Work Text:
Week One
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Bucky mumbled, scanning the assignments outside the lab. “This has got to be a joke. ”
“What are you muttering about?” Natasha looked up from her work station just inside, where she was preparing her materials for the day’s lab. It was something simple, a few steps meant to get a tiny bit of product. Test for purity and voila. An easy first lab for the semester.
“Did you see my partner assignment?”
“No,” she snorted. “Believe it or not, I was only scanning for mine.”
“I’m changing my name." His eyes scanned down the list as he thought of all the possible universes that he was paired with literally anyone else. “Oh, fuck me, this was supposed to be a good semester.”
Natasha sighed with his dramatics, finally rising to see what the fuss was all about. “It can’t be that b-- oh, no.” Her eyes went wide when she saw the name next to James Barnes. But there it was, in black and white: Steven Rogers.
“Natasha, I’m actually going to die,” he whined. “You saw him last semester. He almost blew up the goddamn lab before Wilson jumped on him.” And before Steve was Bucky’s problem, it was actually pretty fucking funny to watch. Nat and Banner and Stark and Bucky would share furtive glances whenever Steve would try to do anything except listen and try to soak in the lesson, his huge football body so out-of-place in the lab. “Why is he even in orgo? There are baby science classes he could take for his requirements.”
“Oh, he’s a chem minor. He has to,” she said easily. Bucky looked at her with a mix of betrayal. How could she have any information on his burden of a lab partner? She shrugged in response. “He’s nice. He came in for tutoring sometimes.”
“Better you than me,” he shook his head, hoping to God Steve would continue avoiding his tutoring hours.
“Please don’t be too mean to him,” she sighed. “Really, he’s not very bright but--”
“If he fucks up my grade, all bets are off.” And that was that, Bucky going to his own workstation and fighting the urge to send everything onto the floor. Orgo was fucking stressful to begin with, but now he was responsible for finding things to do with Steve Rogers that wouldn’t endanger him and his fellow classmates, let alone his grade. He needed this. He needed this semester to go well, desperately. He was eligible for some internships starting that summer, some labs with junior positions open.
Steve Rogers would not mess this up.
Bucky watched the clock tick closer to the start of the afternoon’s lab, seething quietly and plotting his introduction for minimal interruption into his life. And two minutes to the start of class, Steve Rogers entered, huge and smiley and muscular and, yes, goddammit, handsome as all hell. He came in with a huge group of students who seemed to buzz around him, looking for approval and getting it instantly from the sunshine that seemed to deflect off the guy’s perfect teeth.
Steve scanned the room until he found Bucky, and he watched--with some victory--as he took in the grumpy, serious expression Bucky wore, and Steve’s face fell a bit. He still answered as his friends said their goodbyes to him, but his eyes were distracted as he made his way over to the lab table.
“Uh, hey,” he said, offering one of his smiles and clamoring onto the lab stool. “I’m Steve.”
“I know,” Bucky huffed. “You were Sam’s partner last semester.”
“You know Sam Wilson?” He was somehow smiling brighter.
“I shared your lab table,” he dead-panned, and while Bucky wasn’t crazy about Steve, it always stung a little to hear how much he could fade into the background for people like him. “But yeah, I know Sam, too.” Bucky looked up to see Steve’s face cloud over, real sadness taking residence where his smiles had been.
“I’m really sorry,” Steve apologized, like he kicked a puppy instead of the reality: that Bucky was one person in a big lab and had quietly succeeded enough to slip under his radar. He made direct eye contact with Bucky, his big blue eyes offering just a little too much kindness for him to hold his glare. “I don’t know how we didn’t talk.”
“It’s fine.” Bucky shifted, a little uncomfortable, as his mind screamed but is it fine?! “I just…” he was about to lay the groundwork for their partnership when his professor started speaking.
Bucky was distracted during Dr. Fury’s opening speech. He could guess it went similarly to the one he delivered in organic chemistry’s lecture hall, explaining that this was tough, that 25% of the class would fail, and that was not a mistake. It thrilled Bucky to hear that, to look around the room and see the way that some students swallowed harder than others, knowing they were part of that and hoping against hope to keep their chin above water.
He went through the basic lab safety spiel, his tone flat and even as he explained various bodily injuries one could get with the wrong substance splashing on them. He detailed the importance of safety goggles, staring with his one eye around the room like a cautionary tale. Bucky thought it was too on-the-nose to be the actual truth, losing his eye in a lab, but he liked the theatrics of a brilliant man just the same. He went on to needing close-toed shoes and that’s when Bucky heard a whispered, “Oh, shit,” from his lab partner.
“What?” he hissed out of the corner of his mouth. He slid his eyes to Steve, who was staring at his shoes. Fucking flip-flops. “Are you kidding me?”
“I didn’t know,” Steve whispered back.
“You were in a lab last semester!”
“I know but I--”
“Rogers! Barnes!” Fury barked from the front of the room. “I know you aren’t whispering sweet nothings to each other while I try to protect your lives in my lab.”
“No sir,” Steve answered for them, since Bucky was mute and mortified. This was terrible. This was a nightmare. His lab partner was a football himbo wearing flip-flops in the lab, and he was going to fail. He was going to be the 25%. Fury got back to running through the rest of the safety rules, and Bucky felt his palms sweat as he silently spiraled into rage at Steve and at himself for letting his chaos get in his way.
“Sorry,” Steve muttered when Fury was done. Bucky shook his head and pushed off the desk to go get the supplies they needed.
“I’ll get the stuff,” he said simply. He went to the closet, trying to ignore Natasha looking up at him expectantly. “Where’s the salicylic acid?” he asked to no one in particular.
“Here,” she still answered, handing him a vial. “You okay?”
“Besides feeling like, once again, God wakes up every morning and checks that I’m still alive just so he can fuck with me? Yeah, I’m okay,” Bucky replied, shooting her a fake smile. “Just peachy.”
“So dramatic,” she muttered, walking away to her workstation. It was easy for her to say. She didn’t get stuck with the epitome of vacant masculinity for her lab partner. He got the materials and came back to the work station, setting up in front of Steve, who had started talking to literally anyone within ear shot.
How did he do that? It wasn’t even a mean question this time, just a fascination with the socially comfortable that Bucky long since gave up trying to understand. Science, math, they made sense. He could work out clear equations and formulas and mechanisms and arrive at a clear expectation, and then bring that expectation to fruition.
“What can I help with?” Steve asked brightly.
That tone? After all the glaring and the hissing and the avoiding eye contact? It just did not add up. There was no formula that could lead to that. And Bucky didn’t know quite how to handle it.
“Nothing would be helpful,” Bucky said before he could stop himself. He averted his eyes from what was sure to be another kicked puppy expression. “Look, I’m just gonna be real with you. I can’t fuck up this lab. Fury’s got open positions in his lab, and I need to look good for those, okay? This isn’t just a checked box on my requirements,” he told him honestly. “It’s nothing personal but--”
“But you’re smarter,” Steve supplied, a sad smile on his lips. He ducked his head, a motion that would never work to make him seem small. He was way too big for that. “I get it.”
“You do?” Bucky furrowed his brow. He was being an asshole; he knew that. And Steve was taking it in stride.
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “I wore flip-flops.”
Bucky snorted at that. “Yeah, you really can’t do that after today.”
“I know. I won’t,” he smiled, back to that easy, blinding, handsome smile that he beamed all across campus. “I do wanna help, when I can. I’ll listen. Promise.” His face was clear of any agenda. His eyes were clear, wide, authentic. Steve Rogers was huge, and Bucky had a sneaking suspicion he was going to be useless at best, disastrous at worst, but...Natasha was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He was nice.
“Can you draw structures?” Bucky asked.
“Yeah, look,” Steve proudly opened his orgo notebook, neatly lined with graph paper for ease of line-drawings.
And this felt like a formula gone very wrong. His mouth parted in surprise as he looked it over.
Bucky had been forced into an art history class freshman year, the school’s liberal arts core demanding it. And he hadn’t been much impressed with most of the pieces, or the way they were analyzed. Some were good, some were bad, some were pretty, some were weird. That should’ve been the extent, in his opinion. And when he got to orgo, with its emphasis on drawing molecules, he felt a similar sort of frustration, though often turned to himself. His notebook was full of eraser marks, his lines uneven and confusing, running into each other when he made his structures too small for the amount of bonds between molecules. He could always see them in his mind, but drawing them out was hell for him, his hands just a little shaky.
Steve didn’t seem to have that problem because Steve’s notebook…that shit was just about the prettiest art Bucky had ever seen.
He couldn’t help himself from reaching out his fingers and running over the neat, perfect hexagons with their lines and perfect little letters for the attached elements. They looked straight out of a printed textbook. Steve didn’t move, the solid mass of him almost against Bucky’s side. “How long do these take you?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m quick,” Steve supplied cheerfully. To prove his point, he drew a quick acetyl salicylic acid, copying its structure from the sloppy one on the board, where the lab’s flowchart was. Bucky was mesmerized, his form perfect and confident and tiny, so at odds with how huge Steve’s hands were. “See?”
“Okay, well,” Bucky let out a laugh, “You can definitely write the lab report.”
Steve beamed and set to work to copy the entire flowchart on a new page. Bucky narrated what to include, Steve humming and asking him to repeat himself at certain points. Steve listened when Bucky asked for total concentration so he could carefully add the perfect amount of sulfuric acid before transferring the flask to a steam bath.
When it was transferred, Bucky saw Steve actually exhale.
“Were you holding your breath?” Bucky tilted his head.
“Didn’t want to disturb you,” Steve gave a sheepish smile. Bucky returned it for a moment, and it was Steve who cleared his throat and got the lab worksheet out again. “Okay, so we have this on the steam bath for ten minutes?”
“Yep,” Bucky noted proudly. “How’s the lab report looking?” Steve passed it to him, and Bucky looked over the perfect printed handwriting, the beautiful equations with perfect structures, just as Bucky described them to Steve. He had to admit; it looked better than his solo reports, just on a purely aesthetic level. “How do you draw like this?”
“It’s like doodling,” Steve shrugged. “I always doodled in school. It’s why I took orgo.”
“You took orgo for the doodling,” Bucky couldn’t hide his disbelief.
“I couldn’t take an art class for a chem minor, so...this seemed like the closest thing,” he smiled again, and Bucky couldn’t fucking believe this guy. Organic chemistry was the stuff of nightmarish legends. It was purposefully placed in sophomore year to discourage students from declaring their major before the really hard shit began. And here was Steve Rogers, who said he was there willingly because it was his best chance at drawing pictures.
“You’re really something, Steve Rogers,” Bucky sighed, shaking his head. He slid the notebook back to him. “This is lookin’ really good.”
“Thanks,” he straightened up like a Golden Retriever receiving praise.
The rest of the lab passed quickly, Bucky focusing on the steps needed to purify the product, using the vacuum filtration precisely and carefully to discard what he needed to. He watched as he rounded out the lab, recrystallizing the product from ethyl acetate. He let a triumphant smile rest on his face. There it was: perfectly white, 1.67 grams of pure aspirin.
He looked at Steve, expecting a similar joy after their rough start. All Bucky found was his face contorted into an uncomfortable looking seriousness. He noticed Bucky looking at him, and looked back to the product. “That’s it?” he asked.
Bucky huffed. “It’s a good yield.” He felt defensive of his little 1.67 grams.
“Oh! Okay,” Steve recovered. “Um. Good job.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled, already cleaning up the work station. “Thanks for the lab report. We’ll do it again next week like this?”
“Me doing the lab report while you do the lab?” Steve checked. Bucky nodded, still cleaning. “Sure, okay.”
“Great,” Bucky even flashed him a courtesy smile.
Week Two
“How’s that report going, Rogers?” Bucky couldn’t help but bounce on his toes, a little anxious to see what Steve had been working on for so long on their lab paper. He’d been covering it up, only half on-purpose, with his huge forearms, so Bucky couldn’t see.
“Almost done,” he said, the tip of his tongue resting between his lips, deep in concentration. Bucky looked at the stopwatch he’d set...just a few seconds more… “Okay!” Steve said, suddenly triumphant. He tried to push the lab report under Bucky’s nose.
He pushed it away, “One second,” but he shot Steve a little smile at his excitement. The timer had let him know the two minutes were up, so Bucky grabbed his pipet to remove the aqueous solution still floating around in the glass. Carefully, he transferred the solution to one of the canonical vials he had, and added just 1 mL of ethyl acetate to it. Then he set his timer again and turned to Steve, who was gaping at him. “What?” he smirked.
“Nothing,” Steve shook his head. “Nothing, you’re just...really good at this.”
“Thanks.” It was nicer than the I know he really wanted to say. He lifted his chin towards the notebook. “And you’re good at that so let’s see.”
Steve pushed the report over for Bucky to look over. Bucky was deep in thought, about to correct Steve on one tiny thing, when he spoke again, “You know, I was thinking about last semester, and I do remember you.”
Bucky looked up at that. “It’s fine if you don’t. I’m pretty quiet.”
“No, I do remember you,” Steve insisted. “You just cut your hair. Right? You had long hair last semester.”
Bucky titled his head. It was true. It was just about the cut-off before he’d need to start pinning it back for labs and he was too lazy to do it, so he cut his hair short and was mostly successful at ignoring his mother’s complaints over his beautiful, beautiful hair. “Yeah, I cut it.”
Steve made a little gesture in his seat like he had scored a mini touchdown. “Knew I’d remember you.”
Steve Rogers, Bucky was learning, was absolutely bizarre.
Week Three
“What’s your issue?” Bucky asked. Because Steve was sluggish in his “doodling” that day, even erasing and redrawing some lines, so unlike him.
“Honestly?” he lifted his head like it weighed a million pounds. His face, usually the picture of perfect health, all joy and winning smiles and enthusiasm, was now a sullen pinch of skin. He looked grey.
Bucky was a little weirded out by it. “Yeah.”
“I have the worst hangover I’ve ever had,” Steve murmured, and Bucky rolled his eyes.
“Well, that’s what you get for drinking on a Monday night,” he shrugged. Steve leaned his head in his hands and sighed. “Was there a... tailgate or something?” God, the word felt wrong even coming out of his lips. That’s what jocks did, right? That was their culture?
“No,” Steve murmured. “It was the anniversary of when my mom died.”
Bucky very nearly messed up the solution right there, having to fight to continue decanting the solution carefully. Shit. Even for him, that was an asshole move. Fuck. He focused hard, finishing the step so that when he had a second, he turned his full attention to Steve. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Thanks,” Steve said, reflexively, like he’d been saying it every time people hear his mom died, which Bucky supposed to be the case.
“No, really,” Bucky looked at him carefully. "Last night. Were you with other people?”
“Yeah, my guys,” he gave a small smile. Okay. He wasn't alone. Bucky had to remember that this was Steve Rogers, the guy that half the campus would drop anything for, especially if he was sad. And Bucky, who was still feeling sorry, was beginning to see why.
“I’m glad you have them,” Bucky offered his own. “But seriously, I’m sorry you lost your mom. And that I was a dick for your hangover.”
Steve nudged his shoulder with his own, “Pity makes hangovers worse. Don’t mention it.” He slid his lab report over. “You should maybe take a look at this. I’m not at my best today.”
“Yeah, we’re pretty much done so…”
“Really?” Steve looked at the clock. “It’s so early.”
“Well, I’m very good at this,” Bucky smirked. He was gratified to see a careful and slow smile spread across Steve’s face. “Come on, let’s finish up the report.” He and Steve went through the rest, fixing some of the structures along the way. And they did get out of there early.
“Hey,” Steve said, once they were outside the chem building. “You wanna grab coffee? You helped me out a lot today. And I could really use the caffeine.”
And Bucky didn’t know if it was the bags under his own eyes (chronic, untreatable, and not for the very little sleep he always got, he swears) or still wanting to make sure Steve was okay, but he answered right away, “Sure.”
Week Four
“You know I’m failing in lecture,” Steve says the next week, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like it was raining after he watched a forecast telling him it was going to rain. If it was Bucky saying that, he’d be 85% inside an active mental breakdown.
“Oh?” Bucky tried to mask his concern.
“This stuff makes sense. Like when you explain it, I can get this stuff all down,” he gestures at the report. “But then I get to the quizzes every week and I freak out. It’s like running perfect plays in practice and then completely shorting out when I get on the field. Fucking nightmare.”
Bucky knit his brow together. Steve had been improving, he thought. But Bucky didn’t know if it was him holding Steve’s hand through it or actual improvement. “Didn’t you used to see Natasha in tutoring?” he asked.
There was a pause before Steve answered. “Yeah,” he paused again, and he was watching Bucky. “Maybe it’s time to go back.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he offered a small smile.
A couple days later, though, as Bucky set up shop and prayed no students would come to his own tutoring hours so he could get his own work done, he got a text from Natasha.
Natasha: Heads-up, you have a new student
Bucky: Gross
Natasha: Save it…
Bucky: For what?
Natasha: It’s Steve
Bucky: Hey Nat?
Natasha: Yes?
Bucky: Murder me next time instead <3
Natasha: You’d love it too much <3
Bucky rubbed his eyes to prepare. He knew it was time for Nat to get going from her hours, so the reasonable explanation was Steve came within the last ten minutes and she said, very helpfully, that there were other hours starting in the classroom where Bucky liked to set up shop. Mostly because it had a whiteboard, and he needed to erase and redo his structures way too often for just pencil and paper.
And now Steve was coming. There. To his job where he spent most of his hours hoping no poor student actually wanted extra hours. It was a sweet deal, mostly. He could sit, do his problem sets in peace, and get paid for it.
But sometimes... sometimes. Very special students actually needed help. Like his lab partner. His lab partner, who came in with his football-issued backpack slung over his shoulder, dressed head-to-toe in a black Adidas sweatsuit.
Bucky snorted as soon as he came in, and covered his mouth.
Steve stopped in the doorway, “Fuck! You too?”
“What do you mean, you too?”
“It’s the tracksuit, isn’t it?”
Bucky blinked, “I mean. Yeah.”
Steve shook his head, zipping off the jacket with a force that seemed personal, left now only in sweatpants and a tight--too tight, perhaps--black T-shirt. “My friend Peggy--you know Peggy?”
“I don’t know many people,” Bucky admitted.
“She’s from the UK.”
“Oh, okay.” He still didn’t know who Steve was talking about.
“She told me I look like a chav,” he sighed, dropping into a chair. “But I like this.” He ran his hand over the material thoughtfully. He was doing it again, that vulnerable sort of softness that he showed in lab when he was hungover, or when he thought he hadn't remembered Bucky, or...maybe this was just who he was. Bucky didn’t know how to hold it, that softness. He wanted to throw it back like a game of hot potato.
“You can wear your track suit if you want,” Bucky offered, feeling only a little awkward.
Steve sighed, a rueful sound. “I know your true feelings now. It’s no use.” Bucky was dimly aware that he hadn’t stopped smiling since he laughed at Steve, and that he was still smiling when he noticed that Steve’s arms would be out if he wouldn’t put his jacket on again. Those huge arms. God, they were really something. They were big, sure, but they were also sculpted. The kind of muscles that Bucky thought only physiology models, stripped of skin in textbooks, could show off. But he bet that he could label every single little muscle and tendon on Steve's arms, crisscrossed by little veins, especially in those forearms, fuck. And when he saw the muscles twitch there, veiny near the wrist...well, that made his smile dampen just a little bit.
“I can put the jacket on…?” Steve said awkwardly.
Fuck. Steve was watching his eyes. Bucky shook his head to clear his thoughts and to reply., “Do whatever you want,” he said. Get serious.
“Okay,” Steve offered a smile, dropping it easily. “So...uh, Natasha said she was almost done, but I really needed some help with these problems from the week’s problem set.” Steve pointed over a few. Some were easy. Really fucking easy. But the last two were the tricky ones, so Bucky was gratified that at least he recognized when things were difficult.
“Yeah, we can go through those,” he nodded, shifting close to Steve to peer at his work from before, trying to locate where he was going wrong. They went through the mistakes first before trying new equations, shifting bonds around as Bucky pointed out when he was confusing the nomenclature before even drawing the structures.
It was when Steve was in the middle of a particularly long structure that Bucky zoned out. He couldn’t help it. There was something intricate and precious about the way that Steve’s pencil scratched out the structure, something like care, like he was carving marble instead of just simple lines and letters. It kinda broke Bucky’s heart a little, because it was so painfully clear that those fingers should be drawing something else but instead were dashing out harsh angles and hexagons and everything around them.
“Am I doing it wrong?” Steve asked.
“No, not at all.”
“You’re frowning.”
Bucky looked up to meet his eyes and shrugs. “Resting bitch face, I’m told.”
“I can make one of those.”
“Bullshit. You smile so much my cheeks hurt.”
But Steve composed his face into something serious right then, his chin defiant and his brow furrowed. His eyes looked dark and serious, his lips tense against one another. “This is the look I have to give during games.” He flicked his eyes at Bucky before going back to drawing the structure, still with that serious face. And Bucky hated how much he enjoyed that face. There was just something about it, something exciting in his energy, something deep and dark that Bucky...really liked.
“That’s a very good resting bitch face,” he said, grateful that his voice wasn’t as hoarse as he’d feared.
Steve softened his face, thank fuck, and slid his finished structure to Bucky to look over. “We have a game Friday, you know.”
“I did not know,” Bucky answered honestly.
“It’s a pretty big one,” Steve continued. And...did he sound sheepish? Bucky looked up at him then to see him looking at the whiteboard instead of Bucky. “You could come, if you want.”
“Trying to pack the stands?” he smirked.
“I mean,” Steve shrugged those big dumb shoulders. “Sure. It’s fun to hear everyone. But it’d be cool if you came.” He paused for a second as Bucky continued to look over the structure. “I’m starting.”
“That’s cool,” because it sounded like something important to Steve. “You excited?”
“Yeah,” he said reflexively, nodding, “Nervous, but yeah.”
Bucky finished checking the structure and passed it back to Steve, “This is perfect, by the way.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, nice job,” he smiled.
“Thanks,” Steve shifted, relaxing into his chair and looking like he was Steve Rogers, Ultimate Jock, and not a sheepish student in Bucky’s tutoring hours, telling Bucky he was nervous about a football game. He picked up his backpack, all done with his problem set. “So?”
“So…?” Bucky tried to understand.
“You gonna come on Friday?” Steve looked so hopeful. He looked so damn hopeful. But Bucky hated football. He hated school sports and football so much and--
“I can’t believe you got me drunk and took me to a football game,” Natasha groaned, head-butting into Bucky’s shoulder as he wrapped her close in the cold.
“In my defense,” Bucky started, “I am also drunk.”
“That’s a terrible defense.”
“My judgment isn’t sound right now. I’m absolved.”
“You’re gay is what you are,” Natasha retorts, and Bucky pulls his arms away from her for that. “Are we not here because of Steve?”
“What does Steve have to do with this?” Bucky hoped the heat in his cheeks could pass as drunk and cold rather than its truth.
“You have never once wanted to go to a game, and suddenly our school’s star player is your lab partner, and your newest tutoree and now we’re here?” Natasha asked.
Bucky shook his head. “I’m drunk.” But he wasn’t. He was buzzed at best. And he could remember the way Steve’s face got so serious over the structure he was working on, his hand flexed so tightly so he could make the tightest lines and Bucky didn’t have to stretch his imagination that hard to think of a few other ways Steve could get serious, could get his hand nice and tight and--
“I fucking hate football,” Bucky declared near halftime. He needed to go home. He had a problem to solve.
Week Five
They were grabbing coffee, like they had each time they finished early now, which was every lab, thank you very much. And somehow, the very loud football player that Bucky had watched come into lab weeks ago in flip flops and a wave of unadulterated social joy, had been thoughtfully quiet for some time. He’d found a nerve for Bucky.
“Look, I’m happy for Becca,” he explained. “Don’t get me wrong. She deserves to be excited about her new boyfriend, but when her boyfriend’s brother is almost single-handedly the reason I didn’t come out until college, I’m gonna be a little wary.”
“No, that makes sense,” Steve nodded.
“And maybe he’s different than his brother. Right? Maybe?” he was unconvinced even as he said it.
“I guess, but his brother sounds like a dick ,” Steve said to him. “And that level of dick, I mean--the kind of dick that tries that hard to get to you...that shit’s learned. It’s not natural, you know?”
“So you think that the parents taught him to be a homophobic prick, and probably taught his brother too?”
“Seems to be the way things go.” Steve shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean. Don’t meddle, that’s the thing right?”
And that’s when Bucky shook his head. “How did we get here? You giving me advice for my sister’s potentially homophobic boyfriend?”
“I have a face for it. People tell me things.”
“A pretty face, you mean. People probably just wanna touch it,” and it had left his mouth before he could stop it. He tried to fight his blush, but it was no use. They were talking about him being gay, anyway and Steve had to know how his face looked, objectively. Bucky just wasn’t ready to really express how he felt about Steve’s face. Which was very, very positive.
But Steve just threw his head back and laughed. “People do touch my face actually!”
Week Six
But something had to give. And it turned out that midterms would be the moment. That lab was a behemoth: long, detailed, involving a ton of what they’d learned so far so they would be ready for the midterm. It was a lot of waiting, slowly cranking up the heat until the melting point was reached. Literally and figuratively. Bucky was concentrating as closely as he could, determined as fuck. If he could nail this one, it’d be a great time to ask Fury about a lab position.
But he made a fatal mistake. One that he’d promised himself never to make.
He left Steve alone. With fire.
He was just walking to the supply closet, wondering if they really could get out of here a couple hours early like he had estimated to Steve. They’d gotten out pretty early these past two weeks, and Steve always insisted on buying him coffee for all his hard work. He accepted it, because he did do the heavy lifting. Plus, Steve was getting free tutoring from him, too. Bucky could have free coffee.
But as he wondered this, he heard three terrible things:
The first, a gasp. It made him turn. His eyes went wide.
The second, a crash. Their burner. His product.
The third, Steve Rogers’ loud and disastrous, “SHIT!”
Bucky’s heart dropped as Fury stepped up and examined the work station. The burner and product--Bucky’s precious, precious, almost-melting product--had fallen to the table, but the flame was small enough to extinguish itself. Bucky felt like a dead man as his feet took him back to his station.
“Barnes,” Nick Fury said.
“Yeah.” He sounded weak. He felt weak. He braced himself for what he knew was coming. Fury tapped at his work bench before beginning to walk back to his desk, throwing out a dismissal behind his shoulder:
“Get to work.”
A quiet, muffled chorus of oof and that sucks echoed around the room as Bucky blinked at his station. They had to start over. They had to start all. over. No getting out early. No coffee. No nothing. He looked up at the clock and his shoulders fell. They’d spent three hours for nothing. Now they were gonna be there hours after the lab officially closed.
“Bucky,” Steve whispered.
“Don’t,” he brushed past him to start cleaning the equipment.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t wanna hear it,” he shook his head, feeling rage boil deep in his bones. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid, and here he was. He went to the supply closet, blinking back stupid fucking tears that he was not going to spill. He was going to fucking show Nick Fury and all the rest that James Barnes deserved a place in that lab, and Steve Rogers would not get in the way of that.
Natasha appeared at his side. “How can I help?” she asked, all business.
“I can handle it,” he gritted through his teeth.
“When we cure cancer, we’re gonna do it together, asshole, so how can I help?”
He looked down at her and huffed. He cut his eyes away so he didn’t need to look right at her. “I could use help with that titration in step three.”
“You got it,” she murmured, getting the rest of the things they needed. Nick Fury glanced up just once to see them working together, but looked away once Natasha shrugged in his direction. Goddammit. She was definitely getting a spot in his lab. He needed to be beside her.
Steve was there, huge and sad-looking in his stool. “I’m so sorry. It was just an accident,” he tried again.
“Steve, I really don’t wanna be here past eight, so please ,” Bucky pleaded, fixing him with a glare that had softened over the last few weeks. Sliding it back on his face felt like coming back to something familiar.
Unfamiliar, though, was a pang in his chest when he saw Steve’s expression, his face fallen in disappointment and a shadow of guilt.
Midterm Reading Week
Natasha brought it up when they went to get coffee before an all-day study session, in her usual blunt and helpful way. “You look sad as hell.”
Bucky furrowed his brow. He’d been remembering the last times he’d been at that coffee shop, an hour here and there with Steve after they finished lab. He hadn’t seen him for a week and a half by now; he hadn’t even come to his tutoring hours. Now that they had the week off from chemistry classes to use that time to study...he didn't know where Steve was. “I’m just nervous about the midterm.”
“We’re gonna kill it,” she kicked his chair leg. “What’s up?”
He took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t know, okay?”
“Okay...can I have a clue?” she asked.
Bucky leaned his head on the wall next to him, squeezing his eyes shut until he felt enough strength to say it. “I think I hurt Steve’s feelings,” he said. “And I feel bad about it.”
Natasha frowned, “So text him.”
“I don’t have his number.”
“You--” she blinked in surprise. “Okay. Here, I’m sending it to you.” And Natasha really was the better tutor, with her student’s phone numbers and everything. “Text him. He’ll be okay. He’s nice.”
“I know,” Bucky nodded. Steve was nice. Steve was nice and earnest and a really good listener and funny and handsome. He was unfairly handsome, too. And he really didn’t like seeing how dejected he’d looked in lab the last time. “Thanks, Nat.”
“Yeah, no problem.” She was still watching him as he texted Steve.
Bucky: Hey, this is Bucky from lab. I wanna make sure you’re feeling okay for the midterm
He slid his phone into his pocket. “Library?”
“Can we go to your room instead?” Natasha asked. “The library feels depressing after the marathon yesterday.”
“Fair. My mom sent candy, too.”
“Thank God for Winnie.”
It was two hours before Bucky checked his phone again, but Steve had responded.
Steve: Hey! I’m pretty much panicking, honestly
Steve: Are you feeling okay?
Steve: I feel so bad
Steve: I wasn’t even touching it. I just turned and it was there
Steve: God. This is embarrassing. Sorry for the multiple texts
Steve: I can’t stop
Steve: Do you wanna get coffee?
Bucky couldn’t keep himself from smiling as he read through the texts, and he wished he’d known Steve was texting sooner, if only to put him out of his misery. Natasha stirred from where she was slumped over her book, yawning widely. “What’s going on?”
“Steve,” Bucky said. “He sent me like a hundred texts.”
“God, he’s cute, right?”
“Yeah, he--wait,” Bucky held up a hand to stop the slow grin spreading on Natasha’s face. “I mean nothing by that.”
“Uh huh,” she rolled her eyes and started packing up.
“And even if I did mean something by that, it’s just stupid. Who gets a crush on that? He’s not interested in me.”
“How do you know?”
Bucky glared at her, “Seriously? Steve Rogers? Queer?” He saw Steve in the same way he saw the brawny guy on the paper towel brand that his mom always bought when he was a kid: perfect, unattainable, a vessel for his interest in men but never quite fulfilled. God, did paper towels make him gay?
Before he could get started on that, Natasha shrugged, “Weirder things have happened.” He chewed on his lip, thinking of how to respond to Steve. “Hey, listen, I’m gonna go take a nap. Or fall asleep forever. I haven’t decided. Keep me posted, okay?”
“Nothing to talk about, but sure,” Bucky sighed. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” she said between another yawn.
Bucky: Don’t worry about it lol
Bucky: Sorry I was studying with Nat
Bucky: If you need some help, I have some time
Bucky: (See I multi-text too)
The response was immediate now, and Bucky tried not to pay attention to the butterflies flapping in his stomach.
Steve: Are you serious???
Steve: Bucky I’m freaking out about this midterm
Bucky: Yeah, no problem. It helps me to study if I’m explaining it to someone else
Bucky: So I’m getting something out of this too
Steve: I would’ve accepted charity at this point tbh
Bucky: Fine, fine, out of the goodness of my heart I can pencil you in
Steve: :D Where should we meet?
Bucky: How do you feel about the library?
Steve: It’s a terrible place. Awful. Horrible. Hate it there
Bucky: lol
Steve: Wanna come over mine?
Bucky took a deep breath.
Bucky: Sure. Address?
Bucky had expected something...awful. Something dirty and reeking and radiating testosterone and Axe body spray. And, from the brief glimpses into some of the rooms in the house he rented with some of his teammates, that certainly was a factor for some people.
But not so with Steve’s room.
Steve’s room was clean. Neat. Bucky noticed a cupholder with all perfectly sharpened pencils, points up, at his desk, and a closed sketchpad to the side. His laptop was closed on the desk, perfectly centered with the chair there. There wasn’t even a stay sweatshirt sleeve hanging out of his dresser drawers.
“You’re neat, huh?” he asked when he walked in.
Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “I clean when I’m stressed.”
“Oh, so this is a cry for help.”
He laughed at that. “Yeah. Yeah, sounds about right.” He lifted himself onto his bed, slumping against the wall and watching Bucky take a seat at the desk. “I really am sorry for the last lab.”
Bucky shook his head. “It is what it is. Me and Nat got it done.”
Steve looked down at his hands, “I just felt awful. You’ve tried so hard with me--and I know I’m not great at it, but you are, and I know that class really matters to you. I really just didn’t want to mess everything up and it felt like I did. So I didn’t want to bother you more by going to your tutoring hours or anything.”
Bucky’s heart broke a little. “You can really beat yourself up, huh?”
Steve looked up under his eyelashes, and God. They were pretty. Bucky felt like he was noticing a lot about Steve for the first time. “You should see me after losing a game.”
“Oh, God, really?”
“I just...feel like I’m responsible for a lot,” he said. “My therapist and I talk about it. I started seeing one after my mom died, and I carried a lot of guilt for that, too. Just wondering if I could’ve done something, noticed something faster, pushed her to see a doctor.” He took a big breath and let it out. “I’m mostly okay with that, now, but with the team...I don’t know. People look to me, and I know that. I wanna make sure that everyone keeps their scholarships and doesn't get injured and knows that there’s help available and…” he laughed at himself suddenly, gesturing to Bucky, “Get the internship they want.”
“I’m not on your team, though,” Bucky said, feeling confused when he was lumped in with a football team of people dependent on Steve.
Steve tilted his head, “You kind of are.” And Bucky didn’t know what to do with that, so he just held Steve’s gaze. He offered a smile, “Like, I still care that you get the internship.”
He shrugged, “I’ll get it. I think Fury just wanted to see how I’d react. If I’d half-ass the redo or something. And he likes Natasha. So that helped.”
Steve nodded but still looked sad.
“I’m not mad at you,” Bucky offered, because he felt like it was important.
“You aren’t?”
Bucky shook his head.
Steve took a deep breath and smiled on the exhale. “Thank God. Because I really need help.”
A couple hours passed then, Bucky walking him through the need-to-knows. Steve had definitely improved though he still got hung up on a few things, but Bucky was pleased with the way he went back to solid basics and could think from there. That was the key. Along the way, Bucky tried his hardest to not get fixated on how much he missed watching Steve’s fingers move as he drew structures and worked out mechanisms, even his letters neat and tidy and nice to look at. He encouraged Steve where he could, realizing that affirmation meant more to him than Bucky thought, that he carried a lot more on his shoulders than was clear from his first impression.
“This is it, Steve,” Bucky nodded around 10:30. “This is right.”
“No way, really?”
“Don’t sound so shocked, please,” Bucky laughed softly, “It’s not a fluke. You know how to think through it.”
“Yeah,” Steve nodded, but even he didn’t sound convinced. “True, yeah.” They were sitting on his bed at that point, Bucky coming up to just look over his work rather than sitting stiffly at the desk with Steve looking over his shoulder. They were a few inches away, and Bucky handed back his notebook. “Thanks for coming over tonight.”
Bucky met his eyes and nodded. “Yeah. You’ve worked hard, so. You should do well.”
“Thanks,” Steve said, and his voice was a little quieter than before. Bucky’s eyes went to his throat as he visibly swallowed, and his expression shifted towards something nervous, something tentative.
“I still get nervous for midterms,” Bucky offered, because that’s what it was, right? They were both nervous about the test. “Even though I know what’s happening here...I’m still nervous about it.”
“Oh.” Steve sounded almost...disappointed. What? “Well, you shouldn’t be nervous.”
“Neither should you,” he offered a smile and then heard a soft beep from his watch, letting him know it was almost 11. “I should get going.”
“Right,” Steve said, clearing his throat. He hopped off the bed and offered his hand to Bucky, who scoffed. “Sorry.”
“You’re quite the gentleman,” and Bucky had to suppress an eye roll for good measure at how many tiny girls Steve must have had to hoist on and off this bed, stacked on risers for extra storage. He didn’t seem used to someone as tall as Bucky, even if Steve had a few inches and a ton of bulk on him. God, he’d feel-- nope.
Steve just shook his head as he held the door open for Bucky. “I’ll see you for the test, then?”
“Bright and early,” Bucky grinned. “See ya, Steve.”
Midterm Week
The test was difficult. It was. Bucky had to check his work over a couple times, instead of the usual cursory glance.
On the upside, though, that Bucky and Natasha could engage in one of their favorite pastimes, which was loudly exclaiming how easy it was, hoping that people would hear them and get upset.
They knew they were assholes. But they also didn’t want any other friends.
Natasha was just about to start up another round when Bucky caught sight of Steve walking out, and he craned his neck to see his expression, to gauge how it went for him. Steve looked up, saw him, and quickly took a turn and started walking away.
“Hang on,” Bucky murmured to Natasha, and jogged to catch up to Steve. “Hey, Steve!” He caught sight of Steve’s hunched shoulders then. Shit. “Steve!” He still didn’t turn around. It wasn’t until Bucky caught up to him and tugged on his jacket that he stopped. “Hey,” and he was embarrassed that he was a little out of breath in front of an athlete, but he pushed through. “How’d it go?”
Steve just shook his head.
Bucky’s face fell. “That bad?”
“I think so,” Steve murmured. He looked away for a moment, “If I fail bad enough, I don’t know how I’m gonna pass.”
“I mean,” Bucky struggled for consolation, “Maybe it’s a high fail, right? Like if it’s just a 60, sure, you failed, but it doesn’t mean we can’t bump that up by the time final grades come around.”
“It feels like a bad fail,” Steve said. “Like a 14 kind of fail.” Fourteen had been the low point of the publicly posted bell curve for the last exam. Bucky remembered Steve’s elation that he had finally been on the other side of the curve for once. That was a good coffee day.
“You don’t know that yet,” Bucky tried, and he noticed then he was still holding onto Steve’s jacket, so he patted his shoulder like he’d meant to keep it there. Steve surprised him by stepping forward and hugging him close. “Oof.”
“Sorry,” Steve loosened his arms.
“It’s okay,” Bucky said, and wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist. God. This waist was tiny. He inhaled: warm and fresh, like laundered cotton. No, wait... there was the Axe body spray he’d expected. But even the hint of that made Bucky smile and hug him a little tighter. “You’re all right.”
They stood there for a while, Steve’s arms tight and solid around Bucky’s shoulders, his face against the side of Bucky’s. It was a serious fucking hug. Of course Steve Rogers would give serious fucking hugs. Eventually, he stepped back, looking red in the face.
“Thanks,” Steve said.
“Don’t mention it.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Coffee on me this time?”
Steve finally smiled, and Bucky tried hard to not care about how happy he was to see that smile again. They ordered, sitting at their usual table--they had a usual table now, didn’t they?--and sipping the drinks they’d chosen.
“How’s your monstrosity?” Steve pointed.
Bucky licked up some whipped cream to make a point, “Delicious. How’s your tar black coffee?”
“Getting the job done,” Steve smiled. He paused for a moment before dropping his eyes to the table. “Hey, I’m thinking. Would you mind hanging with me when we get our midterms back?”
“Like to look at the grade?”
“Yeah.”
Bucky blinked, “Sure. If you want me there.”
Steve lifted his eyes up again. “I’d really appreciate it.”
Week Seven
When Steve walked into the first lab after midterms, Bucky couldn’t even hide the way he’d been watching the door for him. Couldn’t hide the way he smiled when Steve met his eyes and came right over to him, talking excitedly about the cake in the cafeteria that day, of all things.
“I thought athletes never ate stuff like that.”
“Oh, no, this is necessary for my health,” Steve said seriously, and then laughed to himself. “I had three slices.”
“Jesus,” Bucky joined him in laughing. “Maybe I need to swing by and get one.”
“No need,” Steve unzipped his backpack and brought out a tupperware box with a slice in it. “Here you go.”
“Are you serious?” Bucky kept laughing.
“Yeah, I remembered you saying you don’t go to the Caf, but I really want you to understand what this cake is like, okay?” Steve pushed it towards him under the table. “Careful, though, no food in the lab.”
“Thank you, Captain Safety,” Bucky rolled his eyes. “I’ll eat it later.”
“You better,” Steve was still smiling at him. Bucky couldn’t help but smile back. God. God, he had a stupid kinda crush on him.
They were interrupted by the presence of Fury and a stack of papers in his arms. He dropped them with a loud thud on his desk. “We have your midterms graded. Finish the lab, pick up your midterms, get outta here. That’s the plan for the day, got it?” A chorus of mumbled yes es rang out. “All right, lab number 6, get to it.”
Steve’s joyful face had been rearranged into something fearful when Bucky looked back at him. So Bucky took a deep breath. “Where do you wanna open your test?”
“I don’t know.”
“We could go to mine,” he offered. He didn’t want Steve’s own room to be tainted in case it was bad. And at least with Bucky’s room, Steve could easily leave when he wanted to. They could also chill out if they needed to.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “It’s not as neat as yours, but…”
“It sounds perfect,” Steve offered a small smile. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Bucky flipped to the lab for the day. “You ready?” And they started. It was an easy one, just creating tables for the effects on SN1 and SN2 reactions, which Steve did with great care towards straight lines and perfectly labeled tables in addition to his usual structure-drawings. He was thankful for the break right after the mindfuck of exam week.
“That’s it?” Steve asked, always hopeful and surprised when nothing went wrong, it seemed.
“Yeah, ready to go?” Bucky asked.
Steve took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah.” They went together, handing in the lab report and picking up their test booklets. And even though Bucky was very confident he did well, it was always a heart-pounding experience to wait for his grade, wondering if this would be the moment that the piano dropped, that he wasn’t as good as he hoped, that he couldn’t do all this in the way he wanted to.
So he was anxious to open his booklet as well.
Steve seemed to notice on the walk to Bucky’s dorm. “You wanna open yours?”
“I don’t know,” Bucky admitted.
“You can, if you want,” Steve smiled. “I know you did well.”
And Bucky kind of did. He wanted to tear open the seal, flip to the back first, and read the score. He wanted to let out the exhale that he was almost totally sure would come with the relief that he was still good, that he was still on top, that he could still do this.
But he wasn’t alone, so he turned to look up slightly at Steve and smile. “I’ll wait with you.”
That seemed to be the right answer as Steve smiled, though he turned his eyes sheepishly to the ground as they got to the entrance of the dorm. Bucky led him down the hallway, quiet for the way most students were in class now or going to get out of class. He knew his roommate wouldn’t be back until late that night, though they didn’t talk much anyway. It was a comfortable enough arrangement for both of them.
His bed was made, at least, but his desk was kind of a mess--scrap paper strewn about whenever he needed a piece to work through an equation. His calendar above the desk hadn’t been turned since he arrived in August. Steve didn’t seem to mind as he walked in, already picking up a picture frame. “Is this Becca?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Bucky laughed at the picture of them looking way too excited to be at the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota. “That’s us a couple summers ago. I had gotten my license, so we did a little road trip.”
Steve smiled at it for a moment more before putting it down carefully. Then he turned to Bucky. “So.”
“So,” Bucky repeated.
“The moment of truth.”
Bucky shook his head, trying to keep the spirits positive and casual. To make a point of it, he crossed Steve in the room, hopping up onto his bed and letting his legs dangle. The picture of casual and calm, he hoped. “I know you’re nervous, but this isn’t the end of everything, you know? Like we’ll just keep going.”
“Yeah,” Steve sighed, nodding like he was trying to convince himself of that, too. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s just…” He took a deep breath and steeled himself. “Fuck it, right?”
“Yeah, fuck it,” Bucky said as confidently as he could for someone who never ever felt that flippant about orgo. He watched with held breath as Steve sliced open the sealed packet with his fingertip and flipped to the back, eyes scanning the page for what seemed to be a little too long. Bucky waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“Steve?” he tried.
Steve looked up at him in awe. “I passed.”
Bucky felt a grin break onto his face at the two words, “Let me see!” he exclaimed, and Steve went to him, leaning against his leg as he let Bucky see. “Seventy-two is not bad for this class!”
“For the midterm? Hell yeah, it’s not bad,” Steve’s voice was heavier than Bucky had expected. He was expecting pure, Golden Retriever, barking joy. But this was weighty.
Bucky lifted his eyes to meet his gaze, so close to him as he stood there by his bed. Steve took the paper from Bucky’s hands and laid it on the bed before turning back to him, looking at him from under those long, soft eyelashes. His eyes broke only to flick to Bucky’s lips and things started to slow down.
Steve Rogers is going to kiss me. The realization hit him like a freight train, and Bucky didn’t know how to prepare for this. He didn’t understand it. He didn’t want to understand it. But it was happening. He could feel it.
“Thank you,” Steve murmured, and then he was closing his eyes, and yes. There he was, all soft lips and slow, graceful movements against Bucky’s mouth. Bucky reached up to hold onto his shoulders as he stood in front of him, and Bucky didn’t have time to think about how Steve Rogers was between his thighs because Steve Rogers was tasting his lips with his tongue. Bucky inhaled sharply through his nose and he was over with, threading his hands through the short hair on the back of Steve’s neck, pulling him as close as he could get him.
Bucky felt aflame. He had wondered, passively, what kissing Steve would be like, if it would be all probing tongue, artless and violent like football seemed to him. But this was more like his work with his pencils: intentional, careful, precious. He felt like he could kiss him for ages. He wanted to.
He sucked at Steve’s lower lip, thrilled at the tiny sound it pulled from him, but suddenly Steve pulled back. “What about you?” he asked, a little breathless, his lips red and swollen and Bucky was going to fucking lose it.
“What about me?” he was nearly panting for it.
Steve stepped away for a moment, finding Bucky’s exam and tossing it to him. “Gotta see yours, too.”
Bucky furrowed his brow for a moment, really wanting to get back to making out with Steve, holy shit, but he sliced open his own exam and flipped to the back. He smirked to himself.
“What is it?”
“100,” Bucky looked up, and Steve shook his head. “What?”
“You’re so fucking good,” Steve murmured, and he was on him again, pushing him back and climbing on the bed after him this time. Bucky pushed himself back against his pillows, letting Steve come to brace his arms on either side of his body and dip down to kiss Bucky deeply. Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck, pulling him in, wanting to feel his weight on top of him so badly , not worried in the slightest that he could be crushed. “God, Bucky, you’re so good.” He pushed against Steve, gasping when their hips finally met, even for a moment, and Steve leaned his forehead against his. “Fuck.”
“I want--” Bucky couldn’t stop kissing him long enough to get a full sentence out. He hadn’t realized how starved he was for this until he had it. “I want to feel you,” he tugged up Steve’s shirt enough that he knelt, tearing it off with graceful ease that made Bucky’s eyes widen in total awe. “Oh my god,” he murmured, his hands reaching out on their own accord to touch his skin, every inch of muscle available to him.
“You, too,” Steve murmured against his ear. “Come on,” and he was tugging Bucky's hoodie off then, Bucky only slightly embarrassed by his own lack of grace, and the double layer of a shirt underneath. “Okay, not fair, this too,” and Bucky laughed at that before tearing off his shirt and grabbing onto Steve again.
They kissed like that, fingers digging into one another’s backs, legs sliding together more needy by the second, until Steve started to kiss down Bucky’s neck. “Do you know how long I have wanted,” he said between kisses. “To first pass organic chemistry,” a kiss on his chest, a tongue on his nipple. “And get you on a bed,” a kiss to his stomach. “And suck your dick--”
“Oh my god,” Bucky moaned to the ceiling, feeling more and more like he’d stepped into every gay nerd’s fantasy than real life by the moment.
“Seriously, it’s been a long time,” Steve continued like he hadn’t been interrupted. He paused at Bucky’s pants, fingertips at the button of his jeans. “Can I?”
“Can y--yes, holy shit,” Bucky mumbled, and that was the last coherent word he spoke for some time as he watched Steve unbutton his pants, tug them and his boxer briefs down his thighs and press his warm lips to his hardening cock. So this is real. Steve is really not straight, the kind of not straight that makes him go right to sucking dick. My dick. He laid his head back at the first feel of his tongue around him, a warm, wet heat slowly enveloping him as he grasped the comforter under him.
But it wasn't there for long, because Steve grabbed one of his hand and placed it firmly in his hair, encouraging him to tug.
“Oh my god, Steve,” he moaned, gripping tightly to Steve’s head. “That’s so…” No words. He had no words. He hoped his litany of gasps and moans and whines and desperate, choked, Steve s were enough, because that’s all he had to give as Steve licked and sucked and moaned around him.
Bucky couldn’t hold off forever, not with the enthusiasm with which Steve was going at him, and he loosened his grip on Steve’s hair before panting out a warning, “Steve, I--”
Steve pulled off with a pop of his lips that made Bucky certain he was not going to survive this. But then Steve really put a nail in his coffin by licking up his shaft and saying, “Come in my mouth,” with those fierce, serious eyes he’d shown Bucky once, and Bucky’s fingers were tight in his hair again as he sucked him down once more.
He was done for in a moment, coming apart in Steve’s perfect fucking mouth, feeling him swallow around him until he was spent. Bucky regained his breath on the pillows, feeling the bed dip as Steve crawled up to lay against Bucky’s body.
“Oh my god,” Bucky murmured.
“Yeah,” Steve answered. Bucky opened his eyes to see him looking smug as hell and he reached out a hand to cover Steve’s face, making him laugh. “What?”
“I thought you were straight,” Bucky confessed.
“You did not,” Steve gasped, scandalized.
“I did,” Bucky nodded. “So my brain is still trying to catch up.”
“Bucky, I took you out to coffee every week,” Steve said. “I just thought you liked moving slow.”
It took a moment for it to sink in, the way that Steve had paid for each time, quietly learning his order and always so attentive to Bucky during those afternoons. Even when at least two people each time called out to Steve, all he would do is wave and then look back to Bucky. “Oh my god,” Bucky covered his face. “I’m such an idiot.”
“No,” Steve grinned against his neck, “You’re brilliant. It’s really hot, actually.” Bucky shivered, pulling Steve in again. “Really fucking hot,” and he was kissing Bucky again deeply, slotting their thighs together: Bucky’s bare legs and Steve’s still in jeans.
“How hard are you in those jeans right now?” Bucky bit at Steve's lips.
“It’s not a secret,” he smirked, letting Bucky reach down and undo his pants, letting Steve kick off his pants and join his state of undress, finally.
“God, you’re fucking beautiful,” Bucky shook his head, running his hands down Steve’s body, letting his fingertips go all the way around his cock, excited and heavy in his hand. “I thought about this, too, you know?”
“Yeah?” Steve’s voice got heavier as Bucky touched him.
“Since the football game,” he confessed, stroking him in earnest.
“The football game?” he gasped at a certain movement of Bucky’s hand, so he repeated it. “God, that’s good.”
“Yeah, the football game,” Bucky murmured, twisting his wrist and watching Steve melt into him. “Can’t tell you what did it for me. Probably your arms out there. Wanted to know what you felt like.” Steve crashed their lips together again as Bucky picked up his pace, kissing him deeply and moaning into his mouth. Bucky broke off to concentrate, to get him there, desperate and needy like Steve had gotten him. “Then the serious face you gave me that week.” Steve met his eyes under heavy eyelids, not quite the fierce look he had on that one day, but serious just the same, and Bucky liked this one more. “Fuck, yes, wanted to see that come apart for me.”
“Oh my god,” Steve tensed next to him, doing exactly what Bucky said he wanted, his mouth parting as he finished over Bucky’s hand and his stomach and it was the most beautiful thing Bucky had seen, he thought. He blinked in the shock of it, the beauty of it, the way the man in this bed was here. In his bed. A man who liked how smart he was, instead of making fun of him for it. Who tried, who kept trying when things weren’t easy for him. Who included Bucky on his team even when Bucky gave him every reason to write him off as an asshole.
Okay. Okay. He liked Steve Rogers a lot more than he’d thought.
They cleaned up quickly before Steve climbed under his comforter and held out his arms for Bucky to cling to him. There just wasn’t much room in a dorm-issued twin bed. But it wasn’t like Bucky wanted much space from him anyway.
He laid his head contentedly on Steve’s chest before remembering what he was saying before. “Wait, the coffee thing. Are we dating?”
Steve pressed his lips into Bucky’s temple. “I think we’re kinda dating.”
He shifted, looking into his face. “I don’t like kinda.” He liked formulas. Equations. Constants.
So Steve smirked. “Okay. Then, yeah, we’re dating.” He pulled Bucky against him for another kiss. “Because I’m definitely not letting you go after that midterm.”
Bucky laughed softly, “Yeah, and we still have a final to go.”
“Oh, good,” Steve kissed him again. “Wonder what we can do for those scores.”
“Oh my god,” Bucky wrapped his arms around him to kiss him deeply again, wrapped up in each other as they kissed lazily, tongues teasing each other and stretching out the time. He broke away some time later, laying his head back down on Steve’s chest.
“Buck?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we eat that cake?”
Week 10
“Steve?”
“Yeah, baby?”
Bucky felt warmth in his chest from the easy pet name. “Is the report okay?”
“Mmhmm,” he slid it over for Bucky to look at.
“That’s looking really nice,” Bucky said, exchanging a smile with him. Steve grinned with the compliment and went back to his work, making sure everything was done just right before they handed it in for the report. It was crunch time, Bucky making sure all his requests for lab positions had gone out on time and to the right people. But it felt good to be doing something familiar with Steve, focusing on a lab, trusting him with the report.
He was, really simply, happy.
But it still meant he couldn’t look Fury in the eye, not knowing where his lab positions stood. Natasha had already received a place, which Bucky wasn’t surprised by. But Bucky’s emails had been stagnant for a week and a half by then. He’d need to start making back up plans soon if he didn’t hear.
“Hey,” Steve called to him softly. Bucky turned to see his familiar smile. “One step at a time.”
Bucky nodded, the familiar mantra that Steve had been comforting him with wrapped around him like a blanket. One step at a time. Quite literally, too, in the lab. One drop at a time, one substance at a time, one degree hotter at a time. He had the patience for that, so he could have the patience for Fury.
As it turned out, the patience could melt pretty soon. As he and Steve made their way to the front, lab report ready for submitting, Fury gestured to Bucky. “Sending you an email soon. You still want a spot in my lab this summer?”
“Yes sir,” Bucky said it like an oath.
“Yeah, I’ll email you later,” he nodded. “Nice work so far this semester. You too, Rogers.”
“Oh, it’s really Bucky--”
“Yeah, I know, I was just being polite,” he lifted his face up to look at them, though. “It’s better to look at your reports, though.” He turned to Bucky, “Have him show you how to clear up your structures before the summer.”
“Oh, I will. He’s gonna be the greatest,” Steve gushed as Bucky just nodded, feeling a little bit numb and Steve grabbed his shoulders tightly on their way out of the lab building. “Bucky!”
“It’s happening,” he said, a smile spreading on his face. He reached for Steve, pulling him down into a kiss. “You have to teach me how you draw like that.”
"Me? Getting to help you with this stuff? It's an honor, and I'm going to soak up every second,” Steve teased, kissing him again. “God, you’re gonna be so brilliant.”
And Bucky didn’t argue with him. Not one bit.