Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I’m okay, Becca,” Bucky says for what seems like the hundredth time. “I get to spend some time with Steve and Peggy. It’ll be fun, and of course Ma and Dad wanted to come and meet your soulmate.”

“But you’re all alone…” Becca says. She’s been saying the same thing for the past half an hour and nothing he says seems to get through to her. He loves his sister, he really does, and he’s happy that she found her soulmate, but one of the more frustrating side effects is that she now seems to think that his life is some sort of barren, joyless wasteland. He keeps telling himself that she means well, but it’s getting more difficult to believe himself with every passing minute.

“I’m not alone,” Bucky tells her, yet again. “I’m staying with Steve and Peggy. I’m almost there, even.” He looks out of the taxi window as it turns into a familiar road. “It’ll be great.” And I won’t have to deal with all the looks Ma would be giving me , he doesn’t add.

“I just… you know we worry about you,” Becca tells him and yes, Bucky knows. He knows because they tell him every opportunity they get. They are all worried about how lonely he must be, and it’s only been worse since Becca found her soulmate a month ago and her world burst into colour. Now there’s just him, and his parents never listen to him when he says he doesn’t mind, that a soulmate’s not something he’s actively looking for. They ‘hmm’ at him and share significant looks and tell him that one day he’ll find that connection and he’ll see the world in colour too.

Bucky’s not looking for colours. You can’t miss something you’ve never had, after all, even if sometimes he wonders if he’s lying to himself about that. But he’s past thirty now and the odds of finding a soulmate decrease every year, as internet articles love to tell him. Twenty per cent of the population never find their soulmate, he knows, and that’s okay. He just wishes people would listen to him when he tells them that.

It’s not that he doesn’t want a soulmate. It’s just that... he thinks of it more as a bonus than the grand prize. He’ll find them if and when he finds them, and the only thing people worrying about it does is make him more frustrated. When he was younger, maybe he had some grand romantic dreams, and maybe there have been a few disappointments along the way, but he’s older now and he’s more realistic about the whole thing.

He’s actually kind of grateful Becca couldn’t come home for Christmas this year, so his parents decided to head over to the west coast instead, because it means he gets to spend Christmas blissfully free of all the comments and the pussyfooting around the subject, which would no doubt be exasperated by the presence of Becca’s lovely and very much present soulmate to rub the salt in the wound.

Steve and Peggy are at least blunt about it when they do ask. They don’t treat him like he might burst into tears if they say it wrong, and they are more than happy to drop the subject. They’ve been together for years, so there won’t even be that ‘new soulmate’ giddiness to deal with. He likes to joke that they’ve got boring, but really they’re just comfortable.

The taxi pulls up and Bucky climbs out automatically, grabbing his bags from the back one by one before trying to remember how exactly he had managed to carry them all from the aeroplane in the first place. He seems to have four more handles to hold than he has hands, which would be too many even if he did still have two.

After finally attaching them all to himself, Bucky looks up and frowns. He turns back to the taxi to tell the driver they got the wrong place, but it’s already gone, sped off to pick up some other poor fool.

This… cannot be the right house. It’s like Christmas exploded all over it.

It’s not that Steve and Peggy don’t do Christmas lights, it’s more that they do them in a classy sort of way. Subtlety has always been the watchword. Steve’s artistic sensibilities and Peggy’s unerring ability to weed out nonsense, mean they like to keep it more refined, Bucky supposes the word would be. Peggy claims that over in the UK Christmas lights never used to be a thing, and tells Steve it’s an American habit and shouldn’t they be trying to save energy? But Steve insists that some high efficiency lights make the holiday. Bucky, who’s always been used to the chaos of a large family with everyone trying to outdo each other, can’t help but agree with him.

This year, though, it seems that something has happened in the Rogers-Carter household, because there are more lights there than Bucky has ever seen before - or there would be, except for how Bucky just noticed the house next door.

Whoever lives there seems to really have embraced the holiday spirit. What, with the giant inflatable light-up elves and the fake icicles dripping from the eaves, not to mention the… Bucky’s pretty sure that’s actually Spider-man in a santa suit on top of the roof. It’s a hotch-potch mess of the brightest, most over the top christmas decorations Bucky’s ever seen, and he’s sure that if he could see in colour, it would be every shade of the rainbow.

Even that’s odd, though, because as far as he knows, Natasha and Maria have lived next to Steve for years and neither of them really seemed like the Christmas lights type. But no one mentioned that they’d moved out, so he has no clue who’s responsible for all of… that.

In shades of grey, twinkling away, it all looks quite pretty. Buck wonders what it looks like in colour. Knowing Steve, his garden at least is all perfectly co-ordinated. He’d taken to colours with joy and Bucky’s heard every possible discussion about which shade of blue looks best with which shade of green. He has no idea what Steve’s talking about, but he lets him ramble.

Bucky stands at the low hedge that marks the boundary between the two houses and looks from one to another.

Something is definitely going on.

As he’s staring at the illuminations, the door to Steve’s house swings open and Bucky hears his name ring out.

“Barnes, you’re late!” Peggy’s voice calls out. “Get in here and talk some sense into my husband.”

“Been trying that for years, Peg,” Bucky says with a grin, swinging his final bag up onto a shoulder as he makes his way down the path, dodging illuminated reindeer. “It never took. It’s your turn now, I told you that at your wedding.”

“I was a little busy getting married and talking to fifty million people I’d never seen before to listen to you,” Peggy says. She looks as good as ever, and he tells her so, kissing her cheek as she half-heartedly pushes at him. She leans back to eye him with a stern glare.

“Go and tell your fool of a best friend that Christmas isn’t a competition.”

“Ah,” Bucky says. “I take it that’s why the front yard looks like Santa’s factory exploded all over it.”

“Something like that,” she says, rolling her eyes. “He has sketched plans ,” she tells him. “There are four days until Christmas, he hasn’t bought a present for my parents yet. But he has time to sketch plans for christmas lights. He’s talking about getting a snow machine.”

Bucky blinks and looks outside, where snow is already falling sluggishly from the sky. It’s not sticking, but it’s definitely there.

“Apparently it’s not ‘the right kind of snow’,” Peggy says, actually using air quotes for the last part, which makes it clear how far gone she is with this whole thing.

“I won’t be able to change his mind,” Bucky says, shrugging off his coat to hang it behind the door. “I never have yet.”

“I can hope for a miracle… it is Christmas, after all,” Peggy says, and Bucky laughs. His insides are already filling up with the bubbling warmth that he finds here at Steve and Peggy’s. “Please James, I’m at my wit’s end. If I have to look at one more cock-eyed reindeer that wants to eat my soul, I’m throwing the pair of you out and you can have Christmas dinner at KFC.” Bucky wrinkles his nose.

“I said I’d talk to him… but what exactly happened?”

“Natasha’s brother,” Peggy says. “He’s back in the country for a few months and apparently he’s very enthusiastic about Christmas.”

“He’s responsible for next door, then?” Bucky asked.

“Yes. Maria’s not terribly impressed, but Natasha rarely sees him, so they’re letting him do what he wants to. The kids love it, of course.”

“Of course they do,” Bucky agreed. “But why did Steve get involved?”

“Steve… made a suggestion,” Peggy said.

“I was being helpful,” Steve’s voice calls from the top of the stairs and Bucky looks up to see Steve standing, half covered in glitter. He blinks.

“You thought you were being helpful,” Peggy corrects, her tone fond, but exasperated, which is a pretty standard tone when dealing with Steve Rogers.

“I just thought he should know that the colour scheme didn’t work at all,” Steve says.

“Not everyone likes being reminded that they can’t see in colour yet, dear,” Peggy tells him and Steve looks a little abashed.

“Stevie, you’re an idiot,” Bucky says.

“I didn’t mean to insult him, but there’s a lot of colour out there.”

“It does look somewhat like a unicorn threw up,” Peggy says, wincing. “But the man hasn’t met his soulmate, Steve. He can’t be expected to create a perfect colour scheme.”

“It was just a suggestion,” Steve says. “I was trying to help.”

“I bet you were,” Bucky says. “And then what happened?”

“Then the next day he had more colours ,” Steve says, his face pained. “And they’re right in line with our front windows.”

“So you…”

“When I asked him to tone it down a bit, he told me it was Christmas and I should live a little ,” Steve says, his face hardening. “And that if I had so many opinions about Christmas light displays, I should do one of my own instead of chickening out.”

Bucky heaves a deep sigh and glances at Peggy, whose expression says it all. They both know that a line like that was a red rag to a bull where Steve was concerned.

“So now you’re determined to do Christmas better than him,” Bucky finishes.

“Not better ,” Steve says, frowning. “It’s Christmas, you can’t do it better than other people… but I just… I want him to know that I can do a good Christmas light display.”

“Sure you can, pal,” Bucky says in the same tone he’d used whenever Steve had tried to convince him that he’d been about to win that fight all by himself before Bucky showed up. It’s a well worn conversation by this point, but it’s never been about lights before. Bucky carefully doesn’t mention that he actually sort of likes next door’s display. That wouldn’t be helpful.

“And now we are at war with our next door neighbours,” Peggy says. “Steve nearly fell off the roof last night stringing lights round the eaves.”

“Steve! If you break your neck over some Christmas lights, I will resurrect you to kick the shit out of you,” Bucky warns.

“I’m not going to break my neck,” Steve says, his face taking on the stubborn cast that Bucky knew all too well. “I was perfectly safe.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” Bucky says. “Clip clopping over frozen roofs should be left to reindeer - and you sure as hell shouldn’t be out there by yourself.”

“Well, if you don’t want me climbing on the roof alone, then I guess you’re going to haveta help me, Buck,” Steve says, crossing his arms and grinning smugly. Bucky gritted his teeth and groaned inwardly. He’d walked right into that one.

“Like hell I am,” Bucky said. “Just leave it be, the guy next door’s having fun. Let him have fun.”

“I’m not stopping him from having fun,” Steve says. “If anything, I’m giving him more fun, because he keeps adding more lights every time I do.”

“You’re going to bankrupt us with Christmas decorations,” Peggy says. Steve has the good sense to look a little apologetic as he bites his lip.

“Actually, I’m expecting…” he starts.

“If this is more reindeer, then so help me god, I will divorce you before the end of the year,” Peggy says. “They are not cute, they are demonic, and I have ten years of Sunday school to back me up on that.”

“It’s a sleigh,” Steve says. “For the roof.”

“A sleigh,” Peggy says. She takes a deep breath. “James, dear. Please close your eyes, I’d hate to ruin your Christmas by making you watch me murder your best friend.”

“Plausible deniability, Pegs, you’re not supposed to tell him,” Steve says.

“There isn’t a court in the land that would convict me,” Peggy says. “Not when I showed them the pictures.”

“It’s just a sleigh, Pegs. No more after this, I swear.”

“That’s what you said after the snowman.”

“The snowman?” Bucky asks, already regretting it even as the words come out of his mouth.”

“There was a giant inflatable snowman,” Steve says. “It popped.”

“It deflated on top of my car,” Peggy says.

“The guy next door laughed ,” Steve said, his eyes brightening again. “He’s not going to laugh when we have a life-sized sleigh on our roof.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Bucky says.

But when has he ever been able to convince Steve of that?

*

It’s half past nine in the morning and Bucky’s standing on a slippery roof trying to manoeuvre a life-sized sleigh into position so it won’t fall down and crush people standing in the garden. It really gives him a new respect for Santa, because Bucky had thought parallel parking was a bitch. Try parking a sleigh on a roof and fitting eight reindeer on it as well.

Although Bucky supposes Santa’s sleigh - and reindeer for that matter - have the added bonus that they can fly, so they probably won’t fall.

Steve’s sleigh is not so lucky.

“I think if we move it left a little…” Steve  says.

“Your left or my left?” Bucky asks, mostly to be a dick, because he knows exactly which way Steve means, but he’s losing feeling in all his extremities right now, and if he stays up here any longer, he’s a bit afraid of where the frostbite might end up. He’s slipped over a couple of times and his pants are soaked with snow-melt. Having already lost one limb in his life, he’s sort of attached to the others.

“My left,” Steve says. “Wait… no, hold on.”

Bucky holds on. He’s been holding on, his arm is stuck in this position now, he’s pretty sure, what with the cold and the muscle cramp.

He looks over at the next garden over. Sometime in the night a choir of angels has appeared on the stoop, halos shining softly.

“Is it really that bad?” he asks.

“Hm?” Steve calls back.

“Next door, is their display really that bad - colour-wise?” he asks.

“It’s… pretty full on,” Steve says.

“Looks kinda pretty to me,” Bucky says.

“Yeah, well you can’t-” Steve stops himself and Bucky sighs.

“I can’t see in colour,” Bucky says.

“Yet,” Steve adds.

“Maybe never,” Bucky tells him. “I don’t exactly have a safe job, and helping you climb about on rooftops isn’t exactly risk-free.”

“You’ll find them,” Steve says. He thinks it sounds reassuring, but honestly the words just make Bucky feel tired these days. He’s heard them from everyone and her daughter. His mother, Becca, his distant relatives that he only sees at weddings and funerals. ‘One day’ they always say, with this soft tone of voice, like he’s dying or something. It’s bullshit. Not that Bucky would say no to a soulmate, but this idea that he’s not complete without one, that’s bullshit. People talk the same way about his lack of soulmate as they do his lack of arm, and it’s as irritating for both.

“If I don’t,” Bucky says. Steve starts to talk, but Bucky talks over his protests. “If I don’t, don’t think I’m not happy. Alright? I’m happy with you and Peg and with my family. I don’t need a soulmate to be happy. That would just be… I don’t know, the icing on the Christmas cake.”

“The cranberry sauce on the turkey,” Steve suggests.

“The star on top of the Christmas tree,” Bucky says.

“The sleigh on top of the… roof,” Steve says, and with a heave they push it into position. It looks, for a second, as though it will fall, and Bucky holds his breath, as though the slightest change in air could change anything, but it holds.

“Now all we have to do is secure it,” Steve says, gesturing to the cords he’d brought up.

“Yeah… that’s all,” Bucky says, giving him an unimpressed look.

*

The sleigh looks pretty good, even Peggy has to begrudgingly agree, when they’ve roped it up securely and added santa and the reindeer.

“I guess we’ll see how next door responds tomorrow,” Steve says, looking overjoyed by the idea. He’s loving this competition, whatever he might say, Bucky can see it plain as day on his face.

“Tomorrow?” Bucky says.

“Yeah… I don’t know when he does it, but I never see him putting anything up,” Steve says, frowning a bit. “He has to put them up in the middle of the night, but every morning there’s a new decoration.”

“He climbs around on the roof in the middle of the night?” Bucky asks, horrified. He’d had enough difficulty out there in broad daylight.

“He must do,” Steve says. “He never goes up during the day.”

“That’s… “ Bucky pauses, unable to think of a word to describe how ridiculous - and dangerous - that is. He just opens and closes his mouth a few times, hoping Steve and Peggy will get the idea.

“Apparently he used to be a circus performer,” Peggy says. “Or so Natasha tells us.”

“Of course he did,” Bucky says. This Christmas is getting more and more unbelievable by the second.

*

“He’s got help,” Clint says, walking into the kitchen where Natasha is trying to make Christmas cookies and failing miserably. The kids are out with Maria to see Santa, so it’s just them in the house.

“Who has help?”

“The light snob next door,” Clint says.

“His name is Steve,” Natasha says. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t refer to you as ‘the idiot with no sense of taste.”

“No, he just calls me ‘the guy next-door,” Clint says. “I’ve heard him.”

“No spying on the neighbours,” Natasha says in an automatic tone which means it’s a phrase that gets spouted a lot in this house. Clint isn’t surprised, neither Natasha nor Maria can abide not knowing things. Their jobs involve knowing things, and they can’t seem to turn it off. “And you must mean Bucky.”

“Bucky?” Clint asks, his brain thrown wildly off course.

“Steve’s brother… or as good as brother,” Natasha says, not looking up from the recipe she’s glaring at on her phone, as though if she glares hard enough she’ll intimidate it into changing. “He’s spending Christmas with them.”

“That’s cheating,” Clint says. “He can’t get help.”

“Just because you can’t convince me to climb about on a roof with you at two am, does not mean he’s cheating,” Natasha says. She gives the dough another stir, but it doesn’t get any less liquid… or lumpy.

“Of course it’s cheating!” Clint says. “This is a battle between us.”

“No formal rules have been stated,” Natasha says. “And you’re just angry that you haven’t managed to con me into helping.”

“I’d never con you, Tasha,” Clint says. “Although I will bake cookies for you if you help me construct a giant countdown clock on the side of the house.”

Natasha looks at him, then looks down at the bowl of what is definitely not cookie dough. She actually seems tempted for a second, which Clint counts as a win, before she rolls her eyes.

“You don’t know how to bake,” she says and Clint’s shoulders sag. He’d been hoping she wouldn’t remember that. He can make a mean cup of coffee, and his ramen would win awards, but he’s about as terrible at baking as Natasha is. “I’ll just buy them.”

“Good plan,” Clint agrees. “I won’t tell Maria about it if you help me with the clock.” Natasha gives him a flat look.

“I’ll tell Maria myself,” she says. “She knows I can’t bake.” Natasha shrugs. “She’ll probably be relieved. At least if I buy them they’ll be edible.”

“Aw… come on, Tasha. I need help! There are two of them now - and they’re out to get me.”

“They are not out to get you,” Natasha says, dumping the not-cookie mix down the garbage disposal with an air of relief. “You brought this on yourself.”

“You’re the one who told me nextdoor always had the best light displays and you wanted to try that one year.”

“I didn’t mean that you should start competing with them,” she said. “You did that all by yourself.”

“Well, the light snob started it.”

“He just made a suggestion,” Natasha says. “You’re the one who took it the wrong way.”

Clint gives a half-hearted glare at the side of her head, but he knows she’s right. The guy next door has never been anything other than polite, and both Tasha and Maria have nothing but nice things to say about him. It’s just Clint being stupidly over-sensitive about the whole soulmate thing - as usual.

The problem is...  well, there are a lot of problems, not least of all Clint himself who’s just a hot mess. But he’s also a romantic and there’s something about being here, over Christmas, surrounded by Tasha and Maria and their soulmated happy ever after, complete with adorable adopted twins, that makes him feel a bit left out. It’s not that Tasha doesn’t love him, and the twins are always happy to see their uncle Clint, and Maria seems happy to see him, too. But this weird, idyllic slice of normal that Tasha found herself, it’s picture perfect and beautiful and Clint feels like he’s stuck on the side.

So that’s why he started with the lights. It was something he could do to make their Christmas a bit brighter… pun completely intended. But then Steve went and pointed out that maybe Clint’s colour scheme was a bit… garish, and Clint like an idiot took that as a personal insult, just because he can’t see in colour, and it all turned into an avalanche of bad ideas.

Not that the countdown clock is a bad idea. It has light-up holly and moving hands and everything. The countdown clock is an awesome idea. But Clint can grant that he maybe didn’t need to have twelve angels, or sixteen candy canes, or five elves… In his defence, it’s Christmas.

He’s not sure that would hold up in court.

*

Half-past one in the morning and Bucky’s wide awake. The soft sounds of suburbia at night are unfamiliar and his brain can’t quite get used to hearing them instead of the usual white noise of city life, whatever city he happens to be in that week. He’s been a city boy since he was born, and his lullaby has always been the shouts of drunks making their way home and the honk of horns as those drunks stumble into the road without looking.

In contrast, Steve and Peggy’s place is peaceful. He feels like someone could stand at the end of the road and sing Silent Night and the whole street would hear. It should be the kind of place where you fall asleep immediately, but instead, Bucky’s up and about, haunting the halls like the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.

At least he’s not rattling his chains like Old Jacob Marley. He can hear Steve and Peggy both snoring away in their room, so he hasn’t disturbed them, and he makes his way downstairs, skipping the creaky step as he goes, heading for the kitchen.

Nights like these, the still, pre-Christmas nights when the world seemed like it was overflowing with magic, his Ma used to make them cocoa and recite The Night Before Christmas or read A Christmas Carol , doing all the voices. Becca never stayed up to hear the end, but Bucky would force his eyes open until the very last words.

Of course, back then it was excitement keeping him awake, not the press of life, but he supposes the same techniques might still apply. His ma’s on the other side of the country, staying with Becca this year, so he’ll have to tell himself the story. It won’t be the same, but the cocoa he can do.

The kitchen is full of the blinking twinkling of next-door’s lights as he heads to the stove and gathers the ingredients from the cupboards. In the quiet stillness of the night, it seems even more like a christmas wonderland than it had before. Steve might complain about the clashing colours, but Bucky’s greyscale vision is good for something, because it just seems like the world is made up of sparkles.

He hums Nat King Cole to himself as he stirs the cocoa on the stove-top, breathing in the rich scent of chocolate and spices that whisks him back to the over-stuffed armchair they had in the living room back when he was a kid, perched on an arm, his Ma’s arm wrapped around his shoulders as he sipped at cocoa, wide-eyed, Becca blinking up heavy eyes from Ma’s lap.

It’s a good memory, and he’s smiling as he pours the cocoa into his mug - the one that both Steve and Peggy insist is his, anyway. It’s covered in stars they say are red, and it feels sort of festive.

He’s about to take his first sip, inhaling deeply as he raises the mug to his lips, when Bucky hears the commotion outside.

There’s a string of swear words, a clatter and a thud. He pauses, but the swearing continues, seemingly not too alarmed, so Bucky supposes no one is dead. He should probably go and check, anyway, just in case.

The world outside is cold through the fabric of his robe and he curls his hand around his mug to draw in its warmth.

As he steps out into the front garden, it’s easy to see what the matter is.

A huge clock appears to have crash landed in the middle of next-door’s garden, having beheaded a reindeer - luckily not a real one. Above it, perched on the porch roof, sits a man completely wrapped up in Christmas lights, staring down at the poor headless reindeer with such dismay that Bucky almost doesn’t laugh.

At the sound of Bucky’s laughter, the swearing stops and the man - who must be the stealth-decorator from next door - looks up and glares at him.

“Everything is under control,” the guy says. As he does so, a candy cane teeters and topples down. “...Mostly.”

“I can see that,” Bucky says, sipping his cocoa. “Gotta ask you what that reindeer ever did to you.”

“Didn’t let me join in any reindeer games,” the guy says, deadpan.

“A capital offense,” Bucky agrees. “Wouldn’t’ve pegged a guy with so many Christmas decorations as being a grinch, though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” the guy asks, sounding offended.

“I mean, how’s Santa going to fly his sleigh with an odd number of reindeer?” Bucky asks. “He’ll just go round and round in circles.”

“Santa always has an odd number of reindeer,” the guy says, frowning.

“Rudolph ain’t real, they made him up for the merchandising,” Bucky says and the guy blinks at him in astonishment.

“You take that back!” he says. Bucky smirks.

“Shan’t. Anyone who knows about Christmas knows that there’s only the eight of them…” Bucky says.

“I suppose you know all their names, too,” the guy says.

“Of course, don’t you?” Bucky asks.

“What is this? Christmas Trivia?” the guy asks, looking more affronted by the second. He’s got a good face, a little lived in, but expressive with a damn good jawline, and Bucky’s sort of enjoying the view of him all wrapped up in lights… they really accent his physique.

“So you don’t,” Bucky says. “That’s okay, loads of people don’t.”

“Of course I do… There’s… Dasher and… Dancer, and… Grumpy and Blitzen and Bashful and Happy and Doc and Lucky.”

“Pretty sure you’re getting mixed up with the seven dwarves,” Bucky responds. “But good try… although I’m not sure where ‘Lucky’ came from.”

“He’s my dog,” the guy says.

“So definitely not a reindeer.”

“I’ve got a picture of him with antlers on,” the guy says, reaching for his phone, only to realise that his arm is caught. “Aw… sugarplum fairies!”

Bucky laughs, watching the guy contort himself in an attempt to slip his hand into his pocket. He takes another sip of his cocoa and laments that whoever this guy is, he remembered to put on a thick winter jacket, Bucky’s willing to bet that the way he’s bending right now would do downright scandalous things to his muscles.

“Pretty sure I couldn’t see the pictures from over here, even if you could get to your phone,” Bucky says, gesturing to the space between them, covered with brightly lit ornaments as it is.

The man doesn’t seem to hear him, still trying to wiggle his hand into his pocket, until he gives up with an exaggerated sigh.

“No need to look so sad, you’re the one who beheaded a reindeer.”

“Huh?” the guy says, turning to him.

“I said you’re the one who beheaded a reindeer,” Bucky says, raising his voice slightly.

“I didn’t mean to ,” the guy says. “And it’s fine anyway… even if they do go round in circles - the world’s round, so that’s what they need to do anyway! Christmas is saved.”

“Ho ho ho,” Bucky says. “You want a hand?” he asks. The guy squints at him again. “You want a hand?” Bucky repeats.

“From the enemy?” the guy asks. “Never. You’d try to sabotage me!”

“Not sure I could do a better job of that than you’re already doing by yourself,” Bucky says. “But you can’t stay up there all night.”

“Eh, I’m good. I used to work with an escapologist. There’s a trick to it,” the guy says.

He does a strange, full body wiggle and bends himself in a way that should not be physically possible, but does send Bucky’s brain to a lot of very interesting places, and it’s like he just slides right out of the lights, or the lights slide right off him, then he spreads his arms wide and bows deeply.

“I’d applaud, but my hand’s already occupied,” Bucky says, raising his mug in salute.

“It’s okay, my awesomeness often stuns people into silence.”

“I’m sure it does,” Bucky agrees.

“Mostly it’s people awed by how much trouble he can get into,” Natasha’s voice suddenly says, and Bucky realises that they have an audience. “It’s good to see you again, James.”

“You too, Natasha,” he says. “There seems to be an elf stuck on your roof.”

“I can see that,” she agrees.

“Hi Tasha,” the guy calls down. “The enemy is spying on me!”

“I’m really not,” Bucky says.

“Then what are you doing out here?” the guy asks. Bucky raises an eyebrow and can’t quite resist.

“When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter,” he says, keeping his face as blank as he can. The guy stares for a moment then bursts into laughter.

“Clint!” Natasha calls, following up with something in Russian that sounds threatening. There’s a noise behind her and Bucky can see Maria, more disheveled than he has ever seen her before, and two sets of wide eyes hiding behind her legs. He lifts his mug in as close an approximation to a wave he can do without spilling cocoa everywhere. Maria lifts her hand and stares the stare of the half-asleep.

“You gonna need any help getting him down?” Bucky asks. Natasha turns to him with a smile as thin as a knife-edge and shakes her head.

“I’ve got it handled,” she tells him. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to help him out of a precarious position.”

“We live in hope it will be the last,” Maria adds. The twins - Wanda and Pietro, Bucky remembers, giggle.

“I can go up and get him!” Pietro declares. “I’m good at climbing.”

“No you can’t,” Maria says firmly. “I am not spending Christmas in a hospital because you and your uncle Clint fell off the roof.”

Bucky laughs.

“That’s the same thing Peggy’s been saying to Steve,” he says.

“I’m not surprised,” Maria says. She turns back to Pietro and says something too quiet for Bucky to hear.

“I’ll leave you all to it, then,” Bucky says. “Have a great night.”

Natasha waves to him, distracted, and Maria’s too busy with the kids to notice him.

“Nice meeting you, Clint,” he calls up.

“I’d return the favour,” Clint calls back. “But you are the enemy.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Bucky replies, and closes the door behind himself just to make the point of having the last word. It’s not exactly a mic drop, but it makes him feel better.

“What’s going on?” Steve asks, yawning at the top of the stairs.

“A reindeer was beheaded by a clock, and B-team Santa got caught in his own lights,” Bucky said. Steve grins.

“Excellent,” Peggy says, appearing behind him. “Then we’ll finally win and this stupid competition will be over.”

“Didn’t think you cared about winning.”

“I don’t care about the competition, but if it has to happen, we’re not going to lose,” Peggy tells him firmly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says automatically, his old army days coming back to him just from the tone of her voice. She grins.

“At ease, sergeant. You should be in your bunk.”

“Heading that way,” Bucky says. “Just takes a bit to get used to the quiet out here.”

“Don’t know where you’re sleeping, it’s never quiet in this house, not with Steve’s snoring shaking the rafters.”

Steve rolls his eyes fondly, carefully not mentioning that Peggy snores just as bad, but sharing a knowing look with Bucky.

“Back to bed, everyone.” Peggy says. “Father Christmas won’t come if we’re awake.”

“It’s the nineteenth,” Bucky says. “You’re a few days early.”

“The point stands,” Peggy says. “It’s two am. And if no one is dying, we should all be in bed.”

*

Of course, it doesn't stop there. Steve is incapable of not taking things too far. It's built into him. After they wake up to find the clock firmly attached to next door’s wall, and the reindeer having experienced a magical recovery thanks to the miracle of duct tape, Bucky finds Steve on the computer looking at Christmas merry-go-rounds and keeping an eye out for Peggy.

Bucky backs out of the room slowly and goes to the living room, where Peggy is lamenting the downfall of Christmas television. She looks up at him with an eyebrow raised as he enters.

"Do I dare ask?"

"Probably best not to," Bucky tells her, shaking his head.

"At least tell me if you think we're going to win," she says.

"You're just as bad as he is!" Bucky says with a laugh. She doesn’t deny it.

*

The merry-go-round arrives the next day and it’s just as obnoxious as promised.

“I thought this was about things looking good,” Bucky comments, earning himself a glare from Steve. Of course, Bucky has no idea what colour the damn thing is, but it’s making his eyes hurt too much to look directly at it, there’s so much light. He has to look past it instead and even then, the side of his vision ends up blinded.

“It does look good,” Steve says, although he doesn’t sound convinced. 

At least it sort of looks like a merry-go-round, now. It had come in pieces and they’ve spent most of the morning putting it together. There were a lot of false starts.

They’re about halfway through sliding tab E into slot Z when Bucky notices the face staring out of the upstairs window next door, so close that Clint’s breath is fogging up the glass, and he’s probably leaving a nose-print behind.

Bucky lets go of the merry-go-reindeer to wave with as obnoxious a level of Christmas cheer as he can muster, which probably wasn’t a good idea because there’s a dismayed cry from Steve as something falls on top of him.

When Bucky looks up again Clint’s gone, but he’s drawn a laughing face in the condensation on the window that conveys his meaning pretty well.

*

It’s not that Bucky means to be awake at one am again. His brain’s just running round in its usual circles and the quiet of the night is strangely oppressive.

He grabs a mug of hot cocoa again, the familiar scent pulling him back into the christmas spirit, and he’s at the door before he’s realised where he’s walking. It’s as though something is pulling him there. He’s already outside by the time he’s noticed where he’s walking and looking across to next door’s garden.

Something about Clint is fun, he supposes, and the clandestine nature of his Christmas guerilla warfare is entertaining in and of itself. It probably helps that he’s not bad to look at, if Bucky were the kind of guy to pay attention to things like that. (He is.)

At first Bucky thinks that there’s nothing to see, maybe the merry-go-round was a step too far. Perhaps Steve really has won. That would be disappointing. Bucky hasn’t seen Steve pushed this far for years. He’s sort of rooting for Clint - just a little bit. Not that he wants him to win or anything, but he’d like it to be close.

But nothing seems to be happening in the other yard. The place is still and quiet as the grave. The elves stand dark, strange shadowy sentinels of the night, the candy canes loom like twisted columns. In the dark it looks more like a Halloween display than a Christmas wonderland.

Then he hears it, first. It sounds like, something scraping along the ground. Like something you might hear in the soundtrack of a horror film.

Bucky straightens up and looks around, towards the sound. Then he sees it.

His first thought is Indiana Jones? As he blinks, uncomprehending, at the sight of Clint pushing a giant ball up the garden path.

“What the fuck?” he says out loud. Clint doesn’t even glance at him.

He pushes the ball into a previously empty part of the yard, as designated by some arbitrary plan that must only exist in his head, and then starts to swivel it around on the spot.

It’s then that Bucky sees the cap on top of the ball, with its familiar loop and he realises that this is a Christmas ball - like the ones you hang on your Christmas tree, just… giant. It must be four foot in diameter at least. He didn’t even know you could get those.

But then Bucky didn’t know that Christmas light-up merry-go-rounds were a thing until two days ago, so he doesn’t know why he didn’t guess that giant Christmas balls would exist, too.

“You want some help with those?” he calls out, raising his voice a bit. Clint pauses looking around. “Over here!” he calls a bit louder again and Clint turns on the spot to look at him.

“You!” Clint says, too loud, pointing at Bucky in accusation.

“Me,” Bucky agrees. Clint frowns then with dawning understanding reaches up to the side of his head.

“You’re spying again,” he says, his voice moderated a little.

“Not spying,” Bucky tells him. “Just taking in the scenery.”

“Spying,” Clint repeats. “You helped him put up that today,” he says, jerking a thumb towards the merry-go-round. “You are the enemy.”

“Yep, that’s me,” Bucky agrees with a shrug. “Do you like it?”

“Like it?” Clint asks. “I love it. It’s so terrible . You should have seen Tasha’s face when she saw it. ‘Clint, what have you done to our neighbourhood?’ ‘now you must win because I cannot possibly have that monstrosity beat our house.’”

“She didn’t really say that,” Bucky says. He can’t picture any of those words coming out of Natasha’s mouth. Not in that order, anyway.

“Well, not in so many words,” Clint admits, “but she was thinking it!”

“So you decided that the answer to the merry-go-round was… putting your giant balls on display?” Bucky asks, looking at the ornament Clint is still holding with a raised eyebrow. “Interesting choice.”

“Well, when you put it like that...” Clint says, making a face.

“Gotta say, that one looks a little lonely over there on its own,” Bucky says.

“Good thing I’ve got four more round the back,” Clint tells him with a grin.

“When did you even get these? We only put up the merry-go-round today.”

“Tasha’s always been telling me I should plan ahead,” Clint says, shrugging. “Seemed as good a time as ever to start.”

“Want a hand?”

“Definitely not!” Clint says. “I told you, I’m fine, and I’m not giving you the chance to sabotage us.”

“You really think I’d be that petty?” Bucky asks. Clint gives him a hard look.

“All’s fair in love, war and Christmas decorations,” he says. “I think I learnt that from a movie.”

“Then I guess I’ll just stand here and… watch you mess around with your balls,” Bucky says, smirking as he takes another sip of his cocoa. Clint grins at him, wide and obnoxious and Bucky feels his heart beat a little faster at the sight.

“Yeah? I hope it’s good for you,” Clint tells him with a wink. Bucky chuckles and settles in to watch.

It’s just as entertaining as he thought it would be. It turns out trying to fix five very large, very round objects into place on a lawn that has a slight slope is not as easy as it might sound. By the time Clint’s got three balls out onto the lawn, they’re already rolling away from him. When he gets to five it’s a bit like watching a clown act.

“Maybe fix one in place, then do the next one,” Bucky suggests.

“Yeah, yeah. Like you’ve done this before,” Clint says. “Over there with your sexy hair and your hot cocoa and your pyjamas.” He’s muttering to himself without listening and Bucky smiles as he continues to mutter on, stepping away from the scattered balls to scratch at his head with a sigh. “You’re so smart, you come over here and do it.”

“I offered to help,” Bucky reminds him.

“I can do it!” Clint snaps at him, and Bucky lets him keep at it. He pushes another of the balls into formation, only for the first one to roll away again. Clint steps back again, as though he can glare them into position, but that doesn’t seem to be nearly as effective as he hopes.

“Fine!” Clint says eventually. “I’ll secure them one by one.”

“Great idea,” Bucky says, trying to look as innocent as possible when Clint turns to him and sticks one finger up. He can’t quite hide his smirk.

There’s a strange companionable silence in watching Clint work. Bucky feels strangely at home, even in the freezing cold of the snow and ice, in a way he doesn’t tend to do with anyone other than family. It’s nice.

When Clint finally wrestles all the balls into place, he stands back to admire his work.

“They’re purple, apparently,” he says, turning to Bucky. “Do you think they look okay?”

“No point asking me,” Bucky says with a shrug. “It’s all just grey. But I think it all looks great. Steve’s the one with the art skills - and the soulmate.”

Clint looks at him in confusion.

“You don’t have-” he starts, before cutting himself off. “Sorry, I just thought you must.”

“You see anyone standing out here with me?” Bucky asks, making a show of looking around, as though his soulmate is hiding out there somewhere.

“No, aw… sorry. I hate it when people ask me. I was just… you’re so…” Clint waves a hand in Bucky’s direction and Bucky grins at him.

“You gonna finish that sentence?” he asks, letting the dare sink into his tone. He entertains the thought, for a second, that maybe this is it, maybe it’s Clint. But he’s had that passing fancy before, and the disappointment is always worse than the last time. Best not to think about it. It’s been thirty years, after all. People go their whole lives without meeting their soulmate. It’s best not to think about it.

Clint shifts a bit from foot to foot.

“Don’t think I will,” he says. Bucky frowns at him and Clint just grins. “Don’t want to give the enemy any more competition.”

“I mean, I’m not sure giant balls really compete with the musical, moving merry-go-round,” Bucky says with a shrug. “But if you really think you’re winning then I guess I don’t want to break your delusion.”

Clint’s grin turns a bit wicked.

“Guess you’re just going to have to wait and see,” Clint says and there’s a strange tone to his voice that sizzles right into the pit of Bucky’s stomach.

*

It turns out the balls are not just balls. They play christmas songs, lighting up in patterns to the music.

As Bucky and Steve stand in front of the two gardens, the clashing, tinny music emerging from both of them is cacophonous, like the screams of some Christmas themed demon in its death throes.

“I’m going to need earplugs as well as sunglasses,” Steve says. “How can he stand to be that close to them?”

Clint is standing proudly in the middle of the garden, grinning at them both with challenge in his eyes.

“He’s hard of hearing,” a voice says from below them and they look down to see Wanda and Pietro standing at the end of the path, their mothers walking up behind them.

“He’s what?” Steve shouts over the din.

“She said he’s hard of hearing!” Bucky shouts back, just as the music shut off for a second, leaving Bucky shouting into silence. The only sound that follows is the kids’ giggles. Bucky winces and looks over to where Clint is also laughing.

“As the rest of us will be before Christmas at this rate,” Maria says, giving Steve a firm look.

“It’s festive,” Natasha says, slipping her arm through her wife’s and squeezing gently. “And it’s only for a couple of weeks.” Maria’s mouth purses, but she sighs and watches as the music starts playing again and Clint and the kids start dancing to it. She smiles and turns to Steve and Bucky.

“I suppose it’s too much to ask that this ends here.”

“Uh…” Steve looks a little abashed. “I’ve… already ordered something.” Maria sighs.

“I happen to know that so has Clint,” Natasha tells them.

“Nothing on Christmas day,” Maria says firmly and Bucky finds himself nodding along with Steve even though none of this has been his idea. That’s always how it works, though. Steve starts something and Bucky’s dragged in until he’s neck deep in it.

“No ma’am,” Steve says. “Whoever’s got the best display on Christmas Eve, that’s it.”

“Good,” Maria says, eyeing them both, before letting Pietro drag her into the centre of the lawn.

Natasha looks at the pair of them and shakes her head.

“You are not going to win,” she tells them with a secretive smile.

“In my experience, it’s never a good idea to get too cocky,” Steve replies. Bucky wonders what the hell he has planned for tomorrow.

“We’ll see,” Natasha says, before joining her family dancing among the Christmas lights.

“Sounds like they’ve got a plan, Stevie,” Bucky says. “You sure you want to see this one out?”

“You’re not getting cold feet on me now, are you Buck?” Steve asks. His feet are pretty cold actually, with the slush seeping in through boots that aren’t as waterproof as they used to be. “Come on. We can’t let them win.”

Bucky sighs.

*

Steve’s plan, it turns out, is the snow machine he’d mentioned before. Two of them, in fact. Bucky looks out the window the next afternoon to see flurries of snow billowing past the glass, with Steve in the middle of it, beginning to look like Frosty the Snowman.

“I quite like it,” Peggy admits from behind her cup of tea. “Adds a bit of magic to proceedings, and it’s better than those bloody reindeer.”

Bucky does have to agree with that. It makes him feel like a little kid again, and Steve’s certainly beaming like one. As Bucky looks out the window, he can see Wanda and Pietro running out in glee, followed by a grinning Clint, hurling snowballs at each other.

They all end up out there, and while it takes Bucky a minute or two to figure out how to make a half-decent snowball with only one hand, given that the last time he’d done this he’d been about thirteen and still had two, he gives a pretty decent showing. His aim is as good as ever, but not quite as good as Clint’s it seems, who has an uncanny knack for hitting him right where cold snowmelt will trickle down inside his clothes.

It’s a miracle that none of the decorations is knocked over, but they make good shields when Natasha’s busy sneaking up on you and Pietro’s running around as fast as a streak of lightning.

Clint corners Bucky by the light-up snowman, snowball in hand and another few tucked into the crook of his arm, Bucky’s out of ammo and trapped with the wall of the house at his back and the creepy, grinning snowman on his right.

“Surrender?” Clint asks, tossing the snowball up in one gloved hand and catching it again.

“Not today,” Bucky says, seeing Steve creeping up behind. He lifts his arm out to the side. “You’d really attack an unarmed man?” Clint blinks and stares at him in confusion for a second.

“Was that a pun?” he asks, before seeming to decide that the answer doesn’t matter as he shrugs and raises his arm to throw. Before he can, though, Steve’s snowball hits him right between the shoulderblades, knocking Clint off balance and sending him skidding across the icy ground, right into Bucky, who hits the wall, Clint crushed into his chest.

There is a moment of strange panic as they collide and Bucky feels cold against the skin of his neck, what must be Clint’s neck. Skin-to-skin. For a moment Bucky thinks this is it and his breath sticks in his throat, expecting colours. He wants colours.

But the world persists in greys and his heart is pounding against his ribs even as it sinks right down again. So much for not getting his hopes up. Apparently somewhere in his brain he had thought… but no. Not today. Not this guy.

Steve’s looking at him hopefully, too, and Bucky realises that his well-timed snowball was entirely on purpose.

Over Clint’s shoulder, Bucky gives a small, almost imperceptible, shake of his head and Steve’s face turns from one of excitement to sympathy. So Bucky gives him the finger to restore the world to its natural balance again. He and Clint pull apart and pieces of the crushed snowballs Clint had been holding fall to the ground.

One of Clint’s gloved hands is patting at Bucky’s chest almost absently, and Bucky turns, looking up slightly at where Clint is staring down, a bit lost. Clint freezes and looks at him with startlingly wide eyes, a little frantic.

“I should…” Clint says, and pushes away at the same time as Bucky pushes off the wall, and they both tumble to the ground again, side by side.

“That did not go according to plan,” Clint says, and Bucky turns just in time to see him drop his head back down into the snow.

Bucky still feels that strange urge to get to know him, even if they aren’t soulmates. He’s not sure what he should even do about that.

That’s when Pietro and Natasha decide to dump snow over both of their heads.

The cold and wet send all of them inside to their respective homes eventually, and Steve has to turn his snow machines off, although he has a smug smile on his face as he unwinds his scarf from his neck.

“You think you’ve won,” Bucky says.

“It’s not about winning,” Steve says, but he’s still smirking.

“Yeah right,” Bucky tells him, rolling his eyes.

*

He goes out that night, cocoa in hand, but there’s no sign of Clint at all. Perhaps Steve is right and he can’t top the snow. But, although Bucky hasn’t known him long, it doesn’t seem like Clint’s the sort to back away from a challenge. It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow, the last chance to do something, and Bucky knows Clint must have something planned. But, if that’s the case, why isn’t he out here now?

Maybe he was disappointed, too, Bucky’s mind suggests without his permission. Perhaps Clint had been hoping for colours when they fell into each other.

It’s a silly, selfish sort of thought, though. There are any number of reasons why Clint might not be out there tonight, and most of them have nothing to do with Bucky at all.

The clock has already ticked well past midnight, and Christmas Eve is here. The sky overhead is clear and brilliant with stars, as Bucky turns his eyes upwards. He feels a bit lost, beneath them all.

If he had looked up at any other moment, he wouldn’t have seen it, but as it is, he’s looking in just the right place to see the shooting star as it streaks across the sky - a Christmas miracle.

As he watches it fade away, he wishes for another one.

*

Christmas Eve dawns bright and cold outside, warm and cosy inside, and Bucky makes pancakes with Becca talking in his ear on the phone about how annoying their mother is being and how she’s scared her soulmate won’t like the present she got him, and how she hopes Bucky doesn’t feel too left out.

He makes the appropriate noises in the right places, tells her she’s right, the present’s good, and narrates the tale of the Christmas Light Wars, to prove to her that he’s not just spending Christmas moping about. It’s nice to talk to her, and he wonders if he might have been better joining them for Christmas, but he dismisses the notion almost immediately. Just because Clint isn’t his soulmate doesn’t mean that meeting him wasn’t worth it.

He’s saying goodbye and dishing the pancakes onto plates when he hears the music.

It’s a strange version of a christmas song he almost knows, only on some instrument he definitely doesn’t, and he can hear Peggy and Steve coming down the stairs as well as he makes his way to the front door.

“What on earth is that?” Peggy asks, still in her dressing gown. Bucky shrugs and goes to open the door.

As soon as he does, he knows exactly why Clint wasn’t out last night - because he didn’t have any extra decorations to add. What he did have was this.

The front garden next door is full of performers in full costume. Acrobats dressed in sparkling snowflake outfits tossing each other effortlessly over the candy cane fences. Jugglers dressed as elves throwing christmas decorations spinning through the air in intricate patterns, catching them easily. Above them all, a tightrope has been strung and a man dressed as Santa Claus dances along it, throwing presents into the air and then… shooting them with a bow and arrow? to  make them explode with confetti.

At the foot of the garden is a band of people with a bizarre collection of instruments. There’s an oboe, an accordion, a fiddle and someone with handfuls of bells. They are playing what Bucky recognises as a medley of Christmas songs, but not like he’s ever heard them before.

In the middle of this chaos, stand Maria, Natasha, and the twins. The kids’ eyes are wide and their mouths are open. Natasha is grinning more widely than Bucky has ever seen her smile before and Maria seems to be trying to hold back her own grin.

Bucky elbows Steve in the side.

“I think you lost, Stevie,” he says. Steve turns to smile at him.

“It’s not about winning,” he says.

“Oh, it is,” Peggy corrects. “But I think we were outclassed... this year.”

“This year,” Steve agrees.

The tightrope-walking Santa tosses a present their way and hits it with an arrow just as it’s directly over their heads, showering the three of them with confetti.

“Although,” Steve says, picking confetti out of his hair. “I still don’t think the purple goes at all.”

It’s about that time that Bucky realises that Santa is actually Clint, and he gapes as the man takes a bow and backflips off the tightrope, only to be caught by the acrobats below.

He wanders over to them, pulling down the fake beard, and holding out his hand to Steve.

“Truce?” he asks.

“No truce,” Steve says, and the smile falls from Clint’s face. Bucky elbows him in the side again and Steve reaches out to take the outstretched hand. “You’ve won, fair and square.”

Clint smiles again, looking over at Bucky, who grins back.

“Enjoy the show?” he asks.

“Definitely,” Bucky agrees. “Although I’m not sure Santa Claus carries a bow and arrow.”

“Really?” Clint asks, raising an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure he does.”

“Really,” Bucky tells him. There’s a strange itch under his skin as he stares right back at Clint, like he should be doing something, but he doesn’t know what, so he just nods, and lets Clint be drawn away again by his family and the rest of the performers, all of whom he seems to know personally.

Steve wraps an arm around Bucky’s shoulders as they make their way back into the house, and Bucky resists the urge to look back.

“He seems pretty nice,” Steve says and Bucky sighs.

“Not my soulmate, Steve,” Bucky says.

“Aren’t you the one who always says that doesn’t matter?” Steve says.

“True,” Bucky says. “But maybe it matters to him.”

“And maybe it doesn’t,” Steve says. “You’ll never know until you ask.”

*

The brilliant light from the front gardens has become so much a part of the background that Bucky barely notices it anymore, even if the light is streaming in through the window all evening. He doesn’t notice it, that is, until he does.

Something changes, he’s not sure what, but there’s a flicker and his eyes are drawn to the window, although nothing looks different.

“Did you notice that?” he asks Steve, who’s lost in drawing something in his sketchpad.

“Notice what?” he asks absently.

“Something…” Bucky gets up and walks over to the window, looking out into the evening. The front garden seems exactly the same as ever, the merry-go-round is spinning, the lights are twinkling. Everything is going round and round as it always has.

But there’s still something wrong.

Bucky turns to look at the garden next door, and it’s clear what’s different. Clint’s display, every last bit of it, from the giant balls to the candy canes, has gone dark.

“I’m just gonna go check on something,” he tells Steve, who hums distractedly, still caught up in his drawing. Bucky pulls his boots and coat on and goes out.

Snow - real snow, is starting to fall in flurries. The clear sky of the night before has disappeared, covered with thick clouds, and there’s a bitter wind beginning to whip its way down the street. A white Christmas is on its way. Bucky’s glove is still inside, so he balls his hand into his pocket to protect it from the cold.

Maria’s in the middle of the garden looking at something up on the roof, and Bucky knows what he’s going to see before he even turns to look.

Clint is clambering up the drain pipe like a monkey.

“No ladders?”

“He didn’t want to waste time,” Maria says, her voice unimpressed.

“What happened?”

“The electricity in this place.” She sighs. “We meant to have it checked last year, but with one thing and another, we forgot. It hasn’t been updated in decades and we think that…” she looks around at the Christmas display. “We think it’s been overloaded.”

“And Clint’s on the roof because?” Bucky asks.

“That’s where the box is,” Maria tells him. “Natasha’s trying to call the electrician, but it’s Christmas Eve, and either no one’s answering, or they’re busy until after Christmas.” She wraps her arms around herself, rubbing to warm herself up. “Hopefully, Clint can fix it, or it looks like Christmas might be-”

There’s a noise from above them, and they look up to see Clint’s foot slip on a patch of snow.

Bucky is moving before he’s even consciously realised what’s happening, tearing his hand out of his pocket and running to below where Clint is still slipping. He feels like he can’t move fast enough, as though top speed is somehow unreachable.

Clint doesn’t shout, or scream. That’s one weird thing that Bucky will remember about this afterwards. He doesn’t seem panicked at all, instead he just says, in a rather plaintive tone ‘aw, not again. It’s Christmas ,’ as though the universe will see fit to erase the last few seconds because of seasonal good will.

Another thing Bucky will remember, is that Clint weighs more than he expected. Over six foot of grown adult falling on top of you from the second storey roof is pretty heavy, it turns out, and only having one arm with which to catch it complicates matters even more.

The third thing that Bucky will remember is the warm skin of Clint’s back under his hand, as he catches him round the waist and they hit the ground together. The pain is smothered by the rush of sparks through his body as they touch. And the way the world explodes into colour around him.

“Fuck,” he breathes.

Clint is staring back at him. His eyes are… well, Bucky doesn’t know what colour that is, but it’s fucking beautiful. Everything’s just…

“Clint, Barnes, are you okay?” Maria asks, standing over them. There are other voices calling their names, but Bucky can’t even register them right now.

“How?” he asks. “We touched, during the snowball fight.”

“Huh?” Clint asks, still staring at him, a little dazed. “I… don’t… Are you seeing this?”

Bucky is definitely seeing this. Somewhere, he’s got one of those colour cards, the ones that tell you what every colour is called, dog-eared and used as a bookmark, probably. He might not even have brought it with him. But then, it’s too dark to see much from here, except Clint’s face, and even that is in shadows, just lit from the side by the bright lights of Steve’s decorations.

“Hi,” Bucky says. “James Barnes.”

“Clint Barton,” Clint says.

“Stop me if you’ve heard this one,” Bucky says, unable to stop himself from smiling. “But I think you might be my soulmate.” Clint’s eyes fly open, his eyebrows leap up his forehead, and he stares down at Bucky.

“Well… shit,” Clint says. Then he’s scrambling up and off Bucky and practically running across the garden, leaving Bucky flat on his back in the snow, water seeping into his clothes, staring at the space where his soulmate’s face had been a second ago.

“Well… shit,” Bucky echoes.

*

The lights don’t come back on. Bucky watches from safely inside Steve and Peggy’s house, in no way being creepy - just because he’s concerned.

“He just fell off a roof,” Steve says. “He was probably…”

“Steve,” Bucky says. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, he’s your soulmate,” Steve tells him.

Clenched in Bucky’s hand is Steve’s own colour match card. He’s been alternating between staring at it and out the window all evening. He knows now that Clint’s eyes are blue and the stockings hanging over the fire are red and green, Steve’s lights are blue and white, Santa’s suit is a bright red, and cocoa is a rich warm brown colour, although his has long since gone cold.

“It’s fine,” Bucky repeats, because that’s all he can do. The guy ran away from him, it’s a pretty big hint. He’d thought they were getting on okay, but maybe that was all him.

“Bucky, just come and have some cookies, okay. And some of those mince pie things Peggy’s sister sent.”

“The lights haven’t come back on,” Bucky says. “Maria said they couldn’t find an electrician until after Christmas.”

“It’ll be fine, just come through,” Steve says.

Bucky lets himself be led downstairs to the sitting room, where there are carols playing softly on the speaker in the corner and sure enough there’s a plate full of pies and cookies sitting on the table.

Before he can sit down, the doorbell rings.

“Could you get that for me, James?” Peggy calls from the kitchen. “I’m a bit tied up peeling the carrots for tomorrow.”

“I thought we peeled all the carrots already,” Bucky says to Steve, who shrugs. But he heads for the door anyway, pulling it open. If it’s carol singers, he’s going to scream.

It’s not carol singers. What it is is Natasha, Maria, Wanda, Pietro and Clint, all bundled up, arms full of presents, staring at him.

“Peggy said we should spend Christmas over here, since our heating’s out as well,” Natasha says.

“We’ve been expecting you,” Steve calls from behind Bucky. “Step aside, Buck, let them in.”

Buckyy can’t even feel betrayed. It’s Christmas, it’s snowing, of course Steve and Peggy invited them over.

Maria hurries the kids past him and into the sitting room, where the fire is burning merrily. Natasha slips off her coat then pauses in front of him to glare at him as though she can see every stupid decision Bucky has ever made, leaving him with the distinct impression that she is more than capable of turning him into a kebab if she feels like it, and then she and Steve follow the rest of her family towards the fire in a way that makes it very obvious that they are leaving him and Clint alone.

“I like purple,” Clint says, as soon as the door shuts behind Steve. Bucky blinks at him.

“Right… okay,” he says.

“Sorry, I just always thought I would like purple, when I was growing up, but I was worried that… y’know… it wouldn’t live up to what I’d thought about in my head, but it turns out I do like purple.”

“Great,” Bucky says, he can’t tell if he’s supposed to be understanding something deeper in that little speech. “I… like blue?”

“Ah yeah, like Steve’s lights,” Clint says, glancing out the little window in the door. “They’re pretty good, aren’t they? He was probably right about my colours clashing.”

“I really liked your lights,” Bucky says.

“Yeah, but you only saw them in black and white,” Clint says, scratching at the back of his neck. He’s wearing the santa hat from his costume and the bobble falls into his face as he ducks his head. The bright red of the hat stands out against the pale blond of his hair and the pink of his cheeks.

“Your eyes are blue,” Bucky says.

“Are they?” Clint asks, then glances in the mirror on the wall next to them. His eyebrows rise up his forehead. “Huh. They are! I always thought they’d be green.”

They stand a little awkwardly for a second.

“I can take your coat,” Bucky says, finally.

“Right! Great!” Clint says. His coat is purple. “Thanks. And thanks for, you know… having us? The kids should have a proper Christmas, y’know.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees. The coat is still warm from Clint’s body heat when he takes it and he remembers vividly the feeling of Clint’s skin against the palm of his hand.

“I’m sorry-” they both say at the same time. Then they blink at each other.

“What are you sorry for?” Clint asks. Which is a pretty good question, to be honest. Bucky doesn’t even know. He shrugs. He must have done something pretty objectionable, he supposes, for the guy to run away from him.

“Why did you run off?” Bucky asks.

“I… panicked?” Clint says, as though he’s not sure himself. “I just… you were right there and you were all lit up and... sparkly and in colour and you.”

“So you panicked,” Bucky says.

“Yes.”

“And ran away,” Bucky adds.

“Yes.”

“When we’d just found out we were soulmates.”

Clint winces, his eyes almost disappearing entirely, and the bobble on his hat wobbles around again as he ducks back down.

“Yeah… look, I’m sorry you got stuck with me,” Clint says.

“I’m not,” Bucky says.

“What?” Clint stares at him, looking like he’s trying to puzzle out some equation with half the pieces missing.

“Are you two going to kiss?” a voice asks from behind Bucky and he turns to see that the door to the sitting room has opened and there are six faces looking at him. It was Wanda who asked the question.

“Uh…” Clint says. 

“Yes,” Bucky says instead and Clint looks at him again in astonishment. “I mean, if you want to.”

“Hell yes,” Clint says, the words stumbling over themselves to get out of his mouth. “You mean you don’t… mind…”

“That the peanut gallery are watching?” Bucky asks. “Yeah, but I figure we can teach them a thing or two.”

“Yuck,” Pietro says with feeling. Bucky doesn’t turn around as he hears the scuffles of people shuffling back into the sitting room.

“They all gone?” Bucky asks, lowering his voice to a whisper, and leaning in a bit. Clint glances over his shoulder, then nods. There’s a pink flush across his cheeks, which might be from the cold, and this close Bucky can see pinpricks of brown freckles over the bridge of his nose. His eyes are startlingly, brilliantly blue. “You gonna run away again?”

“Don’t think so,” Clint replies. His eyes flicker down to Bucky’s lips, and he smiles, hesitantly. “You’re really okay with me being your… you know?”

“I guess you’ll do,” Bucky says, smirking at him. “You okay with me being your… y’know?”

“Pretty sure I won the soulmate lottery,” Clint says, then blinks as though he hadn’t meant to say that. “Right… I didn’t…”

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” Bucky says, and leans in, leaving enough time for Clint to back away if he wants to. He doesn’t.

There is that same feeling of sparks as their lips touch, and Bucky wonders if it’ll feel like this every time they touch from now on. It feels comfortable and strangely exhilarating at the same time, like the start of an adventure and he loses himself in the sensation of it.

Even the backs of his eyelids, as he closes his eyes, are in colour. But he barely even recognises that as the touch of Clint’s mouth against his overtakes his senses. He isn’t aware of the passing of time as he acquaints himself with Clint’s mouth and the feel of his lips, the taste of him, mixed with eggnog and chocolate. Bucky’s hands map out the lengths of Clint’s sides and back, never quite straying further down. He’s determined to keep this party polite - for the time being at least.

He can feel the curve of Clint’s smile against his and he dedicates more time to learning it, letting his own smile mirror it in turn. He pulls away, finally, only to push back in, already craving the feel of Clint’s body pressed against his.

He’s half-drunk with the sensation of it when they finally do manage to part for more than a few milliseconds, and they just grin at each other for a moment.

“You know what this means,” Bucky says, leaning in to rest their foreheads together, so his words are breathed across Clint’s skin.

“What?” Clint asks.

“Next year I’m definitely on your side. Steve doesn’t stand a chance.”

Clint’s laugh and little victory dance have Bucky laughing so hard he has to sit down on the stairs and their laughter fills the house until everyone else comes out to see what’s so funny.