Chapter Text
You're the one with the cavalier smile,
I'm the one with the open mile,
Bright lights with no regrets…
-Ingrid Michaelson, “One Night Town”
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The United Airlines flight 343 bound for John F. Kennedy International Airport scheduled for 16:00 has been delayed until further notice due to severe weather conditions.
Bucky was on his way to Gate B-34 when the announcement came over the intercom. He cursed and checked his watch, realizing that unless the snow storm died down in the next hour, there was no way he was going to make it back to New York in time. He stopped to ask one of the attendants at his gate about the delay, but she gave him an apologetic look and told him that he was going to be here for a while.
Pulling out his phone, he made a panicked call to Natasha, begging if she could cover his ass for the meeting he was supposed to be at this evening and promising unlimited favors in the future if she could pull this one out of the bag.
Having worked for Hydra for the past several years, Bucky knew Pierce did not take failures lightly. Hydra was an unforgiving company, and though they weren’t exactly Bucky’s ideal employer, he worked hard to get to his current position. He was reluctant to let that go for the off chance that something better might come along.
After Natasha reassured him that she would take his place during the presentation and explain everything to Pierce, Bucky breathed a shaky breath of mixed relief and anxiety. There was nothing he could do now except wait.
The terminal gate had a large sitting area with the generic airport rows of chairs that were stuck together, some of which were already filled with a mix of waiting passengers, a few of them cheerfully optimistic while some looked as irritated as Bucky felt. The wide, glass windows afforded what would have been a great view of the planes outside if it wasn’t just a white-out from the blizzard.
After twenty minutes of alternately checking his phone and email, he attempted to amuse himself with people watching for a bit. A tired looking family of four had fallen asleep on each other’s shoulders, a pair of lovestruck teenagers shared their music, and a lone, blond guy was hunched forward as he wrote in his notebook.
This got boring soon, and Bucky got up to meander around as chance to stretch his legs. He stopped by the bathrooms and strolled past the restaurants and food court without any real desire to get anything to eat.
He shuffled along the narrow aisles of a gift shop, taking in the hanging key chains, stuffed animals, snow globes, and other cheesy memorabilia while holding his messenger back to keep from knocking anything over.
Ducking into the bookshop next door, he hoped that something in there could take his mind off of everything. The store, like the others in the airport, was brightly lit with a dizzying array of products to choose from. Bucky noncommittally browsed the maze of shelves that offered the spines and beguiling covers of their books. With work taking up so much of his time, he didn’t keep up with what book trends were popular, and he wasn’t sure what he was in the mood for.
He walked past the Non-Fiction section and he was faced with a whole shelf dedicated to promoting Tony Stark’s biography. Out of curiosity, Bucky randomly flipped through the book and found nothing but humble brags and self-indulgent bullshit.
Bucky discovered the Romance section, a quieter spot of the store, and was skimming through a random page of a bodice ripper romance that had a shirtless chest on the front that had caught his attention. He was quietly laughing at the terrible writing, baffled at how anything that contained phrases like “dick aneurism” and “throbbing meat wand”1 could actually be published.
He didn’t notice the interloper until there was a strangled cough. Bucky’s jaw may have dropped open a bit because the hottest guy he had ever laid eyes on was standing there with a look of mild surprise. His neat, blond hair and blue plaid shirt gave him a distinctive “boy-next-door” vibe, except his muscles and broad shoulders conjured up fantasies more along the lines of “lumberjack”. He was like Bucky’s every dirty dream come to life.
Fuck.
Bucky was acutely aware of his own disheveled look and rumpled clothes. He’d barely slept more than six hours in the last two days while in D.C. He hadn’t even bothered to shave this morning when he had to finalize the last details with a client before rushing to the airport. Now, it was just the worst kind of luck that Bucky was standing in front of the perfect human specimen.
They stared in stunned silence until the other guy’s eyes drifted down to the Bucky was holding. A smirk spread on those luscious lips as recognition registered on his face. Bucky wanted to die from embarrassment from being caught reading terrible smut that was thinly veiled as literature, but the belligerent and confrontational part of him refused to back down. He snapped the book shut, daring the guy to say something.
After a moment, the walking wet dream got the hint and slowly backed away. When he was gone, Bucky wanted to smack himself with the book, hopefully hard enough that he could forget the whole incident ever happened.
The guy was over by the magazines with his back to the rest of the store, and Bucky made a beeline over to safer territory.
In the Thrillers and Action section, he grabbed a book at random that had a cover that looked like it might be interesting. After a quick skim, he put the book back and took another one that was propped up on display, but he was also disappointed by the summary of that one as well. After a few more times of opening and closing books, a dark-haired man in a beige, sweater vest standing near him took pity on him. “So many books to choose from,” he commented casually.
“I guess,” Bucky said, still not looking up from where he was half-reading the back of the book and keeping an eye on the hot, blond guy.
“Do you have a favorite?”
Bucky took a moment to realize that the stranger was still talking to him. “Not really.”
“If you’re looking for a book to kill time, I really recommend Captain America,” he said. He pulled out a hardcover book from the shelf and held it out to Bucky who reluctantly put his back to accept the offered one. He flipped through it, not really registering any of the words.
“What’s so great about it?” Bucky studied the cover, which depicted a man whose face was hidden by the shadows, wearing a blue uniform and holding a round shield.
“It’s got action and great characters. The writing is fantastic and the dialogue is sharp. Trust me; it pulls you in from the first page.”
He thanked the helpful stranger and headed to the checkout with the book, still avoiding the man from earlier.
The weather still hadn’t improved when Bucky got back to Gate B-34. He checked his phone again (nothing) and restrained himself from calling Natasha, knowing that she was probably in the middle of a conference call. Pulling out the bottle of water he’d gotten from a vending machine and his newest purchase, Bucky opened the book and began reading.
At some point, Bucky became dimly aware of a disembodied voice over the PA system as he returned to reality again. After determining that the message was about a different flight, he went back to his book. As he read the last pages of Captain America, he gripped the book tightly, floored by the final scene of the story. In the end, Bucky felt the satisfaction of finishing an excellent book, but also the burning need to know whether the Captain survived the plane crash and whether he would ever be united the best friend he was secretly in love with.
Bucky checked his watch and was surprised to find that over three hours had already passed. He checked his phone and there were still no messages. Frowning, he texted Natasha, and then, because he was desperate enough, sent emails to Dottie and Brock, asking for an update on the meeting that he’d missed.
It was dark now, but it still continued to blizzard outside. Standing up to stretch, he looked around the terminal gate and noticed that the number of people had dwindled. The family and the teenaged couple from before were gone, but the blond guy with the notebook was still there. Bucky gave a start as he recognized the shirt and the jeans, realizing it was the same guy from the bookshop.
As if he felt Bucky’s gaze on him, he looked up from his notebook and met his stunned stare. Bucky felt his temperature rise a few degrees as he mentally cataloged the square jaw and long eyelashes. It was unfair how good this guy could look after being trapped in the airport for hours.
Bucky resisted the temptation to lick his lips, a nervous habit that he’d never lost. Shaking himself free from the trance, he broke eye contact, grabbed his belongings in the most dignified way possible, and all but ran out of there.
After splashing cold water on himself in the bathroom, Bucky resolved to go back to the bookstore to buy everything else S. Grant Rogers had published, and put the blond god out of his mind.
---
Steve wasn’t surprised when his flight back to New York had been delayed, given the weather. He just wished he’d listened to his agent, Phil, and booked a morning flight rather than a late afternoon one.
On the bright side, he told himself, he might as well use the time waiting to write, but he was currently stuck on a confrontation between his two main characters and wasn’t sure which direction he should take the scene. He was brainstorming in his notebook when raised voices made him look up.
From where he was sitting, Steve could see the back of a guy anxiously asking a harried attendant when the flight would resume. The guy didn’t seem to understand that they were in the middle of a fucking snow storm. Even from behind, he looked like the business type with a white, button-down shirt and well-fitted pants that showed off his ass (not that Steve was checking him out… much).
Steve kept an eye on the exchange for a few more minutes, just in case he had to stop the harassment, but the woman seemed capable of handling herself, and the guy eventually pulled out his phone and was loudly complaining to whoever Natasha was. Steve rolled his eyes and tried to ignore him, but his end of the conversation was loud.
“I absolutely need you to do this for me. I owe you.” A pause. “It’s this fucking blizzard. We’re grounded for who knows how long.”
What a dick. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that the weather had suddenly taken a turn for the worse.
“Yeah, yeah, you love me though. I’ll talk to you later, Nat.”
After the man quieted down, Steve eventually got back into his writing, but the flow was stilted and the scene wasn’t working. He gave up. He did a few sketches of the scene he was trying to create in an attempt to focus his mind, but even that didn’t help his writer’s block either. He dug through his backpack, but found that he’d put the wrong reading book in his backpack and the one he’d been halfway through had ended up in the luggage.
It didn’t look like his flight was going anywhere without him, so he headed to the bookstore, hoping to find something to inspire him.
As he passed by Tony Stark’s display, Steve mentally calculated on how many copies of the biography he’d be able to squiggle unibrows with a permanent marker before he got caught and thrown out. As tempting as it was, Steve convinced himself that he was above such petty vandalism. He’d met Stark a few times on a professional basis, but Steve but found that the billionaire was a lot more high maintenance than he cared to cater to.
Steve continued browsing around the shop, taking his time and enjoying being surrounded by books. He picked up a cookbook for Clint that promised easy to make meals, and a collection of short stories for Sam, but he still didn’t have a book for himself. Steve briefly wondered what kind of a selection of gay romances the airport bookstore carried.
Steve had heard the giggling before he had turned corner, and he’d expected to find a kid, hidden in the back of the romance books, reading the steamy scenes. Instead, there was a guy that Steve could only describe as the personification of sex itself.
Steve swallowed wrong and choked, causing the man to look up, alarmed. The man’s dark hair was tousled in an effortless way that made Steve want to want to run his fingers through it, but it was the intensity of those icy blue eyes that made him realize just how much trouble he was in.
Oh, Jesus.
After what felt like a very long time, Steve tore his stare away and saw the book the man had been previously laughing at. He recognized the cover as a one of those pulp erotica novels that were always good for a laugh. Steve smiled, a sliver of hope making his heart beat faster, thinking that he could perhaps redeem himself from the terrible first impression and start a conversation with that book.
However, the guy no longer looked amused. He clapped the book shut with a sound of finality and scowled at Steve.
Steve could tell he’d made a mistake with his interruption, and fearing he was going to further embarrass himself, he spun around and left before he could do or say anything else stupid.
When he eventually returned to his terminal gate with a juice and apple strudel, he opened his laptop and tried to work on a different chapter of his novel. He considered texting Sam and telling him the whole story as a funny “guess what just happened” story, but it was still too fresh and uncomfortable.
He redirected his disappointment into this writing again. He was almost two thousand words into a scene where the characters finally started to acknowledge their feelings for each other when a gurgle of laughter interrupted Steve. He looked up to find the source of the noise and saw the sexy guy from the bookshop just sitting a couple chairs down from Steve. Instantly, his annoyance vanished, and as he turned back to his computer screen, Steve wondered if the other guy had seen him.
Steve took a moment to calm himself, and tried not to make it obvious that he was watching him out of the corner of his eye, but became excited again when Steve noticed that the guy was reading his book!
There was something else about this guy that was familiar. It suddenly clicked when Steve remembered him as the guy who was whining about the delayed flight and trying to boss everyone around. Wrinkling his nose in dislike, he tried ignore him in favor of writing again, but he’d lost his inspiration.
A tiny, insistent thought at the back of Steve’s mind wondered if this other man was bossy in bed too.
Sighing, he pushed that image away and reminded himself that there was no way a guy as good looking as that was available… or gay, if the earlier conversation with Natasha was anything to go by.
Steve stashed his computer back into the backpack and pulled out his sketchbook again. He started to sketch the guy, marveling at the way his long legs were stretched in front of him and the lines of his forearms with his shirtsleeves rolled up. Steve tried to imitate that jaw line with graphite and paper, but it just didn’t seem do his handsome face justice, especially every time he sighed or laughed at something in Steve’s book.
They sat like that for hours, Steve covertly sketching his subject and the other guy reading. Eventually, Sex-on-Legs finished his book and stood up to stretch. When Steve glanced up, his mouth went dry.
Their eyes met again, but Steve didn’t look away this time.