Although they went to sleep with Bucky as the little spoon, their positions had reversed by morning. Steve thought it might have had something to do with a nightmare, but he wasn't sure. He had a vague impression of standing over Bucky, strapped to that table, and knowing he was too late, but then Bucky's voice next to him telling him that he was there and it was okay. However it had happened, there was a metal arm wrapped (very) securely around his waist and slow warm breaths tickling his shoulder blade where Bucky's face was buried in his back. Moving was going to be impossible, but he wouldn't have wanted to even if he could have.

The party was tonight. And it had been changed to some sort of publicity affair. Ugh. Steve made a mental note to find out what expanding the guest list had really meant, as soon as Bucky was awake so that talking to JARVIS wouldn't wake him. With Tony, it could have meant anything. Steve just hoped that it wasn't too big an affair.

He could worry about that later. Right now, there was a cool body pressed along the length of his. He had his best friend-if he was being honest with himself, his first love-back and things were peaceful and safe for the moment. Apart from him being bigger and Bucky being less warm and the bed being bigger, he could almost be back in the early 40s. It could be early morning in their little apartment; Steve, the lighter sleeper, woken by the sun, and Bucky still out cold after a late evening, another date or picking up some extra cash helping with something or covering somebody's shift somewhere. Steve would be reluctant to emerge from the warm cave of covers, but soon he would have to so that he could cook breakfast and pack lunches for them to take to work. Bucky would offer to help when he came stumbling into the kitchen halfway through, but unless he was feeling particularly sick, Steve would turn it down and tell him to hurry up and eat his oatmeal and get ready for work. Bucky was a bit of a disaster in the kitchen. Neither of them was much of a cook, but Steve was less likely to catch the food on fire.

Bucky groaned and buried his face harder into Steve's back to escape the sunlight, then pulled back a little as he crossed the line between sleep and wake. "Mornin', you. Doin' alright?"

"Yeah. Shouldn't I be?"

Bucky pushed himself up on one elbow. Steve took advantage of the loosening of his grip to roll over to face him. "You had at least one nightmare. I was worn out enough I could've slept through more."

"And now you're feeling all guilty that I could've had nightmares that you didn't wake up to comfort me from. And you call me a sap." Steve teased him to hide the warm fuzzy feeling that he was getting. "You're just a big teddy bear, aren't you? A giant fluffy pastel pink teddy bear like you'd find in a little girl's bedroom."

Bucky spluttered indignantly. "Why you little-"

Steve grinned at getting a reaction and needled harder. "Probably have a ridiculous name like Mr Snuggles or something like that, and be covered in garish bows all the time." Bucky glared and flexed his metal hand on Steve's chest. "Nice try. You don't scare me. You'd look just adorable with bows in your hair by the way-" Bucky creamed him with a pillow. Steve yelped and vaulted out of bed, grabbing his own pillow. "I bet Mr Snuggles would have tea parties with other stuffed animals." He ducked Bucky's swinging pillow and took advantage of the opening to hit him across the chest with his own pillow. "And he'd wear a hat with a ribbon on it to the tea party." Bucky's pillow hit him square in the face.

"Well then you'd be her chihuahua." Bucky put his two cents in, whipping the pillow around to smack Steve's ass with it before Steve could catch his breath. "Who she stuffs into doll dresses and totes around in a pram-oof!" Steve dealt his exposed flank a particularly hard blow, knocking him off balance. He rolled and righted himself, hitting the backs of Steve's knees with his pillow as he surged back to his feet and leaping backward through the doorway, clear of Steve's swinging pillow. "You'd look just adorable in a frilly doll dress by the way."

Steve dived after him. "Not as good as you in hair bows!"

Bucky jumped out of his way, letting Steve collide with the couch. "You're one to talk...chihuahua. You're a cute little chihuahua with aggression issues." Steve hurled a couch cushion at his head, which Bucky ducked and then promptly landed on top of as Steve tackled him. "Tried to bite everyone's ankles when I took you for walk—yipe!"

Steve sat straddling Bucky and whacking him over the head with a pillow as he covered his head with his arms, both laughing like they hadn't laughed in 70 years. "What's that make you then, a flirty tomcat?"

"Totally." Bucky yanked the pillow out of Steve's hands abruptly and flipped them both over, jumping out of the way as Steve tried to grab it back. "I should get you a leash and a muzzle!"

"Don't you dare!" Steve squawked, lunging again. Bucky leapt back again, colliding with the door. He yanked it open and darted out, Steve hot on his heels.

"Pink! A little pink leash and muzzle for my little chihuahua to keep you from biting people's ankles!" Steve wrestled the pillow out of his hands and hit him with it. Bucky ducked under his arm and made a break for the stairs. "With rhinestones!"

There was a very long list of things that did not faze Nick Fury, especially when they occurred in proximity to the Avengers. Captain America and the Winter Soldier bursting through the door into the common area, in their underpants, tangled up together, wrestling for control of a pillow that they were whacking each other with, laughing like maniacs, was not on that list.

"What the fuck?"

The two super soldiers froze, sprawled on the floor with Steve on top and halfway through swinging the pillow. Two sets of very wide blue eyes traveled up the man standing over them. Steve gulped. Bucky glanced rapidly between the two of them. Familiar, but he wasn't certain how. Going by Steve's reaction, outranked them. His boss? More or less? That fit, body language-wise.

"Do I need to repeat myself?"

"No sir. Good morning sir." Steve hastily moved to get off his companion and stand up. "We were just, um... Aaugh!" His face turned scarlet and he tried to cover himself with the pillow as he looked down and realized that he was wearing nothing but his briefs. Bucky collapsed against the wall, laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

"This is not funny Bucky!"

"Yes it is!"

Steve hurled the pillow at Bucky's head. Bucky ducked it. The pillow hit a nearby lamp instead, causing it to go flying and shatter with a loud crash. Everyone froze. Steve turned even redder.

Pepper walked in with drinks for the army officials that Fury had brought over, standing on the sidelines with their eyes bugging out, and immediately spotted the lamp. "Do I want to know who it was this time?"

"Spangles." Tony announced gleefully. "Also why did I never make bets with people on what sort of underwear he wears? Because I totally would have won."

Steve whimpered. Pepper just rolled her eyes, unfazed. "JARVIS, send a robot up to clean this up."

Bucky retrieved the pillow and slung an arm around Steve's shoulders. "C'mon punk. Let's get dressed, yeah?"

Fury surveyed the two of them, for once in his life at a loss for words. He had known that the Winter Soldier had been recruited and supposedly rehabilitated. He'd had reservations about that, worries that Rogers might just be deluding himself into thinking his friend was still in there. But brainwashed killing machines didn't have pillow fights... did they? He really wasn't sure what to make of this.

Steve saw him looking at them. "Sir?"

"Go get dressed and come back. We have visitors." He gave Bucky a nod. "Glad you're you again, Barnes." Fury supposed that was all there was to say, really.

"That felt good." Bucky opined as they trudged back up the stairs.

"Just like old times." Steve grinned ruefully. "I suppose I was kind of asking for it, huh?"

"I suspect that you were totally asking for it every single time it's happened." Bucky retorted. "Sometimes you're just such a little punk that the only appropriate response is a pillow to the kisser."

"Oh there you go again, unrepentant as always, jerk. In the old days it took me having an asthma attack to make you stop attacking me with your pillow."

"That is so backwards. I stopped when you stopped. Self defense. And it took an asthma attack to make you stop hitting me." Bucky smiled at a memory of Steve being tiny and fierce, beating him with their thin worn pillows with all his strength. That was a good memory. He was glad to get that one back. Steve had been taunting him about his cooking skills for a week straight after a few days when he'd been sick enough to let Bucky do the cooking. Bucky had teased right back, but he was tired from a particularly grueling day of work at the docks and running out of clever insults and Steve was still at it, so he'd chucked a pillow at Steve. Steve had stared at him for a second, gobsmacked, then flown at him like a little bony tornado and hadn't stopped until he was wheezing so hard that Bucky had simply pinned him to make him stop and ordered him to Breathe, you silly little punk.

"What are you laughing at?"

Bucky pushed Steve onto the couch and flopped down against him. "You. I'm remembering you beating me with a pillow until you couldn't breathe."

Steve rolled his eyes, grinning, and leaned his head against Bucky's. "You always ended up getting all worried and just pinning me down until I could breathe again."

"Sometimes I think you enjoyed me pinning you down."

"And sometimes I think you enjoyed me hitting you."

The visitors, as it turned out, were there to make a preliminary decision about restoring Bucky's rank ahead of the evening's event. They seemed to still be in shock over seeing Captain America's underpants when the two super soldiers got back downstairs, which Bucky was quite sure was working in his favor. He was asked to list off a general timeline of his history with Hydra at least three times and sat through several hours of horribly redundant psychological rating scales, but there were quite a few questions snuck in that he had a strong hunch were just the officials trying to sneakily take advantage of the chance to ask questions about superhero life. The psychiatrist wasn't even taking notes anymore but rather hanging on Bucky's every word as he regaled the men with some of Steve's ridiculous heart attack inducing ideas from the war, and when they left, it was with the promise that someone would be by to drop off his dress uniform later that day.

This was fun to write.

I would love to administer a psych interview to Bucky in the actual MCU timeline. I wonder if Sebastian would like help getting back in that headspace before resuming filming? He could explore Bucky's psyche, I could get practice with the rating scales. Win-win, right?