Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Bucky broke HYDRA’s programming he hadn’t exactly thought he’d end up working at a fucking craft store, selling supplies to crafty moms, grandma’s, and children alike. Then again, when Bucky broke HYDRA’s programming he hadn’t exactly thought about much. He’d been a little too busy puking his guts up and shaking through the withdrawls of the metric fuckton of chemicals those nazi fucks had been pumping him with and then, after he was done with that, dragging SHIELD and a ragtag selection of Avengers into dismantling said nazi fucks so that they couldn’t get ahold of him again. 

But almost a year ago his therapist (his found through the VA, Non-SHIELD-Appointed, reasonably sane therapist that he’d found himself after the SHIELD-Appointed one, Doctor Faustus, had revealed themselves to be some sort of supervillain. Which had been fun. Bucky can’t recommend getting mindfucked by a crazy supervillain enough.) had suggested that maybe he take up a hobby, or get a job, or really do anything that was enriching to his life and wasn’t working out, doing superhero or superhero adjacent shit, or calling his therapist, Sam, outside of office hours because he was bored. Which okay, yeah, Bucky could understand that. Calling Sam four times in a row on a Tuesday afternoon because he had nothing better to do with his time and needed Sam to reassure him that that was fine was probably not the best thing to do. 

So he’d ended up with the job. And also, through the job, an array of hobbies. Apparently it was virtually impossible for Bucky to work at a craft supply store and not learn to craft. Which Natasha definitely gives him shit for, but she doesn’t exactly complain when the mittens Bucky knit her keep her hands warm in the harsh New York winter now does she? 

He’s also, somehow, unfortunately, through no fault of his own, surely, seemed to acquire a very slight bit of a crush on a customer. 

Sam insists this is a good thing, that it shows emotional growth and a new sense of security that he can develop attachments to people who aren’t scary British genetically engineered super soldiers or fellow Russian brainwashing victims, but Bucky would like to argue very vehemently that as a trained assassin, fumbling his words as he rings up a customer is not a good thing, Samuel. 

It’s just that the customer (Steve- he’d told Bucky his name is Steve) is cute. And talented. And a little bit perpetually aggravated at the world. And Bucky is charmed by that somehow. He can’t help it. He doesn’t, if he’s honest, really want to help it. He hasn’t been able to have a crush on someone since the fucking 40s, and even then there was the worry of getting caught. This feels simple. Safe. He can like Steve from afar, and never, ever, do anything about it. 

“Ooooh lover boy at ten o’clock,” Kayla, a woman in her early twenties who Bucky is somehow always annoyed and charmed by in equal parts, says from the register next to Bucky’s. 

“That is not ten o’clock. You’d never survive in a combat situation,” Bucky tells her, refusing to lower himself to insisting that Steve is just a regular and not anything to Bucky, let alone his lover boy. 

“Good thing the closest I get to a combat situation is planner release day.” 

“Listen, those planner people are nuts. You could use some combat training to deal with them.” 

“Riiiiiiight. I’m sure they’re dangerous enough for that.” 

“I’ve seen things Kayla. Grown women fighting over the last limited edition planner. A sticker book used as a weapon. How do you think I lost my arm?” Bucky asks, waving his metal hand. 

“You know that never gets funny right?” Kayla asks. 

Bucky sniffs indignantly. “I happen to think it’s hysterical.” 

An hour and a half later Steve seems to have finally made his way through the store and to Bucky’s register. He seems tired, leaning against his cart, but cheerful enough when he greets Bucky. Steve always seems tired when Bucky sees him, and Bucky tries very hard to not wonder how much sleep the guy gets. To not let that stir something in him. To keep the desire to feed him his ma’s soup recipe and tuck him into a bed so he can sleep for a solid week or so buried deep deep down. 

“Steve,” Bucky says, feeling his face transform into a sort of smile that is very Steve specific and not his standard customer service smile. Behind Steve, Kayla makes a dramatic kissing face while arranging the cash wrap and Bucky manages to remain professional and not strangle her. 

Steve, thankfully, seems perfectly oblivious to the nonsense going on behind him, loading the stuff from his cart onto the counter for Bucky to start checking him out. Checking his stuff out. Scanning Steve’s items, not checking him out. God, none of that actually manages to sound right, even in his head. 

“How was the after thanksgiving hellscape? Did you get mauled by any crazy crafters trying to score some discounted yarn?” Steve asks. 

“I managed to escape with my life. Just barely,” Bucky says gravely, feeling that warm, proud feeling that’s starting to become familiar when it gets a laugh out of Steve. “What’s all this for?” He asks, gesturing to the cart full of craft supplies he’s scanning and bagging. 

“25 days of holiday DIY videos.” Steve says it with the sort of tone that Bucky’s already grown used to from him, like he can’t quite believe the words that are leaving his mouth. 

“Right. For your vlog,” Bucky says it like ‘ vlog’ is a word he’s been using for years and years and not something he learned about in the last year that he never could have imagined as a kid. 

“Yeah. My vlog,” Steve says with a laugh that at least to Bucky’s ears, sounds self deprecating, “Would you believe me if I said I hadn’t actually meant to do this for a living?” 

“ Yes ,” Bucky says immediately, without an ounce of hesitation, and then wonders if maybe he shouldn’t have responded so quickly. Maybe Steve will take that to mean that Bucky thinks there’s something wrong with being a ‘vlogger’ or whatever they call themselves, “I mean- I just mean that life’s crazy and people do all kinds of things they didn’t intend to do. I certainly didn’t imagine myself here.” And by ‘here’ he means 2019, but he’s sure it’s easy to take it as ‘working at a craft store.’ 

  “You mean it wasn’t your dream to work here and see me practically once a week?” Steve asks, a hand pressed to his chest, every inch of him radiating fake surprise. 

“I don’t know, I might have if I’d known how often you’d be in here,” Bucky says and hopes that it sounds enough like a joke that Steve doesn’t hear the little bit of truth in it. 

🎄🎄🎄

Margaret Carter aka Peggy aka Captain Carter aka The Star Spangled Gal With A Plan aka Defender Of Truth, Liberty, and Justice For All aka the woman who’s saved Bucky’s life more times than he’d like to think about does not suffer nonsense lightly. 

Luckily, because of the whole saving Bucky’s life repeatedly since World War II thing she seems to be incredibly tolerant of Bucky’s particular brand of nonsense. 

Unfortunately, this means that Bucky has to suffer Peggy’s particular brand of nonsense. 

“Darling, did you know that that boy you like lists me as his favorite superhero? I’m very flattered,” Peggy says, staring at her cell phone when Bucky returns from the counter with their coffee orders. Between her very presence and the fact that the serum left her built like a brick shit house, Peggy Carter could never be said to look unassuming, but she doesn’t even try with her bright red leather jacket and boots. Bucky half expects some poor girl to swoon into her arms at any moment when they’re out and about. 

This does not stop Bucky from snatching her phone up with a “Are you investigating one of my customers?” 

“It’s hardly investigating, James. It’s a public video.” 

Which, okay, when Bucky focuses on the screen of Peggy’s phone it is, in fact, a video labeled ‘500K SUBSCRIBER Q&A.’ Steve’s in frame, looking warm in a too big sweater with half finished paintings behind him as he talks animatedly about something in the video. Peggy has a pair of headphones plugged into the phone that are now dangling from the device, which means that he can’t hear whatever Steve is talking about so enthusiastically, but just the sight seems to cause a lurch in Bucky’s stomach. 

He’s pretty sure the feeling he’s experiencing is fondness. 

“Have you not watched any of his videos?” Peggy asks, something careful there that Bucky can’t quite parse out. 

“No. It felt… Invasive, I guess,” Bucky says, handing Peg her phone back, “It’s not like he can find out stuff about me on the internet.” 

“I beg to differ.” 

“ Okay , stuff that isn’t conspiracy theories about the Winter Soldier at least. What Steve does, and internet forums dedicated to how I’m secretly dating the Black Widow or how it was really me who shot Kennedy and the files Nat and I dumped prove it are hardly the same thing.”  

“Okay, but did you shoot Kennedy though?” Peggy asks, eyes bright and a little teasing which Bucky finds very rude. 

“ What? No! Maybe. Who knows, honestly?” 

“I mean, HYDRA presumably. Though considering you accidentally got rid of most of them, maybe not.” 

Bucky would like to feel at least a little guilty about that, but, well, it’s hard to feel guilty about taking down murderous, torturing nazis. So instead of responding to that he does exactly what he’s sure Peggy wants and asks “Can you send me that video?” 

Later that night, Bucky finds himself tossing and turning. 

His shrink gave him something to help him sleep if he needs it, but his serum enhanced body requires horse tranquilizer level doses that have triggered a few too many panic attacks. So, he avoids them as much as possible, leaving him to stare at his ceiling in the dark and repeatedly change positions in the hopes that sleep will finally overtake him and let him rest. 

In the end he gives up on any such thing and grabs the laptop off his side table. 

The fact that Catsanova chooses now of all moments to launch herself onto Bucky’s bed and take her spot on his chest, purring and kneading sharp cat claws into his skin means it takes a little more fuss than he’d like it to, but moments later Steve’s face is filling Bucky’s screen and his voice is coming from his speakers. 

“You know what I haven’t done in awhile?” Steve asks the camera after a standard, youtuber intro, and Bucky, feeling much less shame than he thinks he should, relaxes a little more into his pillows, “I haven’t done some art and just talked with you guys in a while. So that's what we're doing today. I’m gonna show you guys how to make some really neat Christmas cards using supplies you probably have at home if you’re into arts or crafts already and we’re gonna chat a bit…” 

He doesn’t mean to, but somewhere in the course of the video, Bucky falls asleep. 

🎄🎄🎄

By the time Steve comes into the store again Bucky’s watched more of his videos than he’d like to admit to. It doesn’t help Bucky’s resolve to not be creepy and watch them all that Steve’s voice is surprisingly deep for how small he is and he has a nice cadence that seems to work perfectly when Bucky feels restless in the small hours of the night.  

In his defense, he has been at least attempting to follow some of the tutorials on Steve’s channel so he guesses he can claim it’s been educational. Yes, that’s definitely all it’s been for. The education. 

This time, when Steve comes in, it’s while Bucky’s on the floor instead of register. He’s been lingering in papercrafts, pretending he’s doing something by making sure the correct scrapbook paper is in each basket after the mad rush that was a Buy Five Get Five Free sale. 

“Bucky,” Steve says when he rounds the corner into the aisle Bucky’s in, and maybe Bucky’s fooling himself but he thinks there’s a certain warmth there. Like Steve is happy to see him. 

“Steve, hi,” Bucky says and then proceeds to stand there staring at Steve like a complete moron. Get it together Barnes, you were a goddamn assassin, a ghost, you’re the Winter Fucking Soldier, you can handle one artsy twink with a nice voice. “I watched some of your videos,” He blurts out next, because apparently he can’t handle one artsy twink with a nice voice. Dammit. 

“Oh,” Steve says, and then, “Uh- What’d you think? I promise you can be honest and I won’t like, get angry and rat you out to your manager or anything. I mean, I might need to switch back to ordering everything online due to embarrassment, but I won’t-” 

“They were good,” Bucky says, maybe too quickly, because Steve starts to interject a “Really, I swear I won’t-” before Bucky cuts him off with more, “No, I swear, they were really good. I can’t say I have any intention of actually doing some of the things you show, because I’m not that talented, but they were really good.” 

“Oh. Thank you,” Steve says, and it sounds genuine enough that it almost adds another layer onto the multitude of layers of awkward that Bucky feels right now, and then, “I could show you. In person sometime.” 

“Oh,” Bucky says, and then quickly, before Steve thinks he doesn’t want to, “I’d like that.” 

“Good. It’s a date then! I mean it’s a- It’s not a- Unless you- It’s just a- you know what I mean,” Steve says, and Bucky nods even though no, no, he does not know what Steve means, but then Steve’s got a piece of paper and a pen from his pocket and he’s jotting something down on it and foisting it upon Bucky, “Here. My number. That way we can set up a meeting.”

And Bucky, because he has no idea what is happening or how this is his life, nods and takes the number. 

Later, when Steve has paid and left and Bucky is staring at the back of a reciept with Steve’s number scribbled on it like it holds the answer to the universe, America looks at him in the judgemental way that only a girl between the ages of 12 and 19 can seem to manage and says “Jesus christ, that was fucking painful.” and Bucky pretends he has no idea what she’s talking about. 

🎄🎄🎄

Bucky would like to claim that he was strong. That he was patient. That he managed to not be a desperate idiot with a crush on his favorite customer. But unfortunately for Bucky he can claim absolutely none of this.

He can, however, claim he waited all the way until he was home, then the entire time it took for his ubereats delivery order to arrive, and then the entire time it took him to scarf his food down while battling Catsanova for said food before he smoothed out the piece of paper with Steve’s number on it and tapped it into his phone. 

YOU:

Hi

This is Bucky

The guy from the craft store.

You gave me your number.

We talk at the store sometimes.

Steve’s response only takes moments, but it feels like a strange eternity.

STEVE:

oh!

yeah

you didn’t have to clarify the last couple bits

lol

i knew just from the bucky 

what’s up 

‘ I was thinking about you’ Bucky types before quickly deleting it, trying again, and then trying about seventeen more times before he settles on what he ends up sending. 

YOU:

Just figured we should set up that meeting.

STEVE:

definitely! 

when are you free?????? 

Bucky’s not quite sure how to take the multitude of question marks, but it definitely feels like a good thing. 

YOU:

I’ve got Thursdays and Sundays off.

So anytime on one of those days works for me.

STEVE:

i can work with that

how does sunday sound??

YOU:

Sounds perfect. I’ll see you then.

A few minutes pass after Bucky’s last text, and then he gets a picture of two different bolts of fabric. 

STEVE:

what one?

YOU: 

The blue, for sure. 

And then they’re off, the awkwardness seeming to fade as they text back and forth about what Steve’s making (a diy sketchbook cover for a video), what he’s eating for dinner (Nepali food from a place two blocks over from his apartment), and the newest mega action movie franchise (based loosely on those Fantastic Four guys that Tony has a vendetta against, strangely enough) until Bucky falls asleep on his couch, Catsanova on top of him and suitably disgruntled by the fact that Bucky hasn’t moved to his bed yet. 

🎄🎄🎄

“Are you okay with being on camera?” Steve asks while rummaging around in a bin of craft supplies for god knows what. 

“What?” Bucky tries not to get too amped up when he’s somewhere new, but he can’t stop his eyes from flitting around Steve’s apartment, tracing out sightlines and vulnerabilities. Steve’s in a newer building, decently high up, but there’s still taller buildings around them. Big windows that let in a lot of light also make it vulnerable-

“I mean, it’s totally fine if you’re not!” Steve says, drawing Bucky’s attention back to him, and Bucky makes himself take a breath, stop sizing up the apartment, and focus on Steve. “I just thought, I don’t know, it might be fun. And it could kind of show off that anyone can do it, you know.” 

“Oh, that-” 

“Not to say you have no skill! You just got me thinking about how a lot of people say the same thing you did, that they like the videos but don’t have the talent to follow them so I thought it’d be cool to prove that wrong you know? At least with some of the crafts and diys, if not with the more traditional art. It’s no problem if-” 

“ Steve,” Bucky interrupts, feeling a little strangely pleased now that he can focus on it that Steve is at least half as awkward as Bucky feels. 

“Yeah?” 

“I don’t mind being on camera. Just try to make sure you edit it so that I don’t look like too much of a dumbass,” Bucky says, feeling the way a smile has spread across his face. God, he hopes he’s not too obviously fond. 

“I don’t know, I might get better views if I don’t.”  

Later, once Steve has gotten everything ready and given Bucky a rundown on how this actually goes, Bucky sits in a chair next to Steve while Steve turns on the camera and starts. 

“Hey guys, what’s up? Welcome to my channel. This is Steve here, as always, making videos about art, crafts, diys, and sometimes a little bit of other stuff if I feel like it. Today we actually have a treat! My pal from the craft store, Bucky. I’ve told you guys a little about him, he’s the one who always sets aside the best stuff for me. Say hi, Buck.” 

Bucky waves, feeling a little awkward in front of the camera. He knows, even if he can’t always remember it too well, that somewhere in the very, very distant past of the Before HYDRA times that he wasn’t like this. He was confident. Self assured, even. The books -especially the historical romance novels he stumbled over one day on the internet- say he was a smooth talker, a ladies man, even. But the Bucky of now? The Bucky of now feels awkward as hell when sat in front of a camera right next to the guy he’s been crushing on for months now. 

“I think this might be his first time doing this, so he might be a little shy,” Steve says conspiratorially to the camera, like it’s his and however many thousands of viewers little secret. He seems a little more… a little more alive in front of the camera, and the shift is fascinating to watch. It’s not not Steve, but there’s a slight differentiation between the Steve on camera and the Steve not on camera.

“I’m not shy,” Bucky argues. 

“Sure you’re not, pal .” 

“This is bullying,” Bucky says very seriously, and Steve bumps their shoulders together companionably, like they’re both in on the same joke, and Bucky’s had enough time that he’s used to being around people again- to being on a team, being coworkers, being friends with people- but it still sometimes catches him off guard. “Right, what are we doing again?” 

“Oh yeah, this video was meant to be more than me teasing you on camera,” Steve says before facing the camera properly again, “We’re going to do some more super easy watercolor Christmas cards, with Buck here to help me show that as much as you guys claim in the comments that you don’t have the skill to do these things, you actually do.”  

“If I end up able to do this, you can do it,” Bucky says, feeling a little weird addressing some entity-or multitude of entities- through the camera, though not quite as weird as he thought he would, “I’ve got the artistic talent of a particularly talented two year old.” 

“At least it’s a particularly talented one. That’s a start,” Steve says, laying out a piece of folded sturdy white paper about the size of a greeting card in front of him. “Anyway, we’re gonna start with some watercolor paper. I bought mine as a card already, which is super handy, but you can easily fold some standard watercolor paper. I put all the measurements you’ll need for this below, and also on the screen here…” 

🎄🎄🎄

“I saw you,” America tells Bucky a few days later, seemingly out of the blue while they’re restocking yarn. 

“Huh?” Bucky asks, a little distracted as he strokes a particularly soft yarn. It’s not weird to stroke the yarn, he’s feeling it. He makes a mental note to buy a couple skeins when he gets his paycheck. He can already imagine it as a soft scarf, protecting his face from the bitter cold of winter in New York.

“I saw you. On youtube. With that customer you’re in love with.” 

“You can just call him Steve. You know his name is Steve,” Bucky says, dragging the cart of yarn down the aisle away from America just to be an ass.

“That’s not an answer.” 

“Was there a question?” Bucky asks, pairing his words with his most innocent expression. He’s pretty sure it doesn’t work these days, though if his sketchy memory of the past is to believed it wasn’t ever that effective. 

“So how does it work, being in a youtube video as the Winter Soldier?” America asks, and Bucky doesn’t drop the yarn he’s stocking but it’s a near thing. 

“As the what? I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” Bucky says, aiming for breezy. He thinks he does pretty good at the lying thing. He was trained to be an assassin.  A genetically perfected hit man. He can lie god dammit. 

“Right. Right. You’ve got a giant metal arm and you don’t exactly hide your face well when you go fight baddies with the Avengers.” America says, and she doesn’t say ‘you idiot’ after it but he can feel it implied. 

Bucky narrows his eyes at America in what he hopes is a warning that translates as ‘You better not blab about this, young lady’ and America narrows her eyes in a way that Bucky takes to mean ‘Like you’re interesting enough for that, old man.’ 

“ Anyway. You two make a real cute couple. I better be invited to the wedding and get a plus one,” America says and Bucky throws a skein of yarn at her. 

🎄🎄🎄

Steve texts Bucky a couple hours before they’re supposed to meet at some little whole in the wall place for food that Steve keeps insisting Bucky needs to check out. 

STEVE:

I can’t make it

Bucky experiences roughly 6 thoughts all at once, all of them primarily along the lines of ‘oh god he’s decided he hates me’ which he’s pretty sure his therapist would call Negative Self Talk but fuck you Sam, he’s panicking. 

The first text is followed, mere moments later, by another one. 

STEVE:

I’ve got some sort of bug. can we reschedule?

YOU:

Yeah, of course. we can hang out anytime.

And then, before Bucky can chicken out, he quickly types out another text. 

YOU:

I could come to you. My ma’s soup recipe has been known to at least attempt to cure all the ails.

Bucky fully expects to get turned down. Why wouldn’t he? He likes to think that he and Steve have become, well, friends in the short time they’ve been hanging out outside of Bucky’s work, but that doesn’t mean the guy wants Bucky in his space while he’s sick. 

To Bucky’s surprise, he doesn’t get turned down. Instead, his phone lights up with a text of ‘ soup?’ and then ‘ yes. please. that’d be great.’ 

Which is how Bucky ends up in Steve’s kitchen, attempting to recreate his ma’s soup with a few improvisations due to hazy memory and a few upgrades thanks to the fact that he has a lot more money than his ma ever did and modern supermarkets mean he can get pretty much any ingredient his heart desires. Seriously, he has no idea what he’d ever do with half the things in his local Trader Joe’s but he enjoys knowing they’re there.

Steve’s bundled in a blanket, sitting on a barstool with a cup of tea, and Bucky can feel his eyes on him as he chops carrots, onion, and garlic. It feels appreciative and okay, Bucky’s sure he’s gotten looks from people since he thawed out and dried out, but it’s really only been from the occasional customer or someone at a restaurant he went to with Nat. The look Steve’s giving him though, it feels nice. It feels too nice to act on just yet. Plus the time doesn’t exactly feel right when Steve’s so sick. 

So instead he gets the soup started on the stove and then badgers Steve into moving to the couch so he can relax. 

“You don’t have to mother hen me,” Steve gripes, ridiculous and nasally from his cold as despite his protests he lets Bucky nudge him to the couch and then cover him with another blanket and fluff the pillows behind him. 

“You agreed to me coming over and making you soup, the mother henning was very obviously implied.” 

“How’d you learn to cook?” Steve asks, instead of addressing Bucky’s incredibly valid words. 

Steve pats the spot next to him and Bucky settles into it without hesitation, taking a moment to think of his answer.

“I learned a bit watching my ma when I was a kid, but mostly I just went to war and came back different,” Bucky says, gesturing to his arm and then his head. It’s a simple way to describe the absolute avalanche of shit that his past is, and it’s also not a lie, so it’s the one he tends to go with. “And I needed some way to cope. Plus I didn’t really trust other people to make my food for a while after. So, learning to cook it was.” 

“My mom wasn’t much of a cook,” Steve says, his head landing on Bucky’s shoulder, “I mean, she could cook. She wasn’t like, burns boiling water bad at it, but she was a doctor and a single mom, so it’s not like she had a lot of time. We ate a lot of take out and really easy stuff. I guess I take after her when it comes to that kind of thing.” 

Bucky hasn’t exactly had a lot of affection in the last, oh, century or so, and what he has had has come from people like Natasha who treats affection a lot like one would expect a former child assassin to treat it, and who Bucky is pretty sure he could take in a fight but not absolutely certain so Steve’s head on his shoulder makes him feel something like how he imagines a sniper caught in their perch would feel. (A feeling he’s never felt of course, considering he’s the best and he doesn’t care what Clint claims.) 

“I guess with all the delivery options available this century there’s not really that much of a need to cook,” Bucky says, more than a little distracted by the fact that Steve’s hair smells faintly of apple. He could, if he wanted to, turn his head just a little and just sort of- nuzzle. 

He doesn’t. 

But he could .

“True,” Steve mutters, and Bucky can feel the way his jaw works with the word against his shoulder, the way the sharpness of his chin digs in just a little, “Who would have imagined postmates fifteen years ago? A million options all in our phone.”

He’s starting to sound a little out of it, sleepy around the edges, and Bucky lifts a hand, pressing it to Steve’s forehead. 

“You’re burning up,” Bucky says, and then, “Get some sleep. The soup’s got a while still.”  

“Okay,” Steve agrees, much to Bucky’s surprise considering his griping about mother henning. “Don’t leave while I’m out though,” He adds, slumping down a little until he’s relatively horizontal, his head more or less in Bucky’s lap. “And don’t hold this against me when I’m better. I’m delirious with fever and I can’t have tylenol for another two hours.” 

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Bucky promises. 

And if he waits a minute until Steve’s mostly asleep and then cards his fingers through his blonde hair then, well, that’s completely and totally understandable and will remain between Bucky and the walls of Steve’s apartment only.  

🎄🎄🎄

Something seems to shift after that day when Steve was sick. It’s nothing incredibly obvious, just a slight something- a look in Steve’s eye, a little bit of a more obvious flirting tone when he asks Bucky a question, just something that Bucky’s not entirely sure how to describe or how to deal with. 

He chooses instead, not to deal with it. Mostly because, to be perfectly honest, he senses there’s a high chance of embarrassing himself if he does (he’s been a brainwashed murderbot for most of the last century, so it’s not like he’s been able to deal with this kind of thing in a while), but also because it feels kind of nice to just sort of exist in it. 

Part of not dealing with it though means that he has to ignore his coworkers really ramping up the way they watch Bucky and Steve interact like it’s their daily soap though. 

He’s acutely aware of America miming eating popcorn behind Steve while she’s supposed to be stocking the seasonal home goods. 

To be fair, Bucky is also supposed to be working but the store is mostly dead and there’s no one in line to ring up, so he’s got free reign to chat with Steve while Steve leans against the counter and shows no intention of leaving just yet. 

“When do you get off?” Steve asks, fiddling with his receipt in a way that absolutely does not have Bucky’s gaze flitting down to Steve’s long fingers repeatedly. 

“About an hour.” Bucky shrugs, absolutely cool and casual, he’s sure of it.

“Oh? I should hang around then. You can take me to dinner when you get off. There’s this Thai place I’ve been meaning to show you.” 

“Yeah? I guess I’ll have to take you then. It’s the right thing to do,” Bucky says, in what he thinks just may be some semblance of flirting. Maybe not a good semblance of flirting because he highly suspects HYDRA might have fried that ability out of him somewhere over the course of the last seventy or so years, but judging by the way Steve smiles and leans a little closer over the counter it doesn’t seem like Steve really cares about the quality of it too much.

Behind Steve, America waves her hands frantically to get Bucky’s attention and then mimes throwing up. 

“Excuse me Steve, I have to go murder my coworker.” 

Roughly an hour and forty-five minutes, some teasing comments from his 26 year old boss, and a subway ride later, Bucky’s sat across from Steve at a tiny table in a tiny little restaurant. 

The restaurant is cozy, and despite it’s small size and relatively tucked away nature it’s filled with people and a warm buzz of conversation and swells around them, interrupted only by patrons eating.

The table is small enough that if he’s not careful his knees brush against Steve’s. 

Steve very much isn’t careful. He shifts in his seat and lets their knees bump together, leans across the table into Bucky’s space to discuss the menu, and lets their hands brush together when he reaches for Bucky’s menu to pass it back to the server after Steve has ordered for them.

It’s a lot less subtle than Bucky expects, hell it’s a lot less subtle than Bucky remembers being when he was actually with men before the war, but it’s not like Bucky’s going to complain when it gives him an excuse to be just as un subtle about the matter and continue the knee bumping and invasions of each other’s space through dinner.  

“Wanna walk me home?” Steve asks when they’ve finished and paid and have returned the chilly new york air full of red curry and drunken noodles, “I’m small and could use your protection on these mean, mean streets.” 

His eyes are wide and innocent, a hand pressed to his chest in an attempt to really sell the whole terrible act and Bucky can’t help the laugh that escapes him, bubbling through his chest and leaving him lighter for it. 

“R iiight. I pity anyone who tries anything with you. I’ve seen you get mad Rogers.” 

A customer had once tried to grab America’s ass while Steve had been in the store, and while Bucky had fully expected America herself to commit murder, or at the very least for the customer to lose his hand to her and Bucky to end up having to testify at the inevitable law suit, Steve had gotten to it raging before anyone else could do a thing.

It had been a little impressive, though Bucky’s still sure the only reason America didn’t tell Steve off for interrupting her ass kicking was that their general manager chose that very moment to leave whatever he was doing in the back office and grace them with his presence. 

“All the more reason to walk me home then. You need to protect the mean, mean streets from me,” Steve teases, and then, a little more awkwardly, “I mean, unless you really don’t want to. I don’t want you to feel-” 

“ Steve.” 

“Yeah?” 

“I’d love to walk you home.” 

🎄🎄🎄

Occasionally Bucky has to be a superhero. Not often. Mostly he spends his time living as much of a normal, everyday life as he can. But he’s technically on SHIELD payroll - even if he’s sure it’s mostly just a way for SHIELD to feel like they’ve got him on a leash- and also a part of the Avenger’s phone tree so every once in a while, when the really big bads like Ultron or some purple alien invader bent on universal domination show up, he has to roll up his sleeves and help Peg and Tony and co. save the world. 

Which is why it’s not too much of a surprise when he wakes up to Natasha in his apartment shoving tac gear at him. 

“You’re lucky it’s my day off,” Bucky says around a yawn as he does up the many, many buckles (Like seriously , too many buckles. Who designed this thing? He’d like to have a discussion with them.) on his vest and Natasha eats a bowl of Bucky’s favorite cereal while she waits. 

“Ah, yes, the trials and tribulations of the local craft store are definitely more important than saving the world,” Natasha says, sarcastic but also somehow fond. Out of all Bucky’s 21st Century Post Assassin relationships, the one he has with Natasha is definitely up there. There’s something both deeply unsettling and overwhelmingly comforting about their sameness. 

Bucky snorts, holstering his lucky knife. “It takes more than a hero to deal with what I do,” He says, infusing his tone with as much Upstanding and Righteous Superhero as he can. He lets the act go after a moment and asks, “So what’s the big disaster now?”

“Some idiot out of Latveria named Doctor Doom. He’s after the usual, of course.” 

“Total world domination?” 

“That’s the one,” Natasha says with finger guns. 

“Who calls themselves Doctor Doom ?”   

“Who calls themselves The Winter Soldier?” 

“Excuse you, The Winter Soldier is intimidating. And in my defense, I didn’t exactly pick it. HYDRA wasn’t real invested in my opinion when it came to name choices.” 

Natasha’s phone buzzes on the counter, interrupting what was sure to be a circular argument over superhero name choices. “Alright, the quinjet’s on the roof. Let’s go.” 

Doctor Doom turns out to be a vicious motherfucker who escapes before they can either kill him (Bucky and Natasha’s plan) or detain him (Everyone else’s plan). Either way, the catastrophe is over, and Bucky plans to go home, eat more food than anyone without a super soldier metabolism could ever justify, and sleep off the pain of at least one building falling on him.

His phone buzzes on the flight home with a text from Steve. 

STEVE:

what should i order for dinner? 

Bucky, of course, wastes absolutely no time answering it. He’s tired and hungry and sore and cranky and here’s a text from Steve to distract him from all of that. 

YOU:

You could always attempt that thing called cooking. 

You know, where you use ingredients already in your apartment to make a meal that’s not takeout. 

STEVE:

never heard of it. are you sure that’s a thing? 

sounds fake to me.

YOU could always come cook for me though. 

Bucky would like to clarify that while he does snort at Steve’s texts, he doesn’t blush. No matter what anyone says, even - especially- Tony. 

“Barnes is blushing,” Tony crows, “The Tin Man does have a heart!” 

“I’m not blushing,” Bucky says, in the tone of someone who is maybe, possibly, a little bit close to blushing and who maybe, possibly, if they contained the ability to be embarrassed, is embarrassed by it.

“Who’s the lucky lady? Gal? Dame? Lass? Maiden? Bird? Filly?” 

“How badly do you think it’d go over if I pushed him out of the quinjet?” Bucky asks Peggy, a little bit pleading. He can picture it even, and sure, Tony’s Iron Man armor would probably catch him and prevent death, but it would be so so satisfying. 

“I’m pretty sure attempted murder would violate that unnoficial probation you’re certainly still on, sadly,” Peggy says, and then, like a traitor, leans in to try to get a look at Bucky’s phone. 

“This is private,” Bucky says, tucking his phone into one of his many pockets and using his words like Sam keeps telling him to, and Peggy because she’s as much of a snoop as Natasha but also just as good of a friend, sighs as though he’s killed her fun but settles back into her seat. 

After Bucky has eaten, showered, slept, eaten again, and then slept once again, he finally gets around to looking at his phone. There’s a voicemail from Peggy, seventeen texts from Tony, an email with the subject line ‘How To Take Part In My Superhero Summer Internship!’ from that Parker kid who Bucky definitely never gave his email, two pictures of Clint’s dog that Bucky saves to his phone, and three texts from Natasha made up entirely of emojis.

There’s also a text from Steve, sent less than five minutes ago that says ‘ gonna be in the neighborhood. was thinking of bringing by some donuts from that place you like.’ 

Bucky peers at his phone through sleep crusted eyes, and manages to jab out something that he’s pretty sure is ‘sounds great. text when you get here and i’ll buzz you up.’ before proceeding to freak the fuck out because there’s a stack of dishes in his sink, Catsanova’s litter box needs scooped, and his gear and multiple weapons are still scattered on the floor of his living room where he dropped them after getting home. 

“Shit,” He says, rolling out of bed, and then to Catsanova with more force, “ Shit.” 

Catsanova doesn’t have quite the reaction Bucky would like from her, instead just blinking big lamplight eyes and stretching into the warm spot Bucky left in the bed. 

“You’re no help,” Bucky tells her very seriously, and Catsanova shows absolutely no sign she heard, instead settling further into the bed and purring.  

Roughly an hour later, Bucky’s apartment is semi clean and Steve is ensconced on the opposite end of Bucky’s extraordinarily comfortable couch, eating a donut with bright green and red frosting. Bucky is absolutely not focused on the way his throat works when he swallows said donut, of course not.

“So how was saving the world?” Steve asks so casually that Bucky almost doesn’t even take notice of how what he just said was out of place, “I saw a few videos of a building falling on you on twitter. Are you, like, okay after that?” He adds, waving his hand and also his donut sort of vaguely at Bucky.

Bucky stares. Catsanova meows and headbutts Steve’s arm, attempting to get donut. Bucky was never aware before Catsanova that cats liked things like donuts, but every moment with the monster has taught him he was wrong about most things he’d thought about cats previously. 

“You- What?”

“You have a giant metal arm and I’ve opened at least one history book,” Steve says with a shrug.

“A trained assassin,” Bucky mutters, sitting down heavily, “I’m a ghost. And yet.” 

“For a trained assassin your version of subtle kind of sucks, pal.” Steve says, digging his toes into Bucky’s thighs a little, “You say things like ‘back in my day’ and ‘this century.’ I kind of assumed you weren’t really hiding it.”

Bucky pauses at that, because, okay, yeah, he hasn’t really put any sort of concerted effort into hiding who he is and was for the last century or so, but also, he’d kind of assumed he didn’t have to because why would anyone assume that the Winter Soldier is working at a craft store and living in a tiny 5th floor walkup in Bushwick?  

“That’s fair I guess,” Bucky finally relents, and Catsanova finally gives up on getting Steve’s donut and perches herself on Bucky’s thigh, all four of her paws digging in like tiny knives as she somehow manages to put all of her weight onto each individual paw all at the same time. 

“Soo-oo, like I was saying, are you okay? How was it?” Steve asks, and it’s a little strange, for someone not on the team or a part of the stupid press conferences that the PR team makes him show up for sometimes, to be talking about it. 

Which is what Bucky will blame for the fact that he’s so startlingly honest when he says, “Terrifying.”

Steve makes a little humming noise, a prompt for Bucky to keep talking if he wants to. 

“He got away. So we saved the day, or whatever it is you call what we even do, but he’ll come back again and we’ll have to suit up again to deal with it,” Bucky says, his hand curling around Steve’s ankle where his pants have ridden up, his thumb rubbing over the knobby joint of it. 

“Do you like it?” Bucky’s blank expression at the question seems enough to make him clarify, “Suiting up. Being a hero. Saving the day or whatever it is we call what you do.” He adds, mimicking Bucky’s own words.  

Bucky doesn’t think anyone’s ever actually asked him that. He’d been drafted to the war, caught by a shady Nazi organization and experimented on, rescued and put back into the war, then, when he’d thought he was going to die in a fucking ravine he’d been picked up again and turned into a fucking weapon for HYDRA. All of that had certainly been without his want, or even permission. 

Then when he’d shown up on SHIELD’s metaphorical doorstep after breaking his programming it had almost been assumed that he’d become an agent and keep doing the same sort of shit he’d done for HYDRA, just for the other side. He’d made pretty quick work of ending that particular notion, but it was still implied that he’d at least use what HYDRA had given him for some sort of good. 

He was a super soldier. He had a metal arm that could crush steel and deflect fucking bullets. 

Of course he’d tag along with the Avengers sometimes. Of course he would. Why wouldn’t he try to help save the world anytime it needed it and in the process maybe get rid of some of the red in his ledger? 

“Does it matter?”

Steve’s quiet for a long moment, expression pinched. “Yeah. Yeah, I think it does,” He says, and Bucky’s not entirely sure what to say to that, so instead he just gives Steve’s ankle a squeeze in an attempt to show his gratitude. 

When Steve speaks next, it’s a change of subject that feels like it gives Bucky whiplash, though maybe in a good way. 

“So, I know it’s a little short notice but do you wanna come over for Christmas at my place?” 

🎄🎄🎄

Bucky shows up at Steve’s apartment on the evening of Christmas Eve because “How are we supposed to have a proper Christmas morning if you’re stumbling across Brooklyn at the crack of dawn to get here, Buck?” 

Bucky can’t exactly argue with that, so he brings Catsanova in her carrier (at Steve’s invitation), as well as several bags stuffed with groceries because he knows what the state of Steve’s fridge usually looks like- he’s received enough pictures of the inside of it with that tired looking kind of sighing emoji via text- and cooks them a Christmas Eve dinner even his Ma would be proud of before going to sleep in Steve’s living room on his weird convertible IKEA couch thing. 

It’s one of the best nights of sleep Bucky’s had in a long time, and when he wakes up it’s to the sounds of Steve in the kitchen and a hunk of Catsanova’s fur in his mouth where she’s draped herself across his throat and half his face in his sleep.

He’s pretty sure cats aren’t supposed to handle new places well, but Catsanova’s a freak of a creature that Bucky sometimes suspects is an alien and tolerates Bucky putting her into the special backpack he bought to take her out in on a regular basis, so she seems perfectly fine to sleep in a strange place so long as she can torment Bucky by using him as furniture and perpetually clawing the shit out of his chest with her “adorable” kneading. 

“ Cat,” Bucky says, gently shoving at her back end in a futile attempt to get her off his windpipe. Her whole body shifts back and forth as she seemingly settles in deeper. 

“Coffee?” Steve asks when he realizes Bucky’s awake. 

“God, yes, please,” Bucky says, and breathes a sigh of relief when Steve shoos Catsanova off of him and hands him a mug full of sweet, sweet coffee that Bucky inhales almost half of before he manages a “Happy Christmas, Steve.” 

“Merry Christmas, Buck,” Steve says, his voice as warm as Bucky’s coffee as he perches himself on the coffee table in front of Bucky. “Thank you, by the way. For staying over for this. I’m still not really used to Christmas alone, and I know we haven’t been doing this very long but- I mean, we are doing something here right? It feels like we-”

“Yeah, Steve, we’re doing something here,” Bucky says, clearing any doubt for Steve, and also, to be entirely honest, for himself. They’re doing something. They’ve been doing something for at least a little while now. 

“Oh. Okay. Good,” Steve says, and gently takes Bucky’s coffee cup from his hands and sets it to the side, “Because I’d like to kiss you now, if that’s okay with you.” 

Oh. Yeah. That’s okay with Bucky. That’s very okay. Except, “I have morning breath. And coffee breath.” 

“That’s not really a yes or no answer, Buck.”

“Yeah. That’s a yes answer. It’s definitely a-” 

Bucky doesn’t finish his sentence, because the moment he’s agreed, Steve’s on him like he’s been waiting to do just this for ages, sliding onto Bucky’s lap with his thighs braced on either side of Bucky’s, a hand on Bucky’s jaw, pulling him forward until their mouths meet in the middle. 

It’s fireworks . It’s cheesy and so fucking cliche to even think it, Bucky knows it, but it is. 

It’s the thing he’s been waiting for since the first day Steve came through Bucky’s checkout line, looking exhausted with a whole damn luggage rack under his eyes. But he’d been the first customer all day to actually look at Bucky instead of through him, and it wasn’t necessarily because of that, because it wasn’t like there weren’t ever customers who treated him like an actual human being, but nonetheless, Bucky had been terribly, horribly, irrevocably hooked. 

When Steve pulls away he doesn’t go far, leaning his forehead gently against Bucky’s. Bucky gets an up close look at the way Steve’s long lashes seemingly brush the tops of his cheeks, and he thinks that if he was hooked before, he might as well be stuffed and mounted on Steve’s wall at this point. Which is a disturbing analogy, sure, but also somehow feels true. 

“I like you. A lot. A lot a lot,” Steve says, maybe a little breathless. Maybe a little breathless because o f Bucky.

“Oh. That’s good. The last couple minutes might have sent some really mixed signals if that wasn’t the case.” 

Later, after Bucky has cooked them up a mountain of chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and Bucky has eaten enough of them to fill up a supersoldier -and so has Steve- they exchange presents. 

Steve’s gift to Bucky is a black, incredibly soft t-shirt with “I work at a craft store, what’s your superpower?” printed on it above a stylized cartoon version of what looks to be Bucky, flexing, an explosion of craft supplies around him, as well as a pair of glass blown knitting needles. 

The needles are gorgeous and apparently come from a friend of Steve’s who does glass blowing, but the shirt? The shirt is undoubtedly the star in Bucky’s mind. It’s incredibly and ridiculously cheesy, and Bucky loves it immediately, even more so when Steve professes that he made the art himself and used his mad crafting skills to print the design out on iron on vinyl and put it on the t-shirt. 

Bucky’s gift to Steve feels a little lackluster in comparison. He’d panic knit him a matching set-  a hat, scarf, and mittens- using the same incredibly soft yarn he’d stocked and then promptly bought way too many skeins of a couple weeks ago. 

Steve doesn’t seem to find the gift lacking, however. At least not judging by the way he tugs the hat on and kisses Bucky again. And again. And again and again, until Bucky is breathless on Steve’s couch, absolutely sure that this just might be the best Christmas he’s had since before the war. 

🎄🎄🎄

Less than a week later, Bucky convinces Steve to come with him to the Avengers New Years Eve Party. 

The party could probably actually be called Tony Stark’s New Years Eve Party, but Tony’s slapped the A on everything and insisted otherwise while demanding that all Avengers and Avengers Adjacent show up, and no one has had the energy to argue with him about it. 

Steve seems nervous to be surrounded by superheroes for all of ten minutes, but then he seems to realize that they’re all just as big of idiots as Bucky is and he relaxes, getting into what seems to be a very impassioned one sided argument with Tony about reparations for the harms caused before Stark Industries had gotten out of weapons manufacturing and gone green and then, at some point, drifting away from that and into Thor’s orbit. 

Bucky watches the latter from where he’s assembling a plate of snacks for the both of them off of a ridiculous tower of food, only half listening as Thor booms “MEAD! You must have some mead Steven Rogers, though I’m truly sorry you can’t experience Asgardian mead. Your beloved might be the only one outside of Asgard capable of handling it, as it would fell any mortal man.” 

“Idiot,” Bucky hears the man next to him also filling a plate mutter under his breath, and when Bucky turns to look at him he stops, blinking at the other man several times. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be in like, space jail or something? I distinctly remember you trying to take over the world.” Bucky says.

“I’ve been rehabilitated, unfortunately,” Loki tells him, and Bucky nods in understanding. The Avengers are a lot. Sometimes being locked in a nice quiet cell might seem like a vacation if one has to deal with the full force of Thor on a daily basis. 

“You and me both, pal,” Bucky says before returning back to Steve’s side. 

Only the people in this room would look at Bucky, a guy who -brainwashed or not- has more blood on his hands than he can ever quantify, or at Loki, an idiot god from outer space who tried to fucking take over the world or some shit- only they could look at people like them and decide that hey, they belong at a fucking new years eve party, or on a team of superheroes, or galavanting between realms with their fellow Asgardian alien god brother, and not locked up in a cell floating in the middle of the ocean or outerpsace or somewhere else far, far from any human civilization. 

“Thor wants you to try Asgardian mead,” Steve tells Bucky when he returns, plucking a tiny little finger sandwich off the plate in Bucky’s hands. 

Thor has wandered off in the direction Bucky came from, possibly to keep an eye on Loki, possibly to annoy him judging by the resigned way Loki had spoken of his rehabilitation. 

“I think I’ll take my chances with good ol’ run of the mill human booze instead of risking that hangover.” 

“Probably the smarter, though definitely more boring choice.” 

When midnight rolls around Bucky kisses Steve in the middle of a crowded room, full of people he can conceivably call his friends, while fireworks go off in the New York City sky above them. 

He thinks, distantly, as Steve reels him in closer with a hand in Bucky’s hair that all the fireworks the city of New York can buy don’t really compare to what he feels when Steve kisses him like this.

“Your place is closer,” Steve says much much later with a yawn, his face smashed into the back of Bucky’s shoulder in a way that means Bucky can feel the way his jaw works with the yawn. His arms are slung around Bucky from behind, three fingers slipped between a gap between the buttons of Bucky’s shirt and rubbing absentminded circles into the skin there as the elevator steadily counts down floors.  

“Mmh, you should probably come home with me then. I can’t make you go all the way to your own place after dragging you here now, can I?” 

“Absolutely not. It’d be a sin, I think,” Steve says, while Bucky leads him, still wrapped around Bucky’s back, out of the elevator and into a cab where Steve doesn’t really release Bucky so much as he shifts around until he’s attached to Bucky’s side instead of his back. 

Steve, Bucky has learned over the course of the night, has the alcohol tolerance of a child, but too much of a competitive streak to resist matching Carol Danvers drink for drink.

He also, apparently, gets slightly clingy when he’s drunk. Whether that’s entirely because he needs Bucky to keep standing or not remains to be seen, but Bucky can’t say he minds it. 

“C’mon, up and at ‘em drunky or else I’m gonna carry you upstairs,” Bucky tells Steve when they finally reach his apartment and Bucky starts the process of attempting to get what is more or less at this point in the night an alcohol soaked sack of potatoes out of the cab and up four flights of stairs. “When we decided my place is closer we really neglected to remember that you’re the one with a building with an elevator.” 

“Elevators are for chumps,” Steve says, stumbling out of the cab but making a solid recovery when it comes to the whole walking into Bucky’s building thing, “Besides your apartment is better. It’s prewar and the lighting in it is perfect.” 

They manage to navigate the stairs up to Bucky’s apartment fairly well considering that Steve is probably 70% alcohol by weight right now, but soon enough they’re safely ensconced in Bucky’s shoebox apartment and Bucky is shedding his jacket and digging around until he can find pajamas for Steve. 

Steve looks at them a little skeptically when Bucky hands them over, but ducks into the bathroom to change without much hesitation, only asking “Are these women’s pajamas?” once he’s on the other side of the door. 

“Natasha’s. She leaves them here so that she can lie to herself and say she’s coming to Brooklyn to visit me, but then she usually goes to Clint’s instead,” Bucky says while attempting to get some sort of bedding onto the couch while Catsanova tries to foil him at every turn, first batting at the sheets in Bucky’s arms and then launching herself onto the couch before he can actually put the sheet onto it. 

When Steve returns it’s in a horrendous pair of pajama pants sporting a floral pattern straight out of the seventies and a baggy, bright yellow t-shirt that says NEW YORK in the Friends font. Natasha has terrible taste, but Steve looks adorable and his hair is mussed, his cheeks still flushed from alcohol and the cold outside, and Bucky is so fucking fond it’s ridiculous. 

“I’m not sleeping on the couch,” Steve says. 

“It’s not-” 

“You’re not either. I appreciate the sentiment but I’ve drunkenly attempted to get my hand down your pants at least three times tonight. I think we’re past the point of gentlemanly behavior and can just sleep in the same bed, Buck.” 

Which, okay, is a fair point, made even fairer when Steve, all a buck ten and 5 foot 4 inches of him starts manhandling Bucky to his own bedroom. 

Bucky, theoretically, could dig his heels in and not let himself be shoved into his own bed and aggressively spooned by a moderately drunk millennial youtuber with the immune system of an infant but also why would he ever want to do that? 

“Your friends are weird,” Steve says, and then, before Bucky can argue, or agree, or maybe lie and claim they aren’t his friends, that they’re more like coworkers, he kisses the back of Bucky’s neck and continues, “They’re good though. I can see why you fight with them instead of wholly living the simple life of a craft store employee.” 

“ Excuse you, living the craft store employee life is far from simple. Have you ever had to break up a fight between two white women fighting over the very last discount canvases on black friday? Have you witnessed the wars that happen the two times a year that coupons are able to be used on Cricuts?” Bucky asks, tempted to twist around so Steve can see his indignation fully, but Steve’s fingers are scratching sort of rhythmically at Bucky’s stomach and Steve himself is a warm line against Bucky’s back, so really, he’d be harming himself far more by leaving this level of comfort. “ Yeah , I thought not.” 

“You’re right. You’ve seen true violence in those craft store aisles. Who am I to judge?” Bucky can’t see Steve’s face, but he can tell from his voice that he’s smiling some sort of variation of a shit eating grin. 

God, Bucky likes him so much. 

“You’re the worst,” Bucky tells him, taking Steve’s hand in his own and lacing their fingers together. “I can’t believe I’ve liked you since I met you. What would the internet say if they found out you’re a jerk?” 

“Mmmh, I imagine it’d be something like ‘That Steve, we always knew he was the worst. I was just waiting for him to show how problematic he was. He’s even worse than James Charles!’ but with more swearing and worse spelling and at least twelve viral twitter threads. It might be good for my sub count actually, now that I think of it.” 

“Good, good. I’ll submit it all to a drama channel in the morning then.” 

There’s quiet for a moment, long enough that Bucky thinks that maybe Steve finally gave in to the inevitable and passed out, but then Steve interrupts the silence, murmuring something against Bucky’s neck that very much sounds like “I’m really glad I couldn’t get supplies delivered fast enough and had to come in that day so that I met you.” 

Nothing else had warranted turning over before, but this, this definitely does, and Bucky turns over until he’s facing Steve, nose to nose.

“You mean you didn’t normally shop in store?” He asks, “Wait, have you been coming into the store all this time for me?” 

Steve blinks, seeming a little bleary around the edges but somehow judgemental. It’s okay though, because Bucky is adding ‘tired but judgemental’ to the list of expressions Steve makes that Bucky greatly enjoys and will be provoking again asap. 

“Bucky, I order my groceries over the internet. I contribute so much money to Jeff Bezos filthy capitalist empire through Amazon Prime orders that I think I single handedly bought him at least one yacht via my purchases alone. I have an entirely worthless fine arts degree and do youtube videos for a living, which means I can go a solid two weeks without leaving my apartment if someone lets me. I’m a millennial. Of course the only reason I’ve been coming into the store is because of a hot cashier. And before you ask, yes, Bucky, the hot cashier is you . ” 

And okay, Bucky is aware that he has an ass that won’t quit, the smile of an old Hollywood heartthrob, and the hair of a Victoria’s Secret model and is therefore considered at least somewhat desirable because of that and like, his face and his muscles or whatever. But he also has a metal arm, screaming PTSD, and a shady past full of murder that depending on the day he either feels responsible for or counts as another traumatic aspect of his shady past, all of which he’s been pretty sure since shaking his programming really detracts from the previously listed desirable attributes. 

So, whatever, it feels pretty good to know that Steve went out of his way to come to Bucky’s place of employment just to see him, and that even after revealing that he definitely knew who Bucky was and therefore had some semblance of an idea about the shady past et. al he still kept wanting to come into the store just to see him.  

“You’re pretty incredible, Rogers,” Bucky says, instead of all the stupid fluffy nonsense that is now bubbling up in him now that he knows this last little thing about how he got to this moment here, with Steve in his bed. 

“I know,” Steve says, “I’m tired and probably going to be tired for like, the next two weeks so I’m gonna go to sleep now though. Don’t forget how incredible you think I am while I do.” And then he mashes a sleepy kiss against Bucky’s mouth and does just that. 

Bucky doesn’t watch him sleeping, but like, even if he does no one can prove it except maybe Catsanova who’s taken to the bottom of the bed to stare at them judgmentally. 

🎄🎄🎄

There’s a video on Steve’s youtube channel that goes like this: 

The intro plays, and the video cuts to two men at a paint splattered desk. One has blonde hair that flops over into his eyes, the other, dark brown hair that hangs in a braid over one shoulder. 

“Hi, everybody! If you’ve been here before, welcome back, and if you’re new, welcome to my channel. I’m Steve, I do videos here on youtube about art, crafts, DIYs and whatever else I want, and this here is Bucky. Say hi, Bucky.” Steve says, animated, the sort of cadence expected out of a youtube video. 

“Hi, Bucky,” Bucky says with an awkward wave of metal fingers. 

“He’s still a little nervous on camera,” Steve tells the camera, like he’s sharing a secret, “It’s okay though, we love him anyway.” 

Bucky turns the slightest bit pink. 

“You guys have been asking for like, I don’t know? A year? Who my boyfriend is-” 

“A year, Steve. They’ve literally been asking for a year because that’s how long we’ve been together now.” 

“ And,” Steve continues, “In the spirit of Christmas, I thought I’d introduce you guys to him-” 

“They met me over a year ago.” 

“ Once and then you refused to come back on camera.” 

“Because people could have connected dots and it wouldn’t have been safe, but then you went viral like an idiot.” 

“I’m sorry but when some freaky alien super villain attempts to take over the world via my city and also kill my boyfriend I’m going to try to stop them. It’s not my fault someone was recording.” 

“Steve?” 

“Yes?” 

“Wasn’t there a point to this video?” 

“Oh! Yeah. I introduced you to Bucky-” The video stops midway and cuts to Steve, looking tired in his pajamas with a pair of headphones on at his computer. In the background, Bucky can be spotted asleep on a couch with a large cat curled up on top of him. “Right, this is editing Steve. I realized I didn’t actually introduce you guys to him, I just said I was going to. So. That’s my boyfriend. Bucky Barnes. We’re in love or whatever. Now you guys know. Back to the video.” 

The video cuts back to Steve and Bucky on the screen, as Steve says, “Now as a Christmas gift to you all we’re doing a Q&A because I’ve noticed some uh, pressing questions in the comments section-” 

“And on twitter.” 

“And on my tumblr I haven’t touched in two years. And in my personal email. Which, how did you guys even get? Not cool, guys, not cool. I asked for a few more general questions on twitter, but we’ll start with the most pressing ones. Bucky, begin.” 

Bucky pokes around on his phone and then, reading aloud from it says, “IronManStan420- I can’t believe you’d stan Tony-” 

“The question, Buck.” 

“Right. IronManStan420 -Know that I’m judging you right now- says, ‘Woah woah woah dude, I saw this on the reddit front page is this you????’ and there’s a picture of you hurling yourself over a police barricade to try to punch an alien.” 

The aforementioned photo flashes onto the screen, a picture of Steve Rogers in all his glory, climbing over a barricade that had been erected in what was probably a futile effort (among all of NYPD’s other futile efforts in basically everything else that isn’t abjectly terrible) to keep the aliens to the disaster area and to keep civilians out of it. His fists are raised, a snarl on his face as he looks to be moments from launching himself at a freakishly tall, fluorescent purple alien. 

“Yes. That’s me. And I would have punched him too if I could have decided quickly enough if the tentacles where the face should be were actually his face. Also if Wanda hadn’t knocked me to the ground, “rescuing” me. Second question.” 

“Captain America Puts The Peg In Peggy- I think you just got demonetized for that username, Stevie- quote retweeted the previous question and says, ‘Wait wait wait, more importantly- is this also you? Are you dating The Winter Fucking Soldier? Like, the actual fucking superhero???’ aaand it’s in all caps and it’s the video of you threatening to dismember me if I died. I love how you show your love for me, Rogers. ” 

“I’m a Cancer, I’m very passionate,” Steve says breezily, “But also, yes CaptainAmerica Puts The Peg In Peggy and every other one of seventeen thousand people who have asked me that same exact question, that is me threatening The Winter Soldier, and I am dating him.” 

“I promise that video is not a representation of our day to day life in a relationship and he doesn’t always show his love by yelling at me that he’s going to learn necromancy just so that he can kill me again if I die. Our relationship is surprisingly normal. We have a cat, we go to brunch, I just moved in like two months ago and he bitches about my hair being left in the drain. Normal stuff.” Bucky tells the camera. “Now that we’ve gotten that over with-”

Somewhere, deep in the depths of SHIELD an intern presses pause on the viral video posted mere hours ago entitled “DID I GO VIRAL? AM I DATING A SUPERHERO??? ANSWERING YOUR QUESTIONS!” while her boss rubs her temples. 

On another screen, Pepper Potts is doing much the same. 

 “I’ll go get you coffee,” The intern says, getting out of dodge just as Pepper Potts and the head of SHIELD's PR department start what will undoubtedly be a long, expletive filled discussion about Avengers and their lack of consideration when it comes to letting, or rather, not letting very highly trained PR teams handle these sort of situations. 

In an apartment in Brooklyn, completely oblivious to the havoc they’ve caused to the SHIELD PR department, Bucky and Steve curl up on a couch in their tiny living room, lit by the glow of the oversized-for-the-room Christmas tree in the corner. They press play on their movie, Catsanova leaps onto Bucky’s stomach and digs her claws in, and Steve shoves his cold feet against Bucky’s shins while distracting Bucky with a kiss. 

It’s the best Christmas he’s had, well, ever.