It's AU time

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Building 64 down in the East end of Brooklyn was not a fashionable place to live. The apartments were small, barely more than studio size, and the rent was pretty cheap. Not many people lived there permanently, most people only came and stayed a year or two to get enough money together to move onto somewhere better. But there were two residents who had been there a while.

Steven Grant Rogers, early twenties, who earned his rent doing tattoo designs part time to fund his college course, and occasionally dipped his toe into online art commissions. He'd moved in there when his mother had died four years previously, leaving him enough money to get by, but not enough that he could stop working. And right across the hall was Natalia Romanova, an aspiring ballerina from Russia. She was tough as hell, she had worked herself right through high school, paid her own way to America when she didn't even speak the language, and kept going through tenacity alone.

Somehow a friendship had struck up between them when Steve had been the first person not to look at her like she was an idiot or disgusting for not speaking the language. He'd helped her learn, and they'd been firm friends for the last three years. Everyone else was transient, coming and going, not really making an impact. Natalia had friends and a boyfriend outside of the apartment, but she sometimes worried that Steve never seemed to do anything but work and study.

Which was probably why he would be in his apartment when a loud crash sounded on the stairs outside. Said crash had come from a box of (now very broken) plates and bowls being dropped by the man just moving in to the apartment directly above Steve's, judging by the amount of cardboard boxes that were littering the hallway. He was tall, muscled, dressed in faded jeans and a hoodie with long slightly scruffy hair, leather gloves, and deep blue eyes.

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Bucky didn't really care too much about cleaning up, just the pie plate. He saw how distressed Steve looked and, even if he hadn't known it specifically belonged to his Mom, he could guess it. So he spent the entire hour gathering up every little shattered piece and gluing it back together, which went a lot faster when Natalia came back and could help because it was hard trying to hold and glue with one hand.

It wasn't perfect, the cracks were visible, but it would still bake pies and it was whole again and hopefully that would be something.

In the brief time before Bucky came back, he got Natalia to finish off the cooking and lay it out on the table, while he grabbed a can of fake snow from her apartment and sprayed it manically everywhere. When Steve slouched back in, it would be to the sight of Bucky and Nat in Santa hats amidst a literal explosion of fake snow, holding out the repaired pie dish between them.

[bottledblond]

Though he'd managed not to do more but tear up, Steve stood in the doorway completely moved. "You guys," he complained, grinning and crying all at the same time. It was pretty outstanding how one person could feel a hundred things all at the same time. Steve moved forward, scarf loose and coat left open, and hugged his little family. "Thanks... Thanks so much."

Cruises were nice and family fueds were scandelous but there was nothing like spending Christmas with the people that mattered most. Natalia got into her new lounging pants. Steve climbed into his onesie. Bucky got to sit in the middle of the two friends as they had dinner on TV trays and watched a movie. Miracle on 34th Street. Natalia found it boring but Steve loved it.

And of course there was a lot of spiked eggnog to go around.

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Bucky was glad that he hadn't goofed up, and the sight of the cracked dish didn't make it worse. This Christmas was shaping up to be a good one, despite it all, though very different from every other Christmas he'd had. Christmas in the Barnes house was a huge family affair, everyone came from miles around until there were cousins and third cousins and great aunts dotted around. Twenty or thirty people and a huge dinner table groaning with food, and so much noise and chatter all the time. Christmas abroad had been a half-hearted attempt at a chicken meal and then back out on patrol, with maybe a nice package or two from home. But this... this was homely and intimate and safe.

He loved it.

By the time Miracle on 34th Street was over, Bucky was fast asleep with his arm wound tightly around Steve's stripey waist and his head pillowed on his shoulder, long hair fallen into his eyes. Natalia exhaled heavily and smiled at her friend.

"I am glad that is over, it felt six hours long and nothing happened. Where were the gun battles? It is not a Christmas movie without gun battles. See, it was so boring even James has fallen asleep."

[bottledblond]

"Buck is asleep because I'm cuddly and warm, not because he's bored and what Christmas movie other than A Christmas Story has a gun in it?! And that one isn't real!" Technically it also had a scene with convicts scuttling across a dream lawn too but Steve stayed mum about that. "Now be quiet or you'll wake him."

"Wake him, will I? Well someone ought to. And I should go back to my own place and find comfort in my pretend Thor."

"You shouldn't name-- not after your boyfriend--". Steve groaned a little as Nat stood up and kicked Bucky right in the shin.

"James you will wake up and remind my friend of his Christmas present. You are not yet through those condoms you were given. Merry Christmas." She left them to be alone. She wouldn't be calling Thor. He needed to scowl about his baby brother ending up with a rich older man.

And Steve needed that onesie peeled off.

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Bucky woke up the second he was kicked, going from relaxed and safe in Steve's arms, to on his feet and instinctively reaching for a weapon that wasn't there. It didn't last, his expression cleared when he saw who he was and pieced together what happened, hopefully covering up the reaction by rubbing at his shin and exaggerating the grumpiness of his voice as he ordered Nat out.

An order with which she was all too happy to comply, giving Steve a significant look as she went out.

It wasn't too much later that Steve was having that onesie peeled from him and soiled in a way that would mean it needed washing the day after. In fact, Bucky made sure to round off Christmas by christening every single one of Steve's rooms, switching with who took who, and making sure that Steve understood just how fucking good sex was and what he'd been missing out on all these years.

[starkingenuity]

There was barely any mention of the strangeness of Christmas Eve across the world, though one of Steve's podcasts would devote a whole episode to it by New Years, and the day after Christmas went like normal. Steve worked. Loren and Bruce enjoyed their Book Convention at the Javitz Center. Tony priced new hardwoods to be installed in the Brownstone before his scheduled dinner with Loren in Manhattan. Bucky watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Natalia went to the gym. And Thor stewed in anger.

It was just a regular day, right up until lunch.

[To: Buckaroo]
[From: Steve]

Just had a consult with Chris Evans
Coming in tomorrow for the inking
Clear your schedule
!!!!!

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Bucky had a wonderful time over Christmas, whenever he was with Steve he felt almost like the man he used to be. It was amazing, it made him more confident that as soon as the New Year's rush died down then he'd be more than capable of going for a job somewhere. After all, he only freaked out because of the nerf gun, and how often was someone really going to point a nerf gun at him?

Even though Steve's apartment obviously wasn't his own, he was still there when Steve texted him about the celebrity who had just come in for a consultation. He could barely believe it, texting back at once.

From: Buckaroo
To: Steve

Are you serious? Chris Evans really came in? Holy fuck! What are you going to ink on him? That's insane. What was he like? Did you get his autograph?