Long missions were always the hardest for Bucky. Waiting in their apartment for Steve’s return, counting the days, hours, minutes as they passed by, it was almost like hell. “Almost” because he’d seen the real hell, and even the unending loneliness couldn’t compare to that horror. Real hell was the past seventy years, trapped in his own mind, only waking to find he had almost killed Steve. It had taken a long time for him to be comfortable in his own skin again. Even longer before he could bear to be apart from Steve for any length of time. Gradually, the re-constructed SHIELD had pulled Steve back into the field, first on short missions, and then longer. Bucky worked with his therapists, trying to overcome the fear that gripped him every time Steve vanished from his sight, until he could wait with patience as his lover spent time away on missions. He had more problems when Steve was away. Sometimes there were major setbacks in his recovery. He tried to keep that knowledge from Steve though, knowing he would only feel guilty and torn between his love and his duty. Bucky would not willingly do that to him. He’d sworn, after waking with Steve’s blood on his hands, that Steve would never suffer because of him again.
That vow meant getting used to Steve going on missions, on waiting behind for him. In time, they hoped Bucky could rejoin him, but for now he was still unable to pick up a weapon without the fear that he would turn it on Steve or another innocent. So he had to wait, and go to his endless therapy sessions (though at least this new therapist, recommended by Sam, didn’t just talk at him, and wasn’t afraid of him either,) and work on recovering the last bits of memory he’d lost. Sometimes, if Stark wasn’t on the mission, he’d call to check up on Bucky, maybe bring him in to the tower to work on his arm. This was invariably accompanied by an invitation for he and Steve to come live in the tower, but for now Bucky just didn’t feel comfortable around that many people, and Steve insisted he liked living in the tiny apartment- said it felt like old times. The other Avengers would check in on him from time to time as well, Natasha would bring books, every week a new story, sometimes in English, sometimes in Russian. Clint sent him endless texts, introducing him to the wonders of the internet (specifically this thing called Tumblr, which seemed to be a place where every imaginable idea or person was represented by a “blog” of some sort.) If Thor was in town, he’d come, and sometimes it seemed Bucky and Thor were each other’s therapists- Thor only ever talked to Bucky about Loki, and in return Bucky trusted only he and Steve with some of his worst memories. Bruce was a quiet companion, but he’d come by with some food and stories from the countries he’d seen, providing a day of distraction. They were good people, and that was really the only reason Bucky was okay with Steve going on missions- he knew the Avengers would watch his back.
Still, waiting was hard. Very hard. So fucking hard. This mission was the longest yet, already going on for a week, and with all the signs of lasting for a month or better. Steve called when he could, sometimes using “Skype” so they could talk face-to-face, but it wasn’t the same at all. Bucky waited, every day his patience fraying a little more. By the middle of the second week, he felt at the end of his rope. The house was empty. All the Avengers were on missions or busy with other things, so nobody he knew was around, save for the agents stationed outside the building, and he never talked to them- they were there to be his watchdogs, not his friends, and that had been made perfectly clear to him from the start. He didn’t really have anything to do, or anywhere to go. For the first few days, he spent time on the internet, discovered something called ‘fanfic’, and spent an amused few hours reading up on stories people had written about him and Steve. Few had gotten anywhere close to the truth, but some, he felt, had actually been able to touch on the true depth of love he felt for Steve.
But that only lasted a few days, before he got restless. He then tried out a thing Clint told him was a ‘Playstation 3’, an advanced gaming system that enabled him to play a series of games called “Dragon Age.” That took up another few days, the story pulling him in and getting him invested in the plight of “Thedas”. But the fast paced action started to get to him, and even though the characters were using swords and arrows instead of guns and knives, he felt himself sliding back into a place he really didn’t want to be. So he was forced to limit his gameplay to only a few hours a day, or else risk a setback in his recovery. So there was that distraction gone. Books and television only worked for so long, and soon Bucky felt like climbing the walls he was so restless. There wasn’t much at all left to do, and Steve still didn’t seem anywhere close to coming home.
Bucky’s watch beeped, reminding him that it was time to eat. He frowned at the numbers, insistently telling him it was 12:00, time for lunch, and headed for the fridge. Before he’d left, Steve had cooked a week’s worth of meals and frozen them for Bucky. Careful portioning and Steve’s usual tendency to overcook had made the food last for almost two weeks, but today, Bucky opened the fridge to find he’d eaten the last of it the night before. There was no help for it, Bucky would have to go out and buy more food. Well, that, or he could skip the meal. His body had gotten used to that as the Winter Soldier, when nobody fed him unless he was out of the tank for more than a day or two. But skipping meals made Steve upset with him, he’d found out pretty fast, and the agents watching over him would certainly report it if he didn’t eat. So. Shopping. Which meant dealing with people. Great.
Preparing for going out was a mental exercise as much as a physical one. Bucky took a few minutes after making the decision to sit quietly and remind himself that he was safe, that others were safe around him, and that he is not a weapon, but a living man. Normally he would complete this ritual by reminding himself that he would return to where Steve was waiting for him, but Steve wouldn’t be waiting on his return this time, so he had to settle for reminding himself that he’d be coming back to where he would be waiting for Steve- the place he and Steve had filled with memories of love and laughter in the year since he’d been recovering. Then he put on the hoodie that covered his arm, gloves to cover the metal hand (and the other one, since wearing just one glove looked weird,) and his sneakers. (He didn’t wear boots anymore- it felt too much like battle gear.) Lastly, he tied his hair back with a rubber band (Natasha and Clint had given him scrunchies for his birthday, as a joke, but he didn’t wear them- he wasn’t a fan of pink and frilly things,) and picked up his wallet. Time to go.
Braving the supermarket was tough, but he’d done it on his own a few times before. It was the first place he’d been allowed to go “alone” (though the agent currently on watch duty always followed him, no matter where he went,) and as such, it was easier to go there than, say, the mall. Today, thankfully, was a slow day at the store, and Bucky was able to grab a cart and move up and down the aisles with no trouble. He had to remind himself to pick up only a few non-perishable things for Steve, since he didn’t know when he would return. It was odd, passing over Steve’s favorites and only getting the things he liked best. He filled the cart with Cheese-its and Coco Pebbles, before remembering that he had to eat healthy things as well, and turned to the fruit and vegetable section. Peaches, raspberries, lettuce, and potatoes joined his snacks in the cart, and he hesitated over the carrots. Steve would have insisted on them, but he’d been given carrots for every meal when he’d been kept in the hospital, and he’d grown to hate the taste. He decided to get tomatoes instead. Still healthy, and they tasted much better.
After a quick pass by the meat section to pick up bacon, he was ready. The last thing he picked up was a carton of ice cream, and some cheese. He tossed them in the cart, and took it to the self-checkout lane. That lane was a blessing for him, one less time he would have to interact with people. He’d already decided against getting lunch-meat and sliced cheeses because he really didn’t want to talk to the man behind the deli counter, so not having to go through a cashier to get out to where he’d parked his bike was wonderful. The two bags of groceries barely fit into the saddle-bags for his motorcycle, but with careful packing, he made it work. Then it was off to home, and his latest excursion was almost at an end. Thank god.
Two blocks from the apartment, Bucky stopped the bike. He’d seen something on the road, a little bit of black fluff curled against the curb. It moved when he approached, looking up at him with barely open blue eyes, and mewled pitifully. Some asshole in the road blared his horn as he passed, swerving around Bucky’s bike and making both he and the kitten- because that’s what it was, a kitten- jump. Bucky leaned down, and scooped up the small creature into the palm of his hand. The kitten shivered and huddled closer to him, voicing only a small mew of protest when he slid it carefully into the front of his shirt so it would be safe on the ride back to the apartment. He could feel the poor thing shaking throughout the ride, though when he stopped he could hear the baby’s tiny purr. It rode on his shoulder up to the apartment, at least until it lost it’s balance and fell into one of the paper bags, so the kitten entered the apartment on top of the plastic containing a head of lettuce.
Once inside, Bucky quickly shoved one bag in the fridge and the other in the freezer, postponing any idea of lunch until the kitten was seen to. The first order of business was to get it a bath- the poor baby was filthy, and Bucky’s grey shirt was covered in muddy prints. So he stripped to the waist and stood at the sink, filling the basin with warm water and washing the kitten. He’d never seen so many fleas. At the first touch of water, they started pouring off it, turning the water black with fleas. A second bath produced the same results. A third saw a significant decrease in the fleas, and the first protests from the kitten. Bucky gently scrubbed it with the dish soap- he’d seen the commercials about how Dawn soap was used to clean animals after an oil spill, so he assumed it would be safe for the kitten. When he turned it over, he found that it was a he. A fourth bath got him as clean as he was going to get, and also allowed Bucky to clearly see several injuries. The kitten had a deep gash on his stomach, a few cuts and scrapes, and what looked like a bite mark on his ear. He mewed sadly when Bucky put him on the counter, standing on slightly bowed front paws and looking half-drowned.
“Shh, hey, it’s alright,” Bucky crooned to him, gently dabbing at him with a towel. The baby watched him with gummy blue eyes, and sneezed. Poor thing probably had an upper respiratory infection as well. This was beyond Bucky’s abilities. He could easily heal from any number of injuries, but the kitten could not. And he’d seen on Animal Planet that upper respiratory infections were dangerous, especially for kittens. Beyond that, he’d been on the side of the road. What if he’d been hit by a car? Or thrown from one?
What to do? Well, there really only was one logical thing to do. The baby needed to see a doctor. Bucky went to the computer, kitten curled up in his elbow, and googled ‘New York City Veterinary Clinics’. The results came up, showing one very near the apartment. Without a second thought, Bucky got up from the computer, carefully pulled on a clean shirt (working around the kitten, who meowed pitifully whenever Bucky tried to put him down,) and ran out the door. The agent on duty gave him a strange look when he saw him come out, then took a look at the kitten and seemed to understand.
“The vet’s two blocks down to the left,” the agent told him, walking beside Bucky instead of his usual ten steps behind. Bucky nodded.
“Thanks. I think this little guy’s been hurt. I found him on the side of the road.”
“God. What people will do to animals,” the agent was disgusted. “Leaving a defenseless little thing like him outside and unprotected.”
“He’d better not have been abandoned by someone. If he was, when I find them…” Bucky let the threat hang in the air. There wasn’t much he’d allow himself to do, but he could get Natasha to hack the guy’s bank accounts.
The agent made a sound of agreement. “Bastard deserves to be punished. Anyone who’d hurt an animal…”
“Is a monster,” Bucky finished for him. Before the war, he’d had a cat. Steve had brought her home when they were kids, and she’d been attached to the two of them ever since. He’d found her being beaten by some of the other boys in their class. After seeing the mess they’d made of the poor thing, Bucky had gone out and done the same to them. If Steve knew what he’d done, he never said, but he made a sound of approval when the boys wandered into class the next day, black and blue all over. Bucky had simply smiled, please that justice had been served, and he’d been the one to administer it. Now, hurting animals was illegal, and he could probably turn the person in to the cops. It wouldn’t be quite the same as returning the pain whoever it was had given the kitten, but it would feel just as good.
The agent accompanied him to the vet, standing just behind him when they got to the counter. The girl at the desk looked up, first to Bucky, and then to the little ball of fluff in his hands.
“Oh, aren’t you cute,” she cooed, reaching out one finger to gently scratch his head. She stopped when she saw the bite mark in his ear. “Oh, poor baby. What happened?” She turned back to the computer, typing something into the system with one hand, while rifling through a stack of papers beside her with the other. She withdrew a white sheet, and attached it to a clip board and handed it to Bucky.
“I found him on the side of the road,” he told her. “I don’t know what happened, but I think he’s hurt.” He took the clipboard, and began to fill out his information, holding the kitten in his left hand. The girl glanced at his metal fingers, then seemed to dismiss it, focusing on the kitten, who was happily chewing on the silvery digits.
“Oh, poor little man. That’s the second one we’ve seen today. A man came in about half an hour ago with a little orange kitten, about the same age as yours. What’s wrong with him? Bleeding? Can he put his weight on all four limbs?”
“I don’t think it’s life-threatening, yet,” Bucky told her. He’d seen his share of injuries, and while cats were different from human, he figured just about all life reacted the same to mortal wounds. “But there’s the ear, and he’s got a nasty cut on his stomach. He’s sneezing a lot too, and he was covered in fleas when I found him. I bathed him, then brought him straight here.”
“Good.” The woman nodded. “Finish filling that out, and I’ll go get the doctor. We’ll take good care of him. Have you named him yet?”
“Alistair,” Bucky decided on the spot, after a character in his video game. It seemed to fit the kitten, who, even after less than an hours acquaintance, seemed just as adorable and quirky as his namesake.
“Ok. Sit tight there, Alistair,” she said, and vanished through a door.
By the time Bucky had finished filling out the paperwork, the veterinarian had arrived. He whisked Bucky, Alistair, and the agent off into an exam room, and gave the kitten a thorough check-up. Through it all, Alistair mewed when removed from Bucky’s arms, watching his every move with frightened eyes that cried out “please don’t leave me.” When the vet was finished with his exam, the little black furball launched himself from the table and straight into Bucky’s arms, clawing his way up Bucky’s shirt to sit on his shoulder. He purred when Bucky put a hand on him, and began to give his ear a bath.
“Well, Doc? How is he?”
“He should be just fine,” the veterinarian told them. “His cuts are already healing well. I’ll proscribe him some antibiotics for the infection, and he’s going to need some eye drops, but otherwise he seems mostly healthy. Kittens are pretty resilient. I am worried about his heart, it seems to be beating a bit irregularly, but that could just be from blood loss- you said he was covered in fleas when you found him?” When Bucky uttered an affirmative, the vet nodded. “Yeah, then it makes sense. I’ll want to see him again in two weeks though, just to make sure. Do you plan on keeping him, or do you need-”
“I’m keeping him,” Bucky said firmly. No way was he giving this little guy to a shelter, especially one that might kill him instead of finding him a good home. Alistair had chosen him, the kitten was his.
The vet smiled his approval. “Ok, then he’s going to need his shots, and I recommend neutering him once he’s old enough. He’s about four weeks old right now, so that’ll be in a couple months. I have a pamphlet on taking care of cats, if you would like it, and we offer a few classes on basic cat-care. With one this young, you’ll need to feed him every three hours, with a milk replacement designed for kittens. You can buy that here, or in most pet stores. Give it to him by putting it in an eye-dropper and letting him suck on it, or you can do it by putting your finger in the milk and feeding him that way.”
“Right. Thanks,” Bucky told him, gently moving Alistair into the crook of his elbow, where the little guy curled up and promptly fell asleep. “I’ll get that formula for him. Anything else I should know about raising a kitten?”
The doctor gave him a few more essential facts, then led him out to the small ‘pharmacy’ section of the clinic, and helped him pick the best kitten formula. Then, armed with a few pamphlets, a couple boxes of pills, and several bottles of kitten formula, Bucky returned to the apartment. It was only once he was inside again, that he realized he’d been around strangers and hadn’t had any trouble, even once. He’d been too focused on Alistair to even think about having a panic attack.
Alistair didn’t leave his side after that. For the next two weeks, Bucky channeled his worry about Steve into taking care of his kitten. When the agent that liked cats was on duty, he would sometimes pop into the apartment to say hello, and pet the kitten. Bucky let him, even though he hadn’t let anyone else in before without Steve. Someone who liked cats had to be ok. Over the next year, his tentative friendship with the agent would lead to more friendships, as he got introduced to the other agents that watched him for SHIELD. It seemed that a good many of them were cat people, and everyone wanted to come and see the kitten. Suddenly, without knowing quite how it happened, Bucky was okay with other people in the apartment, so long as he could keep Alistair close.
Keeping Alistair fed and warm took up much of Bucky’s time for the first few weeks, weeks that he spent focusing on the kitten instead of missing Steve. Oh, he still missed Steve a great deal, but with Alistair to worry about, there was always a distraction. From feeding to adorable kitten antics, Alistair was better than any game or television show at distracting him. The furball especially loved chasing after a laser dot, and would often run around after it until he collapsed, exhausted, at Bucky’s feet. Then Bucky would pick him up, and go sit on the couch and use his usual distractions, his little black kitten curled up asleep in his lap. He didn’t really understand why people didn’t want to adopt black cats, they were such loving creatures. All that bad luck crap was just that- crap. Alistair was the best thing that had happened to Bucky since Steve.
Three weeks later, after another visit to the vet had pronounced Alistair perfectly healthy, Steve returned. Bucky had been dozing on the couch when he came in, but the kitten heard the door open. He woke Bucky with a paw in his face, then jumped down to see what was going on. He ran off into the kitchen while Bucky was still blinking blearily and pushing himself upright.
“Well hello there,” came Steve’s voice from the other room. “Who’re you?”
Alistair mewed loudly, and Bucky heard Steve laugh. He made it into the kitchen to see Alistair climbing Steve’s pant leg, his wonderful lover watching with a tired smile on his face. Bucky coughed and Steve looked up, that smile changing to something a bit more intense and intimate when he met his eyes. “Hey,” he said. “I see you got a cat.”
“Long story,” Bucky told him, watching Steve lean down to dislodge the kitten from his pants and bring him up for a cuddle. “I named him Alistair.”
“He’s cute, Buck,” Steve said, as Alistair leaned up and put his front paws on Steve’s face, bumping his head against his nose.
Bucky couldn’t resist the opening those words gave him. “So are you,” he said, just to see Steve’s expression. He loved that expression, exasperated and fond at the same time.
“Oh, come here,” Steve stretched out the arm not holding the kitten, and reached for Bucky. And Bucky walked to him, to be pulled into a hug. Alistair, squished between them, began to purr. Both men laughed in surprise, looking down at the little one, who just blinked up at them and continued purring.
“Welcome home,” Bucky said. And Steve smiled, leaning in, careful of the kitten, for a kiss.
After that, Alistair was their cat. He seemed to love Steve just as much as Bucky, running to the door to greet either of them when they came home. He slept between them on the bed, taking up more space than anyone would have thought possible, and waking them every morning with insistent mews for food. He always sat on Bucky’s lap on the couch, and his therapist reported surprise on the progress Bucky made after the kitten came into his life. He was a little black whirlwind of joy, making them laugh when they were down, comforting them when they were sad, and being there, loving them unconditionally whenever they needed him. The both loved him more than any other creature in the world, save each other. And, while their house was already filled with love before Alistair’s arrival, it was now filled even more with both love, and cat fur.