Looks May Be Deceiving

Fandom: Captain America

Teaser: " 'Do I need to wear a sign that says 'My type is Bucky Barnes; others need not apply?' "

Inspiration: I tripped and fell and became a Stucky fangirl? There's a lot of things out there talking about the misconception of Bucky as a delinquent. I tried to highlight that notion here.

Rating: M, because you can't spell 'James' without one 3

Warnings:
-Unrequited love
-Terrible coping techniques
-Hurt/comfort
-Surprising lack of background characters?
-Fluff

Main Pairing: Bucky Barnes/ Steve Rogers

Setting: College AU! Because there's not enough awesome AUs for these two.

POV: Bucky gets to tell the whole story, which is abnormal from me, but I like it ;) First Person.

Summary: Steve and Bucky have different ways of coping with the things they think they can't have, but when things come to a head, they need to remember that looks are so often deceptive.

Additional ANs:Writing fanfiction. It's like falling off a log. Of course, I haven't been on that log... three years, Jesus.

I know I have people waiting on chapters for things and I am so, so sorry, my loves. My computer has quit on me (I think for real this time) and that is why I haven't been here.
Alright, it's pretty rough... Keep in mind, this was all written from my smart phone. I've just done some spelling checks and cursory read through so... yeah. I'm not sure how many words, but it's a fuck-ton when your keyboard is like two inches high and you think writing out a blow job sounds like a good idea.
I might play with these two again at some point, but for now, I think I am satisfied with this.
Hopefully I will soon be adding parts to one of my many in-progress stories, but this is my first complete story for 2017, so enjoy~

Word Count: 3971 words, written out on my smartphone on a three-inch screen. Love me!

People tend to make a lot of assumptions based on how someone appears. It doesn't matter how many times they hear that looks may be deceiving or that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover. The first things you notice about a person are how they look, how they speak, and how they move. First glances are shallow. People should look deeper.

The first time I met Steve Rogers, all I really saw was this scrawny thirteen year old getting the crap beat out of him in an alley. Sure, he was cute as all hell, a full head of overlong blond hair and the biggest blue eyes I had ever seen, but that didn't mean the gods above had given him a single lick of sense. In fact, had I been asked then, I would have definitely bet against it. It went without saying that taking on three upperclassmen was a bad life choice -an even worse life choice if you happened to be an underweight asthmatic that a stiff breeze could knock on his ass.

When those three guys, a gangly trio with just enough muscle to be troublesome and not much more, managed to knock him to a heap at my feet, I found I couldn't ignore the situation. So I offered him my hand, wryly inquiring, "Would you like a hand?"

He looked me over thoroughly, as if trying to figure me out in a single moment. He must have liked what he saw, because he took my hand, tongue trailing absently after the trickle of blood trailing from his lip. "Thank you," he pronounced clearly and curtly.

"You're welcome. Anyone ever teach you the right way to ball a fist?" I inquired, eyeing the three guys who seemed to have suddenly come to the conclusion they didn't want to deal with someone who had a better idea of how to fight. Unfortunately for them, we were at the mouth of the alley and they had backed themselves into a dead end.

He stared at me for a second, face blank.

"That would be a no, then. Tuck your thumb and ball around it, kid. Less likely to break something." I nudged his shoulder gently. "Looks like they aren't so tough when it's two to three," I muttered to him.

He tossed back his head and laughed and I am pretty sure I fell harder than a stone then and there for five-feet of condensed sunshine known as Steven Grant Rogers.

I spent most of my high school life pulling that troublemaker out of one scrape or another. He couldn't stand injustice and I couldn't stand to watch people beat him up, so I stuck close. His mother was strangely grateful that I taught him how to fight , but that probably had a lot more to do with it lessening his bruise count. Steve was the definition of 'underdog' with a nose for trouble.

When people saw us together, they automatically assumed that he was the good kid and I was the delinquent. Stevie always had this clean-cut all-American vibe, after all. I was already a topping six-feet, my dark hair overgrown and almost shaggy in my gray eyes, and a tendency to brush off things I didn't want to deal with. I guess they all figured he was dragging me out of trouble or some such. The reality was that I had to become a delinquent to make sure that so-called good kid made it through high school alive.

Martial arts training had been a must. It helped that he had inherited his mother's grace. On lazy summer afternoons, I would force him through kata after kata and when I wore him out, I would sweet-talk his mom into teaching me how to waltz and foxtrot and tango. Honestly, I forced the training on him, because he was going to find these fights one way or another, but he should at least have a chance to win.

Sarah raised him well, but his sickly constitution gave him hell. Luckily, the regimens and routines I forced on him helped to strengthen his body. The summer after our senior year of high school, I finally felt confident enough that he wouldn't manage to get himself killed before college so I took the opportunity to spend a month and a half of the summer with my father, who lived a few states away. Imagine my shock at coming home to find he had not only shot up like a weed but turned gym junkie in my absence!

He was still a bounding puppy of a guy -he had suddenly graduated to great dane puppy, that was all. He didn't want that to change things between us; I could tell by the way he walked, just as close as always and waiting for me to pat his head in approval or something. The changes in him didn't sit as well with me. And by 'didn't sit as well' I might mean I reacted a bit like a soaked cat at first.

It sounds asinine. I get that, but take a look from my perspective: I had been in love with this scrawny ball of sunshine for five years. It was hard to reconcile that skinny sickly guy with the six-foot-something of solid muscle and stamina. I mean, I had never even seriously contemplated sex with him because he just seemed so fragile. But seeing that buff body filling out jeans and a t-shirt to perfection had sent sexual fantasies spiraling through my head. What was worse was that I couldn't push them down anymore the same way I always had. So it took me some time to... adjust.

Telling Steve how I felt about him had always been out of the question. I loved Sarah like my own mother but I figured the woman who had laughed gaily when she taught me how to dance would not hesitate to kill me if she found out I wanted her son that way. My mother's family was full of half-assed Catholics who hadn't minded so much when I came out as bi but would have my ass if I hurt that precious beam of sunlight I had brought into the family. And Steve... he would either shun me or long for the things that such a relationship promised and I had been doing enough longing on my own. So for my own good, I never told anyone how I felt.

Which is how I found my situation going from bad to worse. Since we were going off to the same college a few hours from home, we had decided to room together, mostly so I could keep him out of trouble. That was before his miraculous transformation turned me into a jibbering ball of lust.

When we finished moving into our dorm room, Sarah kissed my cheek and asked me to keep him out of trouble. I nodded mechanically, wondering who in the hell would keep me out of trouble.

My mother tugged Steve down so she could kiss his forehead. "You'll keep Bucky in trouble, won't you?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, grinning.

I am so screwed, I half-whimpered in my head.

The next few months passed in a blur of cold showers, wet dreams, meaningless sex, and lies. Living in close proximity to that walking talking fantasy sprung to life was hell. I should never have the knowledge of exactly how many times I can come in a day, but I figured that out in the first week, leaning against the cool tile of the shower and biting my hand to smother my moans. My subconscious mind knew exactly what it wanted and it proceeded to show me in pornographic detail every night . So I went out as often as I could, and given enough alcohol, I could stomach bedding someone else. I had intimate knowledge of about five big blond guys and then I put them on rotation. They just wanted sex and I would give it to them anyway they asked for it.

When Steve would give me that concerned look and ask what was going on with me, I would shrug it off with a fake laugh and a lie. Oh, this instructor assigned some massive project. My English teacher natively speaks Korean so it's hard to understand. I lied to everyone: the guys I was with, the girls who wanted help approaching Steve, our mothers... Lying to Steve was just a low I never thought I would actually hit.

It was the week after midterms that I walked into our room at 2 AM to find him asleep on my bed. He looked stressed even in sleep, eyes squeezed shut tightly, hands balled into fists the way I had showed him years ago. I couldn't stop my feet, couldn't keep myself from reaching out and stroking his hair. He moved toward the touch a little, murmuring "Bucky" in his sleep as his expression grew lax. Swallowing hard, I carefully gathered my things for a shower, because sleep looked to be in short supply and I had some serious thinking to do if I was hurting my best friend like this.

Before I left the room, I couldn't keep myself from brushing a kiss to his forehead. "Sweet dreams, Stevie," I whispered.

The showers on our floor were a fairly familiar sight for me. The tiles were butter yellow once, but I found their faded color more comfortable, like the familiarity of a faded photograph. The stalls were fairly wide and I imagined more than one couple had figured out how to manage having sex in them. Gods knew I had, in other dormitories with men I really didn't care much about.

Sighing, I hung up my towel and set my soap just inside the shower. Stripping down methodically, I folded my clothes neatly, even though they were just going to be tossed in the dirty laundry. When I turned on the spray, I hissed at the cold water hitting my overheated skin. It was familiar enough, just not particularly welcome at the moment.

I had barely gotten my hair shampooed when I heard the patter of bare feet on the tile. Rinsing the soap out and wondering for the nine- billionth time why I had let it grow out to my shoulders, I ignored the sound, imagining someone else had felt the need for a shower after a night of drinking or a vivid dream. I thought nothing more of it until I spied familiar feet under the edge of my shower curtain.

"Bucky?" Steve asked, his voice hesitant and his feet antsy.

I didn't quite get it. What in the hell was he doing? Actually, what did he think he was doing? Because all of hell knew he didn't think things through.

Shoving my wet hair out of my face, I answered, "Yeah?"

"Can we... can we talk?" He asked.

Please let this not be my intervention, I grumbled to whatever deity would listen.

Flinging back the shower curtain casually, I looked at him. "What about, Stevie?"

His eyes wandered down my body, following the trail of the water droplets, and he blushed brightly.

I arched a brow. "Stevie?" I asked again, my voice softer and gentler. The reaction was cute as hell, but then, Steve had always blushed at the drop of a hat.

It was one hell of a surprise when he reached out, tangled his fingers into my wet hair, and stepped into the shower to kiss my lips. He reached out to hang his towel over mine, and suddenly the body I had been lusting after so damn long was hot and naked and pressed tightly to mine.

When the kiss ended, all I could ask was, "What in the hell?"

He scoffed. "Do I need to wear a sign that says 'My type is Bucky Barnes; others need not apply'?" He demanded. "What in the hell were you doing? 'Cause I am pretty sure there's something wrong when the quantity and quality of the guys you have been banging comes back to Sam of all people. What was I supposed to do when he asked me if I realized your type was pretty much me?"

A growl rolled out of my throat. "What was I doing? Shit, Stevie, was I supposed to chance five years of friendship on the off chance you wanted me? I wasn't exactly seeing signs that pointed in favor of that and hell, I didn't want to hurt you... or lose you."

"Hurt me?" he inquired slowly, as if the notion never occurred to him.

"Baby, you think this is a new development? I'm pretty sure I fell hard and fast day one, when you didn't even know how to make a damn fist!" I ground out, stepping back to put a little distance between us. I can't say it helped much, as it gave me the opportunity to gaze unhindered at that beautiful body, but it was the thought that counted.

He blinked mutely for a moment, then two.

"That is getting creepy," I commented.

"Why?" he asked finally.

"Because you were 95 pounds of righteous indignation, no impulse control to speak of, and pure undiluted sunshine, Stevie." I shook my head and gestured toward the toned body I was itching to touch, that I had been wanting to caress for months. "This... this is all window dressing. It's gorgeous and it made things way harder than they needed to be for a while there, but it's always been you that interested me. Even when you were nothing but twenty pounds of trouble in a five pound sack."

"So all of those times this semester that you took a shower at the weirdest damn hours and I snuck in after only to hear you moaning?"

I glared at him. "What do you think, smart ass? Because the fantasy depended on the day but they were all about you."

Hell's fury but he was not making this easy. "When we went to the beach when we were sixteen and you spent the day laying on your stomach and reading a book?"

"Seriously?" I scoffed. "I am not good at subtle, obviously."

"When I asked you to pose for me when I needed to practice drawing anatomy?" he asked with a cheeky grin.

"And I refused to lay on my back lest my erection poke your eye out?" I replied tartly.

He laughed, lurching forward suddenly and pressing another kiss to my lips. "You haven't seen my sketchbooks, not without asking or having me show you something. So I suppose you being a good guy is an alright reason to be slow on the uptake. Oh, God, I have drawn you anyway I could imagine."

"Oh, yeah?" I asked, almost afraid to hope.

"There are probably twenty pages devoted to your bare chest," he promised, hand sliding from my slickened pectoral and down my abdomen. "Probably that many more detailing your ass."

I stopped his hand before it could slide over my hip to touch there. "How long, Stevie?"

"Day one, when you offered me your hand." He grinned.

Growling, I yanked him against me and kissed him hard. I knew I was being too rough; I just didn't care too much at the moment. Those warm dexterous hands were sliding down my back, then cupping my ass as he ground himself against me shamelessly. I bucked against him, shocks of pleasure running through me.

I tore my mouth from his only to pant out his name. Trailing kisses down his jawline and dripping them down his neck after the water droplets, I paused to suckle and nibble a love-bite where I knew he couldn't hide it. He moaned out my name and I grinned, working my way down from there. His nipples were pricks of pink on his sculpted chest, and they demanded my attention. I nipped at one, plucking the other with my fingers lest it feel neglected. When Steve was reduced to hard panting, I switched -after all, I believed in equal treatment. Little mewls escaped when I slid away, following the fine trail of blond hair down until I could tongue his bellybutton, but he gasped when I shifted further down.

He looked beautiful, cheeks flushed and mouth open, his chest rising and falling at such a brisk pace. I was of half a mind to ask if anyone had done this before but it seemed presumptuous and corny. Instead, I rubbed my cheek against the hot soft skin of his jutting erection, smiling at the tortured sound he made.

"You don't mind if I taste you, do you, Stevie?" I inquired, looking up at those lust-blown blue eyes with a feigned demur expression.

Those pretty eyes looked about to fall out of his head and I couldn't restrain my grin. I licked the head languidly with soft repetitive licks before I took that much into my mouth, teasing the flair of his cock head with my teeth. Sweet moans and swear words to make a dock worker blush fell from his lips, his mouth open but his eyes closed for the moment. I gave a rough suck to watch those eyes open in awareness. Then I pressed further down, taking more in only to retreat a bit. It continued like that, down and up and down a bit more, until I could feel the tip on the back of my tongue. I kept his gaze snagged on mine, even as I wrapped my hand around the portion that had no hopes of fitting in my mouth.

He moaned out loudly, my name musical on his tongue, and I growled around my mouth full of him. He shuddered against me, one hand lacing into my hair -not to pull me closer or push me away, but almost as if to reassure himself that this was really happening. The salty tang of precome lingered on my tongue, heavy with promise. I scraped my teeth across him and he groaned out my name as his hips rolled, forcing the tip against my gag reflex until I jerked back.

I looked up at him, flushed cheeks and wide panting mouth and blue eyes so bright with need.

"Bucky," he moaned out, my name both guttural and needy on his tongue.

I let him guide my head back down to where he needed me, amazed at just how aroused this entire situation left me. One of my hands wrapped around his cock almost of it's own accord. My pace was brisk and rough as I stroked him but my mouth enveloped his leaking tip only to press my tongue firmly against the welling slit. His hips bucked against me again, but my active hand kept him from shoving more of himself in. Steven made a high pitched keening noise and I sucked harder, my other hand sliding down to fondle his balls.

He cried out, hips jutting forward again. I let him this time, taking care to swallow him down as far as I could before teasing his hole with a damp finger tip. The noise he made as he came was pretty and sweet but no where near as lovely as the gasping mewls he made when he realized I was intent on his taste that not even a drop go to waste. Sucking gently on the oversensitized member, I waited for his whimper before pulling back and sitting on my knees.

Before he caught his breath, he was already frowning at me but I just grinned back.

His hands latched onto my shoulders and I let him tug me up. One large hand slid down my chest, the other sliding up to anchor in my hair. Steve tugged me closer still, his breath hot pants of air against my neck where he nuzzled against my skin.

"My turn," he growled, surging against me to mark my skin.

I mewled patiently, cocking my head in welcome, knowing that whatever he did, he would turn me into a puddle of arousal. Despite what others thought, I had no trouble surrendering control -well, I didn't in Steve's case, which was the important one as far as I was concerned.

So I let myself be pinned to the cool tiles, revelling in the feel of that muscular body pressed against mine and those inquisitive hands learning my body. His touch was slow, gentle, with callouses scraping my sensitized skin and making my body arc into the touches, begging for more. I murmured his name, one hand sliding up to cup his shoulder and hang on for dear life. My nails dug into his back and he pressed closer, unable to see my smile.

When he wrapped his hand around me, I knew this wasn't going to last long. The pearls of precome had become streams and I couldn't stay still. I buried my face into his neck, biting and sucking hickies as he stroked me delicately. How were those large hands even capable of delicate? I wondered, strung out on lust and affection. Sounds fell from my lips, pressed against the skin of his neck and shoulder and one even directly in his ear as I nibbled on his earlobe.

Meanwhile, I sort of wondered where in the hell he had learned such dirty words, because there was a river of filth pouring from those pretty full lips. Half-formed fantasies and things I would have never dreamed of letting anyone do to me, peppered heavily with swearwords and firm, warm touches I felt all the way to my toes; I was melting into him, crying out in soft noises I had never heard myself make before, pressing as close as I could as the pleasure wrenched tighter and tighter at the base of my spine.

"Come for me, Buck," he murmured, voice darkened but still very much the Steve I had always known, always loved.

And when he sunk his teeth into the meat of my shoulder, I did as he bade, head falling back and a silent scream trying its hardest to escape.

The world had tilted on it's axis and all I had to hold me up was my best friend. Which, come to think of it, felt like a little more than a best friend when I told into account the suckling bites he was ringing around my neck.

"Stevie," I asked, my voice a whisper in the quiet.

"Mm?" He didn't stop what he was doing, just hummed against my skin.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but we've got two perfectly good beds and more than five years of fantasies and lust to work through. Why are we still in the showers?"

He didn't answer right away and I was suddenly terrified that I had somehow managed to put my foot in my mouth.

"It doesn't feel quite real yet." The words were soft but I could feel them against my skin and deep in my chest.

I pressed a kiss against his shoulder. "Mm, well, the hickey on your neck certainly looks real. And that bite you took of my shoulder is almost throbbing," I observed gently. "I guess it's all as real as we make it."

"But what if I wake up tomorrow and this was all a dream?" His voice was small, the way it had sounded when he was scared by a thunderstorm years ago.

I met that intense gaze. "Then kiss me on the lips and go from there. Because if there is one universal truth, it is that you always affect me."

"You never seem that affected, Bucky."

"Hasn't anyone ever told you that looks are often deceiving?" I teased, leaning in to taste his lips delicately.

This edit came when I finally got myself a cheap laptop, ladies and gents. I still have most of me files backed up, so we'll see how soon you see me hanging around on here again, alright?