Who: Bucky Barnes and Sharon Carter When: Tuesday, May 10 Where: Sharon’s place What: Tacos. Rating/Warnings: Low/None Status: Complete
Sharon was just waiting for Bucky to show up now. She’d cooked Tacos for Taco Tuesday, and had made enough food to feed a small army. Maybe she was hungry when she’d shopped? But it meant she’d have lots of leftovers. Not that she was the best cook in the world, but it would do.
Viv was bathed, nursed, and settling down to sleep. The baby monitor was on, but Sharon was pretty sure they wouldn’t hear anything else from her for the rest of the night. It was around seven o’clock, and Bucky was due to arrive any minute. The man who called her his “best girl.” The man who made her toes curl. Sharon almost felt a little guilty how crazy she was about him. Almost.
She poured herself a tall glass of water and settled at the kitchen table with a cookbook to read while she waited for him to arrive.
~*~
Home was a relative concept. Anyplace could be home if it was where a person was at their most comfortable. Some people thought 'home' was where their family lived where others thought it was where they did their job. Bucky Barnes had always thought it was where Steve Rogers was fighting because standing next to Steve, fighting at his side, that was where he belonged. It was his 'home.'
Bucky had gotten used to thinking of 'home' being equal to 'wherever Steve is' when he had been a boy. Steve's mom -Sarah- had stopped getting onto him for not knocking after the first ten times he'd let himself in. She treated him as if he were a second son. It had been good for him, for Steve, for all of them really since they'd needed one another. They were all fatherless. It took people who were in the same boat to understand how the oars should be rowed.
He had stopped knocking at Sharon's after they'd stepped out on Valentine's Day. She let him know he was welcome. There was no reason to act like a visitor when he wasn't, not really, Bucky was only trying to find a new place to call home.
"I brought dessert," he offered as he left his shoes at the door, padding into the kitchen in his socks with a smile, the bakery box balanced on his useless arm, "I figured there was little chance I'd get a rejection for fresh-made cinnamon rolls. Cream cheese frosting. They're good for dessert. Or breakfast. Depending on your pleasure."
~*~
Sharon should probably be alone for a while. Live alone, that is. She'd been alone briefly between the time she finished her undercover work and when Veronica moved out to Orange County and lived with her. And then her mother was staying with the pair of them. Sharon hadn't lived alone--really alone--in... possibly forever. She probably would learn a lot about herself and about Viv if they had the place to themselves. And they were, for the most part, alone. Except when Bucky came over. He spent more time at Sharon's apartment than anyone else in her life. Her mother was close, Veronica came by sometimes, and Leon, too. But Bucky was there not only in her home, but in her heart, too. The place felt a little less hollow when he was there.
She grinned up from the cookbook she was reading, loving the way he looked in her kitchen. "Maybe both." She responded. "And, seriously, Bucky? Rejection? When have you ever been rejected in this house?" Pulling herself up from the chair, she lifted the cookbook and brought it with her as she moved around the table to greet him in the kitchen. It had become customary to meet him with a hug and a kiss, leaning in and savoring in the feel of his body so close to hers.
"I hope you brought your appetite. There's enough food here for the two of us for a week, I think." It was a bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one.
~*~
"I definitely brought my appetite. Food is probably a good idea first. Give Viv a chance to settle in."
Bucky winked at Sharon as he stole another kiss before moving to put the pastry box on the counter. There was no reason to take up table space with it. They'd likely need to wait to eat the rolls until the morning. Sharon didn't think much of her cooking, but Bucky had eaten food out of cans -cold as the weather was where they were stationed or hot the same since it wasn't often they could afford the risk of a fire- and then some. He knew better than to complain about anyone's cooking when he couldn't do more than mess around himself.
"I'm working on the whole cooking thing myself. Maybe I'll make dinner next time?"
It was a thought. One Bucky couldn't help being happy about. He rarely smiled except when he was with Steve---only he'd met Sharon and she was pure joy. Being with her made him feel as if all his reality was warped. There was no way Bucky would ever admit to anyone how worthless he felt since coming home; Sharon took all that pain away. The best thing he could give her was a few smiles and his company when she gave him a life.
A reason to live.
Bucky got that from Sharon and Viv.
"You think it's going to be just you and me and Viv for a while? I'm not too sure what's going on with her father. Fathers. Plural. I don't know if that's any of my business so you can tell me to keep my nose out of it. I'm only asking because I need to know if I'm going to have to learn to cook for an army instead of our motley trio."
~*~
"Yes. She'll settle. I haven't heard her in a few minutes," Sharon smirked, motioning with her head toward the baby monitor on the counter. It was quiet, and would likely remain quiet for a couple of hours. Hopefully the baby wouldn't have her up too much during the night, but she was rarely sleeping all the way through the night. One of the reasons that Bucky shouldn't want to stay with her any more than he already was.
They separated for long enough that they could each set down the things they were holding, then Sharon came back over to him. It seemed like when he was around, she wanted to be close. That wasn't a problem, was it? Her arms wrapped down and around his waist.
"I'd like that. You can dazzle me with your cooking skills." She paused, lowering her cheek to rest against his shoulder. "Steve offered to make dinner for the four of us--you, me, and Peggy. I think we should make that happen. Some night soon."
Then he asked about Viv's father, and Sharon pulled away so she could start dishing up the food. "No, you can ask. There's no harm in asking. Aramis and Porthos are moving to the East coast." She said, pulling down some plates. "So it's just the three of us. Unless my mom comes over, too."
~*~
Bucky had enough time to feel the warmth of Sharon's body against his own -a chance to brush a kiss against her forehead- and she was fluttering away, a butterfly escaping the grasp of a lumbering beast. Sharon made it easy to forget he wasn't the man he'd been before serving his country. Sometimes Bucky couldn't help thinking about it in spite of her.
He figured it was natural to want to be a better man -the best man- for his best girl.
"Steve can dazzle with his cooking skills. Me? I'm not so much dazzling as I am dastardly. You'll feel lucky your kitchen escaped intact by the time I'm done. We can make a date night soon. Steve and I have no problem entertaining beautiful women."
Technically speaking, the pair of them had never so much entertained beautiful women as it was Steve had tolerated the dames Bucky brought around. He'd been the type to like women of every kind as often as he could get them; Steve had been the type of friend to smile through the experiences as if it didn't bother him. He was a friendly guy. There was nothing wrong with being friendly with women.
Until it became more than friendship on one side but not the other.
"You okay with that? Them moving to the other side of the country?"
It was easier to ask Sharon how she was feeling than to delve too deeply into how it felt to remember the man he used to be.
Bucky couldn't go back in time. He could only go forward. It was all in learning to accept what was and was not possible.
~*~
Sharon gave a little laugh. "Dastardly? I'll take it." She gave him a sultry little smirk. "I think I'd take dastardly over dazzling any day." It was pretty much true. There was a time in Sharon's life where the Boy Scout would have been her type, but ever since getting stuck under that mistletoe, Bucky had been the only man on her mind.
She started to scoop beans and meat into tortillas. Because it was Taco Tuesday, and that's what people did on Taco Tuesday. She had cheese and rice, too, and salsa. Obviously. It wouldn't be Taco Tuesday without salsa.
"Well, it's really his choice. Their choice. It's okay, though. They'll still be involved in Viv's life." She glanced at Bucky over her shoulder. Sharon was a strong woman, that was certain. All single mothers had to be. But she was a little afraid--she'd always been a little afraid--of being on her own with the baby. It meant a lot of work and less people to turn to when things got rough. In that moment she looked both strong and vulnerable at the same time.
"I’ll miss them. But I understand."
~*~
"You're better equipped than most. I can't see you panicking. Me? I'd already be on a ventilator from a massive coronary event."
Bucky was aware of what he could and couldn't do in life. He could fight in a brawl even with a bum arm. Shooting? The target was toast regardless of distance as long as Bucky could brace the gun first. Being a father to someone too young to live without one? There was a whole other kind of responsibility involved than being a heavy. Viv didn't need a heavy. All she needed was someone who wouldn't bail on her, someone who'd make sure her needs were met first, someone who understood she wasn't a compromise he had to make in order to see her mother.
He was prepared to be there for her in any way Sharon felt comfortable letting him be.
"I want to be around more. If that's okay?"
Taking three hard taco shells, Bucky broke them as he avoided looking Sharon's way. It was easier for him to eat when he could use a taco salad method rather than full tacos. His manual dexterity wasn't so great even with the rehab. Sharon didn't comment on it. She was good about not making him feel less because of his injury. No guy could have gotten luckier than he had with Sharon.
~*~
"Oh, I panic all right. I'm just really good at hiding it." It was a side-effect of the job, really. The training. She didn't show her emotions the way that other people might have, though most of the time that was for the best. She didn't hyperventilate or burst into tears until she was in her bedroom alone at the end of the night. It would probably terrify Viv now that the baby was old enough to have some idea about emotions. Or, at least, that it was scary when Sharon wasn't acting like herself.
She pulled a bowl down from the cupboard and set it front of Bucky. He'd probably do better with a bowl than a plate, considering he'd probably make a salad or a burrito-bowl or something. Sharon had never cared about his arm. She wanted to make his life as easy as possible.
But what he'd said stuck with her. He wanted to be around more? What did that mean?
"Sure," she said, turning to lean a hip against the counter and watch him. His face, his eyes, she let her gaze wash over them and linger. Was this a point where their relationship would change? Was he asking for more because he wanted…? She had no idea. Sharon just knew now that she had him, she couldn’t imagine her life without him anymore. "You know you're always welcome here."
~*~
Some people had a great poker face. They could feel everything on the inside while reflecting nothing on the surface. Bucky had grown up learning how to bottle things because he was surrounded by women who'd all been passionate. The fights in the Barnes household were legendary in their neighborhood. He couldn't count how many times the police had come by for noise disturbance reports; eventually they stopped showing up since nothing they said or did made any difference. Passionate women weren't the kind to change when asked---no matter who did the asking.
He had lost a lot of his poker face after the accident.
Looking at Sharon, he couldn't quite hide the storm inside as it moved over his face. His lips were numb, frozen, and his tongue was too thick in his mouth. The words shouldn't have been able to fight their way free. It was frustrating to have those words -why those words?- flying out of his mouth when Bucky couldn't say anything else.
"I love you."
He took a breath to try to steady himself, force away the paralysis and panic, make sense.
"Sorry. I sometimes speak without thinking. My mouth just moves on its own. Not that I'm sorry to say it. I'm not sorry for that. I do. Love you. I'm only sorry I said it as if it was a sneeze instead of as if I meant it when I do mean it."
Stop.
Talking.
Bucky went back to fixing his taco salad since food was easier to focus on than whether or not Sharon would say the words back because she wanted to -or worse- out of some sense of obligation to return them.
~*~
Sharon’s heart sped up a little. They’d texted about this, sure, but to hear it coming from his mouth, to see the genuine fondness in his eyes… it was a whole lot harder to lie to a person when they were looking into your eyes. Sharon knew this very, very well. It was part of her trade. She’d been trained to lie, trained in obscurity, trained to be able to gaze deeply into someone’s eyes and tell them exactly what they wanted to hear.
But she couldn’t do that with Bucky.
It was adorable how awkward he was after saying it. She took a step forward and brought her hand to his, stilling its work on his food. The other came up to his cheek to turn his face toward hers. She cocked her head to the side a little and smiled up at him. “I love you, too.”
While Sharon could easily have lied effectively, tricked him into believing whatever she wanted, this was the truth. It made her heart thunder even harder. She did the next thing that felt natural--she went up on her toes and kissed him to seal the deal.
~*~
Blushing was the natural physical reaction to embarrassment. It involved an elevation in body temperature triggered by a response from the sympathetic nervous system---the same system which kicked in during a catastrophic event to help a person either engage in fight or flight. Bucky knew more than the average person about the fight-or-flight response because his PTSD involved inappropriate reactions or reaction phase engagement. He'd heard more about General Adaptation Syndrome than anyone not in the medical field ever needed to and that was only in his first month of rehab.
"You know, I've had girls. Women. None of them have ever said that to me. Sorry about the cold. I have a reversed heat signature because of the whole stress thing. It happens they tell me."
Bucky got cold when he was embarrassed or flustered or upset. His body temperature could drop up to five degrees below normal which was unusual for a man. Women tended to feel changes in temperature sooner than men according to the doctors he'd seen. Too many specialists had weighed in on his particular situation for him to remember every conversation he'd had, but Bucky could remember all the interest in his core temp being lower. They'd wanted to do some fairly involved tests regarding it.
He hadn't agreed.
No one had been happy about that.
"You know I wasn't always this way. I may get back to normal or to the guy I was---before. I don't want you to think you're going to be stuck figuring out how to keep loving me if I stay broken for the rest of our lives. I won't. I'll get better. For you."
~*~
Sharon's thumb moved back and forth on Bucky's cheek for a moment. She didn't mind the cold--to be honest, she barely noticed. Though, now that he mentioned it, she could feel it under her fingertips. It wasn't like it made a difference, though. How much she cared for him--loved him, even--wasn't going to change because his body temperature lowered when he got emotional.
With a little head shake, she spoke. "I don't mind the cold." Sharon was whispering, practically. Feelings of concern, confusion, amusement and fondness all swirled within her chest, each taking a turn in the foreground of her emotions. Mostly, she just felt love. And pride.
"I know you will. But even if you don’t… I won't have to figure out how to keep loving you, Bucky. It'll happen whether I want it to or not. This isn't the kind of thing I can just... shut off like a faucet." She paused, released his hand, and wrapped both arms up and around his neck--remembering his warning about his shoulder--and pressed her body in against his. Her next words came out as a tease, "I'm afraid you've got me for good. You poor sucker."
~*~
"Guess we'll just be together until the end of the line."
The words were familiar, a sense memory more than a clear one; Bucky murmured them while holding Sharon as tight to his chest as he could manage. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to fuck her. He never wanted to let her go. It was almost too much for him -all those wantings all at once- in the best way possible. There seemed to be nothing other than best things when he was with Sharon.
She was the sun breaking through the clouds in his winter's sky.
"What a way to be the lucky ones, right?"
It was a rhetorical question. Bucky didn't give Sharon a chance to answer as he moved his good arm down to grip her ass, lifting her up to make it easier to kiss her. They didn't need any more words. All the best ones had been said already.