Archive of Our Own

“Yeah? Well, it's time for me to tap out. Maybe I should take a page out of Barton's book and build Pepper a farm, hope nobody blows it up,” Tony says, already forming plans in his head, as the car stops next to them.

Steve smiles at him. “The simple life.”

Tony nods his head solemnly, not trying to think about his broken heart. He’d know what Pepper would tell him now. And he looks forward to hearing it when he arrives back in Manhattan.

“You’ll get there one day.” He says then quickly, quiet but sure. Steve shakes his head lightly.

“I don’t know, family, stability. The guy who wanted all that went into the ice seventy-five years ago. I think someone else came out,” Steve replies and it was delivered so matter-of-factly that Tony had the suspicion it had been on Steve’s mind for a while but the scientist wasn’t even close to convinced in the truth of the statement.

There was a heaviness in Steve’s voice he didn’t like.

Thinking, Tony turns to his car and purses his lip, opening the door. Then he halts, having made a decision and looks up again. Asks Steve straight forward.

“You alright?”

Tony had seen something in Steve’s eyes that he knew from himself when looking in a mirror. Yearning. Loneliness. Maybe even a bit of fear. But like Tony, Steve was too proud to say something. Maybe Steve also believed that telling himself lies often enough would make them true.

Steve looks around the compound they had built up far outside New York, once an old warehouse of Tony’s father Howard.

“I’m home,” he says convinced and Tony nods again, seeing no point in arguing. He gets in the car.

“Maybe make some friends outside our team. You have enough SHIELD Employees here. They are nice and don’t care about the shiny image. Some of them have kids and bring them sometimes.” Then Tony pulls the door shut and drives off.

Steve shakes his head smiling and is about to turn around when he hears another car’s engine shut off a few seconds later and a loud voice calling out from the other side of the grass, only few steps away.

“Dad look. There’s Captain America.” When Steve turns around he sees a little girl almost falling out of the newly arrived car and throwing herself on the leg of a man, long, brownish hair hanging into his face when he looks down at the little girl, glancing over to Steve once. Then he bows to pick her up, hoisting her onto his hip.

“Yeah, sweetie. That’s him. But he just came home from work. Maybe you can say hello another time. Come, I’ll show you our rooms.” And he carries her into the compound, while a happy chatter of apparently current events in the kid’s life accompanies them.

Steve turns back around towards where Tony’s car had disappeared around a corner, a small smile on his lips and makes his way, looking for Natasha. Too late he remembers how he probably should have made sure Tony was okay, after losing Bruce like that.

~°-°~

The first two weeks in the new Avengers facility are filled with various training exercises Natasha and Steve had set up to test the abilities and the compatibility of said abilities of Wanda, Sam, Vision and Rhodey, analyzing and erasing their weaknesses in Battle.

Tony had been in and out of the facility, working on Sam’s new wings, upgrading Natasha’s Widow’s Bites and had started on some more helpful gadgets for the new Avengers team. Sometimes Pepper was with him when he came upstate, sometimes she wasn’t.

For the past hour Steve had been looking through the whole Armory for his suit till he had finally decided to give up and asked FRIDAY, who in return had told him that Tony had taken it to his workshop the night before. According to the AI, he had found a way to make it even more bulletproof than it already was.

“And I really hope you take better care of my arm than your suit.” The voice came out of Tony’s private workshop and Steve came to a halt. He heard Tony laugh in delight.

“You have too little faith in me,” came the swift reply.

“You crashed ANOTHER Suit just an hour ago making it the THIRD SUIT this week alone. I have better things to do, Stark. And Pepper would prefer you unharmed for a change.”

“Sir. Captain Rogers is waiting for you in front of your workshop,” FRIDAY informed the people in the lab.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Not-Tony said, “But if you fuck my arm up, I’ll fuck you up. This thing is the second most important thing in my life.”

Then a man stepped out of the workshop and Steve recognized him as the man he saw from across the lawn, the man who had brought his kid into the compound. But now his left sleeve hang by his side, empty. He smiles at Steve, like they’ve seen each other hundreds of times already. Like old friends would.

“Good luck with him Captain. Make sure he doesn’t put a grenade launcher in your shield.”

And then he walks away, leaving Steve to stare after him till Steve can shake himself out of his stupor. Then Steve enters the workshop where Tony was standing next to a demolished Iron Man suit. It looks burned. Scorch marks all over it and the paint was missing in some places and Tony was poking at a silver arm with his screwdriver.

“Hey Capsicle. See you just met Barnes. My most trusted minion.”

“Sir, Mr. Barnes informed me to remind you he is not your minion. He is Stark Industries’ Head Engineer and he only helps you with your suits because Miss Potts asked him nicely.”

“Sure, yeah. Still. My most trusted engineer.” Stark said, waving Friday off. He mouthed ‘Minion’ at Steve. “So. I overheard Barnes outside. Grenade launcher in your shield. I could do it.”

Steve snorted and shook his head, bemused by Tony’s shenanigans.

“Seriously, Stark. They won’t even let me have a gun, how should I explain a grenade launcher?”

Tony shrugged, smiling brightly and eyes sparking with ideas.

“When they want an explanation, fire a grenade. No explanation needed. I have a grenade launcher, your argument is invalid.” He exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air.

Steve shook his head smiling, mentally adding to look up this reference as soon as possible.

“I actually just came here because we need some equipment for our new Avengers. And my suit.”

“Awwww. Now we’re talking.” Then after a heartbeat’s pause, “Think Barnes would like a repulsor blaster in his arm? He knows how to work them.” And Steve starts laughing.

“I think you’d be the first and only one he’d test it on.”

That made Stark smile brightly. “I’d pop his cherry.”

And while Steve spent the next few hours in Stark’s lab, joking and planning, he doesn’t mention how his friend more often than not stares at the picture of him, Pepper and Bruce standing in Avengers Tower or how Tony’s smiles are too bright that he really could be considered fine.

~°-°~

Tony disregarded the repulsor and the grenade launcher when they get called out for a mission the very next day. Steve asks Tony to join them as their technical assistant, which meant for Tony to sit inside the jet and wait for the team to clear the AIM base of scientists and then going in and checking out their equipment.

“So,” Natasha starts over the comms while taking out a couple of guards on her side, “have you talked to Lynn in the med-bay already? She is quite nice.”

Steve lets out a deep sigh. He knew the topic would come up sooner or later, and Natasha had the habit of doing so in the middle of a mission, no matter who else was listening in through the comms.

“You remember what happened last time? My nurse-neighbor turned out to be a SHIELD agent. And here I thought you’d already given it up on trying to set me up.”

“Yep. And then I met Lynn. The brunette. She checked your arm last time you had it broken.”

“Romanoff, stop trying to set him up,” Sam replies laughing and gets back up in the air outside the bunker and took out the sniper that had just sat down on the roof.

“Thank you, Sam,” Steve sighs gratefully, smashing his shield into the face of one of the guards while disarming another.

“Don’t thank me yet. Thank me when you meet Jenna. She’s a vet and she was Captain of her own unit. Nice woman if you ask me…”

Steve groaned, desperate. “Anyone here who doesn’t try to set me up with someone?”

“I don’t, Steve. Vision I could need your help in the laboratory,” Wanda says, voice thin through the comm.

“Certainly, I will be with you in a matter of seconds,” Vision replies and Steve pulls open one of the doors that lead into the weapon vault.

“Stark, suit up.”

“What? Why? What have you found, Capsicle?”

“You need to take a look at the weapon vault. I think they have some kind of modified Stark Weapons here.” There was a pointed silence on the other side of the comm.

“They have such old stuff down there?”

“I think they tried to modify it. You okay to take a look?” He hears the suit on the other side of the com assemble.

“Be down in a minute. Romanoff take a left and the first door on your right is the computer room. I want every single file they have in their system.”

“Stark, I think they torched most of the servers,” comes from Wanda. “I don’t think there are many connections to the other AIM bases.”

“Still. Maybe they have enough files on their hard drives of the base. Just get me everything they have. Cap, I’ll be with you in a heartbeat.”

“Sure thing.” He opened a door at the other end of the weapon vault, exposing a large laboratory with multiple biological warning signs. “Great.”

“Hey. That lab would be a wet dream for Bru…” Tony comes through the door, but stops dead in the middle of Bruce’s name. “Maybe even Barnes’d be interested,” he finishes quietly and dull. The hurt of loss still present, everyone knew how hard the Hulk’s-- Banner’s disappearance was on Tony. Steve looks at him worriedly but Tony simply exits the suit, letting it stand guard near the door like a sentry.

“Let me see this.” He opens some of the crates in the vault, scanning its content, voice still controlled, flat and void of excitement. “FRIDAY, could you send this data analysis to Barnes? I think this could be of interest for him.”

~°-°~

When they get back to the compound, Tony takes off towards the living quarters and Steve stares after him worriedly. The genius had been very quiet after leaving the AIM weapons vault and laboratories. Internally debating if he should go and look for him, Steve then turns towards the armory to get rid of his suit. Natasha is waiting for him inside, already in the middle of getting out of her suit. She smiles at him.

“So. I met this Agent yesterday,” she starts and Steve looks at her, unamused. Exasperated, she throws up her arms, “Steve. I’m just trying to help.”

“I know Natasha,” he replies calmly. “But that’s something I don’t need your help with. I am not really keen on dating, right now. Believe it or not but I am still trying to figure out how things here work. I was defrosted five years ago. I’ve spend most of my time fighting Nazis, crazy scientists or aliens. Now that we’re mostly here and training them,” he points at Wanda, Vision and Sam, standing on the other side of the room and putting away their suits, “making them a team I finally have some time to catch up. I have Sam who is probably the only one who actively tries to catch me up and takes into consideration what I actually am interested in.”

Natasha looks at him. Frowns. Then looks to the ground.

“You’re right. Sorry,” she says, her mouth quirking down. A small, barely noticeable change in her usually unfazed demeanor. He lays his hand onto her shoulder. Natasha doesn’t show weakness, Natasha doesn’t apologize earnestly. It’s a weakness, Clint had explained it to him. If she does in front of you, she trusts you. Unconditionally.

He tips a finger from his other hand against her chin, making her look up at him.

“Tasha, it’s okay. I know you don’t mean it. Just try to understand my point? I already lost everything I loved once. Lost my girlfriend. I don’t want this to happen again.”

Then he turns away, trying not to make a big deal out of it. It is in the past, he tells himself and closes the vault that holds his suit and grabs the shield from the floor, hanging it up on the door on the magnetic handle Tony had installed there.

~°-°~

“Hey, Steve,” Sam calls him over from the couch when Steve gets a new pack of protein bars from the communal kitchen.

“What?” He stands in the doorway connecting kitchen and living room and sees Sam sitting on the couch with Tony’s engineer.

“We’re watching a movie. Wanna joins us? I don’t think you’ve seen that one yet.” Sam exclaims and shakes his bowl popcorn, letting some of it fall onto both men. Barnes shakes his head to get some of the popcorn out of his hair and snorts in amusement.

“What are you watching?” Steve asks, joining the men on the couch.

“While Tony and Pepper take my kid to an amusement park I can finally rewatch Monty Python movies, and Sam made popcorn so he is invited. You get a free pass this once, if you want,” Barnes replies and grins at Steve.

“What’s the movie about?” he asks and Sam and Barnes grin at one another.

“Just watch and enjoy,” Sam says, then turns. “By the way, have you met?”

“Briefly in front of Tony’s workshop a few days ago,” Bucky replies then holds out his left hand and for the first time Steve makes a connection between the conversation he had heard, the empty sleeve and the arm in Tony’s workshop. Steve takes it, refraining from staring, knowing how uncomfortable it makes some people. “Bucky Barnes, nice to meet you Captain Rogers.”

“Steve. Nice to meet you Bucky,” Steve replies grinning. Then Sam selects a movie on Netflix and for the next few weeks, Steve and Sam enjoy pissing off Tony with references to Life of Brian. Especially by singing ‘Always look at the bright side of life’ when Tony enters a room.

“He will hate you,” Clint gasps, after Sam and he managed to set FRIDAY to playing it every time Tony uses an elevator. Steve just shrugs.

“He won’t. He won’t even believe I’m smart enough for it.”

“He really is a Biggus Dickus,” Sam whispers and Clint falls from the couch, howling laugher sounding through the common area.

~°-°~

"Stevie!" Steve hears Tony behind him a few days later, the ‘malfunction’ in the elevators already fixed. "Let me introduce you to our big Stevie over there."

Steve turns around and sees Tony coming his way, a little girl in his arms. Her shirt was purple with a little Comic-version of Clint on it.

"Steve. Let me introduce you to the little ray of sunshine that is my god-daughter Jamie Stephanie Barnes who moved here weeks ago and you still haven't met her. She is Barnes’ daughter," he remembers Bucky lifting up the little girl in front of the facility a few weeks prior. 

"Really?" Steve laughs lightly and crouches a little bit, his eyes the same height as hers. She extends her arm and pokes his nose with her stretched out finger.

"Honk" she says smiling and Tony coos.

"Isn't she adorable? Yes she is," and he nuzzles her neck. She squeals in delight.

"You're Captain America?" She points at Steve and Tony nods.

"Yes, sweetie. That's Captain America. But call him Steve."

"Steve?" She tilts her head lightly and looks at Steve considering. Then she smiles and waves at him. "Hi Steve."

He waves back, smiling softly.

"Hi Stevie. It was nice to meet you. But I got to meet Nat downstairs."

"Molding and forming the new Avengers?" Tony asks playful, remembering the few times he watches Natasha and Steve train with Wanda, Sam, Rhodey and Vision. He liked seeing his oldest friends and his invention in action.

"No. We have a mission. HYDRA splinter group in Ohio."

Tony deflates inside, feeling kind of left behind when everyone leaves him even though he could fight with them. He hated staying behind when his friends stormed into danger head first. But being Tony he ignores the negative feelings and concentrates fully on the little girl in his arms.

"Good luck. I'm going to introduce her to Barton, before he goes back home to Laura. Stevie loves Hawkeye, even though Iron Man is so much cooler."

"Daddy say Iron Man is a meanie," Stevie mumbles and Steve snorts amused. Smart little kid.

Tony grins at her, pressing a kiss against her temple and replies cheerfully, "Yep. Sounds like something he'd say."

“And he is not wrong,” Steve replies cheerfully and Tony grins.

“And some days I must say that you’re right. But I still am smarter and way better looking that you. I mean, I fixed whatever was wrong with the elevators.” Tony winks at Steve and turns around, babbling at Stevie. She seems smart enough to catch his cheeks between her hands and squeeze and Tony lets the air out between his lips, making farting noises. Steve smiles after them and shakes his head bemused. Then his phone chimes, Natasha sending a message, telling him to get his ‘star-spangled ass into the board-room’

~°-°~

“Heard you guys came back hours ago. Natasha dropped off her stuff and said she’ll sleep for the next week. Sounded like all of you barely slept. Why are you awake?” Bucky stands in the doorway to the communal kitchen, where Steve is intensely staring at the coffeemaker that is gurgling and slowly, too slowly for Steve’s liking, brewing coffee.

“Can’t sleep,” he mumbles and Bucky frowns at the slumped shoulders and the way Steve’s voice sounds off. His voice was probably the epitome of exhaustion.

“I notice.”

“Why are you awake?” Steve asks, not noticing the red light that indicates his coffee is done. Bucky walks up to him and plucks two mugs from the cupboard above the machine and takes the pot from the brewing station, pouring them both a mug and then pushes Steve’s under his face. Steve literally dips his head, drinking his coffee without lifting the mug.

“Wow. You seem exhausted,” Bucky snorts and Steve seems to have enough energy to lift his hand and show Bucky his middle finger.

“You are a very mature fossil, I must admit.”

“You’re a menace.”

“Heard that before,” Bucky shrugs it off, “and I’m awake because Tony sent me a few plans for new satellites he wants to launch and wants me to build them.”

“Why new satellites?” Steve asks and finally lifts his head, takes the mug into his hand and turns around, resting his hip against the counter and facing Bucky.

“He hopes the new ones can locate his jet. He thinks, with the new modifications he made he can bore straight through his own stealth tech. The problem with Tony is though, that he plans for everything. If his tech is untraceable, it is, even for him. I don’t think the new satellites will make a huge difference, but for his sake, I pray even if I don’t believe.”

“You could try praying to Heimdall. Thor mentioned him. Apparently he can find everyone. But don’t take anything I say seriously. I haven’t slept in a week and caffeine does shit for me.”

“I see. Apparently sleep deprived Captain America swears almost as much as Steve Rogers does.”

Steve raises a questioning eyebrow.

“You’re still in Mission mode. You’re like you were when I saw you outside the facility when my daughter arrived or how you were when you stood in front of Tony’s workshop. Not like you were when we were watching Life of Brian,” Bucky simply states. “It’s like seeing Tony ‘Iron-Man’ Stark and Tony Stark. Tony Stark is a genius insomniac with a way too big ego, a small amount of PTSD and a huge ass full of anxieties. And this man is hiding behind Iron-Man who has a bright, crowd-winning smile, blasters to kick ass and a way too loud and big mouth without much genius behind it.”

“You know him well, don’t you?” Steve asks and lifts his coffee to his lips.

“My dad was Howards head engineer. I took over. Stark Industries is basically a family company called Stark-Barnes, but when Howard actually offered, Dad declined. They were Howard’s ideas, he always said, he just built themt. When I was younger I didn’t understand. Now I do.”

Steve nods slowly and Bucky give a nonchalant shrug.

“We were never close. Not like that. But when we needed aid, it was always given and we never had to ask. They always just knew. When Dad got sick, I barely had my degree but I got hired almost immediately. When Dad died, Tony paid for the funeral and whatnot. The house we lived in belonged to Howard probably since Mum and Dad moved in.”

Steve nods. “I knew Howard. He was eccentric, sometimes like Tony. But he hadn’t all these issues Tony had. Howard was just… rich. Obnoxious. When I met Tony for the first time it was like meeting Howard all over again. But over time… they are nothing alike.”

“No. Tony is a much better man than Howard ever was. He also hides it better, which gives him the Image he always had. But he also always cared. And always helped,” Bucky shrugs his left shoulder, sleeve hanging empty by his side as Steve notices all of a sudden.

“Can I… ask?” he nods his head towards the empty sleeve. Bucky grins tired.

“Sure. Just… not today. You should go to sleep first. Maybe some other sleepless night, how about it?”

Steve laughs quietly and discards his empty mug in the sink. “Sure. Not that we run out of things to talk about. Good night. Or rather, good luck with the satellites.”

“Sleep well. I’ll see you later at the breakfast table.”

After breakfast the same day, Steve takes his sketchbook and pencils, making his way towards the trees near the lake behind the facility.  Going back to working on the portrait of Natasha he had started a few days earlier, he lost himself in the different shades of gray, the quiet scratch of pencil on paper. The wind above his head rustles the leaves and carries voices from the facility. After a while he notices younger SHIELD Agents run towards the small lake behind the trees before the sounds of bodies hitting the water start. Laughter sounds through the trees and birds chirp.

Steve watches the Agents through the trees, carefree enjoying the sun and the warmth, the last warm weeks of the year coming up. He flips to a new page and starts sketching the trees, Clint perching on a tree, munching an apple. Natasha on another branch of the same, sturdy tree, hanging upside down, braiding Thor’s hair who is talking to Bruce and Tony. In the lower right corner, his legs dangle into the picture, adding him into the scenery.

A shadow falls over him when he is starting to add details to his drawing.

“Can you help me do a dinosaur?” Stevie asks, letting herself fall onto the grass next to him.

“Where is your father?” Steve asks, taken aback. It’s been quite a while since he had done more with kids than posing for photos.

“Uncle Tony,” she replies with a shrug, as if that explained everything. Though with Tony in the picture, it did. “Do you draw dinosaurs?” she asks, spreading her colorful pens on the grass around her. The page she opens is blank and she holds it towards him. He carefully takes it.

“What dinosaur do you want?” He smiles at her shyly. A broad grin spreads over her face.

“REX! But he has lost his arm, like Papa. And eats bad people. And Uncle Tony.”

“He eats Uncle Tony?” Steve asks laughing, starting to carefully draw the outlines of a T-Rex.

“Nooooo,” Stevie squeals and laughs, “but Uncle Tony is riding him. He is a Peterodactyl.”

“A what? You mean a Pterodactyls. One of the flying ones?”

“Yes!” she says pointed, “that. And he sits on Papa’s head and laughs.”

“Are they Dinovengers?” Steve asks smiling and sees the kid nod in his peripheral vision.

When they enter the facility in the late evening hours, the sun is beginning to set, Stevie runs off towards Tony’s Lab to show her father and Tony what she had colored earlier, but not before handing Steve a piece of paper. “It is Captain Bearmerica. Like Cap-Bear Uncle Tony gave me. Just cooler. But pssst,” she pressed her finger against her lips, “that’s our secret or Uncle Tony will be sad.”

Steve looks1 after her, unsure what to think.

~°-°~

The following week finds them in the kitchen again, this time it was Bucky sitting on one of the chairs, nursing his third cup of coffee where Steve finds him, holographic blueprints hovering above the surface.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks and takes in the tousled hair, the bowed back. Bucky taps a rhythm on the counter with his right hand before he takes it in the air to turn the blueprint to the left. He grunts.

“Nightmare.”

Steve nods. “Same. What was it about?”

Bucky nods his head towards his left side. “Still wanna know why I carry this thing with me?” The metal hand hangs by his side, motionless, like just any other prosthesis would.

“Sure. If you feel up to it,” Steve replies and pours himself a cup of coffee, sitting down opposite of Bucky.

“First off,” Bucky starts, letting the holographic displays disappear with a wave of his hand, “I had a real one here when Stevie was born, so you know how new this is to me. I am pretty sure you remember the Battle of New York, if not, they should check if the ice didn’t have any lasting damage.” Bucky grins cheekily and Steve snickers but nodding, urging Bucky to continue. “Well… when the battle started, Tony asked me to stay in the Tower, in case he needs any help that he can’t let JARVIS provide. We also had a project that was mid-testing, so we couldn’t just leave it alone.

“When Pepper left for Malibu, she offered to take Stevie and so she took my kid with her on the plane. Then this lunatic opened the portal and let the Chitauri loose on our world. At the time I was outside, getting lunch in a diner just around the corner of the Tower. I helped evacuate the building, managed to activate my test equipment. The tech Tony used on his suit that he can call it and it fits round him automatically,” Bucky explains to Steve. Steve nods in understanding.

“What he used while falling from Stark Tower during the attack?”

“Exactly. So I had the chance to call one of the test gloves with a repulsor to me, when a Chitauri charged through the windows of the diner and pointed his spear at a little kid. I jumped in front and fired a blast at the beast but after it fell backwards there was screaming around me and someone was pulling me towards a chair and,” he paused and shrugged, “and then I noticed that I felt unbalanced. I still didn’t realize what happened until the mother of the kid thanked me tearfully and the kid cried and hugged my right arm. When I wanted to pet his hair and say everything will be alright… it was gone, the arm, I mean. It didn’t even bleed, which was really weird and still no one could explain to me why.”

Steve frowned displeased. “That’s horrible. How did you get your hands on that?”

“How do you think Bruce and Tony got together? Tony felt horrible about what happened. He loves me as much as I love him, even if none of us admits it out loud, usually. He worked his ass off, had Bruce help him with the biomechanical stuff, even though he isn’t a doctor. They called in Helen Cho, who also helped out and within a month I had a new arm. But first, after the Chitauri were gone and you all were eating shawarma, I got ushered to a hospital and there I first realized what losing a limb could mean to me.

“It could have cost me Stevie, y’know. I have a lot of nightmares from that day. I don’t save the kid, someone else in that diner gets hurt. So many. The worst are when Stevie is with me, not with Pepper. Or when they take her away afterwards and I can’t move, can’t speak, can’t do anything but watching them take away my child.”

“Did they try? Taking her away?” Steve looks away from the mug he had been staring into insentiently during the story and up into Bucky’s eyes.

“They tried. Only once. I think I’ve never seen Pepper that furious. She put the fear of god in them. In me too and I wasn’t on the receiving end,” he confirms amused.

“I haven’t spent much time with her, but she seems patient and even-tempered to me.”

“She is. She is the best that could have happened to Tony and Bruce. She was the one who made both see reason and made them admit that they liked each other.”

“How does…did it work? Between them I mean?”

“Tony needs people who make sure he eats, drinks, sleeps, keeps away from alcohol as much as possible. Needs people who can understand and at the same time appreciate his genius. That don’t see Iron-Man but Tony Stark. Bruce needed someone who wasn’t scared of him and at the same not treat him with kid-gloves. Tony will test his boundaries and then do everything he can to keep Bruce calm.

“Pepper is there to level them both. She understands them. She is a strong, independent and understanding woman. She knows that Tony needs as much love as he can get and if that means for her to share him with a man she knows needs the same, she would never deny them that. She loves Tony and cares a great deal for Bruce. And I think she fell in love with him too even if it may not be as strong as her love for Tony.”

“That is understandable,” Steve nods, then grabs the coffee-pot and pours himself another mug. Bucky slides over his own and Steve empties the pot, before preparing a new one.

~°-°~

Later that day, early in the evening, Steve finds Bucky knocking at his door.

“Hey. Sam sent me. Tony wants to watch Star Wars and Sam said you haven’t had time to catch up with it yet. Tony is convinced Avengers Movie Night, AMN for short apparently, has to happen. He already posted all about it on social media.”

Steve turns, looking into his apartment and takes in the spread out drawings he had made since that morning. Peggy’s face smiling brightly, standing arm in arm with the other commandos, his mother on one of her very rare days off when she took him to Coney Island. So many memories spread out on his floor. He looks back at Bucky who watches him with careful eyes.

“If you rather not…” he trails off but Steve interrupts him.

“No. I…I think it’d be good for me. Count me in.”

“Great,” Bucky wrings his hands nervously, “wanna come with me or… I mean… you can show up whenever but within the next hour would be good and…” He shuts himself up, biting his tongue.

Steve takes a step out of his apartment, pulling the door shut behind him. “Lead the way?” he grins cheekily.

“You know the way,” Bucky says deadpan, raising an unamused eyebrow, “I know because you took it last night when I found you in the kitchen.”

Steve grins and shrugs, pulling his phone out of his pocket when it vibrates.

“Yeah. We should hurry. Stark just tagged me on Twitter, telling everyone to tell me to ‘finally move my star spangled ass and hurry’.”

“Yeah. And look here, Wanda replied ‘at least he saved the world today, unlike someone else.’”

Steve snorted. He starts walking, Bucky right next to him. Voices get louder as they near the common room.

“And then I told him that he’d never be a good Holmes, ‘cause he isn’t narcissist enough. And do you know what he tells me? Do you?” they hear Tony screech and chuckled from Natasha. When they enter they see Clint sitting on the couch, bored as Tony paces in front of him.

“No. What did he say?” Clint’s voice is flat, trying to hold the amusement.

“He tells me ‘If I manage to portray YOU in a documentary AND an Action Movie, I can manage someone with a quarter of your ego.’”

Pepper, on the other side of the room, standing next to the snacks and picking up a pack of apple chips, snickers.  “Then I turn to him and say ‘Right. I wanted to congratulate you on your performance. I almost forgot I wasn’t watching the news’ and Bruce next to me began to turn green because he was laughing so hard.”

They see Tony glare at her mildly before she tosses him a pack of chips. Since he had stopped playing superhero and Bruce had vanished she had become a bit more relaxed. They all never had seen Tony so tense so apparently even she took it easy on him.

 “So in conclusion to my question: yes you do know RDJ,” Wanda says from the couch opposite Clint and Tony turns around, glaring at her.

“Yes, I know him and he is an asshole.”

“And yet he is your best friend. What does this say about you?” Bucky replies, sitting down on the couch Wanda is sitting on and Wanda pulls Steve’s arm with her powers, a light tug only, indicating him to sit between them.

When the commotions tones down, FRIDAY dims the lights of the room, banishing the sunlight from the room before the big TV is the only source in the whole room. Everyone is decked out with popcorn and chips and the whispers across the room turn silent.

Until Mace Windu steps into the light.

“Holy fuck. Is that Fury with two eyes?” Clint sits up straight on his couch next to Natasha. The red head shakes her head.

“No. It’s not.”

“Screw you, look at him!” Clint nothing but shouts at her and she chuckles.

“Bird brain is right. Look at that eye. The one that is good now. And the way he stands. I bet he stood and walked like that the day he popped out of his mother’s belly.”

“That’s not how giving birth works, Tony,” Bucky interjects and FRIDAY turns on the captions so Steve keeps watching the movie, while everyone else keeps bickering.

“Fury is too old to be Windu,” Wanda argues, smiling smugly at Tony.

“And this guy’s name is Samuel Jackson,” Natasha adds helpfully to the previous statement.

“Yeah. That name totally doesn’t sound fake,” Tony screeches sarcastically and glares at the women. It makes Natasha smirk at him wickedly and Bucky groans, throwing his pillow at the genius and Steve helpfully throws his at Clint, neither of them looking away from the screen. Sam lets out a snort.

“That was extremely domestic and sickening cute,” he laughs, looking at Bucky and Steve who flip him off in unison, making everyone laugh and Steve’s lip twitch. Bucky grins over at the supersoldier and when the laughter dies down, FRIDAY rewinds the movie to the point where Clint had started talking.

When the movies were over, Pepper had fallen asleep against Tony’s side and the genius is – loudly – discussing the mechanics with Bucky.

“We’ve been over this Tony. I told you then, I tell you now, you would NOT make a good Luke Skywalker. You would be Leia.”

Steve, next to Bucky, snickers while he combs through Nat’s hair, whose head is lying in his lap. Clint is perching behind him on the couch, one leg dangling down between Steve and Bucky, the other knee pressed against Steve’s back.

“And I am telling you, you are not Luke.”

“I have the robot arm and we’re basically family. So I have to be Luke,” Bucky retorts and Tony glares.

“I vote for Steve as Han. He also has been frozen solid.”

“Does that mean Steve gets to kiss Tony?” Natasha quips from her spot in Steve’s lap and Wanda, from the other couch, makes fake puking noises. Tony grins wide, leaning closer towards Steve, making kissing noises.

“Come my strong, heroic space renegade. Kiss me.”

Clint screeches in horror, “Hell no. Couldn’t anyone here see the sad, unacknowledged romance between Luke and Han? Come on. Guys!”

Tony stares at him in horror and Natasha and Wanda break out in giggles, the commotion finally waking Pepper.

“What is going on?” she asks yawing.

“We were discussing that Luke and Han are a better couple than Leia and Han and if Bucky or Tony is Luke.”

“Tony is Chewbacca. And I see Steve as the perfect Han,” Pepper says teasingly and stands up, offering her hand to Tony who pouts at her, like the grown man he definitely is. Natasha grins like she was filing that back as teasing material for later.

When Tony lets himself be pulled away, everyone is looking after them.

“When do you think Tony will propose?” Clint asks, receiving a shrug from Wanda.

Bucky lets his head fall back onto the couch.

“He had me made a Ring even before they got together. Happy had been carrying around ever since he had come back from Afghanistan in 2008. We’re just waiting for him to finally have the guts to ask her. Both of us know she is waiting for it.”

They all fall silent.

“Will Stevie be a flower girl?”

Bucky nods, “and Happy will be the ring bearer. I will be Tony’s best man. Bec’s should have been…” He stands up all of a sudden, biting his lip, “I… I am going to bed. Good night.”

Before anyone can reply, he has left the room. Wanda gets up, plopping down next to Steve and leaning against him.

“Can I take out Stevie for ice cream tomorrow?” she asks, looking up at him with big eyes. He smiles down at her, nodding.

“Sure. Just be careful and ask Bucky beforehand too.”

Her smile get wider and she jumps up, pressing a kiss against his cheek.

“Thanks, Steve. Good night, Nat. Night Clint,” and she dashes out of the room, red strands of magic opening and closing the door for her. Nat smiles.

“They grow up so fast.”

“Don’t sound like a proud mother. My kids miss you, come home with me. I’m leaving now,” Clint says, swinging down from the couch behind Steve and Nat nods, sitting up. She also presses a kiss against Steve’s cheek, smiling.

“See you soon. Take care.”

“Always, Tasha. Have a good time with your family, Clint.” Steve waves goodbye before they leave the room, “FRIDAY, can you put on Snow White and the seven dwarfs?”

“The version from 1937, Captain?”

“Yes, please. Thank you, FRIDAY.”

“You’re welcome, Captain Rogers.” 

~°-°~

Steve picks up the shield, throwing it from one hand to the other.

“So you didn’t just call me to tell me you refreshed the paint on my shield. You always take it, repaint it and then just put it back in the hopes that it confuses me.”

Tony grins brightly. “You wound me, Capsicle. Here I thought I would do you a favor with allowing you to be in my presence.”

Steve sighs. “Just tell me what you want from me.”

Tony cocks his head, sighing in defeat.

“Well, okay. Since you seem to be so good buddies with Barnes, be a dear and bring him the tools I borrowed from his room.”

“And with borrowed you mean…?”

“I took them last week and haven’t gotten around to putting them back or telling him I have them.”

He hands Steve a few tools he takes out of a drawer next to his table and hands them to Steve.

“And if you asked me nicely, I would repaint your shield for you. This red and blue is getting boring.”

“Maybe in June, Tony. Maybe in June.”

“Why? What is in June?”

“Think,” Steve says winking, turning towards the door.

“FRIDAY, what is in June?”

“June has been declared “Gay & Lesbian Pride Month” by President Bill Clinton in 1999 and 2000. I presume that is what Captain Rogers has been referring to, Sir” Steve hears through the closing door, walking away from the workshop.

After dropping off his shield in the armory, Steve goes to Bucky's apartment, meaning to only drop off the tools when he sees Bucky sitting on the couch in the living room, wrapped up in a blanket. He is holding a framed photo in one hand, a tumbler with honey-colored liquid on the table in front of him and nibbling on a cupcake in his other hand.

"Hey." Steve ripped him out of his thoughts and ice-blue eyes looked up at him. "Tony wanted me to drop this off." He is holding up the few tools. Bucky waves his metal hand which held the cupcake towards a table in an adjoining room.

"Put it on the table and help yourself to a cupcake. I made too many." Steve nods and puts down the tools before looking back at Bucky.

"You okay?"

Bucky nods and turns the frame for Steve to see a picture of Stevie.

"Just thinking about my little girl. Kinda."

"Yeah. I meant to ask... Stevie Stephanie? Nickname Stevie?" Steve looks at Bucky, raising an eyebrow. Bucky shrugs, smiling sheepishly.

"My sister was a history buff. She wrote a whole paper on Steve Rogers. What kind of man he was before he became the subject for Project Rebirth. I think I don't need to mention she was kind of impressed. She gathered some stuff from people who had lived in your neighborhood. She talked to Peggy Carter. 

“When she became pregnant her boyfriend took off. She died after childbirth. But she named Stevie right before. Not sure why she chose Jamie. Maybe she really thought about me and named her after me. I gave her the name Stephanie. Becca said ‘Jamie Stevie sounds like good name to me.’ then she turned to the doctor and the nurses and said ‘no matter who comes to take her away, she is not allowed to live with someone else than my brother James Barnes.’ Those were the last words she spoke. She never even held her own daughter in her arms. So I choose Stephanie in the end," he says, blowing out the air through his nose and looks to the picture but Steve sees the sorrow in his eyes. “Tony helped me with the legal stuff, keeping her as my legal daughter and all.”

"I'm sorry. Shouldn't have asked. I didn’t think the story behind her birth would be-- Should have kept my mouth shut either way.”

Bucky smiles up at Steve with sad, watery eyes.

"It’s-- I can talk about it. I love talking about Stevie and Becca. Sometimes I am just... Sometimes the timing just isn't right."

"Something to do with this?" Steve points towards the whisky and the cupcakes on the table in Bucky's living room. The other man nodded.

"She'd've turned 30 today." His voice was thick, full of emotions raging from happy to sad and proud to guilty. "I love Stevie like my daughter. She knows by now that technically I only am her uncle but she grew up with me as a parent. You can’t take that away. She is really bright for only being 5 years old. Bright like her ma was." He bit his lip. They were quiet for a while.

"Do you need a hug?" Steve asks quietly and when Bucky turns to him, his eyes were glassy and he nods shakily.

"Please." And as soon as Steve got his arms around him, Bucky begins to shake, sobbing into Steve's chest. And Steve just held him through it.

“She was too young,” he sobs, “she was bright, nice. Had an open heart, even when we were kids. She deserved the world.”

“But maybe the world didn’t deserve her.”

Bucky nods, “Earth’s just not the place for an angel like you. It’s a line from a song. Becca loved the band. Emo, Pop-punk. I liked the older stuff more. But we always found a good middle ground. But she never got to hear that song. She would have loved it.”

Steve tightens his grip on Bucky.

"Thank you," Bucky mumbles after a while, when most of it was out and pulled away a bit. "I think I needed that. Didn't have anyone holding me like that after she died."

Steve nodded. "Me neither. After my mom died."

Bucky bit his lips.

"We're friends. When you need something, someone, you know where to find me. Friday, can you send my phone number to Steve?"

"Done, Mr. Barnes."

“Wanda should be back with my daughter soon,” Bucky says, picking up the bottle and the glass, carrying both over to a cupboard with a fingerprint lock on it.

“I should go then. You have a good time with your kid. We have to get back to training when Wanda gets back.”

Hesitantly, he pulls Bucky onto one last hug, feeling the other man sag against him. Warmth settles in Steve’s chest and for a second he buries his face in the long, brown hair in front of him.

When Bucky and Stevie watch them train later that day and Bucky smiles over at Steve with a soft look in his eyes, something flutters in Steve’s stomach.

~°-°~

Steve’s phone on the bench by the wall pings when he is putting all the weight into his next punch, wanting to see if Tony’s machine really withstands his punch.

“FRIDAY? Is it important?” he asks, sighing.

“Yes, Captain Rogers. Miss Romanov requests your presence in the armory immediately.”

Steve nods slowly to himself, “Yeah. Sure. I’ll be there in ten,” he relents and even though Natasha had said ten, he knew he could take his time.

With that he turns around, but not before releasing the punch he was still holding. He doesn’t hear the crack behind him when he steps out of the gym.

He does however notice Bucky standing next to the door.

“Apparently he didn’t calculate angry Super-Soldier. I’m gonna tell him. He’ll fix it.”

Steve looks at Bucky frazzled. The engineer points at the cracked machine behind Steve.

“Huh,” is the quiet, tired sound out of Steve’s mouth. Bucky wrings his fingers nervously and then nudges Steve gently, stopping his hands from doing it at the same time.

“Come on. Nat wants to see us. Thor said Loki found his way back to earth and this time we don’t have a Hulk. Even Tony is already suited up.”

“Why is she calling you too?” Steve asks, letting himself be pulled towards the armory by his friend. Steve was tired, in the presence of his friend, and he dared to call Bucky a friend, he just didn’t want to slip into his Captain America persona. Maybe it had something to do with Bucky never treating him like that but like Steve and that was a first ever since he had woken up in modern New York.

“Said she had tried to reach you for about an hour and sent me to get you.”

Steve nods again thoughts drifting to compare Bucky to Peggy, the only one looking at Steve, no matter if skinny or tall.

Looking around and seeing the corridor empty, Bucky grabs him by his shoulders, turning Steve to face him.

“What is wrong? You look like your head is not where it should be.”

Steve blinks at him. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine.”

Bucky frowns displeased. ”Try again and this time sound a bit more alive if you want me to believe you.”

“Really. It’s nothing. Just… Mom’s grave is gone and I can’t go and see her. She never even had a name on her gravestone. Neither had Dad.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, eyes wide and mouth falling open. “She… today?”

Steve nods.

“Then maybe we should tell Natasha that…”

“NO! No. We don’t tell Tasha ANYTHING, you understand? I’m fine. I swear. I’ll get my head back in the game as soon as I’m in my suit.”

“Yeah. But I’m still not really happy about it,” Bucky sighs, but then motions for Steve to move again. “But if you insist no point in letting Natasha wait even longer. Especially not with Loki on the loose.”

Bucky pulls him to a stop once more, taking his hand, before Steve enters the armory.  “Take care. Don’t take any unnecessary risks?”

“Can’t promise you that.”

“Huh,” Bucky shrugs, “worth a try. Good luck. But remember that I worry about you.”

Steve squeezes Bucky’s hand back and then the doors of the armory open and Bucky sees him standing up straighter, visibly slipping into his Captain America persona. Bucky looks at Steve walking towards the other Avengers and then the door slips shut. Bucky knows that, if Steve keeps up just being Steve, he’d be completely fucked.

~°-°~

Thor explains the situation. Loki apparently had faked his death and survived the most recent fight, where they had apparently fought together in something Thor called “The Dark World”, and come back to Earth, this time apparently trying to recruit humans to learn his sorcery and bringing doom over the world. So far he had recruited a couple of AIM agents and scientists that had settled in a bunker down in South America after Tony had basically expelled them from the US.

“The entrance of the bunker is literally a cave. A huge one nonetheless,” Clint explains, nursing the few cuts and bruises he sports when entering the jet, not having attended the first briefing.

“What the hell happened to you? I thought you were retired!” Tony exclaims and Clint grins.

“Seems I can’t seem to stay put where Loki is concerned. And concerning my wounds, I had parts of my house fall onto me. The roof didn’t really want to stay put either,” the archer shrugs it off.

~°-°~

Steve jumps out over the base, landing on the ledge above the cave entrance. He presses a small button on his wrist, triggering the microphone in the collar of his suit.

“Clear,” he informs the team, hearing the hold of the jet open and the Iron-Man suit rush out, followed by Natasha and Clint hanging onto Thor

“Wanda, Vision, you both stay up there, giving us cover. I don’t want you in there yet, it could be dangerous. Sam, you’re emergency and extraction. Comms open all the time. Avengers,” Thor sets Natasha and Clint down and the archer readies his bow, “infiltrate, don’t kill only when forced to. Natasha, you’re on Loki. Find him, keep out of sight until at least one of us is there with you. Don’t take unnecessary risks.”

“Says the guy who once again ignored the existence of parachutes,” Natasha deadpans and Steve glares at her. She just smiles back, smug.

“No unnecessary risks, I said. Clint, stay out of sight. Tony, you look for their laboratories and their computer system. Thor, you and I just take care of as many AIM soldiers as we can find. Also for all of you, Comms open all the time. This is Loki. No sidetracks, secondary missions,” with that he glances towards Natasha, who nods once in reply, “and most importantly: stay in touch. I can’t lose any of you to that guy.”

Everyone nods, Tony closing his face-plate and making his way into the cave.

“I’m scanning the cave for the door. FRIDAY, also run a diagnosis on how to open it and on the layout of the bunker.”

Just seconds later Tony gives a happy cheer and the rest of the Avengers drop down to the stony ground, joining Tony in front of the metal door that had been hidden behind a stone façade.

“FRIDAY can get it open. Just say the word.”

Steve nods and turns to the rest of the team, seeing determined faces.

“Clint?”

“Fine Cap. Not a delicate flower.”

“I know. Just checking. Everyone keep an eye and ear out for everyone. Let’s get this son of a bitch.”

Tony gives a faked gasp even though that wasn’t the first time he heard Steve curse on a mission.

“Language, Cap!” he replies outraged, then the door opens and Steve quickly charges forward, knocking out the first two guards behind the door. 

Giving a dry laugh he huffs out, “Very funny, Tony,” before heading off towards the staircase on the left.

“Cap, head down three floors. There you find the guards quarters. Romanoff, try five floors up, it seems spacey, actually quite intelligent, hiding a tower inside a mountain. Barton, they have vents big enough for a man and his arrows, if you want. Thor, maybe you should follow me down, there is another quarter that’s probably full of guards in front of the labs,” Tony directs everyone while they are already taking off and he flies down the shaft, closely followed by Thor.

Clint follows Natasha through the vents, shooting arrows from the vents. Working in tandem with the red-head they make it to the fifth floor, where Clint crawls out. Natasha motions him to be quiet and peers through the open door into the big room.

On the other side of the room Loki stands, back to the door, watching scientists work on a large piece of machinery.

“Target found. Fifth upper floor as predicted. Cap, your call.”

“I’m six floors below, wait for me. Iron-Man, Thor status.”

“We’re good. FRIDAY is downloading the data. I am on my way up. Thor is still reducing the resistance.”

Clint, whispering, confirms and stays crouched next to Natasha, who in turn is glancing around the corner. Then she motions for Clint to go back. She turns towards him, starting to sign.

Looks like the device from New York. Just no Tesseract.

Clint nods and Steve comes up the last flight of stairs. Clint, whispering, gives him the information he had gotten from Natasha and Steve nods. Then they glance around the corner one last time.

“It is rude to stare, have your parents never told you?” Loki suddenly says and Natasha glares. “Oh I forgot. They are all dead. Probably not such a pleasant reminder, am I correct?”

He steps aside, turning around to face them and the scientists, probably a dozen of them, step behind the machine. The three Avengers step inside the room, facing Loki.

“Where is my brother? Still reveling in Odin’s wrath for letting me escape? What a pity. I would have loved to watch him while killing each and every single one of his precious humans,” Loki says delighted, chuckling darkly. Tony steps into the room behind them, readying his blasters.

“Not if we can stop you,” Clint says, trying to attract attention by launching an arrow  that Loki pulverizes mid-air. Natasha tries rushing forward but suddenly the contraption flashes up and emits a bright ray of light. Steve launches forward, pushing Natasha out of the way as the bright gleam shoots towards her. She cries out Steve’s name, whose form is engulfed by white light. Tony curses and aims his repulsors towards the scientists, hitting them one by one while Clint shoots an explosive arrow towards the contraption.

Thor blasts through the door and Loki smirks deviously.

“Quite the distraction, isn’t it, brother?” he chuckles darkly and when Thor charges towards him, the illusion fades into nothingness.

The light fades and Natasha, followed by the rest, runs towards where Steve collapsed.

Something wriggles in the now empty suit of Captain America.

“Oh no,” Natasha whispers, horrified, “Steve…”

~°-°~

Bucky enters the lab, Tony tinkering at a huge device he had brought back. FRIDAY had let him know that the Avengers were back from their latest mission somewhere in South America, which was actually already more than he should know, and he was supposed to pick up some of the equipment for check- and clean-up. And yeah. Maybe he always knew more than they should tell him because Tony had the bad habit of pulling Bucky out of bed at two in the morning, requesting he take a look at these fancy parts he found in this new hideout/bunker/laboratory that he wants  Bucky to make Tony a blueprint to modify one of the Avenger’s weapons.

Bucky raises an eyebrow at the new blueprints that were displayed around the lab and seemed to belong to t something Tony had found in that AIM Bunker. Right now, Bucky was more interested in the pile of tech in a corner of the room, between the Iron Man and War Machine suit. He steps closer, surveying the damage of the tech, when a small movement caught his eye.

“Tony…” Bucky starts slowly and the billionaire looks up.

“What can I do for you, Buckaroo?”

Bucky points to an orange cat on one of the tables, trying to hide underneath Cap’s shield. Tony, as he sees it, snorts and strides forward, picking the kitten up.

“Oh Cap. Come on. No need to hide. You are perfectly safe. This is my lab after all.”

Bucky raises his eyebrow and the cat hisses at Tony.

“When did you get a cat? And why is it in your workshop. Tony, this is probably the least safe place in the whole compound.”

Tony clutches his chest theatrically, cat still in the other hand.

“How dare you disparage my life’s work as dangerous? And how dare you not recognize your best friend in the whole universe… okay, second best, I still am your best friend.”

Bucky narrows his eyes at the smug looking billionaire. “Tony, what did you do?”

Tony clutches the cat closer to his chest before yelping when the kitten, apparently Steve if Tony was to be trusted, sunk his claws in the flesh of Tony’s hand.

“Ouch, Cap. You’re an asshole when you are a cat. Wait… aren’t cats assholes like… always? Is that spell messing with your little brain?” He holds the kitten up to his face, one finger poking lightly between the blue eyes. “But isn’t he an itty bitty adorable kitty?”

Bucky shakes his head exasperated at Tony’s cooing. This didn’t make any sense at all. Not in the slightest. Recognizing his friend in a kitten. Though… he had seen some weird shit, hell, lost his arm thanks to some aliens. Met an actual god and a gamma radiation mutated scientist who turned into a giant rage monster when angry. Still he decided to press on that matter.

“So you’re telling me that this kitten here, is Steve? Our Steve Rogers?” Bucky raises an eyebrow, not quite believing what Tony is saying here. “Or did you just get a cat with blue eyes and call it ‘Cap’?”

The kitten gives one, tiny meow in Bucky’s direction, sounding like a plea for help. It was a miserable sound. Tony, being Tony, didn’t catch it.

“No, Buckmaster. This is Cap. Our Cap Steve Rogers. Better believe it because I have no Idea how they did it or how to reverse it.”

“Magic.” Natasha states matter-of-factly from the doorway, making Bucky jump. Tony, not having noticed her either, squeezed the kitten earning another hiss. Bucky shakes his head again, walking towards Tony and taking Steve from his hands.

“Careful, you’re hurting him. Poor Steve.” He scritches kitten-Steve behind his ears. “So, you really are Captain America, huh?” The kitten meows. “One meow yes, two no. Think we can work with that?” The kitten meows once again. “Good.” He boops kitten-Steve’s nose  and turns to the door of the workshop where Natasha was watching Bucky and Steve with a sharp glance that reminded Bucky of a predator watching its prey. She was irritating. But he had spent enough time around her the past few years, since he was the one she was coming to about her equipment, to just walk around her with an easy smile.

“I’ll take him somewhere safe and you see what you can do for him, alright?” he says over his shoulder towards Tony. Natasha keeps looking at Bucky, who has Steve gently cradled against his chest, careful to keep him safe against his flesh arm, not the prosthetic.

“Don’t let Stevie too close. She’ll never let him go again.”

“My kid at least knows how to treat a living and breathing being.” And with that Bucky disappears around the corner, Steve cradled into his arms. “No worries. You have some more time getting used to being a cat before Stevie comes back home. She’s sleeping over at a friend’s place in the city.”

Steve gives an answering, grateful purr and rubs his head against Bucky’s arm. He was much gentler than Tony. Not a big surprise to Steve, but his conscience still felt like it had to mention it.

~°-°~

Steve lay curled up in Bucky’s lap, who is sitting on his couch, cross-legged, still scrolling through his phone and finding some dinner for the both of them.

“It is really hard to find something for you to eat. I don’t want to feed you cat food, that would just be weird. And you nearly managed to topple my chair over so I’m guessing the serum is more or less working. So you can probably eat normal, human food. Want to eat Tony?” he jokes and Steve meows in disgust. “Yeah, you’re right. Too much alcohol in that man. Though he got better since he started going out with Pep. So. Pizza? Burger? What do you want?” He held down his phone towards Steve, who put his paw over the picture of the pizza.

It’s been three hours since Bucky had saved him from Tony’s lab. He had gotten around to bathing Steve, since he still had been dirty from their fight, the dust and mud everywhere, had dried him and build a small bed for Steve next to his bed. The living room was far too open for Steve’s liking, so the bedroom it was.

Bucky grinned at Steve’s choice and laid the phone with the pizza choices open next to him onto the couch.

“Tony pays for it, as he always does. I’ll go to the bathroom so make your choice.” Bucky says, and carefully lifts Steve from his lap and lays the still curled up, kitten next to the phone before getting up. He walks down the hall and Steve lifts his head and takes a look at the screen.

Earlier they had found out that Steve actually was able to navigate a phone with his paw. He already had managed to send a string of poop-emoji to Stark and Bucky had filmed him doing so and they could only imagine Tony’s face when he saw a video of a cat sending out these emoji to him.

When Steve was done picking his toppings (he’d chosen simple ingredients because he didn’t know how much of the pizza he could eat in his little body), Bucky opens the bathroom door and lets himself fall face down next to Steve onto the couch.

“You have no Idea how exhausted I am. I’ve been awake for the past two days, feeding Tony information and helping him with short-notice blueprints so that he can save your asses and then I’m sitting on the toilet and he contacts me right in that moment, asking if I think you want a miniature bike to ride around. And if I would pick it up tomorrow morning for you.”

The sound kitten-Steve makes sounds suspiciously like a chuckle. Then he pushes the phone closer to Bucky with his small paw.

“Hmmm… You done? Good.” He hums, then enters his own order and sends it away. “We should get some shuteye when we’re done eating.”

Steve jumps onto Bucky’s back and curls up between his shoulder blades.

 Find the, for Bucky, most annoying spot to curl up: Check, Steve thinks grinning and purrs happily. Bucky snorts and shakes his head.

“Here ‘m saving you from Stark and you immobilize me. Ungrateful punk.”

Jerk. Steve purrs (at least Bucky is sure it sounds like ‘jerk’) and buries his face in his orange fur. Bucky keeps lying face down on the couch, listening to Steve’s quiet purrs till there is a knock on his door and one of the Shield agents pushes the door open.

“Mr. Barnes? Your pizza arrived. And Mr. Stark wanted me to tell you to bring Captain Rogers to his workshop tomorrow morning, we wants to fit him a…” the agent stops for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. Upon hearing his name, kitten-Steve had lifted his head and jumped off of Bucky to let him get their Pizza, “a kitten-America Suit?” the Agent ends his sentence and Bucky takes the pizzas from him and shakes his head exasperated.

“Has every agent been briefed about the Captain America situation?” he asks, remembering when about an hour after he and Steve had left, a message on his phone had arrived, informing ‘All current residents of the Avengers Facility’ to ‘be aware of the little orange furball running around the compound’ that ‘may or may not have super-kitten powers.’.

The Agent nods and smiles at Bucky.

“Agent Barton and Romanoff briefed most agents about the situation and that we now have to fill the space of Captain Rogers until Mr. Stark finds a way to turn him human again.”

Kitten-Steve jumps onto the small table next to the door and the agent salutes him. It wasn’t protocol but Steve was sure some of the younger agents had started it and the others had followed it promptly. It wasn’t sarcastic or mocking, it was genuine respect and that was something Steve himself could respect. The agent smiled when Steve sat back on his back paws and lifted one of his paws into the air, in an attempt to return the gesture.

“We all sincerely hope you will soon return to your normal body and your job. Though for now we wish you a relaxing kitten-time and lots of fun in your current condition.” He smiles at Steve, waves Bucky goodbye and turns around, getting back to work. Bucky closes the door and Steve jumps onto the pizza-cartons and looks up at Bucky, tilting his head to the side.

“Yeah. You will enjoy kitten-time with me and my daughter. Do you really want that suit Stark wants to make you?”

Steve stretches his paw towards the phone and Bucky smiles.

“Yeah okay. Text me your answer then.”

~°-°~

Bucky awakes to quiet purring. At first he is confused until he remembers Steve. The fur of the little kitten tickles his chin from where he’s curled up on Bucky’s chest, and Bucky carefully pets him.

Steve raises his head, blinking sleepily at Bucky.

“Breakfast?”

A lazy, agreeing meow makes Bucky get up, Steve sitting on his shoulder.

After breakfast, Bucky’s handmade patties since Steve apparently couldn’t eat EVERYTHING even though the serum still worked to some degree, Steve finds himself being passed over from Bucky to a SHIELD scientist who had arrived at the compound just a few days prior. She squealed excited, seeing the little, yellowish kitten.

“Good morning Agent Simmons,” Bucky greets her when she takes Steve from her and she smiles.

“Good morning, Mr. Barnes. Don’t worry, I will take good care of you, Captain America, Sir. I wouldn’t want to disappoint Coulson. He is already really looking forward to seeing you. He’s downstairs with Mr. Stark, waiting for you,” she starts chattering as soon as she started walking down the corridor towards the stairs, “Mr. Barnes will be busy in the lab the whole day and my boyfriend is picking up his daughter from her sleepover. I haven’t met her yet but I really want to. Is she nice?”

She looks at Steve expectantly and he cocks his head, unsure of how to react to it. Carefully he meows once, stretching his paw out to her, trying to communicate an agreement. The girl pulls him closer, cooing.

“Oh my god. You are so cute,” she exclaims, “and I take that as a yes, that Mr. Barnes’ daughter also is cute. And I would be so jealous of Fitz if Coulson didn’t ask me to fetch you. I feel so honored to be trusted to pick you up. If Mr. Stark hadn’t ordered Coulson to stay in the lab he would have come himself,” she chatters, descending the stairs. “But he sent me to pick you up and trusted me to take care of you instead of calling the Black Widow.”

The doors of the lab slide open and they enter the lab, where Coulson was talking to Tony.

“But Uncle Phil…” Tony whines, but Coulson stares him down and Steve gets the feeling this was something Fury taught all his older agents. How to resist the Stark-whine. When the genius hears the slide of the automatic door his head snaps towards them.

“Simmons-without-the-Fitz and Captain Kitty! I was already afraid you stole my kitten away!” Tony exclaims and Coulson jumps, turning around to them and staring at kitten-Steve.

“Captain Rogers? Is that really you?” He takes a few steps closer, leaning down to inspect the kitten in Jemma’s arms.

“Meow,” is all Steve can reply in a more or less exasperated tone. Coulson coos as the kitten seemingly glares at him.

“Yes, AGENT, this is Captain Kittenmerica and I would love to fit him into his new suit and post pictures of him on our social media, making him the Avenger’s-cott.”

Steve hisses as Tony takes him from Jemma but retains himself from clawing him.

“This is all payback for showing me up, yesterday. And don’t think I haven’t found out that it was you who changed the music in the elevator. I still haven’t been able to get this song out of my head.”

Steve chuckled and he heard a stifled coo behind him, very likely coming from Coulson, who quickly excuses himself, pulling a protesting (“But Mr. Stark promised me he would show me Dr. Banner’s lab!”) Jemma along.

~°-°~

Fitz helps Stevie out of the car and she starts towards the entrance, her temporary SHIELD-Scientist-Bodyguard walking next to her over the lawn.

“Coulson said that your father is busy, where should I take you?” Two people were waiting at the entrance One of them, Stevie had met once already. Uncle Phil, as Uncle Tony used to call him, smiles at her, when she run towards him, coming to stop in front of him. He saluted her. She grins and looks over the girl who receives a hug and a kiss from Fitz. “Is she your wife?” Stevie asks.

The woman blushes and Fitz grins. “No, she is not. Not yet. But she is my girlfriend.”

“She is pretty,” Stevie says, before entering the building, leaving the adults as she goes on a search for her father.

After putting her bag into her room, Stevie asks FRIDAY where her father was and having FRIDAY’s lights lead her down the stairs towards her uncle’s lab. They were, a feature Uncle Tony had included exclusively for her to find her way around. She waits for FRIDAY’s permission to enter since she was not allowed inside when Uncle Tony was doing dangerous things.

The door opens she stops dead in her tracks, watching Uncle Tony trying to work an angry, orange kitten into a tiny, blue suit, almost making it look like her Cap-Bear.  She can hear Tony hiss at the cat in angry tones.

“Uncle Tony! What are you doing?” she shouts horrified, when she hears the kitten meow in pain. Tony turns, smiling happily at her.

“Stevie! How was the sleepover? Hope Fitz was nice to you. How are you?”

“What are you doing with the kitten?” Stevie asks, when the kitten meows at Tony when he is squeezing it too tight. The kitten raises a paw towards her and she can hear a plea in its sounds. “Why did you get a kitten? Why can’t I have one?”

“Have you had a talk with your father yet?” Tony asks and waves the cat through the air, making it hiss and claw at his hands. Stevie shakes her head getting closer to her uncle, who is holding out the kitten towards her.

“No. FRIDAY says he is downstairs and I can’t goin because your robots are doing bad things again.”

“Okay then. I am telling you. This is your kitten. I got it for you and you get to keep it.”

“What is his name?”

“What do you think is his name?” Tony asks and Stevie holds out her hand to take the kitten from her uncle. She frowns, thinking.

“He is a liar, lapochka,” Natasha says from the doorway.

“What did you just call her?” Tony asks shocked and Natasha smiles.

“Auntie Nat says it is Russian for sweetie pie. And I like how it sounds.”

“And your uncle Tony is a big, fat lzhets.”

“I am a what?”

“A liar, Tony,” Bucky says, appearing next to Nat in the doorway and his daughter storms towards him, letting him pick her up, the kitten cradled against her chest.

“Why is Uncle Tony a letzes?”

“Because, sweetie, this is not a regular kitten. This is Steve. While they were gone, a bad guy turned him into a kitten and until we find out how to make him human again, he will stay with us in our apartment. Is that okay with you, sweetheart?”

“Does he want to stay with us?”

“Ask him. He can understand you.”

Stevie holds up the kitten to her face.

“Hi Steve. Do you want to stay with Daddy and me?”

Steve, instead of replying lets himself be overtaken by a cat-instinct and rubs his head against Stevie’s chin. The girls squeals.

“That is a yes! I will take so good care of him!” she yells, jumping into the air, while carefully holding the kitten. With his kitten hearing, Steve hears Natasha murmur to Bucky, “She is so much more careful that Stark could ever be.” And Bucky’s reply, “Does it still surprise you?”

~°-°~

When Stevie finally falls asleep that night she is curled around Steve on the big, brown couch. Bucky looks down at them, both his Stevies asleep on the couch. After they finally  escaped Tony’s lab, they had found their way outside on the big lawn. Around them, the young SHIELD agents had played tag and hide’n’seek between the trees behind the facility. Steve curled up on the lawn, lying close to Stevie and Bucky. At some point the agents had asked Stevie to play hide’n’seek with them and his little girl had dashed off with them, while kitten-Steve had lazed in the grass Not that much could have happen to her in the close proximity of twenty young Agents and the Avenger’s facility.

When the agents had started playing catch, Stevie had sat back down with him and pulled her coloring pencils and papers out and started drawing. Around dinnertime Pepper had ordered Thai and after they had gone back to their apartment, Stevie insisting on introducing Steve to her favorite cartoons. Usually she insisted on staying awake for her father to tuck her in and read her a story, but she had been exhausted from playing with the young adults. Only minutes later Steve had been asleep right with her. Bucky wasn’t sure if he should pick them up and risk waking them. Deciding against it, he goes to his room, picks up blankets and pillows, putting one blanket over his daughter and makes his own makeshift bed in front of the couch.

He wakes up when his daughter shakes him awake.

“Kitty is gone,” she whispers. He pulls her towards him and she snuggles into him, “Do you know where kitty is?”

“Steve will be fine. He is a big guy.”

“But kitty…” she says, sniffling lightly.

He strokes over her hair and she buries her face in his shirt.

“Maybe he just went to the toilet. Or into his room. Maybe he misses his room. He can’t be gone. He is somewhere-“ he yawns, “in the apartment.”

Quiet taps on the wooden floor warn Bucky of the tiny body that joins them on the floor.

“Kitty…” Stevie mumbles sleepily and Bucky sees the tiny body curl up next to his daughter on the floor and all three fall back asleep.

~°-°~

Stevie refuses to go to kindergarten. She holds onto Steve tightly, looking at her father with her big, green eyes. He hates that her eyes remind him so much of his sister.

“Stevie. Sweetheart.”

“But what will kitty do when I am gone?” she asks, voice shaking.

“He will be fine. He will be waiting for you to come back.”

Stevie glares at him, clutching Steve tighter to her chest, but always making sure not to hurt him.

“I don’t want to go!” she yells suddenly and Bucky frowns.

“Sweetheart…”

“No! I hate you! You can’t make me! You’re not my papa!” she yells suddenly, storming off towards her room, Steve clutched to her chest.

Bucky stands there, tears welling up in his eyes and a pain in his gut as if the Hulk just had punched him. His arm was shaking and he hears footsteps behind him. Wanda comes up behind him and he tries, he really tries, but the tears start streaming over his face. They had their fair share of fights ever since she started to know her own mind but she never,  ever had hurt him with words as much as she had now. She never had told him she hated him. She had never used his not being her father against him.

He feels arms wrap around him, something soft, like a breeze, stroking through his hair.

“She didn’t mean it,” Wanda tries to soothe him and he knows, but it still hurt.

“I know,” she replies and he really doesn’t know if he had been talking out loud or if she could just tell. He stays in the kitchen, sobbing his eyes out and letting Wanda soothe him.

~°-°~

Steve flinches when Stevie yells at Bucky that she hates her and he wasn’t her father. They knew it. All of them did. They all also knew he loved her like one and she loved him like he was her father, because he had always raised her as his own.

When the little girl storms off with him, he still doesn’t know what to do, his thoughts running wild and his head full of worries about Bucky. Until they arrive in Stevie’s room and he hears the quiet sobs, feels the shaking of the tiny body.

“No,” he tries to say, “don’t cry,” but everything coming out are two small, sad sounding meows. He softly butts his head against her chin, making her cling tighter.

“I didn’t wanna say that but he is so mean,” she says between sobs, burying herself and Steve under her purple Hawkeye blanket, “I know I make papa sad.”

Steve wriggles out of her grasp, standing in front of her face. Her eyes are closed shut and sobs are wracking her body. He lets his cool, wet nose ghost over hers. He licks her nose with his rough tongue, making her giggle, but she still keeps crying.

“He knows you didn’t mean it,” he would say if he could, but he couldn’t. Steve couldn’t help but feel responsible for the fight. She didn’t want to leave him. She had told him earlier this morning before they had gone to breakfast. She didn’t want Uncle Tony to get his hands on Steve again. She didn’t want him to hurt Steve again, so she wanted to stay home to protect him.

“Tell him you’re sorry. He won’t be mad,” Steve wants to say.

“Papa will hate me now,” Stevie sobs quietly and the bed next to them dips.

“He does not, peanut,” Tony’s voice comes through the blanket, “FRIDAY told me you were upset and why. But your papa could never hate you. Steve would tell you the same if he was big now.”

On the inside, Steve smiles and nods at Stevie, licking at her fingers. The girl giggles.

“What are you doing down there? Can I join you both?”

Stevie nods and pulls the blanket down a bit. After a bit, Tony is hiding underneath the blanket with them.

“I didn’t wanna say I hate him, Uncle Tony,” Stevie sniffles, snuggling closer to Tony, Steve between them.

“I know. And he does too.”

“I made papa sad,” she states, starting to sob again.

“Sweetie,” Tony coos and grabs for something above his head. It’s a small teddy bear, one arm wrapped in silver cloth.

“Remember this? Your father fought to give you a good home and a good life. He had always been proud of you. He would never let you take care of Captain America if he didn’t trust you. He won’t let me get close to Steve without anyone else nearby. Not after what happened yesterday.”

Stevie grabs the teddy bear, pulling it close to her.

“Uncle Tony, I wanna be Becca-bear for Halloween. Then we can be Cap-bear, Bucky-bear and Becca-bear.”

“That sounds like a good plan, peanut. Why don’t you tell your papa about that idea? I am sure he would be really happy if you told him that you wanted to be the whole crew for Halloween.”

“Papa is not mad?”

“Your papa is sad but if you tell him, he won’t be anymore. Kitty and I will stay here and wait for you to come back, okay. I promise I won’t hurt him in any way, peanut,” Tony presses a kiss to Stevie’s forehead and the little girl untangles herself from underneath her blanket. Steve and Tony watch her run out of her room.

Tony takes the bear back in hand.

“I made this for her, you know. When we first adopted her, when Bucky first adopted her, I gave her a Becca-Bear. Becca had this blue outfit she loved. She wore it whenever she could. She always looked a bit like Peggy. And Becca had these green eyes. It’s like when people tell Harry that he has his mother’s eyes. You know Harry Potter, right? I think I’ve seen you read it. It’s the same with her. When Barnes lost his arm – and I built him a new one – I made her this bear. Bucky was sometimes so scared she would not like her anymore or see him as a freak. I made the Bucky-bear and gave her my old Cap-Bear. It was a prototype dad gave me. I think the only real father-son moment we ever had.

“So I gave her both. Showing her Bucky-bear was a badass. A bit over a year ago I told her, he was Cap-bears biggest enemy. She was sure they were partners, best friends. That’s when she wanted to be Cap for Halloween. To be Bucky-bear and Cap-bear. I made her an exact replica of your shield. I bet she has it here somewhere. And I found dad’s old plans for your suit. Used these for her costume.”

Tony lapses into silence.

“It’s so weird not having you talk back,” Tony says after a while, then he picks Steve up, holding him in his hand carefully. “Let’s go to the kitchen. Bring you back to the little peanut.”

When they arrive there, Wanda is drinking the last of her coffee.

“They went outside. I promised to take care of Steve today,” she explains when they enter the kitchen. Tony nods, sitting Steve down on the table next to Wanda.

“I’m going back to my workshop… maybe I should catch some sleep,” he mumbles, leaving the kitchen again. Wanda frowns.

“What a weird morning,” she says and pets Steve’s head. Steve purrs, snuggling closer to her.

~°-°~

It became the norm for Stevie to fall asleep curled around Steve who was laying on Bucky-Bear. Bucky would read them stories every night and he would feel how the stress would dissolve from Steve’s little kitten body. Only when he saw Steve relaxing more and more  every day, Bucky realized how tense he had been, even as a cat.

Steve had never felt as relaxed as he had the past few weeks. Sure, he hadn’t slept through a whole night, even as a cat. Nightmares had been his constant companion, but they had lessened in what he saw. He sometimes still saw his friends dying or Wanda’s dream haunt him (not that he would ever let her know), but waking up next to the steady heartbeat and regulated breathing of Stevie he had fallen back asleep quickly without a hitch.

For the first time since his mom had died he felt himself slowly relax. That is why he is actually disappointed when he and Bucky are sitting in the common room and Thor walks through the wide door, smiling brightly as he announces, “I have found a way to turn you back.”

Bucky’s smile seems strained to Steve, and he thinks it isn’t the news his friend had been expecting either.

And it wasn’t news Bucky had been looking forward to. Not that Bucky didn’t want his new friend back to normal, but he was pretty sure that a break could have been the best thing that could have happened to Steve. But Bucky had been expecting the news and already started planning on how to help Steve out. Then Tony comes, leading Thor to his workshop to work on the machine that would turn Steve back, while the kitten curls up in Bucky’s lap, letting himself be patted, enjoying the last time he will get this amount and kind of affection from someone else.

~°-°~

When Stevie comes home from kindergarten that day, FRIDAY informs her that everyone was in Uncle Tony’s workshop.

When she comes through the doors, the first thing she sees is a tall, blonde man. He had even longer hair than her father she notices.

“Hey! Kid! Peanut!” Tony calls her. The tall man turns around, looking at her.

“Thor,” her father says from the other side of the room, “that is my little girl Stevie. Stevie, that’s Thor. He’s a friend of kitty’s.”

The man comes closer, crouching down so that they are eye to eye. She likes him already. He has kind eyes. Almost like kitty. He reminds her of kitty a lot.

“Hi there, little one. You look like you will become a fierce young woman one day. You remind me of my friend Lady Sif. She is one of the strongest warriors there is.”

Stevie giggles when he bops her on the nose playfully.

Bucky comes over, handing Steve over to her, who bobs his head against her chin when she lifts him up.

“Thor found a way to give Steve his old body back,” her father explains. She nods in understanding, cradling Steve to her chest and hugging him tightly.

“Promise me you will still be my friend,” she whispers to him. Then she hands Steve back to her father and he carries him back to a big machine on the other side of the room before everyone but Thor, her father and Uncle Tony get ushered out.

~°-°~

Steve wakes up in a comfortable bed and the first thing he is aware are his thumbs. And that he isn’t wearing any clothes.

“Stevie can’t wait to see you. But I thought we better keep her out until you’re decent”, Tony says chuckling and gets up from the chair by his side. “Get dressed before we can’t hold her back. Just tell FRIDAY when you’re ready.”

With that he leaves. Steve gets up noticing he is in his room. It had become unfamiliar to him during these weeks staying with Bucky and Stevie.

Against all odds he had enjoyed his downtime. It had been hard seeing his team go on missions without him but they had proven they could hold their own, not that he had ever doubted them. Slowly he got up, trying to get used to standing on two legs again. Someone had already laid out boxer shorts, a pair of sweatpants and a shirt out for him. He slipped the boxer shorts and pants on. A knock sounds on the door.

“Steven. It is Thor. May I come in?”

“Sure,” Steve calls out and the door opens, letting Thor enter.

“I was just seeing how you were, my friend. But it does seem like all is well.”

“I am feeling fine, Thor. Thank you for checking up on me. I presume you are leaving?”

Thor nods. “Sadly I do have to. I still have to search for my brother.”

“Good luck with that. I hope, for all our sakes, his and our world’s, that you will find him.”

“Thank you my friend. May you and your family be safe. It does seem like the fierce little girl has taken a liking to you.” Steve smiles lightly, before he remembers that he is human again, serum and all. But he won’t let the smile falter in front of Thor.

The Asgardian leaves and Steve pulls his shirt on just as Stevie barrels through the door.

~°-°~

Stevie sees Thor come out of Steve’s room and manages to slip out of her father’s grip and barrels through the door. She hears her father call out her name but she is already clinging onto Steve’s leg. She stares up at him and gives him a toothy smile.

“Can you still watch cartoons with me, kitty?”

Bucky stumbles through the door sighing.

“Sweetheart, I told you to stay out until FRIDAY tells you it’s okay to come in.”

Steve chuckles lightly and looks over to Bucky who hoists Stevie up on his hips. He saw how Steve seemed to struggle with standing on two legs and the other man didn’t need a little girl trying to climb him right now. He looks at his daughter “He is not kitty anymore, Stevie. His name is Steve.” Bucky says, nuzzling her neck. Stevie turns her head and looks Steve up and down before giving a quick nod.

“Still kitty. He still has kitty’s eyes.”

Steve smiled at her and carefully, maybe again unsure of his superhuman strength, places a small kiss on her forehead.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind the name, I think,” he whispers, his eyes are trained on the little girl staring up at him with a big smile. Then he looks up at Bucky, who is watching him with awe in his eyes. Steve feels his cheeks heat up, the blush creeping up his face. He leans in, hugging both Barnes’ tightly.

“Thank you. Thank you both,” he whispers and squeezes them close. Bucky thinks he can feel Steve’s lips ghost over his cheek. He knows he’s blushing.

“I thought we could get dinner tonight?” Steve asks, smiling, “I’d like to get out of here again.”

Stevie cheers, wrapping her arms around Steve’s neck, who carefully wraps his arms around her, holding onto her tight. And something in his chest, that he didn’t know was there, eases.

~°-°~

"So..." Tony starts and Steve looks at him, sitting on a bench under the blue sky the very next day.  "You remember what you said after the whole Ultron mess? That the you who wanted a family went under the ice and someone else came out?"

Steve nods slowly, unsure of what Tony's playing at.

"I don't think that's true. I just think that this part of you was still frozen in there somewhere. You should spend more time with them. I saw what they, hell what you all looked like when you came back from dinner last night. You were glowing."

"Bucky and me... Tony there would be no future," Steve says, his voice pleading.

Some other time Tony would take pity on him,ut not today. He has seen them while Steve wasn’t human. He isn’t blind, even if he liked to play ignorant. he could see the difference in the way Steve had held himself before all this and how he held himself now. He wasn’t someone else than he had been before. He just seemed more relaxed. More like a human than a soldier.

"Why? What makes you so sure?" he chases the subject, “Since you got turned back, yesterday I may emphasize, you look at Barnes and his daughter with a longing I have never seen before in someone’s eyes.”

"I... Look at me,” Steve says gloomily, “I am nearly a hundred years old. I am Captain America. Even if Bucky would put up with a guy from another century, being who I am makes them a target."

"And being my best friend doesn't? I met James Barnes when he was a kid. He is thirteen years younger than me and he is like the little brother I never had and never wanted. Mostly because I didn't want my father to screw up another human being. Still--"

"Tony please, I--"

"You what? Are too scared to be happy? And he has put up with you before. Tell you what, I spent years pining for Pepper and she put up with everything. I admitted I loved her when we both almost died. Did you know Happy carried that engagement ring since 2008? Think about it." Then the genius stands up, clapping a hand on Steve's shoulder.

Then Steve hears Stevie squeal behind them and turns around to them just to see Tony lift the little girl up.

"How is my little Stevie doing?" Tony coos and nuzzles into Stevie's neck making Steve smile when she giggles. Then Stevie turns around in Tony's arms, smiling at Steve.

"Kitty!" she extended her arms, urging him to pick her up and he did so.

"Hey Stevie,” he coos, looking around. Bucky was nowhere to be seen, “Where is your father?”

She looks at him, pouting, “Daddy is in his lab because Uncle Tony makes him do all the work alone. You should tell daddy to stop working and invite us for lunch.”

Then she wraps her slim arms around Steve’s neck, holding on tight. He looks over to Tony who encourages him with a smile, mouthing a ‘she loves you’ at Steve. He smiles fondly down at her, remembering how she had clung to him when she had been asleep, then he looks back up at Tony while speaking to Stevie. “Maybe I’m going to do that. Do you want to go to Brooklyn? I know a good pancake place.”

Steve walks over the lawn, carrying the little girl in his arms. She nods furiously. “Yes I want. And I am sure daddy wants too. He said he lived there with mama when they were kids.”

“Your dad’s from Brooklyn?”

“I growed up there too. But then Uncle Tony made us go here.”

“You miss your friends?” he asked her, but she shakes her head, frowning.

“They were all stupid. And mean. They were all saying that Uncle Tony is a meanie because he makes things that hurt people but he is not. He did but daddy said he did because his daddy did too.”

Steve is walking over the lawn, holding the little girl close. She keeps on babbling about the kids in her new kindergarten and how much she loved her new nursery school teachers. She doesn’t even stop when the sliding doors to Bucky’s personal workshop (where kitten-Steve had spent every day while Stevie had been in kindergarten) slide open. Stevie makes a whoosh sound like sliding doors in the cities did.

Bucky, hearing his daughter’s antics, looks towards the door when he sees his daughter cradled to Steve’s chest, in Steve’s arms.

“Daddy! Kitty and I want pancakes!”

“Your daughter insists I take you out,” Steve adds smiling and Bucky snorts a laugh, standing up, stretching his back.

“Yeah. Sure. I could eat.”

And when Steve smiles at him he purposely doesn’t think about all the things he has to do for Tony till tomorrow.

Surprisingly, when he comes back later that afternoon, everything is marked down as done. Not even FRIDAY would tell him anything.

He smiles to himself, looking at the photo he had printed a few days ago, of Steve and Stevie had fallen asleep outside in the sun curled up next to each other.

“Tell him thanks, FRIDAY.”

~°-°~

It’s been five days since Steve had been back to human.

It was not even four in the morning, when Bucky was awoken by a sad Stevie.

“What’s wrong sweety?” he asks yawning, pulling her up into his bed and she curls up in the empty space on his left.

“I waked up and wanted water. But I didn’ wanna wake you and so I goed to the kitchen alone.” And Bucky took notice that Stevie was not only sad but noticeably upset. She only made mistakes like that while talking when she was upset or sick. And when there was one thing Bucky hated more than Tony waking him up at three in the morning, was when his little angel was upset. 

“And what made you wake me?” he asks quietly and leans back when his daughter’s head snaps up and she is fisting her hands into the wide, grey shirt he always wore to bed.

“Kitty was in the living room. He sit on the window and I think he cries. Daddy, I dun’t like kitty being sad.”

She looked at him with big, pleading eyes, already close to tears. Bucky frowned and carded his hand through Stevie’s hair, letting her bury her face in his shirt as she started to sob quietly.

“You like Steve, right Angel?” he asked and feel her nod against his collarbone. He sighs into her hair, “Me too, Angel, me too.”

Bucky didn’t know when it had happened. If it had been the nights in the communal kitchen when Steve had made him coffee or tea. If it had been the fact that Steve had very quickly learned the signs when Bucky needed tea and when coffee. Or if it had been the times when they had sat on the couches in the living area and Steve had sat near him even if there were spaces near Natasha or Sam, people Steve knew longer. Maybe when Steve was willing to just listen to what Bucky needed to get out.

Maybe it was when he had asked Bucky if he should come out, if that was the right way to show support for the actor who portrayed him so many times.

Maybe that Steve had trusted them both enough to let them take care of him when he was a (more or less) defenseless kitten.

Or maybe it was all of it.

Bucky didn’t know when it had happened. He just knew along the way he had maybe fallen a little in love with Steve Rogers and it was undeniable. Especially now where he found that his kid grew attached to Steve as well.

“Dada?” it was quiet.

“Yeah?” a light whisper.

“Can we make Pancakes for kitty?”

“Sure. If you tell me why you keep calling him kitty. You’re a smart kid. What do you see in his eyes, my little angel?”

“He looks sad when he looks at us and happy when we hug him,” she states simply and yawns and then sits up looking down at Bucky. “We should go and hug him. Like you hugged me when I cried.”

He smiled up at her and nodded.

“Tell you what. Gather all the blankets you can find in your room. And all the stuffed animals you can carry. I’ll put on something comfortable and then we’ll go and make a big blanket nest with kitty, sound good?”

Stevie’s eyes light up and she nodded hastily. Then she scrambled down from the bed and rushed out his bedroom door towards her own room. Bucky throws the covers down and gets up, pulling a pair of wide sleeping pants out of his dresser.

“FRIDAY?”

His phone lights up ‘yes, Mr. Barnes?’

He takes the arm from the dresser and attaches it to the socket on his left.

“Is Steve still in the common room and is he wearing sleeping appropriate clothes?”

‘Captain Rogers is still present in the common room and currently dressed in a shirt and Stark-Industries sweatpants,’ his phone informs him.

“Thank you,” he says and leaves his phone next to his bed, walking towards his daughter’s room. So far the little girl had laid seven blankets on a neat pile and put her biggest stuffed animals next to it. She pulls the blankets from her bed when she spots him.

“Daddy, can we take your blanket, too? And kitty can have the Bucky-Bear Uncle Tony gave me. And you can cuddle with Becca-bear. And if kitty is still sad, he can cuddle me too and Bucky-bear and I will take sooooo much good care of him. Like we did before.” She smiled at him widely and Bucky feels tears welling up in his eyes. He pressed a kiss against her temple when she jumped up and down in front of him, holding her Cap-bear close.

Then he gathered the blankets in his arms.

“I think these are enough, right. We have the big pillows in the common room, we can put them on the floor.”

Stevie cheered and gathered the other three big plush toys up, making her look like a walking pile of plush. Bucky chuckles and lightly pushes her forward.

~^-^~

Steve is not entirely sure how long he sat on the windowsill in the common room.

He had been awoken by a more recent nightmare. Where he had almost (almost being the keyword here) mastered to control the memories of cold water, heavy lungs, pressure and finally the peace of unconsciousness by having his head smack against a metal pole, he had not anticipated what he had been dreaming about the past few days.

When his dreams had thrown him into the debris of the new Avengers facility, stone crumbling around him, the cries of young SHIELD trainees, Tony swearing in his ear until they were abruptly cut off when a nearby part of the facility broke and tumbled down. Natasha had been silent for a while when Steve comes across a big puddle of blood next to a pile of debris, one of her guns, bloodied and broken. A broken bow sticking out of the same pile. He had heard cries nearby and when sprinting towards it, the little plushy Bucky-Bear he had always curled up with when he had been a kitten was held by a bloody, small hand. When looking around he saw a metal arm sticking out of one of the glass piles where the common area had been. Around him was silence, even Stevie’s cries had quieted down.

Steve had woken up and gasped for breath, scrambled out of his bedroom, far away from where the dreams could haunt him. After an hour of walking around the grounds outside he had settled in front of one of the windows in the living room and put his head between his knees, sobbing when he once again saw the little hand grasping the Bucky-bear.

Steve was not entirely sure how long he had sat in this position when he hears quiet footsteps approach and a small hand grasp his arm. When he looked up he saw Stevie smile at him, a pile of plushie toys behind her.

She scrambled into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck as he stifled a sob.

“Dada. Come here. You need to hug kitty too. Like Bucky-Bear and Becca-Bear do when Cap-Bear is sad.”

Steve hears a quiet laugh by his side and someone, no, not someone, Bucky, sit down next to him. Then two arms wrap around them, the metal sitting heavily on his neck, grounding him to the here and now, the flesh arm wrapped around his daughter and the hand grasping his shoulder. He leans into the two bodies surrounding him.

“What are you doing up?” he asks, voice rough and quiet and Stevie squeezes him tighter.

“Stevie wanted something to drink and got up. Saw you out here. She came and woke me cause you seemed sad. So we decided we’d build a big nest here and keep you some company.”

Steve suppresses a sob and instead of arguing he turns to Stevie, smiling at her.  “Thank you. Both of you.”

Stevie scrambles from his leg, over to the pile of toys and plucks one from the floor, bringing it over to Steve.

“Bucky Bear will take care of you while Daddy and I are busy.” Then she runs over to the pile of blankets, pulling one from the bottom. “Papa. Come here.” She demands and Bucky chuckles, turning to her and taking his arm from Steve’s shoulder. Then he walks over, helping his daughter pulling the pillows to the floor and fixing a nest out of the blankets, then he waves Steve over.

“Come on. We might a few more hours of sleep before I make pancakes.”

Stevie drops into the cushions and looks at Steve, making grabby hands. He chuckles, clutching the small toy to his chest and walks over to them, sinking down into the fluffy cushions. He looks at Bucky, who takes off his arm, placing it on top of the table and then joins them in the nest.

“FRIDAY, please dim the windows and tell people to shut up and be quiet should someone come in.” The windows dim and Stevie wriggles closer to Steve, drawing her father’s remaining arm over her small frame towards Steve. Steve in turns wraps his arm around them both and that’s how they slowly drift off into peaceful sleep.

Bucky awakes when he hears a quiet coo from the doorway. Despite not being in his own room and bed, he recognizes his surroundings easily. As he does the voice. He untangles himself from Steve’s and Stevie’s limbs and sits up slowly to not disturb them. Natasha and Clint stand in the doorway, Clint phone pointed towards them. Bucky tilts his head towards the kitchen and Natasha nods, pulling Clint along. Grabbing his arm from the table, Bucky follows them.

Turning back he stares at the pair still laying in the nest on the floor. Steve was curled protectively around Stevie while his young daughter had her forehead pressed against his chest and both were sleeping soundly. Bucky felt a flutter in his chest and a smile crept on his face, before he went into the kitchen.

“So. What is this about?” Natasha asks, leaning over the counter in the middle of the kitchen, while Clint pressed the buttons on the coffeemaker.

“What are you doing here, when you’re supposed to be out?” Bucky fires back and Clint grins.

“We stopped by for coffee.”

“He stopped by for coffee,” Natasha corrects, “I was here to see Steve. How he’s doing.”

“Good. That’s nice of you,” Bucky says, connecting his arm to the socket and opening the fridge with his right while his left arm is calibrating, pulling eggs and milk out, getting flour from a cupboard and finding the rest of the needed ingredients in the fully stocked kitchen, before beginning to mix them together. “Stevie found him crying in the living room last night and we decided to build a nest on the floor. She wanted to cuddle him to make him feel better and decided I’ll make pancakes for us.”

“Kids always have the best ideas how to cheer people up. I wouldn’t give mine up for anything,” Clint says, taking the pot from the coffeemaker and takes a huge gulp from it.

“I wouldn’t give her up either.” Bucky hears shuffling from the living room and the voice of his daughter following.

“Carry me?”

A chuckle in reply. Steve’s chuckle. Then steps towards the kitchen and Steve comes to a halt in the doorway. Looking at Nat and Clint.

“Morning. I’m making pancakes. Clint has coffee, if you can get it out of his clutches,” Bucky says and Steve, still sleepy, turns his head to look at Bucky, then nods and sits down at the kitchen table, still holding on to Stevie, who has her head laying on his shoulder.

Bucky, after putting butter into the pan, walks over to them and ruffles his daughter’s hair.

“Morning Angel.”

“Hi Daddy,” she says, lifting her head and smiling at him, her blue eyes shining at him. Bucky nudges Steve.

“You spoil her when you carry her every time she asks.”

Steve looks up at him and shrugs, smiling. Then he helps Stevie climb down and sit on the chair next to him. Natasha slides a cup of coffee towards Steve and when Bucky looks up at Clint he glares at his red-headed friend who just leans back against the counter and pats his cheek lightly.

“Monster,” Bucky hears him mumble and a smirk graces Natasha’s lips.

“Learn to share Barton. Some people are not human without their daily dose of caffeine. Imagine Tony without caffeine,” Bucky replies cheerily, shuddering at the thought of his friend without caffeine. “I experienced it once and have never been the same ever since.”

Steve shot him a questioning look, raising a questioning eyebrow.

“FRIDAY send Steve folder 104-101-108-112 from JARVIS’ Archives. Access code for the folder is 106-115-98,” Bucky instructed while flipping a pancake and hearing Stevie squeal in delight when he did it again (and a third time to get it to the right side again).

“I’m looking into it later,” Steve mumbles somewhere behind Bucky while he saw Natasha begin to grin from the corner of his eye.

“And I’m looking at it right now and if I ever see Loki again I’m gonna send decaffeinated Stark to him.”

Bucky chuckled and put the first pancake on a platter, sliding it towards his daughter, who pushed it towards Steve.

“Kitty first,” she said and crossed her arms when Steve tried to push it back to her. Giving up the fight after a mere minute, he takes the butter and starts eating his pancakes while Bucky finishes the others, always giving two to Steve and one to Stevie. When the pancakes are done and Stevie is sated, she is hoisted up onto Clint’s shoulders and he runs out the kitchen, making plane noises and Stevie’s happy squeals echo through the common area.

Quietly Steve and Bucky gather the Barnes’ things and make their way back towards the living quarters when Stevie finally insists on ‘carrying the plushies back home later with Uncle Clint’ and then pushes the Bucky Bear into Steve’s arms and runs back towards Clint.

“I guess that’s yours now,” Bucky shrugs it off and heads off, carrying all the blankets by himself, despite Steve’s protests.

When they arrive at Bucky’s and Stevie’s quarters Steve gives Bucky a sheepish wave, still clutching onto the bear.

“Thanks. For breakfast. And for keeping me company. Again.”

“I told you on Becca’s birthday months ago, that you can come to me when you need me. You’re my friend. You don’t have to get through this alone. Take it easy for a while, okay.” Steve nods and turns around, continuing his way towards his room, when Bucky quietly calls out his name. He turns around, facing the brunette who is already half-way through his door. Then he looks over to Stevie, dangling around Clint’s neck, “And she is right. You still have kitty’s eyes, y’know.”

Then he disappears inside and lets the door snap shut, leaving Steve in the hallway, smiling to himself.

Steve stands outside for a minute, internally debating what it could mean. Then he takes a last look at the bear, traces the black stiches which symbolize the different plates of the arm. Maybe Tony was right. Maybe something inside him had still been frozen and it had taken a family to thaw it open. Maybe it had taken the love of father and daughter to set him right.

~°-°~

“Damnit Barnes. I’m impressed. Not even I ever had that big bags underneath my eyes and mine were as big as the Hulk,” Tony greets the grumpy man who enters the kitchen and makes a beeline for the coffeemaker. Steve looks up from the drawing he was working on (a sketch of Natasha, help for her next undercover OP where she had to pose as a former model) and stares at the black bags hanging underneath Bucky’s eyes.

“Fuck off, Stark. Stevie is sick, I haven’t slept in two, almost three days and I am pretty sure the next coughing fit will come soon and wake her up so I don’t have a lot of time.” Bucky pokes at the buttons of the coffeemaker and groans. Steve gets up, handing Bucky his own full mug and smiles.

“If you want… I could take her? For the night?”

“It’s fine,” Bucky shrugs the offer off. “I think I should be able to get some sleep when the fever starts going down.”

“Barn-- Bucky… You can’t go without sleep. And it means something if I say that,” Tony says worried, but Bucky ignores him deliberately, takes the cup and squeezes Steve’s shoulder in a silent thanks before backing out of the room.

A few hours later, the sun has set and Steve just couldn’t fall asleep. Ever since seeing Bucky earlier, he had worried about the Barnes’. He swings his legs over the side of his bed and puts on a pair of pants before leaving his apartment, making his way through the dark and deserted corridors he got way too used to during the nights he had spent awake. The path to Bucky’s and Stevie’s place is one of his favorite place ever since he had been a kitten, giving him some kind of peace and a promise of happiness. Even now, knowing Stevie was sick, he was looking forward to seeing them. It had a feeling of domesticity he hadn’t felt ever since his mom had died.

Light shone from underneath the door, weakly and he heard quiet cries from the insides. He knocks once, twice, before opening the door and slowly entering the living room.

Bucky sits on the couch, a huge, crying bundle of blankets in his lap, cradled to his chest.

“Shhh. Sweetheart. I know you don’t feel good. But you will be fine.” Bucky’s voice sounds defeated and tired and he seems to be close to tears.

“Want kitty” Steve hears coming crying and quiet from the bundle. Steve steps closer, still none of the two Barnes having noticed him. He lays a hand onto Bucky’s shoulder who doesn’t even flinch.

“I’m here, Stevie,” he says, crouching down in front of them and Bucky looks up, tired eyes looking at him in confusion. Small arms appear out of the bundle grabbing for him. He slowly wraps his arms around the blanket covered kid and takes her out of her father’s arms, who lets her go without protest. Steve sits down next to Bucky on the couch, looking down at the little girl. Her eyes are swollen and her nose an angry red.

“Daddy call you?” she asks quietly, voice thick and scratchy and he nods at her.

“Your daddy told me you’re sick so I came here. How are you feeling?”

“Nose stuffy and everything hurt.”

Steve nods, “I know how that feels. Did you know I was sick a lot when I was small?”

“Did your daddy take care of you two?” She looks up at him, her hands fisting into his shirt and he feels Bucky lean against him.

“No. He didn’t. I didn’t have a daddy. Or I never met him. It was just me and my mom.”

“And I only have my daddy. How was it to have a mum?” Steve felt Bucky next to him stiffen, when Stevie asks. Steve lets his hand rest against her cheek and she closes her eyes, head falling forward onto his shoulder, “Feels good.”

“I don’t know how to explain it. My mom was all I had and knew. It’s like you probably only know how it is to have your dad. He loves you just as much as your mommy would, believe me.”

Stevie nods sleepy and yawns. “You have to tell Daddy to sleep,” she mumbles, closing her eyes and after a few seconds her breath evens out.

“Don’t take it so hard, when she asks about having a mother,” Steve murmurs to Bucky who was still leaning against Steve’s side.

“I know. She’s just curious…” he whispers back, trailing off towards the end.

“She is right. Go to sleep.”

“If she wakes up…”

“I’ll take care of it,” Steve replies, Bucky’s voice already laden with sleep. “Go to bed. You’ll be much more help for her if you slept. She’ll not get better if she worries about you while she’s sick.”

He looks over at his friend and Bucky looks at him with big eyes.

“When did you become my mother? Or concerned husband? You appeared just like you knew she wanted you” he mockingly complains to Steve, making the supersoldier chuckle and smile down at Bucky. Feeling content and finally knowing, his daughter would be fine now he snuggles closer to Steve.

“Go to your bed,” the blonde argues.

Bucky’s eyes close involuntarily. “When you tell me how you knew,” he insists and takes one of Steve’s hands into his, twining their hands together, “and if you tell me if I read this all wrong these past few weeks…”

“Being tired makes you bold, right?” Steve teases, but immediately going back to being serious again. “I couldn’t sleep because I was worried about you both ever since you told me that Stevie was sick. The timing was just luck.”

Bucky smiles, eyes closed, burying his face in Steve’s shoulder next to his daughter’s head. 

“Or Fate,” he mumbles, before his breath starts to even out. Steve sighs, carefully untangling Stevie’s hands from his shirt and settling her into the couch. She stirs and protests.

“I’ll need to take your daddy to bed. Then I’ll be back with you,” he whispers when she opens her eyes and whimpers. Looking at her sleeping father from the couch, she nods and lets go of Steve.

Steve picks up Bucky and carries the grown man into his bedroom. Just like Stevie, he was snuggling into Steve’s chest and Steve smiles down at him pressing a kiss against Bucky’s hairline.

“You haven’t read anything wrong,” he whispers while setting him down into his bed and covering him with his blanket. A grumble that could be a “I knew it” came from Bucky, but it was too unclear to understand. Then Steve cards his hand through the long, brown hair and revels in how easily Bucky arches into his touch in his sleep.

“Sleep well, Buck,” he whispers before he leaves the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Outside in the living room, he walks back to the couch where Stevie had fallen asleep again using  her Cap-Bear’s shield as a pillow.

He goes over to the little kitchen and finds bottles of medicine standing around everywhere, letting him study the labels and what they are meant for, until he hears a small whimper coming from the living room. Walking over, Stevie holds out her arms towards him.

“Hey, you should sleep.”

“Are you staying?”

“Sure. I promised you and your dad that I’ll take care of you tonight.”

“No. Kitty stay forever. Kitty makes Daddy happy. Kitty makes me happy,” she insists, looking at him with big, round eyes, blue orbs that seemed to be a Barnes Family trait as it reminded him of Bucky.  

Steve picks her up and she curls her hands in his shirt. “Kitty stays,” she murmurs quietly before falling back to sleep. Steve presses his lip against her forehead, remembering that his mother always had done that when he had been sick. She was hot, but not burning up, so it didn’t look like her fever went down. Cradling the little girl in his arms, he curls up on the couch in front of the TV, thinking and listening to the uneven breaths of the little girl in his arms.

“Yeah. If your father wants me to, I stay,” he whispers into the brown hair of the child, when the sun began to rise a few hours later and maybe he imagines it, but it feels like she snuggles even closer at his words.

When Bucky wakes up he revels in the feeling of feeling rested and relaxed. There was silence outside and Bucky barely remembers getting carried to bed by Steve and the promise he had whispered when Bucky had almost been asleep. Reveling in the afterglow of a peaceful morning, no Tony who wanted something from him and his daughter being taken care of by Steve, he turns over, falling back to sleep. When he leaves his bedroom a few hours later, Bucky finds Steve and Stevie curled up on the couch, Stevie seemingly awake and looking better than she had last night. Steve was holding her tightly and watching a movie on TV with the captions on. Stevie saw her father over Steve shoulder and gave him a smile.

“Did you sleep well, Daddy?” she asked and Steve turned around, having heard the door when Bucky had come out of his bedroom, smiling at the disheveled looking man.

“Morning, Buck.”

“Morning, Steve. Morning sunshine.” He walks towards them and holds out his arms, waiting for his daughter to come and hug him like she does every morning, but she clings tighter to Steve. Bucky frowns.

“Everything okay?” His stomach turns even though he knows his daughter loves him. Why would she not come to hug him?

Steve looks at Stevie, the up at the man standing next to the couch.

“I think she wanted to ask you something. She already asked me last night. You have to know that I am totally okay with what she wants.”

Bucky looks at his daughter expectantly, but despite the knowledge that his daughter was drawn to Steve, he never expected the next words. And even Steve was surprised by the wording, because it was not exactly, what Stevie had said last night.

“Can kitty stay and be my papa too?”

~°-°~

They enter the common area after Stevie got picked up by her friend’s mother. Natasha noticed them first, but kept quiet. Clint thought, didn’t.

“Barnes! Bucky! How is my little Hawkgirl?”

“She is NOT a Hawkgirl, HawkGUY!” Tony exclaims over the conversation he was holding with Pepper over his tablet.

“Maybe she wants to be. Have you asked her?” the archer shoots back and Steve shakes his head, smirking.

“Dunno. Yesterday she told me she wanted to be a Captain just like her Papa,” Bucky smirks, and the first thing to be heard through the silence of the room was Clint falling from the couch, crashing onto the floor.

“Wait? You got together?” Wanda squeals from her chair at the table and jumps up from next to Vision, hugging Steve tightly. Tony hums happily from his seat where he sat down the tablet and keeps taking the coffeemaker apart.

“So can we finally use the repaint for your shield? I can offer the rainbow flag or bi pride. Both would be possible but maybe a bit too much. I’d make a prop for that we can use exclusively for FOX News,” the genius offers teasingly and ducks out of the way when Wanda chucks the empty cracker wrapper from her earlier breakfast at him. 

“Actually, Stevie had asked me if she could ask Steve to be her father too,” Wanda says, making Clint choke on his coffee he had tried to drink after getting back up from the floor. He shoots her an accusing and somewhat curious look. She grins, “Stevie thinks I am Steve’s daughter and I am quite content with that.”

Next to Steve Bucky snorts, amused. “Does she now?”

It makes Steve grin over to him, “Looks like your daughter gets a sister now.”

“Actually, I couldn’t think of a better sister for Stevie than Wanda”, Bucky replies shrugging and grabs the butter from in front of Tony before sitting down next to Steve at the table. “But why would she think that?”

“Because kitty cuddles Wanda when she is crying and helps her to become better at what she can do and he is always there for her just like daddy for me,” Stevie says when she enters the kitchen, racing towards Tony.

“What are you doing here sweetie?” Bucky asks frowning as his daughter looks at him with big eyes.

“I haven’t said bye bye.” She jumps into Tony’s arms, pressing smooch against his cheek before holding out her arms towards Wanda, who carefully uses her powers to fly the little girl over the table and receive her own kiss.

“Bye bye sister,” Stevie says, wrapping her arms around Wanda, who, closing her eyes, holds on tightly.

Maybe a family wasn’t something Steve was the only one in need of, he thinks to himself. Maybe Wanda needed a sister just as badly, after losing her brother. Maybe the love and acceptance of a child like Stevie was something they all needed.

And he silently thanked Tony for bringing Stevie and Bucky to the compound; and for fighting for them, even before Steve knew they existed. He leaned over to Wanda, wrapping his arms around both girls

And if they both started crying, it was because their hearts started healing thanks to the love of a child.