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Peach Pie Weather
Custer’s Grove woke slow that morning, sunlight drifting through the kitchen window like it had nowhere else to be. The house still wore last night’s quiet: Michael’s crayons left in a small explosion on the dining table, Alpine curled on the back of a chair pretending she hadn’t been awake and supervising him since dawn.
John stood at the counter brushing egg wash over the pie lattice, sleeves pushed up, sunlight catching in his hair. His shoulders were relaxed in a way they only ever were here—bare feet on tile, morning radio humming soft jazz, air warm with the smell of peaches and cinnamon. The kind of peace he used to flinch away from. The kind of peace he now reached for on instinct.
Bucky came up behind him without a sound, the way he always did. John still smiled before he even felt the arms slip around his waist—because he knew that weight, that warmth, that quiet sigh of home at his back.
“Morning, Peach,” Bucky murmured into the side of his neck, voice still gravel from sleep.
John snorted, cheeks coloring. “You only call me that when you’re trying to make me drop something.”
“Mm,” Bucky said, brushing his nose just under John’s ear. “Then hold tighter.”
John’s hand wobbled on the brush. “Honey—”
“What?” Bucky’s arms tightened, metal hand warm against John’s stomach, flesh one spreading over his ribs with careful, possessive certainty. “You’re cooking. I’m helping.”
“By what?” John laughed, leaning back just a little, just enough to feel Bucky press close. “Breathing down my neck?”
“Motivational supervision,” Bucky murmured. “Essential to proper baking technique.”
John shook his head like a man who’d long given up pretending he didn’t melt under this. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re pretty when you’re focused,” Bucky said, voice low, lips brushing the corner of his jaw. “All domestic and soft in the morning. Makes me wanna keep you right here.”
John swallowed around a laugh that came out more like a breath. “You gonna let me actually finish this pie?”
“Nope.”
He punctuated it with a kiss to the nape of John’s neck, slow and warm and entirely unfair. John nearly dropped the brush.
“Bucky—”
“Mm?”
“This is dangerous.”
Bucky’s smile curled against his skin. “Sweetheart, it’s peach pie in your hands and you in mine. Only danger here is me kissing you stupid.”
John’s breath caught. Light snapped warm against his cheekbones, blush rising like someone had lit a match under his skin.
And because Bucky Barnes lived to win every argument that involved affection, he slid his hands up, one flattening over John’s ribs, the other wrapping around his middle, pulling him in so close their heartbeats lined up.
John let out a soft sound he’d deny later, the brush pausing mid-stroke.
“You’re gonna make me mess it up,” he murmured, trying and failing to keep the smile out of his voice.
“Then I’ll help you make another one,” Bucky whispered. “Every time. Forever.”
John went still for a heartbeat—just one. Because the thing about Bucky saying forever was that he meant it every single time.
Then John huffed out a breath that was too full, too tender, too much like love spilling over. “Come on, Honey. If you want peach pie, let me finish.”
Bucky kissed his cheek, slow, savoring, then rested his chin on John’s shoulder. “Finish it, then,” he murmured. “I’ll hold.”
John brushed the egg wash over the final strip of lattice, Bucky wrapped around him like a promise, sunlight warming both their faces.
Behind them, Alpine hopped onto the counter like the true authority in the room, sniffing judgmentally at their proximity.
Michael shuffled into the kitchen a moment later, hair sticking straight up, eyes still puffy with sleep. He took one look at them and blinked.
“Papa,” he said, pointing at the two of them smooshed together, “you’re gonna squish Dad’s pie.”
Bucky tightened his arms slightly. “Worth it.”
John laughed, soft and helpless and completely in love. “Everyone get off me unless you want scrambled pie.”
Bucky finally loosened his hold—but only to hook his chin over John’s shoulder and stay close.
“Fine,” he agreed, kissing the side of John’s temple. “Finish up, Doll. Then I get you.”
John rolled his eyes, smiling. “You always do.”
The pie went into the oven. The kitchen warmed with sugar and peaches. And Bucky stayed behind John the whole time, hands brushing lazy circles at his waist—soft, peaceful, and utterly sure that this was where he was meant to be.
