Archive of Our Own

The accidental acquisition of a petting zoo wasn’t something that Clint and Bucky exactly planned.

Actually, planning was probably the last thing from all of their minds.

Bucky guessed it was a little bit of an unforseen hazard of buying a twenty acre lot outside of town with your best friend, especially when said best friend was a known animal lover and would quite literally take in any and every stray in the tricounty area. Bucky just wasn’t thinking. Bucky wasn’t sure he was thinking now .

It started when Clint started bringing in strays. At first, it was just dogs and cats. Then, a goat became involved. Before long, a llama, pig, and two horses were in the mix. They found out the goat was pregnant (“Clint, I told you it’s not a boy!”), and a little less than five months later, they had four little kids running around.

The barren twenty acre plot soon turned into fences, a barn, some nice grass, and even a small round pen. Halters, bags of feed, and even a saddle or two had somehow been bought. Bucky found himself waking up earlier and earlier with each new species of animal they got, and the bills started to add up.

By the time things started going south, they had quite the stash of animals. The four kids had grown, the mother was happily plump, at least five dogs were running around at any given time, most of them missing an ear or a leg or even an eye, several cats would come and go from the house as they pleased. A pig and a llama shared a pasture, two ponies and one horse shared an adjacent pasture, some cows grazed farther back, the barn was filled with three rabbit hutches, and even a chinchilla was calling their barn home. The goats had their own large field (which some of them hardly stayed in because they honestly were like dogs). Bucky was in awe when they found themselves buying a horse trailer so as to easily move animals in the event that they got more (they did). He looked around and was shocked to find his home had literally become a zoo.

And it just continued to grow. Clint wouldn’t stop, no matter how many times Bucky told him ‘ no more animals’ . Bucky’s words just went in one ear and out the other.

By the time reptiles were introduced, Bucky had to put his foot down.

He sat Clint down one night at the kitchen table and laid a stack of papers out in front of him.

“We can’t pay the bills,” he said bluntly. “If you don’t stop bringing home animals, we’re going to get evicted.”

“But we bought this place,” Clint questioned, “they can’t evict us.”

“Clint, yes they can. We still have a mortgage.” Bucky was starting to get frustrated. “ We. Don’t. Have. Enough. Money. ”

Clint looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well,” he asked, “what do we do?”

“For starters, we’re- you’re- going to need to stop bringing in strays, so no more visits to the Humane Society.” Clint started pouting. “I know, it sucks. But no more. A few dogs, some goats, hell, even a horse wasn’t too bad, but now we’ve got too much. We can’t take care of all of them forever, Clint. And more importantly, we can’t take care of all of them by ourselves . These vet bills are through the roof, we’re going to have to get jobs or something.”

Clint’s eyes go wide and as he looks at Bucky with uncontained horror.

“No,” he whispers. Bucky and Clint hadn’t technically had jobs since they were in the army. So far, their savings and combined disability checks each month were more than enough to cover the mortgage on the shitty house and a few animals (with some inheritance money helping here and there). Bucky’s arm had been blown off with the same IED that took Clint’s hearing. Since, Bucky had gotten a high tech prosthetic and Clint had gotten hearing aids. When they both remembered to wear them, life happened to run a lot smoother. Not that life was ever smooth, though. War had changed the two of them, and not all for the better.

They had been with each other through nearly all of their deployments and the recovery that followed. The pair had met when they were both still awkward eighteen year olds with too much acne, and they know each other now, the battered twenty eight year olds with too much tension in their shoulders and sorrow in their eyes. Bucky knew how Clint looked smiling and laughing, half drunk on life and the energy of people around him. Bucky also knew how Clint looked at three in the morning when nightmares had woken him up and he was shaking so bad that his teeth chattered. Clint knew how Bucky looked dressed in his military best and a smile on his face so wide that it nearly split him in half. Clint knew how Bucky looked in the middle of the night slouched over a table with a blanket around his shoulders and a bottle of vodka in front of him. He knows how Bucky looks when he finally gives up on a glass and just starts gulping from the bottle, not even flinching anymore from the burn.

They knew each other well enough to know that neither of them wanted to work, especially not some half assed job which could potentially have rude and unreasonable people who don’t understand any of what they’re going through. If they were going to work, they were at least going to need to be able to find some sort of enjoyment out of it.

Bucky nodded in seriousness. “Exactly,” Bucky said before marching into the kitchen. He came back with two glasses and a bottle of whiskey.

“Time to brainstorm,” he said, grabbing for a pad of paper and a pen from across the table while Clint generously poured the whiskey.

“Oh boy,” he breathed out. Bucky nodded in agreement and heaved a sigh.

This was going to be a long night.

_____

Bucky woke up the next morning on the couch with roughly fifteen pages of paper flung about the room and a killer headache. He picked up the nearest sheet of paper, and it contained some shaky stick figure drawings and the words ‘hire a frmboy’ written across the top. The next nearest sheet contained more of a thought process. ‘Lots of animals → people (kids?) like animals → pet animals = nice = money?’ Multiple crude drawings of dicks were scribbled in the margins. Bucky raised an eyebrow, thinking for a moment. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

_____

He woke up again to the faint sound of groaning and then a large crash followed by an “ow.” Bucky raised his eyebrow again before opening his eyes. Clint was sprawled out on the floor by their kitchen table face first. He let out another groan.

“I’m never drinking again,” he promised. Bucky let out a snort before letting out a sound of distress and reaching a hand up to rub at his temples.

“I’m right there with you, buddy.”

“Shhhh!” Clint hissed. “You don’t need to yell!”

“I’m not-” Bucky started to say, but then gave up halfway through. The energy used to complete that sentence didn’t seem worth it. He lay back down on the couch and halfheartedly tried to fall back asleep. Before long, his bursting bladder made itself known, and he couldn’t ignore it any longer. Sitting up, he rose to go to the bathroom and narrowly avoided Clint sprawled on the floor.

After he finished relieving himself, he brushed his teeth. His mouth felt stale and scratchy, like one of the cat’s tongues. He felt marginally better afterwards, but his head still felt like something was trying to punch itself out from the inside. Reaching into the cabinet, he pulled out a bottle of aspirin and swallowed the recommended two pills with some water. He stood for a moment, and then downed two more. He stood for another moment, and then brought the bottle out for Clint. Bucky threw it down on the floor next to Clint, who let out a loud groan and then curled up into a ball away from the cursed noise.

Bucky rolled his eyes and then got Clint a glass of water. “Take two, dingbat.”

Clint just groaned again. Bucky gave him another three minutes, and then he let out a huff, rolled his eyes, and got the squirt bottle.

“Get up, Clint.”

“No.”

“Clint,” Bucky warned.

“No,” Clint repeated, sounding like a toddler.

Bucky loudly exhaled and then squirted Clint with the water. He let out an indignant shriek and then sat up, his face morphed into a look of betrayal. He resembled a wet cat, face frozen in a look of pure hatred, aimed right at Bucky.

Bucky just smiled. “Good,” he said, cheerfully, “you’re up.” Clint continued to fix him with a stare that could curdle milk before shaking his head like a dog after a bath, immediately regretting it with how the throbbing in his head increased. Little droplets of water spread from his hair to the countertop and floor around him. One of their cats made the mistake of wandering into the kitchen looking for breakfast, and it got caught in a nice drizzle. It jerked away from the onslaught, turned around, and got out of the danger zone. Once into safe territory, it sat down and cleaned itself off from the disgrace of the unwanted water that dared to grace it’s fur. Savages, it probably thought.

Bucky made his way to the refrigerator to get breakfast supplies, despite it being well past noon. He purposefully clanged the pots extra loud getting them out, just to hear Clint curse at him. After putting the pan on the stove with butter in the middle (a lot of fucking butter), Bucky got out eggs, cheese, and some green onions.

He cracked the eggs into a bowl and whipped them around, double checking to make sure there was no shells that somehow slipped through. After moving the butter around the hot pan, the fat sizzling from the heat, Bucky quickly chopped up the onions and added them to the eggs. He put half the scrambled eggs into the pan and listened to it sizzle. After a few minutes, he flipped the eggs. He added cheese and folded it to complete the masterpiece, and then plated the food for Clint. He placed it on the counter next to Clint’s abandoned cup of water.

“Get up,” Bucky said harshly. Clint rolled himself onto his knees and off the floor, sat down at one of the barstools, looked around, and huffed.

“Where’s the coffee?” He whined.

“Guess you’ll have to make it.”

Clint threw his head down on the tabletop dramatically, wincing in the process, while Bucky repeated the process to make himself an omelet. Butter, heat, eggs, cheese, plate.

By the time he was sitting down to his own food, Clint had made himself coffee and looked significantly less miserable. He chugged it straight from the pot and then almost dropped it when it burned his tongue.

“Aw, coffee.”

Bucky chuckled and pulled out mugs, handing one to Clint pointedly.

“Okay,” Bucky said with his mouth half full and breakfast half eaten. “So I think we were actually onto something last night.”

“What?” Clint asked.

“Yeah, I think we may have had a good idea, actually.”

“Was this before or after the tequila shots?”

Bucky did a double take. “When did we do tequila shots?”

There was an awkward pause while they both tried to sort out what the ever loving fuck had happened last night. Bucky took another large gulp of coffee. Clint got up for another cup.

“Okay, anyway, we had a good idea somewhere in there,” Bucky said.

“Show me.”

Bucky went back to the living room and picked up some of the few stray papers. He found the one he was looking for and brought it back to Clint, slamming it down in front of him passionately, nearly spilling coffee everywhere.

Clint’s face pinched up in confusion.

“There’s just a bunch of dicks everywhere.”

“No,” Bucky sighed, “ there .” He pointed to the line or so of writing tangled amidst the dicks. Clint squinted.

“Oh? That ?” He paused, reading it, “lots of animals, people like animals, to pet animals, equals nice, money? Question mark?” He set the paper down and gulped his coffee, then took another bite of his omelet. “I don’t get it,” he finally said. “It sounds like drunken gibberish.”

“It is drunken gibberish!” Bucky said excitedly, like it was the solution to all their problems.

Clint pinned him with an unimpressed look, his eyebrow raised in question. Bucky rolled his eyes and gestured excitedly.

“A petting zoo!” He exclaimed. A look of understanding, and then awe, passed over Clint’s features.

“A petting zoo!” Clint repeated, just as enthusiastic.

And that is how Bucky and Clint opened a petting zoo.

_____

“So… What do we, y’know, name it?” Clint asked a week later when the two had decided to go through on the whole thing.

“Clint and Bucky’s… Petting Zoo?”

Clint rolled his eyes. “That’s so boring,” he sighed.

“Um… Petting Zoo? Literally just a sign that says ‘Petting Zoo’.”

Clint snaps his fingers and then sits forward, putting his elbow onto the table. “Now you’re onto something.”

They went to Home Depot and bought a large piece of wood and two cans of paint.

Three hours later, their new business is drying on the front lawn, out of the way of the cats and dog, and the one goat who managed to sneak in, or, as much as was possible with cats, dogs, and a goat running around.

PETTING ZOO was painted in white over a maroon background.

“Where are we going to hang it?” Bucky asked. He and Clint were staring at their hard work, Clint eating a popsicle and Bucky with a paintbrush in hand. His faded jeans, which fit him like a glove and were probably older than most of their animals, were now covered in maroon paint: a nice smeared handprint from where Bucky wiped his messy palm all over his leg. Blotches were on the knees, shin, and thighs. Little dots of paint splatter were everywhere, including Bucky’s white undershirt, which was just as well worn.

Clint had some paint on him, but not as much as Bucky. The end of his popsicle, however, fell off the stick, sliding down Clint’s shirt and jeans, leaving a long pink stain. Clint looked down and said ‘aw’ longingly. Bucky snorted and looked back at the sign.

‘ PETTING ZOO ’ stared him in the face.

“I feel like this may make it hard to file taxes,” Bucky said, looking back to where Clint was. He was gone, leaving Bucky talking to the air and a few of the animals out in the yard.

He glanced back to the sign and ran his hand over his face.

_____

A week later and everything seemed to be coming along nicely. Bucky had googled and submitted the forms to acquire the permits needed, and they cleaned up the place so it didn’t look like two coyotes had been living there for the past two years. In that time, Clint had brought home another rabbit, claiming he found it by the side of the road. Bucky raised his eye until Clint started spilling the truth.

“Okay,” he’d said hopelessly, “so I was going to get a soda and there were these two kids outside, like pretty young and they looked homeless and they were begging for change. And they were holding him,” Clint gestured to the rabbit in his arms, “and I couldn’t say no Bucky. Look at his face, he was miserable.” Bucky did have to admit the rabbit did not look good. It was too thin and it’s grey coat was dirty and unkempt. “I paid them 20 bucks for him, figured they got something out of it, too, then.”

“Clint,” Bucky asked, “did they specifically ask you to take the rabbit?” He raised an accusing eyebrow and put his hands on his hips to keep himself from reaching out and cuddling the rabbit.

“Well… I mean, no, but… Look at him!”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Go put him in a cage, I think we have an extra one in the barn somewhere.” Clint let out a yip of excitement and trotted off to go get the cage. “Clint?” Bucky called. Clint turned around and faced Bucky. “No. Fucking . More.”

“Got it,” Clint said, just like he had a dozen times before. Bucky never believed him then, and he didn’t believe him now.

Bucky just rolled his eyes and walked back into the house. They were opening in just under a month, if everything went as planned.

_____

As much as Bucky complained, Clint wasn’t as useless as he sometimes seemed. He did help; he and Bucky fed in the morning and the evening, usually working together to tackle it quicker. They switched off cleaning out the rabbit hutches, and Clint brushed every horse at least twice a week. He and Bucky also rode them frequently, nothing too intense but enough to keep them tuned up and rideable. Pasture cleaning was usually one of the things Bucky handled exclusively, with Clint occasionally chipping in some help here or there. In exchange, Clint did most of the fixing of things that had to do with the sheds or the fences falling off or anything of the sort.

So, yeah, Clint may be a little lazy sometimes, but he did put in his fair share of work. He just timed it a little differently, that’s all.

_____

Later that week, Bucky and Clint were sitting at their kitchen table eating dinner. Clint had actually stepped up for once and made mac n’ cheese. It was actually pretty good and Bucky was impressed.

“I was thinking, do we need to hire someone? For the petting zoo?” Bucky asked.

“Like… To do what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever we need done I guess.”

“Like… What?”

“Cleaning, help with kids, feeding the animals,” Clint interrupted with a syllable before he was cut off by Bucky, “Clint,” he warned. Clint sank back in his seat. Bucky took a breath then continued. “It would probably be a good idea. But on the other hand, we have no idea how popular this place is going to get, and we can’t afford to be hiring people when we don’t even know if we really need them or not.”

“Well,” Clint said, “I think it might be nice. New blood and all that. ‘Nd that way we’ve got another person here, and another set of hands is always something we can use.”

“You just want an excuse to bring more animals home, don’t you?”

“I mean, it wouldn’t be a hardship.”

“Clint-”

“No, no, I know. ‘Clint, we can’t afford it. Clint, we’re going to lose the house. Clint, how are we supposed to take care of a chinchilla.’”

“All valid and reasonable points.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “You’re the one who came up with the idea, smartass.”

“I also came up with a reason the idea might be bad.”

“Fine, I’ll think of one.” Clint took a huge bite of mac n’ cheese and chewed thoughtfully. “Ah!” Clint said before he’d even finished chewing. “You could fall in love with them and leave me forever.”

Bucky snorted so loud he startled himself. “That’s dumb as shit and you know it.”

“I don’t know, Buck. I never know who is going to steal your love and affection anymore, y'know.”

“You’re so full of shit you should be on a construction site.”

Clint raised a scandalised hand to his chest. “Me? Never !”

Bucky had to resist the urge to roll his eyes because the was an adult, goddamnit, and he should not be rolling his eyes as much as a teenage girl. “Whatever.”

“C’mon Buck, I really think it would be a good idea,” Clint pleaded.

“But what if the petting zoo doesn’t even work? What if we’re fooling ourselves into thinking this could actually be something?”

And just like that, all of Bucky’s fears since he actually started considering this idea written on a piece of paper which was also covered in dicks were manifesting before his eyes. Awfully drawn dicks at that. (Seriously they were awful.)

“Bucky,” Clint started in a soothing voice. “It’ll all work out. We checked it out, and there are no other petting zoos within a hundred miles. I’m not even sure there’s another llama within a hundred miles. We’re the closest to the city, and there are literally suburbs like ten miles from here with about a thousand children.”

Bucky nodded, putting both of his elbows on the table and burying his head in his hands, one only a little cold and the other freezing. It gave Bucky a little shock, feeling good on his suddenly flushed skin. It made him remember he had an appointment in the city with Stark to get the arm looked at, and the thought of dealing with Tony only added to his stress.

“Plus, we’ve got an excuse to get that camel I’ve always wanted.”

“No,” Bucky said immediately. “No. Hell no. I’m not taking care of a fucking camel.”

“Better start watching your language, Buck. Can’t talk like that around children.”

Bucky gathered up a forkful of mac n’ cheese and flung it into Clint’s face.

_____

A week later and Bucky and Clint had finalized their decision to hire someone to help with the petting zoo. They (Bucky) decided they would lay everything out straight, there would be no surprises with their employment. They would know that the possibility of the petting zoo going under was definitely something that could happen. They would also know their job was completely dependent on the success or failure of the petting zoo. At the end of the first month after the opening, Clint and Bucky would evaluate their profits, and then see if they could still afford the help. The last shrivel of their savings would be scraped together to pay the employee for their month-ish of work, so they would be getting at least some money for their part. They would also be fully up to speed that the animals came first, thank you very much.

Basically, it was a complete shot in the dark.

Nonetheless, Bucky made some posts on Craigslist and a few other websites (because Craigslist was the definition of yikes) and made flyers which he then had Clint print out and post around the area. Within a week, they’d had about five people reply. A few had set up interviews, and then subsequently were gently turned away for various reasons. (“I swear to god that kid was high as a kite, Clint. He should not be fucking driving.” “Bucky, language.”) By the end of the week, the pair were about ready to give up.

“It’s only been a week,” Clint reminded Bucky. “A week isn’t that long.”

Bucky shot him a nasty side-eye but otherwise kept quiet.

“Everyone that applied was a fucking idiot.”

Clint didn’t even bother with the ‘language’ this time. “Yeah,” he sighed.

They sat together for a few more minutes before Bucky got up and grabbed two beers.

“You know I don’t like beer,” Clint complained. “It tastes like piss.”

“First off, you would know, second off,” Bucky cracked the tops off both of the bottles in rapid succession, “they’re both for me.” He tipped his head back and downed half of a bottle in a heartbeat. He plopped himself back down on the couch and let out a heaving sigh. “It’s been a rough day.”

Clint nodded. He got up to retrieve his own comfort food item, chocolate. A lot of chocolate. A lot of cheap, chewy chocolate. He’d stuffed half the bar into his mouth before he’d even gotten back to the couch.

“I want to go to Australia,” Clint said out of the blue.

“What?” Bucky asked after he swallowed his current mouthful of beer.

“I want to go to Australia,” Clint repeated.

“Okay… Why?”

“I’ve always wanted to go. I loved the Crocodile Hunter. I cried when he died.”

Bucky took another swig of beer and thought for a moment. Clint continued to chomp on his chocolate.

“Okay,” Bucky said finally. “When this whole thing makes it big, we’ll go to Australia.”

“Okay,” Clint said with a smile. Bucky couldn’t help but let one grow over his face as he downed more of his drink.

_____

More days passed. More people applied for the job. One girl, a cute teenager who Clint immediately took to because she knew sign language, looked like she would be perfect for the part, but admitted she was leaving for school in the fall. They all thought they might be able to make it work, but once she heard she didn’t exactly have permanent employment yet she stated she would rather find a place where she had at least secure employment through the summer. Bucky and Clint understood.

The day after, things were looking even more bleak when someone called and blatantly asked if they would get “vape breaks”. Bucky was just about to indulge in some day drinking when his phone rang.

“Hello?” He answered.

“Hi! Is this… Bucky?”

“This is. Who’s calling?”

“Um, hi, I’m Steve. I saw your flyer at the end of my street and I thought I’d give you a call? I’m really interested in the job.”

Bucky let out a sigh of relief. Steve sounded at least half competent, and he didn’t sound high. Those were both positives for Bucky.

“Yeah, we still need someone. We’re planning to open at the beginning of next month, actually. Do you have any experience with animals?”

“Well, I was a vet tech for a few years, and I actually worked with a pretty wide variety of animals. The doctor specialized in horses, but we worked with all kinds of animals.”

“Oh yeah? Vet tech, huh. Wow. Well, that would definitely be an advantage. We keep having to go to the vet for small things like cuts and scrapes. I’m sure you could help out with those, right?”

“Oh, totally! I’ve got those down pat. I’ve done stuff like splints or casts so I’m sure I could give a hand.”

“You sound pretty competent, not gonna lie. It’s refreshing, honestly. We’ve got a bunch of different animals here, dogs, cats, goats, horses, rabbits, a few cows.”

“I’ve worked with all of those before. Goats are really great actually, they might even be my favorite animals.”

Bucky smiled at that. “Yeah, we love our goats. So, how about an interview? You can come out, meet Clint, we can get some basics down and see if you’d be a good fit?”

“That sounds great!”

The two set up an interview date for a few days in the future and hung up without many more pleasantries. Bucky couldn’t help but have an uplifted mood. Things finally felt like they were getting together, and maybe, just maybe, this crazy idea would work out for the better.

_____

Bucky should have known his hopes were full of shit.

Somehow, within a night, everything managed to go straight to hell. Right down to damnation.

The parks and rec department called Bucky to let him know the bureaucratic red tape screwed him over and his permit wouldn’t be ready until a week after he’d originally planned, and before they could issue it an inspector needed to come out and survey the land to make sure it was safe.

Then, an hour later, one of the bunnies was acting weird. Really weird. Bucky and Clint took him to the vet and found out he had a very high fever, and they weren’t sure what was wrong with him. They needed to keep him overnight. Bucky wanted to pull his hair out with the sheer knowledge of how much it was going to cost, and Clint wanted to rip his hair out because of Bucky’s stress and worrying they were going to lose the bunny if they didn’t act quick enough. Bucky was, of course, worried about the rabbit. He loved all of the rabbits, all the animals, but sometimes the bills got to him more than he would like. Combined with the worry for the rabbit, Bucky was ready to blow his top. The vets advised them to go home and get some sleep. They promised to call Bucky and Clint if the rabbit’s condition worsened. The pair could come back tomorrow to see him (Clint insisted on calling him Twinkie because of his golden fur and white paws). They went home with their tails between their legs. As much as they hated to admit it, they were worried. Really worried.

Neither got much sleep that night.

_____

The next day, they went back to the vet. Bucky remembered in the morning when a reminder popped up on his phone that Steve’s interview was the day after, and he really hoped he didn’t  have to reschedule because their rabbit was in the animal hospital. He was almost certain Steve would understand, but he seemed like the most competent person for the job and Bucky didn’t want to risk losing him because of an unfortunate timing error. It would be just his luck, too.

Bucky sighed thinking about it.

He rolled out of bed and went to get ready. He shook Clint awake. They had both been up through half the night worrying and trying to make plans with what would happen if the rabbit did end up passing. They hadn’t yet had any animal die, none had even come close actually. The most worry they’ve had is a few scrapes and cuts. Nothing had come close to a high fever and an overnight stay at the vet.

Clint was looking worse for wear, even more so than usual. The last time Bucky had seen him looking this rough was the morning after they got drunk and tried to figure out how to get themselves out of financial turmoil. (Bucky had seen Clint looking much worse, but he tried not to think about that too often.)

Clint woke up easily for the first time in forever; his night of worry did not end with any sound sleep.

Despite getting up easily, Clint didn’t want to get out of bed. His eyes were rimmed with red and they looked droopy and sad. Bucky didn’t mention it, just rubbed Clint’s arm and went to make breakfast. He made chocolate pancakes, Clint’s favorite (and his, though he would never admit it), to try and cheer him up. It worked a little bit, Clint no longer looked like he was going to cry at every turn. He just looked… very very sad.

While Clint finished his breakfast (moped at the table), Bucky called the vet to see how Twinkie was doing.

“Hello?” The lady at the front desk answered.

“Hi, this is Bucky Barnes. My friend and I dropped a rabbit, Twinkie, off last night and I was just calling to see how he’s doing.” Bucky glanced back at Clint who was still moping. He tried to keep his voice down so Clint couldn’t hear in case there was bad news.

“Oh, yes. Let me page you through to the vet. She was just about to call you.”

Bucky’s heart rate skyrocketed at the thought. What could she possibly have to say? Would it be good or bad? Was Bucky going to have to break the news to Clint that Twinkie wasn’t exactly coming home?

“Thank you,” he replied weakly as his thoughts raced. The music from being on hold rang in his ears, but he didn’t really hear any of it.

“Mr. Barnes?” The vet asked a second after the hold music stopped.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied, not really thinking about how to be eloquent at the moment.

“Twinkie is doing about the same. He hasn’t improved, but he also hasn’t worsened. We think it may be something that he ate and it’s blocking his colon. We’re going to try and give him a laxative and see if that helps him at all. In the event that it doesn’t work, we may have to go in for surgery. That would clearly be our last option, but it may have to come to that if he shows no signs of improvement. We ran x-rays last night, and we’re going to take a few more today to see if the object looks like it’s moving or not. We’ll call you if anything changes.” The vet sounded way more composed than Bucky felt she had any right to, considering he was falling apart just a little bit more with every one of her sentences. It gave him a sliver of hope, but in doing so it ratcheted his anxiety up about three more notches.

“Thank you for the update,” Bucky forced out. “Can we come in to see him today?”

“I think it should be okay, it might even help cheer him up a little bit.”

“Alright, thanks doc. See you later.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Barnes.”

Bucky hung up the phone.

His hand came up to run down his face, then back through his hair. He allowed himself to pace around the room for a few minutes, a nervous habit of his that only came out on certain occasions. Bucky tried not to keep it up too often, because when he and Clint lived in an apartment right after they got discharged, they had to steam clean the carpets because Bucky’s shoes stained it after too much pacing. After that, Bucky tried to regulate his pacing, but the floors in this place weren’t carpet, and they owned the place so who fucking cares. (Taking his shoes off didn’t even occur to him when he was in a pacing mood.) Also his rabbit may or may not be dying, so yeah, he was going to indulge a little bit.

Bucky paced for five minutes before deciding he needed to buck up (no pun intended) and go tell Clint the news.

He walked into the room, and Clint had his head resting on the table, looking forlornly at the wall, a blanket covering his shoulders. One of the cats had found its way to the table and decided to rub all over Clint. It almost looked like she was trying to cheer Clint up, but Bucky knew from first hand experience that once Clint got in a mood, it was harder than herding goats to get him out of the dumps. (They had tried to herd the goats on many occasions. It never worked. The cats were easier to get into a confined space.)

“So I called the vet,” Bucky started, deciding just to jump right in and deal with the ramifications later.

Clint just looked up at him with wide, pathetic eyes. The look made Bucky’s heart twinge.

“She said they think he has something stuck in his colon. They’re going to take more x-rays to see if it moved, and then they’re going to give him laxatives. If those don’t work, they may have to do surgery.”

Clint made a noise of disapproval and slumped further down into his seat, covering his head with the blanket and pillowing his head on his crossed arms.

“We can go see him today.” The fact was Bucky’s last trick to try and get Clint up and moving today.

It worked. Clint peeked his eyes out from under the blanket, lifting his head a fraction. “We can?”

“Yeah, Dr. Holland said it would be fine. She said it might even help him.”

Clint perked up immediately. He still looked like hell, and like he needed about three more cups of coffee to feel even remotely human, but it was much better than anything Bucky could have hoped for when he saw Clint curled up in bed this morning, staring up at him with wide eyes. Bucky was actually kinda proud.

“We can go in soon, but they don’t open until 9 and I have to go feed the animals.” Bucky had decided he could be the adult for today and take on the responsibility of feeding this morning. He wasn’t even all that mad, anything to take his mind off the problem at hand was welcome at this point.

Clint nodded and went to put on some clothes. Bucky finished his coffee and then slipped on some boots. Clint came out to help him feed, which Bucky would forever be astounded by. Clint hadn’t looked up to getting out from under the covers just twenty minutes before, let alone going to feed. Bucky decided not to mention it and chalked it up to Clint needing something mindless to keep his mind off Twinkie, too.

All the animals seemed to pick up on Clint’s mood, just like the cat. They came up to him wherever he was and rubbed against him for minutes on end. Clint gladly accepted the attention, and Bucky thought he saw a smile when one of the goats in particular was rubbing against him. Clint stayed to pet him for a few minutes, and Bucky went to fill their water as an excuse not to end Clint’s moment with Kit-Kat, the original goat he rescued that had all the babies which were more intent on food at the moment. She looked like she was enjoying the attention as well, and Bucky was never one to come between Clint and his goat cuddles (he had been privy to some himself once in awhile, and he would never want to be interrupted during such a wonderful moment). Clint mumbled something into her coat, and Bucky was tempted to ask what he said, but he figured if Clint wanted him to know, he would find out.

Clint eventually wandered away from the goat to go give some of the other animals attention, but Bucky didn’t miss the way Kit-Kat followed Clint all the way to the gate and gave the most heartbroken look at him when she realized she couldn’t follow him outside the pasture. Clint smiled and reached down to pat her head, but turned away nonetheless.

Bucky was trying to calculate an excuse to get Clint to go back into the goat pasture to get more goat cuddles when his phone rang. It was the vet, which made Bucky’s heart leap into his throat.

“Hello?” He answered, too nervous for small talk.

“Mr. Barnes? This is Dr. Holland. I was calling to inform you of Twinkie’s condition,” Bucky held his breath for fear he was going to struggle too much to breathe with the wavy of worry that hit him. “We just finished with the x-rays, and it looks like he may just have some indigestion and a little bit of food backed up in his system. It doesn’t appear to be a foreign object, so we’re going to go ahead with the laxatives and see if that helps clear things out.”

Bucky exhaled louder than he should have, his shoulders releasing the built up tension from uncertainty of his pet being sick. He laughed a little bit, though he knew it was totally inappropriate. He was so relieved he didn’t think he could think straight.

“That is… wow, that is a huge relief. Thank you so much. It sounds like he’s going to be fine.”

“I would expect he would be, it appears to just be some food and nothing odd. Worst case, we’ll have to go in for surgery, but it’s very low risk at this point.”

“Alright, thank you for letting us know. We’ll be in to see him later.”

“Take care,” Dr. Holland said and hung up.

Bucky resisted the urge to scream. So much of the tension held in his shoulders dropped, and he felt more than exhausted, even with the cup of coffee he had downed at breakfast. Relief was a wonderful thing.

“What?” Clint asked, looking frazzled after he’d run over from feeding the cows. Hay was intertwined with his hair and he still had a pitchfork in his hand.  Bucky raised an eyebrow at him before continuing.

“That was the vet, she said it just looked like Twinkie had a little food backed up in his system. They’re going to go ahead with some laxatives.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

“They think so. She said worst case, they have to go in for surgery, but it’s a relatively low chance. She sounded pretty confident that the laxatives will work.”

Clint let out a sigh, a little tension bleeding from his shoulders, but still looking incredibly worn.

“What’s wrong? He’s going to be fine,” Bucky asked, another wave of concern washing over him.

“It’s just still so uncertain. We don’t really know if we’re going to lose him or not,” Clint let out dejectedly, shrugging a shoulder.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Bucky muttered. “But they got the x-rays back. They know for sure it’s just some food, not an object, and they’re gonna give him laxatives. They’re pretty sure it’ll clear things up. He’s going to be fine.”

Clint pouted some more, clearly unsure of what Bucky was saying, and went back to feed the cows.

Bucky let him be, feeling for the first time in a good eighteen or so hours that everything was going to be okay.

Well, somewhat okay. At least he thought Twinkie was going to be okay.

Now he’s just gotta get through this interview with Steve, hope he’s at least a semi-confident non-fuck up, and get some help around this place.

_____

Retrieving Twinkie from the vet went well, by the time they get there, the impaction in his gut has passed and he’s all clear to go home. They didn’t have to go in for surgery.

Clint refuses to put Twinkie in his cage on the way home, and he makes Bucky drive so he can hold the rabbit and tell him how much he is loved. Bucky wants to laugh, but ends up tearing up a little when Clint starts getting a little emotional and telling Twinkie how much they would have missed him and no, he can never do that again. Clint ends up shedding a few tears and Bucky feels his throat go a little tight. They get home and don’t mention it.

Clint also made Bucky take a picture of him and Twinkie for one of his social media accounts, which Bucky honestly couldn’t keep track of. Clint said it got one hundred likes in ten minutes, so he was proud.

Twinkie is put back in his spot with the other rabbits in the barn and if Bucky stays for a few extra minutes to get some rabbit hugs, well, that’s just between him and the rabbits.

_____

Steve comes in for his interview the next day, Bucky eternally glad he didn’t have to cancel. Being flakey at the start of attempting to be someone’s employee was not on Bucky’s list of things to do, and Bucky really needed to find someone to help them with this ridiculous endeavor that they decided to begin.

Steve pulls up in a blue Honda Civic, which makes Bucky sigh with relief because that is not the car of a total douche. In fact, Bucky had a Civic for years and adored the thing, drove it into the ground and almost cried when he decided to sell it before he went overseas.

Bucky had decided the interview could be conducted outside, mostly because he didn’t want anyone to see the inside of his house after the way Clint had been leaving it lately, as well as the numerous cats and dogs running around the place and the mess they brought along with them. He was sitting outside in the yard, which still had plenty of animals in it, most missing one part of their body or another (eye(s), legs, ears, the list goes on), on a picnic table which had always been there without Clint or Bucky questioning why.

Bucky attempted to look professional by having some papers and what not in front of him. He didn’t want to give any unrealistic expectations by wearing nice clothes, and he did have to deworm the horses later, so he was in jeans and a t-shirt without any holes in them. The weather was starting to warm up, and Bucky hoped the wind didn’t pick up too much and blow his papers away. He was trying his hardest to look professional, damn it.

Bucky gets a little nervous at Steve’s arrival. He wasn’t really sure how to do things like this, how to be an adult, let alone an employer. He didn’t want to make the wrong call on Steve and have the guy be totally wrong for the job, but he also didn’t want to do something wrong on his end and then have Steve leave because of it.

Before Bucky could finish panicking about literally everything in his life, Steve stepped out of the car and holy hell was he hot . Bucky’s heart started racing and damn . Just. Damn.

He was huge, a total beefcake, and he looked like he worked out about eight days a week. Bucky was suitably impressed with his pectoral muscles, which he could see through his size-too-small shirt. Bucky briefly wondered if Steve was going to be wearing shirts like that every day. A part of Bucky really hoped he was. He was tall, probably a little taller than Bucky, and his hair was blonde and beautiful, and Bucky was totally smitten. Totally smitten. He was going to have a hard time being wholly professional through this whole ordeal, and Bucky was already having trouble trying to imagine not asking this guy on a date ASAP, let alone working together for an undetermined amount of time.

Steve walked over to Bucky, a smile on his face, which made Bucky’s heart melt because, no, he wasn’t just hot. He was cute , too, which was everything that made Bucky weak in the knees and want to scream.

“Hi,” Steve introduced himself as he walked over toward Bucky, “Steve Rogers. It’s really nice to meet you.” He extended his right hand.

“Bucky Barnes.” Bucky held out his own hand and then moved to sit down at the table, motioning for Steve to follow. He did and they found themselves sitting across from each other. Bucky couldn’t help but notice how blue Steve’s eyes were, and he almost let himself get lost in them for a few minutes. He had to resist the urge to just blurt out ‘do you wanna go on a date sometime?’ to this ridiculously cute individual, but somehow he managed not to make a fool of himself, and whenever he looked back, he was still proud of the fact.

He’s wearing about the same thing as Bucky, but instead of just a t-shirt he’s got a blue button down. He looks casual, which Bucky likes because this job is certainly not ever going to be glamorous, and most likely will involve more dirt and grime than the average employment. Honestly, Bucky wouldn’t have faulted Steve for showing up in something even more casual.

“It’s nice to meet you in person,” Steve opened after a few seconds of somewhat awkward silence. It snapped Bucky back into reality and he started looking through his papers for a list of interview questions he swore he had around somewhere.

“Same to you,” Bucky replied with a smile, looking up from his vast array of papers. He shuffled a few more and let out a small whoop when he found the list he was looking for.

“Alright, so, you said you worked as a vet tech for a while? How long was that?”

“Well, about two years. The vet ended up moving to Nebraska a few months ago, and I could’ve gone with her, but I just wasn’t really keen on moving to Nebraska,” Steve laughed.

“I don’t blame you on that one, pal,” Bucky replied with raised eyebrows and a slight chuckle of his own. “I went to visit my family there once, and I swear, nothin’ but cornfields. I’m surprised your vet even found work, because I didn’t see a single animal the whole time I was there.”

Steve laughed again, and it was like music to Bucky’s ears. He wanted to record the sound and set it as his ringtone, or, you know, something a lot less creepy.

“Yeah, I went out for a visit with her before I’d decided, and… well, it just wasn’t for me.”

“Nebraska isn’t really for many people, in my opinion.”

Bucky shifted to the next question, which he skipped over because the question was ‘why did you leave your last job’ and Bucky already had the answer to that question.

“What kind of work did you do for them?”

“Well, I mostly just kinda helped where I was needed. I set a lot of splints, gave a lot of shots, held a lot of animals still while we did x-rays and whatnot. I even helped with a few colic cases which was pretty scary, but I’m glad I know all of it now, because colics can be really awful and now if I ever get a horse I know not only what to look for, but what to do if something does happen.”

“Yeah, colics suck. And they’re scary as hell, I remember growing up we were visiting my cousins out in Indiana and one of their horses coliced and, man, it was awful. They ended up having to put him down, too.”

“I know how that goes. Most of them were fine, but colics are just so tricky. It’s a real hit and a miss.”

“Yeah, too bad these guys don’t have gag reflexes, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So did you mainly work with horses?”

“Well, I did a little bit of everything, we even had a lynx once. We were mostly horses, though, with a decent amount of cats and dogs and that type of thing.”

Bucky’s brain went yikes at the lynx, because someone owning a wild animal was one of the things that always made Bucky cringe, especially big cats. Those things should never be pets.

“As you can sort’ve see, we’ve got a little bit of everything here. Goats, rabbits, a pig, a llama. Too many cats and dogs, I swear.” Thankfully, Bucky had convinced Clint to get rid of the two snakes he rescued off the side of the road. The pair had found a good home with a woman who lived thirty minutes away and wanted to surprise her partner with something unique, and claimed her partner had always wanted a pet snake.

“But, I mean, can you ever really have too many cats and dogs?” Steve asked jokingly.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Tell that to our five litter boxes.”

Steve chuckled, light and airy, but it still took Bucky’s breath away with how it sounded. Bucky never much bought into this romantic crap, but he couldn’t help but think that everything about Steve was beautiful. He didn’t even want to jump the guy; just wanted to lay on the couch with him all afternoon and have his hair played with. No one ever played with Bucky’s hair.

“Point taken. Anyway, I’ve worked with pretty much all of those. Not too experienced with rabbits, though, I must admit.”

It was Bucky’s turn to chuckle. “All of ours are ridiculously friendly. Honestly, if you’re ever having a bad day we’ve got a Flemish Giant Rabbit that would probably be big enough for you. He loves cuddles.”

“Are those the ones that are, like, the size of dogs?”

Bucky chuckled this time. “Yeah, ours is a big boy. He’s about twenty five pounds and he’s almost three feet long. One of our dogs will lay with him sometimes, it’s adorable.” Bucky had to resist the urge to pull up the dozens of pictures he had of the two animals snuggled together, because he didn’t need to seem like a giant dork the first day he met Steve. Maybe in a few weeks he can indulge in showing Steve his collection of cute animal pictures. Lord knows he had enough to sink a battleship (Bucky also didn’t mention the fact that their rabbit was named Bucky, but he never liked Clint’s idea of a joke and the rabbit was cuter than him so he didn’t need Steve fawning over his namesake instead of him.)

“That sounds adorable,” Steve gushed, sounding actually interested instead of just the typical interview ass-kissing that was the norm. “You’ll have to show me him,” Steve blurted.

Bucky laughed, “I’d be glad to once we finish the interview.”

The rest of the interview went smoothly, and Bucky didn’t even play coy, just asked Steve straight out when he could start. Steve said sometime next week.

They went out to see the rabbits, and Bucky unfortunately forgot that they had little plaques under each rabbit hutch detailing their names. Steve laughed so hard he grabbed his left pectoral when he saw Bucky’s name. Bucky blushed and cursed himself for not running over to take the name tag off, but just rubbed his hand over the back of his neck and let the torment come.

Steve ended up spending another twenty minutes with the rabbit, cuddling it and just overall giving it some well-deserved attention. Bucky had to keep himself from grinning like an idiot the whole time.

Steve was going to fit in just fine.

_____

Bucky decided to bring Steve on the next week, as soon as possible, to have him get used to the place and the routine before all the chaos of a petting zoo was in full swing. It would be good for the animals to have another person they knew around before a bunch of strangers, not to mention kids with their grabby hands, pulling on them. They were in for a shock, but Bucky knew all of his animals, and he knew they were all cuddle monsters at heart. As for the ones that weren’t, Bucky was going to make sure they were in a secure area with no grabby hands.

Steve, as Bucky predicted, fit in better than he expected. The animals all loved him, and Clint adored him. Steve was polite enough to laugh at his bad jokes where as Bucky would just slap him over the head or something equally as rude. Also, anyone who the animals liked was a sure sell for Clint. Steve had bonded with Bucky, the Flemish Giant Rabbit, and practically every day Bucky found Steve taking his break with Bucky in his lap. He was so big, he could sprawl out from Steve’s hips to his ankles without even stretching all that much. Sometimes Steve even plopped his laptop on him when he had a few things he needed to get done, and Bucky never said anything, but he was constantly scheming ways to try and sneak a picture. Clint kept bragging that he got multiple, because he and Steve were close and he ‘just asked, Bucky, why don’t you stop being weird about it.’

Clint had actually accumulated quite the following on his accounts. He had started a twitter account a few months back, filled with jargon that Bucky didn’t understand, but Clint claimed made him a ‘relatable teen.’ Mostly, it was pictures of the animals (and sometimes Clint) doing ridiculous things. Like the one time Kit Kat had come and laid across Bucky while they watched TV, or another time when Twinkie got loose and managed to get a tarp around his neck and hop around with a cape for over an hour, and one particularly memorable time when Clint decided that it would be a good idea to stand up on one of their horses, Hashbrown (they have a weird thing for naming animals after food). Hashbrown was extremely accepting of the idea, but it made Bucky cringe so bad he had hardly been able to take the picture. The pictures continued to flow, and Clint’s followers count continued to grow. He was up to 100k by now, and had long ago started a snapchat (something which he forced Bucky to download), which also had a great following. Bucky (the human) had become such frequent face on Clint’s accounts, he practically had a following of his own.

Since Steve’s start, he has also been subjected to being on Clint’s twitter. Clint said he had an overflow of Steve pictures because Steve ‘always looked so cute, damnit, I don’t know how he does it. I swear I don’t have a bad picture of the guy on my phone.’

_____

One week until D-Day, and Bucky was Freaking Out. He knew everything was going to be okay, they were nearly finished setting up, they had little round pens for both the goats (only two would be exposed to the crowd at a time) and the rabbits so that people could properly pet them (diagrams included), they had an enclosure for the llama, and Bucky was working on setting up some of the features for the pony rides. They had gotten the miniature horses (yes, Clint somehow got more animals) set to go, and they’d even borrowed a really little saddle from a friend for any of the small kids. Only one of the minis could be ridden, though, because the other was too small for anything besides maybe toddlers. Also, one should be enough for all the itty bitty kids.

Unfortunately, all of the men were too big to try and hop on a miniature horse, so they had to find a child to come and hop on the thing to make sure it wasn’t going to buck anyone off. Bucky had put the saddle on it just fine, but he wasn’t sure if having a kid on top of it was going to make a difference, especially the possibility of a screaming one who didn’t understand the first thing about horses.

Steve, the savior, had the perfect person in mind.

_____

Steve had a friend, Scott Lang, and Scott had a daughter, Cassie. Cassie was just the perfect size to be a guinea pig and attempt to ride Hershey. She was big enough that she wouldn’t be seriously injured if she fell off, but not so big that she would hurt the horse (that could carry roughly 100 pounds, which Cassie was well under). Steve had mentioned it in passing when he heard Bucky and Clint arguing talking about their dilemma. He mentioned that he knew Scott, that he had a daughter and she was super neat, loved animals (especially ants, which Bucky was sure they had around the barn somewhere), and would totally be up for something like this. Bucky had to rein his smile in a little bit, trying not to show the fact that he was getting more and more gone on Steve as the days past, but he told Steve to ask Scott and let them know what day would work for them. By the next day, they had a time set up for the weekend, which Steve wasn’t scheduled to work, but agreed to come with Scott and Cassie. Bucky just grinned and told Steve to have Cassie bring a helmet (they had yet to get their own for the petting zoo).

The days flew by to the weekend, with thankfully no new animals being added to their family. Cassie and Scott showed up at ten on Saturday morning, with Steve trailing behind them. Cassie had a large smile on her face and was holding Scott’s hand. Scott looked just as thrilled, and Bucky didn’t have to meet them to know that Scott loved his daughter. He could see it in the way he smiled just as bright as she did. It made Bucky almost crack a grin himself, but he refrained for the sake of professionalism.

He couldn’t help but wish he had had such a positive relationship with his family, but the closest he’d ever got was with his sister, though they’d drifted apart in the past few months. Well, past few years. Bucky’s recovery took a toll on their relationship. He tended to shut people out when he was feeling extreme emotions. Clint was an exception, because he knew firsthand what Bucky had been going through and Bucky had never felt like Clint was judging him (non-jokingly) a day in his life. Some things, even his family couldn’t understand, no matter how hard they tried. Bucky didn’t think he’d even spoken to Becca in over a month, and he sure as hell didn’t remember telling her about this huge project they had decided to embark on. Maybe he should give her a ring and bring her up to speed on his life. If he wasn’t too busy, maybe they could even get lunch and catch up, something they haven’t done since the start of the year.

Bucky was broken out of his thoughts by Scott, Cassie, and Steve walking up to the barn. He put on his best smile that he used around children and prepared himself for explaining and lots of questions, or silence. He could never tell with kids which one it was going to be.

Cassie, it turned out, was just talkative enough to be interesting, but not so talkative that Bucky was floundering trying to get her to listen. It was a perfect balance. She also adored Hershey, and Hershey seemed to like her, as well. Bucky thought it was going to be a perfect match.

They got her on Hershey, who did amazing. It seemed she’d been ridden before, which Bucky expected since she didn’t freak out when the saddle was put on her. She was really good, and so was Cassie, who was not afraid to help Bucky in desensitizing her to all things kid-related. By the end of the ride, Hershey had been exposed to screaming, some light kicking, hands flailing, and a plethora of other behaviors. She took it all in stride. Bucky was proud, and fairly satisfied they could put the smaller kids on her without much hesitation, while they would leave her counterpart, who was smaller, to be a purely non-riding miniature horse.

He saw Clint taking pictures more than once, and he knew that Clint had snuck in a fair amount of them with Steve featured. (He was totally going to sneak onto Clint’s phone later and send himself some of the pictures.)

Steve, on the other hand, seemed completely immersed in helping Cassie ride, as well as taking some videos for Scott, who had forgotten his phone in the car. He hadn’t even noticed Clint basically following him around snapping pictures and the occasional video at every turn.

Steve kept looking over at Bucky and smiling. Bucky couldn’t figure out what it meant.

_____

The rest of the week flew by, and Bucky couldn’t believe they were about to open a petting zoo. The permit had been resolved, and thankfully the opening wasn’t delayed in the process. He couldn’t sleep at all the night before, and he got up extra early to make sure everything was set. He fed the animals, swept everything up, and made sure the misters were working. New York in the summer was not a pleasant place, and he couldn’t expect people to come outside without some incentive.

The signs were mounted, displaying prices for things like treats for the animals and pony rides. Clint was set to man the check ins for the first half of the day, then he would switch with Bucky who was manning the pony rides. Steve was set for customer help and treat seller all day. Everything was set, at least for now, and Bucky couldn’t help but be nervous. He was so nervous. He almost couldn’t breathe, he was so nervous.

There were two extremes here, which both concerned Bucky. The first, which was probably more concerning, was that absolutely no one showed up and their hard work was for nothing. They would have to let Steve go, and after that it would only be a matter of time before they had to get rid of some of the animals. The alternative was that they were so busy the three of them couldn’t handle everything being thrown at them at once, and then a bunch of unhappy customers either yelled at them, spread bad reviews about them, or both.

Those scenarios just happened to be the most prominent, but there were over a hundred different ones rushing through his brain. What if some kid got idiotic and got themselves bitten, and then sued? They had insurance, of course, but still. What if someone fell off one of the ponies and sued (highly unlikely considering they were being lead around on a lead rope)? What if it was a total bust? What if they didn’t have enough advertising? What if, what if, what if.

Bucky felt like he was about to worry himself to his grave, and he hated feeling so uncertain and out of control. He’d never much liked the feeling of uncertainty, and coupled with the nerves of starting his own business, Bucky felt like he was going to dissolve into a pit of anxiety. And he hated it.

Today was, at least, going to end the uncertainty for the most part. Obviously, the first day wasn’t going to be a reflection of the petting zoo as a whole, but it would at least give them an idea as to how things were going to work and how much business they were going to have. Not knowing was killing him.

So, he was outside and finished feeding by six. Clint was still sleeping soundly, though Bucky didn’t know how he could sleep. Bucky could never sleep when he was nervous, but Clint was one of those people who only lost sleep over something major, apparently not something like, oh, their financial future.

Bucky didn’t know what to do. By seven he was done with everything he could nitpick, and they didn’t open until nine. He didn’t know when Clint was going to be up, but Steve should be here in about an hour to get everything set up.

Bucky felt like he was going to vibrate out of his skin with all the nervous tension in his body. Two more hours, and hopefully he would be so busy he wouldn’t have to think about anything the rest of the day.

Two more hours. Two more hours.

_____

Two hours both dragged on and flew by, and before Bucky knew it, it was opening time and he was nervous as shit.

Steve went to open the front gates, and Bucky’s nerves reached a tipping point. He felt like he was about to pass out, but he just took a few deep breaths and calmed down. Even if there was no one at the gate, that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be people later. Not many crowds were willing to drive out to a petting zoo at nine in the morning on a Monday in the middle of June, and Bucky couldn’t really blame them, though he thought the morning would be preferable to noon or later with the heat rolling in.

Bucky saw Steve walking back from the opening of the gates, and he jogged out of the way while a few cars pulled in. Bucky breathed a sigh of relief while the cars went to park. There weren’t many, not a flood, but there were about five, which was more than Bucky was expecting. He was content with the turnout so far. At least there were people showing up. For today, that was more than what Bucky had hoped.

The day both sped by and crawled on.

The heat and the sun left Bucky feeling more dehydrated than he would have liked, but he noticed how many people had come through, probably at least five hundred. There were at least two hundred people signing up for pony rides, and even more buying food to feed the animals, so Bucky felt good. He felt really good, almost like his stress could melt away. It didn’t, but it could, and that was something.

They got to closing time, and Clint suggested they all go out to celebrate. They hadn’t even transferred all the animals back to their pens or counted up the total for the day, but Clint was ready to drown himself in pizza and beer.

Bucky was almost in agreement, but he needed the animals to be safe before he up and probably got blackout drunk with Clint. They had never been good at self control, and the fact that they had to be up at seven the next morning to do this whole day again, unfortunately, would be unlikely to stop them. Bucky just had to hope Steve wasn’t about to get sucked in, because they needed at least one staff member who wasn’t reeling from a hangover the next day, though Bucky doubted anything could stop Steve’s chipper attitude.

“Clint,” Bucky said when he was pestering about going to a bar, “we don’t have a designated driver, and getting shitfaced the day before we have to do this again is really not a good idea.”

“ Bucky ,” Clint all but whined, “we don’t have to get shitfaced.”

Bucky whipped his head around to Clint. “When in the hell have we ever been good at not getting shitfaced?”

Clint stuttered for a second, then shut his mouth in thought. After a moment, shame welled up in his face and he put his head in his hands. “Oh my god, we’re alcoholics,” he yelled against his palms.

Bucky rolled his eyes and then turned to Steve, hoping he would be a little more rational.

“I’m all for a celebratory drink, but can we do it here?”

Steve chuckled, all gentle smiles and bright blue eyes, “I’m fine with that.”

“Clint, go get beer,” Bucky ordered, “I’ll call for a pizza. And no feeding it to the dogs, they get enough junk as it is.”

“Aw, no.”

Clint hopped in the car to go get beer, leaving Steve and Bucky alone without work to do for the first time. It was an eerie feeling. But also kinda nice, because they could just talk and get to know each other better and maybe just happen to sit a little too close and touch shoulders or knees or something, Bucky isn’t really thinking about it or planning out their conversation in detail or anything.

(He totally is.)

They had sprung up quite a few conversations during work, and Bucky found himself considering Steve less of an employee and more of a friend. He also found himself anxious to get to know Steve even better, and maybe as even more than a friend.

“So, what kinda pizza do you want?” Bucky asks as they go into the house. They’re immediately swarmed by dogs who want the attention they’re used to receiving every day but haven’t gotten. The ones in the house are mostly the ones that aren’t great around large crowds and/or will follow people around. They have a doggy door to let them out into the yard, though. Steve slouches down without hesitation to give as many belly scratches and receive as many kisses as he can. Bucky feels his knees go weak. A man who not only  loves animals but will also show them affection? Always a plus in Bucky’s book. Basically a done deal in Bucky’s book.

Steve was so distracted by the herd of K-9s asking for his attention that he didn’t respond to Bucky’s question. Bucky was fine with it, but he really wished Clint was here so he could take a picture to capture this moment. Bucky was too shy and not subtle enough to sneak a picture.

“Steve?” Bucky asked again. He was about to go change his clothes, and he didn’t want to be pushy but some kid smeared something sticky on his pants and he didn’t want to stay in them any longer.

“Huh?” Steve asked, head snapping up from the puppies.

Bucky smirked. “What kind of pizza do you want?” He pulled out his phone to get the number.

“Oh, uh, yeah whatever you guys usually get. I’m good with anything, really.”

Bucky smiled and went inside. “Do you want any other clothes? Yours must be kinda gross after a day with a bunch of kids and shit.”

“Actually, clean clothes sound amazing, thank you.”

“Well, they might be kinda tight, but I hope they work,” Bucky says, casually glancing down at Steve’s shirt which is for once not so tight he’s bursting out of it.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Steve says as he goes back to petting the pups.

Bucky changes quickly and grabs Steve some of his loosest clothes. Steve is still knelt down and rubbing puppy bellies when Bucky comes back, and his heart flutters at the sight. Before Steve notices him, and before his courage leaves him, he quickly pulls out his phone and snaps a picture. He looks at it for a moment and can’t help the smile that climbs over his face.

“What’s making you smile like that?” Steve asks cockily, smirking. Bucky flushes and shoves his phone in his pocket.

“Oh, uh, nothing. Nothing at all.”

Bucky hands over the clothes to Steve and rushes into the kitchen.

He doesn’t see the way Steve’s face drops at the thought that Bucky has someone who made him smile like that at his phone, and is not him.

_____

Steve knew he shouldn’t have gotten too excited for this new job, but he really couldn’t help it. He never wanted to leave the vet clinic he worked at, but he couldn’t just up and move to Nebraska. He’d known since the day they told him that getting another job was going to be a challenge, not because Steve was a bad worker, but because there were so few jobs which Steve could work with animals, and not have to go back to college for years of schooling. Dr. Jones had really taken a chance with him, and he knew there were few other vets that were even hiring. He was honestly prepared to just settle down and admit to himself he might have to get a job waiting tables, but then he’d seen an ad about the petting zoo, and Steve couldn’t resist applying. Yeah, the pay wasn’t extraordinary, but it was enough for now, and he got to work with animals, so that’s all that mattered to Steve.

It finally had started to feel like everything in his life was coming together again. He had a job, with it he’d made some new friends, Sam, Steve’s best friend, had decided to move back to New York from DC after five years, and he’d developed his first crush since his devastating breakup with Peggy.

Unfortunately, it was on his boss, but Steve was always trying to find the positive things in his life.

It didn’t help that Steve usually ended up spending a good portion of his day with Bucky. Until now, the opening, Bucky and Steve generally tag teamed whatever activity they were doing, whether it be building or painting or feeding. They’d actually gotten quite close in the past few weeks, and Steve considered Bucky to be his friend. He wasn’t quite sure what Bucky thought of him, exactly, but he didn’t think Bucky disliked him. He’d come and sat with Steve more than once when he took his lunch break, and he’d also joined Steve more than once when he went to steal some rabbit cuddles.

They’d actually started having some good conversations, because silence couldn’t last forever, and Steve was enamored with Bucky. He thought Bucky was attractive right away, sure, but through their conversations, Steve really started to develop feelings for him. They weren’t intense, or at least not yet, but Steve knew that if Bucky had come and asked Steve on a date, he wouldn’t say no. In fact, he’d be pretty damn excited.

But, his crush wasn’t so large that he felt the need to tell Bucky about it. Steve didn’t know if he ever would, no matter how big his crush gets. Bucky was his boss, after all. And more importantly, Steve didn’t think he could handle the rejection so soon after he and Peggy had ended. He found it hard enough to put himself out there in regular circumstances, even if he knew the other person was attracted to him. Throw in the fact that Bucky was his boss and he wasn’t even really sure of Bucky’s thoughts of him, on top of Steve’s somewhat-recent break up? Yeah, he wasn’t going to be confessing his feelings anytime soon. Even if the thought of Bucky with another person made his stomach twist unpleasantly, Steve was just going to have to keep his thoughts to himself. So when he and Bucky found themselves alone, Steve couldn’t bring himself to actively engage with Bucky. He wanted to, oh did he want to, but… something was stopping him. He didn’t know what, but the thought of trying to converse with him and make conversation, making the first move, actually talking to him in a romantic sense, made Steve twinge. It was like a mental block. Talking to Bucky was the thing he wanted to do the most, and the thing he wanted to do the least.

Or more accurately, maybe, Steve was nervous about trying to think about making romantic advances on Bucky. They’d had plenty of conversations, friend to friend, but the thought of… more made Steve uneasy, while also excited.

His own insecurities had a part to play, Steve didn’t doubt it, but it felt like more than that. Steve didn’t know how to explain it, he wasn’t even sure where to start, in all honesty. In the past, he’d found that not explaining it and just apologizing for his actions was always the way to go, less words and more understanding.

Steve could admit he was becoming enthralled with Bucky. They had in-depth and long conversations in the short time they had known each other, and each time they had another one, Steve felt his feelings develop more for Bucky.

Steve, of course, wasn’t sure how to even begin to initiate it, romantic anything really, if he were to. Maybe he could try tonight? It wouldn’t be the best idea, they needed to be up early the next morning. Still, Steve would sacrifice a night of sleep if it meant getting to see Bucky sleepy and comfortable. Steve thinks he would sacrifice just about anything to see that. (Who is Steve kidding he’s not going to make a move.)

It’s not like it’s a hardship for Steve to give some dogs (and one cat) some belly rubs. It actively helps with the anxiety he’s built up thinking about being in a room with Bucky and beer for a good portion of the night, and it’s dogs . Clint would be there to ease some of the tension, though, so that would help. As much as Steve wanted to be alone with Bucky all night, he didn’t think he was ready for something like that quite yet.

You’re going to have a good night, Steve told himself. You’re going to have a good night.

_____

Steve nearly called the Vatican, because Bucky and Clint didn’t get drunk and that alone was a certifiable miracle. They all quit around ten thirty, actually, and it was a pretty tame night overall. Steve still had fun, he hadn’t realized but he hadn’t been out with his friends in quite some time, and the comfortable atmosphere of the evening was exactly what Steve had been needing for a night out. Plus, dogs? And cats?  He ended up just crashing in one of the spare rooms because why should he drive home just to come back in, like, eight hours? He was tired enough that it was surprisingly easy to fall asleep.

Steve dreamt of Bucky holding his hand and putting an arm around him while they were watching TV on the couch. He dreamt of light touches and fleeting glances which made his cheeks heat up and his stomach flutter pleasantly.

_____

A few rooms away, Bucky was tossing with his third nightmare that week. He woke up covered in a cold sweat and had to hide his face in a pillow to silence his screams.

_____

Bucky knew he wasn’t going to get back to sleep. He had no beliefs that going back sleep would help, it was always fifty-fifty with his nightmares.

This one was bad, though.

It might have helped to remember it, but it also could have made it worse, so Bucky just tried to take a few deep breaths. He has some brief flashes of blood and screaming, the sound of gunshots ringing in his head. He could practically feel the kickback of a gun in his hand. Part of his body had felt hot and burnt, and other parts felt numb with cold. Some parts off his body could feel humid air, and others could feel wind so intense it felt like it was going to blow Bucky away, even though he was laying down in the dream.

He seemed to be in five different places at once, and his body was still thrumming with all the different sensations. His breath felt short, like his lungs couldn’t suck in air. If he was more aware of the situation, he was sure he would realize tears were streaming down his cheeks and sweat was beading on his forehead.

But Bucky wasn’t fully aware of himself. He was aware enough that he pulled on some shoes and walked out to the barn. Before he could fully process it, he’d taken one of the rabbits, Skippy, out of her cage and cradled her in his arms (he’d forgotten to take off his prosthetic when he fell asleep). He made himself focus on the soft fur in his hands, the twitch of Skippy’s ears and the inhale of her own breath. Bucky sank down to the floor to better hold the rabbit, his back against the wall. Skippy wiggled a bit in his lap, getting comfortable for the long haul. She loved attention, and she didn’t shy away from cuddles, which Bucky (and Clint) greatly appreciated on nights when he needed something to focus on outside of the thoughts running through his head, thoughts he didn’t want to be there. Sometimes the soft fur and stable breathing of an animal did the trick.

Bucky kept his hand moving over the rabbit, feeling the fur move through his fingers. Every once in awhile he moved his palm over her ears, his touch registering the warm skin. Skippy was soothed back to sleep by the rhythm, and Bucky was soothed into a state where he no longer felt a hairsbreadth away from a breakdown. He used the rabbit’s fast breathing to regulate his own - in for three of her breaths and out for three of her breaths. He kept his palm moving over her back. He kept his attention focused on her, not on the thoughts trying to run through his brain or the anxiety sitting in his gut at the thought of the petting zoo’s second day.  He knew he shouldn’t be as anxious for day two, and it wasn’t quite as bad, but he still felt anxious, mostly about some of the same things from the first day.

Bucky lost track of time, which was exactly his goal in coming out to the barn in the first place. If he lost track of time, he also lost track of the thoughts overloading his brain from the dream. He lost track of the anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. His breathing evened out. His shoulders eased down away from his ears, some of the tension bleeding out of his body. He continued to stroke Skippy, who was now fast asleep, her foot twitching every so often from her rabbit dreams. It made Bucky’s lips curl up at the edges. He hoped she was having good dreams.

_____

Steve woke up just as the sun was coming up. He pulled himself out of bed and went outside. He couldn’t help himself from snapping a few pictures of the sunrise (it was really gorgeous, okay).

On his way back to make coffee, he noticed Bucky’s shoes were gone from the door, the same work boots he almost always wore. Steve raised his eyebrows and went to peek in his room, just to make sure everything was okay. Bucky had never mentioned being a morning person, or getting up earlier than needed, so Steve didn’t know why he would be gone. And if he was running, why would he take his work boots and not his tennis shoes?

Steve couldn’t find Bucky in his room. Clint, as far as Steve could tell from the snoring, was still tucked into his bed, and probably would be for at least another hour, if not more.

Steve put a pot of coffee on and went out to the barn. He found Bucky sitting on the floor, his back against a wall and a rabbit (Skippy) tucked into his lap. The rabbit was fast asleep. Bucky was not, his hand moving rhythmically over Skippy’s fur.

Bucky glanced over at him when he approached. Steve tried to keep the lovesick look off his face, but he didn’t think he succeeded all that well. He crossed his arms and leaned against a post.

“I had a nightmare,” Bucky told Steve quietly, so soft Steve could barely hear it.

Steve just nodded in reply, trying not to look as worried as he felt. He had to physically stop himself from bounding over and asking Bucky if he was alright, if he wanted to talk about it or just needed some company or wanted a hug. But Steve had learned through trial and error that not everyone responded to stress and general negative emotions the way he did. Many people want space when they’re upset, and that’s probably why Bucky came out to the barn in the first place. Animals tended to be far less judgemental than people.

“Do you… wanna talk about it?”

Bucky shakes his head.

“Do you want some space?”

Bucky nodded.

“Coffee’s ready, if you want it,” Steve replied. He pushed himself off the wall with a small smile in Bucky’s direction and turned back toward the house.

_____

Bucky felt like he had whiplash. He expected Steve to react like every other civilian he’d ever had interaction with: he was going to borderline freakout and then coddle Bucky and ask if there was anything he could do and oh my gosh what was it about and does it really still affect Bucky? And if he’s really ‘trying’ he might even move closer to Bucky and try to hug him or just touch him in general, which is not something Bucky enjoys when he’s in a good mood, let alone after a really bad night.

He was not expecting Steve to be so cool about things. He didn’t think Steve, as kind and caring a man as he was, was going to just seem to understand how Bucky was feeling and what he needed in the moment. Steve’s caring demeanor had lead Bucky to believe he would be trying to make Bucky feel better a little too quickly, not quite understanding that Bucky needed space and not touch (unless you were a cute little rabbit by the name of Skippy). But he hadn’t. And that confused Bucky to no end.

Bucky felt like he spent the rest of the day in a haze of confusion. He knew he shouldn’t be this surprised about the situation. Steve was being kind and respecting his space and boundaries and not bringing up things he didn’t want to talk about, he should be happy, ecstatic, overjoyed at the fact that the guy he was interested in was not overbearing about Bucky’s nightmares and such.

But Bucky couldn’t get over the feeling that Steve understood what he was going through a little too well. Bucky had never had anyone react like that to one of his, for lack of a better word, episodes, especially no one who hadn’t experienced some sort of traumatic shit themselves. Which made Bucky feel all the worse, because that made him think Steve had experienced some traumatic stuff. Bucky wouldn’t wish some of the feelings he’d experienced because of his trauma on his worst enemy, knowing that Steve could relate to what he was feeling made Bucky’s heart twist. Steve, of all people, should never have to go through anything like that. Steve was pure, he was a good guy, and not one of the self proclaimed ones who is actually a douche, he was an actual good guy. He liked Flemish Giant Rabbits named Bucky and goats named Kit Kat and horses named Hashbrown and miniature horses named Hershey and dogs and cats. He liked llamas named Lemonade and he was nice to every guest no matter how rude they were being. He’s great will all of the kids, making even the shyest feel welcome and part of the group, and he was always more than willing to help in whatever way he could. He made the animals, all animals, perk up whenever he walked by. (He did the same to Bucky, too.)

No one like that should have to go through some of the shit that Bucky had experienced (not that Bucky exactly thought he deserved have endured some of this crap either). He shuddered at the thought that Steve had gone through something like that, and he knew that he could have gone through something even worse, which scared him to no end. Steve shouldn’t have to experience that. Bucky wanted to make sure he never had to experience that ever again, and he knew he would move mountains to make sure that it never happened again. The thought scared Bucky more that he would like to admit. He’d never felt like he would move mountains for someone, at least romantically, but thinking of Steve make him think that he could and would do it in a heartbeat. They’d hardly even known each other for a month. That scared Bucky, too. What would two months be like? Six? A year? Would this feeling only grow or would it slowly run its course and dissipate?

Bucky had to take a deep breath, stroking Skippy a few more times for good measure. He took a few minutes to himself to calm down. He could physically feel tension easing out of his shoulders with every stroke. By the end of a half hour, when he really needed to get his day started, he felt more calm than he had most of the time lately. He took one last deep breath and set Skippy back in her cage, giving her a handful of sunflower seeds to munch on for her time. The cheapest therapist , Bucky thought to himself with a chuckle.

_____

Bucky ended up starting his day after that, with a whole giant mug of coffee and some oatmeal. Like a real, certified adult. (Steve made really good coffee, okay.) He felt better than he was expecting from the night he had, and although he was disoriented because of the realization of the extent of his feelings. Bucky wasn’t really sure what people did when they realized they would move mountains for their crush, but he was just going to try to go on with his day and not fall on his face or get stepped on by a horse. Or a goat. Those motherfuckers did not feel good standing on your foot. They may seem all dog-like and innocent, but their hooves could hurt, especially when they’re overfed to high heaven. Bucky had a nice, ugly, purple bruise to prove it.

So Bucky loaded his coffee with caramel macchiato creamer and sugar, grudgingly ate his oatmeal, and tried to wake up. He had some pop song stuck in his head, though he really had no idea how it got there (he totally was listening to nothing but Troye Sivan in his headphones while he was cleaning up last night), but the chorus was just repeating in his head, and if he was just a little less awake he would be swaying to the beat and dancing in an awkward, embarrassing fashion while sitting down. He also would may or may not be singing/humming (singing) along with the tune, in a completely tone deaf rendition.

He tried to take a few minutes to just calm down, prepare himself for the day. He’s done more on less sleep, so it shouldn’t be the worst day he’s ever had, but it was only the second day of the petting zoo, and things could still go horribly wrong. One day didn’t make an expert in anything, and getting less than five hours of sleep didn’t exactly help on the second day.

He grabbed one of the cats and decided to see if it would stay in his lap while he drank his coffee and tried to actually eat something. You could never pet too many animals for too long, in Bucky’s opinion.

The three-legged beauty climbed right in Bucky’s lap and settled down. Bucky allowed himself to smile and stroke over his fur. He let his hand wander in between his ears and then down to his chin. The cat lifted his head up and guided Bucky to the spot where he wanted. It made Bucky feel a little better. The scowl plastered to his face loosened a hair.

Bucky finally felt good enough to at least eat a bowl of oatmeal. He knew he probably wouldn’t be able to take a lunch, but he didn’t feel hungry right now and there was no use in forcing himself to eat when he knew it would only make his stomach feel off and make him more grumpy. Bucky didn’t need to be more grumpy.

_____

The next few days went by in a rush. Before the three knew it, the opening week of the petting zoo had flown by and they were, of course, celebrating. Celebration, fortunately, meant the week had been quite the success and the knots in Bucky’s back could loosen. With, of course, alcohol. This time they got a cab and decided to go to a local bar. Unfortunately this didn’t stop them (Clint) from getting shitfaced, as was the small hope for the more public setting. Bucky and Steve managed to rein it in to a light buzz, but Clint evidently couldn’t hold it in. An hour in and he’d managed to down about two shots of tequila and three other shots of various alcohols. Bucky already had a sympathy headache for the oncoming hangover.

He and Steve stuck to beer, watching Clint down copious amounts of alcohol. Drunk Clint was funny Clint, though, so everyone was having a good time watching him. He was being adventurous, going and talking to new people, hitting on a few (even though Bucky knew for a fact Clint wasn’t going to start anything with anyone).

He came back to the table every once in awhile, sometimes with a number written on a napkin or with a person on his arm (men and women both).

“Wow, Clint, I didn’t know you were such a smooth talker. How many numbers have you got?” Steve asked after about the fifth time Clint came back to the table.

“Eh, don’t know don’t care,” Clint replied, “I’m aromantic, so it’s more for fun than anything else. I’m not looking for anything serious, and I probably never will be. Also no one’s caught my interest enough to go home with ‘em. Or at least, no one has yet.”

Steve nodded. “Alright.” He took another pull of his beer.

Clint raised an eyebrow, squaring his shoulders. “You gotta problem with that?”

“No,” Steve said, rushed, “no not at all. I’m demi myself so I mean. I just… I get it? Well, obviously not fully because demi and aro are not the same thing at all , but I mean, I kinda, I can kinda, just, like, the not… being… straight?”

By the end of Steve’s awkward speech, Clint and Bucky were practically cackling. Steve was blushing a bright shade of red, looking nervous.

“Yeah, we know, man. I just wanted to see how far into a hole you would dig yourself if I didn’t interrupt.” Clint replied with the most happy, carefree, and utterly drunk smile Steve thinks he’s ever seen. Steve wasn’t quite sure how to reply, but both Clint and Bucky broke out in laughter, extra loud because of their inebriated state.

“Seriously, though,” Clint started again, “it’s good to know you’re queer. We gotta stick together, right?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m bi,” Bucky replied, contributing to the conversation.

“Us LGBTs flock together.”

“You got that right,” Steve said, raising his glass in reply. Their glasses all clinked together. “Lord knows we gotta.”

“ True ,” Bucky and Clint yelled at the same time, drawing out the syllables, raising their glasses up again. More clinking resonated through the little booth they had taken over. A few stray drops spilled onto the table.

“But, seriously, man, it’s ridiculous?” Clint started, looking as drunk as he sounded. “The representation is shit. It’s pisspoor, and if there is any at all, it’s usually stereotyped to high hell. Also all these shits always kill off the queer characters, and they hardly ever move away from gay characters. Which isn’t bad, by any means, any positive representation is good right? But at the same time, there are other non het sexualities besides gay. I’d love to see an aro on TV, or hell, a bi. Demi would be wonderful, an asexual would be fucking glorious. Literally anything positive besides the shit we have right now, honestly.”

“You know what I want?” Bucky cut in. “I want to see a goddamn superhero who isn’t straight. Is that so much to ask? Especially in these fucking movies, because I know the comics are loaded with queer characters, but then they get to the big screen and poof! Literally all of the representation turns into a bunch of straight people running around doing vaguely impressive shit and forming awkward romances with one another. It’s starting to get boring as shit, let me just say.”

Steve nodded along the whole time, surprised at how profound the two were being for how many drinks they both had consumed. Steve knew they had a point, though, had even had some, if not all, of the same thoughts himself. He would kill to see some decent demi representation, honestly. He couldn’t think of a single time he’s seen his sexuality represented, and he wishes he could say it was the alcohol making his brain fuzzy, but he was pretty sure even if he was sober as a judge he still couldn’t think of one demi character without some googling. Even then, it’s such an unknown sexuality, Steve thinks there might not be any then. Thinking back on it, he doesn’t think he’s had a single relationship where he hasn’t had to explain his sexuality to people. He thinks Clint and Bucky might actually be the first people he’s come out to who didn’t ask him what the hell ‘demisexual’ is and how it works. (Not that those people weren’t accepting, they just didn’t know of the term at the time.)

Steve couldn’t help but relax more and think he’d found some pretty neat people at a petting zoo in upstate New York.

_____

The next week went by, and then the next. Before the three knew it, a month had gone by (with plenty of celebrations to boot), and it was time to see about their finances for the month, or, more accurately, it was time for Bucky to tell Steve and Clint about the finances for the month. Steve had been brought in on the ‘meeting,’ mostly because Clint was no help at all, and also because Steve’s job was sort of on the line here.

Overall, they felt like they had been doing rather well. They’d had a pretty steady stream of customers every day, with the weekends clearly being the busiest.

Clint, actually, had used some of his social media skills to get the word out about their business, and needless to say they’d had a bunch of teenage girls come asking for selfies. They had to pay to get in, though, so really there wasn’t much harm. (Bucky briefly thought about charging for pictures, but decided he wasn’t going to be that cruel.)

The guys had even started making a bet seeing who could get the most teenagers to come up and ask them for pictures. Steve had been in the lead for two weeks now and had won a total of $50.

Clint’s snapchats had also improved, bringing more followers, and he pinned the tweet with all the information for the petting zoo, so if anyone went on his profile, it was the first thing they would see. His goal by the end of the summer was to get verified, and Bucky thought he was insane. Steve told him to chase his dreams.

The next time Clint got drunk (that night) he hugged Steve for a good ten minutes, crying and telling him how much he needed to hear that and what a great guy Steve was, and if he wasn’t totally aromantic as hell he would one hundred percent be asking Steve to be in a committed relationship, but he just needed to understand that wasn’t Clint’s thing. Steve repeated multiple times that he understood, that it was okay, he didn’t really want to date Clint either, and he understood that Clint is aromantic and Steve loves and accepts him for that.

Clint passed out not five minutes later on the living room floor.

That got them to here, the meeting, for finances.

Clint started off the meeting by flicking a paper football at Bucky. Bucky had to take a deep breath and fight the urge to retaliate until Clint was nothing but a heap of paper footballs on the floor, but after a few inhales and exhales, he continued.

“Okay,” he began. “So, based on this month’s numbers, if we keep going like this, we’ll at least break even,” Bucky started, “but, we know that this can’t continue past the summer. Hopefully we can find some other way to make money, but right now it’s still going to be a little tight if we want to keep putting some money in our savings.”

They sat in silence for a moment, not knowing what to say.

“I have an idea,” Clint said, hopping out of his chair and into the kitchen. Bucky raised a judgemental eyebrow, which turned into a disapproving look when Clint came back with a bottle of tequila.

“No,” Bucky said, deadpan.

“It worked last time,” Clint pointed out.

“No,” Bucky repeated.

“It worked!”

“No.”

“Steve-”

“Don’t you dare drag me into this,” Steve commented, a cat in his lap purring and another one splayed out on his feet. One of his hands was stroking over the fur of the cat in his lap.

Clint threw up his hands. “I swear, this is how the petting zoo happened in the first place!”

“Clint, that doesn’t mean this is a good idea. The petting zoo had to be deciphered from a page full of dicks.”

Steve’s head glanced up from where he was making googly eyes at the cat. “What?” He asked.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Long story. It involves tequila , which is why this is a bad idea .”

“But it’s the reason why you have a job right now, which is why this is a good idea .”

“Look, you wanna go ahead and do ten shots of tequila? Be my guest.” Bucky was overestimating the number, underestimating Clint’s stubbornness.

“Fine, I will.” Clint went to go get a shot glass, and then downed three in a row. He took a break, gesturing for Bucky to continue with his speech.

“Clint,” Steve cut in, worriedly, “don’t do ten shots of tequila.”

“Can’t stop me now,” Clint muttered before downing another shot. Steve winced.

“Anyway, I think we need to try to get this month’s profit as high as we can. I’m not sure how to do it, but the more we make this summer the less we have to worry about in the winter. Regardless, I think we’ll have to try and find something else to keep us afloat, but for the summer this should work. We may even have a cushion in the savings, if things keep up.”

Steve nodded. “I’ll try and brainstorm some. There’s gotta be something you can do with about a dozen different animals, right?”

Bucky shrugged, Clint downed another shot. “There’s gotta be something,” Bucky said, “I really don’t want to have to get a real job, I’m not sure either of us are even qualified for anything anymore.”

“Let’s do a car wash,” Clint slurred, on his fifth or sixth shot by now. Bucky would have been impressed if he wasn’t so disgusted.

“Maybe you should slow down a little bit, buddy.”

Clint looked at Bucky with a fire of rage in his eyes and sorrow in his expression. “Never,” Clint whispered, far too dramatic for the situation at hand. He downed another shot and Bucky could tell he was holding back a wince at the sting of the alcohol. Bucky winced in sympathy.

Steve was watching the situation (he was totally not staring at Bucky) with wide eyes flicked back and forth between Clint and Bucky.

“I give up,” Bucky said, flipping over the legal pad he brought in and walking out of the room.

Clint pours another shot, yells “For Narnia!” and downs it. He then tries to stand up and falls right to the floor. He make a painful sound but doesn’t try to move. Steve leaves him to go find more animals to pet.

It’s four in the afternoon. On a Wednesday (they’d closed the petting zoo an hour early so they could have this specific meeting).

_____

Steve found a cat, and Bucky, sitting at the kitchen table. He fished two beers out of the fridge and went to sit down with Bucky, who was petting the cat (that only had one eye). The cat looked very content with its situation.

“Thanks,” Bucky said, screwing off the top and tipping it in Steve’s direction before taking a gulp.

Steve did the same to his. He leaned forward so that his elbows were on the table, displaying the basketballs that were his biceps (his shirt was straining, Bucky was surprised it didn’t rip, seriously, did Steve buy small t-shirts? Because the guy is really more of a large).

He knocked his foot against Bucky’s under the table. “Good meeting,” he said with a smirk, summoning up some courage to make physical contact with Bucky. It was adorable but also incredibly teasing which made Bucky blush.

“Yeah, well…” He trailed off.

“Hey, I’m serious,” Steve replied. “You didn’t sugarcoat anything, you told us the real information that we need to know to get through the summer, and you let us know where we stand. That’s really about all you can ask for.”

“I just don’t know what to do,” Bucky sighed. “This petting zoo was supposed to be the solution to our problem. We got the permits and all that shit worked out, we spent months preparing. We tried so hard, I don’t think I’ve seen Clint work that hard since one of the sheds in the pasture collapsed last winter and he had to put it back together in the snow. As much as he tried to brush it off, I could tell he really wanted it and I just… I dunno, I feel like I let him down almost.”

“Bucky,” Steve said, his voice oozing tenderness, “Clint could never be disappointed by you. He knows how much work you, both of you, put into this place, hell, I’ve only known you guys a few months and just from that I can tell you’re a great guy, and you work really hard for what you want. You guys teamed together for this, you built this place together. He knows how hard you tried, and I’m sure you didn’t let him down.”

Steve was looking directly into Bucky’s eyes and Bucky’s heart beat faster and faster the longer they held eye contact. Steve’s eyes were so blue, so beautiful, it nearly made Bucky stop breathing. He’s not sure he heard all of Steve’s words, too lost in the sincere expression on his face and the way his laser-focus was directly pinned on Bucky.

After a few moments of silence, Bucky couldn’t handle it and looked away, down at his hands which were fidgeting with themselves.

“Thanks,” Bucky whispered. “I’m just… I’m really nervous about this.” Bucky took a breath like he was going to say more, but no words came out so he just stayed quiet.

“I’m sure it’ll all work out,” Steve said, and when Bucky looked up Steve had the most sincere and heartfelt smile Bucky thinks he’s ever seen.

Little did Steve know that smile only made Bucky more nervous.

Falling in love with your employee was never a good idea, Bucky Barnes could at least tell you that much.

_____

Okay, so maybe Bucky wasn’t in love . But he could be. He could easily see himself falling in love with Steve, and the thought scared him. It scared him so much sometimes it made him feel sick.

The scariest thought was that Steve didn’t have feelings for him, or if they did that they were only on a base level and they could never be anything more than friendly with each other.

That thought didn’t make Bucky’s stomach churn so much as the idea of having to see Steve with someone else. Someone else, who wasn’t him, who would never be him, but who got everything that Bucky could only dream of having. They would get to sleep in the same bed as Steve and go on dates with him. They would get to hold his hand and maybe even kiss him on the cheek or the lips, in public no less. They would get to be carelessly affectionate with the man Bucky was pining over, while would be able to do nothing but sit back and watch.

All these possibilities still hurt Bucky, even if they hadn’t happened yet, or would never happen. The thought of having to be happy for Steve while he was with someone else didn’t make the ache in his chest any less, and it didn’t help the air come quicker to his lungs.

Bucky knew it didn’t help. He knew nothing was going to help, least of all continuing to think about it. His brain did it anyway.

That night, Bucky found himself laying in bed, curled in on himself. He let his thoughts wander to what it would be like if he and Steve were to happen to feel the same way for each other. He let the anxiety of thinking about confessing his feelings to Steve wash over him, and he allowed himself to feel the pure elation of Steve saying that he, too, felt like this. He let himself imagine he and Steve going on a date, holding hands, possibly kissing at the end of the night. He let himself think of a second, third, fourth date. He let himself think of long term, of waking up next to Steve with the morning light shining through his hair, and his blue eyes looking up at Bucky, sleepy but content. He allowed himself to think of Steve staring up at him with a smile that could overload Bucky’s heart and make him feel things he never thought he could feel with another person.

Bucky let himself drift asleep with all these thoughts, and he allowed himself to realize that he could fall in love with Steve. He could fall in love with Steve easier than he could fall asleep, he thinks.

With that last thought, Bucky drifts off.

_____

Steve finds himself on the same night laying in bed, like Bucky. He also finds himself thinking of how much he likes Bucky, and how much he hopes Bucky likes him.

His mind doesn’t follow the path of self destruction, of thinking about Bucky with another person.

His mind instead follows the more practical path of how can I make this work to my advantage ?

What can Steve do to make this situation work for him? Can he even make this situation work for him? How does he break it to his boss that he has feelings for him? Can he just ask him on a date? That seems unprofessional, but then again, they’re not the most professional establishment.

But is it too unprofessional? Even if it isn’t, does Bucky even feel that way for him?

If Bucky does feel that way for him, what is he supposed to do about it? Would they go on a date? Where would they even go? (Steve was thinking picnic, but he was open to anything.)

Steve let these thoughts race through his head for exactly five minutes before he decided to cut the crap and not let the unanswerable questions get to him. He was going to get nowhere if he kept worrying about the situation until he collapsed, which could be hours, and he had to be at work the next day bright and early. So early.

Steve honestly thought some days it would just be easier if he stayed at Clint and Bucky’s place all the time. It cut down on a number of stressful occurrences, such as the traffic which apparently slowed down the roads at every time of the day, and Steve would almost never be late. Oversleeping wouldn’t be the end of the world, at the very least.

He ended up tossing and turning a lot that night, thinking of situations that weren’t in the least bit reasonable, and what he would do in all of them. Nearly all involved Bucky, even though he had told himself to stop thinking about it.

_____

Things come to a head on a Thursday night which leads into a Friday morning.

Clint was gone all day, leaving Bucky and Steve to deal with the petting zoo alone. It wasn’t the worst outcome, but Clint hardly gave them any notice and didn’t get them a reason for his disappearance.

Thursday afternoon drifts into evening, then into night. No Clint to be found, and he wasn’t answering his phone.

Bucket: clint where the hell r u????

Bucket: u havent answered all day r u dead

Bucket: omg ur dead can i have the xbox

Bucket: who is going to drink the tequila, clint????/

Bucket: how could u abandon ur family ilke this??????????

Clit: not dead

The ‘not dead’ text was the last Bucky had heard, and that was at noon. It was now nearing seven, and Bucky was doing his best not to worry and overload Clint with texts. He called a few times, left one voicemail, and had reeled himself in to only three texts, all serious (and most with full words). Steve had left around six, telling Bucky to let him know when Clint was home because he was worried as well.

At eight, Steve texted him.

Steeb: Any word from Clint?

Bucky: nope, nothing. not sure if i should be worried?????

Steeb: It is really weird. Give it a few more hours?

Bucky: ok

Steeb: :-( Let me know when he gets home

Bucky: IF he gets home

Steeb: I don’t know how to do an eye roll thing, but if I did there would be one here

At ten, Bucky started to really worry. He was mentally doing calculations to see how many hours Clint had been missing, and how many more would have to go by before he could file a report. Not fifteen minutes had gone by before Bucky was pacing back and forth across the kitchen and picking at the dry skin on his lips. Bucky continued until the constant movement had made him feel sick and all the dry skin was off his lips. He calmed down for a minute, thinking everything was fine and that Clint was just busy. This isn’t the weirdest thing he’s done, it isn’t even the first time he’s run off for a day. This didn’t calm Bucky down much anymore, because all those other times, Clint at least left a note. He checked his phone again, and seeing nothing, he was back to pacing around the house, and trying to sit down. If he did manage to sit, he couldn’t sit still, his leg moved or his body unconsciously rocked back and forth. He calmed down for another minute by taking a few deep breaths, and then the cycle of nerves repeated itself. He’d tried calling Clint three more times, but it went straight to voicemail.

Bucky tried to breathe, tried to remind himself it’s all okay and Clint is a grown ass man who can do what he wants, and Bucky is not his babysitter, and he’s hopefully not doing anything (too) dangerous and hopefully not getting himself (too) hurt. Bucky is one of Clint’s emergency contacts, there’s no way he could be in any sort of huge trouble and Bucky wouldn’t get a call.

(A thousand ‘ unlesses…’ ran around in Bucky’s head, but he tried his best to cancel them out.)

Deep breaths, Bucky reminded himself, deep breaths. It’ll all be okay, it’ll all be okay.

Bucky went through the cycle a few more times, and by eleven he was worn out while still being jittery. He felt tired, like his eyes were going to shut all on their own, but he knew if he got into bed he was going to be too jittery to sleep, and his thoughts would only overtake him more in the dark. He was trying to stave off getting into bed for as long as possible, telling himself midnight, at midnight he’ll get ready and go to sleep. Midnight and no later, he was not going to stay up all night worrying about this (he totally was and he knew it. Two am, here he comes). He couldn’t even force himself to be productive, which was probably the most frustrating thing. All he could do was sit on the couch and stare blankly at the TV while his anxiety ran it’s course, and the variation of voices drifted through the living room.

A few of the cats had tried to come up to him, probably sensing his distress, because cats are magical like that. The dogs were going crazy as well, whimpering at his feet and licking his hand. Some had even laid down right by his feet, looking at him with worried eyes. Bucky gave each one a light pet or stroke, hoping to try and quell some of his anxiety. It didn’t quite work, but Bucky was glad for the support. He wasn’t thinking enough to try and curl up with one like he did when he had a nightmare.

Bucky was fading as it was nearing midnight. He was about to give up, or at least that’s what he told himself, when a few of the dogs’ ears perked up, then they all ran out to the yard (some trailing after because they honestly don’t know why the other dogs are running, but hey, they’re not going to miss out on the party) barking and jumping. Bucky was hot on their tail, hoping to see Clint stumbling home.

Bucky did find Clint, though he wasn’t alone and he wasn’t stumbling.

“You bought a fucking camel ?”

_____

“Before you get mad-”

“You bought a fucking camel. A camel. Is this even legal? How is this legal? I’m not getting arrested for harboring a camel, Clinton. I’m not doing this shit. No, absolutely not, no.”

Clint let Bucky rant to himself, waving to the guy that brought Clint and the camel home in a special trailer.

The camel wasn’t huge, it was actually quite small. It couldn’t really be said if the camel was young or just small. Knowing Clint, though, it was the proverbial runt of the litter who had a very specific, very sad story to go along with it. Clint was always a sucker for the small ones, and Bucky had heartstrings that pulled at the slightest inclination. That’s how they started a petting zoo.

Which now had a fucking camel, apparently.

Bucky continued to talk about all of the reasons they could not , under any circumstances, have a camel.

Once he’d got frustrated enough to ask “are you even listening?” to Clint, who didn’t respond, just pet the camel who had on a halter with a lead rope.

“Clint? Clint, are you even listening?” Bucky asked again, before gesturing, then signing “ Are you listening to me? ”

Clint simply signed back “ no .”

“ Did you turn your hearing aids off or did the battery die? ”

“ One died, the other I turned off. ”

“O-K, ” Bucky took a deep breath, running his fingers through his hair. It was midnight and he was not prepared to deal with this. “ We can’t keep a camel.”

Clint shrugged. “ I think we can make it work. We’ve got the extra space next to the horses.”

“ We’re hardly making a profit as it is now, ” Bucky signed, tension of the day wearing on him, “ and a camel is serious business. Where are we even going to find a vet for the thing?”

“ Her name is P-E-A-C-H-E-S, and we have a bond.” The camel nudged it’s head into Clint’s neck as if to make a point. Bucky swears he saw her giving him the sad eyes. Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

“ Fine,” he signed angrily, even though he knew he was probably going to be enthralled with the camel by the end of the day tomorrow. Some battles, he had learned not to fight. This was one of those battles, one he always lost. It was too late to argue about this, anyway, in Bucky’s opinion. They can figure it out tomorrow.

Clint smiled and went to put her away and feed her, almost skipping as he walked off. Bucky shook his head, grumbling to himself about how it’s midnight and he doesn’t have time for this shit. He was losing out on precious hours of sleep, which were few and far between on a good week, let alone one where Clint brought home a camel. A fucking camel.

Bucky: clint is home. brought a camel with him.

Steeb: A camel???

Bucky: camel.

Steeb: :-O I can’t wait to see that tomorrow!

Bucky: >:-(

____

The next morning dawned far too early considering the hour Bucky actually got to bed. Getting up at five to go feed was not something Bucky liked doing on a regular day, mix in the less than five hours of sleep and Bucky knew a few cups of coffee wasn’t going to be enough to save his mood for the day (when was it ever, though, really?). Oh, yeah, there was also the fact that there was a fucking camel which he now happened to own.

God damnit, Clint.

Seven in the morning came far too quickly, and with it, so did Steve, which meant they only had a few hours before people started showing up. He found Bucky right away.

“Did you really get a camel?”

“ Yes . Clint brought it home at, like, midnight. I don’t even know what to feed the damn thing,” Bucky complained.

“I think they eat hay and grain, dry grain,” Steve commented. “Also you could just ask Clint to feed her.”

“How the-”

“We worked with a camel once. He was super nice… Well, to me. He spat in the vet’s face a few times.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Your boyish charms must’ve worked wonders on him,” Bucky said without realizing how that may have sounded. Bucky certainly liked Steve’s boyish charms, but he didn’t want Steve to know that he liked Steve’s boyish charms. He wasn’t opposed to Steve knowing by any means, but he was opposed to Steve finding out when Bucky wasn’t prepared for it. He held his breath while waiting for Steve’s reply. He wasn’t looking, but if he was, he may have seen Steve’s face melt into the most endearing and possibly love struck pose of the week.

Steve laughed. “I’m sure she, the vet, appreciated my boyish charm when it meant one less loogie in her face.” Bucky chuckled at that.

“C’mon,” Bucky said, still chuckling, and gestured for Steve to follow him to the camel.

Steve was completely gone on Peaches. He loved her immediately, and she seemed to be quite enthralled with him as well, coming right up to the gate and putting her head next to Steve’s. Steve smothered her in attention, and she seemed to preen under his touches.

“She’s so cute!” Steve exclaimed. “Look how calm she is.”

“Yeah…” Bucky trailed off. “But isn’t it kinda sad? I mean, they’re wild animals and yet we’re keeping her in a pen.”

Steve nodded. “I’ve gone back and forth on the issue for years now. Some days I just want to abolish all zoos and let the animals run free, but other days I just believe that there’s a reason for why they’re in captivity. Not those insane people who, like, buy and raise tigers in a pen, but zoos and what not. They’re not complete soul sucking corporate machines who are only out for profit; they do a lot of good work spreading information about conservation. And they do save some animals, like endangered ones. Plus, some of these guys would never make it in the wild, you have to admit. Peaches’s too small, and if Clint got her, I’m guessing she really needed a place to go.”

“Yeah… I dunno, it just seems so awful. I mean, none of these guys are wild. And, to be fair, it’s not like we’re locking them in cages, they’ve got plenty of room, and most of them would be worse off without us. I just feel bad, I dunno.”

Steve shrugged. “Well, I think she’s great. And Peaches? What an adorable name, you should totally get her a halter with little peach emojis on it.”

Bucky burst out laughing at that idea. “If we got halters with pictures on them for every animal named after food in this place, we may just go broke.”

“I’ve actually been meaning to ask; why in the hell do you guys name everything after food? And yourselves, apparently.”

Bucky ran his hands over his face and groaned. “I don’t even know anymore, it started as a joke and then spiralled out of control. It’s actually starting to get confusing sometimes, trying to tell if someone is talking about the animal or the food. One time, when we were drunk, Clint said that we should have hashbrowns for breakfast, and I just about flipped my shit because I thought he was talking about the horse.”

Steve threw his head back and grabbed his left boob with his right hand once Bucky finished his anecdote. Bucky didn’t even raise an eyebrow at Steve’s little quirk by now, he was so used to it. He was used to making Steve laugh, and that made him feel better than the three cups of coffee this morning had.

“I seriously thought we were going to eat the horse, though, I got so scared. I think I may have even cried? And then Clint just stared at me like I was crazy for a few minutes, but instead of telling me that he meant the potatoes, he just started laughing at me.” The continuation of the story only made Steve laugh harder, which encouraged Bucky to continue. “He ended up falling off the couch and hitting the table with how hard he was laughing. I think he still has a scar.” Steve finally bent over from laughter, and Bucky couldn’t help but smile at him. Only Steve would think a story about something stupid he and Clint (mostly Clint) did while they were drunk was funny enough for a boob grab. Luckily, Bucky had plenty of stories about stupid shit they had gotten up to when they were drunk, so he could probably keep Steve laughing if they didn’t have work to get to.

Bucky really wished they didn’t have work to get to.

_____

It was bound to happen, really. All of them should have known it. None of it should be at all surprising, really.

It happened on a Friday night, one where Steve had decided to go home for once instead of staying the night, like he had taken to since the petting zoo had opened. Unfortunately they still all had to be wide awake the next day at an early hour, but that had never stopped Bucky and Clint from drinking way more than they should. (Bucky was also starting to realize they were borderline alcoholics, and, seriously, they needed to cut back.)

So, that’s how the evening had progressed. By eight, Clint and Bucky were far more drunk than they should have been, but Clint had somehow persuaded Bucky into tequila shots again, and there was maybe some gin thrown into the mix, but the end result was them thinking their next action was a good idea.

Steve happened to forget his phone. It took him far longer than he should have to realize he’d left it, but he really didn’t think it could wait until morning to retrieve it, and it’s not like he had many plans anyway. He ended up driving over, arriving a little after eight.

Right smack in the middle of Clint and Bucky’s astoundingly bad and drunken idea.

What was Bucky and Clint’s Astoundingly Bad Drunken Idea™?

Somehow, their alcohol infused and sleep deprived brains thought that racing was a good idea. Camel racing, to be specific.

So it was only eightish, and these two were like two wine moms drunk on bad tequila and cheap beer, somehow thinking that going into Peaches pasture, marking a set path, and literally racing her was a good idea.

Steve came in right around the time Peaches actually started kicking. She’d gone along with the charade for two or three times, but after a few she was a little more frisky. So far, Clint and Bucky had both managed not to fall flat on their faces or their asses, although there was one close call with how hard they were laughing about the whole ordeal.

This is right around the time Steve pulled in. He hadn’t texted either of them to let them know he was coming, not having a phone to use and not willing to try and hassle with a payphone. It wasn’t a huge deal, and even if Steve had somehow contacted one of them, they would probably still be in the same situation with how idiotic Clint and Bucky got when they were drinking.

Steve walked up the path to Peaches pasture when he saw Bucky and Clint in there with her.

Clint and Peaches were lined up at the gate. Bucky had his phone camera lined on them, because in their drunken state they had neglected to think to videotape any of the other sprints, standing a few yards from the end of the pasture (to give the runners ample time to slow down). Clint started running, and Peaches followed like she had the other times. Steve was watching from his spot just outside the pasture, not quite believing what he was seeing, and not sure if he should be upset or laughing or a little bit of both. Peaches, however, decided she was getting a little bored with the proceedings and decided to kick her feet out wildly while she ran. Clint kept on running, glancing over at the madness. Bucky was full on laughing, and trying not to fall over because he had a beer in between his fingers and he was still videotaping.

The runners came to the stop, and Clint started to slow down, but Peaches decided to play dirty at the last minute (having clearly won the race) by nudging Clint with her nose on the shoulder. Clint’s balance didn’t keep him upright and he toppled over right on top of the finish line.

Peaches trotted off, holding her head proudly. Bucky couldn’t stop laughing, bent over with his beer spilt all over the ground, video still going. Clint just laid on the ground for a minute after rolling over, and after a moment he too began laughing. Steve stood, jaw wide open, not sure how to proceed.

_____

Steve opened the gate and walked into the pasture.

He’d decided she’d probably had enough of their antics, and he almost felt bad for how they were treating her, but they weren’t really being abusive in any way so he had to keep his annoyance to a minimum. Drunken people acting like idiots was always one of Steve’s biggest pet peeves, and most of his life had been spent trying to reel in his annoyance at drunk people. Some days were better and more effective than others. Today Steve really had to take a few deep breaths to keep his cool. He couldn’t believe that he’d almost laughed a few minutes ago. Now he was just practically seething with anger, because he did not think this situation was funny in the least. At least they hadn’t been, like, riding her and she was going along with their idiocy willingly.

He really shouldn’t be surprised. He knew Clint and Bucky drank, a lot, actually. It was a Friday night, could he really expect more of them? And it wasn’t like it’s exactly Steve’s business what they decide to put into their bodies, especially when it’s legal.

Still, he’s annoyed as shit. Not annoyed enough to chew them out or anything, but annoyed enough that irritation had settled under his skin. When he got to where Clint and Bucky had been standing, they were still laughing over the video, hunched over together with a phone between them. Clint had dirt dusting his clothes and on his face.

Evidently, they somehow didn’t notice Steve, because Bucky yelled ‘Steve!’ when he approached them.

“Steve, di’ you see this? Clint fell flat on his face,” Bucky said, drunkenly, bursting into hysterics once again. The warm light of the setting sun was making his skin glow and Steve couldn’t help but let the irritation loosen with the sight of him laughing so hard he was falling over with a beautiful sunset behind him. Steve wished he had his camera, or could at least sneakily take a picture on his phone (which was still in the barn because this whole situation had not given Steve time to collect what he actually came for). Steve, unfortunately, was the least subtle person on the face of the earth and therefore could not capture this stunning moment, even if Bucky was so drunk he didn’t realize Steve had walked into the pasture. (Maybe he could just try and remember it, and stay up late tonight putting every detail down on paper…)

“Right on yer fuckin’ fa-ace,” Bucky spat out, still laughing.

“Fu-ck you, Barnes,” Clint got out, hiccuping at the start. “Still fuckin’ won,” he murmured.

“Peaches beat you by a mile ,” Bucky spat back.

Clint muttered something to himself. Bucky ignored him and turned to Steve.

“Hi, Steve,” Bucky said with a large smile. If Steve were less oblivious, he would notice how lovestruck Bucky looked. Anyone, who wasn’t so drunk they were racing camels, could see it from a mile away. They could also probably see the equally lovestruck look on Steve’s face, but Bucky was so drunk (and also oblivious) and overwhelmed with his own attraction that it completely slipped past him.

“Hi, Bucky,” Steve replied. “I came to pick up my phone, I left it here. I would have texted but… Well, y’know.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said breathlessly. He hadn’t listened to a word Steve had said, just listened to his voice and watched him as he spoke. He was so far gone he could probably touch one of Jupiter’s moons.

The two of them stood there, awkwardly making heart eyes at one another for a few moments more. Steve finally broke them out of it.

“We should probably… Get out of Peaches’ pasture” He said, gesturing to the gate behind him with his thumb.

“Yeah,” Bucky repeated again. Steve smiled a little awkwardly before moving toward the gate. Some of his earlier irritation at Clint and Bucky had faded just from the small conversation with Bucky ( some , not all). Having an opportunity to openly study Bucky’s face, no matter what the context, was always enough to brighten Steve’s mood. (He hadn’t shown anyone the small series of sketches he had collected in his downtime working there… most of them happened to involve Bucky. Not all. But most.)

Steve tried to encourage Clint and Bucky toward the gate, and once they were out of Peaches’ space, he started walking back toward the barn.

“I’m gonna grab my phone,” Steve said, walking up to the barn to get his phone, which was exactly where he thought he left it, where he almost knew he would forget it, and while he was in the privacy of the barn, he took a few minutes to himself to check his messages-take at least five deep breaths to calm himself down from the overwhelming bout of emotions he felt because of Bucky.

Five deep breaths later, Steve still needed some calming vibes so he took five more. He felt marginally better, but still raw with the mixture of mild irritation from drunk people and the intense range of emotions he’d been feeling about Bucky in the past few months. He’d known for a while he had a crush, had even accepted the fact readily, but lately it’s been starting to feel like more than a crush.

A crush, for Steve, was almost like when he doesn’t know the person that well. He’s not attached to them, but he still appreciates them for the characteristics they brought to his life. It’s not intense, or at least it didn’t have the searing intensity of what Steve has been feeling for Bucky lately. It’s more carefree; if something goes south, it’s not the end of the world. Sure, it’d still hurt a little, leave a twinge in Steve’s heart for a month or two, but he would be able to move past it relatively quick and with only marginally hurt feelings.

What he felt for Bucky, though? That was so much more. It rivalled what he’d felt for Peggy. He was enthralled by Bucky in every and any way he could get him, whether that be in a purely platonic fashion or something more. Steve just didn’t want to lose Bucky, it was that simple. Sure, he really, really wanted to go on a date with Bucky and get to experience the domesticity of being in a relationship with the man, but he would take what he could get in this case.

Which, of course, left the indecision of whether or not he should say something. Telling Bucky his feelings could lead to something amazing, like him and Bucky going on a date or starting something much more than just friends. It could also lead to Bucky getting very uncomfortable and be the end of their friendship, and possibly even Steve’s job. The scariest part was it could lead to anything in between.

After his tenth deep breath, Steve thought it would be best if he didn’t say anything. Nothing bad could happen if nothing changes, right?

_____

Steve was here! Steve… was here. Here! With Bucky! Now! Today!

Bucky’s drunk brain couldn’t exactly comprehend much past the hilarity of Clint falling on his face and Steve being there. Steve with his beautiful blue eyes, hair like spun gold, and general beauty of the rest of his face. And all other parts of his body and brain and personality.

Bucky was very happy that Steve was here. Although, Steve wasn’t here anymore? He’d walked away. Where had he gone? He’d probably told Bucky, but Bucky really wasn’t paying attention to much past the way Steve’s mouth was forming around the words and the way his face was… his face. Very aesthetically pleasing. A great piece of art. 10/10.

But Steve had left? Where did he go? Oh, wait… he went to the barn. Why? Bucky knew he’d said something… hadn’t he? He was going to get something… He forgot something?

Oh! Yeah! Steve forgot his phone. That’s why he was here.

Steve was here. This was great news.

_____

Steve decided to stay for a few more hours, hopefully until Clint and Bucky fell asleep, to make sure they didn’t get up to any more stupid antics like racing camels.

Steve didn’t mind listening to drunk Clint and Bucky. They bicker like an old married couple, which is always entertaining to listen to.

Currently, they were arguing about whether cats or dogs were better. They’d each switched  sides about three times, going between cats and dogs for the both of them. Clint was currently arguing for dogs, while Bucky was defending cats.

“Okay, but… you can’t walk cats? Where’s the companionship?”

“You can too walk cats,” Bucky slurred.  Steve was almost certain they had forgotten he was sitting at the table with them. He didn’t mind, observing was better than anything.

“I mean… I guess, but that wouldn’t even be fun? Like, how would walking a cat be enjoyable? That’s not even… It wouldn’t even be enjoyable. It just. No.”

“It is too enjoyable. It’s casual, the cat just does whate’r the fuck it wants and then does it’s business and… yeah. Dogs ‘re just… too much. Too much.”

“Dogs give you so much more. They’ll… like snuggle you. And want to be around you, oh! And they listen to you. You can teach ‘em stuff.”

“You can potty train cats, birdbrain. You don’t even hav’ta clean up a litter box. It just… It just goes. In a toilet. Right in the toilet.”

“You can’t… Can you? Really?” Clint asked, eyes almost completely glassed over and an expression of shock on his face.

“Yeah, man. It’s, like, a thing.”

Clint sat back in his chair, looking like his whole life had just been changed. Steve couldn’t hold back a giggle which he tried to hide by putting his hand over his mouth. Clint had had the same expression at least three other times in the past hour they’d been arguing about cats vs dogs. It almost always signaled the change of sides, meaning Clint would now be arguing for cats, and Bucky for dogs. Steve’s giggle interrupted the process.

“ Steve !” Bucky exclaimed again. “You’re still here!” He had a bright smile on his face, and Steve wishes he was able to put that smile there every day.

“Yeah, Bucky, I am,” Steve said calmly, trying not to giggle again. He guessed it was understable that Bucky didn’t see him; Bucky and Clint were sitting across from each other at the table, in a pretty heated discussion, and Steve was off to the side, not moving and staying almost silent. Until his giggle.

He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to treat Bucky differently or not just because he was drunk? Steve had never spent a large chunk of time with drunk people while he was sober.

“Clint,” Bucky slurred, “Steve’s here!” Bucky enthusiastically pointed in Steve’s direction.

“Steve!” Clint also exclaimed. “You’re here!”

Steve felt another giggle bubble up and he couldn’t help but smile at all the enthusiastic attention.

“Steve,” Bucky said after taking a swig of his beer. Steve was allowing it, because what was the rhyme again? Beer before liquor, never sicker. Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear. Steve figured these guys hadn’t only had beer tonight, so this might help them to not be so sick. He should also make sure they drink a large glass of water or two before they go to bed. He’d already tried to make them drink water two other times, and some battles were ones Steve wasn’t willing to fight. “Steve, yer great. Yer just. Yer a great guy.”

“Thank you, Bucky. You’re a great guy, too.”

“‘M ser’s, Steve. Yer… great. The greatest.”

Steve blushed. “Thank you. You’re great, too, Bucky,” Steve said quietly, chancing a glance up at Bucky’s face. He was glowing under the kitchen lights, like he had been under the sunset earlier. Steve isn’t sure why; maybe somehow his drunken state had just given his face a natural glow. Whatever the reason, he sure was beautiful because of it.

“I like you lots,” Bucky mumbled. Steve chuckled under his breath, smiling at the way Bucky’s eyes were drooping closed while he was still sitting upright. He wasn’t quite falling asleep, but Steve thought sleep might not be far off. He got up to go get the two of them water, hoping this time they would accept it.

Bucky shot up when Steve raised up out of his seat.

“Where’re ya goin’?” Bucky asked, his face looking like a kicked puppy and his tone not far off.

Steve couldn’t fight the smile which curled on his lips. “Just to the kitchen, Bucky, I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” Bucky replied, still suspicious. He kept his eyes trained on Steve while he went to get the water.

He set the glasses down in front of Clint and Bucky. Bucky and Steve continued their semblance of a conversation, which was more Bucky drunkenly praising Steve than anything else, but Steve found himself enjoying the blushes that accompanied the praise.

Less than half an hour later, Steve insisted Bucky brush his teeth and go to bed since he’d finished his water. Bucky refused to let Steve go without a hug, which Steve was curious about, but indulged Bucky anyway.

Bucky felt soft and warm and eerily like home. He smelt like soap and sweat, but not in a bad way, and something else Steve couldn’t pinpoint. The underlying scent of beer was also noticeable. Both of them held on longer than they would have liked to admit, and Bucky even reached up to ruffle Steve’s hair when they parted.

Steve kept his hands on Bucky’s back for half a moment longer than he should have. Bucky did the same. Their eyes met. Neither moved for half a second, and Steve felt himself unconsciously moving toward Bucky. His heart rate sped up when he realized what was possibly about to happen.

He pulled his hands away from Bucky’s hips awkwardly. Bucky did the same, a little slower. He didn’t look confused, which Steve was thankful for. To be completely honest, he couldn’t really tell what Bucky’s expression was showing.

“G’dnight, Steve,” Bucky said, a small but dazzling smile gracing his face.

“Good night, Bucky.” Steve returned his smile and headed out the door (this time with his phone in his pocket).

Steve got in his car to drive home. Bucky brushed his teeth, as promised, and crawled into bed.

Neither realized Clint had fallen asleep right on the table, glass of water forgotten.

_____

The next week passed in much of the same manner. Steve and Bucky continued to subtly flirt with each other almost every day, they also texted a lot more, a byproduct of the subtle flirting being Bucky sending Steve some cute ass pictures of the animals. Clint had begun to notice, and he decided to say something in true Clint fashion; he texted Bucky about it while Bucky was out in the barn cleaning out the rabbit hutches.

Clit: when r u going to ask steve on a real date

Bucket: non of ur buissness?

Clit: wow learn how to spell business you heathen

Bucket: now uve got teh tøp song stuck in my head :-/

Clit: its not my fault ur a teenage girl

Bucket: am not

Clint: u literally won’t ask ur crush out on a date, u drink pumpkin spice lattes like they’re water, u have a gigantic crush on troye sivan, you listen to 21 pilots

Bucket: CLINT DON”T BLASPHEME

Clit: :-/

Bucky ignored Clint’s text, planning to get back at him by blasting twenty one pilots tonight until Clint was bangining down his door, then turning the music up more. He would have to be prepared for some physical fighting, but Bucky thought it would be worth it. Clint knew what he was doing, so he knew what he was signing up for in the repercussion department. No one blasphemed his favorite bands/artists on his watch, especially not Clint.

Bucky’s phone buzzed with another text.

Clit: r u going to go listen to lany and cry

Bucket: fuck u

Bucky chuckled when Clint read his message and then responded with a few shocked emojis. He put his phone away, trying to focus on not falling asleep during the lull in pony rides. Steve was over manning the snack area. Clint was handling admissions, but he would be done in about ten minutes when admissions closed. There would be people milling around for another hour or so, but the pony rides were scheduled to close in about thirty minutes. Steve would continue to deal with the snacks until close, while Bucky and Clint cleaned up a little bit and made sure all the animals were doing okay.

When there were sticky and unpredictable children around the animals all day, they made sure to take extra care in looking over each animal. More than once they’d had to remove some sort of sticky piece of candy from one of the animal’s coats. Once they’d even somehow found a shoe just thrown over the alpaca, the string tangled around it’s neck, as if the shoe were a necklace. Bucky still didn’t understand why someone just threw their shoe (not a child’s size, by the way) into an animal pen. Didn’t they need the shoe? The whole place was dirt, and there was literal shit everywhere, not to mention dozens of kids. The risks this individual was taking astounded Bucky.

There had only been a handful of times when there was actually something that needed to be cleaned up, but it was better to check and be safe than to have the animals have gum stuck in their fur all night.

They all took turns walking around the property. They each did it once an hour, unless their post was super busy in which case the person with the least number of people in line did the walk around. If they had more money, they would’ve just hired another person, but as it stood, they couldn’t. Maybe next summer, if they started with more money than they did this year, they would be able to take on another person. For now, the rotation was just going to have to do it, and so far, aside from the occasional piece of trash or stray food item (and shoe, apparently), it had been working.

It wasn’t that they didn’t take precautions, they had signs up everywhere telling visitors to be careful and not feed the animals anything, unless they were in a designated pen for feeding, which was closer to the barn and labeled as such.

The pony rides, also, were every other hour for an hour, so for the other hour, the person on ponies looked after the animals in the designated feeding/petting areas, making sure everything was okay and giving the frequent educational talk about why animals did the things they did and the difference between predator and prey and fight or flight responses.

Bucky left the pony rides about ten minutes later because there was no line to go through the rounds, looking over half of the animals (the ones with longer fur) now, and then planning to do it again when they were closer to closing. He picked up a few stray pieces of trash that had gotten discarded. He also found a child’s sun hat, which was going to go in the cardboard box they’d labeled LOST AND FOUND. There was already a fair bit of crap being stocked up in the box, and Bucky was planning to donate the contents at the end of the month. He didn’t think many people would be coming back to a petting zoo for a lost hat or some sunglasses (even a single shoe, which, still, Bucky was shocked by).

Once he’d made a loop back to the pony rides, seeing that there were still no children who had been waiting, he unsaddled all of the ponies and gave them a good brushing and a few pets. One day, he thought, he should tie them up and let some of the kids brush them (with supervision). He thinks the ponies would like the attention.

He finished up by giving each of the three ponies a few treats, then walked them over to turn them out into their pasture. They all happily trotted off to go roll extensively in the dirt. Bucky watched for a few moments; he’d never been able to get over the awe at seeing a horse roll. He saw it almost every day, but he still thought it was a sight that he should never miss seeing. He couldn’t really explain it.

He really needed to ride this weekend. The horses, for the adults to ride, hadn’t been given any attention in weeks. There just wasn’t time between the petting zoo and other things that needed to get done, and the only day Bucky had off was Sunday because they realized quite quickly that having every Saturday off was not a good idea in the financial department. They’d compromised by saying one Saturday a month the petting zoo would be closed up (the third, they’d decided) so that the employees could get some much needed sleep and get to do things they enjoyed. Sundays were always off, so that’s when Bucky had decided to give a few of the horses a ride. Maybe Steve would want to learn to ride, that could be a fun date idea in the future.

To be fair, there wasn’t exactly a tidal wave of people on the weekdays. It was busy, sure, but Saturdays had always been something else entirely. It seemed like they constantly got at least a thousand people a day, and once Bucky had looked at the numbers and found it had actually been more. He knew it was good for business, but god, at what cost? Most of the twenty acres had been filled up with nothing but parking, but even then, sometimes it got a little tight and people had to park on the street. It was astounding, thinking they were this popular, even if it was mostly on weekends.

Financially, though, Bucky was still allowing himself to get just a hair more comfortable. They had enough, which was more than a relief. Actually, they had enough to set aside some every month for their savings, which had taken a bit of a hit since Twinkie’s vet stay. Bucky just really hoped one of the horses didn’t develop colic, because honestly there was nothing more time consuming and expensive than having to pay for colic surgery and rehabilitation. Luckily there was much less colic cases on the east coast. They would’ve been in much more trouble had they been in the midwest, because horses colic at least twice the amount they do on the east coast; something about vast barometric changes, or so Bucky had been told growing up.

Bucky was forced out of his own head by Steve, who was asking him a question.

“Bucky?” Steve had asked, probably not for the first time by the puzzled look on his face.

“Yeah?” Bucky said, snapping out of his thoughts (for the moment).

“So, I was just wondering what was happening on Monday? I know a lot of people will have the day off, but I didn’t know if we were working or…”

“Monday?” Bucky asked, trying to do the mental calculations. What was so important about Monday? Also, what day was today?

“Yeah… The fourth? Of July? Independence day?”

Bucky’s face lit up with understanding. “Oh! Yeah, yeah… I think me and Clint were thinkin’ about taking the day off, we didn’t think petting zoos would be in high demand. Why do you ask?”

Steve’s face went so red he vaguely resembled a lobster. “Um,” he stammered, then whispered something unintelligible.

“What was that?” Bucky asked.

“It’s my…” Steve trailed off again.

“Steve, you need to speak up. Do you have plans or somethin’?”

Steve took a deep breath. “It’s my birthday.” He looked toward the sky for guidance.

Bucky’s face lit up, again, with both surprise and joy. “You sly dog,” he practically yelled, thankful it was nearing closing time and there were only half a dozen people milling about. “You didn’t tell me, Stevie. I’m a little offended,” Bucky said in faux hurt.

Steve rolled his eyes so hard Bucky was surprised they didn’t get stuck up there. “Yeah, well, my friends want to do some big whatever for it, so I was going to ask for the day off in preparation.”

“All day birthday celebration?”

“No, but I think I’m going to need a good few hours of quiet and meditation to prep for whatever they have planned this year.”

Bucky chuckled. “Your friends go pretty hard, huh?”

Steve looked down at his shoes, chuckled, and shook his head fondly. “They mean well, they really do, but I’m just not as outgoing as them. Going an’ getting drunk and dancing with some stranger just doesn’t appeal to me the same way it does to them. I’m actually going to see if we can just have a calm party on the roof or something, try to make it more low-key.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Bucky mused. “Well, you can have the day off. No skin off our backs, if we do open it’ll just be for a few hours in the morning.” Bucky shrugged. He was mentally trying to plan something small him and Clint could do for Steve’s birthday, and something else small that he alone could do for Steve’s birthday. You know, like friends do. For each other. Platonically.

Steve smiled brightly. “Thank you. Hey, if we do end up doing something calm, you guys should totally join. I’d love to have you there.”

“Oh, here I just thought you were using us for our dogs,” Bucky shot back without malice.

“Well…” Steve said sheepishly, “I wouldn’t be opposed to you bringing a dog. Or two.”

Bucky threw his head back in laughter. “I’ll see if we can make it,” Bucky said, acting like him and Clint’s plans for the evening didn’t only include a fair amount of drinking and trying to block out the sound of fireworks. The loud bangs of fireworks got them every year. It was never very pretty.

Bucky could have sworn Steve’s responding smile was going to light up the town that night. You'd've thought Bucky told Steve he was paying for his college tuition, not just that he might be coming to a birthday get together Steve may or may not be having. (Bucky really hoped he decided to have it, but that was neither here nor there.)

“Great,” Steve said with so much happiness Bucky couldn’t believe it. It was almost like Steve thought he was special, or something, which was insane to Bucky, who was just another regular war veteran/petting zoo owner. And an insane crush on his employee.

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” Bucky said, trying to mirror Steve’s emotion and excitement. It wasn’t all that hard, Bucky was actually pretty excited to be going to anything where Steve may be involved. The fact that it happened to be outside of him working for Bucky was icing on the cake. Bucky had decided a while ago he would take any interaction with Steve he would get, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t always excited to spend time with him outside of work, which was a great excuse to see him every day, but still not what Bucky really wanted out of their relationship. Not that Steve knew, or was every going to know (as much as Bucky really really wanted him to know) what Bucky really wanted between the two of them.

“I’m gonna go,” Steve gestured toward the barn, “clean up. And stuff.”

Bucky nodded. “Sounds good.”

Neither of them could sleep much that night, thinking of what Monday would mean for them and how exactly they were going to execute spending as much time as possible together and what they would talk about and how they were going to get privacy. It was almost as exciting as it was nerve wracking.

Neither of them could wait for it to be Monday.

_____

Steve wasn’t usually one for celebrating his birthday. It wasn’t like he hated it or anything, it was really just like another day to him. The fact that it’s the Fourth of July really doesn’t help his case, because everyone else was already out celebrating in some manner or another, and usually birthday celebrations weren’t part of the plan.

That being said, Steve’s friends happened to be insane. They all insisted on Steve actually celebrating his birthday, and they always wanted him to celebrate in a large manner. None of them can ever keep it low-key, everything was always go big or go home, especially when there’s a birthday involved. This is the reason Steve has spent basically every July fifth since he was twenty one (and a few before, if he’s being honest) with his head firmly in a toilet bowl. Hangovers don’t often hit Steve as hard as they did the day after his birthday. Every other hangover just seems like a piece of cake.

All in all, Steve still is almost never excited for his birthday. This year happened to be an exception, because Bucky was possibly going to be there, which made Steve so excited for his birthday. Steve thought his friends were going to think him insane.

The day after he talked to Bucky, he contacted his friends and nearly begged them to just throw a rooftop party, inviting as few people as possible. Sam was onto him almost immediately.

“Why?” Sam asked right after Steve finished his question. Even though they were talking on the phone, Steve could practically draw the expression he knew was on Sam’s face.

“Do I need a reason?” Steve asked. “Every year, all of you get me so drunk I can hardly even get out of bed the next day. Why is weird that I would ask for that not to happen this year?”

“Man, you have never said anything before. What makes this year so different, huh?”

“I’m just tired of being really hungover the next day, Sam, that’s all.” Even Steve winced after he finished his sentence. He’d never been a good liar, why should now be any different?

“Okay,” Sam said, clearly done with Steve’s bullshit, “what’s the real reason?”

“So… Do you remember Bucky?” Steve asked, trying, and failing, to be subtle.

“ Oh ,” Sam exclaimed, and Steve could see the smile which was no doubt lighting up Sam’s face, “it all makes sense now.”

“Sam-”

“You invited him, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Steve grumbled.

“And you don’t want to be embarrassed by us, do you?”

“Well… I mean, embarrassed isn’t quite the word…”

“So what is, then?”

“I just want it to be casual, Sam. That’s all I’m asking.”

“Alright, alright. We can do casual.”

Steve resisted the urge to say ‘can we?’

“Thank you,” he said instead.

“I gotta get back to work, man, but I’ll call you later about the details?”

“Sounds good, Sam.”

“Bye Cap.”

“ Don’t call me that ,” Steve tried to get out, but was cut off by two beeps signalling Sam had hung up. He muttered a few curses at the phone before throwing it on the couch. Then, immediately after, picking it back up because he had to text Bucky with the good news.

Steve: Hey! So, I think the birthday thing may just work out in my favor this year. Do you still think you and Clint can make it?

Steve read the text over half a dozen times before he hit send. He tried to act casual, not be near his phone, and give Bucky time to reply, but he found himself unconsciously staring at the object and willing himself not to check the display every five seconds.

Bucky, thankfully, only took a few minutes to reply.

Bucky: yea, i think we’ll be able to make it

Steve let himself give a small ‘whoop’ of joy before getting embarrassed of himself. He took a few moments to formulate a reply, trying not to seem overeager.

Steve: Great! I don’t know all the details, yet, but I can let you know later this week?

Bucky: snds gd

Steve felt himself grin stupidly at Bucky’s awful grammar and vendetta against vowels. It was cute, though Steve wasn’t really sure why.

He almost sent back a smiley face, but decided against it.

_____

Steve was cleaning up the barn Friday after closing, mentally preparing for the weekend rush, when Bucky and Clint rushed in, cursing.

“Shit shit shit shit shit,” Bucky was muttering. He was holding one of the dogs in his arms. Clint was hot on his heels, looking equally as frazzled.

“What happened?” Steve asked, approaching the dog.

“She ate a fucking bee,” Bucky replied.

“Oh. Is she allergic?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky said, sounding on the verge of panic.

“Lemme see.” Steve made grabby hands for the animal and took her into his arms.

The dog seemed fine, completely undisturbed by her actions. Steve opened her mouth, and a bee did indeed fall out. It seemed dead, but Steve thought that he noticed the stinger was missing. Thankfully, it was definitely a bee and not a wasp. Those little bastards are assholes.

“I think it stung her,” Steve mused, “but I’m just not sure where. Do you have any Benadryl?”

“Yeah, I think we have some at the house,” Clint replied.

“Go grab two and some cheese.”

Steve continued stroking over the dog’s fur. Her name was Honey, she’s a big and boisterous yellow lab. She seemed more intent on the attention that Steve was giving her than the bee sing that she most likely had inside her mouth. Her left jowl seemed to be swelling, but the rest of her face was relatively okay. As long as they got the Benadryl into her quick, Steve was pretty sure she should be fine, even if she was allergic. It didn’t seem to be severe, and her breathing sounded fine. She clearly wasn’t out of the woods, but Steve was almost certain with some antihistamine in her she would be good as new, after she passed out and slept for at least ten hours.

Clint ran back in a matter of minutes, Benadryl and cheese in hand.

“Okay,” he said, flustered. “What now?”

“Wrap the pills in the cheese and then feed it to her,” Steve said. He thought it was fairly obvious, but then again he wasn’t the one panicking.

“Okay, okay,” Clint muttered to himself. Bucky was surprisingly silent, but Steve didn’t think anything of it. Bucky was a quiet guy.

Honey was fed her cheese and Benadryl, eating both of the pills without hesitation like a champ. Steve was proud; sometimes they had to force the animals to swallow pills and that was never a fun day for anyone involved. Most dogs he had worked with constantly refused to take pills, no matter what they were coated with.

Her jaw was swelling up, making her face look utterly adorable. She seemed unaffected, which only made it more humorous that her face was swollen. Steve wasn’t sure why he thought swollen dog faces were so adorable, but he did, and he wasn’t ashamed of it.

Steve let Honey lay in his lap a little longer, stroking over her fur while she happily panted. He looked up after a while, seeing Clint and Bucky staring at him.

“What?” Steve asked, confused.

“Nothing,” Bucky replied. He still seemed rather off, but Steve couldn’t pinpoint why. “She just really likes you.”

“Well, she’s a good girl , isn’t she?” Steve scratched her head as he spoke, making her tail thump against the ground.

Clint snorted and went back to work. He and Bucky were cleaning pastures before they’d rushed in. Honey had been following them around, chewing on a few stray turds here and there (and a bee, apparently).

“Do you want me to bring her back to the house?” Steve asked, glancing up at Bucky.

“Yeah, she’ll probably be more comfortable there when she wakes up,” Bucky replied, still not sounding like he was fully present. Steve decided not to push conversation.

“Alright.” Steve stood up with Honey still in his arms. She was almost fully asleep. Her head lolled out to the side over Steve’s arms, tongue peeking out of her swollen cheeks. Steve thought she was a sight for sore eyes, but that could just be him. “I’ll go set her on one of the dog beds, she’ll probably appreciate it.”

“I’ll come with. I should probably check and make sure they have water, anyway.”

Steve smiled back at Bucky as a reply. They walked the short distance to the house in silence.

Honey was laid down on the fluffiest dog bed Steve could see that wasn’t occupied, and then Steve went back to cleaning the barn, specifically the rabbit hutches. (It wasn’t a complete excuse to hold all of the rabbits, it really wasn’t. That just happened to be a perk of scooping up rabbit poop.)

Bucky and Steve didn’t speak for the rest of the evening.

_____

Seeing Steve with Honey made Bucky feel funny, and not in a good way. The domesticity of seeing Steve with Honey laying in his arms made Bucky’s heart and brain kick into overdrive.

He could imagine the two of them, sitting outside on the porch. Steve would have a dog wrapped in his arms, maybe even more than one, and one by his feet. Bucky would probably have three different cats walking all over him, maybe a kitten playing with his shiny arm. They would watch the sunset and talk about their days, maybe they would even eat dinner or dessert. It made Bucky’s heart ache with the thought of something that seemed so attainable and yet still such a reach.

He wished he had a better explanation for why he didn’t talk to Steve for the rest of the day, but he just chalked it up to lack of sleep and decided to try again tomorrow.

_____

Steve’s birthday came too early for everyone. Well, mostly Steve and Bucky, but everyone was rather unprepared.

Steve was unprepared because he had to try to act cool in front of Bucky while also trying to enjoy an evening with his friends. He was almost certain his friends would not make life easy for him when someone he was romantically interested in happened to be attending his birthday celebration.

Bucky was unprepared because he was going to the birthday party of a man he was highly interested in. The party also doubled as a Fourth of July party, which almost inevitably meant fireworks, which inevitably meant a small to moderate amount of panic from Clint and Bucky both. Bucky somehow had to be casual and chipper, while also trying not to flinch and duck at every loud bang that reached his ears.

Clint was unprepared because he lost his left shoe.

Sam was unprepared because he forgot about alcohol, and the liquor stores were out of almost everything except fireball whiskey, which wasn’t going to happen if Sam could help it. No party, casual or not, should ever involve fireball whiskey, though an unfortunate number of them did.

Most of Steve’s other friends were also unprepared because they had been expecting a party that happened to be on a roof, not a casual rooftop get together. (Sam just really hoped people thought to bring alcohol aside from wine. He didn’t want to have to buy fireball whiskey, he really didn’t, but birthday shots were mandatory.)

So, Steve’s birthday turned into a mildly confused gathering of people who were all hoping other guests thought to bring alcohol. It was oddly fitting, though probably not for the best.

Thankfully, someone did end up bringing a few bottles of wine, and a case or two of beer, so by the time Bucky and Clint got there (late, as per usual), alcohol was at least in supply. They’d brought a six pack themselves, so more beer was in supply.

Clint was very disappointed when they got there that no other drinks were to be found. Wine was alright, but he was a margarita person if there ever was one. Bucky was just happy there was a Steve to be found.

He’d spent a few days agonizing over what to get Steve. He and Clint went in on a giftcard to a bookstore since Steve had been mentioning how many books he had been wanting to read. He’d even told Bucky he’d started a list that was already half a page long.

They’d also picked out a funny card for Steve, one with on old portrait of a woman on the front, a party blower photoshopped into her mouth. On the inside, it said “Party like it’s 1899… Havith a happy birthday!”

Clint laughed so hard when he read it that he cried a little, and Bucky didn’t think it was bad (also they had been looking through all the cards for thirty minutes), so he gave in and got it.

But then, of course, Bucky had to get Steve something more personal. Something from him, and only him, not Clint. It had to be personal, but not too personal. Bucky would have liked it to have shown his feelings, but not in an outright way that was painfully obvious and led Steve to feel bad for him, or flat out reject him. (Bucky didn’t think he could handle the rejection right now.)

Bucky had agonized the most over this gift. He’d finally settled on a nice quality sketchbook and pencils. Bucky had seen Steve drawing in his occasionally, and it looked like it was getting full. Steve had shown Bucky his art once or twice, and Bucky was enthralled with it. He thought Steve was one of the best artists he’d ever seen; he was able to capture the exact mood of the room in just a few rough lines. The detail was exquisite. Bucky had been absolutely floored, and nearly demanded that Steve draw him something, before he realized that might come off as a little pushy and had settled for some very enthusiastic verbal praise. He also continued to ask about Steve’s art, in passing, so he hoped Steve knew how much he admired his work. After giving him this gift, Bucky thought his intentions would be less murky, at least. He really wanted to support Steve in his art, which seemed like a passion Bucky didn’t know the feeling of himself. Bucky knew Clint’s passion was animals, and the petting zoo they were now running was proof of how Bucky had supported Clint. He wanted to do the same for Steve, if at all possible.

He hoped someone would do the same for him, if he ever found a passion of his own.

_____

Steve’s party, thankfully if you ask him, was kept very mundane. That alone made it the best birthday Steve’s had in years, because if nothing else there was less of a chance that he was going to be too hungover to move tomorrow. Bucky was here, also, which… well, Steve couldn’t’ve asked for much more. Bucky had even brought him a gift, which made Steve feel all warm and fuzzy inside. He didn’t even think it was the glass of wine and half bottle of beer he’d had. It was just Bucky.

Steve tried to hide the lovesick smile that creeped up on his face when he saw Bucky through the rooftop entrance, but he didn’t think he was doing a very good job. He couldn’t really find it in himself to care.

“Bucky,” Steve said excitedly, “you’re here!”

“Sure am,” Bucky replied, smiling at Steve, “and I brought…” Bucky trailed off, glancing around, “Clint with me.” Clint was nowhere to be found, or, at least seen. Bucky shrugged it off, even though Clint was with him not even a second ago.

Steve glanced around at Bucky’s mention of Clint. He would have questioned how Clint appeared to have teleported from one place to another, but it had happened before when Clint saw something that caught his eye.

“Oh,” he said, “I think he’s over talking to Sam. He’s my friend, I think I’ve mentioned him before?”

“Sam Wilson?” Bucky asked.

“Yeah,” Steve said brightly, “do you know him?”

Bucky chuckled. “Yes, actually. Clint has… Well, you know Clint and animals. The same goes for birds, he’s always bringing ones with broken wings or injured feet home.”

Steve laughed. “I’m guessing Sam’s helped you out a few times?”

“Yeah, well, they’re aren’t many bird rehabilitators around. And Sam’s one of the great ones, him and Clint bonded immediately. Before he moved to DC, we knew him through the VA. We kept in touch a little after he moved, but once we heard he was back in the area I think we basically went around trying to find a bird to bring to him.”

They both chuckled.

“Oh, yeah, Sam’s great at his job,” Steve said. “I can’t believe I didn’t know you guys knew him?”

“Well, you know. Things get lost in the confusion, and Sam’s such a busy guy he probably just forgot to mention it, honestly. But seriously, him and Clint really bonded over those birds, man.”

They both found themselves laughing again at their quirky but amazing best friends. “I thought it was funny, at first, how much he adored birds, but I’ve come with him on some of the releases he’s done and I can definitely say I understand it a little better now.”

“It’s so majestic, right?” Bucky asked, sounding more ecstatic than Steve’s heard him sound in a while. “I think it’s so awesome to see them go back into the wild, I mean, that’s the dream right there.”

“Oh my god, yeah. They look so happy when they get to spread their wings again, I can’t imagine anything better.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, sounding a little breathless, though Steve couldn’t pinpoint why. They maintained eye contact for another few moments, not moving and hardly breathing. Steve felt something akin to an electric shock tingle up the back of his neck.

Bucky licked his lips and glanced down at the bag in his hand with the wrapped gifts and card. “Happy birthday?” Bucky offered awkwardly, holding up the bag.

“Oh,” Steve replied, a little choked up with emotion, “you really didn’t have to. Honestly, you shouldn’t’ve.”

“Well, I did,” Bucky said with a borderline cocky smirk. It dropped off his face a second later, something much more serious taking over. “I hope you like it,” he said quietly, almost at a whisper.

Steve looked down at his feet shyly. “It’s perfect,” he whispered back. Bucky shot him a look of outrage.

“You haven’t even opened it yet, you punk.”

“I don’t need to, jerk, I know it’s going to be great.”

Bucky was opening his mouth to reply, with something witty he was sure, when Sam jumped in on the conversation to say hi.

“Hey, Bucky!” He introduced, and true to Bucky’s earlier thinking, Clint was with him. Sam gave Bucky a half-handshake-half-hug in greeting before throwing his arm around Steve.

Wait… Were they? Bucky thought, brow furrowing as he stared at them. No, no they couldn’t be. Steve hadn’t mentioned anything about a significant other… ever. Outside of his last relationship, which he’d said had ended over a year ago, Steve hadn’t mentioned anything about his relationships. Bucky had just assumed, partially out of hope, that Steve was single. He thought Sam was Steve’s best friend, hadn’t Steve said him and Sam were best friends? Bucky could’ve sworn he’d heard Steve say something about him and Sam being best friends. Clint and Bucky were best friends, and people assumed they were dating all the time. Maybe Bucky was just reading into things. Maybe he just needed to calm down a little bit, and really, he’s been here ten minutes already and still hasn’t had anything to drink. Maybe he should get something to drink, preferably something cold to quell the embarrassment running through his veins.

Bucky was going to go do that.

While Bucky was lost in his thoughts, the conversation had moved around him. He snapped himself back into reality, just barely avoiding jerking, and tuned into the chatter. Sam had removed his arm from around Steve, which pleased Bucky to no end, and him and Clint were talking about some of the different types of birds and how they were beneficial to their ecosystems. Sam seemed particularly fascinated in the falcons. Bucky had nothing to contribute to the exchange, so he didn’t even think he would have been very talkative if he had been listening. Bucky didn’t hate birds, but they weren’t his first choice in conversation topics.

Steve didn’t look like he was all that interested in the discussion either, so Bucky caught his eye and gestured over to the drinks with a tilt of his head. Steve nodded, more enthusiastically than he probably should have, but Clint and Sam were so involved in their gossip, they didn’t notice.

“We’re gonna…” Steve started to say, but then drifted off when he noticed Clint and Sam weren’t paying attention. He shook his head fondly as he and Bucky walked to the area reserved for drinks. Someone was also cooking on a small portable grill. It seemed to be all the Fourth of July basics; burgers, hot dogs, the like. He saw a few flashes of green and assumed vegetables. The condiments were laid out on the same table that had a few buckets of ice with wine bottles in them, one box of wine, and underneath was a cooler full of beers. Bucky set the bag of gifts down to load the bottles he and Clint brought into the cooler. Steve bent down to help, and their hands even brushed against each other a few times, not that Bucky had noticed or anything. Not at all. When they both stood back up, they stared into each other’s eyes again for a few heartbeats. Bucky glanced away, back to his bag of gifts.

“So, uh… Where do you want these?” Bucky asked, gesturing to the gift bag.

Steve looked around, too. “We’ve got a pile, over there somewhere…”

Bucky nodded, said “be right back,” and went to deposit his gift with the rest of the pile. It actually took him a minute to find, because the gift pile had actually been set up right next to the door, which was propped open and blocking the pile. The gifts had been clumped together on an old folding card table, with multiple patches of duct tape holding the tearing fabric together. Bucky wasn’t sure where to set the gift. Did the area he set it in say something about his opinion of Steve?

Bucky took a deep breath. He was overthinking things again, jesus, just put the fucking gift down. He did so, for once listening to his internal voice. He turned to go back to where Steve was, and Clint appeared in front of his face. He had a beer in one hand, looking at it longingly.

“You wish it was a fruity drink, don’t you?”

Clint heaved a sigh. “Yeah.”

Bucky snorted. “Where’s Sam?” He asked, glancing around. He didn’t see him anywhere.

“He went out to go get something, but I’m not supposed to let Steve know.”

“What did he go get?”

“I think he mentioned something about fireballs? He said it was ‘the only option’?”

Bucky raised a concerned eyebrow at that, before remembering it was the Fourth of July, and then shrugging. “Eh, that sounds about right, anyway.”

Clint shrugged. “I wasn’t sure what exactly was happening.”

“I trust that Sam won’t burn the building down,” Bucky said offhandedly. Steve decided to pick that moment to wander up to Bucky with a bottle of beer for him, as well as one for himself in his other hand. Steve cocked a curious brow.

“What is Sam going to do?”

Bucky and Clint froze up.

“Uh,” Clint stuttered.

“I think Sam went to get some fireworks,” Bucky blurted. Shit. Steve passed Bucky one of the beers.

Steve just shrugged. “As long as he doesn’t bring home any fireball whiskey, I will be a-okay.”

Bucky and Clint exchanged a glance with their eyes blown wide. So that’s where Sam was.

“Yeah,” Clint said, trying, and failing, to act casual. “I think he said something about fireworks.”

“Oh god,” Steve replied, not seeming to catch Clint’s lie, “I can only hope he doesn’t come back with anything illegal.”

“He’s done that?” Bucky asked.

“Well, one time, Sam somehow got fireworks in Colorado, which were illegal at the time, and long story short I had to bail him out of jail.”

“ No way ,” Clint said, completely in awe.

“Yeah, bailing your friend out of jail is a real bonding experience,” Bucky said with sarcasm.

Steve smirked at him, which was so carefree and sexy Bucky had to consciously close his jaw to keep from drooling. He even gave Bucky a once over. “What, like you have?”

Bucky looked over at Clint with the most are-you-fucking-kidding-me expression. Clint was pointedly looking away, taking a long pull of his beer.

“You kiddin’? Clint once got arrested for cutting down a cactus.”

Clint chimed in with outrage. “You promised not to mention that,” while Steve’s smirk fell off his face and his eyes bugged out of his head.

“What?” Steve asked.

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, apparently in Arizona it’s illegal to cut down a cactus.”

“To be fair,” Clint cut in, “who would have ever thought that would be a law?”

“I mean…” Steve said, “why were you cutting down a cactus?”

Clint stuttered for a moment. “I-well… I just- I didn’t know, okay?” His voice was raised.

“He thought there was juice inside of it. He was drunk.” Bucky said nonchalantly, sipping his beer.

Clint frowned and Steve laughed. In the back of his mind, Bucky wished he could make Steve laugh like that every day. He knows he’s thought it before, but it didn’t make it any less true.

“Why am I not surprised?” Steve asked, sighing.

Clint was blushing and muttering curses at Bucky under his breath, which Bucky found extremely endearing.

Sam chose that moment to walk back up the stairs, paper bag in one hand, and shot glasses in the other.

“What aren’t you surprised about?” Sam asked, butting right into the conversation.

“Clint said he was--what’s in the bag, Sam?” Steve asked, knowing Sam too well.

Sam smiled so wide Steve could see all of his teeth.

“No,” Steve immediately said. “No, Sam. I am not drinking fireball whiskey. Not on my birthday.”

Sam just continued to smile. Bucky and Clint both winced at the thought of fireball whiskey, something which was one of the true evils of the world in both of their minds. Whiskey and cinnamon was the devil, which probably explains the borderline demonic logo that branded the alcohol.

Steve continued to protest. “Sam, c’mon, it’s supposed to be a calm party, just some wine and beer. We’re not doing shots!”

“Oh yes we are,” Sam replied, his smile not dimming in the least. In fact, it looked like it was growing. Bucky briefly considered slipping out of the conversation slowly, because shots were not on his list of things to do tonight, and fireball whiskey shots were not on his list of things to do ever. He glanced over at Clint, who had an expression on his face that looked like he was thinking the same thing.

Sam saw their expression on their faces. “Oh, you guys don’t have to do them. Just the birthday boy here.” Clint and Bucky let out twin breaths of relief.

Steve rubbed a hand over his face and groaned. “This was not how this night was supposed to go,” he mumbled into his palm.

“Well, Steve, you need to learn to go with the flow,” Sam replied. Steve’s glare could have cut diamonds.

Sam just laughed and walked away, setting up shots over on a table which had a very patriotic cloth covering it. Many of the partygoers had flocked to observe, all having similar reactions when they saw the alcohol of choice. Sam ended up yelling “they were out of everything else , okay?” at one point. Someone yelled back “for good reason!” and Bucky almost choked on his beer. The burgers were finished, and dished out onto plates. People started eating, or at least assembling their food to eat.

Steve, Bucky, and Clint stayed watching from the sidelines.

“I will give you everything in my wallet to make sure I don’t do a shot of fireball,” Clint said ominously to Bucky.

“Normally I’d agree but I’m ninety percent sure you have no more than two dollars, your ID, and a picture of Cecil the lion in your wallet.”

“He deserved better!” Clint said loudly in outrage. “Big game hunters are ruining-”

“I know Clint,” Bucky said, patting Clint on the shoulder solemnly, “I know.”

Clint grumbled about how evil taxidermy was for a few more seconds. Bucky just heaved a sigh and let him get it out. He knew he was right about the contents of Clint’s wallet, however.

Only a few of the younger and braver of the group downed a shot of fireball. A single shot. Sam included; he threw one back and practically gagged. He came wandering back over to Steve. “I would berate the fuck out of you normally for forgoing shots, especially on your birthday, but in this case I think I’ll let you have it.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Steve replied with a smile.

“Only because it’s your birthday,” Sam said with a wink, which threw Steve into a fit of hysterics (an inside joke between the two of them involving 7-11 slurpees and a badly-lit club).

Bucky’s thoughts, again, drifted back to Steve and Sam. He could see them together, honestly. They would make a great couple, but he would rather Steve and he make a great couple instead. (Personally, he just thinks they would be cuter… Okay, fine, maybe Steve and Sam would be cuter alright? But Bucky isn’t backing down because of Sam’s beautiful… everything.)

Bucky almost physically shook his head to dislodge those thoughts. This was Steve’s birthday party, he’s allowed to have fun with his friends. He’s allowed to have a significant other, as much as Bucky would really prefer he didn’t, unless Bucky was his significant other in which case that would be perfectly okay.

Also, Sam was a really great guy and honestly if Bucky had to see Steve with someone else, Sam would be pretty okay.

Bucky heaved a sigh and tried to remember to stay out of his head. He needed to be present; this was Steve’s birthday, and Steve deserved as much of a present Bucky as he could get. Or, for as long as he could get. Once the fireworks came out, it was anyone’s guess, really, on how both Bucky and Clint were going to act, but Bucky still thought they had a few hours before that would become a problem. He still wasn’t one hundred percent sure what they were going to do about the fireworks, but he thought he could figure it out. Steve would probably be cool with them going to his apartment for them.

Clint took the slight break in the conversation to ask Steve for a picture of all three of them ‘for America’s birthday!’

Steve readily agreed, and Bucky rolled his eyes but figured he spent long enough making sure he looked good, and it was probably about as good as it was going to get, so he might as well get a picture out of it.

It turned out really well. It was dark enough that the flash was needed, so there was a fair amount of red eyes. Clint had his mouth open in a smile with his teeth showing, he was nearly the epitome of the ‘:D’ emoji. Bucky looked almost confused, his eyebrows furrowed like he was thinking really hard, or trying to Blue Steel it up. His jawline looked amazing, though, and his two day scruff was really working for him and not against him. Steve was in the middle of the two- Bucky on his left and Clint on his right- and he looked like he was mid laugh from some really bad pun Bucky told him, the flattering part of a laugh where he was smiling like a maniac, but in a cute way. Steve wandered away almost as soon as the picture was taken, yelling something about cake.

Clint immediately posted the picture to twitter with the caption ‘Happy Birthday to Steve-- and America, I guess’. Bucky watched over Clint’s shoulder and chuckled. Clint whipped his head around to look at Bucky.

“What?” Bucky asked, flicking up his eyebrows, “it’s cute.” He smirked and took another sip of his beer.

“Y’know,” Clint replied, “you should use that line on Steve.” Bucky blushed. Clint winked, and Bucky put on a scowl and took another sip of his beer.

He would have walked away, but he didn’t know anyone else at the party save for Steve and Sam, who looked like they were arguing over fireball whiskey again. Bucky couldn’t quite hear them, but it looked like Sam was trying to get Steve to do a shot, even though he already said he wasn’t going to push it because it’s Steve’s birthday. Steve was a continuous stream of eyerolls, and at one point crossed his arms and shot Sam a look that said ‘really ?’ Eyebrow quirk and everything.

Sam eventually give up, throwing up his hands and walking away in frustration. Steve still had his beer, and he caught Bucky’s eye from across the roof right before he took a sip of it. He held Steve’s gaze for a second, and was not disappointed with the smile Steve shot him while his lips were wrapped around the edge of his beer bottle. Like all the smiles Steve gave Bucky, it was breathtaking. Bucky couldn’t help but smile back, and was rewarded when Steve blushed and glanced down at his shoes. Bucky tamped down his own embarrassment.

Steve’s attention was swept away due to a few people telling him happy birthday. Bucky stared at him for a few more seconds before he looked back at Clint.

Who was staring at him like he’d just popped out his own eyeballs.

“What?” Bucky asked, like he was squaring up for a fight but calmer.

“If you two dingbats don’t get your heads dislodged from your asses and finally go on a date, I will personally parent-trap this situation,” Clint warned.

Bucky couldn’t stop himself from narrowing his eyes at Clint even if he wanted to (he didn’t).

“You know it’s not like that,” he said, again, for what felt like the thousandth time. He and Clint had had this conversation more than they’d had the ‘no you can’t bring another animal home’ conversation.

“Yeah, but you want it to be like that,” Clint pointed out.

“He doesn’t even like me!”

“He totally does.”

“How can you know?”

“I’m a psychic.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes at Clint.

“Okay, fine. A Shawn Spencer psychic.”

Bucky rolled his eyes.

“If you keep rol-”

“They’re not going to get stuck like that,” Bucky said before Clint could even finish. He’d heard the same speech from Clint too many times to entertain it again.

Clint let out a huff, but appeared to be dropping the topic.

“I’m not going to drop this,” Clint warned. Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb. “I’m just postponing it.”

“Let's go get food,” Bucky suggested. Clint let out a whoop of joy, which made Bucky smile and shake his head.

They crafted their burgers and went to find some stray lawn chairs to sit on. There happened to be an extra one, and a short red headed woman sat down in it.

She gave Bucky a once over while he was mid-bite into his cheeseburger. There was mayo on his upper lip, and his cheeks were distended with the huge bite he’d just taken. There was also a drop of ketchup precariously perched on the end of his bun, threatening to spill onto his jeans. They stared at each other for a few minutes, and Clint’s eyes flicked between the two of them like a bystander at a tennis tournament.

“Can I help you?” Bucky asked the woman, mouth still mostly full of food.

“You’re Bucky, right?” She asked. Her voice was deep and soothing. Bucky liked it.

“Yes?” He said, unsure.

“I’m Clint.” Natasha’s eyes flicked his way, and she nodded her head at him briefly before turning her attention back to Bucky.

“Steve talks about you a lot.”

“Um,” Bucky said. His voice cracked from nerves. “I’m… glad?” He was sweating. Why was he sweating? Also, why did he feel like he was about to get the shovel talk when he wasn’t even dating someone? He hadn’t even been on a date in months, for chrissake, let alone actually enter into a relationship with anyone.

“Do you like him?”

Bucky was surprised to find he wasn’t caught all that off guard by this question, coming from her. She was so confident, it was intimidating. Opening their conversation with asking him his thoughts on Steve wasn’t helping Bucky to be at ease with her, either. “Yeah, he’s great. Awesome guy.”

She shook her head gracefully, putting the ends of her hair behind her shoulder. A smirk graced her lips. “I’m Natasha,” she said. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Bucky racked his thoughts for a moment, and remembered Steve mentioning Natasha a few times. He said she was a completely badass who could kill a man without even blinking. Steve was terrified-of-slash-insanely-impressed-by her for years, until they started becoming better friends. Then, he was still terrified-of-slash-impressed-by her, but it turned into the formation of a very close relationship. He said she was his best friend, right next to Sam, even if they didn’t talk as much. Her job kept her busy, though he couldn’t really explain what she did, mostly because she had never taken the time to explain it to him herself.

Bucky was really  just a little intimidated by her, based on the stories he’d heard.

“It’s nice to put a face to the name,” Bucky replied, doing his best to smile, even though he felt like she was analyzing every motion he made and deducing his deepest fears.

“All bad things I hope,” she said with another half smirk. Bucky thought his heart was going to give out, mostly because of fear.

“No,” Bucky chuckled nervously, “all good. I think he’s afraid of you.”

Natasha nodded. “Good,” she said bluntly. She turned her body towards Clint. “So you’re Clint?”

“Yes,” Clint gulped, looking as terrified as Bucky felt. He also had mayo on his face.

“Did you really bring home a camel?”

Clint blushed deeply. “Yes,” he almost whispered.

Natasha laughed, actually laughed, not just smirked, and Bucky was thoroughly impressed. Clint would be the one to get her to laugh by saying ‘yes’ in a very small and terrified voice.

Steve chose that moment to insert himself into the group, which normally would make Bucky smile like a monkey with a new banana, but now just made him even more anxious because he was going to freak out and Steve was going to see all of it and Bucky was going to look like a fool in front of all of his friends.

He tried to keep his breathing regulated and even so that no one could tell that internally he was freaking the fuck out. Personally, he thinks he did a pretty good job of it.

“So I see you met Nat,” Steve said, interrupting Bucky’s intense thought about his intense issue.

“Met, scared to death by, same thing really.”

Bucky’s really awful, and not all that funny joke made Steve snort, which made Bucky get heart eyes, in turn causing Nat glance over their way and flick her eyebrows up, which made Steve and Bucky both blush because they had been caught in the ‘subtle’ act of flirting.

“Fireworks are gonna start soon,” Steve commented, ignoring Natasha’s glances their way. “You and Clint gonna be okay?”

Bucky bristled, wanting to lash out and ask why Steve thinks they wouldn’t be okay, but then remembers that Steve is good friends with Sam, who was a veteran himself and used to work at the VA.

Bucky sighed. “‘M not sure. It hasn’t been… well, good, before.”

“Do you wanna go somewhere else?” Steve asked with such sincerity Bucky thought he could feel his heart skip a beat. “Maybe where it’ll be more quiet or-”

“Yeah, that might be better,” Bucky said. He sounded distant, thinking it over in his head.

“Well, I mean, this is my building so we could go to my apartment? Or, I mean, I don’t know if it’ll even really be all that great, it’s not really soundproofed and you can still basically hear everything…” Steve turned red as he trailed on, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. Bucky smiled.

“Honestly, I think anything with some privacy will be great. Thanks, Steve.” Bucky smiled and resisted the urge to let out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to have a panic attack in front of all these people. Even if he did have a panic attack - which fireworks hadn’t caused in a while - he could sneak into the bathroom to avoid being the presence of Steve. He could be alone with his own panicked thoughts and fucked up head. Truly livin’ the life.

“No problem,” he mumbled,his lips quirked up. Bucky smiled back.

Bucky took another swig of his beer and tapped Clint on the shoulder, gesturing with his head that they were going somewhere else. Clint pouted because he and Natasha were having quite the conversation, and Bucky was interrupting it. He got up to follow Bucky, anyway. Bucky snorted and stood, sipping at his beer once again. Steve rose last, leading them to the stairwell.

“Is this some sort of threesome situation?” Clint asked when they were in the stairwell. “Because I wouldn’t say no…”

Bucky and Steve both looked back at him with matching faces of questionable disgust.

“What?” Clint asked. “I was just sayin’…”

Bucky elected to ignore the comment while Steve pointedly avoided eye contact.

Three flights of stairs and a left turn later, they were at Steve’s apartment. He opened the door to a sleek, semi-modern apartment. The kitchen was to the immediate left, and a small hallway led to an open living room.

With Sam laying on the couch, scrolling through his phone.

“Hey!” He said cheerfully. “You guys come down to avoid the fireworks, too?”

Bucky and Clint nodded. “Yeah,” Bucky said, “not having a dozen other people staring at you while you have a freak out because of loud noises sure makes life a whole lot more comfortable.”

“Man, don’t I know it. One time I was with some buddies near New Years and we got fireworks. We ended up going to my buddy’s cabin in Colorado after we got ‘em, and I was all ‘yeah! I’m gonna overcome some of my aversion to loud noises!’ Well, the cops showed up, I was too frozen in place to do anything, long story short, Steve had to come bail me out. The whole thing was awful, especially when people were staring at me the whole time.”

Bucky and Clint nodded in sympathy. A few years ago, they had tried to do the same thing and enjoy the fireworks (legally and from a safe distance), but they only ended up freaking out more. They didn’t have a bunch of cops there, though, but Bucky could still feel Sam’s pain.

Steve smiled at all of them. “Do you guys want water or anything? Headphones? I think I might have some earplugs somewhere…”

Bucky placed an arm on Steve’s shoulder. “Steve,” he said, snapping Steve out of host-mode. “We’re fine, this is perfect.” He gave Steve a small smile. Steve returned the gesture and Bucky’s heart fluttered for the thousandth or so time today.

“Okay,” Steve replied in a small voice, rubbing the back of his neck.

Clint left their awkward breed of flirting to go make Sam move his ass so both of them could fit on the couch. Bucky and Steve continued to stare at each other, another one of their awkward trances. Their… third of the night if Clint was keeping track correctly.

The four of them stayed like that for ten minutes, happily chatting in their pairs without a care in the world, like they wouldn’t be upset if they didn’t go back up to the rooftop all night. They felt like they could stay there forever, calmly chatting with their friend.

Loud noises sure ruined those good vibes quick.

One second he was talking to Steve and the next his heart was racing and his mind was back somewhere loud sounds were a regular occurrence and almost certainly meant trouble as soon as he heard the whistle of the first firework going up in the air. He felt a nervous sweat breaking out all over his body and he could only hope his hands weren’t shaking.

Bucky breathed through it as best he could, and reminded himself that he was in Steve’s apartment, at Steve’s birthday party. They were having a nice conversation, they were talking about… chickens, Steve was saying how they should get some chickens so they could collect the eggs. Bucky told him he was crazy if he thought they would be willingly getting any more animals. They had a fucking camel, wasn’t that enough?

His eyes refocused and Bucky took a moment to get his breathing under control. In… hold for seven… out for seven… Three times. Three more if he still feels a tightness in his chest.

Three was enough for Bucky to breathe normally again. He distantly recognized the array of popping sounds, more distant than they were before, but that could be Bucky losing focus of the situation.

He glanced around and noticed Clint and Sam both stopped talking, and were similarly taking deep breaths. Sam had his elbows on his knees and the junction of his thumbs and palms holding his head. His thumbs were making small circles around his temples like he had a bad headache.

Clint was flinching slightly every time another bang echoed through the room. He was leaning back against the couch, staring at the wall, and nodding his head in time with his breathing. Every so often, he would close his eyes for a few seconds, and then reopen them. His arms were crossed and his thumb was rubbing back and forth across his inner bicep.

Bucky knew he wouldn’t be able to help them even if he himself wasn’t in the same place. He knew there was nothing anyone could do to help him, either. They all just had to wait out the fireworks, give themselves a few minutes, and move on.

Steve, thankfully, seemed to understand that. He didn’t try to touch or even talk to Bucky. He just rested his elbows on the counter and observed the situation. He didn’t even stare.

The fireworks lasted a good hour, maybe more. Everyone stayed silent and focused on what each of them needed in that moment. Once it was over, the three veterans continued their breathing exercises and tried to pull themselves back into the present. It took a few minutes, for all of them, but there was no rush.

Sam seemed to come back to himself first, almost as if he just shook it off and was mostly back to himself. Bucky and Clint came back at about the same time as each other, slower and less abrupt than Sam.

When Bucky came back to himself, Steve and Sam were quietly talking on the couch.

“... worried?” Bucky heard Steve say.

“Nah, man. Just let them be, they’ll come out of it. Give ‘em time.”

Bucky stayed silent. He needed a few more minutes to himself, to just focus on breathing, and not talking to people or formulating sentences or any other shit that comes with social interaction.

Bucky glanced over at Clint, and he guessed he was probably in the same boat as Bucky. His thumb was still rubbing back and forth across his bicep. Bucky stared at the motion and followed it with his eyes. It was soothing, even just to look at.

Sam and Steve stayed silent, but Bucky could see Steve anxiously tapping his foot. That might’ve been soothing, too, but it was too harsh. Slow and steady always helped comfort Bucky, not something rapid that practically made the floor vibrate. Not soothing.

Bucky caught Clint’s eyes, trying to see if he was okay. Clint seemed to be looking at him in the same manner, but he was staring at Bucky’s mouth. Bucky furrowed his brows and wondered why, before he realized that he was gnawing on his thumbnail, and probably had been for some time. Bucky tended to grind his teeth or bite anything and everything within reach when he was nervous. The inside of his cheek had a permanent scar from the number of times he’d bite the living hell out of it, and then continued to chew on it after. His dentist was worried about it, but Bucky didn’t really see a problem.

Bucky removed his thumb from his mouth to save his teeth for the night. Clint caught the movement and flicked his eyes up to meet Bucky’s.

Bucky gave him a small smile, a barely-there lift of the lips. Clint nodded his head once, like he understood. They both needed a few more moments. Just a few, enough to get themselves fully back in their heads and not be zoned out all night.

On second thought, maybe they should just leave. They’d made their appearances, had a few beers, ate dinner. They’d brought Steve a present, two even.

Both of them had a long night. Maybe some sleep was in order.

The selfish part of him, the part that wanted to gorge himself on being in Steve’s presence, wanted to stay longer, stay as long as possible. Even if he wasn’t actively around Steve, he still wanted to be in the same area as him, in the same room as him, on the same roof as him. Anything and everything that would get him closer to Steve, Bucky wanted.

He was so far gone it wasn’t even funny.

_____

So, Clint and Bucky stayed. They stayed so late, they weren’t sure going home was the best option. Bucky knew they needed to, they had to get up early in the morning to feed anyway. Not going home would only bring more hell upon them. Feeding the animals would also be utter and complete hell hungover, but it’s nothing they hadn’t done a dozen times before. (Bucky was starting to realize they really needed to stop drinking so much.)

But everyone had ended up back at Steve’s apartment, and a good chunk of people left around midnight, but Steve convinced Bucky to stay because Clint and Sam were still talking and Bucky really couldn’t say no to Steve, not on his birthday. The two of them found themselves on the couch, closer together than Bucky would usually be with most of his friends, but he had a happy buzz going on and was not going to complain. It was Steve, anyway, why would he ever complain about getting closer to Steve?

Bucky felt light and airy, like he was floating, while he was sitting with Steve, practically leaning against him. Steve was doing the same, so Bucky didn’t feel all that bad. He just felt happy.

“Thank you for the birthday present,” Steve slurred, dropping most of his vowels.

“Y’ didn’t even open it,” Bucky pointed out in the same drunked spirit.

“Don’ hav’ta. Know it’ll be great.”

“Yer a sap, Rogers,” Bucky pointed out, but he was blushing furiously.

Steve turned his head and nestled his nose in Bucky’s hair. Bucky wished this night would never end.

_____

Bucky woke up, predictably, next to Steve. Both of them had all of their clothes on, thankfully. Bucky’s head was experiencing a slight throb, but nothing that would hinder his day dramatically. Once his eyes focused enough for him to see, he searched the room for a clock. It said it was just after seven, which made Bucky groan. He was usually starting feeding right around now, so he wasn’t actually all that late, but he wasn’t even home yet. He was a good twenty minutes away. At Steve’s.

He slept at Steve’s.

He slept next to Steve.

Had he said anything embarrassing? He thinks he remembers the whole night, but a few parts are more fuzzy than others. He surely thinks, or at least hopes, he wouldn’t forget something, like, say, kissing Steve, especially if he was kissed back, but Bucky has learned to never trust his drunk-brain.

The small consolation of knowing Steve had much more to drink than himself gave Bucky relief, if only because Steve probably wouldn’t remember their kiss - if they’d had one - any better than Bucky would.

“Mmm,” Bucky heard next to him. “No, five mor’ min’ts…”

Bucky smiled to himself hearing Steve grumble. He knew he was going to have to use physical force to get Clint out of wherever he’d decided to sleep. An air horn may be needed (but avoided at all costs so Steve wouldn’t get woken up).

Bucky resisted the urge to kiss Steve on the head, got up from the couch as softly as he could so as not to wake Steve, and set off to find Clint. They had a petting zoo to feed (and run).

_____

Steve’s birthday made him realize something.

He was totally gone on Bucky.

Of course he’d known this fact, on the surface. But seeing Bucky happy, carefree, and just a little drunk had made Steve’s eyes open to the wonders of just how big his crush on Bucky was. And it didn’t feel like it was shrinking anytime soon.

So, while he was nursing a hangover the day after his birthday (which Bucky had so thankfully given him off, in the end) he was musing on how he might go about telling Bucky. Asking Bucky out on a date. Seeing if he feels the same way. Entering into a romantic relationship. With each other.

Steve would like to think it would work. He and Bucky fit well together, they clearly liked each other, at least in a friendship capacity. They had a lot of the same interests, mainly animals and other things that go on around the petting zoo, but wasn’t the point of dating someone to get to know them better?

The more Steve thought about Bucky, of course, the more he got off-track with his thinking. He started to daydream about the color of Bucky’s eyes (grey with a tint of blue), or how good his hair always looked no matter how he wore it, or the soft smile he always had on his face whenever he was with the animals. Oh, and the way he talked to Steve. With so much feeling and care, but also enough sarcasm or teasing to make Steve feel welcome, and never enough to deter him or hurt him in any way.

Steve actually thought Bucky was quite a caring individual, and he was sure he’d be caring in… other ways. Ways Steve was surprised, but not opposed to, to be thinking about already. He hadn’t even gone on a date with the man, but Steve already found himself seeing him and Bucky, long into the future on lazy Sundays enjoying breakfast with their fifteen dogs and twenty cats running around the house and stealing food off their plates.

There may or may not have been a camel involved in that specific fantasy. Steve found himself okay with it, both the camel and the fantasy overall.

He shook his head (wrong decision, because, hangover) to try and bring himself back into reality. He was attempting to focus on a sketch he had done, one of Bucky mid-smile watering some flowers. Steve kept hearing Bucky talk of making a flower garden, but he wasn’t sure where to put it (since the goats had lately just been set free to roam). Steve kept pushing for some succulents himself. Bucky kept saying the goats were going to eat them, but Steve didn’t really think they would. Not to mention it would spruce up the place - a little color never hurt anything, especially not an outdoor place of business.

Steve thought he would make Bucky a flower garden. As a thank you for the birthday gift. And as an ‘I kinda sorta really like you but am too scared to ask you on a date’. He hoped it would get the picture across, but he knew he needed another plan if he wanted to make sure he and Bucky went on a date. Especially if he wanted both of them to know it was a date. That was a key point in Steve’s plan.

He thought the flower garden was a great idea, though.

The rest of Steve’s hangover-day was spent brainstorming while sketching.

_____

Steve’s week was spent brainstorming and sketching.

_____

Steve’s week was also spent watching sunsets with Bucky. He felt funny, like his stomach was fluttering with excitement. It was actually a pretty nice feeling.

One night, Wednesday, he and Bucky were watching the sunset. For once, there was no alcohol involved, and Bucky was humming some sort of tune. Steve thought he remembered it from one of the weird, poppy songs Bucky was always playing when he thought no one else was listening.

He started singing some of the lyrics under his breath and Steve thought his heart might stop.

“I like you lots… and I think everybody knows, baby… I like you lots…”

Steve’s heart lept into his throat, and he desperately wanted to say something back, anything to show Bucky that he liked Bucky a lot as well.

But, he knew it was a song. And Bucky wasn’t even talking to him, or trying to talk to him. Maybe he was just singing a song that he liked, and it happened to intertwine with lyrics that Steve wished Bucky would whisper to him. Or, maybe, just maybe , Bucky was singing that specific song because he wanted Steve to hear. Because he knew Steve could hear what he was saying, and he hoped Steve heard what he said.

Maybe he liked Steve lots. Maybe he knew Steve liked him lots. Maybe Steve should take this opportunity to say something, to ask Bucky out on a date, even though his flower garden wasn’t ready yet.

Or maybe Steve shouldn’t take it to heart and just enjoy the sunset with Bucky. Considering asking Bucky out made his heart beat uncomfortably and his palms get all sweaty, anyway.

_____

Over the next week, Bucky felt like he hardly saw Steve. Steve always had his nose tucked into his sketchbook on his breaks, not even cuddling with Bucky (the rabbit), and he had his nose to the grindstone in every other area of his work, as well. Bucky didn’t think they’d had a conversation over ten sentences the whole week, and it was already Thursday. He didn’t know how long Steve was going to keep up this behavior - he’d never acted like this before. Steve was one of the few people Bucky knew who was perpetually cheery and always ready for a conversation. Seeing him so silent and locked in his own head was a startling change of pace, which Bucky wasn’t sure he liked.

Bucky just had to ask himself the question: was it something he’d done? He didn’t think he had done anything, but numerous people had said the same thing to him, and three days later their relationships were demolished.

The only thing Bucky could think of was how he was humming ‘like you lots’ the other day while they were watching the sunset. Did Steve catch on that it was meant for him and think he and Bucky needed more space? Bucky didn’t think he was being appallingly obvious, though Clint would probably disagree. Bucky had figured since there was plausible deniability for him to be humming the song, if Steve happened to ask about it, he could just brush it off. But, if Steve happened to take it as the subtle hint it was meant to be, and that happened to inspire him to make a not-so-platonic move on Bucky, who was he to stop him?

Bucky would’ve said yes. He was even considering working up the nerve to ask Steve out himself, in case Steve was still cautious about the fact that Bucky was his boss. Bucky had decided he was okay with it, and it wouldn’t affect their working relationship much, if at all. Bucky had never been a big believer in PDA, but New York was also one of the most liberal states in the country. If two men running a petting zoo happened to sneak a kiss once or twice, he was fairly certain there wouldn’t be an uprising.

Bucky kept pouring over his interactions with Steve. He’d finally decided it wasn’t him, because Steve had been distant and spaced out when he talked to Clint, too. So, maybe Steve was just having a rough week. Maybe he just didn’t want to talk to people, and having a job where not interacting with people was really not an option required him to save all the social energy he had for those interactions. Bucky could relate. He still woke up some mornings not wanting to say three words to Clint, let alone be around and be forced to interact with people all day. What was happening in Steve’s head was none of his business, unless Steve made the choice to make it his business.

Bucky could wait. He could be patient and be there for Steve if/when he needed it. He didn’t need to try to coerce him into a conversation, he would just give Steve space until Steve decided he was ready to talk to Bucky.

It really shouldn’t be as hard as it feels, Bucky thought. He shouldn’t have this aching pit in his stomach for just giving Steve the space he needs. This shouldn’t be on his mind all the time. It shouldn’t be monopolizing his thoughts and taking over his every interaction with Steve. It shouldn’t cause him to hesitate every time he typed out a text he would normally send to Steve without a second thought, waiting for Steve to hopefully contact him. It shouldn’t make his heart jump into his throat every time he saw Steve, only to then plummet once he realized Steve’s head was still stuck in his sketchbook, like it had been all week. It shouldn’t make his heart beat faster, make it harder to breathe, every time another day passed and he didn’t talk to Steve outside of the context of work. It shouldn’t bring tears to his eyes, like it had been most nights.

It had only been a week. Bucky didn’t think he should be feeling this way. He didn’t think it was reasonable. He was just trying to do what was best for his friend.

That never made it any easier.

_____

By Friday, Bucky was nearly over being a good and supportive friend. He missed Steve. He missed the conversations he had been able to have with Steve, his bubbly and attentive attitude, the general feeling of friendship he got when he was with Steve. Bucky wasn’t going to confront him, of course. He was still trying to give him space a be a good friend who was understanding about his mental situation. It was just getting harder and harder by the day not to almost corner Steve into a conversation.

By Friday, Steve was almost done. He had hardly noticed that he’d had his head stuck in his sketchbook almost all week, but he hadn’t cared too much. He knew Bucky was probably getting irritated with him, but he knew once Bucky saw why he had been hiding in his sketchbook all week, it would all come together and make sense. Honestly, Steve was fairly excited about it, too. He couldn’t wait to see Bucky’s face when he revealed what he’d been working on.

_____

Steve was nervous, too, of course. Yeah, he and Bucky had been somewhat flirting for a few months now, but that and actually going on a date with him? Two completely different things. Dates were serious and led to something, mutual flirting (if what Bucky and Steve had been doing could be called that) was relatively harmless and casual. Taking the next step seemed like such a big leap, especially because Steve had decided to make a big deal out of it all, which he was only regretting slightly. Not enough to stop him from going through with his huge first date plan, but enough to make him hesitate, to make him ask himself what if Bucky said no. He knew it was over the top, and some people found that off-putting, especially for something like a first date, but Steve thought Bucky was an understanding enough guy not to let Steve’s interesting manner of doing certain things get in the way of a date.

Plus, he think Bucky liked him a lot. That helped, just a little.

Friday came both too quickly and too slowly for Steve’s liking.

_____

Friday came, and Bucky was grumpy as shit. He knew it, too. He was fully aware of his grouchy attitude, but Steve had been borderline ignoring him since the beginning of the week. It had been over five days since he and Steve had a decent conversation with one another, and Bucky had to admit he hadn’t fully realized how attached to Steve he was until now. It felt unhealthy.

Maybe he just needed an adjustment period. And he had been very careful not to take his anger out on Steve. He had chosen the few words they said to each other carefully, taking extra thought into making sure Steve didn’t think he was angry. Bucky wanted Steve to be able to be healthy in whatever way was best for him, and making him feel bad because Bucky was too attached to him and couldn’t go a week without talking to him was not something Bucky thought Steve needed. He may not be the best at keeping his anger in check in front of Clint, but around Steve he was rock solid, only talking as much or as long as Steve wanted, not pressuring or cornering him into any more conversation. Steve would talk to him when he was ready, Bucky kept reminding himself. He just had to be patient.

So what if Steve didn’t even have his head in his sketchbook today, and he just seemed to be avoiding Bucky? Bucky could still be a good friend, and above all, he could still be a good boss.

Steve still didn’t seem like himself, he looked nervous and jittery, so Bucky let him be. He even let him go an hour before closing because Steve seriously looked like he needed it. He looked thankful and even smiled at Bucky for the first time in a week, even if it was a small one. Steve said he would see Bucky soon, and Bucky couldn’t help but thinking tomorrow couldn’t come quick enough.

_____

Being nervous all day hadn’t helped Steve at all. He was planning on talking to Bucky today, getting out of his own head long enough to have a conversation with him before tonight. Hopefully reminding Bucky why he liked Steve in the first place, but Steve could hardly focus on anything but how tonight he was finally going to do it.

He was finally going to ask Bucky out on a date, and he was going to do it in one of the most elaborate ways possible. Which made him so nervous he couldn’t talk to Bucky, which was ironic, wasn’t it?

Being able to go home an hour early was the only thing that saved Steve from dissolving into a puddle of anxious goo. He was able to go to the gym and punch a bag full of sand for a good hour so he didn’t feel so anxious when he texted Clint to see where Bucky was and if now was a good time for him to set everything up (Steve had told Clint yesterday what he was planning, and only because it was going to take another person for his plan to work). Clint gave him the okay, saying Bucky was just moping on the couch.

Steve packed up everything he needed, mainly his sketchbook. He drove the fifteen minutes to Bucky’s and parked in a nest of trees right in front of the barn, which somewhat hid his car. Steve got to work, kneeling on the ground and preparing the space out front. He laid down three rows of bricks, a little barrier that looked like a picket fence, and then spread a good three inches of soil down. Steve dug a few holes, and ran back and forth to his car to get flowers (and a few succulents because Steve was a sucker for cactuses, and he knew Bucky was, too). He used his artistic eye to try to match the aesthetics correctly, but in the dim light he wasn’t sure how well he was doing. It wasn’t a large garden by any means, but it was colorful and still had enough room left for Bucky to add more plants of his choosing. Steve liked it, actually, quite a lot.

Next, he moved his car and got out his sketchbook, carefully ripping out choice pages and placing them on the ground in a trail. He left a small rock in the corner of each so that wind couldn’t blow any of the papers away. Steve had worked hard on all of them, and he would be damned if any of them blew away.

Lastly, Steve turned on the lights leading to where he was planning on meeting Bucky.

He texted Clint an octopus emoji, and Clint texted back multiple exclamation points and one of the smiley faces that looked really excited.

Steve’s heart rate picked up and his palms started sweating when he saw Bucky’s silhouette walking toward the barn.

_____

Bucky didn’t know why Clint needed him to go out to the barn. It was dark, and Clint had perfectly good feet himself (even if he couldn’t find shoes). Bucky shouldn’t be the one to suffer from Clint’s laziness, honestly, why did he keep letting Clint push him around? Maybe he was just kind and trying to do something nice for a friend, but Bucky knew that wasn’t right. He was almost certain he did nice things for Clint because when he broke out the puppy dog eyes, Bucky’s backbone was useless. That’s probably how they ended up with enough animals to run a petting zoo, but Bucky wasn’t trying to get too deep on his walk to the barn. He just needed to make sure they had turned the water off in the barn and get back to the house without stepping on anything weird or tripping. If he snuck a few strokes to Twinkie, that was nobody’s business but his own.

Walking along, trying not to think of anything, Bucky almost didn’t notice Steve’s car at the barn. It wasn’t normally anything unusual - Steve was here so much that his car fit in. But, they closed four hours ago, what was Steve doing back?

“Steve?” Bucky called once he was somewhat within earshot of the barn. He couldn’t see Steve, but the lights in the barn were on. He called Steve’s name again, without reply.

When he was a few feet from the barn, Bucky’s eye caught on something new that was outside of the barn to the right. It was a little flower garden. It had flowers of nearly every color lined up neatly, with cactuses in the front row and succulents lining the edges. Bucky’s breath caught in his throat. It was beautiful, and it had enough room left that he could add more flowers if he so pleased. Bucky felt his throat get tight and he promised himself he wasn’t going to cry.

On the edge of the garden, to the right, was a row of pictures leading into the barn. Bucky looked at the first one, a short comic of Steve finding the ad for the petting zoo, and he and Bucky’s first short phone conversation. It made Bucky smile.

The next picture was of he and Bucky’s interview, also in comic format. In the last box, Steve had been depicted as blushing with literal hearts in his eyes and a goofy smile on his face while comic-Bucky was talking avidly and gesturing with his hands.

The pictures kept going chronologically, showing Steve’s first day of work, the one time he and Bucky had spent an hour of lunch break talking, when they had been sitting around on a slow day and Steve had somehow gotten started on America’s sexism, racism, and homophobia (this one was just a very detailed self portrait of Steve angrily gesturing, with a long and disconnected text bubble that filled up most of the page, with Bucky shown across the table from him, happily munching on his sandwich); the camel racing, the time Honey ate a bee, when Steve had brought Scott and Cassie over, and his birthday. Each were slightly different, many in small comics like the first, and some in detail, like the one of Bucky doing nothing special, just feeding one of the horses cookies, but it was drawn with such intricacy and care that anyone could see how much the artist cared for Bucky. That was the only one that made Bucky shed a tear (a single, manly tear), though many of the comics made Bucky laugh so hard his eyes were more than a little wet.

Bucky didn’t think he’d ever been this happy, certainly not in the last few years. For a few minutes, he forgot about everything around him and just allowed himself to enjoy all of the pictures. He couldn’t even bring himself to try and dissect what they meant, if this was Steve telling him something, because they were all so cute and earnest that Bucky didn’t want to try and overthink it. It made him smile, and his cheeks hurt when he got to the final picture.

It was a small comic, with Steve and Bucky as chibis, that had a nervous Steve sketching in a sketchbook, and a disheartened Bucky sighing and looking at Steve with longing. The final strip was almost exactly like the situation Bucky was in now - chibi him finding the flower garden and walking down the line of pictures. He got to the final picture, and looked up, which had chibi Steve holding a sign that read ‘will you go on a date with me?’ Bucky’s heart sped up, beating so loud Bucky could hear it in his ears. He looked up at Steve, who was holding the same sign as the Steve in the comic. A blush was spread across his cheeks, neck, and even the tips of his ears.

Bucky was speechless. Every fibre of his being wanted him to yell ‘yes!’ and maybe go kiss Steve but maybe not because it was too soon. But his brain couldn’t force his body to move, just stand there and stare at Steve.

“So…” Steve said, “I know this is a little - uh - extravagant, but, um… I really like you. And I think you’re really neat, and I just… Do you wanna go on a date? With me? Sometime?”

Bucky continued to remain speechless, while Steve started fidgeting.

“Um… I don’t want to pressure you, but if you don’t reply I’m probably just going to keep talking, and, um, I mean, I know it’s not-”

“Yes,” Bucky cut Steve off quietly. He still looked shell-shocked, like he wasn’t fully processing what was happening.

Steve smiled, his grin so big his face hurt, his cheeks still tinged pink.

“Yes,” Bucky said again, like he couldn’t really believe it. Steve looked giddy with glee. The two of them ended up smiling at each other from afar for a few more seconds, like Clint made fun of them all the time for. Bucky thinks it’s probably where the heart eyes in the comics were inspired from.

Steve put down the sign after a few more seconds of intense staring and walked up to Bucky.

He stopped before he was too close, but he was within reach.

“Do we… kiss?” Steve asked.

Bucky laughed and grabbed Steve’s shirt, pulling him in and stopping just before their lips connected, staring into his eyes.

“Tease,” Steve whispered, making Bucky smile even more. Steve leaned down the last inch, connecting their lips.

_____

Steve and Bucky migrated their way to the porch to try and look at the stars, they had a conversation about the date. (After Clint had come out to see them holding hands, yelled ‘finally!’ with far too much glee for a grown man, and then went back inside.)

“What did you have in mind?” Bucky asked. The two were huddled together on the porch, sitting on a two person swing. They had hoodies on because of the chilly night air, and Steve had an arm curled around Bucky who had his head rested on Steve’s shoulder.

“Hmm?” Steve asked.

“For our date? What did you have in mind?”

“Oh god, it’s so corny.”

“What?” Bucky asked, poking Steve in the ribs. “What is it? Dinner and a movie? A long walk on the beach?”

“A picnic,” Steve mumbled, almost unintelligible, blushing to the tips of his ears.

Bucky chuckled. “I think a picnic sounds wonderful.”

Steve smiled. “How about Sunday? We’ll both have the day off.”

Bucky resisted the urge to nuzzle into Steve’s neck, but he couldn’t stop the lovesick smile that spread over his face even if he tried.

“That sounds great.”

“Sunday it is.”

They went back to gazing up at the sky and wishing there were less light pollution.

_____

Saturday flew by, all too quickly, with Bucky and Steve stealing as many glances at each other as they possibly could, and taking their lunch break together. They sat outside on the porch, their knees touching under the table, making both of their hearts beat faster.

They, Steve and Bucky, ended their day later than normal, Clint having fallen asleep on the couch. Bucky walked Steve out to his car, purely on the basis that he could sneak a kiss on the way out. He ended up sneaking four; one of them was their goodbye, which lasted a good few seconds.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Steve whispered, still close to Bucky.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, still a little breathless.

“Pick you up at eleven?”

“Sounds about right.” Bucky leaned in again, closing the small space left between them once again.

Okay, so maybe it ended up being more like ten kisses, but really, who was counting?

_____

Come Sunday, Bucky was freaking out worse than when he and Clint accidentally dumped a bucket of ice water on their superior instead of their buddy. He didn’t know what to wear, had changed about fifteen times, and it was only ten. He wasn’t even absolutely sure he had showered, and even if he had, he was going to have to again because changing so many times in such a short period, combined with nerves, got him a little too sweaty.

Bucky had been so absorbed in his thoughts, Clint fed that morning, being nice and doing Bucky’s share where they usually tag-teamed because he knew Bucky was nervous.

Clint had finished and was standing in the doorway to Bucky’s room for the last ten minutes, watching him go through at least three outfits before Bucky even noticed he was there.

“What are you doing here?” Bucky asked once he noticed. “Wait, how long have you been there?”

“Since the jean jacket,” Clint replied, raising an eyebrow in slight judgement.

Bucky blushed and looked down at the clothes spread out on his bed.

“I just… I’m not sure what to wear.”

“Didn’t we go through this less than a week ago?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “This is different, Clint, this is a date. This is a normal, average thing for people to be freaking out about. And, it’s a first date. That’s gotta count for something right?”

Clint raised his eyebrow again. “I mean, to be fair I haven’t been on a date, let alone a first date, since before the army, but I still think you’re freaking out.”

“Are you kidding?” Bucky said incredulously, “of course I’m freaking out. It’s my first date with Steve . My hands have been shaking for the last half hour.” Bucky holds up his hand, and sure enough, it’s visibly shaking.

“Woah,” Clint commented. “That’s not good.”

Bucky stared at him with a blank expression. “Thank you for pointing that out.”

“Glad to be of help,” Clint said as he walked away. Bucky tried to resist the urge to throw a pillow at him, but that didn’t quite work so he ended up nailing Clint in the back of the head when he was halfway down the hall. Clint flipped him off without turning around or breaking stride.

“So much for help,” Bucky muttered while staring down at the clothes laid out on his bed. He glanced at the clock on his phone. Ten past.

This was going to be a long fifty minutes.

_____

Fast forward fifty minutes, and Bucky was dressed and ready to go. He debated between jeans and shorts for a long time, but eventually found a semi-casual, but still attractive pair of shorts in his closet, buried with stuff he used to wear before he enlisted. They were red and black striped shorts that went to his knees. Bucky also found a plain white v-neck t-shirt to pair with them, and decided to call it a day. He had to admit… he looked pretty good.

His hair even looked… not completely awful. Which was a miracle in and of itself, in Bucky’s opinion.

So, at eleven, Bucky was leaning against a counter in a kitchen trying not to start relentlessly pacing the kitchen. He was chewing on his thumbnail instead.

The sound of dogs barking signaled Steve’s arrival, jerking Bucky out of his nervous trance.

Bucky walked out with the slower dogs to where Steve was getting out of his car, dressed much like Bucky in dark blue shorts and a tight grey t-shirt that hugged him in all the right places. He was also wearing square-framed sunglasses that made Bucky practically drool. (He was too busy looking Steve up and down to notice Steve doing the same thing - and having almost the same reaction.)

“Wow,” Steve said, looking at Bucky while Bucky walked out of the front gate, trying not to let ten dogs out at the same time. “You look great.” Steve smiled brightly while Bucky preened and tried not to blush under the compliment.

“Thanks. You look… really nice, too.”

“Oh please,” Steve laughed, “I look like I’m about to go for a run or something.”

Bucky chuckled. “Well, it suits you regardless.”

They fell into a silence, this one not awkward and they could stare into each other’s eyes without scrutiny. The staring, of course, turned into a few innocent kisses, which turned slightly less innocent before they broke apart.

“Ready to go?” Steve asked. Bucky nodded in reply, not trusting his brain to formulate intelligible sentences at the moment.

They hopped in Steve’s car, and Bucky noticed the picnic basket in the backseat. His stomach was fluttering with butterflies thinking about being next to Steve on a picnic blanket with no cares in the world but talking to each other and maybe making sure their food doesn’t get devoured by ants.

Steve drove for about fifteen minutes to a place that Bucky had never seen. It was a quaint little grassy area with a lake filled with a few ducks and a small fountain. There was a children’s playground off in the distance, though none of the sounds of kids yelling carried to where they were, for which Bucky was thankful, because he got enough of screaming kids on any average workday. They laid out their blanket away from the sidewalk, under a large tree which provided ample shade.

Bucky comfortably stretched out his legs on the plaid blanket while Steve unpacked the picnic basket next to him. He pulled out sandwiches, fruit, bottled water, and two sodas.

“No booze?” Bucky teased.

“Nope, not today, Barnes,” Steve teased back, smiling as he opened the container of fruit and sodas.

“Disappointing,” Bucky joked. He had began to cut alcohol out of his daily life, especially after he realized his tummy was becoming a little more flabby than he would have liked.

“You’re forgetting who has to drive.”

“Not me .”

“Drinking alone is sad, and not an activity for Sunday.”

“Oh, but if it was a mimosa, it would be okay and ‘socially acceptable’.” Bucky put air quotes around socially acceptable, making Steve chuckle.

“If we’re going for socially acceptable, I think we failed.” Steve reached out to lace his fingers with Bucky’s. “Also I think it would only be socially acceptable if you were a housewife in her mid-fifties at brunch.”

“They get to have all the fun.”

Steve snorted. “That they do.”

_____

A Few Months Later

“Steve! Have you seen my socks?” Bucky called from his bedroom.

“Which pair?” Steve yelled above the sound of the shower.

“The ones with lil’ bunnies on them!”

“Oh, I think they’re in the pantry?”

“Why the hell are they in there!”

“Because Clint stole them!”

“Is this because of the peanut butter?”

“Yup!” Clint yelled from the living room.

Bucky marched into the kitchen, grabbed his bunny socks, and went to waggle his finger at Clint. “Not cool, man.”

“Neither is eating the last of the peanut butter, you ass.”

“ Why would that give you the excuse to steal someone else’s socks?”

Clint grumbled something that ended with the word ‘payback’ and Bucky just rolled his eyes and moved on.

“Just - please feed the colt at noon? There’s goat’s milk in the fridge.”

Clint gave him a thumbs up over the couch.

Bucky went back through his room to the bathroom to bang on the door.

“Steve! Are you almost ready? We’re running late.”

“Give me a minute!”

Bucky rolled his eyes and muttered “we don’t have a minute.” He didn’t hear the shower running, though, so there was a small miracle in the works.

Somehow, Steve popped out two minutes later, looking fresh to death and ready to take on the day.

“Got the car?” Steve asked, teasing Bucky for staring at him with his mouth hanging open.

Bucky audibly snapped his mouth shut. “I was just on my way.”

A thirty minute drive, a seven minute parking debacle, and twenty floors later, Bucky and Steve were sitting in the lobby of a large corporate building.

“I can’t believe we’re going to be meeting with Stark Industries,” Steve whispered to Bucky, who was overcome with nerves.

“I can’t believe they want to sponsor us. We’re just a little ragtag petting zoo, what have we got to offer?”

“I dunno,” Steve shrugged, looking thoughtful. “We bring a whole new, homey aespect to the corporate world. We’re not some huge zoo, we’re a small little run-of-the-mill petting zoo. It’s kinda sweet.”

“I just think their money could be better spent, y’know?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t.” He turned to Bucky and smiled, one of his smiles that made Bucky’s knees go weak.

“Mr. Barnes and Mr. Rogers?” A feminine voice called. “Ms. Jean will see you now.”

Steve and Bucky walked up, straightened their clothing, and walked through the doorway leading to a long hall.

“Third door on the right,” the secretary said with a smile, going back to her desk. Steve smiled and thanked her, and Bucky caught the once over she gave Steve. He also caught the way she starred appreciating as Steve walked past. Bucky resisted the urge to snort in laughter, because he knew what Steve looked like under those slacks.

“I can’t believe you wore bunny socks to a meeting with Stark Industries,” Steve whispered as they walked down the hallway.

“What? It shows my charisma and love for animals.”

“Really?” Steve asked in disbelief, “because I think they’re just your lucky socks.”

“That certainly helps,” Bucky practically sang as he went to open a door, after knocking and hearing a ‘come in!’ in response. Steve shook his head and laughed as they walked through the door (that Bucky held open for him), which revealed a full room of people sitting at a sleek mahogany table. There were only two seats left open, next to each other and closest to the door.

Greetings were exchanged, hands were shook, and everyone returned to their seats. Bucky tried not to fidget with his fingers. They were told not to prepare a presentation, just that the company was interested in them and they should come in for an interview. The appearingly friendly atmosphere didn’t make Bucky any more calm in the situation. It wasn’t that Bucky wasn’t good under pressure, or that he was a bad public speaker, but it had been so long since he had even entertained the thought of getting interviewed, he felt off balance.

He took a deep breath and looked over at Steve, who was so calm it was almost intimidating.

Bucky wished he could close his eyes and just sit for a few minutes, before getting grilled within an inch of his life. He hadn’t had a chance to in the car, because he was driving and he had to focus on Steve’s directions, and then Steve and him ended up talking in the lobby. He thought he was ready for this, but he still found himself wanting just a minute of silence to collect his thoughts. But, he knew that would only reflect badly on him, so he took another few deep breaths and tried to focus on the questions.

_____

“Holy shit!” Bucky yelled once they were safely in the parking lot. “I can’t believe we got the grant!”

“It’s a sponsorship, but,” Steve teased. Bucky could tell he was happy, he was just much better at holding it in than Bucky.

“Who cares! We got it!” Bucky nearly began to jump around the parking garage he was so excited.

“Hey,” Steve said softly once they got back to the car. He grabbed Bucky’s hands to hold in his own. “I’m really proud of you.”

Bucky stared into Steve’s eyes, one of the most sincere places Bucky thinks he’s ever experienced.

“I couldn’t have done it without you, Steve.”

Steve pushed Bucky against the car and kissed him. He kissed Bucky until someone wolf-whistled at them, making them reluctantly stop.

_____

Six months later, Steve and Bucky lay on a blanket under the stars, their hands linked together between them. They’d driven an hour outside of the city just to get away from the light pollution. LANY drifted through the speakers on Bucky’s phone.

Baby I just love the way you love me,

And how you dance with me throughout the night.

Baby won’t you stay awhile with me?

Forever, alright.

“How does that sound?” Steve asked.

“Hmm?” Bucky replied.

“Forever,” Steve whispered, turning his head to face Bucky.

Bucky pursed his lips and pretended to think. “How does forever sound?” Bucky asked. Steve nodded.

Bucky couldn’t hold back his smile.

“Forever sounds pretty great.”

_____