Work Text:
Steve has been staring at the succulent on his kitchen counter for well over ten minutes now. He huffs, and once again consults the musty old copy of House Plants for Dummies he checked out from the library. The book said to keep the plant away from direct sunlight but not somewhere too dark, but no matter where Steve put it the little plant stubbornly remained a sickly yellow rather than the vibrant green the book promised.
Steve turns it a quarter-inch to the right, and idly wonders if he should have gotten a fake plant instead, one of those plastic things like the ones dotted around SHIELD's New York offices. They'd looked so realistic that Steve hadn't realised they were fake until he'd accidentally knocked one over and it had popped out of its pot, no roots or damp soil, just some loose gravel. At the time, it had just been yet another thing that confounded and frustrated him about the twenty-first century, but having spent the last three weeks vainly caring for a real plant that seemed determined to die, Steve is starting to get the appeal.
Deciding he's had enough of house plant wrangling for one day, he straightens up, rolling his tense shoulders. As he moves towards the fridge, his mind turning to last night's takeout leftovers, he hears something, faint and coming from outside.
Steve pauses and cocks his head, listening intently. There!
"Steve? Hey, Steve?"
Steve lives on the fourth floor of his apartment building. For a crazy moment, he worries that Tony is back again in the Iron Man suit, come to kidnap Steve from off of his balcony and fly him to some little-known diner downtown for burgers, or a video-game tournament he'd set up at the Tower, or some other shenanigans he cooked up when he was bored. But no, that isn't Tony's voice, and there's no tell-tale whine of the suit's repulsors to accompany it.
Steve cautiously moves to the door leading onto his balcony and opens it, gingerly.
The voice sounds again. "Steve! Hey, could you, er, sorry about this-"
The voice is his downstairs neighbour, Bucky. Steve strides out and leans over his balcony far enough so he can look into the balcony below his, in which stands Bucky, looking both sheepish and relieved.
"Hey man, could I ask for a favour?"
***
Steve had first met Bucky two weeks after he'd first moved into the building. After he'd been, well, defrosted, he'd bunked at SHIELD's living quarter for a while, coming to terms with what he'd lost and how much had changed since he lost it. Eventually, however, the effect of living in a place where everybody stared at him like he was a circus attraction and treated him like he was made of crystal and set to break at any point had made his skin crawl, and he'd starting apartment-hunting as soon as they'd cleared him for living by himself.
Bucky had been the third neighbour he'd met properly, after Mrs Lewisham and her two dogs down the hall and Simran, who had accidently locked herself out on the second day after he moved in. Steve had stepped into the elevator, one hand full of a bag of groceries and the other still in gauze and plaster after a tricky mission in Beirut. There had been a young man in a dark red hoodie waiting inside.
"What floor?" the man had said, hands on the buttons.
"Fourth, please. Thanks".
Red Hoodie pressed the scuffed number four button. Number three was already lit up. Steve nodded to it while the elevator shuddered to life.
"You're on three?"
"Yeah, I live at number eight. I'm Bucky," Red Hoodie, or Bucky, offered his hand, and then realised Steve's predicament and awkwardly patted the hand holding the grocery bag.
"Bucky? What's that short for?" Steve asked, mouth curling.
"Buchanan. It's more a childhood nickname that stuck than a deliberate choice on my part. You're new, right?"
"I am, yeah. I'm Steve, I live at number eleven."
"Oh! So you're directly above me." Bucky grinned, and Steve felt his brain momentarily turn to sludge and leak out of his ears at the sight. "Good to know. Sorry if I'm ever loud, I know the walls and floors are thin in this place."
Steve pulled himself out of whatever rabbit hole Bucky's dimples had driven him down. "Yeah, no, don't worry about it, you haven't-" He was spared by the doors, squeaking open onto Bucky's floor. Bucky gave him another smile and headed towards his front door.
"Let me know if you ever need to borrow a cup of sugar or something!" Steve called after him as the doors shut, and then immediately regreted it. Borrow a cup of sugar? Do people even do that anymore? Did people ever do that in the first place? He pulled a face at himself and set himself to the tricky task of unlocking his front door without the full use of either hand.
Since then, Steve has only seen Bucky briefly, as they ride the elevator down to work in the mornings or while putting the bins out. For the most part, Bucky exists as the row of ivy and pansies peaking out from below Steve's balcony, the occasional smell of baking, and the memory of one of the few genuine smiles directed Steve's way since he woke up. All until today, when Steve craned his neck to see his neighbour waiting below for him, an apron tied round his waist.
***
"Hey man, could I ask for a favour?"
Steve blinks. "Sure."
Bucky casts a wild look at something within his apartment. "I hate to bother you, but there's this guy pounding on my door and he's shouting for me, and I really know what I should do, but I don't want to answer the door alone." He wrings his hands, eyes flitting back up to Steve. "I've seen him before, I think he followed me home once, and I don't want him to know I'm alone here, so could you come down and just, I don't know, be here while I go talk to him?"
Steve frowns. "He's followed you home before? Who is he?"
"I don't know him, but he knows where I live." Bucky's voice rises in pitch at the end, just verging in hysterical panic. "Could you please come down?"
"Sure, stand back."
"Why, what are you - holy shit!" Bucky yelps as Steve tests his weight against the railing, heaves himself over the edge and swings down onto Bucky's balcony.
Steve smooths out his T-shirt as Bucky gapes at him.
"How? - You're not even winded, holy shit! I meant just go out and come down in the elevator or something -"
"This way, right?" Steve says as he heads towards the front door, a useless question as the layout of this apartment is the same as his. As he nears the front door, he can hear the asshole on the other side of it scratching away at the wood.
"Hey, little pussycat, come on, let me in," the guy croons.
Steve glances back at Bucky, who has trailed after him. "Maybe stay out of sight."
Bucky nods wordlessly and slips into the bathroom. Steve yanks open the door, drawing himself to his full height, and glares at the creep.
"Woah, hey, what the hell?" the guy whines, before Steve snarls in his face.
"Get out."
"What?"
"Get. Out. You have eight seconds to leave the building or I call the cops."
The guy blinks, nervous. "Okay, alright, I'm sorry. I only wanted to have a little chat with him, man, I'm sorry. I didn't know he was taken. Jeez. Alright!" he yelps, as Steve takes a menacing step towards him. "I'm going, I'm going."
"I better not see you back here!" Steve yells after him. He waits until the guy's been gone for a few moments, then turns back into the apartment and closes the door.
Bucky peaks out from his hiding place. "Thank you, so much, wow, you were really scary."
Steve hunches his shoulders in, conscious that Bucky's just witnessed his Captain-America-interrogates-terrorists mode. "It's no problem, Bucky, really. Anytime."
"Yeah, it really helps that you're built like a -" Bucky flushes and falters, "well, at least let me get you a cup of tea or coffee or something. I just made flapjacks, if you want one." He gestures to his apron.
Steve looks at him and thinks about his drab apartment with his dying succulent and a lunch of soggy leftovers. Bucky's home has bright cushions on the sofa and a bookshelf arranged in a rainbow order. It smells like butter and syrup, and it looks actually lived-in, whereas Steve's feels more like a barren hotel suite.
"Flapjacks sound great, thanks."
He follows Bucky into his small kitchen.
"So, do you do parkour or something? That was pretty impressive out there."
Steve sits at the table and accepts the plate Bucky hands to him.
"Something like that." Steve bites into the flapjack and tries to remember when he last ate something homecooked.
"Well, whatever it is that you do, keep doing it." Bucky smirks at him, but his pink cheeks betray him.
Steve chews thoughtfully. When he woke up, SHIELD gave him a basic run down on everything he'd missed. Then Steve had gone away and researched the stuff they'd told him, which led him to research all the stuff they hadn't, too, including the very interesting fact that, nowadays, two fellas could step out together and no one could call for their arrest, or beat them, or fire them. After that, Steve's outlook on the future was brighter.
He watches Bucky lick the crumbs from his lips.
"I think you also offered me coffee?"
Bucky goes to grab a mug, but Steve continues, "The café on the corner does good coffee, we could go there?" He raises his eyebrows, invitingly.
"Oh." Bucky's eyes widen. "Oh! Yeah, sure, let's do that."
Steve finishes his flapjack and stands. "You're a good baker."
He offers his hand, and Bucky takes it.
"And you're quite the knight in shining armour. It's a fairy tale match."
Steve laughs as they head out, something inside him settling for the first time in seventy-odd years.