AUTHOR'S NOTE: this is literally just gross pointless fluff i'm really sorry but i was sUPER sad about bucky so i wrote a happy fic can you really blame me
When he wakes up, he's surrounded by warmth and quiet. One of Steve's arms is curled around his waist; the other is folded against his back, fingers splayed. Bucky glances over at the nightstand, eyes searching blearily for the red glare of the alarm clock: 6:03 am. He wants desperately to stay, to drift back into sleep, but he has to move, has to do something. It's been six months and he still can't sleep in.
They spend most days at the Avengers Tower, and on Bucky's more restless nights, Tony will stay up with him, uncharacteristically quiet, usually working on a new project of his. This is how they become friends-a mutual understanding. Tony knows what it's like to be scared to fall asleep at night. It takes two and a half months of this and a fight in which Tony calls Bucky a robot and gets a punch in the stomach from Steve for them to trust each other, but they do.
When the other Avengers (including Maria Hill, who spends quite a lot of time looking at Nat and Pepper, something strange in her gaze) find out about Steve and Bucky, they don't stop teasing them for about three straight weeks. Every time the words "Capsicle and Subzero" are uttered, Bucky feels the intense desire to punch someone (Tony) in the face (he does, at one point).
Sam gets along famously with everyone, especially Clint-they both find it endlessly amusing that both of their superhero names are birds.
Bucky discovers (or rediscovers) his prowess at braiding hair, which leads to him braiding the hair of anyone with long enough locks for him to do so. He finds that Natasha prefers a French braid (because they don't come loose in a fight), Pepper is more of a fishtail kind of person, Maria likes a plain one (simple and uncomplicated), and Bucky himself is rather partial to crown braids.
He also discovers knitting (and this time it is discovery, since he'd never so much as held a pair of knitting needles before now) and somehow, four hours after learning the skill, there is a sixteen foot long scarf piled high in his lap and he's used up three balls of yarn.
When Steve walks in, arms full of groceries, he almost drops them all over the spotless hardwood floor. "Bucky," he asks, looking rather bewildered, "What is that?"
Bucky peers around the mound of yarn to smile at Steve, brushing back stray bits of hair. "A scarf," he announces, and the pride in his voice is enough to make Steve grin back at him.
"It looks nice. You outta make me a sweater," he says, and goes to unpack the groceries. He forgets that he's said it soon after, so it's a surprise when he wakes up the next morning to find Bucky, crosslegged, sitting at the end of their bed, knitting ferociously.
"Buck," he mumbles, rubbing his eyes, "what the hell-"
"You asked for a sweater," Bucky says, by way of an explanation. "So I'm making you a sweater. I hope you're a large, because otherwise it will be obscenely tight."
Steve blushes, and then Bucky realises what he's said and blushes too and somehow thirty seconds later they end up kissing, Bucky propped up on his elbows on top of Steve, and neither one is sure how it transpired.
The sweater is red, white, and blue, and there's a fucking shield that looks exactly like Steve's on the front and he loves it.
And he lives, they all live, day after day. Bad jokes spill like whiskey from Tony's and Clint's and Nat's lips when they've had a few. Bruce teaches Bucky breathing exercises and lets him watch when he works on experiments. Steve looks at him like he holds all the wonders of the world in his hands and holds him at night when the nightmares are particularly bad and they live.
When they ask him, as a group, to officially join the Avengers, he turns them down, says something about how he's killed too many people already, voice like nails grating on a chalkboard. Steve looks broken and he feels broken and Bruce pulls them both aside.
Eventually he says yes, and when Steve kisses him it tastes kind of like salt and he doesn't tell him that he's scared. He spends more nights awake, and when he finally blurts everything out to Tony (who stares at him like he's suddenly grown an extra head, because normally their vigils are quiet and Bucky hasn't ever really confided in him), he looks him in the eyes, more serious than Bucky's ever seen him, and says, "You need to tell him," like it's the easiest thing in the world.
When he finally does ("I'm afraid that I'll turn into the Soldier in the middle of the fight and I can't do that, I can't hurt you, not again"), Steve looks like he's been punched in the gut but he doesn't run away.
"It won't," he says, and swallows hard. "Happen, I mean, it won't happen. It's been seven months, Buck. The episodes-" (he swallows hard again, hating the word, hating his throat for closing around it) "-stopped two months ago. It won't happen."
"But what if it does?" Bucky asks hoarsely.
"If it does, we'll deal with it, just like we always have," Steve says. "Promise."
He pulls Bucky to him, resting their foreheads together for a long moment before hugging him, tight, like he used to before the war. Bucky clings to him like he's his lifeline and when they join the others for dinner, his smile is more genuine than it's been in two weeks.
That night he sleeps in and wakes up (8:23 am) to find Steve stirring beside him, mumbling something about the time but making no attempt to leave their warm bed.
When the two walk into the kitchen an hour later, both with hair mussed so severely that sleep alone could not possibly have done it, Tony gives them a Look that prompts Bucky to throw several slices of toast at him.
They kiss loudly and exaggeratedly while they're waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, fully aware of the disgusted glances Tony is sending their direction and not caring at all.
When the other Avengers slowly make their way into the kitchen, they very loudly protest this public display of affection, Clint saying very loudly, "MY EYES. OH MY GOD, MY INNOCENCE IS LOST," which prompts Bucky to break away and roll his eyes theatrically.
Nat and Sam take turns pelting bits of banana peel at the two, which somehow leads to eight fully grown adults having a food fight in a kitchen with appliances that probably cost over a hundred thousand dollars total.
And they live.