Chapter Text
Spring arrives late to Brooklyn, but they pass it in a flurry of hell. Bucky had no idea how much went into moving—when he’d started out in his current apartment he’d still been in the hospital and had his parents holding his hands the whole way. Well, to be frank, his parents really handled all of it.
Now, there’s insurance here and renters there, and realtor drama—who knew realtors had drama?—and two factor authentication. Bucky hates two factor authentication, and whoever decided to invent it deserves a special ring of hell. Where all he does for eternity is login on one device and turn to another. And again.
“You’re Jewish,” Steve says distractedly when Bucky says this out loud, looking from his phone to his computer and back. “You don’t even have a hell.”
“He’s going to your Catholic hell where he rots in guilt forever,” Bucky says delicately, and also, “Just because there’s no hell in Judaism doesn’t mean I can’t curse someone to the fiery brimstone.”
Luckily, newly well Jaime continues to be the best baby, although he’s taken to crying every night when Bucky tries to go across the hall, and half the time they get really inventive about distracting him and sneaking around, and the other half Bucky just climbs in next to him and conks out.
It’s not like the brownstones of Brooklyn are perfect, either. Bucky spends hours scrolling and setting up viewings, and sees more exposed plumbing and rusted drains and moldy walls than a man should ever see. “They’re old but you can fix them up!” realtors tell him cheerfully. Bucky wants to claw their faces off, but at least he’s not Steve.
Steve spends one day touring houses, and immediately gets into a fight. He comes back with blood dripping from his eyebrow and chin, and Bucky shoves him into a chair instantly.
“Who did this?” He barks, whipping out the first aid kit. “Tell me you didn’t exchange blows with the goddamn realtor?”
Steve glares from under the blood crusting in his eyebrows. “It had nothing to do with the realtor, may she rot in my Catholic hell.”
“Then who?” Bucky doesn’t say what the voice inside his head is screaming. Tell me. Tell me who dared lay a hand on you, so I can go kill him. This new awareness of his state, his being in love state is really terrible for the nerves.
“Guy in a coffeeshop harassing the barista. Don’t look at me like that, the poor kids were doin’ their best and they were out of vegan milk! So, say you’re disappointed and go get your stupid hemp shit elsewhere! Anyone who drinks milk made out of grass deserves what he gets anyway.” His shoulders sag after a moment. “Damn. I was gonna bring you coffee, but I threw it at hemp asshole. I hope I burned his eyebrows off.”
Bucky keeps the viewings to himself after that.
Once they’ve narrowed down the last contenders, it becomes a bit simpler. The place is nestled firmly in the middle of the block, the kind of street kids run up and down with their scooters. The subway is a ten minute walk away, there’s a bodega around the corner, and a serious grocery store not much further. The brownstone is bare inside, worn wooden floors gleaming with sunlight streaming in through big windows. The kitchen’s not too bad either.
There are three bedrooms and an office, and out back, a nice square of green. Bucky beelines for it immediately while Steve very calmly takes the keys and lease from the realtor. Kicking off his shoes, Bucky curls his toes in the dirt and plops Jaime down.
He’s met with a confused frown, and then Jaime promptly eats some grass.
“You idiot,” Bucky yelps. “That can’t taste good!”
Jaime smiles up at him, pieces of green in between his four teeth. Bucky can’t help but smile back, happiness bubbling out of him like too much champagne. This is their new home. This is the grass Jaime’s going to be eating for years now.
“Welcome home, sweetie,” he breathes.
Steve’s feet pad out on to the patio and across the lawn. “You offering to do the lawn mowing, Barnes?”
“Of my very own yard?” Bucky winks at him. “Sure thing, ace. Long as you handle cleaning the toilets.”
Steve wrinkles his nose. “Fine.” But even he can’t keep the happiness out—they own a house. A real one, with big sunny rooms and a washing machine and stuff. Bucky can’t really believe it.
He believes it two nights later when the washing machine breaks down.
Bucky spends hours researching brands and prices and wants to put his head in a washing machine before it’s all over. And of course Jaime spends the entire time smearing milk and grass and dirt over every piece of clothing he gets. And Steve isn’t much better, the amount of times he insists going to the gym.
It’s lucky for both of them that some of Steve’s friends come over the day the new washing machine arrives, or Bucky might’ve started digging two graves out back.
“This is a really nice place,” Natasha comments, curled up in a kitchen chair with one of Bucky’s fun mugs in her hand. The mug says Happy Challah Days. Bucky thinks it’s hilarious but Steve just stared at him flatly when he brought it out of the box.
“Yeah, the natural light is artistic,” Sam’s friend Riley says.
Sam cuffs him on the head lightly. “Don’t pretend you even understand those words in that order, you moron.”
Riley laughs and his body sways into place next to Sam’s. It’s nice. Bucky isn’t sure whether they’re dating or just good friends—either way it’s clear they’ve been pals for years, are more comfortable around each other than anything else in the world. Bucky won’t say he’s jealous, but it’s nice to watch them. Like warm tea filling up his chest.
“How’d you all meet Steve?” he asks, and from Steve’s groan, knows this is going to be good.
“So, it was when Steve here was real tiny and ill,” Sam starts in an over the top theatrical voice. “I know you wouldn’t believe it now—”
Bucky thinks of the inhalers by the front door and says nothing.
“And Riley and I decide to go out for some drinks together.” Sam grins wide, enjoying Steve’s writhing over from the counter. “And the minute we walk into this place, what do we see?”
“Lemme guess,” Bucky says wryly. “Steve Rogers up to his ears in trouble.”
Riley claps his hands together almost in a perfect rendition of Jaime’s happy dance. “Oh, it was good—he had three huge guys attacking him at once! And he just popped back up and shot insults at them!”
Steve shoots Bucky a sheepish glance. “I couldn’t do much physically,” he confesses. “So I just called them all kinds of names instead.”
“Ooh, Barnes gonna be mad,” Natasha teases lowly.
Bucky just frowns. “And none of you fixed the problem?” He’s met with confusion. “If I’d known you,” he says to Steve, “I would’ve taught you to throw a proper punch.”
“You don’t even know what those guys did,” Natasha points out.
Bucky shrugs. “I’m sure there was a good reason.”
Steve beams at him.
“Oh my god,” Riley says wonderingly. “Rogers actually found someone as dumb as he is.”
“They’re practically twins,” Natasha says, rolling her eyes sarcastically.
Sam just sighs. “Let’s all join hands and pray for the baby.”
Jaime, seated on the counter next to his dad, attempts to pull himself into a standing position and topples towards the edge, saved immediately by Steve’s arms. Bucky groans inwardly; right when everyone is looking, Jaime can’t put on a good show?
It’s when Bucky’s throwing out empty boxes that he notices. Steve’s unpacked the living room, partly because he can lift all the heavy furniture a tiny bit—alright, a lot—better than Bucky, and also because most of the books and pictures and toys are his. He’s vacuuming upstairs and Bucky’s taking out the recycling, and he walks past the mantlepiece and stops.
There’s Bucky’s two pictures, the ones that use to live on his desk but now live here—his entire family a year or two before his deployment, and one of the Howlies with Rachel and Abigail on their backs, all laughing. Then it’s Sarah Rogers, watching proudly. Next to them is Sam with his arm around smaller and skinnier Steve, and then one of Steve’s whole gang, Natasha giving Riley bunny ears. The last are two of Jaime.
Peggy’s missing.
Maybe, Bucky reasons, she got misplaced during the move, put into a different box, hasn’t been located yet. Maybe? It’s not like Steve to be so careless—Bucky knows if there was a picture missing, he’d tear apart the place to restore it to its friends.
Which means it’s intentional.
“Steve?” Bucky calls, still eyeing the mantle. “Where’s Peggy?”
The vacuum’s off, which means Steve can hear him.
“I might have lost her,” Bucky says, playing dirty, “Did you check the box I packed up from your kitchen?”
“Uh, I’ll look there,” Steve calls back, voice falsely pleasant.
Bucky sighs. “Steve,” he says to the empty living room.
“Thank you, Bucky, butt out, Bucky,” Steve says, and Bucky can tell he’s standing at the top of the stairs.
“Steve,” he says again. “I just want you—”
Steve slams his hand against the wall. Bucky doesn’t flinch, but rolls his eyes and mutters stubborn shvantz under his breath. Fine. Let the dumb nut handle it himself. Bucky doesn’t care. Whatever.
He throws out the recycling a little harder than necessary.
“Barnes,” Enrico says over the phone, one dreary morning in March, “Can you work all day today? I’ll give you the rest of the week off, but Freddy and I got a big job out in Jersey and need you to man the shop.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Bucky replies, and since it’s a Steve-works-from-home-day, he goes in baby-less. It’s a little weird, to be honest.
The place is pretty quiet, with Bucky the lone inhabitant, but he whistles to keep track of the time, and does a little more work on the old ford that Mr. Roberts had brought in a month back. He can’t believe he forgot how much he enjoys this kind of work. The feel of something real and palpable under his mismatched hands, something he can take apart and put back together and fix.
He’s gotta send Bruno some flowers. And an engagement ring, maybe. Or maybe not. Bucky ducks his head and grins, thinking about the way Steve looks outside in the sun with his arms spread to their full extent. The way Steve tilts his head sideways, when he’s thinking seriously. The way he bows his head and listens to Jaime’s gibberish so intentionally. The way his lips twist when he’s mad.
Oh, does Bucky have it bad.
Around 4pm, when Bucky’s getting antsy and wondering just how bad it would be if he closed early, a blond white guy in ratty jeans wanders in, pushing an older but no less interesting motorcycle. Bucky feels himself perk up, like a dog who’s found a new squirrel to think about.
“You the dude with the lube?” the guy calls, and then cracks up.
Bucky sighs and leans over the hood of Mr. Robert’s truck. “And you must be the clown I ordered from the circus. Right on time.”
The guy stops laughing. He widens his eyes and then cracks up again. Bucky watches bemusedly. The guy looks about Bucky’s age, maybe a little older, but that could be due to the scruffiness. The guy is definitely scruffy, looks like he hasn’t shaved in a few days, and got into a fight with a broom. The band aid across the bridge of his nose is purple, and it matches the hearing aids he’s also wearing.
“That’s good,” he says, wiping his eyes and winking. “Cause, I grew up in a circus, actually.”
“Really.” Bucky goes back to work but keeps an eye on the guy. “I see you still love entertaining.”
The guy grins wide and offers his hand, heedless of the black stains on Bucky’s right or the glove and metal of the left. “It’s the bike. She’s rusty or something, doesn’t have the speed in her turns anymore. You know anything about that?”
It’s six by the time Bucky finishes with the bike and starts locking up. He’s hungry and exhausted, and he wants to go home and curl up on the couch and die, maybe. Takeout night, definitely.
He makes it home in pretty good time, and he’s jumping up the four stairs and opening the door when he registers that there aren’t any lights on. Steve must have fallen asleep. Smiling, Bucky leaves his shoes by the door and tiptoes into the living room.
Steve is in the living room, but he’s not sleeping. He’s standing there, waiting, like he was waiting for Bucky the whole time. In the dark. “Hey,” he says, holding out his hand for Bucky. “I’ve got a surprise for you, but I didn’t want to startle you too bad.”
Bucky just looks at him.
“Surprise,” Steve says, and all the lights flood on, along with a huge crowd of people rushing into the room holding balloons.
Bucky claps a hand to his mouth and stares. His entire family’s there, along with Steve’s friends and also Enrico and Freddy, and Bruno and Kamala. They’re holding balloons and smiling for…Bucky.
“Happy birthday, you moron,” Abigail says, and then everyone’s laughing and moving into the kitchen, and someone pushes Jaime into Bucky’s arms and steers him into a chair at the table.
“What?” Bucky manages, and Steve comes over and crouches next to him.
“I thought it’d be nice to have the party a day early, so tomorrow could be whatever you wanted. With just a couple of people, quieter. But everyone wanted this so badly, wanted to shower you with cake and all. I hope you don’t mind?”
Bucky cuffs him on the head gently so he knows he doesn’t mind. “And Enrico made me work all day, huh.” He catches sight of the guy with Steve’s friend Natasha. “Motorcycle dude?”
Motorcycle dude looks stunned, still in the same ratty outfit from before. Guy probably rode his newly fixed bike over. “Whoa, you’re mechanic guy! And you’re also Bucky guy! This is weird.”
“Were you in on it too?”
The guy frowns. “No, I just needed my bike fixed.”
Natasha rolls her eyes at him, but her gaze softens in a rare show of affection. “Bucky, this is my boyfriend, Clint. I hope you don’t mind him crashing your little party.”
Bucky nods at her, grinning back when Clint widens his eyes excitedly and mouths boyfriend. His family zooms around the kitchen, pulling food from who knows where and calling out comments on every single appliance. Bruno and Enrico are talking on the couch, and Freddy’s listening to Kamala complain about her mom.
It’s pretty damn nice for Bucky’s almost birthday.
Bucky’s actual birthday begins at 2am when Jaime wakes up crying and he hears Steve move out into the living room with him. “Happy birthday,” Steve says glumly, patting Jaime on the back and pacing. “This is exactly the present I always planned on giving my best friend.”
The best that so casually slips from Steve’s lips more than makes up for it, and they spend the day quietly, with lots of good food and laughter. After dinner, holding Jaime on one leg and a bowl of popcorn on the other, the tv playing softly, Bucky finds himself singing to the baby, making exaggerated faces, not sure whether Steve or Jaime finds him more entertaining.
It’s after his really drawn out version of They Can’t Take That Away From Me, that it happens. Steve has his arm thrown over his face, collapsed on the couch and giggling, and Jaime has eyes wide and following every move Bucky makes, and Bucky’s wiggling his fingers, and Jaime starts babbling, just syllables stacked on one another, but in the same speech patterns Bucky had been using.
The baby pauses for emphasis and then continues, just total nonsense, but copying Bucky down to the tilt of his head and the questioning tone. Steve lifts his arm to look and loses it again.
“That’s so true,” Bucky says, trying to be serious to make Steve laugh some more. “God, I know. This keeps up and the markets will definitely take a plunge, and then where will old outdated jazz albums be?”
Steve cracks up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No,” Bucky agrees, “But your son sure does, listen to him go!”
Jaime grins wide and spreads his arms, thrilled to have the floor. He starts up again, finishing with a shake of the head and concerned frown.
“I love you,” Bucky says, smiling and nodding along.
Jaime reaches out and signs I love you. Bucky nearly falls off the couch.
He sees Steve’s mouth fall open out of the corner of his eye, and he can tell his mouth is much the same. But, in his indubitable baby logic, Jaime has moved on, clambering down from Bucky’s lap and crawling across the floor in search of one of his toys. Bucky turns his dumb gaze on Steve.
“Months,” Steve sputters, propping himself up on an elbow. “I spent months teaching him signs, asking him to use them, begging him to use them, and the first sign he’s retained any of that, he shows you. Typical ungrateful bastard.”
“He said—” Bucky points. “Did you see what he said—to me—”
Steve shakes his head dismissively. “Well, duh, that’s not the part I’m talking about. Months of my time down the drain for him, and not a thank you. Not a single fuckin’ thank you, just some casual sign language for Bucky. I see how it is.”
Bucky tries not to focus too hard on that duh, which isn’t difficult since Jaime Rogers just signed I love you to him on his birthday. He feels like screaming, maybe, if the scream would come out instead of getting stuck in his throat.
Jaime comes back with a book and hoists himself up on the couch, hands the book to Steve. “You shit,” Steve says. “Now you remember I exist, huh?”
Bucky watches them and imagines his heart cracking open with the weight of affection bursting from inside—all deep scarlet pomegranate seeds glistening in happiness.
“What’s Steve planning for Jaime’s birthday?” Winnifred asks on April 2nd. Bucky has no idea, and tells her so. “Maybe we should plan something for him?”
“Ma, that’s kinda overstepping,” Bucky points out. He’s stopped by on the way home from work and is trying to write at the beat up kitchen table. “We’re not real family or anything.”
His mother fixes him with a glare. Abigail, doing homework across from Bucky, giggles.
“Well, then is he doing something with his real family?”
Bucky sighs. “I don’t think there’s anyone else,” he admits.
“It’s his first birthday,” Winnifred says. “It’s got to be special, doesn’t it?”
“So he can look at pictures of it later when he’s forgotten the entire event?” Bucky asks wryly.
She plants her hands on her hips. “Jaime Barnes, just how are you speaking to the woman who birthed you?” There’s a low buzzing noise, and then, “Steve, what are you planning for Jaime’s birthday?”
“Um, Hi, Mrs—Winnifred. I wasn’t sure yet—his grandparents are probably going to try to visit.”
She shoots Bucky a look. He makes an eh face that hopefully conveys, no these are not Steve’s parents. “Did you invite them, honey?”
Steve sounds flustered; Bucky hopes his mom didn’t catch him in the middle of a drawing sprint. “Um, well, they didn’t come for Christmas this year, so…they’re trying to be a part of his life, and…”
“Hmm.” Winnifred sounds worried, and Bucky understands why. Yes, they are a family of meddlers, and no, Bucky didn’t inherit from his dad. “Well, if you’d like, you can have the party over here, and we can hide you in Bucky’s old room so you don’t have to talk.”
Steve barks out a laugh. “You’re pretty preceptive, M—Winnifred.”
“I raised four children,” she says, smiling down at her phone. “I recognize this other and strange species. It’s why we like you so much, I fear. We can’t have too many friends who like the spotlight as much as we do—nothing would get done.”
Bucky snorts loudly.
“Bucky?” Steve says, raising his voice slightly. “Are you bringing milk home?”
“Uh—what?” Bucky says, aware of Abigail and his mother eyeing him.
Steve sounds resigned. “You didn’t get my text, did you. Will you please bring some milk home?”
“Will you let us head off your in-laws?” Bucky counters.
“You can’t—you can’t bribe me with milk,” Steve sputters, and Bucky can’t see it, but he knows there’s pink spreading across the bridge of his nose. “I’m a grown adult, Bucky, and if my in-laws want to come over, I am perfectly capable of telling them no myself—”
“Have them over here,” Bucky insists. “If it’s going well, we’ll behave. And if not, you can hide in Abigail’s room or I can dump sour cream on them.”
Steve sighs, and Winnifred angles the phone so Bucky can finally see him—he’s definitely red but also smiling now. “I don’t know what I did to get you guys as my friends,” he says eventually. “Somethin’ good, I guess.”
After they’ve hung up, Bucky’s mother stares off into the distance, hands still on her hips, something sad in her expression. “You said there was no one else,” she says quietly, and Bucky nods. “No one else,” she repeats, and then marches into the kitchen.
Probably to get a head start on cooking; if she can’t be all of Steve’s missing family, she can at least feed the punk to death.
It rains on Jaime’s birthday, but Bucky and Steve bundle on to the subway anyways, both of them having taken the day off work. It’s my kid’s birthday, Steve explains quietly while jiggling said kid on his knee. Who cares, he’s a baby, but I’m usin’ the excuse while I can.
Jaime doesn’t know it’s any special day, and it’s sweet enough that Bucky doesn’t want to ruin it. That’s the precious thing about babies—to them each day is brand new and unblemished. To them, every day is special.
They run the block from the station to Bucky’s family’s house.
Inside, it smells like baking, and Jaime’s instantly whisked away by happy teenagers, and Becca isn’t there yet but she’s skipping out on a class to come by later. Steve spends the early afternoon laughing and smiling and drinking warm coffee. They stuff him with sandwiches and cookies, and Bucky imagines them all filling him up like padding, as though the food can protect him from any trouble to come.
Jaime’s grandparents show up around 4pm, and Bucky’s mother offers to get the door. Rachel vanishes from the table, Abigail takes Jaime into the living room to build a blanket fort, aka hide. Bucky stays at the table with Steve, both of them staring at Steve’s knuckles, white against his mug.
Steve looks up and offers him a wan smile. “It’s just a few hours.”
“It’s just a few hours,” Bucky repeats like a reassurance.
“And you guys are all here,” Steve continues.
“We sure are,” Bucky promises.
“And they love Jaime too and want what’s best for him.”
Bucky isn’t sure whether to answer that one. He can’t speak truths he isn’t sure of. He settles on, “Anyone who doesn’t needs their head examined. Or will, after I’m done with ‘em.”
Steve smiles again, and it’s a little realer this time, a little brighter. Bucky just leans on the table and gazes at him. He’s being stupid, he knows, being really obvious about it, and while Jaime’s grandparents can walk in at any moment. But this is when Steve needs it most, he figures, and Bucky is just gone on him; would stare at him in the middle of a warzone, if it was what Steve needed.
Winnifred leads them in a moment later. “Mr. and Mrs. Carter, this is my son Jaime—I mean, James.”
“Jaime?” Mrs. Carter is pretty, in a sharp way that Bucky’s ma will never achieve. She looks put together in a distinctly purposeful way. No aprons or baking smells, just the smell of…success and printers, or something. Bucky wants to kick himself as the thought passes—he’s got to give the woman a fair chance.
“Funny, huh?” Bucky says, offering his hand to shake. “I have a lot of nicknames though. He was bound to match one of ‘em.”
Mrs. Carter smiles delicately.
Her husband is darker and stockier, and Bucky sees the resemblance to the picture frame that Steve still hasn’t unpacked. That might be one of the reasons Steve had agreed to have them over to Bucky’s folks’ house so quickly, come to think of it. He holds out his hand for Bucky to shake.
“Ruth, Harold,” Steve says softly, and they nod back at him.
“It’s so kind of your…friends to have us all over,” Mrs. Carter says in her posh accent, shooting Mrs. Barnes a grateful smile. Bucky has never been so glad for his mother’s ability to charm everyone.
“It’s our pleasure,” she replies, offering them tea. “Your grandson is the sweetest baby around. We’re really just his fan club, just following him around whenever we can.”
Mrs. Carter accepts the mug offered in her direction. “Aren’t we all.”
“And what do you do?” Mr. Carter asks Bucky directly.
Bucky smiles big and answers, “Since I got back from overseas, I’ve been focusing on my writing and also working as a mechanic at a shop not too far away.”
Mr. Carter sizes him up. Bucky can see the moment his prosthetic catches the eye. “Thank you for your service,” Mr. Carter says gruffly, like he doesn’t want to be appreciative but he is. “You seem like a clever boy, supporting your artistic dreams with a good steady job.”
“Gotta pay the bills, right?” Bucky says. He’s not sure how much Steve told these people about who Bucky is, or whether they know Bucky currently lives with their grandchild. Veterans are all well and good until they’re a room over from a defenseless baby.
“And how about you, Steve?” Mrs. Carter asks.
Steve sticks his jaw out. “I’m working two jobs right now,” he says quickly. “Illustration.”
“How nice,” Mrs. Carter says, her voice distinctly also saying how very not nice. “You always were so involved with your art. And how’s the parenting treating you?”
“Fine.” Steve looks like he’s marching into battle, the poor guy. Bucky doesn’t understand the backgrounds here, where all this tension stems from, but it’s clear they don’t get along well. “Jaime’s really crawling now, and talking nonsense up a storm—I think he learned that from Bucky.”
Bucky laughs along with everyone else, but he’s a little surprised. He thought Steve would hold the facts under the table, let his in-laws think he was handling parenting just fine by himself, not randomly throwing his kid at strangers and then having them babysit and then moving in with them.
It’s nice, though. It’s nicer to be acknowledged, thanked.
“I suppose you’ll want to see the birthday boy,” Winnifred says, and as she ushers the Carters into the living room, Steve shoots her a grateful look before burying his face in his hands.
“You’re doing great,” Bucky says into the sudden quiet. Not reaching around the table to pat Steve, not yet. He isn’t sure whether the touch would do good or just set Steve bouncing off the walls. “That went pretty well for how it could’ve.”
Steve rubs his face and looks up. “Yeah, no shit. You haven’t really lived till you’ve seen little Ruth there screaming her head off.”
“Yikes.”
“I remember thinking if she did that after the baby was born, I was going to put my foot down and threaten her with a restraining order.” Steve sighs, long and low. “Thank God she’s been civil.”
Bucky does touch then, can’t help it any more. Steve’s shoulders are taut, but he exhales into the contact, and Bucky can feel the intensity seep away.
“The day’s nowhere near over,” Steve says, muffled into his arms. “And all I want is to go home and sit on the couch and listen to you talk at me.”
Bucky feels his mouth curve at the corners. “I can talk at you anywhere, Rogers. I’m a professional talker, remember?”
“Going for the Nationals, yeah, I remember.”
“No, that was for nosiness. I’m only a professional talker, I’m not winnin’ any trophies for that skill.”
“Well, it’s early,” Steve replies, doing some grinning of his own.
Abigail comes slouching into the kitchen. “Golly, you hear these people talk? Be careful, Steve, if Jaime starts talkin’ like that, he’s gonna get beat up at school.”
“Why the fuck would you say that to him?” Bucky demands. “Look at him, does he look like he wants to discuss Jaime’s future right now?”
“He looks great,” Abigail protests. “You look ravishing,” she advises Steve. “Your usual hunky and stunnin’ self. The tight t-shirt helps.”
Steve’s eyes crinkle.
Spurred on, Abigail keeps talking. Steve watches her and laughs in the right places and frowns in the others, and Bucky watches him watch, and falls in love just a little bit more. It’s really inevitable and warm, this sitting in his mother’s kitchen and thinking yeah, that’s the one. That one right there, please. There he is.
They make it through dinner, shockingly, which Steve insists on helping with—“Because you’re hosting my kid’s birthday party at your house!” he hisses to Bucky’s mother, who has no choice but to let him set the table and carry plates and wash dishes—and the conversation isn’t even at all awkward. Becca shows up and is a gem, and Bucky is possibly going to owe his mother four years of blind service after this, and his father too, who’d come home from work, realized who the guests were without even being briefed, and folded right into the proceedings.
Rachel and Abigail don’t fight over feeding Jaime, which is all Bucky can really ask of them. In all, the party goes well. The party goes fine, really.
It’s when his parents are helping the Carters gather their wraps by the door, and Winnifred sends Bucky back to the kitchen to grab the leftover cake for them, while also disappearing into the living room to get something else, and the cake is in a Ziploc bag on the counter—Bucky swipes it and starts back down the hallway, beating his mother back. It’s then that he hears it.
The Carters are murmuring to each other, the quiet discussion had with a family member in a foreign environment. “Charming family,” Mr. Carter says, and Bucky should backtrack, announce himself, do something, but he feels frozen in place, bag of chocolate cake in one hand, heart in his other.
“The son, James,” Mrs. Carter agrees. “Delightful. Good head on his shoulders. Makes you think, how a young man with a proper upbringing can turn out.”
Bucky can’t breathe.
“I wish Peggy had fallen in love with him,” Jaime’s grandmother goes on quietly. “Maybe she’d still be alive and Jaime would have a happy home to grow up into.”
Whatever response her husband might have is cut off by Bucky’s mother’s return. Bucky can’t get air down his throat, can’t face them with the cake, can never tell Steve. Steve, who’s brought himself to tears with his fears about not being enough, about not providing his kid with a perfect and whole family. Steve, who is nothing but perfect, nothing but good and real and trying as hard as he goddamn can.
His mother comes looking for him, sees his face, takes the cake and bids their guests goodbye. After she’s called farewells down the front steps and shut the door, she comes back and steers him halfway up the staircase.
In the living room, Steve tells a joke, relief evident in his voice, and Becca and Rachel laugh loudly. Underneath that, Bucky can hear his father talking lowly, Jaime jabbering in return. Abigail is singing as she wipes the table.
“What’s wrong, Jaime.”
Bucky looks at her, wide eyed. “Mrs. Carter. She said—she said—things about Steve—”
Winnifred’s eyes turn sad. “They have a difficult relationship, sweetie. There might not be any fixing it; all we can do is ease the waters as much as we can.”
Bucky wants to put his fist through the drywall. And after that, he wants to go track down the Carters and ask if they miss their precious daughter so much, maybe they’d like to join her. And after that he wants to gather Steve up in his mismatched arms and protect him from everything awful in the world.
“She thinks—she thinks somehow that it’s Steve’s fault. That Peggy is dead and they’re alone. As if Steve would ever—could ever—”
Surrounded by a picture frame path of his life, Steve’s loneliness hits Bucky even harder. Here, caged in the stairwell of his childhood home, he can track his first missing tooth to his high school graduation, to his discharge from the army. He can watch his sisters grow up, see the lines around his parents’ eyes grow deeper.
And, somehow, the universe decides Steve Rogers should face everything by himself? That’s so unfair Bucky wants to grab his old baseball bat and go to town on something, anything.
“He’s so much,” Bucky settles on, jaw tight and fists clenched. “He’s so much to everyone, and what does he get in return?”
His mother’s hand strokes up his back slow, slow, slow.
“All he ever does is fight for everyone,” Bucky continues, fire in his ribcage. “All he ever does is think of everyone else. It makes me so angry, Ma, it makes me want to scream—why does Steve have to carry every goddamn thing himself?”
“He’s not carrying everything himself,” Winnifred says softly. “He has you.”
Bucky feels his face crumple, and he desperately doesn’t want to start crying, not when the tricky day is over, but it’s safe and quiet here and his mother is hugging him and whispering in his ear that everything is going to be okay, and maybe Bucky wants to believe her.
Maybe Bucky wants all the comfort he can get right now.
“Will you promise me something?” Winnifred asks, arms tight around him. Bucky nods, smearing his tears into her shoulder. “Will you tell him how you feel soon?”
Bucky sniffs pitifully and pulls back enough to look at her.
“Don’t look so affronted,” she says with a laugh, reaching out to brush his bangs aside. “Steve is very bright, but not where it comes to this. He doesn’t know, I promise.”
Bucky glares.
“I’m your mother,” Winnifred says plainly. “I’ve seen every new emotion and expression cross your beautiful little face, and this is no different. I’ve seen the way they make you happy, both Steve and Jaime, and I want nothing more for you. You’ve come so far, sweetie, and I want you to have every good thing in the world.”
“You know it’s really hard to hate you when you say such nice things.”
She smiles again and stands. “The nice things are true, James. Both of you just need to believe in them.”
Jaime starts standing up and wavering on every single piece of furniture they own around fifteen months. Steve’s new bed is up against the wall, to keep him in at night, but once morning hits, he’s taken to sliding out and crawling up the five stairs, standing up and yanking on the door handle, and crawling across the room to climb up on Bucky’s bed.
It’s something, alright, to be woken up by small grunting noises and little hands plopping up and down the blankets. Sometimes it’s a squeaky singing voice, nonsense lyrics. Sometimes it’s a wet and slobbery kiss. And Bucky lies in bed all squinty eyed and kisses Jaime silly, and eventually, without fail, will come Steve’s curse and yell, “Jaime you fuckin’ nut!”
Once, Steve had appeared at the door, surveyed the scene in front of him, and flopped down on the bed beside Bucky, glasses hanging off the tip of his nose. Bucky’s heart still picks up when he thinks about it; the way Steve in his flannel pajama pants had fit so well into the plain brightness of Bucky’s room.
The new house is full of happy things. Bucky’s sisters show up without warning to sit in the little backyard after school, Jaime makes friends with all the dogs on the block, Bucky fixes Mr. Robert’s truck and gets a wallop of a tip, Steve gets recognized for his work and a visit from a small gallery in Midtown.
One morning, Sam, Natasha, and Riley show up, right as Steve’s headed out the door. “Sorry, got a meeting I’m late for, but make yourselves at home,” he says distractedly, patting the top of his head like he forgot he already put his contacts in that morning, and then his back pockets like he can’t remember if he grabbed his keys. “Buck, where’s my—”
“In the drawer to your left,” Bucky calls without looking, offering Jaime cheerios one at a time so he can’t throw them everywhere.
Steve grabs the inhaler. “Who put it away? Yeesh. Okay, see you later, have a good day, thank you, bye!”
Jaime grabs a cheerio from Bucky’s hand and waves over his shoulder. Steve’s friends file into the kitchen, Riley leaping up on to the counter and Natasha placing her hands on her hips.
“What?” Bucky says absently setting aside the cheerios to check on his coffee. “Anyone want coffee?”
“Ooh yes,” Clint says, distracted, and Sam thumps him.
Bucky hands him a cup. “What’s got your knickers in a twist, Nat? Spit it out, we don’t have all day.”
She sticks one hip out and tilts her head, evaluating. It’s a little like being stared down by a disapproving mountain lion, in that it’s terrifying. “It’s just,” she says finally, thoughtfully.
“You and Steve got a good thing goin’, huh,” Sam fills in. “You guys seem to be really happy together.”
“We’re not married or anything, cool your jets,” Bucky jokes. Nobody laughs; oof. “Um—”
Natasha lifts one shoulder. “It makes me think, about how I don’t actually know Steve that well. That maybe I haven’t been the best friend.”
Bucky doesn’t know her all that well, but from the bitter grimace to her lips he can guess that admission cost her dearly. “If this is about the babysitting,” he says, “Then it’s totally fine. You’re all busy people with lives of your own—”
“This is about Steve,” she interrupts. “This is about Steve going on in a dull haze and none of us noticing how unhappy he was until he came back to life again. All of us knowing him longer than you and you come in and instantly change things for the better.”
Oh. Well then. Bucky sits down. Jaime tries to feed him a soggy cheerio.
“I don’t think you realize just how much you’re doing for him,” Natasha says starkly. She’s still pinning him with that gaze. Bucky feels stripped to the bone for no reason, caught out with his hand in the cookie jar. Except he hasn’t been sneaking cookies. Natasha can just do that to you.
“I don’t think he realizes what he’s doing for me,” Bucky says truthfully.
Sam sighs and leans against the counter. “Speaking of that, are you sure you two aren’t married?”
Riley holds up a finger, eyes as wide as dinner plates. “That would make a lot of sense, actually!”
“You two are practically living in each other’s pockets,” Sam points out before Bucky can open his mouth. “Do you think any of us know the precise location of Steve’s inhaler? No. I don’t think anyone in the world is keeping track of that damn inhaler other than you.”
“I keep a backup one in the closet,” Bucky says weakly. “There. Now you know.”
“Backup inhaler is kind of suspicious,” Clint says. “I think you guys might as well get married. You’ll get tax benefits.”
Bucky groans and puts his face in his hands. Natasha’s gaze drills into his back. Jaime reaches out and says, “Buubbbbububbubaaaaa.”
“You’re good for him,” Natasha says. Voice soft and quiet. Bucky waits, but she doesn’t elaborate.
He turns to look at her. She shrugs and lets one corner of her mouth lift. Bucky picks up Jaime and marches away to change his diaper, because even that sounds better than any more of this conversation.
Over the next few weeks, Bucky starts talking to Jaime seriously, which is a problem, because Jaime’s already mimicking speech patterns, what’s going to happen when his first words are kid, I’m kinda in love with your dad? But, that’s a day far in the future, since Jaime’s determined to walk whether it kills him or not, and has focused all his energy into the task.
“It’s just, everything’s fine, maybe I need to get out and date someone.” Bucky flips a wrench and dives back under the car he’s working on. “God, listen to me. A few months ago, I was having nightmares every other day. And now I’m talking about my dating life. Huh.”
He’s come a long way, and without barely noticing. He can’t help but grin up at the undercarriage; if Bucky of a year ago could see him now.
Jaime crawls over and pokes his head under the car; another checkmark in the column of Bucky’s bad parenting skills. “Pupupuu?” he asks. Then, “Fwwibib, Bubububb.”
“Alright, fine,” Bucky says, tossing his head irritably and going back in with the wrench. “I’m in denial and me sleeping around isn’t going to make this—whatever this is—go away.”
“Dadadadadadada,” Jaime says, bouncing on his little rear end.
Bucky sighs. “Yes, him. I think he’s it for me, and then I think how is that possible, is that even a thing? Is there only one person for you, or is that just melodramatic? Divorced people find love again all the time. So, can’t I just pretend I’m already divorced and move on?”
Jaime chatters some more, essentially asking why Bucky needs to move on.
“Because.” Bucky says because because there is no because. He has no real reason, other than he’s scared. “Should I be telling someone I’m in love with him if I’m scared to do that? Shouldn’t I feel completely invested?”
“No,” Jaime says, and Bucky almost hits his head on the car before he wriggles out and sees it’s not Jaime at all, but an exasperated Enrico. “Being scared is normal, and means you care. You still gotta tell them.”
Bucky frowns up from his back, and Jaime abandons Enrico’s shoelaces to crawl across Bucky’s chest and giggle at him.
“Do you think your grandma would’ve liked me?” Bucky whispers under the covers two nights later. Jaime just looks at him sleepily. Steve is singing in the shower, and Bucky adores the off pitch yodeling. “Do you think she’d have looked at me and liked what she’d seen?”
Jaime grabs Bucky’s finger tight in his fist.
“Or if she’d been here, maybe she would’ve taken care of you and I never would have met you at all.”
The thought is an awful one, and Bucky scooches closer to wrap Jaime up in his arms. He can picture Sarah’s picture, her soft and fond gaze resting on the mantle next to where Peggy should be. Would she lose that warm easiness if she knew Bucky, would she still seem so calm?
“I hope she likes me,” he confesses, and then goes silent as Steve kicks open the door and goes rooting around in the dresser. If Bucky pokes his head out, he’ll probably see flushed skin, a low riding towel, Steve all warm and steamy—he stops that thought sternly. Maybe Jaime can hear him thinking, for pete’s sake.
A week later, Bucky all but throws his laptop across the room. He’s written a measly hundred words, and nothing else is coming. “I’m a fool,” he says to Jaime.
Jaime signs more, and Bucky hands him more cheerios. Too bad Jaime doesn’t know the sign language for get therapy, Bucky. Or get laid.
Oh God, he’s a mess he’s a mess and he sure as fuck shouldn’t be raising a baby. “Come on,” he says, scooping up Jaime and striding towards the door. “Let’s go meet your dad and get dinner out. I can’t hear myself think.”
He texts Steve to let him know they’re coming, and to meet them at a Thai place near where Steve works. When he gets there, Sam’s with Steve, blood dripping dark from his nose and on to his hands. Steve’s lip is bleeding and there’s an awful bruise on his forehead that’s split open. Bucky tries to remember how to breathe.
“Who did this?” he demands, hands clenching and unclenching, Jaime silent on his back.
“We did,” Sam groans. “We were in bad moods, and we heard someone having an even worse day than we were, so we went looking for trouble, and we found it.”
“That is not what happened at all,” Steve hisses, coughing loudly. Bucky brushes a finger over the bruise and he swats him away. “These guys were hecklin’ someone, callin’ him all kinds of names and what were we supposed to do, just stand there?”
He gets so upset that his breath starts whistling, and he pauses to root around in his pockets for his inhaler. His movements turn more frantic and his breaths come faster, and Bucky rips open his bag for the backup he stores in there since all those days ago.
“Here,” he says, a little harshly, cause he’s mad, thrusting the damn thing into Steve’s hands. Steve takes it, and Sam’s looking at Bucky a little funny again.
“I’m not gonna apologize,” he says when Bucky returns that look. “It’s not my job to keep him out of trouble, and it’s not his job to stop me from doing something stupid either.”
“Well, I hope you enjoyed your bonding experience at least?” Bucky says reproachfully, hands on hips.
Sam opens his mouth and then looks at Steve. Steve pauses breathing in his little chemicals to grin back, the cut on his lip gaping horribly with him.
“Yeah,” they say together, and Bucky bites back his anger and goes in to get a table.
“Jaime,” he whispers into the kid’s ear while the waitress gets out menus, “I wanna kiss that bloody lip of his real bad. I think I’m losing my mind.”
Jaime doesn’t say anything, which is just as well.
Bucky tries talking to Becca, because unlike Jaime, she can give advice in English. “Becca, if I’m thinking about something and it’s driving me up the wall, what should I do?”
“Is this a writing thing or something else?”
“Why?”
“Because.” She sounds long suffering. “If it’s a writing thing you can ask me about it and I promise to listen, but if it’s something else, that’s for your therapist, you dweeb.”
Bucky blinks. He hasn’t told the therapist he sees monthly about any of this. No, she knows about Steve and Jaime, about Bucky tethering himself to this time, this now with people he didn’t know back then, with a real and vibrant baby. But she doesn’t know about this, about the butterflies that strangle Bucky from the inside out, the fears that threaten to asphyxiate him.
“It’s a writing thing,” Bucky lies, because that’s easier. “If there’s a character in love with another character, should he confess even if there’s a chance it’ll ruin everything?”
“People eat that sort of shit up,” Becca says, not really listening.
Bucky rubs his hands over his face. “And if it ruins everything?”
She doesn’t just tell him to rewrite it, and he appreciates that. Becca’s been privy to Bucky’s complaints about runaway characters before, knows it doesn’t always work out like that. “I guess,” she starts, her voice changing. Giving him her whole attention now. “It’ll be worth it, won’t it? All the good versus all the bad. Sure, the bad will be bad, but you have to fight, have to try. It’s all about the trying.”
“Hmm,” Bucky says, trying to sound casual and not invested like they’re talking about him. “Even if the outcome is terrible.”
“Even if,” she agrees. “Isn’t the not knowing worse?”
And isn’t that just the kicker?
Steve comes home with a broken nose on Saturday.
Jaime’s running around the backyard, his version of running, which focuses less on the running and more on the forward falling. He also insists on making these gasping noises while he runs, something Bucky is sure he picked up from his dumb inhaler-forgetting father, and yeah, it bothers Bucky a little bit, but it’s also funny as hell.
He’s camped out on the lawn, a little landing pad for Jaime to launch off of, and the neighbor’s fruit tree makes patterns against the sky.
He hears Steve come back from the gym and thump through the house. It sounds like he’s stomping into the kitchen, pulling things out of drawers. Bucky cranes his head, but without moving, he can’t see past the glare on the back doors.
“How was the gym?” Bucky says, instead of saying welcome home, darling, like he’s in Mary Poppins or something.
Steve doesn’t answer. Jaime finishes his little gasp run of the moment and plops down to investigate whether this new patch of grass is as tasty as the last.
Bucky stands and leaves him there in the sunshine. “Steve?”
The dimness of the house takes a moment to settle around him, and then he spots Steve, leaning against the counter in a relaxed nonchalant pose that is far too nonchalant to be good, and then paper towel he’s holding up to his face.
“You come here often?” Bucky teases, glad it’s just that and nothing serious. God, what has his life become?
Steve salutes sloppily. “Don’t be mad,” he manages through his clogged nose and the paper towel. His left eye is blooming a beautiful purple.
“Me?” Bucky washes his hands and goes hunting for the first aid kit. “Mad? About you bashing your face into something again? Surely not.”
Steve mutters something inaudible, something terribly refined, no doubt. A curse picked up in the dusty halls of the laboring artists.
“Sit.” Bucky points to the kitchen table besides him and starts unpacking the alcohol wipes. Steve abandons his post and morosely hops up, his head now the perfect height for Bucky’s inspection.
His hair hangs in his face and the hand that’s holding the paper towel has gravel imbedded in it, if Bucky’s not mistaken. His huge shoulders slump, and the sleeves of his workout shirt scream around his biceps. Bucky rips open a wipe sternly, feeling sorry for those sleeves. Me too, sister.
Steve sighs loudly.
“God, you’re really somethin’, you know that?” Bucky says. He takes the paper towel away and gently turns Steve’s head one way then the other, inspecting the damage. There’s bruising around his nose that suggests a break, if the crooked nature of it didn’t scream it loud and clear. Across the bridge, the skin is split open.
Steve spits out blood and glares at him from under the black eye.
“And what does Jaime think about all this, hmm?” Bucky hands back the paper towel for the bloody lip.
“Jaime,” Steve says thickly, “Is a year old, and notices nothing.”
Bucky steps closer into the gap between Steve’s knees to reach the alcohol wipes. “If Jaime notices nothing, it’s because he’s so used to seeing you come home looking like an extra for the next world war 2 film.”
Said Jaime toddles in the back door and climbs on to the couch, still talking to himself. Bucky spares him a glance before focusing on Steve’s hand and the bits of dirt and gravel there to be brushed away.
Steve grinds his teeth together. “I don’t need a lecture.”
“Well, you’re getting one anyway.” Bucky uses the wipe to smooth away most of the grit on his face, saving his nose for last, aware it’s going to sting like a bitch. “This is plain irresponsible behavior, and at your age. You’ve got to be thinkin’ about Jaime, about setting the right example for him, not impulsively kicking everything that moves.”
“What would I do without you, Bucky?” Steve asks sarcastically.
“Die, probably,” Bucky answers, taking special care with the wipe.
Steve huffs and Bucky uses the distraction of his ire to snap his nose back into place. Steve swears loudly, and Jaime pokes his head over the couch to see what’s going on. Steve’s nose looks…well it’s oozing new blood and looking pitiful, but at least it’s straight. Mostly.
“I’m fine, I’m sorry,” Steve says to Jaime, and Jaime’s head disappears again. He’s gotten really into looking through picture books, which Bucky thanks his lucky stars for, since it buys them a few precious minutes of quiet. He goes back in with a wipe, murmuring apologies when Steve hisses in pain and jerks backward.
“Fifth time smashing up this honker,” Bucky points out. “I hope you’d be used to it by now.”
“Didn’t know you remembered.”
Bucky doesn’t say I remember everything about you, he says, “You dumb fuck, if I turned my back more, you’d have broken it another dozen times by now. I’m gonna have to put one of those stupid backpack leashes on you soon, just to keep you outta trouble.”
He wipes the last bit of blood off Steve’s mouth tenderly.
“God, you’re such a busybody,” Steve mutters.
Bucky bites his lip and tears off some tape. When he looks up, Steve’s eyes are on his lips. Well, Bucky reasons, they’d kind of have to be—they’re so close together there isn’t much else to look at. Leaning in closer, somehow, Bucky gently presses the first piece of tape across the bridge of Steve’s nose.
Steve watches him with that look again, the large eyed one that he passed on in a carbon copy to his son; carefully breathing in every single of Bucky’s moves, trusting, trusting, trusting. Ready to take flight should the slightest sign of worry or discomfort cross Bucky’s face. Serious and solemn.
Bucky presses the second piece across to form the butterfly.
Then he leans forward and his lips are on Steve’s. He doesn’t mean to, doesn’t think it through, just is. Steve makes a surprised noise and pulls away, leaning back on his hands. Bucky searches his face and sees only confusion and pain. Oh. Not wanted then. Bucky steps back, respectful of Steve’s space, pretending his heart isn’t cracking down the middle. If he pretends, maybe it’ll be true.
“Not you too, Bucky,” Steve says woundedly.
Bucky stares back at him. “I’m sorry,” he says, and it sounds like he’s begging, God, he’s begging. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ruin everything, I—” please, he’s saying. Please don’t make me go.
“You don’t understand,” Steve says, still leaning away. “I can’t—I can’t lose you too. I’m no good at family, remember? I’m no good at keeping people around—”
His voice gets cut off as Bucky grabs him and pulls him tightly in. His knees knock into Bucky’s sides, and he gasps thickly against Bucky’s neck, hands coming up to Bucky’s arms. His hands are shaking.
“You moron,” Bucky says. “Steve Rogers, you idiot, you beautiful fuck.”
Steve shakes to pieces, there in Bucky’s arms, and Bucky holds all the pieces tightly until they’re ready to slowly knit back together. Relief fills Bucky up like helium, the fact that Steve isn’t kicking him out, Steve’s worried he’ll leave. And Bucky won’t. As long as Steve wants him around, Bucky will barnacle his way into his life, will hang around like a bad penny. As long as Steve wants.
On the couch, Jaime starts humming quietly.
“You asked me why I didn’t put Peggy back up,” Steve says, voice mostly vibrations pressed into Bucky’s shirt. “It’s not because I was ashamed of you or something, you know that, right?”
Bucky listens, running a hand up and down the perfect slope of Steve’s spine.
“I wasn’t trying to hide you, or her,” Steve gets out, lips still hiding in the cotton. “It’s me, that’s hiding. I have to—I have to figure myself out, Buck, before I can face her again. Before I can face either of you.”
“It’s too soon,” Bucky says, understanding and okay with it. “I’m sorry, of course, you need time. I’ll be here.”
Steve shakes his head. “It’s not that. You don’t understand.”
Bucky thinks of the little bandages trying their best while Steve grinds his already mangled nose against Bucky’s shoulder like he’s trying to drill for oil. “Then tell me.”
“I told you Peggy and I had issues and I was realizing things about myself that whole time and it was just—it was bad all the way through.”
“But you still loved her.”
Steve shakes his head again. “I don’t know. I—yes? Yes, I love her, but…” he doesn’t seem to be able to articulate it; Bucky doesn’t understand that, but he understands it must be hard, and he tugs Steve a little closer.
Behind them, Jaime turns the page of his board book with a quiet clack.
“I realized I was gay right before she told me she was pregnant,” Steve says very loudly and very fast.
Oh Steve. Bucky pulls back and cups Steve’s face between his hands. Metal and skin, skin and metal. “That was very brave of you to tell her.”
Steve’s face crumples. “No it wasn’t, it was terrible of me. Imagine you find out you’re going to have a baby, and the father tells you he’s actually found out he likes men because of how little he likes you.”
It is terrible, and Bucky can think of a million things to say, each stupider than the last. He wants to pull the covers over both of them and blot out everything that isn’t good. He wants to curl around Steve like those covers, and keep him warm and happy.
He says, “Well, maybe the timing was a little fakakta, but nothing else was your fault. If Peggy really cared for you too, then she understood.”
Steve swipes at his eyes. “We never sorted it, Buck. We had a fight and then we pushed it aside to deal with everything, and then a year later she was dead. It was a car accident, there was nothing I could do. But I never told her—I never made sure she knew I still loved her the way I always had, and it was a good love, even if it wasn’t what it should’ve been.”
Bucky pulls him back in.
“And I’m still angry,” Steve sobs. “I’m always angry and for no reason. Her parents—they knew, and they hate me for it. My ma…she died and my dad died and next it’s going to be you and Jaime I mess up, and I don’t know what I’ll do if I’m alone again—”
Bucky’s heart cracks all over again for different reasons. “Steve,” he says, intent on being heard. “Steve, are you listening?”
He waits for Steve’s breathing to slow down, ready to run should an inhaler become necessary.
“Steve,” he says. “If Jaime and I dropped dead right here and now, you wouldn’t be alone. My entire family loves you to death, and they’d basically invite you to move in with them. Abigail would go back to sleeping with Rachel to make sure you had enough room.” He knows the words are true when he says them, the same way he knows dropping dead is the only way he’d ever leave Steve again.
Steve just clutches at him.
“And Kamala brought you curry just because she knew you were sick. You tellin’ me she wouldn’t stick around and help you? And your other friends, the ones you don’t see nearly enough, Sam and Riley, Natasha and Clint…they’d all be backing you whenever you needed. Hell, Steve, everyone around you sees you for who you are, and would drop everything to help. You’re so cherished, Steve.”
Steve lifts his head and gazes wonderingly at Bucky. “You’re so good at it,” he whispers.
“What?” Bucky whispers back, transfixed a little by that gaze, no less stunning with the black eye.
“Loving,” Steve says, and then he’s kissing Bucky back, the kiss a question; sweet and easy, tentative. He pulls back and breathes, “Teach me?”
Bucky lets him come closer, lets him brush his hands up and over Bucky’s shoulders, lets him oh so carefully press kisses wherever he likes. Only once he’s sure, once he’s really sure, once he’s had time to move away, does Bucky grab him, yank him in, return his affections with a fervor that shocks both of them.
“You don’t need any teaching,” Bucky says. “Look at you, sweetheart.”
Steve bites his lip and pushes away, crosses his arms.
“Really?” Bucky says. Laughs then, runs a hand through his hair. “You moron. You shvantz. Do you know when I knew? When I knew I wanted to kiss you silly?” He doesn’t force Steve to meet his eyes, just keeps talking. “You were vomiting into the toilet. You were shaking and sweating and throwing up your guts and I thought yeah, I could propose to this loser right now if I had a ring.”
Steve’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t say anything.
Bucky takes his hand then, his lovely hand with the fine bones and the long fingers, and just holds it. “So, no, a black eye and a broken nose ain’t gonna deter me none.”
Steve blinks, and then his mouth spreads into a smile like butter on a griddle. Slow and warm and beautiful.
“I’m not done,” Bucky announces, really ready to go now that he’s begun. “I even love the split lip. God, every single time your lip started bleeding, you’d worry it with your tongue and it just about drove me insane. Your lips, God, you should see ‘em. We could make billions on tickets, except I’d probably kill anyone who looked at ‘em the way I do. I love the gravel in your knuckles and the grit on your face. I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
“Do you ever shut up?” Steve asks.
Bucky stops to glare. Steve scrunches up his nose and laughs out loud.
“Stop that, you’ll muss the bandages,” Bucky scolds, making sure they’re still secure. “Oy, if I don’t tie you down, you’ll be back to causing more trouble the minute my back is turned.”
Steve’s blush darkens, spreads across his nose like a flood. “Um,” he says, and Bucky realizes what he just said. He opens his mouth to backtrack, but Steve’s not done. “I wouldn’t mind,” he says, shy with a tinge of surety inside it.
“You dirty minded shit,” Bucky says, grinning, hyper aware of the warmth radiating off him, the pull of his gravity. “You wouldn’t mind, would you.”
“No,” Steve says, redder than ever. “I might even like it. Hypothetically.”
Done with the book, Jaime puts it aside and calls for them, opening and closing his hands as if he wants to be picked up. Steve huffs out a sheepish laugh and pushes through the ring of Bucky’s arms around him, going over to the couch to grab the kid.
“Oh my God,” Bucky says, sudden fears crashing over him, that ocean back again. Jaime. “What if he hates it?”
“You tying me up?” Steve says smoothly, and then laughs out loud at Bucky’s squeak. “Oh, you mean this?”
He walks over, baby in arm, and reaches out for Bucky. When he tilts his head to kiss him properly, Jaime twists around and reaches for Bucky. Bucky gets a kiss and an armful of delicious baby all at the same time.
It’s not bad at all.
“And you’re sure,” he says while they brush their teeth that night, “That it’s not too soon and you don’t want to go slow—”
Steve just looks at him. “You remember when Jaime was sick and he started screaming every time you left the room?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s how I felt every day.”
Bucky inhales, that performing somersaults in his mind. He makes it out past Steve’s bedroom door before Steve’s calling after him, “Stay?”
Bucky turns, all the light in the brownstone coming from Steve’s door, yellow brick glow lighting the way back home. Steve cocks his head, standing there in his too short flannel pants, and holds out his hand. On the bed, Jaime snores quietly.
Bucky feels the smile take over his face, and he laughs. There’s nothing new about Bucky sleeping in Steve’s bed—he did it all the time when Jaime was teething, when Steve was sick, when, when, when. There’s nothing new about this love, it’s been there the whole time.
So, he does what he’s done the whole time, and walks over to stick his chilled prosthetic up Steve’s shirt and watch him jump a foot in the air, shouting curses the whole time.
It ends with Bucky getting brained by a pillow, but it feels like a kiss.
“Steve and I, that is to say, we,” Bucky tries, and then gives up. “I love the goddamn punk and I wanna give him a big birthday party and I want your help.”
Everyone around the Passover table looks at him. “This couldn’t wait until the Seder is over?” George asks, eyebrows wry.
“No,” Bucky says, not at all apologetic. “I’m in love with him.”
“We know,” Becca says, going back to her Haggadah. “And his birthday isn’t for another three months. Cool your jets, lover boy.”
April finishes out in sunshine and warmth, and Bucky has maybe never been so happy in his life before. Things go on exactly as they always have, only now when he brings Jaime home from work and starts dinner prep, Steve comes home and sidles up behind him for a kiss.
He still gets into fights occasionally, one of which has him and Sam booking it home because Steve has once again misplaced his inhaler. Bucky throws him the front door backup and then chews him out for half an hour. Sam sips coffee and watches the whole thing with Jaime on his lap. At least he doesn’t break his nose for a sixth time. Yet.
Jaime starts really moving around on two feet, still unsteady but always picking himself back up to try again. He goes out to the park and chases squirrels with the dogs, tries finger painting with Steve, outgrows all his clothes and gets a brand-new wardrobe, like some diva. He also gets his first haircut, given to him by Bucky in the upstairs bathroom. He uses his little wealth of sign language for everything, which has Steve huffing with an I-told-you-so air.
His talking gets even more refined and articulate, despite still being complete and utter gibberish. He continues to have entire conversations with Bucky, with real rhythm and inflection, pausing and letting Bucky have a turn, and then gesturing with a hand and starting up again with his passionate declarations. Steve finds the whole thing hilarious, and his phone fills up with videos of the little chatterbox.
“He learnt it from you,” Steve says all the time, looking like he won the loser’s lottery. “It’s a piece of you, Bucky, look at him.”
Becca finishes her exams fueled by enough caffeine to float away on, Rachel decides maybe she is bisexual and starts pursuing that girl again, or maybe it’s a new one, Bucky isn’t sure. Abigail is the babysitter’s babysitter, happily coming over and waving Steve and Bucky out the door with all kinds of thoughtful phrases like, “Go slurp each other’s mouths off in an expensive restaurant, Jaime and me are gonna watch tv and eat hotdogs till we’re ill.”
“Jaime and I,” Bucky corrects absently, running through the checklist in his head. Diapers, inhaler, bath time, dinner—“And you have to cut the pieces—”
“I know,” she groans. “Into semicircles so he can’t choke himself to death. I got it, James.”
May has Bucky getting a raise at the garage, and also Enrico inviting them over for a barbecue. Natasha and Clint get engaged out of nowhere, and it turns out Riley didn’t even know they were dating. “If my brother doesn’t show up, you’re backup best man,” Clint informs Bucky, handing out invitations. “It’s an important job, Buster, so don’t be late.”
Steve is Steve, delightful, sharp edged, grumpy, sweet. There are waves and waves of him to figure out, to learn anew.
Bucky takes and takes and still there’s more for him. He feels deliriously rich. He wakes up less and less in the middle of the night, has fewer and fewer bad days. He uses his metal hand to wipe up boogers, clean up scattered crayons and pastels, bake a cake. He holds Jaime close and pulls Steve closer and points out a nice shot for Abigail to snap. It becomes…easy to forget that his hands aren’t the same as they’ve always been.
He doesn’t tie Steve down, but he does hold him there, hard. It’s not clear who likes that more—it goes great until Bucky has to vault out of the bedroom for the inhaler by the front door.
Heat arrives in the city, and Bucky slowly acclimates to the sight of shirtless Steve around the house. If he’s hot and bothered, well, it’s because it’s humid as fuck out, thank you, and yes, he got sunburned a few days ago.
“Barneses don’t get that red,” Becca says suspiciously, and then darts a glance over to Steve, lying in the grass like a very jacked, very gorgeous dead fish.
Bucky doesn’t even begrudge her; he could sell tickets to this show, and people would line up around the corner. You’d have to be blind not to appreciate it. “I wish I was an painter,” he says, sighing mournfully, the way a painter would.
“Yeah, damn,” Becca says, now openly staring. “At least you write. All I do is solve math problems and cry.”
“Well, we can’t all be engineers,” Bucky replies, so proud he can almost choke on it, already composing the love letter in his head.
He writes it down, all of it. It does nothing for his novel, but maybe it’s a novel of its own. A story fed on pure happiness; he writes like his fingertips are animated by a puppeteer.
Before Bucky knows it, his time with his therapist is up. “You’ve come a long way since we first met,” is her farewell. “I’m proud of you, Bucky, and I hope you feel the same.” He gives her more flowers—he isn’t sure what the protocol is for thanking someone paid to listen to you kvetch. He feels strangely light leaving the office for the last time.
Clint and Natasha get married in June, beneath an arbor groaning under the weight of pale roses. Natasha is radiant in white, her own happiness brighter than her hair, and Clint looks fit to burst out of his suit with it. His brother does show up, but Bucky gets to be a second best man anyway. Jaime carries the rings down the aisle, but then he spots Bucky and toddles straight to him, which causes a laugh and derails the ceremony while Clint tries to coax the kid over, to no avail.
Bucky’s not sure when it happens, but by the time the calendars say July in vivid red, Peggy’s back on the mantelpiece. She’s not next to Sarah anymore, but on the end of the row, a picture of the three of them beside her; Steve and Bucky lying on the sand at Coney Island, squinting lazily, Jaime between them in the act of burying Steve’s arm in sand. Peggy’s smile is proud.
On July fourth, Bucky helps close down the garage early, and then dashes home, where preparations have already begun. The place looks swell full of friends and family. Natasha is the only one absent, since she’s on distract Steve duty, and she always does a job well.
The house is airy and warm, the windows thrown open to let in the light. Bucky had debated for days which house they should gather in, but he’s glad this one won out. His parents’ isn’t officially Steve’s home, even if it is unofficially, but the distinction is important.
Bucky would make it official, would in a heartbeat. That certainty scares him a little—it hasn’t even been a year yet, and things change, people change. Sure, a relationship is one thing, a proposal another.
The thing about Steve—and ain’t that just wild Bucky can say it with such knowledge—is he isn’t ever going to go away. Not literally, and not the other way either. Bucky feels it deep in the heart of him, from his lungs to whatever the hell’s down making up the inside of his feet, and it’s this: there will always be Steve and Bucky, in some capacity.
Romance is hard work, Bucky knows that. So’s marriage. But Steve is easy, and Steve is a friend Bucky won’t be done loving for a long long time.
“Hey, Romeo,” Becca says, nudging him out of his daydreams. “We’ve got to finish this before Steve gets home, if your extremely detailed plan is to be followed. We’re not going to get it all done if you keep zoning out like this…”
“Sorry,” Bucky says, kicking her back. “Thanks, sorry, I’ll check the oven.”
When Steve gets home, they’re all ready. Sitting in the kitchen like they’ve been there all the time, laughing loudly and clinking silverware and glasses. Messy and loud, all the people that make up Steve’s family. Jaime’s in his Bumbo—he’s almost too big for it now—and Rachel is absently feeding him sliced grapes while she argues with Steve’s coworker Miles about some theft in the news.
Steve opens the door, throws his keys down and leaves his shoes in a tidy pair. He turns around slowly, immediately clocking the strange amount of people in the kitchen.
“Happy birthday,” Bucky says, grin threatening to peel off his face. “I love you to death and you’re late.”
Steve glares at him. “You sure know how to make a fella feel welcome.”
“Bad day?” Bucky lifts the strap of Steve’s bag over his head. “Come on, we’ve made dinner, all you gotta do is sit down and stuff your face. And if you want to rant about one of your bosses, we even promise to listen.”
Steve glances past him into the kitchen, the slant of his brows lifting in confusion. “What’s everyone doing…”
Bucky shoves him along. “Eh, I told them free food at six and they all showed up. It’s nothing personal.”
Steve’s ambushed as soon as he gets close. Abigail throws herself on him crying happy birthday! with the calm of a firecracker. Rachel, Miles, Kamala, and another guy—Peter? Bucky thinks—wave from the table. Natasha, Clint, Sam, and Riley are clustered around the island with wine glasses and jokes, all wolf whistling as Winnifred comes over and stands her tiptoes to kiss Steve’s forehead. George hands him a beer.
“Wow, hi guys,” Steve says, still sounding bewildered. “Nice to see you. Is this a birthday party or something?”
“It’s a lowkey celebration,” Becca says, twirling around on her stool so she can kick Steve with her bare foot. “Bucky’s been planning it since April.”
Steve shoots Bucky a look over his shoulder.
Bucky crosses his fingers behind his back and hopes his gamble was correct, that Steve won’t accuse Bucky of butting in, start complaining that people don’t need to go to this trouble, or burst out crying.
“Come eat,” Bucky’s parents say, ushering Steve to the table before he can start talking.
The meal is wonderful—the culmination of everyone pitching in to help—there’s way too many leftovers, but hey, they can eat them all week, and there will still be enough for everyone to bring some home, and probably for Scott and Luis next door too.
Steve relaxes and enjoys himself, even accepting his presents without protest, thanking all his friends for coming, and generally being very attractive and beautiful and perfect. They open the back doors and some people sit outside on the tiny deck, and some people (Bucky) go out and run around on the lawn, and it’s the most successful party Bucky’s ever had.
Right when the sky decides enough is enough and goes completely dark, Bucky’s parents lead the goodbyes, dragging Rachel and Abigail away. “We’ll see you soon,” Winnifred says, plate for Scott and Luis under one arm, Rachel under the other. “Come over next week, Steve dear.”
“Thank you so much,” Steve says, hugging them all goodbye. “Love you guys.”
They all look as shocked as Bucky feels. “Oh,” Winnifred says, and then looks cross at being so overcome. Abigail throws her arms around Steve again. “We love you too, darling, of course. Happy birthday.”
The others don’t stick around much longer, despite Steve’s protests. “No,” Sam says, wiggling his eyebrows. “You have fun now, Steve, I’ll see ya tomorrow.” Riley and Natasha carry Clint down the stairs, Steve’s friends from work on their heels laughing uncontrollably, and Steve tells them they’re all hooligans before kicking the door shut.
Then it’s just Bucky, Steve, and Jaime, and a sink full of dishes that can most certainly wait until a later date. “Thank you, Bucky,” Steve says, reaching for him while walking back through the house. “That was really fun.”
Bucky stares at that outreached hand behind Steve, and then nearly trips trying to grab on to it. “Your birthday isn’t finished yet, you know.”
Steve turns and cocks his head, and that’s when the fireworks start up.
Bucky’s bracing for them, and he’s so distracted by the bracing that he doesn’t notice it’s not really necessary. Jaime runs over and grabs him around the legs, chattering excitedly, and Steve’s making appreciative noises, and behind the glass doors, the explosions sound like less like explosions and more like the bass in a jazz number.
“Is it okay?” Steve says, looking over and seeing his face.
Bucky picks up the baby. “Yeah,” he says, and then again, more certain, “Yeah.”
They stand shoulder to shoulder and watch the show, Jaime blocking out even the low thumping sounds by mumbling in Bucky’s ear.
“Look, bub,” Bucky says, pointing. “Look what they do for your dad’s birthday.”
Steve groans. “Don’t teach him that, he’s gonna grow up and tell all his friends and then they’re gonna think I’m a grasping arrogant loser.”
“Aw, what’s the point of a kid if you don’t tell him stories?” Bucky asks. The sky flashes red, lighting up Steve’s crooked nose, his happy smile. “Jaime, your dad is the only guy in the world who gets fireworks on his birthday, because he’s the best guy in the world. Did you know that?”
“What about people born on New Years?” Steve points out. “What about other countries’ holidays?”
Bucky kicks him in the shins. Steve grabs out and Bucky dances away, laughing. Jaime claps his hands, squealing in delight every time Bucky makes a jerky movement to keep clear of Steve’s long arms.
“I can’t believe I picked you of all people to babysit him,” Steve says, mock disappointed.
“Why did you throw your baby at not only a total stranger but an ex-soldier working through some shit who doesn’t know when to shut up?”
Steve looks out at the fireworks and says, “Sometimes you sing love songs in the shower. You carry Mrs. Estisito’s groceries up three flights of stairs for her. You drop everything and run out to go pick up your sisters. You cook enough food to feed all my friends. You write beautiful things and fix wonderful things and you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to my baby and you know it.”
“Gosh, I didn’t know you were taking up poetry.”
Steve wrinkles his nose as white light fills the room. “You’re supposed to be incredibly moved and say oh or something. You’re supposed to be filled with desire to kiss me, so much that you all but drop Jaime in your madness.”
Bucky makes a big show of setting Jaime down on the floor. He toddles over and smears his little palms on the doors, staring up at the sky with huge eyes. His hair is bluish in the dimness, and his little round diaper butt probably needs changing, and he needs a bath and bedtime.
Bucky turns and tackles Steve. “You are going to regret inspiring this madness,” he chides while Steve is still gaping in shock, holding him tightly. That won’t do at all, so he performs a trick from his army days, i.e. kick at Steve’s legs until he falls back on to the couch.
Steve gestures to the back doors. “The fireworks, Buck. I’m the only person in the world with special fireworks, remember?”
“Oh sorry,” Bucky says breathlessly, sitting on top of him and pretending it’s the most comfortable seat in the world. “I can’t hear you over my desire to kiss you.”
Steve laughs. “All talk no action Barnes.”
Bucky says, “How dare you,” and kisses him hard to prove a point.
“He’s a talking professional—” Steve giggles, pushing back to get the words out before Bucky envelopes him again. “Not Olympics calib—but—stop that—he’s a champion in my—”
“He,” Bucky says deliberately, putting all his weight on Steve until he’s lying flat on Steve’s stomach, “Can’t be doing this right if you’re still talking.”
He drags his right hand down and sticks it up under Steve’s shirt. Steve’s entire chest hitches and he inhales into Bucky’s kiss.
“There we go,” Bucky says, going to drag Steve’s shirt up and away, but Steve stops him with a wiggle.
“It really is past Jaime’s bedtime,” he says regretfully, flopping one hand around in the vague direction of his kid. “And he’s right here. I can’t—you can’t start doing godforsaken—things in front of him.”
Bucky darts a look over his shoulder, about to say that the fireworks are enthralling said Jaime, but just as he does, Jaime turns and spots them, smile stretching big over his little face. He leaves the view from the back door to toddle over and attack the couch with ferocity.
Finally he’s up, and Bucky sighs as he feels little knees dig into his back. “Careful, bub,” he says into Steve’s shirt, “We’re gonna crush your poor dad.”
“Dadadadada,” Jaime agrees, signing I love you and leaning down to kiss Steve on the nose. He gets a mouthful of Bucky’s curls and makes a spitting noise. Great. Baby spit in Bucky’s carefully arranged hair.
Steve just grins, like there’s nowhere he’d rather be. Bucky kisses that grin. Red and blue light flash simultaneously, lighting up the living room and then plunging it into darkness again.
Jaime falls asleep smushed against the couch and mark Bucky down for the worst parent ever, because he falls asleep too, and no one brushes their teeth or takes a bath. In the morning there will be diapers and cheerios and Steve will inevitably lose something and start swearing when he realizes he’s late. Bucky will yell at him not to be so fucking careless and Steve will kick him and then maybe Jaime will dump his toy bin out in the living room for Bucky to stub his toes on and make him late.
There’s nowhere in the world Bucky would rather be either.