fic: Take This Sabbath Day (Captain America; Steve/Bucky; pg)
Take This Sabbath Day
Captain America; Steve/Bucky; pg; 1,480 words
Sundays are theirs to do as they please.
A few months ago,
peterquills said I should write some domestic Steve/Bucky. *hands* Also for the West Wing title project. Also available at AO3.
~*~
Take This Sabbath Day
A couple of months after Steve brings him back to Stark Tower, but not too long after he's started to remember more of his life before HYDRA, Bucky stares at the group gathered in the living room and says, disbelief crystal clear in his voice, "You all live here?"
Stark and Banner shrug in acquiescence, and Barton says, "It's rent-free," which even after everything, Bucky understands on a bone-deep level, but still.
He turns to Natasha. "Surely not you, too."
"Sometimes." She gives him a small, secretive smile. "And don't call me Shirley."
He doesn't get the joke, though Stark and Barton snicker. He ignores them. He'd learned pretty quickly that that was the best strategy for dealing with them when they got like this. He focuses on the Black Widow.
"You of all people should know better," he says, but she just shrugs a shoulder and takes another sip of tea. He turns to Steve. "This place is a giant target. We're not staying."
Steve opens his mouth to argue and then shuts it again. He grins ruefully and shrugs, and spends the next three weeks looking at apartments until Bucky finds one that suits him.
Bucky might not have all of his memories back, might not know how to be Bucky anymore, not really, not yet (maybe not ever again), but he knows HYDRA will be coming for him (for them both) and he knows better than to set himself up as a target, even if that's what Steve has always done. It had felt right, in that moment, and months later, settled into their own apartment in Brooklyn, it still does. He knows they're putting civilians in danger just by being here, but he also knows they'll be a lot harder to find living in an anonymous row house in Boerum Hill than in Stark's eyesore of a tower.
They have something like a routine, though Bucky makes sure it's not too routine, that they don't fall into recognizable patterns and become predictable. HYDRA only needs to attack Stark Tower once to convince Steve (and the others) that his paranoia is justified.
Now that he's able to watch Steve's back, he doesn't complain too much Steve going out on missions with the Avengers, and even if he couldn't be there, he trusts Widow, at least, to have some sense. But he's also a little greedy for Steve's attention, which he can admit to himself, even if he'd never say it out loud. It's kind of comforting to know some things don't change, even after eighty years.
The life of a superhero is a busy, stressful one, and Steve has never been good at making time for himself when other people need him, but Bucky's been wise to his workaholic ways since long before the term workaholic was coined (since 1927, to be precise, when Steve was laid up with the flu and still insisted on completing all of his homework and helping Bucky with a book report when he should have been resting and recovering). And Bucky's not lying when he tells Steve he needs quiet and solitude most of the time, or that his version of solitude doesn't exclude Steve (though that exclusion doesn't extend to the rest of his teammates).
So Sundays are theirs to do as they please. It might be a little blasphemous, but Bucky figures after all the other sins on his soul, a little blasphemy's not going to do much more damage.
(Steve asks, once, if he wants to go to confession. Bucky figures it can't be worse than therapy, until he walks into the confessional and finds himself unable to speak after telling the priest that it's been seventy years since his last confession. Father Dominguez gently asks if he's contrite, and he manages to whisper, "Yes." And he is. He is.
"Then go and sin no more," the priest says, still in that soft, understanding tone.
Bucky manages to make it home before he breaks down sobbing. Steve hasn't suggested confession since, even though Bucky secretly thinks it was better than therapy. Probably because he didn't actually have to say much, and he felt a little better, a little lighter, after.)
Sometimes, they do go to Mass, mostly so Steve can kibitz with the old ladies who fill the pews at 7:30 in the morning. Old ladies have always been kind to him, and he's always had a soft spot for them, which is another thing that's no different here in the future. Afterward, Father Dominguez smiles and shakes their hands on the church steps, and Bucky can pretend he's an upstanding member of the community for a little while.
But sometimes, Bucky can convince Steve to sleep in--there's no running on Sunday mornings, and no alarms set. Neither of them needs all that much sleep, but they're both touch-starved (Bucky had been surprised that there was a name for it, but then again, maybe he shouldn't have been, here in the future where everything is neatly named and labeled, as if that made it any more comprehensible), and it's nice to be able to hunker down under the covers and cuddle.
The first time, they'd both been a little tentative--their relationship was always tactile, probably more than was safe in public at the time--but it'd been a long time since either of them had curled up close with another person. Steve had always clung like a limpet, though, and Bucky's happy to learn that hasn't changed, either.
Sometimes they have slow, sloppy sex on Sunday mornings, all heated, open-mouthed kisses and languid hip-thrusts, the gorgeous stretch of Steve's body above (or below, or beside) him (as long as he gets to have Steve, he's never much cared about the how), but sometimes, just snuggling close and breathing each other in is enough. Bucky can cuddle for hours, though occasionally Steve gets restless. He's never been one for lounging when he could be up and about, probably because he spent so much time confined to bed before the serum.
When that happens, Bucky shoves him out of bed with a peremptory, "Pancakes, please," and Steve is only too happy to oblige.
There are times, though, when he's not persuasive enough, or when he doesn't want to stay in bed by himself, so they both brave the kitchen. Steve makes an excellent cheese omelet, and Bucky puts the coffee on. Sam calls them hipsters, but the Moka pot had belonged to Bucky's mother, a gift from some long-forgotten friend or neighbor. Plus, he knows how to use it, and the coffee tastes familiar. One of Becca's grandkids gave it to him when he'd finally worked up the nerve to get in touch with the family.
He'd tried to wave it off. "You should have it to remind you of your grandmother," he'd said.
The kid--James, because of fucking course, half the kids in the Barnes family are named after him--laughed. "Grandma used a Mr. Coffee machine. Please, take it."
They'd had to replace the rubber seal, but it still works perfectly. Of course, it's meant to make demitasse, so the six cup model makes one large mug for each of them, but they don't need more, since the caffeine doesn't work on them. It's the routine of it that Bucky likes, as much as the way it tastes.
Once breakfast is made, they settle down with the Sunday Times, trading sections back and forth for a while. Then Steve sits at his drafting table and Bucky curls up with the crossword, and the morning passes in comfortable silence, broken only by the scratch of Steve's pencils on paper, or Bucky asking, "What's a five letter word for 'space shuttle gasket'? Starts with O."
Steve, who's been obsessed with outer space for as long as Bucky's known him, immediately answers, "O-ring."
Bucky fills in the squares. It works. "Huh."
He's still puzzling over forty across--"fortieth US president"--when Steve drops down onto the couch beside him.
"The Mets are on at one," he says, nuzzling Bucky's neck in a way that makes him forget all about forty across.
"Always knew you were a masochist," Bucky mutters, but he puts his pencil and paper on the end table (nobody likes napping on a coach where pencils can stab you from between the cushions) because he knows what's coming next. The crossword's just a way of killing time while he waits for it to happen.
"We don't have to watch," Steve says slyly. He turns the giant television on with the volume down low, and they make out on the couch like it's 1938, with the familiar murmur of a ballgame in the background.
Bucky likes the future, now that he gets to be a real part of it, but he's forever grateful that some things stayed the same.
end
~*~
Feedback is adored.
~*~
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/722612.html.
people have commented there.
Captain America; Steve/Bucky; pg; 1,480 words
Sundays are theirs to do as they please.
A few months ago,
peterquills said I should write some domestic Steve/Bucky. *hands* Also for the West Wing title project. Also available at AO3.
~*~
Take This Sabbath Day
A couple of months after Steve brings him back to Stark Tower, but not too long after he's started to remember more of his life before HYDRA, Bucky stares at the group gathered in the living room and says, disbelief crystal clear in his voice, "You all live here?"
Stark and Banner shrug in acquiescence, and Barton says, "It's rent-free," which even after everything, Bucky understands on a bone-deep level, but still.
He turns to Natasha. "Surely not you, too."
"Sometimes." She gives him a small, secretive smile. "And don't call me Shirley."
He doesn't get the joke, though Stark and Barton snicker. He ignores them. He'd learned pretty quickly that that was the best strategy for dealing with them when they got like this. He focuses on the Black Widow.
"You of all people should know better," he says, but she just shrugs a shoulder and takes another sip of tea. He turns to Steve. "This place is a giant target. We're not staying."
Steve opens his mouth to argue and then shuts it again. He grins ruefully and shrugs, and spends the next three weeks looking at apartments until Bucky finds one that suits him.
Bucky might not have all of his memories back, might not know how to be Bucky anymore, not really, not yet (maybe not ever again), but he knows HYDRA will be coming for him (for them both) and he knows better than to set himself up as a target, even if that's what Steve has always done. It had felt right, in that moment, and months later, settled into their own apartment in Brooklyn, it still does. He knows they're putting civilians in danger just by being here, but he also knows they'll be a lot harder to find living in an anonymous row house in Boerum Hill than in Stark's eyesore of a tower.
They have something like a routine, though Bucky makes sure it's not too routine, that they don't fall into recognizable patterns and become predictable. HYDRA only needs to attack Stark Tower once to convince Steve (and the others) that his paranoia is justified.
Now that he's able to watch Steve's back, he doesn't complain too much Steve going out on missions with the Avengers, and even if he couldn't be there, he trusts Widow, at least, to have some sense. But he's also a little greedy for Steve's attention, which he can admit to himself, even if he'd never say it out loud. It's kind of comforting to know some things don't change, even after eighty years.
The life of a superhero is a busy, stressful one, and Steve has never been good at making time for himself when other people need him, but Bucky's been wise to his workaholic ways since long before the term workaholic was coined (since 1927, to be precise, when Steve was laid up with the flu and still insisted on completing all of his homework and helping Bucky with a book report when he should have been resting and recovering). And Bucky's not lying when he tells Steve he needs quiet and solitude most of the time, or that his version of solitude doesn't exclude Steve (though that exclusion doesn't extend to the rest of his teammates).
So Sundays are theirs to do as they please. It might be a little blasphemous, but Bucky figures after all the other sins on his soul, a little blasphemy's not going to do much more damage.
(Steve asks, once, if he wants to go to confession. Bucky figures it can't be worse than therapy, until he walks into the confessional and finds himself unable to speak after telling the priest that it's been seventy years since his last confession. Father Dominguez gently asks if he's contrite, and he manages to whisper, "Yes." And he is. He is.
"Then go and sin no more," the priest says, still in that soft, understanding tone.
Bucky manages to make it home before he breaks down sobbing. Steve hasn't suggested confession since, even though Bucky secretly thinks it was better than therapy. Probably because he didn't actually have to say much, and he felt a little better, a little lighter, after.)
Sometimes, they do go to Mass, mostly so Steve can kibitz with the old ladies who fill the pews at 7:30 in the morning. Old ladies have always been kind to him, and he's always had a soft spot for them, which is another thing that's no different here in the future. Afterward, Father Dominguez smiles and shakes their hands on the church steps, and Bucky can pretend he's an upstanding member of the community for a little while.
But sometimes, Bucky can convince Steve to sleep in--there's no running on Sunday mornings, and no alarms set. Neither of them needs all that much sleep, but they're both touch-starved (Bucky had been surprised that there was a name for it, but then again, maybe he shouldn't have been, here in the future where everything is neatly named and labeled, as if that made it any more comprehensible), and it's nice to be able to hunker down under the covers and cuddle.
The first time, they'd both been a little tentative--their relationship was always tactile, probably more than was safe in public at the time--but it'd been a long time since either of them had curled up close with another person. Steve had always clung like a limpet, though, and Bucky's happy to learn that hasn't changed, either.
Sometimes they have slow, sloppy sex on Sunday mornings, all heated, open-mouthed kisses and languid hip-thrusts, the gorgeous stretch of Steve's body above (or below, or beside) him (as long as he gets to have Steve, he's never much cared about the how), but sometimes, just snuggling close and breathing each other in is enough. Bucky can cuddle for hours, though occasionally Steve gets restless. He's never been one for lounging when he could be up and about, probably because he spent so much time confined to bed before the serum.
When that happens, Bucky shoves him out of bed with a peremptory, "Pancakes, please," and Steve is only too happy to oblige.
There are times, though, when he's not persuasive enough, or when he doesn't want to stay in bed by himself, so they both brave the kitchen. Steve makes an excellent cheese omelet, and Bucky puts the coffee on. Sam calls them hipsters, but the Moka pot had belonged to Bucky's mother, a gift from some long-forgotten friend or neighbor. Plus, he knows how to use it, and the coffee tastes familiar. One of Becca's grandkids gave it to him when he'd finally worked up the nerve to get in touch with the family.
He'd tried to wave it off. "You should have it to remind you of your grandmother," he'd said.
The kid--James, because of fucking course, half the kids in the Barnes family are named after him--laughed. "Grandma used a Mr. Coffee machine. Please, take it."
They'd had to replace the rubber seal, but it still works perfectly. Of course, it's meant to make demitasse, so the six cup model makes one large mug for each of them, but they don't need more, since the caffeine doesn't work on them. It's the routine of it that Bucky likes, as much as the way it tastes.
Once breakfast is made, they settle down with the Sunday Times, trading sections back and forth for a while. Then Steve sits at his drafting table and Bucky curls up with the crossword, and the morning passes in comfortable silence, broken only by the scratch of Steve's pencils on paper, or Bucky asking, "What's a five letter word for 'space shuttle gasket'? Starts with O."
Steve, who's been obsessed with outer space for as long as Bucky's known him, immediately answers, "O-ring."
Bucky fills in the squares. It works. "Huh."
He's still puzzling over forty across--"fortieth US president"--when Steve drops down onto the couch beside him.
"The Mets are on at one," he says, nuzzling Bucky's neck in a way that makes him forget all about forty across.
"Always knew you were a masochist," Bucky mutters, but he puts his pencil and paper on the end table (nobody likes napping on a coach where pencils can stab you from between the cushions) because he knows what's coming next. The crossword's just a way of killing time while he waits for it to happen.
"We don't have to watch," Steve says slyly. He turns the giant television on with the volume down low, and they make out on the couch like it's 1938, with the familiar murmur of a ballgame in the background.
Bucky likes the future, now that he gets to be a real part of it, but he's forever grateful that some things stayed the same.
end
~*~
Feedback is adored.
~*~
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/722612.html.
people have commented there.