Chapter 1- The Way It Is

"So you're saying I wasn't your first choice?"

Steve is angry, maybe irrationally so.

After accepting his first major record deal with Stark Enterprise Records (trademark pending), he had been absolutely ecstatic.

That is, until, he had walked into his first strategy meeting to start recording his first album with the label. He had seven songs written, ready to be recorded, ones that he was really proud of. His confidence in himself, however, had been shot when Tony, his manager, revealed that he wasn't the first choice to be the new signing to the label.

Tony sighed deeply. "Kid, look, you're good. An insane talent, actually. Your guitar skills are second to none and your voice is unlike anything I've ever heard. Your stage presence definitely needs some improvement, though. You don't interact with the fans you have now, so I'm hesitant to promote you so you get more. You need to connect with them more, that's how you sell out stadiums. And that alone is why you were second choice.

"I don't understand why you're even bitter about this, Steve. There was enough room in the budget this year to take on both of you, so this should be a cause for celebration."

Steve scoffed. "Okay, we both know that Pepper, your C.F.O, is allowing you to take on two of us with the added addendum that only one of us can stay on after the release of our debut albums. Don't pretend like this is anything other than what it is."

Tony held his hands up. "There's that fire I saw in you all that time ago. I'm proud of you, kid. If it was completely up to me, you'd be number one in a heartbeat, you know that. But the entire board of directors decided to promote Bucky ahead of you, unfortunately. I was outvoted and that's the only—."

"Wait just a second," Steve glowered at the man in front of him. He knew that Tony would take anything Steve threw at him, for the simple fact that they had been doing it for so long now. Their relationship was entirely professional but it was very relaxed. "I'm being added behind Bucky Barnes! The guy can barely throw two decent lyrics together! I don't understand this one bit! I want a meeting with the board and I want it today."

Tony sighed, softer this time. "Steve, nothing is going to change their minds. He has a bigger online presence. He was nominated for a Teen Choice Award last year and he wasn't even signed! The more awards the company wins, the better we'll be."

"So if I'm not appealing to the masses of eleven year old girls, why keep me on at all?"

Tony sighed. He figured that Steve would react as he was doing. "Because like I said, you're an extraordinary talent. If it were up to me, you would be promoted first, you would have everything you needed. But the board are looking at things from a finance point of view. I mean, kid, you don't even have a Twitter page!"

"So that I can be bombarded with the eleven year old girls telling me that they know where I live? No thank you!" Steve folded his arms.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

When he was first approached by Tony Stark, he didn't know what to think. The man was known for energy saving protocols and now he had decided he wanted to start a record label and have it compete with RCA and the other major labels? That was practically unheard of. It wasn't uncommon for artists to start their own labels just to distribute their music on their terms, but someone like Tony Stark firing up his creative juices and signing musicians to a fresh label was completely unprecedented. Even though Steve was wary, he had faith in Tony, who had basically been his unofficial manager for the past two years.

Tony's praise for Steve's music was what had got him writing again.

Steve shook his head. He didn't want to think about that right now. He wanted to focus on why tween heartthrob Bucky fucking Barnes was being slotted in ahead of him, given the larger marketing budget, the best slots at award shows, the best everything. The kid was a good vocalist, but his musicianship and lyrics needed a lot of work. Steve felt as though he should be mentoring the kid, even though they were roughly the same age. He rather thought Bucky was only three years younger than him, but behaved like he was seven. He would indulge in the crazy world of social media, something Steve refused to touch.

"So you don't want to connect with your fan base?" Tony inquired. "The people that are buying your music and actively keeping your career alive. You don't want to thank them?"

Steve smirked. He had an already prepared answer to this one. Ever since he had found out that he was being second billed, he had known why. His fan interaction. If there was one thing that kept someone in the limelight, it was the fans. Steve would scoff every single time a fan did something stupid to anyone in the industry. Even Tony had crazed fanboys who would send him the strangest things.

"I thank them by giving them what they keep paying for. The music. I don't want them to buy my albums because they have a crush on me or think my dog is the most adorable thing they've ever seen!" Steve's gestures were becoming mockingly enthusiastic now. "I want them to buy my music because they want to hear my voice. Because they want to listen to me playing my guitar and feel something. Call me old-school, but this industry shouldn't be about tweeting and going live on fucking Periscope! It should be about music, plain and simple."

Tony sighed, holding his hands up. He knew how passionate Steve was about music and just how fired up he could be. "I'm not going to win you over on this, am I?"

"I doubt it."

"Well…that's a shame. I'd love to produce and release your second album, but it looks like you'll be finding somewhere else to do that."

Steve scowled. "You don't think my album will do better?"

Tony smirked quickly. This was the reaction he had been gunning for. "Look at the figures, Steve. You and Bucky Barnes have both released three EP's and are planning your full length albums. Each of his have outsold yours."

"Mine have done better on Metacritic," Steve argued, knowing it was a weak argument to pitch to someone who only really cared about the monetary part of the job.

Tony shrugged. "And I prefer your music, you know this. It's just…not up to me. You would think, as CEO, that it would be up to me, but that's the reason we have a board, to make many voices heard. And the board doesn't like low sales. They'll outvote me again, Steve."

Steve sighed. "So you're saying I make a Twitter account and…engage or I'm out?"

"There seems to be a clear correlation between the fan activity on social media and album sales. Of course, good promotion is a big part and, to get that, you're going to need me bankrolling you."

Tony knew Steve was going to hate what he had to say next more than his last.

"I've asked Bucky to help you get started. You know, initially."

Steve's head was heavy. It was like the words had formed in his brain, but he couldn't quite process them. He felt as though he was being awarded a demerit. Or a Razzie Award. It would be too humiliating to take life lessons from a glorified blogger. Especially when he's your main competition for a coveted record deal at a rich, promising new startup company. People knew that Stark had the money to take anyone anywhere, to any heights. Where Steve longed to go, into musical history where people would study his songs and make biopics about him.

But it looked like Bucky Barnes was headed there first.

Steve wanted to snort. What were the chances of Bucky fucking Barnes ascending to the heights of the greatest artists ever to have lived, as was Steve's goal? Very slim. Only if he transcended his current sound and morphed it into something completely different and then shed his on camera persona, then he might stand a chance. His voice was actually pretty solid, Steve begrudgingly thought. He just focused too much on writing for his teenage fans rather than for himself or somebody important to him. Not that Steve had listened to much of his music. No, of course not.

"You've got to be kidding me."

Tony smirked. "Not kidding. Also, he'll be here in ten minutes. Isn't that fun?"

Steve gritted his teeth. "I'm not going through with this."

In the end, Steve had to go through with this.

He had no choice; it was his career.

So when Bucky Barnes walked through the door, he hadn't expected to actually like him.

Bucky was wearing a simple outfit; black skinny jeans with a nice grey jumper and some Converse. Simple stuff, but it made him look great. Steve had to actually try not to stare at his thighs. He hadn't expected this, either. He had seen the guy, obviously he knew how attractive Bucky was, but he was usually in control of himself. His eyes were wandering of their own accord this time, however.

Unfortunately, Bucky noticed his leering.

"Uh, do I have something on my face?"

Steve shook his head to clear it and smiled. "No. I was just spacing out for a second there. Sorry about that. I'm Steve. Rogers."

Bucky grinned. "I know, I bought your music."

Steve put on a smirk. "Ah, so you're the one person besides my mom who downloaded it." Bucky laughs easily and Steve wonders why he was so put off about meeting him.

And then Bucky reminds him.

"Hey, congrats on the label stuff. You really deserve it."

Steve knows. He knows he deserves it. His smile fades and his knuckles twitch. He doesn't want to beat up Bucky, but he wants to beat up something. Maybe Tony. Or the boneheads in the boardroom.

"Oh…do you not do compliments or something? That's cool, I can be mean."

Steve coughed. "It's not that, I just thought of something else. It's not important. Congrats to you too, man. It's going to fun working with you." Steve wonders if Bucky can sense the falsity of his statement.

"I hope so," Bucky echoes. "So! Mr. Stark said something about your online following? He wanted me to work with you on your social media presence or something?"

Steve nodded wordlessly.

"You have a personal Twitter account right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, well, it helps to make a separate one. I have my personal account which none of my fans can get to and then I have my public one which I use to communicate with them."

Steve felt the need to be petty. "Oh yeah, how are the eleven year old girls?"

Bucky chuckled. It wasn't the first time he'd been mocked by somebody who thought themselves a more serious artist than he just because of his social standing. Yes, his fan base consisted of a majority of teen girls, but his music reached a lot of other people, too, of all ages in all parts of the world.

Listening to Steve's music, he knew that Steve would be exactly the same as his naysayers. Steve's music was personal, serious and pure soul. Bucky's EP was a lot like that, but he wrote electronic pop songs to get himself a platform. He hired co-writers to appeal to the masses and then, once he found his opening, he would release his own music, just him and his piano and maybe a few strings. His fans would buy it, stream it and share it because he made it, but he hoped that they would also enjoy it and open themselves up to something that wasn't as commercial as what they were expecting from him.

He didn't blame Steve for having this perception of him. He understood perfectly. Having a Teen Choice Award really made some reconsider his musicianship. Just because teenagers voted for him didn't make him any less of an artist. He could play piano, guitar and cello competently and could sing and write and compose and produce and none of that was reflected in his public imagine just yet. But it would be.

"They're fine," Bucky chirped pleasantly. "They're not bothering me at the moment, considering it's school hours and all. But I assume they'll be back to hound me in a few hours."

Steve hadn't expected that response. He had expected Bucky to fire back something petulant. Maybe he misjudged the man. It was possible. He'd done it before. With Tony, in fact. "Make sure you encourage them to stay in school."

"Oh, I do," Bucky smiled. Steve pulled out his laptop as they sat down. "Okay, so just make sure that you don't input your location or things get messy. Trust me, I made that mistake."

Steve typed in his details and decided he'd work on his bio later. "Okay. First tweet…can I think of that later?"

Bucky shrugged. "Do whatever you want. You can either get someone from the label to manage for you if you don't want to do it yourself or keep it completely separate from management and do it yourself."

Steve thought about it. It would take away from his time recording and writing, surely, but it might be a good way to get past Bucky and make it into the top spot of the label. "I'll do it. Might be a fun challenge."

"I was hoping you'd say that. Hey, if you want I could tweet your handle and start you off with some followers."

Bucky didn't wait for him to answer before tweeting. Hey guys! My friend Steve_Rogers finally set up a Twitter! Go follow and download his awesome music! X

Steve saw the tweet instantly and smiled despite himself. Bucky was not only plugging his music, but also calling him a friend?

Maybe Bucky Barnes wasn't so bad after all.