Chapter Text
Bucky moves into the Avengers compound, and for the first couple of weeks he tries to get a handle on his new teammates. It's not that he doesn't want to make friends, it's just that-- well, given his extensive, convoluted and somewhat painful history, it's pretty hard.
Steve is okay, of course. Steve's always okay, always there for Bucky. He's glad he has him back now, otherwise attempting to function in this world would drive him crazy. Sam's okay, too; once Bucky gets to know him. Colonel Rhodes seems to be okay as well. Natasha would be okay, if only she didn't remind Bucky of so much, if only she didn't represent something too familiar-- a chunk of history that he doesn't see reflected in Steve. They have a similar past. Their paths may very well have crossed during the Cold War. But Nat found a way out; she started over. And Bucky?
Bucky was dragged back into the ice, to start over again in a more painful way but never really move on.
She's a relic of a bygone era refitted and developed for a new age, and she feels pretty far away from him.
So he tries to work on getting to know the others as well, taking it one member at a time instead of trying to fit in with all of them all at once. But you don't pick up a lot of people skills if your only interaction with them over seventy years is following orders and putting bullets in brains.
Not to mention, some of the Avengers are a little beyond Bucky's comprehension.
There's Vision. In his assessment of the Avengers, Bucky usually skips trying to understand this one, focusing only on the essentials. Android. Synthetic. Mind gem, whatever that is. Sentient. British accent. Red and green 'skin.' Next.
The twins, he's told, were Hydra experiments too. And soon it seems to him that not all things Hydra creates end up monsters, sometimes they are miracles. There's Wanda. She's got a power set Bucky has never seen before, and honestly, it's still a little hard for him to believe. It's difficult to comprehend as well, but at least Wanda looks like a normal human being should. Besides, she is kind.
Then there's Pietro. He moves fast. He does what he wants. He questions orders. He never sits still. He can't be contained. He won't be controlled. And for some reason, his hair is white.
You don't see that color on a man that age very often. It reminds Bucky of trampled snow, or of crushed hail. Or of wisps of clouds in an otherwise still sky. He wonders why it's like that.
Then it occurs to him that that could be a very good conversation starter, so one day, he asks.
Pietro is quite honestly taken by surprise, and self-consciously runs a hand through his hair, the topic of discussion, and Bucky finds he likes it. Why the hell does he like it?
"It used to be brown, like Wanda's," Pietro explains, and for once, he is slow to speak. "When we first came to Strucker to...you know, to be...well, yeah--" he clears his throat, "He put us through a lot of testing. Different kinds, different levels of exposure to the scepter. It was a lot of stress." He looks at Bucky-- he makes eye contact, and for a second Bucky freezes, not like he used to get frozen, but he freezes in a good way-- "There were side effects."
"The shock turned your hair white," mumbles Bucky.
"Wanda freaked out. She was ready for us to quit when she saw what happened to me," Pietro says with a soft chuckle, and Bucky cannot for the life of him imagine how anyone can possibly chuckle, can possibly move the fuck on from something like that, and he should know how hard it is. But this is Pietro; he's impossible. "I didn't, though. I wanted this so badly." He becomes somber again. "I didn't even know what I'd end up with. So at the end, when I found out I could move fast, I thought..." He shrugs, "could be worse."
Bucky is prepared to close the conversation and leave, thinking Pietro just answered him out of politeness, but again Pietro surprises him. He surprises him by talking, holding Bucky for just a few more minutes longer, and Bucky can't help but stay and listen. His accent, he realizes, makes it an interesting experience.
"Wanda got her powers first, did you know that?" the younger man-- and he is, so much younger-- carries on, with a casual grace and candidness that Bucky has always envied. "At first she wasn't sure if we should, but I talked her into it. Sometimes I think I pushed her, you know?" Pietro's tone carries a tinge of regret. "She felt better about it after her abilities came through, she was so excited by what she could do, even if they were hard to control at first." He smiles, a smile like the sun chasing away storm clouds. "I was so proud of her for that. She's always been strong for both of us. I got excited to see what would become of me after, I didn't care how hard it would be."
"There's always a price with these things," Bucky hears himself saying, and Pietro looks up.
"Yeah," he says. "I guess. Like I said, it could have been worse."
There is a moment-- a real moment-- when their eyes meet and Bucky's not sure if he can read Pietro's because he hasn't had much practice looking people in the eye, but one thing is for sure: those eyes, they don't know the meaning of fear.
"What do you think of Bucky?" asks Pietro, lying in bed that evening with his feet up on the headboard. On the opposite side of the room is Wanda, on her own bed, brushing her hair.
"Bucky, Steve's friend Bucky?"
"No, Bucky from the orphanage in Novi Grad." Pietro rolls his eyes and sits up, "Of course, Bucky Steve's friend."
Wanda shrugs. "He's okay."
"You ever looked into his head?"
"No, that would be rude."
Pietro stares up at the ceiling. He doesn't know what to make of the encounter with the super-soldier earlier, if it was somehow uncomfortable or awkward. It should have been, but Pietro...enjoyed it? Appreciated it?
"We talked today," he tells Wanda.
"Oh yeah?" She puts the brush down. "What did you talk about?"
"He asked me why my hair is white."
Wanda laughs. "Oh, my God. He did? I don't know why I find that funny. It is so cute!" she grins at Pietro.
Pietro grins back, "He was just curious, I guess."
"So what did you say?"
"I told him everything." He pauses. "You know what he said?"
Wanda makes a wry face, "What?"
"'There's always a price with these things,'" Pietro recites. "That's what he said."
Wanda shrugs again, now impressed. "That sounds very wise."
"He might actually be very wise," says Pietro. "He's lived over a hundred years and through all sorts of wars, you know."
"Yes," Wanda says, "I know." Then she asks, "So what do you think of Bucky?"
Pietro doesn't say anything for a while. He lies back down and folds his hands over his stomach and looks up at the ceiling.
"He's not bad," is all he says at last. "He's actually just a guy."
"Mm-hmm."
"He actually has very nice eyes, have you noticed?"
Wanda looks up. "No, I have not noticed."
"Well, he does," says Pietro with a slight smile. "They're blue."
Steve knows his friend needs time, so he tries to give it to him, refraining from coercing him into hanging out with the others if he doesn't want to. After all, Bucky's good in the field; confident, reliable, consistent, obviously used to taking orders. When things wind down and the Avengers come home at the end of another day saved to bicker and squabble and tease, an inevitable phenomena that occurs whenever too many people who are too different live in under the same roof, that's when he's not so sure of himself. That's when he doesn't know how to function.
A couple months after he moves in, Sam puts 'Mac & Cheese Night,' to be held every second Tuesday of the month, into effect. The first Mac & Cheese night is a delectably messy affair, as could only be expected with any cooking that Wanda and Vision are even remotely involved in, and the smell draws every Avenger away from whatever they were doing and into the dining room.
On his way up, Pietro speeds past the open door of the armory, where a single light indicates that someone's still down there. He backtracks, finding Bucky cleaning his guns. Pietro watches him disassemble the parts carefully, methodically, as if it's second nature, and maybe it is. Those hands, one metal, one an ordinary flesh color, work with precision, almost gently, as gentle as a man like him can afford to be.
He taps on the door, left ajar slightly. "Hey."
Bucky looks up, eyebrows raised in slight surprise, "Hey. Uh, what?"
Pietro jabs a thumb over his shoulder, "Mac & Cheese? Don't tell me you don't want some of that."
"Is that what that smell is?"
"Yeah," says Pietro with a grin, as if it should be obvious.
Bucky shakes his head. "You know, I'm actually good. Thanks."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
Pietro makes an impatient clack with his tongue. "Everyone's up there except you."
Bucky tries not to look at him, smiling down at the pieces of his gun instead, running the parts through a greasy cloth. "It's fine, really it is."
"Hm," Pietro exhales. He can't keep still; he's already pacing in a small, tight loop outside the door. "Suit yourself."
A gust of wind, a streak of silver, and he's gone.
About an hour later, still in the process of cleaning guns, Bucky receives another visitor. Steve opens the door, holding a bowl of Mac and cheese.
He places it in front of Bucky. "Making sure you get some, 'cause it's going real fast." He looks around, "You know, I underestimated how many guns you actually had."
"So did I," says Bucky, glancing at the ones he has left to take apart, inspect for maintenance and put back together again.
Steve puts a hand on his shoulder. "Have dinner, Buck. You don't have to have it with us, I understand that. But...just have it." He gestures to the bowl. "It's good stuff, you won't regret it."
Bucky nods. "It actually smells great. Thanks."
"Don't thank me," Steve says, exiting the armory. "Thank Pietro. He insisted."
Bucky stays apart from everyone. Pietro's always noticed that, but only now it starts to bother him. He's not sure why it bothers him; maybe it's that glimpse of a person he saw that day when Bucky asked him about his hair that makes him think he shouldn't have to be alone. So he likes it when he sees him in the same room as the others, even if he's just talking to one person at a time.
He notices that Bucky likes plums, and that the plums are always the first to go from the fruit bowl in the common area.
The next Mac & Cheese Night comes, and again the dining area is crowded, noisy, messy. Again Bucky avoids the trouble. He finds something else to do in the armory and only sneaks upstairs to grab a plum, but when he reaches into the fruit bowl in the dark and empty common room there are no goddamn plums when he was sure there were still some goddamn plums and it feels like a bad dream. It annoys him, irrationally, because it's become like an unspoken rule in the HQ that the plums belong to Bucky. He's wondering who could have possibly taken them when somebody joins him.
"Looking for these?"
Pietro's got two plums in one hand, holding them up as he's standing in the doorway to the dining room, which is already packed.
"Actually, yeah," Bucky says, wary of why Pietro would be fooling around with him; but there's a lot behind the guy's behavior he can't explain as it is. He's not sure whether to find it amusing or annoying at the moment; after all, his plums are involved. "Can I have them now?"
Pietro's grin is mischievous, aggravating. "Why don't you join us outside first?"
"Still don't feel like it."
"Aw, come on."
He sighs. "I think it's better if you just leave me alone."
Pietro shrugs. "Do you really want to be alone?"
Bucky's frustrated at how he's unable to answer, but the uncomfortable look on his face must get through to Pietro somehow, because when he speaks again, his tone is softer.
"Join us. You're an Avenger too."
Bucky just shakes his head. "Too many people."
Pietro makes an offended noise. "You never have that problem in the field."
"That's not the same." He looks away, unsure of how to feel. Bucky doesn't want to join the others for dinner, but at the same time, he doesn't mind if Pietro, only Pietro, even if he did take his plums, stays with him. What kind of feeling is that? This is nothing he was ever trained for.
"You think they'll be scared of you?"
Bucky tries to look Pietro in the eye. "Don't I scare you?"
"I've technically come back from the dead. Nothing scares me." Pietro scoffs. Then he says, "You know we're not so different?"
"What makes you say that?" We are different, kid. You're liquid metal, always moving and flowing, and I'm rusted, sedentary. I can't change.
"All this," Pietro says, gesturing to himself, and for a second Bucky's attention is caught by the long-sleeved top that hugs his torso so unbelievably well, "the stuff Wanda and I can do came from Hydra too. Like you." He puts his hands in his pockets. "So I don't mean to be rude, but you're not the only one with issues."
He starts to walk away, but Bucky says "I didn't ask for mine."
Again Pietro shrugs. "Just because we signed up for ours doesn't mean it still didn't come with baggage. Side effects, remember?"
He runs a hand through his hair again, gives Bucky a meaningful look and speeds off.
Bucky is left alone, like he wanted, with only the plums on the table for company.
Pietro leaves him be, for the most part. He's told off by Wanda shortly after the Plum Incident, admonished that perhaps he has, as usual, been rushing things. Just because Bucky straight-up asked him what was up with his hair didn't necessarily mean he's ready to be completely social. She tells him he needs his space for now.
"I know that being around so many people at once can be overwhelming," Wanda says, "even if you're not telepathic."
She's right; she usually is about thoughts and feelings and those kinds of things. So Pietro backs off. He doesn't talk to Bucky or try to get him to join the next Mac & Cheese night.
But he does insist on keeping some left over for him, and he does always anticipate the night Bucky might actually be ready to show.
There's a week when, a couple of months later, things get crazy hectic. The team is split up to fly different missions across the world then, so they don't see a lot of each other.
Bucky and Steve's mission takes longer to complete than expected, so they're the last ones to come home; at the end of the week, in the dead of night when the headquarters and quiet and everyone's well into their long-overdue rest.
Steve goes to bed almost at once, murmuring a tired but appreciative goodnight to Bucky and heading upstairs. Bucky heads for the fridge.
When he opens it, he finds, among other things, two sloppily-cut slices of chocolate cake in a plastic container labeled 'For Steve And Bucky.' And that's how Bucky remembers, and realizes, that they've missed the twins' twenty-third birthday celebration.
He takes one slice of cake and carries it to the common area, intending to eat it in peace on an empty couch, but he finds that the room is not empty and the couch is taken by a long, lean form with silver hair illuminated in the dim light.
"Pietro?" It occurs to him he's never said the name before. He tries not to trip over the unfamiliar syllables but finds himself managing the pronunciation anyway, perhaps something left over from when he used to speak Russian and not English. "Why are...why are you up?"
"You mean why am I still up?" mumbles Pietro. "Well, uh, call me childish, but...I can't exactly sleep well if I'm alone in the room."
"Why? Where's Wanda?"
He chuckles softly. "Stargazing with Vision."
Bucky enters the room further. This is too weird for him. He hasn't spoken to Pietro since the Plum Incident, though he's wanted to, and now it's a little awkward.
"Hey, uh, happy birthday," he mumbles. "I'm sorry we missed it."
"It's fine. Glad to have you guys back. How'd it go out there?"
"Nothing we haven't seen before." Bucky takes a chance. "Can I join you?"
Pietro looks a little surprised, but he says "Sure."
He folds his legs so Bucky can sit on the opposite side of the couch. Bucky takes a bite of the cake, and it tastes delicious. Pietro watches him, and he's not really sure what keeps him watching, but it must be the movements of Bucky's jaw, or the way he keeps his head bowed forward slightly, or the fall of his long hair over his eyes.
He finds he likes the color of Bucky's lips.
"Are you okay?" Pietro asks, unexpectedly.
Bucky looks up. "I'm...fine. Why do you ask?"
Pietro just shrugs. "To be honest, I'm never really sure with you. You don't exactly...talk."
He hopes he hasn't crossed a line, like he came so close to with the Plum Incident, but Bucky actually says "I'm fine. I promise."
"Well, good."
There's a pause. "I think you're wrong," says Bucky.
"About what?"
"When you said we weren't so different." Bucky looks right at him. "We are different. We may have come from the same place, but you came out, I dunno, better."
Pietro chuckles. "Thanks. That's nice."
"You fit in okay with the rest," Bucky mumbles. "Make it look so easy."
Pietro leans forward. "Is that what's keeping you apart from the others?"
Bucky doesn't answer.
Pietro exhales, kind of impatiently, kind of sympathetically. "You know, it was hard for us at first. Going back to Novi Grad after we got our powers. Our neighbors, the people we lived next to for years, they looked at us different. With fear."
"How'd you deal with that?"
"We helped," Pietro says simply. "We showed them we were still people, even if we were different now. We got their trust back." He looks at Bucky. "You were right. There's always a price with these things." He pauses. "But sometimes, I think, the debt wears off and you get to go be whoever you want to be."
Bucky shakes his head. "I think I might just be another old man too set in his ways to change."
He can see a twinkle leap into Pietro's eyes. "Not that old."
From the window they can see Wanda and Vision walking together down the concrete path to the HQ, a spring in both of their steps. Bucky can't be sure in this light, but they seem to be holding hands.
Pietro gets up. "Yeah, that's my cue to go."
Bucky stands too, having finished the cake. He turns to Pietro.
"Thanks," he says simply.
Pietro smiles. "For what?"
Bucky shrugs. He gestures with the plate, "Cake. Talk. Mac & Cheese. Asking me to hang out. Even if I don't always have the most favorable responses." He looks up, "I know it must take a lot for a guy who always moves so fast to be so patient with an oldster like me."
He expects some sort of flippant, even sarcastic, remark, but again, Pietro doesn't do as he expects. He actually softens, becomes more somber and tender as he moves closer. Like he might actually give a shit, like he might actually care about Bucky.
"You know," Pietro says, "Steve really wants you to be a part of the Avengers. Not just the team, the...whatever this is. The family, I guess." He folds his arms, as if trying to keep warm. "He really does. You'll try, right?"
Bucky nods. "I will. If that's what he thinks."
"Don't just do it for him," says Pietro. He lingers for a bit, then says, "Goodnight, Bucky."
He leans in and kisses his cheek, and is gone in a blur before Bucky can say or do anything. A few seconds later, a dull, faint crack informs him that he's gripping the plate so hard with his metal fingers that it's broken in half.
And rather than feel annoyed, or violated, or even confused, Bucky realizes that he actually feels...good. Solid. Certain. Safe.
Pietro, he thinks, really is some kind of miracle.
Bucky takes what he said to heart. The next time Mac & Cheese Night rolls around, he decides to participate.
You can't go into a war without backup, and even if this isn't a war, Bucky looks around for the ones he knows won't let him down. Steve is there, of course, welcoming Bucky with a smile, telling him he's glad he came, handing him a bowl, and already the knot in Bucky's stomach loosens. Then Sam's coming up to him with a clever remark and Bucky finds himself snarking back and when Sam laughs, he starts to think hey, this isn't bad, I can do this. He nods at Nat, smiles at Wanda, thanks Vision when the android serves him a bowl of steaming macaroni, and eats.
Pietro sidles up to him, broad shoulders and blue eyes and a gentle grin, and for a second, Bucky's thrown.
"Hey," he says. "So here you are at last. I'm glad you came."
Bucky can see Steve smiling from the corner of his eye.
"Yeah," he replies, returning the grin. "So am I."