Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One of the things Steve learns early on is that Bucky is both overwhelmed by and completely starving for contact. In the middle of panic attacks or near-comatose blank stares, Steve sometimes can't help but rub Bucky's arm or hold his hand, trying to anchor him, and over time he realizes that it helps. He learns that Bucky often stands up and walks out of the room after a while, silent, but that before that moment when he's overstimulated and uncomfortable, he is enjoying it. He can't verbalize it, but one afternoon they're at the kitchen table and Bucky doesn't want to eat, doesn't want to talk, and seems to know how much that's disappointing Steve. He hesitatingly puts his right hand on the table, between their plates, and after a moment Steve steels himself and puts his hand on top of Bucky's. Bucky doesn't pull away, so Steve curls his fingers lightly around Bucky's wrist, thumb tracing little circles, and Bucky lets out a breath and relaxes a little. When Sam comes home they're still sitting there, and Steve's embarrassment at PDA (isn't that what it's called? Does this count?) is trumped by his desire to keep giving Bucky at least one thing that helps him. Bucky continues staring at his potatoes, long since gone cold, and Sam looks at them both for a minute before putting his keys down and saying that rotisserie chicken was on sale and that they did not have any whole milk.

**

Natasha isn't shy about taking a special interest in Bucky. She talked reverently about his abilities, before, but when she comes back from her trip she doesn't treat him like a colleague, or anything else Steve can easily identify. She seems to predict a lot of his bad reactions, a lot of his strange coping mechanisms, sharing tips with Steve via text and occasionally murmuring to Bucky in Russian, quietly on the couch as they watch television together, and after a while a pattern emerges and Steve sees that she's filling him in on the pop culture jokes he doesn't understand yet.

They never watch the news.

**

Sam understands the basics, although he reiterates to Steve over and over that he's dealt "with like, ones, twos, all the way to maybe eights and nines, if we're putting people on a scale. But his issues? Like, twelve? Thirteen? I've worked with POWs before but a few weeks or months of being taken doesn't compare to his deal."

Sam talks a lot. Before Natasha comes back he talks about how much Bucky's going to like her, how she's smoking hot and has a bad case of being totally in love with Sam, he's sure of it. He talks about how tiny his place is but how much cleaner it is now that the "cleaning fairy" keeps tidying things up when he's out, and that's when he'll shoot Steve a bit of a glare, mentioning again that he told the "cleaning fairy" he didn't need to feel obligated to do house chores while he's healing up, how the "cleaning fairy" should do as he's told and lay on the couch and watch The Price is Right.

One morning Steve is working on the grit between the tiles in the bathroom when he hears the television turn on, infomercial giving way to a music video giving way to several other channels until it lands on something with applause. Bucky comes in to the bathroom, taking his arm gently, pulling him to the couch where he's laid out a pillow and the fluffier of Sam's blankets. A man on the television is telling a very excited lady that yes, that is the dining set does indeed cost $1200.

**

Moving to New York is difficult, and moving into the Tower is even harder, but Sam follows like there was never any question about it and drowns out Steve's trepidations about the noise and chaos by being one hundred percent in love with everything. He meets Pepper and loves her. He meets Tony and immediately starts giving him shit, which Tony loves. He sees his new apartment, which shares a floor with Bucky's and Steve's, and hoots, shouting, running into the kitchen to grab Bucky's arm (Steve's internal alarms go off) and drag him in so he can see.

"It's huge!" Steve hears Sam yelling, as he pretends he isn't running after them both. "Lookit the window! The view! Look at that bed."

Steve stands in the doorway, watching as Bucky surveys the room, looking out at the city, then turning around and kneeling down to push on the mattress.

"Firm," he says approvingly, and Sam laughs.

"Don't use up your all your words at once, dude. C'mere, I wanna see if there's a sweet shower or maybe a oh my god there is a jaccuzi tub."

Natasha laughs next to Steve, who jumps a little because of course he didn't hear her come over. Sam is still yelling.

"There is a jaccuzi tub and it is mine and I love it. Oh my god. Steve get in here, even Bucky is smiling."

**

Steve hates to admit it but the Tower helps. There's no 'normal' - Banner hides himself away for days at a time and everyone accepts it. Clint over-trains, barely talks except to Nat, and Tony is so austentatious and ridiculous that, well, Bucky seems to feel safe finally trying new things, finally trying on the swim shorts Nat bought him and getting into the hot tub next to the infinity pool. Childlike, he goes from alarmed to confused to excited.

"It's nice," he reports, actually grinning, and Nat smiles next to him, tipping her sunglasses down. Sam stops doing laps in the pool to tread water and stare at Bucky.

"That thing's waterproof, right?"

Bucky glances at his arm and then at Sam. "How do you think I've been showering?"

Sam's eyebrows shoot up. "You shower?"

Steve adjusts the bandage around his midsection and gets comfortable on the deck chair. When he wakes up a few minutes later, Sam has laid out on the chair next to him, dozing next to a colorful-looking drink. Bucky and Nat are looking over New York, still in the hot tub, backs to him as they look out over the city. Her fingertips are scratching delicate patterns into his scalp. The line of his shoulders looks relaxed. Steve can't find it in himself to feel jealous.

**

Steve is pretty sure Bucky isn't having a harder time sleeping than he used to, or getting more nightmares than he used to. He's pretty sure Bucky just isn't as self-conscious about coming into his room at night as he used to be. He'll crawl in, always without speaking, always wearing a soft long-sleeved shirt. (Ever since Steve yelped awake one night at the feel of cold metal pressed against his side. Bucky nearly hid under the bed that night, and while Steve never suggested the baggy shirts to sleep in, he suspects who did when he sees Natasha come back from shopping one day with more of them, just for Bucky, in different colors.)

One night Steve falls asleep watching another Star Wars movie with Sam, and sometime around one in the morning Bucky walks in, wearing pajama pants and a hoodie and almost sulking when he sees Steve on the sofa.

"Hi," Sam says, because Bucky is ignoring him and Sam is literally sitting right next to the sleeping person Bucky is glaring at.

Bucky looks conflicted for a while, looking from Steve's sleeping face to the hallway where the bedrooms are, then the clock. Finally he steps forward, filling the space between Steve and Sam on the couch and bunching a throw blanket up so he can use it as a pillow on Steve's lap. Sam has to bite back a laugh at how serious Bucky looks, and Bucky glares, daring him to say something, but Sam just shrugs his shoulders and grabs one of Bucky's legs, untucking it so it lays across Sam's lap, where he pats it. Bucky looks at him for a long time, finally unfolding his other leg so Sam can have both.

"The good part's coming up," Sam says, gesturing with his other hand to where Han Solo is running through a corridor. Bucky nods and watches with him.

**

(Several weeks later Steve is out on a mission. Bucky's nothing near battle-ready and Sam's new suit isn't finished yet, so the Tower's quiet that night with just the two of them.

When Sam answers the quiet knock on the door in the middle of the night he understands Bucky's face, the strain and the tension and the not-quite-sure-this-is-okay, all covered with a blank expression that Sam learned to see through a long time ago. Sam backs up to let Bucky in.

"I dunno what you get up to with Steve, but I'm just gonna big spoon you. C'mon.")

**

Sam hits on Natasha a lot. Really, almost any chance he gets. He's seen Natasha shut down bad ideas and shitty behavior with just a look, and he's never gotten that look yet, just grins and smooth replies, so he figures he must be alright.

Steve pretends he doesn't notice it, having been unable to cope with such displays since birth, and Bucky watches it with a calm sort of curiosity, like he's wondering where it will lead. Sam makes the mistake of saying something in front of Clint once, having never been told of their ... dynamic ... and Clint looks about ready for murder when Nat gets up from her perch on the table, walks over to Sam and joins him in front of the television. She tucks her feet to one side and throws an arm around his shoulder, tipping her head against him, stunning him and the rest of the room into silence. The rage fades from Clint's face and he shrugs, going back to his chips, satisfied that Natasha approves. Tony puts down what Steve is pretty sure is a panic button. Steve thinks it's around then that Sam figures out that this, just this, is Nat's version of dating, and that Sam is already there.

He hits on her less after that, and most times when there's room enough on the couch, Natasha gets foot rubs, backrubs, really anything she wants. Bucky observes from the armchair and nods as if satisfied.

**

(When Bucky asks Sam to show him how to do all that, Sam makes a joke about Bucky trying to steal 'his girl' and sits him on a stool, standing behind him and working his neck and shoulders, apologizing when Bucky twitches as Sam grips too tightly at the place where flesh turns to metal. He tries to show Bucky how to rub feet next but Bucky just flinches away, hating it, so Sam calls Steve down and pushes him onto the couch and takes his boots off for him, laughing at how pink Steve's ears are.

"It's what you do with people you like," Bucky says, explaining, and if that slightly breaks Sam's and Steve's hearts they don't show it. Sam tugs Steve's foot into his lap and pushes his thumbs into the arch, drawing an embarassing sound out of Steve that he immediately bites down on, and when Bucky smiles it's so, so familiar.)

**

Bucky joins Steve and Nat in the kitchen one afternoon and asks what a California King is.

"It's a thing, right? Not a person?"

"Not a person," Natasha confirms, pouring her smoothie into a tall glass. "It's a bed. Bigger than queen size. Queen, King."

"Oh." Bucky's brows come together and he nods. "That's... big."

"Where'd you hear it?" Steve asks around a mouthful of tacquito. (Not all future things are bad.)

"Sam's asking Tony for one," Bucky says, and Nat's eyebrows lift imperceptibly, one corner of her mouth tugging upwards. "A bed makes sense. He was talking about room dimensions and something else."

"Was he talking about his plans for it?" Natasha's voice has that...something to it that makes Steve look up from his food. He can feel the tips of his ears going pink.

"No. Just room dimensions." Bucky opens the fridge and kneels down, disappearing behind the door. "Maybe it's because of me? I don't sleep with him that often, though."

Steve nearly chokes. "You what?"

"Only when you're not there." There are sounds of Bucky rummaging past bottles. Nat grabs Steve's attention and gives him a look, telling him to cool it.

"You mean," Steve blinks rapidly. "You mean you share a bed with him."

"Yes." Bucky suddenly sticks his head up, looking concerned. "Should I be...? I thought he just wanted,"

"If he wanted to have sex with you, he'd tell you," Nat injerects smoothly. Bucky relaxes and nods, bending down and disappearing again. "After," Nat adds as an afterthought, "asking Steve to make sure he wouldn't murder him."

Bucky pops back up.

Chapter Text

Natasha suggests they go out and get a pizza, which is really just code for finally trying to see how Bucky does when he leaves the Tower. They don't tell Bucky that nobody eats lunch at 2:30 in the afternoon, and they picked that time specifically to make sure it was a little less hectic. Bucky fusses with the brim of his hat and more or less hides behind Steve while they wait in line, watching everything. Natasha picks the table with the best vantage point, leaving the corner seat for Bucky. When he takes his chair and wordlessly puts his hand on the table, face blank, she takes his palm and rubs little circles into it like it's the most natural thing in the world.

It goes okay. They end up needing to order a second pizza, which Steve is more than happy to pay for.

**

On the subway, coming back from a successful trip to the MOMA, it's packed full and the jostling's clearly getting to Bucky, so Steve goes against his usual policy and grabs two seats as they open up when they reach the next stop. He jerks his chin to the second seat, and Bucky sits. Natasha jokingly takes residence on Steve's lap, making herself comfortable and ignoring the rise of pink in his cheeks. Bucky watches this, thinks about it, and then grabs Sam by the hips and sets the man in his lap too. Sam voices his displeasure but doesn't get up.

"This is not what bros do, Bucky."

Bucky's half-ignoring him, squinting across the aisle at someone. "I think that man is jealous of you," he murmurs.

Sam follows his line of vision. "Bucky, that man has a retro top fade and one dangly earring. That man is jealous of me right now for all the wrong reasons."

Natasha giggles.

**

They're more than bruised when they come back from the fight with Doom, but Natasha walks by the first aid kit by the door, grabbing a strap of Sam's suit in one hand and Steve's arm in the other.

"Sam has-" Steve almost trips over his own feet, unused to being led like this. Somewhere behind him, Tony is saying something snarky and maybe a bit petulant. "Sam has a cut on his arm that needs-"

"Later." Natasha takes them to the elevator, to their floor, and leaves them in the hallway while she goes to Steve's room and retrieves a very sleepy looking and slightly confused Bucky. Steve doesn't have time to be embarrassed that that's where Natasha knew he'd be - she's now pulling them to Sam's room, and Steve can see out of the corner of his eye that Sam's eyebrows are steadily climbing upward. Bucky follows without question and stops next to Natasha, looking at her with a tilted head, and she flicks a hand toward the giant bed before going to Sam's dresser and beginning to rifle through it. Bucky crawls under the covers and into the middle, watching Nat with way less alarm than Steve and Sam are, before deciding this is fine and laying down on his side to see if he can get back to sleep. Nat pushes the drawers closed, having found some drawstring pajama pants and a t-shirt, and walks to the en-suite bathroom.

"Change," she says to the two of them without looking, and shuts the door behind her.

Sam cuts off Steve's question of whether this is another modern thing he doesn't understand with a hissed "I have no idea," and Sam practically runs across the room to his dresser, pulling out two more pairs of pajama pants, a tank top, and then, after holding several shirts up at arms length and staring from them to Steve's chest, gestures apologetically that he's got no shirt that will fit him. Sam throws him the pants and they face away from each other, starting to change out of their uniforms just as they hear the zips and clacks from the bathroom that must mean Nat's doing the same.

"Noisy," Bucky complains softly, and grabs one of the eight or nine pillows to tug to his chest. Sam makes a 'pshh' sound.

Nat reemerges with rolled-up pajama cuffs and the drawstring at the waist pulled tight, and with perfect serenity, crawls from the foot of the bed to behind Bucky, slipping under the blankets, draping one delicate arm over his hip. Steve stares, and he imagines Sam is, too, because Nat finally picks her head up and glares at him.

"Behind me," she murmurs, as if it should be obvious.

Sam says something unintelligible before following after her, looking completely out of place in his own bedroom, but when he sits down and slides in close to Nat he goes quieter, somehow, chewing his lip a moment before lowering himself down and curling a hand over her shoulder.

"You're still standing there," Bucky mumbles into his pillow, breaking Steve out of what might have been a thirty-second stretch. He blinks. Bucky's still curled up, head down and eyes lightly closed, but his left arm is sticking out in his general direction, making sleepy grabbing gestures.

Chapter Text

"So," Sam says, which is when Steve knows immediately that this guys-night-out, just-the-two-of-them thing was a trap. "How're you two doing?"

"Me and who?" Steve asks, taking another pull from his beer. Maybe this will be easy and it'll just be Sam thinking he's trying to steal Natasha.

Sam laughs. "Yeah, that's not gonna work, man."

"He's doing okay," Steve evades, shrugging one shoulder. "That therapist - I think he's talking to her more. Bruce said something to convince him it was alright to let stuff out, and now I owe him... I forgot what he asked for, some granola mix. The place that sells it doesn't deliver and he hates going there. Crowded, noisy, the usual."

"So you've told me how Bucky is, and how Bruce is, which, okay, granola, check." Sam scoots his chair in a little tighter to the table they're sharing, leaning over the paper tray of demolished onion rings. "I asked how you two are doing."

Steve gives him his best 'I am from the 1940s and you are confusing me' look. He gives it for a solid ten seconds, staring down Sam's 'I know you too well to accept that bullshit response' look.

"Steve."

"There is no 'us two'."

"Why isn't there?"

"Why would you expect there to be?"

Sam leans back, sprawling a little as he tugs the onion ring tray closer to scrounge for the remains. "Dude, we literally all sleep in a giant fucking bed together. Like, two nights outta every week."

"That's-"

"That's because Nat told me to get the bed, and because I'll do anything Nat wants, up to including risking mortal injury." Sam looks up from the onion ring scrap that's more batter than onion, popping it in his mouth. "And you will do anything Bucky wants. And because you think Nat's hair smells pretty."

"I-"

"It smells very pretty."

Steve scrubs at his face and looks around the bar, hoping that there's someone too close by for this conversation to be able to continue in relative secrecy. No such luck. "Sam, I know a lot of things have changed since I got iced over, but I know people aren't supposed to mention any interests in their friend's girl."

"My girl. Look at you, saying it all quaint." Sam smirks. "Yeah, she's my girl. I'm pretty sure she's Clint's girl, too. She's kinda nobody's girl. I think I am her girl sometimes, if that makes any damn sense."

"It doesn't."

"Point is, we live in a big weird house with a bunch of other crazy people just like us and whatever's keeping you from doing more than being Barnes's designated spoon, on nights where he visits you or when Nat pulls all us together, I don't get it."

Steve thinks about this a while, and his brows knit together. "How do you know I never visit him?"

Sam gives him a flat look. "Like you said, man, Barnes is learning to share." He sees Steve's face and rolls his eyes. "Man, relax. He and I are friends too, you know. I know because he nudges me when I snore now instead of punching me in the shoulder."

"That's true," Steve accedes, pretending to be interested by something out the window. His bizarre life had felt so much more comfortable when nobody was making him discuss it or analyze it too closely.

"You know I snuggled up to him one night thinking he was Nat? His hair is long. Sue me." Sam makes a face. "He woke up. Did not murder me."

"Evidently not."

"I'm saying, man. If he can wake up to being held by the wrong person and not flip out, he's probably good for, like, a date night."

Steve winces. "Sam."

"With the right person."

"Sam."

"I'm just saying, though."

"Did Tasha put you up to this?"

 "No, but I know she agrees with me. Listen." Sam grabs his beer, finishing it one long pull, and plunks it back down on the table. "My life has been so damn weird since I met you. So weird. But it's been good weird, is what I've been realizing. If Nat wants to take it slow and also date like four people at once, or whatever, that's fine. I'm happier than I can ever remember being. And if she feels better coming home after a fight and having a Nobody Died Sleepover, that's cool too. I get it. It's nice." He shrugs. "You gotta stop worrying about what's normal and start thinking about what you want. And what he wants."

"And I suppose," Steve says, a little more bitterly than he meant to, "he's told you what he wants."

"Steve. He didn't have to."

**

Steve waits until he hears Bucky's door across the hall open and shut. He gets up, resists the urge to check himself in the mirror, and pads across the hall to knock on Bucky's door.

Silence. Steve bites his lower lip and knocks again.

Almost too quickly, the door opens, and Bucky is standing there in boxer shorts and a strangely blank expression.

"It's late and I was going to go to bed," Bucky says, all at once. Steve steps back a little.

"I, um," Steve says, and realizes that the genius of Bucky just walking in to his room without permission, and just waiting at the edge of the bed until Steve scooched back and made room for him, was that Bucky did not have to explain himself at any point in the process. "I, if you, we." He runs a hand through his hair. "We sometimes." Damn it.

Bucky stares at him, head cocked slightly, before backing up a little and letting Steve in. There's a stuffed bear wearing a blue jacket in a chair in the corner - Steve remembers Pepper being very happy about "sniping" that on eBay, although he never realized it was a gift for Bucky - and the bed is a mess, pillows lining the headboard and one side of the bed, and at least twice as many blankets and sheets as are on anybody else's bed. Bucky looks from the scene to Steve's face and immediately starts moving.

"It, um, I haven't made it." He starts sweeping the extra pillows onto the floor, grabbing microfiber throws and trying to lift them up in the air to flatten them out as they fall back down.  Steve steps forward and tugs on Bucky's shoulder, stopping him.

"It's fine."

"Yeah, but- if-" Bucky stutters as Steve walks past him, navigating past one particularly large pile of quilts to find a clear spot, picking out a normal-looking pillow from the assortment and tucking it under his head. Bucky observes him for a moment, chewing his lip, and then unbundles the topmost quilt to lay over Steve in what must be the fussiest gesture Steve has ever seen from him. Bucky looks back to the door to ensure it's shut and then walks around the bed, hesitating before lifting up some of the blankets and crawling in next. His chest feels warm against Steve's back, and the metal arm is strangely nice.

"Oh, I-" And Steve reaches behind him and grabs Bucky's hip before he can get up to find a long-sleeve shirt.

"S'fine." Steve fumbles for Bucky's wrist in the dark and tugs Bucky back around him.

"...it's cold."

"It'll be warm in a bit." Steve finds the edge of the quilt and pulls it gently until it covers both of them.