Summary:Bucky has the patience of a saint with a newly-Einherjar'd Steve. Hot cocoa, however, soothes all woes. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Dinner was an easy affair. Steve made breakfast and, thankfully, was not whisked off in the middle of flipping the scramble in the cast-iron pan — this survived his sudden summons into an underworld at Astryd's behest. The eggs were rich with mushrooms, sausage, potatoes, chives, everything a growing super-soldier needs.
At this point, sprawled on the couch, the Captain in his t-shirt is giving his husband a long-suffering look. "…'nd so, because I was considered 'dead' according to Asgardian standards when I was frozen all those years - cold and my heart stopped - the combination of magic in the book-shop managed to bind me as an Einherjar. Agent May's fine, it's just…" He blows a sigh and pushes his fingers back through his blond hair, leaving it a mess and his eyes downcast towards his lap. "Wish the summoning wasn't abrupt. 'm honored, believe me, but…" He grimaces at Bucky. "What if 'm in the shower with suds in my hair 'nd I arrive all suited up, due to the magic, but with soap in my eyes?"
Yeah, Buck was not happy with that disappearance…and with his skillet, no less. But he's taken in it in stride, as he has so very many things. It's kind of required, with the lives they've lived, and will live….and this partnership in particular. "Man, magic sticks to you like glue, doesn't it?" he says.
Buck is knitting. They have socks. They buy socks. They could buy enough socks to line their house with socks, if they wanted. But….he's used to it. So there's the click of needles as he knits yet another sock. "I wonder if I should volunteer," he says. As if he could just enlist. "I was frozen that long, too. Sorta."
Turning his face towards the brunet working away at another sock, the Captain sits up on the couch. "You'd volunteer for that? Buck." His frown doesn't fade. "It's not…really a volunteer kind of thing. You gotta get chosen for it. It means you go against anything they summon you for, doesn't matter where or when. I don't…"
His true-blues linger and watch the needles flash silvery. "You really wanna be at a Valkyrie's beck 'nd whim? What're FUBAR and SNAFU gonna do if we're both summoned?" A snap. "Just like that?"
Bucky doesn't quite glower *at* Steve. Sort of at some…indeterminate middle distance. The Ghosts of Nazis Past, maybe. He's clicking away like Madame Defarge. "I figure," he says, that dull note in his voice, even as he looks up from under his lashes. "I just…don't like the idea of you getting dragged away from me at the snap of a finger from some lady in a brass brassiere."
"I don't like it either." In a rustle of blanket crumpled to one side and jeans, Steve rises to his feet. He wanders over to stand with thumbs slung on his pockets, chin tucked, still watching those knitting needles at work. Then, he kneels down to one knee and reaches out. His palm lands on one of those firm thighs, warm and present.
"You know I wouldn't've agreed if they'd asked me, right? There're a lot of battles to fight here on Earth - Midgard - 'nd they've got enough Einherjar." He sighs and his brows knit. "There's a way out of it…I asked Loki. He said I'd…I'd have to turn away from a battle. Abandon people…'nd 'm not gonna do that."
Bucky's knee gets a gentle squeeze. "But 'm not gonna abandon you either, so…figure there's gotta be another way around it. Maybe it takes a while to get around it though. His wife, Sigyn, she said it might take months or…years." Now Steve's face is waxing into an expression heartfelt, brows quirked. "But 'm not leaving you. 'm not."
The needles go still, at that. His lips press together - Steve knows that expression so well, Buck suppressing some kind of reaction. But it's a human one, at least, as opposed to that permafrost deadness that Winter displays. "I know," he says, looking up. Voice rasping, soft. "I know."
Then he sets the needles aside, carefully, with the sock-in-progress. "You've never been able to leave a fight alone, when you could wade in," he adds. But there's fondness there, rather than accusation or anger.
Steve's smile is crooked, but there's another emotion suppressed there as well, where the knowing response hit him someplace tender. "Yeah…" he murmurs. "'m an idiot 'nd I know it." His laugh is soft. "Just…can't let anyone get kicked while they're down. Figure…figure too if Asgard's calling, they probably do need help. 'm not Thor 'nd if they need me…"
Broad shoulders shrug. Bucky's knee gets another squeeze. "Promise you 'm working on a way to make this work — to make sure I can continue to be here for Earth, for you." He seeks out one of those rough-palmed hands, with gun calluses yet, and kisses at the knuckles. On one knee, and with that earnest gleam in his eyes, it's clear Steve's using all of his wiles to soothe any worries in the Soldier.
"No, you're not an idiot. Just too brave for your own good. You fit right in with what I've seen of Asgard," he sighs. "Man, I'm glad I'm not….I'm glad I'm not someone who has to stay home and wait….I mean, that I can keep up with you." But he's smiling, despite himself.
Then he looks wryly into Steve's face. "You've gotten real good at buttering me up, you know that?" he wonders. "Man, I still can't believe you look like that." He curls his hand into a fist, pushes gently at Steve's lips, a mockery of a punch.
Playing along with the mock-punch, the blond collapses down to one hip. "Oof." He still doesn't let go of Bucky's hand and grins up at him, dimples full wattage. "I've kinda been living with someone who was pretty good at it once 'nd still good at it when he feels like it. Monkey see, monkey do, right?"
He still sobers enough to make his smile dwindle. It remains, a fond moonbow's curve. "You're my «brave one»." His Gaelic nickname for the Soldier lilts. "Nobody's making you stay at home. If I can bring you with me next time, I will. Promise." Another squeeze of the Soldier's hand follows. "They won't know what happened to 'em, not with both of us side by side again."
"Now I know how most of the women felt. How you felt, back when," he says, unwontedly blunt. "I remember worrying about you so bad when I was in Africa. Wishing you were healthy enough to be there and see it, glad you weren't. It was….well, you got your share later, when you showed up in Italy." Buck's eyes have that sad wonder in them. This man, his husband - he's all he knew Steve could be. Healthy, hale, brave as a lion….and all of it like a shell around the frail boy he loved so long ago.
"Italy had no idea I was coming," Steve agrees before he laughs once. With a grunt, he rises to his feet and again bows down to kiss at his guy's knuckles. "Helluva surprise party. Wasn't too sure about the light show, too much blue 'nd…HYDRA involved. The pyrotechnics in the facility where I scrounged you up were a bit much too. Could've taken it down a few notches."
His smirk is both amused and sad in his own way. Socked feet make little sound as the super-soldier then meanders away towards the kitchen. "Feeling like hot chocolate? Cold enough out there to warrant a cup. I can mix in some of the peppermint coffee creamer? One of the more amazing things society's come up with lately," he muses.
Buck's made his opinion on the wonder of peppermint chocolate known. To the extent of more than a few presents flavored that way. "Sure, I'd love it," he says. "You know, we gotta go to Florida, like we always said. I'm so tired of snow, I can't stand it. But I might be a little biased, y'know?"
He snorts. "They sure were surprised, the poor bastards. No one more'n me. I still haven't forgiven whatever chump decided to censor our letters."
Then he's pushing up from the couch with a sigh. However tuned up and fighting fit he might be, the arm and its attachments ache.
The microwave door clunks shut and with a series of beeps, it's set to warm the milk to the appropriate temperature rather than cook it. Steve leads his turn with a look and then leaves the makings of the hot chocolate on the counter behind in order to walk over.
"Florida's a plan, you bet." Reaching out with a frown of concern, he very carefully passes his hand over the area where metal meets muscle. His eyes slide to Bucky's face and he then smiles that half-smile known so well. "Snow'll linger here 'nd we can be snow-birds. Snorkeling, surfing, sunbathing…wish the maitais did anything but taste like fruit juice 'nd liquor." His palm slides down the underside of the metal arm to gather up the hand and, as so was bestowed upon the knuckles of flesh, so he kisses at the silvery knuckles.
"Think they'll survive a week without us, right?" Not too unlike that frail tow-headed kid who insisted on this and that, going here and there even if he ended up wheezing and coughing on the journey, he tugs Bucky along into the kitchen. "I'll put in the vacation time for it," comes the promises as he removes the steaming milk in its Pyrex container from the microwave. "They can try censoring my request if they want."
But…it won't pan out in their favor, Steve seems to imply guilelessly as he works at putting together two mugs of hot cocoa.
It was always his dream trip, back when Florida was as remote and exotic as Tibet, for most New Yorkers. "Yeah," he says, softly. No flinch for the touch, just a little sigh. A smile for Steve being tender to the prosthesis, one of those gently gallant little gestures. "I mean, they survived decades without us, a week…..pffft." He blows a raspberry at the idea. "I'm owed a lot of time, too."
Lightly-frothed hot cocoa clings in a droplet at the bottom curve of the spoon Steve uses to gesture towards his other half. "That's precisely it. World's still spinning after decades of us being out of commission."
One of them frozen, one of them brainwashed, both impossibly alive and together despite that very spinning world seeming to divine the opposite.
"Nothing bad'll happen 'nd we'll absorb enough sun to make a vitamin D shot seem worthless. It'll be good for your joints, good for mine too. Can't get a tan, but that's the trick of the serum." An appropriate dollop of peppermint mocha creamer per mug and then Steve returns to the fridge for the final touch: whipped cream. A good shake of the can and he mounds up an absurd amount atop one mug.
"Your hot chocolate." It clunks down before Bucky…but the Captain's still holding the aerosol can. "Baby bird," he then suggests with a twinkling grin.
'Baby bird' meaning 'open your mouth so I fill it also with an absurd amount of whipped cream'. The can is lifted at the ready.
He's not sure where Steve found out about it, but he approves heartily. So Buck's settled at the kitchen table, and he tips his head back and opens his mouth. But not before he grins, impishly. He doesn't need to say what he's thinking. Steve'll know.
An absurd amount of whipped cream is dispersed and once Bucky will be fain to close his mouth without dealing in vain with chipmunked cheeks, the blond relents. He eyebrows in the brunet's direction and smiles to himself.
"You finish that sock 'nd we'll talk. For now, hot cocoa." His own drink, on the counter, gets an equally extravagant garnishing, and after putting the can away, he too sits at the kitchen table. A sip is followed by a hum of contentment and a small white mustache. "This's the good life," he murmurs, extending out a hand towards Bucky palm-up, rested on the table.
A hand taken, and squeezed gently, as he smiles at Steven across the table. "You tell 'em, brother," he retorts.