Adagio

Bucky Barnes was an emotional person. He always had been, and he probably always would be. In elementary school, Bucky was the kid who cried during every book they read and every movie they watched. In high school, however, he stopped crying at school. He didn’t want to deal with all the shit people would give him for it. He’d just cry when he was at home, sometimes with Steve. It broke his heart. Steve was glad he wasn’t there to see Bucky walk onto the stage.

Actually, Steve didn’t see Bucky at all that day. By the time he got down to the pit, Bucky had already gone home. Tony hadn’t given him any sort of other role in the show or anything, so he didn’t really have a reason to stay. The only opportunity Steve had to talk to people about what had happened was after their dress rehearsal, and there were a few people he wanted to talk to.

Steve walked into Nat’s dressing room as soon as he put his instrument away. She was still getting into her street clothes and taking her makeup off when he walked in.

“Oh, hey, what’s up?” Nat greeted.

“Not much. How did the dress rehearsal go?” Steve asked.

“Surprisingly well,” Nat answered. “We’ve done rehearsals with the understudies before, so it was fine. I wish I could’ve spoken to Bucky, though. I might go over there tonight. Or just call him, everything is so hectic right now with the show coming up so soon.”

“Yeah, I wish I could’ve seen him, too,” Steve stated.

“He seemed really upset,” Nat said.

“Understandable,” Steve said, sitting down on Nat’s chair.

“I really thought that Tony was just messing around when he said that stuff,” Nat observed. “I never thought that he’d replace someone so close to the show like that. And Bucky was honestly doing a good job.”

“Tony kinda told me that it was gonna happen,” Steve confessed. 

“Wait, what?” Nat looked up from the mirror and made eye contact with Steve. “You knew and never said anything?”

Steve blushed. Maybe he was in the wrong for this. “Yeah, Tony talked to me one day after rehearsal. He wanted to know how to, like, fire him from the role in the least destructive way.”

“So you just told him to replace him with absolutely no warning?”
“Well I basically told him that I didn’t know how he should do it. He probably should have asked you what to do and not me. We just started being chill again, I didn’t know how to do that without him being upset.”

“Well what’s supposed to say when he finds out you knew and didn’t tell him?”

“He won’t find that out.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m not going to let him.”

Natasha started to pack her bag to go home. Steve didn’t understand how she could bring everything in, somehow manage to spread all of it out across her dressing room, and then pack it back up and bring it home at the end of the day. Bucky did the exact same thing, so it wasn’t just Nat.

“It’s a lot for you to ask of me, you know,” Nat stated. “Bucky is my best friend. And this is information directly pertaining to him. It feels like something that I should tell him: something that I have to tell him.”

Steve started to feel badly about what he had done. But he hadn’t really done anything. In his mind, not telling Tony how to do it was the right thing to do. He had kept himself as uninvolved as possible. And Tony had asked him into his office, it wasn’t as if Steve had sought out the conversation. Maybe he should have warned Bucky already of time. But then again, that wasn’t his job. Tony had just put him in a really terrible position.

“Nat, please don’t tell him what happened,” Steve begged. “You don’t even know the full story.”

“Well then you can tell him the full story,” Nat responded.

Steve hesitated for a moment before nodding and saying, “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Steve, quite honestly, felt like absolute shit after his conversation with Nat. Maybe he was a bad boyfriend for keeping his conversation with Tony a secret. But he didn’t want to jeopardize the relationship that he and Bucky had just built up. Feeling angry and confused, Steve decided to go talk to Tony.

He walked through the long halls down to Tony’s office, looking at the pictures on the wall on the way. There was a framed photo for every production since Tony took charge. This would’ve been the first time Bucky was featured on one of the photos. Steve felt like that was partially his fault.

Steve didn’t even knock before entering Tony’s office, where Tony was typing something on his computer.

“We need to talk,” Steve stated.

“Well come on in and sit down,” Tony offered.

Steve walked in and sat on one of Tony’s chairs. It was surprisingly uncomfortable.

“So, what’s up?” Tony asked. “Are you quitting or something? Because I don’t really want to replace you before the show, but I can.”

“Yeah, it seems like you’re really good at replacing people,” Steve remarked.

“Oh, so that’s what this is about,” Tony said, turning away from his computer and towards Steve.

“I think you waited way too long to do it. The show is in two days,” Steve said.

“Well I didn’t know how bad it was going beforehand,” Tony stated. “And besides, you didn’t exactly give me great advice on what to do.”

Steve scoffed. “That’s not my job and you know it. That’s literally what you’re here to do. And you knew he’s my boyfriend, that was a shitty thing to ask me to do. And now he’s upset and I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with it and I was directly involved in it.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh please, you weren’t directly involved. I just asked you for some advice because I wanted to do it right. And you never even gave me advice, so you didn’t really do anything.”

“Well know it feels like I’m obligated to tell him what happened and that I knew beforehand,” Steve said.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “You think it’s a good idea to tell him that?” Tony asked.

“I don’t want to lie to him,” Steve stated.

“There are some things that are better left unsaid.

When Steve went home that night, he didn’t feel any better. In fact, he felt worse, which he didn’t even think was possible. It felt like he was being pulled in two different directions. Natasha wanted him to be honest and tell Bucky, whereas Tony wanted him to hide the truth from Bucky. Either way could potentially end badly. If he told him, there was a good chance that Bucky would blow up and break up with him. But if he didn’t tell Bucky and he found out later, he would for sure break up with Steve. Neither were good options.

Sam was working late that night, so Steve didn’t have to explain the full situation to him. He was good at giving advice, but Steve didn’t want anyone else caught up in this. He knew he’d have to make a decision on whether to tell Bucky or not. To do this, he decided to yet again use music. He could just play to get his feelings out and then decide which choice was right.

For this occasion, Steve felt that the best piece to play was the Haydn trumpet concerto. He couldn’t really describe why: he was just drawn to it. Steve took out his music and his trumpet and sat on his bed to play. It was definitely a bright and happy piece, which was not what he was currently feeling. He hoped that maybe this could change his mood.

The piece had a large focus on articulation as well as expression in general, so that’s what Steve played. He poured all this feelings out into this piece. It was such a relieving feeling. It felt like he was on top of the world after he finished. He now knew what to do. He put the trumpet away and decided to take a shower and put pajamas on before ordering food for dinner. He was going to give himself a chill night in before performance started and he had to go confront Bucky.

The next day after rehearsal, Steve drove over to Bucky’s apartment. Natasha had spoken to him last night and said that it was pretty bad. Apparently he had just completely shut down and was pretty much incapable of doing anything but wallowing in self pity. Steve understood that it was a shitty situation, but he couldn’t help but be annoyed by Bucky’s reaction. In their field, the person doing the job always had to be the best. Sometimes you don’t get the job because there’s someone else who’s better, and you just have to accept that. Steve knew that this was a little bit of a different circumstance because Bucky had already gotten the job, but Steve couldn’t help his negative feelings about it. Maybe Bucky should have worked harder.

Steve knocked on the door to Bucky’s apartment, anxious that he was too upset to answer the door. To his surprise, Bucky answered the door after only about 30 seconds. Bucky was wearing joggers and a Nutcracker t-shirt from the previous year. He looked like he had just woken up, despite it being four in the afternoon.

“Hi,” Bucky greeted.

“Hey, can I come in?” Steve replied.

Bucky didn’t answer, he just stepped aside so Steve could come in. God, his apartment was so cute and unique since they decorated it. It felt like a place where Bucky would live and thrive.

“Why are you here?” Bucky asked in a tone that wasn’t necessarily aggressive but also… wasn’t aggressive.

“I figured that I’d come check up on you after what happened yesterday,” Steve stated, sitting down on Bucky’s couch.

“After saying absolutely nothing to me all day yesterday; the day that it happened?” Bucky questioned.

Steve blushed. Maybe he should have come over last night instead. Or at least called. Or texted. Yeah, that was a minor fuck up. He’d low key ghosted his boyfriend after he lost his job. Well, he didn’t loose his job, he just lost his part.

“I’m sorry, Buck,” Steve apologized. “I should’ve called. I knew Natasha was going to come over so I thought that you probably wouldn’t want me here at the same time. And I kinda thought the same thing about calling: that you were probably busy with Nat. There’s no excuse for me to not text, though.”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, but it’s fine. You’re right, Nat was here pretty late. Besides, it’s whatever. I knew I wasn’t about to rise in the company ranks.”

“You were doing so good. So you don’t even care that you lost the part?” Steve asked.

“I do care, but I can’t let it affect me that deeply,” Bucky answered. “If I want another big role, I can’t make a fuss about loosing this one.”

Well this was a much different Bucky than what Nat had prepared him for. Maybe he’d slept on it and came to this realization. Steve had expected to get a little annoyed at Bucky, but he was being pretty insightful.

“I agree, that’s just how it is in this industry. The second someone better comes along, you get replaced. And everyone is on both sides of that at some point,” Steve rationalized. 

Bucky stood silent for a moment, not responding to that. Maybe it had come across rude. Maybe he just didn’t have anything else to add.

After a few seconds, Steve patted the couch cushion next to him. “Come sit.”

Bucky obliged, sitting down next to Steve. Even though they were right next to each other, it felt as though they were miles apart. Bucky was leaning away from Steve.

“So, there’s something I should probably tell you,” Steve said.

“Then just say it,” Bucky requested.

Steve hesitated. Bucky was obviously not in the best place right now, he didn’t want to hurt him further. At the same time, it would be much worse if Bucky found out later, on his own. He’d just have to break the news.

“Are you going to say it or not?” Bucky asked.

Steve could feel him getting more agitated. Oh god, this wasn’t a good thing to tell him when he was agitated. But it was now or never, he couldn’t keep this from Bucky. Besides, he was a very bad liar.

“Tony told me that he was gonna replace you before he did it.”