It's been months – months – since they found the Winter Soldier, sorry, Bucky Barnes, living out of an old KGB safe house outside of Russia. They'd been about ten steps behind him the entire time they'd been searching for him until a lucky break at a supposed HYDRA base, (a HYDRA base that turned out to be an old KGB training ground that HYDRA had somehow managed to acquire along with the Winter Soldier decades ago), led them to the realization that the slew of seemingly-random deaths of old Russian politicians and former military types maybe wasn't so random after all. It had taken almost a full two years to find him, but find him they had. It had been convincing him to come back to the states with them that had been the hard part, and in the end the only reason they had been able to convince him to do that had been because of Natasha. Now, eight months and one superhero team membership later, Sam found himself living in New York and meeting for lunch a few times a month with two nonagenarian super-soldier types and one of the scariest women he has ever had the pleasure of knowing.
Sam shakes his head. He's so caught up in the soap opera that has become his life that he almost runs straight into one of the tables a group of small girls clad in green and brown have set up at the weekly street fair he has to pass through to reach Steve and Bucky's apartment. Right. Girl Scout cookie season. He starts to apologize before he realizes that the four girls aren't even paying attention to them, deep in discussion about something.
"…just saying that because you think he's cute! I'm telling you Falcon is totally the best! He can fly!" One little girl in a green sash insists.
"So can Thor! And Iron Man! And Scarlet Witch!" Another girl in green wearing glasses retorts.
"Yea, but Falcon hangs out with Captain America, that's totally the coolest!" One of the girls wearing brown butts in before the second brown-clad girl notices him.
"Hi there! Would you like to buy some cookies?" she asks prettily.
"How many have you got?" he responds; suddenly all four girls are much more interested in him than in their argument.
"Would you sit down already Steve? You're acting like a worried parent," Natasha huffs from where she's sitting on the sofa, Bucky lying with his head in her lap while they critique the spy-film playing on his television.
"Well I'm worried," he retorts, "Sam is late; Sam is never late."
"Traffic?" Bucky suggests, scoffing at an explosion on-screen.
"He was gonna walk over from the VA."
"I'm sure he'll be here, he's only," Natasha checks the clock on the wall, "fifteen minutes late. Give it another five, then we'll send out an Amber Alert." She teases, nails carding gently through Bucky's hair. Almost five minutes have passed when there's a knock on the door and Steve darts over to open it, letting Sam inside; the reason for his tardiness is immediately apparent as he drops what looks like maybe ten large shopping bags at his feet. Bucky mutes the television, all three of them staring as the man catches his breath.
"What the hell?" Steve finally voices what all of them are thinking.
"Shut up man, they said Falcon was cool," is the only explanation he gives.
"So you bought, what? Two hundred boxes of cookies?" Steve points out incredulously. Natasha sits up, knocking Bucky off of the sofa (probably on purpose) as she walks over.
"At least tell me you bought thin mints."
"Yes, I bought thin mints," Sam confirms, rolling his eyes as Bucky scrambles to his feet with a cry of "Hell yea!"
How is this even my life?