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Autumn, 1939
Golden leaves swirled around the brick street, stirred up by the occasional big black car rumbling through, or kicked up by the skinny-ankled neighborhood boys scattered about, tossing a hand-sewn baseball back and forth between hands pink with cold. A chill swept through with the wind, and it smelled like the laundry Mrs. Rosario hung from the line strung between two windows, the heaviness of car exhaust, and that distinct, russet crispness of autumn.
Steve and Bucky sat in the third-floor fire escape, all wrapped up together in a large gray blanket which Steve’s mother had crocheted once upon a time, but neither of them thought it good to even bring that up anymore. Steve rested his head against Bucky’s chest, right against his heart, and Bucky held him as close as humanly possible.
“Nice night,” Bucky said with a hint of a smile in his voice.
Steve nodded because it was. His belly was full of buttered string beans and biscuits with sausage gravy, and the sun was setting kind of pink and yellow against the gray sky, and Bucky was so warm right next to him that he thought he would never be cold again in his life.
“Missed you, Daddy,” Steve mumbled into Bucky’s chest.
Bucky was putting in long days at the factory. The pay wasn’t great, but the overtime made up for it. His normally steady hands ached with it; they were gray with oil and calloused from the tedious motion of soldering together the tiniest parts of military-grade semi-automatics. It was repetitive work that didn’t require much brainpower once the muscle memory took over. He spent twelve hours a day in that blindingly hot tin can of a place, stuffed inside a starched blue jumpsuit, hunched over a work bench—but you can bet he was thinking about Steve all the while.
Bucky hummed in response to Steve’s question, producing a vibration in his chest, the shockwave of which Steve felt throughout his entire body. “What did you do all week while I was gone?”
Steve shrugged his shoulders.
Bucky poked Steve’s cheek teasingly. He cocked his head to the side. “You don’t want to tell me? Now I’m going to assume you did something you shouldn’t have.”
Steve’s eyes went wide and he shook his head violently. “No! I was just kidding! All I did was play with Teddy and walk around the block and read books, and that’s all!
Bucky’s face softened into that state of pure happiness as he pulled Steve up onto his lap and wrapped his arms over his little one’s shoulders and around his front. “I know that, little one. You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”
The sweet little smile returned to Steve’s face as he settled onto Bucky’s lap. “Yeah.” There was a bit of a giggle in his voice, something soft and covered in sugar.
Bucky tickled his tummy a little, making him laugh like crazy. “What books did you read?” He asked.
“The Hobbit,” Steve replied. “It’s really really good.”
“Is it?” Steve nodded eagerly. “Maybe we’ll read it together sometime.”
Steve closed his eyes, smiled, and sighed. “Yes, please.”
Bucky loved that smile—pink-lipped, crinkles near the eyes, all the joy in the universe contained inside of it—and he’d do anything to keep it on Steve’s face.
“What do you say we go see a movie tomorrow?”
Steves eyes lit up like the street lamps below. “Really?”
Because going to the movies was expensive, and Steve knew that Bucky didn’t make all that much money. There was rent to pay. Water. Lights. Bucky did his best to keep food on the table. Which meant there was not much left for movies.
“Is it a special reason?” Steve asked, eyebrows drawing together slowly. He picked his head up off of Bucky’s chest to look right at him.
Bucky shrugged his shoulders. “Does there need to be a special reason?”
“Costs a lot of money.”
Bucky sighed. Steve’s eyes, a little sunken into his skull, were so big and blue that he found himself swimming in them—as if it was summer at the community pool, as if they were the ocean. He brushed Steve’s blond bangs out of his eyes, and Steve smiled in thanks. “You’re a smart boy, aren’t you?”
Steve pinked. “And there’s a Dodgers game. Last game of the regular season, Daddy.”
Bucky gave him a forehead kiss. “Can’t miss that, now can we?” Steve shook his head. They had never missed one before. Bucky had clipped the game schedule from the newspaper and taped it on the wall next to their bed, but it only took a few weeks for Steve to memorize it. And every game, they would make a snack and camp out in the living room around the radio, fingers crossed for a Dodgers win—Steve because he loved the Dodgers more than almost anything, and Bucky because Steve’s smile was the greatest renewable energy source. “But at least let me take you to Shirley’s and get you a candy bar,” he said. “Good little boys deserve treats.”
“Only if you get one, too, Daddy.”
Steve thought—knew—that Bucky spoiled him. All the treats and gifts were almost too much, and Bucky never treated himself. So Steve made sure he did. Even if it didn’t look like it from the outside, they were meant to take care of each other.
Bucky held him infinitely close. And it wasn’t long before he heard that familiar yawn. The sun had been swallowed up by that horizon of buildings, and the moon had made its formal appearance in a lovely ivory crescent.
“If you could do one thing in the whole world, what would you want to do?”
Steve kneaded his eyes with his fists. “Cuddles?” He asked, removing his hands from his eyes. He looked up, first to Bucky, and then beyond him, to the sky.
Bucky knew that there were a lot of stars up here, and he knew that you couldn’t even see most of them from Brooklyn, but he looked anyway, following Steve’s line of sight out to the far reaches of the universe.
He chuckled at Steve’s response, kissed his cheek. “That’s it?”
The few stars there were twinkled ever so lightly, breathing the soft breath of night over the whole scene. Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky, pulled him a little closer as if he was about to disclose a secret. “I would go to a Dodgers game,” he said, voice just above a whisper, all dreamy-like. “And I would sit right behind home plate—or wait! First base! And I would catch a foul ball, and you’d be there too, Daddy. And we could get peanuts and popcorn and watch the fireworks…”
There was an unceasing sparkle in Steve’s eyes that Bucky didn’t have a word for. “So you like the Dodgers, huh?”
Steve giggled so loud, Bucky thought it might wake the neighbors. “Course I do, Daddy! We listen to them on the radio all the time, remember?”
“Oh, I remember,” Bucky hummed sweetly, ruffling Steve’s hair. Those afternoons were some of his favorites. “But you really want to see them in action?”
Steve closed his eyes in that daydream way, clasping his hands in front of him. “That would be the best thing I can ever think of.”
Without warning, Bucky stood up and draped the blanket over Steve’s shoulders. Steve looked up at him and frowned, because why was Daddy leaving him all alone on the fire escape? But Bucky didn’t leave. He simply dug in his back pocket and produced two rectangular pieces of paper.
“What are those?” Steve asked as Bucky sat back down, and the little cocoon of warmth returned to him. “Can I see?”
Bucky handed them to Steve and they flapped in the brisk wind. “Don’t lose them,” he warned.
The light was dim, so Steve squinted and scrunched up his face, brought them closer to his eyes, traced the words with his finger. He went oddly silent.
“Stevie?” Bucky tried, tucking a longer tuft of Steve’s hair behind his ear.
“Are these… real?” He asked turning them over in his hands. “These aren’t real, right Daddy? They can’t be real.”
Bucky took the pieces of paper from Steve and leaned in closer. “Game Number: One-Hundred and Fifty-Seven,” Bucky read. “Grandstand Admission. Dodgers Versus Phillies.”
Steve started to cry, which Bucky hadn’t really expected. He shoved the tickets back into his pocket and wrapped his arms tightly around the boy.
“Hey, now. No tears. They’re real, and they’re for me and you. Tomorrow afternoon. Ebbets Field.”
Steve shook his head, wiping his eyes against the back of his hand. “Is there a special reason? Costs a lot of money.” More than Snickers bars. More than movies.
“You’re my special reason,” Bucky said, and he thought he could hear the air rush into Steve’s lungs as the boy gasped. “I told you before. Good little boys deserve treats.”
“But—”
“No buts. You know better than to argue with me, don’t you?”
Steve turned a little pink. Bucky didn’t give spankings or anything, but a stern talking-to from him was bad enough. He nodded a little too much.
“Then it’s settled. I’m taking you to Shirley’s to get you a candy bar, and then I’m taking you to see your first Dodgers game.
Steve didn’t know how to say thank you, so he wrapped his arms around Bucky as tight as he could and never let go, not even when Bucky swaddled him up in the blanket and carried him inside through the kitchen window.
Bucky stood him at the bathroom vanity counter and brushed his teeth for him, then made him use the toilet. He helped him out of his shirt and pants and socks and shoes and laid him down in their unmade bed. Steve shuffled under the covers and waited for his hot water bottle to get undressed and climb in next to him.
“Are we really going to a Dodgers game?” Asked Steve’s sleepy voice as Bucky unbuttoned his shirt.
“Of course we are.”
“How much money did it cost?”
“Don’t you worry about that.” Bucky lifted the covers just enough to slip under them and curl his arms around Steve’s little body.
They don’t say anything for a moment or two, until Steve’s little voice comes out of the darkness. “Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“If you could do one thing in the whole wide world, what would it be?”
Bucky’s eyes go glassy at that, but he uses the shadows to his advantage so that Steve doesn’t see. He places his front teeth on his bottom lip and thinks for a moment. “If I could do one thing in the whole wide world, huh?” He parroted.
But there’s not just one thing. There were a hundred things. A thousand things. Cure Steve’s illnesses. Buy a house, buy a car, buy a water heater that worked more than half the time. Get Steve a dog. Get Steve some proper toys.
(And somewhere, some part of him echoed, get married.)
Bucky had to turn away again, this time wiping his eyes against the back of his hand.
Steve didn’t notice, just nodded. “Uh huh. And if I can’t say cuddles, you can’t say cuddles neither.”
Bucky chuckled. “Well I guess I’d—and I’ll have you know that cuddles were my first choice—I’d take you to the moon.”
Steve giggled, but slower than usual, sleepier. “The moon? Live on the moon?”
Bucky hummed. “I’d build you a little moon house, and we could get a little moon dog to run around in our little moon yard. We could stay there all day, because there’s no factory on the moon.” Steve nodded at that, because it made perfect sense. “And nothing bad would ever happen again, because we’d be so far far away from everything that nothing could touch us.”
“Someday, Daddy,” Steve whispered, a few beats after Bucky had finished his thought. “But maybe just not tomorrow because we’re going to a Dodgers game.”
Bucky smiled. “That’s right.” He maneuvered so that he was facing Steve, and the little thing crawled up into his encircled arms. Bucky held him to his chest, rested his chin atop Steve’s head.
“Is there radios on the moon, Daddy?” Steve asked. “So we can listen to the Dodgers games?”
“I’m sure there are, little one.”
“And is there candy bars on the moon, Daddy? Because I would really miss candy bars.”
“Mars bars,” Bucky assured.
“And what does a moon dog look like? Is it like a regular dog?”
“I’m sure, baby. But it’s time to get to sleep, now. Don’t you think?”
Steve nodded into Bucky’s chest, pressing his nose against the warm, soft skin, breathing in the scent of the day that still lingered on him. “Night, Daddy,” he mumbled. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
+
They woke at seven or so, cold and wet and sticky.
Steve sucked in a breath through his teeth. “…Daddy?” He started, lip wobbling. “I think…I mean, I…I had a…”
It echoed a memory that burned so brightly in the eye of Bucky’s mind that it hardly seemed like one:
Steve had all these nightmares, years ago, just after his mother had passed, when he first came to live with Bucky. It kept them both lying awake at night—Steve avoiding sleep to avoid its side effects, and Bucky wound tight with worry for him—until sleep stole them away.
And one night, Steve had this raging dream that caused his arms and legs to flail around. Bucky tried to get him to wake up, shook him and shook him, and then resorted to shouting his name with increasing volume.
Steve snapped out of it with his eyes bursting open and a heavy gasp rushing air into his lungs.
“Hey, hey,” Bucky had cooed, rubbing his back. “It’s alright, just you and me.”
Tears formed in Steve’s eyes as he flipped back the duvet to reveal a wet patch. His gaze flickered up to Bucky’s, looking for anger, disappointment, disgust, but finding no such thing.
That was their origin story—Daddy and his little boy. Steve had fallen into the role so easily, almost like he’d never grown up, and Bucky supposed that he hadn’t, not properly, at least. And Bucky was a caregiver down to his very bones. They were a matching set.
“An accident,” Bucky said, finishing Steve’s sentence, and hopped right up, not a beat to be missed. He picked Steve up off the bed and held him in his arms for a moment, then two. “It’s okay, my little sunshine. We’ll just have to take a bath together.”
Steve’s body twitched. “Bath together?” He said, eyes red and teary, but voice a little hopeful.
Bucky kissed his cheek in confirmation, and carried him over to the corner of their room where there was a claw-foot bathtub with a shower curtain bar ringed around above it. He pushed back the curtain and turned the hot water on, and it was actually warm, for once.
He helped Steve strip out of his wet briefs, and Steve turned pink all the way down his neck. But Bucky kissed him, helped guide his wobbling legs out of the holes. Once the water was high enough, he picked the boy up and plopped him in, then shucked off his own clothes to join him.
The water was cathartic. It seeped up into every crack that existed and healed it. It warmed the soul down to its most basic parts.
And Steve loved when Bucky washed his hair, took his time with his long, achy fingers, and massaged them over his scalp until he swore he’d smell like vanilla forever. He loved when Bucky took that raggedy, soapy cloth over every bony inch of him, his neck and shoulders down to his ankles and feet (but not without tickling his toes first). He loved when Bucky’s hands lingered over the places that carried so much shame for him—his protruding shoulder blades, his countable ribs, his knobbly knees. The whole experience was a transcendent one for Steve, like a baptism in holy water. And then to watch Bucky clean himself, without the same level of care, just quick swipes of the cloth over planes of muscle and skin—Steve loved every moment of that, too.
Then Bucky hoisted him out of the tub and wrapped a towel around his shoulders before he wrapped a towel around his own waist. He guided Steve’s legs back through the holes of a pair of briefs, then his good slacks. He buttoned him up in a nice clean shirt, blue, so that everyone would know he was a Dodger’s fan, and then tucked his shirt into his pants.
Steve sat on the edge of the bed and put his own socks on as Bucky got himself dressed.
Steve had always loved to watch Bucky dress himself. The man dressed the same way he washed—not much care put into the small details—but Steve found a certain art in it. Daddy was beautiful.
“What can I make you for breakfast?” Bucky asked, buckling his belt.
Steve followed him like a duckling into the kitchen. “Cheerios, please.”
Bucky gave him a kiss on the cheek for being so polite. “That’s all you want? Even on such a special day?”
Steve nodded. “With sugar, please.”
So Bucky made him a bowl of Cheerios—more milk than cereal, the way Steve liked—with a few spoonfuls of sugar sprinkled over the top. Steve plopped his spoon in and sloshed a bit over the sides of the bowl as he shoveled it into his mouth as fast as he could manage. Sticky cereal milk dribbled from the sides of his mouth down his chin, and Bucky leaned over to wipe it with his handkerchief before it dripped on the table.
“You’d better eat up,” he said. “Big day ahead of us.”
Bucky ate watching Steve, amused at how much he could put away and how quickly.
“All done!” Steve said, tilting the bowl to get the last bit of milk on his spoon before taking the last bite. He wiped his mouth against the back of his hand. “Can I go play?” He asked.
Bucky nodded, and Steve took off for the living room.
He flopped down on his stomach and fished under the sofa for the old, wooden cigar box that once belonged to his father. He opened it, and there was a waft of that familiar vanilla and tobacco scent that he loved. He kept his little die-cast metal cars inside, all four of them—two blue ones, a red one, and a black one—that Bucky had gotten him for his birthday. He plucked them out one by one and lined them up against the edge of the rug as if it was a starting line.
He took a car in each hand and raced them around the surfaces of the living room; he ran them along the back of the sofa, up and down the big, upright radio, along the windowsill, on the baseboards, across the bookshelf, and landing, finally, on the coffee table winners’ circle.
And Bucky was thankful for it. It gave him some time to do the laundry, wash the dishes, sweep the floors. It wasn’t fun per say, but hearing Steve’s excited little squeals from the other room made it bearable.
“Steve?” He called after a few hours, as he tucked the broom back in its closet. “Are you ready to go?”
But Steve had been ready his whole life. He sprinted for the kitchen, smile white hot. “Are we leaving?” He heaved, his lungs catching up with him. “Are we leaving?”
Bucky ruffled his hair, then smoothed it back out. “If you’re ready,” he said.
Which was their code for, “You’d better take a quick restroom break,” and so Steve did, as quickly as possible, of course.
Leaving the house was an affair to say the least. Steve had to be somewhere between headspace and adult, and Bucky had to keep his hands to himself. They walked a certain distance apart from each other so they looked more like friends or brothers. But Steve still had that spring in his step that nothing could take away, which left Bucky still with that swelling feeling in his chest as they walked side-by-side down the Brooklyn sidewalks.
Shirley’s was a little convenience shop two blocks down from their place, and Shirley was tiny elderly woman with kind eyes who sat on a rickety old stool next to the cash register. The little bell above the door tinkled as they entered the shop, and Shirley spun around to greet them by name. She knew all her regulars. “Hello, ma’am,” Steve said as he wiped his shoes on the mat and went straight for the candy counter. He picked out two Snickers bars, put one in each fist, and carried them up to the register.
“Will that be all?” Shirley asked, her apple-shaped cheeks so rosy.
Bucky reached down and then placed another Snickers bar up on the counter for good measure. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, winking at Steve. He handed the woman a quarter and told her to keep the change.
The walk to Ebbets field was not more than twenty minutes, and yet Steve had never been inside it in his whole life. He’d admired it from the outside, of course, walked down there on hot summer evenings to dream about what it would be like to go inside. And when he got lost on the way back, Bucky would always know where to come and find him.
“You got baseball fever, kid,” Bucky would always say.
And as they came upon it—a huge, brick u-shaped structure with windows all the way up and EBBETS FIELD in big white marquee letters at the top, all under a proud-flying American flag— you’d have thought it was the Colosseum by the way Steve looked up at it, jaw dropped like his teeth were magnets repelling each other. He shuffled to a stop right in his tracks.
“You alright?” Bucky asked, resisting the urge to stop and touch his cheek, kiss his forehead.
Steve could only nod.
Bucky chuckled to himself, amused at the state of pure awe that Steve as in. “Do you want to go in?”
Steve nodded again, and Bucky thought he heard him whisper to himself, “This is amazing.”
They took their seats along the first base line, the upper balcony. Steve jumped when he heard the screech of the PA system as it came to life.
“It’s a lovely afternoon here at Ebbets Field, folks! Let’s give our Brooklyn Dodgers a round of applause.”
Steve’s wide eyes snapped over to Bucky. “That’s the man on the radio,” he said, all the wonder in the world in his voice. “That’s the man from the radio!”
Bucky couldn’t help but smile at that. Steve was too cute.
After a few minutes, the first pitch was thrown, and the game began. Steve swore he would never forget a single second of any of it: The gray players’ uniforms with Dodgers written in blue across the chest and the blue caps and the tall socks, the russet-colored dust that swirled up around the players as they darted for their bases, the funny sort of dance they would do if they were looking to steal, the sound of the wooden bat cracking against the leather ball, the smell of roasted peanuts.
Bucky unwrapped a Snickers and handed it to Steve, whose eyes were solely fixed on the diamond below. He scarfed the whole thing down in two bites.
“You don’t have to eat it so fast, you know,” Bucky said, laughing, but there was a little scolding in there somewhere. “You’re gonna make yourself sick.”
“Sorry,” Steve said, as sincerely as he could manage, just as the announced raised his voice over the cheering crown.
“And it’s a grand slam!” The man called, every word drawn out. “A grand slam for the Dodgers!”
Steve jumped to his feet and whistled and clapped and cheered as the players rounded the bases toward home plate.
And the way the light shone off Steve’s face, off his beautiful smile, off his little ears and his pink lips and his pretty blond hair—Bucky thought himself impossibly lucky.
It was just dark as the players lined up to shake hands. A Dodgers Win. Steve’s eyes were still glued to the players, but he had sat back in his seat a little, yawning. He kneaded his droopy-lidded eyes with his fists. Bucky had a little boy on his hands.
Just then, the fireworks began. They leapt up into the sky from behind the field, exploding into red and white starbursts across the sky. Steve jumped a little at the sound. Bucky guided Steve’s hands over his ears to deaden the noise, and then Steve looked up, watching the display and shouting, “Go Dodgers!” with the chorus of the crowd.
“Go Dodgers!” Bucky yelled, too, and Steve grinned at him.
Getting Steve home was much harder than getting him there had been. “We’ll come back,” Bucky promised, to coax Steve out of his seat as people began to clear out around them. “Next season. We’ll come back for a few games. How’s that sound?”
Fair enough to Steve, apparently, because it got him up and following Bucky down the stairs and back out into the street. It was a crowded mess—tens of thousands of people walking every which way in the dark, and the chill biting worse than it had the night before.
“Stay close,” Bucky called above the din, and Steve kept as close as he could, memorizing the clothes Bucky was wearing, the way the back of his head looked, the way he walked, so that he wouldn’t lose him in the throng. It thinned out four or so blocks down, and they walked side by side again. Sleepy Steve wobbled on his feet. Bucky put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him a little closer. It was dark. No one would see.
“That was the best day of my whole life,” Steve said, a little mewling yawn escaping his lips. “And when Walker caught that fly ball—”
“All the way in center field,” Bucky finished.
Steve nodded. “And when Phelps had that double play—”
“Amazing,” Bucky said.
They rounded the corner. One last block, and only streetlights watching them. Steve rested his head against Bucky’s shoulder, closing his eyes. “Thanks for taking me, Daddy,” he said, quiet all of a sudden. Another yawn. “Did you have fun, too?”
“Of course I did, little one,” Bucky said, pushing the door open and letting Steve go ahead of him up the stairs. “I love to spend time with you.”
Half a flight up, Bucky picked Steve up in his arms—causing a fit of giggles, of course—and carried him the rest of the way back up to their apartment. He unlocked the door with his free hand and carried Steve over to their bed.
Steve kicked off his shoes and lined them up nice and neat next to the nightstand. Bucky helped him unbutton his shirt and pants, and set them in the laundry hamper. Steve flopped back on the bed.
“C’mon,” Bucky said, shaking his arm. “You need to brush your teeth.”
Steve shook his head. “No, please.”
“That’s not going to work. C’mon. You ate a lot of sugar today.” Steve looked up with those pleading eyes that Bucky found harder than anything to resist. He almost had to look away to escape their grasp. “Oh, don’t make that face at me. If you’re going to be this difficult every time, maybe we don’t have to go to another—”
“I’ll go, I’ll go!” Steve huffed, clambering to his feet and stomping toward the bathroom. Bucky put the paste on his brushed and watched, leaning against the wall, that Steve brushed for the full two minutes. When he was done, Bucky redirected him toward the toilet. “But Daddy, I don’t have to—”
And Bucky was never one to hold accidents (like the one from the previous night) against Steve, but it sure was tempting sometimes. “The longer you’re going to stand there and be difficult, the less time we have for cuddles,” Bucky said with a sigh, though he had to admit there was something quite adorable about Steve with his lips pouted and his little arms folded across his little chest, like he could even scratch the surface of intimidating.
But Steve finally caved. He pushed his white briefs down past his knees and plopped himself on the toilet, but he sure as hell wasn’t happy about it.
Bucky undressed himself, and when Steve had finished his business, they went back to their room and crawled under the covers of their bed. Steve wrapped his tiny, cold legs around Bucky’s and held on for dear life.
Bucky kissed his forehead first, his cheek, then his lips, lingering there for a moment. “I love you,” he breathed, hot minty toothpaste smell covering Steve’s face.
Steve snuggled closer, burying his head into Bucky’s chest. “I love you more,” he tested.
Bucky wrapped his arms under Steve’s boy and around his back. “No, I love you the most.”
Steve just hummed. It was hard to argue with that.
Bucky reached behind him to pull the cord on the lamp. And the last thing he saw before he before all light scampered from the room—Steve’s eyes.
And of all the stars in Brooklyn—of all the stars there are, maybe—he was convinced that these were his favorite two.
“G’night, Daddy.”
“Goodnight, baby.”