"Uncle Bucky!" Morgan ran into Bucky's arms, putting her arms around his waist.
"Hey, Morgan!" Bucky wrapped his arms around Morgan, her chin resting on his shoulder. He squatted down to meet her height better, and she pulled away and looked at him.
Percy tried to keep from laughing.
"What now, Jackson?" Bucky asked, rolling his eyes. Percy grinned and shook his head.
"You wouldn't get it."
"Try me."
"Uncle Buck," Percy said, referencing the movie.
"Actually, I understood that reference."
"We have to keep playing where we left off, and it's your turn to be the princess this time," Morgan reminded Bucky. Bucky smiled as Morgan pulled him to the living room where she had already laid all the accessories for their game out.
Bucky sat on the floor next to Morgan as she dug into the plastic tub to find the tiara for Bucky.
"That's incredible. Isn't that Tony's daughter?" Percy inquired. Bucky nodded as Morgan looked in the container.
"Here," Morgan said as she put a silver tiara with pink jewels on Bucky's head. Percy watched another moment before heading to Peter's room.
"You're a princess, which means that you have to have a friend to hang out with. Do you have a girlfriend?"
Steve walked in from training at that exact moment, the word "girlfriend" catching his attention.
"No, but I used to," Bucky replied, smiling. Morgan took the crown back off and played with Bucky's hair, styling it in the way she saw fit for a princess.
"What was she like?"
Bucky's eyes had a faraway look as he remembered the forties.
"She was sweet and funny. She loved to laugh and have fun, and she was so pretty." Bucky hadn't talked about his girlfriend in what felt like ages, and remembering now felt like a dagger twisting in his stomach because he felt as if he had forgotten about her. Morgan smiled and put the tiara back on Bucky's head when she was satisfied with his hair.
"She sounds nice," Morgan replied. Steve listened from the kitchen as he made himself dinner.
"She was, and guess what?"
Morgan cocked her head sideways at Bucky. "What?"
"She was like you," Bucky answered. Morgan looked confused.
"How?"
"She was a princess, and she was very pretty."
Morgan's face broke out in a smile. She put lipstick on Bucky's lips, carefully trying not to get it on his skin. Steve had been listening from the kitchen, and in his opinion spending time with Morgan did more for Bucky than therapy. He loved playing with her, always making time to play with Barbies or play princesses.
"She sounds like she was so much fun. What was her name?"
Bucky thought back for a second, thinking of all the time in the forties that he and Steve had spent together. Sometimes Bucky had even found dates for Steve so they could spend time with each other and their girlfriends at the same time.
"Connie," Bucky remembered.
"That's a pretty name," Morgan replied. Bucky grinned at her as she did his makeup.
"You know what else is a pretty name?"
Morgan closed his eyes and put pink eyeshadow on his eyelids. "What?"
"Morgan," Bucky answered with a grin. Morgan smiled and let him open his eyes again.
"You're a pretty princess," Morgan told Bucky. He truly didn't mind when Morgan did his makeup, because it was never permanent.
But Bucky did mind the time that he had stayed over with Steve in the tower and Sam had taken it upon himself to draw a permanent marker mustache on him.
"But do you know who's an even prettier princess?" Bucky asked, smiling at Morgan.
Morgan thought for a moment, and then a smile spread across her face. "Connie?"
Bucky smiled, for Morgan's sake, but it was a slightly sad one.
Even though Steve's back was turned to the conversation in the kitchen, he could picture the sad smile playing across Bucky's face.
"Yes. But there's someone else who's even prettier than me."
Morgan looked around for someone else he could be talking about. "Oh, I know this one. Steve."
Steve held his laugh in the kitchen by biting the inside of his cheek.
"Oh yeah, Steve's way up there. He's one of the prettiest princesses that you'll ever see. But the most beautiful princess that I've ever seen is you," Bucky said. Morgan laughed and adjusted the tiara on his head.
"You're funny, Uncle Bucky. But you're done. We're going to the mirror," Morgan said, pulling him into the bathroom on the same floor to look in the mirror at his makeup.
He had pink blush on his cheeks, pink eyeshadow, and pink lipstick.
"Wow, Morgan, you keep getting better!"
She climbed onto the countertop beside the sink to look at Bucky. "I think so too," she said, jumping onto his back, putting her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. "Steve's the evil dragon, and the prince has to save the princess from him!" Morgan said into Bucky's ear.
"I thought I was the princess!" Bucky said with a chuckle. Morgan giggled and shook her head.
"You're the prince now, because someone has to save the princess from the dragon!"
Bucky went back over behind the couch where all of Morgan's princess accessories were strewn across the floor. "We have to hide from Steve," Bucky whispered, ducking out from behind the couch to see Steve in the kitchen blending a chocolate protein shake.
"But if you're going to be a prince, you can't wear makeup," Morgan realized. Bucky looked at her with a smile.
"Do we have to take it off?"
Morgan nodded and snuck with Bucky back into the bathroom. "Daddy made me a new thing that takes it off really fast."
Bucky grinned.
Of course Tony would.
She wiped Bucky's face off with one drag of something that looked like a paper towel.
"There we go. Now you can be the prince that saves me from the dragon." She switched the pink jeweled tiara on his head out for a gold crown with blue gems.
"Now you're a prince!"
Bucky snuck back behind the couch to watch Steve in the kitchen.
"Here, now you're a princess," Bucky whispered, placing the tiara from his head on Morgan's. She crept between Bucky and the couch to look at Steve.
"There's the dragon!" Steve poured his shake into a Blender Bottle from the blender.
"Hey, Buck-" Steve began, but then Morgan jumped onto Bucky's back. Bucky stood up from their vantage point behind the couch.
"AHHHH!" Bucky and Morgan screamed as they ran away from Steve in the kitchen.
"Go, Prince Bucky! The dragon is after us!" Bucky sprinted with Morgan on his back to the elevator, pushing the button rapidly until the door opened. He ran inside and pushed the button to close the door, and then chose the floor that Bucky's room was on.
"Hurry! The dragon's after us!"
The elevator carried them to the hallway where Bucky's room was, playing Tony's '80s rock rotation while they waited. The ding sounded and Bucky sprinted as fast as he could down the hallway to his bedroom.
"SHE'S A RUNNER, SHE'S A TRACK STAR!" Percy yelled from Peter's room at the sound of Bucky's footsteps outside the closed door.
"SHUT IT! I'M BEING CHASED BY AN EVIL DRAGON!" Percy came out into the hallway with Riptide uncapped.
"Oh, gods. I forgot I can't joke about that. I've been out of the demigod routine for way too long," Bucky said. "Morgan and I are playing princesses, and Steve is the evil dragon."
Percy gave a sigh of relief and retreated back to Peter's room with the explanation.
"Good. At least you're not dying."
Bucky opened the door to his room as Morgan held on tightly to his shoulders.
"I think we'll be safe in here." Bucky looked around his room for something to entertain Morgan when he remembered that Tony had mentioned his "complimentary bottle of bubble bath" under the sink.
What he was going to use it for, he had no idea.
Until now.
He ran about three inches of water into the jacuzzi tub in the bathroom, then dumped the entire bottle of bubble bath into it. He turned the jets in the bottom of the tub on to mix the bubbles into the water, and by the time Morgan had gotten into the bathroom the entire bathtub was filled with bubbles and about to overflow.
"Uncle Bucky, what are you doing?"
"Do you like playing with bubbles?"
Morgan nodded eagerly and ran over to the tub and grabbed the bubbles in her hands. She threw them in the air, causing them to float gracefully back down into the tub. She grabbed more and put them on the sides of his face, making the beginning of a bubble beard.
"How did you know that I love bubble beards?" Bucky took some of the bubbles in his hands and molded them around Morgan's face. He carefully shaped the bubbles around her face until it made a perfect beard that reminded him of Santa Claus.
"Look, we match!" Morgan was quick to point this out with a huge smile. Bucky grinned at her as she found his phone on the countertop beside the sink, and she held it out to Bucky. She wanted to take a picture.
Bucky held his phone out in front of them, Morgan on Bucky's back to give him bunny ears. They both made funny faces at the camera as Bucky snapped the picture.
"Now I'm going to have to develop this and put it in my wallet," Bucky said, making Morgan smile and put her arms around Bucky.
"Give me one so I can show it to my friends at school!"
Bucky laughed and nodded. "I definitely will."
The two ended up in a bubble fight, throwing bubbles all over the bathroom. Thank goodness that they were both wearing socks, or they would've been slipping and sliding all over the floor.
"Buck-"
"AHHHH!" Morgan hid behind Bucky at the sound of Steve's voice at the door. Bucky decided that neither of them looked intimidating with a huge bubble beard, so he decided to have a "kill 'em with kindness" approach and try to get Steve to give up from laughter.
Steve opened the bathroom door and saw Bucky crouched right in front of him on the floor, a gray plastic comb held up in the air aimed at Steve's chest.
"It looks like a huge bubble bomb went off in here," Steve said, surveying the damage that had been done to the bathroom.
"Back! Stay back!" Bucky said, waving the gray comb in the air. He put his right arm behind him, holding Morgan to his shoulder.
"What did I do to you?!"
"You're the dragon! I have to save Princess Morgan!" Steve finally caught on to their game and started to try to catch Morgan, but Bucky held her behind his arm and started to hit Steve with the plastic comb.
"Maybe you should've stopped at seventy percent, dude, you're too easy to hit. You have the body build of a Dorito." Morgan started giggling behind Bucky as he slayed the dragon. Steve fell to the floor and pretended to be dead, closing his eyes and sticking his tongue out.
"Yay! Prince Bucky did it!" Morgan jumped over Bucky's shoulders, landing on the floor in front of him and pulling him into a hug.
"We did it! The dragon is no more!" Bucky stood up from his vantage point on the bathroom floor, Morgan climbing onto his back. "Should we make some princess cupcakes to celebrate?" Bucky stepped over Steve's "dead" body and walked out of his room. Morgan nodded in absolute agreement.
"Yeah! With pink frosting and little crowns on top!"
Bucky smiled and adjusted Morgan on his back. Tony was in the kitchen making something for himself to eat for dinner when Bucky and Morgan came down after their victory against Steve.
"Where are you two headed?" Tony was elbow-deep in Tupperware containers of leftover food in the fridge, scrounging for something to eat. Bucky hadn't noticed him until he spoke up and dropped a red container on the floor.
"We're going to get stuff to make princess cupcakes!" Morgan beamed at Tony, still holding onto Bucky's neck.
"Have fun, Morgan! You too, Bucky," Tony replied, peeking out from behind the fridge door.
"Will do, Tony!" Bucky walked with Morgan still on his back out to his car that was parked on the curb.
"So we need frosting, cupcake mix, and little crowns. Right?"
Bucky thought for a moment and then nodded with a grin.
"What if we get sprinkles and pink frosting?" Bucky suggested this, knowing that Morgan would immediately go for it. She looked across the car to Bucky with her mouth hanging open excitedly. "Do you have to sit in the backseat? I don't have one." Morgan shook her head and laughed.
"Daddy's cars don't have a backseat either. He just says not to tell the cops."
Bucky started his car and smiled, shaking his head. He drove down the road, but it wasn't too far until he came to the Walmart parking lot.
"Let's go!" Morgan was first out of the car, running to meet Bucky on his side of the car.
"I'm coming. I'm old, remember?" Morgan laughed as Bucky walked on her left side. The two walked together through the parking lot, Morgan looking around for people she knew. When they came to the spot in the parking lot where cars drove in front of the store, Morgan took Bucky's hand.
"Daddy says that I have to hold someone's hand when I go across the street," Morgan explained. Bucky looked down at her and waited for the car to pass, then he walked with her across the section of road.
"That's always a good idea, because there are some people in the world who aren't very good at driving cars," Bucky joked, grinning down at Morgan. She looked up and giggled, stepping up onto the curb. They walked through the doors and looked around, heading straight for the baking section.
Bucky couldn't help but notice that she didn't let go of his hand. He smiled to himself as he looked for the right aisle. He found the baking section and looked on the shelves for the cupcake mix.
"What kind do we want? They have strawberry, vani-" Morgan interrupted him. "Strawberry! Those are the best!" Bucky smiled and grabbed a box of strawberry mix in his metal hand. He walked a little further down the aisle to look for sprinkles and frosting, still holding Morgan's hand.
"What color sprinkles are we going to get?" Morgan thought about Bucky's question for a moment.
"Purple! Pink and purple are my favorite colors."
Bucky found the purple sprinkles and tucked them into the crook of his elbow like a football.
"Sprinkles, check. Now all we need is frosting!" Morgan exclaimed excitedly.
"What if we get some ice cream?"
Morgan nodded, a huge grin on her face.
"Triple fudge brownie!"
Bucky looked down at Morgan as they walked.
"No way! That's my favorite too!" Bucky replied. He found the frosting, taking a container in his arm along with the strawberry cupcake mix and sprinkles. The small crowns they were looking for to put on top of the cupcakes were right across the aisle.
"Pink or silver?" Morgan shot Bucky a sarcastic look for his question. "Pink. Of course!" Bucky grinned and put the small package into his arm, his right hand still occupied by Morgan.
"Let's go get the ice cream now!" They walked together to the frozen section where Morgan took a gallon of triple fudge brownie ice cream out of the freezer.
"I think we got it all!" Morgan and Bucky walked toward the front of the store to check out and get home to make their cupcakes. Once they had gotten the bag of supplies, they walked back to the car.
"Let's go destroy these cupcakes!" Morgan sounded so excited that, naturally, it just made Bucky excited too.
•••
When they returned to the tower, Morgan ran to the kitchen, dragging Bucky by the hand the entire way there.
Bucky took a bowl from the cabinet along with the milk and eggs from the fridge and set them on the countertop to make their cupcakes. He opened the box of cupcake mix and opened the bag, giving it to Morgan to dump into the bowl along with the two eggs and half a cup of milk. Bucky dug in the drawer that Tony constantly was angry with for a wooden spoon. He had dubbed it the "junk drawer" since apparently it was obscenely unorganized. Tony would try to find something and he would always end up tossing random useless items on the floor next to him. Once, when Bucky was over with Steve, Tony mumbled under his breath about how he had to do everything around the tower; as he was on this rant, Sam had leaned into Bucky's ear and whispered, "If he does everything, then why is that drawer still a disaster?" Bucky had started laughing so hard that his stomach hurt, barely able to catch his breath.
Morgan stirred the mixture, mixing all the ingredients together to make a batter that Bucky gladly would've eaten by itself. It smelled so good that he couldn't imagine the scent while they were in the oven.
"We have to put them in the oven now," Morgan informed Bucky. He smiled and put the cupcake liners with pink crowns on them into the cupcake tin to bake in the oven. He set the temperature and the timer, and then shut the oven door and began to wait for the twenty minutes to be up.
"So what are we going to do while we wait for these?"
Morgan thought for a second and then her face lit up with an idea. "What if we build a pillow fort?"
Bucky grinned, giving Morgan the cue to drag him to the elevator.
"FRIDAY, remind us when our cupcakes are done," Bucky requested.
"I will make it a priority," Tony's AI responded. The elevator doors closed just after FRIDAY responded, taking Bucky and Morgan up to the living room on the very top floor that had the giant TV.
"Let's make the coolest pillow fort ever!"
Morgan giggled as Bucky crouched down, allowing her to get onto his back.
"Let's think of a good name for the fort, and then we can build it!" Morgan wrapped her arms around Bucky's neck and leaned on his shoulder while she thought about a name for their fort. "What if we name it Fort Bucky?"
Bucky smiled, adjusting Morgan on his back by the backs of her knees.
"You want to name it after me?"
Morgan nodded and waited eagerly for the elevator door to open.
"You're my favorite person in the whole world!"
This meant the entire world to Bucky. In the literal sense of the phrase. No one had ever said anything of this caliber to him before, and even though it may not last forever, even though he may not be her favorite for very long, he promised that he would cherish this forever. Those eight words would be forever ingrained into his mind, replaying over and over in the times where he had trouble.
Morgan Stark held a very special place in his heart; one that he didn't even know existed until he had spent time with her.
"Let's go build Fort Bucky!" Morgan exclaimed as the elevator doors opened to the living room.
As soon as the two ran into the living room, Bucky let Morgan down onto the floor so she could help him grab blankets and pillows from the huge chest in the corner. Bucky even snuck downstairs and grabbed a few queen sized sheets from the linen closet downstairs.
There were three couches that formed a U-shape with about five feet between the two couches opposite each other. The open end of the U-shape faced the huge TV, with all the streaming services you could imagine and everything you could ever want to watch.
"So should we put the sheets over the couches and then put pillows on the floor?"
Morgan thought for a moment, testing Bucky's idea in her mind. "I think that will work!"
Tony had designed a tape solely for the purpose of building pillow forts, which was stronger than normal packing tape but about the same width. According to Tony, it could withstand a pull of ten pounds.
Morgan stood on one side of the U-shape, leaning over the back of the couch to pull the sheet into place. She placed a piece of Tony's tape over the sheet, anchoring it to the back of the suede couch. "Perfect!"
Once both Morgan and Bucky had fastened their end of the sheet to the back of the couches, it stayed perfectly in place and made a sort of canopy over the space between the couches.
"What if we put a blanket right here," Morgan said, carrying a pink blanket to the space facing the TV, "so that people can't get in, and it's a secret, but then we can flip it over the top to watch movies?" Bucky got down on his hands and knees to get under the sheet, laying down on the floor on his stomach next to Morgan.
"I think it's perfect," he said, looking over to her and meeting her elated smile.
"I think so too! We should keep the blanket over the front when we sit in here so no one can find us!"
The sheet at its lowest point in the middle brushed against the top of Bucky's head when he sat up straight. He returned her smile, and then looked around the pillow fort.
"Do you want to put the pillows down here on the floor?"
Morgan nodded, and then pushed the pink blanket blocking the only doorway aside so she could bring the pillows into the fort. Bucky helped her lay them out on the floor of the fort, arranging them in different ways so they made a perfect floor for the fort; not too big or too small.
"Your cupcakes are finished in the oven," FRIDAY reported. Morgan and Bucky snapped their heads toward each other at the same time.
"YAY!" Morgan jumped on Bucky's back and ran with him back to the elevator.
"Do you like strawberry cupcakes?"
Morgan turned to Bucky as they waited in the elevator.
"Of course! Strawberry cupcakes are awesome," he replied. She smiled and pulled herself higher onto Bucky's back.
Bucky ran into the kitchen, taking the cupcakes out of the oven with his metal hand and placing them on the stovetop.
"Let's do the frosting!" Bucky let Morgan off of his back, but when she wasn't tall enough to reach the countertop he picked her back up and held her on his side. He let her sit on the countertop and handed her the container of pink frosting with a butter knife.
"I'm so excited!" She dunked the butter knife into the container of frosting, pulling it back out with a big glob of pink frosting on the end. Bucky held out a pink strawberry-flavored cupcake for her to frost.
"We have to hide them from your dad in our fort," Bucky whispered, making Morgan giggle and nod in agreement.
"Yeah! We'll make a secret place that no one can find!" She smeared the frosting across the top of the cupcake, and then grabbed the sprinkles and sprinkled some on top. She handed the cupcake to Bucky to finish off with a pink crown.
"Thanks, Prince Bucky!" She set the cupcake down on the tray beside the stovetop.
"You, Princess Morgan," he said, taking her hand and kissing the back of it, "are very welcome." She giggled as he handed her another cupcake.
When Morgan dipped her finger into the container of frosting, Bucky just assumed that she was going to try some of it. But she swiped some of the pink frosting on the tip of Bucky's nose, and he turned his head with a smile to look at her. She pulled her hand back and smirked at him, almost daring him to get her back.
"Oh, okay. I see how it is!" Bucky took some of the pink frosting on his right index finger and swiped it on her nose, returning the favor.
"Hey!" Morgan giggled, jokingly shrinking back from him. She stood up on the countertop, grabbed the plastic bottle of sprinkles, and then sprinkled some of the purple candy pieces into his hair. Their playful banter went on for a few minutes, trying to get each other back for every small prank they played on each other.
"What are you doing?"
Bucky and Morgan's heads both snapped simultaneously to Tony's voice in the doorway of the kitchen. Morgan was caught standing on the countertop standing next to the stove, with pink frosting on her nose; Bucky was caught with purple sprinkles in his hair, frosting on his nose and the dimple of his chin.
"Umm… what do you mean?" Bucky struggled for a cover story.
"What do I mean?! There's frosting everywhere, and, you, tin man, have purple sprinkles in your hair." Bucky got a confused look on his face. Morgan reached across the stove without breaking eye contact with Tony and tousled Bucky's hair, causing a few purple sprinkles to fall to the floor. Bucky looked down at the sprinkles on the floor and then looked back at Tony with a deer-in-the-headlights look.
"I swear I didn't know about those."
Tony couldn't hold it together any longer. "You know I'm just kidding, right? You guys do whatever you want."
Bucky and Morgan simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief; they had narrowly escaped the wrath of Tony Stark. "But, uh, Bucky… you missed a few."
By a few, Tony meant a lot.
Bucky ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head to get them out.
"That's… better," Tony said with a grin.
In reality, Tony had no fear of leaving Morgan with Bucky. They had gotten past the whole killing-Tony's-parents thing. Now that Tony looked back, he realized that he had reacted horribly. He hadn't taken the time to get to know Bucky when he was truly himself, and now that he had, he wished that he could've done it earlier and not had the period of unrest that they did. Tony genuinely loved seeing Morgan and Bucky together, playing games and baking together. Since Morgan didn't have a biological sibling (Tony considered Peter as his son), she looked up to Bucky almost like an older brother. He treated her both like a little sister and like a daughter, always looking out for her and making sure she had fun whenever she visited the tower.
"You two have fun," Tony muttered with a grin, leaving the kitchen.
"That was a close one," Morgan said with a giggle.
•••
Once they had finished frosting all the cupcakes and put them on a tray, Morgan jumped onto Bucky's back as he picked up the tray of cupcakes to carry them to their pillow fort. The elevator carried them higher into the tower until they reached the top floor where their pillow fort was waiting for them.
"Let's put the cupcakes back here," Morgan said, placing the tray of pink cupcakes on one of the couch cushions.
"But not before we eat one," Bucky said, taking one from the tray and putting it to Morgan's lips. She took a bite and grabbed another cupcake for Bucky.
"These are awesome!"
Bucky handed Morgan her cupcake and took his own from her hand.
"I know, right! We can't let the dragon get any."
Bucky smiled at Morgan. All of a sudden, he heard a meow outside the pillow fort.
"What's that?" Morgan asked. She didn't know about Steve's gift to Bucky for his birthday.
"That's Apollo," Bucky replied, ducking out of the fort to grab his cat. He picked Apollo up and carried him back into the fort.
"Aww! He's so cute," Morgan squealed, taking Apollo from Bucky and holding him in her own arms.
"I know, right! Your uncle Steve got him for me." Morgan smiled and ran her hand along the cat's back.
The elevator door dinged open, but thankfully the pink blanket covered the entrance to the fort. Bucky peeked through an open corner in the fort to see Steve step out of the elevator. He looked confused as he saw the fort, because his plan was to eat a bag of Doritos on the couch while he watched a basketball game. Bucky slid away from the gap in the blankets and to the space between two couches where there was a wicker basket full of Tony's favorite DVD's. He took the one on top and put a finger to his lips, looking at Morgan.
"I'm going to go defeat the dragon," he whispered, his voice barely able to be heard. Morgan nodded excitedly. Bucky pulled back the pink blanket covering the entrance to the fort and jumped out at Steve, holding up the copy of The Great Outdoors and pointing it at Steve.
"Whoa! Did I stumble into the palace?" Bucky nodded, a cold look on his face that Steve was terrified of and trying not to laugh at at the same time.
"AHHH! THE DRAGON!" Morgan ran out of the fort and behind Bucky, holding onto his leg and glaring up at Steve.
"YEAH, DRAGON! GO AWAY!" Bucky yelled at Steve, giving him a mocking look. He lunged at Steve and then stopped, pretending to scare him away.
Steve ran into the elevator and pushed the button rapidly until the doors shut.
"Where- what- dragon-?" Percy appeared at the top of the stairs, out of breath with Riptide in hand.
"I keep forgetting. We're playing princess. Steve's our dragon. We were scaring him away."
Percy huffed and pocketed Riptide.
"I just sprinted up seven flights of stairs for nothing? That's what PE is for!"