#god. i need to go talk to dottie about aus before i explode

[noroalia]

god i love rewatching s2. GO MY [SUITCASE]

[silverarmedassassin]

Day Six: A Christmas Date

Pairing: Bucky x Reader (College AU) Word Count: 4269 - sorry this one kind of got away from me whoops Summary: Bucky is desperate to find a date for his fraternity's Christmas party. You happen to stumble into the conversation at the wrong time. Or is it? 

A/N: And we’re back! I’ve had a really rough past couple of days and couldn’t get any writing done, so I’m going to be playing catch up for the next few days. I hope to have days 7, 8 and 9 all out by tomorrow evening, but we’ll see. I have tomorrow off so I’ll have plenty of time to write and edit what I already have written! Enjoy! 

2019 Christmas Masterlist 

“Come on Stevie. Peggy has to have at least one cute single friend she can hook me up with!”

Steve looks over the top of the espresso machine he’s working with and glares at Bucky. His best friend is currently sulking over his coffee at the pick-up counter as he complains about this week’s girl issues. “Buck, I’m working.”

“But Dot’s gonna be there with her new boyfriend! If I show up alone, I’m gonna look like a total loser!”

“You’re going to look like a loser no matter what you do,” your voice chimes in as you walk up next to Bucky at the counter. You smile at Steve as he starts to prepare your usual order, and Bucky grumbles into his coffee. “What’s this one crying about now?”

“His fraternity is hosting a Christmas party and he doesn’t have a date. Word is Dottie’s gonna be there and Bucky’s freaking out.”

“Ahh,” you hum as you lean on your elbows and look towards Bucky. “What happened to the girl - was it Misty? - that’s been hanging around the past few weeks?

He glares at you as he straightens up. “It was Mandy. And we wanted...different things.”

“Oh, so she wanted something serious and you just wanted to get your dick wet?”

Bucky nearly chokes on his coffee, and you’re sure you’re going to have to call an ambulance on Steve for how hard he’s laughing. You can’t help but chuckle yourself as he leans over the counter to fist bump you between his wheezing.

“You know Buck,” Steve says as he attempts to steady himself, “you should take Y/N!”

“What!?” you and Bucky exclaim at the same time. Bucky in a panic and you shocked that Steve would even drag you into the situation.

“Yea! She knows you’re a terrible date, and she can put up with your shit. Plus, there’d be no,” Steve wiggles his eyebrows then, “expectations at the end of the night. And she’s the only one in the group that’s single.”

You scoff and cross your arms. “What about Carol? She’s not seeing anyone.”

“Everyone knows Carol is gay. It’d be too unbelievable.” Steve shrugs his shoulders like his suggestion is the obvious answer.

Bucky was quiet throughout the entire exchange while he fought his own internal battle. On one hand, he’d been considering asking you to be his date. Not out of desperation, but because he truly wanted to spend time with you, show you off not just to Dot, but to everyone.

But on the other hand, the sensible, realistic hand, he knew you’d laugh in his face if he’d ask you. Not that you were cruel, it was just that your friendship hadn’t always been as carefree and easy as it was now. Plus, he didn’t want to use you of all people to rub in Dot’s face.

The party was in less than eight hours, however, and he was getting a little bit desperate. Maybe Steve bringing up the date could really save him.

Fuck it, Bucky thinks to himself, I’m just gonna ask her.

“Yea! Come on, Y/N, be my date!” He puts on his best pouty face and bats his ridiculously long eyelashes at you. “Pleeeeease? Can’t you pretend you don’t hate me for just one night? I’ll buy you your coffee for an entire week straight. Please!”

“Okay! Okay, okay, you’re making a scene,” you shush Bucky as his pleas grow louder, drawing the attention of those sitting closest to the counter. “I’ll go with you, just stop!”

Bucky stops pouting and gives you an exasperated look. “Wait, really? You’ll really go with me?” He tries not to let the excitement seep through his tone.

You shrug nonchalantly. “It’s been a while since I’ve been to a good party. Plus, I’m never going to pass up free alcohol.”

Bucky bites his lip in an attempt to hold back a smile, but his excitement is too much to contain. “Yes!” he says as he punches the air. “You don’t know how much you’re saving my ass, really I-”

He’s cut off when his phone starts to vibrate. Pulling it out of his pocket, he looks back to you and Steve. “Listen, I gotta run,” he says as he starts backing up towards the front door. “I’ll pick you up at your place at 5:30, okay?”

Before you can respond, Bucky is planting a chaste kiss to the side of your head and running out of the coffee shop. You sigh as you lean back and watch him through the shop’s windows.

“You know, if you could just keep it in his pants for more than a day, maybe he could find someone to commit it.”

Steve slides your drink over the counter towards you as his best friend disappears down the street towards campus. “Yea,” he says, turning his gaze on the back of your head. “But I think the girl he’s really interested in is too far out of reach for him.”

You turn and grab your coffee and shrug. “I better get going too. You have a job to do and I have a dress to go buy! Thanks, Stevie!”

You wave as you make your way towards the front door, and Steve just shakes his head. “They’re such idiots,” he says under his breath before turning his attention back to his work.

When 5:20 p.m. rolls around, you’re standing in front of the mirror in your room, twirling side to side so that you can examine your dark purple, crushed velvet dress. The skirt, as your roommate Natasha described it, is a nice flirty length, falling midthigh. Although not too revealing, the dress still revealed enough skin on top to be a little hazardous. With the neckline scooping to just above the valley of your breasts, and the back going down just as far, you felt

“Are you sure this is okay?” you ask as you examine your backside again.

Natasha, who is sprawled out on your bed, sighs and looks up from her chemistry textbook for the fifteenth time in as many minutes. “I told you, it’s perfect. You’re going to have every guy at that party begging on their knees for your attention.”

You make eye contact through the mirror but quickly avert your gaze. “Yeah, but what will Buc-”

“What will Bucky what?” Natasha interrupts you as she sits up fully. “It’s just Bucky. Since when does his opinion on what you do or wear matter?”

You bite your lip. She’s right, it is just Bucky. But that was the problem. You’re not sure when just Bucky started causing your stomach to do somersaults and your heart feel like it was going to explode in your chest.

It’s not like you hadn’t known Bucky for almost three years. It’s not like you had fallen for his devilishly handsome looks the moment he stepped foot into your freshman English class. Or his ridiculous charm when you accidentally ran into him in the dorm hallway one morning when you were running late for class. 

And it’s not like you’ve spent the last four years burying those feelings under every ounce of willpower you had. No, it’s just Bucky and his opinion doesn’t matter at all. 

Except it does.

A knock on your front door draws you from your thoughts and does nothing to calm the cage of butterflies that had been released in your tummy the second you’d agreed to go to this party.

Natasha jumps off the bed and out into the living room. “Coming!” she sing-songs as she makes her way to the front door. “What a gentleman, coming to meet the parents before he takes ya on a date.”

“Nat” you grumble as you grab your bag and phone from your dresser. With one final look in the mirror, you sigh and turn off the light. Here goes nothing.

As you emerge from the hall, Natasha has already ushered Bucky into the apartment. Your steps falter a little when you catch a glimpse of him. He’s wearing your favorite red Henley and dark jeans combo with his worn leather jacket thrown over the top.  

He catches your movement out of the corner of his eye and turns to look at you. A shy smile creeps across his face as he tunes whatever Natasha had been talking about with him out. She picks up on this, because she turns to look at you too.

“Oh goody!” she claps before pulling her phone from her back pocket. “Get together kids, I need to document this moment! It’s like you’re going to prom!”

“Nat,” you hiss as you make your way towards the door.

“Just one picture. We need to document the one and only time James Barnes has clean hair and looks like a right gentleman!”

One picture turns into five different staged photos, and before you know it Bucky is pulling at your arm to get you out the door. “I’m sorry Tasha, but we really have to go!”

“Be safe, kids! Use protection! I don’t any any grandbabies yet!!” Natasha calls after you, wheezing as she does so. You were going to kill her when you get home tonight.

You take a deep breath as Bucky pulls up in front of the massive fraternity house. The white colonial-style home, complete with columns and a beautiful front porch, was far too nice for a group of college-aged men to living, breaking and...doing god knows what.

“Nervous?” Bucky asks from the driver’s seat. He doesn’t dare rip his gaze from the line of cars in front of his.

“No,” you say far too quickly to be convincing. Why the hell were you so nervous?! “Are you?”

Bucky shrugs then and unbuckles his seatbelt. “First time seeing Dot since the breakup. It’s not my idea of a great party.” He turns to look at you then, a soft smile playing on his face. “But I’ve got a beautiful date to make me feel a little better.”

You roll your eyes and unbuckle your own belt. “Shut up,” you grumble as you shove the car door open. It’s like he knew exactly what to say to get under your skin and right to the butterflies.

Before you can even make it out of the car, Bucky is around to your side holding the door like the gentleman he isn’t. He sheepishly smiles when you give him a look and shrugs it off.

“Gotta make it look believable,” he says with a laugh.

As the two of you make your way to the front door, Bucky is stopped by a few of the guys. Fortunately, you know most of them since your group of friends spends a decent amount of time together, so no introductions are needed. A few of them do, however, side-eye you for a moment before patting Bucky on the back in a congratulatory manner. You try to brush it off as guys just being guys.

When you finally reach the far-too-grand front door, complete with an old-fashioned knocker, Bucky stops.

“Are you okay with me touching you?” he asks shyly.

“What?!”

“Not like...Y/N! I mean like, holding your hand, and dancing. You know, like boyfriend things.”

Please, you yell inside your head. Outwardly, you keep your calm.

“Get enough alcohol in me,” you say as you pat his scruffy cheek, “you can do whatever you’d like.”

If you’re going to make it believable, you might as well embrace the part, right?

Bucky practically chokes on his own tongue. “Right. Uh, shall we?” he says as he motions towards the door.

He guides you through the foyer and into the main room of the house where bodies were spilling out into the hall and into the smaller library and sitting rooms, hand firmly planted on your lower back. It seems like every other person you pass wants his attention, but he’s focused on getting the two of you into the heart of the party, probably to camouflage himself so Dot wouldn’t spot him.

“Hey. Bucky!” Christopher, who you know as the fraternity’s president, waves at Bucky from around a box of store-bought chicken. “I know you helped all day, but can you give me a hand with the rest of the food? It just got delivered.”

Bucky looks between you and Chris and sighs. “I’m really sorry,” he starts, shoulder dropping in defeat knowing he can’t possibly say no. He is one of the biggest and strongest of the brothers and was used to getting called upon to do the heavy lifting around the house.

“It’s fine,” you say waving him off. “I’m going to get a drink. Want your usual?”

He smiles at this and nods. “I’ll be back in five, promise!”

You watch him jog out the door Chris had just emerged from, and you turn to make your way to the kitchen. It was quieter, not as many bodies lingering around, so you decide you’ll camp out in there until Bucky comes back.

You’re just grabbing a beer for Bucky and wine cooler for yourself when a familiar voice calls your name.

“It is you!” Dot says when you turn around to see who was beckoning you. She hurries over and gives you a tight squeeze like it hadn’t been three months since she broke the heart of one of your best friends. Like she hadn’t destroyed the one person who’s happiness sometimes meant more to you than your own.

Taking one look at her, you suddenly feel very self-conscious. She’s an absolute vision in a deep evergreen dress that falls just above her knee. One thing you’d always loved about Dot was her effortless, vintage style. The dress screamed the 1940s and was something that would have made you look like you were in costume.

Her red hair was curled to perfection and framed her striking features perfectly. You were silly to think that Bucky would ever feel anything towards you when he had dated her for nearly four years. The encounter had you second-guessing why you’d even agreed to come to this party in the first place.

“How have you been? I miss seeing your smiling face every day!” Dot says cheerfully. In her typical energetic way, she doesn’t give you time to respond. “You look beautiful by the way! That color really suits you!”

“Not as beautiful as you,” a man you don’t recognize says as he walks up and wraps his arms around Dot’s middle.

“Oh hush,” she giggles as she leans into the kiss he plants on the side of her head. You shift your weight from side-to-side, uncomfortable with the exchange in front of you. It must catch Dot’s attention because she snaps out of the love bubble she had been in and looks back to you.

“Oh! I’m so rude! Y/N, this is Danny. Danny, Y/N.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Danny says as he extends one hand away from Dot to shake yours. You give a tight smile and return the gesture.

“Y/N and I ran in the same group for a while at the beginning of college. But, you know, life got in the way. It’s so nice to see you, though! I don’t think I ever saw you at one of these parties back when...” she just shrugs and decides not to finish the thought.

“Things change, I guess,” you awkwardly laugh.

Before things can get any more awkward, Bucky comes in through the door calling your name. He doesn’t see Dot and Danny at first, and so bounds over to you in two quick strides before wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

“I guess they do,” Dot says as she watches Bucky pull you closer into his side.

You want to preen at the obvious change in tone, an almost bitterness lacing her words now, but you know it’s just for show and she has nothing to actually be bitter about. This is the exact reason Bucky had even wanted you to come with him, and at least for his sake, it was working. Without thinking, you wrap an arm around his solid, broad middle.

“Dot!” Bucky exclaims in his smooth, confident tone you’d come to love. Bucky was nothing if not confident with the ladies, which is why he had a new one almost every week since the duo had broken up. He was also a great actor. You know for a fact that this confidence was just a front. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Surprise,” she says, pulling Danny’s arms a little tighter around her middle. Her gaze lingers on Bucky’s fingers as they start absentmindedly tracing shapes along your velvet-sleeved arm. “I didn’t know you two were...together.”

You can feel the rumble in his chest as he laughs. “Surprise!”

The tension in the room is so thick you could cut it with a dull knife. You look up at Danny who is glancing back and forth between Bucky and Dot, obviously not knowing what was going on. Unable to stand the awkward tension, you pat Bucky’s side gently to gain his attention.

“I’m, uh, gonna run to the restroom. Come find me when you’re done in here?”

Bucky glances at you and swallows hard. His eyes are pleading you to stay, but there’s nothing you can do to remedy the situation. Just like you’d told him on the way over, if he ever really wanted to let this go, he was going to have to talk to her sooner or later.

You take pity on him though and lean up to kiss his cheek. “I’ll be gone for just a few,” you whisper before releasing your grip on him and making towards the hallway.

When you emerge from the bathroom three minutes later, you can hear yelling over the music. As you make your way back towards the kitchen, you come to find that it was Bucky and Dot who was the source of the commotion.

Everyone has cleared out of the kitchen now, including Danny, so you choose to stay away. Deciding you’d rather not hang awkwardly around waiting for Bucky, and not feeling like striking up a conversation with anyone you know, you head out to the front porch. Luckily the weather has been mild this year, so you won’t freeze while you wait for Bucky to come to find you.

Ten minutes went by, then twenty, and you start getting a little antsy. There’s no way he was still in there talking with Dottie.

Despite the faux-date, you had been hoping to spend some time with Bucky. You thought that since he’d asked, begged you to come with that he would at least keep you on his arm while he made his rounds. But it was starting to look like that was not going to happen.

You check the time again and sigh, deciding that you’ll just call Natasha or even Clint to come to pick you up. You didn’t feel like wandering around the party by yourself, and you didn’t want to ask Bucky to leave in the middle just to take you home.

You shoot a quick text to Bucky to let him know what was going on, told him you weren’t feeling well and Natasha was coming to pick you up. It wasn’t completely a lie, just not the whole truth either. You call Nat and luckily she’s in the middle of a study break and agrees to come to get you in fifteen.

You wait for a text from Bucky, hoping it would be him telling you not to go, but it never comes. So when Natasha pulls up, you decide to leave the party, and hopefully your feelings for Bucky behind.

You’re awoken at 3:30 a.m. by your phone buzzing. You pointedly ignore it and turn over and try to go back to sleep. As soon as the call ends, another comes in immediately. You huff and roll back over, angrily yanking the phone from its place on your nightstand. Bucky Boy the caller id reads.

Before your tired brain can process what’s going on, the call ends and another immediately starts back up. “Hello?” you rasp into the phone, throat dry with disuse.

“Y/N!” Bucky slurs into the phone, obviously drunk. It startles you for a moment before you remember that he doesn’t need to drive anywhere since he lives at the frat house. “You left me at the party.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose and sigh, definitely not wanting to have this discussion with drunk Bucky, let alone sober Bucky. “I wasn’t feeling well so I came home.”

“But you looked so pretty and I didn’t even getta tell ya. I didn’t even getta dance with you!” You can hear him pouting through the phone and you can’t help but give a silent laugh.

“Buck, you’re drunk. Go to sleep.”

“No!” he shouts defiantly like a child. “Ya gotta listen to me, Y/N. Dottie...Dot, she tried to tell me that I didn’t really like you, that she could see through our facade. At first I got real mad, because that’s not what wasna sposed to happen. She was supposed to see us together, because it’s us, and get real jealous.

“But ya know what, Y/N, she was always jealous of you. ‘Cause you’re smart and caring, and funny and nice, and,” he stops to hiccup then. “And you’re jus so beautiful, ya know? She should be jealous of you because she’s not you and you’re you, ya know? And I know you’re gonna try and tell me I’m jus saying this ‘cause I’m drunk, but I’m not!”

Your head starts to spin a little as he continues talking. Every other word is slurred worse than before, which helps remind you of the fact that, yes, he is just saying this because he’s drunk. He’s drunk and upset about Dot so he’s projecting. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

“Ya know, I still remember that first day in English. I stumbled in half asleep and late and the seat next to you was the first one I saw. I hated it because it was in the front - I mean come on Y/N, who sits in the front of the classroom! - and vowed to never sit there again, but I did. I did every day for the rest of the semester and I’m so glad I did.

“You know why Dot doesn’t like you? Because I think she figured it all out before me. She broke up with me because she knew she wasn’t ever gonna live up to you. And I hate myself for only being able to tell you this while I’m drunk, but please, in the morning, make me say it again, okay? Because I like you and I think the feeling is mutual, but I’ve always been too scared to say something.

“And then stupid Dot came along and she was safe. I couldn’t ruin a friendship if there wasn’t one to begin with, so I settled. But I don’t wanna settle anymore, okay? So make me tell ya all of this again in the morning ‘cause I need to. You need to know.”

Tears start to drop down onto your cheeks, leaving salty trails as they do so. You’re not sure what to say, so you sit there and let him ramble on. You’d dreamt about this moment countless times before, Bucky confessing his feelings to you, but you never thought it would happen like this. Not when you’re half-awake with terrible bedhead and with Bucky three sheets to the wind. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but you’ll take it.

Bucky’s quiet a little too long then, and you can hear his breathing over the phone as slowed a little. “Bucky?” you ask quietly into the speaker, but you’re met with only his soft breaths. He must have fallen asleep. Good. A sniffle a little before letting out a deep breath. “Good night, Buck. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

In the morning. Hopefully, in the morning everything he had just confessed to you would still stand true. That you would be able to confess your own feelings and something good could finally come from it.

You hang up and shoot him a quick text before you can second guess it. Returning your phone to its charger on the nightstand, you roll over and feel the butterflies come back. In the morning.

You: Hey Buck. Drunk you had some interesting things to say tonight. He wanted me to make sober you retell me everything in the morning, so I’m holding you to it. How about breakfast? We can make it a date. A real one this time.