I.
When Tony tells Bucky and Steve he plans to build a few extra cabins on the other side of his lake, they don’t exactly know what he means by “a few,” or “on the other side of his lake.”
It soon becomes clear he’s building a— fuckin’ neighborhood for the Avengers to move into, to stay close together, the permanent type with literal basements and attics and personal gyms and garages, all not five hundred yards from Tony’s own front door. A sanctuary in rough hewn brick and wood, it seems to grow right out of the moss underfoot, one with the trees; it might be mistaken for a peculiar outcropping of rocks under the right angle of moonlight and shadow. The insides are decked to the g-ddamn gills with Stark’s fancy tech, but you’d never know by looking: sure, there’s a lady in their ceiling that can look things up online and report the security status whenever Bucky wants (which is decreasingly often nowadays) but there’s also a wicker basket full of decorative pillows and a hand-grinder for coffee beans. The place is filled with flannel blankets and corduroy couches, fireplaces and little window nooks.
There’s a cabin for everyone: one for Bucky and Steve to share, one for Nat, for Sam. Bruce and Thor live together, Nebula has a permanent cabin, and there’s one for Quill and his band of merry misfits when they feel like dropping in.
(Parker and Keener split a room in the main cabin. Tony likes to keep them, especially, close. They don’t blame him. He hasn’t seen them in five years. They’re all pretty damn soft about it.)
Bucky can’t say he’s particularly surprised it’s been done. It’s exactly within the bounds of what Tony is willing to do for his people.
If anything, he’d been surprised he and Steve fall into that category.
There wasn’t much of a tense, reconciliatory moment between him and Tony. They weren’t locked in a conference room to spit out their passionate woes, nor did they crack and sock each other during a training session.
What happened was much simpler, much— easier to handle, after everything they had known imploded. Tony summoned him to his hospital room in the aftermath, once he’d broken out of his brief coma. The sun was just burgeoning over the horizon, painting the sky lavender and dusty through the windows. They were bathed in that cool, early light, and it felt like baptism, like they could take new names, new faith, new life.
Tony was laid up, sober and in pain, his face mottled with lumpy, silver scarring and his arm gone to the wick. And yet, in Tony’s eyes raged a type of ferocious life Bucky had yet to see within him. A joy so powerful, a relief so corporeal, that it had blown outta him, violent and explosive, and had taken his arm with it.
“I…” Tony had said. “I’m glad you’re back. And I— stopped being mad at you a long time ago.” He had shifted in his bed, wincing. “I don’t think I was ever mad at you, specifically, actually.”
“It shouldn’t’a gone the way it did,” Bucky had whispered. “None of it.”
Tony had met his eyes. Nodded.
Bucky lowered himself onto the edge of Tony’s mattress, put them hip to hip, and stayed there, silent, for hours. Like sitting shiva. Except it was hard to tell, then, who was mourning for whom.
It had cracked something between them; they’re pals, now, properly. They’ve gotten to know each other for real, without all the superhero shit in the way. Tony is sweet, it turns out, and soft, and kinder than Bucky had ever heard anyone give him credit for. Generous. Repentant. Charming. Clever, and witty, and so deeply sad, even now, even with that same wild exultance coloring his every move gold.
It makes sense that they get along so swell.
Bucky got to assist with build and design for the Barnes-Rogers cabin. He requested the bay window for Steve to sit and draw in, and the fancy state of the art shower for himself. He helped put everything down, from the foundation to the fuckin’ linen curtains and oriental rugs. Tony was just getting used to his new prosthetic arm at the time, and his whole body was a blistered mess from the radiation, what with the partial blindness in his right eye and the exacerbated heart murmur and the limp he’s most likely gonna have forever. He wears these quaint little roundish, tortoise patterned glasses now. Pepper and Bucky think they’re the bees knees. Rhodey and Steve think he looks like an egghead.
But that’s besides the point. What matters is that Bucky, for the first time in a helluva long time, has a place to call home, and that’s all due to Mister Tony Stark. There’s not an ounce of bad blood left between them; couldn’t be, not even if they tried.
Bucky sits in Tony’s garage as he fiddles with his inventions. They fold laundry together. Once or twice, he’s gone to Tony’s physical therapy appointments with him. Just for moral support, now that they match and all.
Steve’s been roped into it by extension. Not that Steve and Tony hadn’t made up during those lost years between the snaps- not that Steve isn’t Uncle Steve to a fiery, funky Morgan Pietra Stark; not that Steve doesn’t braid hair and blow raspberries into bellies and cook with Tony and harass Pepper’s piss-poor attempts at making anything other than salad, which is her specialty- but now, it’s even more. It’s something Bucky had never known he’d wanted, he’d missed.
He’d had a big family growing up, with his ma and pa and the twins and Becky and a pair of grandparents living in the spare bedroom until they both died when he was eleven, and then he’d had Steve and Sarah, and the two of them were enough to feel like another full house to handle. He’d missed the hubbub, the noise, shouts of laughter at three in the morning, an unidentifiable knee prodding his ribs on the couch, hot chocolate made in a pot meant for cabbage soup because that was the only way to make enough to fill everyone’s bellies, always someone lounging around, never, never alone.
Bucky has come back into himself in a way he’s never foreseen. He’s light, he floats, he cannot stop fucking smiling for long enough to be anything other than over the silver moon.
He and Tony are about to have a real nice guys day. It’s late afternoon and the kids are all screaming in the lake, Harley and Peter tossing Morgan like a beach ball between them. May, Bruce, and Pepper are sunning themselves on lounges, and he can distinctly hear Rocket’s crazy maniac serial-killer laugh, which means someone is probably on fire.
Tony is in the process of herding Steve and Rhodey out of his cabin. He’s got a twelve-pack of beer in one hand and a bag of Lays chips in the other, and he’s shaking his arms like a furious bird.
“And we can trust you not to tear the house apart in a fit of combined rage?” Rhodey is edging.
“Of course,” says Tony, “haven’t you heard? Elsa and I made up, and now we’re madly in love.”
“It’s complicated,” says Bucky.
“It’s a relationship full of passion.”
“Passionate hate, maybe.”
Tony leans closer to Rhodey and Steve and speaks out of the corner of his mouth. “I think he’s gonna pop the question any day now.”
Bucky presses his lips together, like he wants to be annoyed, but the corners quirk up. “Look— fine. Okay. He’s just… so tiny,” he says, limply gesturing at Tony.
“Hey!”
“How could I properly hate that. Look at it. So little. Cute as a bug’s ear.”
“Don’t forget my slammin’ ass,” Tony says.
“That, too,” Bucky nods.
“Did you know we’ve got matching lock screens?”
Bucky holds up his phone. After a metal-fingered prod in the hip, Tony does the same.
Bucky’s background is the Chandler Bing half of a still from an episode of Friends, with Chandler crouched low and throwing two thumbs up. Tony’s is the Joey Tribbiani half of the same still, with Joey holding his fingers in an “L.”
“We’re just cute like that,” says Tony.
Rhodey says, “I literally have never been so offended in my life.”
Steve nods, then tosses an arm around Rhodey’s shoulders. “C’mon, Rhodes,” he says. “Let’s go have bro time with Morgan and the boys. We don’t need these schmucks.”
Rhodey holds a closed fist up beside his mouth. He blows into the side, by his thumb, and his middle finger pops up.
“Oh!” he says. He holds it out, towards Tony. “A present for you.”
“Will you ever recover, or should I give back your Letterman jacket,” Tony says dryly.
Rhodey sniffs. “No. Keep it. It’s yours.” He turns on his heel and leaves.
“Don’t— you can’t just quote Boy Meets World at me and then leave!”
The door closes with a slam. Out on the lawn, Steve has turned away from them and angled his rear towards the window. He unceremoniously pulls the back of his pants down.
“Jeeeesus,” Tony says, averting his gaze and snorting a laugh. “Like a lighthouse, that thing is so— white and shiny.”
Bucky calls, “sorry, but Tony’s is just better.”
Steve hikes his pants back up and he and Rhodey cross the rest of the way to the lakeside, their arms round each other’s shoulders, visibly cackling even from behind.
“On that— distinctly lovely note,” says Tony.
They sit on the couch, side by side, Tony gripping onto Bucky’s arm to lower himself, wincing when he hits the cushions but then sagging comfortably into them, his bad leg spread straight out. He grabs the remote and puts on a Yankees game, just to get on Bucky’s nerves. They crack open some beers, munch on potato chips. Bucky likes the vinegar ones. Tony likes some weird pickle flavor. Bucky threatens to leave him for it. Tony throws one of his legs over Bucky’s and scoots closer, leaning on his shoulder. Bucky says, “fine, I won’t leave you.”
“You’ll keep me?” Tony says, looking up at Bucky through his lashes. “And the kids?”
“Yeah. And the— all of them?” Bucky winces.
“All three,” Tony says. “Little Miss Secretary, the Spider-Baby, and my Harley Boy, my potato angel, my dear Spud. What a treat.”
“This might be more than I bargained for, sport,” Bucky says, and he chomps on a chip. Crumbs land on his shirt. Tony wipes them away.
“You would’ve— if you were all conscious in the stone,” Tony says, rubbing his knuckles through his beard, “Peter would’ve imprinted on you in a heartbeat. A fraction of one. He woulda’ laid eyes on you and thought, yup, that’s him, I choose the grumpy one.”
“He does seem to have a… brand,” Bucky says.
“You should hang out with him,” Tony says. “I’m not just saying that because he’s my— Peter. He’s a good kid, I think, I think you’ll like him.”
Bucky tilts his head towards Tony and lifts his beer bottle, toasting to it. “Then I’ll go lookin’ for ‘em,” he says.
“He’s sorta like Steve, though,” Tony says, wrinkling his nose. He shudders. “Too good. Too responsible. Hardheaded beyond— reasonable human capabilities.”
“Oh,” says Bucky, “another.”
“Not to mention self-sacrificing.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t meet him.”
“He’s Jewish, so you’ve got that in common right off the bat.”
“Right off the bat mitzvah,” Bucky says.
“Bad dum tss,” says Tony.
Bucky waves and bows to an imaginary crowd of adoring fans. He is John Mulaney. Gee, he wishes. The man’s a hoot. And so suave. Bucky’s more like Kermit, comically speaking. Loud and brash and never intentionally as funny as people take him to be.
Tony takes another sip of beer. This has got to be his sixth, Bucky thinks, looking at the decimated battalion of glass bottles on the coffee table. “Got such big ears, that little munchkin,” Tony says, and, yup, he’s— definitely tipsy. “Like fuckin’ topo gigio.” He sniffles. “He’s so… so little, except his big dumb ears. Why are his ears so big.”
Bucky stands. “That’s my cue,” he says, backing away. He grabs another beer from the coffee table and starts delicately hightailing it to the front door. He oughta get home to Steve, anyway; make sure he and the kids haven’t set the cabin afloat in the lake or fallen out of a tree or started knife-throwing lessons without him.
“But he’s so, his little nose, why is the rest of him so little when his ears are so big? He could drift on the wind all the way ‘cross the Pacific on those things like a parasailer, he could, he could give cover to orphan street children during rainstorms—“
Bucky shakes his head, watching Tony continue to wax poetic. “Tell Miss Pepper thanks for havin’ me, pal,” Bucky says, and, struck by a sudden wave of affection for the man, goes back towards the couch and smacks a firm kiss on the corner of his lips. “Go take a nap,” Bucky adds seriously, then shoves Tony’s shoulder and heads out.
He stops on the front stoop, looking out at the lake, squinting against the sunset light, the whole clearing painted tangerine and candy pink and yellow like lemon zest. It smells of grass, a heady, baked scent Bucky had never known before they moved out here. He sticks Steve’s beer in his pocket and shakes his head.
Who woulda thunk it.
II.
The trek from the Barnes-Rogers cabin to the one Sam is staying in takes all of thirty seconds on a normal day, but this is no normal day.
Bucky has several bags of uninflated balloons tucked under his arm and a hand pump shoved half into the pocket of his pants, digging into his thigh. He has to cross the grassy knoll in increments, hiding behind trees and blueberry bushes, imagining himself to be one with the shadows, invisible. He cannot be seen— cannot be caught. This is a g-ddamn mission, for fuck’s sake. The first one he’s chosen for himself entirely. It’s gotta be monumental.
He scales the vine-wrapped trellis along the back wall of the house to see Sam has left his bedroom window open, the room empty, because Sam is a fool and also an idiot. Bucky smiles evilly, climbs his way in, and crosses to Sam’s bed. It stands in the corner nearest to him, a lofted thing in dark wood with three flannel blankets in clashing patterns hanging over the edge. He has a desk set up under his mattress with a computer and three cactus plants and a stack of Danielle Steels that could reach the ceiling if they tried hard enough.
Bucky plants his hands on his hips and appraises, his grin widening.
He climbs the bunk bed, sits himself on Sam’s sheets, and gets to work.
The next three hours are spent very productively. Sam and Steve return from their run of death an hour in, but Rhodey and Steve are in on The Plan and immediately pull Sam back out of his house once he’s drank a glass of orange juice. Bucky actually isn’t all that sure where they get to after that, but he doesn’t mind; it’s damn nice to be just himself and a room full of bouncing colors.
He taps his foot against the mattress and hums to himself as he works. It feels like slipping lateral across time. Always, he was always with a song running itself ragged through his head. A real canary, whether he was lugging crates at the dock or punching things at Goldies or working a careful trail of slobbery kisses down Steve’s neck.
Tangerine just feels right buzzing between his lips. It tastes like hops and peanuts on the back of his tongue. He sees himself swinging a dame in an emerald green dress, with skin like polished ebony and hair a cinnamon puff of curls. Bucky had damn liked dancing. He was wired to, head to toe; a good enough melody could bring him boogieing back from the brink, he’s fairly certain. Maybe if they’d played more Billie Holiday in Russia, he thinks. Then he woulda broken outta his conditioning a bit faster.
Bucky slips back out the window, wraithlike, and retreats to Tony’s to wait for Steve to give him the signal to return via text.
Harley is sitting smack on top of the wooden kitchen island when Bucky walks in, his arm to the elbow buried in a box of Apple Jacks and a carton of almond milk open on the counter beside his crossed knees.
“Mornin’,” Harley says around a mouthful of cereal. He swallows thickly and then shakes the box towards Bucky. “Want some? They’re like crack cocaine but delicious.”
“Yeah,” Bucky says. He pushes himself onto the counter beside the kid, ruffles his mess of blond bed head briefly, and then lets him shake a bit of cereal into the metal hand. Bucky picks it up one piece at a time between two fingers and crunches neatly, because he is a proper civilian and Keener, shaking cereal into his mouth like a fuckin’ sociopath heathen, is one third bumpkin, one third barn animal, and one third teenager, which is the worst combination of things to be, Bucky believes.
Harley takes a drag of almond milk, then hums. “Did you set Sam up good?” he asks.
Bucky is not surprised Harley knows he planned to prank Sam. Bucky has come to accept the fact that Harley is a strange, strange enigma and will always startle his pants off, no matter how deep his training runs. At seventeen, the kid has got a level of solemn knowingness in his eyes that rivals even Tony’s.
“Yep,” Bucky says. “He’ll be mad as a hatter, I bet.”
Harley gives him an appraising look, then a satisfied nod. “Good. Damn rat with wings deserves what’s comin’ to ‘em,” he mutters.
Bucky simply nods in agreement. They don’t speak any more after that, but they do finish the box of cereal in devout camaraderie.
When Bucky receives the summons from Steve, he ruffles Harley’s hair again before leaving. He calls, “don’t be a stranger,” over his shoulder as the door closes behind him.
It is only due to his enhanced hearing that he catches Harley grumbling under his breath, “you can’t tell me what to do, I’m my own man, damn boomers thinkin’ they’re the boss a’me, I’ll be so strange he won’t even see it coming.”
Bucky knocks twice on Sam’s door and then opens it without waiting. “Honey, I’m home,” he calls.
“Well if it isn’t my man, James Bee-Bee,” says Sam once he’s reached the doorway. He’s wearing a sash around his shoulder that says Birthday Queen and has got a glass of something vaguely greenish and strong looking in his hand, his loose grin and soft eyes saying he’s already had a few. Bucky, feeling the ten a.m. sun hot on his back through the windows, wants to laugh about it, but he settles for a smile and throwing his hands out wide because it’s Sam’s first birthday since the snap and damn if he shouldn’t be living it the hell up to celebrate.
“Birthday!” says Bucky. He grabs Sam by the neck, plants a firm kiss on either cheek and then slips one on his lips. He smells like mint and gin and his skin is smooth and Bucky feels his face go hot as he pulls away, even though he’s grinning a crooked, cocky thing that he pulled right outta nineteen-thirty-nine.
“Steve,” Sam says. “Come collect your dog, he’s slobbering all over me.”
“But I’m such a good boy,” says Bucky, and he ducks the fist Sam sends flying towards his head, snickering under his breath.
Steve rounds the corner and grins the big, soft, goofy grin he saves for his favorite people. Bucky feels like he’s been wrapped in a blanket and swaddled in g-ddamn sunshine and unicorn shit.
“C’mon, Sam,” Steve says. “Buck has got a surprise present for you.”
“For moi?” Sam says. “If it ain’t a fuckin’ Ferrari to make up for the car you wrecked, I swear to G-d…”
“Even better,” says Bucky. “I got you a Kia Soul.”
“Sir, please, nothing would make me happier than to physically maim you on my birthday.”
Sam checks his bedroom, then chases Bucky three times around the yard before sending them both falling into the lake on a tackle-dive.
All in all, it’s one of the best mornings Bucky has ever had.
III.
There are a lot of people Bucky would do almost anything for. They live near him now. They surround him. Weird aliens are on that list. Kids are on that list, bonafide children. Bucky hates children. And yet he’d probably lift a bullet train clean off its tracks for Morgan, Harley, or Peter.
The list of people he would do absolutely anything with no restrictions for is rather short. Steve, of fuckin’ course. Natasha, Sam, Tony. Mostly just them.
Pepper Potts is undoubtedly on that list. Which is why, when she asks them to make a stop at a gala for blah blah Fire Department blah blah renewable energy blah blah charity banquet, he says yes. Even if he hates himself for it.
Pepper says for him to bring a guest. He asks if his guest can bring a guest can bring a guest. She says “... yes?”
So now he and Steve and Sam and Nat are all going, which will make it bearable, at least, even if he now owes them a variety of strange favors. (Natasha requests a round of VR badminton. He does not know why, nor does he question it. It is not the worst way he’s ever spent an afternoon.)
He’s rather nervous about the whole putting himself out there in public thing. He’s been staying on the down low since returning, and he’s fairly certain crowds will still bother the shit out of him, since he’s unconditioned and mostly of his own mind. His new mind. He knows if he gets anxious he can just— leave, he can leave, but he would literally rather deep throat a rhinoceros dick than disappoint Pepper Potts. She’s dealt with enough shit from her doofus husband over the course of her life; she doesn’t need any more from him added to it.
Besides, she recently almost had to bear the sacrifice of said doofus man in order to save Bucky’s life (and the lives of others, but Bucky is a man of deeply ingrained Jewish stricture and thus he clings to responsibility and guilt like he is Leo DiCaprio and they are the wooden raft that will save his life if Rose just scoots over a little, G-d dammit). He owes her this solid at least.
Bucky decks himself in navy blue, his favorite color since forever, and a white shirt, with suspenders and wingtips and the whole nine yards. He brushes his hands over the high waist of his pants, centers his button up. Gives himself a nod. This is good. This feels like another piece of him falling back into place.
Steve stumbles out of the bathroom in a brown checkered suit because he literally asks for grandpa jokes to be made about him, but he makes it work. It sits right on his waist, the way pants used to be cut when fashion was logical, and Bucky feels like maybe his knees are gonna shit out on him, but he wouldn’t blame ‘em if they did. “Damn,” he says heartily, then whistles. “That’s my baby.” He crosses the rest of the way to Steve and smooths his hands over his lapels, enjoying Steve’s warmth even through the thick fabric.
Steve blushes some furious shade only seen in beets and radish skin before cuffing Bucky over the head.
They meet Sam and Nat at the venue, some fancy place in Midtown they have to uber all the way over to because they managed to combine their critical intelligence expertise to sneak a few flasks worth of vodka and super-soldier whiskey under their clothes and fully plan to get knackered past the point of being able to safely drive home.
Sam is looking stunning and slick in a maroon suit that fits him like a damn glove and makes his curves look especially curvy. Sam never skips leg day.
Natasha has shown up in the way only she is able to. She wears a Comfy- of as seen on TV fame- in a cheesy camouflage pattern and a pair of red-bottomed, pointed-toe heels that look like weapons. The sweatshirt absolutely dwarfs her, hanging halfway down her calves and an extra forearm length over the tips of her fingers. Her hair falls in easy waves into the hood. Her makeup is pristine, but she has done her eyebrows a fluorescent shade of highlighter pink.
Bucky wheezes and wheezes and thinks he’ll never quite stop laughing. She grins like a madwoman, wraps him in her arms, and embraces him tight as he giggles.
Bucky pulls back enough to drop a quick kiss on her lips, light enough not to smudge her lipstick. He likes his intestines inside of his body, thank you very much.
He presses his chin onto the top of her head. “You’re amazing. Stunning. Doll, I’m in love with you. Screw Steve, holy mother’a mercy, you’re- hehehe- oh hell, Tasha. Alright.”
“Aww,” says Natasha, and she pats his cheek twice. “You’d better be.” She pulls out of the hug, then tucks herself into his side. He holds tight around her velvety-wrapped shoulders.
“Has he always been this kissy?” says Sam, who is seemingly completely unsurprised by Natasha’s get-up.
“Oh, yeah,” says Steve. He snorts. “Buck woulda’ kissed anything with two lips back in the thirties. Macked on every Commando at some point, didn’t you? A quick little honey cooler for every man in uniform. No one much missed their gals with him around.”
Bucky twists his mouth to the side and scratches under his jaw. “Not anything with two lips. Probably not a turtle.”
“Do they even have lips?” says Sam.
“Yes,” says Natasha decisively.
“Oh,” says Sam.
They go inside. Tony sees them, facing their way as Pepper- gorgeous even from behind in a low-backed dress that looks like molten gold dripping over her- talks to some white man with a white beard and probably enough ‘small change’ in his wallet to fix Flint’s water crisis.
Tony’s eyes visibly catch on each of them one at a time, and when he hits Nat, he brings a hand to his mouth and bites on his knuckles. He lasts about five seconds before excusing himself. He scurries from the room, every step lilting with his limp, and cuts into a side hallway. Bucky can pick up the sound of his thrilled giggle of a laugh echoing in the marrow of the walls.
The four of them go to their labeled seats and make themselves entirely ignorable before Pepper is able to spot them and rain hell down like a blizzard.
Natasha pours from the flasks into their hot tea, and in their Manhattans, and in their lemon water. She tries to pour vodka into Sam’s beer and he says, “now that’s taking things too far,” in a deep, calming voice. Natasha immediately retreats.
They’re drunk before the appetizers are brought out. That is, perhaps, the reason why they very loudly sing the praises of the strange raw beef chunky thing they eat on fluffy bread. Bucky particularly admires the way a piece of broccoli on his dinner plate looks like a flamingo. Dessert is raspberry cold shit served inside of the shell of a coconut and Bucky eats his and Steve’s and Natasha’s and half of Sam’s, too, because it’s weird and creamy and sort of good.
Then Bucky gets a little overwhelmed by how stupidly good Steve looks in his stupid grandpa suit and Steve says, “what’s wrong, Buck?” because Bucky is scowling and Bucky says, primly, “it’s none of your business, Steven,” because he doesn’t want to make a scene by kissing on him in front of half of the one percent and Sam laughs so suddenly and so loudly that half of the room turns to look at him over their shoulders.
It is a miracle they are not asked to leave.
They uber home all together, all smushed into the back seat, hip-to-hip, which is a terrible idea because two of them are super-soldier sized and Sam ain’t a slouch, muscularly speaking, and Nat has thighs that literally snap necks. But they sorta cuddle under each other’s arms and Bucky throws his legs across all their laps and they make it work. They always have.
IV.
“C’mere, gimme a lil smoochie smooch,” says Clint.
Bucky has been wearing a crease into Clint’s couch, immobile and in a sodium-coma from vegan Chinese takeout, for almost five hours. He’s finally stood himself up and collected his pocket knives with the intention of leaving.
Clint’s leg is broken and everyone has been doing their best to keep him company because he’s the type to lose his marbles and commit mild arson out of boredom if he isn’t supervised. Mostly, this means Bucky and Steve have been taking it in turns sitting on Clint’s couch and watching Jeopardy reruns or playing Mario Kart and Natasha has been popping in every time he needs a woman’s tender graces. Tony drops by sometimes, too, but the combination of both his and Clint’s manic energy is really almost too much for the universe to handle without tilting sideways.
Bucky says, “disgusting,” but leans in and pecks him goodbye anyway.
Clint grins like a shark. Lucky the Pizza Dog wags his tail aggressively against the hardwood, a great thumping echoing through the floorboards.
“Heard you’ve been kissing everybody,” Clint says. He signs, I wanted in on the action, then adds, aloud, “obviously. You should’ve kissed me sooner. Who else was so lucky to—“ he switches to sign again, taste your lips?
Bucky rolls his eyes. He feels almost certain that the switch from vocal to ASL was to keep the conversation PG for the dog, and the idea of that makes Bucky want to rip a tree in half. None of your business who I kiss.
Clint pouts. But it’s me. Everything is my business. Plus, you obviously wanted to kiss me, too.
Bucky winces.
“You’d rather kiss Tony than me?” Clint yelps.
Bucky raises one hand, tilts it side to side.
“Blasphemous,” Clint says. “Aw, man, I’m worse than a man who wears an iron girdle. Is it because he can hear? Huh, is that why, you ableist piece of shit?”
“Of course,” Bucky says. “I, a one-armed man, chose him, a half-blind one-armed man, so we can shit talk you without you hearing it, because we hate the disabled.”
“Gasp!!”
“Oh, shut up,” Bucky says, but then he snorts a laugh. “You’re— ridiculous, g-ddamn mook.”
Clint wrinkles his nose, but then he grins, and it’s almost soft, fond. “Hey, you’ve been looking awfully chipper recently, big guy.”
Bucky feels suddenly, incredibly uncomfortable. “Uh,” he says intelligently.
“Just like,” Clint wiggles his head, then signs, smiling more. Kissing everyone. It’s good. I’m happy for you.
Bucky wrinkles up his face. “Stop giving me feelings.”
Clint leans forward, careful not to jar his bad leg from where it’s propped on the pillows. “Feel ‘em,” he commands. “Feel the damn feelings, Sputnik. They’re a good look on you.”
“Stop flirting with me!”
Clint grins. “Get outta my house, man. Your shift is done. Go smile gooily at Steve for a few hours while Natasha gives me a violent handjob.”
Bucky claps both hands over his ears. “I absolutely do not want to hear about that ever again, please and thank you, no, no.”
Clint laughs and blows kisses at Bucky as he performs his tactical retreat.
V.
Peter Quill and the Guardians are in town and if there’s one thing that always happens under that particular circumstance, it’s a party. A legitimate, strobe-lights, jungle juice party like they’re sophomores in a graffitied frat basement. Since that’s something Bucky and Quill had never had the... luck to experience in their lifetimes, it’s an open-invite type of affair. Clint hosts it in his Bed-Stuy place because he doesn’t stress about having to clean up after— in other words, he decidedly doesn’t clean up after. At all. The place is a g-ddamn shithole.
Somehow over the course of the night, Bucky has lost track of Steve and ended up in a corner with Quill, Wong, Clint, Rhodes, and Brunnhilde, who is terrifying and gorgeous and can outdrink even Bucky, which impresses him to no end.
“Okay okay okay okay,” says Clint, shaking his hands out. “I’m gonna… put this down, drop it like it’s hot.” He places an empty beer bottle in the center of the group.
“Have mercy,” Bucky mumbles.
“What?” Clint says, cupping a hand around his ear and squinting out of one eye.
Have mercy, Bucky signs.
Clint wags his eyebrows.
Across the room, Tony’s laugh sounds out loud and unabashed. Thor’s follows, then Steve’s, and the group is all looking over feeling softer than they should, maybe, but those are their boys and g-ddamn if hearing ‘em happy ain’t the best thing that’s come out of this whole business. Bucky’d do it again and again, endless- flaking off on the wind and getting shocked to the head, crying in foxholes, cut in crosshatched chunks- just to watch Steve toss his head back and clap a palm onto Tony’s chest where he once shoved a shield, his profile washed in abrasive fuschia light, a bottle of special super-soldier whiskey in his free hand.
“Alright,” Brunnhilde says dryly. She takes a swig of some purplish drink she’s got in a bottle in her hand, then says, “enough with the sap. Explain this game to us, Barton.”
Clint leans forward, elbows on his knees, and rubs his palms together. “This is spin the bottle, assholes,” he says. “You spin— the bottle, this here bottle, you give it a little turny turn, and then you smooch whoever it points at.”
“Oh, you did not just drag me into this,” says Rhodey, standing up and dusting his ass off from Clint’s grimy carpet. He points at Clint and speaks loudly for his benefit. The walls shake with the bass from the music playing. “Only man I kiss is Tony. He’s very— particular about who I’m allowed to go around being with. On my end, he and I are exclusive.” He sniffs. “Besides, my kisses are fuckin’ ambrosia, they’re holy, not just anyone gets ‘em. None of you schmucks. Well,” he amends. “I’d kiss Val because she’s awesome.”
Brunnhilde nods. Bucky does too. This makes perfect sense.
“But that’s it,” Rhodey says, and then he leaves the group, shooting a peace sign over his shoulder.
Clint claps once. “I’m never gonna question their weird relationship because that would be hypocritical,” he says, and his eyes dart to the side, as if Natasha is lingering somewhere nearby, listening to their every word.
“Pepper knows he and Stark are married,” says Bucky. “Tony is a little bit in love with— everyone, she knew that going into it.”
“Soft hearted man in an iron suit, he’s a— metaphor, fuck him, he’s so cute,” Clint says, then sniffles, drunk as a skunk.
Quill clears his throat. “No one is paying enough attention to me, so I think it’s time we start this game.” He grabs the bottle and spins it.
It stops on Brunnhilde. She takes a sip of her drink and says, “no.”
He says, “you’re right, my bad,” and nudges the bottle so it stops on Clint. They have— far too much fun for a game, and Bucky looks away on principle, finding Steve grinning stupidly at Thor, and he grins stupidly in response because he’s absolutely, undeniably stupid for Steve.
Clint and Quill pull apart with a sound like a toilet plunger, red-lipped and hair wild.
“Cool,” Quill announces.
Clint spins next. It lands on Wong.
“Beyoncé would never let this happen to me,” says Wong.
Clint hikes up onto his hands and knees and shakes his ass in the air, crawling across the circle towards Wong like a drunken panther.
Wong leans backwards, onto his elbows, wincing, but deals Clint the lightest of pecks on the lips.
Clint grins and says, “I just keep winning tonight.”
Wong spins next and lands Brunnhilde, who appraises him and then says, “meh,” to which Quill says, “hey!” and she replies, “really?” to which he says, “you’re right, carry on.” She gives Wong the same type of peck he gave Clint, and then she lands Bucky, whom she kisses with comparable gusto, who then lands Quill, who whoops with excitement.
Bucky finds himself blushing. It’s— nice, to have people like him, not afraid of him, literally excited to touch him. It’s been a long— long time, since that.
Quill bodily shoves him flat and drapes beside him on the floor, pushed up onto an elbow, grinning down at Bucky, who simply cannot stop laughing for long enough to look Quill in the eye, much less kiss him.
Quill winks at him from above. Bucky wheezes, hoots.
Quill takes him by the chin, and their kiss is messy with beer breath and teeth clipping and maybe a little bit of tongue, and Bucky holds Quill’s biceps in both hands and Quill’s weight is warm on his chest and Bucky is so fucking happy he thinks he’d be tripping even without the liquor.
He hears Steve whistle from across the room. He pulls away from Quill’s lips to laugh even harder. He’s— sunlight baking the grass, the swell of a band coming onto the last note of a song, the first sip of chamomile tea. Everything is nauseatingly, overwhelmingly good.
VI.
Bucky is roused out of a heavy, time-stopping, limb-leadening nap by a stifling warmth on his chest.
Once he’s blinked enough times to clear his vision, Steve comes into focus, leaning directly over Bucky’s face, blocking out the yellowish, late-afternoon light. Even before the war, he’d always done that: had a habit of leaning too close over an injured teammate, or, more commonly, a sleeping Bucky. Bucky’s caged between Steve’s meaty arms, a pointy elbow digging into either side of his ribs, Steve’s chest diagonal over his.
“Wanna know what fuckin’ astounds me?” says Steve, loudly, as soon as Bucky’s eyes are open.
“Mm,” says Bucky. He blinks slowly, eyes tracing over Steve’s cheekbones, pink with still-drowsy heat. Steve has this way of looking through his lashes when he’s tired, and the intensity of it shoots straight into the pit of Bucky’s stomach, warm and curious. Laziness weighs him. He wants to lay here and look at Steve for the rest of forever, flush under his weight, listening to his heart beating and his pulse thrumming against his neck. One of his hands comes up languidly and begins to rhythmically push the hair off Steve’s forehead. Bucky loves it when Steve’s hair isn’t crisp with pomade. It’s lighter this way, redder, soft and straight and smelling strong of his peppermint shampoo.
Steve leans into the touch, going boneless, his lips slightly parted. Bucky wants to kiss him. He’s awfully slothful, though.
“Uh,” Steve says, eyebrows wrinkling. “I was gonna pull your screws, but I forgot what I wanted to say.”
“Got distracted by my incredible good looks,” Bucky says sagely.
“Oh, nope, I remembered,” Steve says, perking up, his grin sudden and sharp. He clears his throat as if he’s about to dramatically deliver Hamlet’s suicidal monologue to an audience of thousands. “It’s a miracle you can even lift your head with that horrible broken monolith of a schnoz on it.”
Bucky gapes. He’d forgotten they used to do this- turn everything into an insult, always too prickly, too cynical, to deal the other a real compliment- too awash in the rosy afterglow of survival to learn how to be a prick again.
Bucky feels a grin grow across his cheeks. He paints it something careful, quirked at the left corner, a glint in his eyes, a wrinkle to the left side of his nose. He makes it charming, a little sweet, a little coy, and then watches Steve melt like a fat scoop of vanilla ice cream tipped out of a cone and onto the sidewalk at Luna Park.
And, once Steve’s all malleable with his guard down, Bucky gives back in kind. “And what about you, chicken legs, huh? Like a fucking bolder balanced on a pair of pretzel rods, you weird emu,” he says.
Steve had always had little sticks for gams. He was never much more than a haphazard collection of bird-thin angles smacked into the vague shape of a boy. His shoulders sure are big, now, but his waist is like Audrey Hepburn’s; his thighs are roast hams, but his calves sharp and narrow— built like a racehorse.
Steve’s jaw drops falsely. He was never much of an actor— not that either of them were. Both of them wear their stupid bleeding hearts on their sleeves.
“How dare you,” Steve says. His hands move with speed even Bucky doesn’t suspect, administering a double purple nurple that makes Bucky yelp.
“Oh, you fucker,” Bucky says, wrapping his arms around Steve’s back and flipping them, the mattress springs wheezing and bed frame shaking. Bucky pins Steve under his hips. The heavy breath Steve sucks in presses his ribs against the insides of Bucky’s thighs and Bucky sort of wants to yank Steve’s briefs off, now, right now, all images of sleep wholly forgotten.
Steve, looking up at him, says breathlessly, “am I finally getting my fuckin’ kiss, asshat? Or you gonna stick your tongue down Quill’s throat for another five minutes to make sure I’m— good and jealous, good and ready to jump you the next time you bend over?”
Bucky grins. “All you had to do was ask, shithead.”
And it’s like the end of a day that had stretched beyond belief, like manna raining out of the sky. It tastes like stale breath and their beards rub near to raw and their hands are willful, trembling with intention. Bucky pulls Steve’s lip between his teeth and Steve groans and Bucky wants to tumble into his chest, to be swallowed, protected, cloistered away. He wants to weep for mercy, for one more g-ddamn moment as sweet as this. Bucky gasps into Steve’s mouth, and he feels a warm wetness dripping over his cheeks, and he aches beautifully, this yearning fulfilled, this grief assuaged, this bit of loose string tied into a knot eternal.
And when Bucky tires again, suddenly, unbelievably, and slips sideways off Steve’s hips, Steve does not comment nor complain, but rather curls himself around Bucky’s back like a sweaty apostrophe, presses the tip of his too-long nose into the bone at the base of Bucky’s neck, and lets his hands rest over Bucky’s stomach, warm, callused, and calming. His fingers gently dance against the muscle there and Bucky sniffles, always two seconds from weeping, even after all this time. It’s— beauty, like this, that overwhelms him. And he’s got his hands all over it. It’s like getting to rub up with the David. For once, he feels like he’s not leaving— bloody fucking handprints all over the marble.
Steve wasn’t wrong, really: he’ll kiss anyone. He loves, fiercely, wildly, with abandon, and he wants everyone to know it, to feel it. The ache of starvation is familiar to him. It’s the worst sort of emptiness. Feeling unloved can drive anyone dark places.
He’d kiss fucking Thanos on his raisiny lips if it meant his heart would’ve warmed and he wouldn’t’ve snapped.
But, this. Feeling Steve’s breath, one of his hairy shins lodged between Bucky’s feet. Looking at the freckles on Steve’s knuckles. Even having trudged through that pain like a mentorless Dante, frozen into the ice with three-headed Lucifer, is made worth it.
Getting here now. That’s what— matters.
He wouldn’t trade that for all the kisses in the world.