Steve was downing beers one after another for the amusement of Morita and Falsworth when Bucky came back, and he was looking at his last bottle with the beginning of distaste when he spotted the brunette. He stood, quickly chugging the last bottle before putting it firmly back down on the table, raising his eyebrows at Morita and Falsworth. "Told you - not even tipsy. Come and find me in fifteen - I'll be just as sober. For now I gotta talk to this jerk," he smirked, reaching out to clap Bucky on the shoulder.
"We'll be holding you to that fifteen, Captain; I intend to get the money I bet on your sobriety out of Gabe and Morita here," Falsworth retorted, eyeing Morita with the eye of a very drunk man. Morita looked little better.
"Lousy heathens," Bucky griped fondly. "Go waste your beer on someone else."
He and Steve left the two still laughing, and headed for a quieter corner. He took a seat at a worn wooden table scarred by years of beer tankards being hauled across it, and sighed. He had used to love dance halls. Now he was longing for quiet.
"What did she say?" Steve asked as he settled into the seat across from him, eyebrows raising slightly.
"That it was our business," he said, flagging a passing waitress with a wink and signaling for a couple of beers.
"Huh." Steve grunted, then shrugged a little. "Good, then." He was silent again for a moment as the waitress brought back the beers and left again. "She's a nice girl."
He nodded, taking a slow sip of the beer. "Yeah. I like her. She's got guts."
"Do you think it's just what nurses are like, or do you think it's just her?" Steve asked, as much for himself as for Bucky.
Bucky shrugged. "If it's all of them, she has something special on top of it," he said, glancing over his shoulder toward the dance floor. "Plenty of nurses are risking their asses out here, but slogging through snow with the boys like this... That's something different."
The blond sighed into his beer, shaking his head a little as he looked down into the foamy head. "It was Agent Carter who convinced me not to argue so hard when Colonel Phillips suggested we take a couple of nurses from the 107th. Still trying to make it sit right, but if I'd lose the argument with Peggy about it, it's usually the right thing to do."
The brunette shook his head. "You and that girl," he teased. "I can't see how you keep your eyes on just one for so long."
"Easy; I'm used to slim pickings," Steve joked with a crooked smile. "And I can't imagine doing it any other way. Feels wrong."
"Feels boring," he snorted back, finishing his beer and standing. "Speaking of which, I'm heading back to camp. You staying or going?"
"Staying for now. If only to make sure the guys don't get themselves into trouble. They're pretty drunk," the blond shrugged amusedly. "Don't slip in the dark, huh?"
"You'd catch me anyway, sneaky bastard," he retorted with a smirk. "Don't stay too late, alright?"
Steve waved his hand at him, rolling his eyes. "Didn't know I signed up for a new parent. I got it, jerk. Go try to get some rest, huh?" He ordered, and simply gave Bucky back a smirk at the look he got, and watched him leave. Bucky had used to be the last one home. These days, not so much. He felt a pang in his chest that he didn't know what to do about.
The next two hours passed in a blur of dancing for Kat, passing mostly from Falsworth's arms to Dernier's to Jones's, and when the bar finally decided that the risk of the rowdy soldiers breaking the building was imminent, they all piled back out into the cold and back into the jeeps. Debbie climbed in with Morita, and she'd lost track of Dr. Herman in the first exiting of people from the pub, and suddenly she ended up in the last jeep with nobody but Rogers for company. "Hey, Captain," she said amiably as she climbed up into the passenger seat beside him, her cheeks flushed from the dancing and the beer, her red hair frazzled. "Excuse me if I ask you to stop the jeep at any point - I've probably had a pint too many tonight," she chuckled, leaning back in her seat. The beer was doing a splendid job of keeping her mind off her inclinations to be embarrassed in his presence.
He laughed, giving her a smile. "You aren't the only one. If you don't mind we'll wait a minute, make sure there aren't any stragglers." He looked over at her, and found himself looking for what Bucky saw, eyes following the line of her throat and jaw.
"Sure, I'm not in a rush," she chuckled, letting her eyes shut in the dark, just quietly enjoying her buzz. "You know, I haven't danced like that since the Strawberry Festival at home. Small bar, lot of people you don't know, but just as many that you do. Always had a hangover the next day, but the chickens sure as hell don't care about that. Gotta feed 'em anyway. Wonder how the flock is doing at home. Been a while since I got a letter."
"Do the chickens write often?" Steve asked casually, watching the bar for any of their own wandering away.
She snorted in amusement, opening her eyes to squint in his direction. "Oh, I bet you think you're funny, don't you? Does a dirty chicken footprint on one of my letters count as writing? Let's go with 'yes.' Only the once, then. Usually it's my folks, occasionally it's my siblings." She fell silent for a moment, and the air was still in the way that only late night in the colder months could conjure. "Had a friend who used to write, but now he's somewhere in Europe like the rest of us and we only get in contact every few months. The mail isn't really made for inter-Europe travel."
He nodded a little at that. "Not really, no," he agreed, looking up at the clear sky overhead. "Sometimes the world feels a little too big for my liking." He glanced at the bar again, then decided they were probably in the clear, and started the jeep.
She sighed, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her face and shutting her green eyes again. "A very familiar feeling you're describing there, Rogers," she agreed quietly. "But home felt too small, didn't it? That's why I'm here, at least."
He shrugged. "Home felt fine to me," he admitted. "I felt too small, not doing anything. I couldn't sit at home, work in some factory."
She nodded slightly. "Maybe I'm the same. I don't know. I just knew that it wasn't right for me to be there. I don't know what I'll do when the war is over."
He nodded a little at that, headlights cutting into the darkness as they wound their way toward camp. "I was thinking of being a jockey," he deadpanned mildly.
She burst into laughter, looking over at his enormous silhouette and trying to imagine him on a regular-sized horse. "You'd need quite the beast to match your size, Cap. I think those little thoroughbreds would flee at the sight of you."
He grinned over at her. "Best leave the jockeying to the smaller folks then," he agreed, then reddened suddenly, eyes widening a bit. "Not... I didn't mean anything by that, if you took it that way, and if you didn't... Then I still didn't mean anything by it," he said all in a rush, eyes aimed as stoically as possible on the road.
Her laughter continued into drunken giggles, and she waved a hand at him, shaking her head. "Oh, please, I know you didn't mean anything by it. Hell, even if you had meant something by it it's not even in my top ten favorite bad one-liners that the boys in uniform have tossed my way. I'm pretty sure Falsworth gave me three of those ten tonight!"
He grinned again, relaxing. "He does have a mouth on him. Not nearly as flirtatious as Bucky is but at least Bucky has good lines. Or did, anyway." He turned the jeep into the quiet camp, and said, "Anyway. Where to?"
Kat took a moment to drunkenly assess where exactly they were in the camp, and then pointed the direction her and Debbie's tent was. "Thataway. Not to worry, though, Rogers, I can handle putting myself to bed without a chaperone. Even this drunk, I won't get lost." She fumbled with finding the door handle for a moment and then pushed the jeep door open to crash out of it with the grace of a moose slipping on a banana peel. "Fuck!"
He turned off the jeep quickly, vaulting over to her side and out with effortless grace and bending to help her up as if she weighed nothing, large warm hands holding her steady. "Are you alright?" he asked, concerned.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm good, I'm okay," she said breathlessly, brushing dirt off her hands and swaying into him once before righting herself. "Skinned my palm, that's all. Sorry for screaming," she added, a huff of amusement in her voice, and then she chuckled at the whole situation. "I appreciate the swiftness of the assistance, thanks."
He reached up to touch her chin gently where she'd caught it on something. "Why don't I help you back?" he offered, in a way that suggested it wasn't really optional.
She winced a little at the discovery that she'd banged her chin (it hadn't begun to hurt until he'd brushed it) and decided immediately to take the path of least resistance: which meant nodding in consent, her hand snaking up between them to put pressure on the small cut on her chin. She let out a quiet hiss. "Sorry, I just became much higher maintenance, didn't I?"
He smiled warmly. "Maybe, but you're one of the more pleasant problems I've dealt with lately." He wrapped an arm around her waist as politely as possible, just enough to keep her steady, and headed in the direction she had indicated led to her tent.
"Aww, that's sweet. I think. I'll take being a better problem than Hydra, certainly," she hummed, keeping her voice low as they reached the tents so she didn't wake anybody up, leaning into him unabashedly when she misplaced a step. Tomorrow she would be scandalized by her own behavior, but tonight she was content to just let things happen.
"Far, far better. Not my best compliment, I'll admit," he chuckled, easing his arm back from around her and making sure she was steady. "You'll be alright?"
She nodded, pointing briefly to her tent a few feet away. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Thanks, Steve."
He nodded, and turned to go, then turned back. "Bucky told me what you told him. Thank you."
For the first time since the beers she'd had earlier a speck of soberness made itself prevalent, and she paused a foot outside her tent with a glance to see if Debbie had the light on inside. She didn't. Kat gave Steve a tired smile. "Like I said, it was none of my business. Nothing to thank."
He nodded a little. "Still. Most people wouldn't be so... Level headed. Have a good night, Ms. Lewis." He gave a casual salute, and headed back toward the jeep.
She watched him disappear back between the tents and went inside her own, carefully getting ready for bed in the dark, including taping a small bandage to her chin. When she crawled into her cot, listening to Debbie snore gently on the other side of the canvas wall, she thought about Steve and Bucky until she fell into a deep, drunken sleep.
Steve mulled over his conversation with Kat as he moved the jeep back with the other camp vehicles, then took the walk back to his tent with his hands in his pockets. Alright, he could admit it to himself. He saw it. Part of him was reluctant to consider the idea; he felt like he barely had Bucky back as it was. But Bucky needed to let off some steam, or something like that, and it was obvious he was not going to do that with Steve, no matter how much he wished he could help. He paused as he came up on his tent, his head turning slightly to try and catch the breathing from the tent one down. Bucky was not asleep. Big surprise. He pivoted on the heel of his foot and took the six extra steps to push inside Bucky's tent. "Buck, hey, I had a thought. And no, you weren't sleeping, I could hear you fidgeting like you had a shot of caffeine before bed."
Bucky let out a slow, exasperated sigh, and sat up slightly. "Please, come right in," he said a touch sarcastically, though he moved over to make room. "What's this thought that's so important?"
Steve sat down onto the cot without hesitation, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees as he looked over at Bucky. "You should take Kat out, next time we get a chance like tonight."
"This is what you didn't wake me up for?" he groaned, laying back down on the part of the bunk Steve wasn't occupying. "Don't you have sequins to polish or something?"
"You've got better deflections than that, come on," Steve snorted, shifting his knee out to jostle Bucky's. " Yeah, it's what I didn't wake you up for. I think she'd be good for you."
"You're a weird person to make this argument, you know that?" He asked, pushing a hand through his hair. He needed a haircut. "Alright. I'll think about it. Now go sleep."
He clapped his hand on Bucky's shoulder twice and then used him to push himself to stand, smirking over his shoulder at him. "Yeah, I know. I got my reasons. Try to get some rest, huh? Can't have you watching my back out there with one eye closed, can I?" he smiled, and then slipped back out of the tent, where the smile faded as he walked into his tent next door. Pushing Bucky to any girl had always been risky territory for him - there was always the chance that this one would be the one Bucky had been looking for. That this one would take Bucky from him, permanently this time. He ran a hand over his hair, letting out a silent sigh, then began getting ready to sleep.
"Hard to use a scope with them both open, doofus," Bucky muttered, laying down again and staring at the tent wall. He wanted to ignore Steve, forget what he said and just settle back into his pattern. But the difficult thing about not sleeping was that you had too damned much time to think.
Kat woke up the next morning hungover and with a sore chin and skinned palms, and had to take a second to remember what on Earth she'd done the night before to warrant these things. When they came back, she rubbed her eyes, sighing heavily.
"What is it, Kat? You look like - well, damn, you look like you busted your chin open last night. What happened, huh?" Debbie asked a second after she stepped out from behind the flimsy little wall between their beds and into the common space, and came over to crouch in front of Kat, a frown on her delicate face.
"Captain Rogers drove me home from the pub, and I practically fell out of the car when we got back. God, I'm so embarrassed about it now," she groaned, and Debbie gave her a sympathetic look and a pat on the knee.
"It'll be fine, Kat, don't worry yourself. You're a charming drunk, not like me. I'm sure everything is fine."
"Yeah... I sure hope so."
Steve was up bright and early in the morning, shaving in his portable mirror and dressing in his uniform (not the Captain America one, just the Captain one) and headed out to immediately stop next door at Bucky's tent, and rapped one of the poles with his knuckles. "Hey, you up in there?"
"Shiny and eager," Bucky grunted, stooping to duck out of the tent and standing, straightening his jacket. "We still on to break camp at noon?"
"Yep," Steve replied easily, looking down the lane of tents and cataloging the sluggish activity he could hear within them. He wasn't great at pinpointing exactly where each noise came from, but it was clear that everyone had had a little too much to drink last night, judging by the occasional swear or groan. Either way, they had a moment alone. He looked back at Bucky, catching his eye. "About what I brought up last night... You think about it at all?"
"For fuck's sake, Steve," he sighed, head tilting back. "Since when have you cared about my dating life?"
"Since you fucking stopped caring," he shot back, crossing his arms over his chest. "I didn't have to before - you took care of it. My turn. Look-" he started, then shifted and reached out to grab Bucky's shoulder. "-If you follow my advice - like you should - you gotta make it clear you like dames. Had that thought right before I went to sleep last night. Thought we should just sidestep the confusing part as soon as possible."
"Steve," he said, shrugging Steve's hand off his shoulder. "Listen. I appreciate you trying to help, but I'm fine. I have the people I need. I like Lewis. I do. But there's a war on. No need to get attached."
Steve's eyebrows rose a little, and his arms returned to being crossed over his chest. "Who said anything about getting attached? 'Cause usually it isn't you."
Bucky let out a slow breath, closing his eyes. "Steve. You're my best friend. But you're also a pain in my ass. You know that, right?"
Steve gave a crooked smile, looking just a little smug. "Like I'm ever anything else? Yeah, I know that."
"So just drop it, alright?" he asked, sighing. "I'm fine. You're being a mother hen."
"Alright, alright, I'll drop it," he relented, though from past experience a for now was implied. "I gotta go get some things in order. I'll see you later, okay?"
"Alright," Bucky sighed, watching him walk off before turning to walk down the rows of tents, thinking quietly.
A/N
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