Peter's waiting for Mr. Stark to finish talking to Captain America (his life is so cool), so he plans to do his math homework while he waits when he notices the metal arm dude sitting on a couch in the living room, and instantly, all his math homework is forgotten.

"Whoa, you're the guy with the metal arm! You're, like, so cool!" It slips out before he notices, he swears, as Peter's face begins to burn. "Wait, no, that came out wrong, I sound like a five year old." He whispers, horrified, and buries his face in his hands, because he's never going to be able to reveal his face to the world, never again, not after that stupid comment.

Come on Peter, at least try to sound decent.

"How is it connected to your nerves?" He blurts out, and the raccoon dude is still staring at him, slack jawed and wide eyed and all Peter wants is for the floor to eat him. (And really, it's not all that demanding of a request, all things considered.) "Can you, like, feel things with it? How do you compensate for the weight? I mean, uh," He shuffles from side to side, (man, he's at a whole new level if he can embarrass even himself), "Hi. I'm Spider-man. It's nice to meet you."

Slack-jawed-raccoon-dude stares at him a bit longer, before taking Peter's hand and responding faintly, "Bucky Barnes."

"Awesome." Peter beams, and then remembers that Bucky can't see him, so he quickly adds, "You can't see it right now, but I'm smiling."

Bucky offers him a small smile at that, light and kind of thoughtful. "You're the kid who wouldn't shut up while we were fighting." He says it kind of fondly, but there's a tinge of Tony's super dramatic what-the-frickle-frackle-were-you-thinking-kid-you-could-have-died voice in there.

Peter pouts and crosses his arms over his chest as he huffs, "I'm not a kid, I'm a man."

Bucky raises an eyebrow, something a bit different from the man he met at the airport (and maybe the boy that Captain America still remembers) leaking into his voice as he answers, "Not with a voice like that, you're not."

And Peter really can't reply to that (how can you?) so he just stands there and feels kind of grumpy, and when he finally realizes what to do, he lifts up his mask to his nose and sticks his tongue out.

Bucky laughs, and sticks his tongue back out. "Sorry, kid, but your actions are condemning yourself."

"Are you a kid, then?" Peter raises an eyebrow, once again forgetting the mask over his face, trying not to smile but kind of (okay, fine, completely) doing it anyways. "You stuck your tongue out, too."

Bucky shrugs at that, looking like he's trying to seem frowny and scowly, but ending up smiling a smile that's almost too wide for his face anyways. "I've got seventy or so years to make up for. What's your excuse?"

Peter tries to think of something mature to say, but he doesn't really know anybody who's mature (other than Ben, and he always managed to sound like the wise old man of the mountain) so he just sort of emulates MJ. "I'm choosing to protest against society's dictation that certain actions are considered only appropriate for specific age groups, and prevent ageism."

Bucky sort of raises an eyebrow at that, his features clearly screaming, are you serious? and when he realizes that Peter's not, he laughs, loud and big and warm. "You're crazy, kid." He laughs, and Peter can't help but laugh, too.

"You are, too." He says, except he's smiling and laughing so it's not really an insult or anything like that, just an observation.

"Yeah," Bucky's smile turns into something a bit softer and warmer and Peter thinks that he doesn't look so jarring anymore, even with the crazy dark bags under his eyes and the super cool metal arm hanging off his shoulder. "We all are."

Peter doesn't quite claim to understand it, but he feels warm and happy and kind of safe and he re-dubs slack-jawed-raccoon-dude as Bucky, and thinks, this is a start.

(Even if he had remembered it at the start, he's long since forgotten about the airport fight by the time that Mr. Stark comes to forcibly pull them apart, Bucky whining to Steve childishly and Peter pretending that Mr. Stark is his father, dragging him away from the love of his life, the two of them swearing to meet under the moonlight as Clint cackles in the background and Bruce groans, God, there's more of them.)

Bucky's not just the guy with the metal arm anymore.

(But he still has a metal arm.)

(And it's still super cool.)

(Just, like, for the record.)

(Wait, crap, no, he forgot to do his math homework.)

(Oops.)