wait a minute... are you jealous?
it's not the first time they've done the whole double-date thing.
it is, however, a whole lot more fucking irritating than it used to be, and steve can't even pretend otherwise anymore.
he's still not entirely sure how he'd ended up dragged into it in the first place. a couple of girls had wandered over while he and buck had been minding their own business, and although steve had every intention of giving them a polite excuse before making a quick exit, bucky had gone and smiled at them with that stupid, impossible-to-say-no-to face of his, all manners and easy charm and old-fashioned courtesy, and by the time steve realized what was happening, the four of them had somehow made plans to see a movie together. he'd agreed to go for one reason and one reason only, which was apparently because somewhere deep in his own malfunctioning brain he'd decided bucky couldn't possibly survive a date without adult supervision. natasha had laughed herself stupid when he'd admitted as much while standing in front of his closet trying to decide whether one button-up somehow looked less like he was trying than another. she'd informed him, very kindly, that he was an idiot. steve had informed her to mind her own business. she'd laughed harder.
the really pathetic part was that she wasn't wrong.
maybe he was just a glutton for punishment, maybe there was something fundamentally broken about the part of him that kept volunteering for front-row seats every single time bucky inevitably charmed somebody else. maybe he just hated the thought of bucky walking somebody home while steve sat in his apartment pretending it didn't bother him. whatever the reason, here he was.
to his credit, he'd been perfectly pleasant with his own date, because none of this was her fault and she'd been nice enough to spend her evening with him. he'd bought the tickets, the drinks, the oversized bucket of popcorn neither of them could possibly finish, laughed when he was supposed to laugh, made conversation during the previews, and done a halfway decent impression of a man who wasn't slowly driving himself insane.
it was just his rotten luck that the seats had put bucky directly beside him...
the movie may as well not have existed.
instead, steve spent the better part of two hours becoming irrationally invested in the location of bucky's elbow, which had somehow claimed ownership over the shared armrest until steve finally knocked it aside with his own and refused to surrender the territory again like they were still nineteen years old arguing over bunks at camp. every time buck shifted in his seat their knees came within an inch of touching, and somehow that managed to be even more distracting than the armrest. somewhere off to his other side, emma laughed at something happening on the screen, and steve had absolutely no idea what she'd found funny because he'd missed nearly every scene.
he couldn't remember these stupid outings being this aggravating. ...maybe he'd gotten too old for this, or maybe he could find his own date without bucky's help. and everyone with functioning eyesight already knew bucky sure as hell didn't need his. thank christ the girls decided to call it a night after the credits instead of suggesting dinner.
the moment they climbed into a taxi, steve finally felt like he could unclench every muscle in his body, although the relief lasted all of five seconds before he caught himself looking sideways at buck again.
"what kinda wingman stunt was that supposed to be, anyway?" he muttered, shoving both hands into his pockets as they started down the sidewalk. "next time you wanna spend two hours makin' googly eyes at somebody, do us both a favor and get a room instead of draggin' me along."
the words were out before he'd really thought about them, harsher than he'd meant, and almost immediately he regretted it. he blew out a breath through his nose, kicked absentmindedly at a crack in the pavement, and picked up his pace as if walking away fast enough might somehow erase the last thirty seconds.
then bucky had to open his damn mouth.
wait a minute... are you jealous?
steve stopped so abruptly he nearly tripped over his own feet. his head snapped around, blond brows climbing so high they practically disappeared under the brim of his cap as he stared at bucky like the man had just suggested the moon was made of mashed potatoes.
"what?" he barked, and the answer came out about three pitches higher than he'd intended. he cleared his throat immediately. "what?" he repeated, lower this time, "jealous? of you?" a rather terrible laugh escaped him.
"buck, c'mon," he looked away, rubbed the back of his neck, then shrugged with entirely too much enthusiasm. "i got nothin' to be jealous about."
it would've sounded a lot more convincing if his ears weren't turning bright red. @voicestold
