Work Text:
It's just about impossible to get people to completely ignore a centennial. About the third time Steve catches an innocent look in someone's eye when they bring it up, in the week leading up to March 10th, he sort of gives in and accepts that. He still acts like he's trying, without actually getting pissed off at anyone - which is what he'd have to do if he really tried to get them to stop - but he accepts that this just means they're going to keep it down which is . . .probably the better option.
When Bucky just gets cranky, over the first week of March, instead of winding slowly up into something that looks like a tripwire, Steve decides it's better.
"How in the name of God to process the weirdness that is age in this case" isn't something that comes with a best practices, because it's not all that common as a problem. Steve's still wobbling on his own for that one, and at least he's got the actual option of just throwing up his hands and insisting the time spent as an icicle (and no Tony has not yet let go of "Capsicle" and Steve's given up doing anything but sighing and rolling his eyes) and thus unconscious and not physically experiencing time in any real way just doesn't count and count from where he was when he blacked out in 1945.
Bucky can't actually do that. Just to start with.
Last year the days leading up to Bucky's birthday had come with that slow winding up. It'd been okay, mostly - Steve thinks - because nobody but Natasha said a thing and Natasha's brief parting shot of a shove could be blown off, which is probably why she did it. Over about as many days afterwards Bucky'd wound back down as much as he ever does, so overall it'd been fine. But it had definitely come with the sense that there was a real, solid potential for something to get broken, probably mostly inside Bucky's head, that Steve doesn't quite get this time.
He hopes he's not deluding himself. He's probably not deluding himself.
The other thing is, last year nobody but Natasha knew. Not because Steve hid it, but because he didn't mention it and neither did anyone else. And why would anyone know Bucky's birthday? Except for Natasha, who needs to know all this kind of stuff.
("She probably knows your saints-day," Clint says, once. Steve has to admit that's more than he does, off the top of his head.)
This year somebody somewhere on the internet got caught up in caring that it's Bucky's 100th. Which is a bit odd to Steve, even though he has noticed that some of the conspiracy theories that are closer to the mark have become pretty mainstream-popular. Well, comparatively. He sort of wonders what Bucky thinks of that, seeing as Bucky spends a lot more time on the internet in the places where this stuff might come up than Steve does, but it hasn't seemed natural or important enough to bring up. But the side-effect is that as a historical figure (as weird as that sounds) he's getting more attention, and that means the internet cares when his birthday is.
That means Tony knows, or noticed, or whatever. And that means everyone knows.
"Do not throw a party," Steve does say, putting his foot down via the voice that says Tony this is not a joke-type no, you ignoring this won't even end up with aggravation you can laugh at, it'll just end with me being pissed off and ignoring you until I actually believe your apology shows some sign of believing you fucked up. He's picked up the technique from Elizabeth and Pepper, who're both pretty good at it.
"Don't worry," Tony replies, aloof. "I know you hate fun."
It does not escape Steve's notice at all that Tony has a "spontaneous" gathering in the lounge, with Indian food and with - in addition to everyone else Tony knows that Bucky knows - Janet Van Dyne, which more importantly means with Hope Van Dyne.
Steve likes Janet, for all it's still a little weird to be eating and joking around with a Van Dyne and probably always will be. So far, Bucky's avoided her in the same way he's avoided Helen Cho, Tony's PA Janine and Pepper's PA who Steve thinks is named Harker, though he's not actually sure if that's a first or last name. He doesn't think they've even noticed, as such.
But Hope has all the confidence you'd (hah) hope to see in a three year old who feels completely safe in the universe, and the second time Janet's at the Tower at the same time Bucky's feeling like he can handle people, Steve notices about halfway through desert that Hope's watching Bucky as she swings her legs under her chair and eats her chocolate-and-mandarin-orange mousse.
Later, when Rhodey's explaining the new plans to integrate the re-designed quinjets into active service and Bucky's quietly retreated to one of the couches with coffee to watch everyone, Steve catches movement out of the corner of his eye. And watches as the little girl in the extremely fancy (to Steve's eye) blue satin dress totters over with her doll to pull herself up on the couch and sit beside Bucky.
The doll is a boy doll, despite the flowered shirt. Steve'd heard her explaining this to Bruce earlier, and that Chaz - the name of the doll - could wear flowers if he wanted to. And pink. And have a purse. The doll's hair is a messy mat of plastic sticking out in a few directions, because apparently Hope carries him everywhere and that can be hard on plastic doll-hair. His head is made of plastic and his body's some kind of soft stuffing, and his eyes open and shut depending on whether or not he's upright.
Steve's pretty sure nobody else can hear them, from this far away, but he can hear when Hope says, "Hi."
"Hi," Bucky says. Steve pretends to pay attention to the other conversation for a minute, to get over the impulse to half-smile - not because there's anything awkward over on the couch, but because there isn't. Because Bucky'd watched her toddle over and climb up on the couch with the same kind of half-resigned half-amused look he always used to get when it got obvious a kid was going to come over and try to monopolize his attention.
Which they always did, at least once he was older than about eleven. There was even a point where Steve kinda resented it, although it's long past.
"This is Chaz," Hope says, after a second, holding out the doll.
"Hello Chaz," Bucky replies, solemnly, actually reaching out to shake the doll's hand. Hope looks pleased and maybe Steve's just going to resign himself to hoping that Bucky doesn't look over here, because he's probably not gonna be able to even remotely pull off pretending not to watch for long.
"Your arm's metal," Hope tells him, like she's afraid he might not have noticed. Or like she might be mistaken. And now Steve notices that Janet's watching too, out of the corner of her eye - or at least pretending it's out of the corner of her eye - and maybe looking worried. He tries to catch her eye, and when he manages it he shakes his head a little bit, with a small smile. Hopes he manages to get across that it's fine.
Bucky actually moves his left arm over and spreads out his hand so that Hope can see. "Yeah," he says, as she leans over to peer.
"Were you borned with it?" Hope asks, and Bucky half smiles.
"No," he tells her. He turns his hand palm up and she pokes at the palm.
"You had one like mine?" she asks, looking up.
"Well, mine was a bit bigger than yours," Bucky replies. "You're pretty small still."
It occurs to Steve that Janet probably can't hear what they're saying. He takes the few steps to move around behind Elizabeth so he can lean over and say, "It's fine."
"She is absolutely sure all grownups love her," Janet says, half-apologizing and half-proud, "and no idea that she might be a pest."
"Trust me," Steve tells her, and if his head's full of past-echoes of when her grandparents were still young (not that they were anywhere near where Steve and Bucky'd been at the time, but still: that's when it all happened), that's not a bad thing right now. "Kids always do this."
"But it was made of skin and stuff," Hope asks, and Bucky makes an mmhmm noise of confirmation. "What happened to it?" Hope asks, tilting her head.
"It fell off," is Bucky's reply, and Steve can't help the soft snort. When Janet gives him a concerned look he shakes his head.
"She just asked what happened to his arm," he murmurs. "He told her it fell off. I have . . .extremely good hearing," he adds, by way of explanation.
Janet raises her eyebrows, but it seems mostly sympathetic. "That must make neighbours awkward," she murmurs back and Steve's kind of glad that the nature of the not-quite-conversation means that he can just sort of skip explaining that he doesn't have any that actually share walls or a floor, because Tony has a special kind of issues.
"When Chaz's arm fell off," Hope tells Bucky, "Mommy sewed it back on. She says that's harder to do with people, though."
"She's right," Bucky replies, gravely.
"I'm going to learn to sew," Hope announces.
Tony actually asks Steve something at that point, so he ends up paying enough attention not to hear the rest of the conversation, but he's not actually surprised that when Janet goes to find Hope to get their coats and go home, Hope's asleep against Bucky's side.
Bucky crashes the next day, but at this point they both kinda know that there are things that even if they can both predict it's going to end in a crash, it's still probably worth it. Steve kinda hates that, but that doesn't make it less true. Eustress is still stress is how Sam puts it, which basically means that even good things and sometimes especially good things take enough out of Bucky that he crashes the other side of them. Steve's working on accepting that. So far as far as he can tell Bucky just sort of ignores it, ignores the correlation as much as he can, and that's probably not a bad way of dealing with it.
Steve doesn't think it's a coincidence that Janet is the only person who doesn't live at the Tower that Tony "coincidentally" arranges to have around on his totally-not-a-birthday-party-at-all on March 8th. This time Hope very politely demands to be read a book, which turns into three books. The food is all finger-food, stuff you can pick at a little bit at a time and - because the world would end if Tony Stark had to actually be subtle - all the desert bits are coffee flavoured except for the chocolate cake more or less just for Hope.
"Oh good," Janet says, "because if you were going to feed her something with coffee in it I was going to send her to you when she's still awake at two am."
The agitation starts just after they go back to their floor - almost exactly like something in Bucky's head's trying to rake him over the coals for having even a somewhat enjoyable time. Sometimes Steve can derail that kind of thing and sometimes he can't, but this time pulling Bucky over him on the couch to kiss him does work, more or less. Enough that later, Bucky actually sleeps.
Elizabeth sort of unconvincingly disguises her gift as one for Abrikoska: a kind of cat-harness called a Kitty Holster that looks more like a vest and less like something made of nylon straps for a cat to get tangled up in. Especially since this one's done in a brilliant deep blue satin of some kind, and - the product tag boasts - is made with undyed cotton for the lining, apparently better for skin. The big thing, Steve thinks - and Elizabeth tells him later - is that a lot of cats that get more anxious in a normal harness get less anxious in one of these, and Steve's pretty sure Abrikoska counts as one of them. It's also definitely less likely to hurt her if she gets caught on something, he can see that. The pressure gets spread out.
Elizabeth manages to present it enough like it's just a great idea she saw and thought would help that Bucky can pretend he's actually fooled, and that one slides past, too.
Natasha just puts the new clothes she's found this time directly in the dresser, which is starting to count as just something she does. She still refuses to tell Bucky or Steve where she gets them and they have no tags, which Steve's interpreting as a sign either they come from somewhere far away and she's taking the tags out to hide that, or she's getting them outright made so they never have any.
Steve's saving up to point out to Natasha that she uses the same technique as Tony - "I'm just going to do this thing and you can rage at me if you want but it's already done" - to the same effect for some time in the future he needs a good comeback. He's pretty confident there'll be one, one day.
And today, Steve comes home to find a Pyrex container with a lid on it on the doorstep. It's a big container, and he can see that whatever's in it is smaller than the container. There's a note on top and he crouches down to pick it up and read it.
It says, Happy Birthday. Mom made the tres leche cake because I can't cook but I got everything ready and cleaned it up afterwards. =P Also don't worry I left it here on purpose. - Mercedes.
Steve makes a kind of an effort at suppressing the smile, as he picks up the container and opens the door. He kicks off his shoes but goes to the futon to hand Bucky the container and the note before he gets rid of his coat.
It's cold and miserable outside. It's been that way for the last few days, and it kind of looks like it's setting in for the weekend. It's kind of a pain in the ass, to tell the truth, but it's been that kind of winter.
As Steve hangs up his coat, he hears Bucky open the container, and then the sounds of him putting it aside and picking up and unfolding the note. Then Steve hears him breathe, Jesus fucking Christ.
He's sitting upright, one leg folded in front of him and one knee up, and when Steve comes around into the living room Bucky holds out the now-open container for him to take. Inside is something that looks kind of like sponge-cake with whipped cream and some other stuff on it, and smells really good. Bucky also hands him the note.
"I read it," Steve says. Bucky scrubs his right hand down his face.
"Might as well dish some out," he says and anyone except Steve might be fooled into thinking the way he says it is casual, instead of being the only thing he can find to say. Steve puts the dish down on the counter and then goes around the other door into the kitchen.
"Congratulations," he says, raising his voice a little to carry as he pulls down a couple plates. "You're old."
"Yeah fuck you too," Bucky retorts, sourly.
He takes the plate Steve brings back out and doesn't say anything else. The pieces on it are small, really deliberately small, because Steve's got a hunch and as far as he can tell if he puts the cover back on - like he did - it'll keep okay and it is good cake, so it'd be a shame to waste it. And right now it probably will get at least a little bit wasted.
Things are complicated. Even good things. Right now he's mostly okay with that, and he'll take what they can get.
It's hard to tell if the couple bites Bucky takes are obligation, and three of them means he's past that line, or if he'd honestly keep eating and something stops him. Either way, after three he stops. He ends up frowning at the plate, and through the plate, fork barely scraping through the edge of the remnants of some of the whipped cream, over to the side, over and over almost like the physical version of a skipping record.
Steve finishes his. He leans over and puts the plate on the floor, then reaches over and takes Bucky's as well, with the kind of half-hesitation you use to make sure someone knows they can stop you if they're not finished. He puts it on the side table, because there's still stuff on it and he figures it'll be a pain if either of them steps in it later.
Bucky keeps staring through the space where the plate was, for a few seconds. With the frown that's not a scowl so much as it just means somehow he can't make what's actually happening fit with what something in him thinks should happen, and it's throwing him. Steve leans on one hand, knee touching Bucky's, and waits.
Waits until Bucky looks up, still with the same frown, and says, "You're all fucking stupid," like it's the only stepping stone away from where he is.
"You always say that," Steve replies and reaches over to push his hair out of his face, thread it behind one ear.
"Yeah, especially you," Bucky retorts. "Especially you."
Steve figures he's already won because Bucky's half-leaning forward to meet the kiss as it is, so he doesn't need to answer that one out loud.