Notes: Thank you to my guest reviewers for letting me know about the code error! Argh, copy/paste is so unreliable. Hopefully this worked better.

-o-

"He won't take me up on any of my suggestions," Natasha rolls her eyes, "or take them up on any of their offers. I'm giving up. I think the world's most eligible—well, at least the most approachable—bachelor is gonna be single for the rest of his life."

"So?"

Bucky's voice is sharp as he feels the sting of definitely not protectiveness igniting inside him. He'd just gotten Steve - and himself - back and didn't really feel like sharing a whole lot of him after all this time. He really doesn't understand the purpose behind the Black Widow's constant pushing for Steve to find a lady. Who's got the time for that, anyway?

"So," she cuts him an equally sharp look, though something mischievous tugs at a corner of her mouth, "an ass like that requires appreciation. Regular praises, y'know."

Bucky most certainly does know, longer than her existence was even thought of, and he almost tells her as such. It irks him that anyone else has had the gall to think about it, even if some part of him is proud that finally he isn't alone in appreciating it. He's noticed ladies in the modern world-, he's still a (mostly) warm-blooded man after all-, but talking about Steve like that when he isn't even here is disrespectful.

Yeah, that's it. Disrespectful. Definitely not the jealousy.

And besides, he has no desire to start convincing women he's worthy of their time at this point. Not when he still has trouble remembering the names of his long-dead former comrades or things he should know like his birthday, his memory filled with some gaps where it shouldn't be.

"All I'm saying is maybe you should respect his obvious lack of interest."

Bucky returns his attention to the TV but Clint and Sam, who are sparring nearby, keep staring first at him, then at each other and next at Natasha, whose eyes are still on Bucky, and then finally back to him. Sam's eyebrows are up in anticipation and Clint hides none of his amusement.

"Okay, okay, I won't bother Steve anymore then," Natasha tucks her legs under her and leans closer to him, "but what about you?"

Bucky musters his coldest glare-a relatively easy task-and fixes her with it. Her lips only relax into a wide smile and she arches an eyebrow.

"Come on, the junk in your trunk is impressive too. Did I hurt your feelings?"

"I can find my own dates, thanks."

"Oh, so we've heard." What the hell is that supposed to mean?, he opens his mouth to snap but she continues before he has the chance. "But let's face it, you haven't in, like, seventy years and you're going to need my help too. What about Alice down in accounts payable? I saw her put a picture of you and Steve up on her whiteboard one day."

Bucky leans his head onto the back of the couch, staring blankly up at the ceiling. Maybe stasis would be a better alternative.

"Alright, so that's a no-go on Alice. Darlene from the sixth floor, maybe? She's pretty fun."

"Please stop talking to me."

"Crissy in PR?"

"No."

"Hey, maybe you better—" Sam cuts in, probably insinuating Bucky might go into assassin mode, triggered by his ever-rising annoyance at the situation which, to Sam's credit, felt very likely if she kept on.

"There's only a few more I have for him, anyway," she waves a hand dismissively. "Yvette from special ops?"

Another cold stare is the only reply and yet, cursedly, she continues.

"Steve from the Avengers, best friend and America's first super soldier?"

Everything falls utterly silent. Clint and Sam pause yet again in the middle of the practicing they'd gone back to, Clint's fists still clenched shut whereas Sam has dropped all pretense of it and gapes at them. Natasha's face is frozen in a smirk as she gauges his reaction and a Dr. Phil commercial on the TV Bucky had been watching before he was so rudely interrupted is the only noise in the room aside from the thudding of Bucky's heart in his chest, in his throat, a vein in his forehead threatening to pop.

He stands so quickly the couch moves back a little, which only makes Natasha's smirk widen and Clint cover up a laugh (badly).

"That's not funny." His tone is icy and strangely even.

With that he's out the door, headed to the one place he knows he might be able to at least concentrate on the burn of liquor down his throat to take his mind off the ridiculousness.

-o-

"Barnes, it's time to introduce you to a little phrase called closet baiting."

Of course Stark knows. Has he already been briefed about this? Bucky stares into the glass of amber liquor and wishes at that moment that he could get drunk again. More than anything, that's at the top of his list of Wishes at the Moment.

"I can use Google, you know, he's taught me more than just that."

Tony blows out a loud groan before finishing off his own drink.

"Okay, see, when you say things like that it's just gonna encourage her. But first, today's lesson. Closet baiting is when someone's…feeling you out, in a manner of speaking."

He's not trying too hard to not smirk. A stare and silence don't faze him in the slightest.

"You said no to all of her suggestions before Rogers, right?"

Bucky isn't sure how this man is the son of Howard, much less how he invented a device to save his own life in the barrenness of the desert, because he seems to be missing something essential up in the brain region. Something in him snaps-just a little, but enough to set his teeth on edge.

"Does anybody think I need to be seeing somebody intimately in this state? I'm asking you honestly, does literally anybody involved with any of this—" he waves his hands vaguely, "—think that it is an honest-to-God good idea for me to be alone with a stranger for an extended period of time?"

"Just answer the question, man."

Bucky downs the entire almost-full glass of his own Bourbon he'd poured himself but had been letting sit since his staring contest with it in one fell swoop. He grabs the decanter for more. Tony's used to it with Steve's episodes of lamenting the inability to get drunk but he nods in mad respect nonetheless.

"I said no to all of them, yeah." Bucky says once he finishes the second glass.

"But Rogers was the final straw?"

"I'd asked her to quit talking to me long before then. She had plenty of warning."

"Do you people ever answer a question straight?"

Tony laughs loudly at his own joke that Bucky's not even close to getting if the look on his face is any indication. Bucky tries to calculate just how little time it would take him to rip out the device keeping his heart safe from shrapnel.

"Never mind. You left at that time, yeah?"

Bucky stares.

"A-ha," and with that, the remaining Bourbon goes into both glasses, Tony shoving Bucky's forward. Then a mumbled, "She's got quite an eye for it."

"This is bullshit."

Bucky's had enough with the arrogance and the running around and the being subject to some huge secret they keep rubbing his face in. He didn't come here to be mocked by this asshole, after all. He throws back the rest of the booze, slamming down the glass pointedly (a small crack appearing at the bottom) and stands to leave. He doubts Stark was ever going to tell him at all.

"So, I guess that's a big ol' nyet when it comes to Alice from payroll?"

-o-

A slam of the door is his only response but Tony can't resist calling out after him loudly enough to carry down the hall, "Go get him to Google it with you!"

Bucky's stalking down the hall when he glances into an open room to see Steve himself poring over the contents of a folder, leaning against one of the various machines in the room while Bruce tinkers around with some boiling material on a burner. He would have kept moving were it not for Steve's enhanced acute hearing picking up the familiar footsteps. He looks up and a warm smile spreads over his face. Bucky's furious at the way it makes him feel better, Natasha's words echoing in his head.

"C'mere," Steve says, "there's new information on that empty warehouse we scoped out a while back. Dr. Banner picked up some weird radioactive emissions coming from it."

Bucky thinks of trying to come up with something-anything-to get out of this but all that comes out of his mouth is,

"Tell me one of you knows what closet baiting is."

He's instantly feeling pretty stupid as he'd hoped to avoid this whole matter with Steve in case it was something embarrassing. He doesn't want him thinking he can't fight his own battles but the damage is done. Bruce furrows his brow, glances at Steve, then back to the boiling whatever. He switches off the burner and stirs the liquid once more, and crosses to the other side of the lab table, pulling off his glasses.

"Is this about Natasha?" Bruce drags a hand through his hair, sighing. "She's all about that."

"Trying to set people up on dates is one thing but-"

Bucky swallows hard, glancing again at Steve, who's got his blue eyes trained on him curiously and concernedly. Mostly the latter. Okay, so it's not like Bucky's repulsed by the thought or anything-far from it, in fact, but for her to insinuate…

"Yeah, she does that," Steve notes dryly.

"But-then she…"

"I know," Bruce's voice holds all the indication that he does know from personal experience and that he wants to save Bucky from feeling embarrassed. Well, at least that makes him feel better, if only slightly. Barely. But at least so far they and Sam are the only ones not to act like he's the only one left out of some big joke at his expense.

Then he notices Steve's gotten out his tablet and keys a few things in before he starts reading, scrolling quickly as his eyes scan back and forth.

"Well, er, closet baiting is when...ah…" Bruce is looking everywhere but Bucky and Steve, focusing on a point somewhere on the opposite window. "It's a term for-"

"Trying to find out if you're gay." Steve's tone is flat, purposely even, but Bucky knows him well enough to know he's irritated on Bucky's behalf too. "Apparently 'coming out of the closet' is where the phrase comes from."

He clicks off the tablet and tosses it (as gently as he can) onto the lab table, folding his arms tightly over his chest. There's a sinking feeling and Bruce isn't helping matters any by not hiding the laughter in his eyes. Never mind. He's just as bad as the others, he thinks with a narrowing of his eyes.

"So, what, she can't just ask?" Bucky finally manages in a voice that doesn't sound like his own.

"Apparently not," Steve huffs, "since she's done the same thing to me. I thought she was just trying to be the matchmaker Avenger."

"Well, technically she is," Bruce points out. "She's trying to find out if she should be playing a whole other field, as it were. And it's really a technique to try and get the closeted individual to, ah, reveal themselves. Indirect-but-direct outing. How did you know that's what she was doing?"

"She, uh, asked about…" Bucky struggles to keep his eyes from dancing back to Steve, whose gaze hasn't left him in way too long, "about a guy at the end of a list of women. I went to Stark first and he told me the term, just not what it is. He's great at avoiding the subject."

"He's great at trying to make us look like idiots," Steve mumbles, cutting a glance to Bruce and adding a quick, "Sorry."

Bruce just gives a crooked smile and shakes his head.

"No need. He's right, that's just Tony trying to relate to two under-the-icers. Not that it's an excuse, but an explanation."

"I don't take anything he says personally," Bucky snarks, already ready to be out of this room and out from under the suffocating stares. "She could've at least asked in private, though."

"What, and take all the fun out of having everyone see you get flustered?" Steve, the bastard, is smirking of all things, and Bucky wants to wipe the look off his mouth immediately. (He most definitely doesn't let himself think of just how he might accomplish such a task.)

"You're no better than the rest of them. I'm going to my room."

He stalks off in a cloud of annoyance that's almost palpable. He's not surprised to hear Steve's quick footsteps not a minute later, not running but catching up quickly nonetheless.

"Hey, look," his fingers curl around Bucky's shoulder, halting him; with a barely audible sigh he turns to face him. "I didn't know it bothered you that much. I'm sorry."

Bucky swats away his hand and tries to ignore the hurt that flickers in Steve's eyes for the briefest of seconds. He can't ignore the twist in his gut at that and finds himself blurting out, "I got pissed off because I forgot how to say no."

Leave it to Steve to drag it out of him without him even trying to get him to spill it. If he's surprised he doesn't show it.

"You forgot, or…?"

"No, not that kind of forgot."

"Oh."

The silence that follows is nearly deafening, so much that neither of them registers the tiniest of noises above their heads.

"So-"

"It was you," Bucky says shortly. "Just so you know."

Steve laughs and for a second Bucky's confused by the mix of disappointment and relief crashing through him but then Steve's hand moves down to cup his elbow and he's looking at him in a way that makes him barely suppress a shudder.

"She asked me the other day about you. I forgot how to answer, too."

"I mean just because we're-"

"It's probably because Steve wants shared life experiences," chimes in a certain voice from above; they look up to see a glint of eyes through the grate of the air duct vent, a flash of red hair.

Then she's gone, disappearing back inside the depths of the air ducts (yeah, right) and Bucky doesn't realize he's clenching a fist until he feels Steve prying his fingers open.

"Hey."

Steve curls a hand around the back of Bucky's neck, drawing him in closer. It's too close, the memories of all their shared life experiences hitting him one after another. Every time he remembers one he holds onto it, locks it away as best he can, afraid for the times when he virtually blacks out-further and further between them, but still happening-and hoping they'll bring him back if Steve can't. Steve's breath fans across Bucky's face and he struggles to keep his head above the water.

"Well? Is that true?" his tone comes out as accusatory and he immediately hates himself for it but Steve doesn't seem to notice.

"Yeah. Guess I never thought about it 'til she said it."

"Seriously?" Bucky raises his eyebrows. "Well. I guess I never thought about it consciously 'til they started talking about your ass."

"What." Steve's eyes darken. "What exactly were they-"

"Nat thinks you need somebody to appreciate your ass," Bucky feels a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth so he lets it. "So I'm rising to the challenge. Steve, did you know you've got a great ass? Always have, really."

With another glance up at the air duct vent he reaches around and grabs a cheek firmly, squeezing and watching the gasp tear out of Steve's lips easily, as if he weren't even trying to hide it. Then Bucky tilts his head up and presses his mouth to Steve's hungrily, taking the goddamn closet bait after all. He figures if Natasha and Tony have seen it then maybe-just maybe-he's got a chance.

Steve moans softly against him and tightens his fingers around a fistful of Bucky's hair, drawing him in even closer and pressing his hips against the other man's none too insistently.

"Buck..." he murmurs as Bucky draws back only long enough to flip off the vent, Natasha's laugh echoing through the duct.

"I take my job seriously," says Bucky, nodding in the direction of his room at the end of the hall. "And I say the warehouse can wait. I've got seventy years of ass appreciation to make up for."