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Bucky was having a bad day. You’d be surprised, given his occupation, just how many good days you could have at work when your place of employ dealt in death and burial. Today, however, was not one of those days.
It had just gone from bad to worse.
The family had decided to take out all their frustrated, prickly grief on Bucky and he’d been toe to toe with a father so goddamn furious that the hearse had broken down halfway along 13th Street, he’d felt every fleck of spittle that landed across his cheeks.
He had borne it, because that’s just what Bucky Barnes did in a bad situation, and tried to maintain some dignity as he grovelled and scraped and tried to stop the situation from getting any worse than it already was. It was a certified shitshow. Well, almost. The mother came by after and apologised - for what it was worth. Which was not much in Bucky’s book. But, he’d hitched his best dame pleasing smile on his face and assured the poor woman that everything was, “fine, just fine, Ma’am.”
As it was, it was now 6pm and Bucky wanted nothing more than to go home to his drafty, banged up tenement. He wanted to smoke all his cigarettes out on the fire escape. He wanted to listen to Steve call him a chimney before stealing half his smokes. He wanted to give them up, give them up as easily as if they were caramels in a paper bag. All Steve had to do was shoot him that crooked half smile and look up at him from underneath those criminally long lashes.
The bell tinkled and someone pushed into the parlour. Bucky was behind the counter sweeping. With his back to the commotion, he gripped the broom, giving himself a minute to grind his teeth.
“I’m so sorry but we’re closed ,” he called, trying to sound forceful and not as bone tired as he felt.
“You wouldn’t turn away a poor artist, would ya, Buck?”
Bucky’s chin dropped to his chest, forehead to the broom handle, and smiled. Shaking his head, he turned to find Steve leaning across the reception counter, grinning broadly.
“You’re a shit.”
“Ah, but I’m a shit that just got paid his first WPA commission,” he said, waggling his eyebrows and producing a brown envelope from his coat pocket. He waved it under Bucky’s nose, blue eyes sparkling. “Buy you dinner? My treat? We can go to the automat.”
There was a wheedling edge to his voice that had Bucky’s resolve weakening before he could even put up a fight. Food he didn’t have to cook sounded like heaven. Time with Steve sounded even better.
“Buy me a beer at Sloan’s after and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
“I’ll buy you three, how’s that.”
“You tryna get me drunk, Rogers?”
“Would I ever,” he scoffed like he hadn’t been the one to smuggle whiskey from the Barnes’ liqueur cabinet as a wheezy, knock-kneed twelve year old. He’d insisted that Bucky join him--lest he be considered chicken forever and always--which was how they ended up falling over one another in Prospect Park: drunk as skunks for the very first time.
Steve cocked his head at him, narrowed his eyes and tapped the end of his long, crooked nose looking pensive. “You look like you’ve had a day. Wanna talk about it?”
“Naw, not really.” Steve cut him off with a look, one that quite plainly said, "don't bullshit me, Barnes", and Bucky relented a little, leaning across the counter to match Steve's posture. "Maybe later," he conceded, holding Steve's inquisitive gaze. "I'd rather be distracted - forget for a little while."
“Well, if it’s a distraction you’re after . . .” he trailed off, voice pitched low and a devilish look in his eye. Steve made a grandiose show of looking around, as if he didn’t know that Bucky’s boss was long gone and that the shutters were already drawn. All of this was obvious and still Steve paused, a hair’s breadth away, eyes searching for the yes he surely must have known was always a given.
Cool fingers pressed into the nape of Bucky’s neck, wound their way through a few loose hairs. The kiss that followed was a whisper, a quick brush of the lips that promised to draw out all his secrets and throw them out into the night with abandon once they were truly alone.
Like sucking poison from a wound, Bucky’s bad day slipped further and further away until only the thought of Steve's lips pressed to his own remained