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"You bought what?"
Steve frowns in confusion, letting the bags drop onto the table close to where Bucky is sitting, criss-crossed and casual as anything. Honestly, if they didn't have an actual cat, Steve doubts that he would be able to tell the difference. "Halloween costumes. Y'know, for the party next week?"
Bucky shakes his head, eyeing the bags like they could come alive and bite him at any moment. "How come you didn't tell me it was a costume party?" He asks, gingerly pulling the bags closer to him.
"It's a Halloween party, Buck." From the bag, Bucky pulls out one of the dozen or so costumes Steve had bought. His nose scrunches up in distaste and he sets it to the side. Guess neither of them will be wearing that one. "The costume part was implied."
The blank stare Bucky gives him makes Steve doubt himself, worried that he'd somehow gotten the wrong idea on modern Halloween traditions. Maybe the 'costume' part is only implied if the party you’re attending is Tony Stark's.
Then Bucky rolls his eyes and laughs, banishing those thoughts. "Steve. First Halloween as a free man in seventy years, remember?"
"Oh!" Steve gasps, hands helplessly clutching at the air. "Shit Bucky, I'm so sorry, it didn't even cross my mind! God." Steve feels awful. He sweeps a hand through his hair, completely blindsided by information that he already knew, on some level. How inconsiderate does a guy have to be to forget that his boyfriend hasn't had nearly as much experience as him at something?
"Hey," Bucky says, leaning forward, hands folded on his lap. Steve smiles, helpless not to. God, he's adorable. "Don't stress about it, Stevie. At least you didn't forget something important, right?"
Steve nods, relieved that Bucky doesn't see him any different. Then again, why would he? Bucky's always been much kinder to Steve than anyone, including himself.
And Steve's always done his best to repay the favour.
"So, costumes, huh?" Bucky clicks his tongue, almost in disapproval. "Helluva idea, I'll give ‘em that."
Steve laughs. He had also found the idea of dressing up for Halloween... Off-putting, at first. Admittedly, his opinion of costumes might have been skewed by the USO circuit.
There are only so many times a man can squeeze himself into tights and an ugly cowl before he develops a grudge.
He outgrew that mentality quickly after the first couple of years in the future. Tony has a talent for dragging even the most reluctant person into things, and Halloween parties are no exception. Steve has gone to a party every year since the Avengers were founded, at first he actually tried to be creative, but nowadays he likes wearing costumes just to fuck with Tony.
Which isn’t hard. Last year he'd worn a Canadian flag as a toga and had relished in Tony's disbelief.
For Bucky, Steve doesn't know if it'll be that easy. He'll be damned if he makes it any harder, though. "Yeah, I know it's silly, but it can be fun too. Especially at a party, getting to see what everyone else came up with. Last year Thor wore a unitard shaped like a lightning bolt." He chuckles at the memory, almost missing Bucky's gasp.
Delight sparks in Bucky's eyes as he leans closer. "He didn't!"
"He did! I have pictures!"
Shaking his head, Bucky grabs Steve's arm and Steve lets him pull him closer, grinning at the mock-serious expression that Bucky quickly adopts. "Rogers, if you don't show me those pictures right now you're sleeping on the couch tonight."
"That's cold, Barnes," Steve says, already pulling out his phone.
Bucky shakes his head. "This is very important to me, Steve."
Stifling a giggle, Steve pulls up his photos app and heads to last year's Halloween album. Bucky chokes when Steve turns the phone around, doubling over and laughing. Steve can't help but laugh along with him, swept up and carried away by Bucky's infectious humour.
The photo is truly ridiculous, with Thor doing a strong-man pose in his bright yellow unitard while a very drunk Clint Barton throws money at him. They each take several more looks at the picture before they've had their fill. It takes Bucky nearly falling off of the table for them to calm down.
Cheeks flushed pink, Bucky takes a few deep breaths. "Oh my God. That's fucking amazing. Please tell me someone put that on the internet."
Steve winks.
Grinning, Bucky grabs him by the collar and pulls him into a quick, sharp kiss. Steve doesn't have enough time to reciprocate before Bucky's pulling away, eyes dancing with mirth.
Clearing his suddenly thick throat, Steve looks around the kitchen and adjusts his collar. From the corner of his eye, he sees Bucky's lips tick up.
A truth that Steve has known since he was a sixteen-year-old kid in Brooklyn is that one way or another, sooner or later, Bucky Barnes will be the death of him.
It's shaping up to be a rather pleasant death.
"So, all we need to do is pick one out?" Steve looks at Bucky, finding him regarding the bags with a deep, serious frown.
"Yeah, pretty much," Steve says.
"What do people usually dress up as?"
Steve shrugs as he slips his nearly forgotten phone back into his pocket. "Nearly everything. Monsters like vampires or demons, things like doctors and police officers, characters from books and movies. I've seen a lot of people dress up as members of the Avengers, but it's mostly kids. Sometimes people make their own costumes and dress up as something that they made up."
Bucky blinks. "Huh. At least we aren't pressed for options."
Steve smiles and shrugs again.
"Okay, what do we got here?" Bucky asks as he dumps the contents of the bags out on the table. Items clatter to the table, everything from face paint and fake blood to capes and tattered suit jackets. Bucky simply stares at the pile for several seconds before meeting Steve's eye and arching a brow. "So, did you buy the whole store or..?"
Steve rubs the back of his neck, sheepish. "Ah, I kinda– I might have? I didn't know what to get so I just threw things in the cart and hopped for the best."
With a hum, Bucky returns to the items, plucking a few from the pile and setting them aside. He eyes the packaged costumes with nothing short of contempt. "Are all Halloween costumes this ugly?"
"Yeah."
Bucky doesn't look pleased.
"I can try and find some better ones?" Steve offers, fully prepared to hop back in the car... And then call Natasha for advice, because if anyone would know where to find good Halloween costumes, it's Nat.
He shakes his head, arms crossed, glaring at the costumes and supplies. "No, I can work with this."
"Are you sure? I don't mind."
Bucky doesn't look up, but he does seem to consider the offer. After several moments, he clicks his tongue and hops off of the table. "Yeah, alright. But I wanna come with."
Steve tries not to get too excited about that, because no matter how much he loves going places with Bucky, Bucky doesn't typically like going places. Neither of them are huge fans of crowds, but Bucky gets anxious and paranoid when they leave the house for too long, especially if they don't have Alpine with them.
He's gotten better about it lately, has been talking it through with his therapist, but usually, if given the choice, Bucky prefers to stay home.
"You don't have to," Steve says.
Bucky nods and shrugs on his coat. "I know, I want to."
It's not a good idea to question Bucky's choices, and it's definitely not a good idea to tell him how he feels. Bucky makes mistakes sometimes, but Steve has learned to allow him to make those mistakes, to help him deal with shit rather than keeping him from having to. It's difficult for him to do, because he hates it when Bucky's suffering, hates that he sometimes forces himself to suffer, but at the end of the day, it isn't about him.
Bucky says it's worth it. Sometimes, more often than not nowadays, Steve believes him.
So he smiles, and when Bucky smiles back at him, wide and cheerful, he loses his breath.
"Okay, I'll go get the keys. Call Nat for me?"
Bucky huffs, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "If anyone knows where to find good costumes–"
"It'll be her," Steve finishes.
–––
The place Natasha recommends is... Sketchy.
It's a run-down building in the middle of Fucknowhere, Long Island. There is a tree in the yard, but it must have died some time ago, blackened and barren. In the door window is a nondescript sign that simply says 'open', the only thing indicating that the house is any kind of shop. The windows that aren't boarded up are cracked, and the paint is peeling from the wooden facade of the house, the boards of the deck warped and splintery.
All things considered, it's just a house, in the middle of a regular neighbourhood full of other completely normal houses. It's a house in need of some TLC, but still a house.
That doesn't make it any less creepy.
"You sure this is the right address?" Bucky asks.
Steve, despite having an eidetic memory and knowing that it is, checks the address Natasha sent him. It matches, of course. Great. Love that. "Yeah, this is it.”
Bucky narrows his eyes. "Worth the risk?"
"Absolutely not."
Steve pops the door and steps out of the car, Bucky following his lead. An owl hoots somewhere in the distance, and Steve doesn't know if they even have owls in the city or if the store somehow summoned it out of pure spooky energy.
Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Bucky hums. "On the bright side, this could be a fun, quirky way to die."
With that, he strides up the house, and Steve hurries after him, not wanting his boyfriend to go into the probably-haunted 'Halloween store' without backup.
Bucky tests the knob, the door swings open with an ominous crrreak.
Because of course it does.
Bucky's eyebrows jump and he looks at Steve, his entire demeanour betraying just how unimpressed he is by the cliché they've just stumbled into. Despite their objectively concerning surroundings, Steve finds himself biting back a snicker.
They step inside looking around the non-descript foyer, empty of any other life and with no indication as to where they should go from here. A gust of wind bites through Steve's thick coat, the door slams shut, startling them.
They share a look, Bucky mouthing 'what now?'. Steve shrugs helplessly.
With a sigh, Bucky calls out, "Hello? Anyone here?"
"We were told that this is a costume store?" Steve adds, looking around.
Something flurries into the room, and both of them jump.
"Jesus!" Bucky yells, hand automatically moving for a knife.
"Sorry, sorry," a haggard-looking man says, panting. Underneath one arm is a large yard sign reading 'Carlos' Costume Emporium.' "I was just about to put up the sign, but we are open, yes! The costumes are just through here– you gentleman feel free to take a look and I'll be right back!"
With that, the man, who Steve assumes is 'Carlos', scuttles out of the house and into the yard.
"Huh."
"No kidding," Steve says as the tension leaks out of his body. Not haunted, just under-staffed if Carlos' eye-bags are anything to go by.
Bucky clears his throat and tries to act unbothered, but Steve can see that his hands are starting to shake from the adrenaline spike. "You wanna– uh– look?"
Steve smiles and slings an arm around Bucky's waist, letting the other man lean into him, to gain comfort and warmth from his body. Offering these things is a pleasure in and of itself, but not without its benefits. After all, Steve gets the very same from Bucky.
"Sure thing, sweetheart. I'm sure we'll find something up to snuff, huh?"
"Yeah," Bucky says as they walk into the display room. His brows furrow. "It might take us a while."
The room, which might have been a living room at some point, isn't huge, but it's big enough to fit what must be hundreds– if not thousands– of costumes. It isn't a shock to him to see row upon row of racks stuffed to the brim with costumes, not after having lived through the purgatory that is shopping at Party City, but Bucky truly doesn't get out much and thus hasn't been properly introduced to the horror of chain stores.
As places to start go, this certainly isn't the worst.
"Well." Steve huffs. Even though he's used to it, he's still overwhelmed by the sheer number of costumes, and he struggles to think of something to say– reassurance, a plan, anything. It doesn't take long before he gives up on trying and guides Bucky towards the first aisle. "Might as well just dive right in."
They don't find anything good in the first row, and all that happened was Bucky pulling costumes from the racks and poking fun at them until Steve laughed. By the time they get to the second row, they have learned that there is a metric fuckton of vampire, witch, and pirate costumes. Well, Steve already knew that, but Bucky seems weirdly vexed by it.
"Some variety wouldn't hurt, y'know? We should get the word out, 'boycott vampires!' Enough with the costumes!"
"That seems a little extreme," Steve chuckles.
"Nah," Bucky waves him off, "Perfectly reasonable, plausible, and responsible. 'Sides, I don't think anyone is going to be upset if Big Costume doesn't meet their vampire quota."
"The Big Wigs at Big Costume might be a little upset."
Bucky arches a single, judgemental eyebrow. "In that case, the Big Wigs at Big Costume can kiss my Big Ass."
Steve rolls his eyes, but he can't quite wipe the grin off of his face. He puts the vampire costume back, which seems to placate Bucky, if only a little bit.
They shuffle through the isles a while longer, showing each other the costumes they find, even if it's just so they can laugh about them. At one point, Steve thinks that Bucky might strangle him when he tries to convince the other man they should dress up as a bee and a flower.
Bucky doesn't strangle him, but he does shut that idea all the way down, which is a shame because the look on Tony's face would have been amazing.
"Wait, are we matching?" Bucky asks at one point, eyeing at a pair of ketchup and mustard costumes with a mix of curiosity and distaste. Steve doesn't know if it's the objectively weird concept of dressing up as a condiment or matching costumes that prompted the question.
"We don't have to."
"But we can." Bucky says under his breath, just to himself. Steve smiles but doesn't say anything else, no matter how cute he thinks Bucky talking to himself is.
They continue the hunt.
At another point, Bucky groans and suggests that they just switch uniforms and go as each other.
"Zero points for creativity," Steve regretfully informs him.
"Oh, there's points now?" Bucky asks.
"Bucky, c'mon. There were always points."
Bucky turns towards him fully, somehow managing to look considerate despite the grin he's fighting. "And what would get me the most points?"
Steve shakes his head. "You know I can't tell ya."
"How come?"
"Because that would be cheating!" Steve insists. He pokes Bucky's shoulder, urging him to keep going. "C'mon, Buck, you're a smart guy. Figure it out."
Bucky pouts. "Mean."
Steve cups his hands around his face and whisper-shouts "I believe in you!" While Bucky continues sorting through the racks. Bucky snorts but otherwise ignores him, which Steve considers a success.
Something catches his eye and he carefully pulls it off of the rack, untangling bits of fabric from each other as he does.
"I thought we were going for creativity," Bucky drawls, suddenly right beside him. Steve jumps, despite being used to Bucky sneaking up on him by now.
He narrows his eyes at the brunet and holds the costume higher. "And I thought you didn't know anything about Halloween."
Bucky shrugs. "I googled it in the car. Ghosts, Steve? Really?"
"At least it's on-brand for us," Steve jokes.
The false exasperation breaks and Bucky's smile shines through, like the sun on a cloudy day. He takes the costume from Steve but doesn't put it back on the shelf, something Steve can't name sparking in his eyes. He runs his fingers over the stark white fabric, and it really is the most cliché thing here, even more than the vampires.
"Is this a yes to the ghosts?"
"On one condition," Bucky says.
"Uh-oh," he says, just to make him laugh. He succeeds and earns a light swat to the chest.
"Oh, fuck off. Do you wanna hear it or should we hang around for a few more hours?"
He tilts his head back, considering. "Well..." Bucky swats at him again and he grins, pushing his boyfriend's hands away. "Okay, okay! Let's hear it."
Satisfied, Bucky smiles like the cat that got the canary. "My condition is: you cook whatever I want for dinner tonight."
Steve groans. He cooks most nights, but he knows that Bucky will milk this and have him make something truly ridiculous. Not that he needs a whole lot of incentive to follow Bucky's orders, but still. No need for Bucky to know that.
And Bucky laughs like he's got his number, which he likely does. Fucker. "We got a deal, Stevie?"
And Steve sighs, long and hard and entirely up-played. "If it would satisfy His Highness."
Smirking, Bucky begins making his way toward the till, where Carlos had been waiting and kindly pretending not to eavesdrop for the past hour. Steve trails after him and doesn't bother to hide his adoring smile.
Back in the car, Bucky hoists the bag the costumes reside in and grins almost triumphantly. "Guess we match after all!"
Smiling, Steve pulls away from the deceptively spooky house. "Guess so."
–––
When they get home, Alpine immediately hops onto Bucky's shoulder, mewing and distraught like she thought they'd abandoned her. Laughing, he scoops her up and cradles her like a baby, giving her a million scratches and kisses, headless to the snowy white hair that she leaves behind on his coat. The shopping bag crinkles furiously as it's jostled and only holds onto Bucky's wrist, Steve assumes, out of spite.
Steve tsks as he pulls off his scarf. "She's playing favourites, Bucky."
"She loves you!" Bucky insists even as Alpine does her level best to crawl under his skin and completely ignore Steve, all while purring like a motorboat.
"She loves you more," Steve says, hanging his coat on the hook. Alpine had belonged to him first but had never attached herself to him as she did to Bucky. It honestly doesn't bother him, because if it were a choice between him and Bucky... Yeah, he'd choose Bucky, too.
"Yeah," Bucky says with a dopey smile.
He mirrors the smile and steps closer. "Mind if I cut in?" At Bucky's nod, he gently pries Alpine from Bucky's arms. She doesn't stop purring, but she does try to cling to him. Bucky laughs and detangles her claws, and when she's free, Steve lets her down.
Catless, Bucky's arms are free to hook over Steve's shoulders, and that's just what he does, right before leaning up and kissing him. "Thanks for the ride."
Steve nearly chokes on his spit and laughter as his hands come to rest on Bucky's hips. "No skin off my nose, darlin'. You were goin' my way."
"Gosh, I hope so," Bucky says. He pecks Steve's lips one, two, three more times before untangling himself from their embrace. He hoists the bag up. "I'll go put these glorified sheets away. Can you make some tea?"
"Sure, Buck. The usual?"
After a moment of consideration, he smiles and shakes his head. "Surprise me."