Little Talks
It had been a bad day for Steve.
He’d narrowly avoided getting into a fight with a catcaller on the street, he'd had to close the shop much later than usual without notice, he had a pounding headache, and it was nearly midnight and Bucky still wasn’t home. Not like that wasn’t the usual, recently. He’d been coming home later, fooling around with a new girl every night, sneaking out in the middle of the night when he thought Steve was asleep, and never admitting anything. It made Steve want to hit something, which was why he was coming home with more and more bruises and black eyes as the months flew past. Which meant more and more of Bucky dragging him out of alleyways, pressing ice to wounds, scolding and muttering under his breath (god, Mrs. Rogers would have my head if she saw the state in which I was leaving her child). He was beginning to wonder if he was getting into fights to protect people, or if now, it was more about the attention he would get from Bucky afterwards.
All this thinking about Bucky was making the headache even worse.
Steve shuffled into the kitchen, dragging an ice pack out of the icebox and pressing it to his forehead in a feeble attempt to reduce the throbbing pain. It was working, until Steve heard footsteps outside of the apartment and a familiar jingle of keys. Bucky.
The door swung open and he walked in, coat in hand as he closed the door behind him. He moved to the couch to take off his shoes. “Hey,”
“Hi,”
Bucky glanced quickly in the other man’s direction, then looked back and stared with narrow eyes once he spotted the bag of ice on Steve’s head. “I swear to God, Rogers, did you--?”
Steve didn’t think it would be worth mentioning the near fight he had gotten into earlier in the day. “Nah, it’s just a headache,”
He glared for a second more, then turned and collapsed onto the rickety couch. “How was your day?”
“Fine,” A lie. “Where’ve you been?”
Bucky stilled. “I was working late at the docks.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, a new shipment came in right as we were about to head out.”
Bucky got off every day at 8:30. It was 12:07, and Steve knew that with the 30 other men who worked his shift, it shouldn't take four hours to load 200 boxes onto a ship.
“Sure,” Steve muttered. The pounding in his head only intensified when Bucky looked back at him.
He rose from the couch and strolled into the kitchen, leaning across the counter from Steve. “What’s your deal?”
He pursed his lips, “Nothin’, Buck, I’ve just got a headache,”
“Has anyone ever told you how bad you are at lying?”
Steve set the ice pack on the counter. His head was starting to feel numb with the cold.
“Ste-e-ve,”
Steve bit his lip for a second before mumbling, “You weren’t at the docks that late, Buck, and you and I both know that,”
“What?”
“You really expect me to believe that it’s gonna take you four hours to load boxes onto a ship, Buck? That’s absolute bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit if it’s the truth--”
And maybe it was the fight, or the headache, or his exhaustion, or maybe just the fact that Steve was getting really sick of Bucky’s constant lies, that he pressed his lips to Bucky’s in anger, in hopes of making him shut up.
Bucky pulled away after a second, eyes wide with shock and confusion.
Steve recoiled in horror. Fuck. Now Bucky knew, and he couldn’t even look at him, and he’d ruined everything and their friendship was destroyed along with any hope for anything else and oh god how could I have fucked this up so badly—
"Steve!” He was on the floor, breath coming quickly as he rocked back and forth.
“Steve?”
Blood was pounding in his head. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thum--
“Goddammit, Rogers, look at me,” Bucky had crouched down in front of him, worry etched into his features.
Steve choked on his words, kicking himself backward until he was pressed against the wall, air coming quickly. Bucky slowly moved to sit in front of him, hands fidgeting in his lap. The only sound in the apartment was Steve’s heavy breathing.
Finally, Bucky looked up, an unruly curl flopping in his face. “When were you going to tell me?”
No response.
“Steve.”
“Tell you what?” He mumbled.
“About. . . that you’re gay, Steve,”
Another sharp inhale. “I— it’s wrong, Buck, to. . . to have feelings for a. . . guy,”
Steve closed his eyes, sinking even further down the wall. Is it possible to collapse into yourself? Because that’s sounding pretty good right about now. When Steve opened his eyes, Bucky was much closer than he was before. He made to move back but— damn it, he was already against the wall.
“It’s not wrong,”
“Really, Buck? Then tell me, why are people out here getting killed for. . . for giving a guy the wrong look, or talking too loud about their boyfriends, or hell, anything even relating to being. . .” he remembered where he was, their apartment with the paper-thin walls, “gay,”
He could feel his face heating with rage. He didn't even know why he was so angry.
“Steve—”
“And why are you sneaking out at night, hiding in alleyways, getting off with whoever, and then lying in my face about it?”
“You—”
“And then, you’ve got the dames on the side too, taking them home and pretending I’m not even here, So, no, I wasn’t going to tell you, because it wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest.”
Bucky was rendered speechless as he took in the raging man sitting across from him. “It would have mattered.”
The fire dimmed in Steve’s eyes and he settled his head into his hands. Bucky moved closer. “You do matter to me, Steve,”
“Not like this, I don’t.” He sounded miserable.
“Yes, you do,” Bucky reached for the blond, but he shrugged away and pulled impossibly closer to the wall.
“No, I don’t. Like, yesterday, you came home with some girl really late and the next morning, she was gone before I’d woken up. I didn’t ask, because I knew you’d lie about it, just like you lie about everything else.”
It grew quiet in the apartment. “I didn’t know you were awake that late,” Bucky responded quietly.
“No kidding,” he muttered. Lights danced before Steve’s eyes, and he closed them in a vain attempt to keep from crying.
“How did you know?”
“Know what?”
Bucky fidgeted again with his hands, eyes flitting everywhere but Steve. “About the guys,”
He just shrugged.
Bucky nodded, more to himself, “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have lied to you.”
“Why did you?”
“I don’t know.”
Silence. When Steve opened his eyes again, Bucky was gone. He remained on the floor like that for a long time, knees curled to his chest, tears flowing freely down his face.
Loneliness wasn’t all that bad once you got used to it.