Chapter Nine
Bucky's not really ready to call Natalia again. He's taken Stevie back to bed with him, where they laid for hours and Stevie seems to have forgotten about the incident in the kitchen. He's cuddling a stuffed animal now and wrapping himself up in a corner of one of Bucky's sheets and Bucky lays on his side and watches him roll around contentedly, considering Natalia. He promised he'd see her today, but every time he gets himself to stop crying, he starts again within the next ten minutes, and he feels completely drained. He doesn't want her to see him like this.
While he's thinking this over, weighing the pros and cons, his cell phone on the counter starts to buzz and he picks it up.
"Busy?" Natalia's text reads.
Bucky's not sure what to say and he mulls over responses for a while, probably too long to make Natalia wait.
"It's been a bad day," he finally replies. "Stevie and I are just gonna nap out the rest of the Sunday."
"Oh no!" Natalia responds almost immediately. ":((( Anything I can do to help?"
"Promise you'll come over tomorrow for dinner?" He asks. "I make a mean pot of spaghetti-os." Hopefully not like the one he made today, he thinks, but the joke is worth sending.
Natalia sends him a smiley face. ":) My favorite," she says. "I'll be there."
And Bucky thinks that's the end of it, but he's wrong. The doorbell rings maybe half an hour later and Bucky scrubs his face up and down with his hand and pulls his hair away from his eyes and makes his way to the front door. He doesn't bother to look through the peephole because he assumes it must just be a Fed-Ex driver or a door to door salesman or something of the like and he's entirely caught off guard when he sees Natalia standing on his doorstep holding a pie tin covered in foil.
"Oh," he says, almost too mortified to say anything else. His eyes are still red and swollen, he knows, and his hair is matted down with sweat. He's changed into an old t-shirt that's littered with holes and sweatpants and he's only wearing one sock. He looks like hell.
Natalia takes him in and swallows before recovering and thrusting the pie tin towards him. He balances the door on his hip and takes it slowly.
"You look…," Natalia starts and then stops herself. Bucky avoids her eyes. "Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine," he says, and then adds, "You just woke me up, that's all. I was just napping."
"Okay," Natalia says and she doesn't call him out on his red, watery eyes or the way his face is still drained of color. She looks down at the pie tin. "I don't bake," she says. "But I felt bad that you and Stevie had such a bad day, so I thought I ought to get you something. A pick-me-up. It's just grocery store brand, but I hope it's good anyway?" Natalia says. "I hope you aren't allergic to cherries." Bucky feels rude keeping her on the doorstep, but he can't invite her in. There are still blackened spaghetti-os plastered to the stove in there, and if she comes in, she might stay and Bucky doesn't think he can hold it together that long.
"That's really thoughtful of you," Bucky says. "Wow, thank you." He doesn't sound grateful. There's no emotion in his words, but he means every one of them. He just can't dredge up the energy to be excited right now.
"It's not a problem," Natalia says and she shrugs. "You deserve it." Then, he watches her step a little closer to him. "May I kiss you before I leave?" She asks quietly and when he doesn't protest, she leans forward and takes his chin in one hand and presses a kiss to his cheek. When she pulls away, Bucky's eyes are starting to water again. He feels sick to his stomach. "I'll see you tomorrow, Bucky," Natalia says and she's starting to back down the steps towards the driveway again.
"I'll see you then," he says and slowly shuts the door, then takes the pie to the kitchen and sets it on the counter next to the offending stovetop and barely makes it back to his bed and to Stevie before he starts to weep again.
He buries his face in a pillow. Stevie climbs on his back and kisses the top of his head while he bawls.