Steve & Bucky & Natasha
There were times Bucky liked to keep some false illusion in mind that in another world, another time, he wasn't a violent man. But it was moments like these that proved it was a lie he told himself, and Tony was right to believe he was capable of terrible things, that Bucky himself was right when he wondered if it was something about himself he just didn't want to see. Because redhair sneered at Steve, taunted him, and Bucky just wanted to kill him. He wanted to be exactly what they thought he was, what they'd made him to be, and choke out his breath until he couldn't say things anymore. It didn't matter that Bucky didn't want to be the kind of person who could think that, that this was someone whose bed he'd been in, that it was stupid and he'd be defenseless against a metal hand and someone like Bucky. Bucky still wanted to do it.
If the guy was dead, he couldn't talk, or look at them like that anymore. He'd be dead, and he wouldn't be anyone if he was dead, and then he could stop making the rest of them feel like nothing.
He was staring and didn't know it, stillness less frozen and more coiled. But Natasha's weight against his chest, leaning in and making Bucky support her made Bucky shift his balance, break out of the swirl of thoughts he didn't want to have in the first fucking place.
His eyes still met redhair's (They'd said his name, but it kept sliding away, and Bucky couldn't hold it.) and whatever Tiberius saw there made the sneer he'd been directing at Steve falter just slightly, resentment all over his face but a hint of wariness with it.
Bucky breathed in. Out. It was too hard to do. Like trying to breathe through water. "Yeah. Let's go," he said. Because he registered leaving, and an out when he heard one. He didn't know how he sounded. From the few looks he caught, probably not great.
As soon as he left, he imagined the rumors would be about the three of them. Giggles about how Natasha would probably be getting knocked around for her games tonight. Or how Steve would be getting his own back. Maybe someone would really want pictures. Maybe they'd have to go out arminarminarm with fresh marks under Natasha's eye and new ones on Steve to go with it.
Bucky's head was spinning and it didn't make sense what it was spinning through, but it wasn't stopping, either. He pushed it off and went silent, letting Natasha keep his arm around her to guide her out while they called for a car, Steve on her other side, Bucky silent and too far in his own head, but managing to at least not break the show for now.