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The explosion of bright light enveloped the whole laboratory, blinding Tony for a good couple of minutes. The man let out a gaps and tried to protect his eyes with his hands, instinctively, to no avail. The ray of light, which had caught him by surprise, was too intense, so for a little while, Tony could see nothing at all.
When sight came back to him, he found himself sitting on the floor, the lab in disarray. Holding to the surface of the table in front of him, he got on his feet and scanned the room for any damage and potential danger. Satisfied to find none of either of those, he looked around for something else. Someone else, specifically.
"Snow White? Are you okay?" he called.
No answer came.
Then, he heard a tiny wail. Coming from the opposite side of the table. Specifically, from the floor on the other side of the table. The exact spot where Barnes was standing before the light enveloped the lab, playing with his tools and touching his stuff.
"Oh, crap..."
Tony walked around the table and stopped dead on his track. Half buried underneath a pile of clothes on the floor, a tiny child could be seen. Brown locks of soft hair and big blue-gray eyes looking back at him, and a miniaturized, shiny metal arm immediately gave his identity away.
As Tony opened his mouth to gape wordlessly for the very first time in his life, the baby (who was probably one year old, one and a half maximum, he estimated) opened his one to let out a deafening yell.
"Oh, crap..."
"Sir, I believe gathering Sergeant Barnes from the floor would be beneficial," his AI suggested; the child only screamed louder - and holy shit, how could such a teeny tiny creature have such strong lungs?
"Oh, crap"
"Sir?"
"Oh, crap!"
"Sir, I took the liberty to call Captain Rogers, as well as miss Romanoff and doctor Banner. They shall be here in -"
The doors opened with a loud bang, crashing against the wall and cracking it a bit, when Steve ran into the lab, followed by an ever composed and calm Natasha and a panicking Bruce.
"Tony, what happened? Are you okay?" Bruce asked immediately. "Tony?"
"Where is Bucky? What are these screams?" Steve asked.
Tony didn't answer any of the questions, too shocked to find the right words. How could he tell Captain America of all people, that his creepy, barely-recovered best friend (and future lover, Tony could bet a thousand million dollars on that) was now a screaming little monster?
Well, Natasha took him out of his misery.
"Guys?" she called, and when Bruce and Steve turned, she was holding the baby in her arms, naked and now a bit calmer, but with tears still running down his puffy pink cheeks and small,red lips pouting. "I think I found Bucky"
The look Rogers threw Tony was murderous.
*
Half an hour later found the whole team, plus Pepper and minus Thor, gathered in the common area of the tower.
Bucky, now wearing a pair of cute orange socks, blue trousers and a blue t-shirt Pepper had sent Happy to buy, was still in Natasha's lap, chewing contently on his chubby fingers and drooling, big eyes looking at dumm-e chirping in a corner.
Even a toddler, Barnes had a passion for science, Tony thought mildly. It would have been funny, really, if it wasn't because of said passion and curiosity that he was now being yelled at because of the condition Barnes was.
"Really Tony, what were you thinking about, experimenting with Bucky in the lab?"
"Oh come on Cap, he is - was - a grown up man. I trusted he knew how to keep his hands to himself!"
"You know he goes crazy around anything remotely resembling strange science! He has always been that way!"
"Hey, what does that even mean? It's not my fault he's one of the millions people who enjoy a bit of good science"
"No Tony, of course it's not," Pepper told him with a small supporting smile. Here was the reason why he loved this woman so much. "Nobody is saying that. We're just worried, that's all"
"Well, it surely isn't his fault also! I mean, just look at him," Steve replied muttering, half annoyed, half amused.
In Natasha's lap, Bucky had freed his fingers from his mouth only to raise his hands towards dumm-e, still in the corner of the room, in the vain, improbable attempt to reach it or catch its attention. When the attempt failed, he began chewing at one of his socked feet. The sock was immediately wet with drool.
"Ew!" Clint let out a disgusted sound, immediately followed by a muffled moan when Natasha's foot found his shin and kicked him under the table.
"Don't 'ew' him!"
Bucky, oblivious of all that commotion, was still looking at dumm-e and intensely biting his foot.
"We should focus on turning him back, now, and decide who to blame for this mess later," Natasha said. Bruce nodded in silent agreement, happy the discussion was over. People fighting or talking in loud, angry voices was something that always made him turn a bit green in his extremities.
Obviously, baby Bucky chose that exact moment to begin screaming.
*
"What the hell?" His diaper is dry and he doesn't want milk nor juice... Obviously he's not asking for sleep either, seeing how loud he's been crying for the past ten minutes.
"What's wrong with him?" Tony exclaimed. They had tried anything to make the toddler stop his deafening screams, to no avail.
The billionaire had ordered dumm-e to immediately come closer and dance in its very own, original way (which essentially consisted in moving in circles and keep chirping) but Bucky had not spared it a glance. Natasha had juggled with knives to entertain him and Clint was making funny faces. Jarvis put on happy tunes from kids movies. Steve had been bouncing him on his hip while Pepper murmured soothing words and patted his back. And still, his crying wouldn't stop. Bruce had left the room two minutes before, a bit too green for their liking.
"Bucky please, what's wrong, uh?" Steve asked, desperate and almost panicking.
The baby just sniffed and let out another big sob, face an alarming shade of red. Everybody was looking at him with worry when dumm-e rolled closer and tapped the child's foot with his claws.
"Dammit, Buck," Steve murmured, then, because he'd not thought about the possibility of Bucky biting himself hard enough to hurt. Pulling off the sock, it revealed a tiny scratch where Bucky's only tooth had cut the skin.
"That must be the dumbest kid I've ever seen... Ouch!" Tony yelped when Pepper twisted his ear.
"Anthony Edward Stark, don't you dare say that ever again!" She threatened him. Then, "This cute sweetheart..." She cooed, massaging the little injured foot, and Tony be damned if he wasn't jealous for half a second.
Then he thought about being a toddler surrounded by a bunch of crazy, lethal, clueless and incompetent people, and pitied Barnes.
"Come on James, let's go put a colorful band aid on this little scratch, uh? Would you like it to be red?" Pepper said, and Steve handed her the child with a sigh of relief. "Tony, you come too and help me"
Tony groaned.
*
Dinner time came and went faster and smoother than they would have thought, with Barnes falling asleep as Pepper was cleaning the almost invisible bite mark and waking up only hours later, when it was already almost dawn. He had lied on the sofa on his back, snoring a little and drooling, long eyelashes fluttering, the Avengers looking after him. No child in the world would be as safe as baby Bucky.
When he awoke, Happy was sent to the baby store once again to buy milk, homogenized food, and so on. The clerk asked him how long ago he'd become a dad, and when he'd replied, “This morning,” the woman had looked at him like he was crazy.
After making a mess of himself and spreading his food all over the table and Clint's favorite t-shirt, Natasha held Bucky on her hip, bouncing him up and down a little bit and making sure the dirty mess he was wouldn't be able to touch her too much, and declared it was bath time. Bucky giggled excitedly at that.
"Don't you think it would be better if I bathed him, Nat?" Steve asked. "I mean, just think about it, Bucky will feel so embarrassed once he turns back to his old self and remembers how you got to clean him up"
The woman regarded him with a raised eyebrow.
“I used to bathe with him when we were kids, if that's what you're worrying about,” Stee quickly added.
The red eyebrow twitched in amusementand Natasha finally handed him the child. Bucky's sticky hands immediately reached for his hair.
“How old were you, back then?"
“Uh, ten? Maybe”
Natasha studied him and then smiled, shaking her head. Steve didn't know what he was asking for.
"Fine, you do it; don't come back crying once he makes a mess in the bathroom"
"We never made a mess when we bathed, and he's just a child. He doesn't even know how to walk, what kind of a mess could he ever do?"
Turns out, quite a big one. Children had a gift for splashing water everywhere, and Bucky was no exception.
Bubbles were covering the walls and the big mirror over the sink; Steve had his hair wet and sweet-scented and sticking to his neck, his t-shirt thrown in a corner near the toilet, when Clint came into the room. Bucky was playing with the bubbles and letting out happy noises.
"Tony and Bruce are working on a solution for this little... problem, we have here"
"Thank God!"
"Yeah," Clint agreed, then crouched down and gave Bucky a yellow plastic duck. Bucky let out a bemused squeak and reached for it, sending some more water in Steve's direction.
"Where did you find that?"
Clint looked everywhere but at Steve and coughed quietly, and the captain snorted.
"You still play with your ducky when you shower, Clint?"
The archer groaned, then shot back with a little evil smirk, "Remind me again who is the one who should be taking the bath, here?"
This time, it was Steve, soaking wet, who groaned.
*
After Bucky's bath and Steve's own shower, they sat in the spacious living room playing with the child until Bucky was squinting and yawning.
“I think it's bed time for someone, here,” Bruce said quietly.
He had stayed in Tony's lab for a couple of hours, after a few breathing exercises to calm down, to try and discover the mystery that was Bucky's sudden transformation. Especially considering Tony had said he wasn't working on any particularly strange device or weird project.
After an hour spent trying to determine the source of the light that had clearly caused the accident that was baby Bucky, they had agreed that the effects would eventually wear off by themselves. When they'd communicated it to the others, everybody had let out a sigh of relief.
Now, hearing his words, Clint let out a loud groan of protest.
“But, Bruce!” the archer protested.
The doctor blinked.
“I was talking about James,” he clarified.
Tony snorted and Clint sighed in relief, as Nat hid her face in her hands. How could Clint be so naïve sometimes was still a mystery for the woman.
Steve got up from the floor where he was sitting cross legged, surveying Bucky's movements, and lifted the child, who kicked a couple of times in protest and them fell limp in his secure hold.
“Do we have a small bed with bars for him?”
Tony shook his head. “Sorry Cap, I didn't think about it. I can ask Happy to go back to the shop”
“No, don't bother him. I'll make a pillow fort and let him sleep in the middle of my bed, so he doesn't fall down. Good night, everyone,” he said.
A chorus of “Good night, Steve” followed him down the hall, with a muffled “I knew he would do anything in his power to sleep with Barnes in his bed,” coming from Tony, immediately followed by a yelp and a moan. No doubt Pepper had smacked him and Natasha had kicked him.
He gently closed the door behind him, Bucky already half asleep by the time he had changed his diaper and put him into red and golden pajamas.
*
Steve awoke with a start in the middle of the night, puffs of hot breath against the side of his neck and a heavy arm on his chest. The pillow a bit wet from drool.
Bucky, grown up Bucky, was back.
Steve breathed a sigh of relief, then turned on his side, grabbing Bucky's hand in his and pulling him against his back. Maybe Tony was right after all. Maybe Steve would really do anything to sleep with Bucky in his bed.