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After a mission every normal person would curl up on bed with their shaggy cat and just sleep injuries off so their body could heal. Thing is, Bucky is not normal, he is also known as adult who won’t tell others that kids fucked up. So just as he was about to settle his ass down in his super comfy couch with a warm pizza for himself and some cat food for Alpine his phone rang and made him stop in his track of sitting down. He looked over at the chair over which he threw his suit when he took it off before shower. Bucky let out a groan and pit his pizza on the table, but still carrying Alpine’s food because he knew the little devil would try and snatch it the moment he set it down, damn thing was at least smart enough that after burning her nose once she stopped trying his pizza. Bucky walked over to his phone, looking at caller ID.
It read ‘Hawkeye’ with picture of Clint Barton.
And THAT is how he was now collecting kids at the central park in small rented out minivan because their base was found out and they were all drenched in water, why, he didn’t ask Clint and he didn’t tell him over the phone, all he knew was that these kids were as much of punks as Steve was and he didn’t want them to get sick or hurt by some villain, so he was on pick up duty since Clint was dealing with some things. He slowly parked minivan, looking around for group of teenagers, and soon enough he spotted them, they were arguing about something that seemed not really important by way that kid with the wings, Teddy, he reminded himself was holding his boyfriend under his wings and boy had a small smile on his lips. He scanned them for injuries as they were coming closer to the place where he parked and luckily, he found nothing, that let him breathe for a little while. He slowly got out of car and waved, getting their attention.
He opened doors of minivan and streak of green bolted inside taking up the front seat. Bucky just let out a small laugh, waiting for others to scramble to car. They looked like wet cats and that gave him a bit of flashback on Stevie back before war when Bucky would find him wet in some alley. “Looks like you kids had quite a night”, he said as he let them into the van, there were some moans and groans at his question and he gave them apologetic smile as he closed the doors.
“You wouldn’t believe us Mr. Barnes!”, Kate yelled, trying to wrap herself around America so they would share a blanket. “Thanks for collecting us, we honesty didn’t plan for this to happen. Or for anyone to call you, we just got the call from Mr. Barton telling us that you will pick us up until tomorrow”, Billy supplied, standing up and changing his clothing to dry one, Bucky guessed that his teammates would kill for that ability right now. Bucky started the van, stretching out to take another blanket from the floor and give it to Tommy: “Don’t sweat it kids, I wasn’t planning on doing anything better tonight, so no harm done.” He said in softest voice that he could manage and started riding, trying to figure out how to get these wet cats to his apartment as fast as possible.
“We would just take up an apartment in Clint’s building if he wasn’t an ass”, Kate said matter of factly, but Bucky knew she wasn’t saying that to be mean, she just preferred being there because it was familiar, Bucky knew a thing or two about wanting things that reminded him of how was it ‘back then’. He heard Kate yelp and some chatter, but paid it no mind. Kids will be kids. Two or three minutes in he looked at seat next to him as kid was trying to find some good radio station to put on music and by looks of it, it wasn’t going all too well. He seemed annoyed at every song, but after some time and yelling from back seat to leave radio alone they were stuck on ’70 rock music, not that Bucky will complain, he was an old man, he didn’t mind it all that much.
They rode for another 20 minutes before he parked in parking lot of his building and opened the doors: “The penthouse floor, lift is broken so I would recommend you walk if you don’t want another rescue mission.”
“This thing is huge! America can’t you just, you know, kick the portal to pent house?”, Tommy asked and Kate nodded in agreement. “No way princess, I’m drained”, America said while stretching and taking her blanket along with herself to get inside the building. Billy and Teddy both went without much complaining, though Bucky caught some bickering about how Billy doesn’t want to cuddle until Teddy was dry, since this was his only turtle neck. He just let the kids get inside the building and followed behind them, looking as they pushed each other and moaned about how much stairs there was. He needed to remind himself that even though they were heroes, they were also teenagers that will complain about just about anything, that triggered fond memory in his mind of Steve complaining about how it wasn’t fair he wasn’t going to be allowed in military, Bucky didn’t have heart first 10 times to tell him that his medical record had something to do with it.
When they FINALLY, as kids helpfully said, reached the door he unlocked it and let them inside, most of them were in their suits, and he supposed didn’t have change of clothing, spare for Billy, he supposed that kid could magic them some clothing, but then again, magic probably exhausted him. Bucky saw Loki use magic one or two times, even God could get tired of using it constantly.
“Alright, there is some pizza on the table, I put some in oven so you can check if it’s done, I’ll go scavenge something to wear for you kids, if you need anything ask Alpine, though I don’t think she will be of much help. She’s great for cuddling though”, he said before leaving for his room to go through things and find something that they could wear. Boys weren’t that much of a problem, he could give them some of those ridiculous Iron Man boxers that Stark gifted him and he still haven’t opened them and some hoodies and they were taken care of, girls were a bit trickier, but he supposed he could figure something out, he was a Winter Soldier for lord’s sake. He fished some hoodies from his wardrobe and threw it onto the bed, along with pack of ridiculous boxers. He thought about it and supposed that if he gave girls sweat pants that had string they could just tie them and that would be covered, as for underwear, they were stuck with Iron Man boxers because he didn’t own female underwear that didn’t belong to Natalia. With four hoodies in hand and his smallest sweatpants with string he went into living area.
Kids were walking around trying to make pillows and blankets as comfortable as possible.
“Hey kids, I found some clothing in wardrobe, I don’t have supply for this kind of thing so you’re stuck with this, also, if it wasn’t for Tony you would be stuck in wet underwear, so yeah, send him a big thank you for that. If anyone wants to shower you got bathroom down the hall”, he said putting all clothing down onto the couch, shooing Alpine when she tried to sit on it. At mention of shower no one seemed too keen so he let it be.
America took pair of underwear and looked at him, then at Kate, then at underwear again: “Just… why did he…”
“Because he’s Stark”, Bucky said, deciding to leave them to switching into something warm, “I’ll go make some hot chocolate, I think I got some, while you change, you can put everything on that blanket you used and I will throw it in laundry.” His proposal was met with small sounds of agreement from all of them, so he left the room, going to prepare hot chocolate for this bunch of punks. He found everything he needed and after 15 minutes he was finally done, and he supposed kids were too as chatter about how annoying it was to get wet clothes off died down few minutes ago. He left kitchen carrying five cups of hot chocolate and one cup of coffee for himself. He looked around the room and kids were occupying couch and blankets on floor. It was a nice picture, his clothing looked big on everyone but Teddy, but that was alright too, it was warm and clean. He slowly went to them and gave out hot chocolate to everyone, giving everyone small ‘no problem’ when they said thank you.
After that he settled in arm chair watching over them as they joked about what was happening on TV. Tommy was stretched out with his legs in Billy’s lap, while Billy was leaning on Teddy. America and Kate were both slumped against each other, trying each other’s hot chocolate even though it was exactly the same.
This felt nice. Just looking at this bunch of punks huddled in his living room. It made him thing about how, maybe, when he felt like every debt is paid off, he will get one or two kids of his own and settle down. Yeah, that sounded like a nice idea.