Being roommates with Bucky had been easy.
All Steve had to do was stay out of the way when he brought ladies around and accept that neither of them could actually cook.
Being roommates with the Winter Soldier was something else entirely. It baffled Steve if he was honest.
Some days Steve would wake up to a tiny apple crumble in a mug sitting conspicuously on his bedside table, one of the sturdy plastic spoons that Bucky pilfered from the frozen yogurt place down the road laid precisely beside it.
Never has Steve had to leave while Bucky ravages some lady (not that Fury would allow that anyway). Instead sometimes he leaves his room to find Bucky wrapped up in a ridiculously soft, ridiculously purple blanket on their couch watching some teenage girl TV show that Steve has never heard of before.
Once or twice, he walks into the kitchen to find Bucky shirtless and it's always a painful reminder of how he let Bucky fall and that the man that returned to him isn't actually Bucky anymore.
Steve can't trick himself when that metal plated prosthetic is right there, scarring its way into the flesh of Bucky's shoulder. Those mornings are painful but somehow Bucky's choice of pajama pants always manages to cheer him up, pink with white polka dots, grey with little purple stars and best of all, the too long black ones that pool at his feet and are covered in little cartoon penguins.
Occasionally the roommate situation isn't nearly as cute and Bucky forgets who Steve is, pulling out a rifle from god knows where and refusing to believe a single thing that comes out of Steve's mouth.
Regardless, the little bullet holes in the wall are always covered over by the next time Steve goes through the room so he assumes SHIELD shoved even more bugs in there and painted it all better for him. He doesn't know why but it doesn't bother him.
Sometimes he and Bucky work out together and Steve is surprised every time when Bucky can keep up with him and then he remembers and a little part of his sanity breaks along with a little piece of his heart.
Bucky refuses to be called Bucky 20% of the time and when Steve asks what he'd rather be called, Bucky looks unsure and insecure for several moments before swearing angrily in Russian and refuses to talk to him for the rest of the day.
To appease him, Steve brings him books. Before, Bucky would never have read the thick books that Steve brings in but now he reads them through the night and goes through them so quickly, the house seems to fill up completely with books within the first week.
Steve offered to buy Bucky a kindle once – a million and even more books all in one device – he had advertised.
Bucky said no and Steve brought him one anyway, convinced he would like it once he saw the brilliance of the little machine but instead Bucky had thrown it across the room into the wall with a sort of snapping sound and yelled "I said no" at him before refusing to talk to him for four straight days.
The best part of this new roommate situation however is that the real Bucky would never have looked at Steve twice and this Bucky, whoever he may be now, does.
The way he looks at Steve sometimes isn't a look from Steven's best friend of the past but rather the whole new personality of the winter soldier and the look is adoring.
Some mornings Bucky, with a mug cake and penguin pajamas will pull him closer in his morning daze and kisses him soundly on the lips while Steve tries to apologize for his morning breath.
Occasionally Bucky will find his way into the guest room to sleep rather then his usual warm spot on Steve's left side and the next morning will sneak back into Steve's bed once he's realised his horrible mistake, pulling the sheets over and going to settle his metal arm over Steve before realising the true frosty nature of his arm and breathing on it comically until Steve takes pity and rolls over to throw his arm around Bucky, spooning him close into the warmth.
They've had sex and cuddled and watched freaking 'Teen Wolf' together even as Steve insists it's a stupid show and Bucky dramatizes Steve's reactions to any of the love scenes in it to prove a point until Steve ends up watching it again.
They don't really talk about it though, their relationship. The one 'conversation' they had of it was a single line from Bucky one night when they were pressed together comfortably on Steve's bed;
"You know you aren't dating Bucky. He doesn't exist anymore."
Steve doesn't say anything.