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“If I wanted to give someone a bouquet of flowers to apologize for being the worst big brother in the world, what would you recommend?” Bucky rushes the words out all at once, nearly tripping over himself as he stumbles over the threshold of the little flower shop. He’s never been here before, but he thinks that may be soon fit to change.
The man behind the counter is small, shorter than Bucky by perhaps a few inches, with dark hair that curls around his ears and glasses set low on his nose. He seems entirely wrapped up in the text before him, a novelized description of a recent study in radioactivity. Bucky doesn’t know a single thing about the subject, but he thinks he might could learn to like it if it came out of a mouth as beautiful as that one. Wait. Ogling this guy isn’t getting him back into Becca’s good graces, and with Thanksgiving coming up, he can’t really afford to lose allies in these shallow trenches.
“Hi,” the man says, shy in his tone and waving a hand. Bucky doesn’t know what to do, so he waves back. “Looking for apology flowers, yeah? What’s her favorite color? That might be a good basis,” the man continues, slipping off of the stool he was sitting on and then around the counter. Closer still, he’s even more beautiful, and Bucky has to swallow before he can answer. His metal fingers tap against his hip.
“I - she likes blue. I’m Bucky, by the way,” he introduces awkwardly, offering a smile. The smile that the man offers back is beautiful, stunning in all of its quiet and free glory,
“Bruce,” the florist offers, his smile loosening around his eyes into something even more beautiful. “What are we apologizing for?” he asks, his own fingers tapping against his opposite wrist.
“Okay! So, I missed my sister’s most recent art show, and I’m really sorry. She’s my favorite person, and I really don’t wanna be on her shitlist this year,” Bucky says, smile sliding into a grin whenever he talks about Becca, even to pretty strangers who have messy hair and pen ink on their lower lip.
“Bluebells and hyacinths with some filler flowers? Bluebells for humility, hyacinths for sincerity, and they’re both blue. How quickly do you need the arrangement?” Bruce asks, pulling a clipboard off of the counter and beginning to write things down. Bucky doesn’t really know how to respond without panicking. He didn’t know that you were supposed to pre-arrange flower arrangements, or whatever.
He brings Bruce tea to get the flower arrangement done on the spot without extra cost. It was just a joke Bruce was making at the time, but Bucky runs across the street and order him a sweet little thing from Starbucks that Bruce obviously doesn’t like all that much, but he’s still drinking it. Bucky is already considering bringing Bruce tea until he gets the order right without asking, but that’s probably just wishful thinking. It’s not as if Bruce wants to have him by the shop so often, least of all without any more plans to purchase anything.
Bucky continues to bring Bruce tea. He learns a great many things about Bruce in the coming weeks. The book he was reading that first day was a text on radioactivity, but that had always been more of a passion project for him; he had inherited his mother’s flower store just a while ago, and that’s been more important since. He’s friends with a great many people, influential and non-influential alike, but he isn’t much for contact, so he usually disappears off the radar for a while when he can. His most regular interactions are probably with Bucky, which should make Bucky want to shy away, awkward, but the way that Bruce says it looking up from beneath his eyelashes belays the worry.
It feels like the beginning of something, but Bucky isn’t even remotely sure what it could be the beginning of. He keeps coming to see Bruce anyway.
Perhaps it’s cheesy that it comes to a head the week before Christmas.
Bruce is wrapped in a jacket that has tweed patches on the elbows, but he somehow manages to make it work in his favor. Bucky is actually buying flowers this time, but he still has a dirty chai latte for Bruce; that’s what has come the closest to Bruce actually liking something. Well, Bucky has tried both a regular chai and a chai latte before. This is a first attempt on the dirty part, though he’s not really sure what that means.
The kid at Starbucks probably thinks Bucky has a crush on the flower guy across the street. What Parker doesn’t know won’t make him cocky.
He also has… something else for Bruce. He might not even give it to him. It’s a copy of a book that Bruce has ranted about before, something about old man screams at cloud, something something, completely misunderstanding of radiation on biomechanics. He had also mentioned that he was only sad that he didn’t have a copy so that he could highlight it and construct a proper argument. So, Bucky has a copy of Overpowered: The Dangers of Electromagnetic Radiation (EMF) and What You Can Do about It tucked into his messenger bag. Completely unrelated.
“Hey, Bruce,” he says when he swings into the shop, crossing to the counter to put the drink down beside Bruce’s book. Bruce doesn’t even look up at him before taking a sip of the steaming tea, though he does look at Bucky directly after, making an excited humming noise that Bucky can’t help but smile at.
“You figured it out! Was wondering how long it would take,” Bruce says, smile warming his eyes. Bucky looks down at his winter boots, tracked with snow, before looking back up at his friend.
“I actually do need to buy something today. Do you have poinsettias I can for my mom’s dining table? She always gets the fake ones, and I thought it might be nice to get her the genuine article for a season.” He shrugs at the end of his sentence. He doesn’t really know if poinsettias are even a real flower or just something that suburban moms made up for the sake of their Christmas aesthetic, but he figures it can’t hurt to ask. It’s only when Bruce laughs that Bucky realises he said that bit aloud.
“Yeah, poinsettias are real flowers. I think we have some on the third shelf in the second row, if you want to look? If not, I can check the back,” Bruce offers, shrugging a shoulder before letting Bucky wander off by himself. Bucky follows the instructions and looks between the many stands of flowers, carefully maintained by their owners and beautiful for it. He beams when he finds them, picking up a few of the poinsettias.
“Here they are! Thanks, Bruce, she’ll love these,” he says, holding up the flowers that he’s collected before taking them to the counter. Bruce rings him up and out quickly before he speaks, looking at Bucky with a shy, guarded expression.
“That all, then? You’re not going to be around for the holidays if I remember correctly, so I’ll see you around after, won’t I?” Bruce asks, his gaze not quite meeting Bucky’s. It seems so falsely inviting that it makes Bucky’s stomach roil, and maybe Bruce hasn’t wanted him around at all. Maybe Bucky has been making it up in his head this whole time. Maybe they were never friends at all. He keeps his smile anyway.
“Yeah, I guess that’s it then. I’ll see you around, Bruce,” he says. The smile he’s wearing feels fake, but it almost becomes something real when he leaves the book on the counter. It’s not for him anyway. It was never for him at all, and even if Bruce doesn’t draw the conclusion that it was from Bucky and for him and why, that’s okay. As long as Bruce gets it. As long as it makes Bruce happy.
“Wait, you forgot your -” Bucky stops short. He wasn’t expecting to have to deal with this so immediately. He turns back with hunched shoulders, curled in on himself with the idea of having to explain, but it’s obvious. Bruce knows before Bucky has even said a word, his jaw falling open a bit as the puffs of white condensation come off of his breath into the New York cold winter air.
“It was for me wasn’t it? You got me a Christmas present,” Bruce realises aloud. Bucky clears his throat, coloring red.
“Well, it’s what my mom says you do for people you wanna get to know more, even if you don’t quite know how to say it,” he explains. He can’t look at Bruce, can’t stand to even look in his orbit, so he scrapes his eyes across the New York cityscape around them. It seems so much quieter than it should be, just the two of them. Bucky’s attention snaps to Bruce when he hears the other man’s tone.
“You want to get to know me more?” Bruce asks, curiosity mixing with joy in a beautiful cocktail that makes Bruce glow.
“Maybe a lot more, if you’d let me,” he admits, looking down at the snow-covered concrete between them. His gaze stays there until small hands take residency on the ends of his scarf.
“You’re something out of a Hallmark Channel Christmas rom-com, aren’t you? Some hot guy with a Brooklyn accent sweeping me off my feet,” Bruce says, hands pulling on his scarf in a way that makes Bucky feel wanted in a way that he burns with.
“Well, if a romance is what you want, I can come back in a coupla days with a formal request to take ya out ta dinner,” Bucky suggests, grinning as Bruce immediately rolls his eyes, using the ends of his scarf to pull him in for a brief kiss. It’s barely a moment, just the barest brush of their lips, but it’s still enough to knock Bucky entirely off kilter.
“Don’t think I’m going to let you go after all of this, Bucky Barnes.”