NOTES: Thank you all so much for reading through this monster of a story. In two weeks, we'll start "What I Did on My Summer Break". Once we get through everyone's summers, we'll start up school year number two with our awesome teachers.

But seriously: thank you.

Phil tried to pretend otherwise, but one of the great universal truths was this: eventually, the kids who qualified for the Accelerated Reader overnight were split up into their gender-specific sleepover rooms, where they curled up in their sleeping bags and snored through the tail end of some literature-based movie (usually Muppet Treasure Island). And once that happened, Phil got a rare opportunity to bask in alone time with Clint.

It was never as kinky as the other teachers liked to make it—it was hard to justify prolonged supply-closet trysts with small children sleeping nearby—but sitting up with Clint and talking into the wee hours of the morning felt intimate and special. Like their first months of dating, Phil often thought, when they'd still be lounging together at dawn, talking quietly as the sun stretched across the bed—and, if Phil was honest, against the naked plane of Clint's back. He'd learned the shape of Clint's body in those early mornings, the contours of his muscles and the lines on his face. He'd fallen in love with Clint through those conversations, and in the sleepy kisses that followed.

He always felt close to Clint, like they shared not just the same air and home but the same heart. Still, they sometimes needed those talks (and of course, the occasional weekends away) to recharge.

Those talks had been a long time in coming, lately.

As it stood, Phil leaned against the wall outside the girl's sleepover room (more commonly referred to as the art room) and watched Clint talk to one of the fourth-graders, a girl with messy hair and thick glasses. Her name was Samantha—Sam for short—and she spent almost an hour in the library after school each day, devouring books like she was afraid someone'd snatch them from her hands. Phil and Clint both knew from conversations with Pepper and Carol that Sam's family was transient, drifting from one motel to another and occasionally living out of their car or a shelter, but Sam always arrived to school clean and cheery.

Once, Phil'd encouraged her to check out some books, and she'd shaken her head. "I don't want to lose them," she'd told him seriously. "We lose things, sometimes, when we move."

Phil'd let her pick a few books out of the box under his desk after that conversation, and promised that she didn't have to worry about losing them.

Sam'd woken up and wandered out into the hallway a half-hour ago, disoriented and wide-eyed, and Clint'd offered to talk her down. As Phil watched, she laughed, her face relaxed for the first time since she'd found them out on their rounds. Phil felt his stomach clench at the way Clint grinned at her, and again when Clint turned his grin on him.

Sorry, Clint signed.

Phil smiled. Nothing to be sorry for, he signed back, and Clint's grin blinded him.

Lately, Clint's grin died the second they walked in their front door, doubling in on itself until it transformed into a permanent, ugly scowl. In the evenings, Phil could trace the lines on his husband's brow and the corners of his mouth as he watched the clock and the front window, waiting for his brother to come home. Most nights, Barney only came in when he knew they'd be in bed, leaving again in the wee hours of the morning. Twice, Phil'd found a twenty-dollar bill wedged under the coffee pot.

The second time it'd happened, Clint'd snorted and rolled his eyes. "He's making a point."

"Aren't you doing the same thing?" Phil'd replied, and Clint's scowl had started early, that morning.

At this point, the brothers barely spoke to each other, and Phil had yet to find a good time to sit Barney down and force him into a conversation.

It would happen. He just needed Clint to be otherwise indisposed, first.

Wrapped up in his thoughts as he was, Phil didn't notice that Clint'd coaxed Sam back into the art room until his husband materialized in front of him. He plastered his hands on Phil's hips and immediately crowded into his personal space. "Sorry," he murmured, close to Phil's ear. "I know this is the part where we convince everybody I'm blowing you in the supply closet, but she needed to talk."

"And to think, I recorded last night's session for nothing," Phil deadpanned.

Clint snorted, but then his face pressed into the skin of Phil's neck. When Phil tipped closer to him and wrapped arms around his waist, he sighed. "This whole month's been a fucking mess," he said quietly. "I'm all over the place, behind on everything, and it's all because I'm babysitting a giant fucking toddler. Then we come here, I get distracted by a nine-year-old, and—"

He released an uneven huff of breath, and Phil shook his head. "It's okay."

"No, Phil, it isn't, and the more you say that—"

"I say it because it's true," Phil interrupted. When he leaned back enough that Clint had no choice but to pick up his head, he met his eyes. "As angry as you are at him, Barney's still your brother. And even if you don't ever talk about it, or put words to how you feel, it's bound to eat at you." Clint glanced away, worrying his lips together. "It'd eat at anyone, Clint. And it's okay to admit that it is."

"It's just—" Clint started, but he paused to swallow. When he looked back at Phil, he was as wide-eyed and disoriented as Samantha had been a half-hour earlier. "Barney was there for me through a whole bunch of shit," he explained, "and then, one day, he wasn't. And I had to figure out how to patch over the huge brother-shaped hole there, and every time I got close, he filled it up just to empty it out again." He sighed and rested his forehead against Phil's shoulder. "I don't know how to fix him, and I don't want him to break us."

Something in Phil's heart that still felt vulnerable after all these years—some tiny part that still swore he'd lose Clint to someone smarter or younger or more interesting—drew up tight enough to hurt. He pressed his face against Clint's hair and pulled his husband close. "Your wayward brother can't break us," he promised, "because nothing can."

Carol sat down on the barstool with a sigh. The last day of school was always physically exhausting, but it was emotionally draining, too. Jess had offered to come out with her tonight to celebrate their now student-free status, but Carol had declined. She doubted Jessica minded since her friend was too busy planning a late-afternoon "run" so she could visit her new grounds-keeping boy toy.

Plus, Carol wasn't in the mood to celebrate. Sure, she could understand why some teachers were excited to get rid of their kids—the Hill twins most certainly would not be missed—but it was different for Carol. She focused all her time and energy on a dozen kids. She spent two years brushing away tears, celebrating victories, and working her ass off for those students. Carol knew the ins and outs of each of their families—which parents they lived with during the week and on the weekends, names and ages of siblings, phone numbers, and more overshares than she could possibly remember. It was not unusual for her to receive emails and gifts on the last day school, and today was no different. One very generous set of parents gave her a gift card large enough to cover a couple pairs of new shoes if she hit up a sale.

Fifth grade and kindergarten were the two grades in the elementary school that merited graduation ceremonies. The little ones had theirs last week, but the fifth grade ceremony was always saved for the final day of the year. It meant dressing up when all the other teachers in the building wore matching t-shirts representing the grade they taught. Second grade had the added benefit of a free design from an art teacher on theirs, which thrilled Jess to no end. She liked to rub it in Carol's face that she got away with casual wear on the last day of school, but Carol's kids were worth spending the day in heels. Also worth spending the day in heels? Intimidating the hell out of Clint.

Fury always spoke at the beginning of the ceremony. He thanked the kids for all their hard work in their time at the school and wished them the best of luck on their adventures in middle school. Then he read off each student's name. Home room teachers were responsible for handing out the Microsoft Word template diplomas to their own kids, with the exception of Carol's students. The fifth grade teachers always made sure she got to hand the certificates out to her caseload.

Every year she swore to herself on the drive to school in the morning that she wasn't going to cry. And every damn year, this one included, she teared up like a pregnant woman watching Oprah. Or something.

"This seat taken?" a voice asked.

She was going to blow the guy off, but then she recognized who was talking to her. "It's not if you buy me a drink," she answered.

James grinned and signaled the bartender. "Of all the gin joints in… whatever that line is."

"Hey, this was my bar first. I brought you here, and you were the one who jumped on the bandwagon."

"The bandwagon has an excellent taste in microbrews," he argued.

"Snob," Carol muttered.

"And proud of it. Happy summer to you, by the way."

"Thanks," Carol responded with a smile that she knew didn't reach her eyes.

James squinted at her. "Normally, teachers are happy about having a little bit of a break."

"There's nothing normal about your best friend."

He raised his hands in surrender. "Never said there was, and I never would dream of saying something like that." He took a sip of his beer, eyes sliding her way. "You okay?"

Carol rolled her lips and focused her attention on the label of her half-empty beer bottle. "I have a problem with getting attached to my kids."

James nodded. "Hard to let 'em go sometimes, isn't it? You see them through some rough shit, and just when things level out, you have to say goodbye and start the process with someone new."

"Something like that, yeah."

He reached over and patted her arm. "Been there. I get it."

She didn't say anything, and his hand didn't move. For a moment, they just sat in memories of faces they'd had to let go. "Okay," she declared, "no more talk about kids. This is way too depressing for two attractive people on a Friday night."

"What do you think we should do instead?"

He had that smirk on his face. She knew that smirk. It was the one that caused her insides to liquefy in a pool of heat. He'd talked her into doing a number of things with that smirk, and she hated that it still drew her in like a super-powered magnet.

"I think I should go home," she answered.

"C'mon, Carol, just one dance from the jukebox. For old time's sake."

"And then what?" she asked. She hadn't meant for her voice to sound a little harsh, but it was probably for the best. Jess was doing who-knew-what with lawn boy , leaving Carol without a wingman to bail her ass out of stupid trouble. "Look, it's been an emotional day for me, and I don't want to do something dumb. I think I've done enough idiotic things around you, and neither of us needs to be hurt anymore. So how about we just sit here and talk shit at athletes before calling it a night?"

James looked her over, studying her, and it always made her nervous when people did that. Whether it was her father, her commanding officer, or her principal, she always felt the need to be standing at attention when it happened. "Sounds like a plan," he replied before holding up a finger to let her know he wasn't finished. "But next time, we're dancing."

"Deal," she agreed as they clinked the beer bottles together.

"Tony?"

All Pepper got in response was a muffled grunt. She sighed and began looking down the rows of computers until she spotted a pair of legs sticking out from under a table in the back corner of the lab. She may have sighed out of her right as a wife who was being held hostage at work (she knew they should've driven separately this morning, but he'd sweet-talked her out of it . Still, she couldn't help smile a little bit. "You know you have all summer."

Tony shimmied out from the table and took a deep breath. "Smell that? That is the aroma of an empty school building. And do you know what I get to do when there's an empty school building?"

"Act like a crazy person?"

"No," Tony responded, drawing out the word for several seconds. "I finally get to clean my lab, and it stays clean. These poor keyboards have spent months with snot and germs and god-knows-what, and when I sanitize them tonight? They will stay clean for weeks." He raised his hands in the air and twirled around in some sort of rain dance to the anti-bacterial gods .

Pepper felt her face scrunch in guilt. "So no one told you?" she asked hesitantly.

"Told me what?"

"That they're using this lab for summer school." Pepper sat on the one clean corner of Tony's desk as he began to rant and rave.

"I've put my own money into this lab—"

"No one asked you to do that."

"And the one time of the year it can stay clean—"

"You won't be here."

"Was this Fury's idea?"

"If I say yes, will you drop it so we can go eat dinner?" Pepper asked. "Because it's six o'clock, and I would really like to go home—even though I know full well you could stay here till two in the morning doing your cleaning thing."

Tony's shoulders slumped as he pouted his bottom lip slightly. "They really couldn't find any other place to do summer school? I mean, I'm all for education and integrating technology, but really?"

"There are actual worse things that could happen," Pepper said.

"Are you planning on leaving me any time soon?" he asked as he walked over to her.

"No," she said with a smile.

"Then nothing is worse than this," he said before he started walking around the lab and personally apologizing to each computer station.

It was supposed to be a carefree Saturday afternoon of packing up his classroom. Bruce spent the morning, as always, with Tony, going to their weekly AA meeting before hitting up the diner for chili fries and milkshakes. Once they were done, Bruce left for school, where he met Natasha. She'd volunteered to help him pack up his classroom for the summer. Granted Fury'd made sure that they'd get time over the two days the staff still had to work next week to clean up their rooms, but Natasha had made him a deal involving black lace as a reward for him spending that time helping her sterilize her gym equipment.

And who was he to turn down helping his girlfriend? Or black lace?

It was supposed to be a carefree Saturday afternoon, and then in the middle of boxing books, Natasha declared, "You want kids."

Bruce swallowed as he taped up a box. He'd been waiting for this discussion ever since Jessica showed up with Dani, and he kicked himself for not hiding things better. The last thing he wanted to do was to scare Natasha away, and he knew this could do it. Bruce felt that she'd been off since that afternoon—and since Bruce stupidly brought up the point that he was supposed to be the father of an incoming kindergartener. A little hungover bird with an art teacher for a boyfriend had only confirmed Bruce's fears . "It doesn't mean we—I—have to have them."

Natasha nodded, her lips pursed. "I don't think I want to," she admitted quietly.

Bruce felt his stomach somersault at those six words. It honestly wasn't an idea he entertained too often, mostly because he figured this would be her response, but his self-control wasn't perfect. Every now and then, he pictured a kid with curly hair and a stubborn streak. He felt his chest seize as that mental image—vague as it was—disappeared into nothing . "It's okay," he finally remembered to say.

"But it's something you want," Natasha replied.

He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but he could feel bitterness slip into it. "I don't always get what I want." Natasha's head tilted to the side, her eyes looking suddenly sad. Bruce shook his head and returned his focus to boxing books.

"I wish it was something I wanted," she said quietly. "It would make things easier, and it would probably also make me a nicer person."

"You're a nice person," Bruce argued.

"I could be better. I just don't know how."

Bruce sighed and left the boxes alone. He crossed the room to sit on the edge of the kidney-shaped table Natasha was scrubbing down. "You're better than you think you are. I've seen you get better, seen you heal. Losing someone is a hard thing to recover from, I know. You're doing fine, Natasha ."

She stared at him for a moment. He could tell by her far-off gaze that she was trying to shove puzzle pieces together in her mind, but things weren't fitting together just yet. "I was thinking—"

"I could practically hear that happening," Bruce chuckled.

Natasha shot him a little glare before she continued. "Just because we're not going to do the kid thing doesn't mean we can't try something new, something more."

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "I think you know I'm up for trying new things. Just let my thighs recover from last night's experimenting."

She smirked and bumped her shoulder against his before continuing. "I was thinking we could move in together."

"We could… Wait, what?" Bruce sputtered.

"You don't think it's a good idea?" Natasha asked.

Bruce's mouth worked for a second while his brain tried to process her words. Her offer was not at all something he expected "I'm still trying to figure out why a woman as young and gorgeous as you would want to date me, and now you want to move in with me?" He shook his head. "I'm just… Are you sure?" There was a tiny voice in his head whispering that maybe something wasn't right. His luck wasn't this good, never had been.

Natasha nodded. "Parker was asking around for a sublet for the summer, trying to save money for a place of his own. I think May will pay me double whatever I charge him in rent just to get him out of the house." She shrugged. "Peter gets a fully furnished condo for a couple months at a good price, and you get to have me around all the time."

Bruce smiled at the thought. It would be nice—hell, it would be a dream—to have her around all the time. "I guess we have been spending more nights together than apart lately."

"You complaining?" Natasha asked with an arched eyebrow.

"No, not at all," Bruce answered. "I just think if you move in I'll have to double my chiropractor appointments."

Natasha moved to stand between his legs, pouting slightly. "I can play nice," she said as she ran fingers through his hair. He moaned at the touch, and it grew louder when her nails scraped against his scalp. "But I think you like it when I don't play nice."

"Maybe," he said with a small grin. "You sure want to do this?"

And then he saw it—or at least, maybe he saw it. That flash of her raising her chin in a challenge, a glimpse of her former life as a nearly-Olympic-level athlete. It also had a hint of an expression he saw often in his classroom: the need for approval.

"Tasha, is everything okay?"

"Yeah," she replied. "It just makes sense. We've been together for long enough, we spend most nights together. Might as well bite the bullet."

"You're not trying to play catch-up to your best friend, are you?"

Natasha rolled her eyes. "My love-sick dope of a friend has nothing to do with this."

Bruce studied her for a moment, looking for cracks in her armor. Whatever he'd seen a moment ago, if it was even there in the first place, was gone. He stood and kissed her deeply. "Guess I should make you a key?" he asked while they were catching their breaths.

Natasha smirked at him. "I stole the spare out of your desk two months ago."

"Summer!" Henry screamed for the fifth time, performing his fifth cannonball.

Don't get Darcy wrong, no kids could equal those produced by Jane and Thor, but if she had to reapply her sunscreen after only being outdoors for ten minutes, she was going to lose her shit. She had alabaster skin, alright? It required an SPF high enough that when you squeezed the bottle, a sweater came out. But it kept her cancer-free, and maybe she liked being super pale, okay?

Jane, stretched out on the lounge chair next to her, sighed. "Don't tell Thor he was right about me needing sunshine."

Darcy smiled, "The sky can be cool when the stars aren't shining, you know. It's this really pretty blue color. I don't know if you've seen it recently."

She was sure Jane would spit a comeback, but Alva interrupted to have her mother readjust her neon pink floaty armband things. "I love summer," she proclaimed dreamily. "Don't you love summer, Miss Darcy?"

"I think you only like it because your parents only let you swim in my parents' pool when school is out."

"That's not the—" She stopped mid-sentence to gasp as Henry did another cannonball. This one violated the rules Jane had established of where he could and couldn't jump into the pool (so that she herself could stay dry). "Stop splashing me!" Alva screamed.

"Hey," Jane snapped. "Both of you stop or George is going to be the only allowed in the pool. Henrik, you know the rules about where to jump in. Alva, honey, you're swimming in a pool—you're going to get wet. Now, go play." Alva sent one last murderous look to her oldest brother before easing her way back into the water. Jane monitored the situation for a moment before leaning back in her lounge chair. "Excited about spending your summer in the office?"

Darcy shrugged. "It's really not that bad. Everything is quieter, I get to play my music most of the time, casual dress—can't complain."

"Are you taking any time off?"

"My parents are taking a vacation in a couple weeks. Dad wants to visit more Civil War battle sites, so I will definitely be staying home while they're gone . But, yeah, I'll probably need to escape from Mom for a little bit this summer or else we might kill each other."

"I'd offer to take you with us when we visit Thor's parents, but that sounds like more of a punishment than a vacation," Jane said.

"No, thanks," Darcy told her. "But if you want to acquire a dog or even a fish just long enough that you need someone to pet-sit while you're gone, I'm your girl."

Jane shook her head. "If I get a dog that only stays at our house while we're not there, I'm not sure if my children or my husband would murder me first."

Darcy sensed a sudden uneasiness in her best friend. Jane was wiggling slightly in her chair, just like her daughter did when she didn't want to admit to something . "What is it?" Darcy asked.

"It's nothing."

"Your squirming says otherwise."

Jane rolled her lips. "Loki had a date the other night. He told Thor. I know you and him had a little bit of a whatever, and I didn't want you to find out from someone else or have the kids tell you."

Darcy debated on what to do next. She and Loki hadn't really talked about how open they were going to be about their dates—they'd had two now. But they were both agreed that Thor wasn't going to find out any time soon. He'd start planning a wedding before they hit date number five.

"That's okay," Darcy said, not quite able to hide her smile. "I've started seeing someone, too."

"You wanna tell me what's really going on," Nick asked, "or do I have to start guessing?"

Jasper, paragon of grace and dignity like he was, dumped Seoul-style taco sauce all over his goddamn lap.

For teachers, the last couple days before the school finally closed down for the year was this fun, chummy time where everybody packed up their classrooms and snarked at each other until the halls were full of sound. Jasper appreciated that—he'd taught for a while, years ago (high school history, let them never speak about it again)—but at the same time, as an administrator? The last couple days of the school year just needed to beover. Seriously, did you want to process payroll and purchase orders and enrollment shit? Did you want to field all the calls about the kids who were moving across the district and their missing paperwork? Did you want to listen to Stark bitch about how somebody chewed through a power cable (and nobody chewed through it, Stark, it probably got caught in a vacuum cleaner)?

Yeah, that's what he thought.

And that was why, at about one-thirty in the afternoon, Jasper Sitwell was in his chair, his feet kicked up onto the corner of his desk, listening to some jazz on Spotify and eating Korean tacos from the taco place with the weird hours.

The operative word being "was," because he sat straight up as soon as his boss strode into his doorway.

Nick smirked at him, a disturbing little twist of his lips, and planted his shoulder against the doorjamb. With his sleeves rolled up, he looked almost human. Kind of.

Jasper swallowed his half-chewed mouthful and reached for his iced tea. "You're going to have to give me a better hint than that, because I have no idea what you're talking about."

Nick raised an eyebrow. "You don't."

"Nope."

"Not a clue."

"None whatsoever."

"Mmm-hmm," Nick intoned, and Jasper—like the mature and put together elementary school administrator he happened to be—played with his straw. For a moment, they stared at each other, locked in some sort of weird game of chicken.

It wasn't until Jasper slurped up the last of his tea, ugly straw noise and all, that Nick rolled his eye. "Sitwell, what's the one thing I always say I like about you?" he asked.

Jasper frowned. "That I know all the best food places and aren't afraid to—"

"Besides that."

The edge to his tone made Jasper sit up a little straighter. He suddenly realized what Parker must've felt like when put through the whole Queen-song wringer. He rolled his lips together to keep from smiling at the memory before he replied, "That I'm predictable."

"Exactly," Nick said with a nod, and something in Jasper's stomach twisted itself into a knot. "I could hook you up to our bell system and never need to worry again because they'd always go off on time. I hand you the detail work 'cause I know it'll be in three days early with everything triple-checked. Hell, I can tell by the shirt you're wearing if it's meatball sub special day at Little Mercutio's."

"To be fair," Jasper said with a raise of his hand, "their marinara sauce's extra chunky and never washes out of anything."

"Learned that the one time I picked the restaurant for date night," Nick replied, and this time, Jasper definitely smiled. At least, until Nick pushed away from the door. Slowly, like a big cat preparing for the kill, he crossed his arms and raised both eyebrows. "So imagine my surprise," he continued, "when, for the first time since I hired you—the first time since I met you—I haven't spent all spring listening to you count down to the crazy foodie road trip you're taking over the summer summer."

All at once, Jasper's heart crash landed in his gut. Because yeah, Nick had a point: he almost always took a trip right at the end of the school year, mostly for the purposes of finding great new food. Last year, he'd spent a week in Portland, eating out of food trucks and reading at Powell's (explains why he gained ten pounds that summer); the year before, he'd gorged himself on the best that New Orleans had to offer. He'd once saved up all school year to visit some of New York City's most acclaimed restaurants (many of which were disappointing), and his first summer after graduate school, he'd literally eaten his way across Europe. He loved food, he loved seeing the country (and the world), he loved spending a few days away from piles of paperwork and administrative duties—

And this year, he also happened to be carrying one hell of a torch for a single mom who barely had the extra cash for a babysitter, never mind a trip to San Francisco. Jasper'd almost offered to pay, too, but the voice in his head'd muttered about taking it slow, and he was trying.

He was really, really trying, dammit.

He rubbed the back of his neck, aware that Nick was still staring him down. Finally, he sighed. "We've been kind of keeping it under wraps," he admitted slowly, "but I'm, you know, seeing somebody. Not seriously, but enough that I want to be around for the summer. Especially since she's going through some stuff with her kids, and—" He cut himself off, shaking his head. "Foodie trips can wait, you know?"

In the doorway, Nick pressed his lips together and nodded sagely—or at least, what Jasper figured he thought was sagely. For a couple seconds, Jasper thought that'd be the end of it, but then he saw something flicker across Nick's expression. It grew slowly, spreading like a plague, until—

"Are you fucking grinning?" Jasper demanded, and Nick burst out laughing. He immediately flicked a pen across his office. "You knew! Danvers told you, and you—"

"Danvers?" Nick demanded once he'd recovered from his full-on belly laughs. "Not Danvers. Melinda. We bet six weeks ago that you'd cave before Hill did. Glad to see I wasn't wrong."

"I hate you," Jasper sneered. "You and your fucking wife."

"And since you're happy for once in your damn life, I can take that," Nick returned.

Jasper threw a napkin at his back on principle.

"How'd you acquire this much junk in a single year?" Steve teased.

He hefted a box as he said it, his muscles tensing under his skin-tight t-shirt, and for a moment, Bucky watched appreciatively. He'd started out lugging the boxes around himself, but then his boyfriend'd muttered something about lifting from the knees and back strain and promptly claimed the job as his own. Not that he planned on complaining.

Steve glanced over his shoulder, met Bucky's eyes, and frowned. "What?"

Bucky shrugged. "I was just thinking that I'm glad I hoarded so much fourth grade stuff, because now I get to watch you carry it upstairs," he replied.

"And you get to owe me later," Steve returned, his voice full of promise as he headed out the door.

Bucky laughed, shaking his head, and surveyed his classroom for what felt like the hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours. Wanda'd practically fled from school in a cloud of dust and cackling the second their last in-service ended, her classroom so pure and spotless that Bucky wondered whether she'd wished no more students into reality. He'd poked through her skeletal AR library, flipped through her supplements, and pawed through her supply closet before deciding he needed to dig into storage for his own materials, and the end result'd involved hauling a lot of boxes to school, sorting through them, and then bringing them upstairs. Wanda's room—his new room, he reminded himself—now looked like a federal disaster area.

His old room, soon to be Peter Parker's, stood half-empty and, well, sad.

He picked up a few random bits and bobs from his desk and tried not to think about how strange and amazing the school year'd been. Leaving his old school'd felt like maybe ditching the devil he knew for the devil he didn't, but Natasha'd never let him down. Natasha, who'd bullied him into the interview and then, into a whole lot of other things: payday happy hours, betting pools, dodgeball, and Steve.

She'd talked a lot about him being happy, back at the beginning of the school year, convinced him not to totally hide his feelings and whatever else. And as a result, he'd met somebody who actually cared the way he—

Something touched his back, and he nearly leapt out of his skin. When he whirled around, Steve held up both hands. "Those Army reflexes are really in there deep," he said, his smile not quite genuine. When Bucky blinked at him, he nodded down to Bucky's hand—and the safety scissors Bucky was holding like a weapon. He rolled his eyes, and Steve's expression softened. "You okay?"

"If you think I'm going to stab you with safety scissors, we have to have a long talk about—"

"Bucky." The way Steve said it, breathless and private, still made Bucky's stomach swim. He glanced over, and Steve lifted his eyebrows. "Don't think I haven't noticed."

"Noticed what?"

"The way you sat with Tony and me at the last couple meetings this week. The way you keep getting quiet every time any kind of group outing comes up." Bucky snorted and shoved the scissors back into his pencil cup. He set everything into a box, but then Steve caught his wrist. He stared at Steve's big, gentle hand instead of meeting his puppy-dog eyes. "Don't make me go straight for the gut punch."

Bucky raised his chin. "And what gut punch is that?"

"The one where I point out that you're avoiding Natasha."

Bucky felt his shoulders stiffen, and he immediately twisted away from Steve and out of his grip. He abandoned the crap on his desk to go over and stand at the window, his hands pressed to the sill. He and Steve had talked about the Natasha situation, sure, but over a lot of vodka and then, between a lot of kissing. A lawn chair'd died under their combined weight, and with it, the talking had pretty much ended. And for the most part, Bucky didn't mind. After all, it wasn't like he knew how to explain how close he and Natasha were, or how much she'd meant to him over the years. Not without sounding like an idiot and a sap.

Steve loomed behind him for several long, tense seconds, his reflection a hazy shadow in the window. "She was better at this than I am," Bucky finally said.

"At what?"

"At being with somebody and still being a good friend." Steve opened his mouth to reply, but Bucky shook his head as he turned to face him. "I know she'll come around," he admitted. "I know that she'll work out whatever she's going through the way she always does, and then she'll be back at my door with vodka and that terrifying smile of hers. I just wish I knew how to build that bridge faster."

Steve smiled gently as he reached out to snag Bucky by the side of his t-shirt. "Our," he corrected.

Bucky blinked. "Our what?"

"Our door. Not just yours." Steve tugged them together, his arms settling around Bucky's waist, and Bucky ran his hands up Steve's sides. "Like you said, she'll come around," he said. It sounded like a vow, coming from him. "And maybe we both need to learn to be better friends to her. I don't know her as well as I should. I can work on that."

Bucky rolled his eyes. "This from the practically perfect Mister Rogers."

Steve screwed up his face. "I'm not always perfect," he defended. "Really. I used to get into all kinds of trouble as a kid."

"I'd believe it if I saw it," Bucky returned.

"My mom probably has video somewhere," Steve retorted, and despite himself, Bucky laughed.

They stood there for a minute, Steve warm and sure as he held onto Bucky, Bucky with his fingers digging into Steve's waistband. Bucky wanted to just soak in the crazy, amazing reality of Steve, but he couldn't help thinking for a minute about how the one person who'd helped him set up his classroom was the one person who probably wouldn't come tear it down with him.

At least, not right now.

He didn't realize that his expression'd changed into something like a smile until Steve nudged his hip. "Something funny?"

He shrugged. "Just thinking about how much of this year belongs to Nat, too."

Steve smiled softly. "Because she helped you get this job?" he asked.

"No," Bucky replied honestly. "Because she helped me get you."