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Bucky Barnes was the Compound’s resident grump. Since settling into the Avengers home, he’d made a habit of hiding in corners, leaving rooms as people entered, and finding grunts as an acceptable form of communication.
Bucky wasn’t really grumpy, per se. It just took him longer to feel...comfortable. It was hard to handle the fact that everyone just accepted him, after everything he had done. Nearly a year after Tony had took them all back, after Bucky spent endless hours with B.A.R.F., he was just starting to come out of his shell. He was working on it, okay? Bucky figured as long as he kept working on liking things, and sharing, he could grunt at Clint’s jokes, or skip a couple movie nights, and generally evade social norms. It’s not like the rest of them were any more well-adjusted.
He did feel guilty though, so he put in extra effort to show the Avengers he was grateful for a second chance. He wasn’t sure he would ever feel like he fully deserved their kindness.
This was how the Avengers learned that Bucky Barnes loved to cook. After the hardest missions, Bucky could always be found in the kitchen cooking a huge post-battle meal. If B.A.R.F. was taking a toll on him, Bucky would break out the fancy cookbooks that Pepper had gifted Tony years ago to fill the empty space. (Once, Pepper walked in on the kitchen in shambles, all of her beautiful, previously untouched cookbooks strewn over the counters as Bucky attempted a five-course dinner. Pepper was pleased to see them go to use, and made sure the kitchen was stocked with fancy gadgets). Bucky would grumble over the books and hours later grab the nearest Avenger to sample his latest experiment.
Over these meals, the team started to learn more about their reclusive chef. If you paid close enough attention, Bucky almost had more sarcastic one-liners than Tony. Almost. Get the man to smile, it would fuel the morale of the team for a week. Bucky loved riling up Steve, farmer’s markets, Star Trek (much to Tony’s glee), and internet memes. None of these things compared to Bucky’s one true love:
Bucky loved Halloween.
He loved the spirit of it all. The characters, the scariness, dark creatures suddenly accepted and plastered onto household items. His favorite was anytime a traditionally scary thing was stripped of its terror and turned into something adorable: cute spiders, cute ghosts, cute skeletons, it all made Bucky just melt. He had to stop and look at every Halloween display whenever Steve took him out. He would point at the characters he recognized, gush about spooky decorations, and make Steve try on goofy costumes. For once, the monsters could come out from under the bed and be celebrated. Bucky empathized with that.
It was Steve’s fault that Bucky’s obsession escalated. He could never deny Bucky something he wanted, even back in the day. He was just glad to see Bucky so damn excited about something, although he didn’t really get the whole Halloween hype. That didn’t matter though because this was Bucky, and if he liked it, then Steve supported him. The suggestion came easily then, as they stood outside of a clothing shop, staring at another eerie fall display.
“Hey Buck, you know, uh, we could decorate the Compound if you wanted? I’m sure Tony wouldn’t mind too much.” Bucky froze, and turned slowly, eyes as wide as flying saucers.
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Two days later, the Compound looked like Party City had gotten into a fight with the Hulk and lost. Pumpkins lined every porch. There were black and purple streamers intricately weaved together cascading across all of the hallways, criss crossing the ceilings of the common rooms. Bucky had found different colored glittery styrofoam skulls and placed them on as many flat surfaces as he could find. There were giant cartoon Frankenstein bowls filled to the brim with Halloween candy. They had given him creative control and he wouldn’t be stopped.
Bucky himself was the piece de resistance, as Clint soon found out. Someone was baking something in the kitchen and there was no way in hell he was missing out on food. Clint followed his nose towards the kitchen, barely noticing the festive streamers. Huh, he hadn’t seen Stark decorate for holidays in the past. Whatevs, these were questions for post-delicious baked good consumption.
“I hope you’re making extra for me Barnes,” Clint shouted as he walked into the kitchen area of the common room. “Because I am hun- WHAT THE FUCK IS ALL THIS?”
Clint nearly fell over in shock at the level of Halloween-themed bullshit that had exploded over the Compound. Clint then actually fell over when he took in Bucky Barnes, scary super assassin, pulling ghost cookies out of the oven, wearing a bright red apron that read “BOO!” There were little happy ghosts all over it that matched the cookies. Bucky just stared at Hawkeye on the ground, then turned to put the cookies on the cooling rack.
“ARE THOSE- ARE THOSE WINDOW CLINGS? YOU HAVE BAT SHAPED WINDOW CLINGS STUCK TO YOUR METAL DEATH ARM. STEVE. STEVE. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK???”
“I think they look good, James.” Natasha smirked, as she stole a cookie and sat at the kitchen counter.
Bucky was giving Hawkeye the patented Winter Soldier murder glare, but Steve just shrugged. “We went to Target.”
“You took a 45 minute subway ride up to Harlem so he could buy BAT CLINGS?!?!? FOR HIS METAL ARM?!?!” Clint huffed.
“No,” Steve deadpanned. “He also got socks.”
Bucky grinned and lifted his leg in the air, showing off his thigh high orange socks, adorned with smiling black cats.
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Tony returned from his business trip, took a look around, and poured his coffee.
“Looking good Buck-a-roo,” Tony remarked and continued on down to his lab. Bucky couldn’t even pretend to be grumpy at this point, and Peter did a double take when he saw the Winter Soldier giggling.
“You okay, Mr. Barnes?” Peter asked. That just set Bucky off more.
Fifteen minutes later, Tony stormed back into the common room. “WHO did this? I DEMAND ANSWERS!” He lifted up a handful of glow-in-the dark spider webbing into the air. Peter looked confused.
“Is that Halloween spider web? Where did those come from?”
“MY LAB!!!!!” Tony whined. “It’s covered in this stuff!” Tony threw the webbing into the air. “It’s floor to ceiling webbing! Dum-E was covered, my stuff is covered! I am going to have to hire a small country to get rid of all of that webbing.”
Steve rolled his eyes at Tony’s dramatics. Tony scowled. “Steve, I would think you would be more concerned. How will I sleep on the lab sofa when my lab GLOWS IN THE DARK? But fear not, Winghead, I know who committed this awful crime!”
“Not like it isn’t obvious,” Clint mumbled under his breath. Tony meanwhile just winked at Bucky and wheeled around to point an accusatory finger at Peter.
“It was YOU! You, Spiderling! You betrayed my sacred trust. Not only is that a breach of my privacy, but there are weapon grade explosives down there. You could have blown up half of New York!”
Peter sputtered in shock. “Mr. Stark! I-I would never! I promise I wouldn’t! It’s- that’s not even real spider web, Mr. Stark!”
“Exactly! That’s the cunning of your plan! So cunning in fact, you must have had assistance from...ANOTHER SPIDER!” Tony whipped around, pointing this time at the Black Widow.
“Yep, you caught us Tony.” Natasha said, without looking up from the book she was reading. Tony flopped onto the couch and started devouring Reese’s Pumpkins, flashing wide grins in Bucky’s direction between more accusations and complaints.
And if Bucky Barnes was laughing harder than he had since before the war, well, no one commented. They’d chock it up to being in the holiday spirit.