Chapter Text
Natasha’s birthday party was the absolute last place to be kissing Matthew Murdock, but Bucky was nothing if not reckless.
“God, Matt...” he sighed.
Matt kissing him so tentatively was driving Bucky crazy. If we're actually gonna do this, he thought wildly to himself, then let's just fucking do it.
He tightened his hands on Matt’s waist and pulled him in close, opening his mouth under Matt’s. The little gasp this elicited sent a jolt down Bucky’s spine.
Matt suddenly straightened up and pulled away and that really wasn't fair, and then Bucky heard them, too: people coming down the hall.
Matt was moving away from him, his hands falling off of him. Bucky took one of those hands in his own and turned his mouth into it - starving for him, still. And then he was watching Matt walk away, and his phone lit up with a message from T’Challa.
“What's wrong?” T’Challa asked as soon as Bucky slid into the backseat beside him.
“Nothing. Tired.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah.”
T’Challa gave him a look that clearly communicated he didn't buy it, but he said nothing else. Grateful for it, Bucky reached over and put his hand on T’Challa’s thigh.
“Thank you for coming tonight,” he said. “My friends really wanted to meet you.”
“I hope I didn't disappoint them.”
“Just Nat, maybe. But she's got high standards,” Bucky joked half-heartedly.
T’Challa gave him a pity smile, but it quickly slipped off his face. “You’re shaking,” he said. “What happened?”
Bucky fumbled for a response. “I-I'd rather not talk about it.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence. When they pulled up at last in front of Bucky’s apartment, T’Challa quietly offered, “Do you still want me to come up?”
Bucky felt like an ass. “I don't want to put you out.” He had offered, after all, to let T’Challa stay with him while he was in town.
“That's not what I asked.”
Bucky sighed. “I think I need to be alone for a while.”
Disappointment wasn't such a comely look on the prince. Bucky kissed him - an apology. “When are you leaving?” he asked.
“I have to be in Glasgow by noon, their time, day after tomorrow.”
“Can we get breakfast?”
“Of course.”
Bucky kissed him again before getting out of the car.
At last alone in his dark apartment, he tried, and failed, not to think about Matt.
Matt, who was marrying Steve tomorrow.
You're not the marrying type, Rogers, Bucky had teased when Steve told him about the proposal.
I never thought so, Steve had admitted. But he makes me wanna try.
“Fuck everything,” Bucky mumbled, annoyed with himself for having sent T’Challa away. He could've been getting laid right now, instead of being left alone with his own tumultuous thinking.
T’Challa wasn't just after a piece of ass, though. He would've tried to get Bucky to talk to him. Unburden himself. The last thing Bucky wanted was to dump this shit on another person - T’Challa least of all.
He went into his bedroom, into the closet. Picking out an outfit for Steve's wedding - and Matt’s - wasn't something he thought he'd be doing so soon.
***
“Is that... something you would be interested in? Bucky?”
“Hm?”
Bucky had been staring out the window at the sprawl of the city underneath them. They were having breakfast in T’Challa’s suite, at the hotel he'd stayed at after Bucky had sent him away.
“The Met Gala,” T’Challa said again, actually sounding nervous. “Would you like to go? With me?”
“The Met Gala.”
“Yes.”
“Do you mean... as your date?”
“I do, yes.”
“Oh. Wow.” Bucky took a sip of his coffee. “Tired of topping all those Most Eligible Bachelor lists?” he teased, stalling.
T’Challa smirked at him.
“Are you sure you want the attention? I'm not exactly low profile. And with my past, you know... Could be bad press for you.”
“You are important to me. It would make me happy to have you there.” T’Challa slipped his hand into Bucky’s. “But I do understand if you don't want the attention.”
They’d been seeing each other for a while now, but appearing together in public was a completely different animal. It meant lots of questions, and photographs. Being followed. Fielding reporters. It meant commitment.
All the hype of the trial had been hell for Bucky. He valued what he had with T’Challa, private and personal as it was, and wasn’t quite ready to blast open the doors just yet.
But T’Challa seemed to have made up his mind. And if this was what he wanted, Bucky could make the compromise. (Wasn’t that what healthy relationships were all about? Compromise? Bucky was sure he’d read that somewhere.)
Besides, the sentiment warmed him: T’Challa wanted the world to know that they were together. Bucky couldn’t figure out why, or what it was about him that T’Challa liked so much.
“You’ll have to tell me who’s who,” Bucky said. “I don’t wanna get people’s names all jumbled up and embarrass you.”
“You could never embarrass me.”
“Don’t jump so quick to conclusions. You should ask Steve about some of the stuff we got into before the war.”
"I'd rather hear it from you." T'Challa smiled when he said it, but Bucky had very quickly figured out how to read the prince. Which smiles were the real ones.
Bucky stood up and took T'Challa by both hands, pulling him onto his feet. "When am I gonna see you again?" he asked. "Before the gala, maybe?"
T'Challa sighed. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I'll do my best to-"
"Hey, no, I knew going into this that your duties come first. I wouldn't expect anything else." He drew T'Challa closer until they stood chest to chest, and slipped an arm around the prince's trim waist. "But since I don't have to be at the courthouse for another hour or so..."
"You must be very happy for your friend."
The words caught Bucky off guard. He tried not to show it. "I am. For both of them. Matt, too, I mean. They're perfect for each other. I am very happy."
"I won't push you, Bucky. Whatever’s going on, you don't have to tell me about it until you're ready."
"I... Thank you."
T'Challa put his fingers under Bucky’s chin and kissed him lightly.
Bucky wanted to tell him everything right then and there. Instead, he put his head on T’Challa’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around him.