“You got your phone?” Sam asked, and his daughter almost snorted.
“Yeah.”
Okay, he could see why her immediate reaction was to laugh - Aisha hadn’t left the house without a cell phone since she received her first phone on her eleventh birthday. But, still, these were special circumstances, so he had to make sure.
“And you have cash?”
Cash? She thought incredulously, and wanted to laugh outright, but tonight was too important for her to mess up and get in trouble now.
“I have my debit card and the emergency credit card.”
“You should always have cash,” Bucky spoke up, as he entered the room carrying a couple of beers. “Every place doesn’t accept cards or Apple Pay or whatever it is you kids are using nowadays.”
He sat their drinks on the coffee table and started to sit down on the couch, but Sam’s next words had him walking back towards his husband and daughter.
“Maybe you should stay home, and try this again another—
“Here,” Bucky cut him off, before Sam could suggest, for the thousandth time, that she reschedule her date. And then reached into his wallet, pulled out a few twenties, and handed them over. “Take this too.”
“Papa—
“Baby girl, we’ll both feel better if you have your own money.”
They were literally only going to the movies and the movie theater definitely accepted debit cards, but, sure, whatever got her out of the house.
“Okay,” she nodded, “thanks. Am I cool to go now, or…” She was supposed to have left about five minutes ago, but her dads had to be handled with kid gloves when they were in this kind of mood, so it looked like she was going to be on C.P. time tonight.
Great.
“Yeah, baby,” Sam said, sighing. He’d already given her all the warnings and advice he could think of - there was no reasonable (or even unreasonable) reason to hold her up any longer, even if he really really wanted to. “Go on. Have a great time.”
She flashed them a big ol’ smile that was almost identical to her daddy’s.
“I will! Bye daddy, bye papa,” she said, then walked out the door.
Sam stared after her for a minute then exhaled deeply.
“I still say she’s too young to date.”
“Didn’t you tell me you were sixteen when you started dating?” Bucky asked, tone deceptively casual as he plopped down on the couch. “Sarah too?”
“Yeah,” Sam admitted, somewhat grudgingly, as he joined Bucky. “But that was back in the day, Buck.”
“Oh, yeah, back in the innocent days of the ‘90s. When everyone left their doors unlocked and kids could walk to the corner store by themselves.”
“Ha ha,” Sam said, dryly. “You got jokes, but it was a more innocent time.”
“Maybe,” Bucky conceded, “but it’s not like everything’s gone to hell now.”
“I know that,” Sam grumbled. “And I know Aisha has a good head on her shoulders. Shoot, I’m not even really worried about her behavior, and this isn’t one of those weird ass ‘nobody can date my daughter’ things; you know that.”
“Is it a ‘you don’t trust Marcus’ thing?” Bucky guessed. “‘Cause if so, I made sure she took her pocket knife, so you don’t have to worry about anything there.”
“Jesus,” Sam said, eyes widening.
Aisha was a beast with her knife thanks to her Papa, and her self-defense skills in general were probably better than most adults’, thanks to both of her fathers, so, no, it wasn’t that Sam didn’t think she could take care of herself… or Marcus if he got out of line. Marcus was a good kid though and Sam wasn’t in love with the idea of his teenager walking around with a weapon, even if it did make him feel a little better, so he figured he ought to say something, even if it was a bit halfhearted.
“Marcus is cool; you didn’t have to do that.”
Bucky shrugged. “Everyone is cool ‘til they ain’t.” He cleared his throat. “So, if it’s not Marcus, what are you so worried about?”
“Man, Buck, it’s not even that I’m worried exactly.” Sam sighed. “I’m just feeling kind of melancholy… I guess.”
“How come?” Bucky asked, and threw his arm around Sam’s shoulders, causing his husband to sort of sink into his side.
“I don’t know, I was looking through old photo albums and,” he sighed again, “time is going by so fast. It seems like just the other day we were helping her tie her shoes and dropping her off at school. Now she’s driving to pick up a date. Hell, pretty soon she’ll be going to college, and then one day she’ll have her own family.” He shook his head. “I guess it all just caught up with me tonight or something.”
“Me too,” Bucky admitted, causing Sam to lift his head off his shoulder and look at him, surprise clear on his face.
“Really?”
“Yeah, sweetheart. I mean, you were already freaking out, so I couldn’t really lean into my crazy like I wanted to,” he said, jokingly. “But I know exactly what you mean, A on a date is just kinda… weird. It’s hard to watch her grow up. I know it’s only a date, but it just feels like she’s one step closer to leaving us.”
“Right,” Sam nodded, and almost felt like smiling. Maybe misery really did love company, because he was starting to perk up a bit knowing Bucky was feeling it too.
Well, okay, Sam wasn’t really miserable, but he was mourning their daughter’s childhood and it was nice to know Bucky was as well.
It made sitting on his couch, feeling weepy about his daughter going to the movies with a boy from church, feel a little less ridiculous.
It made him feel like he ought to pull himself out of his gloomy mood since Bucky had apparently managed to not lean into his crazy. (Sam refused to start being the dramatic one in their relationship after all these years.)
So, he forced himself to turn off the part of his brain that wanted to start watching old home movies of Aisha’s dance recitals or go into the attic and pull out her old artwork from elementary school or something else just as pitiful, lifted himself into Bucky’s lap, and grinned up at him.
“Well, too bad we don’t have something we can do to take our minds off it.”
Bucky had never been able to resist a smiling Sam, or any Sam for that matter, and that night was no different.
They made love on the couch, slowly, sweetly, their pace unhurried since they had the house to themselves. For once, Sam’s cries were uninhibited and Bucky made no effort to muffle his moans like he usually would.
They loved each other loudly and completely, and then layed there for a long time, wrapped in each other’s arms, watching crappy TV until Sam’s phone buzzed with a text message from Aisha letting him know that she was on her way home.
“Come on, baby,” Bucky said, nudging him, after Sam read the text aloud but made no move to get up. “If you wanna be able to interrogate A as soon as she gets here, we better get on up and get cleaned up.”
“I don’t want to interrogate her,” Sam replied, rolling his eyes, but Bucky's words still had him standing up.
“Sure.” Bucky smirked as Sam headed for the stairs.
“I don’t,” Sam insisted, now on the third step. “I just want to hear how it went.”
“Uhh huh.”
“It’ll be a nice, normal conversation,” he replied, without bothering to turn around. “I’ll be chill; you know I’m the cool dad.”
Bucky snorted at that as he stepped on the first stair and started to follow Sam up, and it was sarcastic enough that Sam didn’t really think he could be blamed for the window seat pillow he sent flying at Bucky’s head.
Not the chillest thing to do, Sam realized, but still totally worth it.
The end.