Bucky Barnes didn’t remember many things about who he was before the brainwashing. He was beginning to remember more sure, but not enough to say he knew who he truly was. One thing he did remember though was Christmas. It was one thing he couldn’t forget. Christmases for Bucky as a child were by no means extravagant. The Barnes family would begin decorating for Christmas every year at 12:01 am on December 1st, staying up all hours of the night, decorating the house, singing Christmas carols, drinking hot cocoa and laughing until dawn. The tradition that started with just the Barnes family soon began to include the small neighbor boy, Steven and his mother, Sarah. Bucky, Becca, and Steve would spend the weekend before cutting snowflakes out of old newspapers and stringing popcorn that Mr. Barnes had spoiled them with on a string. They had to be prepared for what the family referred to as “The First Day of Christmas.”
Bucky, Becca, and Steve had continued these traditions when they had moved into an apartment of their own, the three of them saving up for months to buy a single strand of Christmas lights, completely forgetting about the fact they also needed to buy a tree. So that year on December 1st, instead of drinking hot cocoa and decorating the house, the Barnes siblings (and their honorary sibling, Steve,) left the house under the cover of nightfall and snuck into a local park, saw in hand, to cut down a Christmas tree. However, the family didn’t account for the cold or that a tree is VERY heavy. It took them three hours, a lot of swearing and Steve almost froze to death but they finally got the tree home and had their hot cocoa; the rest of the decorating waited until the next day. From that day on that became their tradition. Every year the three of them would steal a tree from a park and nearly freeze to death in the process, but that was tradition. That was home.
Sam’s Christmases growing up were a lot different than Bucky’s. Partially because when Sam was born Bucky was 61, and also because Sam and Bucky are very different people.
Sam begins preparing for Christmas once the second week of December rolls around, starting it off by watching his DVD of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” And decorating his ARTIFICIAL tree which was a Wilson family tradition because as a nurse Mrs. Wilson’s favorite saying was “who has the time for that?” Once his tree decorated, Max the dog decoration and all Sam would move on to what he believed to be the most important holiday tradition, stringing the lights. Growing up Sam’s house always had the best lights on the block, thanks to him and he was not going to change that this year, despite living in a Brownstone apartment in Brooklyn.
Bucky came home after training one day to find his boyfriend on their fire escape, wrapping lights around each metal rod. Bucky grabbed a beer from the fridge and headed for the shower, shaking his head the whole way. A few moments later Bucky was letting the water caress his neck, letting the hot current rinse away the stress of the day when a tap on the window startled him. He opened his eyes to see Sam outside the window in the Falcon suit, Christmas lights in hand. “What the fuck Wilson?” He laughed as Sam continued to hang the lights as if it was completely normal to use a government weapon to hang Christmas lights around the bathroom window while your boyfriend showers.
Later that night Sam and Bucky had what could be considered their first fight. Sam had taken out his box of Christmas decorations from their storage locker which led to Bucky discovering Sam had a fake tree.
“Your tree looks stupid.” Bucky spat, as sam began hanging the tinsel.
“Gee thanks, Barnes.”
“It's not supposed ta look like that. It's wrong.”
“And you're the leading expert in Christmas decor now? Weren’t you dead for 70 years?”
“Its just now how we did it.”
“Well man, things have changed. My tree looks great now hand me some ornaments.”
“I’m going to bed.” Bucky walked down the hallway to their bedroom, leaving Sam standing angry and confused with a roll of tinsel in his hand.
Sam, fed up with Bucky’s irritability, stormed into their room to find Bucky sitting on the bed facing the wall opposite him. “What the hell is your problem? Do you have Christmas?”
Bucky, not moving from his place on the bed answered quietly. “It’s all different. Everything is different and no one understands what it used to be like and the one person that did left, he left me, Sam. He left me here alone. And now I have to figure out this new fucked up plastic world without him.” As Bucky spoke tears rolled down his face and his entire body shook. Sam cursed himself under his breath and wiped away the tears that had began to pool in his own eyes. How could he be so inconsiderate? Bucky hadn’t celebrated a Christmas since the war, and a real Christmas since before that. And now this was his first Christmas with his best friend. Sam took a seat next to the brunette and wrapped his arm around the larger man’s shoulder.
“You're not alone Bucky. You’re never gonna be alone again you hear me? You’ve got me. I know I’m not Steve and I’ll never understand what you’ve been through or what things were like back then but I'm always gonna be right by your side, helping you figure out this fucked up plastic world.” Bucky looked up at him and Sam wiped the tears from his face.
“I’m sorry Sam,” Bucky replied hardly above a whisper. Sam pulled him into his chest, placing his chin on a mop of brown hair and began rubbing the solider’s back, placing gentle kisses on the top of his head.
“Don’t apologize Bucky, I shouldn’t have pushed you so much. Why don’t you tell me what you guys used to do for Christmas? Maybe we can still do some of those things.” Sam held Bucky as he talked and told him about all of the Christmases he could remember and even some of the ones he couldn’t. They spent that night cutting snowflakes out of stars, stringing popcorn and that night at 12am, the Winter Soldier and the Falcon stole a very small tree from a nearby park, which Sam made sure to plant a new one of the following night, and placed their stolen tree next to the plastic one. And that night, as they fell asleep in each other's arms, Bucky whispered sweetly in his boyfriend's ear, “to new traditions.”