CHAPTER THREE
❝ three musketeers ❞
AS THE TWO reached Mrs. Sullivan's room, Lucy and Bucky shared a nervous look. Bucky pointed to himself and jokingly dragged a finger across his throat, eliciting a small snort from Lucy. He took a deep breath and grabbed the door handle, cautiously pulling it open.
Bucky entered first and Lucy followed, causing the whole class' eyes to shift from the front of the room to them.
"Mr. Barnes," Mrs. Sullivan drawled, slowly removing her glasses and giving the teenage boy a tired glare. "Do I even want to ask why you are showing up to my class late? Again?"
"Yeah, Barnes. Too busy catching up on your beauty sleep?" A boy sitting in the middle of the room had a smirk on his face as he teased Bucky, high-fiving some friends around him.
Bucky faked an apologetic expression. "Sorry Mrs. Sullivan, I was showing Lucy around the school since it's her first day and... Well, we kinda lost track of time."
Mrs. Sullivan sighed in defeat, waving him to the back of the room. "Just go sit down."
The woman's glare dissipated into a smile as she turned to Lucy. "Welcome to George Washington High, Lucy. I hope that Mr. Barnes over here hasn't been too much trouble for you."
Quick to defend the boy that had been so friendly to her, Lucy frantically shook her head. "No, not at all! I was lost so he was just showing me around."
"Good. Well, there's an open seat in the back right next to him and Steven." She pointed to the seat, prompting Lucy to quickly make her way to the desk.
She practically melted into the chair when she sat, desperately needing to give her feet a break after doing laps around the whole school.
Mrs. Sullivan continued her lecture as Lucy settled in next to Bucky and his friend. She realized as they made eye contact that he must have been the same boy who was with Bucky in the diner the first time they had met.
Since he was sitting in the middle, Bucky quietly re-introduced the two. "Lucy, I'm not sure if you remember him from the diner, but this is Steve."
So she was right. "I do remember. Nice to meet you again, Steve."
Steve blushed from her words alone. While his best friend had a new girl on his arm practically every week, Steve could never even hold a conversation with one. All of Bucky's past girlfriends never liked Steve, one of the main reasons why their relationships with Bucky were cut short.
Lucy's kindness caused him to immediately take a liking to her, noticing that she was just as shy as he was from her body language alone.
It takes one to know one.
"You as well, Lucy."
Lucy opened the Science textbook, placing her schedule on top. While tapping her wooden pencil against her bottom lip, she read through it for the hundredth time that day.
Bucky silently grabbed the schedule and pulled it onto his own desk. Lucy gave him a curious look as he took out his own pencil and wrote on it. She leaned over and gratefully smiled when she realized that he was scribbling directions for how to get to each of her classes on the margins of the paper, pausing every once in a while to think and make sure that they were as detailed as possible.
───
Much to Lucy's surprise, the rest of her first day went smoothly. After Science ended, Bucky walked her to English, one of her favorite classes.
When it was time for lunch, Lucy's nerves that had eased a bit skyrocketed yet again. The cafeteria was packed because of the rain outside, where students would usually go spread out around the courtyard and eat.
She searched the room for Bucky and Steve, hoping that they were somewhere around.
"You see her yet?" Steve questioned Bucky, standing on his tippy toes while scanning the room for her
"No." Bucky began to worry. Were his instructions not enough? Did she get lost again?
Before the two could say anything else, Bucky finally saw her. She was in the middle of the room, standing there with her lunch tray like a lost puppy.
Bucky threw his hand halfway into the air and waved, calling out a hurried, "Lucy!"
Lucy's head turned after hearing her name, smiling when she saw Bucky waving at her. She quickly made her way over to their table towards the side of the room and sat down beside him.
Steve was eating a jelly sandwich that his mother packed for him, lacking the peanut butter because of his allergy. Bucky on the other hand had a tray from the cafeteria just like Lucy.
"Hi." She flashed both the kind smile that they had seen so much of in the short time while knowing her. "Thank you for letting me sit here."
Steve chuckled and gestured to the rest of the empty table. "Well, good thing you got here in time. Everyone is dyin' to sit with us."
Bucky shoved Steve. "Funny." He refocused his attention on Lucy. "How's your first day goin'?"
Lucy turned her head to the brunette. "Good! I really like all of my classes so far and I haven't run into any of those bullies yet," she joked.
"Don't worry," Steve said as he took a bite of his food. "All of them will probably be focused on me. Especially Hodge."
"Hodge?"
Since Lucy was new, she was blissfully unaware of the kid who had made both of their lives a living hell since they met him years ago.
"Yeah, Gilmore Hodge is his name. He's the one that was mockin' me when we walked into Science earlier. He teases Steve a lot and doesn't like me at all."
"Oh," Lucy expressed with a frown. "Well, people like that are just projecting their insecurities on others. Doesn't make it right at all, but it isn't either of your faults."
When she looked up, Lucy found the two boys looking at her, impressed with her words. Bucky spoke while admiring the girl in front of him. "Now, how did we get so lucky to be friends with someone so damn smart?"
Friends.
The term sent warmth through Lucy's chest, making her involuntarily blush.
"You get that from the books you read?" Steve gestured to the pile of books next to Lucy's lunch tray.
"Yeah, actually. I read that a while ago but it's been stuck in my head since."
Bucky grinned, shaking his head while running his tongue over his bottom lip. "You are different than anyone I've ever met, Lucy Everhart. In a good way."
And for the millionth time that day, Lucy blushed.
The boys could tell that Lucy was slowly becoming more sociable with them. It was funny how much her personality was like Steve's; shy until she was comfortable with her peers.
Bucky wanted to know more about her. "So, where did you live before coming to Brooklyn?"
"Queens."
Bucky jokingly put a hand over his heart, breathing out a sigh of relief. "Phew, we were hoping that you weren't about to say Jersey or something." He leaned over the table and slapped a hand over Steve's boney shoulder.
Lucy smiled softly at the interaction. "Have you two known each other for a while?"
Steve nodded, "His ma and mine have been friends since before we were born. We've been friends for longer than we've been alive."
Lucy laughed while taking a bite of her own food.
"So why did you move?" Bucky asked.
That was the question that she didn't exactly know how to answer. She could say, Oh, my alcoholic father got fired from his old job, so here I am.
But that was a bit too straightforward.
Bucky sensed her change in attitude towards the subject. He lightly knocked his elbow against her own. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." He told her this in a whisper with a small smile, somehow making her worries melt away.
Lucy had never felt so genuinely comfortable with someone as she did with Bucky Barnes, despite the fact that she barely even knew him. "Oh, no. It's okay. My dad got relocated because of his job."
Bucky nodded, another question popping up in his head. "Do you have any siblings? Steve is an only child but I've got a little sister."
Lucy shook her head, "No, no siblings. And my mom died when I was little so it's just me and my dad."
Steve frowned when he heard that Lucy's mom died when she was young. He never got to meet his father, being raised by a widowed Sarah Rogers. Joseph Rogers died in the First World War, falling victim to mustard gas before his son was even born as he bravely fought.
"I'm sorry about your mother," Steve spoke for both him and Bucky, as the latter was too busy kicking himself for asking such a dumb question.
"For what it's worth though, I'm glad you're here in Brooklyn. I have a feeling that we're gonna be good friends," Steve genuinely told her.
"Yeah." Lucy couldn't help but agree. "Me too."
───
After lunch ended, Both Lucy and Steve had art class while Bucky had to run off to History. He insisted on walking the two there, but Lucy didn't want him to be late for yet another class because of her.
The two blondes found themselves silently painting. The silence was comfortable, each being entranced by their own piece. That was one thing that Lucy and Steve had in common; they used the arts to express anything that they couldn't exactly put into words.
Lucy painted a beautiful sunset. She dipped her paintbrushes in different shades of purples, blues, and greens, therapeutically applying the colors to the paper.
Steve was painting Brooklyn from his memory. He chose winter as the season, expertly detailing the way that the snow fell over the streets while only using grays and blacks in his color palate.
"You're a natural," Lucy told him as she pointed at his painting.
Steve blushed and shook his head. "I draw a lot in my free time, so I've had a lot of practice." He peered over at Lucy's painting, impressed at the outcome. "That's a pretty scene. Where is that?"
Lucy scrunched her nose and shrugged. "I'm not sure. I've seen this place in my dreams before, so I decided to draw it out."
The two fell back into silence for a moment until Steve spoke again. "I just wanted to tell you..." Lucy rose an eyebrow at his hesitation. "I know how hard it is only having one parent. My father died during the war before I was born, so it's just been my ma and I at home."
Steve had been wanting to say something to Lucy after hearing that she only had her father, but was too scared that he would be crossing a line. But the more time he spent with Lucy, the more that he felt comfortable with her.
"I'm sorry about your father, he seemed like a brave man." Lucy was grateful for Steve to display his vulnerability for her benefit. She wished more than anything that she could call her own father brave.
"Yeah," Steve continued. "Even though I never met him, I still wanna be like him." He paused, frowning a bit. "Is that dumb?"
Lucy quickly shook her head in reassurance. "No, no. Not dumb at all." She put down her paintbrush, shuffling on her stool a bit so that she could properly face Steve. "I barely even remember my mom, but I wanna be a nurse one day like she was."
Steve's face lit up at the mention of the profession. "Hey, my mom's a nurse too! I'm sure that she'd be glad to help you anytime. I'll make sure to introduce you to her."
Lucy didn't have a response to that. She couldn't respond because she was too busy thinking. Hearing that she had support from a boy that she had just met and his mother that she didn't even know sent a rare warmth through her chest.
Steve noted the silence, cringing at his words after he already said them. "I mean, you don't have to meet her! I was just thinking that, um, if you wanted to—"
Lucy cut him off with a small giggle. "Steve, I would love to meet her. I could really use all the help I could get."
───
Lucy was able to make it to the rest of her classes with Bucky's written instructions. After the last period had finally ended, the sound of the release bell was music to her ears. She had made it through her first day, which actually didn't turn out to be so bad as a result of bumping into a certain boy that morning.
She walked outside of the building and immediately spotted Bucky and Steve leaning against a pillar. "Hey, Lucy!" Bucky yelled out as he saw her, making his way over. "We wanted to say goodbye to you before you left."
Lucy scrunched her nose from the cold. "Thank you both for showing me around today. I'm pretty sure that I would still be lost if I hadn't run into you this morning." She directed the last part towards Bucky.
"Not a problem at all, Luce."
The little nickname made her smile.
The trio started walking home together, talking about their day until they reached the part of their route where they had to split up.
"You sure that you don't want me to walk you home?" Bucky was a classic gentleman, offering to bring her all the way home.
Lucy dismissed his offer. "No, thank you though." Her father would go ballistic if he saw her walking home with a boy.
"Okay," Bucky reluctantly agreed. "We'll see you tomorrow?"
"See you tomorrow," she confirmed. Lucy giggled as the boys ran off, shoving each other and stumbling all over the sidewalk. Bucky kept turning back, sending Lucy another smile before disappearing out of sight.
Maybe Brooklyn wouldn't be so bad after all.
AUTHOR'S NOTE!
aaand the trio had been formed!
also, i will protect skinny steve till the day i die.
i think writing this is another way of coping with steve's ending in endgame.
which, by the way, i pretend never happened.
anyways, i hope you're all doing well!
<3 mal