Steve is so tired, he’s thinking about stealing the duct tape from Tony’s emergency kit to keep his eyeballs from falling out of his head.
They’re mid flight back to New York from… wherever they were this time (somewhere cold and dark and exhausting). Nat is on his left, asleep with her eyes open, which is the creepiest thing Steve has ever seen - and he once watched Dum Dum wash dirty underwear in his regulation M1 helmet before wearing it into a skirmish (they all came out alive, maybe it was good luck).
His phone isn’t in his pocket, which is typical Steve Rogers luck, all he wants is to play a few rounds of that terrifyingly addictive cupcake game Clint downloaded for him to switch his brain off. But, oh! It’s under Nat’s seat.
And his fucking passcode locks him out after three wrong attempts, of course! So he uses the Captain America override function that all these goddamn Tonytech Avengers phones have with his thumbprint. Before he has a chance to even look for the game, a message pops up on his screen.
Received: First of all you just ignored my cats dressed up as Santa, so fuck you. Secondly…
The ellipses show up to say this person is typing more, but Steve has no idea what on Earth it’s about, or who it’s from (Bucky? What’s a Bucky?), So he quickly types back and hits enter.
The ellipses stop and then start again, and quite quickly Steve receives a reply:
Received: Dont you new phone who dis me asshole
Which is mystifying, because those words don’t make any semblance of sense in a sentence together and why the fuck is this Bucky so angry?
Sent: I think, firstly, your language is uncalled for.
Oh god, he is turning into his mother.
Oh! Maybe this is a wrong number? Maybe his and Nat’s numbers are just one digit off or something.
Sent: Ah, well, I think you have me mistaken for your friend.
Received: AFTER ALL THESE YEARS THIS IS HOW YOU DO ME
This seems like an excessive response, Steve wonders if he’ll need to actually wake Nat for this. Maybe it’s best to just refrain from hyperbole and set the poor man (woman?) Right.
Sent: No, I mean, you think I’m someone I’m not.
It occurs to Steve right after sending that, he is being somewhat obtuse.
Received: Nat, omg, what are you talking about???
Okay, Steve, spell it out:
Sent: No sorry, I’m not Natasha
Receieved: Who the fuck is Steve?
Immediately the phone is ringing. A picture of a ridiculously attractive man pops up as a display picture and it must be an actor or a model Tony has programmed into the phone as a joke (one time he lets slip that Jimmy Stewart would be his Hall pass and he’ll never live it down).
He answers, because it would be rude not to.
‘Who are you and why do you have Natasha’s phone?‘
'I think maybe you have the wrong number,’ Steve says back to that gruff, salty greeting (salty is his new favourite word of the day, thanks to the urban dictionary app FRIDAY put on his phone)
'I… hang on..’ the phone goes silent for a moment and Steve likes to think he’s waiting very patiently for Mr grumpy to come back on and apologise profusely. He secretly is quite interested to hear that voice when it’s not so gruff, and maybe a little contrite. 'No!’ the voice barks into Steve’s unsuspecting ear, 'This is definitely Nat’s phone. I am not going crazy.'
And for the first time Steve wonders if it’s entirely possible this is, in fact, Natasha’s phone.
'You still there, dude?’ Bucky asks. And Steve grunts to confirm he is, but pulls the phone away slightly to check, and oh. Look at that. There is no crack in the bottom left hand corner of the back of the case.
'Ah, so it looks like you might be right,’ Steve says, in lieu of an apology.
'Oh good, okay, you’re not going to apologise for causing me a ridiculous amount of identity crisis for three a.m on a Monday morning?’
'No,’ is Steve’s answer. Partly because he never apologises. Partly because it’s sort of fun to fuck with this guy.
'Wow, nice. Okay, Steve, what the fuck are you doing answering Nat’s phone at this late hour?’ Bucky asks, his voice has lost its gruff edge, has taken on the mild warmth of amusement (it is even more pleasant than Steve had anticipated), 'You guys hook up or something?’
'What? No!’ Steve blurts out wildly, before he can stop himself (but, yuck. Natasha is like the pain in the ass little sister Steve never asked for) 'We work together.’
'Ah,’ Bucky says, like he’s just discovered a state secret, 'You’re Steve from work.’ - Oh lord, what has Natasha been saying about him? - 'You sound cuter than I was expecting.’
'I uh…’ Steve is at a loss, 'I am not cute.'
Steve is a thirty something year old super soldier too world weary to even wear a parachute these days. He is not. Fucking. Cute.
'Sure, send me a selfie, I need to judge for myself.’ He can hear Bucky chuckling to himself on the other end of the phone.
'I am not sending you a selfie.’
'Fair enough, you want me to judge in person, I can respect that,’ Bucky says, and the warmth in his voice has reached dangerous levels. It’s affecting Steve more than it should. 'Okay, if you’re Steve from work then you live here in New York, right? Which means you can meet me at Elsa’s tomorrow night at nine.’
'I don't… know where that is?’ Steve says, flustered and breathless for no good reason.
'Google it. Okay it was nice chatting Steve but I gotta go,’ he can hear Bucky yawn, hears the crack of his jaw, 'You shouldn’t be calling people up at three in the morning, it’s rude.’
'I didn't… You called me!’ Steve says incredulously. Except Bucky has already hung up. He pulls the phone away from his ear and states at it, like it might offer him some answers.
It does have a picture of Bucky in the contact information though. And okay, if he’s not a model or an actor then life is just unfair. Steve doesn’t realise he’s staring at the phone until Natasha’s voice breaks through his musing.
'Two years I’ve been trying to set you up with someone nice and you end up picking up my best friend with a butt dial?’
Steve looks over at her and she hasn’t moved at all. She still looks asleep. She really is creepy.
'It wasn’t a butt dial!’ he doesn’t even know what that is, but he’s sure it doesn’t apply here.
'Uh huh. Remind me to get Tony to take your fingerprint override off my phone.’
Steve lays Nat’s phone gently in her lap where she pretends to sleep on. He fishes his own out of his chest pocket, must have been there the whole time, and puts his head in his hands.
He just wanted to play his cupcake game…
The phone pings a few seconds later and it’s a message from Nat; Bucky’s contact information (including his picture).
And he isn’t sure what this feeling in his gut is, but it’s definitely not the roiling miasma of banality that has been festering there lately.
Which is probably a good enough reason to not back out of this.
Really, how bad could one drink with a handsome stranger be?
He leans back in his seat and let’s his head fall against the headrest. It could be nice actually.
'Atta boy, Steve.’ Nat says, still as a statue.
Steve is pretty sure she can read minds.
He wouldn’t even put it past her to have set this whole thing up somehow.
The tiny tilt at the corner of her mouth suggests he might not be wrong.
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