Chapter Text
“Darcy, knock it down. Right now.”
Bucky slowed, breathing puffing white in the cold air, before coming around the corner outside the Upstate Facility. Steve was using a tone he didn’t usually inflict upon civilians, especially not pretty young female civilians with dark curls and red lips that could bring traffic to a halt. He’d just come off the outdoor heated track that ran a two-mile loop around the property’s perimeter and was following a walkway cleared of snow back to the building when he heard the argument.
“Don’t you touch him” Darcy growled, somehow petulant, teasing, and firm all at once. “I’m making one of everybody.”
Bucky padded silently forward, peeking around the edge of the building. Steve stood with his arms crossed, calf deep in snow and without a jacket. He towered over the diminutive girl bundled head to toe in mismatched winter wear who stood guard in front of a snowman that was almost as tall as her. A snow man with a protruding foil wrapped branch for an arm. A foil arm with a pasted on red star.
“How do you think that’s going to make him feel?” Steve tried, gesturing to the arts and crafts attempt at recreating Bucky’s prosthetic.
“Better than if I’d given it a hobo beard barely disguising a surly scowl,” Darcy snapped back.
Snowflakes were dressing her braid in glimmer and her cheeks and nose were charmingly rosy. Resting behind her in the snow was several crates of accessories, including - from what Bucky could see - a red cape for Thor, a kid’s toy bow for Clint, and a folded american flag for Steve.
Bucky leaned down and packed together a pile of snow.
Darcy and Steve went silent, realizing they’d been caught, and Bucky could feel their combined stare as he rolled a growing ball of snow over to join Darcy’s Winter Soldier snowman. Darcy packed together a slightly smaller ball and helped Bucky lift it up to stack on his. He finished his third, resting it carefully at the top.
“Bucky,” Steve murmured.
“Give me a minute, Rogers,” Bucky said, voice a little rough from the run and general disuse.
He dug into Darcy’s collection of odds and ends and pulled out a small squeeze-bottle of food dye.
“For Nat’s hair,” Darcy said quietly.
Bucky glanced at her. She seemed ill at ease, like now that she was faced with him she was less certain of his response.
He painted a set of thick red lips on his fresh snowman - snowgirl - and then plucked Darcy’s hat off her head and set it down on his creation.
Darcy’s smile spread across her face and Steve huffed behind them both.
Darcy untwisted a long, colorful, scarf from around her neck and arranged it on Bucky’s snowgirl.
“What’dya think?” Bucky asked.
Darcy stepped back and listed her head to the side while she studied.
“You forgot my boobs,” she said.
“Don’t like to work without good reference material,” he said, some old half-forgotten part of him taking over.
“Well I’ve lost my hat and my ears are getting cold,” she said while grinning, “so why don’t we go inside for hot chocolate and I’ll give you a better view?”
Steve made a choking sound, throwing his hands up and walking quickly away from them.