One Day

A/N: Sheer, unadulterated fluff. Enjoy.


Maggie hadn't seen Bucky in two days.

This should be nothing, a blip in time compared to the months they'd spent apart since Siberia, but she'd just got him back and now he was gone.

Well okay, she was maybe being a little overdramatic. He was in Brooklyn. After the initial rush of moving back to the Avengers Facility, Bucky and Steve had returned to their old stomping ground together for the first time in eighty years. Maggie had encouraged Bucky to go: it's just a few days, and you two need this. You and me… we've got the rest of our lives. So he'd held her close and then went off to Brooklyn with Steve.

And with them gone, the facility… was still bursting at the seams with Avengers. Maggie liked them all well enough, but after getting used to living with only four other people it was overwhelming. And everyone kept having dramatic conversations in corridors and the common room, so she could hardly get a morning coffee without stumbling across an argument that devolved into tearful apologies. Yesterday she'd heard far too much of Natasha and Dr Banner's weird and bumbling 'let's just be friends' conversation for her own comfort, so she'd taken one of Tony's cars and driven to the mansion in Manhattan.


Brooklyn

Bucky knew she'd be old, but… the cloud of white hair and the graying eyes before him lodged themselves painfully somewhere next to his heart. He didn't let it show in his face.

For a long moment Shirley Kemp didn't seem to process who stood on the doorstep of her little Brooklyn apartment. But then Bucky saw recognition – and realization – flood her face, and she stumbled out and into his arms.

She felt so fragile with her delicate bones and papery skin, but she gripped him with surprising strength when he wrapped his arms around her. She was shaking.

"Bucky," his little sister sobbed. He squeezed his eyes shut, and felt Steve's hand settle on his shoulder. The last time he'd seen his sister she'd been twelve years old, all gangly limbs and chattering mouth. She'd buried her face in her older sister's shoulder (Rebecca, from memory) when he left. Now, she buried her face in his half flesh, half metal shoulder and wept.

"I'm here," he croaked, his flesh hand rubbing her back. "I'm here."

"Bucky," she cried. "Bucky."


Maggie rattled around the empty house like a pinball, opening and closing books in the library at random, trying her hand at cooking (still got it), watching Netflix, rearranging her bedroom.

Her whole life stretched ahead of her, but alone… she couldn't sit still.


Mid morning on her second day in the mansion, Maggie was sliding down the polished banisters of the staircase like she always longed to do as a child, when the doorbell rang.

She landed soft-footed on the marble floor. Once upon a time she would have waited patiently for Mr Jarvis to hasten to the door and swing it open. But there was no more Mr Jarvis, just Maggie. So she padded toward the entryway, peeked through the side window, and then flung the door open.

For what felt like years she and Bucky just stood on either side of the doorway, staring at each other.

He looked good. He wore boots, jeans, a long-sleeved blue shirt and gloves, despite the warmer weather. His brown hair was half up in a bun, and his new beard framed his jawline. There was so much weight in that sea-grey gaze.

He looked unafraid, like he inhabited his own skin. Maggie's eyes dragged down and then up, taking in the way he filled out his clothes and stood with his hands in his pockets as if he was any normal man standing on any normal woman's doorstep. She had no idea what her face showed him, but her heart was pounding against her ribs and he'd always been able to read her better than anyone else.

When her eyes met his again, he made a show of leaning to the side and peering over her shoulder. His eyes flicked across the ornate foyer behind her.

"Nice house."

"It'd be nicer with you in it."

He raised an eyebrow and smirked at the line, but there was an undercurrent of earnest truth beneath the words that detracted from the joke Maggie had meant it to be.

She held out her hand. Bucky's eyes softened. After a moment of stillness he reached out to take her hand, and let her lead him in to her home.


Three days later, Maggie roused to the smell of bacon.

"Mmf."

Maggie's bedroom in the mansion used to be one of the guest rooms, which she'd made her own by filling it with color and light. Sunshine streamed through the gauzy drapes, illuminating the dark wooden wardrobe covered in odd ornaments and keepsakes, the vintage prints on the walls, the little pot plants she tried to keep alive, and the large, unmade bed. Three different rugs overlapped across the floor. None of Tony's swanky California minimalism for her, thanks.

Lying on her front with her face smashed into a pillow, Maggie groggily patted the bed to her left. Her fingers brushed against nothing but warm sheets.

With much grumbling she rolled out of bed and padded out of her room, her eyes squinted against the morning light. She followed the smell of bacon into the kitchen and stopped dead at what she saw.

Bucky stood with his back to her, engrossed in the pots and pans on the stovetop in front of him. At a glance Maggie saw eggs and bacon, and… was that a waffle maker? Where did he even find that? He wore tracksuit pants, but had draped one of her bedsheets around his shoulders like a toga instead of bothering with a shirt. He'd pulled his hair into a high ponytail, and the ends of his hair brushed the tops of his ears. Maggie stared at the line of his shoulders under the white sheet, at his look of concentration as he fried eggs, at the way his metal arm gleamed gold in the light.

She must have made some kind of noise, because he looked over his shoulder and his eyes widened.

"No!" he exclaimed as he waved a spatula at her. "This is meant to be breakfast in bed, it can't be breakfast in bed if you're not in bed."

Her eyebrows flew up and she smirked at him. "You want me to go back to bed and pretend to be asleep?"

His eyes had been tracking over her bare shoulders and her sleep-mussed hair, but at the question he blinked. "Yes, that would be good. Thank you." She rolled her eyes and turned, but paused when he called: "wait! Where do you keep the plates in this spaceship?"

"Can't hear you, I'm busy sleeping!" she called back. She rolled back into bed laughing at the sound of his growl and the opening and closing of cupboards.

She did end up napping for a few more minutes until Bucky arrived with a tray piled with bacon, eggs, waffles, slightly burned toast, and coffee. They sat in the middle of her large bed and wolfed down the food, only pausing to tease each other and trade jokes. It was such a relief to just have the two of them – they still hadn't worked out how to be around other people, hadn't worked out how much eye contact or affection or comforting touches were allowed in the presence of others. It had always just been the two of them. Maggie wanted Bucky to be a part of her life and wanted to be a part of Bucky's life, but it was tricky mixing the two. For now, the two of them alone in a mansion was pretty good. To get to know one another again.

Two super-soldiers could put away a lot of breakfast food.

When she'd polished off the last of the scrambled eggs, Maggie flopped backward and put her hands on her stomach. "Thank you, Bucky. You didn't have to do that."

He cleared the dishes and flopped down beside her, making the whole mattress bounce. "Would've been better if you hadn't woken up and foiled my plans," he grumbled.

"But I wouldn't have seen you wearing a bedsheet as an apron if I hadn't," she replied, tugging on the sheet twisted around his torso. He grinned wide and bright, and Maggie's breath hitched at the sight of it as if she hadn't known him for years.

She took a moment to just look at him – motes of dust shone in the sunlight slanting between them, and in the light she could count each one of his dark eyelashes. Her eyes roved across his face, across the laugh lines in his forehead and around his eyes, the course lines of his beard, and then down to the strands of his dark hair laid across the pillow crunched up under his face.

Bucky's eyes were on her. In the empty space between them, Maggie let her fingers tangle with his – the flesh ones. His hand was warm and surprisingly soft – but that's super soldier serum for you, you don't get calluses. She slid her thumb across the back of his hand, her gaze still hungrily taking him in.

"You're thinking something," he murmured, then blinked. "Well, you're always thinking something, but this… seems specific."

Her hand tightened on his. "I'm thinking… I've been missing you so long, now that I have you I'm not quite sure what to do with you."

His thoughtful look turned into a slow smirk. "I can think of a few things."

She laughed and released his hand to punch his bare chest, only laughing harder at the feigned look of hurt he shot her. She rolled over so she could reach her coffee on the bedside table.

"Meg…"

She looked over her shoulder and saw that Bucky had reached into the space between them so his fingers were inches from brushing the skin of her shoulder.

"What?"

His fingers drifted to her shoulder, where her nanotech tattoo peeked above the line of her singlet. He'd seen the tattoo before – they had been sharing a bed for three days, after all – but this was the first time he'd brought attention to it. He ran his thumb along the dark line stretching around her left shoulder.

"These are your wings, aren't they?" His voice was low, fascinated, and combined with the sensation of his finger brushing her bare skin she shivered.

She nodded. "You want to see?"

Silent agreement glimmered in his eyes, so she scooted forward to get some space and then pulled off her singlet. Bucky propped himself on one shoulder and his eyes tracked over her bare back, with its large black X and new wing moorings. The dark lines stretched across her pale skin, moving with each minute twitch of her muscles.

Maggie gave him a few seconds to take it in, and once his eyes had tracked back up to her turned head she activated her wings. She watched Bucky watch the intelligent metal slide across her skin and then bloom out, unfurling delicate and impenetrable into the air above the bed. Maggie had done this so many times it felt like second nature, so she didn't look away from Bucky's face: his eyes widened and then darkened, fixated on the incredible feat of engineering taking place before him.

When the large, gunmetal grey wings were fully formed they arced across the bedroom, seeming to absorb all the sunlight in their sleek bones and scaled webbing.

Bucky reached out, and then hesitated. His eyes flicked up to Maggie.

She smiled. "Go ahead."

He started below her wings. Maggie jumped when his thumb pressed against her metal-reinforced spine, but then shook her head at him when he looked up with concerned eyes. She hadn't been touched like this in a long time. He ran his thumb up the knobs of her spine, until the pad of his forefinger hit the point where her flesh became metal. Slowly, almost in awe, his fingers traced her wing mooring and then flowed up, along the rigid metal bone that arced into the air. Then he ran his hand down one stretch of scaled webbing. Maggie shivered – she felt every pressure shift and change of direction, as if he were stroking her skin. His hand felt so warm against the metal.

Bucky had to swing his legs off the bed to reach the far tip of her right wing, his fingers finding the sharp metal point. Maggie flicked the end of her wing a little, just to startle him, and he cast a wry glance back at her.

She folded her wings in against her shoulder blades and Bucky followed them back, ending up back between both wings. He pressed a kiss against her spine.

"Beautiful," he murmured.

Maggie looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. "I know." He grinned, wide and white, and she turned to hold his face between her hands. His hands settled on her waist. Maggie's skin and metal wings tingled where he'd touched her, and in retaliation she combed her hand through his hair, because she knew how much he liked it. Sure enough, his eyes closed and he leaned into the touch. "So are you," she murmured.

He opened his eyes and gave her a lazy smile. "D'you remember that day in the safehouse in… Townsville, I think it was. When you had a loose connection in one of your wing moorings?"

Maggie groane and pulled back to cover her face. "Don't remind me. I was such an idiot, I was so worried about how I'd react if you touched me that I tried to fix it myself, and when you did touch me I could barely get two brain cells together long enough to form words."

Bucky had opened his mouth to speak, but when he registered her words he froze mid-word and mid-action, and blinked for three long seconds.

"What?"

"I…" his mouth opened and closed. "I thought you were afraid."

She laughed. "Of you?"

"Of… of your back being touched. I know… your nightmares."

Maggie's laughter faded a little, but the flabbergasted look on his face was too amusing not to smile. "That's true, and I still have nightmares about that sometimes, yes. But I wasn't thinking about that while you were touching my back."

Bucky blinked again, and she watched him reassess his entire memory of that day. "I was going to tell you about how distracted I was while fixing you up, and now you're saying you were too!" He blinked once more. "I felt terrible when you shivered, but if you're telling me you weren't scared…" Slowly, his expression changed.

Maggie laughed again and punched his shoulder. "Stop looking so pleased with yourself!"

He grinned. "I can't help it if my animal magnetism–" he didn't get much further than that, because she threw a pillow at him.

He retaliated and they wrestled until they fell off the bed with a thunk. Maggie recovered first, laughing breathlessly as she shuffled her wings, and leaned back against the side of the bed.

"We had some good times, didn't we?" she said.

"I'll say," Bucky replied from the ground. He didn't seem inclined to move from his sprawled position. "I never thought I'd have so much fun while on the run. Dancing, sightseeing, books… the company was alright, too, I suppose."

She wedged her toe into his side and he grunted. "I missed that, these past months," she said. He fell still and peered up at her through his hair. "I missed you. Being with you." She cut herself off when her voice hitched, and hoped that the earnest look in her eyes told him everything she meant to say: I missed lazy days in our safehouse and holding your hand in a busy market and lights on the snow and knowing where you are even if I can't see you.

He'd always been able to read her eyes. His metal hand rested on her foot, surprisingly gentle.

"I know, doll. So did I." His metal thumb ran across the ball of her foot, over the metal plate that her heel spurs emerged from. "But we don't have to miss each other any more."


For the next few hours they talked about what they'd been up to during their separation. They already knew the basics, but this was so different from their Kimoyo beads – the words flowed freely, and Maggie could let her mouth run and use gestures, and Bucky ended up laughing at the expressions on her face as she described her run ins with the Accords Committee, and the justice system, and the various bad guys she'd fought. He told her she'd give him a heart attack one of these days.

As they spoke they got dressed, and Maggie finally gave Bucky a tour of the house – even her preserved, dusty childhood bedroom. Bucky teased her about being rich, and she teased him about being old. They ended up sparring in the private courtyard. They'd never sparred before, not even to test their abilities. Before, it would have been too dangerous. Too visible and noisy, with too much risk of one or both of them having a flashback. But with just the two of them in the light-filled courtyard, years and miles away from their various traumas, it was fun. They ended up in a sweaty laughing mess on the pavestones.


In the afternoon they finally emerged from the mansion and took the subway in to Coney Island. They wore civilian clothes so as not to stand out too much, and it felt oddly freeing for Maggie and Bucky to stand in a subway car with dozens of other indifferent New Yorkers, like any other normal couple.

Maggie found that many places and experiences never quite lived up to her expectations – it was a fact of life, she'd realized, and learned not to be disappointed by it.

But Coney Island with Bucky was everything she'd hoped it would be.

They went to Luna Park and the Aquarium, clutching each other and laughing on the roller coaster, playing for prizes in the arcade like they had years ago on Maggie's birthday. They made their fingers sticky with cotton candy. Maggie liked the fast-paced rides, the ones that got her blood pumping, but Bucky liked the ones he remembered (he told her all about Steve's encounter with the Cyclone), and the arcade games. They mostly went unrecognized, save for a few people who looked twice at Maggie's face or at Bucky's arm when his shirt sleeve rode up.

Maggie and Bucky moved in and out of each other's orbit, their arms linked or their hands clasped as they went from ride to ride, their voices rising and falling as they teased, laughed, remembered.

"Hey," Maggie said as they walked through a glass tunnel in the aquarium, peering up at the glinting fish. Bucky looked away from a stingray lying flat on the top of the tube, and she squeezed his hand. "I want to date you."

"I don't want to alarm you doll, but I think we might be on a date." He gestured to their clasped hands and their surroundings.

"I know that. But… you and me, we never really got the chance to date properly."

His eyebrow rose. "Properly?"

She groaned and tipped her head back. "I'm saying this wrong. I just mean… I loved the time we spent together, but we were on the run and frankly pretty messed up in the head. I want to be able to go to the cinema with you without being worried about being caught on CCTV. You know what I mean?"

He thought about it as they continued to stroll down the tube. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I want that too." Then he scratched the back of his neck. "Dating might've changed some since 1943, though."

"I think it has. You're allowed to sleep with each other now!"

He smirked. "Ah yes, because sex was invented in the 1960s."

Maggie elbowed him and he dodged away, laughing at her. A few moments later they paused to watch a shoal of silver and neon blue fish, and Bucky's hand found its way into Maggie's.

"So, dating," he murmured. She shuffled a bit closer so her right arm was pressed against his left. "Play it by ear?"

She nodded, and then grinned at him. "We've got all the time in the world to figure it out."

His smile was brilliant in the shifting blue light of the tunnel. "I can't wait."


Around sunset they got hungry while walking along the Coney Island boardwalk, and waded through the late afternoon crowds towards a hot dog stand. As the vendor wrapped the hot dogs in napkins and went to hand them over, he looked up from under his cap and blinked first at Maggie's face, hidden behind sunglasses, and then at Bucky's.

"Hey," he said as Bucky took the hot dogs out of his frozen hands. "Aren't you…"

They just watched him silently. Bucky bit into his hot dog. Maggie juggled the change and her hot dog, keeping half an eye on the hot dog vendor to make sure he wasn't going to freak out. They hadn't been stopped all day since the civvies and sunglasses had so far served as a decent disguise.

The vendor stared for a second longer, then shook his head and offered a smile. "Sorry, sorry. You won't want to be bothered."

"It's alright," Maggie said. She felt generous after a day full of everything she'd wanted. "Good spotting."

The vendor smiled, then turned to Bucky. His face suddenly became serious and he straightened. "Welcome home, sir."

Bucky froze. Maggie froze for half a second as well, but then she looked from the vendor's earnest expression to Bucky's poleaxed face, and something inside her grew wings. A grin broke out across her face.

"Only took him eighty years," she said softly.

Bucky blinked, then looked from her brilliant grin and back to the now flustered hot dog vendor. He actually stuttered, clutching his hot dog in a death grip, as he said: "Th-thank you."

The vendor nodded once. "Hey, you're welcome. Have a good day you two."

Maggie tucked her arm around Bucky's. "We will."

She let Bucky think in silence as they wandered away down the boardwalk, keeping her eyes on the gold and pink ocean as she enjoyed her hot dog. Seagulls cried out along the beach.

After a few minutes she squeezed his arm. "You okay, handsome?"

His face was thoughtful. "I guess it didn't really hit me… until now. That I'm back. Is that stupid?"

"I don't think so. It's the little things."

Bucky smiled at her, then took a deep breath of the salty sea air and a bite of his squashed hot dog. He had mustard on his nose when he turned to look her in the eyes again. "It sure is."


When they returned to the Facility the next day it was a relief. They'd missed their family, though when they walked into an argument between nearly every Avenger about what counted as a breakfast food ("Any meat aside from sausage or bacon is illegal!" Rhodey protested to a mutinous-looking Natasha) they found they didn't miss them quite as much as they had five minutes previously.

It was still strange to be themselves, together, around other people, but Maggie found it easier to reach up and squeeze Bucky's shoulder as she slipped past him without feeling like her hand would spontaneously combust. Tony was weird and squirrely, avoiding looking at Bucky at all, but when Maggie told him that a single green smoothie didn't count as breakfast he launched into an impassioned defense of his eating habits and nutritional calculations.

As they all trooped into the kitchen so Sam could show them what the hell a 'froot loop pancake' was, Vision appeared beside Maggie and offered her a smile.

"Did you have a good time?" he asked softly.

"Yeah," she replied, and touched the disused and useless Kimoyo bead around her neck. She looked up and spotted Bucky on the other side of the kitchen, arguing loudly with Natasha in Russian. She grinned. "Yeah, we did."


A/N: The next one shot is named after a Beyonce song. I am now taking guesses as to which one.


Reviews

ebarnea25: Yay! Hope you loved this one too :)

Red Vixen: I wish that too! And don't you worry – what you asked for? It's coming ;) A little ways away, but it's definitely coming. I hope you enjoyed this one shot!

Guest: Ohhhh my god you pretty much perfectly predicted an upcoming one shot I have planned. Can't wait to write it and show you!