AN: Merry Christmas Eve! I decided to write some Stucky to celebrate. Muchos Love to Angelycdevil and MyHeroin for flailing all over my doc and my twitter. I love you guys.. Mwah!

Cold December Nights

Christmas 1939

"Bucky!" Sally leaps into her big brothers arms the moment he walks through the door. "Look what Santa brought me!"

"Woah!" Bucky over exaggerates his expressions as the girl shows him the little brown bag filled with hard candies. "You hit the jackpot, Sally!"

"Ma says I shouldn't eat them all once, but its hard."

"Maybe you should share?" Bucky flutters his lashes in the same manner he used to pick up girls. Sally, however, is on to her brother and clutches her bag tightly to her chest.

"No. They're my candy."

"Please?" Bucky pleads, drawing the word out into multiple syllables. "I can't remember the last time I had something sweet."

"Don't let him get to you, Sally." Steve appears around Bucky's shoulder. "He had a milkshake two nights ago."

"Stevie!" Sally jumps from Bucky to Steve. Steve catches her with a grunt and a shy smile.

Bucky smirks as Sally starts talking Steve's ear off. He's glad his sisters get along so well with Steve, and that he'd been able to guilt Steve into spending Christmas with his family. Sarah Rogers has only been gone for eight months and Bucky doesn't want Steve alone in their apartment the whole day. That isn't right and Bucky won't have it.

"Ma, we're here!" Bucky says as he shrugs out of his coat. The thing is so threadbare that he doesn't know why he wears it. It does nothing to keep out the cold, but who has the money for a new one?

"Bucky." Linda Barnes is a short woman with auburn hair and a quick smile. Bucky isn't ashamed to admit that he's a momma's boy. Always had been. He leans over to kiss her cheek while trying to snatch a cookie off the counter. He yelps when she slaps his fingers. "Don't even think of it, young man."

"Yes, Ma."

"Where's Steve? He did come with you, didn't he?"

"Yeah, Sally cornered him in the living room." Bucky ignores the fluttering in his chest that always occurs when he thought about how perfectly Steve fit in with his family. That would only bring trouble.

"How is he?"

"He's okay." Bucky shrugs. "Been better. I mean who wouldn't be, but he's acting more like himself." Bucky didn't tell her that he still woke up sometimes and hear Steve crying. Steve didn't even know that Bucky knew that.

"Are you two still getting into fights?" His mother smiles sweetly at him and he starts sweating under his collar.

"Well, yeah, but I swear, Ma, I don't start them."

Linda laughs, and Bucky can't help joining in. "I would expect nothing else, sweetheart. I'm glad he's got you."

Bucky coughs to hide his blush. He doesn't need his mother to know the feelings he's been hiding for years now. It will break her heart. Its already bad enough that he won't settle down with a nice girl and start giving her grandkids.

"Is Dad gonna make it?" Bucky asks as a distraction and because he's been dying to know. It's been a couple of weeks since he's seen the old man, and while he wouldn't mind making it a couple more, he does need to make sure that Ma and the girls are being looked after.

"I don't think so. He's working."

Bucky grits his teeth so hard that he can hear them grinding together. Worthless piece of… "Has he been here at all in the last week?"

His mother doesn't answer for a moment, and Bucky has to fight the urge to race out the door and hunt the fucker down. "A couple nights."

"Son of a bitch."

"Now, don't you start James Buchanan Barnes." Linda rounds on her son, and Bucky wishes just once that he was smart enough or rich enough to really take care of her and his sisters. She deserved better than this tiny apartment in a bad neighborhood, even if it was a step up from from the even tinier apartment in an even worse neighborhood like his and Steve's. "He's doing the best he can. The past few years have been hard."

"They've been hard on everybody, Ma. That doesn't give him an excuse to blow it all on booze and women."

"He pays the rent." Linda sighs. "And there's food on the table. It's a damn sight more than some people got."

"You deserve better, Ma. You, Becca, Annie, and Sally. You all deserve better than that deadbeat. I hate him." Bucky admits in a whisper.

"Ah, sweetheart." Linda pulls Bucky down into a hug. "It's alright. We make do with what we got and we'll survive. It'll be alright. You'll see."

"He made you cry, Ma." Bucky ordered his burning eyes not to do the same. He wouldn't do it. He'd be the strong one. He did it for Steve and he could do it for his Ma, too.

"I know he did." Linda smiles and Bucky knows it isn't real. He sees the same thing in the mirror often enough. "I'd leave him if I could, but it's just not an option. Like I said, there's a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, which is more than I think I can say for you. You're thinner than you were a week ago, Bucky."

Bucky shrugs. He's skipped a couple of meals to buy Steve some cold medicine, not that Steve knew that. If he were being honest, he's starving, but he would never admit to it in his life. He would skip a lot more than a few meals if it meant that Steve was healthy. "I'm fine, Ma."

Linda humphs. "You can't lie to your mother, Bucky. It's Christmas. Enough with the unpleasant topics. We should be celebrating. We're all alive and together. That's what's important. Why don't you go save your Steve from Sally and send the girls in here to set the table. Dinner's almost ready."

Bucky tries not to linger on the way she'd said "your Steve."

In the end, it turns out to be a pretty good day. The meal, while meager, is delicious and Bucky practically inhales everything he's given. Steve brought the copy of Monopoly they'd bought last time they had some spending money and they taught Bucky's family to play. Steve ends up beating them all, but he smiles a couple of times, which Bucky takes for a victory. Afterward, Bucky turns the radio on and teaches Becca how to dance the Charleston, which then means he has to dance with all the girls. Sally had just stood on his toes, but Bucky figures that counts.

All afternoon, Bucky tries to force the thought away that it should be his father here taking care of his sisters. It festers in his mind, dark and ugly, next to other equally dark and ugly thoughts. Bucky wants to run out into the darkening day, find the bastard, and drag him home, but that won't accomplish anything. Then, he thinks of a plan to hit him where it would hurt him.

The sun is going down before Bucky and Steve say good night and start walking home. Bucky pulls his coat tighter around him, trying to ward off the chill and gathering snow.

"You need a new coat." Steve mentions.

"I'm fine." Bucky grumbles, and then brightens when he remembers what's clinking in his large pockets. "Besides, I got something to warm us when we get home."

"What did you do?" Steve asks with a groan.

"I snuck into my father's liquor stash." Bucky grins brightly, perhaps a little too brightly. "Merry Christmas to that asshole and Merry Christmas to us."

They sit on the stairs in front of their apartment because it's just as cold outside as inside, so why not sit there and drink corn whiskey straight from the bottle? Neither says anything until Bucky's starting to slip from just tipsy to full on drunk and he's not watching what his saying anymore. "He's just such an asshole, you know? He leaves her to fend for herself and Sally is ten years old for god's sake. You would think he could be there for Christmas."

"It's not fair." Steve agrees in an instant and takes another sip from his bottle. "At least she got nine of them though. I didn't get any."

Bucky snorts. "Yeah sure. Remember last Christmas? He got so wasted that he almost set the apartment on fire. Selfish bastard."

"Maybe they're better off without him?"

Bucky grunts and swallows another mouthful of burning liquid that settles in his stomach like a rock. "What happens to them if I'm ever not there?"

"Planning on going somewhere, pal?" It could just be the drunk talking, but Bucky thinks Steve might just be worried.

"No. Nowhere to go. Nowhere I want to go. Just fine right here. Just working at the docks ain't exactly safe, ya know? Accidents happen all the time. I seen 'em. It scares me sometimes to think that it could happen to me, then what would Ma and the girls and you do?"

"Nothing is going to happen to you, Buck." Steve hiccups and Bucky giggles. "Shut up. The universe would cease to function if Bucky Barnes didn't exist."

"Damn, Rogers. I didn't know you loved me so much." Bucky grins, waggles his eyebrows, and giggles some more. He's going to feel this in the morning, but for the moment everything feels good and fuzzy and the morning is distant. He can deal with it then.

"Yeah, love that stupid, smug grin of yours." Steve snorts. His cheeks turn pink and how has Bucky not noticed how damn pretty Steve is? His slender throat, sharp nose, cheekbones that he wants to trace with his thumbs. Bucky saves the best for last. Steve's lips twisted into a grin, soft and pink and kissable.

Bucky wants to kiss Steve. He's wanted that since he was sixteen. He knows it's wrong, or he's been told it's wrong, he can't quite work out why. Either way though, these feeling of his could get Steve in trouble and that isn't acceptable. That doesn't stop him from wanting it though. Those pink lips pressed against his own, sharp hipbones under his hands, finding the pulse point on Steve's neck with his tongue.

Bucky shakes himself before he can act on his own thoughts. Can't have that. Have to keep it together. Steve probably doesn't want that anyway.

"Hey, Steve?"

"Yeah, Buck?"

"Next year I'll get you something better than whiskey I stole from my father. I promise."

"Don't worry about it." Steve shrugs and Bucky has to swallow thickly. "This is kinda great, really."

Bucky snorts and looks away. It suddenly hurts to look at Steve. He's too damn much. "Merry Christmas, Steve."

"Merry Christmas, Bucky."

AN: The next chapter will in the morning. Enjoy your holidays!