Chapter Text
“We’re gonna be ages-old,” Bucky tells Steve when Bucky’s newly eleven and Steve’s ten and tiny and bleeding from his rosebud mouth, “we’re gonna be forever. ”
Bucky comes faithfully over every Sunday to help Sarah with household work after she and Steve return from Mass and this Sunday is no different, arriving with a summer sunburn and a load of fresh, warm laundry. He bangs into the apartment with a laugh. “Hey, Mrs. Rogers. Present for you from my ma.”
Sarah’s eyes light up and she stands to take the basket from Bucky, moving it to the table where she sets about sorting. “Tell Winifred she’s an absolute godsend, thank you, James.”
(Sarah’s been so busy with double shifts at the hospital lately that Winifred Barnes throws up her well-worn hands and demands Sarah let her take over “at least some of the household work! I won’t have you wasting your time doing chores I can make the vilde chayas do instead— Gott nor veist, I have enough of them.” With four pups under twelve all underfoot at home, Winifred all too enthusiastically embraces the opportunity to shoo them out of the house.)
(Luckily, Sarah thinks, Bucky incentivizes easily.)
“Is Steve feelin’ any better yet?” Bucky asks, bouncing eagerly on his toes like a bird waiting for food.
Sarah laughs and rolls her eyes. “You’re very predictable. Yes, his fever broke last night. Get on with you, I know you want to go say hello.”
He darts in, smacks a kiss to her dimpling cheek, and shoots into the other room.
“Stevie!” she hears him exclaim with bright, genuine delight.
“Buck!” her boy squeaks back, equally cheered despite the roughness of his voice due to a persistent cough.
“Didja hear any of the game yesterday?”
“No! Tell me!”
“Okay, so, the Dodgers started out up by—”
Shaking her head at their antics, Sarah sets about folding her laundry while her boys’ excited chatter fades comfortably into the background.
Their first kiss makes sense — Steve, thirteen, sketching Bucky on the fire escape, lean body laid out soft against rusty red sunset, and Bucky, fourteen, leaning over and pressing his mouth once, sweetly, to Steve’s; Steve, breathless as though struck, setting sun in his eyes, pressing back.