Work Text:
Steve would have never thought that being a superhero would leave him with a lot of spare time to fill, but after finding Bucky somewhere in bumfucknowhereistan and then Bucky promptly needing space to figure out his shit or whatever, well, that’s exactly what he has.
Time.
So much time.
He can only call Sam so many times, only work on ‘training’ with Wanda, only interrupt Nat in the middle of whatever it is she’s doing, before the world snaps and tells him to find a way to goddamn entertain himself.
“I don’t have anything to do .” He whines to Sharon over the phone, listening to the sound of her fist meeting flesh across the line and her slightly heavier than normal breathing. “Do you need backup?”
“No, I need my aunt’s superhero war boyfriend to stop calling me in the middle of missions.” Sharon says, but it’s a little more fond than when Nat says similar things so Steve thinks he can get away with it. “I don’t know what to tell you Steve. Get a pet? Wait, no, don’t get a pet. God no, please don’t do that. Get a plant. A couple plants.”
“A plant?” Steve says, feeling strangely confused by the suggestion.
“Yeah, it’ll be good for you. Start a garden or something. Just, do anything that isn’t calling me at 3 in the goddamn morning while I’m on an op. Call me at like, 11 on a Sunday when it’s my day off. That’s a normal time to call Steve. If you catch me in a good mood we can even do brunch.”
“Okay.” Steve says, and then again, “Okay. I can do that. I’ll start a garden. Can’t be that hard. Call me if you need a hand, okay?”
“Yeah, sure, goodbye.” And then, with a sound that sounds an awful lot like Sharon just smashed in the head of someone with her phone, the line goes dead.
God, Steve loves Carter women.
Starting a garden is fucking hard.
Steve wiles away a good week researching how to go about it, what he’ll need to do to turn all the little spare spaces in his apartment and on his fire escape into a fully functioning garden. Google is a godsend for a lot of it, and going to the library for books for the rest takes up a whole afternoon.
He wishes, in that strange way he often does when he goes to do something alone, that he had someone to go with him to the library, but it’s still somehow calming to have all that information around, all printed on paper instead of floating in what he imagines is the ether of the internet.
It’s physical- solid, and when Steve leaves the place carrying at least two dozen books he feels just a little more settled.
Seeding is a process. He meticulously plants every teeny tiny seed in it’s soil and then checks them each and every day, watching for them to sprout. When he has to prune them down and leave only the best seedlings it’s possibly one of the hardest things he’s done in his life and he ends up with several seed trays full of transplanted seedlings that he didn’t have the heart to throw in the trash.
It’s as he’s staring at his trays upon trays of happy little seedlings, all ready to be planted properly that he realizes there’s no way he has enough room in his apartment.
He puts off planting for a few days and makes a trip to the hardware store.
Steve thanks the Lord for google for probably the hundredth time in this century, and then curses the universe at least that many times as he attempts to build a greenhouse. It takes him a week and he spends the whole time worrying that he’s leaving his poor little seedlings too long, but by the time it’s finished he has a greenhouse and garden beds on his roof and rows and rows of happy little plants.
It’s weirdly fulfilling. It also does exactly what he needed it to and takes up time.
Sharon comes by to see it when she’s in town, lets Steve walk her up down the rows and point out what all he’s growing. She carefully avoids touching anything, looking like she’s worried she’ll somehow break the plants, but she does look proud.
“Lookit you Rogers, following my advice and making something.”
“Eventually it’ll be more than a bunch of green stuff even.” Steve says, can feel himself puffing up just a little bit with pride. He did make something. He’s making a lot of somethings. Eventually all the somethings will even be food, that he can eat. Or more likely, give most of to his neighbors because Steve has no idea how to cook most of it.
“I’m going to take all the credit.” Sharon says and Steve doesn’t even argue, too proud of the greenery in front of them.
The plants get bigger and Steve wiles away more and more of his days watering and weeding and pruning them back when he needs to. It’s soothing, and he feels something in him settle every morning and evening as he tends to his rooftop garden.
Sometime mid season however, something changes. He shows up for his morning watering routine only to find that it’s already been done for him. Every plant in the greenhouse is sitting in soil that’s the perfect amount of moist, the leaves carefully dry.
Even his tomato plants that he keeps on the fire escape to keep him company are watered.
It’s a lot more confusing than he wants to admit, and it only grows more confusing when it keeps happening.
He remains baffled, texting Natasha pictures of the greenhouse every morning when he finds it in pristine shape, every plant carefully tended to while Steve was sleeping.
Two weeks into his new routine he finds it. A calling card. It’s left in a spill of soil on Steve’s workbench, a single star clearly drawn into the dirt.
He leaves a plate piled with sandwiches that night instead of doing what he really wants to do and staking out his rooftop waiting for Bucky to show up. When he returns in the morning his plants are watered and the sandwiches eaten, a pile of crusts in the middle of the plate.
Steve can’t stop smiling the entire time he weeds and prunes.
“Bucky was here.” He tells Sam while everyone’s over for a barbecue, Clint manning the grill on Steve’s roof and Avengers mingling with Steve’s neighbors like it’s no big deal.
“You sure?” Sam doesn’t sound disbelieving, not exactly, just cautious.
“Yeah, he's been watering my plants.” Steve says, like it’s the tantamount of proof.
“Sure it wasn't a nice neighbor?” Sam asks and Steve frowns at him, arms coming across his chest. He knows Sam’s not trying to squash his hopes, that he just wants Steve to be realistic, but he’s been too elated by being so close to Buck for the first time in months that he can’t handle any doubt.
“He left a star in the dirt. And when I left sandwiches he left the crust.” He says instead of the very mature ‘I’m right, I’m right, I’m riiiiiiight,’ that wants to come spewing forth.
“...Okay I'm still not sure how that's proof.” Which is fair, Steve supposes.
“The star’s his, I don’t know, calling card? Nat explained it to me once. And Buck never liked crust. Even when we didn’t have jack he hated the crust and would fend it off on me. Though I always thought that might just be an excuse to give me more food. Buck would go hungry if it meant feeding me enough, the idiot.”
“God sometimes I forget that your life was depressing as hell.”
“They didn't call it the depression for nothin.” Steve jokes and Sam groans like steve just killed him.
“Alright. Alright, you’ve convinced me. If only so that I can never hear you make a Great Depression joke again. The Winter Soldier’s watering your sadness garden, that’s not weird at all.”
“It’s not my sadness garden.”
“Oh, right, my mistake, you’re You Have Too Much Damn Time And It Was Annoying Everyone Garden.”
“That’s more like it.”
It keeps going like that until harvest time, Steve waking up to find his garden watered and whatever plate of food he’d left up there the night before eaten. He accepts it, starts to embrace it even, the knowledge that Bucky is so close, that they’re doing this together even if Bucky still won’t show himself. He starts to think maybe, just maybe this is his life now and he’s okay with it. Knowing Bucky is alive and well enough to water plants and leave stars in the dirt for Steve to find later is enough.
If he’s planning some winter vegetables and some rigs to make sure the greenhouse can be up and running through the winter then that’s just fine . That’s normal even.
And then it all changes.
Bucky’s standing on his roof when he makes his way up there one morning, looking distinctly uncomfortable but also like he’s stubbornly refusing to jump off the building and flee.
Steve’s sure he looks the opposite. His cheeks hurt with the force of his smile and he’s resisting the urge to pounce and drag Bucky into the tightest hug of his goddamn life.
“Hey Buck.” He says instead of ‘Thank god you’re here. I miss you so fucking much. Please don’t leave again.’
“I figured you might want a hand.” Bucky says, gesturing to the plants with his metal appendage and Steve snorts, doesn’t miss the smug little twist of Bucky’s lips when he does.
“You’re not funny.” Steve claims, lying through his teeth and Bucky grins, a little sharper than Before but still Bucky. “But I could use a hand.” He adds, already moving to kneel over a row with his bucket.
Bucky mirrors him, kneeling to Steve’s left, close enough that Steve can practically feel the body heat radiating off the other man, and they get to work.
When they’re done harvesting what’s ready he has buckets upon buckets of fresh produce. It’s more than he knows what to do with, and turns out to be more than even his neighbors want.
He’s not focused on that though, instead focusing on the flush of satisfaction he feels when he looks at his harvest and realizes he did that. He started something from nothing and made food. It makes something warm bloom beneath his ribs and when he looks at Bucky, dirt smudged and clearly exhausted, he thinks the other man is feeling the same thing.
When Steve climbs down the fire escape and into his apartment Bucky follows like he’d never had any intention of doing anything else.
Steve is so damn grateful that he doesn’t have to ask, doesn’t have to beg.
“I’m making dinner, because your ass is a terrible cook and I’ve been suffering every time you’ve attempted it the past couple weeks.” Bucky says, heading towards Steve’s kitchen like he owns the place, like he’s familiar with it already.
Steve doesn’t think he’d be surprised if he found out Bucky’s been inside at least a few times already.
Later that night, after Steve is filled up on home cooking and Bucky’s presence, Bucky follows Steve to his bedroom without a word. He shoots Steve a look, like he’s daring him to say something, to argue, and then he steals a pair of Steve’s pajamas and crawls into bed with him like it’s perfectly normal.
Steve doesn’t argue. Steve doesn’t do anything other than wedge himself backwards into the space Bucky leaves at his front and enjoy having him back.
Steve ends up needing a stand at a local farmers market to get rid of everything he’s grown.
When he tells Bucky this, the man shakes his head at him from the bathroom doorway, somehow giving him a you dumbass look even with a toothbrush in his mouth.
“Of course you do. You don’t have a garden Rogers, you have a goddamn farm.” He says like Steve is being particularly thick. God, Steve had missed that tone.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Steve says as he climbs into their bed, shoving at the pillows until they’re situated just right.
“Every dumb idea you’ve ever had has seemed like a good idea at the time. One day you’re gonna give me a heart attack with a good idea at the time.” Bucky mutters, rinsing his mouth and dropping his toothbrush into it’s spot right next to Steve’s.
“No such luck, that serum makes our tickers strong as steel.”
“What a shame.” Bucky says, all fake dismay as he crawls into bed next to Steve and proceeds to shove and pull at Steve until they’re situated, Steve’s back all along Bucky’s chest and Bucky’s arms wrapped around Steve’s middle.
Bucky’s cold feet go right to Steve’s shins and Steve hisses and tries to kick back at him, only for Bucky to trap his leg with both of his feet and press harder.
“Stop fightin’ it and accept that you’re my hot water bottle.” Bucky mutters into the back of Steve’s neck and Steve goes lax before reaching back and pinching at Bucky’s side.
“I didn’t sign up to be a hot water bottle.”
“It was in the fine print when you signed up to be a science experiment.”
“Oh my god, it’s been half a century.”
“Oh my god, it’s been half a century,” Bucky echoes back in the worst imitation of Steve that Steve’s ever heard, voice high and mocking.
“You’re a jerk and I don’t want to have a farm with you anymore.” Steve says, sniffing indignantly.
“You’re bad at lying, sweetheart.” Bucky says and bites at Steve’s shoulder to emphasise his point.
They end up hauling their produce to the next farmers market. Steve and Bucky heft boxes and boxes of fresh vegetables to their table, and Steve makes signs that detail exactly what they are with little drawings of the fruits and veggies on them.
Bucky teases him about it, but he’s smiling like Steve’s something rare and precious when he does it, so Steve can’t exactly do anything but smile back.
Bucky’s wearing a wide brimmed straw hat and jeans and a grubby t-shirt like a real farmer and they sit in their chairs, pressed close together so that their shoulders can brush and Steve can hear Bucky griping under his breath about Steve undercharging.
Steve can’t stop smiling, even as he gripes back at Bucky about him handing out free food to every kid that stops long enough.
He never would have imagined this, not when he started those seeds all those months ago, not ever.
“Take a picture Rogers, it’ll last longer.” Bucky says with an easy smile when he catches Steve staring.
“Don’t mind if I do.” Steve says, grabs his phone and snaps a picture of Bucky smiling beneath his stupid farmer hat, metal hand raised to flip him off.
Steve’s still smiling like Bucky’s the best thing he’s ever seen in the whole damn world when Bucky drags him in, steals his phone and gets a picture of them together, his nose pressed into Steve’s cheek and their table, filled with all it’s fruits and vegetables behind them.
The next year, when Steve and Bucky do things properly with the intention of having something much more farm than garden, they make a website and Bucky insists on the picture from that first farmers market being on the front page.
C&S Urban Garden’s page goes viral.
Bucky ends up printing the Buzzfeed article and attaches it to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a slice of watermelon.
Sharon spends more years than anyone wants to acknowledge claiming she was responsible for it all.