Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4846736.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Captain_America_(Movies), Marvel_Cinematic_Universe
  Relationship:
      James_"Bucky"_Barnes/Steve_Rogers, James_"Bucky"_Barnes/Brock_Rumlow
  Character:
      James_"Bucky"_Barnes, Steve_Rogers, Peggy_Carter, Brock_Rumlow, Clint
      Barton, Sam_Wilson_(Marvel), Jack_Rollins, Jasper_Sitwell
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Prostitution, Alternate_Universe_-_Military,
      Alternate_Universe_-_Police, Grooming, Abuse, tags_will_be_updated_as_we
      go, Other_Additional_Tags_to_Be_Added, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional_Hurt/
      Comfort, Underage_Drinking, Teenage_Drama, Date_Rape_Drug/Roofies,
      Dubious_Consent, Brock_Rumlow_is_a_Scumbag, Steve_is_an_Angsty_Little
      Shit, Dubiously_Consensual_Blow_Jobs, First_Time_Blow_Jobs, Teen_Angst,
      Exhibitionism, Masturbation, Misunderstandings, Depression, Extremely
      Dubious_Consent, Coercion, First_Time, Self-Harm, Shock
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-09-21 Updated: 2016-05-17 Chapters: 7/? Words: 21125
****** Sierra Echo X-ray ******
by neversaydie
Summary
     Bucky thinks he knows everything.
     He knows his older boyfriend loves him, that he only lets his friends
     do things to Bucky because he's so gorgeous he has to share. He knows
     his best friend Steve doesn't understand what he's talking about when
     he tells Bucky the relationship is destructive. And he knows it's not
     fucking fair when he's given the choice between jail and joining the
     military, but life hasn't been fair to him so far so why would that
     change?
     At least the uniforms are cute.
     [In which there's prostitution, military trauma, police officers, and
     a whole lot of tragedy to go with your uniform kink.]
Notes
     Dedicated to Jen, you are my sunshine.
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Introduction *****
It's nearly 3am and freezing cold by the time Steve's mother falls asleep and
he can sneak out of his bedroom window. It's a complicated manoeuvre, given
that he has to haul his 'Bucky-Kit' backpack through the narrow window and out
onto the fire escape after his skinny ass, silently, because his mom has ears
like a bat and she's caught him sneaking out before. Steve doesn't have time to
be caught, to do the whole song and dance of going back to bed and waiting for
his mom to fall asleep again, because he's on a schedule here.
Bucky didn't check in at two, so Steve needs to go and see for himself if his
best friend is still alive. Unfortunately, it's become a routine.
The Bucky-Kit, a bug-out bag constructed from experience because Steve got sick
of fumbling around the kitchen for supplies in the dark, contains the
following:
-          A bottle of water
-          Several cereal bars
-          A can of energy drink
-          A change of clothes (shirt, underwear, jeans, socks, all of which
Bucky abandoned at his place at one time or another)
-          A battered pair of sneakers (also Bucky's)
-          A thick, warm hoodie that's too big for either of them
-          A first aid kit (bandages, gauze, tape, scissors, butterfly strips,
sterile wipes, numbing cream)
-          Painkillers
-          Xanax (luckily he hasn't had to use that much, so far)
-          Caffeine pills
-          A cell phone charger
-          Thirty dollars cash
The bag isn't too heavy despite all the shit in it, which is lucky since Steve
has to haul it all the way over to the hotel and back without looking like he's
trying to sell huge amounts of crack. Everything the kit contains is something
he's needed when he fetched Bucky in the past, after he missed his arranged
check-in call and Steve got worried enough to drag his ass across town in the
middle of the night. Sometimes his friend has just fallen asleep before he got
the chance to text Steve, but usually Bucky's silence indicates something more
serious. Letting Steve know he's okay is one of the few areas where Bucky
maintains some kind of responsible behaviour, so it's usually safe to assume
that silence means something shitty is going on.
Steve is fucking sick of worrying himself to death every night, but Bucky won't
listen to a word he says. Patching him up is about the best he can do.
His route to the hotel is shorter now he's walked it enough to memorise all the
shortcuts, and Steve hits the lobby at a little after three. This place used to
be fancy, as far as he can tell, but it's definitely become more downmarket
over the years. The décor might be aiming for Waldorf, but the clientele are
significantly more red light district, to put it delicately. Much as it pains
Steve to think about the boy he grew up with like that, he does work out of a
hotel that rents rooms by the hour. Bucky doesn't really resemble that boy very
much these days, not since he met Brock and this whole shitshow started.
There are two receptionists that work the graveyard shift, and Steve knows both
of them by name at this point. Tonight he sees dark hair and a flash of red
lipstick and relaxes a little, because he doesn't have to bribe Peggy to get a
key and Bucky's room number (Angie is a different story, hence the thirty bucks
in his bag). Apparently she was hired so her English accent would bring 'a
touch of class' to the establishment, but they quickly discovered she was a
terrible receptionist and stuck her on the night shift. Steve's happy about it,
even if he's sure Peggy's not thrilled about dealing with his and Bucky's
little soap opera on the regular.
He heads over to the front desk and leans on it heavily, ready to be asleep at
this hour when he's got school in the morning. Hopefully he doesn't have to
patch Bucky up this time, even worse if there's something emotionally wrong and
he has to drug his friend to get him calm enough to walk home without
attracting attention. Bucky's missed enough school as it is, and every tranq
hangover is another point off his GPA that he doesn't need if he's going to get
out of this dump.
Fucking Brock. Fucking Bucky. Fuck this year and everything in it.
It takes Peggy a minute to notice Steve, and when she does her mouth twitches
downwards instead of the usual smile he gets in greeting. Most of the time
she's happy to see him, mainly because he sometimes brings her coffee from the
bodega across the street (to make up for the hassle of helping him cart Bucky
down the stairs and into a cab once or twice before), but today her face falls
when she catches sight of him. The expression sparks a flicker of anxiety in
Steve's chest, but he doesn't let himself panic yet. After seeing Bucky in the
aftermath of some of his 'clients', he's good at dealing with a lot of shit
that would have made him panic in the past.
"Why the long face? I didn't even try and hit on you yet." Steve grins as best
he can, but it's almost always gallows humour between them under the
circumstances. "Did my asshole friend leave yet?"
"You don't know. Oh, shit." Peggy hardly ever loses her calm poise or curses,
and when she does it either means she's half-asleep or someone's bleeding out.
Steve is still, vainly, hoping for the first option. "The police were here
tonight, I don't know what happened—"
"The cops? Is Bucky okay?" Now would be the time to go into panic mode, and
Steve descends into it with no warning and a stomach-churning lurch. "Was he
hurt?"
"No, he walked out. I think they arrested him." She calls after Steve as he's
already racing back towards the hotel doors. "Steve, it's the middle of the
night. You won't get any answers now."
"I've gotta try." He throws back over his shoulder as he shoves one of the
glass doors open and bangs out onto the street. He's almost vibrating with
anxiety and he needs to do something.
The cold air is like a slap to his face and it shocks him out of his fervour to
find out where Bucky is and get to him right now. He's left standing stunned
under sickly streetlight, frozen solid like the time he fell through a crack in
the pond they were skating on when they were kids and Bucky fished him out.
There's nobody here to fish him out this time.
Bucky got busted. Bucky, his best friend since he was five, is in a holding
cell. Bucky, secret love of his life, has been arrested for prostitution. The
realisation that the nightmare is overis overwhelming, and Steve has to hide
his face in his hands right there on the street to handle it. There's almost a
sick relief in his chest, because they've been walking this tightrope for
months and finally, finally, here's rock bottom coming up to meet them with a
thud.
This arrest changes the rest of their lives, but neither Steve nor Bucky know
that right now. In the moment, it just hurts like hell when a chapter of their
lives ends.
That's how it ends. This is how it begins.
***** It's been a long, long time *****
SIX MONTHS EARLIER
"Are you kidding me, Buck?"
It's a good night for Bucky, which means it's definitely not a good night for
Steve's temper. He has a math test in the morning and walking his best friend's
drunk ass home isn't exactly what he'd like to be doing right now, especially
when Bucky can barely stay on the sidewalk. They were only supposed to stay at
Natasha's party for a beer or two, at least that had been the plan until
someone's older brother rocked up with cheap whiskey and Bucky got that look in
his eye that meant he was about to do something stupid.
Steve gets in fights with bullies, Bucky apparently just gets in fights with
his liver.
"Are you serious? Can you even walk?"
"I'm fine." Bucky laughs loosely and sticks one foot in front of the other,
pointedly staying upright even though he has to stick his arms out sideways to
compensate for his total lack of balance. "See? F-i-ne."
"You're so screwed for tomorrow." Steve rolls his eyes and grabs Bucky's elbow
to haul him along a little faster. It's already late and his mom is going to
start threatening him with a curfew again if he keeps pushing his luck.
"You wrote your English midterm hopped up on Benadryl and got an A." There's a
definite pout forming on his plush, booze-raw lips, but Bucky doesn't resist
Steve making him move. The push and pull between them is pretty consistent, and
the other always moves because it's been that way since they were too young to
remember how it started.
"That was English, you can make up whatever pretentious shit you want and get
an A. You can't make up pretentious shit in math." He keeps hold of Bucky's
elbow and deliberately doesn't think about how small a movement it would be to
take his friend's hand instead.
The past year has been weird for them, to put it mildly and totally downplay
the giant bomb of hormones that's exploded all over them both. Steve has
definitely got the short end of the stick so far, with the sudden acceleration
of puberty leaving him a couple of inches taller but still skeleton-thin, with
breakouts and the short fuse of a Tasmanian devil to round out the picture (and
three, three tiny blond chest hairs he can barely even see). Bucky, on the
other hand, has clear skin and fairly-even stubble and lithe muscle that's
starting to fill out now he actually participates in gym class instead of
hiding under the bleachers to smoke.
That's the other reason Steve's having a rougher time with puberty than his
best friend: the sudden, raging boner he gets whenever Bucky looks at him a
certain way. Or he looks at Bucky a certain way. Or Bucky bends over. Or
breathes. Or pretty much exists and is perfectanywhere in Steve's general
vicinity. That kind of intensifies the weirdness for him, especially when he
has to pretend his hard-on was inspired by Ashely-Whoever's ass instead of how
Bucky's sitting so close their thighs are touching.
It also doesn't help that puberty has apparently made everyone elsenotice what
Steve's known about Bucky for years: that he's kind and funny and interesting
even if his taste in pop culture is questionable (Lady Gaga is not a musical
genius, seriously). Where before he was a skinny dork nobody except Steve would
give the time of day, Bucky's lengthy rambles about Lord of the Rings are now
apparently fascinatingto girls who don't listen to a word he says as long as
they can stare at him up-close.
That might just be Steve's perception, but by god he's had to listen to Bucky's
bullshit for years and it's not fair that someone with boobs can just swoop in
and steal any benefits he might have gained from it (aside from a working
knowledge of Elvish, of course). It's not like Bucky doesn't still spend ninety
percent of his time with Steve, but he's jealous and possessive and everything
already sucks and he doesn't want to have to share his best friend on top of
that. He knows he's an asshole, but his hormonal temper and overactive dick
refuse to let him care.
"It's just a quiz, relax. I'll copy off Madison and at least pass, she writes
fucking huge." Bucky giggles a little, uncaring as he stumbles over a crack in
the sidewalk, and Steve couldn't sigh harder if he tried.
New-found popularity has led to a lot more party invitations (which Bucky
always assumes are meant to include him and Steve both, although Steve knows
better), and Bucky seems to enjoy the whole scene a little too much. Last
summer they drank their first beer together, grimacing as they passed the can
back and forth and tried to pretend they liked the sour taste. Tonight, Steve
watched Bucky drink straight whiskey with only the slightest cough from the
burn of swallowing it down. He's not sure when the change in his friend
happened, and the fact he didn't notice it until now makes him sadder than he
wants to acknowledge.
School is slowly dropping down Bucky's list of priorities, and it makes Steve
feel uncomfortable when he thinks about it too long. He's not exactly a nerd
himself, but he needs to graduate well if he's going to go to college because
he needs a scholarship to afford it. He's thinking about going into law, maybe
law enforcement if it's too expensive to go the academic route, because
injustice and unfairness set his blood boiling even before puberty fucked him
over. He gets written up for getting into fights with other people's bullies
and getting his ass kicked, that about sums him up.
He needs Bucky to concentrate on school because they're supposed to go to the
same college, they spit-shook on it years ago even if Bucky seems to have
forgotten that right now. Steve feels like his friend is a little naïve,
sometimes, that he thinks people are good because they're nice to him. He
doesn't see his influx of new friends as 'they're shallow and only like me now
I'm attractive', he sees 'they want to be friends because I'm nice to be
around, it's awesome that they finally realised'. People generally aren't so
nice to Steve, which he'll admit probably contributes to his cynicism and
general grumbling about Bucky's new circle of ass-kissers.
Still. His Bucky. His. Everyone else needs to back the hell off.
"C'mon Stevie, I don't wanna go home yet." Bucky whines, in a way that's
definitely unattractive and definitely the kid Steve grew up with and not the
popular guy who emerged from his ashes. He shifts slightly, as if to pull away,
and suddenly he's the one who moves to take Steve's hand. "There's a liquor
store a block over, we could stay out."
"Buck, my Mom…" Steve is focusing too hard on the blood-warm fingers laced with
his, so he almost doesn't notice when he becomes the one being dragged. He lets
it happen, because Bucky is holding his hand. "You're gonna get in trouble if
you don't go home."
"My folks won't even notice. C'mon, don't be such a baby." Bucky squints back
at Steve and beams, the spark of humour in his eyes taking the sting out of the
insult, and Steve has to bite his tongue before he has to make a choice between
punching him in the mouth and kissing him.
Neither would be a good look, not right now. Not when Bucky's drunk and has
spent most of the evening with his face almost in Natasha's chest for how much
he's stared at it. Steve finally has his full attention and he's loathe to
break that off when he doesn't need to.
There will be other math tests. That's what he keeps telling himself as Bucky
yanks him unsteadily around the corner.
"How are we even gonna get booze? You got a fake ID I don't know about now?"
It's really a weak, last-ditch attempt to get Bucky to go home and not buy
himself another hangover absence from school, and Bucky laughs it off as such.
"Nah, it's easier than that. How do you think I usually get booze?"
He grins rakishly and lets go of Steve's hand as they approach the liquor store
to fix his hair (and when did he start gelling it back instead of letting it
hang softly in his face like Steve always knew him to?). His cheeks still hold
that youthful fullness that Steve remembers, but there are cheekbones starting
to develop and sharpen seemingly before his eyes. Bucky looks older in the
dark, different, and Steve's starting to feel like he's being left behind in
the shadows as his best friend's light only gets brighter.
Bucky saunters up to a guy who's leaning on the wall outside the liquor store,
smoking, with Steve trotting along behind him and feeling suddenly even more
awkward than usual. The guy is older, maybe late thirties, with the kind of
craggy face that is recognisably handsome but doesn't exactly do it for Steve.
He rakes his eyes over Bucky without subtlety as he approaches, and it sets
Steve's teeth on edge.
"Hey pal, can you buy us a six-pack?" Bucky's straightforward about what he
wants, not beating around the bush despite the half-cocky smile that Steve's
seen directed at girls in the hall more than a few times. Is he flirting? It
causes a short-circuit somewhere in the back of Steve's brain and everything
fizzles to blue-screen because what the fuck.
Bucky is flirting with a guy. A guy. Is he into guys? Why wouldn't he tell
Steve (best friend since before time, hello) that?
"You got money, kid?" The guy straightens up and flicks his cigarette butt
away, apparently approving of what he sees as his sharp face twists itself into
something that looks positive… ish. "I ain't about to donate beer outta the
goodness of my heart."
"I've got money." Bucky digs into the pocket of his stupidly-skinny black jeans
(they belong to his sister, that's something he has actually told Steve lately)
and hands over a crumpled twenty. "A sixer and a pack of cigarettes, cheap.
Please."
"Well, you've got manners." The guy stuffs the money in his pocket and has the
courtesy to glance at Steve before turning his attention back to Bucky. "Got a
name to go with them?"
"Bucky." It's not like he sticks his damn hand out, because even Buckyhasn't
been that dorky since they were twelve, but the smile on the guy's face still
widens like he's impressed with something.
"Bucky. I'm Brock." He nods and pushes himself off the wall, not even looking
in Steve's direction before he shoves his hands in his pockets and turns his
back to them. "Back in a minute."
He walks into the store and leaves them waiting outside, and Steve feels the
odd thrill of doing something illegal even though it's not technically him
doingit. Bucky doesn't seem concerned, taking Brock's place against the wall
and leaning back with a studied carelessness that's not careless at all as he
texts someone. Probably Natasha, who Steve loves dearly but will never forgive
if he becomes her and Bucky's third wheel. Antsy, Bucky glances over his
shoulder every couple of seconds to check where Brock is, which kind of
destroys the smooth façade he's trying to project. But Steve guesses that
doesn't matter when it's just himthere. It's not like Bucky has any interest in
being smooth in front of just Steve.
He even sounds bitter in his head, Jesus.
Brock is back in a few minutes with a six-pack of cheap beer and a pack of
cigarettes he takes a stick from before he hands them and the beer over. Bucky
thanks him with a smile, which falters slightly when Brock isn't forthcoming
with the change he should be forking over right about now. The guy sticks the
cigarette behind his ear and smirks that shit-eating grin, clearly knowing
exactly what they're waiting for.
"Delivery charge." He shrugs, flicking his tongue over his bottom lip in a way
that almost looks contemplative. Steve can feel his ears heat up and turn pink
as he steps forward, pissed as hell because how dare this asshole rob his
friend?
"You fucking—"
"Steve, shut up. It's fine, it's just a couple bucks." Bucky grabs a thin bicep
and hauls his friend back, making Steve twist around awkwardly to glare at him.
He gets why he's being held back, even if he hates it. Brock is a hell of a lot
bigger than Steve, not exactly stacked but with definite muscle under his dark
jacket. His stance turned immediately aggressive when Steve moved, and Bucky
caught the tiny shift even in his drunken fugue. He's been pulling Steve's ass
out of the fire for long enough to notice when someone wants to punch him.
The people Steve fights are usually more… sixteen. And not much bigger than he
is. Not this much bigger, anyway.
"Listen to your friend, punk." Brock snorts obnoxiously, and Steve practically
snarls and tries to start towards him again. Bucky yanks him back harder,
sloppy and uncoordinated in his intoxication and apparently tired of this shit.
"I'm sorry." He addresses the guy past Steve, trying to be charming and defuse
the situation before things escalate any further. "He has a problem with
picking fights he can't win."
"And he needs his boyfriend to bail him out?" Brock quirks an eyebrow
sarcastically, and it's all Steve can do to hold himself back from trying to
smack his stupid fucking face again.
"I'm not his boyfriend." It comes blurting out from between Bucky's loose lips
a little too quickly, so much so that Steve feels a sharp sting of offence.
What the fuck is so terrible about the idea of him being Bucky's boyfriend?
"Oh, so you're single." A crooked smile spreads across Brock's thin lips and…
is Bucky blushing?
"I didn't say that."
"Player, huh? I respect that." Before Steve knows what's happening, Brock is
reaching out to pluck Bucky's seriously crappy old phone from the hand that
isn't tight around Steve's arm. He presses a few buttons and taps in a number,
which Bucky clearly isn't watching as he stares at the guy's face. At his
mouth, specifically.
Steve could murder someone. Maybe he's tipsier than he thought.
"You could use some new hardware, kid." The guy comments, glancing up at Bucky
and making his cheeks darken again. Steve hopes it's just the light, but it's
starting to seem like his friend gives a shit about what Brock (fucking stupid
name,Brock, what the fuck) thinks of him.
Brock's phone rings in his pocket and he cuts the call before tossing Bucky's
back to him. Bucky actually fumbles the catch, too busy paying attention to
what the guy's face is doing, and Steve's life really couldn't get worse right
now. He's seen Bucky look at girls with a shade of what's in his expression,
but never like this.
"You've got my number now. Call me if you need someone."
Bucky looks up at Brock with widened eyes, looking slightly confused. He used
to look like that often, when the world and other people were confusing to them
both, but Steve hasn't seen that vulnerability in his face for months now.
Brock drinks it in, relishes the expression like he's fuelled by the blank
slate, the wet clay in front of him. Something that can be moulded, malleable.
"For booze?"
"Yeah. Booze." Brock smiles that slippery smirk that makes Steve's jaw clench
in irritation and in the dim light he can't tell if the guy really winks at
Bucky before he turns and walks away, lighting up a cigarette as he disappears
into the chilly dark. He doesn't say goodbye.
"What the fuck, Bucky?" Steve rounds on him immediately, unable to contain the
bubbling fury any longer. He's been humiliated in front of some random guy
Bucky apparently gives more of a shit about making an impression on than Steve
(it seems like lately he gives more of a shit about anyonethan Steve) and he
has no idea why. "That asshole was at least twice your age. He might've been
fucking fifty even. And you fucking flirt with him?"
"So what? He's hot and he can buy us beer, it's not like it's gonna go
anywhere." Bucky sighs heavily with the force of all his drunken sarcasm and it
makes Steve seethe. He starts walking and tugs a can from the six-pack to hand
to Steve, who snatches it with unusual vehemence. "It's just flirting, you
don't always have to be so dramatic about shit."
"He stole your money!"
"He stole a few bucks. And what the fuck were you gonna do, make him give them
back?" Bucky is the one who rounds on Steve this time, popping open his own
beer and taking a long swig that takes all his concentration and makes him
stumble on his feet. He definitely doesn't need more to drink, but he's not as
sloppy as he could be right now. It's probably the intoxication that lets his
mouth run, because Steve's hoping he hasn't been sitting on this rant for too
long. "You're right, we dunno shit about that guy. I'm not gonna let you get
fucking stabbed because you couldn't keep a lid on yourself. This isn't some
kid being pushed into a locker Steve, there's no teacher to tattle to if you
piss off the wrong asshole. You can't save the world one brawl at a time, grow
up."
They lapse into an uncomfortable silence, Steve fizzing with reluctantly-
quieting rage and Bucky still swaying slightly as he walks. The streets are
starting to get noisier now the bars are closing, and a steady stream of drunks
heading for their beds pass them before either one can find something to say.
They get to the corner of Bucky's block before Steve finally blurts out the
question that's been eating at him.
"How come you didn't tell me you're into guys?"
Bucky doesn't freeze, but he stills to a statue version of himself under the
watery streetlights. He's too drunk to filter his expression, throw up the
nonchalant mask Steve's been seeing more and more often lately, and in this
moment he looks lost. He doesn't look like the man he's trying to be, only a
little more like the child he isn't anymore. It's unsettling. Bucky has always
been the compass by which Steve steers himself, how can he do that if his
friend doesn't know the way?
"Is it a problem?" He mutters, eventually, not meeting Steve's eyes. His voice
is tight and he looks like he doesn't want to be having this conversation.
Maybe he wouldn't have flirted with a guy right in front of Steve if he wasn't
drunk, maybe he wants to keep this a secret.
"No, 'course not." Steve shakes his head immediately, feeling the seasick tilt
of intoxication prickling at the edge of his consciousness. Bucky didn't tell
him he likes guys, and it feels… weird. It's not like Steve told him vice
versa, but he's not sure if it's guysor just a crush on his best friend. It's
different. "I… why didn't you say anything?"
"I'm just figuring it out for myself. I dunno how I feel yet, what I am." Bucky
shrugs, looking suddenly awkward and smaller in his skin than Steve's seen him
for a while now. He looks more familiar like this, nearly the way Steve
remembers him being. "It's been a long time since we told each other
everything, Stevie."
Bucky squeezes his shoulder, a far cry from their usual hug goodbye, and
finally gives up on staying out all night. Nowadays he seems to be chasing
more, more, more all the time, and Steve feels exhausted trying to keep up.
Everything is up in the air, including Bucky, and who knows what the hell will
happen when things come back down to Earth.
"Yeah." Lately, Steve doesn't feel like he knows anything about Bucky at all.
He watches him walk into his building with an odd squeeze in his chest, like
he's lost something. "It's been a long time."
***** You give me fever *****
Chapter Notes
     Rumlow is a scumbag, just in case you didn't know.
"You ever had anyone touch you like this, baby?"
Brock's voice is low and his breath hot against Bucky's neck as he cups a big
hand over the front of his jeans. Bucky shivers and keens at the touch, hands
tightening on Brock's shoulders where they'd ended up in the awkward shuffle of
climbing into the back seat. It's raining heavily outside the car and the
drumming of penny-sized raindrops on the roof is all he can hear over their
heavy breathing.
Bucky's not exactly sure how it happened, but he's in the back seat of Brock's
car with a giant hickey on his collarbone and a hard-on pressing uncomfortably
against the zipper of his pants.
Somehow, his clearest thought at this point is that Steve is going to killhim.
"Y-Yeah." He stutters breathily. A laugh rumbles through Brock's chest and
Bucky's cheeks heat up, which only seems to spur the older guy on more.
"Yeah? Someone had their hand down your pants?" He clocks the shudder running
through Bucky and the corner of his mouth quirks up in veryinterested smirk.
Bucky's head is spinning slightly, the same way it had started doing a few
minutes ago, and it's difficult to concentrate on anything for long enough to
object. "Tell me, baby. Was it a boy or a girl?"
He keeps rubbing slowly and talking in that low voice, and Bucky squirms
because his skin is too small and he's too hot and he can't think like this. He
doesn't want to talkabout sex, he's not even sure he wants to havesex, he just
wants. He feels Brock's dick hard in his pants when he shifts again in his lap,
and it makes Bucky's heart pick up a notch. Half nervousness and half
anticipation, yearning for something he's not sure he's ready for.
"A girl. We were at the movies." The word ends in a gasp as Brock tightens his
grip slightly and makes his head spin harder, the world tilting on its axis.
"She make you come? With all those people sitting there?" He sounds pleased by
the idea, and Bucky doesn't know what to make of that. Aren't boyfriends
supposed to be jealous of other people touching you?
Brock is his boyfriend now, right? That's what it means when he wants to have
sex with him? Isn't it? He can't think about anything outside of those
simplistic terms right now, and it's starting to confuse him even harder. Why
can't he think?
"You're a dirty little boy, huh?"
"She didn't make me come. D-Didn't want to get it on her hands." He admits,
feeling like an idiot as Brock laughs again.
"She left you with blue balls? Poor baby." Brock nuzzles his neck and takes his
hand away from Bucky's dick, pulling back to see the pained expression and the
whine of distress that forces its way out of his throat. "It's not a nice
feeling, is it?"
"C'mon Brock." Bucky whines, clumsily trying to roll his hips and make Rumlow
keep touching him. Brock just rumbles out another laugh and Bucky feels
humiliated and too horny to think all at once.
"Ask nice." The tone is light, teasing, but Bucky is desperate now and whimpers
out the plea without thinking.
"Please." He thinks he knows what Brock wants, he thinks he saw this kind of
scenario in one of the porn videos he'd furtively watched on his sister's
laptop while everyone else was asleep, and he's needy and inexperienced enough
to throw caution to the wind and just blurt it out. "Please, daddy."
When Rumlow's dick twitches, Bucky feelsit.
"Good boy. God." Brock's free hand tightens on Bucky's slender hip. "You know
good boys get rewards, right?"
Bucky is in way over his head right now, and he's starting to realise it. He
feels the strength in Brock's hand and ice-water trickles into his gut when it
hits him that he couldn't get away from Rumlow unless he let him. The arms
around him are solid as steel and the door locks had clicked as soon as he got
into the car. If Bucky gets nervous and says no and Brock decides he doesn't
want to stop…
He's in way over his head, and Brock is sliding down his zipper. Not that his
pride would let him admit it out loud, but a tiny, slightly scared part of
Bucky is starting to wish he'd listened to Steve.
*
If Steve had been pissed off about how much his best friend has changed over
the last six months, then the last few weeks have been like a whole other
hormone bomb going off just when he thought the debris from the last one had
settled. Bucky has been skipping class, not coming over to do homework (mostly
throw candy at each other and watch Netflix), and now he's blowing off the
English project they've been looking forward to all semester. Steve isn't just
mad, he feels betrayed.
"You know, you could just tell him how you feel."
Natasha Romanov, all five-feet of her red-haired, soccer-playing fury, is
generally a good person to have around when Steve feels the need to start
punching things. She's occasionally tipped him upside-down into a garbage can
to make him shut up when his ranting gets too excessive, but mostly she's a
supportive listening ear. Especially now Bucky has stopped staring at her chest
at every opportunity, so she's not in a state of constant readiness to punch
the nearest penis-owner.
She's also the only person in the world who knows about Steve's massive, awful,
all-consuming crush on his best friend. Sometimes that's not as helpful as it
could be.
"Oh yeah, sure. 'Hey, remember how you awkwardly told me you liked dudes? Well
I'm a dude and I like dudes too, wanna make out?' Then he'd get weirded out and
stop hanging out completely." Steve huffs, leaning back even further on the
back legs of his chair and dangling dangerously close to smacking his head on
Maria's desk if he tips over.
"How do you know he'd get weirded out?" Natasha looks like she's internally
debating whether or not to kick his chair over completely, so Steve pushes
himself slightly more upright in a pre-emptive defence. "Even if he doesn't
feel the same way, it might stop him hanging around whoever this Brock guy is."
"They don't hang out. Old creep just buys him beer and pervs on him." The
statement is clipped and snapped out too quickly, and Steve can feel his ears
turning pink as Natasha raises one perfectly-manicured eyebrow at him. Yes he
isdefensive and he doesn't give a crap. "The guy's like fifty, Buck's not
stupid."
Optimum moment for Bucky to actually roll into class on time, for the first
time in a week, stinking of smoke and bringing a prophetic draft of cold air in
with him. Steve's luck just gets better and better.
"I'm not stupid? That's news." He cups his hand under the back of Steve's head
before he sits down, kicking his boots up onto his desk with a disapproving
look in his friend's direction. "You're gonna break your neck, Stevie. Even you
can't walk that off."
"Fuck you." Steve grumbles, but reluctantly puts all four of his chair legs on
the floor. He feels kind of pathetic that Bucky sounding like his old self and
expressing concern for him makes his heart jump now. He deliberately doesn't
look at Natasha, because her told-you-so expression is the absolute worst. "Was
starting to forget what your ugly face looked like."
"I've been busy." Bucky only punches him lightly on the arm at the familiar
insult, eyes crinkling up at the corners with the smile he's trying to hide,
and Steve is so gone for him it's not even funny. He notices Bucky doesn't even
have books with him and his good feeling fades somewhat, like a lightbulb
that's still struggling to stutter out a weak glow without the power to fuel
it.
"You wanna share my book?" He offers, squaring his shoulders involuntarily
because he's pretty sure he knows what the answer is. Bucky just shrugs in
response, with that affected-easy lack of caring that makes Steve want to punch
him and suck his dick at the same time.
"Nah, not staying. Just came by to see if you wanted to cut out with me."
There's not even the excitement of breaking the rules in his voice, the tone
that used to be there so recently when they'd sneak out of class and Steve
would try to smoke and almost cough up a lung while Bucky laughed. Doing stupid
shit is mundane to him now, and it makes Steve fucking angry because he can
just see his best friend throwing his future away in the name of being 'cool'.
He doesn't exactly enjoy school either, but he knows it's a means to get where
he wants to go so he takes it seriously, most of the time.
Their priorities aren't even close to aligned right now, and it's eating Steve
up from the inside out.
"They're assigning multimedia projects today." Steve says it slowly, like he's
chewing out the words because his temper is starting to fray and he doesn't
want to fly off the handle out of nowhere. "I thought we were gonna partner up
again."
"Oh, right. Yeah, of course we're gonna partner up." Bucky only looks thrown
for a second before he's plastering that easy smile across his face, the one
that's insincere and meant to be for other people, not Steve. "You don't mind
getting the info for me so we can start working on it later, right?"
"Yeah, actually I do." He can tell that's not the answer his friend is
expecting by the way his eyes widen slightly and the smile melts off his face.
Steve is sick of covering for Bucky when he can't be bothered to put in the
work at school, and he's starting to feel like he pegged all his hopes on them
going to the same college for nothing. "You can't sit in class for an hour?"
"I got somewhere to be." Bucky shrugs, looking down at his desk. That's his
tell, the little gesture he always does when he's hiding something, and the
wave of irritation that washes through Steve when he figures out what it is
threatens to make him start yelling in class again.
Three times in one year is a bad look. Once would have been enough, but it
seems like people are getting stupider by the month in this fucking place.
"You're meeting up with him, aren't you?" The toe of Natasha's boot is pressing
surreptitiously against his spine now, so Steve is pretty sure he needs to
lower his voice before people start looking at them. "You can't be normal and
stay at school instead of going out drinking for one day?"
"Why would I wanna stay in this dump? And I'm not going out drinking." Bucky
hisses, folding his arms over his chest and dropping his voice a lot quieter
than Steve has managed. It doesn't help his friend calm down any, and a couple
of the people at the closest desks are trying not to be obvious about listening
in on their conversation.
"Why else would you be hanging out with that creep?" Steve demands, and Bucky's
eyes narrow even further.
"Who said I was hanging out with him? And he's not a creep." He's defensive too
quickly, blurts the non-denial out too fast, and Steve's pretty sure his ears
are entirely burning up red at this point.
"Are you kidding me?!" This is quite possibly the worst thing that's happened
to Steve this entire year. Bucky has a crush. On a creepy old guy who looks
like he probably sells drugs to pre-schoolers. A creepy old guy who,
specifically, is very not Steve.
"I gotta go." Bucky looks very uncomfortable all of a sudden, clearly catching
on to the fact Steve has figured out he has a thingfor Brock, and takes a text
chiming on his phone as the perfect opportunity to back out of the
conversation. "He's waiting for me out front."
"I fucking knew it." Steve jumps to his feet, ignoring Natasha's tug on the
back of his shirt and following Bucky all the way to the classroom door as he
tells him off. "This creep is just trying to get his dick sucked, tell me
you're not that fucking stupid. Why are you even hanging out with him? I swear
you—"
"You ever think that maybe if you did more than call me stupid and bitch about
my friends lately that I'd want to hang out with you more?" Bucky pauses at the
back of the room and turns back at him, and that stops Steve in his tracks
because he's generally cantankerous lately but Bucky has never called him out
on it before. "You know who doesn't call me dumb and tell me how pretentious
and shitty all my friends are? Brock."
There's a beat of silence between them, against the background noise of the
steadily-filling classroom, because Steve hadn't exactly seen it like that
before. He's been kind of relentlessly angsty lately, sure, but he never
realised Bucky was taking his ranting personally. That's not what he meant to
happen at all.
"He's still a creep." Of course, it's never been in Steve's nature to bite his
tongue even when he should. Bucky rolls his eyes and turns to leave again.
"Fuck you, Steve. Can you just be cool for once?" It's a rhetorical question,
given who he's asking it to, and Bucky doesn't stick around to hear the answer.
He ducks out of the classroom just in time to dodge their English teacher
coming around the corner, which forces Steve to go back to his seat and fume
silently instead of following his friend to continue the argument.
He still signs up to partner with Bucky for the assignment, though. Even if his
best friend has been replaced with a fucking idiot since he met Brock Rumlow.
Steve just hopes he's not doing something really stupid.
*
Bucky needs to put the breaks on this before something really, really stupid
happens.
"W-Wait. Brock, wait." He forces himself to pull away from the lips on his
neck, even though it's a struggle because every single touch feels so nicefor
some reason. It's difficult to be coherent, when Rumlow looks at him
expectantly, has been ever since Bucky finished the cola his friend had offered
him when he first got into the car. "I-I never did this before."
"That's okay baby, I'm gonna take it real slow." Brock smiles, teeth flashing
in the dim light caused by the rain, but Bucky stops him when he goes to reach
for his pants again.
"I mean, I dunno if I'm ready. I… I wanna wait." His face burns when he finally
gets the words out, because this is so painfully uncool and he's still not sure
that Brock is even going to stop, which might actually be a good thing because
at least he'd finally lose his –
"Hell, kid." Brock groans, tipping his head back against the seat and resting
his hands on Bucky's hips, far away from anything dangerous. "You couldn't
decide that beforeyou gave me blue balls?"
"I…" Bucky blinks slowly, trying to ignore the dizziness in his head as he
attempts to figure out what the fuck Brock is talking about.
"I mean, seriously. You start grinding up on me like a bitch in heat and
thenyou change your mind?" He sighs heavily through his nose, but he doesn't
actually sound all that angry about it. Frustrated, sure, but not mad.
"I'm sorry." Bucky drops his gaze and tries to remember what happened since
they parked up. Did he start this? He must have, from what Brock said, and he
has been wanting to kiss the guy since about the second time they hung out so
it seems logical. Why can't he think straight?
"It's okay kid, I'm not mad." Brock sits up again, shifting Bucky in his lap so
he's not pressing down on him anymore since things have come to a halt. He
looks at Bucky with concern, where he's wavering slightly in place, and frowns.
"Are you okay? You look kinda…"
"I feel dizzy." The words come out faintly, and Bucky's starting to think he
must be sick. That's why he imagines the fleeting twitch of a smile that crawls
across Brock's thin lips, because it's not like he's given the guy anything to
smile about.
"You got a fever?" Brock's hand is on his forehead and that feels so nice too,
why does every innocuous touch against Bucky's skin make his dick throb? Why is
he still hard? "Bucky? Do you remember getting here?"
"I… I dunno." He'd shake his head if it wouldn't make the world spin around him
even more. He is notabout to throw up on the guy he's just been making out
with, he might die of embarrassment. "Not really."
"Yeah, I think you're getting sick. You're kinda warm." His tone is gentle
(amused? He can't be amused, why would he be?) and Bucky lets it wash over him
in a wave of comfort. He was sure he felt fine this morning, but he must be
getting the flu or something. His coke didn't taste right, he remembers, and
that always happens when he's sick. "C'mon kid, I'll take you home."
"This is so embarrassing." Bucky whines, sliding off Rumlow's lap to crumple
into the back seat gracelessly. Brock just laughs as he gets out to climb into
the driver's seat again, and Bucky feels slightly reassured by that. Maybe he
hasn't totally blown things by not only being a frigid virgin, but a sick
frigid virgin on top of that.
"Brock?" He pipes up from the back seat after they've been driving for a minute
or two, with Bucky staring doggedly out of the front window like he taught
Steve to when he was carsick as a kid. He carefully doesn't think about Steve
right now, because it makes his stomach hurt and roll even more than it already
does.
There's a slight slur to his words and his tongue feels too big for his mouth,
he must have a fever. He wants to be cool about asking this question and do it
in a non-humiliating way, but for some reason his inhibitions don't seem to be
working and he just blurts it out like a dumb kid. Great, if he hadn't blown
the whole thing already then he has now.
"Are we boyfriends now?"
Brock just laughs again, and Bucky doesn't understand why.
***** The colour of boom *****
Bucky's confused. Really confused. Not that that's anything new.
It feels like it's only taken a couple of months for everything in his life to
completely go to shit. The last year had been good, he'd been able to hang out
with new friends and the partying had helped fill in some of the pit that had
opened up in his chest. He doesn't know exactly where it came from, the
emptiness that keeps him awake at night because everything is just greyand
wrong, but it refuses to go away. Keeping up the appearance of superficial
happiness, drinking and making out with anything that moved, had actually
helped him keep a grip on himself for a while, kept the looming nothingat bay.
But then Steve started getting pissy about him having other friends, and the
pantomime doesn't fill in the gaps so well anymore.
"Jim!" His Dad calls up the stairs, breaking Bucky out of his thoughts for a
second. He's busy tapping away at Becky's laptop, surreptitiously googling with
one hand on the escape key in case anyone decides to come into his room
unannounced. "We'll be back around nine, there's some cash for pizza on the
counter if you want it."
"Okay." Bucky calls back, shoulders sagging slightly at the news that he's
going to be spending the evening home alone again. Being around people, even if
it's only his stupid family, makes it a little easier to breathe sometimes.
Apparently that's not an option tonight.
He doesn't know when things changed, honestly. His sisters aren't that much
younger than him, Becky is fifteen and Ava twelve, but neither of them have hit
their teenage angst phase yet. That might be why his family seem to do a lot of
family stuffwithout including him lately. Maybe his parents think they're doing
him a favour by not making him go on their family outings anymore, that they're
letting him grow up by not forcing him to go to farmer's markets and Sunday
lunches at Grandma's house, but there's a large part of Bucky that feels
rejected. He thrives on attention, always has, and it feels like the only place
he's not getting that lately is at home.
Or from Steve. Not the right kind of attention, anyway.
Shaking his head to throw that thought away, because he refuses to get all
moody over Steve tonight, Bucky hears the front door close and sags down in his
chair further. He closes the browser window, shutting off his depression
symptoms quizsearch results without clicking on a single one, and fishes in the
pocket of his baggy hoodie for his crappy old phone.
You out tonight?
Brock usually takes a while to reply to anything, so Bucky pushes himself up
from the computer chair and slopes reluctantly down to the kitchen. He doesn't
really want to eat, but he snatches up the twenty bucks from the counter and
shoves it in his pocket anyway. Everything about the house feels alien to him
lately, the family pictures on the fridge and the nice, well-kept furniture and
the school bags by the front door. It's all too clean for him, it makes him
feel small and dirty just being in this space, like he's turned up to a nice
restaurant in his dirtiest, oldest jeans. Bucky doesn't fit anywhere lately,
and he's starting to run out of energy to pretend that he feels like he does.
It's part of the reason he's so pissed with Steve, Bucky muses as he heads into
the living room and slides back the decorative bolt on his parents' drinks
cabinet. It feels like his best friend does nothing but get mad at him lately,
and Buck can't remember the last time they had a conversation without Steve
making some low-key bitchy comment about his 'new friends', or how Bucky acts
around them. Bucky knowshe's fake as hell around people at the moment, but he
can't find the words or the opportunity to explain to Steve that he feels like
he'll fall apart completely if he shows his true colours.
He's starting to feel like Steve doesn't even deservean explanation from him.
They're supposed to be there for each other no matter what, they promisedeach
other that years ago, and now Steve's shoving him away right when Bucky needs
him the most. It feels like Steve jumps at the opportunity to get mad at
anything lately, without considering the fact that maybe Bucky isn't doing what
he's doing specifically to piss him off. Maybe Bucky's just trying to hang onto
keeping himself together with his fingernails because if he doesn't –
The buzz of his phone vibrating yanks Bucky out of his thoughts, and he sets
down the bottle he's pulled out of the cabinet to open the message. His Mom
only drinks at Christmas (Bucky will have replaced the bottle of gin he's been
gradually refilling with water by then), and gin smells enough like his
sisters' nail polish remover that he'll be off the hook even if he accidentally
spills some. Maybe it should concern him that he's been stealing booze
frequently enough to have excuses ready in place if he's discovered, but Bucky
pushes the concern to the back of his mind as he replies to Brock.
For you, sure. Got anything in mind?
He re-words the text a couple of times before he sends it. If he was talking to
Steve, he wouldn't send it at all. But he can be not-okay around Brock because
the guy seems to get it, doesn't act like Bucky's being selfish or stupid for
needing validation. He wants to be seen, and lately it seems like Steve looks
at him and only sees who he used to be.
It's driving Bucky crazy, because he would really, reallylike to not care about
what Steve thinks as much as he does.
Want to get out of my head. Any ideas?
Brock comes through for him, as always. It's kind of nice to have someone
around who doesn't lecture Bucky about school or grades or any of the stuff
that he can't find the energy to give a shit about right now. Brock lets him
steer the ride, respects it when Bucky wants to curl up and cuddle or get drunk
instead of doing his homework and doesn't give him a talk about how he's
fucking up his entire future over one Biology assignment.
I've got a couple buddies coming over, you can come if you want. Got some stuff
you might wanna try.
What kind of stuff?
Chills you out real easy, no bad trips. Come over for a drink and see how you
feel, no pressure baby.
Bucky can't deny the blood-rush squeeze his stomach gives every time Brock
calls him that, calls him babylike Bucky's someone who deserves to be taken
care of. A part of his mind that needs to find its fucking chill immediately
tries to imagine what it would like if Steve called him that. If Steve had him
in the back seat of a car and held his hips and called him baby.
Not that it would ever happen. Bucky had tried to keep his developing
orientation a secret from his friend, just while he figured everything out and
confirmed if that rollercoaster feeling he got around Steve really meant he
wanted to kiss him or if he was just confused, and hadn't been prepared for
everything to come tumbling head-first out of the closet on that drunken walk
home. He especially hadn't been prepared for the look on Steve's face when he'd
asked if Bucky was into guys, that twist of his expression that looked
suspiciously close to something negative.
Steve would never admit to it, of course, but Bucky's been pretty sure since
then that he has a problem with him being into guys. He gets so pissy whenever
Brock comes up, which means Bucky has nobody to talk to about their developing
relationship even though sometimes he desperately needs to, and seems disgusted
with the idea of Bucky doing something sexual with the guy. If Steve can barely
tolerate the concept of Bucky having sex with a guy, then there's definitely no
hope for Bucky's dumb crush on his friend being requited.
And he does like Brock, a lot, even if sometimes the guy confuses him and he's
definitely not Steve. He's so far from Steve that Bucky feels like he gets
whiplash being stuck between them sometimes, which doesn't exactly help the
fact that he feels like shit most days already.
Still, he doesn't reply to his (boy?)friend straight away. Instead, Bucky pours
himself a drink (small enough to knock back in one because gin tastes
absolutely disgusting) and opens up Whatsapp to message Steve. Their last
conversation is dated a few days ago, which makes Bucky's chest feel emptier
than ever since he can remember when there used to be barely an hour between
their messages. He remembers staying up all night just talking to Steve about
stupid shit, sending memes back and forth and giving each other shit for being
tired at school the next day.
That feels like a lifetime ago now, and Bucky tries really hard not to get all
dumb and emotional over it. He'd promised himself that the sore, shallow lines
scored into his inner arm, just above his elbow, were a stupid, drunken one-
off. He's not letting himself get upset about Steve again, not when things
might be fine.
Hey! What you up to tonight? :D
It's weirdly strained, too polite for their usual interactions. Mostly they
open a conversation just by stating what they want to say, or with something to
the tune of hey fuckface get your hand off your dick and reply, but that seems
too familiar now. Bucky's kind of afraid that Steve might fly off the handle at
him if he called him fuckface, these days.
Unlike Brock, Steve never makes him wait for a reply. Bucky's not sure if he
appreciates that or not in this situation.
Working on the English project. Want to come over?
As much as he'd like to spend time with Steve, the idea of doing schoolwork
right now and the amount of stuff he's missed being shoved in his face is
enough to make Bucky feel slightly sick. He knocks back his drink and grimaces
before trying to pick his words carefully and not piss his friend off.
Really don't wanna work. We could hang out though?
He can hearthe pissed-off tone in Steve's reply when it pings up so quickly he
must have been just waiting for Bucky to blow off work.
There's a deadline Buck. We're supposed to be working on this together.
I just don't feel good ok.
You didn't feel good for the last 3 weeks? You haven't helped once.
Yes, he has felt shitty for the last three weeks. That's what Bucky wants to
scream at Steve until he realises that Bucky's faking his smiles because he has
to. He knows he's not pulling his weight on this stupid fucking project, but he
needs his best friend to act like it right now and help him out here.
Can we please just hang out?
If you're not gonna help with the project then stay home.
Well, shit. He's really pissed. Bucky blinks away the heat that's threatening
behind his eyes and switches windows, pulling up Brock's messages to finally
reply. He doesn't need Steve, he tells himself, he needs someone who's going to
help him get his screwed-up head quiet.
I'll be over in a half hour x
*
Bucky's starting to wonder how he gets himself into these situations.
The time from when he arrived at Brock's apartment up until now is a little
fuzzy, a little indistinct around the edges the way things usually get when
he's drinking. Brock had pulled him into a hug when he came through the door,
warm and solid enough for Bucky to hang onto just a fraction longer than was
probably cool, and then introduced him to his friends. There had been a bunch
of them in the apartment, but they've slowly filtered out as the party wound
down over the last few hours until only two were left.
Jasper, a guy with glasses who kind of looked too officeto be Brock's friend,
finally left a little while ago, saying something Bucky couldn't quite hear
about talking to his boss. But by that time he'd been maybe five beers deep and
arguing with the other guy, Jack, about something to do with Die Hard. He can't
quite remember now. He figures it was probably kind of foolish to drink so
quick on an empty stomach, but Brock's friends are pretty chill and don't make
fun of him when he stumbles over his words and maybe takes a little too long to
think of his responses to questions. He doesn't want to look like a dumb kid or
anything.
Jack is huge, built like a hockey player or maybe a linebacker, and only too
happy to show Bucky the various scars he's got all over his torso from playing
sports over the years. He must have a good few inches on Brock in height, all
bulk where Rumlow is lean muscle, but he's not the gruff, no-homo type Bucky
had been expecting when he first sat down on the couch next to him. He's even
happy to let Bucky rest his head on his shoulder, when the room starts tilting
slightly and he needs to ground himself on something with a pulse.
"Your boy's cuddly." Bucky's drifting pleasantly to the background noise of
some action movie on the TV when Jack's words rumble out, hearing them more
through his chest than anything else. He lifts his head in time to see Brock
grin, before dropping down to sit on the other side of Bucky on the couch.
"He's had a rough day. Huh, sweetheart?" Brock rests his hand on the back of
Bucky's neck and squeezes gently, and Bucky feels warm all over because it's so
affectionateand it's focused solely on him. "You still wanna try this stuff?
Get out of your head?"
"I thought I did already." Bucky frowns, a little fuzzy and a lot confused,
because he'd already taken the little white pill Brock pressed into his palm
when he first got here. It had relaxed him almost immediately, giving
everything a pleasant haze after a beer or two, and he'd figured that's what
Brock had been talking about earlier.
"Nah kid, that was just something to stop you freaking out. You were so tense
when you got here I was scared you were gonna snap." Brock slips his arm around
Bucky's shoulders and pulls him off Jack, tucking him into his side as Jack
laughs (at something on the TV? At him? Bucky's not sure). "You still feel
shitty?"
"I just dunno why Steve's gotta be so mad at me all the time." Bucky mutters,
rubbing a hand over his eyes and trying to wake up a little bit. "I just wanted
to talk to him and he was so fucking—"
"Shh, baby. Don't think about it now. You don't need to get upset again." Brock
is rubbing his back gently and pulling a baggie out of his pocket with his free
hand, holding it up so Bucky can see the little pills inside. They look just
like the other one, but what does he know. "This'll help. It's good stuff,
right Jack?"
"Right." Jack agrees on the other side of him, pressing a little closer so
Bucky is bracketed on both sides by warmth and muscle and it feels really,
really nice. He feels safe, he thinks. "Chills you out."
"I can't get… like a bad trip or something, right?" Bucky is vaguely aware that
this is a bad idea, but his conscience also sounds like Steve and that just
makes him madder tonight. He doesn't even wait for the answer before he sticks
out his hand, because he wants to get the hell out of his head, bad trips be
damned. "Yeah, okay. I'll try it."
The pill leaves a foul aftertaste in his mouth once he swallows it down, but
Brock kisses the taste away and another beer takes care of the rest. Bucky
snuggles into Brock's side and listens to him and Jack shoot the shit over his
head as he waits for something to happen, waits for the buzzing in his brain to
die down. Nothing seems to be happening, though.
That lasts for about ten minutes. Then Bucky blinks and he's suddenly on his
knees, nuzzling Rumlow's crotch.
"God, he's desperate for it." He thinks that must be Jack, the comment floating
from somewhere behind Bucky as he keeps rubbing his face against Brock's jeans
like some kind of animal.
"I know, right? He gets like this sometimes." The words seem oddly staged, but
Bucky doesn't have time to think about it too hard because there's a hand in
his hair, pulling him up off Brock's crotch. He blinks up at Rumlow with his
mouth hanging slightly open, because right now it seems so importantthat he
puts something in it.
"Is that right, baby? You get horny for me sometimes, don't you?" Bucky nods on
reflex, before he even processes the question. Brock smirks at that, so wide it
looks like a real smile, like he's proud. "You wanna suck my dick?"
Bucky must get fuzzy for a second again, because he doesn't remember saying yes
or no before Brock is unzipping his jeans and pulling his hard dick out of his
underwear. It's not the first time Bucky's seen another guy's junk, he's been
in locker rooms and watched porn more than enough, but it's the first time he's
had a dick close enough to his face to smell, to touch. He wraps a hand
clumsily around the base, because he's pretty sure he's seen that in porn, and
looks up at Brock with wide, hesitant eyes.
"That's right sweetheart, go on." Brock's hand in his hair is gentle, carding
slow strokes against his scalp, and Bucky leans into the touch as his eyes slip
closed. Steve would never touch him like this, Steve would never let him touch
his dick. Steve probably hates Bucky by now.
A moment later, the gentle hand is guiding his head down until his lips are
brushing against the hot head of Brock's dick. A quiet rustle of fabric sounds
from nearby, and Bucky is vaguely aware that he's being watched as he opens his
mouth and tries to remember to cover his teeth as he swallows Brock down. The
thought is only fleeting though, and he quickly lets it go in order to focus on
not choking and breathing at the same time as not biting the thick length
sliding in and out of his mouth.
"Fuck, he's perfect." Jack sounds slightly breathless, and Bucky might wonder
if he was jerking off if he could find the brain power to open his eyes at the
same time as co-ordinating all the other shit a blowjob apparently entails.
"You sure he's never done this before?"
"Hundred-percent virgin." Brock's voice is strained, and Bucky can't help
gagging as he pushes his cock into his mouth a little too hard. "All mine."
"What, you wouldn't share with your best friend?" Rumlow's dick is pushing
against the back of Bucky's throat, and he can't gag or breathe or even move,
really. He's not exactly processing the conversation happening over his head,
he's just interested in not looking like an idiot giving his first blowjob.
He's not sure how he gets himself into these situations. Really. He can't
remember.
"I never said never." Brock's definitely breathless now, and Bucky can't help
but feel a little, vague pride as the fingers in his hair tighten enough to
hurt. "I'm gonna come, baby. You gonna be a good boy and swallow for me?"
It's not like he can say yes with his mouth full. And Bucky doesn't realise,
but it's not like Rumlow would listen if he didn't.
Come tastes grosser than he'd expected. That's the last thing Bucky remembers
until he wakes up the next morning, sore.
***** Kiss the bartender twice, I'm a loser *****
Chapter Notes
     Sorry for the delay folks, next chapter is half done so hopefully
     it'll be up a little more punctually!
"Did we fuck?"
The words come crawling out of his abused throat before Bucky has a chance to
censor himself. His eyes are tightly closed against the light that threatens
his pounding head, face smushed into a pillow that he can only assume is wet
because he's been drooling on it. His mouth tastes like something died in it,
and his stomach rolls uncomfortably when he realises his dick is hard and
wedged uncomfortably between the lumpy mattress and his stomach.
And then, of course, there's someone else in the bed beside him. Who he has no
idea if he had sex with or not. Bucky kind of wishes he could just go back to
sleep and not wake up until ever, because his bad decisions are starting to
feel more self-destructive than fun. He'll still take self-destruction over
blankness, though.
"Nah." Brock, then. Bucky's whole body sags in relief when he hears the
familiar voice above him. "You suck a mean dick though."
"Oh god." Bucky's eyes snap open involuntarily as his memory comes flooding
back, but he quickly shuts them again with a groan because the light makes his
entire brain feel like sandpaper. Then there's a hand in his hair, large and
rough even as it pets him gently and helps him relax again.
"Couldn't believe it, you got so horny I couldn't even stop you." There's
humour in the tone, affection even as Bucky groans again and tries to turn his
head further into the touch without actually moving. "Never knew you were so
kinky."
"I'm kinky?" His voice is deeper and rougher than usual, so Bucky clears his
throat awkwardly and winces. He feels like he's been gargling glass, how
roughly did he get his throat fucked?
"Yeah, baby." Brock moves a little closer and Bucky turns into his body heat,
relieved to ease the pressure on his morning wood. "I mean, you didn't even
wait for Jack to leave. You just went to town right in front of him."
"Shit." Bucky finally forces his eyes open as he moans out the curse, squinting
at Brock and flushing red when he realises he's really serious. He's a car
crash human being. "Oh Jesus. Why didn't you stop me?"
"It was hot, seemed like you were enjoying it. Pretty sure you shot off just
from having my dick in your mouth." Rumlow grins, his smile widening when he
glances down and sees that Bucky is hard under the sheets. There's no point in
hiding now, but Bucky turns his hips so his erection is slightly less obvious
anyway because this is so fucking humiliating.
"I was so fucking drunk." He mumbles, rubbing a hand over his face and trying
to kick his sludgy brain into action. He vaguely remembers pills as well, but
most of the night is a nauseous blur. He must have been seriously wasted to
suck a dick, let alone in front of some random guy he just met.
"You need lose your inhibitions once in a while." Brock doesn't seem bothered
by the whole thing, leaning back against the wall with a smug look on his face
and a hand resting casually in the waistband of his jeans (above which he isn't
wearing a shirt, which isn't exactly helping Bucky's boner go away).
"I needa smoke."
"Looks like you need something else more." He lets his eyes flick below Bucky's
waist again, and if Bucky's face gets any more blood flushing to it then he
might actually be able to get rid of his erection. He feels unprotected under
Brock's gaze, like a stupid kid who's going to be exposed if he puts a foot
wrong.
Worse than that, underneath the hangover and the embarrassment, is the
emptiness creeping into the back of his mind like a centipede. Bucky can feel
the nothingness threatening again, and he'll do desperate things to make it go
away. Steve briefly flits across his mind's eye but he shoves the image away,
because he can't handle knowing just how badly he's about to disappoint the guy
he kind of wishes was in Brock's place right now.
He tries to push himself up off the bed, but then there's a big hand on his
shoulder pressing him back down into the mattress. The sheets feel vaguely
tacky against bare skin, he must have been sweating in his sleep. He feels
guilty for ever thinking of Steve here, Brock obviously cares about him being
alright at the moment.
"Where d'you think you're going?"
"Uh, the bathroom." Bucky shivers slightly under Brock's pointed look, and
there's that naïve kid feeling again. "I was gonna, y'know, take care of it."
"Why do you need to do that when there's a perfectly good bed right here?"
Brock's teasing him again, the same tone of voice he always gets when Bucky's
being a little slow on the uptake or acting like he doesn't know what he's
doing, and Bucky's face heats up even further at the realisation.
"You want me to jerk off in front of you?" His voice cracks embarrassingly, one
of those horrible little squeaks he's almost grown out of, which only seems to
make Brock's smirk wider. "I never…"
"C'mon baby, it's hot." Before Bucky can get himself together enough to figure
out if he agrees or not, Brock is sliding the sheet off his chest and down his
torso until he's fully exposed. The mercy that he still has his boxers on
doesn't do much to preserve his dignity when he notices the front is soaked
through where his dick has been leaking, and he chokes down the humiliated
noise that wants to come out of his throat.
"Go on. It'll feel awesome." Despite how embarrassed he feels, it does settle
Bucky's stomach slightly when Brock takes his wrist and moves his right hand to
rest on his stomach. "You're so fuckin' hot like this, your little cock leaking
all over the place because you need it so bad."
"It's not little." Bucky mutters, dropping his eyes shyly as he reluctantly
slips his hand under his waistband. He shudders involuntarily when he gets a
hand around himself, because he's so hard it aches right now. Brock laughs,
rough and throaty, and yanks Bucky's boxers down so his dick is exposed.
"You're right, it's not. You're just so fuckin' perfect, so small." He traces
his fingers over Bucky's bony wrist as he starts to stroke himself, giving into
the urge to relieve the pressure and get himself off. Brock's eyes are roaming
all over his exposed skin, goosebumping against the chill in the apartment, and
that's the last thing Bucky sees before he closes his eyes in shame.
Maybe Brock is right, maybe he's as much of a whore as Brock said he acted like
last night. He sucked a dick in front of someone and got off doing it, maybe
that's what he's really like once his inhibitions are lowered. Maybe this is
the real reason Steve doesn't want to think about him being with a guy, because
he knows how much of a slut his best friend secretly is.
"What are you thinking about? How you were moaning like a bitch in heat while
you sucked my cock? How Jack got off just looking at what a slut you are?"
Brock's words slip into his brain like silk, and it makes heat shoot straight
to Bucky's dick. His balls are drawing tight already, because it's not like
he's being gentle or slow on himself. This is supposed to be perfunctory, the
only reason he's not jerking off over the toilet right now is because his
boyfriend wants to see him come.
Unless this is another thing Bucky didn't realise he wanted until now. He's
getting close dangerously fast, maybe he really is kinky and he just never
tried it until he actually got into a relationship with someone mature enough
to help him figure it out. Maybe he really likes this after all.
"Don't." Bucky grits out, bucking his hips up into his hand before he forces
them still again. He's not fucking his fist to the thought of what a slut he
is, he refuses to.
That resolve lasts all of five seconds, until Brock starts talking again and
tweaks his nipples (which feel sore, sensitive, maybe he pulled on them himself
last night, squirming on the carpet in front of a total stranger) at the same
time. Then Bucky starts fucking his fist in earnest, unable to hold his
treacherous hips still.
"You're so gorgeous right now. Such a little slut for me, you couldn't even
stop yourself right now, just like you couldn't stop last night. You're gonna
come all over yourself thinking about how you're my little whore, and you
couldn't stop if you wanted to." He laughs deep in his chest as Bucky moans,
and then there are lips at his neck and a shudder runs over his skin and makes
him almost tip right over the edge. "I'm gonna mark you up, make sure everyone
knows who you belong to. You're mine."
When the bite sends pain singing through his nerves, Bucky comes hard. Groaning
and panting and probably looking completely ridiculous as he messes up his
chest and stomach, but he can't stop himself. Brock sucks bite marks into his
neck until Bucky's whimpering for him to stop, and then he pulls back and
admires his work before he kisses the boy hard, bruising lips the way he just
bruised up the delicate skin that covers his pulse.
"Good boy." Brock growls, and Bucky feels weak below it. "Good fuckin' boy."
*
As soon as his friend walks into class, Steve can tell he's in full armour.
Against what, he doesn't know.
The black leather jacket that used to be his dad's and is still way too big on
him, the Sabbath shirt, the heavy boots, it's nothing like his preppy-boy
persona and it's all Bucky's way of telling the world to leave him the fuck
alone. He used to let Steve slip beneath his armour, still have a soft smile
for his best friend even when the rest of the world was too sharp for him to
expose his underbelly. But today he doesn't meet anyone's eyes as he slopes
into English class with his hands in his pockets (no books again, no surprises
there), and it makes Steve's thin chest clench with worry.
That worry only lasts for a few seconds, though. Steve's concern fades into the
background when he catches sight of the ugly, mottled-red and purple hickeys
decorating Bucky's neck like cattle brands. Suddenly he's not worried anymore,
he's furious.
"I thought you said you didn't feel good last night." He mutters as soon as
Bucky drops into the seat next to him, heavy like he has the weight of the
world on his shoulders. Bucky slides down and lets his head tip back against
his chair, like he's tired even though it's one in the afternoon and Steve
didn't see him in registration this morning.
"I didn't." Comes the reply, hoarse and cracked like Bucky's throat is sore.
Steve squints at him sideways, because maybe he's wrong about this whole thing
and his friend is just sick, but those are definitelyhickeys on his neck,
sucked over his pulse like a taunt. Like a claim staked on everything Steve
wants but can never have.
"So you couldn't work, but you were fine to let that old creep fuck you."
Steve's ears are turning pink as he struggles to keep his voice quiet and
level. He wishes Natasha wasn't off sick today, then he might at least have
someone who'd rein him in when he got too loud or embarrassing. Bucky won't
even look at him, which only fuels his anger.
"He didn't—"
"The project deadline is today, Buck. I did all of it by myself."
"I'm sorry." Bucky is quiet and sounds like he's genuinely remorseful, which
throws Steve off a little. But if he feels so bad about it then why didn't he
just come over and work on the project? They could have worked this out
together like they always have done, acted like the friends they're supposed to
be, and Steve doesn't understand why that seems to be so impossible for Bucky
lately.
"What's wrong with you?" It comes out sounding more accusatory than he meant it
to, and Steve can see the moment where Bucky stiffens up and finally looks
somewhere near the vicinity of his face. Now that Steve gets a good look at
him, he can see that Bucky eyes are bloodshot and bagged with purple. It looks
like he's been up all night drinking. Again.
"Nothing." Bucky spits, prickly as a porcupine for reasons Steve can't figure
out. They're a million miles apart these days and sometimes it feels like
they're speaking a different language. Communications aren't connecting when
they used to not have to speak at all to know what the other was thinking.
"No, there's something wrong with you, Buck." Steve insists, not managing to
put his concern into words that don't sound like blame. He's pissed with Bucky
and it's clouding everything he says, he's unable to let the new friends and
the creepy older sex-buddy go in favour of finding out why it's all happening.
"You're not acting like yourself. You're hanging out with creeps and losers,
you're—"
Bucky cuts him off, voice sharp and defensive. He won't let his armour down
this time, won't even let Steve in to see what the real problem is, and it
feels like the inches between them are more like a chasm now. There's a drop
there that Steve's not sure he'll risk falling into, not for this stranger who
acts nothing like his best friend.
"Yeah? And where were you with this stunning insight when I needed it?"
"Probably doing the project that's gonna keep you passing English when you
haven't handed in an assignment for weeks." Steve fires back, not missing a
beat despite the hollow look in his friend's eyes that's setting off all kinds
of warning prickles across the back of his neck. "Is it Brock? Is that why
you're acting like this? Because of a creep who's just using you for sex?"
Where are your shiny new friends when you need someone to call you on your
bullshit?Steve thinks, spitefully. He can't help it, he's wounded by the way
Bucky's been acting and his compassion is running out fast.
"He's not using me for sex." It's the first time Bucky sounds like he actually
cares about anything he's said, aside from the quiet apology he'd given
earlier, and Steve doesn't understand why the hell he's so attached to this
guy. He'd like to say it's not jealousy that's making him so pissed at Bucky,
but he can't deny that's a big part of it. "I needed to get out of my head last
night and you blew me off. Brock came through for me."
"I didn't blow you off, I told you to come over. You just didn't wanna work."
Steve has a whole tirade just waiting to pour out behind his assertion, but
Bucky cuts him off again. This time there's force behind his words, and the
scratchiness of his voice ramps up a notch like he's trying to hold what he's
saying back at the same time it floods out.
"Steve, I felt like my head was gonna explode. I couldn't face it, I just
wanted to be around you and try not to feel like I wanna jump off a bridge."
The confession is hard for Steve to hear, and even harder for him to believe
because he's never heard Bucky say this kind of thing before. He's been all
about partying and drinking lately, he's never seemed sad or self-destructive
to Steve. Maybe this is just another layer of façade that Bucky's built up
without Steve realising, trying to get a pass on his responsibilities by
tugging on heartstrings.
Bucky rubs a hand across the marks on his neck, agitated. He's looking at the
clock and probably just waiting for the opportunity to get the hell out of here
and blow off class again. There's a large part of Steve that just feels
bewildered in the face of his friend's behaviour, because there's no precedent
for it between them and he has no idea how to deal with it. Maybe Bucky's
taking drugs now, maybe he's really as upset as he says he is. Steve doesn't
know, and he's starting to feel like it's not worth the energy to find out if
Bucky just keeps pushing him away.
What he really wants to do is pull Bucky into his arms and hold him, show him
what real affection looks like and protect him from all the creeps that he
can't see are out to hurt him. But Steve can't do that, because it's obviously
the last thing Bucky wants.
"I asked you for help and you wouldn't help me." Bucky sounds distressed, like
he's trying to explain himself but nothing is coming out right. Steve knows how
that feels, and he's almost about to believe his friend and call a truce when
Bucky says the one thing that's guaranteed to stop any reconciliation in its
tracks. "Brock's the only person who listens to me."
"He's just using you, you moron!" Steve bursts out, and Bucky looks so shocked
he might as well have slapped him. Steve barely registers it though, he's
blinded by anger because he's been the one who listened to Bucky and cared
about him his whole life, and now he's being pushed aside. "He doesn't give a
fuck about you, he's just some old weirdo who wants a place to stick his dick."
"Are you that disgusted with me now?" Bucky looks just as hurt as Steve feels
in this whole fucked up situation, and Steve doesn't understand how the hell
they got here. "You hate me being into guys so much you don't want me to be
with anyone?"
"What? Buck, I don't give a shit about you being into guys." Steve shakes his
head, some of the wind taken out of his righteous indignation by confusion.
When did they get their wires crossed so badly? "I give a shit about you acting
like you're in some kind of romance with a fucking child molester."
"Don't call him that. You don't even know him." Bucky snaps, getting up from
his seat as it scrapes back with a sharp squeak on the lino floor. "I'm outta
here."
"You're gonna run away again? I'm sosurprised." Steve mutters sarcastically,
not looking up to see the hurt look on Bucky's face, not realising that all his
friend had needed was to be asked to stay, to be shown he was wanted there.
"Don't expect me to keep doing your work for you, Buck."
"I won't." Bucky huffs out a sigh and sticks his hands in his jacket pockets,
closing shakily around his smokes and lighter like a safety blanket. He feels
awful, sick in the pit of him stomach in a way that has nothing to do with his
hangover. This is all wrong and he feels powerless to tell Steve he wants to
fix it, that he wants to hug his friend and pretend the rest of the world
doesn't exist for a while.  "I'll see you around."
"Yeah. Sure." Steve doesn't look at Bucky as he stalks out of the classroom,
cutting out before the teacher even shows up for the second time in the last
few weeks. He doesn't know why Bucky keeps bothering to show up when he clearly
doesn't give a shit about keeping his grades up and his future secure, so he
concentrates on getting his class stuff out of his backpack and forcibly
pretends he doesn't care what Bucky's doing to himself.
He takes out a sharpie and crosses James Barnesoff the project folder before he
hands it in at the end of class. If Bucky refuses to work, then Steve's not
going to carry him anymore. Maybe a failing grade will be the wake-up call he
needs, the thing that finally snaps Bucky out of his determined journey
downwards.
Steve has a bad feeling in his gut from the second he hands the project in, but
he steels himself and resolves to stick to his guns. It's for Bucky's own good,
that's what he tells himself.
He can't know how wrong he is, not until it's too late to take it back.
***** lay with me so it doesn't hurt *****
"Jesus, did you walk through the river?" Brock's eyebrows shoot up to his
hairline when he opens the door and gets a look at Bucky's soaked, shivering
figure on the other side. His plans for the day are suddenly out of the window,
because there's no way he's letting this opportunity to go waste. "Come in,
don't stand there freezing your nuts off."
The kid shuffles into the apartment, dripping all over the shitty carpet and
sniffling as Rumlow shuts the door behind him. He looks Bucky over, taking in
his red eyes and chewed-raw bottom lip, and he'd raise his eyebrows even
further if it was possible. His thing for crying is threatening to make his
dick twitch, and that would be very inconvenient for his concerned boyfriend
routine.
"Are you crying?" That gets nothing but another reluctant sniffle, and Brock
thanks whatever deities favour him today as he plasters on his most worried
expression, because this is a gift. "Hey, what's wrong?"
"I hate Steve." Bucky finally stutters out, breath hitching like a little kid
because he's been crying so hard, and Brock has to school his reaction because
he was right, this is a gift.
"Aw, Bucky." The kid's face crumples and Brock only has to open his arms
slightly for Bucky to throw himself into them and bury his face in his
shoulder. He's so trusting at this point, and it's a beautiful thing. Brock
rubs his back and cringes at the soaked fabric of his hoodie sticking to his
fingers, because the last thing he needs is the kid catching pneumonia and
setting all his plans back months. "Did you have a fight?"
Bucky nods, still sniffling and trying to pull himself together, and Brock
presses a kiss to his wet hair before he straightens up and pulls Bucky with
him.
"C'mon kid, you're gonna freeze." He keeps his arm around Bucky's slim
shoulders as he shepherds him towards the bedroom. Bucky hasn't been back here
without passing out first, and it's another level of intimacy that Rumlow
thought it would take him a lot longer to work up to.
He might hate having to hear about the little brat allthe fucking time, but
this is one time he'll actually thank the universe that Steve Rogers can't back
down in a fight. Conflict sends Bucky straight into his arms now, with his best
friend or his parents, proving that Brock's method is working flawlessly. As
always.
The bed is actually made, for once, and Brock guides Bucky to sit down on it
before the kid can think too hard about the connotations. Bucky's busy looking
around the room that he never registered in his hungover state that morning
(not much in the way of decoration, an old hunting knife mounted on the wall
and a faded picture of his mom on the dresser, Brock moves around too much to
bother with plastering his passions everywhere), so Brock gets on with looking
through his shit for something that might be small enough for the boy to wear.
He's got a few of his previous boys' 'working clothes' around, but it's
definitely too soon to pull them out on Bucky.
"Here." He eventually tosses a pair of sweatpants and a faded ARMY t-shirt into
Bucky's lap, jerking him out of wherever his head is. "Might not fit, but
they're dry. You can hang your stuff on the shower rail."
Brock doesn't wait for Bucky to ask him to leave before he walks out of the
bedroom, not taking the risk of watching him strip and seeming pushy after what
happened this morning. It might be a step backwards after watching him jerk
off, but it's important that the kid is the one who crosses boundaries and lets
his guard down without being pushed now, otherwise Brock could end up with a
lot more than a concerned best friend to worry about. If he pushes too hard or
Bucky twigs that he's being manipulated then he might have to skip town again,
and he's set on staying in New York for a while yet.
He's digging in the fridge for booze (usually makes Bucky pliable, quiet) when
a quiet voice gets his attention a few minutes later.
"Hi."
Brock looks over his shoulder and his dick full-on twitches at how fucking
smallBucky looks in his clothes. He has to hold up the waistband of the rolled-
up sweatpants to keep them on, and the oversized shirt is on the verge of
slipping off one slender shoulder. With the vulnerable, flushed post-crying
expression on top of the clothes, Bucky looks more like a little boy than the
almost-man he really is.
Brock likesit.
"Hey, buddy." The endearment comes out softer than usual, and he swears it
brings an extra tinge of pink to the kid's cheeks. He's so starved for
affection that this is almost ridiculously easy. "You want a beer?"
Bucky nods, chewing anxiously on his bottom lip again. Brock grabs a couple of
bottles before kicking the fridge shut and slinging his arm around Bucky's
back. The boy tucks in neatly right under his shoulder, and isn't that just
sweet?
"How come you and Steve had a fight?" He asks gently as he steers them to the
couch, because normally Bucky wants to rant about whatever's wrong with him
today. The kid is usually desperate to be heard, but today he just shrugs
moodily and grabs his beer before he flops down on the couch and curls up,
drinking silently.
That's fine by Brock, it's not like he wantsto hear about the bullshit teenage
drama. He sits down more sedately next to Bucky, close enough for the boy to
reach out but not so close it's demanding he do so. It only takes a few minutes
of silence for Bucky to warm up and shift so his head is resting on Brock's
shoulder, damp hair brushing teasingly against the sensitive skin of his neck.
"You like me, right?"
The question is so plaintive and pathetic that, for a moment, Brock actually
feels sorry for the kid. Just for a moment, though.
"You know I do, baby." He slips his arm around Bucky's shoulders again and the
kid finally relaxes a fraction. He's still shivering so Brock pulls him closer,
pressed against his side and warmth. "Is that what's bothering you? Did you and
Steve fight about me?"
"He… He said you're just using me for… sex. That you don't really care about
me." There's that wavering tone again, like Bucky's actually starting to think
about what Steve said. The conversation – the fight – seems to have really
unsettled the kid, and Brock will be damned if that little punk Rogers is going
to undo all his hard work by being too smart for his own good.
"Buck, how can I be using you for sex when we haven't even hadsex? You're the
one driving this thing, you know we're waiting however long it takes for you to
feel ready. Hell, last night and this morning only happened because you started
it." He keeps his tone soft and reasonable, and the kid slowly relaxes a little
further. Good. "Steve doesn't know what he's talking about, baby. He's just a
kid, you know he's not mature like you are."
"I know… I just…" Bucky's voice is still unsteady and Brock can tell he's
trying not to burst into tears again. He swears he never had his emotions
bubbling this close to the surface all the time when he was a teenager, but
then the kid's obvious depression is something he's counting on to keep him in
the palm of his hand.
He just hopes the kid keeps a hold of himself for a little bit longer, because
it wouldn't exactly help his case to get a boner right now. The whole
compassionate boyfriend thing seems to be helping, so Rumlow sticks to that
path.
"It fuckin' sucks when your best friend doesn't understand you. It's so hard, I
get it. But I understand you, baby. You don't need Steve to get everything,
you've got me for that stuff. It's his problem if he's gonna treat you like
shit and upset you just because he's jealous."
Bucky mumbles something watery and unintelligible but definitely not positive-
sounding, and Brock realises he's going to have to bring out the big guns
sooner than he expected. This kid is a lot of hard work, so he'd better get a
payoff soon.
And at least an Emmy for this performance, if not a full-blown Oscar.
"Bucky, baby, you know I love you…" He trails off and pretends to catch himself
at the very moment he feels Bucky process what he's said and tenses up. Brock
launches himself off the couch, putting on the mask of disbelief and distress
that people usually buy. "Shit. I didn't mean to say that."
"You…" Bucky's looking at him with wide eyes, and Brock heads for the kitchen
like he wants to run away from the situation just because he knows it'll make
Bucky say "Wait!"
"I'm sorry." He turns around with a feigned sheepishness, careful to look
anywhere but at Bucky's face. The kid's eyes are bugged right out of his head
and he looks so young and so vulnerable, it's difficult for Brock to keep up
the aw shucksact. "I didn't mean to… It's too soon to say that shit. I'm
fuckin' embarrassed."
"You… You don't have to be." Bucky pushes himself off the couch and pads across
the carpet silently in his bare feet, still holding up the too-big sweatpants
with his left hand. He stops in front of Brock, too close to be mad about the
situation. "You love me?"
"I… I know I'm not supposed to. Not yet. And I'm definitely not supposed to
tell you." He tries to look conflicted, torn, and it makes him come across as
honest when he raises his head to finally meet Bucky's eyes. "I just… I guess
I'm kinda falling for you, baby. I love you."
The sunny beamthat breaks out on Bucky's face is shaded in with surprise and
wonderment, and Brock mentally thanks whoever isn't giving this kid any
attention at home for making this so easy. Like taking candy from a baby.
 
"I love you too."
The words taste like ash and betrayal in Bucky's mouth, but then he's already
been betrayed by Steve enough lately. He's not about to give up the one thing
he still has left in the face of his best friend giving up on him because he
can't understand that Bucky wants to rip his eyes out and that kind ofinhibits
his ability to concentrate on school. As if schoolmatters to him when he feels
like putting a bullet in his head more often than not lately.
Maybe that's dramatic. But then maybe that's Steve's voice in his mind, telling
him he's overreacting and that there's nothing wrong with him, that he's just
shirking off work and doesn't know how to pull himself together and get over
it. Maybe it's not even Steve's voice, maybe it's just his internal monologue.
In the confusion of the last few weeks, Bucky's not sure anymore.
What he is sure of is that there's a man standing in front of him telling him
that he's loved. That's what Bucky wants with such desperation it makes his
teeth hurt, and here it is on a plate for him. And he could love Brock, if he
got over Steve and let himself, and it's not like Steve hasn't made it
perfectly clear that he thinks Bucky is a fucking moron lately. He still knows
the guy well enough to know he's not about to have feelings for someone stupid,
so there's no hope of anything changing on that front.
So it's partly anger that makes him cross the room and go up on his toes to
kiss Brock desperately, but it's also partly because he's sure he would really
be in love if he could feel anything but emptiness clearly anymore. And Brock
loves him, and that's all Bucky needs right now.
Things get a little blurry from there. It's not like Bucky is drunk this time,
he's only had a beer and there's no way that's enough to make his head spin
now, it's more the need that is making things hazy in his head. He needsto be
touched, needs Brock to tell him he's loved and showhim he's loved and
important and not about to spin off the face of the earth the way he feels like
he might if Brock lets him go.
"I wanna do it. I wanna have sex."
It would be easier if the words could come from a long way off, if Bucky could
somehow be in his body but not his head. But he's right here, right in the
strong arms locked around his back, dick achingly hard between them as he
cranes up to get Brock to kiss him again. He feels alive when they do this,
like there's blood in his veins and air in his lungs, and maybe if they fuck
then he'll get that feeling for longer.
It's like chasing a high. Not that Bucky knows what that's like yet. Not that
he plans to in the future, but then he never planned any of this either.
"You sure, baby?" Brock kisses him roughly and cups Bucky's face in his big
hands, and if he wasn't sure before then the kiss and the laser-focused
attention makes him too dazed to care. "You know it's gonna hurt your first
time, right?"
"Don't care." Bucky juts out his chin defiantly, making the bold decision to
grab Brock's dick through his pants. He's sucked it before, even if he doesn't
remember doing so, so he tells himself it's okay. It's his boyfriendwho
loveshim, he can grab his dick if he wants. Right?
"Alright, if you're sure." Brock sounds amused beneath the gravel in his voice,
and before Bucky can say anything else he's being scooped up and carried to the
bedroom, dropped unceremoniously on the bed before Brock is crowding over him
and pulling his shirt off.
The love bite on Bucky's neck is still fresh, the bruise throbbing dully with
pain when he becomes aware of it again. Brock wastes no time marking him up
further, working his way down Bucky's lithe chest until he's breathless and
writhing underneath him, arching up to try and get anysubstantial touch to his
dick. He practically loses it when Brock pulls his sweatpants off, that's how
keyed-up and nervous Bucky is under his extremely thin veneer of bravado.
When Brock produces lube from the bedside drawer, the reality of the situation
slams into Bucky all at once. A trickle of cold anxiety coils in his gut and
makes him try to sit up, only to be shushed gently and pushed back by one of
Brock's rough hands.
"Shh, baby. Just relax, it's easier if you relax." He presses gentle kisses to
Bucky's already-raw lips, distracting him enough that the finger probing at his
entrance is a complete, cold, surprise. A broken sound escapes him and he tries
to sit up again, but Brock's weight is on his shoulders as he keeps
relentlessly pushing in. "Stay still, sweetheart. You're gonna hurt yourself."
"I-I'm not…" Bucky's voice is cracking in all those embarrassing places again,
and he feels too small and too soft under Brock's solid bulk.
"You're not gonna back out now, are you?" Brock pushes another finger in, and
Bucky tries reallyhard not to push himself away from the burning stretch. He
knew it would hurt, but he wasn't prepared for how weird it would feel on top
of that. "I thought you loved me."
"I do. I love you." He tries to sound confident, tries to reason with himself
to stop being such a fucking baby. He's already left Brock with blue balls
once, and he knows his boyfriend will stop again if he asks him to but Bucky
doesn't want to look like a pussy. He's going to have to lose his virginity
sometime, it's just one painful time before everything gets easier and feels
good.
One painful time before he can tell Steve to fuck himselfbecause Bucky has
someone to do it for him. Maybe that would stop Steve treating him like a dumb
kid.
Brock doesn't spend a lot of time on prep, fingers Bucky just enough for it to
stop hurting as intensely and for his wilted hard-on to reappear, but despite
his inexperience Bucky knows enough to figure that a dick is going to feel a
lot different than a couple of fingers. He feels like his skin is hyper-
sensitive, every grazing touch more intense than it should be, and he makes a
wounded sound in his throat when Brock pulls his fingers out and leaves him
weirdly empty.
"It'll only hurt for a minute, baby." Brock sounds out of breath, spreading
lube over his cock as he keeps most of his weight on Bucky with one hand.
Somewhere in the back of Bucky's mind he wants to ask about condoms, about the
shit from health class that he'd figured would apply to having sex with a guy
too, but all the words are strangled out of his throat when he feels a new
pressure at his entrance.
"I… maybe we should…" He squeaks out, every muscle tight with panic just the
way Brock had told him notto tense up right now. His hands fly up to grip
Brock's shoulders as the pressure just doesn't stop and it starts to hurt, more
intense and immediate and morethan before. "I-I'm not sure…"
"It's okay, just relax. I love you, I'm gonna take care of you." Brock kisses
him and then turns his attention back down to where he's still pushing into
Bucky, taking it slow but never letting up the constant, burning pressure.
Bucky tries to let the words comfort him (he's lovedsomeone loveshim) but that
doesn't stop him from whimpering and digging his nails into Brock's skin in
fear. "It's gonna go in now baby. Make noise if you've gotta, it'll make it not
hurt so much. It's all gonna be okay."
With only that much warning, not waiting for a response, Brock rolls his hips
and pushes into Bucky's nearly-unbearable tightness in a long, hard slide.
Bucky can't help it, he screams.
***** SOS *****
Chapter Notes
     Sorry it's been forever, here we go!
It isn't until Bucky's back at home that he realises Brock came inside him.
The sex was… painful. Bucky hadn't realised that when people talked about it
hurting your first time they meant for guys as well as girls, and he hadn't
ever imagined that the burning pain would be intense enough to make him go soft
immediately. Brock had helped, held him down so he couldn't move around and
hurt himself worse, clapped a big hand over his mouth so Bucky couldn't make
too much embarrassing noise, and whispered encouragement amongst the stream of
filth that always seemed to spill out of his mouth when they did something
sexual.
Somewhere in the middle, after a particularly rough thrust sent a jolt of pain
up his spine that made him feel sick, Bucky sort of checked out. He'd come back
into his body with Brock kissing him, pulling out to go grab his ringing cell
phone. It turned out he had to go to work (whatever work is, Bucky doesn't
actually know because Brock never talks about himself that much), so Bucky had
been bundled back into his damp clothes and yanked out of the apartment before
he could process the fact he'd just lost his virginity. Brock hadn't had time
to drive him home, had kissed him in front of his shitty building and told
Bucky he was fine, sent him off into the scummy neighbourhood without hearing
the faint plea for him to come back. Bucky had stumbled home in a daze, not
really registering anything around him and nearly getting hit by a cab while
jaywalking at the corner of his block.
Now he's here, locked in his bathroom, and he's started shaking.
There's a wet patch on the seat of his pants, he felt it leaking out as he
walked and couldn't do a damn thing about it. He figures it's come, in a
detached way like he's far above himself watching a movie of his life, but he's
too scared to check if it's blood. Something about it, the feeling that he's
somehow been claimed and marked, leaves Bucky's hands trembling as he clutches
the sides of the sink with all his strength. He looks himself in the eye in the
mirror, trying to get his shit together.
He wanted this. He said he did. It's not like he can take it back now.
"Calm the fuck down. Calm downyou fucking moron." He hisses at his reflection,
not sure why he's whispering when he's alone in the house. It kind of feels
like if he's too loud then he'll have to acknowledge what's happening, that
he's being a fucking babybecause…
Because Brock fucked him. And Bucky's sort of sure he changed his mind in the
middle of it happening, because it hurt and it was horrible, but he couldn't
say anything. But he said yes at the start. He asked for it. He wantedit
because he wanted to feel loved again, he wanted that warm high of being cared
about. He was the one driving the situation and Brock…
Steve wouldn't have hurt him like that. The thought floats across his mind,
unbidden, and Bucky smacks himself in the side of the head angrily like he can
force it out that way. Brock loveshim. Steve doesn't love him, Steve doesn't
even want to hang out with him anymore, and he'd be furious if he knew Bucky
let Brock…
After he justtold Steve that the guy wasn't using him for sex. After Steve
asked what was wrong with him and Bucky couldn't even tell him, because he
doesn't even know. And now the blankness is bubbling up again and he's soreand
there's come leaking out of him and his neck throbs where Brock bit him nearly
hard enough to break skin and…
The razor biting into his skin makes Bucky suck in a harsh breath, hissing it
out as he drags a second line across his inner arm and the hot burn of his skin
supersedes everything else in his head. He's not sure when he dug the razor
blade out of the medicine cabinet. He's only done this a handful of times, got
the idea off some list of symptoms he was trying to fit the crap in his head
against, and this time it works as intended. By the time he scores a couple
more lines into his arm, the blood and the pain have him back in his body, at
least.
Then it all slams into him at once, that he's standing alone in his bathroom
bleeding and leaking and hurting like he…
Bucky drops the razor in the sink and gingerly lowers himself to the floor,
unable to hold in the low groan that slips out when he sits down. It makes him
feel sick all over again, and he drops his head onto his knees to take deep
breaths and try and get himself back under control. He's crashing hard and
doesn't understand why, this is worse than so many of the blank times he's
wished he could text Steve and just be how they used to be together. The times
he needed his best friend to just be with him and…
Steve.
The phone is a struggle to get out of his pocket, but he manages it despite
shaking fingers and the clock says they'll be out of school by now. Even if
Steve tells him to fuck off, Bucky needs to hear his voice. He feels like he
might crack into pieces and slide down the shower drain if something doesn't
hold him together, and even an angry Steve has always been a sticking plaster
to his soul.
 
"Steve?"
"Buck, hey." Steve sounds pleased to hear from him, hurrying to get his words
out before Bucky can cut him off. "Listen man, I'm sorry about today. I didn't
realise you were feeling so shitty and I didn't mean to make things worse. I
just didn't…"
He trails off when he hears a hitch in Bucky's breathing, a little noise that
sounds like distress. Every thought of their ongoing conflict and making moves
to settle it flies straight out of his head, because something's not right.
"Bucky?" That hiccupping breath sounds again, and Steve sits up in his computer
chair on full alert. "You okay? What's wrong?"
"I… I'm not... I don't know. I'm not okay." His voice cracks, and this Bucky
doesn't sound like the one Steve's been watching party his way through the last
few months. This sounds like the kid he grew up with, the one nobody else ever
sees under the armour.
That's not good.
"What's wrong? What happened?" Steve is already shoving his battered sneakers
on and sticking his head into the hall to make sure his Mom is still at work.
He doesn't need her to catch him climbing down the fire escape again, not when
he isn't sure he has a reason she'll accept. "Are you home?"
"Yeah." Bucky doesn't sob, not quite, but Steve can hear the waver in his voice
and it kind of scares the shit out of him. He storms out of class after they
fight and then he calls on the edge of tears? Yeah, Steve's not feeling good
about this. "Yeah, I'm home."
"I'm coming over, don't go anywhere." There's another uncertain sound from the
other end of the line and Steve pauses at the window, just for a second. "Buck?
Just sit tight, okay?"
"'Kay." Comes the reply, quiet and hoarse, and Steve hangs up so he has both
hands to get out of the window with.
The walk (run) the few blocks to Bucky's house is tense, because Steve doesn't
know what the hell he's walking into. The front door is locked, clearly the
rest of the Barnes family isn't home (Ava has karate on Thursdays? Steve is
pretty sure that's still the case even after he stopped being around every day
like he used to), so he doubles around the back of the block and barges through
the back gate to shimmy awkwardly up the drainpipe. It's not like he's grown a
lot with puberty so far, but the climb to Bucky's room used to be a lot easier
when he was smaller.
He tumbles awkwardly through the window as always, thrown for a second when he
doesn't find Bucky on his bed. He's just about to check the rest of the house
when he realises the bathroom door is closed and a cold shard of fear shoots
through his gut. In this moment he couldn't give a single fuck what the hell he
and Bucky have been butting heads over, because he's straight up scared.
Even his crush goes out of his head right now, it just doesn't matter when his
best friend needs him.
 
Bucky drifts out of himself again. He must, because he closes his eyes and the
there's noise near him.
"Buck?" Steve is knocking on the bathroom door. He's right outside. He's right
there. "I'm coming in."
The little ensuite bathroom that had determined Bucky getting this bedroom when
they moved in (virtue of being the only boy and the first to hit puberty) has
never locked properly, and Steve knows exactly how to jimmy the handle and put
his elbow into it to get the door open. Bucky is on the floor between the sink
and the shower stall, as curled in on himself as possible, and Steve drops to
his knees immediately.
"Buck? Hey, are you hurt?" Bucky seems to snap out of wherever his head has
been, looks up and meets Steve's eyes for a second before his face crumples.
Steve abandons any notions of keeping his distance and throws his arms around
his friend, pulling Bucky to his thin chest as he bursts into tears.
Steve holds him tight as his shoulders heave, sobs wrenching out of his throat
like they're ripping him apart. It takes a long time for Bucky to calm down,
and the minutes seem to stretch into eternity as Steve gets more and more
worried about what the hell is making his friend act like this. Bucky's never
been an easy crier, even when they were little kids he'd only shed a tear when
he smacked his head on something, scraped knees or anything less barely got a
reaction. Steve was the one who bruised easy, but right now Bucky seems as
bruised as it's possible to get.
When he finally lifts his head, face puffy and raw from salty tears and being
pressed into Steve's shirt, Bucky looks about as far away from the cocky young
man he's been growing into as Steve can imagine. He looks small, like he's been
scraped out from the inside, and Steve has to resist the urge to kiss him in an
effort to make it all better. He gets the distinct impression it would probably
be the worst thing he could do for Bucky right now.
"What happened?" Steve asks softly, pulling back a little so he can get a look
at Bucky. He catches sight of the haphazard red slashes on his arm and freezes,
the bottom dropping out of his stomach as he goes cold all over. This is
notsomething he's prepared for, he would've never expected to see this on
Bucky. "Jesus, you're bleeding."
"I couldn't calm down." Bucky croaks out, starting to shiver again now he's not
being held tightly. It's only then that Steve realises his shirt is damp, his
pants are too, and his hair has started to curl where it's dried haphazardly.
Whatever happened since Bucky stormed out of their English classroom, it wasn't
good.
Steve is already out of his depth, he's certain. That plus being increasingly
angry as he puzzles out who Bucky's likely been with since he last saw him, and
he's going to have to keep a lid on himself to hold both of them together here.
"Bucky, talk to me. What happened?" He takes Bucky's arm and turns it gingerly,
trying not to pull on the cuts as he takes a look at them and sees they're
thankfully not deep. He definitely did them to himself, which is doubly
unfortunate when Steve would dearly like to find another reason to hate Brock
right now.
"I… We…" Bucky swallows hard, newly-developed Adam's apple bobbing hard enough
for Steve to see. "We had sex."
"Oh, Buck." Steve squeezes his shoulder, which seems about the safest place to
touch right now when he doesn't know where his friend is hurt. The vivid bruise
on Bucky's neck looks bigger and angrier than it had in daylight, and his
bottom lip is bloody where he or someone else has bitten it raw. "Did he…?"
"It hurt." Bucky's voice is shaking harder than his body, despite how hard he's
clearly trying to hold himself in check. His eyes flit up to meet Steve's and
then dart away again, like he's ashamed of himself. "It hurt a lot. And then he
had to go to work. And I got home and I didn't know what to… It hurt."
Nothing Bucky's saying is really sticking together, not stringing into
sentences but rather clumping into chunks of thought, and Steve is really,
really worried now. He's never seen his friend like this, the closest he's
experienced is Bucky being drunk enough to fall on his ass on the way home from
a shitty house party. He tries to think of what his Mom would do, she works in
the ER and she sees people in moments of crisis all the time.
He can do this. He has to.
"It's okay. You're okay, Buck, we can handle this." Steve still has his
steadying hands on Bucky's shoulders, holding him together the best he can and
making sure his voice stays as neutral as possible. "It's not your fault he
raped you, okay? We can call—"
"He didn't rape me." Bucky snaps, quick as a flash to defend Brock when he's
questioned. The air freezes between them. Steve just blinks for a second,
shocked, and Bucky flushes red and doesn't meet his eyes. "I asked for it. I
wanted it."
"He hurt you." Steve says, slowly, not sure what the fuck is going on now. If
Brock hurt him that badly, then how the hell could Bucky think he wanted it?
"He said he loved me." Bucky shakes his head quickly, correcting himself
because he doesn't want to sound like he's not sure. He is sure. Brock told him
he loves him. He's just saying it wrong and making Steve think he means
something else. "He's in love with me. He told me."
"He raped you." Steve is trying really hard to keep his composure right now.
He's probably gripping Bucky's shoulders a little harder than he should by now,
but it's better than losing his temper. "In case you forgot, you're underage.
That means you can't consent. Remember health class?"
"He doesn't know how old I am." That yanks another little hiccupping sob out of
Bucky, and Steve swallows down his anger to concentrate on gentling one of his
hands enough to start rubbing gentle circles on his friend's back. "I didn't
want him to think I was a dumb kid and stop liking me. It's not his fault."
"It's his job to find out before he… does that." Bucky must just be mixed up in
his head, Steve thinks, now that Brock has actually hurt him he must knowthe
guy's bad news. "That's not on you. He knows you're young, that should've been
enough to make him take a second and—"
"It's not his fault!" Bucky snaps again, flinching under Steve's look of
surprise. "He loves me."
"He's a creep, he did this on purpose."
"He's my boyfriend, Steve! I love him." His voice cracks on the last word, and
it takes all the righteous fury out of Steve's belly because this is Bucky,
hurting, and he can't punch anything to make this better. "Just… Please, I
don't wanna fight again."
"Okay, Buck. Okay." Steve relents, softening up and shoving down his
reluctance. He takes a deep breath, thin shoulders making the slow journey up
and down before he's got his shit together enough to deal with this. "What
d'you need?"
"I-I just wanna take a shower." He sounds weirdly far away, like he's not
really in the room anymore, and Steve squeezes his shoulder to get Bucky to
look at him. Bucky nods jerkily, trying to put his game face on and failing
miserably because it never fooled Steve to begin with. "Yeah. I just, I just
need a shower. And then go to bed. And then Brock'll call me when he's done
with work."
"You don't…" Steve bites his tongue and gets up, holding out his hands to help
Bucky off the floor. His friend comes slowly, sluggish and wincing, and Steve
is just so out of his depth here. He wants to tell Bucky not to shower because
he kinda remembers that from Law and Order, but that thought just makes him
feel slightly hysterical. "Okay. What d'you need me to do?"
"Will you…" Bucky swallows hard, pale and drawn as he holds himself stiffly
enough that Steve can tell he's in pain. "I know I've been weird, recently. I
just… things have been really weird in my head and I don't know how to…"
He trails off into a vague gesture, sliding his eyes away from Steve's to look
at the floor. Steve doesn't really know what he means, can't begin to guess at
the blankness Bucky is trying desperately to outrun because all he can see is
his friend disappearing down a dark path with no obvious motive, but he accepts
Bucky can't talk about it right now. He's scared, more than anything else. He's
really scared.
"What can I do?" He prompts, gently, and Bucky looks relieved to have a
question to answer.
"Will you stay 'til I fall asleep?"
How did things get so broken between them that he even has to ask?
Steve steps outside to let Bucky shower, digs around in his friend's familiar
drawers to find Bucky's most comfortable sweatpants and the sweater they got on
a school trip to MOMA that's never fit him but has been worn soft and loved
over the years. Then he sits on the bed and puts his head in his hands, tries
to breathe evenly and get his head around what the hell is happening here.
He can't deal with this on his own, Bucky getting hurt by some creepy old man
is way above his paygrade. But then the bathroom door is opening and Steve is
back to copying his Mom's triage face as best he can, getting his friend
bundled up in something soft and trying not to look at the bites and scratches
on Bucky's skin as they're covered by familiar fabric. They crawl into bed
together, the habit of a lifetime they haven't done for months now, and Steve
closes his eyes and breathes Bucky in as unobtrusively as he can. He's here in
his arms and safe, that's what he holds onto until Bucky falls asleep. And then
the room is too small and Steve needs air.
He needs help, that's the main thing. He usually feels like an adult these
days, resents being told what to do or how to do it, but right now he feels
like he needs an adult. He presses a kiss to Bucky's forehead, creased with
worry even in sleep, and slips out of the window the same way he came. Steve
doesn't want to leave him, but the best thing he can do for Bucky is try to
find a way to deal with this. Really deal with it, not put a band aid on it all
alone.
"Ma?" Steve blinks hard as the call connects and bites back the urge to whine
like a little kid. He doesn't want to tattle on Bucky, but he's just seen his
best friend bleeding and crying on a bathroom floor and that's officially hit
the limit of what he can handle. "Are you home? I gotta talk to you, I think
Bucky's in trouble."
End Notes
     Hit me up at saferforeveryone.tumblr.com for gay shit.
     Thanks for reading, let me know what you thought!
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