Archive of Our Own

( * * * )

Bucky Barnes had a very, very, very important choice to make: 

Out of the beaucoup ice cream flavors spread before him, did he get rocky road or cookies n' cream? Clint liked, weirdly, this grape kind that tasted a bit like cough syrup and Natasha liked anything salted caramel. He'd gotten promoted at work and with said promotion, Bucky had been slid a nice new chunk of change.

He was going to treat himself.

To ice cream.

Because he lived a sad, simple existence that is made a little less upsetting by consuming questionable amounts of delicious soft serve.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, plucking up both tubs and dumping them in his shopping cart. Bucky bumped the freezer door shut with his hip, wrapping his hands around the rail of the cart only to pull up short.

A girl, thin and pale with the brightest blue eyes Bucky had ever seen in all thirty-two years of his life stood at the other end of his cart, her hands planted on her hips determinedly. Her hair was dark and curled around her face in ringlets. She wore a white sweater and dark, loose jeans, a pair of pink and silver sneakers tied tightly in perfect bows. Height-wise, she came up to the lowest rung of Bucky’s ribcage.

She looked like she was on a mission. Hell, she was even holding a little notebook between her hands.

“Hi,” the girl said.

Bucky blinked at her. “Um.”

“My name is Sarah,” she pressed, her voice soft and polite. If he had to slap an age on her, Bucky would have to wager she was no older than ten, but no younger than eight, given her petite build and her height. “What’s yours?”

“Bucky.”

That got a grin out of her. “I’ve never met a Bucky before.”

He couldn’t help but smile back at her because she was so sincere and earnest in the way only children are. “Well, now you have,” Bucky said, his mouth turning up at the corners. A more urgent matter filtered to the forefront of his mind and it tumbled out of his mouth the moment it gained a weight that couldn’t be ignored: “Sarah, where are your parents?”

She flapped a hand at him, dismissively. “Around.” Her pale gaze flicked down to his hands, where they were still curled loosely around the steering rail on the cart. Sarah glanced back up and when she did, Bucky found her entertaining a smirk. “You’re not wearing a wedding ring.”

He huffed a wry laugh. “Clever girl.”

“Does that mean you’re not seeing anyone?”

Bucky really wished that he’d been doing something with his hands, turned away plucking an item off the many shelves in the grocery store, just so he could plead the fifth and act like he wasn’t at all thrown by such an askance. And such a keenly prompted askance, for that matter. But she’d seen his expression and the way that his eyes had blown open wide.

“No,” he said, high and strained. “I’m not.”

“Oh good,” Sarah hummed, standing on the other end of the basket with her hands gripping the back, a perfect parallel to Bucky. He wondered if she was doing that to put him more at ease, this sort of warped symmetry. She spared a second to look down at her tiny, pocket-sized notebook. “One last question—and if you’re offended by it, well, I really don’t mean for you to be. I’m asking for science.”

He’d already been cornered, called out for not actively being in a relationship, and was watching his ice cream start to melt a bit. Bucky didn’t think she could do much worse. He leaned onto the cart, nudging them forward a few inches down the aisle without Sarah budging an inch. “Shoot.”

Sarah took a deep breath. “What’s your sexual orientation?” was sharply released on the exhale, all the words running together in a rapid line.

Bucky took a moment. A long moment.To gather himself.

(He had not expected this.)

“Um,” Bucky repeated yet again. Sarah had said she was asking for science? What did that even mean? Like, Bucky could recall doing a project in the second grade where he had to ask everyone in his class what their favorite color was out of red, yellow and blue, recording the results on a poorly-drawn bar graph. Was Sarah doing something similar? Just approaching random strangers and taking down the statistic they reluctantly gave her? “I like men?”

She grinned, as though he’d passed some sort of test. “Excellent,” Sarah said, only to sober. “Wait—does that make you bisexual, pansexual, homosexual, asexual…?”

My god this kid must have the most liberal parents to ever liberal, Bucky thought faintly. When he was her age, he didn’t even know other sexualities existed—you only ran into people who were straight or definitely not straight.

“Ah, homosexual,” he said carefully, taking a glance over his shoulder to be sure they were alone still. A bit of tension was let out of him when he realized they were.

“Oh man,” she hopped off the end of the basket and punched the air, launching into this pleased jump where she kicked her heals together. “Uncle Tony is never going to believe this.”

He took the tiny out where he may or may not have imagined it to be. “Listen, Sarah, it was real nice talking to you, but I’ve got a long list and I’ve really got to get going…”

“Why’d you get ice cream now if you’re going to get more stuff?” Sarah asked, seeing right through him. He could have been a sheet of clear plastic wrap and Bucky had to admit she was good and held a very valid point.

She came around so she planted herself at his side, tilting her head up so she could hold his eye. For such a young little thing, Sarah sure had a habit of going very serious in short periods of time. He half expected her to have the power to cut the electricity to the store, that way if she magically produced a desk lamp, it’d be dark and it’d sting his eyes as she set the mood to a jailhouse interrogation.

“My Dad,” she began, proud as anything. Sarah flicked to a new page. “His name is Steven Grant Rogers, but all his friends call him Steve. He’s thirty-four and works as an art teacher at Brooklyn Heights Elementary. He doesn’t cook very well, but he makes good bacon and eggs; he’s a dog person, but if you’ve got a cat, he’ll learn to love it.”

Bucky had just come to the store for some goddamn ice cream and now he was completely entrenched in a man’s dating profile happily passed out by said man’s daughter. His temples pulsed. Sarah kept speaking.

“He’s lived in Brooklyn his entire life and to give back to the community, he volunteers at a food bank twice a month, three times if he can find the time. He doesn’t much like the music of today—one time, I walked in on him dancing to swing and it was the greatest thing ever, but he does fine with rock and roll or disco. He can’t stand the Yankees: he will only route for the Dodgers even though they moved from Brooklyn in the nineteen fifties.

“And,” Sarah said, adopting a heavier tone that had Bucky going very still. It was protective, more of a mother lioness instilling fear in a bunch of hyenas in defense of her cubs than anything else—it made Bucky listen all the more intently, the exceptional care this girl was showing her father. “He is a kind man. The kindest and sweetest of all dads in this world and some people have a hard time seeing past what’s on the outside. They ignore what’s on the inside and that’s not okay. So, if you like what you’ve heard, then… here.”

Never tearing her eyes away from him, Sarah flipped back a few pages in her notebook before she ran her thumb over whatever was on the particular sheet and raised the booklet so he could see.

It was a photograph of arguably the most beautiful man Bucky had ever had the fortune to lay eyes on. The man was lightly tanned, eyes as blue and bright as his daughter’s were, hair gold and short, bearing enough length for his bangs to flop down into his face. The man looked like a fucking Greek god, completely stacked with muscles and perfect, perfect proportions. His smile was bright, almost to the point it could blind, filled with white, even teeth. 

Bucky blinked. Hard. Sarah cocked an eyebrow that seemed to bear a silent well?

He had to physically clamp down on the inside of his cheek to keep from blurting dear sweet infant Jesus I want to have his babies. “Very handsome,” Bucky said and yeah, there went his voice, shooting up into the atmosphere. Was that Mount Everest he’d just zipped past? The International Space station?Probably.“He’s got a lovely smile.”

In one fluid motion, she ripped out a page from her notebook and thrust it out at Bucky. Though the entirety of their conversation, from awkward start to whatever this strained point was, Sarah had not shaken her air of expectancy. 

There was a phone number scrawled out in semi-neat, childish script. He traced each digit with his pointer finger, gentle enough he never had a chance to bend the paper. “The school hours are from eight to four, with actual school being in from nine to three. Dad stays the entire time, so you should be able to get in touch with him pretty easily.” Bucky respected that she left no room for argument and pondered ever allowing her and Natasha to be in the same room together. He cut that thought off at the root, not giving it time to grow very much as those two could probably take over the universe if he gave them five minutes and a paper clip.

He shook himself, lightly enough to pass it off as a shudder rolling down his spine. Focus, Barnes. “Have you thought about what your father might think about you playing matchmaker?”

She hummed a few lines from a song he dimly recognized from Fiddler on the Roof and broke out into a pleased smile. Her teeth were a little cramped on the bottom. “I overheard my Uncle Sam and my Uncle Tony making a bet on who could get Dad a date he’d actually like and I bet that I could one-up the both of them.” Sarah’s brow scrunched in frustration. “They laughed and did that thing adults do when they think a kid is just playing—,” she demonstrated by making her face all goopy and wide-eyed. “Okay, Sarah,” she mimicked. “You do that.”

She rolled her eyes hard enough to shift the tides. Sarah planted a hand on her hip and waved her notebook at him proudly. “I came prepared.”

Bucky wasn’t sure how to feel about being a wager placed in a bet of all things, but that didn’t stop him from wondering: “What made you pick me?”

Sarah seemed to have that answer already thought out, too. “Well,” she smiled, tucking away her little notebook into the back pocket of her pants so she could fold and unfold her fingers together. “My Dad’s an artist and he’s taught me a few things—I noticed you’ve got very nice facial features when I saw you a few aisles over: your eyes are really nice, too. You hum when your lost in thought—,” he didn’t think anyone had caught that over on the bread row and flushed lightly, “—and when that lady dropped a couple of tomatoes in produce, you ditched your basket immediately to help her pick them up, which means you're polite. Plus, you’re wearing a Star Wars t-shirt.”

He was, indeed, wearing a black t-shirt with the Star Wars insignia fading gold against the dark backdrop.

“I could just be wearing it because it’s aesthetically pleasing,” he pointed out, trying to recall if he’d seen her watching him before she first initiated contact. Bucky couldn’t remember spotting a Sarah-shaped figure out of the corner of his eye.

“But you’re not,” Sarah sing-songed, jabbing a finger at his keys, which were hooked to one of his belt loops: there was a shiny, silver Millennium Falcon keychain resting above Bucky’s thigh.Clever girl, he thought once more. “The biggest giveaway that you’re good is the fact that we’ve been standing here for at last ten minutes and you’ve not told me to screw off.”

He opened his mouth to say you’re just a kid, I wouldn’t say that and nosy you may be, you’ve not been rude and Bucky realized she was just proving her point even further.

“So,” Bucky murmured, waving for her to fall in at his left so he could grab the last few items on his list and still keep their conversation going. “If you win the bet, what do you get?”

“A pony,” Sarah said, “and infinite bragging rights until I die.” He snorted, as she sounded so much more thrilled about the latter than anything else. “Where to, Bucky?”

He glanced down and saw that he needed to hit the cereal aisle: Nat had texted him to get her Cocoa Puffs and Clint wanted these new root beer flavored Pop-Tarts in his quest to try every Pop-Tart flavor in existence. “Turn here, squirt,” he said.

“Excuse you,” Sarah huffed playfully. “I’m twelve years old and am most certainly not a squirt.”

Her actual age surprised him and, after squinting at her for a handful of seconds, Bucky could suddenly see it. Sarah held a maturity that most kids didn’t, speaking so well and never cutting corners when it came to getting the job she’d set out to do done. Still, she went wildly ecstatic at small victories and let drop information (like the bet) where, if it had been Bucky, he’d not have mentioned a thing until it possibly cropped up some ten years down the line at an anniversary dinner as an old, old joke.

“Okay, not squirt,” he compromised, chuckling when Sarah narrowed her eyes at him.

Bucky gently placed the Cocoa Puffs in the cart, being sure to not get the generic brand since Nat swore up and down she could taste a difference. He strode a few feet more, scanning for the proper package and was just throwing the desired box of the dubious breakfast pastries in the cart when there was a yelp from behind him.

A woman with honey brown hair down to her elbows came power-walking their way, going still for a moment the instant she spotted his small companion. “Sarah!” she called, deflating with relief. When she reached them, her hands immediately started to check Sarah for any signs of hurt, her ice-blue irises searching and memorizing. “You almost gave me a heart-attack, little one.” Her voice was accented, something Eastern European.

Bucky couldn’t help but ask: “Are you her mother?”

The woman snorted, though she did not seem put-off. “No, I’m her neighbor slash baby-sitter.”

“Unofficial sister, you mean, Wanda,” Sarah corrected, sharing a wink with the woman. Wanda cupped the side of Sarah’s head affectionately, stooping to press a kiss along her brow.

“Just because you’re acting so cute now does not excuse your running away like that,” Wanda said. Her voice never sharpened with anger—there was just a deep worry that Bucky recognized from using on his sisters about a million times in the past. Sarah withered, a bit of her perpetual brightness going away.

He felt bad that she was getting chastised, even worse that it was because of her mission she’d been drawn away even longer than he likely knew. Sarah had dropped hints, after all, that she’d trailed him for a few minutes prior to their introductions near the multitude of ice cream buckets.

“Um, I know it’s not my place, but she’s actually been hanging out with me for the last few minutes,” Bucky said and, when Sarah shook her head frantically from right behind Wanda, he altered what was originally going to leave his mouth and changed it to this: “She saw my t-shirt and my keychain and we’ve been talking about how Kylo-Ren is nothing but a emo baby and totally didn’t need to kill Han Solo in The Force Awakens.”

Sarah practically deflated in relief at Bucky helping her out. “Crylo-Ren, more like,” she said and if Wanda wasn’t watching the two of them so closely, Bucky definitely would have high-fived her. He settled for grinning sheepishly.

“Seriously,” he showed Wanda the flats of his hands, “We just…,” Bucky made a rolling gesture with his hand.

“Got to nerding out,” Wanda finished, smiling timidly at him. “Well, I hate to cut this short, but we’re sort of in a rush.”

“Wha—?” Sarah squawked.

Wanda looked at her. “I’ve got to pick up Pietro from work before I take you home.”

Bucky wasn’t sure if this excuse was true or if it was a way to get them away from a thirty-three year old man who’d been moving around Whole Foods with a kid he’d never before met until less than an hour ago at his side. Put like that, Bucky totally understood her weariness and nodded, putting on his best smile, full of teeth and charm. “It was nice talking with you, Sarah.” He caught Wanda’s eye. “Be careful on your drive, yeah?”

“We will,” Wanda said, studying him for a brief moment. She nodded at whatever she found and put a hand on Sarah’s shoulder, leading her off to, presumably, wherever she ditched their basket of groceries in her panic to find the momentarily missing child.

Sarah, as she was being tugged around the corner, mouthed call him! He might have taken it for a joke had she not shot him the universal gesture for I’m watching you.

He shot her a salute that seemed to pacify her.

Sparing a few minutes to do a loop back to the cold section of the store, he swapped out his near-melted tubs of ice cream for a pair fresh out the freezer, wasting no more time in heading off towards the checkout counter. Bucky waited until he got back to his apartment before he did anything rash. Anything rash in this case being putting the groceries away—the ice cream first— and then sitting his phone and the phone number on the counter and chewing his nails down to the beds.

How was he supposed to even start a conversation? Hello, yes, your daughter basically gave me your E-Harmony information in the middle of the grocery store and because I’m a scrub and I like your face, I thought I’d give you a ring. Bucky grabbed either side of the fridge and let his head drop onto the metal surface heavily.

“What am I going to do?” he asked of the universe as a whole.

The universe laughed at him and did not reply.

This could go several ways, he reasoned:

One— Steve Rogers could be the best thing since jarred peanut butter and Bucky might just find someone to love, Queen reference not intended.

Two—Steve Roger’s daughter could have boosted him far too much and he could just be a simple, uninteresting man with quite the fantastic body. (Bucky felt like an ass for thinking this, feeling shallow and terrible and a bunch of other adjectives with negative connotations.)

Three—Steve Rogers, the moment the call went through, could freak the hell out and start ranting about lawsuits and Stranger Danger and things along these lines. Bucky didn’t want to have to move to Moscow or something just to escape a father on a protective rampage. He just didn’t have the funds or will-power to do so.

Four— he could have gone on for hours and groaned into the cool surface of the fridge.

Bucky chanced a look at his watch and found it to be just seven minutes before four o’clock. He snatched up his phone and repeated his earlier words: “Fuck it.”

He discovered the flaw in his plan as the phone began to ring against his ear: it wasn’t until he’d launched the call that Bucky realized he still had no idea what in the shit he was supposed to say.

He’d have to wing it, then.

The line connected on the third ring. “Hello?” a deep voice chimed. My god he’s got a voice like melted butter oh my god.

Bucky slapped a hand over his mouth to muffle the soft fuck that slipped out despite his best efforts to remain cool. “Uh, hi,” he said by means of recovery. “This is probably going to be the weirdest phone call you take this year, but, uh, my name is James Barnes and a sweet little girl named Sarah gave me your number…?”

There was the distinct sound of something solid thunking against a flat something. “Oh, jeez,” Steve Rogers whispered, muffled.

“…did you just face-plant a table?”

“…no?”

He couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in his throat, a loud, nervous noise. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“Thanks,” Steve muttered wryly. “Where did you say spoke with my daughter?”

“I didn’t,” Bucky said, though he believed Steve knew as much. “She, ah, may or may not have cornered me in the frozen food’s section at Whole Foods as to whether I was in a relationship and what my sexual orientation was before she gave me your number, so you should know she’s very thorough.”

A series of thunks started up, repetitive knocks into wood. “I’m going to have words with her when I get home from work.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky told him, meaning it. “She was very polite. The way she talked about you—it’s pretty darn clear she loves you a lot.”

“And I love her,” Steve said, so fond that Bucky’s teeth hurt. He was going to have cavities by the end of this and once he’d hung up the phone, he was only going to make his situation worse by attempting to drown himself in both buckets of ice cream for Clint and Nat to find him when they got home from work. “God, I’m so sorry, James. Is she there with you, I don’t know, giving you the eyes so you called me?”

“No,” he murmured, sinking down into one of the chairs congregated around the kitchen island. “No, she just talked to me about you for a bit and I got curious.”

“She talked about me?”

“Only good things,” Bucky assured, running a thumb over his lower lip. He caught the nail between his teeth and gave it an anxious bite. “Like I said: she’s a great kid.”

“She is,” the other man agreed. “But you honestly cannot grasp how apologetic I am right now.”

There was a small thread of a thought that had taken shape in Bucky’s head during their phone conversation. He had taken a look at it, weighed it in his hands, and decided to give it a tug before he could up and change his mind. “If you’re so sorry about what happened, you could always take me out to dinner?”

Silence.

More silence.

So much silence that Bucky’s conscience was about to start singing the Jeopardy! theme song in anticipation of what would no doubt be an firm dismissal.

“Yeah,” Steve breathed. “Yeah, why not.”

Bucky punched air, nearly toppling backward out of his chair in the process. He cleared his throat, which helped to pitch his voice down an octave or two. “When would be good for you?”

“How about tonight?”

“Sure,” Bucky’s big dumb mouth was saying even as his eyes were going wide and he felt the blood drain out of his face. “That sounds wonderful. You want to pick the place and get back to me?”

Steve agreed this sounded like the best idea and they made awkward goodbyes, Steve apologizing no less than six more times. “Wait, wait, wait!” The other man exclaimed, just avoiding Bucky pressing the red end call button. “How will I know it’s you?”

He stood. “You’ll know.”

He thumbed the call to a close, nearly hurtling over the counter to haul ass into the living room to jerk aside the curtains. The lighting was best in here, bright and natural and allowing for no shadows to hide Bucky’s admittedly fine features. He tapped his camera application, switching the camera to front and snapped a photo of himself. He was grinning, hair slicked back with a few stray strands having fluttered onto his forehead. His eyes, looking near-silver, were crinkled enough to be considered both attractive and endearing.

Bucky sent Steve the selfie and waited.

A text came two minutes later. It bore only one word: WOW!!!!

And then the panic settled in.

Bucky didn’t date. He’d not had time for it, nor did he really have much interest in it, given that his job pretty much consumed a majority of his time. Of course, he’d done one night stands before and he’d had few friends with benefits situations over the years, but… He liked Sarah. And he liked what he knew of Steve. He wanted to get to know him better. So much better.

He wanted to try for something more.

(Steve had seen a picture of him and his first thought was an all-caps wow with five exclamation points—that did wonders for Bucky’s ego, but it also helped to further drive him off the edge ofcalm.)

Bucky seized his phone from where he’d laid it on the counter and jabbed the number for his voice of reason.

“Nat, I’m going to have an aneurism, I swear to God,” he blurted the second the call connected.

He could hear her eyebrows slowly rise. “Calm down, James, I can pick up a gallon of rocky road on my way home. It’s nothing to knock a couple years off your life over.”

“What? No!” Bucky exclaimed, pinching the bridge of his nose nearly hard enough to bruise. “I have a date and he’s really sweet and I think I could really, really like him and I don’t want to screw up anything.”

Natasha was silent for over ten seconds, likely trying to make sense of him. “Since when were you interested in anyone? Other than, yanno, your left hand.”

“Fuck you, Nat,” Bucky snapped without heat.

“You, too, James,” she retorted sweetly. Like Nat had gone and shifted gears in a car, her voice launched back to its dry, I’m in business tone. “What’s his name, huh?”

“Steve. Steve Rogers—he’s an art teacher at Brooklyn Heights Elementary and he’s got a twelve year old daughter named Sarah. I’m not sure about the mother, if she left or what, but…,” Bucky shrugged, though he was fully aware Nat couldn’t see him do so. They were so in-tune with one another, always had been since they were a pair of middle school twerps blowing spit balls at each other when the teachers weren’t looking.

Natasha hummed, as though Steve passed some sort of test Bucky had no clue he was taking. “How’d you two meet?”

He worried his lower lip between his teeth. He made a low noise, long and drawn out—a step away from a groan. “We… um, technically haven’t.”

A glass was settled down firmly. “Repeat?”

Bucky ran through a short synapsis of what had gone down at Whole Foods—from Sarah’s interrogation to the I’m watching you all the way up to Steve agreeing to take him out for an apology dinner and Steve’s text.

“Wow,” chimed Clint’s voice from nowhere. “That sounds like some Days of Our Lives shit.”

Bucky let out a strangled sound. “I thought you were both at work!”

“Boss let us out early,” Clint told him, his grin audible. “We decided to grab an early dinner. Don’t worry, we were going to bring you a doggy bag, but now it looks like we don’t have to since you’re getting eats of your own.”

“What time is your date, anyway?”

He went back to the fridge and pressed his forehead against it again. “I don’t know, he said he’d text me a time and place.”

“Okay,” Nat said, “then for now, why don’t you go upstairs and take a hot shower. Scrub everywhere, James: you sound nervous so I’m going to go and assume this man one fine specimen.”

She was right. He just needed to get his head on straight. “Okay. Okay. Will you both be home soon?”

“In like twenty minutes?”

Bucky could last twenty minutes, right?

( * * * )

(He nearly fell in the shower in his haste to do as Nat suggested and scrub everywhere. Bucky had accidentally fumbled the bar of soap when he was lathering up the soft skin of his inner thighs and working down his calves. When he bent to pluck it up, he didn’t account for the suds that hadn’t completely washed away and it threw his center of gravity off so bad, he almost brained himself on the faucet and face planted Clint’s scrubbing, fru-fry pouf and Natasha’s vast array of hair care products.

It had been four and a half minutes.)

( * * * )

Natasha and Clint were piled on Bucky’s bed, both armed with spoons and eating his ice cream.

“If I wasn’t about to shit my pants right now, I’d totally fight you both,” he grumbled, holding up a blue button-up and a deep green one. The former had a little wrinkle near the collar, and the latter had a string that looked like it could start an awful unraveling process—he tossed them away into the growing pile of other clothes that had amassed at the foot of his bed.

“Sure you would, dear,” Nat deadpanned, holding his eyes as she scooped up a massive heap of rocky road and shoved the spoon in her mouth. It had to have given her some sort of brain freeze or in the very least struck a sensitive nerve in one of her teeth. She didn’t show any sign of discomfort. At all.

It was just after five-thirty and Steve had wondered if it would be alright if they met up at some place with so many accents Bucky had no hope of saying it the right way. The time they were supposed to meet was seven on the dot. Bucky had done a quick Google search for what sort of dress code the restaurant had and he couldn’t find any established thing, but he saw a bunch of reviews below the address listing and found that the New York Times had reviewed the place for god sakes.

He moved to the small section of his closet that was specifically not leather, concert slash graphic tees, or anything that looked close to casual.

This left him with three suits to choose from—charcoal gray, black, or steely silver. Bucky held all three out and gave them a Vanna White wave, cocking an eyebrow in question.

“Wear the black one,” Clint told him with a wave of his spoon. “Those pants make your ass look bomb as hell.” Nat and Bucky turned to stare at him, their focus only intensifying when Clint lifted and dropped a shoulder, unbothered. “What? I’m a straight man who’s comfortable enough with his masculinity to say that sort of thing. Plus, straight I might be, blind I am not.”

Bucky snorted. “Thanks, Barton.”

“Go get some, champ.”

(After he tugged on a pair of glossy black shoes, the deep green button-up he’d discarded earlier, and applied product to his hair as well as spritzed a touch of cologne along the line of his neck, Bucky left to do just that.)

( * * * )

Bucky arrived at the place Steve suggested twenty minutes before their scheduled time because he literally could not stand to wait around his apartment anymore: if he would have stuck around longer than he did, Bucky was sure Clint and Nat were going to break out bags of popcorn and start narrating his quick descent into insanity.

He didn’t want to fuck this up.

Seriously.

Was this pathetic? Getting to the intended destination so much earlier than the established time?

Holy hell, Bucky was going to puke.

He tried not to, though: Nat said if things went well, she’d go out the moment he got home and buy him three tubs of ice cream that were all Bucky’s. That was as good an incentive as any to keep collected.

“Get it together, you weak-kneed son of a bitch,” he whispered to himself, slowly straightening up to avoid a huge rush of blood to his head and possibly even a spout of tunnel vision. “It’s gonna be fine. Everything is gonna be—”

He felt a gentle hand touch his shoulder and turned. Bucky’s breath caught in his throat.

Steve Rogers was looked so much better in real-time rather than in a photograph. He could see very faint laughter lines around his eyes, streaks of shinier, more golden hair atop his corn-yellow head, a blush staining his features from hairline to chin and likely even lower. Bucky had to stamp down on the thought of Steve possibly being a full-body blusher right then and there.

“Hi,” Steve said, dipping his head shyly. 

“H-Hey,” Bucky said. “It’s, ah, good to finally meet you in person.”

He flicked his eyes up to Bucky’s face and they stayed there for a long moment. “Yeah,” Steve murmured. “It is.”

Steve was wore a three piece suit, navy pants and jacket with a white button-up to contrast against the dark blue. His loafers were sleek and brown and Bucky was suddenly glad trusted his gut when it came to picking something from his pricier range of clothes. He opened his mouth to tell Steve how nice he looked as he didn’t think it was polite to say my mouth is watering over your arm muscles or you’re every wet dream I ever had as a teenager holy shit three seconds after you formally meet someone the first time.

But was stopped.

By a bouquet of flowers being shoved in his face.

“Wha—?” he breathed, breaking off onto a soft string of laughter as the flowers were passed from Steve’s hands to his. “Steve, you didn’t have to.”

“James, I wanted to,” the other man pressed anxiously. “I just feel so lousy for what happened…”

Bucky smiled softly and he had no doubt if he looked in a mirror, right then, he’d see his eyes glowing with fondness. “Well, thank you,” he murmured. “And it’s Bucky, by the way.”

“Bucky?” Steve echoed, bemused.

“My name is James Buchannan Barnes, but everyone calls me Bucky, instead. Well, all except for my friend Natasha, but that’s only because she thinks it sounds like a kid’s name.”

The right corner of Steve’s mouth, far plusher and pinker than that photograph depicted, lifted higher than the left side. “I’ve never met a Bucky before.”

“That’s funny,” Bucky grinned. “Sarah told me the same thing.” He jerked his head towards the mouth of the restaurant, dipping his nose into the sweet-smelling blooms that were a rich, wine-red as he set them forward to truly begin their evening.

The bistro Steve had chosen was a dimly lit establishment full of candles and waiters wearing suits nicer than something in an Armani advertisement. Though Bucky wasn’t exactly under-dressed, he could literally smell money in the air and hear the sound of coins jingling as ladies in diamonds and pearls laughed nasally and men with long noses drank their wine.

Steve looked about as uncomfortable as Bucky felt.

“It used to be much less of an, erm…,” his date began, the rounds of his ears reddening.

“Rich man’s joint?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed, a hand at the middle of Bucky’s back as he pulled out a chair and gestured for Bucky to sit down. He sank onto the surprisingly hard leather of the seat and shot Steve a small, inviting smile as he settled across from Bucky.

They were given leather-bound menus where each page was nicely settled in a leather frame and laminated as to not be ripped or otherwise torn. “Vould ju like to sample a bit of wine zis evening, monsieurs?” their waiter prompted in a heavy French accent. The man even had a receding, dark hairline and a thin mustache that branched from under his nose, around his lips and almost down to his chin. For the life of him, Bucky couldn’t tell if the spiel was false or not.

(If the way Steve was squinting at the man was any indication, he couldn’t either.)

“Um, would you mind giving us a few minutes? Ah, s’il vous plait?” Steve asked, shooting their waiter a small smile as he cracked open his menu and those baby blues began to flick over the pages.

Bucky, once he took a mental photo of Steve, preserved in amber, and pressed it to the most precious corners of his head, did the same.

Their food choices looked like complete gibberish. What the hell even was Salad of Flowering Quince? Or Point Reyes Blue, for that matter? “Steve,” Bucky said slowly without lifting his eyes from the menu in case the words decided to rearrange themselves to even more complex titles. “Please don’t think any less of me for saying this, but sitting here, looking at this menu that probably cost more to produce than I am paid by the week, half of these names either sound like bad boy bands or foreign ballets.”

Steve bumped his foot under the table, a gentle tap of their toes. This easy touch had Bucky lifting his head and he found Steve blushing fiercely, his expression tense and his eyes holding Bucky’s imploringly. “I swear the last time I was here, the fanciest thing on the menu was a BLT.”

They held each other’s gaze, neither blinking even as Bucky lowered his menu.

“Do you want to go to that pizza place down the block before Ratatouille gets back?” Bucky prompted finally.

“God yes,” Steve breathed, clapping his menu shut and practically leaping up from the table. They swept their coats up from the backs of their chairs and high-tailed it out of hoity-toity wonderland before anyone could utter a word of protest.

They ended up at a brightly lit place called Amore’s where the moment they stepped inside, the smell of garlic bread wrapped around them and settled warmly in their nostrils. Neither of them pulled their jackets back on, and Bucky even unbuttoned two of the uppermost buttons on his shirt as to look a little more casual amongst a bunch of college kids that paid them no mind and a few families eating things Bucky actually had to capacity to pronounce.

Their waitress, thank God, had no dubious accent: she was about as old as one of Bucky’s middle-aged aunts and nearly entirely grey haired. She smelt of cigarettes and talcum powder and said the listing of drinks was from an array of Coca Cola products, with water, hot tea and coffee if they didn’t like any of those.

“Coke’ll be fine, please, ma’am,” Steve said.

“Same,” Bucky told her kindly. “Please and thank you.”

“Lord’s name,” she said, fanning herself with a tiny grin lighting up her features. “I wish all my customers were as sweet and pretty as you two boys.”

Steve flushed further, giving the ketchup bottle already on their table a run for its money. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to come back here more often, yeah?”

She jabbed a finger at him, playfully stern. “I’m holding you to that.”  

The instant she was gone, Steve breathed: “Are you sure this place is alright?”

“Yes,” Bucky declared, flashing a gentle smile. “Steve, it’s perfect. You literally could have told me to meet you in a 7/11 parking lot for slushies and nachos and I would have shown up.”  

This, at least, seemed to ground Steve more than anything Bucky had uttered thus far.

They settled on a meat lover’s supreme as they both had big appetites and honestly it wasn’t going to break either of them splitting the price of one pizza. Bucky rucked a hand through his hair, not so much as to completely rub out the entire product he’d so meticulously applied, but enough to give him a casual couple of strands curling onto his forehead.

(His companion seemed to appreciate the effort.)

“Before anything is said,” Steve blurted, watching their waitress disappear into the kitchen to put in their order, “I just want you to know I’ve not done… this—,” a gesture between himself and Bucky, “for a really, really long time. And,” he swallowed, looking extremely nervous, now, and Bucky leaned in, trying to catch eyes so he could cradle them with his own. “And I have to put my foot down right here at the starting line: Sarah comes first. If everything goes well between you and I, but you don’t have any interest in my kid, I’m afraid I’ll have to go.”

“Steve,” Bucky murmured, taking a chance and reaching across the speckled tabletop to take cover Steve’s hands with both of his own. “Did it slip your mind that Sarah was basically the one to set this up?” He applied pressure, tenderly, to the dips of Steve’s knuckles. “If I didn’t have any interest in getting to know you and your daughter, I wouldn’t have called.”

He deflated, just as Sarah had when she got out of trouble with Wanda.

Another prolonged moment of quiet. It didn’t worry Bucky, the lulls and rises in conversation. He waited for Steve to gather his footing and was trying not to stare too hard at the golden band on Steve’s finger when Steve said quietly: “You can ask, you know. Get the hard stuff out the way.”

He didn’t have to think too much about what the hard stuff might be. Bucky arranged their hands so their fingers were linked together, the pair of them curling forward over the table like sunflowers trying to find the most brilliant source of light. "What happened to her mom?" Bucky wondered gently. 

Steve picked apart his straw wrapping until it was nothing but a white mosaic against the gray and black backdrop of the table. "She died about six years ago," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. Bucky could understand that well enough: sometimes briefly shutting down made spilling the most painful of information a touch easier. "Cancer. We didn't realize she was sick until she collapsed one morning." And, like an after-thought, he mumbled: "Her name was Peggy."

"I'm so sorry," Bucky murmured, empathetic. "I know that sort of situation can be rough: I lost my Ma to breast cancer when I was a kid." 

“It’s not been easy,” Steve sighed, dragging a heavy hand over his face. “She and I had been high-school sweethearts: we got married right out of school, went to the same college, graduated and got jobs—she worked with an intelligence agency and I picked up work as an art teacher at the local elementary school. We bought a house and we had Sarah. We were happy.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky repeated, softer this time. “I know you’ve probably heard it a thousand times before and you’ll hear it again and by this point it’s got to sound hollow, but I mean it. I wish you didn’t have to endure all that.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, a touch glassy eyed. Bucky gripped his hands a little tighter and was surprised to find that Steve was gripping him right back.

“This is probably going to sound rude, but please do not cry on me—if I see a tear, I will start crying, too. I can’t help it. It’s a curse.”

 Steve sniffled, crinkling his nose. “That sounds like some curse. We talking a Sleeping Beauty type deal or a Grimm’s fairy tale sort of thing?”

“Probably going to be leaning towards the left, here,” Bucky said, because he could not say I’d be Aurora if it was you who kissed me awake. Steve had opened up to him and Bucky realized that that in and of itself was significant: it was obvious Steve was nervous about their date since he’d been holding himself tightly and reservedly, his foot tapping beneath the table and so on. Even if they didn’t work out, Bucky wanted to make this night a good one for Steve, who was sweet and kind and had lost a great deal and still carried on.

He started by saying: “Sarah told me you lived in Brooklyn you’re entire life?”

“Wow,” Steve laughed, the sound bursting from his suddenly, like he hadn’t even been aware it was waiting to be released. “She was thorough. Yeah, I have. I lived in a little apartment in Brooklyn Heights with my Ma. It’s… it’s just a place you can’t leave, yanno?”

“I know,” Bucky smiled, taking a sip of his Coke. “I was born and bred here, too. Lived on Fort Greene.  Thankfully, my Pop had a pretty permanent position with the Army and we didn’t have to move around like all the other families. My Ma really liked it around here, anyway—the people, the culture, all of it. And since my old man treated her like she’d single-handedly hung the moon, he would have fought tooth and nail to keep us from going anyway.”

A few notches of tension had drained away, allowing Steve’s shoulders to settle down at a more appropriate altitude away from his ears. Bucky squeezed his hand, encouragingly. “That’s so weird,” he murmured. “The fact that we were so close and yet we never met.”

Bucky agreed, nodding to show this. “We probably got looped into two different school systems. I know I would have remembered you.”

Steve clucked his tongue, his shoulders rising up a little from where they’d retreated. Bucky felt his stomach drop. What did I do? You idiot, Barnes! “I don’t know,” Steve murmured, so self-depreciating Bucky kinda wanted to launch a petition to make Steve Rogers Day a nationally celebrated holiday to show how much the man across from him was cared for. “I wasn’t always like this.”

On the word this, he withdrew one of his hands to flap it at himself, at his spectacular jaw line, his shoulders, his abdomen, and beyond.

“I used to be maybe ninety pounds soaking wet. My best friend Sam—,” would this be the Uncle Sarah had mentioned? “—would tell you I was a, and I quote, ‘Yappy blond Chihuahua with a bone to pick with the entire world.’ High school rolled around and I started to work out and puberty plowed me like a truck. Before I realized I’d changed, I woke up one day and I saw a different person standing in front of the mirror.”

Bucky blinked. “And?”

Steve blinked back. “And what?”

“And?” Bucky repeated. “Steve, I don’t care what you look like—I mean, don’t get it twisted: you’re probably the most attractive man I’ve ever seen—,” he got a great deal of pleasure out of seeing the rounds of Steve’s cheeks flare a bright, brilliant pink, “but in the long run, what’s going to matter is how your insides look.” He clamped his mouth closed abruptly. “Ah, shit, that came out wrong.”

But Steve was smiling, this soft, dopey smile that made Bucky almost feel as though a flock of birds was being released into his gut. “I know what you meant,” Steve murmured.

“That aside… pictures. I demand pictures of this young Steve. I’m sorry, it’s a law and you don’t seem like the sort of guy who breaks the law.”

Steve snorted. “I’ve been arrested half a dozen times.”

Bucky took a moment to chew on that, long enough for Steve to tug his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and thumb through Facebook for a particular album. “I’d bet my left arm that all the arrests were for stupidly noble causes.” When Steve said nothing, continuing to flick deeper and deeper into his profile, Bucky jabbed a triumphant finger at him. “Ha! They totally were, weren’t they? You see a guy trying to slip something into a girl’s drink at a bar and then decided to fight him?”

For his guessing game, he got Steve’s phone shoved in his face, a total parallel to the bit he’d pulled with the flowers, of which were gently resting atop his coat on the vacant bench space to his right. “Shut up and look at the pictures, Barnes.”

He obeyed and found himself falling quiet.

Steve hadn’t lied about being smaller. Hell, a whole lot smaller, but there was a delicate nature to him even as he still exuded a tough as nails attitude: his bones were closer to the surface, his fair skin appearing more so. God, his eyes were so damn blue and that thick fringe of lashes hadn’t changed.  

“Like I said: I would have remembered you,” he claimed, dragging a tender digit over the digital photo. Bucky peeked up at Steve only to find him looking positively gobsmacked. “What?” Bucky asked, shameless. “Steve, either way, you’re gorgeous—you’ve… you’ve got artist hands. I know that’s because you are an artist, but here—,” he pointed at the phone, “—your fingers look slender and delicate. And here, Jesus, your cheekbones…”

If he made Steve blush any harder, all the blood from his body would stop circulating to head north.   

Steve was granted a slight recovery period by their waitress bringing out their pizza, settling the raised, circular platter between them with a twist to her lips. “Holler if you need anything, sweets.”

Their chorus of “thank you, ma’am” only seemed to make her smirk more.

They turned to personal anecdotes:

Bucky told him about the time he’d lost his youngest sister, Grace, at the Central Park Zoo and found her at the giraffe enclosure, getting her face licked by a huge, purple tongue. He offered up the story of how he’d met Clint—he’d passed out in the dumpster outside his and Nat’s apartment and they’d found him only after they’d tossed their garbage in and heard a low, muffled swear from within the trash. Nat had said: “Oh look, one of our own.”

“Trash?” Bucky had asked.

“Trash,” Nat had confirmed.

“Fuck you,” Clint had grunted, poking out the top of the dumpster. He took one look at Nat and cursed again. “Awh, pretty lady, no.”

 He even told Steve he’d cried like a baby during The Fault in Our Stars when he was dragged to the theaters to see it with his sisters.

“Don’t feel bad,” Steve said, licking grease off his thumb in a way that wasn’t meant to be obscene, but sure looked it to Bucky. He kind of wanted to rub a slice of pizza over his face to see if Steve would lick him, too. “I was just as bad when I took Sarah to see it. She said she thought the guy who played Augustus was pretty cute.”

A thing he’d noticed about Steve was this:

Each story he recounted for Bucky had Sarah at the heart of it— how they’d found a dog with a broken leg and patched it up; how he helped her build a baking soda and vinegar volcano for her third grade science fair project and her Uncle Tony had rolled up with an actual volcano about the size of a basketball that, when a little button was pressed, actually erupted with real, boiling hot lava; how, when she had her first lady cycle, Steve had literally almost broke down the bathroom door because she wouldn’t say anything, but he could hear her crying inside.

"I'm sorry," Steve said, soft and sheepish as he wrapped up his retelling of the time he and Sarah had gone into the elementary school after hours to paint because she’d asked him and he just couldn’t say no. "I don't mean to talk about Sarah so much... I know how it can be a turn off." 

Bucky squeezed the hand of Steve’s he’d yet to let go of throughout the entirety of the meal. "She's your little girl, Steve. I'd be worried if you didn't talk about her. I have three little sisters that I absolutely adore—I get it.”

He would work for the rest of his life to see a smile of such high wattage grace the features of Steve Rogers once more.

( * * * )

“Did you walk here?”

Steve nodded, once they’d demolished the entirety of the pizza and paid for their meal. “I’m about four blocks that way.”

Bucky smiled. “Small world,” he said, “I’m about five.”

He was given a punch-drunk little smile, that cotton candy-pink mouth curling up at the corners. “Wanna walk me home?”

“Yeah, alright,” Bucky agreed.

And so they walked.

The night was mild, temperature-wise. Given it was November, the air lacked the humidity that summer packed yet it wasn’t cold enough for them to see their breaths in-front of their faces. This didn’t stop them from walking close, bumping elbows and brushing their knuckles every few steps. After this happened for the thirty-second time, Steve finally slid their fingers together, his palm warm and broad against Bucky’s.

They walked on.

When the silence stretched too long, not uncomfortable—never uncomfortable—Bucky said: “Hey, did you get those pants in space?”

Steve slanted a funny look his way, a lock of gold fluttering onto his forehead. Which, for the record, was totally unfair.

“Because your ass is out of this world.”

They halted on the sidewalk, their elbows bumping, and they stared each other down, blue eyes sinking into the gray. Both of their faces were smoothed over, void of any expression whatsoever until Steve literally could not retain his laughter and he cracked.  When truly wracked with amusement, Steve laughed with his entire body: his back arched, his eyes crinkled up, a little wrinkle formed in his nose as his mouth split into a huge grin, a hand coming up to clutch at the right side of his chest.

He was beautiful and Bucky, because he had no sense of self-preservation at all, blurted as much.

Steve, his impressive shoulders still shaking slightly, sobered. His smile never faded. “You’re not so bad yourself, sweetheart.”

Bucky did not swoon. He swayed. Gracefully. He moved forward to wrap Steve up in a tight hug that allowed him to bury his face in the side of Steve’s neck as his cheeks flushed a delicious cherry-red. When they parted, Bucky curled an arm around Steve’s trimmed waist and kept his limb there, holding him close. It slowed down their pace a bit, but nothing to the point of being labeled turtles.

It was so much better, to enjoy the night with someone who’s company he enjoyed. Though the ambient light kept them from seeing any stars, the sky was a clean, inky black over them, blanketing the city in a cot of cool, pleasant autumn air.  

They were halfway down a street with bare cherry blossom limbs lining the sidewalk when Steve brought their steps to a stop in front of a brownstone with a pleasant wreath on the door. “This is me,” he said and Bucky didn’t think he’d imagined the note of sorrow in Steve’s tone.

“It’s nice,” Bucky said, sweeping his eyes up the worn brick and the neat paint coloring the shutters, and the pair of trees with only a handful of russet leafs hanging on.

Steve made no move to move away, to fish his keys out of his pocket, or to alert anyone inside to their arrival. “I had a great time,” he murmured, toeing the fine line between arm’s length and Bucky’s personal space. Bucky believed it to only be right that he step across that median for him, so close that there was only a finger’s width between their chests.

If Steve pushed him away, he’d allow himself to be pushed. If not, though.

“I’m really glad we went out tonight, Stevie,” Bucky murmured, curling the hand not in Steve’s to the warm line of his waist beneath the open bottom of his coat.

“Me, too,” Steve whispered, sealing what distance went uncharted. Their fronts aligned, an electric line of heat between them, warming Bucky up from the core—he didn’t think the cold would ever bother him again.

He tipped in until their foreheads were pressed together and their noses brushed. His breath was shaking when he took one. “If I were to ask to kiss you, what would you say?”

“Yes,” Steve said, his hands flying up to bracket Bucky’s face.

Without further ceremony, he was hauled in so their mouths fused together. Steve smiled widely into the kiss, which offered Bucky the opportunity to slide his tongue into the hot velvet of Steve’s mouth, his toes curling when Steve let out a soft moan and tugged him in impossibly closer. He tasted like mint. One of Steve’s hands curled into the hairs at the nape of Bucky’s neck, holding him in place even as Bucky tilted his head just so and changed the angle so his eyelashes brushed Steve’s fantastic cheekbones.

He would have stayed twined around Steve for the rest of the night and, arguably, forever, had they not been disturbed by the porch light flicking on and off over their heads.

They parted with a damp sound that shot right down to Bucky’s groin. "Oh no," Steve whispered in absolute horror, curling his hands a bit tighter to Bucky's waist as though if he just put his focus on holding him, to expand the warm bubble they'd formed around themselves over the length of the evening, everything else would just fall to the back-burner, muffled. Irrelevant. 

There was a bluesy sort of song starting up at top volume from one of the upstairs windows, the window itself sliding open near-noiselessly. Bucky wondered if someone had oiled it recently. 

Steve, pointedly, closed his eyes. "Buck, I hope whatever prison I get sent to offers conjugal visits..."

That took Bucky aback, in the good sort of way, given Steve had literally blushed fiercely at holding hands for Christssakes and now—

"I'VE BEEN REALLY TRYYYYYYIN', BABY. TRYIN' TO HOLD BACK THESE FEELINGS FOR SO LONG...," came Marvin Gaye's voice, loud and clear from a wireless speaker that appeared in settled the window-frame. 

"...because I'm going to commit murder." 

An obnoxious round of wolf-whistling struck up from the window to the left as a man with a dark goatee and wild hair peered down at them, on the verge of actually falling out and down into the street. "GET IT, ROGERS! YEOW!" 

"Steve, I'm so sorry!" chimed the sweet voice of a woman from the same window as the man. Her hair was strawberry blonde and neat, tied back in a ponytail. She sounded out of breath. "Tony runs fast when he puts his mind to it." 

“Holy shit! She did it! Ha! Sam and I owe your daughter a pony!” the man declared. “Actually, I owe her all the ponies since I bet she couldn’t find you a date that you’d like.”

Bucky had honestly forgotten about the bet and could only shrug when Steve lifted an eyebrow at him, then turned his face towards the man with the goatee. “Why were you and my daughter making bets like that?”

“For science, Rogers. For science.”

So this was Uncle Tony. Huh.  

“But if it makes you feel better, Sam was in on it, too!”

Given Steve closed his eyes tightly and went through a series of calming breaths, Bucky didn’t think he was pacified in the least. A dark-skinned man peaked out the window with the wireless music player, grinning hugely—he had, Bucky noticed, a gap between his two front teeth.  

“I’m glad you got our boy home before his bedtime!” he called down.

“Murder,” Steve said miserably. “I’m gonna do it.”

“Nah, you’re not,” Bucky countered fondly. “You’ll probably go inside and gossip with them.”

“No, they’ll sit me down and I’ll be interrogated until I tell them everything,” he grumbled in return.

"Quick!" Sam shouted, jabbing a finger at Bucky. "Star Wars—prequels or original trilogy?"

Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Originals. Anakin's man-pain gets annoying after the first ten minutes of Attack of the Clones and besides, young Harrison Ford is a gift." 

A small nod, like Sam was digesting this. “Best Sherlock Holmes—Downey or Cumberbatch?”

“I physically cannot make that choice,” he said, frowning. “I mean, Downey was a boss as Sherlock and he had awesome chemistry with Jude Law so that made the films a thousand times better. But at the same time, Ben C is Ben C. Over-rated, yeah, but he really does well at showing Sherlock’s anxiety and his love for John.”

 Bucky was shot one last, very serious prompt: "What color... are Lily Potter née Evan's eyes?" 

"Green." 

“KEEP HIM!” Sam bellowed before Bucky had entirely finished answering. “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STEVE, KEEP HIM!”

Steve swayed closer, dropping his head onto Bucky’s shoulder. “Alright, I lied. He’s going to be the first to die.” Bucky barked a laugh, cupping the back of Steve’s skull. He gently carded his fingers through Steve’s feather-soft hair, pleased to know that it really did feel as fluffy as it looked.

The front door swung inward and Wanda was on the other side, her smile wide even as there was visible strain around her eyes. "Before you kill anyone, Sarah and I were just hanging out, watching History Channel when Sam dropped by and when I told him you were out, he texted Tony and Tony came over and I called Pepper so she could serve as damage control. Please don't fire me: your daughter loves my mac-and-cheese." She released this lengthy straight of words in a single breath. 

Some of the tension dropped out of Steve's shoulders, especially when Wanda’s smile became less brittle and more hopeful. “I would never fire you,” he told her. “You’ve done a lot for my little family over the years.”

She deflated, relief bleeding out of her as she sent Bucky a nod, as though all the pieces were falling in place for her and she understood the real reason he and Sarah had chatted in Whole Foods. “You can come out now, little one!”

And that was when Sarah burst from around the corner and skidded into both Steve and Bucky’s stomachs. She threw an arm around Steve and one around Bucky, squishing them both to her with more strength than he believed possible from one with her wiry frame. Steve cupped the back of her head in his hand, bumping her chin until she looked up at them.

“You look happy, Dad,” Sarah said quietly. “Like, really happy.”

“I am happy, darling,” Steve said, tipping his temple against Bucky’s, making it so that with every word that left his mouth, Bucky could feel it being formed as his cheek moved against his.

“This is so sweet,” Tony false-sobbed, blowing his nose into a wad of tissue that he’d probably had on hand to pull a stunt just like this one. “Sam, I’m crying.”

“Shut up, dumbass,” Sam said. “You’re stepping on their moment.” He nodded at Bucky, though his eyes said hurt him, they’ll never find the body.

Bucky bopped his head in return.

“He’s very handsome, Steve!” Pepper said, pinching Tony’s nipple in retaliation for his shattering the sweetness of being embraced by both Steve and Sarah. Bucky liked her immediately.   

“Pepper and Wanda are fine,” Steve mumbled, brushing an adoring hand over the top of Sarah’s head. “Sam and Tony, though…”

"God forbid the day your friends meet Nat and Clint," Bucky said, unable to help a huge grin. “Nat would have probably popped a bottle of champagne and Clint would’ve invited you in to watch Dog Cops and do tequila shots.”

Sarah’s head shot up so her chin was pressing into Steve’s sternum. “You watch Dog Cops?”

( * * * )

It took twenty minutes for things to die down—Sarah would only head to bed if both Steve and Bucky tucked her in. “You’ve not asked to be put to bed for years,” Steve said suspiciously.

She rolled her eyes, slipping under her deep green duvet. “Humor me.”

(Steve had brushed a kiss over her forehead, arranging the covers so they were hauled up to her neck. When Steve moved out the way for Bucky to say his goodnight, Sarah sat up and threw her arms around him, squeezing him tightly to her. “Thank you,” she whispered into his ear.

Bucky dropped firm peck on her cheek. “Thank you,” he murmured.)

Tony, Sam, Pepper and Wanda had all gathered in the living room and were sitting on a comfy-looking sofa near the window where curtains had been pulled aside to see clearly out onto the street. All shared the same innocent expression of those who would launch to their feet to spy the moment they believed Steve and Bucky couldn’t spot them.

“It was nice to meet you all,” Bucky said, smiling without teeth as he nodded at the little group. Wanda wriggled her fingers at him, Pepper stepped on Tony’s toes to keep him from saying something, and Sam just smiled real big at Steve, who laid a hand on the middle of Bucky’s back to see him out.

“Don’t be a stranger!” Tony called as the door snitched closed behind them and as simple as that, it was just the pair of them out on the front stoop.

Steve licked the seam of his mouth, a slow roll of his tongue that made Bucky hot all over. “I really wish you didn’t have to go,” he said softly. “I’m not ready for the night to be over with.”

Touched, as he could not recall as single date before Steve saying anything of the sort, Bucky gently covered Steve’s mouth with his, offering up a chaste, lingering kiss before he said: “We’ll have plenty more nights like this, don’t worry. And until then, I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Steve’s grin was as bright as the first spot of sun through retreating rain clouds and Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve. “Yeah,” he said, dipping in for a deeper, damper kiss. He took Bucky’s lower lip between his teeth and gave it a tender little tug, nursing the faint bite-imprint he made with the hot tip of his tongue. “Yeah, you will.”

This? This was a good thing.

He’d hold it close.

But first he had to call Nat for his victory ice cream.