#nat comes running in to the kitchen 'oh i forgot to stir the soup' and

[fazcinatingblog]

Wait since when does James wear a glove

[evildeen]

little talks

My Beefy Bucky Birthday Exchange ( @beefybuckyswap) for @therothwoman! It’s a whole bunch of fluff with a pinch of angst (or maybe the other way around?). Hope you like it! c:

Brooklyn, NYC Steve’s apartment 5:51 AM

Who knew Captain America snored so badly?

Bucky left Steve to his horrendous snoring after being woken up by the hibernating bear not once, not twice, but four times throughout the course of the night. Sorry there’s only one bed, Steve said when they first started crashing here. I’ll take the couch.

Which was stupid. Steve barely fit on the couch. So Bucky took the couch, at first, then realized he was hardly sleeping anyway (being cryofrozen for six months in Wakanda seemed to be affecting his sleep, and he refused to acknowledge anything else as the culprit). For the past few nights they sat up in bed together talking until they both fell asleep. That was all fine and good until Steve got so deep asleep that he started sounding like a freight train.

Steve snored on and on, kind of sounding like he was drowning. Bucky decided in that moment, if he ever came across a time machine (which was entirely possible with The Way Things Were), he’d go back in time to the science team that made Captain America and make sure they added No Snoring, Ever to the super soldier serum.

They’d spent a week in this Brooklyn apartment. A little R&R, Steve called it. For six months, Bucky stayed in cryo before Steve and T’challa woke him up with news that they found the red Hydra book that contained all of the Winter Soldier’s secrets. They thought it might put Bucky at ease to destroy the Soldier’s trigger words and let Bucky decide to do with the rest. In some ways, it did, but with Hydra it was always something--which was why when Tony Stark offered an olive branch to get Steve leads on Hydra’s whereabouts, Bucky decided he was in for the fight, too.

Turning onto his side, Bucky propped up his head with his hand and watched Steve snore for a minute or two, somewhat relieved that his distressingly handsome friend could look so ugly while he slept. Last night, they sat up laughing and talking, and it had been ages--years, he feared--since Bucky allowed himself to laugh so freely. At first, the motions felt almost foreign to him, like riding a bike again for the first time since being a kid.  Turns out, he missed being able to smile like he used to--like he really meant it. And he did, now, here in Brooklyn with Steve.

Two years on the run, being alone, squatting in an abandoned apartment, dumpster diving, making barely enough money selling scrap metal and doing odd jobs to get by, took a different kind of toll on him. He wasn’t living--he was surviving. It wasn’t Hydra but it wasn’t good, either. Bucky dragged a hand over his face and ignored the tiny nagging thought that things weren’t “the way they were,” and that fighting Hydra meant a different kind of servitude. But Bucky had a lot to atone for.

Bucky’s eyes drifted from Steve to the faint outline of the shield stowed behind one of the curtains. Tony returned the shield, and Steve accepted it, but immediately tucked it out of sight. The mantle of Captain America left a bad taste in his mouth, but he wouldn’t admit it out loud. It showed in the way he looked at it warily, distrustfully--touched it like it would explode on him.

“Steve.”

Bucky pushed on Steve's shoulder. The man stirred, rolled onto his back, and continued breathing with his mouth open. A faint skein of drool scaled from the corner of his mouth to the pillow.

“Ah, geez. Come on, man.”

Bucky tap tap tap tapped Steve on the forehead with his metal finger. Steve reacted by scrunching up his face and muttering “butterfingers.” So Bucky escalated his attempts at waking him by flinging off the covers and placing his full metal hand on Steve's bare chest.

Steve’s eyes flung open and he shot up straight in bed. “Jesus, Bucky!”

“I was checking for signs of life.”

Steve pressed his palms into his eyes and rubbed. It wasn’t like him to sleep in late like this. Usually both of them were up and moving by five. “Sorry,” Steve mumbled.

“For what? You needed the sleep, man.”

“We gotta meet at seven for a mission brief at Avengers Tower.”

“Seven? Seven? In the morning?”

“Yeah.” Steve sat up and grabbed his pillow, tossed it at Bucky’s face. “We’re supposed to go on a recon mission, you know.”

“Ooooo,” Bucky said, the pillow sitting on his face and muffling him. “I thought recon missions would be beneath the great Captain America.”

“Buck,” Steve said. Bucky moved the pillow away and stared up at him with a smirk. “We talked about this. I’m not--”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re not Captain America anymore. Until you start acting like you’re retired, or you find a replacement--you’re not Captain America. I don’t make the rules.”

Steve folded his arms, inhaled as if to say something, before Bucky sat up and interrupted him. “If you’re so-called retired, then you’ll let me go to the meeting without you. How’s that?”

“But--”

“You can do some ‘retired’ ‘stuff,’” Bucky made air quotes with his fingers, “while I’m gone.”

---

“People hate pigeons, you know.”

Bucky smiled and turned his head to one side so Sam couldn’t see. Then he tossed another handful of breadcrumbs onto the sidewalk for the gaggle of pigeons that gathered to feast. “Yeah, I know.” A particularly fat pigeon body checked a smaller pigeon away from some crumbs and Bucky chuckled out loud. “You don’t, though.”

“Anyway,” Sam said, clearly ready to change the subject, “I didn’t call you to a secret meeting in Prospect Park for nothing.”

“I wouldn’t have shown up for nothing.”

Sam folded in his lips for a second as if physically holding in a snide remark. “It’s about Steve.”

“Of course it is.”

Sam sat back on the park bench and lifted his head to the sky, mere inches from wanting to hit Bucky in the face. “This is serious. He’s spent the whole week putting out fires when he said he was supposed to be spending time with,” and Sam made sure to roll his eyes so Bucky could see, “you.”

Scrunching up his face, Bucky folded his hands in his lap and nudged a pigeon away from pecking his shoe. “Oh.”

“He doesn’t know how to be anything but Captain America. What did he even do before the war?”

The question was probably rhetorical, but the answer still made sense. “Get into fights, mostly. Read a book. Fight the book.”

Sam laughed and it surprised him to laugh at that, so he covered his face with his hand and settled down enough to bring up his next point: “Steve thought finding you would let things fall into place.”

Bucky snorted. The irony wasn’t lost on either of them, as Bucky turned his head toward Sam, he saw a matching bitter smile on the other man’s face. “Well, that was a mistake,” Bucky said.

“You’re kind of a mess, yeah.”

Bucky shoved Sam, and Sam shoved him back. For a second they were just shoving each other on a park bench until Sam hissed fuck you and scared enough pigeons that they all took off at once in a mess of loose feathers and pigeon trills.

Both of them sighed in unison and hated themselves for it, then Sam folded his arms and nudged Bucky with an elbow. “I’ve tried--believe me--to get him to let me in, but Steve swears up and down nothing’s wrong.”

“He does that.”

“Can you try?”

“Sam… if he won’t talk to you…” Bucky shook his head. “I’ve been trying way longer to get Steve to open up.”

“That bad, huh?”

“He’s the worst.”

“Well… I’ll keep trying if you will.”

“Deal.”

---

Bucky could smell whatever Steve had done to the kitchen from halfway down the stairs.

“I bet you twenty bucks Steve had to use the fire extinguisher,” Bucky said to Sam.

“You’re on.”

Bucky opened the door and fully expected to get hit in the face with a wall of smoke, but the apartment was surprisingly devoid of any fires or smoke damage.

“I made lunch!” Steve announced. He had plates out on the breakfast bar for the three of them and he was wearing an apron that was suspiciously clean. “How was the meeting?”

Sam shrugged one shoulder, sat down at the counter and eyed the plate in front of him. “It went well. Nat is taking the lead and she told us to stay home.”

Taking the seat next to Sam, Bucky twisted on the swivel stool back and forth and kept watching Steve with a little too much interest.

“What?” Steve finally asked.

“Nothin. So what’s this?” Bucky motioned toward their plates.

“Grilled cheese sandwiches. And there was supposed to be tomato soup, but I accidentally cut open the can and--nevermind.”

“What happened to that one?” Sam pointed at the sandwich that looked like a piece of charcoal.

“That one’s mine. I--uh--forgot to turn it over.”

Bucky picked up his sandwich and took a bite. Toasted bread with half-melted cheese in the middle, but Bucky wasn’t picky. Sam ate his too and Steve added a lot of ketchup to dip his charred sandwich in.

“So Nat’s gonna do the recon solo,” Steve said between bites. “Tony texted me some updates earlier about the warehouse. Something about stolen vibranium and--”

“Steve,” Sam interrupted. “We got this.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head over it,” Bucky said.

As if on cue, Steve’s phone started ringing from the living room. Sam looked at Bucky, but Bucky was way ahead of him--he practically jumped out of his seat, shoved Steve out of the way, and dove over the back of the couch to grab the phone.

“Who’s calling?” Steve asked, still a little stunned and clueless as to why Bucky shoved him.

“Doesn’t matter! You’re on vacation!” Bucky held up the phone and tried to crush it with his hand. “What the--” The phone casing barely even bent against the pressure of his fingers. Bucky’s eyes went a little wide. What the hell kind of cell phone was this?

“Give it back!” Steve was on top of him leaned over the couch and grabbing for the phone before Bucky could slip away.

“Barnes! It’s a fuckin’ Nokia! Over here!”

Bucky  lobbed the phone over Steve and Sam caught it. He was in the kitchen and shoving the phone in the microwave before Steve could get to him. Sam hit the one minute button, and it was all over.

“You just--microwaved my phone--”

“Yeah, your super soldier phone.” Bucky looked down at his metal hand, unfamiliar with the idea that he couldn’t crush stuff with it. “I thought your phone was from the late 90s. Why’s it so strong?”

“Nokias, man,” is all Sam said, a little reverent, as Steve’s phone melted in the microwave. He hummed Amazing Grace as Bucky and Steve joined him to watch the phone melt. It caught fire, which prompted a frantic search for the fire extinguisher, and to this day Sam swears Bucky owes him twenty bucks because Steve didn’t use it while cooking lunch.

---

“Sam says we gotta watch at least two movies off the list while he’s gone,” Bucky instructed Steve as they settled down on the couch. Sam left after lunch to pick up his cousin from the airport, who was apparently visiting the city since Sam wasn’t working or on the other side of the world for the first time in a while.

“You pick,” said Steve. “I’ve already watched some.”

All they had was a piece of paper ripped out of a notebook with movie titles and release years, and only a few of them had notes from Sam. Independence Day had “THE BEST!!!” written next to it, which made it an obvious choice.

“Plus it takes place on your birthday,” Bucky added. It took approximately fifteen minutes for them to figure out how to turn on the surround sound system and queue up the movie.

“Wait,” Steve said after a while. “Isn’t your birthday coming up?”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. He had his legs curled up under him and he leaned against the back of the couch with his arm stretched out behind Steve. He hadn’t actually noticed he’d put his arm there until that very second. “Uh,” he said, “I think so, yeah.”

“The 10th! That’s in two days, Buck. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I dunno. I thought we’d be out on a recon mission so it didn’t seem important.”

“I’m gonna call Sam--” Steve paused and let out a sigh. “Can I borrow your phone? Mine was set on fire and melted.”

---

Steve wouldn’t tell Bucky what he talked to Sam about, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with his birthday and some sort of secret plans for going out on the town. Steve grinned at him as they got into the taxi to meet up with Sam and his cousin.

“Remember all those times you made me go out when I didn’t want to?” Steve asked.

“No, not at all. I knew you wanted to go out, you were just too chickenshit about it.”

Steve swatted at Bucky’s arm. “Consider this payback.”

They met up at a cocktail bar near Times Square. The place was dark inside and small, and it only took them a second to find Sam and his cousin sitting at a table by the front windows. Sam got up to greet them.

“Hey, man.” Sam hugged Steve and looked at Bucky. “Hey.”

“Hi,” said Bucky, peering over Sam’s shoulder at his cousin who was staring at them with wide eyes.

“This is my cousin Mel,” Sam introduced. “Mel, this is--”

“Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. Nice to meet you!”

Steve and Bucky shook hands with Mel and sat down across from her. Bucky felt a little silly--maybe because this was his first time meeting anybody outside of the immediate circle of the Avengers--and he was terrified he’d have nothing to talk about with Mel. She explained that she was studying computer science at MIT and had come into town on spring break. She seemed rather shy around Steve and Bucky, but Sam assured her over and over again that she needn’t trouble herself with acting a certain way around them.

Bucky could have ordered a cocktail, but everything sounded weird (gentian bitters? The fuck?) and why bother with anything fancy when he could just order whiskey?

And drink three of them?

“Oooo, Sammy, take us dancing,” Mel said when they left the cocktail bar. “I wanna dance!”

“I’m too old for that shit, Mel. And these two--”

“I’ll go dancing,” said Bucky. Steve’s head whipped around to glare at him. “It’s only been, what, sixty years?”

“You’re really milking this whole ‘it’s your birthday’ thing, aren’t you, Buck?” Steve grumbled. “All right. Let’s go dancing.”

---

The club Sam and Mel picked out was loud and dark and smelled like sweat and old cigarettes. It was so loud that Bucky could almost forgot about the smell. People didn’t dance like they used to, he knew, but this was something else entirely--bright lights and fake smoke, bodies colliding and moving, drinks spilling and shouting over the loud bass.

“I hope you’re happy,” Bucky said to Sam at the bar, which was only slightly less loud and aggravating as the dance floor. “I can’t dance to this music, and yet Steve’s out there dancing his ass off.”

“Happy birthday, Barnes,” Sam replied with a chuckle, and slid him a beer. “On me.”

“Thanks.” They pushed their way to the edge of the dance floor, and Bucky could see Steve and Mel dancing together in the crowd. While part of him resented how quickly Steve took to this “dancing,” Bucky was actually quite pleased that Steve finally enjoyed dancing. That is--until Mel started grinding on Steve.

“You’re not jealous, are you, Barnes?”

Bucky took a long drink from his beer and Sam was like a shark smelling blood.

“What’s with the long face, huh?”

“For your information, I’ve danced with Steve before, and it’s nothing to write home about.”

Sam almost doubled over laughing. “You what? You danced with Steve? Who lead?”

“I was teaching Steve how to lead, so I was the dame--y’know what, fuck you Sam.”

They both drank long swigs from their drinks.

Mel eventually dragged Steve over to them. They both looked sweaty and tired. “Sammy! I wanna go to the next club!”

“I think I’ve had enough dancing for one night,” Steve said, and even he was still catching his breath.

“Fine, fine. One more vodka Redbull for the road, then.”

“That’ll kill you, Sam,” Bucky warned him.

“Worse things have tried. Bye.” He hugged Steve. “Bye, Barnes.” He thought about hugging Bucky, but instead just awkwardly patted him on the shoulder.

“Nice meeting you,” Bucky said to Mel. Mel hugged him, then Steve.

“We gotta hang out again before I leave. Okay? Promise?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said with a small smile. “Promise. Maybe you can teach me how to dance.”

“Oooo.” Mel winked at him. “I’d love to.”

---

They hadn’t walked more than a block from the club when Steve reached out and grabbed Bucky by the hand. “Hey, I’m sorry if--”

“Sorry? Shut up. You were great back there. I’ve never seen you dance before.” Bucky ignored how hot his face felt with Steve holding his hand.

Steve stopped Bucky from walking and stepped in front of him, that earnest concerned crease in his brow that looked annoying and cute all at once. “You’re not mad?”

“Mad? Jesus, Rogers. Of course not. I had fun. Did you?”

“Yeah--I--Mel’s cute--uhm--”

It didn’t normally take a lot for Steve to get so flustered that he couldn’t form a sentence, but it did surprise Bucky when Steve bent down and kissed him on the mouth.

Bucky made a muffled sound of surprise against the kiss, his whole body stiffening up, and he put his hands on Steve’s chest and meant to push him back, but he didn’t.

“Sorry,” Steve murmured when he pulled back.

“Would you quit saying that?” Bucky could taste a hint of mint on his lips from the cocktail Steve had even though it was hours ago, or maybe he was just imagining it. “You’re--such an idiot, Steve. God.” Bucky grabbed a fistful of Steve’s shirt and pulled him in for another kiss, just to try it again, see if it felt like his feet had left the ground again.

Steve made a noise Bucky never heard him make before, something deep in his chest, then he yanked his lips away. “We, uh, should head back.”

“Oh. Okay.” Bucky said it almost like a question, an invitation.

“I mean, if you want. It’s your, uhm, birthday night--thing.”

Bucky flicked his tongue over his lips and knew for sure he tasted mint. He inhaled sharply and grinned at Steve. “Let’s not go back yet. You wanna get milkshakes first?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

---

“Sorry about before,” Steve watched as Bucky grabbed the cherry off the top of his vanilla shake. “I didn’t mean to--”

“I swear to God, if you apologize one more time, I’m gonna kick your ass.” Bucky’s face burned. He couldn’t say it out loud--that he liked the fact Steve kissed him--because nothing made any goddamn sense right now and he didn’t want to think too much about it.

“It’s just… I’ve had a little more time for thinking lately, and… When I was dancing I got this, I dunno, feeling?”

“Feelings? From Steve Rogers? No.” Bucky’s words oozed with sarcasm because it was so, so much easier to torment Steve than it was for him to let him continue.

“Yeah. You know what? Nevermind. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Cool. Okay. It’s all right. I mean, I--” Bucky shrugged, ate a couple of spoonfuls of his banana milkshake. His face might as well have caught fire at this point, and it would have been a welcome release from the feelings that wanted to explode out of his chest. He realized why it was so hard for him or Steve to talk about their feelings--they either allowed for mutual silent understanding or they called each other names until nobody wanted to open up. So Bucky tried being open. “It’s cool if you want to kiss, or whatever.” He failed.

Steve nodded at him, his eyes getting narrow. He opened his mouth as if to say something, talked himself out of it, and went back to drinking his shake.

“We just have some shit to figure out,” Bucky said after a minute of soul crushing silence. “You and your friends, the shield… me with the…” Bucky tapped the side of his head. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

Steve was still silent.

“Unless you think it is.”

“I dunno. I don’t have any good ideas.”

They both smiled bitter, self-deprecating smiles. They drank two milkshakes each and eventually waddled back to the apartment. Steve said he’d take the couch, but Bucky didn’t want to sleep alone that night, and neither did Steve. As Bucky settled in beside Steve, Steve took his metal hand in his and interlaced their fingers. They laid like that in silence for a few minutes, Bucky’s head buzzing with all kinds of thoughts like: was this really happening? Did he want this to happen? How long had Steve thought about doing that? Since Bucky got back? Before the war?

“Remember in Independence Day when the guy punches the alien in the face and says ‘welcome to earth’?” Steve asked completely out of the blue.

Bucky snickered. “Yeah.”

“That’s the kind of birthday I want.”

“Punching aliens in the face?”

“Yeah. I mean… I think I wanna keep doing what I was doing. Being Captain America.”

“Oh.” Well, shit. Bucky turned his head and looked at Steve, really looked at him, maybe figured deep down it was the only way Steve knew how to be. Maybe that was okay, maybe it wasn’t. “You’re too young to retire, anyway.”

“Shut up,” Steve chuckled.

“Make me.”

So Steve kissed him again, much bolder this time, and maybe things didn’t have to make perfect sense for them right now, but at least Bucky knew that he and Steve made sense. Kissing Steve sparked something in him he barely recognized, and he felt more alive than he had in a long time. Almost as carefree and weightless and happy as the time him and Steve went to a Yankees game together. They drank milkshakes that night, too. 

This was good, and Steve was good, and Bucky relished in the sensation of their lips touching and the way Steve kept holding his hand. For now, this was enough. Steve was enough. They’d sort the rest later.