Bucky was almost relieved when his date cancelled on him last minute. At least, he assumed the date was cancelled; she was at least twenty minutes late. He was sitting alone at a table in a restaurant far too crowded for his liking. He couldn't help but let his eyes fall on a couple canoodling in the corner and, despite his own visible discomfort, he couldn't stop himself from staring.
There was something about these episodic excursions, each one from that new dating site his therapist once recommended to him, that felt like they were going nowhere. Sure, he liked flirting with girls; it was easy and it made them feel good which, in turn, made him feel good, and yet he never wanted a second date. Part of him knew why, and the other part...was trying his hand at normalcy where he could get it. He reached for his glass just as his phone buzzed. He glanced at it,
Date going well? S.
Bucky narrowed his eyes, taking a moment to scan the restaurant for Sam, then turned to his phone again.
Date didn't show. He typed in. Going home after this drink.
Bucky put the phone on the table, anticipating the next buzz like an eager teenage girl, but the buzz did not come for a long while, and Bucky was down to his last swallow. Just as he raised the glass to his lips (as slowly as possible) the phone buzzed again. He snatched it up and read the message.
Order one for me too. I'll come by. S.
Feeling more ecstatic than he wanted to let on, he ordered another round of drinks for himself and Sam, checking behind him every time the door swung open. Eventually it was Sam that entered and Bucky waved him over.
"You're all dressed up," Sam said drily. In truth, Bucky wasn't dressed up at all. He was wearing the same jacket he always wore, and his date was lucky he had even thought to wash the blood from his knuckles.
"Where did you come from?"
"I was in the neighborhood," Sam shrugged. That wasn't an answer, but Bucky didn't push him. Sam sat down and pulled a glass closer to him, "I came here for a date once."
"I know, you told me to pick this place."
"That's right," Sam remembered, then downed a shot. Bucky watched Sam's nose scrunch up as the burn of the alcohol moved up his face. "You know, you're staring again." Sam pointed out as he put the glass back on the table. Bucky raised an apathetic eyebrow. "You gotta stop that man, it's probably what's driving all your dates away."
"Oh, so you're an expert now?"
"More than you." Sam grinned "At least I've had a second date. How many second dates have you had?" Bucky glared at him and Sam gestured as if his point had been made, "It's the staring, man, I'm telling you. You ordered food yet?" Sam asked, already unfolding a menu that was wedged behind the napkin dispenser. Bucky shook his head. "The tacos here are really good. Not good date food, though."
"Date food?"
"Yeah, they're hard to eat. Gets all messy, next thing you know, your date loses all respect for you."
"How did that last date here go again?" Bucky smirked. Sam made a face of annoyance at being found out.
"Ha! Good thing we're not on a date, then," Sam said before calling the waiter over to order some tacos.
Bucky pretended to sip at his drink for a moment. Then, in a moment of bravery, he asked, "So, uh...what else are you not supposed to do on a date?"
Sam looked surprised and Bucky almost backtracked, but Sam pushed on. "Don't talk about exes. Big no-no. But that won't be a problem for you, because you don't have any."
"How do you know I don't have any exes?" Bucky defended himself.
"Alright then, name one ex," Sam challenged.
"Patricia Jenkins," Bucky said, reaching back through his memories. "Blonde hair, read all the time. Always had a pencil in her ear."
"Oh yeah?" Sam almost sounded delighted, "How'd it end?"
"Turns out, she liked to read more than one book at a time, if you know what I mean."
"She cheated on you?"
"I caught her kissing Jeremy Culkin behind the changing rooms." Bucky shrugged, "To be honest, when I saw them I was kinda relieved." Sam raised his eyebrows,
"Oh, so that's how it is, huh."
"Yeah." Bucky sighed, reliving those pathetic moments in front of the mirror when he used to practice breaking up with Patricia Jenkins.
"You got off easy. My worst ex went to my grandma's house everyday after we broke up and convinced her we were engaged."
"Ouch." Bucky grinned, "I'll do you one better. My worst ex dug up my dead dog so she could try to bring him back to life for my birthday." Sam looked horrified.
"What the-? That's insane! Did you put it back?"
"If you mean the dog then...yes? As much of it as we could."
"What did she do to your dog?" Sam looked as though he was going to puke, "you know what? don't tell me. I don't want to know. You win." Bucky let out a chuckle as Sam shook his head as aggressively as possible. "We're moving on"
"Alright," Bucky agreed, feeling all too pleased with himself, "what's the next one?" Sam reached over to take a sip of Bucky's drink as he took a moment to think.
"Don't talk about marriage. That's a big one."
"Oh, no wonder all my dates fell through." Bucky said.
"You seriously brought up marriage?" Sam asked, not detecting the sarcasm in his tone.
"Of course not!" Bucky rolled his eyes, "Everyone knows that one! How bad at this do you think I am?" Sam shrugged, a smile playing at his lips,
"I dunno. I wouldn't be surprised if you've built up a reputation for bad dates around this part of town. Next thing the newspaper headlines will say '100 year old man wants marriage but still hasn't had second date'." Sam started to crack up at his own joke. "'Turns out, winter soldier is not a lady killer.''" Bucky didn't think the joke was particularly funny, but it was impossible to keep himself from laughing as he watched Sam losing it across the table. When the waiter put the tacos down between them, Sam finally managed to squeeze out a "thank you".
"You done?"
"Yeah," Sam sighed, resting his cheek against his knuckles, "I think so." He grabbed a taco and stuffed it into his mouth, letting the filling bunch up into his hands.
"Besides, I don't want to get married."
"Wait, you don't want to get married?" Sam coughed a little, "why are you dating?"
"I dunno, to pass the time? My therapist told me to. Why do other people date?"
"People date so that they can eventually get married." Sam looked at him in disbelief, "surely you knew that."
"That's where I think you're wrong, Sam." Bucky crossed his arms, "that's what people used to do."
"You mean in the 40s?" Sam said flatly. Bucky ignored him.
"I dunno, with everything we've been through. Do you really think we're the type of people who can get married?" Sam opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again. It was the intense look in Sam's eyes that Bucky couldn't look away from. "Looks like I'm not the only one with the staring problem."
"Steve got married," Sam pointed out softly, putting his taco back down on the plate. Oh, so this was getting serious.
"Let's be honest, if any one of us was going to get married, it was going to be Steve."
"You could get married, Buck. If you really wanted to."
"I'm not sure I do. What's so great about marriage anyway?" Bucky mumbled uncomfortably.
"Nothing really. Marriage can be really boring. Depends on the people." Sam explained, "It's just a promise. That's what it is. Marriage is a promise, between people who love each other, that they'll protect each other," Sam watched him from across the table, "no matter what."
"And you want something like that?" Bucky asked.
"I already have something like that." Sam said. At this, Bucky's eyes widened, just a little. And for a moment, their eyes rested on each other. He didn't know if he was imagining it (and boy, was he good at imagining it), but if Sam was really saying what Bucky thought he was saying, then...well, he didn't know what he would do. It was like a game of chicken, waiting for the other to make the first move, and yet neither of them would. Part of the enjoyment was in simply playing the game.
It was Sam that broke his gaze first, bowing his head as he let out a breath of laughter, "Oh, and the biggest first date no-no of all," he looked up, smiling a little sadly, "no declarations of love. No matter how much you want to."
"Sam." Bucky gulped, his voice sounded throaty.
"Are you James?" A voice cut in. Bucky looked to the woman who was talking. She had familiar red hair and a fringe; a smile too big for her face which made her look especially friendly, "I'm Kiera? From the app?" Bucky looked from Kiera to Sam to Kiera again.
"You're late," Bucky said stupidly.
"What Bu-James means is...we thought you weren't going to show," Sam explained.
"I'm not late." Kiera said nonchalantly, holding up her watch, "In fact, I'm two minutes early."
"That clock is an hour late." Bucky said unkindly, "Haven't you heard of daylight savings?"
"Oh." Kiera's face fell, and then she smiled sheepishly, "I'm very sorry. This never happens, you've been here an hour?"
"Dont worry about it," Sam said, getting up to leave.
"Where are you going?" Bucky asked, but Sam didn't look at him. He gestured to Kiera to sit down before asking the waitress for a doggy bag.
"I've obviously overstayed my welcome." Sam said, politely glancing at the other two as he shoved the demolished tacos into the bag. "You two have fun on your date." Bucky watched him make a quick exit and turned back to Kiera so that he could glower at her, but she was taking off her jacket to hang it over the back of her chair.
"I'm really sorry again, I'm hardly ever late, I promise." She put her elbows on the table and cradled her face in her hands. She really did have a nice face, but Bucky was too busy not caring about her to notice. "The tacos looked good, the ones your friend had."
"Yeah, they did." Bucky said glumly.
"Is there a problem?" Kiera asked plainly, "It kind of felt like I crashed a date back there." She narrowed her eyes, "Did you have a backup date lined up after me? Is that what that was?"
"No, of course not." Bucky sighed, "Sam's just my friend."
"Oh, well, it just seemed very intense between you two." Kiera shrugged, "You were staring at each other like...I dunno, it didn't seem normal."
Bucky looked at her. And he must have looked desperate because then she asked him what was wrong.
"I think he said he loved me."
"Oh." Kiera raised her eyebrows.
"Yeah." They sat there for a moment.
"Are you gonna-?"
"I'm gonna go."
"Yeah, you should go," she returned quickly, but Bucky was already getting out of his seat.
"I'm sorry-."
"Yeah, yeah." Kiera sighed, "They always find a reason to leave." Bucky gave her one last apologetic look before running out of the restaurant, though he found he didn't need to go far. Sam was sitting on a park bench across the street, scooping taco pieces out of the doggy bag with a disposable fork. Bucky couldn't help but smile at the sight of him.
He crossed the street, and sat down next to Sam.
"I take it the date didn't go well?" Sam asked.
"Oh, it was horrible. The worst first date you can imagine." Bucky said, counting the offenses on his fingers, "Came in late." Sam nodded in agreement, "Ordered tacos."
"Seriously?" Sam shook his head as he dug through his own bag of tacos.
"Brought up the marriage thing."
"They just can't help themselves."
"Talked about exes."
"You had time for that?"
"And then he said he loved me." Bucky glanced at Sam, who looked gobsmacked. The bit of taco he was raising to his mouth slid off his fork and dropped back into his bag, "And you know what the worst part is?"
"He didn't pay for the tacos?" Sam said, deflecting with the confidence of a man hadn't just confessed his love for his best friend only to run off the first chance he got. Bucky laughed,
"He didn't let me say it back." Sam's facade of confidence broke for just a moment. A look of warm relief flashed across his face before he quickly looked back down into the paper bag. Bucky watched him, noticing Sam's eyelashes that were so long they could rest on his cheeks.
"There's always the second date," Sam said. He looked up again and met Bucky's eyes, looking as though a smile was bursting to break out across his face
"Are you asking me out on a second date?"
"I dunno, there's something about your record streak of first dates that I just don't want to ruin."
"You do like to ruin everything."
"Only for you."
"Were you really in the neighborhood?" Bucky asked. Sam squinted, his tight smile revealing that he had been caught out on a lie.
"What constitutes as 'in the neighborhood'?"
"How about in New York?"
"We talking about the city or the state?" He laughed and Bucky shook his head incredulously, unable to keep a doting smile from forming.
"Flew in?"
"Gotta use the wings for something."
"I love you." He said it all of a sudden, and surprised himself a little with how much he meant it.
"I know."
"You know?"
"What, you think I'm a 40 year old man who can't tell when someone likes him?"
"What are you implying?"
"That you're an idiot."
"I hate you."
"Yeah, yeah." Sam grinned, placing his hand on the inside of Bucky's knee to pull him closer before kissing him softly. Bucky leaned in, raising his left hand up to Sam's cheek, but on contact pulled it away again. Sam caught Bucky's and let it cup his face, running his thumb over the vibranium knuckles.
"This is great and all-" Was that Kiera? Bucky pulled away in confusion and turned to Kiera, who was standing behind them, "But you idiots didn't pay the bill, I had to cover your asses. You better be good for it."
"You didn't pay the bill?" Sam laughed.
"You didn't either!" Bucky shot back, already digging through his pockets for a wallet. "Sorry ma'am, how much did it come to?"
"$47, and don't call me ma'am, I'm younger than you."
"Oh, sorry. Wait, $47 bucks? For what?"
"I left a tip!" Kiera said, snatching the cash out of Bucky's hand and leaving in a huff, "Worst first date ever!"
"I mean, she's right." Sam said as they watched Kiera leave. "Who ditches a date two minutes in to go running after someone else?"
"Mm. Ditching a date," Bucky asked, reaching for Sam again, "another big no-no?"
"The biggest." Sam grinned, before closing the gap between them once and for all.
Hello everyone! Thanks for reading! I started writing this after episode 4 so I'm no longer sure when this is supposed to be set but I'm gonna say after episode 6 somewhere. I know nothing about New York and alcohol or restaurants with tacos, so please forgive me if anything sounded off! No fact checking, only Sam and Bucky. Feedback is very much appreciated!