Chapter Text
"2011"
[Chris] had someone all wrapped around him, they were about to leave, and she was doing a great job at getting Chris all worked up. As soon as he noticed Sebastian, though, everything else faded away. They hugged, just to say goodbye. If Chris was a bit more affectionate than the occasion would merit, if his first impulse was to plant one on him, which turned into an awkward kiss on the cheek, well, there was no proof of it.
(...)
He couldn’t help himself, honesty sometimes made an appearance in a day full of inane interviews. So when asked about how hot his co-star was, Chris thought of Sebastian. And said as much. But he went over it a lot afterwards, and concluded it wasn’t a big deal. First, it was the honest truth, and second, it had totally played like he’d been kidding. Chris figured it would slip under the radar because nobody was going to dwell on a joke.
"2013"
Seb hadn’t been [to Comic-Con] before, and he looked positively amazed at everything going on around him. He also looked a bit nervous, so Chris tried to be supportive, patting him on the back before the panel and making him laugh as much as possible during signings. Like any good friend would.
"2014"
Chris had, in the past, referred to Sebastian as “the sweetest kid on the planet.” It’s no surprise that, when asked to say a few words about his co-star, he repeated a version of that. If only he’d stopped there…
“I wish you guys could know Sebastian.” Who says that? An idiot with a crush. That’s who.
As if Chris hadn’t been obvious enough in London! They’d seen each other a few days before that, there was no excuse for him to act so damn fond: getting all lovey-dovey at the mere sight of Sebastian, embracing him like he was holding the most precious thing in the world (which, maybe, deep down, he felt he was—and Chris knew that train of thought was trouble, thank you very much), being amused at Seb’s laughter...
(...)
Yes, Chris had decided to call his attraction and feelings towards Sebastian “a crush.” As in high school, but on his 30s. He’d hijacked Seb’s question at the press conference, for fuck’s sake, which was basically trying to get someone’s attention-slash-flirt with someone in Hollywood language.
(...)
He’d seen Sebastian exactly two days ago in New York, and he already felt like he was having withdrawals. Seb had been so excited ringing the bell, though, you couldn’t really blame Chris for it.
"2015"
Seb was particularly stoked at the first scene they did because the whole sequence was done in one shot, and he loved that.
(...)
A group of them were out for drinks in Germany, and Sebastian was wearing sweatpants and a shirt with a hole, and Chris couldn’t take his eyes off him.
(...)
Chris got a break from being sexually frustrated by Sebastian in the form of attending Comic Con, promoting Ultron, and going to D23 with Mackie. Yeah, he got no break from Mackie, who wasn’t letting go the whole Chris-wants-some-Romanian thing. Chris was not helping matters by waxing poetic about how “phenomenal” Sebastian was, and referring to Bucky as Steve’s “little nugget.” And that was a thing now, people were asking more and more about Steve and Bucky’s relationship, and Chris couldn’t help but feel that it was his crush on Sebastian that people were reading into.
Different TV crews came to set for interviews, and it went mostly fine. It would’ve been totally fine if it‘d been anyone but Sebastian sitting beside Chris for this one particular interview. But Seb was there, and Chris talked about having food poisoning, which Seb was surely going to be charmed by, and not ruining the superhero façade by doing some horrible thing in his private life, which prompted him to look at Sebastian like an obvious meatball.
"2016"
It was interesting to discover yet another side of Sebastian, who behaved like the dorkiest person in the planet with the press but acted completely at ease around fans. One moment he was on TV talking about lube helping him get inside places, and the next he was nowhere to be found on the stage in favor of spending time with the fans.
(...)
The Stucky trend was in full force, and Chris was almost relieved to know that it wasn’t a consequence of his incessant gazing at Sebastian, at least not entirely. The text supported that reading of the story, the Russos were even referring to it as a “love story,” and Chris was okay with it because Steve’s relationship with Bucky was his favorite. Mackie and Downey, and even Paul, were delighted every and any time that relationship was brought up, but in a way that made Chris believe they were actually thinking of him and Sebastian instead of their characters.
In that regard, since his cast mates seemed to have figured him out, it was good that Chris had set himself a deadline; but, in reality, it only helped to make him more of a nervous mess than usual. It started before the press tour madness began, with Chris half mentioning how he liked men’s privates to be groomed, and it only got worse from there. Chris freaked out over a tiny spider crawling Seb’s leg, tried to defuse the tension only he could feel after getting rid of a hair on Seb’s face by claiming it was just “friendship,” referred to Cap’s costume as “the navy number,” behaved like a possessive weirdo, agreed to Sebastian blowing him even though it hadn’t been Seb offering, and showed an overall lack of chill whenever Sebastian was in close proximity.
(...)
It didn’t stop Chris from teasingly inviting Seb to “get outta here” when Stucky was brought up during a fan convention. It was, after all, Chris’s natural response to having Sebastian around him. Trying to kiss him.