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Steve wanders into the house kitchen this morning to find Barnes doing something unspeakable to the coffee pot.
It's way too early for this shit.
"That's instant, you moron." He grabs the tin from Bucky's clumsy fingers, not surprised when he lets go easily. His housemate isn't exactly a morning person, something Steve takes full advantage of to prevent disasters whenever the opportunity arises. He was too late to save the toaster, he's not losing the coffee pot as well.
"Oh. Huh." Steve gets a look at his slack expression and blown pupils and rolls his eyes. High as a kite at eight in the morning, probably hasn't even been to bed yet. Just a regular weekday for self-proclaimed (as in, it's his profile description on Instagram) 'legendary hoe' Bucky Barnes.
"Big night?"
"I had a date." It was Thursday last night, so Steve knows exactly what he means. Bucky usually escorts a couple of nights a week, lets older men and women take him out for company (and 'company', which the agency pretends they know nothing about but are, of course, completely aware of). He's very popular, with his extensive tattoos and big shoulders and impeccable manners when he bothers to try, but a few of the men who take him out regularly seem skeevy as fuck, in Steve's opinion.
Not that he's judging Bucky for sex work, because he's a hundred-percent pro sex workers (even went to a rally about it last summer), but the fact he sometimes comes home from these 'dates' out of his mind on whatever substances he had to hand doesn't leave a great feeling in Steve's gut. Not that he cares about the guy, or anything, but it would be nice to get through the year without anyone ODing in his kitchen. The place is enough of a health hazard already.
"I made five hundred bucks with my ass, isn't that weird? It's just an ass. I mean, it's a pretty great one, but still." Bucky makes a triumphant noise and plasters himself to Steve's back when his friend gets the coffee pot going (with actual coffee in it), and Steve would be lying if he said he immediately tried to shove octopus-Bucky off him. "You're amazing, I love you."
"You're terrible, get off me." Steve shrugs him off, but Bucky nuzzles into his neck and refuses to move.
He's a lot bigger than Steve, and his bulk going almost deadweight on his back shouldn't be as pleasant as it is. Steve whistles out a sigh through his nose (not congested for once, which is probably what's put him in a decent enough mood to tolerate Bucky squidding all over him) and resigns himself to propping up this moron until he gets some coffee in him and makes him go to bed.
Which is exactly when Sam walks into the kitchen, of course, because Steve's had nothing but good luck in the month since his relationship ended and this is exactly what he needs to balance things out. Thanks, universe.
"Well, good morning." Sam raises his eyebrows and smirks unashamedly in the face of Steve's death glare. This situation isn't voluntary. "Good night, Barnes?"
"Steve isn't impressed by my ass money." Bucky grumbles, his breath way too hot on Steve's neck and managing to send a shiver through him that is really irritating for some reason. "Cuddle me, Sam. You're strong."
"Go to bed, dude." Sam shakes his head and opens the fridge to find his breakfast and lunch. He plans and organises meals for the week every Sunday, and his Tupperware game is on point. Overnight oatmeal and noodle salad this week, and Sam allows himself a little nod of satisfaction as he retrieves the meticulously-labelled containers because his organisational skills are awesome. "Hey, we're going to a house party tonight if you wanna come. Pre-drinks here first."
"Where's the party?" Steve tries unsuccessfully to shove Bucky off again and growls low in his throat when he doesn't budge, stretching up to grab coffee cups and purposefully elbowing Barnes in the ribs on the way. It does nothing to dissuade him, of course.
"My friend Justin from clinical psych's on the hockey team." Sam explains, partway through a mouthful of oatmeal because his Friday schedule is too tight for manners. "They're having some big kegger."
"A frat party?" There's no way the scepticism will stay out of Steve's voice, so he doesn't even try. He's a tiny, angry little queer dude who'll go on rants about toxic masculinity at the drop of a hat, he's not exactly a frat guy.
"I do great at frat parties." Bucky slurs triumphantly, finally lifting his heavy head off Steve's aching shoulder. "Those no homo dudes can't wait to get so homo with this. One time these guys on the football team—"
"One day there's gonna be a campus-wide syphilis outbreak, and we're all gonna know who Typhoid Mary is." Steve takes the opportunity to extricate himself from Bucky's tentacle limbs, shoving a coffee mug into his hands strategically so he can't grab him back. The fact his hands are shaking hard enough to slop coffee over the side of the mug immediately doesn't fill him with confidence in Bucky's ability to make it to bed without breaking his neck. "Drink that and go to sleep, seriously. If you don't start sobering up between benders you're gonna die."
"Second opinion, doc?" Bucky looks to Sam blearily, flippant but clearly running out of energy fast. Sam would give him maybe ten minutes maximum before he's out cold on the nearest vaguely-horizontal surface. It wouldn't be the first time someone's fallen asleep on the ironing board, that thing's never been the same since Pietro and Canadian Thanksgiving.
"Full on death, man. Drink some water."
Bucky snorts out something unclear and derisive, but staggers his way to the stairs anyway. It's a fifty-fifty toss up whether he'll end up passed out on his bed or Sam's, but Sam is pretty used to that by now. As long as he doesn't get anything disgusting on the sheets, he's pretty beyond caring at this point. It's not like Bucky smells terrible.
"Dibs on not being on Barnes patrol tonight." Steve shakes his head at Bucky's retreating back, too busy watching him make it up the stairs with all the grace of a newborn deer to finish doctoring his coffee with a precise amount of almond milk. He's not fussy about his coffee, it just needs to be correct.
"I dunno, you guys were looking awful cuddly." Sam is purposefully teasing, but the dark flush it inspires across Steve's cheeks gives him pause. Huh, he thought Bucky's heart boner for the little guy was totally unrequited. He was kind of hoping it was, in fact, to save things getting even more complicated and incestuous in their friendship group than they already are.
Sam is engaged to Nat, who doms Bucky, who sleeps with Clint, who has a thing for Wanda, who's siblings with Pietro, who sleeps with Bucky, who has a crush on Steve.
Sam is way too old for this shit.
"He cuddles everyone." Steve's face is still hot under his pissy expression, like he's offended that Sam would be so impolite as to mention the obvious tension, and Sam rolls his eyes because aw, hell. It's definitely about to get more complicated.
"Mhm. Doesn't cuddle you especially or anything." Sam rinses out his Tupperware and leaves it next to the sink to wash properly later. He long ago gave up hope that anyone would notice and do it for him, because he just doesn't have those kind of housemates. They're more the kind where he hides his booze and animal products in case either gets liberated. "Nothing totally special about his heart eyes at you. Nope. Not a thin line between that love and hate at all."
"If you think I—"
"Don't care man, late for class." It's way too satisfying to cut Steve off right at the start of a rant, leaving him fuming silently as Sam saunters off to the front door. "The twins are heading over at like seven, text me if Barnes dies before then."
"I have class too, y'know! I'm not his babysitter!" He calls after Sam, the tips of his ears turning an embarrassing pink that he's glad there's nobody there to witness. "I don't even care about him!"
"Sure man, whatever you say." Sam gives him a cheery little wave before he leaves the house. He texts Nat about the new developments immediately, because he's going to need his fiancée's moral support (and probably to spend a whole lot of time sleeping at her place) if anything's going to happen between those idiots.
The fact one is passed out and the other is muttering darkly about how they don't even care about him Sam shut up god means nothing. Something ridiculous will come out of this regardless of Steve's protests, Sam would put money on it.
Steve ends up leaving a bottle of water and a blister pack of Tylenol on the nightstand next to Bucky's bed before he leaves for class, of course. Just because his Ma's a nurse and apparently the urge to take care of people who are rarely thankful for it is hereditary. Not because he gives a shit about Bucky, obviously. It's not like he watches the guy sleep for a minute before he gets a hold of himself and hurries off to get ready for class, or anything.
Steve could use getting drunk and stupid tonight. It's been a month since he and Tony broke up and apparently he's sex-deprived and crazy enough to be wondering how it would feel to kiss his most annoying friend. If Bucky's lips are really as soft as they look and how they'd feel…
Yep, drunk and stupid is the way to go. He's definitely going crazy.
It's impossible to drink off-campus this semester, since the local bars had a crackdown on fake IDs, so house parties have become a much more prominent feature of their nightlife than ever before. It means their group of friends spends a lot more time in frat houses than they usually would, considering Nat and Pietro are the only ones who play sport and even then they're not really frat people, but it's been good for their wallets at least.
Terrible for the state of Steve's house, though, because pre-drinks and sanitary environments really, really don't mix. He's surprised he hasn't already developed some kind of superbug.
So the kitchen table is sticky underneath all the bottles, as usual, but nobody gives the smallest shit about it when they're concentrating on getting good and buzzed before they leave for the random hockey frat this party is being held at. Sam and Nat disappeared outside in a cloud of muggy weed smoke a while ago, and Steve wouldn't put it past them to be fucking in the relative solitude of the nearest alleyway. It's a damn sight more privacy than they'd get when the tiny house is this full, at least.
Pietro and Wanda are over to pre-game, although Steve hasn't seen Pietro since they got here so he's probably off taking some kind of ill-advised substance with Bucky again. The kid isn't exactly a pill head, but he's pretty into uppers and has been fully introduced to the wonderful world of American narcotics since he arrived as an exchange student from Sokovia last year. Steve had been saddled with him because for some reason his professors think he's responsible, tasked with showing the kid around campus and making sure he didn't get arrested during his first couple of weeks in the country. That had quickly turned into the bleach-blond weirdo (who runs marathons for fun) sleeping in their bathtub and staining the sink with all manner of definitely-not-vegan hair dyes in-between deafening them with loud bursts of Eurotrash club music. He's oddly charming, despite it all.
His sister's no better, and Steve has to step over her where she's concentrating hard on constructing some kind of symbol out of bottle caps on the kitchen floor. She studies ancient religions, apparently a bunch of occult shit, and her frequent reconstructions of long-dead rituals (luckily it had been corn syrup and food colouring instead of actual blood on the front porch that one time, but still) lead Bucky to accuse her of being a witch on a regular basis. The guy is given over to fantasy more readily than people realise, still fully commits to games of pretend and flights of fancy sometimes like he's a little boy in a grown-up body, and Steve can't figure out whether or not he's kidding when he asks Wanda to hex someone who's pissed him off.
Wanda does, of course. She writes her own spells following several different belief systems and sells them on Etsy. Pietro has one tattooed over his heart.
"If you analyse one more thing about my id I'm breaking up with you." Sam's clearly reached the stage of stoned where he starts flexing his fledgling therapist muscles (inadvisably) on his friends, because Natasha is already done with it by the time they traipse back in from the yard.
"It's not your id I worry about. Take Stevie here—"
"Don't call me Stevie." Steve grumbles, trying to find a clean cup to mix himself a drink in. How did they even go through this many already? Why didn't he just buy disposable solo cups like he promised himself he would last time? These are the important questions he never finds a fucking answer to before they get asked all over again.
"Stevie is the one with the id issues. He's like, five-hundred percent id and very little—"
"I will punch you in the cock."
"Someone who's not Barnes threatening to touch my cock is kinda exciting, honestly." Sam snorts, grabbing a beer off the table and tossing the cap to Wanda, who catches it deftly and adds it to her pentagram (maybe?). "Where is Casanova, anyway?"
In the bedroom upstairs, Pietro is busy fucking Bucky's face.
It's not how he'd usually get a blowjob, he's more of a make out against the wall of the club bathroom and then take it somewhere they can spread out kind of guy, but Bucky insisted and, well, he's only human. Plus they're leaving soon, and Pietro's got nothing against being fast.
"Fu-uck." He's trying and failing to be quiet, groaning as he snaps his slim hips and shoves his cock roughly into Bucky's mouth. He pulls out when his friend gags hard enough to bring tears to his eyes, running a thumb over Bucky's cheek in a moment of concern. "Sorry, was that too—"
"Pull my hair, c'mon." Bucky cuts him off, nuzzling his crotch clumsily as whatever pills they dropped when Pietro got here start to kick in and touch begins to feel amazing. "Quit being a pussy."
"You crazy, man." Pietro shakes his head affectionately and tangles his fist in Bucky's hair. He yanks his head back hard, and Bucky manages to laugh and moan at the same time at the bright flash of pain. Then he's got a cock in his mouth again, and he doesn't have to worry about anything at all.
"Aw, guys! C'mon!"
Except his roommate walking in on him sucking dick. Again.
"There's a sock on the door." Bucky is not amused by having to take Pietro's cock out of his mouth to point that out, but the sight of Sam with his hand clapped firmly over his eyes is enough to make up for it. "No roommate code violation."
"Can you go twenty minutes without sucking a dick?! One time?!" Sam chooses to ignore that Bucky is legally allowed to be sucking said dick according to the house charter they'd drawn up within the first month of living together (Steve threatened to get it notarised), and crosses Barnes' bombsite half of the room to get to his own and retrieve his wallet and keys. Hand firmly in place to shield his poor eyes, of course. "We're leaving in ten. If you're not down there fully clothed then it'll be without you."
"Ten-four." Bucky snorts, letting Sam think he's in the clear of having to hear any more BJ action before taking Pietro's dick back into his mouth when he's only halfway across the room. Pietro makes a strangled noise surprisingly similar to Sam's ungainly shriek of distress as he hurriedly slams the door shut.
Turns out it's really difficult to laugh with your mouth full. Not that Pietro seems to mind.
Bucky's still wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when he reaches the bottom of the stairs a whole five minutes later, his lips feeling pleasantly raw and tingly. It makes him feel grounded when he can feel the aftereffects of sex on his body, like he's somehow proving how in control he is of himself. It's not as long-lasting as the searing stab of a cigarette on his skin, but it's pretty good all the same.
"Can we leave yet?!"
"Last one! Steve, truth or dare?"
"Da—"
"You can't say dare!" Clint cuts him off quickly, nearly smacking over a bunch of beer cans with his sweeping gesture sitting at the table. They all know Steve will do anything he's dared to, and it got boring after the second time he twisted his ankle trying to cartwheel over the couch and Nat had to drive him to the hospital. "He said truth, we all heard it."
Natasha nods solemnly and Steve rolls his eyes so hard he might give himself the spins before he even gets a decent amount of booze in his system.
"This shit's corrupt." He grumbles, not noticing Bucky biting back a smile where he's watching from the kitchen doorway.
"Okay, truth for Steve, hmm." Clint taps his bitten-down thumbnail against his teeth, already red-eyed from smoking and flushed from booze. He's sensibly informed them that he's wearing his zipper-front binder tonight so someone can save him from suffocating in his sleep without seeing him naked if he passes out. Responsible shit. "Okay, truth. If the answer's yes then you've gotta drink. If it's no… Nat drinks."
"There are a lot of rules to this game." Steve comments drily, picking up his coffee mug filled with cheap vodka and cherry soda. He refuses to be ashamed of his tastes when he only risks drinking and the inevitable depressed immune system and subsequent illness a few times a semester. "Go on then, shoot."
"Okay, truth: would you sleep with anyone in this room?" The question is delivered with the kind of childish glee that only Clint would be able to conjure up over something barely inappropriate. Steve snorts and makes a show of looking around the room before he says no.
Then he catches sight of Bucky lurking behind him and. Well. It's against the rules to lie.
"Ooh!" Clint yells loudly when Steve downs the contents of his mug, ears just about turning red from the booze. Sam does his best not to catch Natasha's eye and make a face, because the shenanigans are escalating quicker than they'd predicted. "Who?! You gotta tell us who!"
"That wasn't the question." Steve smirks and shakes his head, deliberately not looking at Bucky when his friend wanders over to grab the bottle of disgusting apple vodka off the table and swig straight from the bottle. He's a pig, probably manufacturing a new superbug in his mouth, and he smiles sweetly at Steve when he gets a scowl for that action.
"You'd better not backwash into that."
"I would never. I don't spit." He flutters his eyelashes dramatically, eyeliner making his eyes look wider and bluer than usual and doing exactly nothing to improve Steve's temper. Especially when he winks at Pietro over Steve's head in an extremely cheesy manner in case the fucking walls didn't know what he meant. "Can we play beer pong?"
"No." Comes the chorus from Sam and Natasha simultaneously, starting to shepherd the group out of the house before they get too drunk and end up sitting around there all night. Again. "We're leaving."
"Don't forget your jacket." Steve instructs, absently, as he gets up from the table and pats down his pockets to make sure he's got all his shit with him. Bucky caps the vodka bottle and tucks it into the crook of his elbow, making precisely no moves to do as he's told.
"I don't need a jacket, I'm warm." He's totally unrepentant, even under Steve's most judgemental stink eye. He pulls out a leer instead, which also leaves his friend completely unimpressed. "I'm hot, Steve. Don't you think I'm hot?"
"Guys. For fuck's sake." Nat sticks her head through the front door to yell at them to hurry the fuck up. "Sometime tonight, maybe?!"
"Fine, freeze. I'm not taking care of your dumb ass when you get pneumonia." Steve stomps out of the house and Bucky gives him the finger behind his back. He doesn't need anyone mother-henning him, he's perfectly capable of taking care of his damn self.
He does end up grabbing his jacket on the way out, though. Just because.
They walk across campus to get to the hockey frat, since nobody's about to spring for a cab and they're not yet buzzed enough that the walk is beyond soggy limbs. They run into another exchange student on the way, some huge blond guy called Thor that Wanda knows from the International Soc, who regales them loudly with tales of his drunken trip in from town. He makes it sound like an epic, although none of them have ever heard of 'smiting' a frat bro who looked at them funny before, and it might be the pills but Bucky finds himself quite taken with the guy. That or his extremely muscular ass, either way.
Nat accosts him before he can figure out if Thor is into dudes or not, though. Because sometimes even the best friends are the fucking worst.
"You gonna behave tonight?"
"I aim to misbehave." Bucky winks, in what he thinks is his most rakish fashion, and Nat rolls her eyes. She reaches out and pinches the back of his neck, surreptitious under his hair, and Bucky sucks in a gasp at the sudden jolt of pain and the look on her face.
She means business. Oh fuck. Is she starting a scene? He really doesn't need this to happen right before a house party where there's going to be shitloads of eligible dick, not when playing might keep him from getting said dick in as many of his orifices as possible. He can always just safeword and she'd call off any scene, he knows that, but his urge to be good makes it an extremely unattractive option if he doesn't have to.
"I said, are you gonna behave?" She fixes him with that expression, the one that says she's in charge and he shouldn't think to question it, and it's only the fact that Bucky's drunk that stops him wanting to get on his knees right there. They never play unless he's sober, and that keeps him firmly in the here and now. Nat's not playing. Right, he gets it now. She just wants to make sure he's listening to her. "Don't mess with Steve tonight."
"I wouldn't mess with Steve."
"I mean it. Don't try and get in his pants."
"I wouldn't try and get in his pants!"
He says that a little too loudly, considering he gets a funny look from some distinctly bro-looking guys on the other side of the street. Bucky makes a kissy face at one of them and gets the finger in return, which is markedly restrained considering how disgusted the guy looks. He's had his ass kicked for less, maybe safety in numbers really does make the difference.
"I'm saying, I saw him making sure you don't freeze your stupid balls off on the way here." Nat continues, a lot more quietly considering they're at the back of the group and Steve's only a few feet away at the front. "He cares about you and he's still getting over Tony. Don't repay him by hooking up and making it awkward."
"When has my dick ever made things awkward?"
"Questions you don't want answers to." Wanda pipes up, making Bucky jump because he had no idea she was standing this close to him. She scares the bejesus out of him sometimes, and he's only half-joking when he accuses her of being magic.
"Get your evil eye off me." Bucky makes a complicated gesture at her to try and block her evil powers, and Wanda just smirks underneath all her Ring-style hair and perfect black lipstick. Creepy. "I promise I won't mess with Steve, okay?"
"Good. Thank you." Nat bumps their shoulders together and Bucky lights a smoke for something to do with his hands, resisting the urge to down the rest of his vodka because he feels like he's been chastised, somehow. "The last thing we need tonight is more drama."
Unfortunately, only Wanda and Bucky believe in jinxes.
The hockey frat is already noisy and crowded by the time they get there, drunk students spilling out of every door, window, and some even drinking on the roof unless Steve's contacts are playing tricks on him again. They lose the twins and Thor before they even get in the house, waylaid in the front yard by some purple-haired girl singing in what sounds like Icelandic who shrieks and throws herself at them in greeting. The rest of the group don't hang around to handle that without a lot more booze.
Bucky, extremely out of place amongst the sports crowd with his tattoos and Sabbath shirt and eyeliner, lurks around near a drinks table until he gets accosted by a half-naked guy with a mullet and a moustache who starts loudly asking about his sick ink brah. Steve and Sam colonise one end of an extremely-questionable looking green couch when the seat becomes available, Nat and one of her soccer teammates passing a joint back and forth at the other end. Clint makes a beeline for the huge game of flip cup that's taking up half the room, elbowing his way to the front and using his height to his advantage to squeeze between two giant dudes and demand to be involved. Steve pities the competition if they underestimate him, because even blind drunk he's never known Clint to miss a shot.
The beer is cold and the seat is comfortable, if not entirely sanitary, so Steve leans back and listens to Sam talk about the hilarious shit that happened in his clinical psych seminar (hilarious is probably too strong a word, but the very serious psych students giving each other bird nicknames kind of cracks Steve up and Sam being ridiculously handsome always makes listening easier). He's quite happy to spend a party like this, chilling out and chatting to whoever comes by until he's pleasantly tipsy enough to let Nat pull him up to dance. He doesn't really dance so much as flail his skinny limbs around and step on other people's feet, but he does enjoy letting the music pulse through him when he's intoxicated enough to feel like he's floating on it.
There's a little blond guy doing a kegstand the next time Steve glances over by the drinks to see if any of his friends are getting themselves in trouble, and the way Bucky's looking at the guy (upside down with moustache guy holding his feet, shirt rucked up enough to show off the kind of defined abs that Steve definitely doesn't possess) sends a sudden spasm of something through him that he doesn't understand. Jealousy? But why would he be jealous of Bucky looking at some twink like he wants to eat him alive? It's not like Steve hasn't seen him look at a hell of a lot of people that way before. It's very confusing, enough to make him down the rest of his beer and look pointedly at the other side of the room so he can't stare.
Except when he turns his head towards the gaggle of people at the bottom of the stairs, things get a hell of a lot worse. There's his ex standing right there on the bottom step in his stupid flashy hi-tops, arms around the waist and chin tucked over the shoulder of a tall, red-headed girl who's way too pretty to be in his league. Steve suddenly wishes he hadn't finished his beer already.
"What the fuck is he doing at a hockey frat?" He smacks Sam's shoulder and points Tony out when he gets his friend's attention. Sam hands him his beer as soon as he realises who he's being told to look at, and Steve could kiss him in gratitude.
"I dunno, man." Sam shrugs, more concerned about what the hell the stain he just noticed on this disgusting couch is than whatever Tony Stark is doing. The house has been a hell of a lot quieter since he and Steve broke up and aren't yelling at each other five times a day anymore, Sam really doesn't want this innocuous house party to turn into another screaming match. "I hear he's dating that girl on the tennis team though. Pepper something?"
"Yeah. He dates girls now." Steve spits, before catching himself and letting his head roll onto Sam's shoulder with a sigh. "That came out wrong. I knew he was bi when we got together. Fuck, I'm not a hundred percent into dudes, I'm not some gold star biphobic fucking…"
"It's okay, dude. I get it. He's your ex, normal rules don't apply." Sam pats him on the head and Steve nuzzles into the touch like a cat. When he starts rambling about queer inter-community relations, that's when he's probably hitting drunk. "Don't drink any more of that tub juice, though."
"I haven't even had any tub juice." It comes out as a whine, and Sam pats his head again sympathetically. This kid.
"Maybe you should drink some tub juice then." Not the wisest suggestion in the world, but probably the most empathetic one. Steve needs to be drunk and stupid right now, cutting loose has gone from a necessity to a priority by virtue of Tony's presence. "You're clearly not at an optimum level of tub consumption."
Steve makes a few more reluctant noises, but then catches another glimpse of Bucky now talking to the blond twink from before and has to shove down a flash of temper (he's doing the fucking lean with his hand braced on the wall above the guy's shoulder and Steve knows what that's for, for fuck's sake, he's not even being subtle). He pushes himself up off the couch and goes to find wherever this tub juice stuff is coming from, threading his way through groups of stupidly-tall and sporty people and hoping he won't have to think so hard once he gets something else to drink.
He doesn't really understand his reaction to Tony being here, to be honest, because he really doesn't want his ex anymore. They were already on the rocks when the blow-up over his housemate happened, what with Tony spending too much time in the lab and Steve driving him crazy by getting himself in trouble at protests and getting way too pissy about Tony trying to solve problems by throwing money at them, and part of Steve had been relieved to have something to hold up and say this is the last straw and end it. It's not like he wants him back, but seeing Tony still feels like pressing on a bruise, like Steve's got a bunch of things he'd still like to say and doesn't like the feeling of them all tripping over each other as they try and get out. Maybe he should just talk to his ex and get it over with.
No. Terrible idea. Less talking, more booze.
He notices Clint being hugged, one-armed and enthusiastic by a truly giant blond dude on his way past the flip cup crowd, just close enough to tune into their conversation for a second.
"Bro, this girl—"
"I'm a boy." Clint cuts him off testily, only just drunk enough to not pick a fight over it, and Steve pauses by the group in case something escalates.
Clint is very aware that he doesn't pass as a guy, he's short and fine-boned and pretty, and having to correct people constantly is a low-level irritation that sometimes wears him down enough that he just stays the fuck in bed. Big parties like this are a huge effort, which is why he's usually stoned out of his gourd when he bothers being around new people. It's always a toss-up between whether he'll let the comments roll off his back or start a fight over it, even with a big bag of weed to keep him chill.
"Oh, shit. Sorry, dude." The big guy claps him on the shoulder apologetically and then carries straight on from where he left off enthusing about flip cup technique to his friend. Clint fights the urge to grin because that's always the nicest surprise. "Anyway, this guy is fucking exceptional at flip cup. Like, the level of accuracy is insane, we gotta get him on our team."
"See, bro." The other guy, dark-skinned and broad shouldered and apparently Canadian (who Steve's about seventy percent sure is Sam's friend Justin, but not enough that he'll embarrass himself by saying hi in case he's not. Not that the guy even knows him, although he does have Steve and the entire rest of campus on Facebook somehow), nods very seriously in response. "I told you height's not an advantage when it comes to drinking games."
"Oh my god, dude. You've gotta meet our team manager. She's like two inches shorter than you and the best player I ever saw. Hand to god."
Satisfied that his friend is being treated right, Steve carries on through the crowd to the slightly-emptier house kitchen. There's what looks like a huge plastic storage crate set up on the kitchen table, filled with something dirty-green and possibly fizzing? Steve can't tell, exactly, but the muscular guy stirring it catches his eye with a surprisingly sober twitch of a smile and holds up a ladle in question.
Come for the booze, stay for the eye candy. He must be on his way to drunk.
"Tub juice?" Steve grabs a cup and sceptically lets the guy fill it with the concoction. "What the hell's in that?"
"Ah, rum, vodka, bourbon, orange juice, red bull…" He pauses to think, and Steve finds his strong Canadian accent charming enough to hang around to hear the rest. This guy has dark hair and cheekbones for days and he's stacked, and Steve's tipsy enough that hooking up at a party suddenly feels like a viable option. "Couldn't even tell you. They make it in the bathtub upstairs, pretty sure they clean it out first."
"I'm definitely getting MRSA." He meets the guy's eyes, shrugs, and downs half the cup with a grimace. He splutters at the burn as extremely-swole-guy laughs, patting him on the back in an unhelpful but undeniably pleasant manner. "Or just choking to death. Shit."
"Good thing I know first aid." The guy jokes flatly like he's not sure how to actually deliver a joke, which Steve finds oddly endearing.
"Mouth to mouth?" He grins back, but the guy blushes and mumbles something about team training before turning back to the tub as quickly as possible. It's somehow very disappointing to Steve, and he finds himself thinking that if he'd set up that line with Bucky they could've ended up bantering about it all evening.
But he doesn't care about Bucky. And he's got his tub juice, foul and potent as it is, so he leaves Mr Awkward to his ladle and heads back into the party to see if he can find someone worth talking to. And maybe making out with a little, he's not fussy.
That's the plan, anyway. As it turns out, though, tub juice is a hell of a lot stronger than even its burning taste would suggest, and by the time he finishes the cup lightweight-Steve is bombed. He gets waylaid by Natasha and pulled onto what's ended up as the dance floor, inexpertly shaking his hips to Beyoncé and letting her try and guide him into something resembling dancing like a human being. He catches sight of the little blond twink and Bucky dancing near them through his boozy tunnel vision, scowls at the kid grinding smooth and dirty like nothing Steve could ever achieve with his clunky joints and clumsy limbs. He stumbles off to find another drink before he can notice that Bucky might be dancing with another guy, but he's looking straight at Steve.
Halfway through his second cup of tub juice is the perfect time for him to bump into Tony, of course. He's going to email the Law Soc and see if it's possible to literally sue the universe for harassment.
"Woah, easy there." Tony catches his elbow when he misses the bottom step of the staircase and almost falls flat on his face. He smiles at Steve with that tight, nervous look on his face that always says he's working very hard to keep his public mask on. Steve always hated that mask. "Hey, Steve. How's it going?"
"S'going great. I'm really, really great. I'm good." He props himself up on the wall and tries not to squint when the lights behind Tony refuse to stop moving. He blurts out the first thing that comes into his head, which is always a terrible idea. "Your girlfriend's pretty."
Oh, fuck. He really hopes he doesn't remember this in the morning.
"I, uh. I'm sorry you had to find out like this." Tony looks sheepish about it, which somehow manages to infuriate Steve even more. "I was gonna call you—"
"No, no. S'fine. We broke up together, right? No hard feelings. I hope she's really nice." He tries to gesture and manages to slop tub juice on his favourite I was a teenage anarchist shirt. Add that to the list of things that are going great for him today. Maybe Wanda put a curse on him or something.
"Look, uh. Is Sam around somewhere?" Tony doesn't look pissed about his terrible attempts to behave like a grown adult, he even looks kind of fond, as much as Steve can see of his stupid face that won't stay still, at least. "Or Natasha, maybe? I feel like I'm gonna feature in the start of some PSA about binge drinking if I leave you—"
"Oh, no. I'm fine. I'm fine." Maybe loudly insisting you're fine whilst clinging unsteadily to the wallpaper isn't the best way to prove you're actually fine, but Steve can't think of a way to make it clearer. His tongue feels too big for his mouth but he does his best to enunciate clearly so there can't be any misunderstandings. "I don't need you to take care of me, Tony. I can look after myself."
"Okay, alright. Just, uh, drink some water, okay? It's the clear stuff that doesn't have booze in it." Tony pats him on the arm gingerly, like he might get his fingers bitten for his trouble. "See you around, Steve. Take care of yourself."
"You too. And your girlfriend. She's really pretty." Steve calls after Tony as he retreats, grumbling into his cup as he takes a drink because he's not sure what else to do.
He should probably go find his friends and maybe head home and sober up a little, but he doesn't want to. He doesn't understand exactly why he's so spitting mad at Tony (and Bucky, for some reason) all of a sudden, but he stumbles back in the vague direction of the green couch he'd started out on fuelled purely by rage. He swerves Clint and his new hockey friends and makes a beeline for a different figure, because of course Steve only makes good decisions when he's drunk.
Out of nothing but sheer spite, Steve walks up to the tub juice guy (who he totally hasn't been low-key watching all night) and grabs the front of his shirt to yank him down into a crushing kiss. He seems like the dark and brooding type (not that Steve has a type and not that Bucky happens to fit that type or anything) and has one of the finest asses Steve's ever had the pleasure to witness in the flesh, so really he doesn't mind if this turns into hooking up or getting kicked out of the house. What matters is that he's currently making out with a very hot guy right where Tony (not Bucky, definitely not Bucky) can see him and be totally jealous.
Except Bucky's not there, when Steve opens one eye just to check, and Tony's not even looking. Fucking perfect. Thanks, universe.
"What are you doing, B—" The guy opens his eyes when they break apart and suddenly pushes Steve away to arm's length, looking stricken. "Shit, man. I thought you were someone else."
"Who d'you want me to be?" Steve tries to channel his best Bucky, because flirty smiles and implied filth doesn't come naturally to him, but the guy is already shaking his head.
"Sorry, dude. Wrong guy." He hesitates before awkwardly patting Steve on the arm (is this guy straight? How awkward can he get?) and high-tailing it out of the room as quickly as possible. Leaving Steve swaying slightly on the edge of the crowd, alone.
That's it, Steve is officially done with this night. He's had enough to drink that the sticky floor has started to feel slightly wavy under his feet, and his vision is a little blurred even with his contacts in. That means he's hit his limit, and it's time to get the hell away from this shitshow of a house party before he really embarrasses himself more than he already has. Luckily, Sam comes across him before he can try and take off into the night on his own. Last time he did that, he fell asleep at a bus stop and had tonsillitis for three weeks straight afterwards.
Little known fact: when Steve isn't being the Sober Friend he slips very quickly into the Hot Mess role. Very quickly.
"M'going home." He grabs Sam's elbow to steady himself when someone bangs into him from behind, and it's only Sam putting a hand on his shoulder that stops him turning around to shove them back because he's itching for a fight now. "I hate it here."
"I was just coming to find you. Wanda already took Pietro home and I think Clint went with them." They've hit the stage of the night where everyone has started to get a little messy around them, couples pairing off to do inappropriate things in public and a group of guys trying to organise some kind of fight club in the front yard. Probably time to get going before someone calls the cops. "We're leaving too, c'mon man."
"Where's Bucky?" Steve stays planted right where he is when Sam tries to shepherd him towards the door, suddenly aware that he hasn't seen his friend for what seems like hours.
"I dunno, dude. Nat was looking for him, but his phone went straight to voicemail. Last I saw he was going upstairs." Sam shrugs, turning the action into an exasperated sigh when Steve immediately pulls away from him and stomps towards the stairs. "Don't break your neck on there!"
Steve manages to get up to the next floor very gracefully (he only trips once), and squeezes through the hall dotted with people to find the bathroom. The door is closed, of course, and he recognises a familiar sparkly unicorn-print sock shoved over the doorknob.
"I think there's people banging in there, bro." Some ginger kid who looks about twelve years old warns him, which only serves to piss Steve off even further because of fucking course.
"Bucky!" Steve bangs on the door with the side of his fist, not bothering to check who's inside because he knows exactly who the fuck it is. "We're leaving, zip it up."
"I'm kinda busy, here." His words are ragged and slurred, and Steve tries not to picture him swallowing around a stranger's cock for his own sanity. The image is making him really annoyed right now, he doesn't know why. Maybe because apparently everyone can find someone to get off with at the drop of a hat except him.
"Five minutes." Steve snaps, because he's ready to get the hell out of this house and as far away from his ex and the guy he made out with and the little fucking twink Bucky's hooking up with as he can.
"Two." Bucky counters, sounding way too pleased with himself. "Don't underestimate me."
"S'that your boyfriend?" Comes the Southern-drawled slur of the guy Bucky's currently sucking off, and for some reason that's what pisses Steve off more than anything else this evening. He stalks clumsily back down the stairs to look for his friends, not thinking about it as hard as humanly possible. He cannot even right now.
He trips on the bottom step again and Sam catches him this time, because Sam is the best bro in the entire world and Steve could kiss him right now.
"S'leave him. I don't care." He lets Sam shepherd him out of the house this time, catching up with Natasha who's standing on the corner and playing Pokémon Go while she waits for them. "He's gonna be busy all night. Let him be busy."
He doesn't sound bitter about it, about Bucky hooking up with some guy who looks just like Steve except hotter. Not at all. Why would he be bitter about that? Why would he be jealous? He doesn't even like Bucky. He doesn't even care.
Sam ends up giving Mr Five-Feet-Five of Cock-Deprived Fury a piggyback home, mainly because he's too drunk to protest being carried and Sam would like to get home before the sun comes up this time.
"I hate Bucky." He's been grumbling about Barnes for the entire walk. There's a thin line between love and hate, Sam supposes, and apparently that line is someone else's dick in Bucky's mouth. "Fucking… gonna call him Fucky from now on."
"He'll like that." Sam points out, shifting Steve's weight to get the bony knees out of his ribs. He'd better get some good karma for this shit, he wishes he didn't have such a strong conscience that he can't knowingly let this guy sleep on a sticky frat house floor for the night. He's way nicer than his messy friends deserve.
"Gonna call him fuckface then. Fuckface fucking Barnes. Sucking all the dicks. S'not fair, where's the dicks left for everyone else?!"
Sam should be recording this for the group chat, and he glances over at Natasha to see she's already got her phone on Steve where he's pressing his face into Sam's spine and bitching drunkenly about dicks. This kind of thing is exactly why he's going to marry that girl, they're a hundred percent drift compatible.
"Like, Tony's dick wasn't even big. Why can't Fuckface Barnes suck his teeny weenie and lemme have the nice dicks. It looks like a fuckin'…" He lifts his head and squints at Natasha, wobbly-headed like a drunk toddler. "What're they called? The things. The little…?"
"Cocktail sausages?" Nat offers, trying really hard not to laugh.
"Cocktail sausage! Weenies!" Steve yells, way too loudly, and Sam can't help it, he has to stop in the middle of the street so he doesn't drop Steve on his ass because he's laughing so hard. "S'right. Teeny cocktail dick."
"C'mon big guy, time for bed." Sam finally gets a hold of himself and starts walking again, shaking his head at Natasha when Steve nuzzles his face into his shoulder and continues rambling something about how much he hates Bucky and tiny dicks.
At least his baby monkey act makes it easier to get him back to the house, last time he walked back drunk he tried to pick a fight with a mailbox. The video was great, but the broken fingers were less than ideal even if the mailbox 'started it'.
Sam deposits him unceremoniously on his bed when they get home, kind enough to tuck the blanket over Steve's shoulders and stick the wastebasket next to the bed in case he has to hurl. For his part, Steve curls up on his side and passes out furiously, probably still muttering under his breath about Bucky fucking Barnes.
Everyone thinks Sam is the Dad Friend in the group because he's the oldest, but he couldn't give less of a shit what happens to his friends on a night out as long as they're not in hospital, jail, or bothering him. The Dad Friend role secretly falls to Steve who, probably as a side effect of being a nurse's kid, usually ends up shoving water at people and making sure everyone gets back to the house in one piece at the end of the night. He always pays hard for drinking because of his shitty immune system, so it's rare that he gets really hammered and ends up slipping into the Sober Friend category more often than not as a result.
Which would be why he's the one who gets an awkward phone call the morning after the house party, even though he spent last night falling into the Hot Mess category and really isn't ready to be awake yet.
"There's, uh. We have a guy on our couch." The guy on the other end of the phone sounds Canadian, which jogs a vague memory from last night, and his flat tone makes him sound totally disinterested in the conversation despite being the one who started it. "You're in his phone as 'call when drunk'."
"Is his name Bucky?" Steve sits up and rubs his eyes groggily, irritation already growing in the pit of his rolling stomach. He can't remember why he's so pissed at Barnes this morning, he must have done something shitty last night.
"Is your name Bucky?" Canadian robot asks, phone held slightly away from his face. Steve hears the 'nooooo I'm not Bucky, noooo' on the other end and puts his head in his hand with a lengthy sigh. "Ah, yeah. I'm pretty sure his name's Bucky. We were gonna stick him in a cab, but he doesn't know his address, so…"
"I'll come pick him up." Steve sighs again, expressively, before pushing himself off the bed and starting to look for his pants. Bucky's going to do his dishes for a fucking month after this. "Don't let him drink anything else."
"Alright. He's smoking up and eating pie right now. We'll keep an eye on him."
"He… what?" Steve doesn't have the brain space to process whatever the shit he just heard. "Whatever, just don't let him leave."
"Hey, bro." Robot guy holds the phone away from his face again to get Bucky's attention. "Your boyfriend's coming to pick you up."
"He's not my—" is all Steve gets out before he hears –
"Aw yay, Steve! I love Steve!"
– and shuts his mouth with an audible click. He hangs up before he can hear anything else, because he doesn't need that shit today.
He's too hungover for all of this fuckery. And he starts coughing as soon as he gets his pants on, so he's probably got about twelve hours before the full-blown flu kicks in. And he has to go and pick up the guy he's pretty sure he's got a crush on from a fucking frat house where everyone apparently thinks Steve is his boyfriend.
He's never drinking again. Thanks, universe.