When Jane first moved into Avengers Tower with Thor, she had vaguely dreaded the thought that it would be like Culver U all over again; communal dorms where everybody was always up in everybody else’s business, if only because privacy was just about physically impossible. Since graduating, she’d grown very fond of the kind of freedom of movement and from embarrassment that only existed for adults, in solitude or the company of people you knew like the back of your hand. Listening to Tony, Avengers Tower had sounded less like a strategically world-saving housing project and more like a permanent sleepover. Not exactly the ideal environment for her preferred lifestyle.
But, as Pepper had consistently corrected him, even a high-tech skyscraper filled with superheroes boiled down to just an apartment complex in the end, and Jane couldn’t be happier. Despite appearances to the contrary, Tony even understood that his ‘tenants’ being in complete control of their own space and privacy was of vital importance to feeling safe and comfortable, and had adjusted the locks and AI facilities on the residential floors accordingly.
And the rent was great.
And the elevators were so quick and quiet.
And that’s not even going into the built-in laboratories.
And –
Yeah, screw the pep talk. Living in the tower was great, but none of that made Jane miss Darcy any less. This would never have happened if she’d had a Darcy around.
If asked, Jane would be the first to admit she’d kind of let herself go since Thor and Darcy had returned to their respective family homes to take over their respective family businesses in the wake of their respective pseudo-apocalypses. Adult freedoms notwithstanding, certain things were just not worth wasting time and energy on unless you were in regular contact with other human beings. Overly conscientious hygiene, for example. For a given value of ‘overly conscientious’.
Nobody had asked yet, though, and hurray for that, because today had proven that Jane’s list of non-essentials during times of hermitude had gotten completely out of control.
Sighing for the fifteenth time in as many minutes, Jane got into the elevator in the lobby and pressed the button for the open kitchen. She’d had just enough dignity left to not add ‘buying liquor at half past three in the morning’ to her sexless walk of shame, but only because the Tower cafeteria was never not stocked. But when the elevator doors opened into the communal dining area, she gave up and admitted defeat. The lights were on. Getting liquor at half past three in the morning in front of witnesses was part of her walk of shame.
"Great," she muttered to herself, rounding the corner into the kitchen. "Just g– oh."
She stopped in her tracks, took in the scene, and did a double take. This couldn’t possibly be the thing that had come to her mind first, though. They would have called her if it was. That was the whole point of this deplorable course of affairs.
So, Jane observed, aloud and bewildered: "There’s cake? There’s... lots of cake. Wow. I just spent an hour scouring the city looking for this sorry excuse for a cupcake for nothing. Hi, by the way."
"Hi," said an unimpressed-looking Bucky Barnes, after first politely swallowing a huge mouthful of red velvet. He was seated at the kitchen island surrounded by at least two dozen large cakes in all shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors, dressed in a sleeveless undershirt and sweats and with his hair curling damply from a recent shower. He did not look like a man enjoying the fact that he apparently had two dozen cakes all to himself. "You didn’t know?"
"What’s the occasion?"
"My birthday."
"Oh!" Jane smacked her palm into her forehead. "Oh god. Congratulations! I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, I had no idea."
"You and me both," Bucky mumbled dourly, and shoveled a crumbly chunk of lemon-yellow cheesecake into his mouth.
Jane’s eyes widened. "You didn’t –"
"Yeah, that was awkward," Bucky said through his mouthful. He affected that classic light-hearted and cheerful tone that just ends up sounding openly faked and pissed off instead. "When I was young my family used to jump out and yell ‘happy birthday!’ all day long, so Steve thought, ‘he remembers so much, let’s give him a good old-fashioned surprise, relive some good memories’. And then I smashed a vase over his head."
"Oh my god."
"He blames himself, of course, and he won’t let me get a word in edgewise about how it’s obviously all my fault for pretending so hard to have my head screwed on right," he went on relentlessly. "So here I am, eating away my guilt with all the cake from the party that didn’t happen because it started with me turning Steve’s face into ground beef, while everybody else is back to looking at me like I could go postal and kill them all in my sleep at any given second. Which, no, I can assure you are two completely different things. There, now you can back me up when the others start telling me to talk to someone about it and I tell them to go to hell because I already did."
"Uh... okay," Jane said diplomatically, after a beat of bewildered silence. "Will do."
Rant over, Bucky promptly deflated. His shoulders sagged, he heaved a deep sigh, and he fell back in his chair. Then he scraped his throat, scrubbed a hand through his hair, and gave her a raised-eyebrows crooked smile and a semi-shrug. What can you do?
"So, uh. Any particular reason you went out looking for cake in the middle of the night?"
"Ah." Jane looked down at her sad little grocery bag with its even sadder and littler cupcake contents. "It’s – heh – kind of embarrassing, actually."
"I won’t tell a soul," Bucky swore.
Jane felt a strong urge to walk – nay, run – away, and never show her face in public again. Of course today, of all days, would be the day Bucky Barnes turned that infamous smile on her that could charm the pants off of any single, man-fancying girl or guy in two centuries. She’d seen him turn that smile on Pepper sometimes, or Laura Barton, when Clint brought his no longer quite so secret family to visit: safely unresponsive targets already in established relationships. But Jane had never really stuck around the Tower’s communal areas long enough to get the same treatment.
Until now, of all times.
Jane groaned, covered her face with her hands, and confessed: "Today was my birthday too."
"And nobody celebrated?!"
Jane lowered her hands in surprise. Bucky looked deeply affronted on her behalf.
"Nobody knew," she clarified. "I didn’t tell anyone."
His expression softened from indignation to confusion. "Why?"
"Weeeeell..." Jane stalled with a grimace.
Bucky looked at her quizzically.
Jane gave up and dropped into a chair opposite him. "I forgot it was my birthday too."
Bucky blinked. Once, twice – and Jane was just beginning to hope that maybe he wouldn’t when he burst out laughing. Laughter looked good on him, though, so maybe it wasn’t so bad.
"How?" he hiccupped. "How does someone like you forget?"
"My intern left me. And my boyfriend," she said. She tried studiously contemplating her pathetic cupcake, but smiled in spite of herself. "Kind of. It was complicated. And I don’t have any obligations lined up for like another month or so, so I just..." She looked up and allowed their eyes to meet. "Stopped keeping track of time?"
"Geeze," he said. After a moment of visible effort, he snickered some more, then covered his mouth with his hand and shook his head. "Aww, I’m sorry."
"No, no, it’s good to laugh about it," Jane said. She was a grown-ass, Nobel Prize-winning woman. She would own her grown-up choices the way they deserved.
"How old are you now?" Bucky asked.
"Thirty-three. You?"
"Anywhere between twenty-nine and a ninety-nine."
"Ah." Open mouth, insert foot. "Right."
An uneasy silence fell – at least on Jane’s end. Bucky looked down and filled it by upending a can of whipped cream on a slice of heavy black chocolate cake and piling a plate with little one-or-two-bites-sized pieces of every cake on the table. He took the chocolate for himself and pushed the plate in Jane’s direction.
Studying his down-turned face from the corner of her eye as he ate, Jane cast around for something to say. She considered, I miss my intern. Ridiculously so, considering how she drove me up the wall while she was still here. The boyfriend is probably for the best, ultimately, but with Darcy it’s like I’m an addict going through withdrawal. I’d just broken her in! She didn’t really know Bucky all that well, though, and The Intern Problem was third date material at the very earliest. Eventually, Jane just unwrapped her lonely little birthday candle and stuck it in a bit of cake topped with hazelnut cream swirls.
Out of nowhere, Bucky said: "Sometimes I want nothing more than to pick up counting where I left off at twenty-seven and a half, and sometimes I feel like it’d be worth my other arm just to know how long I was really awake while Hydra had me, because –"
Startled, Jane looked up, prepared for some horrifying detail of his decades of capture and torture.
But Bucky pointed to her candle. "Do you have any idea how ridiculous a cake with ninety-nine of those looks?"
Now it was Jane’s turn to laugh. "Did they really try that?"
"They really tried that. What a waste of good icing."
Grinning back widely at Bucky and the little quirk to the corner of his mouth, Jane speared her own little piece of the chocolate cake he was eating. Putting it in her mouth was a near-orgasmic experience.
"Oh my god, this is the best chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted," she moaned. "What is this? That German stuff I’m always hearing about?"
"Hell if I know. It came from the swankiest cake place in the city, though. They could do anything and make it taste good."
"What, Steve didn’t even bake you something homemade?"
Bucky jerked his thumb over his shoulder, to where most of a modest but perfectly sculpted apple pie sat under a glass cover on the counter.
Good lord.
"I stand corrected," Jane said. "No joking about the depths of all-American wholesomeness Steve Rogers is capable of sinking to."
"Don’t let him fool you, he was just messing with me," Bucky said. "That thing’s inedible."
Jane almost choked on cake and laughter.
"The rhubarb pie his mother taught him to make, though..." Bucky said. "Mm-hmm."
"Oh, my dad made a great rhubarb too," Jane said; her mouth would have been watering at the memory if she hadn’t spoken around a piece of perfect white-and-purple meringue flaked with what might just be real gold leaf. "And have you tasted this stuff?"
And just like that, they were off. Bucky had definitely grown up in a less plentiful and hedonistic time than Jane, but whereas Jane’s parents had cycled through the same collection of simple dishes week after week and year in year out and Jane could fixate on a single type of sweet or junk food for months on end, Bucky’s mother had never met a recipe she wouldn’t try, nor Bucky a candy, cookie or delicacy. Jane would be hard pressed to find a more bittersweet subject than the happy youth stolen from him by seventy years of torture and murderslavery, but Bucky seemed determined to look only on the bright side.
"If it wasn’t for the enhancements, I’d be barrel-shaped by now," he admitted, for example.
"I bet you’d be adorable," Jane said.
Bucky snorted. "Well that would definitely be a change of pace."
"Noooo," Jane protested, emboldened by the placebo effect of her rum cake. "More adorable, I mean."
Bucky raised an eyebrow, half incredulous, half visibly doubting whether he should consider that a compliment.
"And still just as handsome," she ensured him, before finally giving in to the warning bells going off in her head and deflecting with a piece of avocado cake. "I could go on, but the food still trumps you."
"What is that, anyway?" Bucky asked. "I haven’t tried that one yet."
One beat of conversation led to another, until they were just naming more and more obscure pastries and snack foods from their respective childhoods to see which one of them recognized more of them. Bucky was either cheating or he had an even bigger sweet tooth than he’d already indicated, because despite his recent arrival in the 21st century, there was nothing Jane could throw at him that he hadn’t heard of, and only little he hadn’t already tried, too. He even caught her in the lie when she started making up fake candy bars in frustration.
"Chocolate frogs."
"They’re from a book," Bucky said. "Everybody tells me I should read it."
"Them. It’s a series. And yes, you should."
And whenever they remembered to pause for a second, they kept sampling. And sampling. And sampling.
"Where are you putting all this stuff?" Jane laughed incredulously. Bucky had taken a tray of champagne pudding shots topped with red-white-and-blue sprinkles out of the fridge, and in the time it took for Jane to eat half of one, he put away two. "And do those even count as cake?"
"They do to me," Bucky said. He sat back in his chair and patted his belly with a grin. "Enhanced iron stomach."
"Does it let you speed up your metabolism at will too?"
"I’m pretty sure the tests said it doesn’t, but you know what, I wouldn’t be surprised. Come on, give me another one."
Growling in frustration, she tried to think of something she hadn’t named yet. Then she thought of something; all this time, she’d been limiting herself to American food.
"Battenberg cake," she said triumphantly.
And sure enough, Bucky looked flummoxed. "How the hell do I not know this one?"
"Maybe you’re not the glutton you think you are after all," Jane teased. "Nobody can know everything. But that one is British, so it has an edge."
"Oh, if that’s how you wanna play it." Bucky licked his lips, eyes glinting playfully. Jane’s brain short-circuited a little. "I was stationed in half of Europe at one point or another."
"And I –" Jane faltered and had to scrape her throat. Bucky smirked. Oh. Oh. Wasn’t that an idea. "During wartime, sure. I’ve traveled all over the world for research and conferences."
"I think, if the current trend holds, you’re still gonna need more than that to beat me out," he said.
He wasn’t wrong. However:
"I have a dual citizenship," Jane said smugly, swiped her finger through a genoise cake, and popped the frosting-covered digit into her mouth.
Bucky’s eyes narrowed. Which was... not the reaction she’d been hoping for.
"American and English?" he asked.
"Yes," Jane said, not sure if she should be disappointed.
"You don’t sound like it."
Wilting with frustration inside, she shrugged and grabbed a napkin to wipe her finger on. "Doesn’t make it not true. My mom’s from London. She moved back to London six years ago, as a matter of fact."
"Huh."
There was something speculative and strangely bright and almost triumphant about the way Bucky was looking at her.
"What?" Jane asked. Maybe there was hope after all.
"Nothing." He shook his head, hiding a smile, then gestured around the table. "You got room for one more?"
"Just a little bit." She looked around. "I think I’ve tried them all, though."
"Not all."
He crossed over to the fridge again, and returned this time with a rainbow-colored monstrosity. Jane was limp with laughter before he even put this last cake down. The only thing holding her back was the fear that she might throw up if she got too carried away.
It was the one with the ninety-nine candles. Aside from the multicolored mess of wax, it was covered in pastel M&Ms and ringed all around with peeps.
"Made in the same fancy place as all the other cakes," Bucky said.
"I figured, that’s why I’m laughing," Jane gasped out with great difficulty.
Bucky began plucking candles from the cake and licking the frosting off the ends, and suddenly it wasn’t so difficult to stop laughing anymore. Breathing heavily, Jane met his eyes. The next thing he took from the cake was a purple marshmallow bunny.
He didn’t even have to beacon to get her to lean towards him across the table.
"Open wide," he murmured, leaning her way in return.
She did.
Never breaking eye contact, Bucky brought the bunny to Jane’s mouth, and Jane bit off its sugary butt.
"This has got to be the least sexy way a guy has ever flirted with me," she whispered.
Bucky collapsed in a wheezing pile on the table. Swallowing the bunny butt and grinning fit to burst, Jane took Bucky’s face between her hands, brought it up to hers, and kissed him. He surged up to meet the pressure of her lips, threw away the rest of the peep, and tangled his flesh-and-blood hand in her hair. His mouth tasted truly, sickeningly sweet.
"Apparently I used to be a lot smoother than this," Bucky said when they parted. "But I can’t remember making the moves on a girl ever being this much fun before."
Giggling, Jane brushed her hair from her face. What she was about to say must be a sign that she officially missed Darcy more than was healthy, because this was definitely channeling Darcy. "If we were in a club, this would be the part here I tried to get you to go home with me."
Bucky hummed in satisfaction, his eyes hooded, and licked his lips again.
"But I gotta be honest with you," Jane said. "I need an hour or two to let all this cake settle in my stomach before I can get up to any physical activity. Wanna watch a movie?"
Bucky blinked. Then he shrugged. "Good enough. Your place or mine?"
Jane’s apartment was not currently suitable for human habitation. "Yours."
"Great. I hope you like musicals."
Jane dozed off halfway through Mamma Mia! Quite a feat, she would claim later, because Mamma MANIC!! would have been a more accurate title. Bucky would disagree until his dying day, because Hollywood just doesn’t make musical films like they used to.
Either way, her body could use the sleep. And Bucky didn’t mind; he finished the movie (for the twelfth time) and let himself fall asleep right beside her.
The next morning, Steve walked in on Bucky and Jane tangled in Bucky’s sheets and each other’s limbs, and slowly, carefully backed right back out the door. An hour and a half later, while reading a book about wizards at boarding school on Bucky’s couch, he heard the shower turn on for a few short minutes twice and, figuring they’d be coming out soon, went into the kitchen to scramble some eggs and fry them bacon.
Sounds of pleasure drifted through the half-open bedroom door instead.
"Oh Jesus," Steve said, and hightailed it out of the apartment, frying pan and all.
"Where the hell is my frying pan?" Bucky wondered another hour and a half later.
"Who cares," Jane said. "There’s cake for breakfast."
This time, Steve knocked.
Bucky opened the door wearing only his pajama pants and an almost unnaturally sunny expression.
"Hey," he said, pointing. "Your face is better."
"Told you it would be. Can I come in?"
"Do you have to ask?" Bucky stepped aside to let him pass. "What brings you here? And why do you have my frying pan?"
"Do I need a reason?"
"You came to show me your face, didn’t you? And why do you have my frying pan?"
"Yes I came to show you my face," Steve said, then muttered morosely: "But you were busy."
Bucky’s face lit up with understanding – and then delight. He clapped Steve on the shoulder. "Thanks for getting me laid last night, pal."
"What?"
That better be a misunderstanding.
"Jane is so swell, Steve, why didn’t you introduce her before?" he gushed, snatching back his frying pan and dragging Steve into the kitchen. "You know she walked in on me eating cake in the dark looking cranky and didn’t look at me like I might murder the building once the whole night?"
"That’s – great – Buck," said a flustered Steve in fits and starts as he was manhandled into a chair. "Oof. See, I told you people would get better about that."
"And did you know she was possessed by a primordial semi-sentient ur-energy bent on destroying the universe once?" Bucky went on as he put the pan on the stove. "And she hooked up with her last fella after she hit him with her car. Twice. And she punched a wannabe genocidal dictator in the face. That little slip of a thing! Sometimes she kinda reminds me of someone."
He sent Steve a sly, sideways grin.
Too overwhelmed to argue or stay awkward, Steve sent him back a crooked smile. "Maybe we knew her grandmother."
"Must be it."
"And!" He pointed at Steve, triumphant. "She’s half British! You’re not the only one who made time with an English girl anymore!"
Oh Jesus. "You’re still sore about that?"
"No, but it is a nice bonus."
"What’s a nice bonus?" Jane said, walking into the kitchen in nothing but an oversized nightshirt of Bucky’s that fell to just above the knee on her. He’d never seen her so radiant either.
"You being British," Bucky said.
"Pffft. You are such a twelve-year-old. Hi, Steve."
"Morning, Doc," Steve said.
"Oh geeze, just call me Jane. I don’t wanna be a doctor on a day like this."
"Steve brought back the frying pan," Bucky said.
"No, no, I’m stuffed, no more," Jane laughed, sitting down very carefully.
Steve suddenly immensely regretted coming back.
But Bucky went on: "Steve was just saying you should come over more often. Trade stories about driving into hurricanes and walking face-first into every raised fist in Brooklyn. Hey, did I mention yesterday was her birthday too?"
"No, you didn’t!" Steve leaned across the table to shake her hand. "Congratulations, Jane. I’m so sorry I missed it."
"Oh, don’t be," Jane beamed.
"It got her laid too," Bucky stage-whispered.
Jane couldn’t stop humming to herself for the rest of the day.
Happy birthday to we, happy birthday to we, happy birthday dear Bucky, happy birthday to me!
When she got back to her own apartment, she had fifteen texts from Darcy, all some variation of the first:
OMG I AM SO SORRY I MISSED YOUR BIRTHDAY PLEASE DON’T TELL ME YOU SPENT IT DOING SCIENCE ALL DAY
of course i spent it doing science all day, Jane texted back. what do you take me for. and afterwards i got laid
Darcy: Oh, that’s fine then. Happy birthday!! Grandma’s doing okay, she helped me wrap your present. It’s in the mail as of ten minutes ago. *big grin lots teeth emoji*
Jane: what did you get me
Darcy: Not telling, duh.
Darcy: (It’s a science thing.)
Jane: i knew you loved me
Ten minutes later, the other shoe dropped as Darcy remembered who she was talking to.
Darcy: WAIT WHAT WHO LAID YOU
Best. Birthday. Ever.