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“James!” the overworked teenage Starbucks barista calls out. Bucky types out one last message on his phone before tucking it away and walking up to the pickup counter: Just got our order. Be right home. He feels his phone vibrate with what is probably Steve reacting to his message with a little blue heart, as he takes the coffees from the barista. “That’s me,” he says to her. “Thanks.”
“Enjoy. Happy holidays,” she replies before rushing back to the register to take the next order. He turns the cups over to check they actually had gotten their order right — and God, it’s always gonna be a little weird to see his given name written down; he hasn’t gone by it since the third grade and Steve decided ‘James’ was too much work to say.
He zips up his jacket, and burrows a little further into his scarf, bracing for the deep December New York cold. The doorbell rings as he pushes it open. It’s been snowing lightly all day, but the forecast said it’ll be downright storming overnight. He does his best to shield the coffees from the cold and he focuses on the crunch of his boots the three blocks back to their apartment, the soles stamping his prints into the soft snow. He feels some semblance of the wonder of his youth bloom in his chest. Running through half the city with sleds too big for the both of them to get to the hills of Central Park while the snow was still good. Building snowmen and arguing over who had found the better stick-arm and playfighting because someone forgot the carrot for the nose. He misses it. This is the kind of thing his therapist wants him to put down in his journal though, so he lets himself actually feel it instead of shoving it down deep enough he could’ve convinced himself he’d forgotten it. Which is much easier since he’s been free of that hack Raynor.
Her sessions felt more like POW interrogations sometimes. But Mossbauer’s office has soft colors and fun little decorative pillows, and a dumb pink unicorn that makes what she calls the “Big Emotions” easier to work through.
He passes by the store windows and the one mom-n-pop restaurant that Steve and him have been saying for months they should try out, all decorated with colorful lights and sparkly Santas and mistletoe branches. For the first time in years he’s looking forward to Christmas. They’d been playing with the idea of finding a church for a service, but neither of them are sure they’re ready for that. These days there’s also always the danger of being Recognized. Thanks to Steve’s never-ending die-and-come-back-to-life bit. Okay. And Bucky was on the news with Current Cap Sam Wilson.
Fumbling for the keys of their red-brick apartment building, he’s really regretting forgetting his gloves. He’s lost pretty much all feeling in the fingers of his right hand and by the time he realizes he has a metal hand which doesn’t feel cold, the door is open and he’s surprised with himself that he even felt comfortable enough to forget them in the first place. Not bad surprised — it’s been years since he hasn’t felt uncomfortable letting people see the prosthetic. Another thing for the journal.
He takes the stairs up to the fourth floor in twos. “I’m home!” he calls into the small apartment, tossing the keys into the bowl by the door, hanging up his jacket and scarf and setting about unlacing his snow-covered winter boots. He should’ve stomped them off in front of the building but it’s too late now. He pops the coffees on the counter in the kitchen on his way to the bathroom for a towel to put under his shoes.
“Mornin’, Buck,” Steve says without turning from the stove. It smells of eggs and bacon and maple syrup and pancakes. Bucky finishes preventing the Great Flood in their entrance hall and steps up behind Steve, wrapping his arms around his waist and resting his chin on Steve’s shoulder. “How was therapy?” he asks.
“Better’n with Raynor.” Which is pretty much always the case. Steve laughs and takes a piece of bacon off the plate, holding it up to Bucky’s mouth. He takes the bite from his hand.
“Pancakes’re almost done.”
“Smells amazing,” Bucky replies. He can’t resist pressing his fingers to Steve’s neck as he pulls away.
Steve squeaks. “That’s cold, you ass,” he complains.
“Language,” Bucky scolds playfully.
“Never should’ve let Sam tell you about that,” Steve mutters.
“What? That my boyfriend was still a good little god-fearing Catholic kid at the age of ninety-four?” He smirks.
Steve sighs, Bucky can hear the eyeroll. “Go’n make yourself useful an’ set the table.”
“Yes, Cap,” Bucky replies.
Steve groans. “You’re lucky I love you.”
“I am,” Bucky says sincerely. Luckier than Tony falling for María.
They work in tandem for a while, Steve finishing the eggs and Bucky setting the table with the nice china they had found in an antiques store a few years ago that looks almost exactly like the plates Steve’s mother had when they were kids.
“Looks delicious,” Bucky says as Steve places down the last plate.
“Try it first, before you sing my praises,” Steve answers, smiling fondly, and sits as well.
“Please, your cooking is amazing,” Bucky says. He takes three pancakes, stacks his half of the bacon and eggs on top and pours a healthy amount of syrup over it all. Steve shakes his head affectionately. “What?” Bucky asks. “I’m a super soldier, I need the calories,” he teases.
“And fourteen-year-old you did too, apparently,” Steve says, tucking into his own plate.
“This is the correct way to eat pancakes,” he says through a mouthful of sticky pancake.
“Right,” Steve says, that same incredulous look on his face he always had when they were teens and Steve was trying very hard not to break into a Rogers Rant about Bucky’s desecration of America’s most beloved breakfast food.
Breakfast is delicious, for the record. Because if not for anything else (which Bucky doubts because it did give him Steve back), Steve’s stint in the accursed Mind Stone gave him glorious cooking skills.
There’s nothing more he wants, he realizes once again, as they clean up and wash the dishes, than spend the rest of his life exactly like this. Celebrate all the holidays in their future with Steve, maybe get that dog (or cat — Steve insists on a cat) they talked about, experience this peace for as long as the universe will let him.
He doesn’t want to fight anymore. Maybe Zemo was right, all those years ago, that’d he’d hadn’t needed much to fall back into form, maybe he was right when he realized barely a few weeks later that’d he’d never fallen out, but he thinks maybe, just maybe —
Maybe he’s finally fallen out of form.