The clock shows 7:12 AM when the noise from downstairs wakes Steve up.
"Ugh."
It's only been three hours since he got back from the mission and that's not nearly enough sleep for him to deal with the antics of his teammates. He rolls over and goes back to sleep.
It's 7:14 when a loud crash wakes him again. Giving up on his precious sleep, Steve stumbles out of bed. After making sure that he is indeed dressed – an undershirt and boxers, in fact – he shuffles his way towards the kitchen. His head is throbbing from the lack of sleep and the chaos that is the lounge doesn't help it any. He sidesteps the remains of a shattered mug on the carpet and ducks under a thrown doll – a rag doll? – in his sacred quest for coffee.
The kitchen is, thankfully, empty – aside from a knocked out Clint. Steve briefly contemplates moving him before deciding that's too troublesome and turning to fiddle with Tony's extraordinarily complex coffee machine. It took him a whole week to master the thing but eventually he managed to get it to make his coffee exactly the way he wanted.
With that done, Steve rummages the cabinet for sandwich ingredients while he waits for the coffee to be ready. Pulling the knife lodged in the wall to his right free, he starts to hum a tune he heard yesterday and cut the tomatoes he took out.
Just as he finishes with the sandwich, the coffee machine beeps to inform him his coffee is – in fact - ready. Taking the sandwich in one hand and the cup in another, Steve sips his coffee and closes his eyes in bliss. A strangled scream – that can only be Tony being electrocuted. Again – makes Steve sigh in exasperation and gulp down the coffee.
Time to do some damage control.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
"Oh, you can try spelling-"
"Shhh!"
"Shush!"
"Um…"
"You'll probably want to leave them be. Steve and Tony can get really… intense, shall we say, when they play Scrabble."
Clack.
"Bucky," Steve calls from the living room, "Are you drinking from the carton again?" His footsteps echo in the house as he walks towards the kitchen.
Bucky looks guiltily at the milk carton in his hand, "Er… no?"
"You did." Steve accuses, the smile on his lips betrays his playfulness.
"Well if I could find a goddamn glass in here I wouldn't need to." He retorts, Steve's smile infecting him with his own.
"And whose fault is that?"
"Yours?" Bucky asks, fluttering his eyes coyly.
"Really? 'Cause I remember something a bet yo-" Bucky cuts him off when he leans in and capture his lip with his mouth, gently sucking on it. For a moment Steve can't remember what he wanted to say before deciding that it wasn't all that important and that Bucky nibbling on his lip is far more interesting.
His hands snake around Bucky as he pulls him closer, a moan escapes from his mouth. Bucky licks Steve's lips – in that slow, tender way of his which sends shivers down Steve's spine – asking for permission and Steve parts his lips obligingly, letting Bucky's tongue explore his mouth and tasting the milk in his breath. His hands wander towards the hem of Bucky's shirt and Steve can hear his breath catch as his hands brush against his-
A chocking noise comes from the doorway. They pull apart.
"I-I-I was just-just passing by." A red faced Coulson stutters. "To give you this. The paperwork. I'll be on my way now." He says before hastily making his exit.
They exchange glances.
"What's with him?"
"I've got no clue."
Parry. Block. Get some distance. Feint an uppercut, roll to the right. Sweep his legs.
"Oh, a nice roll but I'd give that sweep a six point seven."
"I don't know Tasha, it looks more like six point two to me."
"Five point one."
Tsk. Follow with an uppercut. Great, dodged. Retract arm, quickly. Parry. Right hook. Parry. Left hook. Shit- abdomen unprotected. Right side-kick. Good, covered it.
"Nice comeback. Seven point eight."
"Six."
"Geez Bruce don't you think you're a bit harsh? It was pretty good, eight point one good."
"He mixes it up too much. Any other time it would have been fine, but we're trying to cover the basics here and before anything he needs to get them down first."
Duck. Swing. Straiten. Parry. Parry. Block. Duck. Uppercut. Dodge. Parry. Parry. Blo- Crap, a feint. Parry. Parry. Dodg-
Ouch.
"Are you okay Captain?"
"Just fine Thor." Steve answers from his position sprawled on the floor. He turns his head to look at the trio of gossiping old ladies, "I would have been better if those three stopped chattering incessantly." He says pointedly.
Clint Grins at him unapologetically.
Steve gets to his knees – ow – before rising to his full height. Those techniques would help him, no doubt about it, even if he can't fully appreciate it right now.
"Up for another round?"
"It is not me you should be worried about."
But he'll be damn if he backs away from something because of a little pain.
"You know, Steve, Lillian has been asking about you." Natasha's voice echoes through his comm. link just as he places the last explosive in its place, with that done Steve quickly retreats behind the wall and waits for the explosion to go off.
"Did she now."
"Oh yeah. Apparently there are rumors going around about you." Through the smoking hole in the wall Steve can see the chaos he created. Some of the Hydra soldiers were caught in the explosion; he can already see some of them being hastily drugged out of the blast zone.
"What sort of rumors?" Not one to one to let an advantage go unused he quickly jumps into the fray, adding to the pandemonium by throwing his shield and taking down the closest soldiers.
"Well, I think the latest one is that Captain America has gotten himself a lover." Clint interjects. Steve thinks he can hear the snap of a taut bowstring being released.
"What do you think are the odds that Coulson sent her to snoop around to get a confirmation for his blog?" Natasha asks.
"Quite high."
"Wait, Coulson has a blog?" Steve tucks into a roll, his momentum taking him past his current opponent towards his next.
"Yep," Clint answers, popping the 'p', "He's very proud of it, says he's got a lot of followers and that he'd managed to convert some fans with his posts. Alright, I'm done with my batch."
"I'll finish here in the next two minutes. They have one nasty firewall. Nothing I can't handle."
"If that's the case I'm quite sure Coulson isn't behind this." Steve turns around to catch his returning shield just in time to bash his opponent face in.
"How come?"
"Let's just say that I have a pretty good reason to think he's the one who started the rumor." As the last of the Hydra goons falls at his feet he starts to look around for the information they were there for in the first place. "Okay, I'm finished. Nat?"
"Just a sec… there. I'm good."
"Alright, let's go."
The tea is sweet. There are traces of Cinnamon and Aloysia and something exotic that makes his tongue tingle and burn his throat on its way down.
"Where did you pick it up?" Steve asks.
"Here and There." Bruce answers, his own cup resting between his hands untouched. "It's a mix of several brands."
Steve hums in acknowledgment. The tower is quiet at this hour of the night, so much that he half-expects the soft chirps of the crickets – like he and Bucky always did when they stayed up all night to watch the sunrise – but all that he can hear is the city's night life.
Nonetheless it's peaceful, sitting there in the silence of the tower with a warm cup in his hands and hot tea in his belly and the quiet presence at his side, keeping sleep at bay for just a while longer.
It's a lazy afternoon and Steve is clearing up a couple of his recent sketches, Bucky is curled against his side reading one of the books Natasha loaned him recently – a thing that started with a heated argument of rapidly fired Russian and ended with three (3) broken vases, five (5) hand thrown arrows lodged in the wall, three hundred twenty seven (327) dollars in total that exchanged hands between Tony, Clint and Bruce and one (1) book of Russian literature literally shoved into Bucky's arms by a frustrated Natasha.
Someone knocks and they look up at the door simultaneously. Bucky – lazy cat that he is – show no inclination to move, so Steve gently shoves him off from where reclined against him all the while shaking his head in equal parts fondness and exasperation. A jingle of keys is heard and before Steve manages get up, the door opens with a soft click. "Sam." Steve says in a pleasant surprise.
"Guess who's got tickets to the game this weekend?" The man says excitedly as he waves an envelope that presumably contains the aforementioned tickets
"You?" Bucky says, unimpressed.
"Damn right." Sam grins, proud of his achievement.
"Who's playing?" Steve asks, searching his memory for any mention of baseball he's heard in the last few days.
"Mets versus Blue Jays. I figured-" The ceiling clonks and Sam cuts himself off. Steve is already on his legs, clutching his sharpened pencil like a dagger. The sound comes from the vents, but Tony didn't say anything about maintenance work. An intruder? But how did they get past JARVIS?
Don't jump into conclusions, Steve tells himself, Sam is still calm. Only Sam is staring intently at the ceiling and his hand is inching towards his thigh, where Steve suspects was once a holster and alright, that shit is definitely not calming.
Bucky on the other hand has rolled into a crouch; his muscles are as tense as a coiled spring, waiting to snap at a moment's notice. A gun and a knife appeared in each of his hands as if from nowhere – Steve thought he stopped carrying weapons around the tower, but apparently only stopped feeling the need to broadcast that he was armed and dangerous, which was still progress. Somewhat.
The ceiling clonks again, closer this time, the grate to the air vents shudders once before collapsing to the floor with a light-haired man on top of it.
He groans in pain before propping himself on his elbows and raising his head to take in the scene before him.
"Did someone say baseball?" Clint asks, "Because I really love baseball."