WHO: Bucky Barnes and Liam Dunbar WHAT: Awkwardness and bonding WHEN: Tonight WHERE: Bucky's place WARNINGS: Nah STATUS: Closed/Completed Gdoc
So Liam and Molly had totally had sex after prom. And while it hadn’t been perfect, and had been weird and awkward at times….and he was pretty sure he hadn’t done everything right...on the whole it had been a positive experience, and he thought it had for Molly, too. They hadn’t been perfect because it was their first time and apparently even sex took practice, but he felt closer to her than he ever had before and that was really important and really special to him. He was glad they’d done it, even if it meant a secret to keep from her dads.
He wasn’t ashamed, not at all, he just didn’t think that it was something that they needed to know. It was between him and Molly, and they’d made their decision and done everything responsibly and used protection and all of that. They weren’t adults yet, but they weren’t kids either, and they weren’t stupid. And it wasn’t like they’d just gotten together and hooked up at prom. No, they’d been together almost two years, and that was like forever at their age.
Liam had come over to visit Molly tonight, and they were snuggling together in her room watching netflix. No sex tonight because her dads and moms were home and that would be totally awkward, but they were still a little more comfortable together physically then they had been before.
After they finished yet another episode and Netflix got judgy, Liam got out of bed and stretched, letting her know he was going to go to the bathroom and go get some snacks before he came back. Then he headed downstairs. It wasn’t until he got to the kitchen that he ran into someone - almost literally. It was strange how Bucky could be so quiet, even to a werewolf.
“Uh, hey,” he said. It wasn’t as awkward as before Prom, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable, either.
***
Bucky wasn't aware of the sordid details that happened between Molly and Liam, but he had been aware that she'd missed her curfew. Not that he really minded, if only because he knew she was safe and that she'd have called if there was trouble. They'd gotten a lot better at making sure she was equipped to defend herself, too. That had gone a long way in making him worry a little less. Plus, as much as he was wary of Liam, he knew his daughter's boyfriend only cared about her and would keep her safe.
That was why he didn't mind when Liam came over and the two teenagers retreated up to her bedroom. Between him, Steve, Kara and Veronica, they were all confident there wouldn't be any lines crossed under their roof. Tonight was just like any other evening and the pair of them had disappeared up to Molly's room pretty much immediately. Bucky had been working in the garage for a while and then he'd come inside for a snack when he ran into Liam.
"Hey," he returned. "Looking for a snack?" It seemed a reasonable assumption. "What are you guys in the mood for? Salty? Sweet?" They had a little of everything in the kitchen.
***
“Yeah,” he said. Being a teenage boy werewolf, Liam’s stomach was almost always craving food. He couldn’t help it. And plus, having something to eat while you were watching TV was almost a necessity. Unless your hands were doing other things, of course. Although those were things that his hands definitely weren’t going to be doing with all these people here tonight.
“Um, I don’t know. Maybe a little of both? Maybe like...chips and rice krispy treats or something.”
He didn’t know if they had those things, but he assumed they probably did. After all, they had teenagers so teenager food was probably around too.
***
“How about chips and some homemade cookies?” Bucky countered as he went to the pantry to grab a bag of Molly’s favorite chips. He knew where and what everyone’s favorites were because food was part of how he spoiled the people he loved. Molly had been getting more spoiled lately because of the nightmare incident, so he had a lot of her favorites on hand instead of just one or two.
He handed the bag to Liam and then moved to the oven, where a plate of cookies had been hiding. Bucky usually had to get creative when it came to hiding sweets.
“Double chocolate chip.” His favorite, but he’d share. Just not the whole four dozen. “So what’s on the watch list tonight? Anything good?” Bucky was really trying to make more of an effort with Liam, for Molly’s sake.
***
Homemade cookies beat Rice Krispy Treats any day, so heck yeah he was going for that. It was a bit of a stretch to ask him not to take the whole four dozen, but he was good and only took enough for the two of them...well, enough of the two of them if he’d been a normal teenage boy.
“The Crown,” he said, rolling his eyes. He obviously wasn’t thrilled with the selection. “Molly’s choice. But I get to choose next and I’m going to choose something much more exciting.”
Watching stuff about some stupid stuffy queen of England was not something that particularly interested him. But he was willing to suffer through it for Molly’s sake.
***
Bucky chuckled when Liam said they were watching The Crown. Historical pieces weren’t really his MO, so he could understand that. “Maybe take a dozen cookies,” he offered. The kid deserved it for sitting through a boring old show.
“You guys ever watch Doctor Who?” Bucky had taken a shine to it because of the science fiction aspect of it. He’d started with the Ninth Doctor and was slowly working his way through the seasons. So far, he was just up to the Tenth Doctor.
***
“Not yet,” Liam said, taking the cookies onto the paper plate he’d grabbed. “I’m not sure if I want to or not. I mean, it sounds super cool, but I don’t know if it’s Molly’s sort of thing.” He didn’t know everything that happened, and with all the sci-fi weirdness he didn’t want to bring up bad feelings from her past. She’d been through so much and he didn’t want her to suffer through that again. And weirdness worked into his world, too.
“I mean...we both come from worlds that are super weird which is kind of why we stay with the more real stuff. It’s not as scary.”
***
Bucky respected that. The time travel aspect of Doctor Who had wigged him out a little at first, but he'd gotten used to it as he began to trust that the Doctor generally had his shit together and followed a moral compass. "That makes sense," he replied. It was generally the reason why he avoided shows like The Handmaid's Tale or other dystopian societies. It felt like it could be all too real.
"The only other things I could recommend are shows about cars, forging, home repair, and animated stuff. Pretty sure none of that stuff is up your alley." Well, maybe some of the animated stuff, but he knew he'd get an eye roll from Molly if he suggested it. "Might want to find some less boring historical pieces. Something with pirates maybe?" That seemed safe and not likely to end up in sex parties like Roman or Greek stuff had the potential to end up with.
***
“Or maybe that Vikings show? I hear that it’s super violent.”
Violent wasn’t always good, but it was usually exciting, and it was something he could deal with. Or Vampires, maybe. There were a few here but they totally didn’t exist in his world back home so they weren’t very scary either.
“Or like, there are all these Roman and Greek shows that look kind of good. All sorts of violence there, too.”
***
Bucky nodded. Ultimately, whatever adult situations they came across, they'd either be wigged out by it or awkward about it, or not. He would be better off just not thinking about it. Except he couldn't quite hide the twitch of his nose when Liam when and suggested Roman and Greek shows.
"Violence isn't the only thing in those shows," he cautioned. He wasn't sure how far he could go without Molly pitching a fit, so Bucky figured that was a good place to start as he headed to the fridge to grab sodas for them.
Since he was starting to meal prep for the next couple of days, Bucky asked, "You planning on coming over for dinner this week or next?"
***
Liam cocked his head for a moment before figuring out what Bucky meant. Then he blushed. “I mean...I guess they have some boobs and stuff in them too, don’t they?” He’d never actually watched them much. He’d always been too busy with lacrosse and everything else. “But I mean, we are both seventeen. We’ve seen boobs before.” Then he blushed deeper, hoping that wasn’t too much information.
He was very, very, very happy to change the subject and nodded.
“Yeah, I mean, if that’s okay.”
***
Bucky had been all set to agree with Liam up until the point when he said he’d seen boobs before. The blush alone was confirmation that the teenager had seen his daughter’s boobs. That made him frown, but he didn’t say anything. He’d tried and had gotten way more information than he needed. Maybe he’d see if V would just make sure Molly was being Responsible. That conversation wouldn’t go over so well coming from him, or Steve.
“Sure, you’re always welcome,” Bucky replied of the dinner invite. “Going grocery shopping tomorrow so I wanted to make sure I was accounting for a teenage werewolf.” There was always plenty of food even when Liam wasn’t planning on having dinner. He and Steve ended up taking a lot of the food as leftovers for lunch the next day and if Liam came over, they usually just didn’t have as much left over. There wasn’t anything wrong with that.
“Got any requests?”
***
Liam tried to fight the blush away, which, of course, didn’t work at all. It made it worse, if anything. But he relaxed a little when it seemed that Bucky really wasn’t trying to murder him at all. That was good. Maybe he hadn’t figured it out. Or maybe he was cool with it. Either way, he was going to be a bit more careful about what he said from this point on.
“You know I like pretty much anything,” he said. Having the appetite of a teenage werewolf meant that you couldn’t always be picky. “Meat, especially. Lots of meat.”
He just couldn’t get enough of that.
***
"You know, I may get the grill fired up this week," he mused. Meat, meat, and more meat was perfectly in line with what he usually made for dinner each nice, so that wasn't out of the ordinary. Bucky just tried to balance things out with vegetables and starches, using generally whatever was in season. He tended to grill all year round, but more often when the weather was warmer. Just because he wasn't bothered physically by the cold didn't mean he wasn't mentally screwed up sometimes when it came to the weather. It sometimes was just too much of a reminder of cryo.
He nodded to himself and began to put together the shopping list. After a moment, Bucky glanced back up at Liam. "You're heading home by 11, right?" The implication being that he definitely was heading home by 11pm, otherwise there were going to be some problems for the werewolf.
***
He hadn’t actually been planning on heading home by 11pm, but it was pretty obvious he was going to now. So it was best to play it like he’d been planning on that all along and make Bucky think he was mature, respectful and responsible.
“Oh, yes, sir. Absolutely. Wasn’t planning on staying any longer than that.”
Hopefully that wasn’t overkill.
***
Bucky sighed heavily. He was going to need all kinds of strength to survive his daughter’s relationship. The one bright spot was that the two teenagers had been together for longer than Bucky had been in Madison, so at least they were solid. Or as solid as two teenagers could be.
“Okay, we’re going to work on how to be at least marginally convincing at lying to me about what you get up to with my daughter,” Bucky decided. Really, he just wanted Liam to be less obvious about it so that he could pretend to be blissfully unaware. “We’ll add that in the next time you come work on the car with me.”
***
Well, that hadn’t worked, apparently. But Bucky wasn’t trying to kill him either. Yet, anyway. So while he hadn’t been very convincing, at least he was going to get another chance to be. He hoped.
“I really, really care about your daughter,” he said, hoping that would make up for any faux pas he might have made. “I mean, if that matters. She’s the world to me.”
***
Bucky grinned. “I know you do,” he replied. That was one of the main reasons why he didn’t mind that Molly and Liam were upstairs in her bedroom, behind a closed door. Superhearing aside, he did trust Liam to always look out for Molly’s best interests and to back off if Molly said she wanted him to stop whatever it was they were doing. He didn’t want to think about exactly what they were doing anyway.
“Which is why I’m going to teach you a mildly convincing poker face so I don’t have to think about what you get up to.” There were some things about being a parent that he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to and realizing his daughter was close to if not already exploring her sexuality was one of them. Bucky got up from the table now that his grocery list was all set. He stuck it to the fridge and grabbed a cookie for himself off the tray.
Since he was headed up to his and Kara’s room, Bucky waited to head toward the stairs with Liam.
***
“I’d like to learn that, actually, sir,” he said. It was the truth. He’d like to be able to lie a little when he needed to, even if just for the sake of Bucky and Steve’s sanity. He knew that they didn’t want to think about what Molly was doing, even if she was totally not a kid anymore. They were both seventeen, after all, and almost adults. But they still saw them as little kids. He was pretty sure that parents always saw you as a little kid. No matter what.
“I mean...I hope you know you can trust me. Molly and I may not always be perfect or you may not always want to know what we’re up to, but I’d never hurt her. And I can pretty much protect her from anything.”
He didn’t show his werewolf side very often, but when he did, it was totally fierce.
He started up the stairs with him, very aware that Bucky and Kara were going to be nearby.
***
“I know, Liam,” he repeated, and this time he put a reassuring hand on the kid’s shoulder. It was a brief moment of solidarity, two guys who just wanted Molly to be happy. Bucky wouldn’t be upset at all if the two of them ended up getting married one day - a day very far into the future.
With another grin, they headed up the stairs together. “Enjoy the rest of The Crown,” he teased when they got to the top of the stairs. “And out by 11.” Bucky headed into his and Kara’s room, content to not think about what was or wasn’t happening in his daughter’s bedroom.