It wasn't that Steve wasn't listening to Bucky, because he was, but it certainly wasn't with the entirety of his attention. As soon as Bucky uttered the words two people in love, Steve's mind took off in a completely different direction. Two people in love. Bucky not coming right out and saying anything, but telling Steve it wouldn't be a lie, not for him.
Two people in love.
Steve stood abruptly, grabbing the coffee maker and beginning the process of cleaning it out to start a second pot - which they absolutely didn't need, considering the coffee in front of them hadn't even cooled yet to a comfortable drinking temperature. He was listening, he was definitely still listening, it was technically a true statement that Bucky's words were filtering through the sudden crash of thoughts inside his head.
"People in the Capitol don't like me," Steve said distantly, getting rid of the old grounds and placing a new filter into the reservoir, adding a generous scoop of new grounds. "Whatever you're thinking, it'd work better with someone like Natasha, someone they're attached to, or invested in." Because it wasn't that he couldn't see what Bucky and Peggy were getting at, maybe, but it didn't make any sense to have him at the center of it.
Two people in love.
It's not gonna be a lie for me.
It wasn't going to be a lie for Bucky. Which meant Bucky had - that the way he thought of Steve -
That had to mean he had feelings, feelings that extended beyond friendship. In a million years, that wasn't something that would have ever occurred to Steve. By the time they were teenagers, Bucky had been tall and handsome, and that meant he always had a girl hanging around. He hadn't been too serious about most of them, but they'd still been there, and it wasn't like he'd ever made a pass at Steve, or like Steve had ever caught him looking in his direction with doe eyes and a besotted expression. But then, that wasn't really Bucky's style; he was likelier to look at the girls he liked with eyes lit up, mouth curved in a happy smile, his expression radiating fondness, and those were things he'd always given to Steve in spades. So maybe Steve just hadn't been reading them right, way back then.
Steve poured the coffee that was still in the carafe out into the sink - a waste of perfectly good coffee, but he needed to do something with his hands, needed some way to keep them busy and occupied, so they didn't give him away by running incessantly through his hair, a sure sign he was worked up about something.
"Besides, everyone in the districts already hates the Games," Steve added. "That's never stopped Stane before. It's not like the Games are really about keeping the Capitol entertained. It's about keeping the districts down, keeping us all in line. He's not gonna cancel a Quell because a few people decide they don't like this year's theme."