SOFT STUCKY ONE SHOTS

A prequel of sorts to gold hands, warm heart. Five times Bucky Barnes learns to do something new with his hands and the one time he realises he knew the best thing to do with them all along.

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"Do you think I need a hobby?"

Steve glances up from the newspaper he has spread across the kitchen table to see Bucky wearing a soft frown, the book he'd been reading dog-eared and closed in front of him. He's glaring at it as if it's personally done him wrong.

"You were just reading," Steve points out, "that's a hobby."

Bucky rolls his eyes, the silent 'no shit, Sherlock' conveyed crystal clear in his expression.

"I just feel... I don't know, restless I guess." Bucky shrugs, shoulders falling softly under his worn Henley. "Like I need to be doing something that's not sitting around on my ass all day. Using my hands, y'know?"

Steve gets it. They've been retired all of two months and apart from the odd catch up with Sam, when he's not busy being Captain America, they've tucked themselves away for majority of it. It's been nice, though; a chance to finally make the apartment feel like a home. Now that it is, filled with soft furnishings and antique pieces amongst the new — Bucky's input, he really is more adept to the future — there's not much else to do except be retired. Which is fine for Steve, he fills his time with art, mostly, and teaching himself how to cook. Bucky, however, has found it a little harder to settle.

Steve stands, crosses the kitchen for the coffee pot to refill their mugs. He catches sight of Bucky's legs under the table as he ambles back over, tucked under his chair with his toes curled under the balls of his feet. He sat like that way back when too. A younger Bucky was cocksure and easygoing most of the time but if something was bothering him, he'd curl himself up, as if trying to make himself smaller would help squash the worry. Steve's always found it endearing, especially as he spent so much of his time making up for his size with his attitude. Larger then life, Bucky always called him. Others called it a Napoleon complex.

Bucky looks up as Steve stops beside him, his bedhead and sleepy eyes making a killer combination. It takes all of Steve's strength to fight against the temptation of dragging his love back between their sheets. Instead, he tops up Bucky's mug and places the coffee pot down. Hands free, he offers one out palm up and Bucky's face morphs, his eyes bright as he lets himself be pulled to his feet and swayed across the checkerboard linoleum.

"Dancin' in the kitchen on a Sunday morning, how more cliché can we get, Rogers?"

Steve just hums, tucks his face into Bucky's neck and savours the way his hold tightens, pulling him closer. Bucky clearly hasn't shaved in a few days, Steve's lips brush featherlight over prickly stubble across his jaw, sharp and soft all in one and if Bucky's noticed Steve's been feeding him bigger portions of his recipe experiments, indulging in the new softness of his lover's body, he hasn't said anything.

"You'll find something," Steve murmurs after a lull in conversation. "We got all the time in the world now, sweetheart."

"Didn't I attend one of those life drawing classes with you once, down at the Y?"

"You did. Wouldn't stop whispering about how you'd have posed for me at home for free... and about the size of the model's—"

"Yeah, I remember," Bucky cuts in, grumbling. "Remember him lookin' at you too."

"He wasn't lookin' at anything, saw him leave with the instructor after. You'd have known that if you didn't skip out early."

"I only skipped out because you said you wanted stew for dinner and I had to make it to the good green grocers on Atlantic before they threw out that days waste," Bucky argues, but when Steve looks up, he's grinning. The gentle crinkle of Bucky's eyes and soft grey irises focused solely on him and it makes Steve's heart pulse double-time with something. Love, desire, complete and utter adoration, probably all three and then some. Nothing reminds Steve that they survived more than moments like this, when memories so old but still shared come up and it's a bone-deep level of relief, a nudge at the undercurrent of doubt that they really are here together, with no fight and no war for the first time in almost 80 years.

"I have some charcoals you can use," Steve say quietly, "a spare sketchbook somewhere. Why don't you start with that?"

Bucky nods, his hands skimming along Steve's sides until he's cradling his jaw, like Steve's still five foot something and needs handling carefully. He presses a kiss, barely there but enough for Steve to fall into it, deepen it until he tastes coffee and creamer, sweet honey and savoury sourdough toast.

They keep swaying, there in the kitchen, as Steve sings under his breath and the creaks and hum of the apartment accompany him until Bucky pulls away with a sniff and a smile that reaches his eyes.

"Drawing, huh," he says, going back to his coffee and book now he's satisfied. Now he has a plan. "How hard can it be?"