Chapter 1
2003
The first time Jimmy met Steph she was defending a little three-legged cat behind the cafeteria. Jimmy had seen the mangy orange thing around before; a few kids would toss it a piece of ham from their lunch, but the crueler ones might throw a piece of trash at it, or chase it. It was the last two weeks of 10th grade, and the cold upstate New York weather had just turned warm enough to eat lunch outside.
Jimmy went out back to sit alone. Not that he didn’t have friends, but they were all talking about their summer plans to go on vacation, and Jimmy would spend another summer alone.
Just when he thought he had a moment of peace, the noises of a scuffle interrupted his meal.
"Hey! Let go!" He heard a young female voice shout out from around a corner. He followed to the sound to the source; the stray tabby had shoelaces tied around its tail, dragging a pair of dirty sneakers around. A young kid Jimmy had never seen before was standing in front of it protectively; presumably having just tried to free it from the sneakers. She had been backed into a corner by two freshman Jimmy knew all too well. They loved picking on that cat, and anyone else they deemed their prey. One had her skinny little arm in a vice grip, and the other was holding his nuts and trying not to barf.
Jimmy smirked, but shouted out all the same. "Hey, losers. Pick on someone your own size."
The one holding her arm scoffed. "Should'a known you had a boyfriend hiding around here."
"He's not my boyfriend," she snapped, defensively. "And I can take care of myself." She stomped down on his bare foot (probably where the sneakers had come from), hard. He screamed and let go of her, and then she punched him in the gut and ran.
"Fucking bitch!" the loser yelled out.
Jimmy grabbed her with an arm as she tried to run by. Her nose was bleeding.
The loser that had been previously clutching his jewels stood up to Jimmy, but the good six inches he had on the freshman made him back down, and the two stumbled away.
"Did they do that to you?" Jimmy asked, stooping down to get the shoelaces off of the frightened cat. It hissed at him and scratched his hand for his troubles, but he was patient, and in a moment it was free and scampering off to find some food.
"What?" the girl asked, breathing heavy. Still kneeling, Jimmy stood up and offered a napkin for her nosebleed.
She gasped as she dabbed at the nostril, tilting her head forward.
"Aren't you a little young to be up here? What are you, like 11?" Jimmy asked. She should be taking her lunch in the playground behind the elementary and middle school, a block away.
"Shut up, I'm 14," she claimed, but Jimmy wasn't so sure. She was short for 14. And really skinny. And she hadn't known about the nosebleed, which either meant adrenaline had her confused to the details of the fight, or she was sick.
"Come on, let's get you to the nurse," he offered, a hand on her bony shoulder. She had light blonde hair and crystal blue eyes, and her skin was so pale he could see all the veins on her arms. She wore a t shirt and baggy jeans that were at least a few sizes too big, and threadbare almost to the point of holes in some areas.
"I'll be fine. My mom's a nurse," she responded, balling up the napkin and shoving it in her pocket. "Thanks for the rescue, but I don't need it."
Jimmy laughed. "If you say so. What's your name?"
"Steph," she answered, and Jimmy told her his name.
"Do you have your lunch?" he asked her, noticing her empty hands.
"Nah, those idiots stole my money. It's fine, I was just going to get something to split with the cat anyway. I'll get a snack later."
Jimmy pulled his lunch out of his backpack. He played three different sports and played basketball with his friends after class- his mom packed him big lunches.
He handed Steph a sandwich, chips, and a coke.
She stared down at the food like he'd given her a million dollars. From her highly independent demeanor, he expected her to try and resist a little, but she scarfed it down with a speed that would have made Jimmy impressed if he wasn't so worried for the kid.
They sat and talked while Jimmy ate his lunch- the remaining sandwich, two mandarin oranges, water, and half a cosmic brownie- and discovered they had more in common than he may have guessed.
Steph was quite the tomboy. She liked video games, Magic the Gathering, the kind of cop shows she could only see when her mom was at the hospital working a double, and skateboarding.
The 30 minutes passed by quicker than he realized, and soon the late bell was ringing. Jimmy gathered up their trash into his backpack and turned to leave.
"Here," Steph said, and pulled one of her many colorful loom-woven rubber bracelets off her thin wrist, revealing just for a moment a few slashed lines. From the cat, Jimmy hoped. "For the lunch."
Jimmy held out his muscled forearm, easily twice as thick as hers, and allowed her to stretch it over his hand. It was neon green and black, and tight enough that he would take it off once he was away. But for now, he smiled down at her. "Thanks, punk. Try not to get into any more fights, yeah?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'll try."
He ruffled her hair. "See you around."
He turned and went back through the cafeteria into the bathroom in the main wing, not even caring that he was late to his favorite class.
In his reflection, he saw a tall, tan, attracted brunet young man. His hair was too long for his mother's liking, but he thought it was cool. Way better than the gelled up buzzcuts all his friends had. It was almost long enough to tie up. He pulled the bracelet off his wrist, pulling the longest part of his hair into a loose ponytail at the back of his head. A few pieces hung around his face and neck, but it looked cool. Grunge.
The last dance of the year was at the end of the week, but he didn't want to go. He knew it was expected that he would ask Mariah, since he'd kissed her on the bleachers after his team had won the big game, but he didn't want to take Mariah.
He was still a virgin at 16. Most of his friends had lost their virginities last summer. Mariah had even offered to give him a handjob for his birthday back in March, but he wasn't into Mariah.
He liked girls okay. He liked boys too, and that was the problem. He'd known he was bisexual since fourth grade. But there was only one kid in the whole school who was bisexual. Or, at least, he was metrosexual, and everyone accused him of being bisexual; Tony Stark. But his dad was a tech mogul and the only reason he wasn't in private school was that he'd been expelled out of every one in the state. He was untouchable as far as the bullies were concerned.
But Jimmy was very touchable. Even his status as sport champion was on shaky foundations if he didn't get a girl soon.
Jimmy liked getting what he wanted, and if he couldn't have it all, he wanted nothing. He hated forcing himself to focus for the boring classes, but he had to get a passing grade to stay in sports. He wouldn't consider himself any kind of genius, not like Bruce, but he barely had to pay attention in class to pass tests. All it was was short term memorization and pattern repetition, and it was so easy it was boring. His knees bounced and he tapped his pencils to rhythms in his head, and longed for the classes where he could let loose with his body and all his pent up energy. He'd been worse in elementary school, to the point where teachers were on a first-name basis with his mother on account of the amount of times he'd been daydreaming, or skipped class and still managed to get a perfect grade on the final test. But it had gotten better the more sports he'd enrolled in.
Sports was one thing entirely, but the pressure from his friends to have a hot girlfriend, to lose his virginity, to go to a cool place over the summer and have cool stories to share in the fall all made him want to do none of it. And the fact that his dating pool could have been doubled only made him want to avoid dating entirely.
Footsteps outside of the bathroom broke him out of his daydream. He checked his digital watch to see that ten whole minutes of him staring into the mirror had passed, and he ran into fifth period.
2023
Bucky went down to the lobby of his apartment building to check the mail. The best part about being an information security analyst was the hours; he'd often struggled with keeping normal sleeping hours in other jobs, and would ruin his sleep schedule without even meaning to by staying up far too late one night and not wanting to sleep at all the next. Even sleeping pills never worked for him. But sleeping from home, he was able to stay up 20+ hours at a time, sleep for 10 hours, stay awake for another 14, sleep for 4, and do it all over again. The best part of living in NYC was the 24 hour conveniences that surrounded him, and DoorDash bringing him Taco Bell at 2 in the morning. He'd become a little antisocial since the pandemonium, getting unused to common interaction with others. He never really even interacted with coworkers beyond emails, and all his food orders had "no contact please" written in the notes.
He picked up his Chipotle order from the lobby, and figured fuck it, he might as well check the mail while he was down there. Not like he ever got anything- who even got physical mail anymore?
Surprisingly, the mailbox contained a small bubble envelope. Equipped with that and his prized paper bag, he turned to take the elevator back up to his floor.
His neighbor, he answered his own question. That's who. The weirdo got physical mail every day. Well, he got packages at least, which was a little different. Bucky also had his groceries delivered so he never had to leave his apartment building, but his neighbor got like 10 amazon packages every day. He'd seen him a few times in the last year since he'd moved in. Bucky had lived in apartment 1107 for almost four years. Back when he'd moved in to the two-bedroom studio, he'd hoped that in four years he'd have bought a house, or at least have someone living with him.
Bucky narrowed his eyes at the topmost of four packages stacked at apartment 1109. Steve Rogers.
Well, now I know his name if I ever need to borrow a cup of sugar, he thought to himself.
The first time he saw him was one of the rare occasions the Dasher actually brought the food up to Bucky's door rather than dropping it off in the lobby, and Steve had opened his door to get a package at the same time. They'd made awkward eye contact, blushed and muttered "hi", and darted back inside. The second time was one of Bucky's rare moments outside of the apartment, on New Year's Eve when the food delivery wait times were five hours minimum. He'd gone to a coffee shop for some donuts and a latte, and the line was pretty insane but moving relatively quickly. He'd made eye contact with Steve, and maybe let it linger just a moment too long.
But he was so hot. He was tall, not as tall as Bucky, with stunning blond hair and piercing blue eyes, and a build that would've put even Bucky's high school build to shame. He'd been wearing sweatpants and a cropped hoodie with a band logo Bucky didn't recognize. The shirt revealed a whole-ass actual six pack, and a golden treasure trail leading to his nethers. He was pretty heavily tattooed, too, colorful ink on his forearms where his sleeves were rolled up, peeking around the hood, and along his hipbones. It made Bucky wonder what tattoos he had where he couldn't see. When he made his eyes back up to Steve's face, the blond was giving him a confusion expression, which Bucky couldn't blame him for. He gave him a tight-lipped smile and looked away quickly.
Maybe five years ago he would've started a conversation or asked for his number. Maybe he would have invited him over or offered to pay for his coffee. But five years ago he was still working in an office and interacting with people daily, and he'd been fifty or so pounds lighter. More on the or so side, if he was being honest.
But now he wasn't looking for a relationship. He had the occasional hook up here and there, but starting a one night stand with his neighbor was a notoriously bad idea, even for his standards. He needed to get his life together before he could bring anyone else into it for anything longer than a night. He needed to fix his sleep schedule, and reorganize his apartment, and unlearn being a hermit, and lose some weight. And it wasn't all about the weight. Not even mostly. He knew he looked good. Most of his weight had gone to his gut and chest, but it was still clear that he was muscular underneath. He had an attractive face, even with his beard that was just growing past the nicely groomed stage. He hadn't committed to buying bigger clothes yet because he was still telling himself he could lose the weight. He'd sized up from a large to an extra-large in college, and then the panorama had only made matters worse with no exercise and constant food delivery. He didn't even own a scale and hadn't weighed himself in god knows how long. He'd been 180 in high school, in his most athletic sports days. Then, even with his sports scholarships, he'd had to save money during college by getting cheap takeout all the time. He'd probably been around 220 or so then, and he was probably closer to 260 now. Maybe even more than that. He dreaded the thought of seeing himself a hundred pounds heavier than high school. Not even necessarily because he hated the way his body looked or how it felt. If he was being honest, he didn't really care about how he looked, so long as he was mostly healthy and felt good and his body did what he needed it to. But it was the principle of the matter. Besides, who knew if Steve was even gay?
Bucky's number was called first, and he stepped up to the counter to pick up his dozen donuts and highly caloric coffee. The barista had given him an extra donut in a bag (or maybe it was a NYE special), and as Bucky fumbled with the box, the bag tumbled off and plopped on the floor by a pair of beat up converse. Before he could do anything, Steve leaned down to pick up the bag, and Bucky saw the whale tail of a hot pink thong peeking out of Steve's sweatpants.
Bucky blushed scarlet as he took the bag, and in a shadow of his former self, he muttered, "I like your tattoos."
Steve had been about to reply when his number was called, and Bucky had taken that as his sign from the universe to scamper off back to his apartment.
And if the guys that featured in Bucky's fantasies looked a lot like Steve, and if recently he'd been searching Tumblr for really muscular guys wearing super lacy pink underwear, even bras sometimes? Then that was his own business.
Back in the present, Bucky locked his door behind him tossed the bubble envelope to the side, and sadly gazed around his depressing little apartment. It wasn't so bad. If he'd ever taken the time to actually decorate the space like he planned on staying more than one more year, it might look a little cheery. As it was, the walls were bare, and the grey couch matched the cheap grey Ikea desk and the grey office chair (that had been creaking somewhat dangerously as of late) and the grey bookshelf where his little TV sat. It looked like a hotel, devoid of personality, and in it he felt like a Sim whose surroundings could use a little sprucing. But he couldn't bring himself to commit to decorating. Or painting, even though he was allowed. He wouldn't be here this time next year, he kept telling himself.
He wondered how Steve could afford all those packages he kept ordering. There were two explanations, he'd figured. Either his job was professionally testing and reviewing products and they were a part of his job (he was pretty sure Steve worked from home too), or he was loaded. Which Bucky doubted, because although affording a mid-range two bedroom in NYC was nothing to sneeze at, if he was making that much money he could afford a brownstone or something nicer. But with Steve's incredible body, it wasn't hard to imagine an at-home career that would provide him with enough spending money for anything his heart desired.
So maybe Bucky was searching for him, a little bit. OnlyFans, Chaturbate, PornHub, Tumblr, all the usuals. He wasn't trying to be creepy, he was just supporting local businesses.
He sat in his office chair (which gave a pained groan), checked his work email, pulled up a Twitch stream, and dug into his Chipotle; a burrito bowl and two burritos. He didn't mean to eat the whole bowl. It was enough for two meals, definitely. But he ate mindlessly while he watched the stream, and soon the shitty plastic fork they provided was scraping the bottom of the bowl. He looked down, somewhat surprised, and realized he didn't even feel that full. He shrugged and picked up one of his burritos too, because fuck it, it was the weekend, and he'd just finished a big project for a client about testing the bugs in their new firewall, and he deserved a little treat. He pulled the worn-out elastic waist of his sweatpants down a little lower beneath the overhang of his belly, and Jesus, he was really getting fat.
His eyes were drawn over to the bubble envelope laying on his side table, and he leaned over to grab it. Not bothering to check the sender or anything on the label, he tore into the package and dumped out the item inside. It was wrapped in black tissue paper, and as he unraveled it, he pondered over who would send him something. It was too late Christmas, but too early for his birthday.
He held up the item and immediately knew a mistake had been made. Firstly, it was red. Secondly, it was lacey. And thirdly, it was a size 40B bralette.
Face burning in a way that had nothing to do with the spicey Mexican food, Bucky morosely checked the addressee.
Steve Grant apt 1109
He mentally cursed the mailman who hadn't checked twice before sliding it into his mail slot. He cursed himself for not checking before opening. He considered just throwing it away and pretending nothing had ever happened. Surely Steve would just reach out the website and get a refund for the product not being delivered. It wasn't the end of the world. He considered putting it back in its torn package and placing it on his pile of four boxes. He wouldn't know who got into it, and no one would be the wiser.
He fisted the bra, tissue paper, and envelope into his hand, walked over to his front door, and peered out to see that the stack of packages at Steve's door was gone.
Fuck. Who the hell gets their packages at almost 4 in the morning?
Well, if he was up to get his packages, he was up for Bucky's sorry ass confrontation. He checked himself in the mirror before leaving his apartment. He was full, his t shirt refusing to stay down the whole way over his tummy even after he tugged on it, and there were Chipotle sauce stains on it. He groaned and changed into a clean t shirt and a nice button down overtop that certainly didn't button, but the layers helped conceal how full his belly really was. Then the stretched out sweatpants looked really dumb, so he changed into his biggest pair of jeans. They just barely went up over his ass, and he strained to get the button in the hole. They were so tight he felt like the button would pop at any minute, but fortunately (unfortunately) his overhang was big enough to hide it. Then his shoulder-length hair looked unkept, so he brushed it out and sprinkled some dry shampoo to tamper down the shine just a little and put it back into a decent bun.
Well, this is as good as it's going to get.
Barefoot, he exited his apartment and rang the bell to 1109, smiling down at the cute little semi-circle rainbow doormat that was usually hidden with packages. So either he was really gay or liked rainbows. Who was Bucky to judge? Maybe he was a femboy, but only dated women who liked boys in underwear.
Just when Bucky was beginning to doubt himself, Steve opened the door. In an effort not to make eye contact, Bucky's eyes took in all of Steve's apartment. It was almost identical to his, living room with an adjoining kitchen and dining room (albeit on an opposite side), exposed brick and industrial pipes on the high ceilings, concrete floors, and two bedrooms in the back. The one door was slightly ajar and the pulsing lights of LEDs flashed through the crack. There were hanging potted plants in every corner, on every surface and every wall. There were numerous books, tastefully decorated eclectic bookshelves and tables covered in books of all sizes and types.
"Yes?" Steve asked eventually. His voice was deep and alluring and almost exactly how Bucky had imagined it.
When Bucky met his eyes, Steve was also looking at the floor. He wore basketball shorts and an oversized band t shirt that could have easily been thrown overtop of lingerie. "Hi. I'm Bucky. I live next door." His voice was surprisingly even, pleasant and masculine to his own ears. "I'm so sorry. Our mail got mixed up, and I opened your package."
He sadly handed the parcel over, and Steve took it with lavender manicured nails.
He has to be gay, Bucky hoped.
To his shock, Steve burst out laughing. It was a gorgeous sound. "Oh my god, this is so embarrassing," he groaned.
"Oh, please, no, I'm embarrassed. I should have double checked the name. I shouldn't have intruded. Whatever you do is your business, and I'm not about to assume what you do, but I want you to know I support sex work, 100%." Bucky cringed, hoping he wasn't overstepping a boundary.
But Steve just smiled. "Thanks, honey."
Bucky rushed to go on, not wanting the conversation to end. "And let me know if you ever need help with internet security or anything. I know you risk a lot by putting yourself out there, and VPNs and shit like that is kind of my thing. So, uh," he floundered.
"Do you want to go out sometime?" Steve asked. He'd briefly looked up to meet Bucky's eyes, then returned his gaze to somewhere beyond Bucky's left shoulder. Somehow the lack of eye contact made Bucky feel comfortable, like the pressure had been taken off the conversation, the pressure to make the right amount of eye contact, the pressure to make sure his expression matched his emotion, to make sure his tone matched his words.
"I'd love to," Bucky grinned. "I'll give you my number."
Steve pulled out his phone, one of those galaxy flips with a charm on the case that had holographic pony beads and a little bunny bell decal, and tapped in Bucky's number.
"Well, I have weird business hours, but it seems like you do, too, so I'm sure we'll find a time that works for both of us," Steve told him with a reassuring smile.
Bucky grinned and told him goodnight and went back to his apartment and shut the door with a contented sigh. He felt like he was 16 again.