Archive of Our Own

Bucky was pissed.

Yelena could tell Bucky was pissed because of the little stress wrinkle that always appeared between his eyes when things weren’t going his way, and because of the tiny downturn of his mouth —just barely skimming the line between a frown and a pout— and, most of all, because he was sitting on the couch sulking.

On any normal day, Bucky wasn’t really a sulker. Did he tend to make little snippy comments that were (usually) uncalled for? Yes. Were the expressions he made often easier to read than he (probably) wanted them to be? Yes. But did he sulk? No.

Not that he let the rest of the team see, anyway.

But, today? Today, something was different. Today, Bucky was pissed.

Yelena cornered Bob about it first.

“Bobert,” she said in the easy, casual way she usually did, while sidling closer and closer until he was pretty much pinned against the gym wall before he knew what was happening. He tilted his head back ever so slightly, laughing in that normal Bob half-nervous, half-curious way. “Answer me truthfully.”

“Gotta ask me a question first, Yel,” he said, and tried to squirm away. She held firm and did not move. He stopped trying almost immediately; it would’ve been cute if Yelena wasn’t on a mission and also if she swore off calling Bob cute after John held it over her head at the last team meeting. She had no idea what was going on with the two of them, and she wanted to stay uninvolved. Forever, preferably.

“Why’s Bucky pissed?” she asked. Bob tilted his head. Like a puppy. It was cute.

Goddamn it!

“Bucky’s pissed?”

“Yes,” she huffed out, moving away so he could stand upright like a normal person again. Using her superhuman powers of deduction, it was obvious he knew nothing and probably never will. “He’s up in the common area now sitting on the couch all sulky.”

“Bucky doesn’t sulk.”

“Well, he does today.”

“You know who you should ask?” Bob said, snapping his fingers like it was some big revelation. “John.”

“Why should I ask Walker anything?”

“Because Bucky’s pissed,” Bob said, and it was, unfortunately, a good point. “If anyone did it, it’s John.”

“That is true.” Yelena gave him a long, searching look. “It’s not like you to throw Walker under the bus.”

Bob shrugged and ducked past her, heading towards the door. “Eat the last of my Cocoa Puffs and see what happens, Belova.”

She laughed and it echoed through the gym as she gathered her things. She had a breakfast cereal thief to hunt down.

—

John was trying to start new hobbies.

He’d picked up the idea in the weekly therapy sessions they were all required by contract to attend, apparently, and it wasn’t going as well as he thought it was. Something about focusing and channeling all the (negative) energy he had into something productive and positive. It sounded all well and good, but what it really meant was a lot of halfhearted, half-finished projects strewn around the Tower, getting under Yelena’s feet and on her last nerve.

Two weeks ago, it was plants. He filled his room, the kitchen, and most of the common area with leaves and vines and branches, not to mention the empty pots and bags of dirt and all sorts of weird shit he used, supposedly, for fertilizer. He hadn’t researched half as well as he thought he did, though, because a good chunk of them started wilting and turning brown. Bob began squirrelling away the ones in John’s room down the hall into Alexei’s (who was, against all odds, the greenest thumb in the Tower) and Ava quietly started watering the ones in the common area. If John noticed, he didn’t say anything.

Last week, he moved on to minimalism. John was one of the most sentimental, knickknack-and-tchotchke sort of person that Yelena had ever met, so when he announced he was going to pare down his belongings to almost nothing and start something he called a capsule wardrobe, it was concerning. But, like everything John fixated on, it was best to just let it run its course. According to Bob, everything he’d donated to the thrift store down the street from the Tower he’d bought back before the week was even up. At least the money went to charity.

This week, apparently, it was baking.

John was a good cook, which Yelena had spent a whole lot of time trying to deny, but he didn’t dabble in baking nearly as much beyond the occasional loaf of homemade bread Bob and Ava fought over during soup night. But now, Yelena found him in the kitchen, elbows deep in flour as he studied the recipe book open and propped on the counter’s small ledge.

“Caramel brownies,” she said out loud, reading over his shoulder. He flinched halfway out of his skin.

“Jesus,” he griped as soon as he determined he wasn’t having an active heart attack. “Sneak up on a guy much, Belova?”

“Yes,” she said, because. Well. “I’m here to kick your ass.”

“You don’t usually announce that.” He turned back to the brownie recipe and started measuring cocoa powder. “Thanks for the heads up.”

She crossed her arms and leaned against the counter, not really caring that she was getting flour all over her hip. “You don’t want to know why?”

“I’m sure you have your reasons.”

“Bucky’s pissed.”

John dumped a very generous amount of cocoa into the large mixing bowl he was currently using. “When isn’t he?”

“Bob said it was your fault.”

”Bob said that?”

“Okay, no.” Yelena raised an eyebrow. “But he strongly insinuated it.”

“I mean, isn’t it usually my fault?” John asked, and tossed the measuring cup into the sink. “But I haven’t seen him all day, and the last time I did, he kicked my ass in the ring and slugged me in the shoulder and said good going like I was his kid at a Little League game. Didn’t sound like he was pissed then.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Yelena chewed her lip. “He was supposedly going to do that PR thing with Ava this morning, maybe something went bad then.”

“Are you going to leave me alone now, or what?” John asked. Yelena did, but not before dipping an entire finger into his brownie batter and sticking it in her mouth, not listening to a damn thing he yelled after her about salmonella. She’d survived worse.

—

Ava’s room was at the very end of the farthest hallway on the right, branching off from the common area. Yelena was next, and John was before her, their first line of defense if someone, somehow, got into the Tower’s common area and decided to go down their particular hallway first. Yelena knocked on her door gently, only a few raps.

“What?” Ava’s voice issued from somewhere behind the door, a little irritable but honestly not as bad as Yelena thought. She cracked the door and peeked in.

“How’d the shoot go?”

Ava’s room was dark, the blackout curtains drawn with the few salt lamps she kept on her dresser dimly lit. She was curled up in bed, a weighted blanket draped over her. Not a great sign.

“It’s over,” Ava muttered. “That’s the only good thing I can say about it.”

“More weight?” Yelena asked. Ava grunted in response and it sounded a lot like a yes, or at least like an invitation, so Yelena flopped right on top of the other girl with her arms splayed. She pressed her nose into the curl of hair beside Ava’s temple. “Better?”

“A little.”

“Good.” Yelena maneuvered a little, making sure she was pressing down on Ava’s back as much as she could. She was no John, who was the master at figuring out just how heavy he needed to be in order to offer Ava some sort of relief, but it was still something. “How was Bucky?”

“During the shoot?” Ava asked, her voice muffled by the blanket. Both she and Bucky had been unavailable for a PR photoshoot the previous week, and had been scheduled earlier that morning for reshoots. “I mean, he didn’t want to be there, but who would?”

“You didn’t notice anything… Pissy about him?”

“No?” Ava turned, half-shoving Yelena off of her. “What’s going on?”

“He’s all annoyed at something,” Yelena said. “Spent most of the afternoon sulking on the couch out there. I asked Bob and Walker, neither of them know anything.”

“He was fine with me.” Ava kicked her way out of the bed, pushing most of the weighted blanket onto Yelena. “Even when the shoot went overtime, he was mostly just—”

Her eyes went wide.

“Damn. I think I know what happened.”

“What?” Yelena nudged her in the ribs. “You can’t just—”

“Come on,” Ava said as she herded Yelena out of her room and back into the hallway. “We’re going to the media room.”

—

“Dad.” Yelena rolled her eyes as soon as she saw where they were heading towards. Or, more accurately, to who they were heading towards. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Lena and Ghost!” Alexei pushed his office chair back and away from the computer and stood, holding his arms wide. They all were given a separate office area (cubicles, really) in one of the Tower’s lower floors, meant to be their space to enter mission data and debrief. Alexei mainly used his computer to play Minesweeper. “To what do I owe this honor?”

“Hard at work?” Ava asked, pointedly looking at the minefield on Alexei’s screen behind him, but he just beamed.

“Always. Much work to be done.”

Yelena crossed her arms. “Like pissing Bucky off?”

Ava huffed out an annoyed little breath (probably at Yelena’s tactics) as Alexei frowned.

“What you mean, piss off? I act like perfect gentleman towards our Winter Soldier.”

“When you met us in the elevator earlier this morning,” Ava said. “You told him something. What was it again?”

Alexei lit up. ”Oh. I was planning to gather whole team, make plan, decorate Tower…”

Yelena crossed her arms. “What are you even talking about?”

“It’s Bucky’s birthday,” Ava said as Alexei grinned wide and flung his arms out behind her like he was the one announcing it. “Mel must’ve let it slip to Alexei at some point, and he made a big deal out of it in the elevator.”

“Big deal.” Alexei lowered his arms as he rolled his eyes. “I just wish our very distinguished elderly Soldier a very happy birthday—”

“And you said you were going to make it, and I quote…”

“The party of the century,” they finished together. Yelena uncrossed her arms.

“Jesus Christ, dad.”

“You think that’s why he’s pissed off?” Ava asked.

“Because he thought he was going to get away with no one celebrating his birthday?” Yelena shot back. “Yeah, I one hundred percent think that’s what did it. Both of you, come on. Now.”

“I finish crafting the mines first, Lena,” Alexei said. She leaned over him, locked his computer, and grabbed him by the bottom of his beard hard enough that he yelped.

“I said now.”

—

Bob tilted his head. Not cutely, because Yelena, as she decided in the hour since she’d seen him last, was immune.

“Why would Bucky think we’d throw him a birthday party?”

“Because Alexei literally said we were going to,” John said. “Were you even listening, Bobby?”

“Not really,” Bob said, and made a stupid cute little face. Yelena wrote herself a mental note to find some sort of bug somewhere in the Tower and put it in his shoes. “Sometimes you all talk too much.”

That was, unfortunately, true. Yelena had forced them all into a small conference room on the floor underneath their living area, right by the fire escape and somewhere she knew Bucky wouldn’t ever go voluntarily, and explained what Alexei had told her and Ava. The only other one who’d even known it was Bucky’s birthday was John, who, in his own words, paid attention in fuckin’ history class, but he didn’t think Bucky would’ve wanted a big deal made out of it. Yelena and Ava agreed. Bob and Alexei…

“Anyway, I don’t know,” Bob said, lifting and dropping one shoulder. “A party could be fun.”

“Yes, Bob!” Alexei lifted one fist in the air. “We order the pizza. We fill the cake with the candles. We find one of those…” He waved his hands back and forth. “Donkeys. With the candy butts.”

Bob’s eyes went wide. “A pinata!”

“Oh my god,” Ava said. Yelena forced herself between Bob and Alexei.

“We’re not getting a pinata,” she said. “We’re not doing any of that. Dad, Bucky’s been pissed ever since you even mentioned a party, why would you think he’d like something big and loud?”

“What makes you think big and loud, Lena?”

“Because we are big and loud,” Ava said, her arms crossed. Bob wrinkled his nose.

“Bucky really does hate big and loud.”

“You’re not wrong,” John said.

“What about cake,” Alexei insisted. “Nobody can hate cake. It’s cake.”

John shrugged. “I could bake a cake. I tried a recipe for frosting the other day and it actually worked out pretty well.”

“Yeah it did,” Bob said, with a sly little smile towards John, whose ears immediately turned red. Yelena brushed past whatever that was. She didn't want to know. Both of them were getting bugs in their shoes.

“Chocolate cake,” Alexei said. Yelena shook her head.

“Bucky likes vanilla with chocolate frosting.”

“Sounds good,” John said. “I’m assuming we’re skipping candles? We might have some in the top cabinet.”

“You’d need to burn a whole box,” Ava muttered.

“Chocolate cake,” Alexei repeated as Ava leaned back to hit him in the chest. John rolled his eyes.

“Jesus, okay, I can make two cakes.”

Alexei silently pumped his fist as Bob tilted his head.

“I feel like this is dangerously close to party territory,” he said. “If Bucky was pissed about the thought of a birthday party…”

“Fair,” John said. “But what should we do, give him cake in a dark room alone?”

Ava snorted out a laugh and Bob snickered, too, but… Yelena made a humming sound, tilting her head at John. He gave her a flat look.

“Yel, I was kidding.”

“It’s not a bad idea.”

“No, it’s borderline serial killer.” John’s flat look got even flatter, somehow. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t do that shit anymore.”

“Come on,” she said. “What if we set it up in here? It’s small and quiet; we could make it all cozy with one of those documentaries he likes, give him dinner and cake and leave him alone the rest of the night as a present?”

Ava crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall. “That actually does sound like something he’d enjoy.”

“Especially us leaving him alone,” Bob said.

“Whatever is working,” Alexei said, “as long as Mr. Walker remembers the chocolate cake.”

Rolling his eyes, John pushed the conference table up against the wall as Ava and Bob started stacking chairs. “Yeah, yeah. We can have our own Bucky-less birthday party upstairs.”

“I love it,” Yelena said. “John’s in charge of cake—” He saluted. Ava handed Bob the last chair.

“I can set up down here,” she said. “Alexei, you’re helping me.”

“I know which easy chair Winter Soldier likes after long day in the field,” Alexei said. “Carrying it down one set of stairs? No problems.”

“I can wrangle Alpine,” Bob said. “I’m sure she won’t count as people in Bucky’s solo party room.”

“Sure,” Yelena said. “And I’ll distract Bucky, keep him out of the common area and kitchen so he doesn’t see the cake, or realize Alpine’s missing, or wonder where the hell a whole-ass easy chair walked off to.”

“For the rest of the afternoon?” Ava asked, one eyebrow raised.

“He’s usually in the gym for a while around this time,” Yelena said. “I’ll just keep him there.”

Ava’s eyebrow didn’t lower. John huffed out a laugh.

“It’s your funeral.”

“I’ll be fine,” Yelena insisted. “What the hell could go wrong?”

—

Bucky scrubbed a handful of shampoo through his hair, feeling the muscles in his shoulders twist and ache. If he felt the aftereffects of a long, hard workout already, he wondered how Yelena was doing. He’d left her in the gym, she very well could’ve been dead.

She wasn’t dead. She was dramatic, sure, laying on the floor like a starfish as he picked up his duffel and left, but she wasn’t dead. She’d actually kept up with him a lot longer than she usually did before complaining and tapping out; they’d went a few rounds in the ring, done the entire weight cycle twice, and cooled down in the lap pool. At one point she’d even egged him on, another mile on the treadmill, another rep on the bench.

“I feel like a mark you’re distracting,” he’d joked at one point. She’d just pointed him towards the dumbbells and told him to show her proper bicep curl form. He was pretty sure she knew damn well how to do a bicep curl.

Oh. It was so obvious.

They were throwing him a goddamn party.

He didn’t say anything else about it, or that he figured out her game, just dragged the workout as long as he could before she finally assumed starfish pose and refused to get up even when he poked at her.

Might as well get this over with, he thought, and went to hit the showers.

It wasn’t that he hated his birthday. It wasn’t even that he hated parties, even though, admittedly, they weren’t his favorite. He didn’t even hate the idea of spending the day with his team, although they were the loudest, most annoying group he’d ever been a part of, and he’d talked to Scott Lang. It was…

Well, he had plans.

It wasn’t often he had plans on his birthday, let alone ones he was looking forward to, and he wasn’t ready to give them up or even admit to anyone else they existed. So, when Alexei let it slip that he actually knew it was Bucky’s birthday, loudly in the elevator, Bucky figured both him and his plans were pretty much screwed.

Scrubbing himself dry with a towel he then wrapped around his head, Bucky pulled on a pair of clean sweatpants from his duffel and dug around for a t-shirt. He had a nice outfit somewhere in there, one that he’d picked out that morning and packed in his gym bag for a quick getaway, but now, with his plans all fucked up, he had no need for it.

He flipped the towel off of his head and swiped it through his hair a few times, draping it over his shoulders before finger-combing his hair into some semblance of neat and tidy. He was stalling.

“Might as well get this over with,” he said, and opened the locker room door.

The first thing he noticed was the envelope on the opposite wall with his name on it.

The second thing he noticed was Yelena’s neat handwriting.

“Here we go,” he said, and opened it.

Conference room fifty-one was the only thing it said. Bucky slung the duffel over his shoulder and headed down the hall to the elevator. Yes, the elevator. It was his birthday. He was going to be lazy, and no one was going to say a damn word about it.

Conference room fifty-one was small, unassuming. In a way, that made it even worse. Half-imagining how loud a rendition of the happy birthday song would be inside the confines of conference room fifty-one and half-plotting an escape route down the fire escape he knew was close by, Bucky leaned hard on the door with one shoulder and let himself through.

Huh. The room was empty.

Well, not fully empty. Alpine was asleep on her blue and white cat bed in the corner, there was a TV badly rigged against the far wall, what looked like his favorite easy chair cockeyed in one corner, and the table…

It was decorated like a birthday party. Streamers, balloons, a tablecloth with confetti, the whole nine yards. In the middle of it all was a glass dome covering a pristine cake, twelve unlit candles sticking out of it.

Propped against the dome was a piece of paper folded in half. Happy birthday, Bucky! was written on the front in Bob’s trademark bubble letters (he was getting better, honestly, even though DAY was all crunched up against the edge of the paper), and inside were notes in different peoples’ handwriting:

Gotcha! No party for you! Just a chill night in with your fav lady (she says meow btw) and one of those boring-ass documentaries none of us like. Happy birthday, we all appreciate you. Love, Yelena

There were only twelve candles, and none of us know how old you really are. Glad you’re still here, though. HBD -John

HAPPIEST REGARDS TO WINTER SOLDIER!! MANY YEARS OF GLORY AHEAD. MUCH LOVE FROM RED GUARDIAN

Happy birthday Bucky! Here’s to another year of killing the spiders in my room and sneaking scoops of John’s ice cream when he thinks he found a better hiding spot in the freezer :) Ava

yesterday i overheard some kids on the subway arguing about who the coolest new avenger was and they all pretty much agreed that it was you. i know you don’t like parties but i hope this one’s ok. thanks for all you do for us (especially me) and happiest of happy birthdays! - bob

An ink paw print from Alpine (presumably), and another note from Yelena at the very bottom of the card:

P.S. I strategically picked this conference room for its easy access to the fire escape. I won’t tell if you won’t. Have fun! -Y

Bucky glanced over his shoulder at the window and the fire escape. The sun was going down; if he hurried and changed, he could be across Manhattan in… He calculated in his head. He wouldn’t even be late.

He was out the window before he could even think twice.

—

Sam grinned, and it was somehow even more awful and endearing than it usually was.

“So, you spent the whole day pissed because you thought they were going to throw you some big party…”

“Don’t,” Bucky said, but of course Sam pressed on.

“And you thought you weren’t going to be able to sneak out…”

“Sam.”

“For your super-special birthday dinner with me.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a jackass?”

“You, constantly.” Sam leaned back in his chair, tucked away in the darkest, most secluded alcove of the best Italian spot in Brooklyn. Bucky hadn’t even booked the spot, but if he had, he would’ve picked the exact same place, down to the seat he was sitting in. “But it doesn’t matter, ‘cause you’re a bigger jackass, so my brand of jackassery cancels out. PEMDAS, or whatever.”

“PEMDAS?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Sam grinned at him, his teeth flashing in the candlelight, and Bucky leaned one elbow on the table, resting his chin on his fist. Sam tilted his head. “What are you looking at me like that for?”

“No reason,” Bucky said. “Glad I’m here.”

“I’m glad you’re here, too,” Sam said, and grinned again, flashing that gap in his teeth that drove Bucky absolutely crazy. Did he know about that? He couldn’t know about that. “Celebrating your birthday.”

“Shut the hell up,” Bucky said, trying his level best to hide the fact that he was, indeed, being driven crazy, and poured Sam another glass of wine. “I’ve had a lot of damn birthdays, they’re nothing special.”

“Yeah, sure.” Sam said, and nudged his leg with one foot under the table. “It was a nice thing your guys did for you.”

“It was.”

“Yelena’s a little weasel, huh?”

“What else would you expect?”

“You’re right.” Sam’s wide smile was something else. Bucky honestly could’ve sat there all night and looked at it, at him, but the restaurant was busy and the waitress definitely wanted their table; she’d been hovering for the past fifteen minutes as Bucky made googly eyes at Sam’s gorgeous face and unfairly cute tooth gap.

“Can I offer you two any dessert?” Right on time, the waitress appeared at Bucky’s elbow, bright and sunny as she held out a tray. “The special tonight is raspberry cheesecake, but we also have a mousse and a chef’s choice cake slice.”

“Is it vanilla with chocolate frosting?” Sam asked, and Bucky kicked him under the table. The waitress tilted her head.

“Tonight we have a carrot cake with cream cheese glaze.”

“Ah, too bad.”

“Just the check, then?”

“Just the check.”

“I’ll be right back with that.” As she whisked her tray away. Bucky kicked Sam again.

“Really hungry for vanilla cake, huh?”

“I know that’s your favorite.” Sam grinned as the waitress slid the check onto the table in passing. “Fuckin’ shame they don’t have any here, though. I have candles in my pocket and everything.”

“Yeah? You want cake?” Bucky snagged the check out from under Sam’s nose, slipping some cash into the billfold even as he protested. “I might know a place.”

—

“Damn, Walker makes a moist-ass cake.” Sam stabbed the rest of the generous piece Bucky cut for him, eating it in one bite and speaking around it. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Bucky slid his own cake plate back onto the table and kicked the easy chair into recline. It was a pretty big chair, but with both him and Sam curled up together, there was barely any wiggle room. It was okay, though. Sam was warm, and, with the lights dimmed, it was easy to ignore the (weird) fact they were currently in one of the Tower’s conference rooms. Bucky was pretty sure he briefed a mission in here a few weeks ago.

Sam scooped a glob of frosting onto his finger and dabbed it on the tip of Bucky’s nose even as he protested.

“Birthday tradition,” he said. “For good luck.”

“In what world?” Bucky griped, leaning towards Sam to try and wipe it off on his shirt. “I share my cake and this is the thanks I get?”

“Yup,” Sam said, and licked the frosting off. His warm tongue swiped Bucky’s nose and half his cheek a few more times for good measure. “Damn, it’s even better that way.”

Bucky leaned over and dragged his finger through the rest of the frosting on Sam’s plate, swiping it across his mouth before he had a chance to protest. “I wonder if it’s even better this way.”

“Only one way to find out,” Sam mumbled around the frosting. Bucky leaned over and met him in the middle, kissing the frosting off of his lips and pulling him closer. Every swipe of chocolate was methodically taken care of; Bucky kissed each corner of his mouth, above his lips, in the hollow of his chin. Sam ran his fingers through Bucky’s hair, tightening his grip as each kiss deepened, as they twined together on the easy chair.

“Happy birthday, Buck,” Sam breathed out as they broke apart for air, as he wrapped one arm around Bucky’s shoulders, as Bucky leaned down to rest his head on Sam’s chest. His heart beat steadily, a solid rhythm, and Bucky felt him shift to grab something. Across the room, the TV Yelena set up flickered to life. “What is this, a documentary? God, you would.”

And Bucky wanted to. He wanted to spend the rest of his birthday cuddled up in his favorite easy chair, watching a documentary with Sam, but he was full of cake and was already drifting.

“You sound like Walker,” he managed to get out as Alpine leapt up to curl in his lap, tucking her head against his arm and purring steadily.

“That sucks for me. All right, I guess we’ll see what this is all about,” Sam said, and pressed play.

“It’s part of a series,” Bucky mumbled into Sam’s chest. He was safe, everything was warm, and all he could feel and smell and taste was frosting and Sam. He closed his eyes, knowing that, when he opened them again, he’d still be exactly where he wanted to be.