The Stucky Library

Peggy Carter fires all her female staff after one comes onto her husband, Steve Rogers. She hires Bucky Barnes to be their new live-in houseboy to avoid any kind of infidelity taking place. However, that doesn't go as planned when Steve becomes increasingly interested in his new houseboy.

It starts on a warm autumn day in elementary school, with Bucky helping Steve up from a fight, gripping his hands with polished nails. It leads to a dinner with a break-up and a pocketed ring. It leads to a wedding, where one is the groom and the other is a guest. Follow them on their journey from friendship to lovers to something broken, and maybe something new.

Bucky's life is going fine. Really. He's got a new arm, he loves his job, and his friends are some of the best he's ever had. So he should have seen it coming when Steve Rogers barrels back into his life, a ring on his finger and asking Bucky to be there when he marries Peggy Carter.

Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes have been friends since before Steve can remember. They're inseparable; co-captains of the baseball team, lab partners, and, with the amount of time they spend in the other's houses, pretty much brothers. But, lately, Steve has been having a reoccurring dream of Bucky and him being decidedly more than friends. That can't happen. Steve has a girlfriend, and both him and Bucky are straight -- they're clearly just friends, no more, no less. But Steve can't shake the feeling that he'd love if they were more than that.

“Did you have anything else to bitch about, or…?” Steve prompts, grabbing another carrot from the bag.

Bucky jabs at the takeout menu. “I always have things to bitch about.”

“Involving me,” Steve specifies, “or Peggy.”

Bucky makes a gagging noise. “Both of you. Together. All the damn time. Being disgusting.”

“Well I’m sorry I want to spend time with my girlfriend,” Steve says, a teasing edge to his voice.

-

(or, the one where Bucky will never admit he has a crush on his neighbour, Steve, and would rather die than let Steve catch onto that.)

In 2015, Steve Rogers spends a year studying abroad in London, where he meets Peggy Carter. She's whip-smart, and can lay out a grown man with a single punch, and Steve can't believe a woman like that exists, much less that she'd be interested in him.

In 2016, Steve learns his best friend since childhood Bucky Barnes has been medically discharged after narrowly surviving an IED explosion somewhere near Raqqa.

In 2017, MI6 stations Peggy Carter in New York City on her where she meets Angie Martinelli, an aspiring actress who works at the 24/7 cafe down the block from her apartment.

A story of falling in love, falling out of love, and falling in love again.