Bucky had never had any reason to be nervous around Steph's Ma. She'd liked him from the very start. He'd been eleven years old, running around like the little brat he was, when he'd found Steph getting the shit beat out of her in some alleyway. Bucky had been really into those old hero stories back then, and he jumped at the opportunity to save a helpless girl. He'd knocked the lights out of the biggest one, and the rest had scattered pretty quick after. He found out something pretty quick: Steph hadn't been too happy about being his damsel in distress. She'd yelled at him, shaking a tiny stick of a finger at him, scolding him for stepping in when "she had it covered". After that, she scrounged up some ice for his bruised fist. It wasn't for another week that he found out she'd been the one to start the fight. The big one had been picking on some neighborhood kid and Steph had kicked him right in between his legs. Bucky laughed his ass off when he found out, and from then on, it wasn't just Bucky anymore. It was Bucky and Steph. Not that he minded. She dragged him to strange places. One thing he learned about Steph Rogers: she had a way of sniffing out the meaniest, seediest scum in the city and giving them a piece of her mind. Most of them had enough sense not to hit a girl, but there was always one nutter that couldn't keep his cool. So, Steph's Ma had always been real swell with him. He expected that she been keen to the idea of Steph having a friend who could pull her out of a fight kicking and screaming, even if it was by her bony little bum.

That was the problem, though. Her bum. Or, well, all of her. Don't get him wrong, Bucky always knew she was a girl. It'd just never been much of an issue. The only times it had ever really come up were when she got her skirt stuck in a tree, or some bully yanked her hair in a scuffle. Bucky had always known she was a girl. It just hadn't been important.

Until her sixteenth birthday, that is. He'd stopped by after a day at the docks to set her up for a real treat. He'd been saving up for Dodgers tickets for weeks, and it was that perfect time in the year for her to be outside: warm enough that she didn't get the cold again, cool enough that she didn't sneeze her way through a bucketload of summer allergies. That day, Steph had been wearing some pretty blue number, and Bucky had been struck with the sudden, world-shattering realization that Steph had breasts. The dress was modest enough, and Steph was still on the shy side of a hundred pounds, but at some point, whatever fat she did have on her bones travelled… there.

To this day, he couldn't remember a damn thing about what had happened during the actual Dodgers game. Not that he was sitting there staring at Steph's chest or anything. But whenever Bucky tried to focus on the game, he was filled with this sickening, constant awareness that Steph Rogers had become a dame without him noticing.

It got easier, though. She was still his friend, his best friend, and a self-sacrificing moron. A girl who picked more fights than she should, drew pictures that she shouldn't, and fixed him up all nice and proper when he had too much to drink. Things went back to normal, for the most part. Every once in a while, though, he'd have some fleeting thought about her that bordered on inappropriate (once, he'd even had a dream about her that had been very inappropriate, though God knows that would go with him to his grave). Bucky had gotten good at ignoring the whole I might be attracted to my best friend dilemma, and Steph never even noticed.

Mrs. Rogers did.

Bucky stood across from her in the simple living room, shuffling his feet around as she watched him with sharp eyes. He was taller than her by a good seven inches, yet Mrs. Rogers somehow made him feel like a little boy who had tracked mud all through her clean kitchen. He ignored the mild discomfort in his gut.

"How are you, ma'am?"

Her reply was no more than a grunt, almost hostile. The discomfort swelled into full blown panic. Her eyes narrowed, and a sweat broke out on the back of Bucky's neck.

Steph ran down the stairs just in time, covered from head to toe like a damn child. They were only going to be outside for a moment, but she had a way of catching the cold like it was going out of style. He was suddenly very, very glad she needed to be bundled up. Not that he would have stared at her chest or anything. He just didn't need Mrs. Rogers accusing him of driving her only daughter to sin. Not that Bucky was planning on it, no ma'am. Steph was just a friend. His best friend. His best friend who he sometimes realized was a dame. A dame with breasts. Blood rushed to Bucky's cheeks.

As if she could read his thoughts, Mrs. Rogers scowled. Suddenly, Bucky was filled with the pressing urgency to get out of that house that very instant.

A glove-covered hand settled on his arm.

"Bucky? Ready to go?" Her eyes were a shiny blue, bright like some crayon he used to draw with when he was a kid. When he really thought about it, he supposed that she had very pretty eyes. Suddenly, he realized something with dismay: he thought about her damned blue eyes nearly as much as he thought about her tiny little breasts.

That was the first inkling Bucky ever had on just how deep he was in over his head when it came to Stephanie Rogers.

"After you, kid." He opened the door and followed her out the door, her Ma's eyes following them all the way.