Chapter Text
Peter barely made it into the kitchen that morning before Pops was pulling him into a bone crushing hug.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” he pulled back just enough to look Peter over with concern.
“Pops, I’m not exactly a kid.”
At 20, Peter was about an inch taller than Tony, though still several inches shorter than Steve. He still couldn’t believe that their son was already halfway through MIT. It felt like everything with Peter went by too quickly. What happened to the drooling baby who called Tony ‘dada’, or even the 16 year old teen just learning how to use his powers, and scaring his dads half to death?
“What do you think I do while I’m at school?” Slipping easily out of Steve’s hold, Peter went to poor himself a cup of coffee.
“Honestly, I try not to think about it.”
They were only going to be gone a couple weeks, some tech conference that Tony didn’t want to go to alone, but Steve couldn’t shake the feeling that something big was going to happen while they were gone.
Steve watched him carefully, the way he held himself, so self-assured. Even in Tony’s hand-me down Stark Industries shirt and the cap shield sleep pants Clint gave him as a joke forever ago, Peter looked like a man.
“You’ve really grown up, haven’t you?” Startled, Peter lowered the mug from his lips.
“Sorry, ignore me. Just your ol’ pops getting sentimental.”
Peter started to say something, but just smiled instead. Tony claimed that Peter took after Steve most of all, but in his smile, he was 100% Tony’s kid.
“So, anyway, Bucky’ll be in and out while we’re gone. He’ll mostly be in the gym, so you probably won’t see him much.” Steve smirked as Peter struggled not to spill coffee down his shirt in indignation.
“I work out!” he squawked.
“Sure you do, champ!” Tony whisked in, stealing the mug from Peter’s hands and draining the remains.
“Ugh, cold.” He griped, refilling the cup with fresh brew.
Holding up his hands in surrender, Steve ignored Peter’s pleading look for intervention.
“I’m just going to go make sure we haven’t forgotten anything.”
Steve backpedaled out of the kitchen while Peter tried to wrestle his mug away from his dad who was currently attempting to make sweet love to the coffee pot.
“Get your own cup!”
“But yours is better!”
Peter groaned in frustration. “This family is nuts!”
“Your nuts!”
“When do you leave again?”
The thing was, that despite all of Peter’s protests, the mansion was really quiet without his dads. There was no ACDC blaring up from the basement, or the sound of Pops moving in and out of the art studio. He may take care of himself in Boston, but he wasn’t usually alone in Boston. He lived with roommates and someone was always traipsing in and out of their little apartment, spilling stuff or yelling or taking the dog for a walk.
He spent about an hour, just enjoying the silence, until it got too much and he had JARVIS turn on every TV and radio in the house. Not even the bathroom was safe from the cacophony of sound. Baseball stats were spewed loud enough Peter could hear them under water while he bathed in the tub. It was almost too much for his sensitive ears, but then it became normal and comforting and he even slept with a toned down version (only half of the TVs on, instead of all).
It was probably why he somehow managed to miss Bucky coming in through the front door. By the time Peter actually made his way down to the gym on day 2 (he really did work out…sometimes, on the treadmill, for 10 minutes) Bucky was already finishing up.
“Fuck!” Peter squeaked, not immediately recognizing Bucky and jumping about 20 feet in the air.
“How’s it hangin’?” Bucky smirked, tilting his head up enough to make eye contact with where Peter was currently dangling from the ceiling.
“Bucky, shit, fuck.” His breath came out in a rush, his heart beat still heavy and irregular by the time he scuttled back down to the floor to stand in front of the shirtless super soldier.
“I’m not surprised you didn’t hear me come in, with all that noise up there.” It was pretty clear Bucky was teasing him and Peter couldn’t help the blush staining his cheeks for multiple reasons.
“Yeah, well, it’s kind of quieter than I expected.”
Bucky’s smirk softened into an understanding smile and Peter was a little caught off guard by how good it looked on the other man.
When Bucky was finally released from SHIELD into Steve’s custody a year or so ago he had lived with the three of them for a while. Peter remembered trying to figure out what to call him. He thought of all the other Avengers as his aunts or uncles, but, Bucky was different. Because of HYDRA, Bucky had missed a lot of the aging process Steve already went through. He was supposedly older than Pops, but in body and mind, he was closer to Peter’s age, though there was still a 10 year age difference.
When he had finally asked Steve, his Pops had just smiled.
“Why not call him Bucky? You have plenty of aunts and uncles, and Bucky could use more friends, anyway.”
He startled a little when Bucky’s metal hand waved quickly in front of his face. Peter flushed hot then cold when he realized he had been tracking a bead of sweat down Bucky’s chest without realizing, and it was pretty obvious Bucky knew.
“Have you had lunch yet?” Bucky smiled, toweling off before reaching for his discarded shirt on the bench by the punching bags.
“Um, no…would you maybe want to…go get something…together?”
Why was he stuttering? He was going to have lunch with his dad’s childhood friend. There was no reason to be nervous.
“Yeah, sounds good. Let me take a shower and I’ll meet you upstairs.”
Peter shook himself as he left the gym, trying to get the image of Bucky wet and naked out of his mind.
He realized about halfway up the stairs that he hadn’t worked out at all, but he wasn’t about to go back down there.
They ended up at an old burger joint down the block from the mansion, one of Tony’s favorites. The place was small and a little run down, but the food was excellent and Tony spent enough money there each month to keep them in business.
“You know, when Pops started trying to woo Dad, he took him to this burger joint every day for a week. He had heard Dad telling Aunt Pepper how much he liked it and Pops couldn’t think of any other way for them to spend time together…” Peter trailed off at Bucky’s raised eyebrow and the implication of the story and the two of them, sitting together at the same joint.
He fiddled with the paper napkin by his plate until Bucky finished the story.
“I heard that Steve didn’t find out until later that Tony was so desperate to spend time with he, he made himself eat the burger everyday even though he had the stomach flu and threw it up right after.”
Peter laughed, looking down at his plate, embarrassed that Bucky had already known the story. Of course he had, he was Pops’ best friend, why wouldn’t he know the story? He looked up when Bucky reached across the table and touched his hand.
“You know, I’ve never seen anyone more devoted to each other than those two.”
“Makes you wonder if anyone else could have a relationship like that.” Bucky’s hand was still touching Peter’s, their fingertips lightly brushing against one another.
“Yeah.” Bucky slowly retracted his hand, clasping with his metal one in his lap instead.
The air was thick with something unspoken, unnamed. Peter felt full to bursting with heat and embarrassment and something else he didn’t dare recognize.
If this had been anyone else, if Peter didn’t know better, he would have called this flirting.
Bucky walked him back to the mansion, pausing at the top step like a date waiting for a kiss and no, definitely not like that. Peter pushed the idea away as quickly as possible, choosing to smile at Bucky instead.
“Are you coming by tomorrow?” Peter asked, unsure why he was doing it in the first place, but it felt important all the same.
“Yeah, leg day.” Peter’s eyes flickered down to the lean muscular line of Bucky’s leg where had stepped one foot up on the porch.
He licked his lips and Peter’s eyes darted there too.
“I’ll um, I’ll see you tomorrow then.” He scuttled into the door, his back pressed against the wood, completely missing the helpless little smile on Bucky’s face.
Bucky was at the door bright and early the next day. Instead of going straight to the gym, he wandered into the kitchen were Peter was face first in his first coffee of the morning.
“Rough night sleep?” Concerned, he fit his hand at the back of Peter’s skull.
“More. Coffee. Black.” Peter slumped fully against the table, passing Bucky his empty mug without looking up.
He could hear the quiet sounds of Bucky rinsing out his mug and filling it fresh again. Peter reached out blindly for caffeine with relief.
Instead, he nearly jolted sky high out of his chair at the ice cold touch of Bucky’s metal hand shoved up the back of his shirt.
“What the fuck?” Peter yelped, attempting to flail away and losing miserably as Bucky’s grip shifted to press him against the table.
Bucky’s flesh hand held down his hip, with the metal arm pushed up the front of his shirt and onto his belly.
His hand warmed against the heat of Peter’s skin and it probably would have been tolerable if Bucky wasn’t digging into his ribs, tickling him mercilessly. It was a total accident when Bucky’s hand traveled too far up. His fingers grazed Peter’s nipple, choking off his laugh into a helpless moan.
They both became suddenly hyper aware of where they were, Peter splayed out on the kitchen table, Bucky over him, settled in the v of Peter’s legs, one hand up his shirt, the other with fingers tucked slightly below his waistband.
Breathing in each other’s air, their stomachs brushing with each inhale, they stayed like that for ages. Some stupid part of Peter’s brain kept saying kissmekissmekissme.
Instead, Bucky pushed himself up and off, careful not to brush too much against him.
“We should um…I came here…well I was going to ask if you wanted to…work out. But, we probably shouldn’t, together.” He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes averted away from where Peter was still sprawled on the table.
“Yeah.” It was all that came out, but Bucky just nodded and left without another word.
He slammed his head against the wood of the table hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.
“Fuck.”
Peter didn’t see Bucky the rest of the day, or even the next. He knew he was still coming to work out because things in the gym would move, or the shower would already be wet, but he could never catch him.
By the third day, Peter was so frustrated and angry he couldn’t even sleep. He needed to take it out on something, which is where Bucky found him at 5 in the morning, punching the bag as hard as he could. He knew his hair was wild and everywhere, his hulk boxers and Pops’ replica 107 shirt dwarfed him and made him look young and childish, but he just couldn’t be bothered anymore.
“So he finally shows himself.” He aimed a particularly hard kick, the bag creaking dangerously like it wanted to break.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” Bucky sounded tired but Peter was so angry he didn’t care.
He whirled around, “Because I’m pissed! I’m angry and I’m hurt and I’m confused and I’m so fucking pissed off and I can’t even breathe!”
Bucky’s entire demeanor changed, he looked alert and tense and for a moment Peter thought he may actually punch him.
“Did someone hurt you?” and Peter couldn’t help but laugh, because he didn’t get it, or maybe Peter made it up in his own mind, he honestly didn’t know anymore.
“Do you like me?” Bucky looked thrown for a minute, but quickly hunkered down defensively, like he was expecting this from the beginning and had let himself forget for a moment.
“You’re my best friend’s son.”
“What? No.” Peter snarled, the anger coming back tenfold.
Bucky sighed, “Peter-“
“Do you like me? Do you want to kiss me, date me, fuck me?”
Bucky made a sound low in his throat, like a wounded animal, like he’d been punched right where it hurt the most.
“I’m like your uncle-” He started but Peter’s laugh cut him off.
“No, Bruce, Clint, Nat, hell, Thor and Loki are my aunt and uncles. They’ve been around since I was a baby, they helped raise me, looked after me when I was sick, talked me through my first crush – “ Bucky tensed at that last one.
“They’ve been with me throughout my entire life. You’ve only been here for a year.” Gutted, Bucky looked at Peter helplessly and it took him a moment to understand why.
“Bucky, I’m glad. I’m glad you weren’t there for those things. I don’t want you to know what it was like to change my diaper.”
They both laughed at that one, the tension dropping for just a moment until Peter sobered again.
“I don’t think anyone wants their crush to know that.”
Bucky helds his gaze for a long time after that, long enough for Peter to lose track of time or realize how close the other man had gotten.
“I like you, Peter.” The ‘but’ hung awkwardly in the air between them.
“But, we can’t rush into anything. There is a lot at stake, for both of us, but especially for me and…I don’t want to ruin both our lives because I’m too selfish to stay away from you.” His fingers brushed delicately across Peter’s check, almost too light to feel.
“Can I kiss you?” His metal hand skimed up to cup the back of Peter’s neck in agreement, pulling him close enough for their noses to brush.
It was just a simple touch of lips, no tongues, no roving hands, or writhing bodies, but it went on and on and on.
When Bucky finally left for the morning after seeing Peter to his bedroom door, he already knew he was a goner.