Work Text:
When Tony told him about the house in Malibu, Steve could never have guessed at the lavish extravagance that would greet him on his visit. A garage fit for a dozen cars, an east wing for long-term guests, a truly ostentatious infinity pool next to a couple jacuzzis.
Granted, he probably should have. Filling up an empty mansion has always been Tony’s preferred method of coping, after booze and busty blonds. Steve would fucking know.
It’s probably why he finds the half-dressed stranger out back the most unexpected surprise yet. Long, dark hair, only the slightest hint of a stubble, and a lean swimmer’s build about half a foot shorter than Steve’s own 6’2”. And, most notably, encased in nothing more than a pair of turquoise booty shorts—not at all Tony’s type.
Steve, on the other hand, can’t quite tear his eyes away from the view.
In fact, he doesn’t realize he’s been staring until the stranger asks a pointed, “Can I help you?”
Steve resigns himself to the fact that he’d been caught ogling, and only just keeps from flushing a telling crimson. Instead, he manages a half-respectable, “Tony around?” He’s pretty sure he sounds cool as a cucumber. Gruff, even. Masculine.
He gets a thorough once-over in return, sharp enough that it might as well be a dressing down from one of the nuns back in Brooklyn. “Who’s asking?”
“I’ll take that as a no.” He saunters close, walking the edge of the pool, the bottoms of his leather shoes slippery against wet stone. “What, did he bail once he sobered up? Tony does that to everyone, don’t take it personally.”
The stranger smiles, amused. “Sounds like you know what you’re talking about.” He does, however, all but brush Steve off with a tutted, “I’m not telling some guy off the street where to find Tony Stark. Not looking to get fired.”
“Fired?” Okay, not quite what Steve expected.
The stranger twirls a pole with a giant net on one end, pointing out the obvious, like Steve’s got rocks for brains. To be fair, it’s a little difficult to pay attention to much else aside from those indecent thighs on display. “I’m the pool boy, Bucky,” he spells out, slow and pointed. “Who the fuck are you?”
“The ex-husband.”
Bucky tilts his head with a breathy huh, taking him in anew. Steve can’t help but fidget in place, wondering if he owes Bucky an apology for the leering, if this is how Bucky had felt not two minutes ago.
“Steve! I didn’t hear you come in!” Tony’s voice is muffled through the sliding doors, oversized panes of thick glass separating the backyard from the kitchen. He slides them open just enough to make for a slim doorway, wrestling with the ties of his robe.
Tony looks like he just rolled out of bed, hair mussed and eyes crusted with sleep. It’s long past noon.
Sparing Bucky a final glance, Steve earns a wiggle of his fingers as a goodbye and follows Tony inside the cavernous room. He doubts Tony makes use of it as an actual kitchen. “This place is a goddamn maze,” he grumbles, “how could you have?”
“I am so not in the mood for one of your speeches on the land-hoarding one percent.” Tony rolls his eyes, slamming the door shut, a violent slam were it not for the soft close mechanism thwarting the effect.
Bucky’s lithe figure is far from obscured, skirting the backyard and lazily cleaning the still water of… nothing. The pool is pristine.
Turning his back on the near spectacle, Steve trails Tony as he stumbles towards the island covered in magazines and stacks of mail. “Didn’t say shit. Yet.” He picks up a copy of the latest Sports Illustrated—signed, with a scribbled xo.
Grabbing a check from the messy pile, Tony waves it around like a white flag before handing it over. “You don’t have to keep picking these up in person, you know.”
He doesn’t even bother checking how many zeroes are on the thing, if it’s even made out to his name. He folds it neatly in half and tucks it in his wallet. Besides, Steve’s mostly telling the truth when he mutters, “Gives me an excuse to check on you. Make sure you haven’t drowned in your own vomit.”
After all, old habits die hard—on both their parts.
“So,” Steve leans back on his heels, eyes straying back outside, “what’s with the male model working your pool?”
Tony smirks, tries and fails to suppress a loud, cutting, ha! “Somehow, I saw this coming from a mile away.”
“Oh, shut up.” Steve tears his gaze away from the view as if to prove Tony wrong, but he can’t help himself, digs his own grave with a mumbled, “You’re the one who’s got him in glorified speedos.”
Tony props himself up against the island, resting his chin on either hand as he bats his lashes. “He looks like me, don’t you think?”
Steve cackles a disbelieving, “Like hell he does!” and turns away to hide the flush burning up his neck. Maybe, he will admit on his deathbed, there is a passing resemblance to Tony circa ’88, before the booze and coke and couple decades of being married to him.
Sticking to his guns, Tony trills a self-satisfied whatever you gotta tell yourself that Steve valiantly ignores. Having done his duty, he heads right back towards the sliding doors, throwing a mostly teasing, “Go suck your own dick somewhere else, Tony,” over his shoulder.
“I’ll suck my own dick wherever I want under my own fucking roof!” Tony calls after him. Steve pointedly looks up at the clear sky as soon as he makes it past the threshold, prompting a scolding, “Do not fuck the pool boy in my house, Steven!”
Steve’s making no promises.
He half expects to never see Bucky again, a passing fancy in Tony’s life of impermanence. Except there Bucky is, at the end of every monthly trek Steve makes up the coast, lingering by Tony’s pool in increasingly tiny turquoise shorts.
It isn’t until seven months in that Steve shows up unannounced, only to discover Tony’s nowhere to be found.
Despite knowing he could’ve probably avoided exactly this by simply picking up the phone and calling ahead of time, Steve finds himself more than a little peeved, is in fact disproportionately pissed. His anger is, perhaps, misplaced, some latent irritation from the disappointments of their marriage.
He throws enough of a hissy fit that Bucky, apparently taking a lunch break of apple slices and half a cigarette, asks a nosy, “What’s the deal with you two?” Steve doesn’t give him much, not quite sure what Bucky’s looking for. “Tony’s always all,” Bucky starts, tipping his head one way then the other, “well, grumpier than usual after your visits.”
Steve decides to screw it and ruin his nice dress pants, joining Bucky on the small raised garden by the side of the pool. Even sitting down, he has to dip his head to meet Bucky’s line of sight, and the thrill that runs through him is unmistakable.
Tony may have a type, but he’s not the only one.
He presses his fingers against the dirt they’re sprawled across, soft and freshly turned over. There aren’t any budding plants to crush, nothing aside from Bucky’s pack of smokes and his ziplock bag filled with snacks.
“I’ve known him for a long time.” Steve rubs his hands together to dust them off, and is surprised when Bucky offers him the last of his smokes. He quit, or at least got close to it, two years back. These days, he smokes socially, when it’s cold, or he’s hungry, or it’s been a long Thursday with no end to the week in sight.
Alright, so he hasn’t quit exactly.
Taking Bucky up on the offer, he almost laughs at the minty drag. Still, it settles something under his skin the way nothing else ever has. “When we were married, Tony was—well, he wasn’t acting like it.”
Bucky hums along, biting into another slice of apple with a noisy crunch. “And you’re still driving, what, an hour each way just to make sure he’s doin’ alright?”
Steve is caught off guard—not that he shows it. Have Bucky and Tony been talking about him? He’s never told Bucky where he lives, had barely spoken more than a dozen words to him before today.
“Like I said,” he taps off onto the fresh dirt, occupying himself with it like he’s never been down an ashtray, “I’ve known Tony for a long time. Can’t just leave him to rot.” He does laugh then, shooting Bucky a not-so-subtle smile. “As much as I sometimes want to.”
Bucky watches him with more scrutiny than he’d’ve expected, studying him with sharp, considering eyes. “Well, I’m pretty sure the bossman still has feelings for you, so, you know.” He flaps his hand around, as if Steve’s supposed to glean the rest of the sentiment from that alone. “Look, if you’re still holding a torch for Tony, I think you have a chance, is all I’m sayin’.”
“I got no desire to relive the honeymoon phase with my ex, Bucky.” Shaking his head, Steve almost can’t believe he’s about to say what he does, a much too corny, “If I’m being honest, I haven’t been worried about Tony for a while. Kept driving all the way out here so I could get a few minutes with a special someone who caught my eye.”
Bucky opens his mouth then closes it again, lips coming together in a frown.
Steve decides he’s going for broke, unable to resist now that there’s a crack in the door, never quite able to turn down an opportunity for sheer humiliation—or for a chance at something worth making a fool of himself. “But I’d really like it if I can see this guy a little bit more, preferably somewhere that’s not my ex-husband’s mansion.” After a moment of hesitation, he nudges Bucky’s bare foot gently with the tip of his shoe. “You think he’d be up for that?”
Recovering from his sudden bout of silence, Bucky’s lips tick up in a knowing smile. Though, Steve notes with satisfaction, it leans too sweet to be the seductive leer he’s probably going for.
Not that it matters. Steve’s lost to its charm anyway.
“There’s a burger joint about a mile out from here.” Bucky points a thumb down the drive, in the vague direction back down the coast, the route Steve takes every first Sunday of the month. “Reggie’s, you know it?”
Steve hums, already picturing the corner booth in his mind. “Good milkshakes.”
“Great milkshakes,” Bucky objects, which is fair enough. “Your guy might be off in about half an hour, could probably use one.”
Steve can’t restrain the grin pulling at his lips, tugging at his cheeks, crinkling the skin around his eyes and temples and calling attention to the vast decades between them. Bucky doesn’t seem to mind, so he asks a hopeful, “Chocolate?”
“Please,” Bucky sneers, “it’s strawberry or bust.”
He’d worked through all his apple slices, even the wafer-thin slivers sitting at the very bottom of the ziplock bag; Steve imagines Bucky must always taste of sweet, overripe fruit. And menthol.
“Strawberry it is.” Steve stubs out his cigarette and leans in, ducks down to meet Bucky’s height. The tension in his shoulders dissipates when Bucky doesn’t move away, and he plants a soft, lingering kiss on one cheek, marveling at the warm skin beneath his lips. “Half an hour,” he says by way of goodbye, and makes his leave.
As Bucky throws him another wave with the tips of his wiggling fingers, Steve bids the entire Malibu house adieu, pretty fucking content he won’t have to see it again anytime soon.