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Over time, the Barnes-Rogers household had become quite good at collecting things.
Things being strays.
And strays being both animals and people.
It had all started soon after the final battle with Thanos. Steve and Bucky had found an apartment to live in, at least in the interim while they were sorting out all things such as pardons and therapy and finding a more permanent home for them to live in upstate, away from the city and the direct public eye, especially with Steve having officially retired and people still being wary of Bucky after everything.
It had been a long day, and Bucky had gone for a walk to try and clear his head of all the stress brought on by his hearings. Unpleasant didn’t even scratch the surface of what it felt like to sit through countless people offering their very blunt opinions of him while reciting all of the horrible things he’d done over the years. It was pure agony, to say the least.
Steve had been trying to help, as he always did, but Bucky was well aware of his now-boyfriend’s own stress in the current situation — not to mention how he had barely even started recovering from the mental toll of the past five years and the final fight, along with everything else he had yet to fully work through — so he didn’t want to bother him any more than necessary tonight.
Which left him finally managing to slightly unfog his own mind when he’d found himself walking past an alleyway that echoed with a pitiful, weak mewling sound. Bucky paused, squinting into the darkness to try and locate the source. Something squeaked again, and he finally caught a glimpse of a ball of greyish-brown fur curled up by a dumpster.
Within moments, he was squatting on the ground nearby, flesh hand outstretched as the tiny kitten sniffed weakly at his fingers and bumped its head against them. Another beat, and the cat was tucked comfortably inside Bucky’s jacket as he hurried back towards the apartment.
Steve had been understandably confused when Bucky returned home and procured the little scrap of fur and pointy teeth from his jacket, but the look on the other man’s face had left him unable to even consider questioning anything about the situation yet. He had been the one to rush out to the nearest store to pick up what supplies he could for the sudden new arrival, while Bucky stayed behind to give it a bath and plenty to drink.
“Turns out she was actually white under all that dirt,” Bucky said when Steve returned to find a very contented kitten sitting in the bathroom sink with metal fingers gently massaging more soap into her back, “Good thing she likes the water though, otherwise this coulda been pretty messy.”
“Where’d you even find her?” Steve questioned as he sat down on the closed lid of the toilet to watch as Bucky carefully rinsed the soap off the cat’s skinny body.
He shrugged. “By a dumpster in some alley. She was all by herself, no other kittens or mama cat to be seen.”
“Poor thing. Good thing you found her.”
Bucky smiled softly. “Yeah. We’re keeping her, right?”
Though Steve was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to have pets in the apartment, he was also pretty sure that the offer they’d put in for a place they’d gone to look at a week ago was on the brink of getting accepted. They’d probably be out of here and into their own home before the building owner even figured out they’d brought in a cat.
So, Steve gave a small smile of his own in return and nodded. “‘Course we are.”
Just as they’d anticipated — and hoped for — their offer on the house was accepted and they were mercifully able to move in as soon as they were ready, which was pretty much as soon as the hearings were over and their stuff was moved in. Given that they had little in the way of possessions to move over there (bar the couch, bed, and a handful of things that could be shoved into boxes and suitcases) and Bucky’s hearings were finally coming to an end, they were in there within a matter of weeks.
Alpine was definitely the thing that made the new place feel like home right away, the growing cat filling what would’ve initially felt like a big empty space with her energy and personality in a way that nothing else could’ve even come close to.
Bucky certainly felt the positive effects of having the cat around — he’d very quickly come to rely on her as a source of comfort when he had difficult days, and it was nice to have some company staying behind whenever Steve had to go out for any reason. Alpine filled a piece in his heart he hadn’t even realised was missing until she came along.
Even Steve had to admit he was very fond of her, despite being more of a dog person. He supposed most of his appreciation for the cat came from what he could see she had already done to help Bucky, and he certainly couldn’t complain about that.
The next addition came in the form of both a person and an animal.
When Steve and Bucky had gone to return all of the Infinity Stones together after the battle with Thanos, their stop at Vormir to replace the Soul Stone had brought up a question of great importance. Steve had mentioned how Natasha sacrificed herself to get the stone in the first place and how everyone was sure there was no way to bring her back, but Bucky wasn’t buying it.
Getting past the initial shock of seeing the Red Skull again after so many years, Bucky had been the one to demand a reverse exchange — saying that if Natasha had died to release the stone, then surely returning it meant she could live again. Maybe that wasn’t how it was ever supposed to work, but somehow it did. They returned to their own time with an injured, but alive, Natasha.
Nat had gone, first, to Clint’s house following her return. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened on Vormir, only saying that the most important thing was reconvening with her best friend, and after that she’d decide what to do herself. As far as Steve and Bucky knew, she had stayed with Clint and his family for a while and then gone out on her own to search for something.
That was, until she turned up on their doorstep one day, a couple of months after they’d moved into their new place, with a puppy under her arm.
“Hey,” She said with a sly grin, “I’ve got a housewarming gift for you guys.”
“Little late, don’t you think?” Steve joked, though he wasn’t really sure what to make of the dog, “So who’s this?”
Nat swiftly plopped the puppy in his arms and made her way inside the house. “I was hoping you could tell me, he’s your dog now, after all.”
Bucky raised an eyebrow at her and Steve from where he lounged on the couch, Alpine curled up against his neck. “What about a dog?”
“I’m honestly not sure,” Steve moved to sit in one of the armchairs, unbothered by the dog trying to lick his face, while Natasha got comfortable on the adjacent end of the couch to where Bucky was, “Wanna explain this a bit better, Nat?”
The woman in question let out a short laugh. “Alright, alright. Clint’s friend’s dog had puppies and needed them gone to homes quickly once they were old enough. Clint took two and was told when he got home they could only have one, so he called me up and asked if I wanted the other one. I’m more of a cat person, so I said I’d give him to you guys since I knew you had the room now, and here we are.”
Bucky and Steve nodded along, both still more than a little surprised, but neither one really complaining about the adorable yellow fluffball currently occupying most of Steve’s personal space.
“Well, you have been saying you wanted a dog since I got the cat.” Bucky joked after a moment, reaching up to scratch Alpine’s head as he spoke, “Plus he could keep an eye on the chickens when he gets bigger, too.”
“Very true,” Steve agreed with a nod, glancing down at the puppy with a smile, “So what breed is he? He’s fluffy.”
“Golden retriever,” Nat said, “Super friendly, easy to train, good family dog, all that kinda thing. Should be fine with the cat too, who I would very much like to meet myself.”
And so Dug became part of their family — named after the dog from Up, which they had recently watched and joked constantly afterwards about how much like the grumpy old man in the movie Bucky was.
Soon after, the invitation to stay was extended to Natasha, who had mentioned how she was struggling to find somewhere to live that didn’t put her in a difficult position for keeping herself out of trouble. Steve and Bucky were quick to decide they were happy for her to live with them for as long as she wanted — they had more than one spare room up for grabs, and the whole reason they were out here themselves was to lay low. It worked fine for everyone, so Nat stayed.
It was a while before any new strays came into the equation, in fact it wasn’t until a while after Bucky returned from the whole ordeal helping Sam get the shield back and getting him to actually become the new Captain America — not to mention fixing the Wilson family boat in between all of that. Natasha had been away for most of that time as well, helping to re-establish a new Avengers facility, looking after Wanda — who was getting more pregnant with her twins by the day — and attending to what she only described as “personal missions”, whatever that meant.
With Sam and Natasha now in charge of the new Avengers, and with Bucky somehow being roped into the team amongst everything he’d done to help Sam, Steve had been spending a bit of time on his own at home recently. Which was fine and all, but he needed to keep busy besides doing things on the property, so he’d ended up getting a job at the local high school part time as an art teacher. A little weird — at least for the students, to start with — but he was enjoying it.
A routine soon fell into place, with Steve doing his teaching work, Bucky and Nat or either one of them on their own going off on various missions every few weeks or so, plenty of time spent with just Bucky and Steve, or them plus the pets. Sometimes Sam came over to visit as well, so they would all spend a few days together and pointedly not talk about work. It all worked for them.
One day Bucky returned from a mission with an odd lump in his jacket. Natasha was staying with Wanda for a while, now that the babies had arrived, so Steve was the only one there to notice — though he probably wouldn’t have even noticed if he hadn’t pulled Bucky in for a “welcome home” kiss and been met with some strange wriggling mass against his chest.
“You know, normally I’d make some joke about you being happy to see me, but that’s not even in your pants,” Steve joked, though he eyed his partner suspiciously, especially as Dug was trying to push in and jump up to sniff whatever he was hiding in there, “What is that?”
Bucky smiled sheepishly and slowly unzipped his jacket to reveal a scrappy grey and black speckled puppy with huge dark eyes, staring right back out at Steve, “Puppy?” He said, as if it was a suggestion.
Steve had to laugh, but he immediately reached out to scratch behind the dog’s velvety soft ears that hadn’t quite stood up all the way yet. Dug was still trying to get up to meet the new puppy, and Alpine had since entered the room to check out what was going on, too. “Guess we never were gonna be the kinda guys that shopped for pets, were we?”
“‘Course not,” Bucky agreed, “And I couldn’t just leave her there. Sam and I found her chasing a rat and she just started following us, then I gave her a bit of food and that was it. New family member.”
“New family member,” Steve echoed with a smile, leaning in to press a kiss to Bucky’s cheek, “So you’ve already thought of a name?”
“I was thinkin’ Mouse. Since she was chasing a rat, plus she’s got big ears. Thought it was funny.” The puppy seemed to yap her agreement.
“I love it. Hey, Mouse.”
Mouse settled in easily with everyone, though Alpine wasn’t too impressed with the limitless energy the young pup seemed to have — “She looks like a heeler,” Nat had said on a video call one day, watching with delight as Bucky followed the dog with his camera as she ran through the back field, “Maybe crossed with something else, but that would explain why she runs so much.” — Dug, at least, was very happy to have another canine companion.
Things balanced out again only several weeks later after Natasha had finally come home, and soon asked if Steve and Bucky — and Alpine, most importantly — would be okay with it if she adopted a cat of her own. Naturally, that was fine with everyone, and Liho joined the family soon after that conversation.
Liho and Alpine loved to pretend they weren’t friends when people were watching them, especially Alpine, who notoriously didn’t like affection from anyone other than Bucky (and occasionally Steve, if Bucky was sitting with him) — but they soon got caught curled up on the windowsill, napping in the sun together every almost afternoon. Still, they kept up their fake rivalry from the moment one of them woke up and batted the other on the head with a soft paw.
The four animals were it for some time after that, besides the chickens and goats that resided down the back of the property. Mouse and Dug both loved hanging around the livestock during the day, and Mouse in particular had a lot of fun herding the goats wherever she felt like directing them to eat for the day.
For the humans in the house, their routines continued more or less as they had before, though Bucky had taken some time out from missions for a while after one had gone particularly badly and shaken him up quite a bit. He’d spent a lot of time staying close to Steve when he’d returned, and Alpine had more or less been stuck to him like glue whenever Steve had to go to work.
Natasha was still in and out as always, but even she was trying to be “in” more often to check up on Liho — and to a degree, Bucky as well, partly blaming herself for how that mission had gone. It had shaken her, too.
About a month after Bucky had returned home, and a year after the defeat of Thanos, he and Steve finally got engaged. Not wanting to wait too long, and with neither of them particularly wanting any kind of fancy wedding or party, they were married only a couple of months later, witnessed by a handful of Avengers old and new and followed by as low-key of a barbeque party as one could expect when it was arranged by Tony Stark. Really though, it was a perfect day, and they happily entrusted the animals and the house to Natasha while they went on their honeymoon.
Upon returning, Bucky started going on some missions again, and it wasn’t long before he came back from one with yet another stray animal safely tucked in the front of his jacket. Steve had at least known about this one in advance, with Sam having sent him a text with an admittedly hilarious photo of Bucky standing on a roof seeming to be having a yelling match with this random grey cat. Sam had soon followed up the photo with another text saying “get the house ready for another cat.”
Not long after Gandalf came another cat, though this time noticed first by Steve while he and Bucky were out on a walk with the dogs one afternoon. Technically Mouse and Dug located the cat with their noses first, but in them dragging their owners to the source of the smell, Steve had been the first one to see it. And to notice one of her eyes seemed to be all scabbed up and wounded.
Naturally, Bucky scooped the tortoiseshell up and declared her part of the family — though, of course, immediately taking her to the vet to sort out her eye and check for a microchip while Steve took the dogs home. With no microchip and the infected eye removed, Nicola the now-one-eyed cat was brought to her new home.
(Yes, cheekily named after Nick Fury. Natasha thought it was hilarious.)
It was then that Steve gently suggested to his husband that maybe they had enough pets in the house now, and if anyone happened to find any other animals they should take them to a nice shelter instead. Bucky had grudgingly agreed, though not before joking that they could get some barn cats so they weren’t technically in the house. Steve had disagreed.
And yet somehow he and Bucky ended up at a shelter one day to pick up a dog they’d seen online that was in desperate need of a home and was soon to be put down if one wasn’t found. Sarge was a pitbull with three legs, a half-missing ear, numerous scars, and a whole lot of personality — and, well, Bucky had just about cried reading about the dog’s past as a failed fighter who got used as a bait dog as punishment for his failure. He almost saw too much of himself in that dog, and who was Steve to deny a happy ending for the both of them? He supposed the house was big enough for two Sergeants.
“Okay, this is enough now,” Steve said the night they brought Sarge home, watching as the dog loped around the living room to investigate the smells of all the other animals he would eventually meet, “No more rescues, we’ve got everyone we need.”
Bucky huffed, but smiled. “If you say so. I still stand by the barn cat idea.”
Steve laughed. “No barn cats!”
As it would happen, they’d found out a while ago that the “personal missions” Natasha had been doing were an ongoing search for her sister, who she believed was working under the influence of someone the Avengers had been trying to track down for other reasons. Of course, Bucky and Steve had already said that if Nat was able to track Yelena down and get her safely away, she was more than welcome to stay at the house as well.
What they were not expecting, however, was that Yelena came with a dog.
Nat had been gone for a couple of weeks, having left confident that this time she would be coming home with her sister — and she hadn’t been wrong. She just either hadn’t known or had forgotten to mention that Yelena was part of a package deal that included Fanny, as well.
Not that anybody minded, really. The other dogs got used to her quickly, though the cats took a little longer to adjust to the idea of another dog in the house. Bucky had immediately laughed when he saw the dog, knowing that Steve couldn’t really do anything about it.
Yelena herself eventually settled in, too. It took some time, especially for her to be less apprehensive about being around Bucky. Years of fear conditioning with threats of the Winter Soldier from her time in the Red Room were hard to shake, and he was understanding of that. Hell, he knew all too well what it was like to try and recover from years of brainwashing and conditioning, he was happy to let her do what she needed to do in the meantime.
Now, one would think that after all of that, Steve’s word would finally be followed and there would be no more pets brought in. That was certainly what Steve himself thought.
He was wrong.
Bucky and Natasha had partially conspired on a mission together to get one more cat, having seen an ad for the local shelter in the city they were hiding out in, in which there was a cat that just had to come back with them. It would be the perfect final addition to the menagerie.
The cat in question was a scrawny little blonde thing with so many medical notes the shelter was worried he’d never get adopted, even though they were certain he would still live a reasonably long and happy life with the proper care. Feline asthma, strabismus, partial deafness, heart problems, recent surgery to combat hyperthyroidism but would likely still need medication...it wasn’t exactly the recipe for a desirable rescue cat in most people’s books.
Except Bucky’s book was entirely different to most people’s. Reading about the cat online was one thing, but meeting him in person and seeing how spirited he was despite all of his issues, well! It certainly reminded him of someone he knew back in the day.
And the best part?
The cat was called Steve.
Human Steve was not exactly impressed when Bucky returned home with another animal, and had been about to say something on the matter when Bucky beat him to the punch.
“Okay before you say anything, I promise this is the last one,” He fished out the page of medical notes he’d folded into his pocket and passed them over, “He had so many problems he was never gonna get adopted by anyone else, and he’s just...he’s such a good cat. He’s got a lotta personality.”
“This cat’s name is Steve.” Human Steve deadpanned upon seeing the name on the page, to which Bucky shot him a bright grin.
“That was also part of the reason I had to get him.”
“You’re not gonna change it, are you?”
“Nope!”
“Jerk.”
“Punk.”
With that, Bucky leaned in to press a loving kiss to his husband’s lips, and drew back with a smile after a long moment, “I mean it, by the way. He’s the last one. No barn cats or anything, we’ve got everyone now,” His smile turned a little cheeky, “At least until we think about kids?”
“Thank god.” Steve laughed, but watched fondly as Alpine and a couple of the dogs came up to check out the final arrival, “At least for the first part. The second bit we can revisit later. Like in a few years later.”
“Fine.” Bucky huffed with a laugh of his own, “Guess we can just keep being the fun uncles that babysit for everyone else.”
But really, what they had now — a home full of stray animals and, to an extent, people? It was practically perfect. Steve honestly couldn’t imagine life without them all now — even if he was stuck competing with a cat for the right to his name, or fighting for space in his own bed against two dogs and anywhere between one and four cats on any given night, or even dealing with Natasha’s constant teasing about everything, and the way Bucky and Yelena now had a thousand inside jokes that didn’t make any sense to anyone but them, and how the house always erupted into total chaos when Sam came over to stay...
This was family, and Steve and Bucky were more than happy to share it — and whatever else was to come — together for the rest of their lives.