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By the time Sam gets home after class, World War Three has well and truly broken out.
"What did you do?" is the first thing he says upon walking into the kitchen and hearing the yelling from upstairs, but Bucky just raises his hands innocently. It usually comes back to him when there's yelling in their rickety little two-bed house, so it's not a wild accusation to make.
Sam's roommate is currently bedecked in just eyeliner and a towel around his waist, two empty beers on the counter and a third in his hand (Sam chooses not to mention that it's only two in the afternoon), which makes it clear Bucky's been taking advantage of the empty house to stream a cam show. He does it a couple of times a week, fucks himself in front of horny, anonymous strangers paying by minute towards his tuition, and Sam just hopes he wasn't in the middle of his best porn star noises (hasn't he heard those enough to last several lifetimes) when Steve and Tony came home.
Tony isn't exactly a jealous boyfriend (although there have been several blazing rows over him referring to Steve as 'my stuff'), but he definitely swings toward the paranoid end of the spectrum. He and Sam get along okay, in a you're dating my friend but I kinda think you're an ass so let's not talk that much kind of way, but he has a more fractious relationship with the third member of their unfortunate house-sharing trio. Tony is suspicious of Bucky, doesn't like his attitude or his style or how he buts heads with Steve in a way that might occasionally (always) verge on foreplay, and they bicker and snipe and don't get along with each other as a result.
All in all, it's not unreasonable to think that Bucky might be the source of this conflict, buck nude and unrepentant as he is.
"Seriously."
"Nothing!" Bucky takes a swig of beer and Sam notices new, angry cigarette burns on his inner bicep. Well, something's bothered him even if it's not the argument, but as he's been told many times before, that's none of Sam's business. And he's not about to wade into another Very Special Episode with this guy, not when he's buck ass nude. "They were already yelling at each other when I got done streaming, I didn't even see them."
"That sounds like a huge lie. How much did you make?" Sam dumps his bag full of books on the kitchen table and goes to raid the fridge, starved after ignoring his own advice and skipping lunch to Skype his sister instead. He spends a lot of time in the library recently, since most of the abnormal psychology journals for his current unit aren't digitised, which is probably a good thing when his house is routinely full of yelling and/or sex noises.
"Couple hundred bucks. Too early in the day for much traffic, only bothered doing an hour and a half." Bucky shrugs, draining the rest of his beer and reaching for another over Sam's shoulder. "Me and Clint are gonna watch Blues Brothers and smoke, you in?"
"Yeah, I can type up notes and watch dumb white boys at the same time." He turns to raise his eyebrows pointedly as Bucky tosses his latest bottle cap somewhere behind the toaster. "Those bottles better find their way into the recycling, Barnes."
"Yeah, yeah. First I got Steve threatening me with An Inconvenient Truth over tetrapak and now this." Bucky rolls his eyes, sure, but dutifully deposits the empty bottles into the glass recycling box without further protest.
Bucky is a nice kid, Sam tries to tell people, once you get past all the body armour. He was taken out of an abusive home, put into foster care, and eventually adopted at eleven years old (and will tell anyone who cares to hear about it bluntly and without hesitation), and he's been through enough therapy to have learned the tricks to keep people at arm's length. Anyone who pries too close to the bone will either get a vicious rundown of their own insecurities delivered in the least sensitive way, or a snap of explicitly-phrased trauma thrown in their face to try and shock them onto the back foot.
Sam had been one of the first to snap back, not be fazed by the childish attempt to scare him off when he'd brought up Bucky's behaviour in the first week of them being roommates. Because he knew, getting into a house share with weirdos from Craigslist of all places, that he was going to have to be explicit about his boundaries. And that was before he met Bucky, who wouldn't know what a boundary was if it stuck its dick in him. He'd been used to being treated as damaged by the people around him, able to do whatever he wanted without reproach because that poor boy's been through a lot, and Sam did not have time for that nonsense.
"I've been getting fucked since I was four." Bucky had spat, snarly and offensive, arms folded across his chest and heels dug in inside the heavy boots that made him feel anchored when Sam called him out on his behaviour the first time. "How the fuck am I supposed to know what's appropriate?"
"'Cause you're not an idiot. You've made it this far, you're gonna have to learn to act like a human being." Sam had responded levelly, not rising to the bait or getting embarrassed and backing off like he's supposed to. Constant/random nudity was pretty high on his list of 'Shit I Don't Need From Roommates', and Bucky had been genuinely flustered at it being addressed. He liked to shock people, he didn't expect to have it turned back on him. "Alright?"
"Yeah." The kid had sort of stalled for a second then, shifting and disarmed in the face of Sam's nonplussed response. They didn't really know each other back then, Sam had been let down by two of the guys on his course and had to advertise for roommates at short notice, and at that point had just started to figure out that Bucky and Steve had snapped up the rooms because they were impossible to live with voluntarily. "Sorry I said… that."
"You're not gonna shock me, man. It's kinda pointless to try." Which was bullshit, because of course he'd been shocked and horrified by that flippant reveal, but letting it show would have defeated the whole point of having this conversation. He was far enough through his psych degree to recognise a defence mechanism when he saw one, but his sister's kids had taught him enough about this parenting bullshit to not let it fly.
"I… Okay." It had clearly thrown Bucky to have someone cutting right through his last line of defence, the thing that had always worked in the past. That was the first time Sam saw the vulnerable kid underneath the bravado, and it only confirmed that this was going to be a long year's lease.
"Don't mean you can't talk about that shit, but not like that to me. Got it?" Sam had been careful to make the boundary clear, because he has enough fucked up shit going into his brain in class already, and Bucky's quick nod said he'd understood. "Also, next time you leave your dirty dishes in the sink I'm putting them in your bed. Like sticky side down, under the covers and all. Apart from that, we're cool."
Just like that, they'd crossed the line from plain roommates to someone the other trusted, sort of. Bucky now listened and commiserated and tried to be helpful when Sam and Nat were going through rocky patches, and Sam never complained when Bucky woke him with night terrors a few times a week (and never acknowledged that it happened, more importantly). They both knew each other below the armour, just enough to stop them from killing each other over petty roommate shit.
There's a crash from upstairs, no doubt Steve breaking his own shit in a fit of anger, and Sam and Bucky both flinch down in the kitchen below. Steve is definitely the prickliest person in their friendship group, dealt a shitty hand by life (sickly and small, always ill or getting over an illness, never admitting to struggling with anything because he can do it all by himself) and constantly low-level (his low is most people's high, realistically) pissed at the world about it. He's the king of strong principles, has an opinion about everything from political veganism to the presidential election to what to have for lunch, and will literally go to the mat to prove he's right about it. He and Sam get along just fine, because they see eye to eye on a lot of things and Sam is good at picking his battles, but Steve and Bucky argue almost constantly.
Bucky never knows or cares when he should back down and let things lie, and it's almost a challenge for him to see just how much he can piss someone off before they kick back at him. Steve is way too easy, wind him up and watch him go, and if Sam didn't know that they actually grudgingly like (at least respect) each other under all the bickering, then he'd probably be worried about finding some kind of soya-based horse head substitute in his roommate's bed any day now.
"You have any idea what they're fighting about this time?" Sam dumps some leftover Thai food onto a plate and winces again as another crash sounds.
"Why should I care? They're always screaming at each other." Bucky answers way too quickly and dismissively, and Sam gives him a look but he just holds his beer defensively in front of his chest and shrugs again.
"You—"
"It's none of my business. No one's yelling at me." He mutters, cutting him off. Sam wouldn't actually finish the sentence, he never really checks in with Bucky because it's not his issue and the guy's not interested in anybody else therapy-speaking at him in this lifetime, but the suggestion alone is enough to get a read on him. He doesn't sound great, and Sam weighs whether he has enough energy to deal with someone else's bullshit today or not.
The volume of shouting from above increases then, and everything gets a lot clearer.
"…that I don't like you living with that slut?"
"Pot fucking kettle!"
"I used to fuck around, fine. I never got paid by a bunch of freaks over the internet!"
"What's wrong with sex work? Why the fuck does it matter what he does?"
"I don't trust him in your house!"
Sam looks over at Bucky again, because bullshit did he not know what they were fighting about, but the guy just drinks his beer and commits to staring at the middle distance like it owes him something. Sam really needs to clonk his friends' heads together one of these days. All of them. At once.
"Buck." He tries, short and bland. He's really not interested in starting a conversation, but he can't just let the kid stand there looking all carefully-not-reacting. Sometimes Sam hates being a decent person, it's a pain in the ass.
"I mean, he has a point." Bucky's face twists into a little smirk, like he's self-satisfied and not bothered. Second line of defence when denial fails. "I am a slut."
"That's not—"
"He is a slut. Well, technically he's a whore, sluts do it for free." is how Clint announces himself, wandering casually into their kitchen as usual in spite of the fact that he doesn't actually live here. His ass groove might be dug into the couch, but his name isn't on the lease and Sam's pretty sure that should mean something in the way of access. "You guys know you left your front door unlocked?"
"I'm hoping some big, beefy burglar's gonna break in and take me away from all this. I'll be his sugar baby and he can support me with his ill-gotten gains." Bucky sighs dramatically, reaching over to bump his fist against Clint's smaller knuckles.
Clint's a foot shorter than mostly everyone in their cobbled-together friendship group but Steve, bulked up since he started T and breathless half the time from the cheap binder that fit him pre-muscle, with a permanent case of bedhead and a shambling attitude to mostly everything but getting wasted and his mysteriously-complex major. He and Bucky are basically BFFs, according to their Instagrams and the aforementioned ass groove.
"Beer's on the top shelf."
"That's not yours." Sam points out with his mouth full of pad thai, already aware it's a futile statement. He doesn't really give a shit if Bucky steals Steve's beer, but given the apocalyptic state of the top floor he feels like he should at least make a token effort to keep the rest of the house conflict-free. He's the only one who ever fucking does, anyway, while the rest of them wallow in their knee-high dysfunctional crap.
"It's the only thing he doesn't label. And his boyfriend basically called me a rapist, it's reparations." Yeah, that's what someone who's not bothered says. Sam gives Bucky the stink eye, and he finally has the decency to at least slide his eyes away and duck his head a little. "I'm fine. Shut up."
"Who the fuck called you a rapist?" Clint ducks back out of the fridge, normally laid-back demeanour evaporating as he draws himself up like he's about to start a fist fight. He's similar to Steve in that respect, got born feeling there was something fundamentally wrong with him and ended up with the resulting propensity to lash out at the world, ready to fight for whatever he gives a shit about. In this case, Bucky's already extremely-tarnished reputation.
"Nobody called anybody a rapist." Sam stops this train of bullshit before it can start, because no half-drunk white boys are fighting in his relatively-clean kitchen on a Tuesday afternoon. He does not want to yell at people today. "He called you a slut. I'm pretty sure he's steamed about your massive Steve crush, not you specifically."
"I don't have a Steve crush." Bucky actually fucking pouts, and Sam rolls his eyes because Lord, provide him with the strength to handle this crap. Where is Natasha when he needs backup? Someone to exchange judgemental looks with would be great right about now.
"Yeah, and my eyes are blue." He deadpans, going back to his noodles because clearly everyone is just full of nonsense today and he's not about to field it for them. "You don't have a screaming heart boner for that boy at all."
"I'd have to have a heart for that, Sammy." Bucky bats his eyelashes and Sam nobly resists the urge to poke him with his fork because they have established that 'Sammy' is off the table.
"It's true. You think there's a heart there, but it's a butt plug. Got too far up in him and wandered off." Clint drawls, sprawled lazily back against the counter now he's established that whatever remains of his BFF's virtue is still intact. The short temper started about three months into T, and it's only just started to wind down now he's getting better at controlling his quickness to anger. He doesn't get into bar brawls anymore, at least, which means they're down to only bailing Steve out of jail for stupid shit on a regular basis.
"Still vibrates." Bucky nods, seriously, and they clink beer bottles like they're very pleased with themselves for this ridiculous extended metaphor.
"Again, can we pause the sex talk while people are eating?" It's not like anything could put Sam off his food now, not after Wank-a-Thon 2k16 back in October, but he could still do without picturing things going up his friends' asses while he's trying to choke down cold noodles to stave off the hangries.
The yelling dials up a notch again from above, and Sam could swear the light fixture flickers with the raw power of all five-feet five-inches of Steve Rogers' fury let off its very short leash.
"You'd fuck him just to prove you were really committed to your principles."
"Are you fucking serious, Tony?! Do you know me at all?"
Sam glances at Clint sideways, who meets his sceptical look with a similar expression, but Bucky continues to maintain his extremely un-bothered façade. They might have even bought into the studied nonchalance, effective as it is, if they didn't know that this is exactly the kind of shit he pretends not to care about and then crashes and burns spectacularly over under the influence of substances. Making sure their drunk friend doesn't kill himself isn't high on either of their lists of 'Shit to Do Today', so they silently agree to keep an eye on this crap in case anything escalates.
"Please tell me Nat's with you." Sam breaks the awkward silence after he finishes chewing his massive gingery mouthful, relieved when Clint stops clumsily rolling a joint long enough to nod.
"She's outside on the phone. I think her Dad found a fossil? Or a bone? Anyway, he's excited about it. She's saying a lot of Latin things I don't understand." He shrugs, letting out an embarrassing yelp of surprise when the roach gets away from him. Bucky catches it before it hits the ground, reflexes always quick even when he's tipsy, and Clint smacks a kiss to his shoulder in gratitude.
Clint is the whole reason Sam's stuck in this house share in the first place, although he can't fault the guy for it. He and Natasha have been friends since they were babies, all through high school and now into college, and when Clint announced he was going to medically transition last year they'd decided to move in together off-campus. Clint not having to deal with the stress of trying to find transition-friendly roommates at a delicate moment mattered more to Natasha than perma-snuggles with her fiancé, and Sam hadn't objected in the slightest.
But today, in the middle of another blow-up upstairs and Bucky's weird angsty shit down here, Sam could do without it. He does love his housemates, in a slightly hateful way, but some days he could really do with going home to peace and quiet instead of a shitshow. With Rogers and Barnes under the same roof, however, that doesn't seem to be forthcoming.
"No, fuck you! You don't trust me, and that's not okay."
"I trust you, I don't trust—"
"There is nothing wrong with how Bucky makes a living. If you've got that much of a problem with my friend then you've got a problem with me."
Bucky nearly chokes on his beer at that, spluttering inelegantly all over the laminated (laminated for a reason) housework rota Steve had stuck to the fridge during the first week of their tenancy. The house is fairly clean as a result, mainly because of his badgering rather than anyone actually sticking to the rota, but the kitchen remains slightly grubby from sheer amount of use. They're good about not letting things become a biohazard, out of respect for Steve's immune deficiency that leaves him susceptible to everything, but recycling trash still piles up in the corner and pitched battles over vacuuming are common.
Today, Bucky makes at least a token effort to wipe up his beer spit with the back of his hand. It's better than nothing.
"I'm his friend now?" He coughs, after a couple of unhelpful slaps to the back from Clint. "When did that happen?"
Sam just rolls his eyes as he shovels down the last of his noodles, because his friends are the dumbest people alive. Bucky has a boner for Steve that can be seen from space (or at least on the internet, Sam's heard some extremely mind-scarring dirty talk while trying to avoid one of his roommate's cam shows), and Steve is actually more affectionate towards Bucky than anyone seems to realise. He's prickly and definitely doesn't match Bucky's boner given that he's in a relationship, sure, but he definitely likes the guy.
It's official, Sam thinks, everyone is stupid but him. And Nat. But everyone else sucks.
"You don't even like the guy!" Tony sounds like he's trying to out-yell Steve, which is a fight probably not even a banshee could win once the little guy gets going. Shitty lungs or no, Steve Rogers will always have the last word.
"Maybe I'd rather be friends with a slut than someone who doesn't trust me!"
"Are you seriously gonna do this? You're honestly gonna pick Barnes over me?!"
They all awkwardly don't look at each other, down in the kitchen, and Sam gets up and dumps his plate in the sink just to break the tension. He grabs his bag and goes through to the living room, retrieving his laptop and weighing up which of the crappy seating options is most appealing.
The walls are plastered with a mixture of gig posters and promo art for club nights (and some of Steve's protest placards that Bucky's mostly defaced with crudely drawn dicks), and most of the furniture came from the street. One exception is the squishy armchair that Sam bought to have a comfortable place to sit, because he's too grown to be dealing with lumpy used street-couches if he doesn't have to, and it doesn't look like there's any suspicious substances on it (this time), so he claims it again today. It's not the best place for typing up notes, but who knows what war crimes might have been committed on the couch in the time he's been out of the house today?
"Hey, you wanna fuck later?" Clint tucks the joint behind the ear that doesn't hold his hearing aid and twists open another stolen beer as they wander through after Sam. He and Bucky day-drink and stress-fuck every so often, and Sam's going back to Nat's tonight because that's the last thing he needs to be near after the intense fuckery of this afternoon. "I'll beat your ass if you want."
"I could use that." Bucky nods and half-shrugs, sprawling out on the couch for a second before remembering he's only wearing a towel and straightening up to spare Sam a flash of his junk. "No roommate code violation: this isn't me being randomly nude. I'd go get sweatpants except, y'know, World War Three."
"You got anything gross on you?" Sam asks, swinging his legs over the arm of his chair to get into a comfy position with his laptop. It means he can look at the TV without having to see if Clint and Bucky start making out, as a bonus.
"Uh… minimal lube." It takes him a second to arrive at that conclusion, and Sam really doesn't want to know why. But then, he also really doesn't want to see Barnes' balls for the nine-hundredth time this year either.
"You can borrow mine out the dryer." He offers, extremely magnanimously from his perspective, considering Bucky's probably going to stain them just likes he stains the virtue of the entire house just by existing. "The black ones with the rip, I'm gonna throw 'em out anyway."
"Thanks, dude." Bucky doesn't even crack a joke about it, only realises the slip in his composure when Sam looks up and he forces a smirk and a wink. Has to maintain his reputation, of course. "Knew I'd get in your pants sooner or later."
"Fuck you, man. Go put some damn pants on so we can start this movie." Sam tries to kick him on his way back out of the room, but Bucky dodges the half-hearted foot flail with practiced ease.
The yelling seems to have stopped, when Bucky pauses in the kitchen doorway to check he's not about to walk into hearing more unsavoury things about himself. It's not being called a slut that bothers him, or people judging him about his sex life, but the idea that his sexuality makes him unsafe to live with makes him feel vaguely nauseous. He's sure, logically, that Steve's boyfriend would be pissy about him living with anyone who slept around as much as he does, but that doesn't make Bucky feel any better about the things he overheard.
Still, he's a party boy, he doesn't get hurt by anything people think of him. So he shoves down his bullshit feelings and hunts through the dryer to find the pants Sam offered. He's just straightening up, one hand absently on his towel to prevent any nudity in proximity to food (which Sam's made explicitly clear will be an ass-kicking offence), when a door slams and footsteps thunder down the stairs. Bucky freezes when Tony comes into sight of the other kitchen door, obnoxious red and gold hi-tops flashing in the hall light and announcing his presence as he stops and stares at the source of his latest conflict.
Bucky and Tony make eye contact for a long, extremely uncomfortable second, before Tony emphatically gives him the finger and continues storming out, slamming the door behind him. Bucky makes a yikes face to himself, trying to ignore how unsettled he feels as he pulls on Sam's donated sweatpants and discards his towel into the pile of laundry waiting to be done. He's a slut, sure, but he never intentionally interfered in anyone's relationship. It's not like this is anything to do with him, not really, but he still feels weird about it.
He grabs his bicep and presses his thumb into one of the fresh burns to send a hot spike of pain through his nerves and bring him back to a still point. He's not good at feeling unsettled, at sorting out feelings at all really, and bringing things back to the physical always works to settle him down. It's why he likes getting his ass beat during sex and hacks chunks out of himself, and he doesn't see it as a problem because if it works, it works. The only thing his method doesn't really quell is the weird squeezing in his stomach he gets around Steve sometimes, but that's definitely not a problem to pile on top of everything else today.
Lighter footsteps on the creaky stairs then, stomped out just as angrily, and Bucky lets go of his arm quickly as Steve comes into the kitchen. His housemate still looks pissed, jaw set and lips pursed even thinner than usual, and he only pauses for a second when he sees Bucky before ignoring him entirely in favour of making a beeline for the fridge.
"Uh, hey." Bucky leans back against the counter gingerly, not sure if he should flee or not. He never feels naked, no matter how nude he is, but being around Steve somehow makes him very aware of being shirtless.
"Hi." Steve responds, tightly. He certainly doesn't sound like Bucky's biggest fan right now, and although they didn't hear the end of the fight it's pretty clear what happened up there.
Bucky feels like he should say something, because Steve just went to bat and basically ended his relationship over him. Not because it's him, obviously, because who the fuck would ever do that? But the guy stood up for who Bucky is and that's kind of amazing, especially since Bucky wouldn't stand up for himself like that more than half the time. He thinks he should probably tell Steve that he's glad he's his friend, or something.
This is going to be weird.
"Look, uh, you know we could hear you guys fighting."
Steve shrugs, paying close attention to the soy ice cream he's retrieved from the freezer and not looking at Bucky at all. They have a weird energy when it's just the two of them, like something is about to happen and neither of them are sure what, and it's part uncomfortable and partly like they don't want to stay too far away from each other. There's a line in the sand and they don't know what it would take to cross it, or if they want to know what's on the other side.
It's barely even a friendship, so far, but it's definitely something approaching love/hate.
"I just wanted to, uh. I appreciate what you said. It's good to know you're cool with what I do, and I wanted to say that." Bucky is awkward as fuck and never, ever going to live this down. He's not supposed to have feelings, this is going to ruin his image. "Like I wouldn't give a shit if you weren't okay with it, but it's kinda… it's good to have someone stick up for you. So. Yeah. Thanks."
"Man, I don't like most things about you. But a principle's a principle, and I stick to mine." Steve almost softens for a second as they make eye contact, and Bucky almost thinks he's about to say something else, before he slams the freezer shut and quickly turns on his heel. "And clean up your fucking leftovers when they spill in the fridge, it's disgusting."
"We were having a total moment! Why'd you have to ruin it?" Bucky falls back on humour despite feeling weirdly stung, and Steve gives him the finger over his shoulder as he heads upstairs to make a cruelty-free ice cream nest and mourn his ended relationship. Bucky growls at his back when he doesn't even get a look in acknowledgement. "God, I fucking hate you."
"I hate you more." Sam points out, on his way towards the stairs to find a textbook and hopefully his fiancée and escape this mess. Bucky knocks him lightly with his shoulder on his way past, more like an affectionate cat clawing than an expression of any hostility.
"I literally haven't done anything! You all suck!" Bucky yells to the house at large, a smile reluctantly tugging at the edge of his lips when he hears Clint's slightly stoned giggle from the living room. They all suck. He mostly doesn't hate it.
So Steve and Tony finally broke up. With Bucky in the middle. It's gonna be a weird few weeks.