Next To Me // A Stucky Au

Chapter Eighteen

After a few weeks, work started for Bucky. It had started for Steve the day after the meeting, but, seeing as everyone they were working with needed time to start off, they didn't start work until later. Bucky walked with Steve into the huge building, which was as big as the one they saw Loki in, but Bucky doubted that the film company were using all the floors. Steve, who seemed to know the part of the building where he worked pretty well by now, showed Bucky to the room he would be working in, where he was not surprised to see Nat and Peggy already there, talking with some other early-arrivers.

"It's nice to see that you won't be doing the paper work today," Peggy said as he walked over to them. Bucky waved bye to Steve and then sat down.

"I bet you that it's going to be Clint," Bucky replied, sipping his coffee, and Natasha nodded in agreement. He then looked around at the five other people sat around him (the oldest couldn't've been more then 35) and said, "Hello, I'm Bucky Barnes."

Everyone else introduced themselves, and they started to work when Sam came in, Clint coming in last, and having to do the paper work.

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It was a Monday morning, once again, and Bucky was sat with Steve in his car. He parked in the car park, went to get out of the door but Steve grabbed his arm.

"Just so you know," said Steve quietly, looking down, "My boss is extremely homophobic, so could you please pretend that we're just friends when we're around him," Steve looked down, ashamed, and although Bucky was slightly disappointed, he was more mad then anything. "It's just," Steve added quickly, "a few days ago a woman got fired by him because she said she was a lesbian. I'm sorry."

"You got nothing to apologize for, babydoll. It's that arsehole who needs to apologize, not you," Bucky said, leaning over to Steve and hooking two fingers under his chin so he could see his face. "Don't worry." Bucky then kissed him, and he could hear Steve gasp a little for the unexpectedness of it, but he pretended not to hear.

They both climbed out the car with smiles on their faces, but a slight bitterness in their hearts. How was it fair that people got fired just because of their sexuality? How was it fair that Steve had to worry about if he was going to loose his job over that?

This week when Steve lead Bucky through the many halls that Bucky had started to become familiar with over the past week, they didn't split up. They made it to the workroom, and Bucky went to sit down with Nat and Sam and some other people that he didn't know the name of yet. He saw Peggy talking to and impotant looking man, who looked to be in his late 50s and had a permenant scowl. Bucky presumed immidiately that he was the boss Steve had warned him about.

They greeted everyone cheerfully and then said to Nat in a low voice, "Aparently, the boss is a complete homophobe so don't say anythin'," he whispered. Nat passed it on to Sam before turning back to Bucky.

"You see that little blond guy over there?" She said, nodding her head to where a small man was sitting, looking the other way. "He's a complete suck up and a snitch, don't say anything about it to him."

Bucky nodded and they continued their conversation as if nothing had happened. After a while, Steve and his new friend wandered over and Steve introduced them.

"Hey guys!" He said cheerfully, "This is Wanda, Wanda this is Bucky and Natasha." Wanda waved shyly and smiled. Bucky offered his hand for her to shake, which she took.

"It's nice meetin' you," he said to her and she shook Nat's hand as well.

"It's nice meeting you too," she said back, smiling, with a sort of European accent that Bucky didn't recognize . "Steve's told me a lot about you."

"Has he?" Bucky answered, raising an eyebrow at Steve, who flushed in embarrassment, "Let's hope I live up to your standards then. "

Clint came in just as Peggy was walking over to them. "Hello Clint," she said to him, "nice to see that you could get out of bed this morning." Clint practically ignored her and sat himself down on the other side of Nat, and she whispered to him about everyone, which was also what Bucky pressumed Steve was saying to Peggy.

Then the boss started talking (boss didn't exactly seem the right word for him, it felt to Bucky like he should be calling him general or captain or, at least, sir) "So today we will be joined by the music group known as 'the Avengers' and they will probably be popping in and out all this week too," he started, his voice like a monotone foghorn. He started to explain the character, and while Bucky listened, he tried to hook his legs around Steve's under the table, looking for a discrete way to not be to awkwardly sitting next to each other, mainly because he was pretty sure Nat and Wanda were starting to feel some of the tension coming off of them.

It took about an hour for the man to stop speaking, and for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon, they worked on ideas for lyrics and chords and tunes and rhythms. It was only later that afternoon, when it was only about half an hour until they had to go, that Bucky got to go and see what Steve was doing.

"Hey Stevie," Bucky said from behind him, leaning on the back of Steve's chair. Steve looked around at him, checking who he was (it's quite hard to tell with earphones in) then glanced back to his work, pulling his earphones out. "What ya drawing?"

"Oh, it's just some old friend of the main character guy. Apparently, he spends all his time in casinos betting and drinking, that kinda guy, ya'know." Steve shrugged dismissively and went back to his drawing.

"It's really great, Steve," Bucky said, and a blush rose up on Steve's cheeks, "you know that, right?"

"It's not even finished yet," he said shyly, and went back to drawing. Bucky watched him for a few minutes, amazed at how he could use one colour of pencil and make different parts look so different, and how he could use two quite different colours and make them look like one.

"I'll meet you in the entrance hall to pick you up, yeah?" Bucky said at last, taking his weight of Steve's chair.

"Yeah," Steve agreed, and with that Bucky headed back to his work, and Steve continued with his.

A/n: hellllloololldkdhgajxjshdjfklfjhfzgshh how r u guysssss!??!??? Also why the hell did this take me so long 2 write????? Thanks 4 reading this far, how the bloody hell r we on chap 18 alllreeeaaadyyyyy???? Howwwwwww????? Cya soooooon.