KEANU! multi-fandom imagines

Stucky ( Steve x Bucky ) : "Slip Up"

MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE
POST— CAPTAIN AMERICA:
WINTER SOLDIER
STEVE ROGERS x BUCKY BARNES

WARNINGS: none
NOTES: i wrote this for my friend and it's pretty good so i wanted to catalogue it here! <3

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Slowly the gate to the overnight cell slid open with a creak and a bang. Stood in the open space was Steve, his arms crossed as he simply stared at the man he'd regrettably come to call his best friend. Jaw set and eyes stony, he said nothing to Bucky, who approached him with a growing smile.

"Thanks, Stevie," Bucky patted one of his large biceps with his metal hand. "You're always looking out for me," He said.

Steve let out a disappointed sigh, eyes looking over his friend with feigned malice. He tried desperately to never let Bucky break this façade, because then he'd never stop misbehaving like he did. This was the second time in the space of three weeks that he'd had to bail Bucky out of jail. He was lucky that he had connections with SHIELD, or his friend would have ended up in some high security prison long ago.

After everything he'd done, Bucky lay low for a long time, never going out in public, and especially never breaking laws. But eventually, as he got better, all of the stupid pieces of his personality fit right back into place - the kind of stuff that made Steve fall in love back in the '40s. The way he'd do stuff so impulsive, that Steve had to save his hide almost nightly. How he'd flirt off his head with almost anyone he'd met. And how he'd join whatever cause or group he could find, grappling to find his footing in the social climate of the 21st century. This time, he'd been arrested for getting too wild at a Pride march on the Senate.

Steve remembered when he'd done something similar back when they were kids. He'd taken to the streets to protest for gay rights, and was arrested for it. He got out of the police van before he could be locked up, and Steve was endlessly grateful. Bucky would have been killed if anyone found out that he liked men back then. He wouldn't be able to get a job, never mind join the forces to become a Sargent like he had. Steve was angry with him for putting his life on the line like that, and stone-walled him. He did everything he could to ignore Bucky's begs for attention, and the ways he'd try for the affection he'd lost. Eventually Bucky caved, and he was the better for it. He got his man back, that unbeknownst to Steve, he was in love with.

To that day, even after they'd been separated by the war, reunited, and ripped away from each other, Bucky had never told him. He simply smiled, and spent every waking moment doing something or anything to get Steve to notice him.

It's not that Steve didn't appreciate the protests, or the fight that Bucky put up, it's just that it wasn't the same situation as before. In the years that had passed, Bucky had become one of the greatest assassins of all time, and Steve wasn't sure how long he could pull strings to keep him out of jail. The government barely tolerated him because of his alliance with the Avengers, and would surely snap soon.

"I hate you," Steve replied, and although he displayed no signs of joking, Bucky knew he could never take something like that seriously.

"If you hated me, you wouldn't be here," Bucky whispered back, watching as his counterpart looked away from him.

Steve paused, and then turned from Bucky, beginning to walk for the door as he expected his friend to follow.

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"Are you fucking kidding me?" Steve asked, walking out from the kitchen to see Bucky finally coming home to their apartment, with no regard that it was past midnight, and that he was tracking mud onto the carpet with his big, leather boots.