4789 words
They had their first dance to Etta James’ At Last playing over the speakers that were hooked up to Bucky’s phone, behind the seats in the chapel room. They had their second and third dance to Moon River by Frank Sinatra and Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Judy Garland, and then they broke away to dance with Sam and Natasha. They had a few dances like that, and even one with Maude, who was still convinced that Steve was Jeremy and Bucky was his wife, Hillary.
When she pressed a few bucks into Steve’s hand, he stammered and tried to hand it back.
“It’s a wedding gift, Jeremy, don’t be silly,” she told him, making Steve blush to the roots of his hair. “Anything for my favorite grandson.”
“Yeah, Steve, don’t be silly,” Bucky said as he approached, grabbing the cash and bending down to hug Maude. He saw Bucky stealthily slip the money back into her purse, and he bit back a smile. “Thank you for the money, Grandma Maude. We’ll be sure to use it to paint the nursery or something in a couple of years when the baby comes along.”
Any amount of scandal Steve felt over Bucky evaporated at Maude’s next words.
“Why wait so long, dear? He’s ripe for the plucking. I had my first child nine months after I married his grandfather. You’re not getting any younger, y’know. You should get started right away. And with his soccer profession, he’s liable to become sterile with one poorly aimed kick! I’d take advantage now, while you still can. Squeeze a few little ones out while you're still fertile. After the first one, you loosen up down there and they just slide out.” Maude was even worse than Bucky.
Bucky’s face was bright pink, and Steve knew his own had to be even redder. Sam and Natasha were shaking with silent laughter, falling all over themselves.
“Thanks, Grandma,” Steve choked out, feeling a bubble of hysterical laughter work its way up. “We’ll keep that in mind. Now, how did you get here? Can we give you a ride back home?” he asked, a bit desperate.
Bucky was shaking in silent laughter now, and Steve tried to ignore him so he didn’t start laughing too.
Maude shook her head. “No, I haven’t eaten yet. I need to eat something soon to keep my blood sugar up and my house is too far away.”
“Yeah, Jeremy,” Sam piped up, grinning. “Where’s the cake? We’re hungry.”
Steve blinked. Cake. They had also forgotten the cake.
Bucky groaned, smacking his forehead. “Motherfucker, we forgot the cake!” he howled, seething.
Steve giggled a little despite himself. “You're the one obsessed with sweets, how’d you forget that, Hillary?”
Bucky bared his teeth threateningly. “I wasn’t thinking, okay? Besides, we planned on eating at the buffet in the Circus Circus casino. We’ll just have to stop by a bakery on the way there, it’s no big deal.”
So, they all piled into the Cadillac, which Sam whistled at when he laid eyes on the vehicle, with Maude in between Sam and Natasha in the back seat and her walker in the trunk. The bakery, it turned out, had a few cakes in their display cases that were different flavors, and Steve and Bucky looked down at them, their faces pressed to the glass just like when they were younger, the sunglasses they were now wearing digging into their noses.
They chose the vanilla one tier square cake that was big enough for all of them to share. Even Maude. And Steve also bought Bucky a few cinnamon rolls when he saw him looking at them. Bucky immediately shoved one into his mouth whole, and groaned like a porn star.
“Jesus, Buck,” Steve muttered under his breath as he carried the cake out to the car.
Bucky said something utterly incomprehensible through his mouthful.
Steve waited for him to open the driver’s side door, carefully sliding in and banging the side of the box on the steering wheel anyway.
After Bucky swallowed, he said, “What I said was: ‘if you didn’t want me to make noises, you shouldn’t have fed me my second favorite thing’.”
Steve’s eyes widened, because he knew what Bucky’s most favorite thing was, and he also knew who else was in the car.
“So what’s your most favorite thing?” Natasha asked him, and when Steve whipped his head around to give her a look of betrayal, he saw that she was grinning.
“Not in front of Grandma,” Steve tried, shooting Maude a glance. She seemed oblivious to everything that was happening.
Bucky snorted. “That woman has even less shame than I do. My favorite thing is Steve’s cock. And Steve. It’s really a tie.”
Natasha’s eyes lit up in delight. “His horse cock?”
“Yep!” Bucky looked over his shoulder and backed out of the small parking lot, and Steve almost dropped the cake.
“Woah, woah, woah!” Sam yelled, his voice high and squeaky, making Maude look around. “What?!”
Steve debated the merits of bashing his head on the dashboard, and if that failed, jumping out of the car altogether.
“Are you even on twitter?” Natasha asked him. “Have you seen some of the shit he posts? He’s an internet icon. He’s goals. I love his account. Juicy. Bottom. Bitch.”
Oh god. This was Steve’s worst nightmare. Natasha and Bucky getting along. Of course Bucky would take a shine to anyone that complimented him, especially his thoughts and sense of humor: his twitter account. It was a match made in hell. There was no way Steve would survive this.
Sam stammered, “Uh, what? No. I – of course I'm not on twitter. What do I look like, a teenager? Facebook is where it’s at.”
Bucky whipped his head around to stare at Sam, horrified. Steve’s heart jackknifed in his chest, since Bucky was also driving. Thankfully, he turned back around after a second.
“Wow, Sam, you're so white,” Natasha said, rolling her eyes. “Who even uses Facebook under forty?” She shoved her phone under his nose and Steve could only imagine what she was showing him. Sam’s eyes went wide.
Then Steve remembered Bucky’s last post. Ode to Daddy. Steve’s enormous penis.
He sank down into the seat, his face beet red, ignoring Punk when he started growling and barking at him from within the Birkin slung over Bucky’s shoulder. He did his best to pretend like he didn’t exist, listening to Bucky and Sam and Natasha and Maude all talk to each other. Maude was on another track entirely, and Steve was almost jealous of her obliviousness.
“And my sister once did the very same thing, she was so brave,” Maude said, referencing the time she smuggled either a baby or a puppy across the border. He didn’t know what border or what baby or puppy, and there was a good chance she didn’t mean either, but Steve envied her all the same.
“And that was right after Steve proposed to you?” Natasha asked Bucky, referring to the friend of Dorothy tweet professing that he wanted to get railed by Steve in a Dorothy get-up that Bucky had created the night that Steve had proposed to him, after he got drunk in the hot tub.
“Yeah, that’s when I first used the horse and the eggplant emojis. Steve didn’t even know what they meant until I explained the next day. When I told him, he repeated it loud enough that a waitress overheard him, and she totally checked him out,” he admitted, to Steve’s great embarrassment.
They reached their destination, to his undying relief, and got out. Sam helped Maude with her walker and Bucky pulled out his cigarettes, zipping Punk up so he wouldn’t breathe the smoke. He lit one and took a puff before passing it to Steve, his fingers grazing his lips as he stuck it into Steve's mouth. He lit another and inhaled, savoring the taste, which was putrid, in Steve’s opinion. He still inhaled, shifting the cake box so he could reach up and grab the cigarette and get it away from his face.
Sam gaped at him outright while Natasha tried to be stealthy about it, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.
“Steve, what are you doing?”
“What?” he asked with a slight cough, playing it dumb. Bucky glanced over at him and he took another drag, smiling slightly and fighting another cough.
“You're smoking. Why are you smoking? You went on a ten-minute tirade once where you said you wanted to defenestrate the CEOs of all the tobacco companies for targeting poor people and feeding their addictions. You gave a speech to some teenager that you caught smoking one time, saying that they should be taking care of their non-faulty lungs, really laying into the guilt trip. They promised that they’d never smoke one again.”
Steve winced, glancing at Bucky, who seemed confused. “I, uh… changed?” he tried, earning a flat look from Sam. He hung his head, avoiding Bucky’s gaze.
“Steve smoked before the war,” Bucky stated, although his tone was confused, like he wasn’t sure he was remembering it correctly.
Steve winced again. “I'm so sorry, Buck,” he told him, looking up at Bucky, giving him his best puppy dog eyes.
Bucky shook his head. “No, I – I know you did. You smoked and hacked up a lung every time. So, you liked it. Because why else would you smoke if you didn’t like it?” Steve’s heart hurt at the wounded expression Bucky wore, and he felt about two inches tall, all of a sudden.
“Those were asthma cigarettes, Bucky,” he gently told him. “I smoked those for my asthma because that’s what the doctors prescribed back in those days, before they figured out that smoking was harmful and even deadly for someone that had asthma like I did. I never liked it. It was always you that liked to smoke. You smoked like a chimney during the war, and I'm real glad that you – that you're like me now,” he finished awkwardly, remembering Maude at the last second.
If possible, Bucky looked even more confused and hopelessly lost. “But… why didn’t you say something?”
They came to a stop outside the elevator in the parking garage, and Steve scuffed his toe on the ground, shrugging. “I just felt sort flattered that you wanted to share with me, since you never did before, especially during the war. You hoarded cigarettes like a dragon hoarded gold, and I was afraid that you’d evaporate into smoke, you smoked so much. You swindled all the guys in our unit out of theirs in a poker game once, and got into a real nasty argument when someone tried to steal them from you that I had to defuse.”
Bucky glared at him, pouting. “You mean I’ve been giving you my cigarettes and you haven’t even been appreciating them?”
Steve blushed, remembering something else. Bucky honed in on it. “What?” he demanded.
Steve avoided his eyes as he answered. “It was sort of like an indirect kiss. It was special, sharing them with you. It made me feel special.”
He glanced back up at Bucky, who rolled his eyes. “Oh my god, only you could make smoking a carcinogen romantic, you dumb fool.” He hauled Steve in with his arm around his neck, just like in the old days. The elevator dinged then and they stepped on, holding the door open for Maude.
“Wow, y’all are sickeningly adorable,” Sam muttered under his breath.
“Homophobia, that’s homophobia!” Bucky cried out, pointing.
To all of their surprise, Maude started beating Sam with her purse, and from within the Birkin, Punk started barking his head off, and Steve was laughing too hard to come to Sam’s defense. They all were, Sam included. Except Maude. She was angry, cussin’ up a storm. The elevator door dinged open, revealing a middle-aged couple that was staring at them and the scene they made. The couple made no move to get on, and the doors slid closed again.
“Grandma, Grandma, stop,” Steve finally said through his laughter, gently laying a hand on her arm. “He didn’t mean it, it’s fine. He was joking.”
Maude halted, giving Sam the stink eye before she turned away with a hmph. Sam chuckled then winced, clutching his side.
“I think I bruised my ribs.”
Bucky glanced at him, unconcerned. “You’ll live.”
They stepped out of the elevator when the doors opened again, and they all giggled as they walked past the middle-aged couple who stared at them like they were a circus act.
Bucky paid for their meals at the buffet and it was early enough that there weren’t many people at the tables eating. They helped Maude sit down, and she guarded the cake while they got their food. Steve was the one that filled up a plate with food for her, worrying over what she liked and what she could be allergic to.
“Do you think she’s allergic to shellfish?” Steve asked Bucky, eyeing the fried, grilled, and boiled shrimp that he’d already gotten for himself.
Bucky rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you offer her some of yours and come back for more if she wants some?”
Steve kissed him on the cheek gratefully. “What would I do without you, Bucky?”
“You wouldn’t be a smoker, for one,” he pointed out.
Steve made a face. “Yeah, but it wouldn’t be much of a life.” He fell silent then, his statement hitting a little too close to home. Bucky hip checked him with a smile and strode off in the direction of the ham he had apparently caught sight of, licking his lips.
“Here you go, Mau – uh, Grandma,” he said as he set her plate down in front of her, making her perk up.
“Oh my, this is a lot of food, Jeremy,” she said as she grabbed her fork. Steve froze, remembering that most people didn’t eat as much as he did.
Thankfully, she didn’t seem to put off by the amount, and dug in. “No shrimp?” she wondered, glancing at Steve’s plate. Steve slid a few of his own shrimps off onto her plate, earning a smile. “You're definitely my favorite grandson for a reason, Jeremy.”
Steve flushed, oddly pleased and a little bit guilty, like he had actually stolen someone’s grandmother.
Bucky showed up then and greeted them both cheerfully.
“I'm going to cut the cake and eat a slice before those other two bozos show up again, wanting a slice. They can wait until the end.”
That plan backfired on him when he cut off too big of a slice and had trouble finishing it before they came back.
“Bucky, Bucky, Bucky,” Natasha tsked disapprovingly.
“Aw, man, fuck you. You cut the cake without us, that’s not fair,” Sam pouted.
Bucky glared at them both. “Yeah, since it’s my wedding cake, I thought I could do what I want.”
Steve snickered at the inordinately affronted looks on their faces. Sam wisely conceded, throwing his hands up and muttering to himself. Natasha and Bucky had a little stare down that Bucky won when he raised another bite of cake to his mouth and started chewing with his mouth open. Steve couldn’t believe that was his husband. The thought filled him near to bursting with warm joy.
“You're my husband,” he told Bucky sappily, his voice a coo. Bucky melted and gave him a look that was just as sweet. They leaned over the table to share a kiss that tasted like cinnamon, sugar, cigarettes, and each other, and Steve thought it was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
“Disgustingly adorable, I tell you,” Sam muttered to himself, not brave enough to say it any louder, lest he incur the wrath of Maude, a fact that made them both smirk when they pulled away.
When Natasha was finished with her first plate, she piped up, getting Bucky’s attention from where he was attempting to inadvisably devour at least three mouthfuls of mash potatoes at the same time. “Wow, Bucky, I like your ring.”
Sam’s eyes almost bugged out of his head when he finally noticed it. “Holy shit, dude!” he screeched, gaping.
Bucky immediately shot them both a wary look, and when he swallowed his food, he said, “Yes, thank you. Steve bought it from Tiffany and company. Actually fainted a little when he proposed.” He still looked a little suspicious of Natasha, which was understandable. It was an out-of-the-blue unnecessary compliment, and Steve suspected she was leading up to something.
“Would you say that Steve would do anything for you?” she asked, a look of innocence in place. “Buy a big diamond ring for you? Would he get down on your knees for you?”
Bucky lit up, smiling widely at her. “Pop that pretty question right now, baby!” he said loudly, nonsensically. Sam looked as confused as Steve felt. “I should’ve made that a twitter post!”
Natasha smirked at him, and Steve swallowed at the expression. “What’s stopping you? It’s not too late. In fact, I have an idea for a twitter post, to break the news that you're married. The picture I took.” She took her phone out of her purse, her face lighting up with unholy glee. “I also took a video of the whole thing, if you wanna go that route, and reveal everything. I'm sending it to you, Steve.”
Steve grabbed his phone and opened his text messaging app, turning it around to show Bucky. Natasha had sent him the photo she took of them when Bucky told him to ask what color his underwear was. His face was hidden behind Steve’s surprised, smiling one, only his right earring and the top of his tiara showing. His left side and arm were completely hidden, unlike the other arm, which held the bouquet and showed off his huge ring, and it was perfect for announcing that Juicy Bottom Bitch was married to Steve Rogers, like Bucky said as he told Steve to send him the photo.
He captioned it simply:
Me and Steve Rogers <3
Steve immediately retweeted it with the words: You make me so deliriously happy, Mr. Rogers. I love you. Thanks for marrying me.
He felt a little stupid thanking him, but Bucky’s smile assuaged his momentary embarrassment. He glanced back at his phone a couple minutes later, not having paid attention, lost in Bucky’s eyes. There was a blue screen and a white whale being carried by little red birds, with the error message: “Twitter is over capacity. Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again.” He read it aloud, shooting Bucky a concerned glance.
“Is that bad?” he wondered, worried. “Did we break twitter?”
Bucky shook his head. “Nah, we just blew their fucking minds.”
“Oh.”
“I'm sure they’ll have it back up and running within the hour,” Natasha reassured.
They did not have the site up and running within the hour, nor within the next as they finally finished eating. Maude, of all people, pointed out that they should probably leave as soon as possible so they didn’t get recognized by the people inside the casino in their very noticeable outfits after the site came back up and the people realized that the happy, newly married couple was right next to them. Plus, she needed to get home and feed her cat. Steve was going to adopt her as his own grandmother, screw that actual Jeremy fella.
“Oh, shit,” Bucky exclaimed, his eyes wide. They scarfed down the rest of their cake slices and scrambled to put the cake up. Rushing out wasn’t really doable because of Maude, who crawled along with her walker at a snail’s pace and racketed Steve’s anxiety up to the stratosphere.
“Our RV’s not that far away, just in the RV lot outside,” Bucky told them as he took off for the Cadillac that was too far away for Maude to walk when they finally stepped into the parking garage. “We can hide there and drink the night away!”
A few moments later, he pulled up and screeched to a stop in front of them, and Natasha and Sam helped Maude into the backseat while Steve wrestled with her walker. He shoved it in the trunk, and then hopped into the passenger’s seat. Bucky peeled away like the hounds of hell were on his heels, making Maude hoot with excitement.
“Right, no seatbelts,” Sam muttered to himself, making Steve snort.
They parked beside the RV, and Bucky gestured to it proudly. “Home sweet home.”
Natasha and Sam blinked, looking like it was just now sinking in that they lived in an RV.
“Oh, that’s genius,” Natasha said with a grin, hopping out. Bucky popped the trunk and she extracted the walker.
Sam helped Maude out before he paused.
“Uh, is it big enough inside there for Maude’s walker? My cousin had an RV and it was tiny, from what I remember.”
Steve blinked, looking between Maude and the walker. He unlocked the door after Bucky threw him the keys and peeked inside. It was not big enough for her walker, he determined after a minute.
“I can help you, Grandma,” Steve stated, blushing lightly.
“That would be wonderful, Jeremy,” Maude responded with a pleased grin. “I have to use the bathroom, so please hurry.”
Steve ignored the way everyone was silently laughing at him and carefully guided Maude over to the step, helping her up, a hand under her arm, strong and steady. He helped her all the way into the bathroom until she dismissed him, pulling the accordion curtain closed. Bucky was breaking out the wine he’d bought from that winery in Roswell, New Mexico, explaining to Natasha how he spiked it with the Asgardian mead to get drunk. Sam was attempting to get Punk to wag his tail, which was going terribly.
Bucky poured some wine into the glasses they’d inadvertently stolen from the strip club last night, which Bucky had blinked at and then set about cleaning them that morning.
“You’re souped up with the super serum, too, aren’t you?” he asked Natasha as he grabbed the mead out of his purse.
She didn’t say anything, merely pinned him with a prim look, which was as good as admitting it. He carefully poured one single drop into her glass, and she took it gratefully, grinning. He handed Sam the other glass, sans mead, and gave Steve the bottle as he squeezed by him.
“Now, I have to get out of this dress, if I'm going to get drunk,” he stated while removing his gun from his bust and shoving it under the mattress. Sam and Natasha turned away, even though Steve suspected that Natasha was peeking, and moved to block her view. Steve was disappointed to see him change out of it, although he was quickly distracted by the accordion door starting to open. Bucky slammed it shut, his eyes wide.
“My arm,” he muttered to Steve, who quickly got with the program and took over holding it shut. It rattled again, but Maude’s strength was no match for his own.
“Uh, are you stuck, Grandma Maude?” Bucky asked, louder than usual. “Sometimes the door snaps back into place and gets stuck.”
“Yes, I think that might be what happened,” she said, sounding so polite and feeble that Steve instantly felt guilty.
“Here, I’ll help you, Grandma,” he called out, jostling the door slightly.
“Oh, thank you. Just what I need, a big strong man to help me out,” she laughed.
A bubble of hysterical laughter escaped Steve’s chest and he looked at Bucky with crazed eyes. Bucky hurriedly dressed in an all-pink outfit: pink skirt, pink asymmetrical crop top that covered his arm, complete with a pink glove. Even pink underwear, a lacy scrap of fabric that hardly covered anything, but still instilled within Steve a sense of relief and disappointment.
After he was dressed, Steve yanked the door open with a triumphant noise, pretending to free a grateful Maude.
“Oh, Hillary, don’t you look nice,” she said with a coo as she looked Bucky over.
Natasha and Sam were in stitches over the whole thing, and Steve blushed heavily as he avoided their eyes.
“Thank you, Grandma Maude,” he replied dutifully, glaring nastily at the other two, baring his teeth.
“Was that a tattoo I saw, Hillary?” Natasha wondered, making Sam’s eyes widen.
“No! You got a tattoo?” he inquired, sounding scandalized.
Bucky smirked. “Yep. So did Ste-Jeremy. Matching name tats. It was his idea, actually.”
Steve groaned at the slack jawed look of absolute shock Sam gave him. Natasha looked far too appreciative of this fact, and Steve resigned himself to showing her sometime that night.
He took a swig of the wine to provide a reasonable excuse not to answer.
“My grandson has a tattoo?” came the frail voice of Maude, making Steve freeze guiltily. She wasn’t even his grandmother.
“Oh, um… yeah,” Steve admitted quietly, turning towards where she was sitting on the bed, not quite meeting her eyes.
Bucky thankfully came to his rescue. “We got them last night at the bachelor slash bachelorette parties. We’re just so in love you see, and I couldn’t let him get one alone, the romantic fool, so I did it with him.”
“Well, that is awfully sweet, Hillary,” she told him approvingly. “Are you sure you want to wait to have kids? I would think you would want to get started right away, given that.”
Sam made a noise like he was dying behind them, and Steve didn’t dare turn back around to see how hard they must be laughing at them.
“Grandma!” Steve exclaimed, strangled.
Maude only smiled up at him. “Just doing my grandmotherly duty, sweetie. It would be nice to have a greatgrandchild before I die.”
Steve didn’t know what to say to that, his face hot and his tie too tight all of a sudden. He reached up to loosen it, swallowing around the lump wedged in his throat. He couldn’t believe this was real life. He sank down slowly to the floor, nearly squashing Punk. He started laughing then, helpless not to.
Bucky settled down a few feet away on the floor behind the passenger’s seat, leaning against it, his legs sprawled out, unlike Steve, who had his knees pressed up against his chest. They rolled the bottle of wine across the floor to each other, tossing the flask back and forth to lick a few drops up from their palms every so often.
To all of their amusement, Sam was still trying to get Punk to wag his tail at him.
“Who’s a good little girl? C’mon, I know you can do it. You're such a cute little puppy. Wag your tail if you're a cute girl.”
Bucky giggled at him. “Wilson, you won't get a tail wag like that. Because she’s a boy. Not a girl. You're even more oblivious than Steve.”
Steve groaned, which was a mistake, because Natasha honed in on it. “How is Steve oblivious?”
Bucky’s eyes lit up in sadistic glee. “I was parading around in my skimpiest outfits, with fishnet stocking and the works, my silk chemise pajamas with no underwear. I even made him accidentally grab my d-” Bucky broke off suddenly, shooting Maude a glance, who seemed off in her own world. “Well, you know. And the next day, I took a shower with him and made him wash my hair and I even took him out to a real fancy, five-star, gourmet dinner that cost me a pretty penny and he still didn’t know! It wasn’t until I threw my underwear in his face that night and sat down on his dick that he finally got the hint,” he grumbled, sounding put out.
Natasha was giggling wildly, and Sam looked like he was having a crisis, like he was regretting everything in his life that led up to that moment.
Bucky sighed heavily. “You would not believe what I wrote down in my diary.” He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was higher pitched and more effeminate. “Dear diary: today Steve was once again oblivious to my overt seduction attempts. I fear for his mental capacity and my own sanity at pursuing him. When will god take pity on me and grant me access to that truly glorious dick? Frustratedly, B.”
Steve blushed crimson. “I am going to divorce you,” he told him, infusing his statement with meaning.
Bucky didn’t look concerned at all, the fucker. “You do that, Stevie.”
Steve tried and failed to remain stone faced.