“And I’m- I’m- I’m just some guy, ok? Just a GUY, and like I have to go grocery shopping, I have a JOB, you know? Classes?! I- It’s just so much pressure…” Peter’s voice trailed off as he realized the room was staring at him.
“Kid,” began Tony, and Bucky winced at the tone in his voice. “Look around. The black cat who flew in from Africa for this one runs a COUNTRY. Cap’s socio-political calendar is more booked than the president’s- and the Danger Twins are the highest black ops team on the planet. I know college is hard-” and again, Bucky flinched from the condescension in the tone, “but we’ve all got too much on our plates, ok? We’re all in the same temp water.”
Peter’s mouth had snapped shut- a hard clicking noise even over the jet engine’s muted roar. He hunched into his seat, took a long pull from his water bottle, and glared at the floor.
‘What a dick,’ thought Bucky, not for the first time.
He wasn’t Steve, to barge in where he wasn’t wanted, but Peter worshipped the ground Tony walked on in the worst way, anyone could see it. And you’d have to be blind to see Tony wasn’t always good at thinking through Peter’s point of view on things.
So Bucky stood up, casually, and walked to get himself a snack, Steve’s eyes boring a hole right between his shoulder blades. Guy never could just relax about it, could he? He’d watched Bucky do this plenty of times in the army, but he couldn’t trust that Bucky could handle the men- even better than the glorious Cap could.
He slouched his way onto the seat beside the frustrated and tense younger man. “I usedta be just a guy,” he said quietly, shrugging when Peter turned his head to glare at him. “Usedta go grocery shopping, have to pay bills. Life was plenty hard, and I didn’t get dragged halfway across the planet to fight some dame with a pink cape.”
“I’m not mad about being an Avenger,” Peter muttered.
Bucky nodded. “Sure. You love the fight. Doesn’t mean it’s not fucking with your life, though.” He offered the guy some of the high-calorie mixed nuts and things in the bag he was holding, smiling tightly when Peter eventually lifted his hand, palm up, to receive a portion.
Talk to the guys, feed them a little. Listen to whatever thing they thought they were wound up about. That’s what he used to do, too.
Bucky leaned back, ignoring Steve’s small private smile. “I’m trying to be just a guy again,” he told Peter, keeping his voice quiet. “It’s weird. Everything’s all…” he waved a hand, “you all do a lot, you fill every minute. Everything’s changed and I’m scrambling to figure it out, you know? And trying to decide which toppings I want on my pizza because there’s 3,000 to choose from.”
A long pause, while they both chewed.
“I can help with that,” said Peter slowly. He grinned at Bucky. “I love pizza, and I’m a man of science. We can use experiments and data to narrow down your selections.”
“Good,” said Bucky, grinning back. “I tried to order one last week from the place Stark put on my phone but the damn app- I had to look up half of the CHEESE names under that option, and I just gave up.”
“Lemme see your phone,” said Peter, tossing his head and gesturing impatiently. “You shouldn’t order pizza from any of Tony’s places. He’s got the worst taste buds.”
Bucky ignored Steve’s fond smile. So what? He was good with the guys- especially the new ones who just wanted to be heard, to talk about how fucking overwhelming it was. He was good with the guys, that was all.
So that was how it started- Bucky just going out of his way the first few times to be decent to the guy. To say, “Yeah, it fucking sucks. I get it.”
They ate twenty seven pies in thirteen hours. Bucky liked mushroom and sausage best, and they discovered together that he could enjoy a wider variety of pizza once they’d find his favorite.
Peter didn’t drink, and neither did Bucky, and neither of them smoked stale cigarettes, and there weren’t mortars going off and people shouting, but it was familiar anyway.
The good kind of familiar.
It wasn’t like the guy was a sap, either, or a Debbie downer. He was funny- kept Bucky in stitches when they’d find time. Guy had more quips and one-liners than Callaway, back in basic.
Steve had never met Callaway, but he agreed with Bucky that Peter was funny.
They taught Peter to like baseball, and he helped them find the apps they actually wanted on their phones, jettisoning the things Stark had put on there.
It got to be their post-mission thing they did: Peter would come back to their apartment and bitch and moan, and Bucky’d bitch back at him, friendly-like, and Steve would smile at them and order in enough food to feed a platoon.
Then some girl broke Peter’s heart, and Bucky drummed up everything he could remember about how to get a pal through that.
Rough. It was always so rough, no matter when it happened and what you were doing- but you couldn’t tell a guy risking his life that he’d have more chances. That’s where Stark had gone wrong, with all that ‘find another one, you’re good looking’ bullshit.
That worked on civilians, probably.
But Petey wasn’t a civilian. He’d started fighting too young, just like all the soldiers Bucky had trained with and fought beside. Stark had been a grown man when he’d started fighting, but Bucky, he recognized a soldier when he saw one.
Civilian stuff wouldn’t work. That’s why Stark rubbed the guy wrong when he went looking for a friend.
But it didn’t really matter, since Bucky was right there and he didn’t mind.
It was easy to listen to him, when he needed to bitch about it.
The guy hadn’t even been drafted. He’d been a kid, really, and he’d had a little kid accident, and then BAM, superhero sucker punch.
Bucky could find some sympathy for that.
“I’m a danger, she’s right,” Peter said in a tight voice.
“Ah, c’mon, she’s a New Yorker, just breathing is a danger, fuck that,” muttered Bucky, shaking his head. What a bum deal, for the kid. “She really didn’t even give a hint?”
“Nothing,” choked Peter, burying his head in his hands. “I thought we were okay!”
Bucky winced where the guy couldn’t see him. ‘Okay’ had never been his baseline of satisfaction with a dame. Amazing, stupendous, fantastic- in a pinch, he’d settle for good. But okay?
Mayday mayday crashing burning.
But the guy was young. That happened, when you were young. You didn’t know it could be better so you settled for okay.
“Well it fucking sucks,” Bucky growled, reaching forward to the stack of takeout menus they’d been working through. “How we gonna eat our feelings about it tonight?”
Peter laughed, a hollow, echoing sound that broke Bucky’s heart, it really did.
“Something spicy,” declared Bucky recklessly. “So if you start crying, you can tell me it’s the spice, and I’ll believe you.”
“Bucky,” laughed Peter, a sound with real humor, “we covered toxic masculinity last week- men can just cry. I don’t need to lie about it. We stopped doing that in like the 80s I think.”
Bucky gave him a glance over the top of the Indian menu he had opened. “Yeah, well, you’ve been choking your tears back for the last hour, so I thought maybe you were doin’ a throwback thing, I dunno. Kids these days. Mighta been a TikTok challenge: get dumped and don’t cry about it or whatever.”
Over Peter’s spluttering he added primly, “In my day when a doll told a guy to take a hike, you’d just cry about it like a human being going through some rough shit, you know.”
“What? The future is weird,” Bucky pointed out. “You got real weird. How do I know?”
It wasn’t really a surprise when he ended up holding the guy later that night, as he cried about his plans for his girl, their future together.
It wasn’t Bucky’s first time holding the pieces of a heart, after all.
He was just glad the guy came to him.
Meant he was doing some good- and it felt good. Felt right.
“Should we just start calling that room Peter’s room?” asked Steve, nodding at the guest bedroom where Peter was sacked out, exhausted after some final exam had kept him up a full 48 hours (with patrol).
Bucky dropped his phone so he could stare at his best friend and Captain, and Steve stared back, lifting his chin in a slight challenge.
After several long minutes of silence, Bucky lifted up his phone and swiped to the Spice Emporium app. “Yeah,” he muttered, in response to Steve’s several unspoken questions as well as the one he’d asked aloud.
Steve, the bastard, smirked into his coffee.
So what if Bucky liked having the guy over? So what? Petey was funny, and fun, and had great ideas for shit to do in this fucked up century that made it feel less fucked up. They talked for hours, and fought about baseball, and yeah, Bucky had a torch for the guy, maybe, but Steve shouldn’t smirk about it.
Not at the breakfast table, anyway.
Not when Bucky’s heart was thumping so had it would break his breastbone.
It wasn’t like it was the first time.
Bucky just liked being friends with guys, ok?
And sometimes it just happened.
“It’s a new century, Buck,” murmured Steve. “They get married now. Kiss in public. Hold hands.”
“Good for them,” spat Bucky angrily, standing up, leaning in for emphasis he clearly needed. “I’m not trying any funny business with the guy. Just- being the kind of friend he deserves.”
“You deserve him,” Steve countered, voice even and eyes steady. The jerk was always like that- saying the thing you didn’t want anyone to say.
“He wants me, he can have me. Til then, butt out,” Bucky growled, turning on his heels.
Interfering busybody gossip girl Steven Rogers. No one ever believed him about the punk.
And then it ended like this…
“Hey, watch it!” scolded Bucky, as he woke to Peter crawling in the window. “I’m a brainwashed assassin! I could kill you.”
“I wish you would,” rasped Peter quietly. “I wish-”
“Hey, you okay?” asked Bucky, sitting up and turning on the light. “What’s up, Petey?”
“I got- bad trip- roofied- drugs,” Peter slurred, his limbs flopping everywhere as he gestured expansively and tried to walk.
“Came here, head’s all fucked up,” moaned Peter, flopping onto the bed. “Needed- you.”
“Glad you came,” Bucky said, hating how raw and earnest it sounded.
Peter laughed and began to cry. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he sobbed.
“Hey, no, no, it’s okay,” Bucky told him, dragging him bodily up the bed and tossing the blankets awkwardly over both of them. “You’re safe here. I got you. What are friends for?”
“Y’r my best friend,” sobbed Peter. “I love you. You’re the best.”
Bucky told his stupid heart to behave, holding the slight frame of the other man in his arms. He nuzzled the curls just a little, enjoying the scent of the other man. “I am your friend,” he declared slowly and forcefully. “I got your back. Sleep it off, Petey. Just- sleep it off.”
It wasn’t that easy, but eventually the guy did pass out, wrung out and exhausted, his spider suit tossed into a corner and one of Bucky’s new tshirts completely enveloping the thin, anxious body.
Bucky stayed up, waiting for the villain to track Spidey to this little bolt hole, but none appeared.
It was afternoon before Peter stumbled out of Bucky’s room and into the kitchen.
“Hey, champ,” Steve greeted him. “I texted Stark last night-he was getting hysterical after you disappeared. Banner says it cleared your system around 6 am, but it’s nasty and you can check in with him for the next couple of weeks. Bacon’s in the oven.”
“Thanks,” croaked Peter, slumping into a chair.
Bucky slid him a fresh cup of coffee with a shoulder pat of sympathy.
“Did I-?” began Peter in a wrecked voice. He stopped, took a breath, and then continued, “- tell you that I love you? Last night?”
“You did. You were higher than a kite, pal,” said Bucky.
Peter squinted up at him. “Do I- remember you saying that was ok?”
Even if it would never be enough.
“Of course,” Bucky told him firmly. “What, love got all weird while we were gone, too? You got rules about it? Guy can’t love a good friend?”
“No, but-“ a long pause, the kind that eventually required Bucky to lift his head and LOOK at the guy. “Bucky, I don’t-“ Peter shrugged. “I don’t think it’s just as a friend.”
Bucky choked on his coffee.
Steve took a long, loud sip from his own mug, eyes dancing with self-satisfied glee.
“Is that a problem?” asked Peter in a small voice.
“Hell no,” replied Bucky forcefully, spinning Peter’s chair. “You wanna kiss? Steve, cover your eyes. NO CAMERA.”
Peter’s laughter tasted even better than it sounded.
