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"I'm bored,” Steve says after a long time of not looking at the screen where they're supposedly watching a reality show about very strange houses, and (more specifically) about people building the house of their dreams.
It's still early in the afternoon, but dark clouds and rain make the world outside uninviting, and (in all honesty) Bucky is having fun. Cuddling Steve on a couch that fits them both, inside their habitually bright, big brick-walled apartment is beyond the house he once dared to dream, so watching those dedicated home-building dreamers on tv warms his heart more than he would ever confess.
"You don't understand the world you live in, Steve, people vibe to watch those things on TV. All those strangers chasing their dreams allow people to live vicariously through them while risking nothing."
Steve huffs and stands up at that.
"I’ve always been more of a man of action," he says with a mischievous smile as he unexpectedly extracts one of the back cushions from the couch and places it vertically on the floor, leaving the big fluffy rectangle barely standing against the coffee table.
Bucky doesn't know how he understands what Steve is starting as the first piece of a one hundred-year-old puzzle game, but he does, so he happily joins in the challenge.
He joins in so well and so thoroughly, that twenty minutes later all the cushions, pillows and blankets (plus a little side table for structure) are lying and piling, covering a good part of their living room in a big and unshapely sculpture held by luck alone.
There's clearly a joke in there about former Captain America and his ex-brainwashed husband (both of them older than one hundred and twenty) laughing like children while playing inverse Jenga with layers of padding and blankets, only to end up with Earth's ugliest pillow igloo, but the punchline keeps escaping him. The press would have a field day if they saw, that's for sure.
"Let's go inside!" Steve squeals as he goes down to his knees and disappears into the little space below the pillows.
"The places you make me follow you to, Brooklyn," he answers, faking disinterest but equally excited to check their brand-new cocoon.
The space turns out to be far too small for the two of them, but it doesn't matter: judging from the smile he can make out on Steve's face, and the comforting pain on his own jaw, their faces are probably as lighted up as a child’s on Christmas day.
"You are hogging all the room," Steve says once they are settled as well as the trembling structure allows them to.
"Oh, you noticed." He laughs. "It's my evil plan to make you press your body against mine and seduce you."
"Same one as in 34, then?"
"If ain’t broke..."
Steve laughs but actually moves closer to Bucky, both of them gaining a cushion-framed view of the still casting TV and a very curious cat at the “door”.
"Hey, Miss Apine," Bucky says, "wanna come inside and see our new place?"
Alpine ignores his voice, turning back and hopping on the coffee table where she curls like a white cinnamon roll with her head to them. Indifferent but vigilant.
They lie there in silence, their relaxed breaths and the distant voices from TV acting as white sound, but it’s not long before he notices Steve’s hand not so innocently drifting to his crotch, which makes him realize he has definitely fallen into a well-planned trap. The little shit.
"Steve, if you keep going that way, I'm not certain that I'm going to be able to just lay still inside this semi-stable pillow fort."
"Are you implying the home our love built is not strong enough for a round of early afternoon sex? I’m hurt. You’re shattering my hopes and dreams."
Bucky laughs. This is unbelievable, they amount to over two hundred years between the two of them. Is their silly-bros slash idiots in love thing ever going away?
It’s a blatantly self rhetorical question, since he’s sure it won't. He’s counting on that.
The hand on his dick keeps moving, and it is not that he doesn’t want to follow along this wonderful plan of Steve softly fondling his cock over his sweatpants, but he's a respectable adult who expects certain commodities to go with his sex-life these days.
(Never mind they fucked over the dryer twice just last week.)
It’s a combination of the thought of Steve under him laying on their soft bed, and the potentially amusing factor what makes him sacrifice his current pleasure to take one for the team; the two equally important elements that make him extend his vibranium arm to destroy the short-lived fort from its foundations.
He removes the couch's back cushion with a swift move that causes the entire blankets and pillows building to collapse over them.
"Oh no, Steve! Losing you at such a somewhat young age... Why, Lord, why? How am I going to fend for myself and the cat?" He fake-weeps, laughing as he smoothly crawls out of the mess. He stands up quickly, planning to flee, but not before taking a snapshot of Steve starting to rise from the ashes of their fallen construction like a blanket-lagoon-monster.
"I was being so nice, jerk... so nice to you, and you betrayed me!” He exclaims. “Oh, Buck, you know better than anybody that I'm not nearly as honorable as all history books make those poor students believe, so I’m sure you know this is war now."
Everything is twice more amusing with Steve’s voice resonating behind him all muffled under all the fabric and fluff that are most likely still covering him, and a laughing fit halts him before he can move further away, instantly feeling a firm but padded blow against his nape.
When he turns, Steve is there: long hair sticking in every direction, and losing the last blanket that still hung from his shoulder. He looks battle-ready, proudly brandishing a fluffy yellow pillow as a weapon.
"A back-stab, Rogers? If only the world knew ho—" he manages to say before he sees and feels yellow on his face.
“Ok, Cap, war is on,” he thinks. He ducks the next intended blow and slides under Steve's opened legs to grab one ankle, and make him fall face first over part of the fort's ruins. He quickly arms himself with the first thing on reach—a soft gray bed-pillow—and fails to hit his partner while he’s down and confused.
"Avengers, assemble," Steve shouts, dodging that last move, and flipping on the floor to easily jump to a standing position. It speaks badly of them that they both cackle at such a lame joke, although for a few seconds there, Bucky half expects some of Tony’s toys to crash the window on call as a very in-character easter-egg.
Of all the things he thought their military training and missions could help them with, he never thought an apartment-wide pillow fight would be one of them, but life keeps surprising him in all the best ways lately.
As he chases Steve around their home, he considers if they should be concerned about countless things right now: about the downstairs neighbors complaining, about any passersby that might look up and flip out seeing their fighting silhouettes running against the enlightened windows, about the casualties all around the apartment... but he realizes they should not because, this? This is real fun.
This is them being children, best friends, partners, lovers, and shit to each other. All those things they miss about their life and all the others they missed because of it.
That's what this epic pillow fight is about right now: mindless fun, but Bucky hasn't forgotten about his half-hard-on—how could he, with Steve fighting like a sexy punk?---so his plan is still on. He needs to lure the yellow-shielded man into their pillow-less bedroom and have his way with him on the soft and comfy bed. For hours, maybe.
The battle for the desired location, he wins: after docking another blow and almost dropping a lamp and a big canvas in the process, he finally has Steve against the bed. He has his soft pillow-weapon raised over his head ready to descend into that beautiful face and push him to a horizontal position so they can forget everything about pillows in favor of sexier wrestling, when a loud crash startles him.
His first thought is that he's hit the ceiling fan, but the sound is coming from Steve's night table. They both turn their faces in that direction (comically frozen in place) to find Alpine judging them from the spot where Steve's glass of water used to rest before she pushed it to the floor.
It was obviously intentional, and once she detects she has their full attention, she looks at them with disdain, meows, jumps to the floor—expertly avoiding the pool of water and the broken glass pieces—and walks slowly towards the bedroom door, leaving their stupid ruckus-producing humans behind and in silence.
"Am I the only one who actually heard how she metaphorically slammed the door?" Bucky asks, dropping his weapon to the side and starting to laugh.
"Nope, the whole building trembled with her contempt, Buck." Steve answers equally giddy.
He falls forward to the bed, taking Steve with him and collapsing on top like a human blanket, their laughter syncing on their vibrating bellies as they kiss.