Chapter Text
"So," Sam says, which is when Steve knows immediately that this guys-night-out, just-the-two-of-them thing was a trap. "How're you two doing?"
"Me and who?" Steve asks, taking another pull from his beer. Maybe this will be easy and it'll just be Sam thinking he's trying to steal Natasha.
Sam laughs. "Yeah, that's not gonna work, man."
"He's doing okay," Steve evades, shrugging one shoulder. "That therapist - I think he's talking to her more. Bruce said something to convince him it was alright to let stuff out, and now I owe him... I forgot what he asked for, some granola mix. The place that sells it doesn't deliver and he hates going there. Crowded, noisy, the usual."
"So you've told me how Bucky is, and how Bruce is, which, okay, granola, check." Sam scoots his chair in a little tighter to the table they're sharing, leaning over the paper tray of demolished onion rings. "I asked how you two are doing."
Steve gives him his best 'I am from the 1940s and you are confusing me' look. He gives it for a solid ten seconds, staring down Sam's 'I know you too well to accept that bullshit response' look.
"Steve."
"There is no 'us two'."
"Why isn't there?"
"Why would you expect there to be?"
Sam leans back, sprawling a little as he tugs the onion ring tray closer to scrounge for the remains. "Dude, we literally all sleep in a giant fucking bed together. Like, two nights outta every week."
"That's-"
"That's because Nat told me to get the bed, and because I'll do anything Nat wants, up to including risking mortal injury." Sam looks up from the onion ring scrap that's more batter than onion, popping it in his mouth. "And you will do anything Bucky wants. And because you think Nat's hair smells pretty."
"I-"
"It smells very pretty."
Steve scrubs at his face and looks around the bar, hoping that there's someone too close by for this conversation to be able to continue in relative secrecy. No such luck. "Sam, I know a lot of things have changed since I got iced over, but I know people aren't supposed to mention any interests in their friend's girl."
"My girl. Look at you, saying it all quaint." Sam smirks. "Yeah, she's my girl. I'm pretty sure she's Clint's girl, too. She's kinda nobody's girl. I think I am her girl sometimes, if that makes any damn sense."
"It doesn't."
"Point is, we live in a big weird house with a bunch of other crazy people just like us and whatever's keeping you from doing more than being Barnes's designated spoon, on nights where he visits you or when Nat pulls all us together, I don't get it."
Steve thinks about this a while, and his brows knit together. "How do you know I never visit him?"
Sam gives him a flat look. "Like you said, man, Barnes is learning to share." He sees Steve's face and rolls his eyes. "Man, relax. He and I are friends too, you know. I know because he nudges me when I snore now instead of punching me in the shoulder."
"That's true," Steve accedes, pretending to be interested by something out the window. His bizarre life had felt so much more comfortable when nobody was making him discuss it or analyze it too closely.
"You know I snuggled up to him one night thinking he was Nat? His hair is long. Sue me." Sam makes a face. "He woke up. Did not murder me."
"Evidently not."
"I'm saying, man. If he can wake up to being held by the wrong person and not flip out, he's probably good for, like, a date night."
Steve winces. "Sam."
"With the right person."
"Sam."
"I'm just saying, though."
"Did Tasha put you up to this?"
"No, but I know she agrees with me. Listen." Sam grabs his beer, finishing it one long pull, and plunks it back down on the table. "My life has been so damn weird since I met you. So weird. But it's been good weird, is what I've been realizing. If Nat wants to take it slow and also date like four people at once, or whatever, that's fine. I'm happier than I can ever remember being. And if she feels better coming home after a fight and having a Nobody Died Sleepover, that's cool too. I get it. It's nice." He shrugs. "You gotta stop worrying about what's normal and start thinking about what you want. And what he wants."
"And I suppose," Steve says, a little more bitterly than he meant to, "he's told you what he wants."
"Steve. He didn't have to."
**
Steve waits until he hears Bucky's door across the hall open and shut. He gets up, resists the urge to check himself in the mirror, and pads across the hall to knock on Bucky's door.
Silence. Steve bites his lower lip and knocks again.
Almost too quickly, the door opens, and Bucky is standing there in boxer shorts and a strangely blank expression.
"It's late and I was going to go to bed," Bucky says, all at once. Steve steps back a little.
"I, um," Steve says, and realizes that the genius of Bucky just walking in to his room without permission, and just waiting at the edge of the bed until Steve scooched back and made room for him, was that Bucky did not have to explain himself at any point in the process. "I, if you, we." He runs a hand through his hair. "We sometimes." Damn it.
Bucky stares at him, head cocked slightly, before backing up a little and letting Steve in. There's a stuffed bear wearing a blue jacket in a chair in the corner - Steve remembers Pepper being very happy about "sniping" that on eBay, although he never realized it was a gift for Bucky - and the bed is a mess, pillows lining the headboard and one side of the bed, and at least twice as many blankets and sheets as are on anybody else's bed. Bucky looks from the scene to Steve's face and immediately starts moving.
"It, um, I haven't made it." He starts sweeping the extra pillows onto the floor, grabbing microfiber throws and trying to lift them up in the air to flatten them out as they fall back down. Steve steps forward and tugs on Bucky's shoulder, stopping him.
"It's fine."
"Yeah, but- if-" Bucky stutters as Steve walks past him, navigating past one particularly large pile of quilts to find a clear spot, picking out a normal-looking pillow from the assortment and tucking it under his head. Bucky observes him for a moment, chewing his lip, and then unbundles the topmost quilt to lay over Steve in what must be the fussiest gesture Steve has ever seen from him. Bucky looks back to the door to ensure it's shut and then walks around the bed, hesitating before lifting up some of the blankets and crawling in next. His chest feels warm against Steve's back, and the metal arm is strangely nice.
"Oh, I-" And Steve reaches behind him and grabs Bucky's hip before he can get up to find a long-sleeve shirt.
"S'fine." Steve fumbles for Bucky's wrist in the dark and tugs Bucky back around him.
"...it's cold."
"It'll be warm in a bit." Steve finds the edge of the quilt and pulls it gently until it covers both of them.