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The first time John heard about Steve Rogers, he was a glass of wine deep on his very first date with Bucky Barnes and he could not stop staring at his date’s mouth. John had been nervous before they got there, nervous that he was trying too hard with him, nervous he’d embarrass himself. But as Bucky sat across from him, the dim lighting of the wine bar playing up the angles of his face, softening the sharp cut of his sleek black jacket, John thought that Bucky should never be brought to anywhere with glasses of wine costing less than $46 each.
He watched Bucky sip at his glass, the deep red of the wine staining his lips as they parted. “My roommate,” he’d winced. “God. So embarrassing. I sound like a teenager.”
“It’s not embarrassing to have a roommate,” John reassured him. “You’re still in grad school.”
Bucky looked away for a moment, nodding to himself. “Sure. Yeah. But, uh, my roommate–” he paused and then he surprised John by laughing softly. “He’s the most important person in my life.”
John rolled his shoulders back and said what he needed to say to make sure Bucky ended up in his bed that night: “Tell me about him.”
But that had been nearly a year ago, and now, John could tell people a few things about Steve Rogers. The truth is that he likes Steve. And he wants Steve to like him. He thinks he’s mostly successful, too, but sometimes he’s thrown off.
Like today.
“Rogers, are you watching the game later?” he says, clapping him on the shoulder. He pours coffee from the shared coffee pot as Bucky does his usual morning routine of pretending he doesn’t exist until he finishes his second mug.
“Maybe,” he gets in response.
“Maybe?” John asks in disbelief. “Giants versus Falcons, baby, your team and mine. We gotta watch.”
Steve sips his coffee and shrugs deeply. “I need to make sure I get my errands done. And my friend Sam’s in town.”
John turns to Bucky at that, who hasn’t moved. In fact, it looks like he’s about to fall over on the couch, so John rushes over and moves the coffee mug from his boyfriend’s hand to the end table. Bucky whimpers when he doesn’t have it. “It’s right there next to you,” John mumbles, then talks louder to Steve. “I didn’t know Sam was coming.” He should know that, he thinks. Bucky’s usually in a terrible mood when Sam’s in town.
“Yeah, he’s getting off the train in a couple hours,” and then Steve is turning his back, texting quickly on his phone.
“Got it,” John nods. He looks back to Bucky, “Well, does Sam follow football? We could all watch together.”
Steve laughs softly, still texting, “He’s from New Orleans. Wouldn’t be caught dead cheering for the Falcons.”
John takes a deep breath before he plasters his smile on harder, “Great, then Bucky will just have to join my team for the day. Right, babe?” He reaches out to ruffle his hair, and Bucky slumps into the pillow next to him. He looks back to Steve, who’s got a small smile on his face at the sight of Bucky so clearly noncommittal to the football plans. John lets out a laugh that’s louder than necessary as they both look at Bucky, “Guess I shouldn’t have kept him up so late.”
“Shut up, John,” Bucky groans. He always gets like that, bashful when John makes a joke about him in bed. “Take a shower.”
He’s got a point; it was John’s turn for the bathroom. So he takes the coffee mug to the bathroom to warm the water and he’s just about to get in when he realizes he needs a towel. But on his way to Bucky’s room to get one, he needs to pass the living room, where he sees Steve’s large arm around the back of the sofa where Bucky sits and hears the low rumbling of his boyfriend’s voice. Then Steve laughs.
So apparently, Bucky is ready for conversation as long as it’s with Steve. He opens the door loudly to get the towel and walks quickly back to the bathroom. He flicks his eyes past the living room and makes eye contact with Steve, who’s back to standing.
He slows down.
Steve smiles, and John fights not to note the condescending note in it. “Let’s watch the game later.”
“Yeah?” John asks, and he hates how much he wants this fucking guy to like him, but if he’s going to be with Bucky, he’s gotta get with Steve, like that stupid fucking Spice Girls song. It’s been the same dance for months.
“Yeah,” Steve says. “It’ll be fun.”
It was Lemar who had first called John’s attention to it. They’d been sitting on Lemar’s couch, John stressed because he was pretty sure he and Bucky were fighting, but it was hard to tell with Bucky sometimes. Especially during midterms and finals, when he could go hours upon hours, even a day, without returning texts and calls because he was either studying or stress-napping. Sometimes it just felt like Bucky wanted to fight life itself and John was merely a symptom.
He’d tried to call Bucky and just got a text in response: we can talk later. I’m w steve
“Oh, he’s just hanging out with Steve,” John said, relief flooding his veins. He wasn’t being ignored out of spite. He was just…being ignored because of Steve. Lemar fixed him with such a judgmental, unimpressed look that John needed to sigh. “What?”
“His roommate? Who looks exactly like you?”
“Not exactly like me–”
“Enough like you,” Lemar had argued. “You’re trying really fucking hard for this guy for him to just blow you off for his roommate all the time. You’re John fucking Walker, dude, you’re not just…a stand-in for Steve.”
“A stand-in?”
“Yeah, there to do the very few things his friend won’t do until they have a fairytale movie moment and confess their lifelong love for each other.”
John scoffed, “That’s not what’s happening here.”
“So Bucky has no feelings for him? Whatsoever?”
And John had rolled his eyes that day. He really didn’t think there was anything to it. Plus, Bucky had told him right away that Steve was important. He could deal with someone being important to Bucky.
But he wasn’t completely over it. Lemar had planted the seed, and the next fight he and Bucky had, John couldn’t help himself. The fight had started over something so small, but had devolved into Bucky saying I need to get outta here, go take a walk or something–
“Bucky, I swear, if you walk out of here and go meet Steve–”
“What, John?” he rolls his eyes. “What? You’ll be so angry?”
And John turns away, running a hand down his face, and he has to know. He has to know if they’re going to do this. “Do you have feelings for him?”
Bucky scoffs. “Every guy. Every fucking guy. This happens with all of you,” and Bucky has to know, even a few months into dating, that John’s going to hate that he said that, that he lumped John in with all the rest. “I’m not fucking Steve. I’m not doing anything remotely close to fucking Steve.”
“Do you want to?”
Bucky sputters and John braces himself for the onslaught. Bucky can be sweet; he can be soft; he can be the cutest thing in the goddamn world, but he has a fucking temper, and John knows he’s setting it off. “What the fuck, John?!” he yells.
John yells back, because apparently they do this. Apparently, they’ll be a couple-who-yells. “Do you want to fuck Steve?!”
“I’ve already fucked Steve!” Bucky yells back, and the neighbor pounds on the wall next to them. Bucky walks quickly to the wall and pounds back. “Fucking–”
John’s head spins. A dozen and a half different images of Bucky fucking Steve run through his mind. “Bucky, what?”
“I fucked Steve,” he says hotly, turning to him. “Seven fucking years ago, because we were seniors in high school and I asked him to take my virginity to get it over with. Happy?”
“I–that’s it?”
Bucky rolls his eyes. “God, do you need my whole sexual history? I gotta warn you, it’s long. Are you gonna yell at me every time we run into someone on campus I fucked? It’s gonna be a lot, John.”
“Shut up,” John snaps.
“No, let me tell you how much of a slut I am because apparently you can’t handle it when I hang out with my friend. And don’t even pretend this is just about Steve, because you’ve had shit to say about any guy remotely close to me. ”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
Bucky narrows his eyes and crosses his arms. “You can’t keep me from spending time with Steve.” The way he says it…John’s willing to bet a few thousand dollars that this is not the first time Bucky’s had this exact same conversation.
“I’m not trying to. I’m trying to understand.”
Bucky makes a face like he’s about to start yelling again, but John watches as his shoulders fall. “I’ve told you the truth. Really. I was nervous about starting college without any experience, and Steve helped me out. That’s it. The only other time we did anything was, like, three years ago, and we were drunk. I just…gave him a hand job and went to bed after a party.” He even punctuates that story with a laugh. “He’s my best friend. I care about him, but I’m not dating him.”
John takes a deep breath and watches Bucky come closer to him. God, he’s fucking pretty, and he’s looking up at him under his eyelashes, and John’s opening his arms to hug him before he recognizes what he’s doing.
Bucky speaks quietly. “You never fucked Lemar?”
“What? No.”
“Huh,” Bucky sounds surprised, even fascinated.
John’s quiet for a moment before he brushes his lips over Bucky’s forehead. “I’m just trying to figure out why Steve doesn’t like me. And I wondered if it was because you had something going on with him.”
Bucky pulls away to look up at him. “Steve li–” he stops himself. “He doesn’t dislike you.”
John grimaces, “You see how you couldn’t say it?”
“Yeah, but–” he considers his words. “Steve can be difficult. You just need to stick around. He’s seen me go for a lotta assholes. He’s protective.”
“So he wouldn’t have liked this fight?”
Bucky laughs softly and folds himself back into John’s arms. “Nah. He would’ve been yelling before I started.” And John doesn’t know how Bucky does this: go from yelling, calling himself a slut and challenging John to disagree and then suddenly soft and small in his arms. But he goes with it. Especially when Bucky looks up at him hopefully and goes, “You wanna go to bed?”
And there are very few doubts in John’s mind that night. It’s hard to doubt anything Bucky says when he gets like the way he is that night, praising him so sweetly in between gasps and moans, telling him how good he feels, how good he fucks him, how full he is, how full he wants to be. The words spilled from Bucky’s mouth fill up every crevice in John’s mind until there’s no room for insecurity, no room for Steve Rogers. He wraps an arm around Bucky when they’re done and kisses his temple as he falls asleep. If his arm is a little tighter than usual, Bucky doesn’t complain.
Sam Wilson, by all accounts, shouldn’t annoy John.
He thought, for a while, that it was just because Bucky didn’t like him very much. But he learned early that it was a superficial sort of dislike. Or maybe superficial isn’t the right word. Because it’s really that there are rules to how Bucky dislikes Sam. Like how Bucky complains about, seemingly, any part of Sam, but as soon as John brought up once he can really dominate the conversation when he gets on a soapbox, Bucky had looked so horrified that John would even think that he knew better than whatever Sam had been making a speech about that night. So Bucky can complain about Sam; John can’t. Maybe no one else can.
But Sam is likable, is the thing. He’s charming and smart and fun. He ribs Bucky in a way Steve never does, and John thinks they could really be friends over that, but there’s something that’s always a little bothersome about Sam. He’s always just a half a step ahead, it seems.
And the knowing looks he shares with Steve, the little jokes they seem to have, the way Steve just laughs and laughs over things Sam says–that should be John. He should have that friendship with his boyfriend’s best friend. Not Sam Wilson.
So he’s annoying.
“Oh shit,” Sam says, dropping his backpack to the floor when he sees John in Bucky and Steve’s apartment. “Buck’s kept you around, huh?” Bucky is hogging the spinach-artichoke dip, his favorite part of football afternoons, but still finds time to shoot Sam a middle finger from his place on the couch. Sam laughs and offers his hand to John. “What’s going on, Walker?”
“Nothing much,” he says, and he’s proud of the way his voice comes out cool. He brushes fingers through Bucky’s hair, “Got this one into a jersey.” He doesn’t say I promised him a blowjob and he still complained before he tugged it on and said fine, but I’m eating so much shitty food today so I’m not putting out for days.
“I see that,” Sam says, barely hiding his laughter. He turns to Steve, “You see what Walker got your boy to wear?”
Steve comes in and leans against the wall, shaking his head as he watches Bucky in the white and red and black jersey shovel spinach-artichoke dip on chips into his mouth like a starving man. John’s fingers tense against Bucky’s shoulder. Steve looks like he’s watching someone nurse puppies back to health, walk several old ladies across the road, save a drowning child. “Yeah, I see,” he says, his smile turning indulgent. “Gonna be a sad sight when they lose.”
Bucky doesn’t even pretend to be interested when the game starts, staying on his phone and eating and even napping at one point, laying his head on the armrest closest to where Steve’s sitting in the chair next to the couch, his feet pressed against John’s thigh.
Meanwhile John is getting more annoyed by the goddamn second.
The Giants are playing a good game, a great game even, miracle of goddamn miracles. And Steve and Sam are having an excellent time. It seems like anytime the ball is moved farther than John would like or any points are scored, Steve and Sam get louder and louder. By the time they score yet another touchdown in the fourth quarter, and John has accepted he’s lost, Steve and Sam are all but screaming, jumping up and high fiving and laughing at their display of enthusiasm. John’s beginning to think it is a joke, that they’re excited not only because Steve’s team is winning but because John Walker’s team is losing.
He’s fucking angry. He wishes Lemar could be here. But that’s another weird sore spot. Bucky will hang out with them sometimes but never once suggests they should all get together. So John’s on unstable, away-game territory. All the fucking time.
“Okay, okay,” he makes his voice light, even forcing a little laugh. “Congratulations.”
Steve smiles at him, the kind of smile that has John closing his own mouth in insecurity because whose teeth are that perfect? “Thanks, man.”
Bucky rouses to Steve’s voice, it seems, blinking at the screen. “Giants win?”
“Yeah, we got destroyed,” John sighs.
“Mm, that’s good.” Bucky says, and John really should not be as annoyed as he is by that, but he is annoyed, so he straightens up, pushing on Bucky’s feet so they aren’t against him anymore. “What?”
“Bucky,” John sighs, getting up to busy himself with getting a drink in the kitchen. He doesn’t look behind him to see whatever look Bucky and Steve are absolutely sharing at this display, and he fights not to feel embarrassed. He hears Bucky follow him into the kitchen and he turns to see him looking indignant. “Why would you say that?”
“Say what?”
“That it’s good that my team lost.” John feels like a petulant child, and he knows he promised Bucky that they’d hook up later but he doesn’t want to be there anymore. He wants to be in his own apartment, where Steve Rogers doesn’t look at him half-amused and doesn’t look at Bucky like the sun shines out of his ass, which, yeah, sure, it does, but John’s supposed to be the only one who looks at him like that.
“I grew up here. The Giants are my team, too,” Bucky says, and John scoffs. “What now?”
“You don’t give a shit about the Giants!” John says, trying to keep his voice down, “You give a shit about Rogers!”
“Of course I do!” Bucky says, looking at him like he’s stupid. And John Walker isn’t stupid. “You think I like living with someone who mopes around and has an existential crisis as he’s forced to cheer on another team for the remainder of the season when they’re knocked out? Forgive me for enjoying peace in my home, John.”
“That’s not what this is about, and you fucking know it.”
“Then what’s it about, huh? Tell me what this is all about, all-knowing John Walker,” Bucky steps closer to him, and behind him, John can see the shadow of Steve Rogers about to walk in. Jesus Christ.
So he risks a 50-50 shot and just tugs Bucky close to him, kissing him hard, and it’s a successful 50-50 shot, thank God, because Bucky melts into the aggression instead of pushing him away. Bucky groans into his mouth, wrapping his arms around his neck and letting John kiss him deeply. Dimly, his mind reminds him he probably just really wants a blowjob. But he’ll take that reasoning for the way that Steve loudly drops a can into the recycling bin and shoots John such a steely look that he feels like maybe he did win something today after all.
He’s still thinking about that look days later, when Bucky’s in a playful mood and climbs on John’s lap to kiss at his neck. He doesn’t get this way often, usually a sign that he’s happy and a little bit easy, and John takes the opportunity.
“Can I ask you something? About Steve?” he says, and Bucky picks up his head to look at him quizzically.
“I thought we were done with those questions.” Bucky makes a movement to sit next to him, but John’s hands on his waist keep him in place, so he grinds down just a little bit with a smirk on his face. “You sure you wanna talk about Steve right now?”
“It’s nothing bad,” John says, and tries to believe it. “I know you’re not with him. But I just–I mean, he wants to fuck you, doesn’t he?” He doesn’t mean to just say it like that, but Bucky surprises him by just tilting his head.
“I don’t know. Haven’t asked,” Bucky replies. “You think he does?”
“The way he looked at me the other day when he did his not in the kitchen routine.” Bucky laughs at that, so John gets a little more confident. “I don’t know. I think he does.”
“Okay…” Bucky says slowly. “So what if he does?”
“What if he does…?”
“What if he does wanna fuck me?” Bucky says, grinding down again on John’s lap. “What if he’s listening everytime we’re in my room?”
John huffs out a laugh, “I would hope he has the decency to use headphones.”
“Look, you brought it up, John. If he wants to fuck me, why would he use headphones?” Bucky continues, and John’s fingers tighten against his waist. “Maybe he listens, right? Maybe he imagines the way I must look under you or on top of you, begging you for more, right?” He drops his face again, kissing his neck, sucking just a little. “‘Cause you love that, baby, I know you do. You love hearing how much I want you.”
“Yeah,” John says, eyelids fluttering shut.
“You think he thinks about knocking sometimes? Just knocking on the door? You saying come in, because you’re already so deep in me, you couldn’t bother to pull out.” Bucky tugs off John’s shirt and starts marking his chest, sucking bruises onto the skin as John lets out ragged breaths. He keeps going in between licking and sucking his skin and it’s driving John wild . “You think he’d be hard already? Ask to watch when you fuck me? Maybe he’d tell you how to do it, how he wants to do it, and I’d go wild for it, for whatever it was.”
“Jesus,” John pulls at Bucky’s shirt, watching him as he sits up and tugs it off gracefully. John’s on him, pushing him down with a gasp so he can lick at Bucky’s nipples, sensitive pink things, the way Bucky likes them licked and scraped a little with his teeth, rubbed by his fingertips. “Keep going.”
Bucky lets out a breathy laugh but continues. “Like you said, if he wants to fuck me…it’s not enough just to watch you. He’d want it so bad. Tell you to keep stretching me out for him, like your dick’s just fingering me open.” John hates how hard he’s getting, thrusting against the bed as he licks down Bucky’s chest. He can feel Bucky’s erection against him, seeking friction even as his mouth goes off. “Maybe he’d want my mouth on you. Maybe he’d want my ass, tell you to pull out and you’d do it, right?”
“Yeah,” John can’t hide it now, pulling down Bucky’s pants to get his cock out, start stroking it as he moans. “Yeah, you’d suck me instead.”
“Such a good boy,” Bucky sighs, and John almost tenses because that’s not him. If anyone’s called good boy, it’s always Bucky. But then he keeps going. “You’d be such a good boy for him.” And he shudders at that, lured in by the picture Bucky’s painting, the haze of promised sex so soon clouding his judgment for himself. “You’d feel the way he’s fucking me, the way I’m gagging on you, right? The way you like?” John nods at the crease of Bucky’s hip, lifting his face to lick a stripe up the shaft. “Oh, that’s good, John. Fuck, if you were laying down underneath me? If you could suck me like that?” John moans, taking the head into his mouth. “Just thrusting into your mouth when he’s fucking me? Would you like that?”
And John doesn’t even fucking know, and honestly, he probably wouldn’t like that, but the way Bucky’s breathing turns ragged and precome drips onto his tongue, he just keeps sucking, the blood rushing through his ears drowning out some of the words but not all of them. He slips a lubed finger into Bucky, the way he likes, stroking him as he continues to lick and suck and take him down his throat.
“God, it’d feel so good,” Bucky’s saying, his words desperate and more gasped out than said with conviction. “Him fucking me, using your mouth. Sharing me. Oh God, John, I’m gonna come.” John crooks his finger, massaging that spot inside of him as he hollows out his cheeks and Bucky comes down his throat, shaking and groaning with it. He catches his breath for a minute straight, it seems, and John’s brain is about to start worrying when Bucky climbs on him and rides him, hands digging into the skin of his chest and shoulders for leverage, and that…that takes energy. Bucky’s choosing to do that.
Yeah. Just a fantasy. Just another round of fucked-up things that only make sense during sex. Nothing real. Bucky couldn’t fake that level of energy and enthusiasm.
“Come for me, s–” Bucky breaks off with a gasp, and John’s heart skips a beat. “Sweetheart,” he finishes, and John obeys with the relief of not hearing Steve’s name.
Still, even with all of that, John Walker finds himself rageful when Bucky wonders aloud if that could happen. If Steve could be part of things. He finds himself anxious when he agrees. He finds himself forcing calm when Steve sees him after Bucky’s talked to him, looking at John with a knowing smile on his face as he crosses his arms.
“How’re we gonna do this, Walker?” he asks.
John forces himself to laugh, shaking his head. “I don’t fuckin’ know, dude. You’re talking about Bucky, right?”
“Yeah,” Steve’s smile softens into something else. Something that John can’t name. It’s almost sad. “I mean, usually if people want a third, they find a stranger. But–”
“Well, it isn’t the first time you helped Bucky out with sex, is it?” John asks before he stops himself.
Steve looks at him, a little furrow in his brow, and then shakes his head. “No, it isn’t.”
“Then it’ll be just like that,” he says. “Nothing to it.” The door handle shakes at that moment, Bucky walking in and tugging his keys out of the door. John and Steve turn to look at him.
He looks between them and smiles. “Hey. You’re both here.”
“Yeah, we were just–” Steve starts, looking at John for some direction, it seems.
John straightens up, crossing the room to wrap an arm around Bucky’s waist. If Steve needed someone to show him how to handle Bucky, John could do that. John could do that easy. He kisses his neck softly. “We were just talking about you.”
“Oh,” Bucky says, and John can hear the smirk in his voice. “Like what we’re gonna do?”
“Mmhmm.” John wonders what Steve looks like now, if he’s angry or nervous or watching John and wanting to be him. “What do you say?”
“Now?” Bucky murmurs and John’s lips feel the vibration of his vocal chords as they press to his neck. “Steve?”
Steve takes so long to respond that John pulls away to look at him. And there’s something there: normally powerful, annoyingly composed Steve Rogers is looking at him with such transparent and nervous apprehension that John wants to jump up and down in victory.
“It’s just sex, dude,” John says, satisfaction blooming in his chest when Steve won’t look him in the eyes. He chooses to focus on that instead of the way that Steve’s eyes are locked on Bucky.
Bucky pushes John off, but John just tightens his arms. “Don’t be crass.”
“Don’t get like this,” John shoots back. Like this. Bucky got in such a way every so often, tugging out of John’s arms in the middle of sex sometimes, saying why can’t you just be nice to me? Why can’t you be soft with me? And John shoots back, you don’t like that; you ask me to be rough. And Bucky says, is it crazy to expect my boyfriend of almost a year would be soft sometimes? And then it’s a game for how quickly Bucky folds, until John gives him what he knows he likes, not just the weird idea of sex that Bucky thinks they should have sometimes.
“I’m not, I’m–” Bucky breaks off, and John feels him go a little soft in his arms. “I’m good.”
Steve speaks. Finally. “We don’t have to,” he says, speaking only to Bucky, it seems. “We can keep talking about it.”
“No, I’m good,” Bucky repeats, without even a moment’s hesitation. “You want to?”
Steve offers the smallest smile, “You know that I do. I told you.” John doesn’t like this, the heaviness that settles when Steve speaks. Maybe he should’ve been there for that conversation. Plus, he’ll need to insist on Bucky telling him that he was right later, that of course Steve wants to fuck him. Look at him.
Look at him. Steve Rogers, tall and broad, his face so perfect except for that obviously twice-broken nose. He’s starting to grow a beard again, and that pissed him off, remembering Bucky frowning when John had grown a beard, only rewarded with a smile and happy fingers on his face when he shaved. But oh, if Steve grew a beard, then he’s welcome in their bed.
But John’s not backing down. And he’s not giving Bucky the excuse to do his you’re-always-so-jealous dance. So he clears his throat, “Let’s go then. Bucky, you need…?”
Bucky’s staring at Steve for a moment longer before he turns and presses a small kiss to John’s cheek. “Yeah, give me a little bit to shower,” he says, turning to the bathroom. John panics for a split second about being left alone with Steve before Steve slinks off to his own room, the one next to Bucky’s. He’ll know when they move in there. Fine by me.
When Bucky comes out of the bathroom, John hears him stop by Steve’s room but doesn’t leave from his place on the bed. He strains his ear to hear what they’re saying, but can only make out the timbre of Bucky’s voice. So Steve is either silent or speaking so quietly John can’t hear, both things making him feel more anxious by the second. Because he believed it by now, what he’d said to Steve. He believed it was just sex, just a funky little thing Bucky thought of, like he sometimes does, and John wants to make Bucky happy. As much as Bucky complains or drags his feet sometimes, John knows he just wants to make him happy, even though Bucky can’t always tell for himself what’s actually needed to make him happy. That’s where John comes in.
So he waits.
And soon enough, Bucky comes in, looking pretty and clean and fresh, and he meets John’s eyes with a smile that John returns. “Hey,” Bucky murmurs, coming to sit on the bed, drawstring pants low on his hips and a thin t-shirt on.
“You’re pretty, you know that?” John murmurs, drawing Bucky close to him as his smile deepens with the compliment. “You know it, come on.”
“Yeah, well,” Bucky sighs, turning his face to kiss him, “It’s a beast of a burden.”
“Mm,” John hums appreciatively. He’s always done well under pressure, and this feels no different than a big game during high school, a presentation in college after a night out partying. He can rally his spirit for this, even if he hears the familiar creek of a floorboard that means their guest is here.
He keeps kissing Bucky, because he knows how to do this part. He knows how to get Bucky a little dumb for it, soft and easy for it. He thinks that’ll be their best bet, if Bucky doesn’t get in one of his moods, and can just go with whatever happens. He works his hands over him even when he feels a dip in the bed next to him that means Steve really has joined them.
John’s stomach flips at the thought of Steve watching this, watching John’s hands splay over Bucky’s waist, around his ass, making him gasp into John’s mouth when he straddles his waist. He wonders what this’ll be, if Steve will just silently watch when John fucks Bucky, or if he’ll stop being a fucking coward and say shit.
Bucky seems to have an idea, though, because he hums into John’s mouth before pulling away slightly. “Steve,” he says, turning to him. John wants to keep kissing Bucky, just keep going, but apparently Steve needs to be an integral part here. “Steve.” He tugs out of John’s arms and gets closer to Steve.
Steve looks… Jesus Christ. John needs to stop himself from saying something. He looks wrecked. A million emotions fighting for dominance on his face. And maybe if John knew him better–no, fuck that, it’s not John’s fault that Steve’s never once let him in. Maybe if Steve ever showed his true self around John, maybe John would know what this expression is.
But he doesn’t. All he sees is a face contorted in what seems to be pain, but eyes so dark and serious and alight that no pain could touch them.
He watches as Bucky gets closer to him, running the back of his hand over Steve’s cheek, dragging a knuckle down his skin. Steve’s eyes remain locked on Bucky.
The way they always fucking are, the bitterest part of John’s brain supplies.
There’s a beat of silence, of absolute stillness in the room. John’s eyes flick between them as they stare at one another, Bucky coming closer to Steve so slowly he’s almost still. But he gets close enough to rest his hands on Steve’s shoulders, and John watches as Steve’s hands come to rest on Bucky’s torso. Steve’s eyes drift down to where his thumbs rub tiny circles into Bucky’s skin.
Bucky leans forward then, bringing their lips together, kissing Steve softly and then deeply as John watches. He doesn’t know what to do here. Talk them through it? Start stroking himself? It’s so fucking tender that it’s annoying, not hot.
He hopes it’ll change towards hot when Bucky starts tugging at him, pulling Steve on top of him. John watches Bucky’s legs spread so easily to accommodate Steve there, watches the ripple in Steve’s back as his instinct takes over, rolling his hips into Bucky’s even though they’re both still clothed. Bucky’s head falls back, his moan quiet and his fingers brushing through the ends of Steve’s hair. John looks at his boyfriend’s face, lifted up towards heaven, eyes tightly shut.
Why am I fucking here? Bucky’s not even watching John. The thrill of having a third person is knowing he’s there, isn’t it? Why am I here? He’s about to clear his throat, get Bucky’s attention back on him when Steve breaks apart so suddenly that Bucky jumps back.
“I’m sorry,” Steve says, breathing hard. He’s looking only at Bucky. “I just…I’m sorry,” he scrambles off the bed. “I can’t do this, I–”
“Steve,” Bucky says, getting up, tugging out of John’s hand when he reaches out reflexively to grab him and pull him back to bed. “Steve, wait!” He follows him out of the room, and John hears a door shut tight.
John walks into the hallway to see that the door had shut behind Bucky. He whispers under his breath, “Are you fucking kidding me…” Fucking bullshit. If anyone deserves to slam a door after Bucky enters it, it’s him. It’s his boyfriend. Not his fucking roommate. So he picks up his stuff and slams the apartment door when he leaves.
Bucky demands to meet him in a coffee shop. Not John’s apartment. Not Bucky’s. A coffee shop. He doesn’t even order coffee. Not even a pastry. He just comes in, sits down across from John, and folds his hands on the table.
“What is this?” John asks.
“You know what this is,” Bucky says. And John’s stomach sinks, because he’d guessed. But why would Bucky break up with him? What the fuck happened? “We’re breaking up.”
John makes a sour face and refuses to look away. “What’d he say to you?” Bucky narrows his eyes. “Has he been in love with you this entire time?” John drops his voice to mimic a dumb-sounding deep voice.
“It’s not about Steve,” Bucky says.
John laughs, “Bullshit. You got hard when you talked about him fucking you.”
Bucky’s eyes get wide, “So did you!”
“Not the same thing–”
“How?” Bucky pleads, “How the fuck isn’t it the same thing?”
This is going nowhere and John knows it. And the truth is, he doesn’t know how to stop it. He doesn’t know how to fight with Bucky and not call a truce that looks a lot like sex. He doesn’t know how to fight with him, knowing anything he says will be repeated to Steve. Holy shit, probably everything he’s ever said has been repeated to Steve, spread out by Bucky’s dirty hands for Steve to examine and interpret, the all-knowing, brilliant mind of Steve Rogers, who always knows how to handle Bucky, always knows what to say, how to make him better.
John wants to fucking kill him, and he’s pretty sure it’s mutual.
“You with him now?” he snarls.
“It’s not like that. Stop,” Bucky’s voice is far too careful to be the whole truth.
“Did you fuck that night? When I left?”
“Stop…”
John rolls his eyes, “God, I bet you did. Bet he told you about how great you are, how he doesn’t even deserve someone as great as you, how you deserve the world and every good thing in it. I hope you have fun getting fucked on that pedestal he makes for you, Buck. I really, really sincerely hope that you do.”
Bucky swallows and closes his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose. John waits. He wants to hear what he has to say. It takes him a minute to answer, and then he surprises John by pulling out his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Telling Steve I’m gonna meet him in five minutes for lunch,” Bucky says, like John hadn’t said a thing. He finishes his text and sets the phone on the table. “I don’t know what I deserve, John, but I know I deserve better than you.”
John can barely keep his rage under the surface. “And that’s Steve?”
Bucky pulls on his jacket, sighing like he’s bored. “Yeah. Yeah, John, that’s Steve.”