Two Super Soldiers, a Falcon and a Pizza Party
An embarrassingly late birthday ficlet for my dear raeve who wanted Steve and Bucky feasting super-soldier style after a long day of battle.
characters: Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson
word-count: ~2K
"You sure?" Sam asked, suppressing a wince.
"Absolutely." Steve shifted his angle so he could shoulder more of Sam's weight.
"Our place is close," Bucky said. "Comms are down. You're injured." And with that, he slung his rifle over his back and jumped straight up, grabbing hold of the fire escape ladder. "Meet you there."
"Thought he said he broke a rib," Sam said, watching Bucky scale the building with practiced ease.
Steve shrugged. "That was hours ago. Probably healed by now. Mine is."
Sam stared at him. "Must be nice-healing that fast."
"Yeah," Steve's mouth quirked as he helped Sam down the block. "But there's some downsides too." His eyes clenched shut as his stomach made an astonishingly loud gurgle.
"Whoa. You okay?" Sam asked. "That sounded kinda, uh..."
Steve's cheeks flushed. "Just hungry. Really, really hungry." He nodded straight ahead. "But we're almost there. Bucky's probably already placing the order."
"You guys order in a lot? Didn't you just get a new set of cast iron skillets?" Sam asked as they turned the corner down an alley. There was nothing ahead of them but a dead end and a sad-looking, dented dumpster.
"Normally we cook. Day like today, we order in." Steve pushed a button on the cuff of his wrist. The graffitied wall in front of them flickered and a door appeared. Steve pulled his glove off with his teeth, pressed his thumb against the small panel by the door and said "Wonder Wheel."
The door slid open with a hiss. Steve turned, maneuvering Sam through first. They walked down a short hall, then through another door.
If his leg wasn't giving him such a hard time, Sam would've let out an appreciative whistle. The place was huge inside. And nice. "How much rent are you two paying for this?
Steve scoffed as he helped Sam over to the couch. "That's classified."
"Classified, my ass." Sam plopped down on the seat and bounced his calf off the side. "Ow!"
"Sorry," Steve said. He kneeled down and lifted Sam's leg gently, avoiding his sprained ankle.
"Yeah and four large mushroom," Bucky said walking in from the other side of the room. "Thanks, Lou." He ended the call and plunked his phone down on the broad kitchen counter.
The apartment was cozy despite its size-furnished with wood and granite. Steve met Bucky in the kitchen, and the two spoke in hushed tones before heading down a narrow hallway in the back. Sam let his eyes wander. The painkiller Steve had given him after the battle ended was starting to kick in. Whatever it was must've been damn strong; Steve had only given him half a tablet.
There were posters on the wall-old ones, perfectly preserved, of Steve and Bucky and the rest of the Howling Commandos; painted propaganda from the War featuring Captain America battling a Red Skull twice his size with tentacles for legs. Hung between two bookshelves were a series of officers' portraits including a brunette woman in uniform-Sam could just make out the name 'Carter' when he squinted.
Steve came back into the living room carrying two big pillows; Bucky followed on his heels, with another pillow and an ice pack.
Before Sam could protest, Steve had shoved two pillows under his head and Bucky was lifting his wounded leg, propping it up with the other pillow. "Guys, I'm fine, I can-"
"You're our first guest here," Steve said. "Gotta make a good impression." He threw a smile at Bucky.
Bucky scoffed. "Speak for yourself, I just don't want any complaining during dinner."
"Did you get pepperoni?"
"When have I ever not gotten pepperoni?"
"That time they were out."
"That was a bad day."
"You thirsty?" Steve asked Sam.
"Yeah," Sam shifted his head, which had started to sink slowly into the thick padding of the pillows.
"Water, juice, milk, beer..." Bucky said heading back to the kitchen area.
"No beer, I gave him a codeine."
"This is codeine?" Sam asked. He'd had codeine before when he had his wisdom teeth out. "What, like...codeine for elephants? I can barely see straight."
Steve smirked, "Bruce made it special for us. Works on him."
"Oh." Sam nodded. "That explains it."
"Water," Bucky said, handing him a cup.
A buzzer sounded and Steve sprang up to grab the videophone hanging by the door. The display showed a pizza delivery guy standing by the front door of the apartment building.
"Wait..." Sam scrunched his eyes for a moment, trying to get his thoughts sorted. "You have a super secret holographic back entrance with a passcode but the pizza guy knows where you live?"
"Sort of," Steve said. "The uh...security measures cover the whole building. So there's an entrance, with an apartment, but what he sees isn't our place."
"He sees you? Steve Rogers?."
"Nah. He sees me," Bucky said. "I'm not as easy to recognize."
"I don't know, man. You're pretty memorable," Sam said.
"Thanks."
"That wasn't a compliment."
Eyebrow cocked, Bucky gave Sam a look, then headed towards the hallway past the kitchen. The air flickered slightly when he stepped through the arch, and Sam was pretty sure it was an actual electronic shield, not just his vision going sparkly.
The door opened, muted voices floated down the hall along with the most glorious smell Sam had smelled since last Thanksgiving at his sister's. The door closed again, Steve headed down the hall as Bucky came past him, back into the room, carrying a stack of pizzas so high they came up to just under his chin. Sam started to count them but gave up after eight.
A few moments later, Steve reappeared, carrying four more pizza boxes with two large brown bags balanced on top. They set the stacks down on the low coffee table--stacks of pizza boxes higher than Sam's head. Steve and Bucky started methodically splitting the boxes up into smaller piles. They'd clearly done this before.
Sam's vision went fuzzy and pink around the edges as he watched the boxes move. "Damn. That's a...that's a truckload of pizza." Sam said, watching the boxes. "You expecting somebody else?"
Steve opened one of the boxes, Bucky opened two others and the smell that filled the air was painfully, mouthwateringly delicious.
"No. Just us." Steve said, as he grabbed two slices of pepperoni. "What kind do you want?" He nodded towards the stacks of boxes.
"Uh..." Sam watched in morbid fascination as Bucky lifted what appeared to be a layered stack of three pizza slices to his mouth. Within seconds, he'd polished off nearly half of the pizza sandwich. "Mushroom?"
"Good choice," Steve said, pulling two slices of mushroom out of the box for him. He grabbed a paper plate from the bag on the floor, then handed it to Sam, pizza hanging off the edges in every direction. "It's hot," he added. "Don't burn your tongue."
Sam glared at him. "I know how to eat pizza."
"Yeah, well, I burned mine like five times--
"He did," Bucky said, grabbing another two slices of mushroom, then another two pepperoni which he folded together into a new edible construct.
"--so I'm just speaking from experience."
Sam blew on the pizza dramatically before taking a bite. And promptly burned the roof of his mouth anyway. He flinched, but did not let out a yelp of pain, despite the fact that the sauce was as hot as the center of the sun. Luckily, the rest of the pizza cooled down quickly and the pleasure of finally getting food after hours of fighting, more than made up for the temporary pain. He finished off the slices quickly and looked back over at the table.
The stacks had grown smaller, empty boxes now piling on the floor. Steve took two more slices out of the open box directly in front of Sam then tossed that empty box on the floor with the others.
Bucky reached into one of the large paper bags and pulled out four foil-wrapped, hero-shaped sandwiches. No, not sandwiches, Sam realized, as Bucky tore one of them open. Garlic bread. Cheese-covered garlic bread.
Sam reached for a piece of the garlicky deliciousness resting on the foil.
A low growl, barely perceptible, made him freeze, mid-reach. Across the table, Bucky was staring at him. It wasn't a friendly stare, it wasn't even the dead, empty gaze of the Winter Soldier, it was something worse-banked violence-a wolf watching someone steal its kill.
Sam froze, mid-grab.
"Buck," Steve snapped. "Knock it off. We got six of those, right?"
"It's cool," Sam said, suddenly not hungry anymore.
Bucky turned to look at Steve. Something in his jaw clicked and his hard glare turned into a pout. With two fingers, he pushed the foil towards Sam. The aluminum squeaked as it scraped slowly across the polished wood.
"You sure?"
"Mmph," Bucky said as he swallowed. "It's good." He cocked his head to the side as he reached for another foil-wrapped bread. "And so are you. Wouldn't have gotten through that fight today without you."
"Well, you have a point." Sam took a bite of the garlic bread. "Holy-this is really good."
They ate in companionable silence for the next few minutes, until Steve grabbed the remote and started flipping through the channels on their wall-mounted tv. Bucky grabbed the remote from Steve with a huff and clicked two back to some show about how they make tennis rackets, canned sardines and shoe insoles. They only got halfway through shoe insoles before Sam drifted off to sleep.
#
Buzzing in his pocket woke Sam up. He fumbled for his phone, and blinked blearily at the text. Ride on the way. Eta 2 min. Sam yawned wide as he typed his response.
Steve was asleep, snoring softly against Bucky's shoulder. Sam shifted on his pillows, and Bucky's eyes blinked open. "Need something?"
"My ride's on the way."
"Stark?"
"Yeah."
"Roof. I'll help you up there."
"Nah, I think I'm good. Just a sprained ankle."
Bucky gave him a look he'd seen him throw Steve a good half dozen times. Gently, he extracted himself from the couch and let Steve settle on the pillow. "I could wake him up, but he'll be cranky later."
"Well yeah..." Sam pushed himself up to sitting, pleased that he wasn't too dizzy. "Never interrupt a man's post-pizza nap."
"Roger that." Bucky said, totally deadpan. He reached his hand down to Sam.
"Do you love saying that? I bet you say that at least once a day." He grabbed Bucky's hand and stood, careful not to put too much weight on his bad ankle.
"At least."
"Does he throw things at your head right after you say it?" They walked to the door and out into the holograph-encased hallway, Sam's arm slung behind Bucky's neck, just enough support to spare his ankle without making their balance awkward.
"I dodge." Bucky pushed on a seemingly random part of the wall, and opened another hidden door that led to an elevator.
"I need to get me one of these."
"Secret elevator?"
"The whole secret apartment package. I can see how this'd come in handy."
"Beats the tower."
"You don't like the tower?"
Bucky shrugged. "Too many windows. Too much glass. All that open space makes me twitchy." The elevator slid open, whisper quiet, revealing a plain-looking Brooklyn rooftop. Plain looking except for the faint outline of the stealthed Quinjet. "Plus, Pino's doesn't deliver there. And I'm not giving up my garlic bread. Or Talde's Kung Pao."
"Fair enough." The jet opened its hatch as they walked closer.
"Text us when you get home."
Sam rolled his eyes. "Really?"
"Look I know you'll be fine, but Steve--"
"Yeah, yeah." Sam hobbled up onto the ramp, suppressing a wince. He paused and turned to wave. "Thanks for dinner."
"Dinner?" Bucky smiled. "That was lunch. Dinner should be here any minute though. Want to stick around?"
"Funny guy. That was way more pizza than any one man should consume in a sitting, super-soldier or not. I don't need to eat again for like a week."
"Speak for yourself," Bucky said, chuckling.
The jet's hatch closed. Through the side windows, Sam could see Bucky heading towards the edge of the roof.
"Destination Avengers Tower," the jet announced as Sam limped over to the pilot's chair. "Yeah that works." He yawned again, exhaustion pulling him down fast and hard. His eyes blinked against the slowly setting sun. The jet turned in a lazy half circle, giving him a clear view of the street below, where he saw not one, but two delivery bikes park in front of the building carrying at least four bags of food a piece. Sam squinted until he could make out the name Talde's on the bag.
"Guess that's dinner."
characters: Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson
word-count: ~2K
"You sure?" Sam asked, suppressing a wince.
"Absolutely." Steve shifted his angle so he could shoulder more of Sam's weight.
"Our place is close," Bucky said. "Comms are down. You're injured." And with that, he slung his rifle over his back and jumped straight up, grabbing hold of the fire escape ladder. "Meet you there."
"Thought he said he broke a rib," Sam said, watching Bucky scale the building with practiced ease.
Steve shrugged. "That was hours ago. Probably healed by now. Mine is."
Sam stared at him. "Must be nice-healing that fast."
"Yeah," Steve's mouth quirked as he helped Sam down the block. "But there's some downsides too." His eyes clenched shut as his stomach made an astonishingly loud gurgle.
"Whoa. You okay?" Sam asked. "That sounded kinda, uh..."
Steve's cheeks flushed. "Just hungry. Really, really hungry." He nodded straight ahead. "But we're almost there. Bucky's probably already placing the order."
"You guys order in a lot? Didn't you just get a new set of cast iron skillets?" Sam asked as they turned the corner down an alley. There was nothing ahead of them but a dead end and a sad-looking, dented dumpster.
"Normally we cook. Day like today, we order in." Steve pushed a button on the cuff of his wrist. The graffitied wall in front of them flickered and a door appeared. Steve pulled his glove off with his teeth, pressed his thumb against the small panel by the door and said "Wonder Wheel."
The door slid open with a hiss. Steve turned, maneuvering Sam through first. They walked down a short hall, then through another door.
If his leg wasn't giving him such a hard time, Sam would've let out an appreciative whistle. The place was huge inside. And nice. "How much rent are you two paying for this?
Steve scoffed as he helped Sam over to the couch. "That's classified."
"Classified, my ass." Sam plopped down on the seat and bounced his calf off the side. "Ow!"
"Sorry," Steve said. He kneeled down and lifted Sam's leg gently, avoiding his sprained ankle.
"Yeah and four large mushroom," Bucky said walking in from the other side of the room. "Thanks, Lou." He ended the call and plunked his phone down on the broad kitchen counter.
The apartment was cozy despite its size-furnished with wood and granite. Steve met Bucky in the kitchen, and the two spoke in hushed tones before heading down a narrow hallway in the back. Sam let his eyes wander. The painkiller Steve had given him after the battle ended was starting to kick in. Whatever it was must've been damn strong; Steve had only given him half a tablet.
There were posters on the wall-old ones, perfectly preserved, of Steve and Bucky and the rest of the Howling Commandos; painted propaganda from the War featuring Captain America battling a Red Skull twice his size with tentacles for legs. Hung between two bookshelves were a series of officers' portraits including a brunette woman in uniform-Sam could just make out the name 'Carter' when he squinted.
Steve came back into the living room carrying two big pillows; Bucky followed on his heels, with another pillow and an ice pack.
Before Sam could protest, Steve had shoved two pillows under his head and Bucky was lifting his wounded leg, propping it up with the other pillow. "Guys, I'm fine, I can-"
"You're our first guest here," Steve said. "Gotta make a good impression." He threw a smile at Bucky.
Bucky scoffed. "Speak for yourself, I just don't want any complaining during dinner."
"Did you get pepperoni?"
"When have I ever not gotten pepperoni?"
"That time they were out."
"That was a bad day."
"You thirsty?" Steve asked Sam.
"Yeah," Sam shifted his head, which had started to sink slowly into the thick padding of the pillows.
"Water, juice, milk, beer..." Bucky said heading back to the kitchen area.
"No beer, I gave him a codeine."
"This is codeine?" Sam asked. He'd had codeine before when he had his wisdom teeth out. "What, like...codeine for elephants? I can barely see straight."
Steve smirked, "Bruce made it special for us. Works on him."
"Oh." Sam nodded. "That explains it."
"Water," Bucky said, handing him a cup.
A buzzer sounded and Steve sprang up to grab the videophone hanging by the door. The display showed a pizza delivery guy standing by the front door of the apartment building.
"Wait..." Sam scrunched his eyes for a moment, trying to get his thoughts sorted. "You have a super secret holographic back entrance with a passcode but the pizza guy knows where you live?"
"Sort of," Steve said. "The uh...security measures cover the whole building. So there's an entrance, with an apartment, but what he sees isn't our place."
"He sees you? Steve Rogers?."
"Nah. He sees me," Bucky said. "I'm not as easy to recognize."
"I don't know, man. You're pretty memorable," Sam said.
"Thanks."
"That wasn't a compliment."
Eyebrow cocked, Bucky gave Sam a look, then headed towards the hallway past the kitchen. The air flickered slightly when he stepped through the arch, and Sam was pretty sure it was an actual electronic shield, not just his vision going sparkly.
The door opened, muted voices floated down the hall along with the most glorious smell Sam had smelled since last Thanksgiving at his sister's. The door closed again, Steve headed down the hall as Bucky came past him, back into the room, carrying a stack of pizzas so high they came up to just under his chin. Sam started to count them but gave up after eight.
A few moments later, Steve reappeared, carrying four more pizza boxes with two large brown bags balanced on top. They set the stacks down on the low coffee table--stacks of pizza boxes higher than Sam's head. Steve and Bucky started methodically splitting the boxes up into smaller piles. They'd clearly done this before.
Sam's vision went fuzzy and pink around the edges as he watched the boxes move. "Damn. That's a...that's a truckload of pizza." Sam said, watching the boxes. "You expecting somebody else?"
Steve opened one of the boxes, Bucky opened two others and the smell that filled the air was painfully, mouthwateringly delicious.
"No. Just us." Steve said, as he grabbed two slices of pepperoni. "What kind do you want?" He nodded towards the stacks of boxes.
"Uh..." Sam watched in morbid fascination as Bucky lifted what appeared to be a layered stack of three pizza slices to his mouth. Within seconds, he'd polished off nearly half of the pizza sandwich. "Mushroom?"
"Good choice," Steve said, pulling two slices of mushroom out of the box for him. He grabbed a paper plate from the bag on the floor, then handed it to Sam, pizza hanging off the edges in every direction. "It's hot," he added. "Don't burn your tongue."
Sam glared at him. "I know how to eat pizza."
"Yeah, well, I burned mine like five times--
"He did," Bucky said, grabbing another two slices of mushroom, then another two pepperoni which he folded together into a new edible construct.
"--so I'm just speaking from experience."
Sam blew on the pizza dramatically before taking a bite. And promptly burned the roof of his mouth anyway. He flinched, but did not let out a yelp of pain, despite the fact that the sauce was as hot as the center of the sun. Luckily, the rest of the pizza cooled down quickly and the pleasure of finally getting food after hours of fighting, more than made up for the temporary pain. He finished off the slices quickly and looked back over at the table.
The stacks had grown smaller, empty boxes now piling on the floor. Steve took two more slices out of the open box directly in front of Sam then tossed that empty box on the floor with the others.
Bucky reached into one of the large paper bags and pulled out four foil-wrapped, hero-shaped sandwiches. No, not sandwiches, Sam realized, as Bucky tore one of them open. Garlic bread. Cheese-covered garlic bread.
Sam reached for a piece of the garlicky deliciousness resting on the foil.
A low growl, barely perceptible, made him freeze, mid-reach. Across the table, Bucky was staring at him. It wasn't a friendly stare, it wasn't even the dead, empty gaze of the Winter Soldier, it was something worse-banked violence-a wolf watching someone steal its kill.
Sam froze, mid-grab.
"Buck," Steve snapped. "Knock it off. We got six of those, right?"
"It's cool," Sam said, suddenly not hungry anymore.
Bucky turned to look at Steve. Something in his jaw clicked and his hard glare turned into a pout. With two fingers, he pushed the foil towards Sam. The aluminum squeaked as it scraped slowly across the polished wood.
"You sure?"
"Mmph," Bucky said as he swallowed. "It's good." He cocked his head to the side as he reached for another foil-wrapped bread. "And so are you. Wouldn't have gotten through that fight today without you."
"Well, you have a point." Sam took a bite of the garlic bread. "Holy-this is really good."
They ate in companionable silence for the next few minutes, until Steve grabbed the remote and started flipping through the channels on their wall-mounted tv. Bucky grabbed the remote from Steve with a huff and clicked two back to some show about how they make tennis rackets, canned sardines and shoe insoles. They only got halfway through shoe insoles before Sam drifted off to sleep.
#
Buzzing in his pocket woke Sam up. He fumbled for his phone, and blinked blearily at the text. Ride on the way. Eta 2 min. Sam yawned wide as he typed his response.
Steve was asleep, snoring softly against Bucky's shoulder. Sam shifted on his pillows, and Bucky's eyes blinked open. "Need something?"
"My ride's on the way."
"Stark?"
"Yeah."
"Roof. I'll help you up there."
"Nah, I think I'm good. Just a sprained ankle."
Bucky gave him a look he'd seen him throw Steve a good half dozen times. Gently, he extracted himself from the couch and let Steve settle on the pillow. "I could wake him up, but he'll be cranky later."
"Well yeah..." Sam pushed himself up to sitting, pleased that he wasn't too dizzy. "Never interrupt a man's post-pizza nap."
"Roger that." Bucky said, totally deadpan. He reached his hand down to Sam.
"Do you love saying that? I bet you say that at least once a day." He grabbed Bucky's hand and stood, careful not to put too much weight on his bad ankle.
"At least."
"Does he throw things at your head right after you say it?" They walked to the door and out into the holograph-encased hallway, Sam's arm slung behind Bucky's neck, just enough support to spare his ankle without making their balance awkward.
"I dodge." Bucky pushed on a seemingly random part of the wall, and opened another hidden door that led to an elevator.
"I need to get me one of these."
"Secret elevator?"
"The whole secret apartment package. I can see how this'd come in handy."
"Beats the tower."
"You don't like the tower?"
Bucky shrugged. "Too many windows. Too much glass. All that open space makes me twitchy." The elevator slid open, whisper quiet, revealing a plain-looking Brooklyn rooftop. Plain looking except for the faint outline of the stealthed Quinjet. "Plus, Pino's doesn't deliver there. And I'm not giving up my garlic bread. Or Talde's Kung Pao."
"Fair enough." The jet opened its hatch as they walked closer.
"Text us when you get home."
Sam rolled his eyes. "Really?"
"Look I know you'll be fine, but Steve--"
"Yeah, yeah." Sam hobbled up onto the ramp, suppressing a wince. He paused and turned to wave. "Thanks for dinner."
"Dinner?" Bucky smiled. "That was lunch. Dinner should be here any minute though. Want to stick around?"
"Funny guy. That was way more pizza than any one man should consume in a sitting, super-soldier or not. I don't need to eat again for like a week."
"Speak for yourself," Bucky said, chuckling.
The jet's hatch closed. Through the side windows, Sam could see Bucky heading towards the edge of the roof.
"Destination Avengers Tower," the jet announced as Sam limped over to the pilot's chair. "Yeah that works." He yawned again, exhaustion pulling him down fast and hard. His eyes blinked against the slowly setting sun. The jet turned in a lazy half circle, giving him a clear view of the street below, where he saw not one, but two delivery bikes park in front of the building carrying at least four bags of food a piece. Sam squinted until he could make out the name Talde's on the bag.
"Guess that's dinner."