought were cucumber bases are actually apple.”

Steve made a face.

Stark seemed to realize then that he didn’t actually know the person he was talking to, and straightened up immediately.

“You a guest or an employee?” he asked.

Steve gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I’m the artist they hired to design the cover art.”

Stark snorted. “Kudos then. You’re probably responsible for the only good thing in this entire book,” he said dryly.

Steve wanted to snort in agreement, but decided it’d be unprofessional to shit-talk something he was technically supposed to be promoting.

“Tony Stark,” Stark held out a hand for Steve to shake, and Steve hurried to surreptitiously wipe the crumbs off of his fingers and comply.

“Steve Rogers,” he said in turn, nodding amicably. “If you don’t mind me asking, Mr. Stark, what brings you here?”

He was pretty sure that whatever Stark’s actual job description was, it was something excessively lucrative, and no doubt extremely complicated. The problem was, that while he’d heard of Stark Industries about a billion times in his life, he still actually had no idea what it was they did. For all intents and purposes, Tony Stark was little more than a Professional Famous Person to Steve, and he suddenly felt very awkward.

“Book launches are surprisingly good networking events,” Tony answered matter-of-factly, bringing his hands up with an air of importance to button the offensively blue jacket he was wearing. “People who are in the business of refined shit like literature always have the best connections to stuff I like — auctions and such. Art and wine, mostly. Feel like I might’ve wasted an afternoon with this one though.”

Steve pursed his lips like he agreed, but didn’t say anything.

Tony gracefully snagged two champagne glasses off of a passing tray carried by a refined-looking waiter, and then handed one off to Steve.

“So, you look pretty young — you still in college?”

Steve shook his head. “Graduated last year. I’ve been surviving off of freelance work since.”

“Lemme guess — internet commissions?”

Steve smirked. “Yeah, but I’d hardly put that on a resume. You have any idea the kind of stuff people request on the internet?”

“Now, now, Steve, furries are people too.”

Steve bit back a grin and debated with himself for a minute whether or not to tell the horrific anecdote he had about his last encounter with a group of bronies.

“You strictly digital, or do you do traditional as well?” Tony asked, saving him from deciding.

“I actually prefer traditional. Nothing against computers, it’s just that traditional was how I was taught. Old habits, and all that jazz. Are you an artist too? Even just as a hobby?”

Stark snorted. “Nah — too much of a dirty, money-grubbing capitalist to be an artist. I’m just an overpaid tool with pretentious tastes and ample wall-space.”

Steve snorted despite himself, and immediately flushed, realising how rude that may have come off. “What kind of styles do you like?” he covered.

Stark shrugged offhandedly. “Depends on the space. For the areas that are open for viewing to the general public, I’ve got a lot more of the refined, expensive shit. But in my personal spaces, like my lab and my bedroom, I’ve got a lot of pop art. And also a TRON poster, but if you tell anyone, I’ll deny it.”

Steve hid a smile in his champagne at the image, and didn’t say anything. Stark gave him a considerate look.

“I own a Jackson Pollock, you know.”

Steve’s eyes widened. “Jesus, you weren’t kidding about being overpaid,” he said before he could stop himself. Mortified, his eyes widened, and he pursed his lips.

To his relief, however, Stark laughed. “Yeah, believe it or not, it was actually more of an impulse buy than anything. My assistant called it ‘overpriced’, so I had to have it.”

Jesus fucking Christ, just how rich was this guy?

“So you prefer traditional over digital, and you don’t draw animal porn. You have a portfolio?”

Still flushed, Steve nodded. “Website.”

Tony whipped his phone out of his pocket, immediately turning it sideways and typing in Steve’s name with ‘art portfolio’ as additional key words.

Oh god, this was it: this was the memory he was going to be flashing back to and cringing at every time he tried to go to sleep for the next fifteen years.

He felt his face (his stupid, lumpy, traitorous face) begin to grow hot — displaying his mortification loud and clear in the form of splotchy crimson patches for the entire world to look upon and laugh at. Steve had never actually thought it’d be possible to die of pure mortification, but sure enough, he felt it coming. Goodbye world. It was nice knowing you. Take care! C’est la vie!

In a vain attempt to prevent Stark from noticing, Steve turned his face away and took another sip of cool champagne. Maybe, if he drank enough, he could pass off his redness as simple drunkenness.

Then Stark let out a low whistle, and all hope was lost.

“You’ve got some real good stuff here, Rogers,” he said, and to his credit, he sounded genuinely impressed. Definitely not like he had noticed that the man he’d been having a pleasant conversation with not two minutes earlier had since turned into some kind of uakari monkey.

Steve made a noncommittal noise, mostly because it had sounded like Stark was expecting a response, but he had no idea what to say.

After reaching the end of Steve’s admittedly short portfolio page, he gave Steve a very deep, considerate look.

Steve fought to keep his expression neutral, despite the fact that he still felt his cheeks scalding the surface of his skin.

“Mm,” Tony took a swig from his glass, and then made an offended, almost accusatory face at it, “Jeez, is the booze here even alcoholic? I feel like I could be drinking juice and it’d give me a better buzz.”

Steve was relieved for the change in conversation, and he snorted in agreement. “They didn’t even hire an external venue, you really think they’re going to put out for the good stuff?”

“Oh, no, this won’t do. Tell you what, Rogers — say we get out of here for an informal afterparty? We’ll call is a pre-consultation meeting for the commission I’m going to offer you. I’ll even buy.”

Okay, seriously, where the fuck was a fainting couch when you needed one?

Without waiting for an answer, Stark locked his phone, pocketed it, and then took Steve by the arm, leading him into the crowd.

Sam
Dude, where are you?

I’ve been kidnapped by a multimillionaire, Steve texted Sam furiously. Send help!

Sam
You could have just said you wanted to go home, you know.

I’m not kidding!!! Tony Stark wants to commission me!! He took me to a bar in his chauffeured car that is being driven by a man named ‘Happy’! He has a corner booth on permanent reservation!

Sam
oh my god Steve, I leave you alone for five fucking minutes and you go and get yourself a sugar daddy

Stop laughing!! I don’t want my life to share the same story as Little Orphan Annie!!

Sam didn’t reply after that. Presumably because he’d passed out due to laughter-induced asphyxiation. Asshole.

Scowling, Steve pocketed his phone and busied himself by trying to make himself appear far more at-ease than he actually felt. He stealthily sank into several different positions, trying out how casual each of them felt and coming to the conclusion that he looked like an idiot.

“So, you mostly had a lot of landscape stuff on your webpage,” Stark was saying, not looking up from where he was texting at lightspeed on his phone. “You haven’t got a whole lot of colour in there, but what there is, I like what I see; I’m thinking some kind of cityscape piece. I’d like it to be one of the cities I have properties in — either Malibu or New York, I think. Or, hell, maybe I’ll commission one of each. Or maybe even a set. Maybe I’ll do the hallway leading out of my New York office waiting room with every major US city,” he mused, clearly oblivious to the look of panic Steve was giving him at the idea.

“I can probably name about thirty major cities just off the top of my head, Mr. Stark,” Steve said slowly, trying to be reasonable without sounding rude.

“You’re right, there wouldn’t be enough wall space,” Stark said, and then with a sigh, righted his phone and stowed it back into his breast pocket. “And call me Tony. I only insist people call me ‘Stark’ if I’m trying to intimidate them.”

Oh, Jesus Christ.

“Anyway, we haven’t even discussed mode yet. Are you thinking print or paint?”

Steve was thinking nothing. All of the thoughts in his head had vaporised like a hydrogen bomb of panic had gone off in there.

“Mr- uh, Tony, look,” Steve sat both thighs on top of his hands to keep them from fidgeting. “I’m really, really happy you’ve taken such an, uh… enthusiastic interest in my work, but…” he shook his head. “You have priceless pieces of artwork on hand, Mr. Stark. Stuff that’s worth millions of dollars. I just — I don’t know why you’d be so interested in commissioning something from someone who’s barely one step above being an outright amateur.”

Tony’s eyes twinkled, and he levelled Steve with a look that almost seemed amused over the top of his glass as he took a small sip from it. He licked his lips, making a satisfied noise. “Steve, if there’s one thing life has taught me, it’s that it’s not always a gamble to back the little guys. I like your work, you did a great job of the cover, and I’m curious to see what you can do for me.”

“I’m not a charity case, Mr. Stark,” Steve frowned.

“And I’m not giving you free money, Rogers,” Tony shot back. “Besides, if I snag you now, and you get famous, I’ll be able to say I own an original Rogers.”

“You sound exactly like my mom.” Steve made a face. Tony laughed.

It was amazing, Steve thought, just how many things could go wrong in the span of only forty-five minutes.

Tony Stark’s social attention span was one that he felt like he should have been warned about prior to agreeing to come out with him. When Tony had announced he was going to head up to the bar for drinks, it was at the twenty-minute mark that Steve felt himself growing restless and irritated.

He narrowed his eyes loathingly at the cerulean-clad ass that stood out like a beacon among the masses of other patrons, all of whom wore clothing of much more sensible level of colour saturation for this kind of environment.

The guy looked as out of place here as a skyscraper in suburbia — but what really pissed Steve off was how it somehow worked on the guy.

He’d been so focused on scowling hard at the back of Tony Stark’s head that he almost missed the arrival of a new addition to his table.

“Hey, sugar,” a smooth female voice greeted him to his right, and he turned just in time to see a tall, elegant woman with sharp eyes, blonde hair, and a smile that suggested she wouldn’t feel guilty leaving you in a bathtub of ice after making off with your organs slide into the booth beside him. Her shoulders were pushed back, and her eyes roamed along his form with dangerous levels of interest.

In a wild moment, Steve found himself thinking that this is exactly what Sharon would look like in an evil alternate universe.

“Uh,” he said intelligently. “Hi.”

“You all alone tonight?” she said in a low voice.

Oh, god, this was why it was always, always a terrible idea to let Steve make any decisions for himself.

He longingly thought of his sanctuary back at home — one that had a firm mattress and a fridge full of pre-cooked sausages waiting for him. He wouldn’t even mind the muffled aggressive sex noises coming from the apartment below him, or the narrow-eyed look of distrust that seemed to always be on Natasha’s face as a default expression, or Sam’s look of completely unsurprised disappointment over Steve’s complete lack of ability to keep himself out of trouble.

If he hadn’t left the house today — if he’d just stayed asleep on the couch, like he’d wanted to, then he wouldn’t be here right now. He wouldn’t have been dragged to a bar in the middle of the night by an overconfident human sapphire, and left to make conversation with a woman who looked like she might have actually been a shark in her past life.

“I’m actually here with someone,” he rushed to say, shifting as subtly as he could to the side so that there was even a little more space between them. He hoped that the raw look of panic he felt wasn’t showing on his face.

“Mm, I saw,” she noted, nodding over at Tony. “Looks like your friend has kind of left you high and dry over here.”

She was right, of course. Tony was, very clearly, at that point, flirting shamelessly with two women, who seemed to be just as interested as he was.

“That’s not- I mean-”

“I don’t suppose he’d mind me keeping you company for a while now, would he?” she asked, cutting him off before he could say something to gently rebuff her.

“What’s your name, sugar?”

Never tell a witch your true name!

“Uh… Steve?” he answered reluctantly — the answer coming out as more a question than anything else.

Her pointed red lips parted to show dazzling white teeth. Thankfully, however, before she could move on to say anything else, she was cut off by the return of His Highness, Sir Anthony Stark — sans drinks. He had each hand draped closely around the hips of the two women he was talking to at the bar; one of his fingers threaded into the belt loop of the one wearing close-fit jeans, and his other hand stroked a thumb over the slinky material of the other one’s dress.

“Steve-o, hey, listen, buddy, Miss Jasmine and Taylor and I are gonna head off. I promised them a tour of Stark Tower. You’re cool with that, right?”

“What? Tony, you drove me here,” Steve said, eyes widening. “You can’t just leave me stranded.”

“I’ll have Happy swing by and pick you up after he’s done with us. He’ll get you both home safe,” he said, with a catlike ‘you’ll thank me later’ kind of grin.

“What? No, Tony, you-” he cut himself off, flushing, and refusing to point out the woman beside him, whose heated gaze had actually managed to transcend the laws of physical matter to become literal hands. He felt hot all over, and certainly not in the good way.

“It’s okay, sugar, I’ll take care of you,” the woman offered silkily.

“Perfect!” Tony called, turning on his heel with Jasmine and Taylor in tow, swanning away.

A hand came up to grip his leg just above the knee.

“Tony,” Steve ground out.

Tony looked back at him disinterestedly. “Hm? I’m sorry, is there something you wanna say to me, Steve?”

“Yeah,” Steve scowled, “the suit and shades make you look like PSY.”

“That’s fair.”

The bastard kept walking.

Oh, god, don’t panic.

There was a blonde supermodel trying to feel up his inseam — he should feel ecstatic about this, right?

Her glossy crimson fingernails dragged along the stitching, a little too far up for his liking, and he jerked backward.

“Hey, listen, uh-” Steve spluttered, trying to slide out of her grip slow enough that she wouldn’t notice.

A second body entered his personal space from the other side, pressing up against him and throwing an arm over his shoulders.

“Hey, babe, sorry it took so long, the line was insane. I ordered you a piña colada.”

You’ve got to be fucking joking.

“Bucky,” Steve breathed, stunned. What the fuck? What was this guy, his fucking guardian angel?

The hand came off of his leg so fast you’d think he caught fire.

“Who’s your friend?” Bucky asked, putting on the perfect possessive tinge to his voice as he stared the woman down.

Steve reflexively opened his mouth to reply, but then realized that the woman hadn’t actually given him her name.

“Lorraine,” she ground out, and, although she wore it way better, she suddenly looked as uncomfortable as he felt.

“Nice t’meetchu Lorraine,” Bucky said in a drawling voice, making direct eye contact with her in a way that felt distinctly bitchy.

Lorraine shifted in her seat, her shoulders coming up awkwardly so that her elegant curls bunched up a little around her jaw. She looked down into her small black purse as if to check that everything in it was still accounted for — purposefully avoiding eye contact.

Why couldn’t Steve’s face do that when he was embarrassed? Why did he have to suffer blushing from his hairline down to his groin so noticeably that he looked like he’d gone tanning on the surface of the sun, while this woman somehow managed to have her pinkish blush concentrated only across the bridge of her nose like some kind of goddamned Disney princess?

“I think I may have misread this situation,” she admitted sheepishly, closing the magnetic clasp of her purse with a soft click.

“Mm,” Bucky agreed icily. “Better luck next time, sweetheart.”

She made a face at Bucky like she’d just witnessed him vomit down his shirt, apparently baffled and annoyed that he was being so petty about it. Steve couldn’t help but agree, and he glared balefully at Bucky, but still said nothing.

Her disgust apparently winning out over her embarrassment, Lorraine scoffed, shook her hair out over her shoulders, and slid out of the booth to stride away, her refined black heels clicking on the floorboards as she went.

“Wow,” Steve said dryly. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a very good liar.”

Bucky looked affronted. “No, I’m a very good actor. There’s a difference.”

“You know, you’ve probably just ruined your chances with every other woman in this bar tonight, right?”

Bucky extracted his hand from around Steve’s shoulders and waved him off, making an exaggerated ‘pfft’ noise. “It was worth it,” he insisted forcefully. “You had the ‘Sharon’ look, like you were about to disintegrate out of existence. What, was she trying to jerk you off under the table? She looked like she was trying to jerk you off under the table.”

“No!” Steve’s face burned again. “She was just touching my leg, you pervert.”

“You looked like-” Bucky hiccupped. “You looked like a bug that’d been caught in a spider’s web. It was obvious you didn’t like it. Don't get me wrong, I got nothin’ against women who know what they want, but it’s not cool when they can’t take a hint like that,” he said seriously, frowning at Steve with an intensity that felt a little too profound for the situation.

“Sure,” Steve agreed, frowning down at the drink Bucky had apparently bought him.

“Could you tell I was really drunk for that whole thing?” Bucky asked very seriously, looking strangely anxious for the answer. He hiccupped again.

“That smell is you?” Steve demanded. “I thought the bartender was just really generous with the rum in that piña colada.”

“You ever met a bartender?” Bucky countered, not unfairly.

Looking at Bucky now, Steve thought that it really should have been more obvious that Bucky was clearly plastered. The Brooklyn drawl kind of covered up the slight drunken slurring, but he was very clearly having a little difficulty maintaining balance where he was seated — tipping and wobbling about like roly-poly toy. His eyes were unfocused and glassy, and there was a faint flush to his cheekbones that made Steve’s mouth go curiously dry.

Bucky dragged his fingers through his thick dark hair, shaking it out a little and giving a satisfied-sounding huff at the sensation. Steve swallowed.

“So,” Bucky leaned forward on his elbow. “Have you gotten any response from Hot Blonde Ex yet?”

Steve wrinkled his nose. “Please don’t call her that.”

“You’re right — I guess you’d be the Hot Blonde Ex,” Bucky scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe I should just call her ‘Sharon’, but it feels boring. You both have boring names.”

Steve ignored him. “She sent me another text this afternoon, but I told her I’d get back to her with a date when we were free.”

“Ah, another polite blow-off technique. My services might not be required after all,” Bucky lamented gravely. “Shame.”

“Sharon’s not the kind to let things go,” Steve said assuredly. “I figured I gained us a few days, at most, before she sends me another reminder text about dinner. And, if she doesn’t, Peggy will,” he added.

“How are you this close to your ex-girlfriend’s aunt? That’s such a weird thing to take out of a relationship.”

Steve shrugged defensively, and began absentmindedly dipping the glace cherry in and out of the drink by its stem. “It was probably the best thing to come out of it, if I’m honest.”

“How long were you dating?” Bucky asked.

“About a year,” Steve admitted, then winced. “Which sounds like a long time, in retrospect, but we hadn’t exactly been fast-tracking our way through the relationship. Took me four months for me to even ask her to be my proper girlfriend, and when I did, she got annoyed, because she’d assumed we were already like that.”

Bucky winced in sympathy. “Probably for the best. You looked like siblings.”

Steve snorted, then screwed his face up as he realized that Bucky was right. It looked like he was dating his cousin or something.

“So, why’d you end up breaking up, then?” Bucky asked, absentmindedly chasing the tiny pink straw in his own piña colada about with his tongue.

Steve glowered at the table, flushing with anger. “Lots of reasons,” he said vaguely.

Bucky nudged him with his foot. “C’mon, we’re at a bar. Unload on me.”

Steve appraised him thoughtfully for a moment, wondering why exactly Bucky cared so much, but then he set his jaw and turned his gaze back to the table. Fuck it, he thought; in for a penny and all that shit…

“She said that I was childish and unmotivated,” he said stiffly. “Said I had no future in doing what I was doing, and that my lack of aspirations was going to end up holding her back. Also happened to slip in that she ‘didn't feel like she was enough for me’, and kind of implied that it would probably be best for us to split before I did something to jeopardize the monogamy of our relationship.” He scowled at his drink.

Honestly, the other stuff didn’t really bother him that much. He knew that artists were generally pretty poorly thought of in the Responsible Grown-Up community, and he’d kind of expected her lack of support in his goals to eventually devolve into resentment. What he hadn’t expected, however, was her bringing up his sexuality in her argument. Like it was some kind of deal-breaking flaw on his behalf — somehow proof that she was wasting her time, because he was obviously an unfaithful sex maniac who would eventually be too overcome with uncontrollable lust to refrain from dry-humping everyone and everything who came into sight.

Bucky looked livid — so indignant on Steve’s behalf that he looked just about ready to launch himself to his feet and hunt Sharon down to give her a piece of his mind.

“After a year? She waited a year to decide that she didn’t want to date a bisexual guy?” he demanded, sounding furious.

Steve shrugged awkwardly, looking back down at his drink. “It’s not exactly uncommon. A lot of people like to think they’re open-minded, but…” he trailed off, letting the statement speak for itself. “I guess it wouldn’t have been so bad if I was the one breaking up with her, you know? Because then at least I could’ve convinced myself she was just trying to make a volley back to hurt me. It wouldn’t have even been so bad if she was yelling at me — but she wasn’t. She was just… talking. It was that same tone of voice my art teachers used to give me when they critiqued my work — like she was listing off all the things I needed to improve about myself in order to be appropriate boyfriend material. Like when you go to take your car to the mechanic, and, at the end you get a list of everything that’s in need of tune-up or repair.”

He bit his lip to shut himself up.

Bucky shook his head, revolted. “Takes a really terrible person to say shit like that to someone who’s supposed to love them, Steve.”

“Mm,” Steve agreed noncommittally.

“Well, if you makes you feel better,” Bucky said rightly, trying to sit up straight in an ‘I-definitely-know-what-I’m-talking-about’ kind of way. “Her taste in men is clearly pretty terrible. I saw that fuckin’ Brock guy; the guy doesn’t have two braincells to rub together to make a thought.”

“Clearly he’s got better prospects and career aspirations though.”

Bucky snorted. “Nobody our age gives a shit about a person’s prospects, Steve. We’re not living in a fucking Austen novel. What do you do, anyway?”

“I’m a freelance illustrator — mostly kids books, but I’ve also done assistant work with artists for comic books and graphic novels. And I recently did the cover art for a novel.”

“Wow. There good money in that?” Bucky wondered.

Steve snorted. “Absolutely not. Might be, if I could hold down something permanent, but there’s nothing but freelance gigs and temporary contract jobs. What about you?”

“At the moment, a big fat load of nothin’. I got half a degree before dropping out, and I’ve been job-hopping ever since. Right now, I’m working in a bank under some asshole who talks like he’s running for office or something.” He abandoned the straw on his drink and simply threw it back, licking the inside of the rim for any last droplets of precious pineapple-rum swill leftover.

“Any prospects?” Steve grinned.

Bucky glowered over the top of his tiny pink umbrella, and set his glass down hard on the table. The look he gave Steve would probably have held a little more weight if there weren’t a perfect circle of yellowish goo circling his top lip to the middle of his nose.

“Get me another drink, maybe you’ll find out,” he replied, sliding his empty glass across the table until it chinked against Steve’s.

Water. Aspirin. Gatorade. Morphine. A bullet to the head. Oh, god, anything.

Alcohol, Steve decided, was probably the worst thing to have ever happened to the human race. The 1920s definitely had the right idea about the Prohibition.

And, to think, he’d been so good at the bar. After the piña colada, he hadn’t even had one drink — had actually turned down free drinks on Bucky’s dime because he was trying to be responsible.

Stark’s driver had never come for him like he’d promised. Presumably, Stark had been too understandably preoccupied with a pre-threesome to tell his driver to do so, so Steve could at least understand, if not be totally sympathetic. If he ever saw Tony again, he was going to wring the guy’s neck, generous commission notwithstanding, but he at least got the reasons behind his abandonment.

In the spirit of Bucky Barnes the Goddamned Fairy Godmother, the man had, of course, managed to pull a perfect solution out of his ass.

His entire reason for being at the bar in the first place, it had turned out, was to meet up with someone for a date. After being shamelessly stood up by what was clearly the stupidest man in the universe, the guy had sulked at the bar with a glass of whiskey, which had then turned into two. And then four. And then there were the two piña coladas on top of that.

Not having expected to get so plastered left Bucky in the predicament of having to find a way home without driving — his car being left in the parking lot, unable to be driven. Quickly jumping on the perfect solution to both of their problems, Steve snagged his keys and offered to drive them both back to his place and let Bucky crash on his couch for the night.

The alcohol had come in after their arrival.

“Why do you have that in your glove compartment?” Steve had demanded incredulously, eyeing the bottle off with a downright scandalized expression.

“What am I, a barbarian? You should always keep booze in your glove compartment, Stevie,” Bucky had slurred, turning the bottle around and frowning at the back of the label. “And there’s no need to look so horrified — it’s not like I keep a dildo in there.”

“Oh god, are you an alcoholic? Do you carry a hip flask around with you? Is that why you’re so cool about everything?”

“I’m not an alcoholic, you drama queen,” Bucky rolled his eyes. “The bottle’s still full, in case you didn’t notice. I keep it with me in case of emergencies — you know, like how you sometimes have those really impromptu gatherings with friends, and someone always points out that you’ve run out of beer?” he wiggled the bottle back and forth showily. “Emergency bourbon.”

Steve shook his head, amazed.

They ended up cracking open the emergency bourbon.

BING BING

Shut. The fuck. Up.

Blearily, he risked opening one eye enough to peer at his phone, and, not for the first time, he cursed, and wished with all his might that he could find a way to go back in time and deck himself in the face before he could ever get a chance to ask out Sharon Carter.

Sharon
Hey Steve! Just letting you know, Brock and I are headed to DC tomorrow for a two-week work trip. If we’re still on for dinner with Peggy, please send me the dates you’re free after that so we can organize it. Hoping you and James are well!
-Sharon

Steve stashed his phone beneath his pillow, and then buried his face on top, muffling his pained groans. After several long minutes of steeling himself, Steve slowly turned, sat up, and swung his feet off the edge of his bed.

It wasn’t the most terrible hangover he’d ever had. In actuality, if he popped two painkillers right now, he’d probably even be mostly fine after breakfast. Rummaging through his nightstand, he found a half empty bottle of Tylenol, and promptly shook out and threw back two of them, grimacing as he swallowed.

He stared miserably down at the remaining pills in the bottle, and, with a jolt, he remembered that Bucky was passed out on his sofa — clad only in his underwear, and no doubt in a thousand times more agony than he was.

Taking a moment to fish a (hopefully) clean t-shirt from his chest of drawers and tug it over his head, Steve shuffled out of his bedroom and winced at the sunlight streaming in through his partially open lounge room curtains. Oh, god, Bucky is probably dead.

He inhaled deeply, rubbing his temple with his forefingers, and peered over the back of the couch.

Bucky wasn’t there.

A voice spoke behind him. “Morning!”

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding.

“Are you serious?” Steve demanded, turning around to see Bucky grinning sunnily at him from the doorway. “What the fuck? How am I the hungover one?”

Bucky gave him a look. “I barely touched the emergency bourbon, Steve.”

“You were drunk before we even got here!”

Bucky grinned again. “Emergency Gatorade.”

Steve groaned.

“By the way, can I ask what you ended up doing with my clothes?” Bucky added casually.

During the night, the pair of them had gotten into Sam and Steve’s movie night chips and guacamole, which had brilliantly been left between them on the couch while they talked. At some point, Bucky had leaned over to snag the bag of chips out of Steve’s stretched hand, and had smeared his entire side from hip to ribs with guac. In a brilliant moment of drunken helpfulness, Steve had demanded Bucky strip so that he could heroically wash his clothes for him, and then had completely neglected to loan him any spares.

Steve flushed. “They’re still in the washing machine. I left them there overnight — they’ll need to go through another cycle before we can put them in the dryer. Sorry.”

Bucky shrugged. “It’s cool.” He turned back into the kitchen, apparently completely unconcerned with his own state of undress.

Steve followed him in there, puzzled, only to have his path cut off by an arm sticking out in front of him. The arm held out a plate stacked with funny-looking bread — sort of like French toast, except there was no sugar or syrup anywhere in sight.

“Uh, this for me?” Steve asked.

Bucky gave him a look.

“Thanks,” he said quickly, taking the plate from him with both hands and turning to re-enter the dining area and set it on top of the table. From the kitchen, the sound of something hitting a hot frying pan sizzled loudly.

“Damn that smells good.” He seized up as he heard the all-too recognizable voice of Sam calling out from his bedroom door.

Oh no, no, no, no, no…

“Hey Steve,” Sam emerged, dressed for the day in a pair of casual jeans and a plain t-shirt.

Sam’s eyes widened as he saw the plate of breakfast on the table.

“This for me?” he said, looking genuinely touched, and Steve felt too bad to say no.

With a ‘have at it’ motion, Steve stepped away from the table and allowed Sam to slip into the chair he’d been about to occupy. He sat in one diagonal from him, slumping a little.

“What did you get up to last night, anyway?” Sam wondered, taking his time to tuck his chair in and arrange his plate nicely in front of him.

Their cutlery was sorted in pairs — wrapped up neatly with napkins and artfully arranged in some kind of holder-thing in the middle of the table. Sam plucked out a set and unravelled the knife and fork from the napkin. “After your texts, I kind of just assumed you’d ended up at Stark Tower for the night.”

Steve glared. “He’s not my sugar daddy!”

Sam grinned, and then sliced off a corner of bread and fed it into his mouth. His eyes widened in surprise, and with a completely inappropriate moan, he threw his head back as he swallowed.

“Oh my god, this is amazing,” he said disbelievingly, knife and fork clattering on the plate as he dropped them dramatically. “Have you been holding out on me on purpose? Who the shit taught you to cook like this?”

Steve scratched the back of his head sheepishly, but before he could open his mouth to respond, a loud snort sounded from behind him.

“Steven Rogers, please tell me you are not trying to take credit for my culinary masterpieces now?” Bucky was grinning as he re-entered the dining area, stirring a still-sizzling skillet with a spatula.

Sam blinked. “Hello, strange man in his underwear making food in my house.”

Bucky put on a wounded expression, bringing a hand to his chest. “You didn’t tell your roommate about me?” he said, sounding upset. “Your own boyfriend, Steve? Really?”

Sam’s eyebrows shot upwards, and he whipped his head around to stare at Steve in a mixture of shock and betrayal. “Are you kidding me? You’re dating? You’re hitting that, and you didn’t tell me?”

Steve groaned and covered his face with his hands as his head fell onto the back of the chair. “We’re not dating, Sam. It’s a long story.”

“I’m Bucky by the way, since the future Mr. Barnes over there didn’t think to mention it,” Bucky dropped the kicked-puppy look and waved at him cheerfully with the spatula.

Sam looked very confused as he weakly waved back. Steve could relate.

“So… are you a friend of Tony Stark’s?” Sam guessed tentatively.

Bucky looked puzzled. “No.”

“Tony abandoned me at the bar,” Steve said.

“And then I saved him from being molested by a succubus,” Bucky added helpfully.

This did nothing to aid Sam’s confusion, but he apparently took it in stride, nodding fairly and turning back to his plate to cut off another section of food. He gave another appreciative noise.

“Steve, if you’re not gonna date him, then can I?” he joked, shooting Bucky a tentative smile.

Bucky snorted. “I think Natasha would be a little upset with you if you did.”

Sam froze, another forkful of toast halfway to his mouth. His eyes narrowed, and he set the bread back down slowly, as if suddenly worried that it was drugged.

“How do you know about Natasha?” he asked suspiciously, and Bucky laughed again.

“She’s my roommate. I recognise your picture from the lock screen of her phone.”

Sam’s mouth dropped open. “Wait, you’re James?”

“What?” Steve spluttered.

Bucky narrowed his eyes and pointed at Sam harshly with the spatula. “I knew it. I knew she’d been calling me ‘James’ behind my back.” Shaking his head, he re-entered the kitchen to put the pan back on heat, muttering darkly to himself as he went.

Sam boggled at Steve incredulously. Steve did the same.

“Why the hell do you have an industrial size bottle of ketchup in your refrigerator?” Bucky shouted indignantly.

Steve flushed. Ignoring the amused and very pointed look Sam was giving him, he shouted back, “Ketchup goes on everything!”

Sam and Bucky both snorted simultaneously from their respective locations, and Steve frowned even harder. Ketchup does go on everything, damn it. They can deny it all they like, but it doesn't make it any less true.

Moment later, Bucky emerged, carrying two plates of scrambled eggs and toast.

“Sorry there aren’t more eggs,” he said, setting one of the plates down in front of Steve. “Didn’t realize you’d give away my specialty French toast so easily.”

“He told me it was for me!” Sam protested, but Bucky waved him off with a smile.

“French toast?” Steve squinted at the remaining food on Sam’s plate. “Doesn’t look like French toast. And why do my eggs have green in them?” he added, pointing an accusing finger down at the offending pile of eggs.

“It’s savoury French toast, Steve,” Bucky clarified slowly, a pitying look on his face. “And those are spices, Steve,” his pained expression intensified.

“Spices are things people add to food to give it something called ‘flavor’,” Sam explained exaggeratedly, enunciating his words as if Steve were some kind of outer-space tourist experiencing human culture for the first time.

Steve scowled at the both of them. Whose bright idea was it to introduce these two assholes to one another anyway?

“You bought spices?” he asked.

Mouth bulging with food, Sam glowered at him in answer, and Steve gave an apologetic shrug.

Sam swallowed. “So, is anyone going to tell me what the hell happened last night? So far, all I know is that Steve was propositioned by a billionaire, and now my girlfriend’s gay roommate is cooking me breakfast naked.”

“She calls me her ‘gay roommate’?” Bucky wondered, looking curious.

“Stark isn’t my sugar daddy!” Steve insisted heatedly. “I was commissioned, not propositioned, you asshole.”

Sam gave them both unimpressed looks, and Steve ran a hand through the top of his hair, sighing.

“Okay, fine. So, I ran into Sharon the other week…” he began.

“Her fingernails were filed into points,” Steve emphasised seriously at the tail end of his recount of the previous night’s events, holding his own hands out illustratively.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “They’re called stiletto nails, Steve. My sister wears hers the same way.”

“They were red.”

“Wait, wait, let me get this straight,” Sam said, halting them with one hand. “You’re the reason I’ve had to eat two whole pineapples by myself these past few weeks?” he demanded, shooting Bucky an accusing look.

“That’s all you have to say?” Steve said disbelievingly. “That’s the first thing you say after hearing all of that?”

“You’re not eating my pineapples?” Bucky said, sounding hurt. “Those were gift pineapples, Steve.”

“I don’t like pineapple,” Steve admitted.

“Wow, really? Who doesn’t like pineapple?”

“I have sensitive tastebuds!”

“Okay, seriously, what the hell is with the pineapples?” Sam said, staring hard at Bucky.

Bucky only laughed and shook his head. “You know what? I think it’s funnier if I don’t tell you.”

Sam looked disturbed and annoyed.

Bucky only kept smiling, completely unperturbed.

Steve cleared his throat. “Uh, Sharon texted me this morning,” he segued gracelessly, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

Bucky looked pleasantly surprised, and he inclined his head, urging Steve to relay the message.

“She’s been called out to DC for work. We should have around two or three weeks or so before she just outright tells us a date for dinner. Are you still sure that that’s okay?” he verified.

Bucky shook his head softly. “I’m not going to back out on you, Steve. Like I said: this situation is way too funny for me to not see how it ends.”

“I knew you’d understand,” Steve said dryly.

“If you’re going to have a meaningful heart-to-heart or whatever, I’d really prefer it if he puts on some pants first,” Sam said idly, staring down into Bucky’s lap, where Steve knew there to be nothing but a pair of red boxer-briefs sparing him from being totally naked. “And you know, usually when you wash someone’s clothes for them, you offer them something to substitute them in the meantime, Steve,” he added peevishly.

Steve flushed. In his emergency-bourbon-addled mind, it honestly hadn’t even occurred to him to offer Bucky something for the meantime. He’d just been letting Bucky walk around in nothing but underpants all night for no reason — he must be freezing, the poor bastard.

His excuse for not offering him anything come morning, however, was non-existent.

“Don’t worry about it Steve,” Bucky shovelled another forkful of eggs into his mouth. “I get it — I’m hot.”

True.

“By the way, how long has the cycle on my clothes got left on it?”

Steve froze. He’d forgotten to turn the machine on.

“I’ll be right back,” he said sheepishly, getting up from his seat.

He could hear Sam frowning loudly at him as he went.

Steve scowled at the canvas in front of him.

Why the fuck wasn’t this working out the way he envisioned it? This was his hand. It was controlled by his brain — which was the same fucking thing that came up with this piece of shit in the first place — he should know how to fucking control it, right?

“Looking good, Steve,” Sam said from behind him, sounding impressed.

Steve grunted in response.

He felt, rather than saw, Sam’s answering eye-roll, but he didn’t respond.

“So I’m guessing all the stress that I can feel polluting my lovely home is because this is the piece Stark commissioned you for?” Sam guessed.

Steve grunted again.

Sam sighed.

The piece was nearly as large as one of their walls — about the length of their sofa. Their lounge room furniture had all been gracelessly relocated to the other side of the room — unattractively shoved up against the far wall to make way for the most gigantic easel Sam had ever seen, as well as a now paint-splattered sheet protecting the floor.

“Stark wants it ‘textured’. You know what that means?” Steve said as he emptied more paint onto his palette, angrily squeezing from the bottom of the tube. “Means it takes a billion and a half years to dry in between layers.”

“What’s the deadline?”

In the week since Stark left him at the bar, Steve had seen him exactly three times — once over a video call when Stark was in LA, and twice at his place. The video call was a personal call, if you could call it that — Stark grinning lewdly as he asked Steve how his night had gone, and then vaguely apologizing without actually apologizing for leaving Steve at the bar following his unhappy recount of what happened. The two meetings at his place had been brief, but they’d essentially nailed out all the plans regarding Stark’s commission. Now all there was left to do was to actually paint the goddamn thing.

“Two months,” Steve replied, sounding anxious.

“Steve, that’s ages away. I’ve seen you whip up incredible pieces in less than three weeks.”

Steve shot Sam a hopeless look over his shoulder.

“Sam, the guy’s giving me eight thousand dollars for my piece.”

Sam’s eyes bulged.

“Are you for-fucking-real?” he demanded. “Are you for- how the hell did you negotiate that?”

“Sam,” Steve gave him a serious look, “I had to negotiate it down. His original offer was ten.”

“What?”

“Tony Stark is a very rich man who has no idea how much amateur art is worth.”

Sam had an outraged look on his face that said very plainly that he was about to shout to the heavens at the gods of chance and prosperity, cursing them out for their clear favoritism of Steve “goddamn” Rogers compared to the rest of humanity. Before he could get further than opening his mouth to speak, however, the shrill ringing of Steve’s cell phone gracelessly cut him off.

Sam lifted an eyebrow at Steve’s ringing ass. “You seriously still use a default ringtone? What year is this?”

Steve made a face at him, and gingerly pulled his phone out of his back pocket with two paint-stained fingers.

It was Bucky.

Using the knuckle of his thumb, he swiped to answer, transferring the phone to be held between his face and shoulder as he felt around for a cloth to wipe his hands with.

“Hello?”

“Steve!” Bucky’s panicked voice sounded over the other line. “Thank god. Listen — I’m calling in a favor that we haven’t agreed you owe me yet.”

“What? Buck, what’s wrong?” Steve dropped the dirty cloth and took the phone back in hand, snapping to attention at once.

“Nothing, I just, I… look, I need you to be my boyfriend.”

Steve stared down at his phone for a moment, taken aback. Stupidly, he double-checked that the caller ID was for Bucky, and not just some very confused stranger with a wrong number.

He brought the phone back up to his face. “Well, I’m a little more used to being wooed more before we take it quite that far, but-”

“Christmas party,” Bucky ground out. He sounded out of breath, almost like he was running somewhere.

“Come again?” Steve squinted.

Bucky sighed, and took a deep breath. And then another. “Remember last week, when I said I’d been stood up?” he reminded Steve with a very obvious forced calm. “Well I ran into him today. Didn’t think I would — we work in totally different parts of the building, but we met at the fucking water cooler, would you believe, and that… fucking… slimy fucking bastard started talking to me like there was absolutely nothing the fuck wrong. Told me he was sorry he blew off our friendly night out, but he and his girlfriend got a little caught up, if you know what I mean. I’m sorry, I just panicked. He was all smug and well-dressed, and he asked me if there was no hard feelings, and I-”

“You panicked?” Steve said disbelievingly. “You panicked? You are literally the most chilled-out person I’ve ever met in my life.”

“Not my fault you’re afraid of women and I’m not, Steve.”

Steve’s chest puffed out indignantly.

“Anyway,” Bucky pressed on impatiently, “in a moment of pure pettiness, my brain made the decision ahead of me to tell him that there was no worries, because, oh, crazy-random-happenstance, I happened to reconnect with an old lover at the bar that night. His name is Steve, and he’s way hotter and way more successful than you — you’ll probably meet him at the Christmas party tonight.” Bucky said this last part in such a self-deprecating tone that Steve expected, for a moment, to hear the sounds of Bucky beating his own head against a wall.

“How do you come up with shit on the fly like that?” is all he had to ask. “Why aren’t you using these powers to become… I dunno, a politician?”

“Steve, I need you to be my boyfriend,” Bucky ground out again, apparently through gritted teeth.

Steve sighed, staring longingly toward his messy canvas. “What time do you need me?” he eventually relented.

Bucky’s breath of relief sounded like Steve had just fished him out of open water and saved him from drowning, rather than just accepting an invitation.

“I’ll pick you up,” Bucky said. “Wear something nice and refined — if you’re going to be my boyfriend, we’re going to make you into such a damn good boyfriend that, by the end of the night, every woman in the room is going to resent their own.”

With that, Bucky hung up, and Steve gaped wordlessly at the dull beeps of an ended call.

He turned around to see Sam still standing behind him, his arms folded, eyebrows drawn up in an expectant look.

Steve pocketed his phone again weakly. “You wouldn’t happen to have a suit I can borrow?”

Steve shifted uncomfortably in his suit, tugging and fiddling with the cuffs at the sleeves as he stared hard at his own reflection in the full-length mirror in Sam’s bedroom. Sam sat behind him, reclining easily on his bed with a hardback book in one hand and a mug of steaming… something in the other; looking very comfortable in a pair of loose grey sweatpants and bare feet.

“Stop fiddling with it,” he said lightly, peering up at Steve over the top of his book.

“I can’t help it,” Steve mumbled petulantly, dropping his hands to focus instead on tugging the hem of the jacket down again and again. “This jacket’s too small.”

“Oh poor you,” Sam rolled his eyes. “Too fit and muscular to fit in my best suit.”

“Are my shoes shiny enough?”

“What? Why would that matter?” Sam set his mug on the bedside table.

Steve turned his shoe this way and that, critically eyeing the gleam that shone off his toes. “When I was a kid, my mom always took me to these church functions — charity events, you know. I could always tell who was rich enough to be able to donate the most money judging by how shiny their shoes were.”

Sam shook his head. “Steve, you’re going to a Christmas party at a bank. It’s not like you’re Eliza Doolittle mingling with foreign royalty at an embassy ball. Nobody’s going to judge you based off of shoe shine.”

Steve continued peering down at his toes uncertainly.

His phone pinged in his back pocket.

Bucky
Hey, I’m outside your building — come down.

Pocketing his phone once more, Steve eyed himself in the mirror doubtfully, and then turned around.

“Would you fuck me?” he demanded, opening his arms and presenting himself.

Sam froze, stared, squinted, looked him up and down, and finally said, “I plead the fifth.”

Steve rolled his eyes.

Upon exiting the building, Steve was exquisitely relieved to find that Bucky was also wearing a suit that was just on the right side of flashy for such a supposedly non-formal occasion (according to Sam, anyway). He was leaning up against his modest silver car and texting with both hands. At Steve’s approach, his face lit up, and he pushed himself off the car.

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky grinned that special kind of grin that always made Steve feel like he’d been socked in the lower abdomen. Bucky nonchalantly slipped his cell phone into his breast pocket, and looked Steve up and down. There was an odd kind of appreciative look on his face as he did so, which seemed to leave a scorching trail along Steve’s body as he scanned up and down.

His grin turned into a smirk, and he quirked an eyebrow at Steve before jerking his head as an indicator to get into the car.

The walk up to the correct floor of Bucky’s work basically functioned as a pre-game plan.

Sensing that Steve was most definitely not as good a liar (“acting, Steve, acting”) as Bucky was, Bucky took it upon himself to give the most rushed and intense detailed strategy for how the two of them were going to perform in order to accomplish what Steve considered to be the pettiest form of pseudo-revenge he’d ever heard.

“The key to impressing a bunch of assholes is acknowledging your accomplishments, but downplaying them to hell,” Bucky told him knowledgeably in a low whisper, ushering him into the elevator. “You want these people to actually feel jealous of how modest you are.”

“But I hate people like that,” Steve hissed back.

“Exactly! Because they remind you how inadequate you really are, right? Well tonight you get to be that guy, Steve.” Bucky punched in the floor number.

Okay, when he put it like that, this all seemed like a fantastic idea.

“What’s my backstory though? I can’t brag about my accomplishments if I have none, Buck,” Steve reminded him, watching in a panic as the doors slid closed and the elevator number ticked over from ground, to floor one, and then two.

Bucky gave him a look. “You’re a successful artist living a life of luxury in an apartment in the city; you’re the illustrator responsible for the cover of a very popular new adult fiction novel, and, oh yeah, you’ve recently been approached with an offer for a commission from Tony Stark,” Bucky inclined his head meaningfully. “No big deal. Like how I never talk about my World’s Biggest Penis trophies.” He feigned an exaggerated nonchalant shrug. “They just aren’t that big a deal to me.”

Steve snorted. “I should really have you look over my resume sometime. You’re excellent at taking garbage and selling it as gold.”

“You’re not garbage, Steve,” Bucky said, a little sharply. The elevator dinged, and before Steve could say anything in reply, Bucky had already plastered on the fakest-looking smile he’d ever seen on him, and touched a hand to Steve’s lower back right as the elevator doors slid open.

The doors revealed a decent-sized office space that was lined with various coloured lengths of tinsel and crappy cutout paper snowflakes taped to the walls. There was a medium-sized Christmas tree standing in one corner of the main room, and a crowd of varying-aged adults wandering around in Christmas hats and reindeer antlers, clutching glasses of champagne.

The hand at his back pushed him forward gently, and Steve had to reign in the slight flush that came as a result.

Okay, seriously, fuck this blushing nonsense — what the fuck was he, some sixteen-year-old high schooler taking his first ever date to winter formal? No. He was a grown-ass fucking adult attending a basic work function with a friend. Cut that shit out already.

Dutifully, Steve plastered on an equally false smile as he allowed Bucky’s hand to steer him in amongst the crowd.

“Dum Dum, hey,” Bucky said brightly, approaching a tall, burly man with tufty auburn hair and the most impressive moustache Steve had ever seen. He wore a jauntily tilted Santa’s hat, and a casual-looking bottle-green suit.

The man turned and returned the greeting easily, eyes passing over Steve curiously before zoning on in the place where Bucky’s hand was still at his lower back.

“This is my boyfriend, Steve,” Bucky introduced him, looking up at Steve with a heartbreakingly convincing look of adoration. “Steve, this is Timothy 'Dum Dum' Dugan — he’s one of the closest things I have to a friend around this place.”

Steve gave a light snort, and held his right hand out to shake.

“Well, heya there, Steve. It’s nice to finally meet you,” Dugan’s handshake was firm and dry, and Steve liked him immediately.

He shot Bucky a very subtle look that Steve could clearly interpret as ‘why the fuck have you never mentioned this guy before?’

“It’s nice to finally meet you too,” Steve said sweetly, tentatively dipping his toe in his new temporary persona. “Bucky’s pretty vague about work-related things, but I’ve definitely heard your name come up a fair few times,” he lied, smiling pleasantly.

Dugan grinned a humungous, white-toothed grin. “Oh, has he now?”

“Only the good stuff,” Bucky assured him lazily, waving a flippant hand over his shoulder.

“So how’d you two meet?” Dugan asked pleasantly, taking a sip from a red solo cup.

“Brooklyn,” Bucky blurted out immediately. “Steve and I dated briefly in high school and lost touch after we graduated. Something about rehabilitating endangered monkeys in Zanzibar?”

“Bucky, don’t tease,” Steve scolded him playfully. He felt a little uncomfortable lying to Dum Dum. The guy just had such an air of genuine kindness to him; it made Steve feel incredibly guilty to think that he was not only intentionally deceiving him, but that he was actually kind of enjoying it. However, he’d made a promise to Bucky, and he was going to keep it — so he dutifully ducked his head, and didn’t deny it.

“We got back together recently at a bar. Steve here was having a meeting with Tony Stark for a commission on a piece of artwork for his personal collection in Stark Tower,” Bucky continued proudly, and wow, he really was pulling out the big guns early on.

“Wow,” Dugan whistled low under his breath. “Stark’s a big name there, chief. How’d you land a gig like that?”

Oh, good god, the guy called Steve chief. This was worse than lying to Santa Claus.

“Met him at a book launch for a novel I’d done the cover art for,” Steve admitted modestly.

Dugan let out a low whistle. “Jesus, how’d a guy like you end up with a schmuck like Bucky here?” he clapped Bucky on the back good-naturedly, and the two exchanged what looked like an entire conversation with just their eyes and smiles.

“Hey, Buck, I’m gonna go get us something to eat, you want anything?” Steve hastened to ask upon spying what looked like an entire table of food through one of the windows separating the main room from a conference room.

“Whatever you’re getting, babe,” Bucky answered, giving his hip a final squeeze as he let him go.

Steve smiled, and squeezed Bucky’s shoulder in response, before making a beeline for the door.

There was a surprisingly small throng of people in the food room — each standing in their own secluded groups in tight-knit circles and eating small bites of food off of napkins, or sipping champagne from oddly square-looking glasses.

Steve had to restrain himself from crying out in dismay at what he saw on the food table.

Fucking hors d’oeuvres.

Why — why did he have to grow up to advance from the mini-sausage rolls and gelatinous candy dinosaurs at kids’ parties? Why did the natural progression somehow end up at fucking fig/cheese crackers and salmon-whip with cucumber? He was a simple man, damn it. Where were his cheap salted pretzels in a big plastic bowl?

Distastefully, Steve relented and grabbed a napkin, filling it with the most normal-looking food he could find: mini-quiches, sandwiches, and a Christmas-themed peppermint cupcake.

“Everything here to your liking, Mr. Rogers?” Steve started as he heard Bucky’s voice murmur seductively into his ear from behind, nearly dropping his napkin of food.

“Jesus, Buck,” Steve hissed, elbowing him in retaliation for sneaking up on him.

Bucky only laughed, and he massaged the completely unhurt spot on his chest where Steve had caught him.

“Oh, prosciutto,” he said enthusiastically, reaching over to pick out one of the circles of mystery from the platters, and popping it in his mouth with relish.

Steve made a face. “I don’t know how you can eat this stuff.”

“I don’t know how you can’t eat this stuff,” Bucky countered.

“I’ll have you know, I have a policy about eating food I can’t identify.” Steve sniffed with dignity. “Same way I don’t eat random berries off of random bushes. Darwin would be proud.”

He eyed the contents of the table again with distrust. With this many drunk people in one place, Steve’d wager money on someone ending up with a toothpick lodged someplace tender by the end of the night.

“Is this just… asparagus wrapped in pastry?” he asked distastefully, prodding the offending thing with a toothpick.

As if challenged, Bucky reached out and plucked one from the pile, folding an entire half of it into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. “There’s some kind of filling between the asparagus and pastry. ‘s nice.”

Steve stared in horror, as if he’d just witnessed him eating a live mouse.

Bucky grinned, and then opened wide around the remaining half, chewing exaggeratedly with an audible moan just to watch Steve recoil in disgust.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky said after swallowing.

Steve raised his eyebrows in question, and Bucky waggled his own. He nodded over to the far corner of the food table, and Steve groaned as he saw what was there: a fruit basket with one, whole pineapple sitting in it as a centrepiece. He rolled his eyes so hard they actually hurt from strain.

Bucky grinned, but didn’t say anything, just wrapped one arm around Steve’s waist once again and reached for a glass of champagne to Steve’s left. “So, you like Dum Dum?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Steve shrugged. “He kind of reminds me of a substitute teacher I had for three weeks back in the seventh grade. He was the first person besides my mom to ever tell me that he was proud of me,” he smiled a little at the memory.

“That’s adorable. I’m absolutely going to tell him you said that,” Bucky said.

“Please don’t.”

“I bet he didn’t even have braces — his teeth are just naturally like that.”

“His surname is Rogers? Are you for real? You’re literally dating Mr. Rogers?”

“Bucky, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think you might actually be dating Clark Kent.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting to you, the amazing Steve Rogers: Man of Charm.

When he worked out that all that was really needed to keep this up was to try and embody all of the things he’d hated about Sam when he’d first met him (minus the dry sarcasm and judgemental exasperation), it became a lot easier to fall into the role of the annoyingly-perfect guy he and Bucky were aiming for. Sam was born a responsible adult. Probably came fresh out of the womb with a briefcase and a tax ID.

Mostly, Bucky did the talking — bragging nonstop about Steve’s exaggerated, and mostly flat-out made-up accomplishments. All he really needed to do was duck his head sheepishly and put on what both Bucky and Sam called his "aw, shucks, ma’am" face.

Of course, his mother used to refer to it more as a "don’t-you-look-at-me-like-that-young-man-you-are-in-big-trouble-you-hear-me?" face, but what did she know?

He wasn’t an unlikeable guy, really. He might even go as far as saying he was damn-right pleasant company to have around most of the time. But there was a lot about himself that he knew rubbed people the wrong way, and being a people-pleaser was just never something he really aspired to be. For one thing, it would be impossible to keep up full-time — he was fucking exhausted, and he’d only been here two hours. For another, it was hard; biting his tongue to keep from interjecting with his input or opinions every time someone said anything was really taking a toll on his patience, and it was difficult to keep it under control.

However, one thing he would say was that it really was nice to experience what it was like being the most well-liked guy in the room for a change.

“Steve, would you like a glass of champagne?” A woman whose name Steve had no chance in hell of remembering held out a lightly fizzling glass to him, a hopeful look on her face.

“Oh, I’m really sorry,” Steve put on his best sheepish smile and ducked his head apologetically, “but I actually don’t drink.”

Bucky’s eyebrows quirked in surprise before giving Steve one of the proudest looks he’d ever been at the receiving end of. It was a look that quickly turned to smug delight as two people in the circle immediately looked into their own champagne glasses with looks of anxious guilt and uncertainty.

Aha, yes. He had these people eating out of the palm of fake-Steve’s hand.

Bucky really needed to be careful with that power of social manipulation he apparently had. Abilities like that, he could wind up arming a cult leader with the kind of charisma needed to actually gain followers.

“C’mon, hey, sweetheart…” the low voice of an unfamiliar man’s voice registered to Steve’s ears, and he turned his head to see what was going on.

A woman wearing green bauble earrings and a tight red dress was standing at an angle, leaning uncomfortably away from who appeared to be a very drunk and grossly overfriendly co-worker leaning up against a cubicle wall and looming into her personal space with a heated look on his face.

Steve frowned, and took a few steps to the side to listen in more closely.

“Look, Don, I don’t-” the woman said awkwardly.

“Oh, c’mon, it’s a party. You should try and loosen up a little.”

Okay, yeah, holding his tongue and minding his business for tonight only went so far.

“Hey, buddy,” Steve began stalking over to the man. He laid a heavy hand on the guy’s shoulder and gripped tight as he dragged him round to face him.

Clearly drunk, the man blinked up at Steve blearily, looking confused, and then outraged.

“She’s not interested,” he said in a low hush, not wanting to draw attention to them by raising his voice. “If I were you, I’d leave her alone before you end up on the wrong end of a sexual harassment suit. Workplace courtesy still applies to unpaid work functions, you know.”

The man looked just about ready to take a swing, but seemed to pause as he considered what Steve had said. Then, with an angry shrug, he threw Steve’s hand off his shoulder and looked up into his face with a look of sour distain. He transferred the look to the woman, and then with a dignified tug at his jacket lapels, stalked off angrily in the direction of the elevator.

Steve’s glare followed the guy as he went, mulling over whether or not to follow him and demand he apologize to her, until he felt a small hand tentatively touch his upper forearm, and turned in surprise to see the woman looking at him with a grateful smile.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“It’s no problem,” he said just as softly, lightly touching her upper arm in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. Judging by her small smile, it wasn’t unwelcome.

“You alright?” he heard Bucky’s voice ask from behind him. He felt that warm hand at his lower back again, and smiled as he saw Bucky’s concerned face looking at the woman over his shoulder.

Christ on a pogo-stick — if her face lit up any more than it did when she looked at Bucky, she could probably power this entire building with the sheer intensity of it. “I’m okay,” she said brightly, straightening up a little and pushing her shoulders back.

Steve was not the kind of person to get jealous, okay? He wasn’t.

Bucky’s smile was soft, and his eyes followed along the gentle red waves of hair cascading over her shoulders.

Steve elbowed him.

In a totally non-jealous way.

“Oh, Dot, you gotta meet Steve,” he introduced him, obviously misinterpreting Steve’s actions.

“My knight in shining armour,” she agreed, sticking out a hand for Steve to shake with a dimpled smile.

“It was nothin’,” Steve was quick to say, feeling embarrassed. He shook her hand anyway.

“You having fun?” Bucky asked. “Aside from Don the Juan’s sweeping attempts to take you aboard his white horse just now, I mean?”

“Only white horse of his I’ll be riding is the one I steal to get away from him,” she said wearily. “He always does this, every work event we go to.”

“Report him,” Steve said, frowning.

She shook her head regretfully. “Doesn't go anywhere. I’ve complained about him before.”

“But that’s sexual harassment!” Steve protested.

“Apparently, it’s only harassment if he’s explicit about it. Can’t punish a guy for heavy suggestion or innuendo,” she rolled her eyes.

Steve looked at Bucky in outrage. Bucky looked fittingly unhappy.

“You want me to talk to Pierce?” he offered tightly, sounding as though he’d be perfectly willing to, but like he’d also rather eat the entire champagne glass he was holding.

She waved a hand. “Nah. Once I’m promoted out of here, I won’t have to deal with him anymore,” she said confidently.

Steve should have punched that guy.

“You think that if they don’t take your sexual harassment claims seriously, they won’t take his assault claims seriously?” Bucky wondered in an unfittingly casual tone. Dot laughed.

In the end, they lasted until 11pm.

Bucky spent a lot of the night talking animatedly with Dot — apparently forgetting the lie he and Steve had been so meticulously crafting over the night and not once bringing up Steve’s stint with Doctors Without Borders, or his brief role as the understudy to Fiyero on Broadway, or something.

Steve didn’t really know why it bothered him so much. Hostile jealousy was never something he’d experienced firsthand before, even when he was probably entitled to.

Obviously he knew that in the time he’s spent with Bucky, he may have crafted a teensy bit of a crush on him, but he was a grown-up for god’s sake. Really, it was no business of Steve’s if Bucky wanted to date a woman who looked like she’d been Ruby Sparks’d into reality from an airbrushed lingerie catalogue. Hell, Dot was far more than a pretty face; he’d be lucky to have her.

Wallowing a little, Steve stared down into his diet coke and wished to the heavens that he hadn’t told everyone earlier that he didn’t drink.

Bucky nudged his shoulder lightly. “Hey, you okay?” he asked under his breath.

Steve gave him a weak smile. “I’m good.”

“No you’re not, you’ve gone all floppy.” Bucky’s eyes swept down his body, indicating his slumped shoulders and shitty posture.

Steve straightened up. “I’m alright, really.”

Bucky gave him a long look. “You want to get out of here?”

“No!” Steve lied quickly.

“Yeah you do,” Bucky said, smiling. “C’mon, I’ll go get our coats. Go tell everyone that you’re very sorry, but you have a surprise lined up for me at home, and we should get going before it gets too late.”

“You mean you want me to lightly imply that I’ve covered the bedroom in rose petals and candles?” Steve grinned.

“Aw, you know how to treat me so well,” Bucky fluttered his eyelashes at him.

“Make it quick and I’ll throw in a Lionel Richie CD and a chocolate fountain.”

Bucky slapped Steve's ass loud enough that he knew it would draw the attention of a few of his surrounding co-workers. Sure enough, a few of them looked up in surprise, and Bucky gave him a dirty smile before ducking into one of the rooms to find their jackets.

Steve flushed, and put both hands into the pockets of his slacks. He relayed a goodbye to the group, who all looked disappointed that he was going, but waved him goodbye — profusely urging him to join them on their next work function. Steve smiled, and made a bland promise to do so, before catching up with Bucky, who waved his coat about impatiently.

“You good to drive, or you want me to again?” Steve asked.

Bucky looked affronted. “You know, some of us can actually hold our drink, Steven.”

“I’m sure you can. Not sure if a police breathalyzer would.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I had two glasses of champagne,” he said petulantly.

Steve threaded both arms through the sleeves of his jacket, and tugged it down to fit around his shoulders more comfortably. Then he buttoned it up and wished (not for the first time that night) that he’d thought to bring a scarf. It’d probably be snowing outside again. Gross.

“Oh my god,” Bucky said gravely.

“What? What happened? What’s wrong?” Steve said, immediately on edge.

“I can’t believe I almost forgot, hold on a second,” Bucky disappeared from sight around the doorway into the conference/food room. Seconds later, he returned with a mischievous grin on his face, and a bulky object in one hand. Steve gave a pained, audible groan as he realized what Bucky had gone back for.

“Pineapple, Buck? Seriously?” Steve whinged.

“Hey, tradition’s tradition, Steve. You go on a date, you get a pineapple.” He lobbed the stolen pineapple to Steve, who caught it in both hands with minimal fumbling.

“You’re a dork,” he said, without heat, smiling despite himself.

Bucky grinned. “You know you love me, babydoll.”

Steve’s stomach swooped. “Sure thing, sweetheart.”

“Darling,” Bucky retorted, and hit the ground floor button as they stepped into the elevator.

“Muffin.”

“Pumpkin.”

“Honey-bear.”

“Smoochie-pie.”

“Lovekins.”

“Snugglepuss.”

“Honey-bunny.”

“Ha! I already used honey-bear. I win.”

“Damn it.”

“What are you doing?” Sam demanded. He had one hand pointing at Steve with all five extended fingers, and his eyes were wide and horrified.

Steve gave him a confused, slightly concerned look. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m cooking.”

“You mean to tell me that you do that to the chicken every time you cook it?”

Okay, seriously, it wasn’t like Sam had just walked in on Steve with his pants down, violating his dinner American Pie style.

“No. Sometimes I boil it,” Steve retorted, looking defensively at his chicken.

Sam looked like he wanted to scream. Instead of saying anything, however, he merely shoved his hand in one pocket, dug around for a second, and then angrily extracted his phone. Without looking at Steve, he tapped at the touch screen aggressively with both thumbs and then brought it to his ear.

He glared as Steve as it rang.

“Hello?” Steve heard Bucky’s voice faintly from over the line, and he immediately flushed red with indignation. Calling out the big guns was low, even for Sam. And when the hell had he even gotten Bucky’s number? Since when were the two of them on such close speaking terms?

“Barnes!” Sam said loudly. “I know you’re not due here for another half hour, but you need to get down here right now. Your not-boyfriend is cooking a chicken for us in the microwave.”

There was a pause.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I will deal with this immediately,” Bucky said seriously, and then the phone clicked off.

Satisfied, Sam re-pocketed the phone and crossed his arms at Steve disapprovingly.

Steve glared reproachfully. Then, just to be petty, he slammed the microwave door shut, and set the timer for twenty minutes. The microwaved whirred to life, and Steve mimicked Sam’s stance defiantly.

“My mama cooked chicken in the microwave, and I’ll cook chicken in the microwave,” he insisted.

“No offense Steve, but your mama also makes pasta by adding ketchup to cooked spaghetti.”  

“My mama is a great cook,” Steve insisted fiercely.

Sam made a pained expression, like he was seriously caught between arguing back, and not insulting Steve’s mother to his face. He eventually settles for the middle ground, which, apparently, is insulting Steve himself. “You think that tinned pumpkin soup is haute cuisine — I wouldn't trust your opinion on food if my life depended on it. And seeing as you think a microwave can cook a chicken all the way through, it actually may be.”

“You’ve never complained about me serving raw chicken before — the microwave cooks it just fine.”

“I probably have tapeworm, Steve. I’m going to be on some reality medical TV show now because you can’t work a goddamned oven.”

“I can work an oven,” Steve said petulantly, actually pouting.

Their banter lasted a full fifteen minutes before Bucky showed up, holding another pineapple and looking at Steve with that same kind of pained grimace Sam had been giving him since the chicken was discovered.

“Steve, this is an intervention,” Bucky said seriously, dumping the pineapple in his hands and striding into the apartment importantly. He stripped off his jacket and draped it over one of the dining chairs, making himself right at home.

Steve scowled at the pineapple.

“Too late, Buck. Chicken will be done in three minutes,” Steve said.

“Is that another pineapple?” Sam demanded, and yes, it was nice to see Sam back on his team for this standoff.

Bucky pointed at him accusingly. “Don’t change the subject. Steve’s the one we’re ganging up on right now, remember your loyalties.”

Bucky was the worst pretend boyfriend ever.

“My mama cooked chicken in the microwave, and I’ll cook chicken in the microwave,” Steve repeated loudly, putting harsh emphasis into his words as he gathered plates from the cupboard and carried them in a stack to the dining table.

Making as much noise as possible, Steve roughly set the table, leaving no room for argument that they would be eating the damn chicken.

The microwave dinged, and Sam and Bucky’s heads turned toward to noise with twin looks of horrified dismay on their faces.

Steve strode assertively into the kitchen and yanked on a pair of oven mitts (pink, with small cupcakes printed on them — a housewarming gift from Natasha). He leant back as he opened up the microwave door, letting a plume of white-hot steam escape and rise to the ceiling.

Sam and Bucky watched by the doorway, fascinated, but in a way that more closely resembled a duo of naturalists watching a gazelle being eaten alive by some kind of big cat than a pair of douchebag twenty-somethings watching another man trying his best.

Carefully, Steve used a pair of scissors to cut the chicken free from the oven bag, and plopped it on top. Using a pair of tongs, he pressed down onto the chicken to squeeze out any remaining juices, and then transferred it onto a large serving plate, along with the chopped carrots and potatoes he’d cooked in with the chicken.

Eyebrows raised, he held the plate aloft and silently dared either of them to say anything.

They did, of course.

Scrambling to talk over the top of one another, Bucky and Sam argued and pleaded all the way to the dining room, where Steve set the plate down into the centre of the table with purpose, and then immediately picked up the large knifes and began slicing.

“If you don’t eat the chicken, you don’t get dinner,” he said simply — a tried and tested move from his mother that always seemed to work on him.

Unfortunately, Sam and Bucky both looked delighted.

“Great! I can live another day! Bucky, pull up Urbanspoon and see what we can get for takeout,” Sam said eagerly, leaning forward eagerly to Bucky. “I feel like something Asian.”

“Sit down!” Steve demanded, and plopped a large cutlet of chicken breast onto Sam’s plate. “Bucky, you want breast, leg, or wings?”

“I want to go home.”

“Great. You’ll get a leg and a wing,” Steve decided.

Bucky stared down at his plate miserably. “Remind me why I came here again?” he asked.

“You’re a sucker for a leggy blond in a tight shirt,” Sam replied dully, looking just as unhappy, but now resigned to his fate.

“I can’t believe you invited me here for this,” Bucky said accusingly, scowling at Steve. “If I eat this, it’s going to give me mutant powers. I’ll be a freak, Steve. You’ll have to introduce Peggy to a freak.”

“Shut up and eat your radioactive bird, Barnes.”

Honestly, you’d think Steve had just served them a half-baked raccoon he’d found on the side of the road with tire-marks still across it. To hell with this, after Steve got his big payout from Stark, he was going to hand off the dinner reigns to Sam — grocery costs be damned.

Sam was refusing to eat anything until he’d seen for himself that someone else had tried it first. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d eaten it plenty of times before without knowing — now that he knew how it was prepared, suddenly, they became the mysterious red berries of dinnertime.

Steve dug in — it was fine, see? Fine.

Bucky picked up a fork, and immediately began fumbling around with the chicken, stabbing at it and picking it apart, staring at the insides suspiciously until, finally, he gathered a tiny portion of it onto the end of his fork and fed it into his mouth.

He ate it in the same kind of way Steve had seen people on television eat fried cockroaches — grimacing, and making absolutely sure that his tongue came into as little contact with it as possible as he chewed.

He swallowed, thought for a moment, and looked up at Sam challengingly, as if to say ‘your turn.’

“You know my girlfriend’s a lawyer, right?” Sam told Steve gravely. “If I die from this, she will avenge me to the highest extent of the law.”

“Sam,” Steve threatened him with a fork, and Sam hopped to it.

He chewed quickly, swallowed, and frowned. “Tastes like your regular chicken,” he allowed graciously, still somehow turning it into an insult.

Bucky stared down hard at the chicken. “Steve, what did you season that with? Tastes like I’ve just licked the walls of a salt mine.”

“Huh? It’s French onion soup mix.”

“Oh, gross. Okay, no.” Bucky picked up his plate, rose from the table, and stomped into the kitchen purposefully.

Steve heard the garbage disposal running.

“Hey!” he called indignantly, but it was halfhearted at best. Yeah, yeah, okay, fine, he was a shitty cook.

They end up with Thai takeout in the lounge — Steve’s sad attempt at chicken sitting forgotten on the table. They ate out of the white containers with chopsticks — mostly because Steve didn’t want to have to do two dinner’s worth of dishes, but also because it always made him feel like he was in some kind of teen movie whenever he did so.

They sat around with the television volume turned low, talking away idly with one another, feet tucked underneath them as they gesticulated wildly with their chopsticks. Throw in a pair of flannel pajamas, and they’d look like they were three quarters of an all-male Sex and the City reboot cast.

“Oh, see, now, this is more what I pictured when you asked me to come around for dinner. I mean, I wasn’t exactly expecting gourmet sirloin steak and a bottle of chateau fonplegade, but, Steve, sweetheart, we really need to buy you some Jamie Oliver or something.”

“I still say the chicken was fine,” Steve said sulkily, stabbing at his noodles.

“Oh, but this,” Bucky ignored him in favour of making very inappropriate noises at his cashew chicken. “Uh, so satisfying.”

“That’s what she said,” Steve said.

Bucky looked very disappointed in him. “What is this, 2009?”

“Classics never die, Buck.”

Bucky snorted and looked like he was about to respond, but as he opened his mouth to do so, he was cut off by his cellphone ringing, and he hurried to dump his chopsticks in his container and struggle with his pocket for a moment.

Seriously, Steve didn’t know if Bucky’s jeans were too small for him, or if he just filled them out so well that it made it look that way, but, whatever the deal was with his pants, they looked damn good. Steve had never been a guy who noticed a person’s thighs before — shit, they weren’t even on his fucking radar until he’d met Bucky a few weeks ago, but, now, they were basically all he could think about. Specifically Bucky’s, and how good they looked wrapped in skin-tight denim. Shit, maybe he was wearing jeggings? Was that a thing? Jeggings for men?

“Hello?” Bucky answered his phone.

“Facetime, douchebag!” came a female’s voice, much louder than any three of them were expecting. Bucky held the phone out in front of his face in surprise, and Steve could barely see the image of a sweet-looking brunette girl who was, at that moment, staring out of the screen with an eyebrow cocked in a way that Steve immediately recognised from Bucky.

Jesus, either Bucky’s parents had the most invariable set of genetics to pass off to future offspring ever, or that girl was actually his genderbent clone.

“What decade are you living in that you don’t have separate ringtones for calls and Facetime?” the girl demanded.

“I dunno, what decade are you living in where you still Facetime people?” Bucky shot back, quick as a whip, and arching that same eyebrow.

“If you learned how to use Skype, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

“I know how to use Skype,” Bucky protested resentfully. “’Scuse me for a moment guys, my grandma’s calling,” he addressed Sam and Steve, holding the phone to his chest and unfolding himself from the couch to meander back out to the dining area. It wasn’t really that far away, but at least the illusion of privacy was there.

“He’s lying!” the girl called out as he went. “I’m the girl he has kidnapped and tied up in his basement! I’m at the bottom of a well! Send help! I see a fingernail lodged in the wall!”

“Becca, cut it out!”

Sam and Steve snickered at each other.

While they were usually the kinds of people who would absolutely not eavesdrop in on a friend’s private conversation, they both found themselves leaning back a little to try and hear it, staring fixedly at the TV in a totally non-suspicious way as they did. Sue them, alright? Neither of them had any sisters — hell, Steve was an only child. They were curious.

“Who’re you with?” Bucky’s sister — Becca — asked as Bucky resettled himself in a dining chair.

“Couple of friends, what’s it to you?” Bucky retorted snidely.

“Was one of them your boyfriend?” she asked slyly.

Bucky gave a long, drawn-out sigh, which turned into a groan. “Becca, no, c’mon, we’re not doing this again.”

“Bullshit we’re not doing this again. Strap yourself in, bro; we’re taking another spin on the lecturecoaster. Hands and feet inside the carriage at all times.”

“Don’t I get this enough from Mom?” he pleaded.

“I get it more, asswipe. You may be older, but I’m the girl of the family. I’m only fuckin’ nineteen and they’ve already got me pinned as a goddamned fucking spinster. You’d think I was Charlotte fuckin’ Lucas the way they carried the fuck on.” She put on an overdramatic British accent. “’Twenty-seven years old, and I’ve got no money, no prospects — I’m already a burden to my parents’, yadda, yadda, yah.”

Bucky groaned.

“Quit with the dramatics, would you?” Becca snapped. “I already know you’ve bagged some hoity-toity do-gooder trust-fund baby with some kind of brain tumour pressing on his selfishness cortex. I ran into Dot yesterday.”

Oh, fuck…

“Aw, seriously?” Bucky whined.

“’Fraid so, big guy. Spill.”

Steve couldn’t see the way Bucky was repetitively squeezing the bridge of his nose, but he could all too well imagine it.

He sighed. “His name’s Steve,” he eventually relented.

“Steve? Jesus, he really is a trust fund baby. Tell me: is that Steve the fourth or fifth?”

“First, Bec, Jesus, he’s not a trust-fund baby.”

“You kidding? I heard he met Bill Gates while out giving Polio vaccines to underprivileged third-world children or whatever. Dot said she heard him turn down a date offer for Saturday because he had a blood donation appointment. Half expected her to say he prowls around town rescuing kittens out of trees in his spare time.”

Bucky huffed exasperatedly, and then paused. “Wait, a date offer? Who the fuck asked him out, did she say? I introduced him to everyone as my boyfriend — who the fuck asks someone else’s boyfriend out on a date?”

“Focus, Barnes!” Becca snapped. “Tell me about this damn parody of a human being who somehow ended up slumming it with you.”

Bucky groaned again, and then paused. “Hey, honey?” he called slyly.

Steve grit his teeth. “He means you,” he told Sam, not looking up from the TV.

Sam kicked him, and he got up from his seat, grumbling.

Bucky had his phone to his chest, making a pleading face at Steve.

Steve made a face — clearly demonstrating how much he absolutely did not want to do this, but he settled in beside Bucky diligently. Steve blamed the thighs — those stupid, glorious thighs that were comfortably spread and displaying his entire lap, thereby hypnotising Steve into agreeing to anything Bucky asked of him.

Bucky gave him a grateful look, and then pulled the phone away from his chest again, revealing his sister leaning forward and squinting out of the screen.

“Hey,” Steve waved a hand at her weakly, a little thrown.

“Jesus shit, bro. Lookit him — check out the DSL he’s got on him,” she grinned.

Steve spluttered, said DSL parted in shock.

“Bec, Jesus, you can’t say shit like that that right away. You gotta work up to it.”

Becca shrugged, unconcerned. “So, Gerber Baby, what the hell’s a do-gooder humanitarian like you doing with my brother? I mean, besides putting those DSL to good use.”

“Uhh.” Steve honestly had no response to that.

“Becca, quit fucking with him,” Bucky scolded her without heat.

She waved a hand. “Fine, fine. So, really, Steve, what do you do?”

“I’m… an illustrator?” Steve answered, expecting this to be a trap somehow. “An artist,” he amended.

“Oh, okay, so Dot wasn’t lying then. You really sponsor an orangutan in Indonesia, DSL?”

“Uh, no. Pretty much everything we said was just to fuck with everyone at the party,” Steve admitted with a shrug, hoping Bucky wasn’t averse to him telling the truth. Bucky didn’t give him a sharp look, so he figured it was okay. “I’m kind of just some loser artist living with Bucky’s roommate’s boyfriend.”

Becca blinked, and then threw her head back in disbelieving laughter. “Oh my god.”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, brace-face,” Bucky said, frowning at her disapprovingly.

Her laughter came to an immediate halt. “I don’t have braces anymore, assface — that nickname is outdated and irrelevant.”

“Just like you then, ohh!” Bucky brought a hand to his mouth, and Becca rolled her eyes so hard that it actually looked like it hurt.

“You’ve chosen a real witty guy here, Gerber Baby, seriously,” she said flatly, and Steve snickered. “So, when’re you breaking the news to Mom and Dad?”

Bucky ceased his own snickering and immediately switched to serious so quickly it gave Steve whiplash. “No,” he said firmly, ending the discussion before it’d even began.

“Oh c’mon,” Becca whined, unswayed by Bucky’s downright intimidating firmness. “They won’t get off my back until they can climb down your throat. I can’t breathe under their combined mass, Buck! You need to carry your weight in parental appeasement!”

“I don’t have to do shit. Steve’s my boyfriend, and I’ll show him off whenever I feel. Which, for his sake, is never.”

Okay, Steve knew that Bucky was only saying that to get her off his back, but honestly, Steve kind of couldn’t help preening a little at being called Bucky’s boyfriend. It was stupid — he knew it was only for show, but god damn it, it felt really, really good to hear Bucky say it.

“If you don’t tell them, I will,” Becca threatened. “I’ll tell them you met him at a drag show and that his name is Justice of the Penis, or Gerber Lady. I’ll say he collects sex toys, and makes a living off of being Tony Stark’s sugar baby.”

“HA!” came Sam’s voice from the couch.

“Becca, do not make me pull out the big guns. Remember, I was the chaperone for your prom. I know things,” Bucky said weightily.

This effectively shut her up. She thought for a moment, frowned, and then slumped back, pouting. “Fine, I yield. You and DSL can go running off together to have little trust fund babies in peace. I’ll just go to the shelter and adopt every cat they have. Get a head start on the spinster life.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You know, they’d probably get off your back if you went on a date every now and then.”

“Don’t push it, Barnes.”

Bucky relented. “Alright, Steve, go finish your food — I’m gonna bid my darling sister a farewell,” Bucky patted Steve’s back to urge him up, and Steve accepted, relieved.

“Aw, wait, c’mon, don’t go, Buck! What’s his technique like? Does he put Dyson to shame?” she grinned at Bucky lewdly, and he rolled his eyes.

“I’m hanging up on you now.”

“Love you, bro!”

Bucky shut off his phone, and then set it on the table, burying his face into his hands and groaning.

There was a long pause. Sam walked up to join them.

“Your names are seriously Bucky and Becca Barnes?” he deadpanned.

“I can’t believe I came out of a five minute conversation with two nicknames,” Steve lamented. “It’s like high school all over again.”

“Thanks for that, Stevie,” Bucky said graciously, looking pained. “I’m sorry about my sister, she’s a little… abrasive at times. Well, all the time. You know, she once got kicked out of an art gallery for challenging the security to a dance-off when he asked her to stop Snapchatting the artworks.”

“I would believe that,” Steve assured him, nodding.

“She was fourteen.” He rubbed his forehead.

“So, wait, she knows Dot?” Steve asked, confused.

Bucky nodded. “Dot is Becca’s best friend’s older sister.”

“She likes you,” Steve sniffed, trying not to sound jealous and failing miserably.

Bucky didn't argue, but inclined his head a little, his expression unreadable.

“So, have you fucked him yet?”

Natasha always did know how to get a conversation started.

Steve rolled his eyes and boggled as her brazenness for a moment. “No, Romanov. Not all of us put out on the first date, you know.”

It had been a few hours since Bucky had left the apartment with the excuse that he needed to get some sleep before his ass-o’clock in the morning wakeup the next day. Natasha, who always got off of work absurdly late, had come crashing through the door without greeting, or so much as a knock — dressed to the nines, and looking as well put-together as she had when she’d left in the morning.

“I’m a firm believer in the try-before-you-buy method of dating,” she said assuredly, shedding her small black bag onto the coffee table and following it with her dozens of thin gold bracelets. “How many pineapples has he given you?”

“Oh, I can’t believe this. You know about the pineapples?” Sam demanded from where he was sitting on the floor, back against the couch.

“Pineapples are a treasured tradition amongst the Barnes household, Wilson. Before you go on a date, they gives you a pineapple. It’s a mark of true friendship. And no, before you say it, I’m sworn to secrecy as to why.”

“Is this a cult thing? I feel like it might be a cult thing.”

“Anyway,” she stressed, looking back at Steve. “You didn’t answer my question: how many?”

Steve bites his lip uncertainly. “Four. Five if you count the piña colada, which I’m pretty sure he does.”

“That’s five dates. You do remember that you have working plumbing down there, right? Use ‘em or lose ‘em, Rogers.”

“I look like some kinda two-bit fuckmachine to you?” Steve put a delicate hand over his heart, looking scandalized.

Natasha didn’t miss a beat. “With those tits? Absolutely.”

She set herself down on the couch, scooping Sam’s cold leftover noodles from the coffee table, and wiggling her butt more securely into her assigned couch-groove. Sam leaned back against her legs, looking smug about it. He brought both of her ankles around his shoulders and into his lap, and delicately began undoing the straps on one of her scary high heels, discarding it to the side.

Steve screwed his face up at how sweet and domestic they looked, and almost outright gagged when Sam turned to the side and began absentmindedly rubbing at the arch of one of Natasha’s feet with both thumbs.

Natasha sank back into the couch cushions with a look that was one part smug, and one part adoration, and she brought a hand to Sam’s head to card a thumb behind his ear gratefully.

Sam closed his eyes, smiled, and sighed blissfully.

Gross.

“So, five dates and no nothing?” Natasha segued back easily.

“We’re not dating, Natasha. It’s… an arrangement.” He winced at his wording, and didn’t need the perfectly arched eyebrow Natasha gave him to know how it sounded. “We’re just helping each other out,” he amended, which, yeah, wasn’t any better.

“So you’ve gone on five dates, but you’re not dating.”

“We’ve only gone on one date. And that was technically only a cover for work.”

“But you like him, don’t you?”

Steve’s face flamed, and he didn’t need Natasha’s look of triumph to know he’d given himself away. Stupid magenta lie-detector of a face.

“So, you like him. And I have it on good authority that he likes you too. Why don’t you just ask him out?”

Ha. ‘Confront his emotional baggage’; what does he look like — a concierge?

“Because he’s my fake boyfriend, Nat. That’s… our thing. If I ask him out, and he says no, it’ll just make things weird, and I’d rather have him as something less than what I want than nothing at all.”

“You know, if you ask him out, he could become your real boyfriend,” Natasha pointed out dryly.

“Hey, don’t act all superior just because of all your logic, Romanov. My little hamster brain may be small and cowardly, but it can think sometimes.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Natasha, just drop it,” Steve snapped, a little more harshly than he’d intended. Sam gave him a sharp look — half telling him off for talking to his girlfriend that way, and half warning him against talking to Natasha with any disrespect. Not because Sam would kick his ass, but because Natasha would.

She sighed, rolled her eyes, and pursed her lips, exasperated. “Yeah, well, whatever. When you two decide to get your respective heads out of your respective asses, I’m letting you know now that if we swap roommates, I’m keeping my apartment. It’s way nicer than this one.”

Sam glanced up at her like he wanted to make a defensive remark, but then dropped his gaze, knowing she was right. Natasha’s apartment was way better than theirs. Steve may be an artist, but he was no interior decorator, and Sam was no better.

The sound of Steve’s cell phone ringing effectively broke the awkwardness of the silence that followed.

Grateful for the distraction, he scrambled to pick it up, and answered without checking caller ID.

“Hey!” he said, a little overenthusiastically.

“Hey yourself,” came the voice of Sharon Carter, and the enthusiasm drained out of Steve at once. “Been a few weeks since we spoke,” she continued, a little accusingly.

“Yeah, uh,” he cleared his throat and sat up straighter, ignoring the curious looks from Sam and Nat. “Sorry about that. Bucky and I had some drama over Tony Stark, and then Bucky’s Christmas party for work. I meant to call, sorry.”

“It’s ok,” she said. “So about dinner…”

Here the fuck we go. All aboard the Sharon’s decision train — rides are compulsory, non-refundable, and non-negotiable.

“Sure,” Steve egged her on through gritted teeth.

“Are you free this weekend? The one coming up?” she clarified, as if Steve didn't know which weekend was this one.

“Sure,” he answered again.

“Great! If you come round at six, we’re making Italian. Brock’s grandmamma was really good with sauces and spices, and he offered to cook for us.”

For some reason, this ignited a string of fury like a fuse, burning shorter and shorter with each second he repeated that in his head.

Oh, of fucking course Brock could cook. Of course she had upgraded to a guy like that — one who could not only cook, but who could cook well, it seemed.

Steve was overreacting. Honestly, he probably wouldn’t even care that much if it weren’t for that afternoon’s events with the chicken, but suddenly, he was pissed.

“Sure,” he said, without really thinking. “Tell you what: Bucky and I will bring something along too. Dessert.”

What. The fuck. Was he doing?

“Oh, uh... sure, that’d be nice,” Sharon said hesitantly — because she was completely fucking aware of Steve’s utter incompetence in the kitchen.

Regardless, his mouth kept speaking for him. “Great. We’ll see you Saturday,” he said decidedly. With that, he gave her his oh-so-heartfelt farewell, and then clicked off the line.

His phone fell in his lap and he massaged his forehead with one hand, groaning.

“You’re an idiot,” Sam informed him.

“I know,” he groaned. “Shit, I didn’t even check to see if Bucky was free.” He picked his phone back up again, and nervously tapped out a message.

“You’re going to make fools of yourselves,” Natasha informed him dispassionately.

“Shut up! Not hearing this! I am going to steal all of the spices in Brock’s stupid kitchen!”

Natasha sighed. “I don’t want to ask.”

Steve set his phone down again, and gave a weary sigh. “Okay, fine, so I fucked up. I fucked up when I went along with the lie that Bucky was my boyfriend, I fucked up when I kept up with the lie, and I fucked up when I fell a little too deep into it. But I really, really want Peggy to like him, Nat. And I really, really want to show Sharon that she was wrong about me. I’m tired of being treated like a last place trophy, or a poster child for failure. I don’t want to just be the stupid ex that she shakes her head over and thinks ‘wow, glad I got outta that one’. I’m sick of being treated like a directionless loser, because I’m trying my hardest.”

Nat pursed her lips for a moment, looking a little guilty, and Sam reached over and patted Steve’s knee.

“Nobody thinks you’re a loser, Steve,” he said firmly. “Nobody thinks you’re a failure. Sharon let a good thing go for her own stupid, made-up reasons, and it’s got you all messed up and thinking you’re not good enough for anyone.”

“He’s right, Steve. Sharon said a lot of really fucked up things to you when she dumped you — but you’re not a failure just because you don’t meet up to the standards of just one person. And — I think I’d be stupid if I didn’t say this — but we all think you’re fine just the way you are. Including Bucky.”

Her intent didn’t go unnoticed, but Steve could only sigh. He knew, objectively, that she was right, but convincing the deeper parts of himself was going to take a lot more work.

His phone went off.

Bucky
I’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Stevie.

He smiled.

In the space above their front door, there was a clock that had been a second-hand gift from Sam’s brother the day he’d moved out of home. The thing was stupid, garish, and older than hell, but Sam and Steve were both pretty convinced that the thing was magic.

The clock was large, white, and had a big, cartoonishly stylized marijuana leaf in the centre. In the spaces where there’d usually be numbers counting up from one to twelve, there was instead the number ‘420’ repeated over and over again.

It was the most ridiculous clock that had probably ever been manufactured, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t magic. For one thing, the clock had probably been dropped from near-ceiling height more than eight hundred times over the course of its lifetime, and has never broken, and, for another,despite the fact that the thing was going on eight years old now, the batteries had not once been changed, but it still kept perfect time. Still kept on ticking, against all the odds.

At exactly 5:35pm on Saturday the next weekend, Steve stared hard at the stupid stoner clock, and wondered for the first time in his life if the spell on the thing had finally broken.

The clock was slowing down, he felt sure of it. No way a single minute could take that long, there was no way.

Of course, if the clock was slow, that would of course mean that Bucky was late, and if there was one thing Steve knew about Bucky for certain, it was that the guy was never late. Granted, in the time he’d known Bucky, they’d only ever actually hung out together a few times — but he’d always been right on time, or even early, every single time. He wasn’t quite in the Sam and Natasha stages of being a Responsible Grown-Up, but Steve knew he had this down to a tee: Bucky Barnes was never late.

5:36

Oh, God…

He busied himself momentarily by trying to flatten out that strange little bump that always appeared above his belt whenever he sat down wearing a shirt. Then he tried to flatten out the bump in his pants from the stiff zipper that had the same problem. Oh good god, did it look like he had a boner?

5:37

As Steve began to grimly think over a cover story for Bucky’s absence, he jolted suddenly at the sound of knocking on his front door. He scrambled forward to wrench it open, nearly tripping over his shoes (shined to perfection) as he went.

Bucky lit up his sunniest smile, and entered the threshold

“Pineapple for you,” he handed it off in a businesslike manner. “Douchey, overpriced wine for the Carter ladies and Brock the Cock.” He extended out a long bottle of red wine, showcasing it in both hands as if he were a waiter at some pretentious socialite restaurant.

Steve couldn’t even pretend to be annoyed at the pineapple. “You’re here!” he celebrated, and Bucky’s face fell.

“I’m not late, am I? Shit, I’m sorry; I had to go to two separate stores for the wine and the pineapple. You can’t get good wines at the supermarket, you know.”

Steve did not know. He’d tried a $200 château once at a super uptight wedding Sharon had taken him to once, and he honestly couldn’t tell the difference between that, and the $6 bottle of merlot she’d bought for cooking with a day later.

Without thinking, Steve stepped forward and enveloped Bucky in his arms — pineapple still in one hand, and probably poking Bucky in the back of the head.

“Thank you for doing this for me,” he mumbled, a little embarrassed at his own brazenness.

Okay, that was definitely an overreaction to a guy turning up when he said he would, but Steve wasn’t in the mood to rationalize this shit. He was grateful, okay? He was grateful that Bucky turned up, he was grateful Bucky agreed to come in the first place, and he was grateful he’d ever met the guy to begin with.

Fuck, he really needed to stop having late-night heart-to-hearts with Natasha and Sam. Their loving, functioning relationship was fucking with his usual MO of just blundering his way through everything without a second thought.

It was a testament to just how chill Bucky Barnes was that he didn’t even tense up when Steve had attacked him like that — just reeled back a bit at the suddenness of 240 pounds of enormous blond idiot being thrown on him, and then wrapped his arms around him to squeeze back just as enthusiastically, bottle of wine digging into Steve’s side as he did.

“Hey, anything for my best guy,” he grinned as he pulled back, gripping Steve’s shoulder with a warm, broad hand. “You wanna get this over with?”

“Yeah,” Steve nodded, unable to keep from smiling. “Just hold on a sec.”

He crossed over into the kitchen and picked up a medium-sized cake carrier from the counter.

As he turned, he saw Bucky leaning against the doorway with a look of wariness on his face.

He pointed at the container suspiciously. “Did you bake something?” he hedged, obviously trying hard not to hurt Steve’s feelings.

Steve scoffed. “No. I got a cake from the bakery — it has sprinkles on it.” He lifted the lid to prove it.

Bucky laughed. “Oh my god, Steve.”

Steve beamed at the look of fond relief and amusement Bucky gave him, and fastened the lid again. “If they ask though, we totally made it ourselves.”

“From scratch,” Bucky agreed, nodding seriously. “We did an entire baking montage: flour fights, dabbing frosting on each other’s noses…”

“Suggestively licking batter off of spoons,” Steve added.

“Now you’re getting it,” Bucky grinned again, and then stuck an elbow out for Steve to take. “Shall we get going then, babydoll?”

Steve linked his arm with Bucky’s. “Ready when you are, sweetheart.”

When Steve and Sharon had been dating, she had often given him grief about his state of living.

When she attended college, Sharon’s parents had payed for her to be accommodated in a pretty nice place near her school, and, after graduating with a BA in criminal justice, she’d been offered a job right away. Enter Steve.

So, while she was already a fairly successful officer at the time, Steve had still been in college, and working part time as an artist’s assistant, doing coloring work for comic book pages. Low pay, monotonous work, and pretty extreme hours — his living situation kind of reflected that. But, really, part of him always kind of thought that everyone’s first place after moving out of home should be a shithole. It built character — it was a right of passage.

When they were dating, Sharon had already had a nice place, so Steve felt kind of daunted to wonder exactly how nice her new place was now that she was working with the salary of two detectives.

Sure enough, when the door was answered to the address Sharon had given him, Steve immediately felt like bolting in the other direction, so not as to sully the place with his obvious filthiness.

The place was so sterile-looking that they probably could have performed surgery in there — the oppressively unscuffed white-on-white décor really not helping with that cleanroom feel.

“Oh, uh, please take your shoes off. We got the carpets freshly redone when we moved in,” Sharon informed them happily before continuing down the hallway without them, wine and cake in hand, and Steve and Bucky looked at one another with fear in their eyes before scurrying to yank off their shoes.

Steve almost sighed. So much for his shiny important shoes. Aw shit, his left sock had a hole in the toe.

He looked over at Bucky, and immediately had to slap a hand over his mouth to prevent an undignified bark of laughter escaping.

“Are those-?”

“Yes,” Bucky said, clearly distressed. “I thought they’d be funny. I thought I’d take my shoes off at your place later and you’d think they were funny. This is not funny.”

Bucky’s socks were a mismatched pair — one patterned to look like a watermelon, the other a pineapple.

“So, just take your socks off,” Steve suggested.

“I can’t do that either,” Bucky ground out. “I let Natasha paint my toenails pink the other night.”

“Oh my god.” Steve couldn’t help himself from laughing. “I can’t believe you brought socks just to make me laugh.”

“I’m dedicated to the art,” Bucky said, although he sounded like he regretted it now.

“Boys! You coming?” Sharon’s voice echoed down the gleaming hall.

“Yeah, hold on!” Steve called back. “Don’t worry about it,” he hissed to Bucky.

“Yeah, great,” Bucky said dryly. “I’m supposed to be the one acting like Captain Fantastic this time, and I’ve already gone and fucked it up.”

“I don’t need you to be Captain Fantastic,” Steve assured him. “Just because you don’t run an animal shelter or teach orphans how to ride bikes on the weekends doesn’t mean you’re not still pretty great. Anyway, Captain Fantastic is a pretentious asshole — I’d take you over him any day.”

Bucky met his eyes with a warm kind of look. For a moment, they merely stared at one another, before Bucky held out a hand for Steve to hold, and inclined his head to signal that they should probably get going.

Walking down Sharon Carter and Brock Rumlow’s enormous hallway immediately reminded Steve of the scene from The Wizard of Oz when the group makes their way down the dark corridor to see the wizard — one slow step at a time, eerie music playing in the background the entire way.

In between each doorway, where a regular person wouldn’t think to put anything, Sharon had put matching end tables against each wall. One had flowers and a bowl for keys, one had an assortment of personal trinkets, and two of them just had odd little pieces of décor on them that didn’t make any sense at all.

Why did they need a large ornamental bowl full of yarn balls? Did they pay actual money for it? Steve was an artist — he understood aesthetic for aesthetics’ sake as much as anyone, but that felt like such a grossly unnecessary waste of space.

He and Bucky exchanged a look, and he knew he agreed with him.

The needlessly long hallway opened out into an enormous kitchen/dining/living area, where the white-on-white décor was shaken up by a little beige being thrown into the mix. Jesus, these people must have hired the most generic human being ever as their interior decorator.

“Steve!” a voice cheered from the dining area, and Steve’s face broke out into an enormous grin.

Sitting at the very end of the huge glass dining table, Peggy Carter sat with her hands folded on top of a blue hardback novel. Her dark grey hair was done up around her shoulders in large, voluminous curls, and her makeup was crisp and flawless, as always.

She closed up her book and pushed it to the side, holding her arms out to Steve welcomingly.

Steve power-walked to the table to envelop her in a hug, squeezing her tight. Her hair tickled his face, and her hands were cold even through the fabric of his shirt, but he felt himself immediately relax some at the familiar scent of her perfume.

He released her, smiling, and then felt that cold hand come up to slap him playfully across the back of the head.

“And what kind of a reunion do you call this? Months since I’ve last heard from you, let alone seen you — certainly wouldn’t have killed you to give me a call every once in awhile.”

She wasn’t being serious, but Steve gave her a sheepish smile anyway, rubbing at the back of his head guiltily. “Sorry, Peg.”

“Sharon got you in the divorce,” Bucky piped up jokingly, coming up behind Steve to bring a hand to his lower back. “Trust me, Steve’s been pining away for you so much I was starting to get a little jealous there.”

Peggy laughed good-naturedly. “If only I were thirty years younger; trust me, this boy would not be safe,” she pointed at Steve and winked.

“I’d say you’re still pretty viable competition, ma’am,” Bucky replied, and oh, there it is — there’s that stupid, heartbreaking grin that always took Steve’s brain offline. Fucking charmer.

She laughed, and held out a perfectly manicured hand for Bucky to take. He shook it gently, still smiling.

“You must be James,” Peggy guessed knowingly.

“Bucky,” he corrected. “James Buchanan is the name of a dead man, ma’am.”

“I understand that,” she nodded, and sipped her glass of wine delicately. “I do go by ‘Peggy’, after all. Sharon, why didn’t you mention that he went by ‘Bucky’?”

Sharon re-entered the dining area from the kitchen with what was probably the most enormous serving bowl in the universe. She had that pursed-lip look about her that Steve could clearly read as her disapproving of Bucky’s preferred name, but obviously not wanting to voice her opinion for fear of sounding rude.

“His name is James,” she eventually settled, with a shrug filled with feigned nonchalance.

She moved to the table and placed the bowl in the center on top of a heatproof trivet. She stashed the dishtowel she’d used to carry it into the front pocket of her apron, and then gave the pasta a brusque toss with a pair of tongs.

She walked back into the kitchen and hung her apron back up on its designated hook.

Bucky fiddled with his folded napkin awkwardly, and Steve could hear his socks sliding about on the carpet beneath the table. He coughed a little to hide his snort.

Brock joined them, two bottles of wine held by their necks between his fingers, and Steve recognised one of them as Bucky’s.

As he set the wine in front of Steve, he spared a moment to give Steve a long, narrow-eyed look of disdain that communicated quite effectively that he’d be polite for Sharon’s sake, but his dick was definitely still bigger than Steve’s.

Bucky cleared his throat, and Brock looked over to him to see Bucky giving him that same look, intensified. Holy shit, only Bucky could make that face look as hot as it did.

Brock scowled, and took a seat.

“Anyone want parmesan?”

Two hours later, and the night was going just about as well as Steve had predicted it would.

In that, it was going about as well as a Thanksgiving Dinner with a large family filled with differing political opinions does.

It wasn’t even that everyone was arguing — no, to an outsider, things appeared as lovely and pleasant as you’d expect from a civilized dinner party. The thing was, Sharon didn’t argue — not really. It was part of why she made such an excellent cop; her demeanour was never about yelling, but rather about cold, logical reasoning that dug under your skin and boiled under the surface. Methodical, mechanical, and meticulous.

“So, James,” Sharon struck up conversationally, “you never mentioned what it is you do.”

Bucky cleared his throat and adjusted his posture, setting down his wine glass. “Well, at the moment I work for a bank,” he answered politely.

“At the moment?”

He smiled. “Let’s just say I haven’t found my calling yet.”

Sharon nodded approvingly. “Well, it’s nice to see you’re doing something productive in the meantime.”

Bucky’s eyebrow twitched, and Steve felt his face pinch a little. Okay, seriously, she was the one who invited them here — the least she could do is to not make snide, underhanded comments like that that were clearly meant as a jab toward Steve.

Brock re-entered the room from the kitchen, setting down a wooden chopping board full of various cheeses, bread, and weirdly coloured goo served in the tiniest little bowls Steve had ever seen. (Well, sort of — Steve had seen those exact bowls used in college, when his roommate needed a place to put all the seeds he picked out of his marijuana buds. He just didn’t know they were actually used for food purposes.) These were apparently some kind of post-meal hors d’oeuvres — because things were never as simple as dinner/dessert in the Grown Up world.

“Most of my job involves shutting the solitaire browser just before my boss walks by,” Bucky said, not looking at Sharon while he smeared some kind of bright magenta goo on a thick slice of fancy bread with a weird, tiny oval knife. “I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘productive’. Getting the bills paid isn’t what anyone should aspire for, not long-term.”

“No, I agree,” Sharon said, apparently oblivious to Bucky’s subtle defence of Steve’s life choices. She reached a hand over to Brock and linked their fingers together, giving him a lovey look. Brock squeezed her fingers back. “Brock and I wouldn’t have become detectives if we weren’t following our passions.”

Bucky took a pointed look around. “Doesn’t exactly look like you’ve sacrificed luxury for passion. Nice place you got here, by the way,” he added, and Steve didn’t think he’d ever seen someone sip wine so passive-aggressively.

“You know, I have to say, I’m not sure what I think about your decorative choices, Sharon,” Peggy inserted conversationally, looking around distastefully at the bare walls and fucking yarn bowls. “Your tastes used to be so colourful.”

“I grew up, Aunt Peg,” Sharon replied. “Minimalist styles don’t exactly include unicorn posters and Lego houses.”

“Lego is expensive, you know,” Bucky said, and Steve snorted a little.

Sharon gave him an unamused smile, and carved off a thin slice of weird cheese onto a weird cracker with a weird knife. “Do you have kids, James?”

“No — I’m twenty four,” Bucky replied, cocking an eyebrow. “And gay,” he added. Steve covered his amused smile by cramming a piece of magenta-covered bread piece into his mouth. The goo turned out to be pulverised beetroot, and Steve blinked in surprise at the taste. He didn’t know what he expected.

“Oh,” she gave a smile. “And so you’re comfortable dating a man with Steve’s… varying interests?”

Bucky stiffened in his seat, and his pleasant smile froze into something acidic. “I’m assuming you’re referring to his sexuality?”

She shrugged in a very ‘you-said-it-not-me’ kind of way. “It’s just that I read that people in the gay community can sometimes feel threatened by a partner having… varied interests.”

“It’s called ‘bisexuality’,” Steve retorted, perhaps a little harshly. “And in the entire time I’ve known him, Bucky’s never shown any prejudice toward me.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Sharon held up her hands defensively. “I just meant that it’s nice to see that you’ve found what you’re looking for.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re glad I’ve ‘picked a side’?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, Steve. You know I’ve never had any issues with your sexuality.”

Steve gave a derisive snort, but didn’t say anything, cramming another slice of bread into his mouth, this time with the bright orange goo. After sampling it, he still had no idea what the fuck it was made of, but whatever.

“So what are your interests, James?” Sharon changed the subject gracefully, acting as if nothing had happened.

“A lot of things, I guess,” he shrugged, a very thin line still evident between his brows. “I like movies. History. A lot of science — the cool stuff, you know? Robots, and space, and dinosaurs. That kind of thing.”

“Have you thought about studying in any of those fields?” Sharon asked.

He shrugged noncommittally. “Engineering, maybe. Soon as I can work up enough money for tuition.”

“That’s good. That’s a sensible field — some great job opportunities there,” she said approvingly.

Bucky narrowed his eyes furiously at yet another jab at Steve. “Or maybe I’ll just get into porn,” he said, giving a theatrically nonchalant shrug. “Great money, good opportunities for networking, you get to travel…”

“Oh, I think you’d make an excellent adult film star,” Peggy piped up brightly, giving Bucky a wolfish grin. “Angie always said you don’t need talent for entertainment so long as you’ve got great legs and a winning smile.”

See? Steve wasn’t the only one who noticed the thighs!

Bucky bestowed her with that heartbreaking grin of his and winked. She chuckled.

“Really, though, James, there’d be some really good opportunities for you in the engineering field,” Sharon said, topping up her glass generously. “Believe me, you don’t want to end up a glorified temp forever.”

“Don’t talk to him like that,” Steve snapped.

If he’d thought that the atmosphere was tense before, now it was basically a sauna of angry tension and resentment. It was like they’d just dropped a physical blanket of tightly wound hostility over the lot of them, and Bucky and Peggy exchanged a look.

Sharon blinked in surprise, but after a moment to register what he’d said, she leant back in her chair and sipped her wine, one eyebrow raised.

“You don’t want your partner to be successful, Steve?” she said through pursed lips.

Brock inclined his head beside her, clearly trying to score brownie points by appearing to have her back, despite still sitting as silent and sour as ever.

Steve grit his teeth. “He doesn’t need a guidance counselor, Sharon. Neither of us do. Despite what you think of us, we’re perfectly capable of making decisions ourselves.”

She rolled her eyes. The wine must be getting to her — she was never usually this frank in front of people she was trying to impress, particularly Peggy. “Then why don’t you ever make any practical ones? Seriously Steve, you’re wasting all your potential on something that’s never going to go anywhere, and now you’ve gone and found someone who’s just as directionless as you are.”

Oh, fuck this. Steve was fully prepared to come here and listen to her make underhanded jabs at him about his life, his choices, his sexuality, his job, whatever. But crossing the line came when she went for Bucky too. Bucky was one choice she could never make him second-guess.

“You know what, Sharon?” Steve sat up straight, folding his elbows onto the table and frowning with all his might, leaving no room for argument. “Bucky may not be perfect, but I feel happier with him than I ever did with you. He’s fun, and he’s considerate, and he doesn’t try to cut me down whenever I dare to try and feel good about what I do. He’s proud of my accomplishments. He makes me feel proud of myself — which is something a partner is supposed to do. He doesn’t tell me I’m not good enough, or that I’m wasting my time, or that I’m childish, or unmotivated.

“And guess what: I may not have my life sorted out as well as you, and I may not have a five-year plan, and yes, I’m not employed in the most secure career field, but you wanna know something?” He smiled as humorlessly as possible, and leaned forward. “You’re boring.”

Sharon looked at him like he’d just slapped her mother and disrespected her father in one fell swoop. Her eyes narrowed with fury, and she set her glass down hard enough to make wine slosh over the polished glass. Before she could make a retort back, however, Steve continued.

“You’re bossy, and you’re judgemental, and you’re not nearly as open-minded as you like to think you are.”

“When have I ever been anything other than totally accepting of you?” she snapped.

“Please. You always changed the subject whenever it was brought up, and you never seemed to believe that I was capable of commitment. You implied that I’d cheat on you as soon as I got bored.”

Peggy cleared her throat, and Steve leaned back at once, suddenly aware that Peggy was, in fact, Sharon’s aunt. He ducked his head sheepishly and flushed a dark magenta, steeling himself for the verbal thrashing Peggy was no doubt about to unleash on him.

“Sharon, do you honestly believe bisexual people are incapable of monogamy?” Peggy said, slightly amused. Steve’s head snapped up in shock, astounded to see that she was actually taking his side against her own niece.

Sharon spluttered for a moment, grappling with her own desire to be an open-minded liberal without backpedalling too obviously.

“Sharon, darling, are you honestly going to believe that your Aunt Angie and I have just been roommates for thirty years?” Peggy asked, eyebrows raised.

Steve had never actually seen anyone do a spit-take before, but Bucky sure made it look a lot more dignified than anyone else would have.

Sharon, on the other hand, was wearing a look on her face that would be pretty suited to Peggy revealing that she’d secretly been a praying mantis in a lady suit this entire time.

“But… what about Uncle Daniel?” she gaped. “You were married for a decade!”

Peggy and Steve exchanged a look.

“You know what, I think we’d better get going,” Steve said brusquely, standing up from his chair and dropping a balled-up napkin onto his plate. He placed a hand on Bucky’s upper back as a sign to do the same, and Bucky hurried to follow. “Thank you both for dinner, really. The pasta was delicious. I’m sorry if we ruined your night.”

“I’ll see you both out,” Peggy offered, getting herself up to follow as well.

After ushering the other two out as quickly as possible, Steve took great care to slam the door behind him as loud as could seem unintentional, and allowed himself a childish smirk as he continued on.

When they reached the lobby, Bucky paused to dig about in his pocket, pulling out his keys. “I’ll go get the car,” he said, and gave Steve a swift peck on the cheek. He turned to Peggy. “It was really nice meeting you, Peg — I’d love to meet Angie sometime if you ever decide you wanna sit through dinner with a couple‘a barbarians like us again.”

“We’d love to have you,” Peggy assured him, giving his cheek a motherly pat.

“And give my apologies to Sharon,” Bucky said, giving Steve a look that was probably the furthest thing from chastisement he’d ever seen.

Peggy shook her head fondly. “I love my niece with all my heart, Bucky, but something tells me she may have had this one coming,” she smiled. “She’s a good person, really. She’s just afraid of failure, and, like Steve here said, perhaps not quite as open-minded as she likes to think she is. I’ll talk to her when I get back. Steve, I have your number now, so expect a call from me in the next few weeks.”

“Yes ma’am,” Steve said.

Bucky grinned at them both fondly for a second, and then with a twirl of his keys around his forefinger, he gave a farewell nod, and then continued walking — mismatched fruity socks making him look utterly ridiculous up against the polished marble of the lobby floor.

“You and Bucky make a great couple,” Peggy said approvingly as they watched him go.

“Yeah?” Steve blushed.

“Mm,” she hummed. “And I’m sure you’ll be even cuter once you start actually dating.”

Steve’s head whipped around, face draining of color. What? What the fuck…?

His incredulity must have shown plainly on his stupid, slack-jawed face, because Peggy gave him a pitying look, and then placed her hand on his shoulder consolingly. “Steve, I’m sorry to tell you, but people who are already in relationships typically don’t pine for one another the way you two have been doing all night,” she looked at him shrewdly, amused.

Wow, Steve thought, it would be a real shame if aliens were to suddenly descend from the sky and abduct him right now, wouldn’t it?

“Let me guess,” she said, “Sharon cornered you with the relationship status question, and you panicked and said the first name that came to mind?”

“More or less,” he mumbled, hanging his head in shame.

Okay, so Peggy may be perceptive as fuck, but he would literally deny the real story until he was dead in his goddamn grave.

She patted his cheek with one hand, “I expect a dinner invitation to your place as soon as you’re finished with your commission. Angie will probably get a real kick out of that stupid magical drug clock you two idiots insist on keeping in the living area.”

“Yes ma’am,” he mumbled, because, really, what else could he do at this point but agree? His face felt so hot it could probably generate its own fucking solar energy by now. NASA could name it after the god of humiliation — he’d be famous!

“I’ll catch you later, Peg,” Steve waved a hand, not quite looking her in the face as he turned to walk out of the doors and wait for Bucky on the curb.

“Tell Bucky I like his socks!”

Aliens.

As the door to Steve’s apartment swung open, he let out a huge sigh of utter relief.

“Home,” he said reverently, staring around at his paint-spattered living room, and the dining table with miscellaneous junk strewn across it, and the archway leading into his kitchen, where he knew a pile of unwashed dishes were stacked as high as the Chrysler. God, he loves this place.

“God I love this place,” he sighed, power-walking to the dining table and immediately dumping the contents of his pockets onto an uncovered spot amongst all the other crap. “No stupid yarn-ball-bowls, no weird chemical smell, no ten-thousand thread count carpets. Stupid magical marijuana clock…”

“Big canvas?” Bucky pointed at the giant, room-dominating easel with a look of interest on his face. He stepped further into the house to get a better look, craning his neck around to get a head-on view of it.

Steve shuffled behind him nervously — eager to hear what he thought, but nonetheless feeling that fluttery embarrassment a person always feels when they show someone their work.

“Is this-?” Bucky asked, pointing.

“Yeah, that’s the commission for Stark. I’ve been freaking out about this dinner all week, and I kind of took it out on my work. Do you like it?”

“Shit, Steve, this is a masterpiece,” Bucky said, looking awed. He reached out a hand as if to touch it, but caught himself before he could. “Is it finished?”

“Just about,” Steve nodded. “Just needs a bit more work or so before I sign and seal the whole thing. Stark will be happy — I was worried I’d have to extend the due date, but I think I'll actually be two weeks early.”

Bucky smiled at him proudly, and Steve’s face grew hot.

“You want some coffee?” he hurried to say, ducking his head in the hopes that Bucky wouldn’t notice the dark stain spreading across his cheeks. He started walking before Bucky could even answer.

“Uh… sure?” Bucky replied before following Steve into the kitchen.

Steve kept his back to Bucky as he rifled around in his cupboards for the things to prepare the drinks.

Bucky gave a chuckle. “Man, I think I’d literally rather put my balls in a hydraulic press than do that again,” he said emphatically.

Steve ducked his head again, and then groaned as he spied his holey black socks at the ends of his legs. “Oh god, my shoes! My grownup shiny shoes!” he lamented.

He couldn’t actually see Bucky boggling at him like he was an idiot, but he’d grown used to the feeling enough to be able to tell when people were. “You seriously only just noticed?” he said incredulously.

“I had bigger things on my mind!”

“Guess that means you didn’t realize you’d left your special sprinkle cake behind too?”

“Damn it.”

Bucky laughed again, but the sound sounded tight — put-on.

He turned his face around to see Bucky staring at the floor, looking anxious.

Brows furrowing in concern, Steve let go of the teaspoon he’d been using to spoon sugar into a mug that proclaimed ‘GAY ICON!’, and turned to lean back against the counter. “You alright?” he asked

Bucky flushed — a look that was rare and adorable, and on Bucky, worrying.

“Buck?” Steve prompted him again.

“Did you mean what you said?” Bucky asked stiffly, not quite meeting Steve’s eyes.

Steve’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Back at Sharon’s.”

Oh, god fucking damn it.

He was so looking forward to pushing his feelings deep down and pining away in solitude forever and ever, but no. He never gets anything he wants. And now, to top it off, he doesn’t even get to have cake afterwards as a consolation, because he fucking left it at Sharon’s like an idiot.

“What do you mean?” he hedged, fruitlessly trying to buy himself time before he could watch this thing blow up horrendously in his splotchy, red face.

Bucky scooted forward a little, still not quite looking at Steve. “You know what I mean, Steve. Did you mean what you said? Or were you just trying to keep up appearances?”

Steve sighed, dragging a cool hand over his mortified face.

“Yeah…” he mumbled, staring hard at the bottom cabinets to his right, where he could really only see Bucky’s legs in his peripheral vision. “Shit. I’m sorry, Buck. I didn’t mean to make this weird — I know you were only helping me out as a favor, I didn’t mean for it to get so serious. It’s just that-”

A set of tentative fingertips came to slide through the hair at the nape of his neck, and his head jerked up in surprise.

“Yeah?” Bucky was grinning — a grin that was so full of hopefulness, and happiness, and tentative anticipation, and fuck, it was like his trademark heartbreaking smile had an alpha form. And Steve was the one at the receiving end of it.

“Uh,” Steve grunted intelligently.

Oh glorious, mighty god in heaven…

If there was any metaphor Steve could come up with that could accurately describe what it felt like to kiss Bucky Barnes, the best he could do would probably be to say that it was like the best, most talented baker in the world, working in the most expensive, luxurious bakery in the world, had personally hand-crafted him the best rainbow-sprinkle cake he had ever made. None of that fondant crap — just pure, sweet spongy goodness that was so exquisite that it made his eyes fall closed before they could roll back in his head.

He fucking melted — going slack against Bucky’s hands and giving the most undignified-sounding involuntary groan of his life. For a moment he wanted to pull away, embarrassed of it, but the sound apparently only made Bucky hungrier, and the kiss deepened, turning hot and desperate.

Sam cleared his throat loudly.

They broke apart at once, falling in line side-by-side and ducking their heads in shame like they’d both been caught with their hands in their moms’ purses.

Sam leaned against the kitchen archway with his arms crossed, and the smuggest look of satisfaction Steve had ever seen.

“So I take it diner went well?” he asked innocently.

“Actually, no,” Steve said, feigning casualness in his tone, as if he hadn’t just been caught making out with his not-boyfriend in his filthy kitchen.

“Steve yelled at Sharon,” Bucky supplied helpfully.

“I didn’t yell at her. I never yell at women.”

“He told her off,” Bucky amended. “And then we left our shoes there, Peggy announced she was queer, and Steve declared us couple of the year.”

That about sums up the evening, sure.

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re kidding,” he said flatly. For a moment, he merely looked between the two of them incredulously, and then his eyes zeroed in on the pineapple still sitting on the far counter. “Are you kidding me?” he said, much angrier.

“It’s fresh!” Bucky grinned.

Sam shook his head, exasperated. “I’m going to Natasha’s tonight. If you’re going to fuck, don’t do it in my bed.”

“That was one time!” Steve called out before they heard Sam’s coat lifted from its hook, and the door slam behind him.

“You seriously had sex in his bed?” Bucky said.

“No, but he doesn’t need to know that. It was payback.”

“You’re a menace,” Bucky said affectionately, and then with a fond smile, he laced his fingers back into Steve’s hair and reeled him in for another kiss.

Eventually, the two retired to the lounge — lying against one another with the TV playing in the background, and the volume on low. They kept up a steady pace with their necking — not in a rush to turn it into anything more, but instead taking their time to savor the moment, mapping each other out.

After a few steady minutes of languid kissing, Bucky pulled back with a wide-eyed look of horror and amusement on his face. “Oh my god,” he said. “I just had a horrifying thought: introducing Becca to Peggy.”

Steve’s head fell back onto the cushions, and he chuckled. “God, they’d end the world…”

“Or rule it,” Bucky grinned.

“Are you ever going to tell me what the hell is up with the pineapples?” Steve asked, suddenly reminded of the sharp look of loathing Sam had bestowed on the pineapple earlier.

To his surprise, Bucky laughed — hard.

“Oh, well, I suppose I can tell you now. It was Becca who started it,” he readjusted his position on the couch, supporting his weight on a forearm beside Steve’s body rather than lying on top of him fully. “Really, it started as a joke, and then became a running joke, and then turned into a trademark. Basically, whenever your friends go a date, you give ‘em a pineapple as a kind of congratulations gift before they go. It started off as just a first date tradition, but then it kind of turned into giving ‘em a pineapple before every date until it got serious.”

“So, you assault them with pineapples until they agree to settle down?” Steve said, amused.

“It’s not an assault — it’s a gesture,” Bucky said indignantly.

“Okay, but… why a pineapple?”

Bucky smiled wolfishly. “Pineapple makes your genital juices taste better.”

Steve groaned, long and loud, and brought a hand to smush against his face in shame, because he couldn’t believe this was the person he’d chosen to invest his time and feelings into. “I have never been more turned off by the idea of oral sex in my life,” he bemoaned.

Bucky laughed.

This, Steve decided, was the best meal anyone had ever cooked in the history of the universe.

Delicately, he gently used a set of rubber tongs to individually transfer each piece of roasted pumpkin and potato onto a serving platter, taking exquisite care to not squish or otherwise break them in any way. The chicken looked like it belonged on the cover of Fine Cooking magazine — all perfectly seasoned, and cooked to perfection. He was half tempted to take a photograph and send it to his mom.

Completing his artful arrangement of vegetables around the whole chicken, he did away with the dirty dishes in the sink, and then turned around to simply stand and admire it for a bit.

Shit yes. Move the fuck over Nigella Lawson.

He heard Sam’s bedroom door open, and he perked up at once, eager to show off his incredible skills.

“Sam!” he called, moving out of the kitchen with his hands covered in a dishtowel to protect from the heat of the platter. He set it down on the dining table, and wiped hot condensation off the sides of his hands. “I made dinner!” he rejoiced.

Distractedly, Sam adjusted the strap of his messenger bag over one shoulder while trying to fasten his watch with his teeth. “Oh, sorry, I forgot to tell you, I don’t need dinner tonight — I’m going out with Natasha.”

Steve’s bright mood soured with annoyance, and he huffed, crossing his arms.

“Did you end up delivering the piece today?” Sam paused in his hurrying to incline his head at Steve, looking genuinely considerate, and Steve couldn’t be too annoyed at him.

“You see the painting anywhere?” Steve gestured around to where he’d painstakingly rearranged the furniture to their original places, and Sam frowned at him reproachfully.

“I was asking how it went, you jackass,” he said tersely. “Did he like it?”

Steve smiled. “Yeah, said it had ‘character’ that his other ones didn’t. I think he was just being nice, but the guy’s pretty weird.”

“That’s good,” Sam smiled. “You get the other half of your commission?”

“Oh yeah,” Steve beamed enthusiastically. “I’m gonna re-vamp my art supplies, get some better equipment, and you are gonna do the cooking from now on. At least, until I can’t afford it.”

Sam rolled his eyes, and re-checked his watch. “Great. Don’t wait up, okay? And tell Barnes that any pineapples he brings into this house will be forcibly shoved up his ass if I’m the one left to eat it, okay?”

“Got it. Hey — you want me to save you some leftovers?” Steve called desperately as Sam scurried out of the house in a dignified power-walk.

“God no. See you tomorrow!” The door closed, and Steve harrumphed indignantly.

He busied himself by storming back into the kitchen to fetch a beer out of the vegetable crisper in the fridge, cracking it open and swinging it back to gulp those first few satisfying mouthfuls down with relish.

The door opened, and he rolled his eyes. “You forget something?” he asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” came the reply, and Steve nearly slopped beer over himself in his hurry to scramble out of the kitchen.

Bucky smirked at him wryly as he shed his damp coat and hung it up in the space where Sam usually kept his jacket. “Hey,” he said, and Steve’s face broke out in a grin.

“Hey yourself. I thought you weren’t gonna be here for a while yet.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow, and turned to glance up at the magical marijuana clock. “No, I’m barely early. Wow, smells good in here. Did Sam do the cooking?”

Steve frowned indignantly. “No. I did.”

Bucky blinked in surprise, and walked forward to glance around the kitchen wall into the dining area. “Yeah?” he said, sounding genuinely surprised.

Steve huffed. “Why do I bother? You are both the most ungrateful assholes I’ve ever fuckin’-”

He was cut off by a warm arm sliding around his midsection, and the feeling of soft lips pecking his own sweetly. “You did good, babydoll,” Bucky assured him softly. “Is that rosemary?”

Okay, so the relationship was fairly new, but this whole kissing thing had been ongoing for a few weeks now. There was no reason he should still be blushing like a fucking virgin for Christ’s sake.

“Yeah,” he mumbled into the mouth of his beer bottle. “I spent a few hours learning how to do it properly last night — read all sorts of recipes and… stuff,” he trailed off sheepishly.

Bucky gave him a fond look, and pecked him again. “And you cooked it in the oven and everything,” he said, sounding both proud and teasing at the same time.

“Hey, you didn’t bring me a pineapple,” Steve said, surprised.

Bucky looked down into his empty hands with a nervous expression. “Uh, yeah… I was going to, but Natasha kind of pointed out that we’ve kind of moved beyond the pineapple stage in our relationship.”

“James Buchanan Barnes, are you seriously asking me to be your for-real boyfriend through a lack of innapropriate courting sex-pineapples?” Steve asked dryly, and Bucky offered him a weak shrug, smiling innocently.

Steve rolled his eyes, and set his beer down on the corner of the dining table to bring Bucky in for another kiss — this one sweet, and deep.

It was a kiss that lasted several long, drawn-out minutes, until Steve felt flushed and hot under the collar, his hands dragging Bucky in closer without seeming to realize it.

“Buck, the chicken,” he said reluctantly, his breathing a little heavy.

Bucky didn’t even open his eyes, but he did slow the onslaught of kisses trailing along Steve’s jawline. “Mm, what about it?”

Steve swallowed dryly. “It’ll go cold if we leave it now.”

“It’s fine — we’ll stick it in the microwave,” Bucky replied.

Steve huffed in annoyance, and Bucky sniggered. “C’mon. Stick a clean dishtowel over it and we’ll eat it when we actually need refuelling.”

“M’kay,” Steve mumbled, distracted by that delicious curve of Bucky’s smirk. He kissed it tenderly.

They walked backward together to the entrance of Steve’s bedroom, Bucky’s fingers fumbling with the buttons on Steve’s shirt as they went. He trailed warm fingertips down the center of Steve’s chest and grinned, waggling his eyebrows.

“My safeword is ‘pineapple’.”

“Bucky, for Christ’s sake…”