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The knock comes as Steve is putting the final trimmings on his overbaked gingerbread house. He scatters crushed peppermint haphazardly over the top then scrambles to the sink to rinse his buttercream-smeared hands. That will just have to be good enough for his first time. At least the damn thing is upright. It may not be pretty, not by a long shot, but it’s done and he even managed to cover all of the blackened bits with frosting.
Bucky opens his mouth in greeting when Steve hurriedly throws open his door, but gets one look at Steve and stops dead. His eyes travel from the Santa hat atop Steve's head, down over his illuminated Christmas sweater and further still, to his slippers, decorated with little reindeer antlers. Blinking, he reaches out to tap one of the fat red light bulbs decorating Steve's chest.
“Huh," he says. "Someone's feeling festive."
Steve hasn’t felt this flustered by Bucky’s presence since their first (and so very unusual) date. Their first Christmas feels almost as huge. What if he got something wrong? Forgot something or messed up somewhere? What if Bucky hates it all and doesn't want to—
"Hi, Bucky," Bucky says in the tone he only uses to mimic Steve obnoxiously. "So good to see you. Come on in!"
Flushing, Steve snaps out of his internal spiral. “Hi. Sorry. Uh. It’s a thing?" He says uncertainly. "Ugly Christmas sweaters. Right?”
Bucky purses his lips. “Usually a party thing. And now I’m the awkward under-dressed guy, thanks for that.”
“I have others, you could wear one too,” Steve offers. (He’d ordered four, just in case.)
“Of course you do.” Bucky grins. “Let me in, why dontcha? I brought cookies from Becca.”
Oh, thank God. Steve had tried, really tried, to make a batch of those colorful, artistic sugar cookies that seem to be the norm these days, but between those and the gingerbread, well. It quickly became clear he isn’t a natural-born baker.
He moves out of the way and Bucky steps into his apartment, pulling Steve down into a lingering kiss with one hand around the back of his neck as the door swings shut behind him.
Steve's eyes flutter closed at the familiar taste and give of Bucky’s mouth, and some of the anxiety bleeds out of his mind, replaced by contentment and a little curl of heat.
They’ve been dating for six months now—they were boyfriends, partners, officially and publicly, thanks to Steve’s reckless coming out moment at Tony’s party—but Bucky’s kisses still never fail to send an astonishing thrill down his spine.
"I like the hat," Bucky murmurs against Steve's mouth, then slides away with a teasing smile.
But he only makes it about halfway down the hallway into Steve's apartment, right to where the main space opens up, before he stops dead again.
Steve, trailing behind, tries to not to fidget as Bucky wordlessly takes in the changes. He had to move some furniture around. And out of the room entirely. Okay, he can admit it’s a lot. He just didn’t want to accidentally leave out something that Bucky really likes about Christmas decorations. It's so important that Bucky loves spending Christmas with him.
“Steve,” Bucky says flatly. “Why is there a toy train circling the couch?”
With perfect timing, the little train goes ‘chooooo choooooo’ and Steve forces a laugh. "Because people put toy trains in their homes for Christmas? Apparently? And there was nowhere else it could fit. Do you not like trains? Shit, I'll put it away—"
Bucky stops him with a hand on his arm. His blue eyes are sparkling with amusement, and not the kind that means he's laughing with Steve. "I like trains fine, Stevie. When did you…? What's all this about?"
"Just celebrating the holiday." Steve shrugs.
"With a ten-foot tall real pine tree in a one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment? Where did you even get that monster? I was here just two days ago! Did you have a quinjet fly it in?" Bucky asks. (Steve had.) "You did, didn't you? Fuck, Steve, it's like Christmas exploded in here. Are those real popcorn strings? Did you make real goddamn popcorn strings? Oh, oh, I bet there's a gingerbread house around here somewhere too."
Steve decides then and there to keep Bucky out of the kitchen for as long as possible. "Let's just sit down," he mutters, nudging Bucky toward the couch with a hand on his lower back. Using the remote control stashed in his pocket, he starts up the stereo, handily preset to the playlist of carols he created three weeks ago.
"Uh huh." Bucky goes without protest, mirth bringing lovely crinkles to the corners of his eyes. He has to step over the train tracks to sit down, and when he does, he pokes at the festive pillows and fleecy reindeer blanket that Steve has arranged artfully on the cushions, smirking.
Steve takes the cookie tin from him and sets it on the coffee table between the Elf on the Shelf doll and a sock advent calendar. He's currently wearing the set from the 15th, blue with little snowmen.
The large envelope he'd placed on the side table, festooned with its big golden bow, catches his eye, and he freezes for a moment, fear and hope warring in his mind. When he finally drags his gaze away from it again, Bucky is watching him with a patient and warm playfulness. "What's in that, babe?" he asks.
Steve's heartbeat ratchets up about a dozen notches as he jerkily joins Bucky on the couch. "A gift. If you want it. I thought, you could open it later? After we watch It's a Wonderful—"
"Of course I fucking want it, I love gifts," Bucky interrupts, reaching over Steve and snatching up the envelope. He eyes it curiously, and Steve too, obviously reading the nervous tension in Steve's stiff smile. His eyes narrow.
"Sure, uh, right now is good too…"
All I Want for Christmas Is You, purrs out of the speakers.
Bucky peels off the elaborate bow and when the envelope gives way, he reaches inside for the sheaf of documents Steve had prepared, all signed and notarized already, just waiting for Bucky's signature.
He starts to read.
Steve's palms go damp with sweat.
"Steve," Bucky breathes after a few moments, scanning one page after another. He gets to the end of the packet then looks up, eyes wide. "Really?"
Words tumble out. "Yes. Yes. I. If you want. I would really like to. As you can see, it's a bigger place, and closer to your gym. Tony owns it, and it's already renovated for, for someone like me."
"Another secret passageway?" Bucky asks eagerly.
"Two," Steve tells him. "One to the roof, one directly to the subway."
"Fuck." Bucky glances back down at the papers. "Three bedrooms though? Sounds expensive. What're we gonna do with the other two?"
Steve's about to say something ridiculous about his money and Tony's generosity, about Bucky not needing to spend a dime, but the effort folds in upon itself and poofs out of existence like Santa Claus up the chimney as the meaning of Bucky's question hits him. He feels a broad smile stretch his cheeks.
"I thought, maybe a home gym and a guest room-slash-office?"
"Shut the fuck up with your office, I want a sex dungeon." Bucky whaps at him with the papers. "A sling. One of those tilted cushion things."
"I have no clue what you mean," Steve says fondly.
"Is that what all this," Bucky gestures at the garlands hanging from Steve's ceiling and the curtain of lights cascading down the bookcases and the two stockings on the wall, "is for? Tryin' to prove something to me, huh?"
Steve ducks his head. "I don't know what your favorite tradition is and I…I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything important to you."
"You're not a punk, are you? You're a giant dweeb," Bucky says, but he softens the insult by setting aside the title documents and grabbing Steve's face. Pressing their foreheads together, he goes on, "Look, I don't like to get sappy, you know that. But here's the truth. There's only one kind of holiday tradition that matters to me, and that's the kind that we make together. So maybe less 'go big' and more 'go home' next year?"
Heart raw and open and held, Steve can only chuckle. "So you don't wanna see my gingerbread house then?"
END
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