"So, you’re keeping the outfit, right?"
Bucky looks at Steve, and tries not to look at him too hard. He’s always looking at Steve too hard, and it’s not something he should rightfully be doing. Or so he’s been told. All his life. So he swallows it down, lets his gaze drop to the floor, and he can feel Steve’s eyes on him, when he responds:
"You know what?" he starts, and Bucky can see him glance at the Captain America poster across the room, where he’s smiling jauntily, one hand raised in salute. He gives it a long look, and then smiles down at Bucky, and somehow the smile feels private, secret. "It’s kind of growing on me."
Bucky huffs a dark laugh, and meets Steve’s eyes, notices he’s gone a little pink all the sudden, which only makes it harder to stop the growing heat pooling in his gut. Steve leans, without warning, into Bucky’s shoulder—a warm weight settles on his upper thigh, Steve’s hand, and Bucky sucks in a sharp breath.
"Steve. Steve." Bucky hates the urgency in his voice, the pleading.
"The uniform, Buck," Steve says, his voice laced in something Bucky’s never had the pleasure of hearing before. "My uniform. You like it?” The hand that’s resting on Bucky’s thigh starts to move, slowly, rubbing in a small circle. “I always know how you liked those dames who wore the little star-spangled outfits up there with me. Thought about that a lot, I did…always wondered, what it would be like, if you liked my uniform, instead…” Steve’s blush has crept down his face and onto his neck, but he’s got that wild determined look in his eye, the kind he used to get when he was about to pick a fight. His eyes are downcast, on his hands where they rest on the bar, but he brings them up and look Bucky straight in the eye, and Bucky knew he was a goner for Steve when he was 12 years old but this is the fucking kicker.
"Steve, I—,"
"I have the uniform," he cuts him off, and the hand on his thigh travels up, and up, and all the dreams, all the fantasies Bucky tried not to let himself have, they’re all coming true at once and he’s scared shitless. "I have the uniform, in, uh, in my tent." Steve swallows, and gets even pinker, and Bucky’s never been harder in his life, and that’s not really gonna work for getting out of the bar, so he looks Steve dead in the eye, with all the want and intensity he’s always tried to hide, and whispers, "Steve," and it’s rough and raw and longing the way he never thought he could be.
"If you come back, with me, maybe I—maybe I could show you." And with that, Steve slides himself off his barstool, turns around and looks at Bucky in a silent question to which Bucky only has one enthusiastic answer, so he slides off his barstool too, and thanks his lucky stars that the lighting’s real dim. And he follows Steve out of the bar, and when he passes the Captain America poster, he salutes back.