Chapter 9: Giving Him Enough Rope

Steve goes to flip the page of his sketchbook only to realize the inevitable has come to pass: he's run out of pages. He's seen it coming for a while, of course; hard to miss the block of paper expanding toward the front and shrinking toward the back. But every time he reached what he thought was the end, there had been one more page hiding behind the last.

Not anymore, it seemed. Sighing, he closes the sketchbook and starts rifling through his bag for the spare he took to carrying once he'd seen the end approaching.

"Lost another pencil?" Tony asks as he drops into an open chair at Steve's table. Pepper, who's been there for several minutes already and is busy typing away on her laptop, accepts the bowl of pretzels he brings without a word.

"No, just finished a sketchbook. I'm not Clint, I can keep track of my things."

"Sure you can." Tony eyes him as Steve sets up with his new sketchbook, and his focus is so disconcerting that Steve can't put pencil to page.

"What? Is there something on my face?"

"You two had a falling out."

"Uh. Me and Bucky?"

"Who else have you been drawing in that book of yours?"

"I haven't—"

"Then I'll just—"

Steve hooks his foot around his backpack and yanks it well out of Tony's reach, cheeks flushing red. "Your point?"

Tony's tactful enough to not crow about his victory but not so tactful that he doesn't puff up a little at the concession. "My point is that your brooding not-boyfriend is ruining the feng shui lately." He accentuates his words with a pointed crunch of a pretzel.

Steve doesn't look at the bar. He already knows what he'd see: Bucky, doing his job with a varying degree of competency. Sometimes, when Steve can't stop himself from looking, he'll catch Bucky fumbling the cherry he's trying to impale on a toothpick, or accidentally adding sugar way too far down from the rim of the glass, or—once—outright spilling some drink out of a shaker because he wasn't holding the lid properly. He's not messing up all the time, but he's doing it often. And any time Bucky catches Steve looking, he scowls and makes a point of breaking eye contact first.

It would be easy to blame the deep shadows under Bucky's eyes on the overhead lights. But his hair—obviously disheveled even when pulled into a bun—is harder to justify, as is the wrinkled state of his black bartender's outfit. Maybe it's a trick of those same lights, but his hand doesn't gleam the way Steve remembers.

He's spiraling.

"I have to agree," Pepper says as she lifts her gaze and her fingers from her laptop, and Steve momentarily wonders how she read his thoughts only to realize she's responding to Tony. "For a brief few days, he was pulling in the highest card tips of anyone."

"Even Natasha?" Tony asks, eyebrows shooting up.

"Even Natasha."

"Honestly, makes sense. Kid's fucking magic with alcohol and has the steadiest hands known to man. Throw in the whole pinch-hit drumstick schtick and he's a dream employee. Then you wake up and see him throwing that all down the drain. I can't keep a guy on payroll who's gonna show up late, chat up women mid-shift, and fuck up orders." He pauses and eyes Steve. "Not gonna defend him?"

"It's his life," Steve says stiffly. "They're his mistakes to make."

"Yeah. They are." Tony stares at Bucky for a few seconds while he taps the table with his index finger. Finally, he says, "But that doesn't mean I have to sit around and watch him do it."

Pepper goes back to typing. "I'll have next month's schedule sent out shortly." She adds, rather pointedly, "They may be his mistakes to make, Steve, but if he keeps this up, I don't see a reason for us to give him a place to make them."

Steve focuses on his sketchbook. All the practice he's done of Bucky's hand, the urge to keep practicing, to get it just right, feels like it's been closed up and stuffed away like the sketchbook he worked so hard to fill. The only thing he's managed to put on the page this entire conversation is a small blizzard of errant marks.

"By the way," Tony says into the awkward silence, "I won't be making movie night tonight."

Steve's head shoots up. "What?"

"I'm sorry for stealing him," Pepper offers. "My mother has come to town and insists on dinner. Insists."

"Pep did try to reschedule, honest. But you know her mother."

"I don't, actually."

"She's a real batt—er, battery. Battery of a human being. Lights up every room. Pure delight. Lovely."

Pepper smiles and closes her laptop. "Not your best recovery, but not bad."

"So, yeah, not making it to movie night. Sorry."

"Hey, no worries. Gotta please the parents, right? I'll let Sam know."

"Thanks." Catching Pepper gathering her things, presumably so she and Tony can talk about more sensitive business matters in one of their offices, Tony stands. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Not coming back tonight?"

Tony grins at Pepper, who rolls her eyes but can't help her smile. "I think I'll find somewhere else to rest my head."

Frankly, Steve thinks it's odd that Tony hasn't already moved in with Pepper, but that couple has been taking things very slow. Maybe because Pepper's cautious by nature, or maybe because Tony's determined not to screw this one up, or maybe some combination of both. It's not Steve's business, though, and Tony's made it clear that when he moves out, he'll still pay his portion of the lease until Steve and Sam can find a new place to live, so it's really not Steve's business.

Alone at his table once more, Steve can't help sneaking another look at Bucky. The reward for his failing self-control is the sight of Bucky chatting up a pretty blonde woman who's been hanging around most nights.

Steve swallows around a lump in his throat. Even though the band on stage just started up another song, he jams his sketchbook into his backpack and heads for the door. It's movie night; he needs to head home early so he can get his work done beforehand.

The movie they settle on ends up being Pacific Rim. Tony's gonna be upset when he hears they watched that one without him, but in Sam's words, that's what he gets for ditching them. Steve and Sam set up on the couch with drinks, snacks, and the most important snack of all: their own personal bowls of popcorn. Sam likes his with butter, Steve doesn't. Tony's the one who prefers caramel popcorn, and after one too many nights spent bickering over whose preference would win, they opted for the personal-pan-pizza approach.

The curtains are drawn, the lights down, the absurdly large TV lit up. and the speakers blaring. It's practically a movie theater, complete with the most comfortable couch Steve has ever had the pleasure of planting his ass on.

Tony's also the one who tends to talk during the movie. Without him, Steve and Sam are pretty quiet except for the odd ooooh and holy shit when the action ramps up. Giant robots punching giant monsters; it's an incredible formula.

As the movie progresses, Steve can't help thinking about how he and Bucky—when they were kids—absolutely would've been drift-compatible. In a jaeger, they would've been unstoppable. Now, Steve's pretty sure either one of them would end up chasing the rabbit and never coming back. That's what Bucky almost did; he chased music and, if not for some twist of fate, Steve never would've seen him again.

It's not fair, how quickly Bucky can crash back into Steve's life and uproot it so thoroughly. He has no idea at all how goddamn devastating it'll be when he leaves again.

When, not if. The way he's acting lately, that's how it's gonna be.

A popcorn kernel bounces off his temple and clatters into his empty bowl.

"Damn," says Sam, "I was aiming for that canyon in your forehead."

Steve frowns and, realizing that'll only dig the furrow deeper, does his utmost to smooth it away. At some point, Sam paused the movie. Steve hadn't even noticed.

Sam shifts in his seat. "C'mon dude, something's been eating you up for days now."

He's tactful enough to leave it vague, but they both know exactly what's been nagging at him. So Steve doesn't bother beating around the bush. "Bucky found a girl."

"…right," Sam says after a beat, encouraging Steve to keep going.

"He hasn't talked to his family. Or even told them he's in town. But he's already going out with someone."

"Okay, this feels closer to the real problem."

"He should've!" Steve explodes. "And I told Tony Bucky's free to make his own mistakes, but God, I don't want to just sit and watch him fuck up his own life."

"The family thing, sure, that's avoidant behavior to a T but, uh. The girl thing? Is she, like, secretly a cannibal? Or an alien from another dimension bent on the destruction of humanity who has to be fought off with robots?"

"No, I mean, I haven't really talked to her. Natasha said she seemed nice. And too good for him."

Sam's smile flashes white in the dim light from the TV. "Ah. You're jealous."

"No."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes." This one is complete with a grin and an eyebrow wiggle, at which point Steve gives up arguing. After basking in his victory a moment, Sam reaches for the remote. "Look, I know we've got Sunday brunch with the Barneses tomorrow, the ones we like, but after that—you wanna visit your mom? It's been a while, hasn't it? I could use the chance to say hi to Riley anyway."

Steve swallows. He should tell his mom that Bucky's back and fill her in on the last couple months. She deserves to know just like Winnie did. "I'd like that."

"Great. Now, back to those robots."

Brunch the next day is, in a word, awkward. Even with Sam there doing his utmost to keep the silence from lasting too long and Steve doing what he can to keep conversation on the here and now, the specter of Bucky hangs over them all.

They make it almost to the end before Winnie blurts out: "Did he say why?"

"Win," murmurs George, but it's too late. The question's been asked.

Steve swallows. The answer is simple. One word. No. Or, if Steve wants to make things worse, he can add that it was no surrounded by a whole thicket's worth of prickly thorns. Not only had Bucky not given a reason, he'd been annoyed that Steve even had the gall to bring it up.

There's no tactful way to say any of that and Steve can't stand the thought of leaving this brunch on such a sour note. His plate's empty, he's got no orange juice left; there's no excuse to stay quiet.

"Bucky's what, twenty-seven this year?" Sam's voice steals the show. He's calm, composed, the perfect opposite of how Steve feels.

"Twenty-six," George corrects. "He'll turn twenty-seven next March."

"Twenty-six, then. I think we can all agree someone who's twenty-six is an adult, right?" Nods all around. "Right. I don't want to imply it's wrong to worry about him, but he's been on his own for a while now. He can handle himself. As for why he's not here with us, if we knew the answer to that, he would be here. You know how Steve can get when he puts his mind to something."

Steve manages a strained smile. In his head, Bucky's voice echoes: Go see my mom? Go see yours.

God, that pissed him off.

George reaches out to rub circles in Winnie's back. "It's not a fair question to ask, honey. You know Bucky. He'll come when he's ready."

"I did know him," she whispers. "I just wish I could talk to him again."

Her husband's expression cracks a little. "I know."

"I'll clean up," Sam announces, standing and beginning to collect plates.

"I'll help," Steve says, quickly following his example.

Cleanup doesn't take long, but by the time they're finished rinsing plates and loading the dishwasher, Winnie and George have collected themselves.

"I'm sorry for springing that on you both," Winnie says. "These brunches aren't the right place for that kind of thing."

"Don't worry about it," Sam says, while Steve says,

"It's nothing."

Winnie smiles and pulls them both into a brief hug. "Thanks for coming."

"Thanks," Steve says to Sam when they're outside and zipping up their jackets to ward off the chill. "You didn't have to cover for me, but I really appreciate that you did."

"It's not a problem. That wasn't covering for you, it was just making sure that the right person got the blame. It's not your fault Bucky's not seeing his folks and it's not their fault either. He's an adult. He can make his own mistakes, right?"

"Right." Steve takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. "Mind if we stop for flowers on the way?"

"You read my mind."