Two Americans in Paris
"Excusez-moi! Excusez-moi!" a nervous, American accented voice called to Bucky from below. Today was Sunday which meant no class, and while most of his classmates went off to travel and explore for the day — "I hear Nice has nude beaches," Tony explained when trying to talk him into coming with him — Bucky had wanted to burrow down into a copy of his favorite book and just relax, wind in his hair, picnic lunch from Gretchen, the daughter of his host parents, and a scenic view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance.
He was just packing up his bag to head back for the evening when the small blond called for his help. He dropped his book in surprise. No one had disturbed Bucky for a couple hours now. It was getting dark out and a bit chilly and most people were in their homes eating dinner, not out in the late November air running up a hillside, easel in hand and sketchbook flapping wildly behind like the man rushing towards him was doing. Bucky was also surprised, because, outside of his classmates, he hadn't run into any Americans during his semester in France. There was the one girl in Amsterdam that one weekend… but Amsterdam wasn't France.
"Excusez-moi," the man repeated. "Je, uh, cherche, uh pour… uh, directions? Es-que tu—er vous— sait où nous, uh, sommes?" He reached Bucky at the top of the hill and hunched over, hands pressed to his knees as he struggled for air. He looked as if he was about to gasp out more butchered French, which honestly was such a crime to hear, so Bucky put him out of his misery.
"Don't worry," he said. "I'm American." The blond looked up, eyes wide and mouth forming a tiny 'o' as he eyed his savior.
"Thank fuck," the blond gasped. "I mean, I'm trying and people have spoken some English with me, but I lost my map and I wasn't good at understanding what they were saying and I think I took some wrong turns and I'm rambling aren't I? Oh, God, I'm rambling." The wind was picking up and the sketchbook in the blond's arms flapped louder. Jesus, Bucky thought. The kid looks like he's about to flap over.
"Hey, it's okay," Bucky reassured. He'd had to do this for several sophomore classmates of his back in September who hadn't taken to being surrounded by a new culture with nothing familiar.
"What program are you with? Do you know where you're staying?" The blond was shaking and Bucky put his hands on the boy's shoulders to give him some support.
"Hey, hey, hey. What's your name?"
"Huh?" The blond looked up in a daze and shook his head clear. "Uh, Steve. I'm— I mean, Je m'appelle Steve… Rogers."
"Hey, it's fine. We can speak English for now. Where do I need to get you?" Bucky realized that Steve wasn't shaking from nerves but from the cold. Steve wore a thin, although long, red sweater that wouldn't protect much from the cold. His sweat was probably cooling now that he was no longer running, Bucky figured, stripping out of his leather jacket to put it around the blond's shoulders.
"Oh, that's not— You don't have to—" Fed up, Steve sighed heavily. "Sorry, it's been a long day of me getting lost around Paris."
"You a tourist or a student?" Bucky asked, picking up his book and leading the boy down the hill. No matter where Steve was staying, it had to at least be somewhere beyond the top of the hill, and he figured getting the blond calmed down would be necessary before getting him back to his housing.
"Both," Steve answered, then grunted. "Neither."
"You'll have to be a bit more specific," Bucky told him, grinning a bit at the harrumphed look on the smaller boy's face.
"I'm an art student at NYU," Steve explained. "My portfolio was chosen in this exhibition we did, and one of the judges was Maria Hill with the Shield Art Foundation." When Bucky gave no evidence of having any clue what Bucky was talking about, Steve continued. "They offer abroad programs for artist, send them to different countries to put their work on display for buyers, and get us recognized in the art community. They picked me to come to France for the week of my Thanksgiving Break. Now I'm here having no knowledge of the language or culture outside of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and I haven't even seen that since I was six!" Steve looked like he was going to be sick, so Bucky pressed his hand to the middle of his back and walked them towards the city.
"Where are you staying?"
"L'hôtel de… I lost my key which had the name on it, but I know I had a view of the Eiffel Tower from my window," Steve explained hopelessly.
"Uh huh," Bucky replied. "And what's the Eiffel Tower look like again?"
"I know what the Eiffel Tower looks like…" Steve shot back dryly. Then his eyebrows punched together to make a little triangle. "What do I call you?"
"Bucky Barnes," Bucky replied happily, holding out his hand for Steve who hesitantly took it with a shake. "At your service." He winked at the blond and strolled toward the edge of the park. "We're in L'île Aux Cedres right now and thataway"—Bucky pointed forward—"Will get you back to the Tour Eiffel and from there we can find our way back to your hotel, okay?"
"Oh," Steve replied, edge to his voice that Bucky didn't like. "You don't have to do that. I can get there on my own." Bucky doubted this but decided to keep that thought to himself.
"Where were you coming from this afternoon when you found me?" Bucky asked, trying to sound like he was asking out of curiosity, not trying to make a point.
Steve begrudgingly admitted, "The Louvre." Bucky swore he didn't mean to guffaw. In fact, he didn't even know he could guffaw until Steve told him that.
"How the hell did you get over here and miss the fucking Eiffel Tower?" Bucky asked. Steve's eyes were narrowed into slits, glaring daggers at the brunet who continued right on laughing thank you very much.
"Seriously, Steve, I'm not leaving you alone until I see you get on the elevator in your hotel with the right floor number pushed in. I assume you can find your room?"
"Fuck off," Steve snapped, storming off in the wrong direction after Bucky had just pointed out the right one, Jesus Christ.
"Steve," Bucky called. "You're going the wrong way."
"Any way away from you is the right way," Steve shot back stomping back towards the hill they had just come down.
Bucky sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. It was getting darker now and Bucky didn't really want to be around here when night fell completely. Besides, he was hungry, and Steve had his jacket.
"Steve! Steve, wait up!" he yelled, running after the boy. He caught up to the blond who had managed to make it quite far in the short time he had been stomping. Bucky jumped in front of him and put his hands on the boy's shoulders to stop him. "Hey, come on. I'm sorry." Steve ducked under Bucky's arm and kept right on storming away.
"Steve, come on. I said I was sorry. Come back with me."
"Why's it matter to you?" Steve bit over his shoulder, hunching his shoulders forward at a particularly strong blast of cold wind.
"Because it's cold out and you're lost. And you've got my jacket." Steve finally stopped but only to take off the jacket as fast as he could and throw it at Bucky's face.
"Come on," Bucky pleaded. "What kind of American would I be to just let my fellow citizen walk around in the cold alone on Thanksgiving?" Steve froze, and Bucky placed the jacket back over his shoulders, stepping back to give him some space. "I know a great deli that'll still be open," he offered. "It's right by the Tower." Steve ducked his head down in defeat but hefted his shoulder back up and trudged through the park beside Bucky.
"So you're like a struggling artist then?" Bucky asked after a while of cool silence. He kicked at the leaves on the ground, watching them fly up and dance in the wind.
Steve hesitated before answering. "I hate the phrase, but it sounds about right. My mom passed away last summer. Without the Shield Art Foundation Scholarship, I wouldn't be here right now."
Bucky nodded, sorry that Steve's mom wasn't there to spend the holiday with him. "I'm sorry," he said, trying not to sound trite. "I know it doesn't mean much, but I'm sorry." Steve nodded and they walked in silence again, Bucky firmly deciding he'd treat the guy to dinner and show him back to his hotel since apparently his conversation starters weren't helping their conversation much.
Besides, the poor guy probably just wanted to be left alone on his first Thanksgiving without his mom, not be pushed around by some annoying engineering student.
"Look, I'm sorry about making fun of you earlier," Bucky said, quickly as they got closer to the Seine. "We don't have to go to dinner, if you don't want."
"Oh," Steve said, looking down at his feet in disappointment. Bucky's pulse jumped as he reconsidered his offer.
"Unless of course, you don't have plans for dinner?" he suggested. A smile tugged at the blond's lips. "In which case, I'm not going to let—"
"Your fellow citizen starve?" Steve finished, quirking his eyebrow at Bucky who at least had the decency to look abashed.
"Yeah, something like that," he replied. They reached the edge of the water now and Bucky peered over the railing into the ripples below. "So this is the Seine," he told Steve who snorted.
"Yeah, I know that much, Bucky. How do we get beyond it?" he asked in exasperation.
"Well, there used to be ferries that people had to take to cross over," Bucky explained, walking towards the Pont d'Iéna. "But now people use modern methods, such as the Metro, driving across the river's many bridges, or…" Bucky stuck his thumb out and walked backwards, approaching the bridge. "They hitch a ride," he finished, grinning wolfishly at Steve who raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.
"No one's gonna stop on a bridge to pick us up," he told him matter-of-factly. "That's dangerous. They could cause an accident. Besides, it's not that far."
"What, you scared of a little danger?" Bucky teased. "You probably shouldn't let a strange man take you home, then, Stevie." Steve huffed a breath and picked up his pace, shoving Bucky with his shoulder.
"No accidents," he said, grabbing Bucky's thumb and pulling him towards the side of the bridge where people were strolling.
"Ah, you're probably right," Bucky told him. "Besides, if I'm gonna hitchhike in a new country, I should do it when I actually need to go a distance. Maybe I'll go to the countryside next weekend and get a ride with a cow." Steve snorted and shoved his shoulder into Bucky's side again. Bucky liked when Steve did that.
"More like ride the cow," Steve shot back, then seemed to second-guess his remark. "Wait, don't actually do that. You'll get killed by an angry farm animal."
Bucky laughed, throwing his body into it. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "I didn't realize I was the inexperienced one here."
"Who's inexperienced?" Steve challenged, straightening his shoulders. Bucky eyed him warily.
"The guy who somehow missed the Eiffel Tower being five minutes away and wound up on the wrong side of the Seine," he answered. "That's who."
"It was the right side of the Seine when I was on it earlier," Steve complained. "I just couldn't get back over." The two Americans grinned at each other impishly before Steve looked away out over the water and Bucky turned his gaze to his shoes, a blush darkening his cheeks.
"So this deli," Steve said. "You go there a lot?"
"Nah," Bucky explained. "I'm with a host family, and we eat together during the week. Most weekends I go out with my classmates somewhere, London, Amsterdam, Germany one time. We try to get out while we can."
"You're a student!" Steve exclaimed as if this was a surprise. "Where do you go?"
Bucky blushed harder like he always did when he told people. "MIT," he mumbled. Steve stopped walking, and Bucky turned around to find the boy gapping at him. "Oh, come on. It's not that big a deal."
"Wow, I'm over here talking about being a struggling artist, and you're a fucking genius. Get a load of this." Bucky rolled his eyes in annoyance and walked on. "No," Steve said, catching up. "I just meant… that's really impressive. What are you studying?"
"Engineering," Bucky mumbled again.
"Oh, yeah. That makes sense, I guess. So how long are you here for?"
"Till Christmas. It's just for the semester. Then I graduate in May." Steve nodded as if this all made sense to him.
"Then what'll you do?" Bucky didn't know. He knew he had options. He could work for Tony's dad, for one, although he might lose Tony as a friend if he did. He could also go intern at HammerTech, Apple, or really, anywhere, but after being in France these last few months, all Bucky really wanted to do was keep going. Ireland. Russia. China. Brazil. New Zealand. Egypt. Tanzania. Just go and not come back until he had an answer to Steve's—and everyone else's—question.
Bucky shrugged though, and Steve gave him a small smile back. "Yeah," he said. "I know what you mean." They were at the other end of the bridge, and Bucky led him down the avenue and under the Tower. Somehow in their walk across the bridge, their fingers had become entwined. If Steve noticed, he didn't pull away, so Bucky kept his grip firm as well.
"Anything starting to look familiar?" he asked softly as they walked under the Tower.
"I don't know," Steve huffed in exasperation. "Everything looks so different at night." They went right after the Tower, walking around the green lawn stretched out in front of it.
"Hey, it's okay. We'll just keep going. I've got to get you to this deli anyway. My first night here," Bucky told him. "I couldn't sleep. Jet lag, nerves, caffeine, I don't know, but I needed to walk it off. Everything was dark around here, but I kept going—"
"Sounds like a death wish," Steve pointed out dryly.
"Sounds like someone afraid of danger," Bucky shot back. "And adventure. Now I made it pretty close to here when I stumbled upon this small all night deli, kinda like the diners back home I find when I have a big test the next day. Anyway, I get there and this big booming French guy tells me they're open and I absolutely have to try the split-pea soup, which, even in English sounds terrible, right?" Steve nodded hurriedly, engrossed in Bucky's tale. "And he brings out this huge bowl full of bubbling green swamp like soup. Tells me wait five minutes for it to cool—gives me a slice of cake to eat while I wait—and five minutes later, I'm in fucking heaven. It's the greatest thing I've ever had in my life. It didn't even taste like peas. It was cheesy and salty and warm and everything I needed that night."
"But you've gone back?" Steve asked. Bucky nodded, strolling down the street. Less and less people were out although the night was still young. Bucky figured the cold probably kept a lot of people inside on a night like this.
"Everything in there taste like home, Stevie," he replied. "Even their hotdogs taste like the ones Mom would buy us at Coney Island every summer."
"You're from New York?" Steve asked excitedly, pulling Bucky closer.
"Brooklyn? Yourself?"
"Brooklyn," Steve answered, grin stretching from ear to ear. Bucky's heart thudded in his chest. Oh, it said quietly. Of course. He grinned back and untangled their hands to press his against Steve's back.
"We're here," he whispered softly, not really knowing why he felt it so important to be quiet. Steve pushed through the entrance, a soft bell ringing above them as they entered. The deli was most empty now, not even anyone behind the counter, and Bucky led them to the menus next to the register.
"I was thinking something with turkey?" he proposed, pointing at what Steve thought translated into a turkey club sandwich on a croissant. "We can get it to go and wander around for a bit if you'd like," he offered. "See where your hotel disappeared to?"
"That sounds nice," Steve admitted.
"James!" a loud voice boomed, and Bucky turned to see Jacques Dernier appear from behind a curtain. "Tu as apporté à votre ami! Bienvenue!" Bucky rubbed the back of his neck and exchanged a brief series of introductions which Steve was barely able to catch. Then Dernier was writing something down on his notepad, and Bucky was pulling out his wallet. Dernier disappeared back behind the curtain, and Steve turned to Bucky.
"Shouldn't I order now?" he asked, and Bucky ducked his head.
"I, uh, kind of took care of it."
"Bucky—"
"Come on, Steve. It's your first time in the city. I've been here months. Besides, if I had let you order, we would've been here all night while you translated the menu." Steve rolled his eyes, but his friend was right. Steve didn't know what half the stuff on the menu said, and the other half he only knew because there were pictures.
"What did you get?" he asked, intrigued.
"It's a surprise," Bucky told him, smirk in place.
Dernier had the food ready in no time, but Steve still wasn't allowed to look as they walked onward down L'Avenue de Lowendal. Finally, they reached L'Avenue Duquesne, and Steve pointed to the street sign.
"I know this name. My hotel's on this street!" he pointed out excitedly. They turned down the avenue and Steve jumped again.
"This is it! I'm sure of it!" Bucky followed the blond into the hotel and watched him struggle with the concierge for a moment before Bucky stepped in and clarified that Steve needed to verify this hotel and get his key. The concierge asked for some identification and handed Steve's key over reluctantly, giving them both the stink eye as they headed to the elevator.
"Well," Bucky said as Steve pressed the button for the fourth floor. "Here's your food. I guess you can find your way from here?" Steve looked surprised and held the door as Bucky backed out.
"You're not coming up?" he asked, surprised. "You walked me home. The least I can do is let you eat before your food gets cold." Bucky stuck his hands in his pocket awkwardly and bit his lip, thinking.
"I could do that," he answered finally. Steve grinned widely and stepped back, giving Bucky room in the small elevator.
"I've got Netflix," Steve told him. "And I know just the thing to watch while we eat."
"Oh, yeah?" Bucky said. "And what's that?"
"It's a surprise," Steve replied smugly, throwing Bucky's own words back at him.
"Oh, so it's gonna be like that?"
"You made it that way first," Steve responded. Was this flirting? Bucky felt his palms sweat and wiped them discretely on his pants. He hoped to fuck that this was flirting.
Steve unlocked his door and turned on the light, holding the door for Bucky as they entered the small hotel room. He put down his portion of the food and collapsed on the bed, kicking off his shoes.
"Oh, home sweet home, did I miss you." Steve sat up and scooted over so Bucky had room. "Take off your shoes. Make yourself comfortable. I'm going to set up my laptop." Something about the privacy of Steve's room and the possible flirting in the elevator made Bucky nervous to be there. Alone. With Steve.
The blond hooked up his charger and opened up his Netflix account while Bucky pulled the food from its paper bag. Steve picked a movie to watch and got the lights so the room was immersed in darkness except for the light of the laptop screen.
"Is this okay?" he asked Bucky who could only nod in reply. Steve settled into the pillows on his bed and grabbed one of the wrapped bundles on the bed. "For me?"
"I probably should've asked you this earlier, but you don't have allergies, do you?" Bucky asked as Steve unwrapped the sandwich.
"Only nuts, grapefruit, and certain scented lotions," he answered. "Is this—"
"Turkey sandwich," Bucky finished. "Happy Thanksgiving, Stevie." The blond's eyes looked a little shinier than usual for a moment, but then he blinked away the wetness and nodded his thanks.
"Ditto, Buck." Bucky reached forward and grabbed a carton and a spoon.
"Now smell this," he demanded, removing the lid and shoving it under the blond's nose.
"Is that—"
"Split pea soup? Yes, it really is."
"This smells like heaven," Steve told him. He took the spoon from Bucky's hand and dug in. "Holy fuck. Bucky, this is—"
"I know."
"But it's so—"
"I know."
"Wow."
"Yea—Oh for fuck's sake. Really, Steve?" he exclaimed as the title card for The Hunchback of Notre Dame came on the screen. Steve smirked at him, but the effect was lost on Bucky as Steve interrupted his smug look with another spoon of the soup.
"What, Bucky? It's our film." And yeah, that was definite flirting. Bucky's stomach did a flip, and he unwrapped his sandwich to avoid Steve's gaze.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered in defense, turning his attention to the screen. They ate in relative silence, occasionally making comments about Claude Frollo being a dick—"The biggest," Steve agreed—or Quasimodo's life in the church—"Poor guy just wanted some freedom," Bucky added, a bit tearfully to be honest. As the film went on, their food disappeared and Steve fell more and more into Bucky's side until finally Bucky just put his arm around the boy's shoulders, tugging him in with a small smile.
He watched the light of the computer screen flicker off Steve's eyelashes which stretched on for miles. The air conditioner kicked in and strands of blond hair tickled his cheek. He turned his head and could smell the fruity shampoo the boy had used in his last shower. Bucky rubbed his cheek against the blond's head affectionately, and Steve peeked up at him, shy smile on his lips.
"Hey," Bucky said softly.
"Hey there," Steve replied scooting up a bit on the mattress until his cheek was no longer to Bucky's chest but to his shoulder. "I've been thinking," he started.
"Oh, yeah? What's that?"
"We should do something, something dangerous," he continued.
"What did you have in mind?" Steve adjusted his body so he was facing Bucky more, right left thrown over Bucky's.
"I don't know if I can explain it really," he whispered.
"Maybe I could offer a suggestion?" Bucky offered, leaning down, closer, closer.
"What are you doing?" Steve asked, eyes drooped as he started at Bucky's lips.
"Making a move," the brunet responded before finally, slowly, sweetly, pressing his lips to the smaller boy's.
Sweet Jesus, Bucky thought, giving into the kiss with everything he had. Take me, he wanted to whisper. Take everything I am. Let me feel this right here. He twisted his hands in the back of Steve's shirt, under the leather jacket of Bucky's that he was still wearing. He pulled them closer until Steve was on his lap, legs bordering each of Bucky's thighs.
"Fuck," Steve bit out, pushing back to look at Bucky's wild eyes just for a moment before diving back in for more. "Fuck." He ground his hips down, and Bucky felt his breath punch out of him. Steve's hands were twisted in his hair, pulling it loose of the bun and then pulling on thick locks, moving Bucky's head whichever way he wanted it to be. Bucky felt like putty in the boy's hands. He didn't know what to do, where to put them. For fuck's sake, he was an engineering major, not a, not a… an artist.
Steve touched his body like an artist, detailing the lines along the back of his neck, caressing the stubble on Bucky's chin, pulling away to kiss the bridge of his nose and then his eyelids and then, and then—
And then Bucky pulled him back down into a kiss, wet and sloppy and hard. Steve's legs spread wider as he grinded down on the other boy's lap, clutching Bucky tighter to him.
"Mine," Steve spat out harshly, softness gone as he unbuttoned Bucky's pants. "You're mine tonight." Bucky nodded, not sure what was happening, but he was down for it whatever it was.
"Yours. I'm yours. Tonight. Tomorrow," he bit out, gasping as Steve's hand disappeared down the front of his pants and grabbed him, him. "Whenever you want me," he pleaded. "However you want me. I'm yours. Always. Fuck. Steve, yours, baby, yours, fuck." He wasn't making sense. He knew he wasn't. He gripped Steve's hips, pulling down the boy's pants, yanking off his shirt, pressing kisses into the pale skin stretched over a sharp collarbone.
"Yours," he panted, grabbing the blond's dick, squeezing so tightly the boy above him cried out. He pulled away to lick his palm and then was back running it over the warm dick.
"Yes," Steve cried out. "Mine."
"Yours," Bucky promise, tossing his head back. "Only yours." Steve twisted his wrist and then Bucky was coming, banging his head against the wall as he thrusted his hips up. Steve bucked into his fist, loose now, too loose to get off on, and then Bucky was put back to work, stroking, pulling his head in the blond's neck.
"That's it, baby doll. That's it, sweetheart. Come on. Come on." Steve gasped and sank his teeth into Bucky's shoulder, letting out a low moan as he came. His body gave in, collapsing into Bucky's, and Bucky slowly ran his hand up and down the boy's back, counting off notches of his spine. Then Steve straightened up, looked into Bucky's eyes, and, seeing something satisfactory there, took their pants all the way off and threw them on the other side of the room. Bucky got up and noticed that, as much as they had been moving, Steve's laptop was still resting at the end of the bed with the movie playing. Esmerelda and Captain Phoebus were kissing while Quasimodo looked on, dejected.
Steve pulled back the sheets and wet a hand towel in the bathroom, coming back to Bucky's side as he wiped him down.
"Mine?" Steve asked, voice hardly a whisper. Bucky pulled his hand away and pressed a kiss to Steve's lips.
"Yours."
Bucky stumbled into class the next morning, tired, sweaty, and with a loopy grin on his lips. He took his seat beside Tony who looked irate and pulled out his phone, typing out a message to someone.
"What's got you in such a great mood?" Tony asked bitterly.
"Don't you just love waking up to the sight of the Eiffel Tower?" Bucky replied cheekily.
"Not real— Wait, you don't live near the Tower?" Tony jerked into an upright position and gaped at his friend. "Bucky Barnes, you dog, you!"
"Hey, Tony. How was the nude beach?"
Tony scowled. "Shut up. Since when are there no nude beaches in Nice?" Bucky leaned back in his chair and smiled down at his phone as it buzzed.
S: Okay, but consider this, I might get lost in the Louvre tonight and need a fellow citizen to help me out.
Bucky grinned and sent off a quick response before his teacher got in.
B: Wow, sounds like a helluva citizen. Je pense que le citoyen mérite une fellation.
S : Qu'est-ce qu'un pipe?
S : Bucky!
S : That can be arranged.