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Babies, and other things that defeat Bucky Barnes
It’s mid-morning; the sun is still fairly low in the sky and barely peeking over the skyline. It had been cold outside, but that was to be expected in March, but Bucky had forgone a hoodie, nonetheless - Steve’s, even though it would’ve been warm and soft and smelled like his shampoo (apple and honey, and Sam and Tony still take the shit out of him for it), but as he steps out of the elevator that opens onto his and Steve’s shared floor, the air conditioner on full blast, he thoroughly regrets his decision.
“I’m incredibly fucking cold,” he calls, stepping through the door. “And I don’t smell breakfast!”
“Potty mouth. And make your own damn eggs,” Steve calls back, a smile evident in his voice. “How was your run?”
“Tiring. Quiet. Ms. Hernandez smiled at me instead of glowering because I didn’t step on her petunias this time,” Bucky says, toeing off his sneakers and leaving them by the door. “But goddamn, it’s cold as balls outside,” Bucky says as he walks into the main living area of their apartment. He grabs an apple from the fruit bowl, takes a bite and then stops abruptly, because –
“Steve.”
“Mm,” Steve replies from where he’s lying on the floor, with a baby – a baby – on his chest, chewing its fist without a care in the world, big brown eyes blinking up innocently at Bucky.
Bucky opens his mouth, and then closes it, and repeats, like a gaping fish. He can speak six different languages, but he can’t come up with the words, in any one of them, that expresses the confusion at the scene before him.
“Uh,” he manages, after about thirty seconds of his brain short circuiting. “What is that?”
“Who,” Steve corrects, and smiles up at the baby when it squirms a bit on Steve’s chest, overbalances and topples so it’s lying chest to chest against Steve.
“You know what I mean, asshole.”
Steve looks at him and grins like there’s nothing warranting Bucky’s confusion. “This,” he says putting his hands on the baby’s back to steady them as he sits up, “is baby Mariah.”
Mariah gurgles and slaps a spitty palm on Steve’s face at the recognition of her name. Bucky blinks.
“Mariah.”
“Mariah,” Steve confirms with a smile, before blowing a raspberry on her cheek. She squeals and giggles and kicks her chubby little legs against Steve’s stomach. “She’s Sam’s niece.”
“Right,” Bucky says faintly, his brain still refusing to co-operate with him. “And…she’s here because?”
Steve stands up from the floor, holding Mariah under her padded bottom, and she rests her head against Steve’s chest, babbling nonsensically with of her fists in her mouth as Steve walks over to Bucky. “He had to run out, help him mom or something,” he tells Bucky, who’s eyes are still trained on the baby – the baby – in Steve’s arms. “He was babysitting for his sister since she’s gone with her husband for an anniversary, I think. So.” He adjusts Mariah in his arms, and holds her out to Bucky. “This is Mariah.”
Bucky frowns at the baby, who remains nonplussed and happy. Her cheeks and round and slightly droopy, her eyes big and blinking with the longest eyelashes Bucky’s ever seen, and she has little plaits, decorated with pink and purple clips to match her onesie. She shrieks in delight – Bucky has no idea, babies are difficult to read because they can’t even talk yet, what is going on – and reaches out a chubby fist to grab his hair. Something uncomfortable tightens in his chest.
“There’s nobody else Sam could’ve left her with?” Bucky asks, trying to release his hair from her alarmingly strong grip.
“There’s Natasha. And Tony,” Steve says, raising an eyebrow.
“Right.” Mariah mercifully releases his hair, but not before she leans forward and tries to grapple onto him. Steve grins at her, his baby blues brighter than ever, and he holds her closer to Bucky. Bucky takes a tiny tentative step back.
“I think she likes you,” Steve grins, wiggling her a bit as if he’s making her dance. Mariah squeals in agreement.
“Huh,” is all that Bucky says, still frowning at her, whilst she smiles up at him with a toothless, spitty grin.
“Ain’t she a peach?” Steve coos, grinning at Bucky, earnest as ever before bringing her to his chest and tucking her a bit, eliciting more squeals of joy. “Yes you are, aren’t you, Miss Mariah? An absolute peach!” He continues to kiss her cheeks and blow raspberries as she giggles, spit dribbling down her chin and onto her chest.
“Huh,” Bucky breathes again, his eyes still fixed on the chubby baby.
Steve turns to him, tucking her against her against his chest again. “She’ll only be with us until Sam gets back.”
“Which’ll be when, exactly?”
Steve shrugs. “Lunchtime? Maybe later, I don’t know.” He stops, noticing Bucky’s furrowed brow and steps closer, mingling in their close proximity. He places a warm (and wet, from Mariah’s dribble) hand on his metal arm. “Hey,” he says softly, lowly. “You okay with this? I know babies are loud and this is new, so I can go to someone else’s floor until Sam gets back?”
“No, it’s-” fine, he wants to say but he can’t because the baby – Mariah, his brain corrects – is blinking up at him with those eyes, wide and innocent and bright, and – “It’s – it’s. I’m gonna,” he trips over his words, backing towards the door slowly, “I was gonna…um. Go and see Nat, we had – we had a. Um. Sparring,” he finally manages after his embarrassing lapse in ability to speak.
Steve frowns at him, switching Mariah to his other side, bouncing her a little. “Buck, are you –”
“Yes,” he says quickly, pushing it through his teeth, “I’ll, um.” Mariah gurgles, and Bucky winces. “I’ll be back. Soon. Later. After.” He nods abruptly, and then dashes from the apartment, barefoot and faster than anything.
*
Before he even raises his fist to knock on the front door of Natasha’s apartment, she swings it open and raises and eyebrow. “James,” she remarks, placing her hand on her lip and leaning against the doorframe. “To what do I owe the pleasure your company?”
“Steve has a baby in the apartment,” Bucky rushes, his chest rising and falling rapidly, eyes wide. He’s aware he looks slightly feral – he’s sweating from his run and his hair is falling loose from its bun. The floor is also really fucking cold under his bare feet.
Natasha stops, blinks and then exhales sharply through her mouth, before opening the door wider.
“Come in,” she says, standing aside and letting Bucky enter. He pushes past her, still breathing heavily and throws himself down on her couch. She closes the door and makes her way across to him wordlessly, and sits on the seat opposite.
“Now,” she begins, coolly and calmly as ever, “I’m sure that you and Steve can work this out. I doubt that the baby is his, it’s probably one of his fans trying to –“
“No,” he cuts her off, “it’s not that.”
“Then explain,” she tells him, reclining in her seat, crossing her ankles and her arms, arching her brow.
Bucky sighs, and sits upright, his brows furrowed. He opens his mouth, and then closes it, not knowing how to really begin because how do you calmly explain feelings that random babies make you feel without sounding like a schmuck?
“Sometime today, perhaps?” She teases, a smirk pulling at the corner of her lips.
Bucky shoots her a withering look, which she simply returns with waspish grin, before he braces his hands on his knees and lets the words out.
“I came home after a run. And Steve had a baby on his chest,” he says, and then nods once, abruptly, signalling his finality.
Natasha snorts, and grins. “That’s it?”
Bucky’s brows furrow. “Yes? What else did you expect?” Her grin widens and, in turn, his eyes narrow at her. “What? What’s so funny?”
“вы, идиот,” She grins at him. “And that’s why you’re here now? The baby.”
“Yes,” Bucky grits, frowning at her. “Прекрати, черт возьми, смеяться и помоги мне!”
“With what?” She laughs. “You got spooked by a baby – an infant, James –”
Bucky’s frown deepens, offended. “I wasn’t spooked; I was just – just alarmed –”
“And now you’re here because you want me to help you? With what? How to interact with a fetus?” She’s full on laughing at him now, the corners of her eyes crinkling. If Bucky had less self-control, he’d fight her. “And you think,” she says, having to pause to take a breath from her laughter, “that me, of all people, could help you? With a baby?”
Bucky’s fist clench. “Stop. Stop laughing. It’s not funny.”
Natasha sighs happily, wipes her eyes and grins at him with an amused smile. “Aw. Big pouty baby. You gonna cry about it?” She juts out her bottom lip. “N’aw. Poor Bucky. Angry because I won’t help him because he’s scared of a baby. медвежонок.”
Bucky stares at her blankly, and Natasha calms, smile slowly dropping off her lips, although her eyes remain amused. “Alright. I’m sorry for laughing.”
Bucky nods. “Thank you.” Damn straight.
“Now,” she begins, a smile creeping back on her face, “did you want me to hold your hand when you go down? Or I could –“
“I’m leaving,” he says, standing up abruptly, striding towards the door. Natasha’s laughter follows him out the flat.
*
He hovers outside the door of the apartment for a stupid amount of time before he pulls himself together because really, it’s just Steve. And a baby. He’s been in wars, for God’s sakes.
So, because he’s a man who isn’t afraid of gorgeous babies with soft hair and big eyes, he strides into the apartment, feigning all the confidence in the world. He’s greeted with Mariah sitting on the counter, a Dora the Explorer tied around her neck, and Steve sitting opposite her. He’s holding a spoon in his hands, and there’s a mushy yellow-y substance on his face, Mariah's face, and all over the counter. At his entrance, they both turn to look at him, neither of them looking particularly impressed.
“Um,” Bucky says, because words still aren’t happening for him, apparently.
“Babda pffts,” Mariah replies, spitting the substance everywhere. Steve flinches when some of it hits his left eye.
“That was a short session,” Steve says, blindly reaching for a towel.
Bucky grabs one from the counter and hands it to Steve who proceeds to clean himself up, then Mariah. “It didn’t go as planned.”
“Oh?” Steve says, trying to spoon some more substance in Mariah’s mouth. “Likewise,” he deadpans, when Mariah frowns at him and pushes the spoon away, making even more of a mess. “Are babies always this stubborn?”
Bucky shrugs, reaching for another towel, mopping up the mess on Steve’s shirt. “Can’t remember the specifics, but I’m pretty sure Becca always gave Ma shit. Continued to, too.”
Mariah makes an indignant squawking sound, as if she’s either offended she’s no longer the centre of attention, or that they’re talking about her blatantly. “Alright, alright, Missy,” Steve says to her, and Mariah scrunches her nose at him. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Steve picks her up, bounces her on his hip as he takes her over to the sink, runs a bit of paper towel under some water and begins to wipe her off. Bucky follows, and watches carefully – cataloguing her reactions and her movements, her sounds. Steve notices his staring and turns to him, raising a questioning eyebrow.
“What you lookin’ at, Buck?”
“Her. The baby,” he says. “She’s. Little.”
Steve snorts. “Yeah, they usually are.”
“Shut up, asshole, you know what I mean,” Bucky sighs, and Mariah giggles when Steve wipes over her nose. “She’s just.” He pauses, frowning. “Small. Soft. Weird.”
“Mhm,” Steve says, smirking. “But they’re also super cute,” he says, picking Mariah up again. She giggles, apparently happy that there’s no more food being pushes at her face.
Bucky watches the whole exchange, confused and intrigued. “Hm.”
“D’you wanna hold her?” Steve asks, settling her against his hip. She babbles some more, making wet smacking sounds with her mouth.
Bucky looks up sharply, and takes a step back. “No thank you.”
Steve raises his brows, and a michevious smirk pulls at his lips. “Why? You scared?”
“Fuck you, I’m not scared,” Bucky scowls, raising his chin. Mariah smacks her lips, and his grey eyes meet her brown ones. “I just. Don’t want to.” He clears his throat. “I’unno. Hurt her, or something.”
Steve’s smile drops off his lips, and he takes a step closer, and then another one, until their chests are flush together. “You won’t hurt her,” Steve says quietly. Bucky’s eyes are still fixed on Mariah. She’s making spit bubbles. “I trust you. She trusts you.”
Mariah grins and waves her little fat arms as if to say, yeah, dumbass, now carry me.
“Hm.”
“Buck,” Steve says in that gentle tone of voice, the same coaxing voice he uses when Bucky’s having a bad day or when he draws into himself. “You’re a lot better than you were a year and a half ago. You barely have to see your therapists now. You’re doing well,” he says, dropping his forehead to Bucky’s. “You won’t hurt her.”
Bucky sighs, and his mouth curls into a hesitant smile. “You’re a sap.”
“And you’re a mug,” Steve returns, grinning. “Now.” He holds Mariah out to him. “Little Miss demands to be carried.”
Bucky takes her hesitantly. His metal hand is now roughly the same temperature as his flesh-and-blood hand, so she doesn’t feel the sharp difference in temperature when he arranges her properly in his arms. She’s solid – heavy, almost, but like a bag of flour. He can feel her bones under her soft skin, and when she looks up at him, she babbles and shrieks and reaches up to grab his hair.
“Um,” Bucky says. “Hello.”
She blows spit bubbles at him in greeting.
Interesting.