"Nope, you guys can't play," Tony argued, pointing at you and Clint, "you never miss, so that just sucks all the fun out of it for the rest of us. Besides, this game of pool is for cash and posterity, and you're broke, so...point made."
Clint snorted in disgust and waved Tony off, shaking his head and pointing at you with the hand that held his half-empty beer bottle, "that's not fair. She misses all the time, no need to punish me for it."
"Hey, I do not!"
"Sis, come on, there's a reason that I made the team first."
"Yeah, to shut you up and to get you to quit whining so damn much. You annoyed them into submission."
Natasha laughed so readily that it caught her by surprise, sending her drink from her nose as she choked and struggled to breathe through the distress. "Oh my god..." she gasped, "it's so true..."
You hurried over to your friend's side and gave her a few firm slaps on her back, holding your empty hand out to accept the towel that Steve had hurried away to grab for her. "Calm down, Tash, it's not that funny. Here, wipe that off your face, you just spit up like a baby."
"What the hell, Nat, I thought you were my friend!"
"I am, Clint, but your sister's right, you can be a whiney little bitch."
Your snide smile at him was returned with a stuck out tongue and a raised middle finger, but you didn't take it to heart; it was how you communicated, and you knew that it would take so much more than that to offend either of you. Even with the years that separated you, Clint was your best friend in the world, and-
"Fine, make it a drinking game and she's sure to screw up," he broke into your thoughts, immediately making your love for him seem thinner and thinner at the insinuation. "She's a sloppy drunk."
"You're a bigger lightweight than I am!"
"Am not!"
"Oh, okay," you scoffed, releasing Natasha to stand up and face Clint with a determination in your eyes, "let me just remind you of the party after Sokovia. When Ultron was trashing the place, what were you doing? You were ducking under every table you could find."
"I was getting across the room to grab Cap's shield!"
"You were hiding."
"I threw it right to him!"
"He's a good catch."
Clint opened his mouth to retort, but stopped when a wide smile grew and his eyes sparkled with mischief at your words. He knew that you had been crushing on a certain super soldier lately, and even though it wasn't Steve who was your focus, he hoped that the discussion might get an accidental admission from you. "Oh he is, huh? Like what you see in our Captain, do you?"
"What? That's not...that's not what I meant..." you stammered, feeling the heat of embarrassment rising in your cheeks. It became worse when you could feel Steve's gaze shift and turn towards you. "You're such a bastard, Barton," you hissed at him under your breath, turning to face Steve. "That's not what I meant, Cap. He's being an idiot. Per usual."
"Who's being an idiot? Stevie?" Bucky interjected, entering the lounge with a freshly opened beer in hand, another for you in the other. "Why you actin' surprised at that? I've known that for almost a hundred years now." The wink he gave you when he held the dark bottle out for you to take almost sent you to the floor in a heap of nervous energy, and you only hoped that he didn't see the shaking in your hand when you took the drink from him.
"Thanks, Buck."
"Anytime, sweetheart. Now, what's this about a game of drunken pool? I could be into that."
Steve lifted his hands in exasperation and looked at Bucky expectantly, slapping his arm with a loud huff, "hey man, where's my beer?"
"You're a big boy. Get your own." He leaned closer to you with a soft grin, pushing next to you so much that you could feel the stubble of his cheek against yours as he whispered in a voice that sent goose bumps building all over your skin. "That was his own, but I want to see you play."
"W-why is that?" you struggled, finding yourself faltering.
"Because you're a sure thing."
You could feel Clint staring, and the air around you felt colder under his watch; now wasn't the time to be overprotective and ruin this for you, so you decided to do it for yourself, pushing a few steps away from Bucky to regain your senses. "Sure, I'll play if Tony decides that I can."
"Stark?"
"Whatever, I haven't been a part of this conversation since it started," Tony grumbled, "let her play."
~~~
A fast-paced hour into the game, the only teammates still playing were you, Bucky, Steve, and Clint, who had just drunkenly stumbled into the corner of the table with a loud yelp in pain, hitting himself in just the right spot to drop him to the ground in a heap of whimpering.
"Hey, bro, you out?" you asked sloppily, kneeling at his side. "You hit your jiblets?"
"Shut up, (Y/N). Not...funny..."
"I didn't say it was?" You pushed yourself back up, but your head spun with the shift in position, leaving you stumble just as Clint had seconds before, but you were able to catch yourself before tipping. "Someone needs to stop spinning the room around."
"Hey, doll, I think maybe you should bow out," Bucky urged. He came around the table and to your side, taking your arm in his hand to hold you steady. When you turned to see him, he was a bit of a blur, but still an adorable blur, and you thanked the haze of inebriation for numbing the nerves that would normally silence you in this close proximity to him.
"Pfft, boy, I got this. I still have your sweet ass to kick. Right after I take down Schmaptain Aschmerica over there." You leaned in close, much as he had done before, "also a sweet ass, mind you, but yours is better."
"Good to know," he laughed, grabbing your pool cue for you. "Alright then, take your shot. Just no more of this." Bucky grabbed your beer and tossed it into the nearby garbage, giving you a sharp point to make his decision very clear, "you're cut off."
"Chickenshit." You smiled at Steve and took your aim, not even looking at the ball when you drew back and shot, sinking it into the pocket with really no effort at all. The team around you was awake with cheers and whistles, while all Steve could do was extend his hand to you in his defeat.
"Wow, (Y/N)," he sighed, "I'm thoroughly impressed. I guess that I owe you an apology, too. We definitely should have taken you on the team first."
"Hey, I heard that," Clint whimpered, still curled up on the floor but now beginning to doze off to sleep his buzz away.
"Okay, sweetheart, one to go," Bucky smiled widely, grabbing his cue from the wall, "and I'm in this to win, so give me your best."
"Oh, I'm gonna give it to you, alright," you answered, leaning into the table to shoot, but when you glanced up at him as he stood at the far end of it from you, he looked different. His eyes were darker and he was watching you intently like you were the only one in the room. If you weren't warmed by liquor, you would have shied away by the attention. Instead, you looked at your shot and took it, again, sinking it without problem.
"Yeah, I think I'm in trouble," he mumbled, slowly walking around the table and searching for his best bet. "Excuse me, doll." He pushed up next to you and put his arm around your waist, lifting you with ease and moving you a few steps away so that he could line up his hit. After this same pattern continued over and over, it finally came down to the final ball, and you started to worry that you might actually lose for the first time.
"Now, don't get nervous, Buck. This is a really tough shot," you goaded, trying to rile him up, when in reality, you were the one feeling the pressure. You began to nibble on your thumbnail absentmindedly as you watched him study his line-up, following his motion as he moved side-to-side around the shot to get it just perfect. He glanced at you with a smirk, realizing that he was about to win, but when he saw the look of worry on your face, he stopped.
"You're right, (Y/N), this is a tough one. Hmm, maybe my angle is all off." Bucky took a few steps closer to you until he rested his arm against yours and leaned slowly into his shot. He knew full well that he had it, but he also knew that he hated to see you sad, and if that meant taking the loss to keep that from happening, then he would just have to survive the team's ridicule. "Aw, shit! I missed! How did I do that?"
"I don't know," you whispered in shock, finding yourself immediately sobered, "that shouldn't have happened. You don't miss..."
"First time for everything, I 'spose," he shrugged. "Well go on, honey, take your shot. If you make it, you win."
"R-right," you stumbled in surprise at him, leaning onto the edge of the table to find your angle, pulling your cue back. You were just about to snap it forward when you felt Bucky's hand slide over yours and his body press up against you to hold you in place. Concentrating on not only the game but now even the simple act of breathing became suddenly impossible.
"Wait, maybe more like...this..." he whispered softly, turning you a mere few inches to shift your line. "There, now I think you're a sure thing."
"Did...do you...want me to be?"
Bucky must have felt the shift in your meaning, realizing that you weren't really talking about the game anymore. He straightened his posture and released you, taking a step back with a quiet clearing of his throat as if he had been caught doing something that had left him suddenly embarrassed. "Take your shot," he uttered with a wavering voice.
Your eyes darted up towards Steve for just a split second, and even in that flash of a moment, you saw that your suspicions were correct; he was carrying second-hand embarrassment for his friend, his own face a little flushed and his gaze quickly dropping to the floor as you caught his. It took every ounce of focus that you could muster to stop the shaking in your hands now, and you cursed yourself in your lack of control. You had never missed a shot in anything; be it in work or play, and if you failed now, it would be the biggest mistake that you could make, as this could be the most important of them all. You returned your view to Steve, waiting as patiently as you could for him to look back; when he finally did, you wordlessly directed his eyes to where your shot lied and he took the hint. His finger barely moved, but he pointed just a little to the right, helping you to line it up perfectly.
"That's my girl!" Bucky yelled in pure excitement as the ball dropped out of sight and into the pocket, grabbing you and lifting you to him with a hug that spun you around so quickly that your head spun with it. "I knew you had it!"
"Hey genius," Tony broke in with a crooked and mischievous smirk, "you know that it means you lost to her, right?"
"Hell, I was lost for this one a long time ago!"
"Yeah, we know. It's about time she knew too, dontcha think?"
Tony's words left Bucky shocked into realization of what he had just said. His feet stopped and his hands released you, dropping you to stand in front of him with a bit of a jolt, but you instinctively reached out for his arms, holding yourself up against him and feeling the muscles tense under your grip. He looked down at you like he was a kid caught doing wrong, and when he tried to back away, you refused him and gripped even tighter.
"Is that true, Buck?" you asked quietly, trying to keep this between you despite the watching eyes in every direction. You glanced down at the floor and sighed in relief, never more thankful that your brother had fallen into a deep enough drunken sleep to be missing this.
"Um...well...yeah, it's true," he admitted coyly, bringing a hand up to his cheek nervously, "and I was gonna tell you eventually...when I worked up the nerve."
"Glad we could help," Tony leaned in, smiling proudly before turning back to the group. "Alright kids, let's leave these two lovebirds alone. Our work here is done." He knelt down on the floor next to Clint, waiting for Natasha to join him to take the archer's arms and help him from the floor, but he didn't budge. "Damn, Barton, weigh more," he grunted, finding that it wasn't moving his teammate at all. "Cap, you wanna take this one?"
"But...I was watching this..." Steve grumbled, his voice not unlike that of a petulant child, relenting and lifting Clint from the floor and into his arms. He stomped away behind the rest of the group, catching up to Tony with a forceful nudge of his elbow into the man's side, tipping him into the doorframe as he passed by. "I've been waiting to see this too, ya know. Maybe work out once in a while."