Chapter Text
Steve meets the steely eyes of the Secret Service Agent waiting by the door and nods his head in greeting. Time was when he knew all of the men and women on Bucky’s security detail, but he’s not been to the White House in over a year now and Bucky’s nothing if not notorious for going through staff.
Agent Rumlow has been the head of Bucky’s detail for over three years, but Steve can count on one hand the number of times he’s actually spoken to the man. He doesn’t let the serious gaze unnerve him. Steve enrolled in Valley Forge in the 7th grade; he’s in his final year at USNA now; his father is Chief of the Navy for the United States of America; his mom has only recently stepped down as the U.S Ambassador to the United Nations and his best friend is the only child of the President of the United States. ‘Intimidating’ pretty much describes everyone Steve has ever known.
“Agent Rumlow,” Steve greets.
“Sir,” Rumlow nods his head minutely but doesn’t give him any more than that. Steve misses Bucky’s old guardian. Timothy Dugan had more than lived up to his nickname of ‘Dum Dum’. He’d been good for Bucky. Now, as far as Steve is aware, the only time his friend interacts with Rumlow is when he’s making the guy’s life as miserable as possible. Steve can’t help feel bad for him. “Mr Barnes is waiting for you in his suite,” Rumlow says.
It’s always strange hearing people talk about Bucky that way. Mr Barnes, James… it’s only the politicians and the people in his immediate circle who call Bucky that. Even the press knows him by the nickname Steve bestowed on him back when they were both six years old.
“I know the way, thank you,” Steve says politely. Steve had called ahead before leaving Annapolis, but had been delayed in his departure by one of the plebs in his company. He’d texted Bucky to let him know he’d be late, but the lack of response and the presence of Rumlow on the steps of the East Wing suggests Bucky is annoyed. He does passive aggressive like no one Steve has ever met. He does in your face aggressive pretty much as well.
Despite that, Rumlow follows behind him as he makes his way down the East Colonnade. It’s quieter this way, less chance of running into tour groups as he makes his way towards the Executive Residence. It’s been nearly four months since he’s last seen Bucky; over a year since he’s actually been in the White House, but he still remembers running down these halls as a kid, dragging Bucky into every kind of trouble he could. He’d been the rambunctious one back then, always finding some way of causing mischief while Bucky followed in his wake, wide eyed and nervously excited.
It's funny how things have changed. Maybe funny isn’t the right word. Sad? Tragic? Stupidly fucked up? Steve’s not sure.
There are two staircases on this side of the house: the grand staircase is filled with old portraits and always forces Steve to remember that he’s in a museum as much as he is in someone’s home; the smaller, private staircase is the one you have to know about to find. He recognizes the agent standing on watch down the hall and gets a smile in return for his own. At least not everyone is as stone faced and serious as Rumlow.
He makes it to the second floor and rounds the corner to Bucky’s suite. It’s as far from the President’s bedroom as you can get without leaving the main body of the house and despite the fact that there is supposed to be more freedom up here, there is still an agent standing at Bucky’s door and there has been for as long as Steve can remember.
He doesn’t recognize this one. He’s a stern faced man, probably in his mid thirties and he pins Steve with a searching stare before Rumlow nods his head, giving Steve the stamp of approval.
It’s times like this when Steve understands why Bucky takes so much pleasure in driving them crazy. He can’t endorse it, not when they are only doing their jobs, but he gets it. He, unlike Bucky, can see both sides of things. He gets their overprotectiveness; lord knows he’s not much better himself sometimes, but he does understand why Bucky is so frequently miserable when he’s at home. It’s not nice feeling like you are a prisoner in your own house.
The agent turns and knocks on the door, “Mr Barnes, your guest is here.”
Steve hears Bucky’s voice from the other side of the door and his spine straightens with anticipation. “So let him in, asswipe.”
Steve shoots the agent a semi-apologetic smile and doesn’t get so much as a twitch for his effort. At least they are professional he supposes.
The agent opens and closes the door behind Steve as he steps into Bucky’s room. It looks exactly like he remembers it, halfway between an exquisitely decorated museum and the home of a stoned musician with a questionable taste in just about everything.
The bed is unmade and there is sheet music everywhere. Bucky’s not in the main room, or the sitting room off to the right, but Steve can hear movement in the en-suite and he can’t help but tug at his collar.
He knows it’s his own fault that they’ve not seen each other for so long. He’s the one who has been caught up with his studies, with his responsibilities as a First Class Midshipman and Company Leader, and he’s the one who asked Bucky not to visit him in Annapolis any more. This strange, slightly queasy sensation in his stomach is all of his own making, but then Bucky has always been able to make him feel this way - like he’s not sure if he’s about to dance with anticipation or throw up from nerves.
Steve just…whenever they spend a significant time apart, he can’t help but worry about the things that might change between them. Not that Steve really knows what … things are, at any point in time. He knows what they aren’t, but that’s about as far as he’s ever got at drawing the lines in the sand with his relationship with Bucky.
But then Bucky comes out of the bathroom, his short hair uncombed and tousled, the jeans, t-shirt and novelty socks looking completely out of place against silk wallpaper and deep pile carpets. He looks across the room at Steve with the same bright, intense eyes Steve remembers, his mouth curved up in a sinful smile, and Steve forgets why he ever worried.
At least until Bucky’s smile drops into something almost unhappy. Then Steve picks up the worry where he left off. “Bucky?” He asks, made nervous by that frown and the weight in Bucky's gaze.
Bucky licks his lips, his eyes raking down Steve before they pin him with a look so full of heat Steve’s toes practically curl. “You total fucking bastard,” Bucky says, suddenly spurring into motion and stalking across the room.
Steve feels heat pool into his stomach and he takes an involuntary step back. Then another. And another, until his back hits the wall and there is nowhere to go to avoid the look Bucky is giving him as he closes the distance between them. “Um, hi?” Steve tries. “Sorry I’m late? I drove right here, I didn’t-“
“I swear you fucking do it on purpose,” Bucky scowls at him. “Every single fucking time.” Bucky swears worse than a sailor which, given that Steve technically is a sailor, he feels that is saying something.
“I? What?” Steve stammers. “What did I do?”
Bucky doesn’t answer him. Bucky doesn’t actually say anything.
He gets to within a couple of inches of Steve, then drops to his knees.
Oh.
Oh. Right.
It’s not that Steve has forgotten how much Bucky likes his uniform - it’s not actually possible to ever forget, not with the number of times Bucky’s made it graphically clear - but it hadn’t been the first thing on his mind when driving over here. He’d been too worried about being late to really care, and now he’s standing there, the full weight of Bucky’s hungry gaze gluing him in place, still in his Summer Whites, his cap still tucked under his arm.
“I -- ah, didn’t have time to change,” Steve manages and almost congratulates himself for how steady is voice actually comes out. “I just jumped in the car and drove straight here!”
“You’re a fucking menace, Rogers, I swear to God,” Bucky whispers, his voice dropping to a low growl that has blood rushing straight to Steve’s dick. He looks up at Steve, his blue eyes all hunger, and he carefully wets his lips, fingers tugging at the catch of Steve’s pants.
Whatever protest Steve might have tried to vocalize -- something about their meal and how they had a reservation and they hadn’t even locked the door -- flies straight out of the window as Bucky buries his face in Steve’s crotch, mouthing openly at the hard line of Steve’s dick through his boxer briefs.
“Fuck.” Steve’s heartbeat goes straight into overdrive as he drops his cap, both hands shooting forward to settle on Bucky’s shoulders. Steve’s thumbs softly caress the bare expanse of skin where his neck meets his collarbone. “Bucky--”
Bucky makes a soft humming noise, tongue dragging filthily against the head of Steve’s dick through the thin cotton of his underwear. He blinks up at Steve through long eyelashes, pulls back enough so that his mouth’s barely an inch from Steve’s crotch, pink and soft and glistening with spit, and fuck Steve hasn’t wanted anyone more than he wants Bucky.
He swallows a moan as Bucky smirks up at him, teasing and taunting in equal measure. With a quick, practiced gesture, he tugs Steve's boxer briefs down past his balls, freeing his leaking cock. “You gonna fuck my mouth or what, Sailor?” Bucky asks him coyly.
“Oh fuck,” Steve breathes, one of his hands travelling up to tighten in Bucky’s hair, dragging him closer as he spreads his legs wider apart. Bucky keeps Steve pinned with that burning, predatory gaze as he takes Steve’s dick in his hand and guides it into his mouth. Steve’s breath catches in his throat as soon as that tight, wet heat closes around him and grips Bucky’s hair harder, forces himself in deeper.
Bucky’s eyes roll in the back of his head, whimpering as he breathes through his nose, fingernails raking down Steve’s thighs and then up again, over his chest, making Steve gasp with an addictive blend of pleasure and pain. Bucky tugs the buttons of Steve’s shirt open to slide his hands underneath, leaving red, angry marks as he digs his nails in Steve’s stomach.
“God,” Steve whispers breathlessly. His right hand cups Bucky’s face, thumb stroking Bucky’s cheekbone with a tenderness Steve can’t help. “God, Buck. Look at you.”
Bucky opens his eyes, just a sliver of blue circling his pupils, and the look he pins Steve with is so challenging it takes his breath away. Bucky’s throat works around a swallow, cheeks hollowing out as he sucks, and Steve’s knees lock, his groan echoing loudly in the quiet suite.
Bucky’s nails dig harder into the V of Steve’s hips, thumbs pressing impatiently under the jut of his hipbone, and Steve gets the message, tightens his grip in Bucky’s hair. He’s rewarded by a soft, keening sound that makes his cock throb and leak at the back of Bucky’s throat. He draws back, tilts Bucky’s head just so as he pushes back in, heat pooling into his belly as Bucky moans obscenely around him, arches his back as he spreads his knees further apart, one of his hands dropping to squeeze his own erection in the confines of his skinny jeans.
“Nuh-huh,” Steve tugs at Bucky’s hair, pulling him back until his cock drops out of Bucky’s spit-shiny lips. Bucky lets out a positively lewd moan as he inches forward, trying to take Steve in his mouth again. “That’s my job, remember?”
Bucky whimpers, but he obediently places his hand back on Steve’s thigh, his hips still rolling helplessly. The sight alone has drops of precome leak down the lenght of Steve’s cock, because fuck, Bucky must not even be aware that he’s moving, doing anything he can to try and relieve the pressure of his cock against the inseam of his pants.
“Steve,” Bucky whispers, his voice ragged and fucked raw, fingernails digging harder against Steve’s hips, leaving marks that won’t fade for days. The thought sends a shiver down Steve’s spine and he grows impossibly harder. “Please.”
Steve takes himself in his hand, and Bucky moans as he wraps his lips around Steve’s cock, a trail of spit and precome leaking from the corner of his stretched lips. Bucky swallows, and Steve uses the grip he still has in his hair to hold him at that angle as he fucks in with short, sharp thrusts of his hips that steal the breath out of Bucky’s lungs, drawing soft, mewling sounds that send whatever little blood there was left in his system straight to Steve’s dick.
Bucky all but writhes under him, hands braced on Steve’s hips as he lets him fuck his mouth with abandon. He’s got long, elegant fingers, soft with skin that’s never seen a days work in his life. Steve has known almost as much privilege himself, but he’s also got years of weapons drills and outdoor recces under his belt. They are weather and sea worn, and he knows they feel rough against Bucky’s scalp. Rougher still when he strokes his fingers over Bucky’s cheek, feels the shape of his dick inside his mouth.
Bucky whimpers, spit trailing down his chin, catching on Steve’s fingers as he thumbs the seam of his lips, stretched wide around Steve’s cock. Steve thinks about sliding his thumb in, see how wide he can stretch that sinful mouth, but he’s close, too close.
Bucky…” He cradles Bucky’s face with one hand while the other tightens in his hair, slowly pulling him back until his cock falls out of Bucky’s wet, abused lips.
Bucky sucks in a harsh breath, his chest heaving a little with the force of his pants. He bites back a groan as he lets his forehead fall on the juncture of Steve’s thigh. “Fuck,” he whispers, and his voice is so brittle and raw, Steve has to grip on the base of his cock, hard, teeth sinking in his bottom lip to stop himself from coming.
“Fuck, Steve. Fuck,” Bucky ducks his head, mouths filthily along the side of Steve’s cock, wet, sloppy licks that cut Steve at the knees.
“I’m --I’m not gonna l-last--” Steve’s voice cracks as Bucky sucks at the tip of his dick.
“Don’t want you to,” Bucky moans, opening his eyes and staring at Steve with pure, liquid want in his gaze. Steve has to bite down on his bottom lip, hard, or else he’s gonna go and say something absolutely stupid, like how much he missed him, how much every fiber of his being aches with the need of him, of them. Never breaking eye contact, Bucky wraps his hand around the base, his hand stroking up just as he sinks down with his mouth. Steve all but keens, his hands winding back into Bucky’s hair as he feels his orgasm building, tingling at the back of his spine as Bucky twists and pulls and sucks.
“I…shit, Buck…Bucky, you gotta…” Steve’s whole body stiffens, taut as a string, and then he’s coming, hard and fast and sudden, his fingers tight in Bucky’s hair as his hips stutter helplessly through his orgasm. Bucky swallows all he can, and he’s shaking too, his eyes closed, eyelashes wet against his cheekbones. Steve whispers his name like a prayer as gently eases him back, fingers stroking down Bucky’s beautiful face, tender and sweet over Bucky’s mouth. Bucky licks his lips, tongue catching on Steve’s fingers, and when he opens his eyes, they’re hooded and predatory.
“Asshole,” he tells him, his voice broken, utterly fucked out and rough as he reaches up to tuck Steve back into his pants. “You’re the fucking worst.”
Steve wants to quip back, but it’s taking all his training and willpower just to stay upright. He shakily draws his fingers lower down Bucky’s face, catches the come that’s dribbled down his chin as Bucky leans his head against Steve’s thigh, working to catch his own breath.
“You know what that uniform does to me,” Bucky complains.
“Sorry,” Steve finally manages, not in the least bit so. He’s going to need a shower, they both are. No way are they making their table reservation now.
“No you’re not,” Bucky says, amusement and accusation alike in his tone. Steve cards his other hand through Bucky’s hair again, softer this time, down his neck and shoulder, until he can tuck it under Bucky’s arm and tug him up. Bucky goes willingly, climbing to his feet as Steve uses the grip to pull him in a kiss, loving the way Bucky’s swollen lips immediately part against his own, how he can taste himself on his tongue.
“Hi,” Bucky says when they part, his eyes bright and warm.
“Hi,” Steve echoes, brushing his fingers lightly across Bucky’s cheek. God, he’s missed him. He leans in again, takes Bucky’s lower lip in his teeth as he lowers his hand to Bucky’s zipper. “I think we’re gonna miss our table.”
“We can order in,” Bucky says breathlessly. A tremor racks through him as Steve drags his palm up and down Bucky’s erection. Steve bites at Bucky’s chin, trailing kisses down his neck, feeling Bucky’s answering shiver as he sucks a bruise in the soft skin of Bucky’s exposed collarbone. He purposely misses the pink scar that curls around the side of his throat and Bucky turns his head, runs his fingers through Steve’s hair as he whispers, “Wanna come fuck me in the shower?”
Steve doesn’t have to think twice about that one. He surges forward, hauls Bucky over his shoulder and marches towards the bathroom. Bucky’s laughter echoing around them as he lands a sharp pinch to his ass that makes Steve yelp. “Have I told you how much I like the uniform?” Bucky laughs. “Especially from this angle?”
“You might have mentioned it,” Steve says dryly, throwing open the bathroom door.
He’s not all that hungry, anyway.
In the shower, Steve takes his time to take Bucky apart, pushing him up against the marble tiles as the steam billows around them, jerking him off as slow as he dares as he opens Bucky up with his fingers, one at a time, until Bucky’s pounding his fists against the wall, soft, broken gasps filling the air, pleading, begging Steve to let him come. Steve obliges, then hauls Bucky up, boneless and hazy, pushes him up against the slippery shower wall, and fucks him so hard it’s a miracle they don’t attract an armed response team with the sounds Bucky makes.
After, when they are actually clean, they flop out across the bed. Steve’s wearing a pair of Bucky’s boxers, but he spots his overnight bag propped against a chair by the door. It makes him both twitchy and possessive to think that someone was in the room while they were just a door away, but while Steve is embarrassed, Bucky doesn’t seem phased by it. He’s used to this life by now, he lives it every day, has lived with it since he was twelve and one not too dissimilar before that. Bucky’s probably the only person he knows who can claim to live a life of stricter rules than the one Steve does.
Bucky’s freedoms are different: more restricted in a lot of respects, but limitless in others. For the next six days, they are Steve’s, as well.
“I can’t believe they’ve actually let you out of that hell hole,” Bucky says, his head against Steve’s thigh and a cigarette clamped between his lips. Steve doesn’t smoke and he can’t say he likes the habit on anyone else, but it’s pretty low on Bucky’s list of vices and he can’t deny it feeds a little into the oral fixation he develops whenever he is in Bucky’s proximity.
“It’s hardly a hell hole,” Steve finds himself repeating the same old conversation, but with none of the heat it’s held in the past. Bucky’s got a weird thing about the Navy: he hates it for reasons Steve has yet to fathom, and he loves it because Steve does. Like most things about him, it’s unpredictably complicated.
“At least I get you to myself for a week,” Bucky muses. “That’s something. Thought you’d gone and forgotten about me.”
Bucky calls Steve - usually more drunk than sober - every other night. In no possible world can Steve forget him. Even when he tries, there’s always some reminder that springs out of nowhere and smacks him in the face. And god, Steve has tried.
“Hardly,” Steve says, running his fingers idly through Bucky’s hair. “But you know I’ve got to study, remember? No wild parties every night.” Steve can’t remember having worked so hard his whole life, and he’s always been something of an overachiever. There’s as much expectation as there is privilege attached to his name and he’s been adamant to prove himself as something more than just a legacy ever since he’s been old enough to understand the word.
“Fine, fine,” Bucky says, waving a dismissive hand. “We’ll be boring and I’ll help you study. Not tonight though; tonight I have plans for us. And tomorrow it’s the Donor's Gala, and if I have to suffer through that shit, so do you. I’ll let you have Monday off to play at being a responsible adult.”
“How generous of you,” Steve laughs. “I mean it, Buck. I gotta study.”
Bucky climbs over him to stub his cigarette out in the ashtray on the bedside table, then straddles Steve’s lap. “And I promise I will help,” he says, his eyes full of mischief.
“I doubt that,” Steve snorts. The thing is, Steve is studying for a Masters in Political Science. When Bucky does help him study, he always offers a unique view on the world he’s been saturated in since birth. He claims to hate ‘the game’ as he calls it, but no one can argue that Bucky doesn’t understand it.
Bucky grins at him then climbs off the bed. “Whatever,” he says, “now come on, get some clothes on. Sex makes me hungry.”
“Thought we were ordering in?” Steve says, climbing off the bed and walking over to collect his bag.
“Changed my mind,” Bucky announces, pulling on a pair of tight black jeans and a white t-shirt that’s so old and worn it’s practically transparent in places. He throws a butter soft leather jacket over it and Steve genuinely questions his need to eat. He loves everything about that jacket - especially peeling Bucky out of it. “I’m sick of this fucking room.”
Steve can’t say he blames him for that, so he dresses quickly and more conservatively, just a pair of jeans and a blue button down shirt. Bucky gives him the once over, and grins. “Christ, Rogers, one look at you and no one would ever imagine you were a sexual deviant.”
“I’m the sexual deviant?” Steve exclaims, pausing as he laces up his shoes. “How am I the protagonist in this little scenario of yours?”
“You just fucked me in Lincoln’s bathroom,” Bucky smirks. He does love to remind Steve of all the ways he’s defiling history, and he never misses an opportunity to see Steve squirm, blush and stutter in his embarrassment.
“For the last time, Lincoln never slept here!” Steve has to cling on to that hope, because Jesus Christ, he pledges allegiance to the flag twice a goddamn day and it’s bad enough he knows what the President’s son looks like when he’s stuffed full of Steve’s dick. He doesn’t need Honest Abe’s face in his head while he does it.
Bucky ignores his protest and opens his door. “We’re going out,” he tells the agent on the door, not a hint of shame in his expression, despite the fact that the man clearly knows what they have both been up to.
“Yes sir,” The agent responds, “I’ll advise Agent Rumlow.”
“Agent Rumlow’s a cunt.” Bucky says rudely. He pauses, cocks his head to one side and looks the Agent up and down slowly. “You’re new. Who the fuck are you?”
“Agent Barton, sir.” He responds, unfazed by the aggression in Bucky’s voice. “Agent Wilson and I transfered to your detail yesterday.”
“Right,” Bucky says, his annoyance morphing into a rather unpleasant smile, “How you liking Siberia so far?”
“Siberia, sir?” Barton asks, actually looking at Steve for an explanation.
“They put you on my detail, right?” Bucky asks, leading the way down the hall. He takes the grand staircase, not the small, private one. “They tell you how many of you guys I’ve driven to retirement yet?”
“It never came up in conversation, sir.” Steve, who follows behind them, doesn’t think he is mistaking the hint of amusement he hears in Barton’s voice.
“It will,” Bucky says, matter of fact, “You’re with me until you have a nervous breakdown, prove you’re an inhuman fucking robot like Rumlow, or I get you shot.”
Steve tenses a little, but doesn’t say anything. There’s a lot of things he doesn’t say when Bucky gets like this.
“I managed three tours in Afghanistan, sir. I think I’ll be fine.” Barton says dryly.
“Don’t say that,” Steve mutters a little desperately, “He’ll take it as a challenge.”
Bucky laughs and Steve can’t help the swell of pity he feels for Barton. Bucky might joke about it, but he’s not lying when he says he’s driven more than one agent to retirement and a couple to a nervous breakdown.
“Can I tell Agent Rumlow where we are headed, sir?” Barton asks as they reach the ground floor. There’s a black town car waiting for them in the driveway. Bucky’s parents bought him a Lexus when he turned sixteen and to the best of Steve’s knowledge they have never let him get his license. Steve doesn’t even bother suggesting he drives. He knows they are both going to be drinking tonight, and drinking heavily. One of the best things about being with Bucky is that he can loosen up and relax from the obligations and expectations that hang over his head every day of the week. With Bucky he can get blisteringly drunk and act his age without being judged for it. Sometimes Steve needs that.
“No,” Bucky says flatly, giving Barton a cold scowl, “You can’t.”
But Rumlow is waiting for them by the car, alongside a broad-chested man who shares a questioning glance with Barton - Agent Wilson, perhaps? They seem to know each other. “You know I need your itinerary, sir,” Rumlow says, his voice calm and patient, but with an edge to it that says neither are inexhaustible.
Sometimes Steve isn’t sure what Agent Fury had been thinking when he made Rumlow head of Bucky’s detail - he’s the polar opposite of Dum Dum, and he and Bucky quite obviously despise one another. Then he just has to remember why Dum Dum isn’t the one affectionately telling Bucky he’s a little shit. He just has to glimpse that pink scar on Bucky’s neck. Then he remembers. Rumlow might not be the friendliest of guys, but he’s a necessary evil.
“It’s called spontaneity,” Bucky glares at Rumlow and Steve isn’t sure which of them will win, “Look it up.”
“How about we go to Toki?” Steve suggests, eager to put a stop to what he knows is only going to escalate into a temper tantrum on Bucky’s part that will sour the whole night. “Come on, Bucky, it’s been ages since I had good kimchi!” He gives Bucky what he knows is his best pleading look and sighs with relief when some of the hostility drains from his posture.
“Okay, sure,” Bucky agrees, giving in easily because he thinks Steve actually gives a fuck about what they eat. “Call ahead,” he tells Rumlow, “Get us a reservation for dinner. Try not to look too conspicuous when you’re pretending not to be listening in on our conversation. ”
Steve sighs as he follows Bucky into the back of the car. When Bucky acts like this he can almost understand why Rumlow responds the way he does. Sometimes Steve can hardly see the kid Bucky used to be-- quiet, painfully polite, shy, but so endearingly earnest, who wanted to please everyone. Now he’s moody more often than not, angry, reckless, vicious. He’s so many different things to so many different people that the real him seems to be getting pushed deeper and deeper into the shadows.
As soon as the door closes, the tension eases from Bucky’s shoulders and he presses against Steve’s side, calm and sweet, and more like the guy Steve knows best. It’s when he’s like this that Steve can see the real Bucky most clearly. The fact that he can switch so quickly between the two is more than a little disconcerting sometimes.
Steve lets his arm curl around Bucky’s shoulders and runs his fingers idly down the nape of his neck. Most of the trip passes in silence, until Bucky wriggles and pulls a little pouch from the back of his jeans. Steve’s heart sinks when he catches sight of the brightly colored tabs inside.
“Bucky…” he says, only a hint of the despair he’s really feeling coloring his voice.
“Relax, Steve,” Bucky says, placing one against his tongue and then cuddling closer against Steve’s side, “it’s not like I’m snorting coke off your junk.” He doesn’t offer anything to Steve - he never has and he’s ripped more than one person apart for trying. The Academy has a very strict no drugs policy and they test regularly. Bucky doesn’t like it very much, but he knows what it means to Steve and he’s never once threatened his career.
But that doesn’t mean he won’t take anything himself just because Steve is with him. If anything, he’s more likely to. Steve hasn’t been out with Bucky while he’s been stone cold sober since they were both seventeen.
He flashes Steve that dangerous grin and Steve knows he won’t say anything else. At least it’s just E-- it’s been over three years since he made Bucky swear off coke, and though he knows he’s not kicked the habit in its entirety, Bucky seems happy enough to limit himself when he’s with Steve.
Well, if you consider E and as much alcohol as his liver can stand a limit. Which, Steve realizes with a surge of sadness, in Bucky’s case, it is.
Bucky can tell the exact moment when Steve caves and his eyes light up. “There we go!” He laughs, looping his arm around Steve’s neck. “Come on, I promise we’ll have a good night and I won’t get you into trouble this time.” It always takes a while for the drug to hit him, especially given how long he’s been using, but just having taken it has enough of a placebo effect to relax him even more, leaving him all smiles and happiness at Steve’s side.
He’s never this happy when he’s sober. That says more than Steve is really comfortable exploring and it makes him wonder, not for the first time, if he’s gone and picked his career over Bucky. Would things be different if Steve hadn’t tried to push him away? If he'd have gone to college with Bucky instead of following the rest of his family into the Navy. If he'd have...
"You always get me into trouble." Steve points out, trying to stomp down on that train of thought.
“Yeah, but you enjoy it,” Bucky grins, “Don’t pretend you don’t."
That’s the problem, really. In many ways, he does. If Steve were stronger, he’d put his foot down. He’d not let Bucky go out and get wasted - he’d certainly not join in - and he’d force him to get help, even if it meant losing him.
Steve knows Bucky’s parents are well aware of the problem but they’ve overindulged him out of guilt for years now and on a purely political point, they simply don’t want to deal with the scandal that Bucky checking into rehab would create. He’s been America’s darling boy since his teens and that carries a certain currency they aren’t willing to risk.
The President and First Lady might have Steve’s highest respects professionally, but they are the worst kind of parents for someone like Bucky.
Steve lets his arm tighten around Bucky’s shoulders and tries to pretend that he doesn’t light up inside with the power of Bucky’s smile. “So what exactly are these plans of yours, once we’ve had dinner?”
Bucky laughs at him. “Frat party, Rogers. Sure you’ve heard of them.”
That…that’s not what Steve expects. “Frat party.” He echoes.
"Yep. Keg stands. Beer Pong. It told you, it’s gonna be fun." There’s something defensive in the set to his shoulders that makes Steve think he’s responded in entirely the wrong way.
"Someone invited you to a frat party? And you said yes?" He means it as a joke, but Bucky’s mouth forms a tight line of unhappiness. “We’re not leaving the state, right?” Steve asks hesitantly, holding his hands up quickly when Bucky scowls, “Just asking!”
"You aren’t my only friend, Rogers." It’s not a lie. Everyone loves Bucky. They might not know him, but it’s impossible not to love him - unless you’re trying to keep his stubborn ass out of trouble.
He gives Bucky a friendly little shove and forces himself to smile. “Beer pong? Really? They teach that at Princeton?”
"And they don’t in the Navy?"
Officially, no. They aren’t allowed to drink, period. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Unofficially it happens alot. But why let on that Steve’s a pro when he can hustle Bucky Barnes when he least expects it. “Why would they teach us that?” He says, not lying because he’s not that calculating.
"Oh you’ve got no idea, pal." Bucky says, shadows chased away and his smile glorious again. "You ready to get your ass handed to you, Sailor?"
"Sure," Steve says easily, thinking that maybe if he keeps Bucky smiling this way he can ignore all the things he should be doing instead. "It’ll be fun."