Life After Death

by Team Damon

Sequel to Breath of Life. He's overcome a lot to get to where he's at, but he still has a long way to go. She knows that it's not going to be easy, but she also knows that he's worth it. And neither of them have the slightest clue what in the world they're doing. Bucky/OC, post-TWS and non-Civil War compliant. Now complete!

22. Chapter 22

On the last morning that Summer had left to spend on Clint's farm, she spent it pacing nervously back and forth in the dining room behind the chair that Natasha was sitting at the table in, calmly reading on Summer's laptop. Summer chewed off her nails as she nearly paced holes into the floor, face at a constant state of red, and she was long past regret at this point.

This is a bad idea. She's gonna hate it. More importantly, he's gonna hate it. Oh God why do I do this to myself...

"Calm down," Natasha said evenly, not taking her eyes off of the screen.

Summer's head shot up and she ceased her pacing. "How did you -"

"You sound like a squirrel running back and forth on a roof," Natasha replied.

Summer groaned and then stepped closer to the table, asking, "Where are you at? Is it horrible? Is it stupid? Or weird? Or -"

"I am at the part where his arm is... 'purring'," Nat said, looking up over her shoulder at Summer. "Does it actually do that?"

"It... well, not to that degree," Summer replied. "But one time his phone vibrated and I thought it was his arm and... yeah."

"I see," Natasha replied, turning back to the computer. "That's a shame."

"Not really... it's still really good at... things." Then Summer cleared her throat and asked, "So is it horrible?"

"If you would let me finish, I would tell you," Natasha pointed out a bit playfully, and Summer groaned again, then resumed her pacing, leaving the spy to resume the favor she was doing for her.

Today, everybody minus Clint was leaving the farm and heading back to Stark Tower, which was now fully repaired and, according to Tony, even improved. Today also happened to be what Summer considered to be an even more important day - Bucky's birthday, which she had not even known was coming up until Steve had mentioned it to her a week earlier. As soon as she had learned that it was coming so soon, she had descended into a panic over what in the world to get for him, despite the fact that Bucky himself seemed horrified at the thought of anyone doing anything for his birthday.

She had gone back and forth for two days, asking Steve and anyone else who would listen for help, but it turned out that she just happened to be in a relationship with a man who really was possibly the hardest man in the world to shop for. She had almost given up when she began bemoaning her lack of expertise in gift giving and lack of skill in just about anything but writing, and that thought, however exaggerated, had led to her suddenly having an idea. She could write him something.

And since he had once had a rather enthusiastic response to a certain kind of story that he had once read by her... then she could write one especially for him this time.

And so, that was exactly what she did. Over 25,000 written words later, now she was here, taking Natasha up on her offer to read over the story and be a sounding board. Though Summer was confident in her writing abilities, more confident than she was in just about every other area of life, there was something distinctly nerve wracking about waiting while someone else read over something that you wrote. Especially when that said "something" was a rather long story based on alternate versions of yourself and your boyfriend which contained a very sizable scene of an... intimate nature.

And she had not held back, either. Since it was something that was just for him and him alone, she had decided to truly give it her best go, and expand upon the fantasy scenario that she had drunkenly regaled Bucky with during their last adventure in the barn - the two of them in some kind of alternate reality where he was a farmhand and she a deprived and lonely farmer's wife. Given how he had reacted to the idea, she could think of no better scenario to write, nor one better suited to the sort of... things she wanted to write within it.

It all sounded so easy in theory, and writing the actual story actually had been easy as well. It was this that wasn't - the reading of it.

What felt like an eternity later, Summer heard Natasha draw a breath and say, "Okay... finished."

She almost tripped over her feet rushing to the table and scrambling into a chair, eyes wide and arguably crazed as she asked, "Oh God, was it okay? Please be honest if it was terrible because if it is I definitely need to know and -"

"It was not terrible," Natasha cut her off. "It was the opposite of terrible. It was actually very good. So stop trying to have a nervous breakdown and actually listen."

Summer breathed an immense sigh of relief, her shoulders sagging slightly with the weight that Natasha had just lifted from them.

"First of all, I'm impressed. You're a good writer. You should be doing this," Nat gestured to the laptop, "instead of picking up Pepper's dry cleaning. But since I'm sure you're already aware of that... I'm also impressed by how well you wrote the... fun parts."

"It wasn't horrible and didn't make you cringe?" Summer asked, eyes widening again.

"No," Nat shook her head, "and coming from a girl who can barely call body parts by their proper names when we talk about sex, I was pleasantly surprised."

Summer smiled uneasily and said, "Yeah, well, talking and writing are... different."

"Clearly," Natasha smiled. "I think the challenge with these kinds of stories is keeping it tasteful without skimping on details, and you did that pretty well. And the actual story itself is good too. Really well-paced build-up."

Summer might just hug the crap out of Natasha when this was over. "Was there anything you think I should change?"

"Well," Natasha said, scrolling back up on the story, "there was one part... oh, it was this. You don't have to change this, but when you - I mean she - is on top and then he flips her over and you say he starts 'growling filthy things in her ear' - maybe you should write the actual things instead of just that."

"Yeah, good point..."

"Because since this is for his benefit and the point is to drive him crazy," Natasha grinned, "you might want to add all the details that you can."

"Right..." Summer nodded, her brain already racing with what to add to that particular line.

"Also, I was confused by one part - when she's on his lap and his arm is vibrating, is it still vibrating a minute later when he's on top of her or did it stop?"

"Do I even want to know?"

As Clint walked into the room and eyed the two women suspiciously, Summer jumped at the sudden intrusion and slammed the laptop shut, for no apparent reason. Both Clint and Natasha looked at her like she had just sprouted seven heads, and Summer muttered, "... I don't know why I just did that."

Looking from Summer to Clint, Natasha said, "No, you probably don't want to know."

"Fair enough," he said, heading towards the front door.

Once they had their privacy back, Summer looked at her still-closed laptop and sighed, "I'm doomed. Just say it."

"Well, it is impressive how shamelessly you can write all of this and then be this embarrassed about it," Natasha chuckled.

"It's... part of my charm?" Summer shrugged.

"You should just own it. How many girls can do something like this for their boyfriends? He's going to be beside himself."

"You think so?" Summer asked hopefully.

"Obviously. And you'll find out that I'm right soon enough," Natasha smirked.

Summer cringed and smiled at the same time, already feeling frazzled beyond belief, and it wasn't even nine in the morning yet. They still had to get to the tower and get settled back in there, and then she had to get Bucky's cake made because buying one was just not an option, and he had to be distracted while she took care of that and the decorations so that he didn't have a chance to protest. Then, after she had all of that taken care of not to mention dinner, it would finally be time to give Bucky her gift. She was exhausted just thinking about it all, which was undoubtedly one of the reasons why Bucky had insisted on her not doing anything for his birthday.

But how often did girls in their mid-20s get to help their cryogenically preserved boyfriends celebrate their 99th birthday? She'd rest when she was dead.

"All right, well... thank you so much for doing this for me," Summer told Natasha sincerely. "Like I am not sure if I would have had the courage to give this to him at all if you hadn't agreed to read it first. So I owe you."

Natasha shrugged her off and replied, "It's no big deal. And I enjoyed reading it. It's actually been awhile since I've read anything that good. You should continue it, too. You kind of left them at a very... unresolved place."

"... You think I should add to it?" Summer asked in surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah. I would read more. You could even think about changing certain things, like the arm, and turning it into a full book."

Summer thought she might go into cardiac arrest at any moment after hearing that. "Holy crap. Really?!"

"Yes," Natasha said, blinking slowly, probably about to get sick of constantly reassuring the other girl. "But worry about that later. You've got enough to deal with today."

"Right," Summer nodded. "Right. Okay. I can do this." Then she paused, staring into space for a moment, and asked, "Can I do this?"

"Oh boy," Natasha sighed, leaning back in her seat.

"I can do this," Summer decided, grabbing her laptop and then standing up from the table. "Thanks again. You're my hero."

She then dashed off, missing the amused but warm expression on Natasha's face. She raced up the stairs towards her room, clutching the computer to her chest, and when she hit the hallway and almost collided into a half-asleep and messy haired Bucky who had just wandered out of his room, she squeaked in surprise and then smiled and exclaimed, "Happy birthday!"

She then flung herself at him, computer and all, and hugged him as tightly as she could manage in that moment. Having been unprepared for the assault, he stumbled back a step or two, and then slowly raised his arms to return the hug, all while he remained rather bewildered looking even when she pulled away, smiling brightly at him.

"What?"

She rolled her eyes and repeated, "Happy birthday."

"... Oh. Right," he muttered, running a hand in his hair and looking quite unimpressed with the day, which is what she had expected.

"You're officially ninety nine," she smiled. "And yet incredibly hot and young still."

He gave her a vague look, like he found her amusing but he was still too out of it to really grasp anything, so she just leaned up and gave him a quick kiss before walking backwards towards her door. "We head back to the tower at ten, but most of our stuff has already been sent over, so that's out of the way, but," she fiddled with the computer, "I, uh, I need to work on something really quick in my room and then I'm gonna get David up and then we can go." Then she opened the door, slipped inside, and smiled brightly, "Okay, bye."

Bucky watched the door slam shut, squinting in confusion for a moment before raising his eyebrows briefly and then heading for the stairs, deciding to try to figure out after coffee why she had been holding the computer like her life depended on it and why she was even more jumpy than usual.

Meanwhile, inside her room, Summer sighed and sat down on the bed, flipping open the laptop and committing her brain to more pressing matters, like what sort of specific "filthy things" Bucky's farmhand counterpart would growl in the utmost heat of passion.

---

"You guys take care," Clint said, seeing off the last of his leaving guests as they loaded up the last of their belongings in a borrowed car. Bucky nodded, and Clint added, "How does this work for you, anyway? Living in a tower full of people when the FBI are probably trying their best to get their hands on you?"

Bucky shrugged, briefly glancing back at Summer as she threw her purse into the front seat of the car, then replying, "I think Steve has something to do with the fact that nobody's gotten to me yet."

"Convenient," Clint remarked.

Bucky nodded vaguely, then paused briefly before saying, "Thank you for... letting us stay here." When Clint nodded and shrugged him off, Bucky added, "She liked it here a lot."

"I noticed. Well," Clint's darted to Summer as she struggled to get David into the car despite his opposition to such an idea, "you're welcome to come back sometime. As long as you agree to leave my barn alone."

Bucky couldn't help his automatic slight grin at that. "We could manage that."

"Sure you could," Clint scoffed lightly. "You going on that mission in a couple days?"

Bucky nodded. "Yeah."

"Good luck," Clint replied, with no sarcasm, only sincerity. "It's not easy getting back into it."

"Nothing is," Bucky said with a fleeting, humorless smile.

"You get used to it."

With David now successfully loaded into the car, Summer jogged up to the two men and smiled as she said somewhat breathlessly, "We need to get going."

Bucky nodded, starting to turn away before Summer turned to Clint and said, "I have absolutely loved being here. It reminded me of home. So thank you."

Clint smiled warmly at her and nodded. "You can come over when you're in the neighborhood, as long as you make those cookies again."

"The cinnamon chip ones," she guessed, and Clint nodded his confirmation as she laughed. She had never seen a grown man be so enthusiastic about a batch of cookies, and ones that had been experimental at that. "Just as long as I can just... sniff your collection of exotic spices." Clint started to laugh at that, and then Summer clutched Bucky's hand and said as she looked up at him, "We really need to go, though."

Bucky nodded and so did Clint, who instantly told them to take care one more time before sliding down sunglasses from the top of his head down over his eyes and then heading back towards his house. Bucky then let Summer drag him towards the car, apparently in a real hurry, and he raised an eyebrow as he asked suspiciously, "What's got you in such a rush?"

"Nothing," she said, letting go of his hand and flitting over to the driver's side door.

He didn't say anything, opting instead to give her a look that told her he didn't believe her before they both slid into the car and shut the doors. Then he turned to her and gave her a knowing look that she caught as she clicked her seatbelt into place. "What?" she asked with a smile that was far too nervous to be normal.

He continued to give her a sidelong look, but he shook his head. "Nothing."

He then put on his seatbelt and began wondering what the heck'd had her so jumpy all day. Figuring it had to be related somehow to his birthday but not really seeing what it could be, he drifted off in thought only to be interrupted moments later by Summer's frustrated noises as she tried to get the car to go, but it wouldn't budge.

He watched her hit the gas multiple times, then check all the controls and displays, and then start huffing when the car still wouldn't back up, but it only took him about half a second's worth of investigation before he determined the culprit to be the gear, which was in neutral and not reverse. He reached and shifted the gear, and then as the car finally started to back up, Summer immediately cursed her idiocy out loud, only to slap her hand over her mouth and exclaim, "Sorry, David! I said... 'duck me'!"

Though that one made him grin, Bucky couldn't help but ask a moment later, "What's going on with you today?"

"Nothing," she insisted, though her shifty eyes and instant flush, not to mention higher pitch of her voice, was a dead giveaway of her dishonesty. "Just, uh... tired."

Once again, he let it go despite the fact that he knew that she was lying, figuring that he would know what it was by the end of the night anyway. It still made him nervous, though, but he didn't exactly get the feeling that whatever it was would be unpleasant. In fact, when she acted like this, it was usually always worked out in his favor.

He came no closer to figuring anything out on the ride back to the tower, but the faint blush that seemed to pop up on her face every time she so much as looked at him made him start to seriously look forward to whatever she had cooked up.

---

Being the last ones to have gotten there, Summer was in even more of a hurry after she parked in the super-secret underground entrance of the tower, then jumped in the elevator with their belongings in tow. She raced over everything she still had to do in her head, hoping that Steve had gotten everything she had asked him to get and that the kitchen was clean and ready for her get to work in. She chewed her lip as the elevator took them up, staring at the door lost in thought.

"Welcome back to Stark Tower."

She didn't jump, but David and Bucky both did. She blinked and then chuckled, ruffling David's hair as Bucky mumbled, "Damn talking walls..."

"Careful there," she said playfully, "you don't want to start sounding your age. And hi, JARVIS."

"Good afternoon, Miss McAdams. Your rooms are ready and most of your belongings have already been moved into them."

"Awesome," Summer chirped, though unbeknownst to her, her foot was tapping the floor impatiently as they inched closer to their renovated floor. Bucky noticed, watching her foot but not saying a word.

Then the elevator came to a halt and the doors opened, and Summer stepped out first, wondering just how "new and improved" everything really was. The first change was that, instead of walking out directly into the giant living area, they now found themselves staring at a pair of doors with a rather intimidating-looking security system smack dab in the middle of them.

"Uhh..."

Then, making her suddenly jump, a little red laser-looking thing shot out from the pad to her right eye, and though she initially panicked, she soon realized what it was for when her Stark Industries security badge popped up on the display, and then the doors unlocked and opened.

"Well... that's new," she said, glancing back towards Bucky before walking through the doors to find out what else was new.

At first glance, everything was pretty much the same - same glittering, luxurious kitchen area, huge living area that Steve and Natasha were currently in, and enormous windows all around that showed off the best of the Manhattan skyline. It couldn't have been starker, how very much over the "time-out" on Clint's farm was. It was back to reality now, back to the bustling city and back to work, and she would be lying if she said that it didn't fill her with an instant sense of sadness.

David, however, was not on the same wavelength. He dropped his backpack at Summer's feet and then ran off towards the living area with its giant television screen and sparkling array of video game consoles. Summer sighed and smiled, reaching down to pick up the backpack as she said, "Well, at least one of us is that happy to be back."

She glanced behind her to find Bucky staring towards one of the windows, and she asked him quietly, "How about you?"

He looked at her and then shrugged quickly. "It's all right."

She nodded, thinking that he was already missing the farm as much as she was.

Then there was an unbearably loud crashing noise from towards the elevator beyond the doors, and Summer's heart dropped as her brain instantly flashed back to the attack that had occurred the last time she had been inside this tower. Before she had time to even blink, Bucky had grabbed her and shielded her with his body - it really had been that loud and ominous sounding - only for them both to relax slightly a moment later when they heard the faint sounds of Tony griping as the doors opened.

"... It's called a bee, Thor. It's not the end of the world. Don't you guys have a word for that? Rag-a... Rag...u... Ragu sauce? Or is it Hoobastank? I can never remember."

"The beast tried to attack me!"

"That's no reason to destroy my tower that I just rebuilt. Your hammer is not a fly swatter."

Summer rolled her eyes and took a deep breath, smiling at Bucky and shaking her head as he released his death grip on her. By the time Tony and Thor had strolled in, Thor rubbing his neck in the wake of said bee attack, Summer's heart rate had fallen back into normal ranges. Tony stretched his arms out, doing a head count of those in the room as he said, "Looks like the gang's all back. Or wait... no, we're missing Captain Falcon."

"He's in his room," Steve said, with a slight clear of his throat.

"Still sleeping? At this hour?"

"Not exactly," Natasha replied, clearly hinting at something.

"... Wait." Tony stopped and looked around, wheels in his head spinning as he said, "If he's not alone in there, who is in there with him and how did they get in?"

"She's on your clearance list," Natasha replied, but Tony continued to stare in confusion.

As intriguing as figuring out what, or whom, waskeeping Sam in his room, Summer had serious business to get down to, so as soon as Steve glanced her way, she shifted so that Bucky couldn't see her mouth the words "detain him!". Steve subtly nodded, and then a moment later, he got up and strolled over towards where she and Bucky stood, then cheerfully suggested, "Hey Bucky, want to come see the new upgrades down in the gym?"

Bucky seemed ambivalent and leaning towards saying no, at least until Natasha got up and added, "I'll tag along. Actually, I've been thinking - now that we've got the room again, I'm curious about an old bet that we never got around to settling."

"What's that?" Steve asked, genuinely not remembering.

"Whether or not I can take on the both of you and win," Natasha replied.

Summer nearly breathed a sigh of relief - now she knew that she was home free. Indeed, Bucky's demeanor changed, and with the challenge issued, Tony announced, "I call front row."

When everybody began to head towards the elevator - including Thor, who gave Summer a brief but charming greeting first, making her squee inside - Summer gave some excuse about staying up there and getting herself and David settled in, but in reality, she just stood there and waited until the doors closed, and then she all but ran into the kitchen and started raiding the cabinets.

She had given Steve a written list of needed ingredients earlier that day and had asked him to put them all in one specific place so that assembling them all would be easy, and to her relief, she found everything that she had requested waiting for her in one of the cabinets. She pulled everything out and got everything set up on the counter, turned on the oven, and then got on her phone to pull up the required recipe, all while mentally rushing herself to get it done as quickly as possible.

She was knee-deep in cake batter by the time she heard an unfamiliar voice come wafting from the hallway, and she looked up to see a girl wearing an oversized shirt with Sam's old unit info on it come wandering into the kitchen.

She looked familiar, and as the girl stopped and they both tried to figure out where they had seen each other before, Summer said, "Uh... hi?"

"Hi. I've met you before, haven't I?"

"I think so," Summer replied, setting down the long white spoon that she was stirring the batter with and then remembering, "Oh! The party!"

"Oh, right!" she nodded. "You were that chick in the black dress had the -"

"Yeah and you had the blue dress with the -"

"Boobs," they both said in unison, and Summer snorted with laughter.

"It's sad that I remember you by that but not your name," Summer said. "This must be what it's like to be a dude."

"Well," Darcy said as she went to the fridge and opened it, "you're probably not used to being out-boobed even at a Tony Stark party, so it's understandable. And my name is Darcy."

"Summer," she nodded back, "and I'm pretty sure we're tied there."

"Maybe," Darcy conceded, bottle of water in hand as she shut the fridge door. "So you date the Winter Soldier dude."

"... And you date Sam now?" Summer guessed, gesturing to the shirt she wore. "I've missed a lot being away from here, apparently."

"I met him at the party, actually," Darcy nodded, "right after I accidentally hit on your boyfriend."

Summer ceased her stirring and then half-grinned at Darcy. "Really?"

"It was completely embarrassing. Then I asked Steve if they were a couple. I have this tendency to not know when to shut up."

"I know the feeling," Summer replied, grabbing the three round cake pans she'd gotten ready and pouring the batter into the first one.

"Wait, are you making a cake? Because I've heard about your cake from Thor."

Summer's eyes widened and they shot to Darcy as she smiled excitedly. "Seriously? Thor tells people about my cake?"

"Oh yeah. See, he used to think that Pop Tarts were awesome, but then here on his second extended Earth vacation, he's had a lot more to sample, and he goes on and on about the 'Lady Summer's cake'."

Smiling idiotically, Summer replied, "That... just... made my day, for like the next million days." Then as she filled up the other cake pans, she asked, "So your friend dates Thor, right?"

"Yeah, but I actually think they're on the outs," Darcy said, hopping up on the counter. "Which really sucks because she's been pining after him for like two years, but he took her to Asgard when she accidentally absorbed this evil magic red Kool-Aid, and nothing's really been the same since then. I think it finally just dawned on them both that he's like a million years old and she'll make it to 80 if she's lucky."

Summer frowned and started putting the cakes in the oven. "Yeah, that's... well, crappy. She went to Asgard though?"

"Yup. Met Odin and Loki and everything."

Suddenly freezing, Summer slowly turned back towards Darcy and repeated, "Jane... met... Loki."

"Yup. And punched him in the face. She said he liked it."

Summer blinked, then shook her head as if to shake something off, and then said, "... I don't even know what to do with that information."

"I know, right? Guy's like - well, was like - the very definition of crazy hot. Which... I'm guessing is the kind of thing you're into."

"Bucky isn't crazy," Summer quickly clarified. "He's... troubled. But he's gotten a lot better since I found him."

"Found him?"

"He kind of... passed out half-dead in front of my old house. That's how we... met."

"See, I would judge you, but after you've been chased through the streets of London by alien elves who look like Teletubbies on meth, it tends to sort of... change your worldview a little bit."

"I had my house blown up by neo-Nazis," Summer shrugged. "I kind of bypassed normal a long time ago. Normal is now this," she gestured to the tower in general.

"This isn't so bad," Darcy agreed. "You're surrounded by superheroes who are basically all super hot and living in their superhero lair."

"... Yeah. Are you staying here now, too?"

"Nah, I transferred to NYU and I've got an apartment next to campus," she said. "But I'll probably try to come over and bum food as much as possible."

"Just coming for food?" Summer grinned, throwing her used stuff into the sink.

"And other stuff," Darcy conceded. "So, what kind of cake are you making?"

"It's for Bucky's birthday, which is today, and it's basically a three-layer double chocolate cake, and I'm gonna make whiskey-caramel sauce to go over it."

"Dude. No wonder Thor talks about your cake. I think my pancreas just stopped working hearing that."

Summer smiled and shrugged cheerfully, and then both of them glanced towards the hallway when they heard Sam coming, calling out, "How long does it take to grab a drink of water?"

"Impatient," Darcy chided as he came into view, pausing at the entrance to the kitchen area. "I was having unexpected girl talk."

"Mmhmm," Sam said. Then he looked at the flour and sugar still sitting out on the counter, and then he asked seriously, "Whoa - are you making a cake?"

"I should just open a bakery," Summer grinned. "Bucky's birthday, remember?"

"Oh yeah," Sam replied. "I would have gotten him something but I'm still broke from buying a new car to replace the one he destroyed."

"Right," Summer nodded. "Well, understandable. He'll live."

"Good. Now if you'll excuse me," Sam said politely before picking up Darcy from the counter and flinging her over his shoulder as she yelped with laughter. He then carried her off caveman style back to his room, and Summer laughed as Darcy called out a "catch you later" before disappearing into the hallway.

Now alone again, Summer looked at the oven and went over her mental list of things to do, figuring she would save the caramel sauce for the last minute since it would only take five minutes to make, and then she suddenly jolted up straight and half-exclaimed, "Decorations!"

Swearing off any further distractions, she put herself back to work, determined to make the first real birthday that Bucky'd had in over seventy years one that was at least half of what he deserved, and that meant balloons, a banner, and a host of other cheesy components that she could planned on reusing once David's impending birthday arrived.

She just hoped that Bucky would like it all.

And the other thing.

---

Awhile later, down in the gym, exactly nobody was surprised when Steve and Bucky ended up sprawled on the floor, faces pained and pride hurt more than their actual bodies, though those hurt pretty badly too. Natasha straightened out her clothes as she stood over them, turning around and glancing at their audience as she said, "So who wins the bet?"

"We both bet on you," Tony replied, sitting next to Thor on the edge of a treadmill. "So it's kind of a draw."

Suppressing a mild groan, Bucky turned his head towards Steve and muttered, "You didn't even try. What the hell."

"I... tried to try," Steve said weakly. "Don't look at me like that. I don't like hitting girls even when they're trying to kill me, let alone when they're Natasha."

Bucky rolled his eyes and then sat up, aware that in all honesty, he hadn't been fully trying either. Natasha knew them both too well and knew how to work their natures to her advantage, making her physical inferiority just about irrelevant, and there was probably never a hope of this turning out any differently.

"Maybe one day," Natasha said as she turned to walk away, "you boys will actually try and make it a challenge."

Now thoroughly annoyed, Bucky's head shot up and he kicked his foot out, swiping at her ankles and knocking her off of her feet. Steve protested with a "Hey!", but Natasha didn't fall, doing a twist in midair and landing on her feet, more like a cat than a spider. Bucky rolled his eyes as she smirked at him and then said, "My point stands."

Now sitting up, Bucky scowled at her and then once again glared slightly accusatorially at Steve, who asked innocently, "What?"

"All these years later and you still let girls beat you up," Bucky said, standing up from the floor.

"She's not exactly your average girl," Steve pointed out, hand rubbing at a growing knot on the back of his head. "Hey, where are you going?"

Heading for the elevator, Bucky muttered, "Back up."

Steve looked at Natasha with a look that screamed "help me", and she stared at him for a moment before thinking on her feet and calling towards Bucky, "Fine. You and me, one on one, without Steve there for me to use against you."

Bucky stopped and then slowly turned around, now convinced that they were detaining him on purpose.

On the one hand, he truly did not want to have any sort of fuss made about his birthday. Everything about the idea made him want to use any excuse possible to avoid it, but then on the other hand... Summer was obviously planning something, and everybody was in on it, and as much as he didn't want it... he simply didn't have the heart to let on that he had figured it out or that he'd rather just spend the night like he spent every other night.

"You sure?" Bucky asked Natasha.

"As long as you actually try this time," she challenged.

Silently accepting this proposal, Bucky started heading back towards the open area of the gym that was unofficial sparring section, and while Steve visibly sighed with relief, Tony got comfortable once again and said, "And here I just ran out of popcorn."

---

Once everything was finally done, including even a quick dinner that she had thrown together while the cakes cooled done, Summer and David both collapsed into heaps on the couch. He had decided to help her once balloons had come into the equation, and now that the room looked vaguely like a birthday clown had blown in and puked all over everything. But, the cake was ready and sitting in the middle of the table, and all of the decorations were up, and dinner was simmering on the stovetop.

"High five," Summer said, eyes closed as her hand came up. David smacked his palm against hers, and Summer let out a deep breath, only to have it interrupting by her phone buzzing.

It was a message from Steve. Return imminent. Detention failed.

"Crap crap crap crap," she muttered, jumping up from the couch and then running like a crazy person throughout the room, turning off lights and making sure one more time that everything was perfect. By the time she heard the doors start to open, she rushed to them, and on a rare stroke of good luck, Bucky was the first one to step in.

"Why is it so dark in-"

"Hi!" she exclaimed, putting her hands over his eyes as he froze at the unexpected contact. She looked behind him to the others, looked at Steve and mouthed "Candle!", then turned around so that she was behind Bucky with her hands still clamped over his eyes. Steve hurried to the table, and Natasha and Thor followed behind Summer looking highly amused. Tony, understandably, wasn't overly interested in the whole event, so he had gone his own way after the group had left the gym.

"What are you doing?" Bucky asked, amusement evident in his tone.

"Something," she teased. "Now walk straight and don't try to peek between my fingers."

He did as she said, and as she walked him closer to the table, Steve lit the lone candle in the cake while Sam and Darcy emerged from the hallway at just the right time. Once the candle was burning, helping the dusk filtering through the windows illuminate it and the decorations hanging above the table, Summer walked Bucky the rest of the way to a chair at the middle of the table that Steve pulled out, and biting her lip and hoping for the best, Summer said, "Okay... surprise," and then let her hands fall away.

She watched nervously as his eyes first fell on the cake - and the big, unashamedly red, white and blue candle she had put there, because ninety nine individual candles was ridiculous and just doing the numbers seemed weird - and then he looked up at the birthday banner, then the variously colored balloons hanging all around the table, and slowly, he turned to look at Summer.

He looked shocked, or maybe just surprised, but if she had been afraid that he would hate it all or think it was stupid, her fears were quickly put at ease.

He opened his mouth to say something but couldn't seem to get any words out, so Summer simply smiled and pulled him to the chair, "We've gotta hurry up and sing before the cake gets gross and waxy."

He continued to stare at her in disbelief, at least until everyone gathered around the table. She watched him look at Steve and then David, who now hanging on to her side and smiling at the general excitement of participating in someone else's birthday, which was somewhat new for him. Then he looked, one by one, at everyone else - those who knew hm better than anyone else in the world, past or present (Steve), those who knew him better than he was willing to admit (Natasha), those who were slowly getting to know him better and thought that he was pretty all right overall (Thor & Sam), and those who barely knew him at all but still wasn't afraid of him (Darcy), and Summer realized that this was one of the best decisions that she had made in a long time.

There was nothing quite like truly realizing for the first time that you weren't alone, and that you had people around you who truly cared about you - she knew how powerful such a thing could be, when you had little no family left to speak of. And as they all started singing happy birthday to Bucky as he remained sitting there, stunned, for the first time that day, Summer wasn't nervous at all.

She was just happy, incredibly so, and even happier once she saw a tiny but very real smile start to form on Bucky's lips.

---

Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't this. A cake, maybe, or something, but not this, and certainly not all of these people standing around and actually singing to him, like they were here because they genuinely cared.

And now, sitting there and feeling not uncomfortable at all but damn near overwhelmed instead, he listened to the song near its end (Thor doing his best to follow the others in a song that he was surely not familiar with but smiling broadly all along, and David smiling but staying silent as usual). Then he looked at the big candle, the flame flickering and dancing, and something flashed behind his eyes - a picture at first, but then more, and suddenly he could remember a scene just like this one.

The table, the walls, even the cake sitting before him was shabby, small, and humble, but he didn't notice and didn't care as he felt himself smiling excitedly at the eight candles that he was about to blow out. He waited impatiently for everybody to get the song over with already, looking to his left and sharing a grin with the skinny little blonde-headed boy sitting next to him. Then he looked up to his right, where his father sat and his mother stood, both of them smiling and his mother holding a little toddler-sized girl on her hip. She had short brown pigtails and big blue eyes that were fixed on him as she gnawed on her little fist. He made a silly face at her, sticking his tongue out, and she laughed a loud, sweet baby's laugh, just as the song ended.

Laughing with his sister, his mother softly urged, "Go on, blow out the candle and make a wish."

"Blow it out and make a wish!"

Blinking his way back to the present, Bucky looked up at the woman on his left, who had said those words, and then he looked to his right and saw the same person that had been there in the memory, only now a lot less tiny and skinny. He was dazed and slightly overjoyed for having finally remembered his sister, and his mind clung to that image of her and the sound of her little laugh as he refocused on the candle.

He blew it out, but he didn't make a wish. He already had more than he deserved and would dare ask for, and this moment was the perfect expression of that, as far as he could see.

Afterwards, he looked back up at Summer as she clapped happily and then, seemingly unable to help herself, gave him a hug.

"I was so nervous, I thought you'd hate it all or think it was weird," she said in a quiet rush near his ear before she pulled away with a smile. "You don't hate it, do you?"

"No," he shook his head. "Not at all."

She smiled brightly, then visibly shifted back into action mode while Steve patted his shoulder. Summer went around the room, turning all the lights back on, and as his eyes adjusted, he sat back in the seat and then heard her chirp, "Cake first or presents?"

"Can we do both?" Sam asked.

"Yes, both would be preferable," Thor said.

"Okay," Summer said, going to the kitchen to fetch plates and a knife, while Bucky felt Steve's hand on his shoulder again.

"Is this all okay?"

Bucky nodded, finding it humorous that both he and Summer had felt the need to each check this with him. "Yeah. It's... nice."

Steve smiled, and whatever he might have said next was interrupted upon Thor's approach. Smiling broadly, he said, "My wishes for a most happy birthday! I did not know it was coming, otherwise I would have found you some sort of gift."

"It's fine," Bucky shrugged, having barely expected gifts from anyone at all, because he simply hadn't thought about it.

"Well, instead, I will tell you the same thing that I told your lady recently - when an opportunity arises for me to invite a number of Midgardians to visit Asgard, you are most welcome to come as well."

A little stunned because that was also something he had never thought of, Bucky faltered for a moment before replying, "Uh... okay. Thanks." Then he furrowed his brow. "How exactly would I go there?"

"The Bifrost," Thor replied cheerily. When Bucky just stared, Thor clarified, "The Rainbow Bridge." When he still got nothing but a confused look, Thor waved a hand and said, "I will show you one day."

Then Summer came back, and she plopped a plate down in front of Bucky as she brandished a knife and said, "Okay, you get the biggest piece, obviously..."

"Is that... caramel?" Bucky asked as she started to cut the cake. She was also bending over slightly and rather close to him, and he might have subtly stolen a glance down her shirt.

"Remember that time I made whiskey-caramel sauce and put it on ice cream?" she asked, and he nodded. "Well this is the same thing, but with Tony's $500 whiskey. And I figured what better to put it on than a double chocolate cake?"

Then she carefully moved the first piece to his plate, sucking off little bit of the sauce that had gotten on her thumb in the process, and he grinned at her as he replied, "I can think of something. Or someone."

She smiled and pointed at him, her blush instant, and she said, "Calm down."

His grin widened and he reached out and grabbed her hand before she could turn away, pulling her closer and giving her a short, sweet kiss before saying sincerely, "Thank you."

"Hey, you haven't even gotten your present form me yet," she smiled.

"You didn't have to get me anything..."

"I didn't. I kind of... made you something. But you can't have it until later. After David's asleep. And we're alone."

He raised an eyebrow, suddenly very intrigued. "... Really?" he grinned.

Her face flaring up again, she nodded and then smiled nervously, "Yeah, so... just... later."

Nodding, he let go of her hand, wondering what in the world it could be. He watched her continue to cut the cake as he thought through various possibilities, none of which came close to what it really was, but it distracted him while he took his first bite of the cake. He chewed once and then stopped, expression turning utterly serious for a moment, and Summer immediately noticed this.

"What? Is something wrong?"

He shook his head and then swallowed. "No. This is the..." he almost said the best, but then he quickly realized it wasn't true, and then continued, "second best thing I've ever tasted."

She smiled gleefully, then cocked her head in curiosity and asked, "... What's the first?"

His gaze flickered to David, who was sitting close by and impatiently waiting for his own piece of cake, and he replied, "I don't think I can say right now."

Her face erupted in yet another blush, and as she smacked her palm over her face to hide it, Darcy called out from behind them, "I heard that. This place is freaking awesome. I should totally move here."

Bucky went back to eating while Summer just glanced at the woman and sighed, filling up the other plates with pieces of cake. After he was mostly done, he saw Steve come walking back towards the table from the direction of the hallway, toting a medium-sized box as Natasha walked beside him.

"Didn't have time to wrap this," Steve said as he got to the table. He set it down on top of it, in front of Bucky, and then took a seat beside him as Natasha stood beside him. "But I didn't think you would mind much."

"Consider this from both of us," Natasha added. "Without me, Steve may not have ever known where to find this."

Looking from her to Steve and then the box, Bucky straightened up a little and then reached out and pulled the box closer. While everyone else was talking, eating, or otherwise engaged, Summer sat down on Bucky's right and watched as he lifted off the lid, having no idea what he would find inside.

The first thing that he saw was a hat, its drab olive color and distinct shape a giveaway of where it had come from. He glanced at Steve, who seemed to be waiting with bated breath, then looked back into the box and carefully picked up the hat.

"When you fell," Steve began quietly, "some of your stuff got given to me. I was supposed to send them to your parents back home, but... I kinda just hung on to them for awhile. Then," he breathed, "when I went into the ice, I didn't have any family for my stuff to be sent to. Peggy ended up taking it all - including yours - and she's had them all these years."

"She's not in the best health these days," Natasha explained, "but I knew it was all with her due to the... renewed interest in Steve at SHIELD a few years ago when we found him."

Processing all of this, Bucky looked away from them and back inside the box. Besides the hat, there were several sizable stacks of letters tied together with string. He picked up one, and a handful of worn pictures fell out. He set the letters back down and then picked up two of the pictures, and as soon as he took a good look at them, he instantly recognized each one and could almost believe, for one brief second, that it was still way back then and he was sitting in some cold barrack in Europe with the other guys, clutching this pictures and imagining a life beyond the war.

One photo was of Vivian, by herself, and it was a professional photo she'd had taken while he had been away and while she was still trying to follow her dreams but working as a nurse in the meanwhile. She had spared him one of the copies and sent it before he had been captured, and the worn image and frayed edges proved how much he had held it back then. It was black and white but he could still see the red of her hair and red of her smiling lips, his mind still able to paint her colors after all it had endured.

The second photo, while equally familiar, made him stare for longer, for other reasons. This one was of Vivian and himself, her in a dress that he knew to be the same shade green of her eyes and he in a suit that was either black or gray - that he was fuzzy on - but it was the smile on his own face that made him stop and stare.

He was younger there, but based on his actual lived years rather than chronological ones, he wasn't drastically younger. But he did look drastically different, lighter and freer and without the kind of damage that he hadn't known was on the horizon. His arm was around Vivian, hand visible on her waist, and she leaned into him with her hand on his chest, his smile mirrored in hers.

The picture was a much simpler depiction of a relationship that had been far from simple, with dizzying ups and downs that he would probably be reading about soon if any of the letters had been from her. He set the pictures back inside and was looking at the stacks of letters to see what was from who when he heard Steve's voice.

"You okay?"

He met Steve's gaze and nodded. "Yeah. Just wasn't expecting this."

Steve nodded. "I know. I just wanted you to have it because a lot of those letters are from your family, mostly your mom and sister. One stack is all Vivian."

Bucky nodded, glancing Summer's way to make sure she wasn't about to have a moment of sudden self-doubt over the mentions of Vivian. But she looked fine, just a little sad as she smiled at him, and he didn't think that it had anything to do with Vivian.

When he looked back inside the box, he moved the papers around some more and found a few small boxes sitting on the bottom. Most of them were long and flat, and he knew without opening them that they held his old medals. A few purple hearts and a silver star, small consolations and accolades that did nothing to even start to make up for what he had endured overseas, but it was all the Army had to offer.

Next to those boxes, however, was a smaller, rounder one, and at first he didn't know what was inside of it. He picked it up and then opened it, and recognition dawned on him.

"That's your -"

"My grandmother's ring," he finished for Steve. "I can't believe it survived all this."

In a delicately woven gold setting sat an oval shaped opal, surrounded by small diamonds. It looked exactly as he suddenly remembered it, though it needed a good cleaning after having sat tucked away in this box for so many decades.

"You had that ring with you while you were at war?" Summer asked curiously, and Bucky looked to Steve for confirmation of what he was pretty sure that he could remember.

"I think I kept it with me all the time," he said, looking back to the ring, "because I wanted to give it to her sometimes but I just... never did."

"You went back and forth more times than I could count," Steve confirmed.

"It's gorgeous," Summer remarked, leaning in closer for a short moment to get a better look. "Like... wow."

Bucky had the vaguest of ideas that one day, he might be glad that she liked the ring so much, but for now he simply nodded his agreement and then gently closed the box and put it back inside. There were many more pictures to look through and so many letters to read through that it would take him all week or longer, and with how easily just two pictures had triggered memories and a candle in a cake had given him his first recovered memory of his sister, he knew that the box in front of him could and likely would give him much more.

He turned to Steve and Natasha, telling them both quietly and sincerely, "Thank you."

They both nodded, and when he turned back to the box, replacing the lid on it, he let out a deep breath and felt the familiar pull of his mind trying to draw him inwards, deeper into his thoughts and into his memory, but Summer clearing her throat grabbed his attention and pulled him back into the present. He blinked and looked at her, then immediately noticed the little boy hiding on the other side of her as she smiled and said, "Someone's being shy about giving you the present they made you."

Having expected a present from David even less than he had expected everything else so far, Bucky's expression softened and he waited as Summer dragged David behind her chair with one hand and then pulled him forward with the other. He tried to burrow into her arms to hide, but she turned him around and said, "Come on - we'll give it to him together, okay?"

Slightly encouraged by this, David held out one of his little fists and slowly extended it, smiling but keeping his eyes down purposefully. Bucky glanced at Summer and shared a grin with her before he held out his hand, and then David's fist uncurled, and an action figure plopped down into Bucky's waiting hand.

But it wasn't just any action figure. It had short dark hair, a pale face and eyes partially obscured by a black mask that fit around them. The toy looked slightly worn near the feet, where paint had chipped off, but on the rest of it, a brand new paint job was evident. Its suit had been painted over with all black, aided from its left arm, which was a shiny silver. A slightly smudged red dot had likely been David's attempt at painting a tiny red star on the arm.

He stared at the toy for a long moment, none of its implications lost on him. The fact that David looked up to him and held a lot of usually reserved but still great affection for him was something that he had known for a long time, but this was different.

"That's a guy from a comic book named Nightwing," Summer explained. "He looked the most like you of all David's toys, so he decided to turn him into you."

Sometimes it was easy for Bucky to forget all that David had been through and all that he had seen since Bucky had entered their lives. But the truth was, David had been seconds away from death by a gunshot in Virginia before Bucky had intervened and killed the agents responsible, and more recently, he had escaped a burning building and then watched Bucky carry Pepper out of it.

Despite all the horrors and the things that Bucky had done when others were in control of his mind, and all of the things that still haunted his thoughts and dreams and likely always would, to this little boy, he had never been anything but a hero. And not just any hero, but one with a ridiculously cool arm, and one worthy of his very own custom-made action figure.

Closing his hand around the toy, Bucky smiled at David and then, for the first time ever, held out his right arm to initiate a hug. David looked almost shocked for a moment before he finally dropped the shy act and ran into the hug, during which Bucky thanked him and then glanced up to find Summer watching with suspiciously watery eyes.

After, David pulled away from the hug and then started excitedly emptying his pockets of toys that he apparently had stashed in there, all of them Avengers, and he started setting them up on the table. Playing along, Bucky set his own toy up there next to the others, closest to Thor, but David was unhappy with that arrangement. He plucked the figure up and then put him on Captain America's right hand side, and only then did he allow the game to continue.

The next time Bucky looked Summer's way, he definitely saw tears present in her eyes. This time he couldn't help but quietly ask, "Are you crying?"

She smiled and shook her head, slowly getting from her seat. "Nope. But if I was," she said after she got to her feet, "it would be happy crying."

She then smiled again and turned to head for the kitchen, and he felt the smile lingering on his own face as he turned back to the toys sitting in front of him and the boy who seemed rather overjoyed with how his little gift had turned out.

And so, Bucky's first birthday in more years than he cared to count looked to be going down in history as a decidedly happy one.

---

Leaning against a counter and watching the adorable little mock-Avenger-battle take place on the table between Bucky and her son, Summer was dangerously close to being as lost in thought as Bucky was on a regular basis. Between the relief of the birthday going even better than she had hoped for and the emotional turn the night had taken with Steve's gift, the effort of moving plus doing all that she had done was finally catching up with her and making her consider nodding off for a little bit before she went and met her doom later. At least until she felt something cold being pressed to her hand, at which point she looked down to find the culprit was a glass of wine being pushed into her grip by Natasha.

"What's this for?" Summer asked, though she didn't hesitate to take a healthy sip of it.

Holding her own glass, Natasha replied knowingly, "Later."

Summer groaned and muttered, "And here I had almost forgotten about that."

Natasha chuckled, then looked at her for a moment before asking, "You okay?"

"Me? Oh yeah," Summer shrugged. "Totally fine. I just thought that I couldn't possibly be more in love with him than I already am, and then he goes and gives my kid this big, amazing hug that he initiated for the first time ever, and suddenly I'm like... just let me have ten of your babies. How does that even work?"

Natasha laughed at that one, and so did Summer, despite how serious she was. "Sounds like a good problem to have."

She nodded, then said, "And then once again, I see a picture of the girl he used to be with and wonder how the hell I even measure up to that, let alone surpass it, but he told me when he first remembered her that it made him realize how much he loved me, because he loved me more. I can't even..."

"Take his word for it," Natasha advised her. "Seriously. Don't compare yourself to his past or try to compete with it. I don't with Steve because I know I can't."

"He had a super awesome 40s lady too?" Summer guessed.

Natasha smiled and replied, "One that might make you feel grateful for the woman in Bucky's past."

"That awesome?"

"Like I said," Nat replied, "I know I can't compete, so I don't. You shouldn't either, especially if what he told you is true. And I would bet that it is.

"... You're right," Summer conceded. "As always."

Natasha smirked and then sipped her wine before adding, "Make sure you drink all of that. You'll need your courage."

"Thanks for the reminder," Summer grumbled, gulping down two more mouthfuls of the wine. "By the way. You know what I couldn't help thinking as Bucky went through that box? I just sat there like, here you and Steve give him this box with this irreplaceable stuff from his old life and things that'll help him remember more, and meanwhile... all I did was write him a bunch of smut."

Natasha laughed more fully at that than Summer thought she ever had at anything she had said before. Summer starting laughing too, finding the whole thing ridiculous but hopefully, ultimately, in a good way.

"Just think of it this way," Natasha suggested. "Steve gave him a piece of his past. You're giving him a piece of his present and future."

"That's a very pretty way of putting it," Summer observed.

"All the more reason to believe me," Natasha smirked before walking off to rejoin Steve, leaving Summer to sigh and down the rest of her wine.

After the cake had ceased to ruin everybody's appetite, dinner was eaten later than usual, and Summer watched the clock wind down with increasingly present nerves. She gulped down a second glass of wine to help that, and luckily, she found enough things to distract her with in the meantime. She got David settled back into their old room, which looked exactly the same as it had before, and he took to it like they had never left, which was a huge relief. She wasn't halfway through one of his storybooks before he was passed out asleep, and as she tucked him in and kissed his forehead as usual, she realized that there was truly no escaping her fate now.

A few minutes later, she was heading back down the hall, still satisfactorily buzzed from the wine but not tipsy, taking a deep breath and holding it as she made a beeline for the table, where Bucky was still sitting and talking with Steve.

When she got there, she put a hand on Bucky's shoulder and then smiled when he looked up at her. "Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt..."

He shook his head, "No, it's okay." Then he looked behind her and around them, then back to her as he asked quietly, "... Is he asleep?"

She nodded, and never had she ever seen Bucky remove himself from a conversation so quickly before. He grabbed the box and his action figure and was up and heading for his room before she could so much as blink. She glanced at Steve, who just gave her a friendly smile that said he didn't want to know, and she returned it before turning to follow Bucky, anxiety born anew.

When she got to his room, she made a quick detour to grab her computer from her room, and then she went back, peeking her head inside timidly for no reason before stepping in and fighting the urge to look away when he looked at her from the closet, where he was putting his box. She just smiled nervously and walked over to his bed, set down the laptop on it, and then started fiddling with her hands as he shut the closet door and started to head her way.

"So... I hope you liked your birthday," she said, suddenly hoping irrationally that she could distract him and he would forget that she still had a present to give him.

"I did," he smiled, eyes darting down to the laptop on his bed briefly as he came closer. "Actually, I wanted to tell you something."

She shifted a little on her feet and waited for him to speak again, only to have his hand take hers and lead her to sit down next to him on the edge of the bed.

"When you were doing the cake and everybody was singing... I looked at the candle and I remembered something. I remembered one of my birthdays from when I was a kid, and I finally remembered my sister."

Her mouth dropped open and she smiled, knowing full well how frustrating it had been for him all this time to barely remember his parents and not remember his sister at all. "Really? That's amazing!"

He smiled back and nodded, his eyes growing softer as he took in how happy she was for him. "Yeah. It wasn't much, but... it's there now, and I think the letters will help me remember more."

She nodded, squeezing his hand that was still holding hers a little, and she replied, "Yeah, I bet they will. That's great. I'm really happy for you."

His smile widened for a moment before he started to lean in, and she closed her eyes as he kissed her softly. He made a quiet, almost indecipherable noise in his throat as he pulled away and then looked at her lips as he said, "You taste like wine."

"Yeah, I had to... try to... calm my nerves," she shrugged.

His eyes shot up to hers and narrowed just by a fraction as he grinned and asked, "Why in the world have you been so nervous all day?"

She sighed and glanced at her laptop that was sitting innocently behind them on the bed, and she closed her eyes and said, "It's my... present for you." Then she gestured to the top of the bed and said, "We should go sit up there and... get comfortable, because you're gonna be here awhile."

He looked confused, but he followed her anyway, and once they were sitting at the top of the bed with pillows between their backs and the bedframe, Summer looked down at the computer in her lap and then at Bucky as she said, "So... I wrote you something."

At first, he didn't seem to grasp how just her writing him something would make her so nervous. But then something seemed to click, and one of his eyebrows shot up as he said quietly, "... Oh."

"Yeah." She opened the laptop and it flashed to life quickly, and she chewed on her lip as she explained, "I didn't know what in the world to get you and nothing seemed right. I was pretty much panicking before I realized that I could just do this, but then I didn't know what to write. Then I remembered something I had said back at the farm that you seemed to like, so then I just figured... well, why not." Glancing at his amused, intrigued expression, she added, "It's really long, so it's gonna take you awhile. And if you hate it, I'm sorry, I really tried my best."

"I... doubt that I'm gonna hate it," he replied as she pulled up the document in question.

"But if you do, you can tell me," she told him seriously. "I don't want you to lie."

"I won't," he assured her, smiling at her like she was nuts.

"... Okay," she finally relented, though she still hesitated to hand over the laptop. Then, to her surprise, she felt his fingertips under her chin and then he was pulling her face to the side and kissing her again, more firmly than last time and in a way that made her stomach still flip after the months she had spent getting used to being with him. She didn't even notice that he gently pried the laptop away from her in the process, at least not until he broke the kiss and slowly drew away. She opened her eyes and realized that her hands were empty and that now he had the computer in his lap, and he merely grinned at her before turning his eyes to the screen.

Oh God, it's happening.

She grabbed one of the pillows behind her and hugged it to her chest, hiding most of her face with it as well as she watched him read the title and then start the first paragraph.

This was going to be the longest, hardest, and possibly most humiliating 25,000 words of her life.

---

To say that he was intrigued would have been an understatement. At that moment in time, reading what she had written for him was the center of his existence, a mission of utmost importance, and if she was that nervous about it, he had a pretty good idea why. And that meant that he couldn't wait to read.

The title of the story was Fire and Whiskey, and by the looks of it, it really was quite long. He was okay with that, especially if his suspicions turned out to be accurate.

The first scene described a woman whose name was not yet known, watching her husband that she didn't seem to be on particularly good terms with pack up for an extended trip away. He read along silently, not yet knowing what sort of story this was or what the setting was until the woman referred to her duties as a "farmer's wife", and then it clicked.

He grinned as he glanced over at Summer, who was still hiding firmly behind her pillow, and he said, "So you wrote the farmer's wife thing."

She peeked up from behind her makeshift shield and then nodded, pure and utter preparation to freak out written all over her face. He just continued to grin and then resumed reading, even more excited to continue now that he knew she had taken her drunken semi-roleplaying thing and turned it into an actual story.

The woman in the story ended up being named, rather appropriately, Summer, and when she met his own character at the end of the first scene, he was named Bucky. She described him exactly as he was in real life, with the only difference being his decidedly more "farm boy" appearance - generally dirty (in an appealing way) appearance, messy hair, and in fact rather similar to how he had looked on the farm for most of their stay there.

The premise of the whole story was clear within the first scene; a wife, stuck in a bad marriage to an idiot that she was estranged from but unable to quite escape fully, running an inherited farm that she loved but he hated, meeting a quiet and mysterious new farmhand just hired a few days before.

He read through the next few sections, which were slowly paced and focused on the first interactions between the two characters and their very gradual journey of getting to know one another. She was guarded and in a constant state of numb following the years of misery that she had spent with the husband, the farm being her only source of joy and accomplishment, and he was just as reserved and quiet about his background but ever more intrigued with her.

As a sign of the growing trust between them as they spoke more, Bucky's character eventually stopped hiding his left arm, which Summer had kept metal in the story. He didn't know why it surprised him, but it did. Maybe, somewhere in the back of his head, he still thought that deep down she would prefer him with all of his natural-born limbs and would write him that way. If that was true, then he was clearly wrong.

He looked at her periodically throughout the story, and he found that the more that he read, the more nervous that she got and the more she hid behind the pillow. It only motivated him to read even more.

The growing attraction between the two characters was a subtle, simmering thing, hiding under the surface of the friendship that they established. He was always there and she was always running away, and their banter became increasingly less innocent but still subtle enough for Summer's character to still be in denial. He remembered their relationship developing similarly in real life, at least to a degree.

About midway through the story, a casual party thrown by the other farm workers present resulted in a scene that grabbed his attention to the point of not looking away once until it was over. The flirtations and magnetism between the two characters reached a peak as they talked, stared at each other, and danced, and he thought that it was hilarious that Summer had written his character smoking and hers staring at him with unabashed lust until he caught her.

"What's so funny?" she asked nervously, daring to peek over her pillow when she saw him smirking to himself.

"The cigarette thing," he replied.

She groaned and buried her face into the pillow. "My God, you're barely even halfway."

He just grinned and didn't take his eyes off the screen.

The first time the characters kissed, after both were unable to resist anymore despite the many reasons why they should, he had to go back and read it again. It was the way she described him, and her, and everything, that made him have to reread it. It was the passion of it all, the unsureness and the underlying fear and the forbidden nature that made his pulse quicken, though he didn't notice at first. He imagined what it would have been like had he met her in this sort of situation, where she was still technically tied to some idiotic man but severed from him in all but the legal sense, living under his thumb and essentially dead inside until Bucky came along and the fire lit between them. What would it have been like if she had run away from him at every turn, and he had only little tastes of her, tastes that made him crave more even though he he knew that he couldn't have her?

It would have been torture, but the kind that he would have willingly subjected himself to, just as the alternate version of him did in the story.

He didn't know, but now he was reading with a slight furrow to his brow and mouth barely open as he held his fist to it absently. He also didn't notice Summer watching his expression like a hawk and fretting over what it meant.

After the first kiss, the tension didn't fall but instead rose as both characters tried to act like it didn't happen and go back to the way things were. But, like in real life, there was no hope of ever really going back. Neither of them had wanted to, unlike the characters in the story, and he couldn't imagine having to endure that - or enduring any of this.

Finally, the story culminated with a very long scene that began with Summer's character having a fight over the phone with her still-absent husband that sent her on an angry spiral directly into her barn. As soon as the barn came into the story, he had a very strong suspicion that he was quickly approaching the part that Summer was so nervous about. And he wasn't wrong.

His character talked her down from her barn-trashing rage. She calmed down and confided things in him that she had never told anybody else. For a moment, all was well, except that it wasn't. The husband would be back in a few days, and she couldn't bear to go back to the way life had been, and she wanted one last taste of what she couldn't have before she lost her chance for good.

Her character kissed his for the first time, and if he really stopped to picture it, he could see it as clearly as anything else in his mind. Her timidness as she pulled away apologetically, and his lack of restraint as he grabbed her and kissed her with a palpable fierceness.

He could feel the control snap within the story, and for the duration of it, he did not move. In fact, he barely breathed, and he found that he was not prepared in the least for what came next.

All of the little teases, flirtatious remarks, smoldering and often ignored desires, and completely consuming passion that had been built up since the very first scene suddenly had its outlet in the fictional barn, as both characters mutually agreed to stop running and to just give in. That would have been enough to make him dizzy in itself, but then Summer had made it all so meticulously detailed and her character so inexperienced despite being married and his so eager to show her what she had been missing that it added an extra component to the already-unbelievable scene.

He had to wonder if she had thought about all of the things that would drive him the most crazy and then added them in sheerly for that purpose.

She dragged out every detail in excruciating precision, from the first time his hand brushed down her breast over her dress to how her fingertips tracing down his metal arm made its clicking sounds become faster and louder. Despite the passion and the fever, they moved slowly and didn't rush a thing, maybe because they weren't sure if they would ever get to do it again, or maybe because to rush would have just been a shame and, not to mention, served as far less torturous reading.

Just the undressing, the teasing and the kissing and first touches of new places took up a large chunk of the document, and he was sure that she had not missed anything. From the scars on his character's body to the anxiety of the mind of Summer's, it all rang true to what a situation like this between them would mean. Except for the fact that his arm had the ability to vibrate, which was a concept she had not let go to waste.

And all of this before anything truly graphic and intimate had actually transpired between them. If the computer had not been situated the way that it was on his lap, Summer would have been able to see how affected he already was.

He felt something that felt a lot like a blush start to creep up on his neck as he read his character finishing undressing hers as he told her, in specific detail, what he was going to do to her over the course of the night, and what he wanted her to do to him. The thing that killed him was that it was all from her perspective, and it gave him a chance to get into her head in a way that he hadn't before, and the effect was maddening.

His fist over his mouth opened and his hand closed over it instead but he was unaware, enraptured as the words he was reading began to heat up.

The first thing that I'm gonna do is something I get the feeling nobody's ever done for you before."

Her eyes widened slightly, and she stuttered, "You mean... your mouth on my..."

He nodded, sparing her from having to say anything else. "Yes. Am I right?"

She nodded, a blush on her cheeks blooming already, well in advance of the fruition of his words.

"All you have to do is relax," he said, fingers running sweetly through her hair, "and trust me. Can you do that?"

She nodded, though her cheeks were still aflame and even her ears were burning.

"Good," he said, kissing her lips softly. "And then after that..." he trailed down her neck, kissing and touching as he went, "after you catch your breath... you'll be ready for what I'll do next."

In reality, he was well aware, he had been her first for that particular act, just like in this fictional world that she had created. Now, he got to read about it from her perspective, and when his character began, she did not skimp on the details of what it felt like and how stunned and utterly lost to it she was.

Something in his brain started short circuiting, because reading something like this from a woman who was still shy sometimes about certain things and whom he had never heard use certain kinds of terminology for body parts that she had written here - it was almost too much. She had never once gone into detail with him about what certain things felt like, at least not this level of detail, and by the time that part was over, he felt almost like he needed to take a break and get his head straight.

And there was still a lot more to go.

It was him essentially guiding her through an earth-shattering sexual awakening, but the focus wasn't all on her. When her character returned the favor that she had just received from his, and asked for guidance so that she would do it the way that he specifically liked, he did stop reading, because he needed to.

There was a recurring theme that hadn't escaped his notice. She described in incredibly thorough detail every sound that his character made, from their first kiss to now this much more intimate act, and he hadn't been prepared to realize the sort of effect that his unashamedly vocal nature had on her. Perhaps it was just because of how caught up he was when he was that vocal in real life, but he had simply never realized how much she loved it and how absolutely crazy it drove her.

Now that he knew this... not to mention how he also knew the effect that filthy words apparently had on her... he was already planning how to use this to his advantage, in between trying to keep his cool.

He looked up at the ceiling, the wall, everywhere but the computer screen as he took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

"What? What's wrong? Do you hate it? Oh God, you -"

He shook his head, holding up his hand so she would stop rambling, but he couldn't physically speak, so he just drew a deep breath and kept going.

But it didn't get any easier.

Her character's paltry and rather sad sexual history with the only man she had ever been with left her having never been on top before. This was the next thing that was remedied, as the two characters finally, finally, neared the main act.

"Summer, sit up straight."

She looked at him a little uneasily despite how badly she wanted to just ride the hell out of him, lying on top of him with her chest pressed to his, but he kissed her to reassure her and then murmured a breath away from her lips, "Take what you want from me."

A shudder tore through her at those words, and with his words echoing through her head, she slowly sat up, ignoring the shyness that would only get in the way of her finally getting what she wanted tonight.

Bucky almost stopped reading again, but he didn't. He kept going, devouring each word, then unconsciously bit down on his index finger as his hand came over his mouth again once he moved down two more paragraphs.

It was everything she had imagined it to be in her head, but better. The power, the control that was within her grasp, the way that he looked up at her and touched her as her mouth dropped open more and more, her sounds growing louder and louder along with his. She moved steadily faster and faster, and then his hands grasped her hips and angled her just barely differently, and she nearly screamed as..."

He didn't look away this time, but he did close his eyes and suddenly realize that he was biting his finger. He dropped it, took another deep breath, and soldiered on, the initial excitement that this part of the story had caused now bordering on painful, desperate, uncontrollable need.

He wouldn't dare look her way, because if he did, he knew that he would rip the pillow away from her and pounce, and he was determined to finish the story regardless of what it did to him.

Again, reading from her perspective proved utterly illuminating and so incredibly maddening. He knew that she liked being on top, but just like before, he was not prepared for the details, for reading in such shameless detail what it felt like and how it drove her crazy, and by the time his character had flipped her over on the pile of hay that all of this was happening on, he hoped with everything he had that it would be over soon because he wasn't sure he could take much more.

But there was more, quite a bit more, because like him in real life, his character had a fondness for dragging things out and making them happen over and over.

By the time that the end did come, he thought that he might as well, so he took one more break to stare at the wall for a bit.

Luckily, there was one more scene following that one, of the morning after and all of the sleepy, calm sweetness that came with it. It was a short scene, and he hoped that it would help calm him down, but it didn't. At this point, maybe nothing would.

The story finished on a sweet but open-ended note, as the two characters decided to stay together and face whatever the future held together. He read the last part twice, trying to buy some more time, but it was a moot point.

"... Are you done?" Summer asked when she saw that he was scrolled all the way to the bottom. "... You are done."

He sat and stared blankly at the screen for a moment, trying to show some semblance of self control. But Summer put the pillow down a bit and then inched closer, asking, "Are... you okay? Did you hate it? You kind of... look like you hate it. Oh God. You hate it."

He let out a deep breath and then dragged his hand over his face, unable to form words to dispute her ridiculous assumption and still trying to... hold it together.

He let his head drop back slightly against the bed, hand still over his face, and with the other one, he pushed her computer off of his lap. If he knew her at all, he knew where her eyes would immediately go, and that would put to rest any bit of doubt in her head if he had liked the story or not.

"... I'm sorry, it was probably weird and I don't know, I just thought it would be..."

Silence.

"Oh."

Now that he knew that she understood, he let his hand drop and then drew in a deep, steadying breath, then exhaled, still afraid to even glance her way.

"Um... do you... want some help with... that?"

"I need a minute," he muttered before getting up and out of the bed, away from her and away from impending embarrassment, taking temporary refuge in the bathroom.

First he paced a little, walking back and forth and trying to think of anything he could that would make him calm down.

Steve in tights. He'd gotten so use seeing that one, though, that it was the same as saying the sky was blue, so he switched to something else.

Stark in a... dress? Nothing? He squinted at the ceiling, becoming legitimately angry that this was the best he could come up with.

Grandma. Then he paused. ... What did Grandma even look like?

Giving up, he turned on the faucet as cold as it could go and dumped as much as his hands could cup on his face, his hair, even the back of his neck, which did precisely nothing. Nothing got the images out of his head that Summer had put there.

He was screwed. If he could even make it to being screwed.

---

She was in shock when she watched him all but run into the bathroom, wondering how he could even stand up straight given his current... obvious ... condition, and how he hadn't just tipped over and fallen on his face as soon as he stood up.

And even if that was a slight exaggeration, nothing could stop her from smiling like an idiot and falling back on the bed in sheer happiness and overwhelming relief.

He liked it. He liked it a lot.

She would wear his reaction as a badge of honor and pride until her dying day.

Then, on a surge of sudden confidence and leftover courage from the wine, she suddenly sat up with a fantastic idea. She just had to do it fast, before he came back out.

First she wrestled off her shirt, then took her hair down from a messy ponytail it had been in ever since she had decorated for his birthday with one hand while her other reached behind and tried to undo her bra. She heard some vague noise from the bathroom, so she suddenly went faster and flung the bra off, and in her haste to then get her jeans off, fell off the bed. She cursed and got them off while she was still on the floor, then scrambled back up to the bed, tossed her underwear somewhere, and then laid down.

Then she faced the dilemma of how exactly to position herself. After a lot of hurried switching back and forth, she opted for lying on her side, head propped on her hand and facing the bathroom, since that would give him the best view.

She almost - almost - lost her nerve, but then the door opened and she realized there was no going back. She bit her lip and then waited, and when she saw him first walk out, he was drying his face off with a small hand towel, thus not looking. Of course.

And he didn't look as he walked, because he seemed to be trying not to look at her on purpose.

She rolled her eyes and cleared her throat. He dropped the towel down a bit and looked at her, then almost tripped over his own feet as he dropped the towel to the floor, jaw dropping and some kind of choking noise rather than words coming out.

Inside, she was screaming with glee.

"That... that's... not helping," he managed to choke out.

She just dropped her eyes down below his belt and replied, "I can see that." Then she sat up as gracefully as she could, swinging her legs off the side of the bed as her feet hit the floor, and she motioned for him to come closer. "You should let me help you with that while it's still your birthday."

His jaw clenched under the weight of his strained self control, he walked to her, eyes sweeping over every inch of her, and he shed his t-shirt along the way. Once he was within her reach, she pulled him forward by the belt loops of his jeans and smiled up at him as he stared down at her, his expression dazed and heated and utterly serious as she started undoing his belt.

But his hand covered hers and gently pushed it before she could get anywhere, and then suddenly he was laying her down on her back and kissing her, keeping his weight off of her and deliberately not letting himself rub against her as he moved her up the bed. His kiss was deep but shaky with restraint, and when he pulled away, his forehead to hers, he looked down at her and smiled as he murmured, "You're amazing."

She smiled happily, her fingers in his slightly damp hair as she replied, "I'm so relieved that you liked it, you have no idea."

He shook his head. "I loved it. I love you," he kissed her on her lips, then her cheek, and before he reached the spot under her ear, he added, "So much."

She moaned softly as he kissed down her neck, and then when he lifted his head to look in her eyes again, she wasn't prepared for the level of sheer wonder and adoration in his eyes, like she was some kind of goddess and he utterly unworthy.

"Happy birthday," she said a little teasingly, watching a grin spread across his lips just before he kissed her again.

"Thank you," he whispered, and she knew that he wasn't thanking her just for the story or just for the celebration, but for all of it, and it made all of the effort and the panicking and the anxiety and the mental anguish well worth it. Natasha had been right after all.

They kissed slowly, moved and touched slowly, not just because it was what he needed at that moment to keep himself together but because she needed it too. Like in the story, there was no need to rush, and as much as she liked the faster, slightly rougher stuff sometimes, there was nothing better or sweeter than lazily intense times like these.

She waited until she finally had his jeans off and he had rolled them over so that she was on top before she grinned down at him and asked, "So if I wrote a sequel, would you read it?"

"I'll read anything you ever write," he replied, reaching up and moving her hair over one shoulder. "Just... warn me next time."

"Wouldn't have been as fun," she pointed out, lowering herself down to kiss his neck.

His fingers of his left hand tangled in her hair as he asked, "... When's your birthday?"

She paused and raised her head, looking at him a bit suspiciously. "In a few months." She paused again. "Why?"

"Just curious," he shrugged innocently. Problem was, she knew nothing was ever innocent with him.

"... You're not gonna tell me, are you?"

He shook his head, then bit his lip and flipped them over again, pulled her leg up and hooking it over his hips as he replied, "Wouldn't be as fun."

Then he swallowed any possible retort with a searing kiss, and she let it go, giggling against his mouth and letting her mind go utterly blank as they both worked to make the very most of the twenty minutes left until midnight.

A/N: So! :) Originally this chapter was planned much differently, but in light of March 10th being Bucky's canon birthday, it turned out rather long and not even slightly resembling what I originally had planned, which was fine with me because I'm quite happy with this :D My undying thanks to midnightwings96 who so much of this chapter is owed to because I am just as bad as my OC here with gift ideas, even for fictional people, and the whole story-as-a-gift thing (and Steve's gift) was all her idea, as was basically the entire chapter. So. Much praise to her, as always :D

Now, as for this week's "surprise" lol. The very minute I settled on what Summer would write for Bucky, I immediately realized that I wanted to write it out myself and post it alongside this chapter because as fun as it was to have Bucky read the story and see it from his perspective, this is just one of those things that I pretty much just had to write out. So I did, and it is quite long, and I enjoyed writing it so much that it was seriously hard to stop. Like. I cannot overstate how much I loved it. So, after I post this chapter, I'm going to post it as an AU oneshot, so look for it either here in the Cap section or on my profile :D It is called Fire and Whiskey, like this chapter said (hee hee), and it is a nice little change of pace and a glimpse of what may have been had these two characters met under vastly different circumstances. I only hope that you all like reading it as much as I liked writing it. I shall be anxiously awaiting any feedback I'm lucky enough to get :D

Thank you guys so much for your reviews and for sticking with me week after week, putting up with these giant chapters I throw at you. I love you all tons and tons :D See you all next week, and I apologize for this week's eye strain :)))