Work Text:
“Where are you going?” Steve called from the kitchen.
It was the tone of voice he knew Barnes hated, but he used it anyway. In the six-ish months or so that Barnes had been back, Steve sometimes treated him like he used to, and sometimes treated him like he needed to be fed a warm bowl of soup and tucked into bed--not that he actually did that; he knew Barnes would rather try to drown him in the soup.
Hey, it wasn’t Barnes’s fault he was different after Hydra. At this point, he was as mended as he was going to be, but he still had nightmares and he still had to think to avoid hurting people sometimes. He just wasn’t...social. Spending the past few decades as a mythological figure only really enjoying the company of Death, Death’s granddaughter, and a dynasty of cats will do that to ya.
Barnes wanted to say: “Out.”
According to pop culture, that was how rebellious teenagers responded to that question. Steve was making him feel like a rebellious teenager.
Barnes said: “Getting the mail.”
Steve poked his head into the entryway. Oh, he was really getting on the nerves today.
“Really. You’re going to get the mail...with your bookbag? Come on, Buck.”
With personal effects scattered at safe houses around the globe for Santa reasons (but also for Hydra butt-kicking reasons), Barnes packed light, but he did carry a backpack with him so he could keep a notebook close by in case he forgot who he was again, a clean change of clothes, plenty of spare knives, and a red-and-white hat and some candy. The hat reminded him of Death, and it made him smile.
“I told you, I’m getting the mail.” He thought it had been self-explanatory, but apparently not. His voice rose as he tried to get the point across.
“He means,” Sam hollered from the couch in the living room, “he’s going to get the mail for the Big Man.”
Sam had his own house in Washington, D.C., but when he was in New York, he stayed with Steve, same as Barnes.
Barnes was not jealous. He definitely did not fantasize about scaring Sam away from the apartment for good, at all.
“I’M the Big Man,” Barnes growled back, glowering even though Sam couldn’t see him from here.
“Good. Just making sure you didn’t forget. I don’t wanna miss out on any presents this year.”
Maybe you will get coal this year, Sam.
“You’re...picking up Santa Claus mail?” Steve asked.
He always was a little slow. Barnes told him that, which earned him a laugh and erased the annoying worried look on Steve’s idiot face.
“It’s my job,” Barnes explained. “Pick up mail once a year, then deliver gifts.”
Steve leaned against the wall in the entryway, his arms crossed. Barnes did not like the look on his face. It usually meant he was going to do something stupid.
“I wanna come with,” he blurted.
“Hmm.” Barnes pretended to think. “No.”
“Awww, Buck…”
He pulled himself up straight. “You’ll get in the way. Besides, there aren’t any Hydra agents to fight this time, so you’d get bored.”
Steve ignored this last bit. “But it’s a part of your life I don’t know anything about! I’ve shared everything that I’ve built since I woke up with you.”
This was a fact. He shared Steve’s apartment, Steve’s food, Steve’s friends and their Hydra-fighting missions.
It was also a fact that Steve’s face was making him feel Sad.
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes.
“Great,” Sam chirped, springing off the couch and joining them in the entryway. “What should I pack.”
“Not you,” Barnes hissed.
Sam, being Sam, came anyway.
*
Moist Von Lipwig turned the envelope over and over in his hands.
It didn’t look any different from the other dead letters at the Ankh-Morpork Post Office, although it had managed to avoid a layer of pigeon dung. It was sized just right for a short letter on thin paper.
Upon inspection, the stamp read “United States Postage.” This in itself was not unusual. Letters the postmen had found from Bloody Stupid Johnson’s Mail-Sorting Engine often came from places no one had ever heard of and had destinations that were equally enigmatic.
This letter, however, had no address: only a single name
Moist wasn’t sure if it was one-line address that gave the letter a sense of urgency, but whatever it was, the letter spoke to him. It insisted: it must be delivered.
He already felt guilty about pushing some of the letters from other worlds aside, making a new department for them at the Post Office. What if there was something more he could do to make sure they found their homes?
Neither Rain, Nor Snow, Nor Glom of Nit…
“Fine!” he snapped at the letter, bounding out of his chair and reaching for his hat.
Perhaps the wizards of Unseen University could help him deliver a letter to...he had to glance at the envelope... Santa Claus .
*
Barnes’s jet picked them up in D.C. and took them to Northern Headquarters.
He thought he’d never seen Steve’s eyes so big or Sam’s giant floppy mouth so silent, which put him in an excellent mood. Fighting Hydra around the world required non-festive transportation, and running a global campaign based on generosity did have its perks.
“What,” Barnes said. “Did you think I drove a sleigh everywhere?”
Steve and Sam were in for another surprise when they reached Headquarters, and a familiar face greeted them in the hangar.
“Is that who I think it is?” Steve blurted, turning to Barnes to avoid the brunette in the truly awful neon green Santa hat.
Sam recovered a little faster. “Darce! What are you doing here?”
She reached over to give him a hug. “Could say the same for you. The boss never brings friends over.”
Barnes shot her a glare. One friend, and one Sam.
“Boss?” Good old Stevie. Never the shiniest gift on the sleigh.
“Darcy has been working for me about a year now,” Barnes said, and she nodded happily.
“We have dental!” she added.
“So, you’re a Christmas elf?” Sam teased.
“Excuse you, I’m the administrative assistant. So basically I keep all the Christmas elves in line when Barnes isn’t here. And when he is here, I boss them AND Barnes.”
He rolled his eyes. Darcy was terrible, but very good at her job. And Death liked her; they both had a thing for awful hats.
Steve hummed. “Buck, I didn’t know you and Darcy even knew each other.”
“We met at one of Dr. Foster’s Space Nights, and she mentioned she was looking for a job.”
“And?” Darcy was giving him a look.
“...fine. And she may have booby trapped her apartment last Christmas.”
“Aha!” Steve crowed. “I thought I saw glitter in your hair Christmas morning, but I thought it was a Santa thing.”
Barnes scowled. “Moving right along.”
Before he could take another step, Darcy waved a red-and-white hat in his face.
“Don’t forget your hat, sir!” she offered, more helpfully than necessary.
Now why did he get the impression she was trying to embarrass him in front of his fr-- in front of Steve.
He growled, but put the hat on anyway. It might look stupid, but it felt like home. And it was good for his team to see that he was on Fat Man business, not Hydra ass-kicking business. That put them in a better mood.
If Steve and Sam had been laughing at him, they stopped when Darcy gave them stupid hats of their own.
Steve’s hat was blue, with a shield logo. Darcy must have saved that one especially for him.
Sam’s had fake elf ears.
Barnes was delighted. He gave them both a grin full of sharp teeth. This was his domain. If he had to look stupid, so did they.
*
“O...kaaaaaay,” Moist said, taking a step backward from Hex and nearly walking into the beardless, bespectacled wizard behind him.
“Is everything quite alright, Postmaster?” asked Ponder Stibbons.
“Oh. Did I say that out loud?” Distract. Deflect. “Um...what I meant was, are you sure this thinking engine of yours has given me the correct address?”
The wizard straightened his robes and glasses, stepping closer to the engine and away from Moist. “Hex is never wrong. Occasionally confused, but not wrong, no.”
“It’s just that I’ve never heard of a North Pole,” Moist blustered on. “It doesn’t sound like a real place. I mean, I don’t believe discs generally have poles, do you?”
“Perhaps you should consider the possibility that it isn’t on the disc,” Ponder said absentmindedly. He had already begun making minor adjustments to Hex, and Moist, in his limited and reluctant dealings with wizards, recognized the expression that meant asking any more questions would not do much good.
He clutched the envelope tighter and stared at Hex’s neat script, willing it to say something more...normal. “Well, glom of nit, I suppose.”
“Pardon?” The wizard was looking at him again, his glasses still askew.
Moist supposed this one was either less, or more, distractable than other wizards he’d met.
Well, it was worth a try.
“You don’t know of a way one could deliver a letter to an address that isn’t even on the disc, do you?”
Ponder gave him an extremely patient look that made Moist think he was used to dealing with people who didn’t quite know what was what.
“I don’t know what Postmasters do when they need to find information, but around here, we usually go to the library.”
*
Barnes assigned an elf to Sam as soon as he made a beeline for the warehouse instead of the mail room. Leave it to the perpetual child to have a sixth sense for where the toys were kept.
“Come on, man! I don’t need a babysitter,” Sam whined.
Barnes gestured at the lithe older woman standing next to him.
“This is Noor,” he told Sam. “She is ex-Masad and knows fifteen different ways to kill you with a candy cane.”
Giving Barnes a sly grin, she retrieved a candy cane from the pocket of her tac vest and handed it to Sam.
“Watch your step, Mr. Wilson,” she said.
Sam was visibly shaking in his boots. Good.
As Barnes led the way to the mailroom, Steve opened his stupid trap. “So instead of elves, you have...um.”
“Ex-intelligence workers and assassins, yeah. Mostly people who got captured by Hydra, or people who worked for Hydra and wanted out. Also, Darcy.”
Just then, they reached the door to the mailroom. Barnes scanned his hand, and the automatic door whooshed open.
Sam and Steve stared open-mouthed at the array of computers staffed by earpiece-wearing “elves” who were better suited to desk jobs than fighting Hydra like Noor was.
“Fuck,” Sam breathed. “Santa got high tech.”
“There will be no inappropriate activities in the mailroom, Wilson.” Barnes couldn’t quite do the voice, but after thirty Christmases around Death, he could at least imitate him enough to freak people out.
Sam gave a gratifying squeak.
Relying on Noor to explain how incoming letters were processed and tagged so they could be fulfilled by the warehouse department by Christmas Eve, Barnes ran a full inspection of the mailroom with Em. He didn’t have time to answer stupid questions about how the North Pole had data on Santa letters that hadn’t technically been written yet.
Before working at the North Pole, Em had been a paper-pusher for MI5. She came across some data that uncovered Hydra operatives working within the British government that put her at risk, but luckily she had a contact already working with Barnes who helped her get out of harm’s way while they worked to take down the double agents. Em had blossomed at the North Pole headquarters, quickly becoming an efficient head of the mailroom.
She walked Barnes through the data they had collected for the coming Christmas, organized by the days gifts would be delivered, and then by timezone.
“It’s been an odd year, sir,” she told him, once they finished reviewing her report. “So many errors in the system: duplicate letters, mail from previous years, entire countries missing from our list.”
“What do you think, did IT raid the computer games division again, or is it Hydra?” Who was he kidding. It was Hydra. It was always Hydra.
“IT has done the best they can, but something is generating noise within the system,” she confirmed, eyes wide with fear despite her best efforts.
With the flashes of recognition that came with the Fat Man’s job, he remembered a particularly charming letter from six-year-old Em asking for a toy sword and shield to match her brothers’.
Fuck Hydra and their skill at making even the bravest, kindest hearts afraid , he thought. He did what he could to give the people they’d harmed a second chance, like Death had done for him. But it wasn’t always enough.
“Well, you handled the situation well,” he said as gently as a one-armed ex-assassin could. “I think it’s time to pass this along to the warehouse.”
Her relief was almost tangible. He knew it was time to get going so the mailroom workers could celebrate. The presence of the boss, even if he was Santa Claus, put a damper on their mood. Tomorrow Em would have them working hard on their other job, using those high-tech computers and databases to track Hydra movements around the world.
“Looky here, Sam!” Steve crowed, pulling Barnes’ attention back to his friend--and, ugh, Sam. “40% more children worldwide are asking for Falcon action figures this year. And here’s a kid asking for her very own wings!”
“Aw, lemme see,” Sam said, pulling away from Noor to look over Steve’s shoulder.
Steve, the overgrown brat, had hijacked one of the mailroom computers and had apparently taught himself how to use the complicated database while Barnes was going over Em’s report.
Barnes snapped and stormed over to them. “Stop reading my fucking mail, Steve. Don’t you have any sense of respect for other people’s goddamn privacy?”
Steve looked up with a wounded expression that would’ve looked more appropriate on a puppy or a small child.
“I...ugh.” Barnes dragged a hand across his face in exasperation. “Don’t make me assign babysitters to both of you. We are running a global enterprise, dammit!”
“But Bucky,” Sam whined. Barnes had a terrible feeling he was about to retaliate for something . “The mail can’t fuck! Especially when we all know that’s not allowed in the mailroom!”
Fuck you, Sam.
“The hell it can’t,” Darcy said, reappearing to hang a candy cane on Sam’s ear. “It sure does seem to multiply around here.”
*
Con men didn’t often have reason to visit a library, but Moist was pretty sure librarians weren’t supposed to be orangutans.
He was also pretty sure neither librarians nor orangutans were supposed to invite con men into the stacks. At least he thought that’s what the Librarian had said, although all he had really heard was “Ook!”
Moist stared after the Librarian for a moment, until the orangutan turned around again, gestured with annoyance, and said “Ook,” a little louder in case Moist hadn’t heard the first time.
The wizard at the closest desk rattled the parchments he was working with. “Well, what are you waiting for, young rascal? Go follow him, before he starts shouting!”
“Sorry,” Moist whispered.
As he strode after the Librarian, he could have sworn he heard a papery voice whispering back: sorry...sorry...sorry…
He turned around, but the annoyed wizard had resumed his study and presumably forgotten all about the interruption. A shame. Moist had almost hoped the wizard was calling him back to tell him he could help him instead of leaving him to the mercy of the Librarian.
Did orangutans eat con men -turned-Postmasters? Would the gold suit be a detractor or a delicacy?
He didn’t have time to consider; the Librarian was lumbering away at an impressive pace.
“Neither Rain Nor Snow Nor Glom of Nit,” he chanted to himself for courage.
L-space waited for Moist von Lipwig, and he followed it into the whispering stacks.
*
“How does some hot chocolate sound?” Darcy suggested, still working her magic to relieve the tension. “I’d suggest a tour of the workshop, but they’re about to be very busy.”
Bless Darcy.
“Hot chocolate sounds great!” Steve closed out of the mailroom database, and Barnes tried not to sigh too loudly with relief. “Could you add marshmallows, please?”
Oh no.
Darcy straightened with a majestic hm! and removed the candy cane she’d tucked in Steve’s stupid shirt pocket. Wordlessly, she flounced out of the mailroom.
“Word to the not-so-wise, pal. Don’t tell Darcy to do anything.”
“Sounds like Santa Bucky isn’t the only one with a naughty list.” Sam smirked terribly, then began to spin around in his chair, singing to himself. “ He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice...hm hm hm hm hmm hm hm hm hm hmm...Santa Barnes is coming to town. ”
Barnes had the worst feeling that Sam and Death would Get Along. If he were allowed to write his own Christmas wishes, he’d wish that he’d never be in the same room with the two of them.
He rolled his eyes and beckoned to Steve and Sam. “C’mon, I’ll make you your hot chocolate in the library.”
“You have a library?” Steve asked, getting up to follow him out of the mailroom.
“Look, I’ve been running this joint since the 80s. I have a lot of books.”
Plus, it was where the cats liked to hang out. He’d never understand what it was about cats and books. They just seemed to get along.
Unlike him and Sam. As they walked down the long hallway toward the library, Sam kept chattering excitedly, “Hot chocolate made by Santa, oh boy!”
Noor shot him a longsuffering glance, but looked mildly hopeful at the thought of chocolate. Barnes would have to give hers an extra candy cane for her trouble.
That was how she liked it. Learning how to make cocoa perfect for each person was a skill Barnes prided himself on. It was something he could do that didn’t rely on the Fat Man’s magic and had nothing to do with Hydra, either. Steve would want marshmallows--big, fluffy ones that would stick to his upper lip when he took the first few sips. Sam’s perfect hot chocolate had a mountain of whipped cream, freckled with cinnamon.
For himself, Barnes didn’t have any strong preferences. But if it was made in a saucepan, with real chocolate chips, it would make this whole day of herding two oversized children to the North Pole, and the trouble with Hydra noise interfering with the mail, slip away.
He was distracted by thoughts of hot chocolate when he opened the library door, distracted enough to yell and reach for the one of his knives when he saw what was inside the library.
There, sitting in his favorite chair, was a man dressed from head to toe in gold.
Barnes forced himself to ease his grip on his knife enough to page Darcy. “Darce? Anyone else besides us get in to headquarters lately? Anyone we don’t know?”
“Nah,” she said, still sounding miffed.
He turned back to the stranger, not wanting to push the issue with an irritated Darcy. “Well, who the hell are you?”
The man in gold rose lazily from the chair. “I have a letter here for,” he paused long enough to re-read the address before extending the paper toward Barnes, “Santa...Claus?”
Huh. He pronounced the “u.”
“Speaking,” Barnes said. He reached for the letter, and as soon as his fingers brushed the paper, a searing light filled the library.
When the light cleared, Barnes found himself still surrounded by books, but they didn’t look like his shelves. In fact, from what he could see between the abundant dust motes and his still-adjusting eyes, the books looked a lot older than his paperback sci-fi collection.
He took a step closer to the nearest shelf and staggered. As he reached out to steady himself, his hand brushed something unexpectedly soft.
“I beg your pardon,” the thing he had touched said.
“Ma’am,” he said, by way of apology.
He swung almost drunkenly around to get a better look at the woman and evaluate the damage, and as he did so, he noticed three things. One, she was a young woman in the grimmest dress he’d ever seen, wearing an expression of panic veiled in outrage. Two, he was about to fall on top of her. Three, a sharp pain was shooting through his foot like lightning.
Supersoldier juice or not, that’s going to hurt for a while, he thought as he collapsed. Who knew high heels could be so brutal?
*
When the light cleared in the library, Steve yelped when he saw that Bucky was gone. Only he, Sam, and the man in gold were left. Not again…
“O...kay,” Moist said, sinking back into the chair and holding his head in his hands. “Not panicking. Not panic--oh, gods. I think that was supposed to be my ticket home.”