Archive of Our Own

He pulls up outside Stark Tower and parks in the dropoff spot, getting out to lean against the passenger door and wiggle out his phone. The doorman nods to him; Bucky nods back. Five minutes later Sam wanders out, squinting, so Bucky waves.

“Hey,” Sam says, then, “wait, is that - ”

“Steve got me a car,” Bucky says.

“Oh, you son of a bitch,” Sam says. “Let me drive.”

Bucky gestures grandly, because if Sam wants to deal with Manhattan traffic Bucky won’t be dumb enough to stop him. “We’re picking up Natasha,” he tells Sam, going around to the passenger side. “At the Plaza Hotel. She knows where there’s a private racetrack on Long Island.”

“Sweet Jesus God,” Sam says, running his hands over the steering wheel. “Sometimes you are worth getting kicked off a helicarrier for. Where’s the radio on this thing? You got an ipod hooked up?”

“Not yet,” Bucky says, leaning over to poke at the screen. “If you got yours we can connect it.”

“Here. Hook this up. Oh, man. Hope you like bass, man, I’m sorry, we gotta do this right, we gotta do this in style.”

“Okay,” Bucky agrees, amused, and they zoom off down the street to the dulcet tones of Big Sean announcing that there ain’t nobody fresher than his clique.

The doorman at the Plaza gives them a narrow-eyed look as they pull up between a couple of black Lincolns, but neither Sam nor Bucky stop belting ball so hard mothafuckas wanna fiiiine me along to the stereo playing at window-rattling volume. Bucky doesn’t really understand most of the words but the song is great and his audial memory is exemplary, so he keeps up with Sam just fine. They even had the talk about What Not To Say In The 21st Century so he knows which words to stay quiet on.

Natasha comes out decked head to toe in an eye-searing lime tracksuit, a giant 7-11 slushee in one hand. She takes one look at them hollering and waving in the car, glances down at herself, and unzips the top a little further over her cleavage. She hoists her bra up with one arm, nods in satisfaction and strides to the car, flipping her hair as she pulls the door open.

Sam does turn the music down as she climbs in, bobbing his head in greeting. “Hi,” Bucky says. “You look like an upside down carrot.”

“And yet still not trashy enough to be joining this operation,” she says.

Sam gasps. “Woman, this is a Tesla. This is Silicon Valley, this is granola fly. This is the future. It’s cool as shit.”

“Yeah, but it’s got you two in it,” Natasha points out.

“What!”

“Are you saying we aren’t cool?” Bucky tips his sunglasses down to look at her. “That’s mean, zaichik.”

“You’re the second and third nerdiest people I know,” Natasha says, unimpressed. “And what was that you said to me about carrots?”

“Wait, who’s the nerdiest?” Sam demands. “Is it Steve?”

Natasha laughs in their faces and even Bucky shakes his head. “Steve’s a jock,” he says. “As jock as they come.”

“No way, he’s an art nerd.”

“Nope. Total jock. The fact that he does art is a freak coincidence.” Bucky jerks a thumb at Natasha. “It’s why he gets along with Miss Linebacker here.”

Natasha grins. “Don’t you nerds forget it.”

“Hey! I wrestled in high school! I was in the Air Force!”

“That’s gay, Wilson.”

“No, see, that’s the Navy you’re thinking of,” Bucky says.

Natasha snorts. “The whole damn military’s gay.” She extends one Reebok-clad foot to tap the center console. “Which model is this?”

“Model X,” Bucky says, clamping down on the urge to rattle off the specs. He’d looked up everything on offer the minute Steve announced they were going to the dealership and he knew which car they were going to get before they ever set foot in the lot. Most people don’t do that sort of thing, though. And normal friend conversations aren’t usually supposed to include lists of technical information.

“One of these outran a Lambo this spring,” Sam says happily, all nerd indignity forgotten. “Must’ve been modded as hell but who cares, still ran the brand name.”

“Nice toy you bought,” Natasha tells Bucky.

“I didn’t,” Bucky says, a little quieter than normal volume. He excuses it on Sam choosing to pull away from the curb just then. “Steve bought it for me.”

It takes them an hour to get out of the city, but after that it’s smooth sailing and they make it to the track before 10. Natasha hops out and goes to the swing gate, unclipping the padlock; Sam sticks his head out the window. “Whoa. I thought you meant private, like, we gotta rent shit.”

“It is private. It’s Stark’s,” Natasha calls, swinging the gate open.

“Jesus Christ,” Sam swears again. “You fuckers are stressful as hell but god, do you make up for it. Let me drive first, come on.”

“You’re already in the seat,” Bucky points out, and Sam looks all of twelve years old with glee as he pulls them through the gate.

It’s a standard racetrack, not all that large, completely empty and clearly rarely visited, and they do laps screaming their heads off with the windows down and the music once again blaring full volume. When the charge on the dashboard depletes a bit Natasha pulls them over, parking diagonally across the apex of the track. “Photos,” she demands, getting out of the car.  

“ Yes. Okay, but we gotta do this right, we gotta be cool,” Sam says, beckoning to her phone. “You gotta make a cool pose, both of you, come on.”

They take what might be way too many photos looking increasingly stupid around the car. Natasha hops up onto the hood, balances herself on her forearms and does a horizontal split. Bucky, framed by her legs, puts his hands to his face and does a pretty solid impression of The Scream. Sam does a handstand. They climb all over the car; Bucky gets a flash of body-memory, the feeling of Steve pressing him down against the roof and grinding him hard against the metal, and has to stifle a smile.

Naturally, they go for milkshakes after.

“Okay, so obviously you need vanity plates,” Sam says as they sit down. “I’m thinking… PATRIOT. With numbers for vowels. P4TR10T.”

“Am I?” Bucky says doubtfully.

“You’re right, that’s Steve. What about…”

“Sugar baby,” Natasha suggests. “With three Rs. Minimum. Sugarrr.”

“What’s that mean,” Bucky says suspiciously. “And they only let you do eight characters.”

“It means you’ve got Steve begging to dump money on you,” Sam tells him.

“Urgh,” Bucky says. “That obvious?”

“Have you met Steve? Obvious is his only setting,” Sam replies.

“Plus you said Steve got me a car instead of I got a car or we bought a car,” Natasha points out, because she hasn’t forgotten the carrot comment. She smiles sweetly and holds up two fingers. “SUGRRBOI. Two R’s.”

“Ugh,” Bucky says again, but he had said it. Twice. He rubs his face with both hands.

“Steve is probably just happy to get you stuff, man,” Sam says. “It feels good to give to the people you care about.”

It’s true that Steve is pretty thrilled to deal with all Bucky’s bullshit, which Bucky even started believing once he’d sorted out those emotions from the undercurrent of rage that more or less underpins Steve’s entire personality. Sometimes Bucky still has to push, pick and pick at Steve to see what will finally make him snap at Bucky, but so far nothing. Just frustration, and not even at him. Steve’s just genuinely really happy with Bucky all the time.

Then again, Steve’s always been a fucking alien.

“So back to the plates,” Sam says, setting his hands out on the table side by side like he’s showing them his priorities. “CYB0RG? TERMIN8R?”

“Someone’s definitely already got that,” Natasha says. “What about… 1ARMGONE.”

“SUGRBORG,” Sam suggests, as Bucky barks with laughter and the waitress arrives with their milkshakes.

They head home, dropping off Natasha and then Sam, and Bucky comes away with a list of truly inspiring vanity plate potentials scrawled across a slightly sticky napkin. It says:

WW2BABE

40S B4BE

PL4NTH0E  

1ARMTHOT    HAHA

GAYBORG

AMERIHOE

a merry hoe? really??

u right

ASCARYHOE     that’s 9

SCARYHOE    ok i love it

Near the corner of the napkin, SC4RYH0E is circled five or six times. Next to it is a crude drawing of a grumpy face, surrounded by scribbles that might be hair, on top of a stick figure in a bikini. Bucky smiles as he carefully folds the napkin up. He’d known it was a good idea, dragging Sam and Natasha with him to break the Tesla in, but it did more than he expected. It’s not just him and the car anymore: it’s something his friends like, something they all have fun with.

It’s nice to have friends, even if they draw him with bad hair and wearing a bikini.

-o-

When Bucky drives home from the DMV a couple of weeks later Steve’s already in the garage out back, cleaning the Harley. He’s in dirty jeans and a white shirt and Bucky watches three of the neighbors - Katherine, Jason and Nasreen - on their various fire escapes immediately become deeply absorbed in their phones as soon as he rolls up. Steve drags the bike to the side as Bucky pulls into the garage; now with the car there’s less room in there, and they have to do a bit of a shuffle every time one of them pulls in.  

Steve reaches one grease-covered hand out to him in hello, and Bucky takes it in his metal hand and makes sure it’s nowhere near his face as he kisses Steve hello. “Got the license plates?” Steve asks, pulling back.

“Yup,” Bucky says, letting go of Steve to hand them over.

“Scary… hoe,” Steve reads, brow wrinkled. “Wait, doesn’t hoe mean… uh, a lady who - ”

“It does,” Bucky confirms, cocking a hip and leaning against the hood. “What, you think it don’t fit?”

“Well,” Steve says.

“I got fucked, on the side of a road, on the hood of this car,” Bucky says seriously. “I think you might’ve been there, actually. Are you saying I don’t qualify?”

Steve can’t quite control his face. “I mean - ”

“I guess I wasn’t sexy enough,” Bucky says sadly, collapsing onto the hood as if weighed down by despair. “Guess I’ll have to try harder. Break out the pumps and headscarf.” He sticks one leg up into the air. “What if I wash this car in very small shorts, Steve? What if I don’t wear shorts at all?”

Steve breaks, bending over a little from laughter. “Alright, alright, you’re a - you’re a hoe,” he gasps. “Please don’t wash the car naked.”

“You sure?” Bucky says, draping his leg over the hood. “I’m a kept woman, you know. I gotta earn my keep.”

“A gentleman of leisure, more like,” Steve says, still chuckling. His eyes are warm. “You don’t need to earn anything. You’ve worked plenty.”

“You just don’t want my bare ass seen by the neighbors,” Bucky says, taking his leg off the car.

Steve goes a little stubborn and pink around the edges but smiles at him anyway. “Yeah, I want you all to myself. C’mon, scary hoe.”

Bucky grins and follows Steve inside, taking the license plates he hands back and leaving them next to the Harley. Steve’s cute when he’s trying not to be a jealous nutcase.

And he’s not wrong but not quite right, anyway. Bucky does work. It’s all unofficial, but that’s where Bucky gets his best results. Unofficially.

-o-

Bucky has three therapists, because not even Steve can handle all of his crazy, all at once, all the time, no matter how much he might want to. So Bucky’s got Angelique for unfucking his brain, Father Sean for dealing with the shit they find there and Neeta for the Frankenstein crash site that is his actual body. Bucky was extremely wary of it all at first, because the Hydra technicians had all answered to doctor , too, and nothing good came of that, and in the beginning he only tried it because Steve was starting to look his real age every time Bucky came up from a nightmare.

The therapists all came through Steve’s friends, and Bucky liked Sam and Pepper well enough but he still did his first six sessions with Steve a looming hulk at his side. He’d introduce himself as Captain Rogers and spend the sessions with his noise-canceling headphones on, giving the doctors his I Am The Last Thing Nazis See Before They Die stare. It’s his favorite face to show authority figures these days, up to and including the President, and it was out full force the first day they went to start Bucky’s therapy.

For his part, Bucky tried to look less like a homeless psychopath.  

To their credit, all three of the therapists took pretty much all of it in stride. Dr. Angelique Ortega turned out to be short, maternal and vaguely pear-shaped, and she didn’t even blink when Steve informed her, stone-faced and with his shoulders casually straining the seams of his button-down, that he’d be sitting in until Bucky told him not to. She nodded at Steve and they spent the rest of that first hour explaining things to each other, with Bucky supplying a nod or headshake when absolutely necessary.

She’s a specialist in helping survivors of traumatic brain injuries. Steve gave her a version of the Winter Soldier file, which he and Bucky had painstakingly edited and pulled together for three weeks beforehand, creating the closest thing Bucky had to proper medical records. Angelique had paled, then firmed, and then said, “I think I can help you, James,” and Bucky hasn’t needed Steve to sit in with them for almost a year now.

Father Sean was another matter, and he was the second go after Sam’s first recommendation had bowed out as graciously as possible. Bucky had worried, because Father Sean was so obviously military, even at seventy-four and walking with a cane - the only weapon legally allowed on an airplane, Bucky’s brain whispered - and Bucky’s body reacts to threats in pretty much one way and one way only.

But Father Sean had also looked at Bucky’s file, sighed, looked Bucky in the eye and said, “Are you sure you want the Ken doll accessory, Barnes? I might be old, but I’ll boot him out of here if he’s just hanging over you like a jealous housewife,” and Bucky had been startled into a bark of laughter. Steve had looked at Bucky wonderingly, but said, “I stay until he tells me to go,” anyway, to which Father Sean had replied, “I didn’t ask you, princess,” and Bucky had waved Steve down and spent the next couple of hours listening to Father Sean explain about his time as a US Army chaplain and a POW in the Korean War. They go out to the park once a week now, unless the weather’s shitty, and it helps more than Bucky ever expected just to have somebody to sit next to sometimes who’s been through some of the same shit, and understands sometimes there’s nothing to say.   

Then there’s Neeta, who at thirty-nine is the youngest of Bucky’s therapists and wears violently fluorescent scrubs to go with her full-sleeve tattoos and eyebrow piercings. Neeta is Bucky’s favorite, because she greets Bucky with a high five and a “What’s up, big guy!” every time and her reaction to meeting Steve was to suggest he get on her table so she could demonstrate what she was gonna do to Bucky on him first.

Bucky allowed it, because there was pretty much nothing she could do to hurt Steve with him standing right behind her. Steve reacted with “What,” and then “ Hey,” and then “Oh my god,” , and now Steve has his own appointments with Neeta, because even Captain America gets muscle adhesions, advanced healing factor or no. It’s also where he gets his pointers on how to rub Bucky’s neck to make it feel better, which Bucky can’t even be resentful about.

Neeta is also Bucky’s favorite because no matter how shitty the session is, and they get pretty shitty - apparently memories are stored in bodies as well as brains, and Bucky’s body is a whole new magical kind of fucked up - he still goes home feeling physically better than before, and he always manages to sleep at least six hours those nights regardless of how bad the triggered memories might be. It doesn’t hurt that Neeta’s specialty is combat amputees and violent trauma survivors: the rest of her client list is entirely soldiers, half of which are former Special Forces in one way or another. She’s not a stranger to sudden violent outbursts or, more commonly, massive hulking bastards sobbing like babies on her table.

Neither Bucky nor Steve are thrilled about therapy in general, but they are in unanimous agreement that Neeta is an angel. She always explains what she’s doing, down to the kind of oil she’s using, and she’s not afraid to press hard enough when she has to. Bucky and Steve both tip outrageously every time.

Neeta aside, Steve’s between therapists. He runs through them like toilet paper, and Bucky’s leaving that one to Natasha and Sam for now, because he, unlike some people, knows when he needs to let go. Bucky had gritted out “If I have to, so do you,” very early on, when talking at all could still exhaust him for the whole day afterward, and it made Steve at least go through the motions, but Bucky can see the day on the horizon when he can focus enough on Steve and Steve’s issues to properly bully him into actually getting some help.  

This is something he’s talking about with Father Sean. “Steve is a grown goddamn man,” Father Sean says sternly.

“With the self-preservation of a cup of yogurt,” Bucky says sourly. “You know he’s gone knees in the breeze more times without a parachute than with one? And nobody stops him. Nobody fucking stops him, because he’s Captain goddamn America and if he thinks he’s indestructible, then hey, who’s gonna argue, huh?”

Father Sean frowns. “Son, don’t take this the wrong way, but your boy is more trouble than a sack of wet cats.”

Bucky sighs. “Steve’s the best guy I know. He’s just the biggest pain in the ass, too.”

“At least he’s out of the service now,” Father Sean allows. “Not nearly so many chances for near-death idiocy in children’s charity.”

“True,” Bucky says. Lately Steve, along with Sam, has been involved in a lot of fundraising and volunteering with a bunch of different organizations. It’s good, because now Steve’s getting out of the house and doing things that aren’t babysitting Bucky, but also not so good, because now he’s… getting out of the house and doing things that aren’t babysitting Bucky.

Steve sort of knows Bucky doesn’t do well alone, and he sort of knows Bucky’s working on it, and so far that has to be enough because Bucky can’t bring himself to sit Steve down and lay it all out explicitly. Bucky’s only coasted this far because the two of them are codependent as fuck and they happen to like it that way, and Steve seems to feel about as happy about letting Bucky out of his sight as Bucky is to leave it.

But it can’t last, and shouldn’t, so now Bucky is getting out of the house too. More out of the house than before. It’s getting colder and the community gardens he spent his summer at are winding down, and it’s not the time to plant anything in his apartment greenhouses yet, so instead he’s going down checklists of What To Do In New York City. It’s really not that bad. He has a car now. Sam’s in New York more often than not. Natasha’s always willing to spend time with him, when she’s here. It’s nice to have friends.

-o-

Eventually Bucky gets around to googling sugar baby, idly, and has a good laugh - intergenerational arrangement is a good term for this whole thing he and Steve are doing, but definitely not the way these people are using it. He scrolls down the google results, amused, but then it all turns into forums of people trying to scam and trick each other. He doesn’t feel good about that. He puts his phone down.  

Bucky’s not fragile. Oldest of four, Army Sergeant for three years, let’s not even go into the whole Winter Soldier thing - point is, he can handle himself. At the core of him, when there’s no other certainty, nothing else, there’s this: he will survive, and he will pull through. Whatever it is, he can handle it. What comes out the other side might be nearly unrecognizable, but it’ll damn well still be alive. And quite pointedly kicking, if past occurrences are indicative of future performance.

So it’s not that he needs to be taken care of. That it feels guiltily good be coddled is a side effect, a bonus to the real prize of having all Steve’s attention on him. When he’s all Steve’s, Steve is all his.

Then again, he’s not exactly the best judge of needs. Well - either he is the best judge and knows exactly what the bare minimum of his needs are, or he’s a terrible judge because his bare minimum is an artificial baseline deliberately skewed by his captors. (Father Sean says captors, Angelique says abusers, and Bucky tends to go with the former just because it feels a little less pathetic. He’s pretty tired of his baselines being artificial and deliberately skewed.)

But these days his needs are being met and then some, which is something pretty much everyone agrees on, including Bucky himself. Really, he’s being spoiled rotten. And he can’t be tricking Steve into it: Natasha could, maybe, but Bucky’s just not that good. And if Steve wants it, and Bucky wants it, then the guilt shouldn’t matter at all.  

Try telling that to the guilt, though.

-o-

Bucky’s eyebrow deep in a container of Cool Whip when Steve comes home. Eating is still kind of a problem - nowhere near as bad as before, still something they have to keep track of - but now it’s moved out of bad and into weird. Bucky does experience the desire to eat, but it currently manifests as a lot of very strange cravings in a lot of very strange quantities. Case in point: his jumbo thing of Cool Whip and the decimated container of edamame at his elbow.

He’s supposed to listen to his body, and Angelique says to eat whatever he wants so long as he doesn’t make himself sick on purpose, so their kitchen has become an extended tour of flavor combinations that look like they were selected by one of those learning neural network thingies. Bucky’s trying not to think too hard about it. Steve learned to cook for him - well, he already knew how to cook, more or less, but all of Bucky’s dietary crap had made him take it seriously. It’s not five star anything but it is Steve going out of his way - less now, though, with Bucky’s cravings leading them down the path of midnight bodega trips and endless takeout.

Anyway, it makes Steve happy to see him eat. He hugged Bucky through half a cheesecake last week.

As if summoned, Steve’s keys rattle in the front door barely a minute later. Bucky ignores the rush of relief - Steve’s been gone less than four hours, for fuck’s sake - and closes the edamame container.

“Buck?” Steve calls from the front door. “You home?”

“In the kitchen,” Bucky calls back, swiping a finger through the last of the Cool Whip and scooting out from under the table. He stands up and puts the edamame and the empty Cool Whip container on the counter a couple of seconds before Steve pokes his head in. It’s not that it bothers Steve when he’s having a floor day, it’s just Bucky just wishes he hadn’t had one.

“Hey,” Steve says. “Don’t freak out.”

“Oh, well, with that kind of opener,” Bucky says. “What’re you freaking me out with?”

“Nothing bad,” Steve promises, a little muffled as he goes back down the hall again. “Probably.”

“Spit it out, Rogers,” Bucky says. After a couple seconds of bitter internal slapfight he goes to the living room and plants his ass down on the rug. If it’s a floor day, let it be a mother fucking floor day.

It turns out to be a good thing he’s already sitting down. Steve comes in, and he’s - holding a little bundle of ashy-colored fluff. It has little legs paddling the air, toy-sized in his massive hands. Deep in a face like a dandelion on steroids, there is a suggestion of eyes over a chocolate-brown snout.

“She’s a chow chow,” Steve says, carefully putting her down. The puppy sniffs the air, tries to speed-waddle forward and immediately falls over. Bucky distantly registers that his mouth is open. “The charity director’s dog had puppies,” Steve continues. “She’s sixteen weeks old, all vaccinated and everything.”

Undaunted, the puppy rolls off her face, gets upright and gallops towards Bucky. She misjudges the distance and mashes her face against his knee instead of just sniffing it, but that’s apparently a ringing endorsement because she immediately tries to climb his leg. As she tumbles into his lap he registers she’s got a little collar on, printed with tiny black and white daisies.

“I think I’m going to pass out,” Bucky says faintly.

Steve looks up worriedly. “If you think it’s too much, we can just take care of her for a little bit until Sam comes. His niece has been dying for a dog - ”

Bucky stares down at the puppy, the little butterscotch baby already gnawing on his metal wrist with her tiny baby teeth, and feels some serious unnameable somethings swell up under his ribcage. “If you take my dog,” he says, only a little strangled, “I will melt down your motorcycle.”

Steve’s worried pink face splits into a grin. “Well in that case,” he says, sitting down next to them and petting over the puppy’s little head.

-o-

Bucky turns Steve around and takes them right back out of the house again. The ensuing trip to the pet store is a nightmare of rhinestone-studded collars and rubber toys in every shade of neon. There are mountains of arcane yellow things that look like a blind man’s approximation of a chicken, done in rubber and filled with some kind of noisemakers that squeal like damned souls if you so much as pass their horrible bargain bin enclosure. They don’t even go to the big Petsmart because fluorescent lights are garbage and there’s still too much stimulus. “Let’s order online,” Steve says queasily, clutching a bag of puppy food to his chest while Bucky clutches the puppy. “She doesn’t need anything else, does she? Leash, food, bowl, we’ve got everything we need for now, right?”

“Right,” Bucky agrees, and they hightail it out of there.

Of course Steve has a whole full schedule of events that week, so Bucky is left alone to figure out puppy ownership by himself. It’d probably be way more nerve-wracking if he wasn’t constantly distracted by, well, the puppy. She needs walks, and food, and about a million other things that arrive on their doorstep in Amazon boxes the next day. Steve kisses Bucky goodbye and runs out the door as Bucky brings the boxes in, puppy in the crook of his arm.

He sits down on the floor twenty minutes later, the center of a blast radius of dog toys and packaging plastic crap, and watches the puppy try valiantly to savage a stuffed toy bigger than she is. “Oh, geez,” Bucky says. “You need a name, don’t you?”

-o-

Their apartment is pretty goddamn full of plants. The kitchen has food plants, the living room and bedroom has big leaf plants and the green room is for everything else. The roof greenhouse is full of tropicals and seedlings. Some food plants like tomatoes are up there too, because tomatoes are prissy little bastards and need to be cosseted within an inch of their lives. Bucky spent a while making all the shelves, especially the window racks that house most of the indoor plants, and the sunlight that streams across the floor is dappled with leaf shadows and sometimes even tinted green. This also coincidentally means anybody looking through their windows can’t see anything but leaves.

“You’re doing a great job,” Bucky tells them. He’s got a water pitcher in one hand and a mister in the other: Daisypuff is accompanying him on his daily tour of greenery.

“These are my plants,” Bucky tells her, crouching down by the lower shelves in the green room. “None of them have died. I even got all the fern seedlings to grow. See?” Daisypuff waddles to his bin of potting soil, tries to bite it and falls over. “We had mites last year and I got rid of all of them. With a toothbrush. I even tricked Steve into thinking it was his toothbrush.”

That had been a good joke. Bucky had laughed so hard he wheezed as Steve stared at him in total wonder.

“I am good at taking care of plants,” Bucky continues quietly. This is a fact, easily verifiable. “All the plants I take care of are healthy and fine.” Another fact. He strokes carefully over Daisypuff’s tiny velvety ears. “You will be too.”  

Then he gets a mental snapshot of Daisypuff sitting in a ceramic pot, a little green leaf sprouting out of her head, and just about dies of it. “Daisy, Daisy, baby,” he whispers, picking her up and smooching her nose. “I already know your Halloween costume.”

-o-

Adjusting to the fact that Steve bought him a dog is not as much work as Bucky might have feared, in his worst case scenario thinking. She happily chases his movements while Bucky does laundry, and toddles after him when he goes to fix Dora Lowenstein’s sink. She has bursts of clumsy energy followed by long stretches of snoozing and flopping around, which Bucky reads is normal for chow chows and puppies in general. Bucky figures out all the grooming stuff pretty quick, between the dog websites and YouTube, and she seems to like getting brushed, even as Bucky swears under his breath at the seemingly endless waves of fur.

The dog websites have a lot to say about chow chows. The strong willed, stubborn Chow needs an equally strong willed, stubborn owner , says the American Kennel Club site. Training a Chow takes an experienced leader and is not for the first-time dog owner.

Bucky looks down at Daisypuff, who is gnawing on her own hind leg. He’s not sure he’s got all the qualifications, but between all the war crap and living with Steve, when it comes to stubbornness and leadership Bucky imagines it’s got to have rubbed off some. He reads on.

While chows tend to require more discipline than other dogs, confrontational training methods such as hitting, yelling and shock collars are ineffective and can lead to aggression. Instead, use reward-based methods with your dog. A training clicker can help you "mark" good behavior. Then follow a click from the clicker with a reward such as a treat or a walk.

Bucky tries the clicker and immediately develops a limitless hatred for the sound. Luckily snapping the fingers of his metal hand produces a noise that isn’t similar but does have basically the same effect, so that works out okay. He considers enrolling her in obedience classes; all the books and websites say it’s the right thing to do. He finds one where the next series of sessions starts in a month, which is just as well. He’s not sure he’s ready to jump into that sort of thing right away.

-o-

Daisypuff sticks her back legs out when she lies on her belly. Whenever she runs indoors she slides like crazy all over their wood flooring. She makes tiny grunty little snores. She tries to gnaw on Bucky’s left arm a lot. Her favorite toy is any of Steve’s socks. Those unnameable feelings under Bucky's ribcage do not die down any.

Daisypuff is also a very fancy dog. “One of the oldest known dog breeds,” Bucky reads under his breath, then scrolls down. “Steve! Her tongue is gonna be blue!”

-o-

Chow chows require strong leadership, but leadership has nothing to do with strong-arming, yelling or striking your dog. To be a leader for your chow chow, adopt a "Nothing in life is free" program, in which your dog always must do something to get something. This rewards-based training philosophy incorporates training into every aspect of your dog's life, according to The Humane Society of the United States. For example, your dog should get a meal, a play time, a walk or a tummy rub only after obeying a command from you. Giving your dog whatever the dog wants without asking for anything in return easily leads your dog to assume the leadership role, creating behavior problems.

Bucky narrows his eyes at his phone screen. “Humane Society, my ass. A meal isn’t a reward,” he says under his breath, then blinks at himself. He’ll have to tell Angelique about this. It seems like one of those things she likes to call breakthroughs.

-o-

Overall, getting a surprise dog seems like a psychologically positive development. Bucky is:

Getting out of the house by himself. (Almost by himself.) It is important to introduce puppies to new situations so they grow up to be well-rounded and well-adjusted individuals. Bucky takes Daisypuff to a new place twice a week. At first he thought maybe he should do a new place every day, but Daisypuff is very small and her legs are very short. Routine is good too. Bucky draws up a spreadsheet with a planned list of destinations and puts little x marks next to each one after they visit.

Bucky is: socializing. Chow chows especially have to learn how to meet people at an early age. Daisypuff meets Zoro, Lulu, Max, Twinkie, Sushi, Buttons and Bacardi at the dog park. Bucky meets some smiling people holding leashes whose names he forgets instantly.

Bucky is: eating. Steve is only a good model of healthy eating by bare technicality. He eats regularly, appropriately and well, but the randomized residual guilt and hunched shoulders means sometimes Bucky has to eat in another room. Daisypuff is a much better model for healthy eating. She’d put her whole body in her bowl if she could. Her snuffly delighted crunching every morning makes Bucky feel like this whole food thing can be okay after all.

Bucky is: taking naps. Daisypuff falls asleep a lot, usually on Bucky. Bucky would not dislodge her for a gun to his head. As a result he falls asleep a lot too. He can nap by himself, but he usually doesn’t and his sleep schedule is still impressively fucked. It’s not getting less fucked, but he is getting more sleep.

Bucky is: practicing expressing his feelings. “I am disappointed when you try to eat Steve’s sneaker,” Bucky tells Daisypuff’s scrunched up little face as she stares up at him and wiggles her butt. “But I still love you, and I understand.”  

Bucky is: spending time alone. (Almost alone.) He’s been working on it, but Bucky still has problems sometimes. He can sleep a little by himself these days, given enough ambient noise and sunlight, and he can spend even forty-two hours completely alone if he has concrete tasks to do and a working cell phone. (He built the entire rooftop greenhouse while Steve had to go to DC, with only two Facetime sessions and fourteen texts between them). But now he’s not alone: Daisypuff is there.

Of course, that presents its own set of challenges. Bucky uses the Stark Tower private residence pool for his therapy swims, especially in winter; it’s not like anybody’s gonna stop him from entering with a dog on his arm, but it does raise the question of what exactly he’s going to do with her while he’s there. He’s pretty sure chlorinated water isn’t good for puppies. In any case he has laps to do: he can’t just sit with her in the shallow water.

He’d leave her with Steve but Steve’s busy with the whole saving the children thing, which still has him out of the house most daylight hours. He comes home at night, of course, and Bucky keeps him updated on all developments, but Steve cannot be said to be fully in the loop. “You did name the dog,” he exclaims, a week and a half into co-dog ownership.

“Of course I named the dog,” Bucky says. “Did you expect me to not name the dog?”

“Just now you called her butterball, fuzzyface and sugarbun, all in the past hour,” Steve says, ticking off on his fingers. “You called her fuzzbutton all last week. I heard you call her ‘ticklebear’ this morning.”

Bucky had actually called her sugarbutt, not sugarbun, but he’s not about to contest it. “Well, her name’s Daisypuff.”

“See! How was I supposed to tell that apart from ‘butterball’?”

Bucky sniffs. “It’s a perfectly good name.”

“Does she know what her name is?”

“Sure she does,” Bucky says. They’re all her name. “C’mere, kissyface.”

Daisypuff obligingly comes waddling over. Bucky gives her a treat and a scritch under the chin, making pointed eye contact with Steve all the while. “That doesn’t mean anything,” Steve complains. “She’d come to you if you said anything, she knows you’re where the treats come from.”

“Okay, you call her,” Bucky demands.

“Here… Daisypuff,” Steve says, then snickers.

“She had daisies on her collar and she’s fluffy,” Bucky mutters. “I was under pressure, okay, I had to put something on her tag.”

“It’s a perfectly nice name,” Steve says, backtracking immediately. “It suits her. She… she’s very fluffy,” he finishes lamely.

“Don’t you forget it,” Bucky says, scooping her up and giving her another treat.

-o-

The first few times they have sex with her in the room it doesn’t even register, because it’s at night, well after dark, with Daisypuff snoozing in her bed under the window. For normal weeknight wham-bam-snore sex they really don’t get loud - hell, they don’t take their pajamas off - so Daisypuff doesn’t even wake up. Then a couple of weeks later Bucky gets the itch, paws at Steve until Steve’s growling and running his mouth and holding him down, and just as Bucky really starts getting fingered Daisypuff scrambles onto the bed and bites Steve right on the ass.

Steve, after the initial yelp of shock, gapes at her like she’s an alligator that climbed out of his toilet. Bucky loses his mind laughing. Daisypuff gets her tiny teddybear body between Steve and Bucky, yelling her head off with her tiny squeaky barks, protecting Bucky from the traitor who is clearly out to murder them both. “It did say - they have - protective instincts,” Bucky says, hiccuping with laughter as he tries to gather her up. “It’s okay, it’s okay, girl. He’s - yes, he’s a very bad man, I know,” he manages, dissolving into giggles again.

“I guess she’s got the right idea,” Steve huffs, his lube-covered hand held out awkwardly at his side.

“What a good dog,” Bucky croons, picking her up and kissing her head. She squirms, still yipping, but quietens down to growl her tiny put-put motor growl at Steve. “What a good dog. Good girl. Shh, it’s just Steve. We like Steve. Here, pet her.”

Steve pets her, the two of them grumbling at each other but settling down quick. Eventually Bucky carries her back to her cot, gives her a rawhide stick and turns back to Steve, hands on his hips. “Where were we?”

“Knuckle deep in an asshole,” Steve says, looking Bucky up and down and reaching for the lube to re-slick his hand. “Can’t remember whose, though.”

“Maybe I can remind you,” Bucky says dryly, climbing back onto the bed.

Steve gets back to it. There’s no fussing about Bucky’s dick not cooperating, which is nice; pretty much everybody who knows about his dick malfunction acts like it’s some kind of horrible embarrassing tragedy, even if they’re trying to pretend it isn’t. Even Angelique does it: it doesn’t bother her, but she has given him a couple of casual remarks about how there’s lots of options for treating ED these days. Bucky doesn’t have a lot of embarrassment left, but he does have plenty of tragedy, so in the grand scheme of things he ends up staring blankly at all platitudes and unsubtle mentions of Viagra until everybody leaves him alone.

He’s managed to get Steve over it, or at least keep all his tragedy feelings somewhere Bucky can’t see. He barely ever gets worked up about it these days. Bucky won’t admit it, but he thinks maybe it’s kind of a good thing: not having the urgency of an erection takes a lot of the pressure off, and he’s always thought girls had it easy: they can just fake it if they’re not feeling it, or just not feeling it enough. Sometimes Steve wants to fuck and Bucky’s not yes but not no either, and this way he can just lie back and relax without any of the worry that Steve will stop and point at his dick and say gee, Buck, I’d sure love to keep going but we just don’t have the requisite salute down here.

So this is easier. And it makes Bucky slow down with his body, paying attention to what’s going on and the sensations coming from it, which is good for him according to therapy. It’s made Steve slow down too, which Bucky would have previously called impossible. Now Steve will kiss on him for hours, his neck, his chest, his face, until Bucky feels and probably looks like a boiled lobster, tender and buttery and red all over.

-o-

They shift into a new normal. Now Steve usually has one engagement or another so he’s out the door most mornings, an almost complete reversal of how they used to be: Bucky leaving for his clerking job, Steve staying at home at his illustrator’s table and poster work. Bucky levers himself out of bed, takes Daisypuff out, makes some kind of food happen and gets on with his day, whatever it might be.

Two weeks ago Bucky discovered the concept of stealing Steve’s clothes. It’s the best thing ever. It all fits okay, it all smells nice, and Steve’s wearing a lot more of his nicer stuff these days for his important people meetings so all his soft home stuff is just lying around, practically begging Bucky to wear it. He doesn’t resist. And the couple of times Steve’s come home to find Bucky wearing his things head to toe he’s gone practically cross-eyed.

He is so goddamn easy. Bucky can put up his hair and it’ll take Steve from zero to sixty. If Bucky ever manages to work his way up to doing something explicitly sexy he’s afraid Steve might blow a gasket. Bucky probably should have discovered this earlier, given Steve put his dogtags on Bucky even before he needed a way to wear his medical tags, but at the time it was less a sex thing and more a jesus christ never leave my line of sight sort of thing. The sex stuff came back later.

He doesn’t often leave the house in Steve’s stuff, though, if only because his own clothes are optimized for his outdoor use (they can hold a lot of knives). And Steve’s stuff might be more comfortable but Bucky’s fits better, and while he’s made his peace with seeing his face in the news sometimes, he draws the line at being photographed looking like a slob.

So he shaves, he does his hair, he puts on his sweaters, and he makes sure the sizes are correct on all his jeans. Jaw clips means he can cheat his way through bad hair days: he can’t always stand to feel a hair tie on his wrist or tugging on his scalp, but with a jaw clip he just mushes his hair into a ball on the back of his head and bites the clip on.

He thought about cutting his hair, but Steve can’t keep his hands out of it and anyway it’s better this way. Between the hair and the earrings and now the tiny fluffy dog he looks as inclined to violence as a pudding cup and just about as capable of delivering it. Ears pierced, wears a lot of ugly sweaters, perpetually ten pounds underweight: a complete and utter fruit. Harmless.

He doesn’t feel bad for lying.

He does resent it, the relentless algebra of risk running in the back of his mind, but not often. It’s what kept him alive. Better that he look harmless. Better that he be harmless, unless and until that calculation snaps out a result.

-o-

October means he spends a good long while daydreaming about how best to engineer Daisypuff’s halloween costume, which is harder than it sounds considering she has four legs and not all that much body area to work with. Bucky perseveres. He’s probably going to end up modifying a baby onesie and she’ll wear it for all of the fifteen minutes it takes for him to get a photo, but by god, Daisypuff will have her costume.

Steve should have a costume too. They should all have matching costumes. Daisypuff would be a daisy, Bucky can be… a watering can, something, and Steve can be a lawnmower. Yes. Bucky can install one of those rip-cords on him so when he pulls on it Steve will be obligated to deliver sound effects.

There’s a confusing moment where it kind of feels like he finds lawnmowers sexy - sometimes arousal and sexual attraction are still a weird psychological hedge maze - but it passes and the feelings sort themselves out. Steve: sexually attractive. Lawnmowers: definitely not. Lawnmowers as a metaphor for Steve running him over while making growling noises: sure, yes, that works. Mow my lawn, Steve.

Bucky has to put his head down on the table for a minute to ride out the giggling.

It’s nice to imagine things. It’s one of those unexpected blooms of recovery, like finding flowers growing out of grout: he’d had no idea it had been missing until he was suddenly able to not only think his way through the future but spin out complete fantasies inside his head. It was like the difference between black and white and full color. He’s not sure if it was a matter of cognitive load or actual, physical healing - his MRIs continue to give the doctors fits - but it came back about eighteen months ago and he’s glad to have it. It’s nice.

He has another MRI next Wednesday. He’ll have to figure out what to do with Daisypuff then, too. He gets put under full anesthesia in a small blue room with Steve holding his hand and then wakes up in the same blue room with absolutely no feeling of time passing, so if they let dogs into the hospital maybe Steve can just hold her while Bucky gets put through the tube. Steve goes in the procedure room with him, though - they show him the security cam footage afterward - and it’s pretty full of equipment, so maybe it won’t be the best place for a puppy. Even if she is very small.

-o-

“You know how Steve got me a car?”

“What, did you crash it already?” Natasha says.

“No, he - I don’t crash cars,” Bucky says. “I mean - okay, I crash cars, fine, but only other peoples’.”

“So what? What’d he get you now?”

“A dog.”

“An expensive dog?”

“She’s priceless,” Bucky says, ignoring how embarrassing and stupid and dangerous it is that he means every word. “You wanna get fancy juice and walk around?”

“Always,” Natasha says. “You bringing the dog?”

“Her name is Daisypuff,” Bucky says. “Yes. I am bringing the dog.”

Bucky considers taking the car - dogs like to stick their heads out the window, right? - but immediately runs into logistical problems. “Do you need a special seatbelt?” Bucky asks Daisypuff. She’s too busy chewing his shoelaces to reply. “Maybe a sling?”

Bucky gets them in the car, sits Daisypuff in the front passenger seat and looks at her. She pants back at him. “I can’t drive like this,” Bucky realizes. He’d barely pay attention to the road. “Fuck it. We’re taking the subway.”

They take the subway. It’s fine, especially with Daisypuff small enough to sit in his lap. Strangers smile at her. Bucky doesn’t even have to smile back. Not that he would - he knows what his face does these days and the giant sunglasses are for others as much as they are for him - but it’s the principle of the thing.

They get off at Lexington-59th and find Natasha leaning insouciantly against the Bloomingdale’s, her hair clashing magnificently with the Tiffany’s display behind her. “Hi,” Bucky says, holding Daisypuff out. “Here. This is Daisypuff. Daisy, this is Natasha.”

Daisypuff sniffs curiously at Natasha’s face. Natasha holds still and lets her. “You should hold her,” Bucky says. “We’re socializing.”

“Well if we’re socializing,” Natasha says dryly, but she carefully takes Daisypuff from his hands anyway.

Natasha puts her down soon enough, but it’s good too: Bucky’s trying not to carry her too much, even if she is really very cuddly and convenient. Daisypuff trots happily at Bucky’s side as they head off towards Broadway. They cut across through the bottom chunk of Central Park, where Daisypuff gets plenty of admirers; Bucky’s not thrilled that it’s a good thing to let his dog get pet by every interested stranger, but he knows it’s what he has to do. Basically every expert agrees about goddamn socialization.

But otherwise it’s a very nice stroll. They get fancy juices from some boutique not-coffee place and Natasha decides they need cupcakes. Natasha gets vanilla, because in some ways she is very boring. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut briefly and picks a flavor at random. Lemon blackberry. Okay.

They exit the bakery, cupcakes in hand and a bag on Bucky’s elbow. Natasha leans over to take a bite of his and raises her eyebrows. “Good,” she decrees. “See the guy in the boots and Yankees cap?”

“Yep,” Bucky says, licking blackberry frosting off his mouth. He’s been following them for the past twelve blocks. “Blue sweatshirt lady behind us, too.”

“Great,” Natasha says. “Guess we’re having a little fun today.”

Bucky grunts in agreement. He told Natasha, early on, I don’t like the tails but I don’t want to kill them. She had nodded and showed him Home Alones 1, 2, 3, and 4. They had been very inspiring. And Natasha must be feeling bored or perverse or is executing a vendetta of her own, because she’s absolutely committed herself to helping Bucky screw every single agency that decided they need a piece of the Rogers household.

Agents Bucky doesn’t like do not have a very good time of things. They lose their keys, their badges, their wallets. Their cars don’t start and they get unexpectedly trapped in stairwells that weren’t self-locking until just a few minutes ago. Their equipment breaks, disappears or becomes so laden with viruses and Russian porn spam that it more or less melts down from the inside. Lojacks get found hundreds of miles away, usually attached to farm animals or buried in piles of associated excrement. Occasionally they get doused in cold water or maple syrup or paint. And any agent dumb enough to confront Bucky about it gets yelled at by his own superior.

Not that the superiors aren’t pissed either. They try to retaliate, but what can they really do? He’s already on damn near every no-fly list - which means very little, considering Captain America has access to more than one private jet, and Bucky doesn’t exactly travel anyway. They can’t arrest him, detain him or otherwise take him in: there’s too much politics involved. And to take him to court they’d have to prove it was Bucky screwing with them, and they can’t do that either. In a game of secret agents, they’re the Winter Soldier and the motherfucking Black Widow. Who did they think was gonna win this?

But they still keep trying. Bless their little hearts.

Bucky and Natasha walk on, moving to Fifth from Broadway. A couple of times their two tails get close enough to hear their talking. Bucky hopes they enjoy their scintillating, top secret conversations, like I think I’ve managed to pick up a yeast infection and is Spongebob supposed to be blond or bald. It’s inadvisable of them to get so close, really, but they’ve probably got no choice, given how well planting electronic bugs goes on Bucky and Natasha and distance mikes don’t work very well when they’re surrounded by hundreds of people.

And honestly, it’ll make their next steps even easier. “Wanna hit the Strand?” Bucky says.

“Sure,” Natasha agrees, and they head for the crush of tourists in Union Square.

The bookstore is packed, as expected, and Bucky tucks Daisypuff into his jacket and follows Natasha in. They slide around each other and the shelves, oozing between the tourists picking through the crowded collections, and out of the corner of his eye Bucky sees the tails entering the store with them.

Sometimes Clint helps them with this part, if he’s in the area. He’s got the least formal training in this but the best technique, for which, like all things, he blames the circus. And he’s got the kind of generic face and general aura of concussed good-naturedness that makes most peoples’ eyes slip right over him, and agents are no exception.

These agents especially. These aren’t the cream of the crop sent after them, here. And why would they be? It’s just a dumb fucking power move. They expect the agents to be made, and they know they’ll gain less than nothing from tailing Natasha and Bucky down goddamn Broadway. All they’re doing is waving their dicks around, the FBI or the NSA or whoever, telling them loud and clear that WE’RE WATCHING YOU, FUCKERS.

Well, fine.

When they’ve done what they needed they split apart, Natasha heading one direction, Bucky another. He ducks into the subway, slides his card, and proceeds to go up and down and across platforms until even he would have difficulty tracking himself. The tails have probably split up too, but Bucky sees hide nor hair of them when he and Natasha meet up at the back of the last carriage on the Queens-bound R train.

They don’t have any tails when they get off at Bucky’s stop, either. Today must be a day for the spooks to get that itch in their trousers, though, because as they amble up their block Natasha points with her chin to where a fresh new surveillance camera has been installed, right on the lip of the roof across the street. “Aw. Looks like the double-oh-sevens are gearing up for another go.”

“Cute,” Bucky says. “NSA or DHS, do you think?”

Natasha shrugs. “NSA, probably. They love their little gadgets.”

“Well, let’s go ahead and ruin their day, then,” Bucky says, and they turn down the next alley and climb up to the neighboring rooftop, careful to stay out of the camera’s sight. When they’re up there Bucky sets down his bags and tugs out one of his fixed-blade knives.

“You ought to bill the US government for all your gear they cost,” Natasha says, taking Daisypuff’s leash as Bucky draws a second knife, using one to slit the rubber grip on the other and pry it off the metal spine. “Waste of a good knife.”

“Yeah, let me just put together the invoice,” Bucky says, peeling away the last bits of rubber. “I bill ‘em for the knife, they bill me for the camera.”

“Let’s pickpocket the director of the NSA,” Natasha suggests, palming one of her Widow Bites. “He’s probably got enough cash to cover it in his wallet.”

“Sure,” Bucky says, groping for the spool of fishing line in his pocket and drawing the end out to wrap around the spur of the knife’s metal handle. “Next time Steve has Homeland Security meetings, I’ll come with and pretend to be his secretary. I’ll wear glasses, nobody will suspect a thing.”

“If you wear that orange flower sweater you have nobody will look at your face at all,” Natasha says brightly.

“Har har,” Bucky says. He sights, winds back and throws. The knife embeds itself hilt-deep into the camera casing. Natasha tosses her Bite, and it snaps onto the protruding spine of the blade with a distant little snick. A second later the charge goes off, conducted through the casing by the blade. The camera fries with a sad little sizzle.

Natasha and Bucky silently bump fists. “Think we could rig one of these special?” she asks as he tugs on the fishing line, yanking the knife free and the Widow Bite with it. “One throw only, if we combine the Bite and the knife.”

“It’d fuck with the aerodynamics,” Bucky says, the knife slithering across the rooftop as he reels it back in. “I think. Probably. You could get Stark to make something, I bet.”

“We could make something,” Natasha says. “You have a garage, don’t you? We could have a workshop. Make our own Bond gadgets and stuff.”

“It’s full of Steve’s Harley,” Bucky points out, pocketing the slightly charred knife and picking Daisypuff back up. “And my car. Plus we don’t want any incriminating materials on the premises, right?”

“Booooo,” Natasha says. “Fine. We’ll rent something somewhere. Clint probably owns like four garages in Red Hook already and doesn’t even know it.”  

“Okay,” Bucky says as they proceed onwards to the alley that’ll take them to the rooftop on the other side of the street. “You find us a workshop, we’ll strap some tasers onto some knives.”

The building catty-corner to his and Steve’s place is a story taller than theirs and is surrounded by lower, uneven others. If you’re looking to station an agent for long-term in-person surveillance, this is the place to be. There’s pretty much nowhere else that would do the job, between the trees and the layout and traffic of the neighborhood.

Naturally, one of the first things Natasha and Bucky did was ruin it for everybody else. Bucky hauls a couple of cinderblocks out of one of the rooftop walls and Natasha extracts the plastic bag full of their supplies, setting it down on the tarpaper rooftop. Daisypuff sniffs at it, but Bucky gives her one of the puppy chew sticks out of his pocket and she settles down at his side, gnawing happily. Natasha tugs on a pair of rubber gloves - they use epoxy glue and it’s a bitch to get off skin, plus no reason to leave any fingerprints - and starts pouring the mix into their beat-up empty sour cream container, stirring with a stick. “Alright, what’ve we got?”

Bucky fishes out the wallets they lifted off their tails in the Strand and dumps them out on the ground, sorting out cash from cards and IDs. Natasha finishes mixing the epoxy, handing him a pair of gloves, and together they carefully glue their latest additions into the mosaic of badges, passes and federal IDs that decorates the inside of the rooftop wall that faces Steve and Bucky’s apartment.

They are very proud of the wall. There are scratch marks and gouges on some of the IDs where agents have tried to pry theirs out, with no success; the epoxy is very good. They’ve even got a pair of license plates at one end.

They fit and set each ID and let it cure before painting over them, covering the cards with another layer of the clear epoxy. The credit and debit and other assorted cards get carefully gathered up and put in one of the inner pockets Bucky sews into all his pants. He takes them home, punches some holes, adds a nice thin chain or braided twine and makes little windchimes out of them. Every agent gets a nice present left on their front doorknob. It even comes all personalized, with no effort on Bucky’s part: the cards already have their names on them.

Some agents stop carrying wallets, but they have to carry their badges with them and there’s no hiding them from Natasha. She once got one out of an agent’s shoe.

The windchimes were Bucky’s idea, though.

“And you say Steve’s the creative one,” Natasha says.

“I have my moments,” Bucky says, stripping his gloves off and cleaning up the last of the epoxy.

He gathers up his dog, Natasha kisses his cheek, and they take separate paths off the rooftop. Bucky takes the long way back to the apartment, giving Daisypuff a last chance to do her business before they go back inside for the day. There are no paparazzi camped across the street from his place, which is a little unusual considering he and Natasha both spent the day walking very publicly around Manhattan, but it’s true that he’s become old news lately.

He doesn’t love messing with paps, but he can’t deny it’s a little bit of fun, either. Materializing behind them as they stake out his front step is always good; they startle like spooked pigeons. None of them take photos of him from up close once he’s there, either. They learned their lesson from the first four times he EMP’d their cameras. Now they just swear and shake themselves out as Bucky gives them his best worst smile and strides on through to his building.

The semipermanent surveillance personnel assigned solely to stake out their apartment are a different situation. There Bucky had seen the value of a working relationship. It fucks with them, too. Be nice to one group of prisoners while brutalizing the rest and they’ll waste their time hating each other before they turn on you. Internal relations at all the alphabet agencies must be at an all-time high lately.

Bucky stands on the corner for a while, considering. The usual feeb car is parked two blocks over. The agents will be in their usual spots: these are a predictable lot, with no other assignment beyond sitting outside his apartment and recording his coming and going.

Daisypuff pants up at him, plopping her butt down on his boot. Bucky glances down at her, then scoops her up. Better to lean in.

He takes them back up to the rooftops, unclipping the tags from Daisypuff’s collar and pocketing them separately so they won’t clink. Daisypuff, tired from her long walk, doesn’t even squirm in the crook of his arm.

The agents have to make their stakeout nests on the roof of the one building they’d managed to secure the permits for, a mixed-use place down the block at an awkward angle from the Rogers residence. They had started with just sitting in their cars but Bucky had put a stop to that by mentioning loitering child predators to Dora Lowenstein and her gardening group, consisting entirely of local grandmothers. Now they have to sit outside: they might get the rooftop of the building, but they can’t sit in the apartment inside.

It doesn’t take Bucky long to get up there. “Hey Jason,” he says. Jason Kowlitz, twenty-nine, four years in the Marines before he came to the FBI. He’s lasted this long because he has the startle reflex of a cinderblock. If Bucky appearing just behind his shoulder surprises him, he doesn’t show it, just like the last fifteen or so times Bucky’s done it.  

“Good afternoon, Mr. Barnes,” Jason says respectfully, turning to face him from his rickety folding chair. He’s also lasted this long because he’s respectful. All the agents assigned to the Rogers household are; or at least, the ones who manage to stay on. If Bucky has to deal with cheap-suited grunts the least they can do is be polite.

Bucky takes a brown paper bag out of his bakery bag. “Brought you guys lemon bars. Gluten free.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Barnes. Wenson will appreciate it.” Jeremy Wenson, thirty-one, former NYPD and doomed to buying endless pointless refills in the coffee shop across the street, has a gluten intolerance.

Bucky carefully shifts Daisypuff under his arm. “I got a dog. Her name’s Daisypuff.”

“She looks very sweet, Mr. Barnes.”

“She is. You guys ok out here? Comfortable?”

“We are, Mr. Barnes.”

“Good. It might rain later tonight. If it starts coming down buzz the building and I’ll let you two in the foyer.”

“Appreciate it, Mr. Barnes.”

“Give Tompkins my best,” Bucky says, hitching Daisypuff a little higher on his shoulder. Adam Tompkins, fifty-one, head of the FBI Special Surveillance Group. “Tell him congrats on his daughter’s violin recital. Her solo was excellent.”

Bucky hadn’t been there, of course. But Tompkins’ wife was, and the bugs Bucky and Natasha had planted on all her coats and shoes were too, so the effect is more or less the same. Better, probably: there’s a bug inside ten-year-old Katie Tompkins’ violin, too.

Jason sighs, but very minutely. “I’ll pass that along, Mr. Barnes.”

It had taken a while for Tompkins to learn that the key was to staff agents that Bucky liked and to actually listen to Bucky’s passed-on suggestions, especially on where to place them. Steve thinks they don’t have any tails anymore because he stopped seeing them, and Tompkins knows the second he pisses Bucky off Steve will abruptly discover that this has not been the case. Steve will then proceed to be Steve, as loud and fast and hard as he possibly can, and that’s a can of worms that’ll go all the way up on the management scale.

Bucky has made clear that while he is perfectly willing to deploy the nuclear option, he would prefer they all live in a state of happy equilibrium instead. Steve doesn’t deal with this stuff. The household is Bucky’s job. Early on, Bucky laid his head on Steve’s shoulder and said let me deal with security, and Steve had said okay, do whatever you need to do, and the directive still stands. He does not feel bad for lying.

Besides, it’s better this way. Bucky allows the government carefully managed snapshots of their lives, it contributes to alphabet agency infighting, they feel like they’re winning something, and in return they leave the two of them the fuck alone - or rather, Bucky lets them have the reprieve of an unexploded Steve living happy and healthy in Brooklyn. Steve can do a lot of damage when he’s upset, whether by destroying huge swaths of infrastructure or starting to give very public statements that are very inspiring to voters and very worrying to politicians. He might go out and start uncovering even more corruption in the US government.

That’s not to say Bucky hasn’t considered torching this whole operation. Eventually he probably will. But that’ll create its own set of problems, and Steve’s happy right now, working with Sam and coloring with kids. And right now it’s work for Bucky, too, good work. It’s good to keep his hand in. It’s worth it, to let it stand for now.

-o-

Wednesday happens. His conditions for doing MRIs are: he gets knocked the fuck out, Steve is there, and he gets all the security footage after. This time Steve makes a couple calls and Daisypuff comes with them: she’ll be with Steve while Bucky goes under. There’s nothing really that has to be sterile during an MRI, so the hospital gave the okay for her to be in the room as long as she’s on a leash.

MRIs are annoying, but the whole day after is usually pretty okay. It turns out coming up from anesthesia isn’t nightmarish at all when Steve is holding him, and by now the doctors have perfected a formula that minimizes his disorientation and recovery time. Steve takes him home and holds him on the couch while some movie plays and Bucky drools blissfully into his shirt.

This time is no different, with the exception of Daisypuff being placed intermittently in his lap as Steve moves him from the recovery room to the car to the apartment. He thinks he maybe gets upset about something in there somewhere, but Steve murmurs to him and rubs his chest and gives him a squirming puppy to hold and he forgets about it pretty quick. Daisypuff licks his face a lot and doesn’t seem to care that Bucky is much less coordinated than usual in sliding her around the floor via her tug-of-war rope. It’s not bad at all.

-o-

They all go out to eat. Natasha picks the restaurant, which means it’s got good food, good service and huge, deep booths with high backs. They get seated in the back, practically disappearing behind a stand of potted trees, and the hostess doesn’t say anything about how Bucky’s very obviously got a dog head sticking out of the front of his jacket.

Then again, she might think he’s just a weird guy carrying a teddybear. “Whoa,” Sam says, double-taking at Bucky as they seat themselves. “Is that her? Daisypuff?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, lifting her out. “Here. You should hold her. It’s for her socialization.”

“Whoaaaaa,” Sam repeats, carefully taking her in his arms. “She’s so fluffy.”

“She is,” Bucky agrees, inordinately proud, like his brain thinks it’s responsible for Daisypuff’s fluff properties.

“Probably a hell of a lot of shedding, though,” Sam says, handing Daisypuff back.

“No more than Bucky does,” Steve says cheerfully, and Bucky steps on his foot as they go to sit down.

Bucky did a pretty good job tiring her out today, so Daisypuff mostly just flops in her sling and gives the occasional snuffle. The waiter puts down a bunch of menus. Bucky doesn’t open his, just leans a little harder against Steve and unzips his jacket enough for Daisypuff to have a little more wiggle room. “Beef or chicken is okay,” Bucky tells the top of her head. “Rice too. Nothing spicy.”

Steve orders for him. Bucky nods vaguely at the waiter, which is more or less the extent of his interaction. He’s still not great with civilians. Angelique and Neeta and Father Sean have all been successfully deputized by Steve inside Bucky’s head, and Sam and Natasha and all the rest are Steve’s team, but everybody else is another matter. If there’s no specific task for him to execute - like cowing Craig the dealer man - they tend to become a kind of mobile background furniture. He can deal with agents because his whole function is to deal with threats but -

-no, his whole function is to be healthy and a good person. Inasmuch as he can have one, because people don’t have functions. He is a person. Urgh. Therapy helps and all, but it’s hard not to be resentful when his thoughts smack into each other and derail like that.

Sometimes Bucky wishes he could zip himself into Steve’s jacket, all the way up over his head. Tuck himself into Steve, warm and dark. Steve would let him. Steve wouldn’t have to worry about him, not when he’s so close. Daisypuff would be there too, all of them stacked in together like a nesting doll of suspicious bitey assholes. And Bucky could just close his eyes, and relax his grip, and deal with absolutely nothing that isn’t petting Daisypuff or getting pet by Steve.

Bucky blinks his eyes open. Steve lets him relax enough. There’s food on the table now. He leans forward and starts to eat, isolating the occasional chunk of chicken to pass to Daisypuff.

“Barnes?”

“Wha?”

Sam makes a vague gesture like he’s hefting a bag of flour. “How’re you holding her up in there? Is there a pocket?”

Bucky blinks stupidly before glancing down at Daisypuff. “Oh. No. I made a sling.”

“Of course you did,” Natasha says.

“What, you sewed one up?” Sam says, eyebrows rising.

“Stitched the ends of a scarf together,” Bucky admits, pinching a bit of it over his shoulder so Sam can see. “She’ll grow out of it soon.”

“How big is she supposed to get?”

“Chow chows typically top out at seventy pounds,” Bucky recites automatically. “Females are usually around sixty. She’ll reach full size when she’s two or so. Also, her tongue will be blue.”

“Huh,” Natasha says.

“Pretty sure that within twenty-four hours of bringing her home he spontaneously absorbed every single known fact about chow chows,” Steve tells them. “Possibly all dogs.”

“It’s just google ,” Bucky says, feeding Daisypuff some more rice. “Anyone can get this stuff off google.”

“But you just google so very nicely, dear," Steve says in solemn tones, and Bucky seriously considers relocating some of his chicken pilaf to Steve’s lap.

They get home late and go straight to sleep, after Bucky takes Daisypuff around the block once for one last pee. “You know, I kind of expected to just have the dog sleep with you,” Steve muses from the bed as Bucky brushes his teeth, watching her waddle onto her little cot as if he doesn’t thank god and all angels every time Daisypuff doesn’t climb into bed with them. “I was pretty resigned to it.”

“She’s got her own bed,” Bucky points out, a little mushily from the foam in his mouth. “Besides, she naps on me all the time. She’s probably sick of it.” And this way there’s absolutely no chance of either of them rolling over in their sleep and crushing her, or grabbing her in a nightmare or flashback or what the fuck ever. It'd been a real stroke of luck, her taking a liking to her bed right away. 

“I’m not complaining,” Steve says. “I’m perfectly happy living a life without dog drool on my pillow, thanks.”

“Yeah, your own drool is about all we have the capacity to handle.” Bucky spits his foam out, finishes his bathroom bullshit, tosses his pills down his throat and completes the circuit back to bed. Steve automatically raises the blankets for him, waiting patiently as Bucky takes his star pillow and elbows it into submission under his back.

“Hurts?” Steve asks, tugging the blankets over them.

“Just the usual,” Bucky says, around a yawn.

“If you’re sure,” Steve says.

“I’m sure. S’fine.” He’s not even lying.

“Okay,” Steve says, getting an arm around Bucky’s waist and kissing the back of his head.

Steve lets him lie a lot. He lets him lie about his feelings, about what he does all day, about the fact that he’s essentially covering for the surveillance put on their apartment. The one thing Bucky’s not allowed to lie about is when it hurts and where. Sometimes Steve pushes, like with the car, kneads the sore spot until whatever is knotted up inside Bucky gives in, but he doesn’t leave Bucky alone after. He stays close and kisses on his ears and fucks him on the car.

And in return Bucky lies his pants off, more or less. His reasons are good, his logic is sound, Natasha agrees with him - but for fuck’s sake, it’s not like he wants to lie to Steve.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

Bucky tugs Steve’s hand under his jaw, and Steve automatically cups his throat. Bucky tucks his chin to trap Steve’s hand further. “I lie a lot.”

“This again?” Steve sounds rusty with sleep already, but not unamused. There’s a kiss on the back of Bucky’s neck. “Alright, let’s hear it.”

I’m in a proxy war with the director of the FBI and you’re one of the main weapons in my arsenal. “I’m… not telling you some things.”

“Okay. You don’t have to.”

“No, I mean. I’m gonna. Eventually. It’s just right now you need to not know. For - actionable reasons.” He can’t even say tactical: Steve’s not dumb and even if he won't deliberately pry the word will rouse his hindbrain.

“Okay?”

Bucky sighs. “If I tell you, you’ll do stuff, and I need you to not do stuff until I get other stuff sorted out first.”

“Okay,” Steve agrees. He kisses Bucky’s neck again. “Is there anything you need me to stop doing?”

“No. Nothing like that. Don’t worry. Can I blow you?”

“How about in the morning,” Steve says gently, gathering up Bucky’s wrists in his hands. Bucky grimaces but doesn’t fight. It’s one of Steve’s go-to redirects for when Bucky’s nervy, and it’s glaringly obvious every time, but he is nervy and it works. He can blow Steve in the morning.

Daisypuff snuffles from across the room, little teddy legs kicking in her sleep, and Bucky can’t help but wind down a little, watching her. Steve presses his forehead to the top of Bucky’s spine and starts a gentle stroke down his side. Bucky closes his eyes.

There was about a month, early on, where Bucky just kept dreaming about it, Steve grabbing him by the hair and holding him, dragging him around or just keeping him still, not exactly hurting him but definitely not letting go. It was probably because Bucky was trying so hard at the time to desensitize himself to being touched anywhere above the neck, but something about it stuck. And crossed a few wires, probably, but Bucky’s good with that. It’s probably what lets him enjoy being touched like that now.

And now, sometimes, he fantasizes about it: Steve taking hold of his head, holding him down, not like the neck rubs or the gentle pets he gives during a blowjob but a real grip, something Bucky would have no hope of breaking. Steve would grab him, and push him - against a wall, something, who cares, and Bucky wouldn’t even fight because he knows he could never get away. Or maybe he would fight, but it wouldn’t matter. Steve would just press close and wait for Bucky to tire himself out, his grip not budging a millimeter. And then he’d kiss Bucky’s neck and say tell me, and Bucky would have no choice, it’s not like normal people or therapy, he’d have to tell Steve, tell him everything.

Bucky doesn’t know if it’s fucked up, to want something that scares the shit out of him, something that used to push panic directly into his bloodstream. It can’t really be more fucked up than the rest of him. He’s pretty sure he wants it. And Steve won’t hurt him, not really. Not for real.

It’s like there’s two levels to him, a candy coating around a razor blade. And it doesn’t matter how much candy there is, the razor still sits at the center. He doesn’t know how he feels about it. It’s not like the candy layer isn’t real. He likes his fuzzy dog and dumb sweaters and gold earrings. But the rest of him isn’t any less real either.

-o-

Of fucking course he drops straight into a nightmare, and it’s bad, too, because he half-wakes when Steve gets an arm around him and half-carries him back to bed: he must’ve got up, maybe even went outside. No: he’s not cold enough to have been outside. But he got out of bed, and that’s not great, even if he didn’t get far.

He does fall asleep after, and it’s fine; it’s fitful, snatches of awareness of Steve holding him, but it gradually eases until the last couple of times it just feels normal, just him and Steve in their bed. Daisypuff’s back across the room. His back pillow is clamped firmly in his arms. He knows nothing really bad happened, and Steve must have known it too, because when Bucky wakes up properly he’s alone in the bed, late morning sunlight warming his calves.

Whatever he did last night twisted up his back like a motherfucker. It’s bad enough that he just immediately drops back down after pushing up on his forearms, letting his arm flop over the side of the bed.

Once upon a time this wouldn’t even have registered. Then again, it’s not like the pain depends on him noticing it or not. It still means something’s wrong with the body, and needs to be fixed.

Daisypuff comes clicking in - she must have heard him grunting around in here - and shoves her face into his dangling hand a couple of times before trotting back to whatever Steve is doing. Steve must have let her out already.

Bucky drags himself out of bed and goes looking for underwear. He’s stiff as hell but that’s no real excuse for not wearing clothes, so he debates putting on a shirt for a few moments before the smell of sausage frying hits his nose and walks him automatically out of the bedroom.

Steve’s three-fourths of the way done with cooking breakfast, in a t-shirt and sweatpants already spotted with grease from the potatoes he’s frying. Daisypuff promptly tries to climb up Bucky’s knees, her whole butt wiggling, so Bucky scratches her behind the ears and goes to fill her bowl with kibble. When Bucky heads for the teapot Steve grabs him by the bicep and redirects him to the table, where there’s a steaming mug and a plate with two sandwiches on it. BLTs with extra mustard. Bucky grunts at Steve and settles in.

Luckily it’s a day where he can put himself on automatic and just methodically eat up whatever’s in front of him. Steve moves around as Bucky chews, the noises and smells familiar and domestic enough that Bucky would go sleepy again if he didn’t have food to finish. Steve puts sausage and hash browns and eggs and rye toast in front of him, tops up his tea, and when the food’s all on the table he pauses at Bucky’s shoulder. “Back hurts?”

“Must’ve fucked it up,” Bucky mumbles through a mouthful of potato. “Last night.” He swallows. Ugh. “Five.”

“Hm,” Steve says, smoothing a hand down Bucky’s spine. He doesn’t linger, though; probably deciding it’s not worth interrupting food time. He ducks down to kiss Bucky’s shoulders instead, left then right, and sits down beside him to pile up his own plate.

Bucky’s eaten half the table on automatic at that point, so he grabs his last sandwich and slides down off his chair, settling in at Steve’s feet with his arm looped around Steve’s calf. After a second he drags Steve’s forkless hand down to his hair, and Steve gives a couple of strokes over his skull. Bucky leans his forehead against Steve’s thigh and gnaws mindlessly at his sandwich.

His back twinges again. He considers asking Steve what the fuck he did last night but he doesn’t really want to talk and Steve’s not bringing it up either. Must not have been that bad. Well: feels pretty bad. But he must not have been showy about it, whatever he did. Maybe he just clenched. His muscular system is so fucked that he can do some serious stupidity to himself just by tensing up.

Steve eats steadily above him, his fork clinking occasionally, switching from stroking Bucky’s head to dragging his fingers through his hair and tugging gently at the ends. It’s getting long enough for Steve to wrap his whole fist in it twice.

Well. Theoretically.

Bucky finishes his sandwich and rubs his cheek against Steve’s thigh, closing his eyes. He’s warm and Steve’s touching him; the soreness of his spine has faded a little under the stimulus from his scalp. He’s in serious danger of falling asleep again right here.

As if reading his mind, Steve hums again and cups the back of Bucky’s head, looking for eye contact. Bucky gives it to him, blinking hazily; Steve smiles. “We’re staying in today. You need another six hours of sleep and a massage.”

Maybe whatever he did was that bad, but Steve just decided to skip all the chitchat and go straight to doing something about it. Bucky yawns in lieu of agreement, then cracks an eye and fixes Steve with a stare. “You owe me a blowjob.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “Isn’t it the other way around?”

“You know what I mean,” Bucky says. He rubs his cheek on Steve’s knee. “Come on. You know you want to.”

Steve puts his hand on his thigh, and when Bucky rubs his face on that too he switches to stroking a thumb gently over Bucky’s right ear piercing. “What do you want?”

“I want,” Bucky says, and stops. As opportunities go, this one basically flung itself into his lap. And it occurred to him recently that maybe Sam’s right, that Steve likes it when Bucky asks him for things, the same way Bucky likes it when Steve steers him around: cautiously, and not without guilt. And Steve gives it to him all the time, and Bucky wants to give back with a strength that surprises himself, and - well, worst case scenario, Steve gets worried about him and instead of getting it or even just sex they’ll have an uncomfortable couple of hours where they argue a lot over whether or not Bucky’s extra looney tunes this morning. Nothing new. Nothing debilitating.

Somehow it’s still not easy to say.

Steve’s watching him, apparently having realized there’s more turning over in Bucky’s noggin than just a general menu of how he wants to get dicked this morning. His face is open and patient - and under it, that well-buried spark of hunger, as everpresent as the rage.

Bucky wets his lips. “Hold me down. I mean - really hold me. Hard. By the head. My hair, or. Whatever.”

Steve’s face does the thing where he freezes his expression in order not to have another, usually worse one. “That’s - all?”

Right, this is a sex thing. Bucky soldiers on. “And, uh. Fuck my mouth, I guess.”

That breaks the tension: “You guess?” Steve cracks up, and Bucky does too, because it is funny. Bucky bonks his forehead against Steve’s knee. “Yeah. I guess. If you really wanted to.”

“Well, if we really wanted to,” Steve says, the giggles petering away. He doesn’t look all that sold on the prospect, and Bucky doesn’t blame him. They don’t really do it that way. Bucky used to be head-shy as all fuck and Steve’s right to be wary, what with how he reached out to touch Bucky’s face a week after he came in and got two broken fingers for his trouble. Steve maintained it was fine and not his fault but Bucky hated it and squashed it out of himself with extreme prejudice. It was what kept him focused and sane in the early months, actually; doing his own haphazard desensitization therapy gave him something concrete to do, something he had chosen that wasn’t prescribed by some therapist. He did it himself, and he might not have done it the right or proper or fully medically approved way, but he had fucking succeeded. He’d finally gone and gotten his ears pierced by a goddamn stranger, for fuck’s sake. It had felt like real victory.

But first impressions are hard to shake, and Steve still rarely touches his head without Bucky guiding his hands first.

Steve watches him, thoughtful, calculation ticking away behind his eyes. Then he smiles, and the thing about Steve - when he commits, he commits. When Bucky needs to see no doubt, there is nothing for him to see.

“Alright,” Steve says. There’s nothing but easy warmth now in his eyes. “Let’s try it.”

“Yeah?” Bucky says, feeling more surprised than he should be, considering it’s Steve. Of course he’d jump on this grenade.

“We’ll go slow,” Steve says, kissing Bucky’s temple before taking him by the nape and tugging him back far enough to get at his mouth.

The kisses are warm and reassuring and go on for longer than Bucky expects, but he’s far from complaining. He trusts Steve. He’s had years to learn Bucky and he’s gotten very good at giving him what he needs. And - Steve’s shifting his hand up, wrapping his fist in Bucky’s hair, going tighter and tighter and tighter.

Bucky’s wide-eyed when Steve pulls off his mouth. Steve grins and tugs. Bucky makes a high-pitched noise, entirely involuntary, and Steve’s grin goes wider as Bucky startles at himself. He usually only makes noise when he remembers to, and while Steve’s never said anything Bucky’s sure Steve can tell his moaning is never exactly genuine - it’s not that he doesn’t mean it, it’s just that it takes effort to get the sounds out of his chest.

But that just came right out of him. Steve’s eyes are brighter now, sure of his course. “That’s what I like to hear,” he says, gripping the hair closer to the scalp and giving Bucky a playful little shake. “You look goddamn good, Buck.”

Bucky smiles helplessly up at him. Steve’s grin goes soft again and he brings his other hand to Bucky’s neck, rubbing at Bucky’s jaw with his thumbs and stroking back towards his ears. Bucky closes his eyes and tips his chin up further. Steve’s so warm, fingers calloused and thick, and his hands are sure and firm as he kneads at Bucky’s neck and rubs the hollows under his eyes.

Bucky’s breathing slows, going even and steady, and his heartbeat follows. He can feel the kitchen tile under his calves; he flexes his feet to feel the skin tug against the ceramic. The air in the room is warm and still with the windows closed and everything smells safe and familiar, like food and dog and his own skin and Steve.  

"There we go," Steve murmurs. "You're doing so well, Buck, there we go."

Bucky wants to say he hasn’t actually done anything, hasn’t earned the words, but Steve is so hard to argue with when they’re like this. He nudges his face forward instead, into Steve’s palms, and Steve guides Bucky’s face to his stomach. Bucky rubs his nose in the groove of Steve’s abs and sighs, his breath warming the cotton of Steve’s t-shirt.  

Steve rubs his jaw some more, then taps his thumb on Bucky’s bottom lip. Bucky’s jaw drops open obligingly, automatically, and Steve slips his thumb in, nudges up with his hand to close Bucky’s mouth around it. It’s such a little thing, but Bucky’s inordinately proud anyway: he can have things in his mouth now, fingers even - well, Steve’s fingers, anyway - and it took work to get there. One day he’ll be able to go to the dentist.

“That’s so good,” Steve murmurs, like he heard Bucky’s thoughts. Bucky wouldn’t be surprised at this point. “I’m so proud of you, Buck, that’s so good.”

Bucky sucks a little and Steve pushes to tip his head back, pulls to open Bucky’s mouth again. Bucky blinks his eyes open, feeling sugar-heavy and molasses-slow.  

Steve smiles down at him. He reaches out with his free hand and drags a thumb gently down the bridge of Bucky’s nose, then traces Bucky’s mouth where it’s pursed around his thumb. Bucky’s breath catches, something about the sensation striking in his chest, and he lets out a small, breathless sound of startled arousal.

Steve’s grin goes wicked. “Yeah,” he says fondly. “Yeah, you’re gonna suck me. Go ahead,” he orders, taking his thumb out of Bucky’s mouth. “Get me hard,” he says, and Bucky immediately presses his face to Steve’s groin, rubbing his cheek against Steve’s dick through his sweatpants. It’s less than a minute before Steve’s breathing heavy, hands flexing, pushing his sweatpants down.

Bucky goes straight for the head, but - “Ah-ah,” Steve says, pulling him back with one hand on his jaw and the other gripping his hair. Bucky outright moans. “We’re going slow. You just relax,” and when Bucky lets his mouth go slack Steve pushes his cock in, steady and firm.

Bucky’s eyes drift closed again and he goes lax all over, his head held up and tilted back by Steve’s hand in his hair. Steve’s other hand alights on Bucky’s throat. Bucky loves it, everything about it, from the weight and heat in his mouth to the way his throat flutters to open around Steve’s dick. Steve’s never rough but he is inexorable, relentless; the pace he picks is slow but implacable, and it’s not like he’s on the small side, either. Bucky hasn’t had a gag reflex since 1933 but the hand on his throat adds that extra tease of pressure around his neck - and he really likes that, likes that it makes his breath catch and his eyes water.

It’s so good. Usually he’d be working his mouth, sucking and licking, but Steve said relax and so - it’s so good, it’s better, he doesn’t have to focus on performance or technique or anything, he doesn’t have to think, he just has to be for Steve. He doesn’t even have to move or hold still: Steve’s doing both for him, holding him in place and fucking his mouth. Bucky’s drooling, panting through his nose on every outstroke; he hears someone making breathy little noises and realizes it’s him.

“Sweetheart, you’re so good,” Steve murmurs. “That’s amazing, you’re doing so well, let me hear you.”

The moan comes up out of Bucky’s throat like a live thing and all of a sudden it’s like once he starts he can’t stop. Steve speeds up and Bucky gets louder, whimpering around Steve’s cock like - like he can, he can make noise, he’s allowed to, none of this is his problem anymore. It’s okay if he’s loud; it’s okay if he can’t help it. Steve wants to hear him. Steve wants him to relax.

Bucky floats. Time stops happening to him; it’s all one endless moment, Steve panting above him, rewarding his muffled moaning with the push of his cock. Like this it doesn’t feel like he’s holding anything back from Steve, no secrets or lying or anything, just opening completely, giving up everything he has. Sharing himself fully, as he wants to. As Steve deserves.

But then Steve pulls him off, drawing him back with the hands on his throat and hair. Bucky’s eyes snap open, startled and unhappy about it, indignant - he fights, but Steve’s standing and pulling him to his feet and it’s not like he can just stick Steve’s cock back in his mouth anymore.

“I wasn’t done,” Bucky manages, voice wrecked, sounding fucked up enough that Daisypuff raises her head off her paws across the room.

“I know - I know, sweetheart, just - me too,” Steve says breathlessly, stumbling to the living room and thumping gracelessly to sit on the floor. He takes Bucky with him, tugging Bucky’s underwear down and tossing it away; Bucky’s not that hard but Steve will play with him anyway, and Steve - Steve is lying back, maneuvering Bucky around to straddle his chest in reverse, putting his hands on Bucky’s ass.

Now he can get Steve’s cock back in his mouth, but not for long. It’s barely a minute before Bucky breaks, pulling off to pant heavily against Steve’s thigh. He has no idea what Steve’s doing down there but it all seems to be happening at once, coalescing into one big warm wet feeling between his legs. “Steve,” he rasps, “Steve - Steve,” forgetting entirely what the fuck he wanted to say. It can’t have been that important.

He rolls his forehead on Steve’s hip. Between the sun and the sex even his knees are sweating and he slips on the hardwood, slumping further against Steve’s torso. Steve doesn’t have a gag reflex either, Steve’s the one who taught him, and Bucky has to lay his cheek on Steve’s thigh, eyes rolling back, Steve taking him down over and over again.

He fumbles his flesh hand up and squeezes Steve’s dick, trying to coordinate some kind of pleasure for him when all Bucky’s capable of is mouthing sloppily at whatever’s in front of his face. Steve’s not complaining, he is the opposite of complaining directly into Bucky’s asshole, and at some point in there his dick got with the program and it’s like his whole skin is going hot and tight all over. Steve comes first and Bucky barely notices, humping blindly back against his mouth, Steve’s hands biting bruises all over his hips, and when Bucky spills over too he comes shuddering, clutching blindly at Steve’s knee.  

Steve lets him go, slowly, and Bucky rolls off, landing on his back then flopping further onto his front. Steve puts a hand on his calf, breathing heavily beside him. There’s some clicking and the jingle of tags as Daisypuff comes to investigate, but thankfully she must decide they’re all fine and too gross for her to cuddle up to because she just snuffles at Steve’s foot and walks away again, back to her rawhide.

As the glow ebbs, the ache in his back ramps up again. “Gotta do stretches,” Bucky mumbles unhappily.

“Shower first,” Steve mumbles back. “We’re disgusting.”

It’s Steve who gets them upright, because Bucky’s so awake, coordinated and with it that he falls asleep in the shower. Luckily his body knows how to cooperate when it’s Steve hauling him around, and he doesn’t have to do much beyond slump on one giant pink shoulder as Steve gets the two of them hosed down. Then Steve guides him to the rug under the window, helps him wrestle a fresh pair of underwear on and gets him started with downward dog.   

Steve begins his own routine next to him, crunches and pushups and assorted other calisthenic nightmares. The most calorie-burning thing Bucky’s allowed to do is swimming, so he sticks to his creaky old man yoga. Daisypuff wanders over and starts licking his calf. It’s a good morning.

“Hey,” Steve says, when Bucky’s flat on his back and trying to convince his elbow to touch his knee. “About that thing you can’t tell me. You don’t have to, I mean it, but I just want you to know, if you think I’ll be mad, I won’t be.”

Bucky gives him the look that deserves. Steve huffs. “You know what I mean,” he grumbles.

“I know,” Bucky says. He sighs. He’s a little more awake now and definitely calmer than last night, and while the urge to just blurt everything out to Steve is there, it’s not getting much traction through his common sense. “I will tell you, eventually,” he says. “And - you will be mad, but I’m kind of counting on it.”

Steve’s eyebrows go up, then down, then together as he applies his big stupid brain to the mystery. Bucky sighs again. “Don’t think too hard about it,” he says. “Just know that at some point, probably in the near future, I’m gonna say, hey Steve, guess what? And then you should go and be very, very mad.”

Steve’s brow doesn’t unfurrow. “This isn’t… I mean... if you want me to be - rougher with you, in bed, we can - ”

“What? You - oh, no, oh my god.” Bucky starts laughing helplessly. “This - not in bed. Not a sex thing. Nothing to do with sex at all, I promise.”

“Oh, okay then,” Steve says, relieved and laughing a little too, but still making eye contact. “You know, if you wanted to, I mean - it’s not about me being angry. If you wanted to, you don’t have to - get me mad.”

“Wow,” Bucky says dryly. “That’s some eloquence there, big guy. And they tell me you give speeches and everything.”

“You know what I mean,” Steve complains, swiping ineffectually at him.

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky says, catching Steve’s hand. “You do speeches when you’re all worked up, and the rest of the time you make words like a concussed kindergartner.”

Steve growls and uses his grip to turn Bucky, rolling him on his side and then bodily hauling him up onto his chest. “Oof. Geez, I know, okay,” Bucky says. “Relax, you caveman.”

“I just want to make sure,” Steve grumbles.

Bucky sighs. “I don’t need to get you mad a me to rough me up,” he recites. “In a nice, loving, consensual and respectful way,” he adds, before Steve can open his mouth. “I know, you moron. If I ask you to disrespect me I know you’ll gather up all the respect and choke me with it the next morning. Like you’re doing now, after fucking my mouth into next Friday.”

Steve goes red, squeezing Bucky tighter. “You liked it?”

“Gee, what do you think?” Bucky props himself up on his elbows on Steve’s chest, amused. “Yeah, it was good, Steve. And I think you liked it too.”

“Argh,” Steve says, going even redder.

“Give in, pal,” Bucky says, not without sympathy. “You like it, I like it, together we just might be able to have some fun.”

“I’ll show you fun,” Steve says without heat, scrubbing a hand over Bucky’s drying hair.

“That’s you. My favorite fun machine. You walk and talk and fuck and some other things, you know how I forget.”

“And get mad on command, apparently.”

Bucky lays his head on Steve’s sweaty collarbone, closing his eyes. “Yep.”

Now that’ll be fun.