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He started the day with an intense cleaning of even the smallest corner in the apartment, every surface gets gently wiped, every shelf gets lovingly dusted, every inch of ground gets thoroughly swept and vacuumed until the carpet complained about the heat. He wiped the kitchen top to bottom until he got dizzy from the smell of cleaning agents and the kitchen counter protested against any more rub downs.
He did the same to the bathroom, wiped, scrubbed and mopped until the tiles were blinding him on purpose to get them the fuck out of damn sight. He fluffed pillows and bed sheets and blankets until they all were screaming at him to stop touching them. He rearranged books at least three times, dusted off plants until they were coughing at him.
Everything had to be perfect.
--
Steve and Sam didn't stop smirking at him when they accompanied him to the grocery store down the street, both of them bored and asshol-y enough to find pure enjoyment in Bucky's giddy strive for perfection on this very special day.
"It's adorable." Sam commented as he leaned back against the pillar in the front of the grocery store, watching him pick around the tomatoes, while Steve leaned against the shopping cart and smiled down at the list Bucky had shoved into his hands minutes ago to have both hands free. "He's so in love. Look at him, even the tomatoes are smiling at him."
"Oh shut up, Sam." Bucky said, but didn't stop smiling or quietly humming, he felt too good, too great, too happy get annoyed by anything today. Even his hair was perfect, not a single strand misbehaving, everything soft and fluffy. His favourite shirt was still really soft from the laundry stint yesterday. He was floating on a cloud where no one could reach him.
He selected the vegetables and the fruit he needed and then moved on, knowing that Sam and Steve would follow him, too amused by his blissed out bubble of joy to not tease him on it. Meat, pasta, wine. Condoms. For which he could taunted the most and of which he threw in several different sized just because he already gave his best friends enough stuff to make fun of him for.
He punished them for their stupid comments and jokes by forcing them to walk back to his apartment instead of taking the subway. Brooklyn was already warm and cozy on this spring day, and he took deep breaths as they walked along the streets, Sam bitching about sore feet. His apartment laid in a building not far from where he had grown up all this long time ago, beautiful place with a spacious balcony and a great view right down to Coney Island.
The stipulations for his freedom had been strict, and Bucky had put so much focus on living by them in the first two years since having been brought back into this life without a Hydra infested mind. His own apartment, away from the Avengers, his own job, away from the Avengers, therapy sessions, community work. But he had found his happiness, had found a job that made him happy, had found new friends in this world, friends who weren't superheroes.
And he found love.
With the most amazing man on the planet.
--
He shooed Sam and Steve back to their own apartment after they had helped carry the groceries up the stairs, he didn't want to risk them messing up his living room again. He let the classic music fill the apartment then, let the music soothe him back into the floating high of happiness that this day was all about while he put everything he had bought away.
Cooking together was one of the greatest joy they had in their time together. Trying new recipes, tasting new spices and new flavors. Getting creative. Laughing over flour on noses and cheeks. Licking sauce or chocolate off of each others' fingertips.
He was smiling and singing in quiet Russian when he moved on to pull out the candles, placing them just where he wanted them. Around the living room and the bedroom, matchsticks just in reach. He prepped the bathroom for what would come as the first step for this visit, flight and car rides and conferences had been long, and stiff and exhausting, and a bath would be exactly the right thing to start the evening.
He pulled the artificial candles from the cupboard, placed them around the tub, honestly the favourite place in his apartment, this insanely big tub. He laid out the extra softened towels, pre-programmed the projector for the ceiling and the walls, hoping his longed for star filled nightsky would be preferred by the other man as well. He turned up the heat just a little bit to get the tiles on the ground warmed up already, the days might be cosy but the evenings still got cold quickly.
He picked out the finest oils and bath additives, arranged them all beautiful in the basket at the foot of the tub, and then spontaneously carried over the smaller one of the two potted palm trees. He set it in the corner of the bathroom so that it's already impressive leaves would reach out over the tub.
Once he was content with the bathroom, he moved back into the bedroom and made sure condoms and lube were in the top drawer on the right, somehow that nightstand had turned out to be the one easier to reach for in the heat of the moment. He drew the curtains in front of the windows, fluffed up the pillows one last time and then opened the side of the closet that he had cleared space in earlier.
In the living room, he took another short look at the clock, grinning and skipping a few steps when he caught sight of the progressed time and then started up the playlist he had updates recently to be extra special for this visit's beginning. He started the coffee machine in the kitchen, and then went out to the balcony to set the table with the plates for the cakes he had made yesterday, plum cake for Bucky and the quirkly multi colored polka dot sugar bomb for his love.
--
Five on the dot, the lock on the apartment door got turned.
--
"Honey, I'm home!" The gentle warm voice called into the apartment in that half joking greeting they had started at some point in the last year, and Bucky grinned and slid around the corner into the entrance corridor on sock covered feet.
"Hi." He said, drawing the word out until he was standing in front of T'Challa, sliding his hands beneath the suit jacket and circling his arms around his waist.
They just smiled at each other for a long moment and then leaned in to let their lips meet in a sweet kiss. That first one was always special, that first kiss after weeks or months of long distance phone and video calls, that one first taste of each other after going so long without it. It always left them both a little breathless from amazed wonder.
When they broke apart again, they embraced, hugged each other tight and close, let each other feel that they were together now. Together in the flesh for a few beautiful wonderful days.
--
"So, how was the conference?" Bucky asked about twenty minutes later when T'Challa sank back against him in the tub that it filled with the edge with warm water and bubbles. The door closed, the candles their only light and the projector turned the ceiling and walls into mesmerizing starry nightsky.
It's Bucky's favourite. But T'Challa loved it, too.
Proven again when he relaxed back against his chest, pulling both arms around his stomach, intertwining their hands, humming contently for a moment before answering.
"It went good, but some people just really like hearing their own voice. And they talk and talk and talk and don't get their across until you plead them to finish it up for the fifth time." T'Challa told him and Bucky squeezed his hands, pressing gentle kisses along his neck.
"So no endless discussions over days again?" He wanted to know and shifted them a little until he could let his hands dig into the knots on T'Challa's back, getting a heavy moan for the first few moves, encouraging him to let his hands splay out for a real massage.
"No, we got to an agreement, got all the time for us now." T'Challa whispered his words and then sighed long and deep and went quiet, giving his body over to Bucky.
--
"I love it when you bake, have I told you that before?" T'Challa spoke up between inhaling that colorful sugary cake like it was air. How a man with a sweet tooth like him could stay in that kind of amazing shape was a puzzle for Bucky, but he sure didn't complain that he could cook and bake as he pleased and no one started blaming the American boyfriend for a fat Black Panther.
"You do all the time, babe." He said and T'Challa grinned, cutting himself off another slide, Bucky has happy to note that the polka dots amused him to no end, it had been quite a lot of work to get it looking this perfectly quirky. But T'Challa's smile and laughter upon seeing it had been worth all the work and effort. He stuck another piece of plum cake into his mouth and chewed happily.
--
They napped on the couch for a while then, just watched the sun slowly start to set while they laid wrapped around each other. Legs tangled together, hands and fingers softly stroking over arms and faces. Noses nuzzling against each other, lips touching in sweet kisses now and then.
The apartment laid quiet, their heads were quiet for a change, no outside forces allowed to have an ounce of attention, it was just them caught in a moment. Together again for the first time in months. Just the two of them in the sanctuary of an apartment that Bucky had created for himself here in the middle of Brooklyn.
Back to where it all began for him.
Brooklyn had changed, but so had Bucky, and he was so happy now.
"I love you." T'Challa breathed out and Bucky grinned even more, kissed him again before saying those words right back at him, drawing his fingers over his neck and then sliding his hand to the back of his head to gently pull T'Challa closer still.
"And now turned around." Bucky told him once they had broken apart again, nudging him with foot and hip to roll onto his stomach.
"Why?" T'Challa wanted to know but still complied, groaning when he had to stretch his shoulders and Bucky clicked his tongue.
"Because of that, you're still sore." And then he set his hand right onto the point between T'Challa's shoulderblades that usually bothered him the most and pressed down, and the sound escaping T'Challa lips spoke ages about too stresses posture for the last days.
"Okay, yes, do that again, please."
Bucky chuckled but did just that, pressing in again and then moving his hands out on either side of T'Challa's shoulder, feeling the knot in his nerves slowly give away. T'Challa downright moaned and pushed himself more into the touch of his hands.
"You really need to take Shuri's advice and not sit so tensed up all the time during these meetings." Bucky spoke quietly and T'Challa groaned again, half in annoyance and half in relief, "Yeah, well, I don't like politics and talking talking talking either, but you can't always solve things by glaring at people."
"I don't like that my sister and you have moved on to talk about my posture now." T'Challa complained and then quickly grabbed the pillows when Bucky moved on to his lower back, and at least one of those traitorous throw pillows was singing in pleasure over that touch, preferring it four times over being fluffed up by Bucky. "It was bad enough when you two were talking about my hair..."
"It really was getting too long."
"Let alone the fact that Shuri and you have a more constant call routine by now than we do." T'Challa ignored his statement and then moaned again, "But this is good, this is so good."
"Good to know that the classes paid off." Bucky chuckled and began to quietly hum while he worked the knots and sore muscles under his hands soft again.
"Oh, they did, they are paying off wonderfully."
--
When he was done, T'Challa had basically melted into the couch and was almost asleep, eyes closed, breathing deep and steady, face mushed into the happy throw pillows. And Bucky quietly moved into the kitchen to start on dinner, he washed and cut vegetables, sorted them into the piles like they would need them, and then already prepared the fruit they would need for the fruit salad dessert.
He was in the process of getting the meat out of the fridge to start frying it when strong and warm arms wrapped around his waist and soft lips pressed a kiss into his neck.
"Feel better?" He wanted to know and T'Challa kissed his neck two more times in reply before pulling back so Bucky could set the meat on the counter right next to the stove. He turned around, grinned up at T'Challa and his mushed up hair and the lines on his face where the pillows had left a print, "You look absolutely adorable." And T'Challa laughed, let still sleepy looking eyes dance with happiness.
"Thank you." He said and Bucky nodded, reaching up with one hand to cup his cheek while the other turned on the stove.
"Everything for you. And now come on, I'm sure you're hungry, too and you always get the steaks better than I do." He announced and T'Challa hip-checked him out of the way so that Bucky walked back to the table in the corner and started peeling potatoes.
--
That night, as T'Challa breathed against his chest, deep asleep, Bucky grinned up at the ceiling, mentally shushing the pillows who were still happily singing and seeming way too loud. Their relationship might be unusual, might be talked about by a lot of people who had no rights to do so, let alone any idea over how much they really loved each other.
But T'Challa was happy, Bucky was happy with what they had.
Some days were difficult, some days, like today, were simply perfect, but together everything was easier.