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“Come on, come on, come on.” The smell of all the different foods makes Bucky’s mouth water and he pulls Steve towards the fairgrounds by his hand. There’s peanuts, cotton candy, hot dogs and, Bucky takes a deep breath, popcorn!
“Slow down,” Steve laughed, “we have plenty of time and you don’t want to burn yourself out right at the start.” Bucky wanted to argue with Steve, but when he slowed down a bit, he noticed that he was already slightly out of breath.
The weight had really just been piling on over the past year. He’d hit the holidays hard and hadn’t really slowed down since. Bucky’s shrinking wardrobe was just more proof of that.
He hadn’t even noticed that his shirt was working its way up over his belly, but he pulls it back down—his cheeks burning with a blush. Steve catches up to Bucky and presses a kiss to his lips, his hand sneaked around Bucky’s back and Steve gave his side a good squeeze.
“How about some popcorn first?”
“Let’s try something else. Look at all this variety, Stevie! I’m not settling for some boring popcorn.”
They make their way across the fairgrounds with frequent stops at all the different food stands. Bucky had eaten only a small lunch and felt like he was starving. Steve deals with paying for everything while Bucky digs in to whatever treat he just ordered.
One of Bucky’s favorites is the funnel cake, but none of the other deep fried “delicacies” really measure up to the simple dessert. By the time the evening rolls around Bucky has probably eaten his way through half the food stalls and it shows.
His shirt is riding up constantly and his stretch marked belly wobbles with each step where it peeks out from under the fabric. Bucky’s gait had slowed down to a waddle, but he keeps taking bites out of the cotton candy in his right hand and in his left hand he’s carrying three corn dogs. Steve was carrying the rest of the corn dogs Bucky had bought.
“You sure you can finish all that?” Steve had asked and Bucky had of course taken that as a challenge to buy twice the amount he initially wanted. He’d never admit it, but Bucky was actually starting to struggle with finishing everything. His legs hurt from being on his feet for hours on end and the discomfort was getting to Bucky.
“You wanna sit down for a bit?” Steve offers before Bucky can ask. They walk around in search of a bench while Bucky finishes his cotton candy. He’s half-way finished with the corn dogs and they still haven’t found a place to sit, when Steve suddenly stops walking and points in front of them.
“We could sit there.”
“I don’t I’ll fit into any of those rides.”
“No, but maybe on the Ferris wheel.”
Bucky honestly wasn’t sure if they would even allow him on the gondolas, but at this point he just wanted to sit down for a minute and rest his feet for a bit. The line was surprisingly short and while Bucky waited the entire time for someone to stop him from getting on, the ride attendant just closed the little gate to their gondola.
Exhaustion hit him as soon as he sat down. After walking around on the pavement and eating for hours Bucky could finally relax for a few minutes. He let his head fall against Steve’s shoulder and pressed himself against Steve. Bucky could feel his body heat through both their jackets and the evening air seemed much cooler suddenly.
“You getting tired, Buck?” Steve kissed his forehead and gathered Bucky in his arms. It was getting pretty difficult to wrap his arms around Bucky, but Steve pulled his sleepy boyfriend closer and rested his chin on Bucky’s head.
The Ferris wheel stopped when their gondola reached the highest point, but Bucky didn’t even lift his head to enjoy the view. He was too comfortable cuddled up against Steve, who didn’t look outside of their gondola either.
He tugged Bucky’s shirt back into place and when he felt Bucky shiver, Steve tried to close the zipper on his jacket, but quickly have up when the two sides came nowhere close to touching.
“’m too fat,” Bucky mumbled against Steve’s neck. He knew Bucky was talking about the jacket, but Steve wanted to make sure Bucky knew that he could never get too fat for him.
“No, just right.”
“’m gonna get fatter.”
“And you’ll be perfect then too.” Bucky finally lifted his head and looked up at Steve with a pout.
“The jacket still doesn’t fit.” The Ferris wheel started moving again as Steve slipped his hand under one side of the jacket and rubbed in large circles over Bucky’s belly which made his shirt ride up again.
“Easy access for belly rubs then.” He kept moving his hand over Bucky’s belly even as they got closer to the ground.
“You’re such a sap.” Bucky rolled his eyes and tried to kiss the stupid grin off his boyfriend’s face, but he only got infected with it and their kisses kept getting interrupted by one of them smiling too hard.
“Ready to go home?” Steve asked when they reached the bottom and the Ferris wheel stopped again. He offered his hand for Bucky to take.
“Ready.” They made their way back home at Bucky’s pace with a few breaks to sit down on a bench and make out.