Time for Steve to get out of the house and see some of the future. First up, the library, and then, in the words of Robin Sparkles, "Let's go to the mall!"
A good night's sleep had done Steve good, though he was still a little clingy the next morning. He stayed wrapped up in one of his blankets like a little burrito and sat in Bucky's lap for breakfast, though he did smile, and he even laughed at one of the jokes Sam told.
"You know what we should do?" Bucky said, looking down at Steve. Steve was doing better today, but he could use distracting. Steve looked up at him curiously. "We should go out and do something. This is, what, your fourth day in the future? We should go see some of it."
"Like what?" Steve wondered.
Bucky shrugged. "Just check some stuff out. We could go for a walk, get some lunch, maybe hit the park or something."
"There's always the library," Natasha put in. "Since you finished your book and all."
"Ooh, we should go to the mall!" Clint said. "The Lego Store is having a thing this week, and the food court is all full of these awesome things that people built."
"Count me in!" Sam said.
"What's Legos?" Steve asked.
"Legos are the best," Sam replied. "They're little bricks that stick together, and you can build all kinds of cool stuff out of them. You know what? We're gonna go to the Lego thing, and we're gonna look at the cool stuff, and we're gonna get you some."
"May I accompany you?" Thor asked. "I do enjoy Earth outings when there are no perilous missions involved."
"Sure, you can come," Steve said.
Thor grinned. "Thank you. And perhaps, since lunch was mentioned, might we partake of some fried chicken? The royal chefs on Asgard have never been able to master the recipe, and it is one of my favorite Earth foods."
"Fried chicken's not hard," Clint protested.
"It is rather difficult when one's planet does not contain chickens," Thor pointed out.
Bucky smiled as Steve asked what Asgard had instead of chickens, and Thor launched into a description of Asgardian livestock. He got the feeling Thor liked talking about his home as much as Steve enjoyed hearing about it.
Their first stop was the library. Bucky did wonder as they all got out in the parking lot just why Stark's garage had a minivan for them in the first place—it really didn't seem like his style. "Whoa, this place is huge!" Steve said. "There's gotta be so many books here!"
"Oh, they've got tons of books," Natasha said. "Come on." She took Steve's hand and started leading him inside. "What kind of books do you like to read?"
Steve's jaw dropped again once they got inside. Signs pointed them to the children's wing, and they spent some time wandering the aisles. Clint and Sam got into an argument about what they should recommend to Steve—Harry Potter nearly won out, until Sam pointed out that after yesterday, maybe they should steer away from books where the kid's parents die for a little while. Thor was watching the colorful fish in the large tank in the middle, and Natasha and Bucky were watching Steve as he inspected the books.
Clint and Sam finally reached an agreement on suggestions for Steve, though he'd already found a few of his own by the time they got there. Natasha used her library card to check out his stack of books, as well as the entire Harry Potter series that Thor decided he should read even if Steve wasn't going to.
The books were deposited into the trunk and they headed for the mall. It was a little early for lunch yet, so they walked around some and just let Steve take in the sights. It was a little crowded for Bucky's tastes, but he tried to focus on the group and their outing and the awed look on Steve's face as he stared around at all the glass and sleek metal—Bucky had gotten used to it by now, but the future was awfully shiny.
It was a little crowded for Steve's tastes too, judging by the way he clung tightly to Bucky's hand and hung closely to his side, though he grinned excitedly and happily accepted when Thor offered to let him ride on his shoulders so he could see above the crowd. They had to stop then and let Natasha take a picture, and Bucky was going to have to get her to send it to him, because that was awfully cute.
Clint suggested they check out a toy store, under the pretense that he needed to get something for his daughter's birthday. Steve looked happy that someone else had suggested it—not that he would argue he was too old for toys, but Bucky knew he didn't want to seem overly childish. The sheer array of things that were available seemed to overwhelm him somewhat, but he looked at everything in awe and was utterly delighted by the flying helicopter toy that Clint was demonstrating. He insisted that it was exciting enough to look and that he didn't want anything, but when Nat and Thor took him out of the store, Bucky wasn't the only one hanging back to buy something.
They caught up with the rest of them a few stores down in a Bath and Bodyworks store. "Bucky!" Steve exclaimed when he spotted him. He pointed eagerly at the candle in Thor's hand. "Smell this candle! It smells like Christmas!" Thor handed the candle over, and it did have a cinnamon, minty sort of smell that brought Christmas to mind.
"What do you think, Steve?" Natasha asked, lifting up a light purple candle for him to smell. "You think Wanda will like this one?"
Steve leaned down from his perch on Thor's shoulders and sniffed experimentally. "It smells like the park when the flowers start blooming." He wrinkled his nose. "It's nice, but I feel like it should make me sneeze."
Natasha laughed. "Okay. So maybe not that one."
"What magic do your Earth candlemakers use?" Thor wondered as Natasha replaced the purple candle on a shelf. "How does one capture the scent of the woods so exactly?" He eyed the dark green candle in his hand suspiciously.
"Are we really hanging out and just sniffing candles?" Sam asked.
"This happens every time Nat comes to the mall," Clint told him. "Just let her do her thing."
Steve had evidently been instructed not to touch the candles, because he leaned in and sniffed one of the ones on the higher shelf, but did not pick up the glass jar. "Miss Natasha, how about this one? It smells like apples. I think Miss Wanda would like that."
"Is it Wanda's birthday?" Bucky asked Clint quietly, wondering if he had forgotten.
"I don't think so," Clint said.
"No," Natasha replied. "I just thought it might be nice to get her something for her room. She doesn't have a lot of personal stuff yet. That is a nice one, Steve," she said, looking up at him. "Let's get her that one."
"Even though it's not her birthday, do you think they could wrap it up pretty for her?" he asked. "Since it's a present."
"I'll ask at the desk," Natasha said with a smile, moving toward the register.
"Hey, Mr. Thor," Steve said, patting the top of Thor's head. "Where did that laundry candle go? I want to show it to Bucky."
"A laundry candle?" Bucky asked skeptically. That sounded…weird. A quick glance over at Sam told him that, yes, that was not a normal smell for a candle.
"I believe it was this one," Thor said, picking up a white candle.
"Smell it, Bucky," Steve said. "It's really neat."
Tentatively, Bucky took the candle from Thor and sniffed. It…Okay, that was weird. It smelled like fresh laundry, sort of a cotton-y, sunshine kind of smell. It was really nice, actually. "That is nice," he said, passing the candle to Sam, who still looked cynical.
"Oh, yeah," Sam agreed.
"I like that one," Steve said. "There's other really nice ones that smell like cookies and gingerbread, but I think you'd get hungry smelling that all the time."
"Probably so," Bucky agreed.
"Alright, we have Wanda's candle," Natasha said, walking back to join them. "I did get them to wrap it for her, Steve," she added, holding up the bag she was carrying. Bucky spotted a little glint of shiny paper in the top. "Lunch?"
"Yes! To lunch!" Thor agreed excitedly.
They entered the food court from the end opposite the Lego display and decided to get something to eat first before getting into all of that. Not everyone wanted fried chicken, but Steve happily went with Thor to get some and Bucky followed. "I haven't had fried chicken in a long time," Steve declared. He looked down at Bucky. "Hey, you remember Mrs. Peterson's chicken that she would always bring to the church picnics? That was really good."
"Oh, yeah," Bucky agreed. "But you always wanted to watch out for Mrs. Delancy's chicken, remember?"
"Blech!" Steve said, shaking his head with a grimace and making Bucky laugh. In Mrs. Delancy's presence, Steve had been much more polite regarding her chicken, but that did just about sum it up.
They all got a table together with their assorted meals, and Steve dug into his fried chicken almost as eagerly as Thor. Feeling adventurous, he had requested a cherry Dr. Pepper with his meal, knowing only that it was a kind of soda and that he liked cherries. The way his eyes lit up when he took his first sip told Bucky a new addiction had just been born.
After lunch, they made their way to the Lego display. Steve walked this time, though he kept hold of Bucky's hand.
"Alright," Clint said. He held out a hand proudly. "These are Legos." He gestured to an intricate model of a ship that it took Bucky a moment to realize was made up of thousands of tiny plastic pieces.
"That's really neat," Steve said.
"See, it's little pieces like this," Clint said, picking a couple of little bricks up off a nearby table of loose pieces. "And you can snap them together and take them apart." He clicked the little pieces together to demonstrate.
Steve watched in interest, then turned back to the ship. After a moment, his jaw dropped. "Somebody made this out of those?" he breathed. He drifted closer, and it looked like it took some self-control to heed the signs warning him not touch. "That's so many little pieces!"
"Isn't it awesome?" Sam said, leaning in. "Look, they even put little lights on it and everything."
Steve spent a while poring over the ship, then Natasha pointed out another sculpture, this one of a castle. They wandered around the display for a while, inspecting each piece and the signs next to them detailing the number of pieces and hours of work that had gone into them. There was a life-sized creation that Bucky recognized as Darth Vader, and he chuckled when Sam tried not to get visibly offended that Steve wasn't overly impressed with it beyond its size.
"Okay," he said. "So, we're adding Star Wars to the list of new future things he needs to know."
Once they'd looked at all the displays, they moved into the Lego Store itself. There were smaller displays of what the kits available could build, as well as shelves and shelves of sets, many related to popular movies or tv shows. A table in the middle was covered with a flat Lego surface and contained drawers and compartments filled with little pieces. It took very little prompting for Steve to take a seat and start building something.
"So, what do you think he would like?" Sam asked, looking around the store. "I told him I would get him something, and every kid ought to have some Legos. Given his reaction to Darth Vader out there, one of the Star Wars sets may not be the way to go. Though they are pretty sweet. Whatever he gets, I may have to get myself an X-wing."
"You could just ask him what he wants," Clint said.
"I could," Sam agreed. "But I feel like he'd either tell me that he's okay and he doesn't want anything, or he'd just say whatever I want to get is fine."
Bucky chuckled. "Yeah, he would do that." He looked around the store. Most of the themed ones, he didn't recognize either, though he suspected Steve would still enjoy building whatever Sam got him. "If you want to play it safe, what about one that's not from something? Like some of these knights over here, or this little spaceship."
Sam eventually decided on a pirate ship, which Bucky had to admit looked pretty awesome, and found himself hoping Steve would invite him to help put together. Steve, Thor and Natasha had built some kind of tower out of the pieces on the table in the middle, and Natasha and Thor were harder to coax away from it than Steve was.
"So, you like the Legos, huh?" Sam asked.
"Yeah!" Steve said. "They're really fun!"
"They sure are," Sam agreed. "How would you like to take some home with you?"
"Really?"
"Yeah," Sam said, smiling. He held out the box with the pirate ship. "This look like something you think you'd have fun putting together?"
Steve's eyes went wide as they raked over the box. "For me?"
Sam nodded.
Steve looked up at Bucky, seeking confirmation that he could accept something like this, and Bucky smiled and nodded. Steve turned back to Sam. "I'd really like that." He smiled widely. "Thank you, Mr. Sam."
Sam smiled, straightening up and reaching over to ruffle Steve's hair. "You're welcome, kiddo." He straightened up and walked to the register with Natasha, groaning softly to her, "I just called Captain America 'kiddo'."
Natasha laughed. "He is dangerously cute."
Back at the Tower, they carried their various purchases upstairs, making their way toward their rooms. Bucky knew several of them had purchased gifts for Steve, but he imagined they were waiting to hand them out without overwhelming him. Steve set his stack of library books on the desk, laying his new pirate ship down next to them and staring at it happily for a minute. "Maybe we can build this tomorrow," he decided. "What do you think, Bucky? You want to build a pirate ship tomorrow?"
Bucky grinned. "Sounds good to me."
Steve nodded, dropping back down to sit on his bed with a tired but happy sigh. "Today was fun," he said. "Thanks for taking me out to see stuff."
"We'll have to do it again sometime," Bucky said. "There's a lot more to see." He looked down at the bag he'd set down by the chair. "Hey, um, I got you something while we were out today."
"You did?" Steve asked curiously.
"Yeah." Bucky picked up the bag, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but it wasn't as cool as a pirate ship. He reached into the bag and pulled out a fluffy brown teddy bear.
Steve's eyes widened in surprise, and he slipped off the bed and walked over, one hand reaching out for the bear. "It looks like Franklin," he said softly.
Bucky nodded. Franklin was Steve's old teddy bear, one that he had slept with until he was about eleven. Bucky had been surprised to see this one on the shelf of the toy store, looking so similar to Steve's old one, if less battered. "That's what I thought," he said. "I thought you might, well, I thought you might miss him."
Steve took the bear from Bucky. "I do," he said softly, quietly enough that Bucky wondered if maybe he wasn't supposed to hear it. He ran a hand carefully over the bear. "He's really soft." He studied the bear for a moment, then hugged it against his chest, something kind of experimental in the gesture, then smiled and hugged it tighter. "Thanks, Bucky," he said, looking up at him with a bright smile. "I really like it."
"You do?"
"Uh huh." He hugged the bear a moment longer, then moved to set it carefully on his bed. He looked back at Bucky, a little flush in his cheeks. "I didn't want to say how I missed Franklin," he said a little sheepishly. "I didn't want you to think I was a baby or anything."
"Stevie, have I ever teased you about Franklin?" Bucky asked. Steve shook his head. "It would be pretty mean of me, especially since I had Oliver." Oliver had been Bucky's own stuffed toy, a patchwork rabbit.
"I know," Steve said blushing a little deeper. "I just…I don't know," he sighed. He looked up at Bucky and smiled. "It was really nice of you to think of it," he said. "Thank you for getting him for me."
Bucky smiled. "You're welcome. Maybe he can help you sleep a little better." Steve slept well enough now that they were sharing a room, but he still slept a little uneasily, just because of everything being different.
Steve looked at the bear sitting on his bed and nodded. "I think he will." He looked back at Bucky and smiled and hugged him. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Bucky said again. He ruffled Steve's hair, steering him in the direction of the door and dinner. "What do you think you're going to call him?"
"Franklin the Second," Steve said, in a tone that suggested there had been no other option.
Steve is back to his usual self, and he's got Legos to play with and a teddy bear of his very own.
Up next, Steve and Sam build a pirate ship.