A/N: I was bored on the coach to a school trip so I asked my friend for a prompt: she said ambiguous Steve and Bucky with the situation being that Steve's lawnmower was broken. Please read, review if you want to, and enjoy! (Rated T due to swear word and relatively frequent euphemism).
The Lawnmower Incident
The sun beat down on the orderly houses of the suburbs, feeding the postage stamp lawns and making it extremely difficult for Steve Rodgers to concentrate on mowing his. He paused briefly to wipe the sweat from his forehead, nodding to the young mother on the opposite pavement. With a sigh, Steve set off again, hauling the lawnmower around; it was one of those old petrol powered ones and therefore weighed a ton but worked to the efficiency of a baby goat. In his opinion, it was all too much work for not enough gain. Which was strange, coming from him.
Two turns later, the motor puttered to a stop. Steve stood, staring at the machine pointedly for at least half a minute. To his frustration, it neglected to resurrect itself. Grimacing, Steve began to poke around- he wasn't the world's worst mechanic but he didn't particularly fancy having his hand lopped off by a steel blade either. Five minutes later the lawnmower was still dud. Shrugging, the blonde resorted to the tried and tested method of 'kick it'. Somewhat surprisingly, the contraption quickly rattled to life.
Only to fly straight out of Steve's grasp and in to the opposite fence.
"Damn." The resultant crash probably audible two counties over.
"You alright?"
Steve glanced up, startled. The speaker, a young man with a boyish face that vaguely resembled old Mr Barnes, was looking over the fence from next door's bedroom window wearing- Steve realised with a slight blush- nothing but a fluffy white towel.
He cleared his throat "Um, yeah. Yeah."
"Really?" the brunet smirked, directing his eyes towards the pile of mangled metal wrapped around the fencepost; a cheery orange glow emanating from the wreckage, closely followed by a plume of acrid smoke.
"Shit!" Steve, who hardly ever swore, exclaimed. Panicking, he sprung forwards.
"Whoa, who, stop!" the man in the window yelled, leaning precariously far out. Steve looked up, the heat of the flames seeping through his thin white t-shirt. He took a step back.
"That's the idea!" window-man admonished, looking- for some reason- relieved "You stay away from that and wait for me."
"I'm not three!" Steve retorted, at a loss of what else to say. It's not exactly like this was a commonplace occurrence.
"I know." The man replied.
Just as he was about to disappear, Steve called out "Hang on, what's your name?"
"James Barnes," So Steve did see a resemblance "but you can call me Bucky."
"I'm Steve."
Bucky winked, reaching to close his curtains "Well, Stevie, I'll be down in a minute."
"So," Bucky began, brown eyes sparkling over the rim of his coffee cup "Is this normal for you or is today an exception?"
Steve laughed. It was true- what started as a normal chore filled Saturday had turned in to him and his newfound friend battling the flames with kitchen fire extinguishers, losing and calling the fire brigade, then embarking on a quest to purchase a new lawnmower. The latter task was made a lot easier by Bucky's apparent obsession with technology. The man truly did have an app for everything.
"Um," Steve replied, leaning against his kitchen counter "I don't think I've had any gardening equipment explode before."
Bucky laughed, shaking his head. Steve found himself chuckling too. It was a pleasant feeling; although the local do-gooder wasn't exactly scorned by the community, he wasn't exactly bosom friends with them either. Often it felt as if his life and theirs were separate entities, occasionally brushing past each other but more often moving in their own circles.
He was glad Bucky had barged in to his life that day.
"Y'know," the man in question (who, by the way, was now dressed in a chequered shirt and jeans) mused "I wasn't all that keen on the idea of coming to help with Granddad, but now I think it's not gonna be all that bad."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, ya punk."
"Blockhead."
Yeah, Steve thought as they dissolved in to extremely un-manly giggles, this summer was going to be alright.