No. 72

Prompt: Marvel movies, Steve Rogers/ex-Winter Soldier, come with me and just forget the world
http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/690442.html?thread=90808586#t90808586

Steve found the ex-Winter Soldier on a Tuesday morning, hanging around the museum display about Bucky Barnes. He made sure to approach loudly, say, "Hey," as casually as he could, but the stranger with his best friend's face still started sharply and turned, looking hunted.

But when he said, "Steve?" he sounded plaintive, almost frightened, the way Bucky had when they were kids and one of them had a nightmare during a sleepover, and Steve couldn't help but close a hand around his wrist and tug.

"Come with me."

"But –"

"Just forget the rest of the world." Steve bundled Bucky into his car, and they drove, far from the city both of them knew, till the urban skyline gave way to country horizon. Steve found a house in a small town, a fixer-upper that he could buy for cents on the dollar because the thing was a foreclosure, and he bought it in cash on the spot. (Being dead for as long as he had while his accounts accrued interest for decades plus combat pay with SHIELD made for a pretty penny.)

The real estate agent looked askance at Steve's shadow, the bulky man who held himself like he wanted to be as small as he could and was possibly missing an arm. Steve explained, calmly, that his friend was a veteran, and that made the real estate agent warm up considerably, but Bucky barely said a word to the woman.

Once the deed was in hand, Steve set about fixing the house. He and Bucky made camp - sleeping bags, propane stove, canned food - in the living room, and for months they worked side-by-side in near silence. It took them a while, but soon they found a rhythm to working together, maneuvering in small, awkward spaces and sharing tools. Bucky stared at each tool like he was trying to read a book in a foreign language, and Steve despaired of him ever recovering the handy-man dexterity he once had with a hammer or a wrench.

For the first few weeks, the neighbors avoided them, but then one day the doorbell rang - it was one of the first things Steve fixed, after watching a YouTube video about it - and a woman was there with a Tupperware container full of home-baked cookies.

She was Baptist and a widow and constantly chattered on about the seemingly endless church activities and socials she was involved in (and invited them to), but she didn't blink at the way Steve looked at Bucky sometimes, and when the weather turned colder, she even brought over a hand-knitted sweater with a little closed sleeve for Bucky's missing arm. She also brought over lots and lots of home-cooked food that could be stored in their little freezer and easily reheated in their little microwave, and even though Steve had demonstrated his superhuman strength more than once, she occasionally sent her grandson over to shovel their driveway and sidewalks.

And slowly the ramshackle little house became a home, and Steve and Bucky became part of the neighborhood, and the only people who ever knocked on their door were well-meaning neighbors, and none of them mentioned SHIELD or the Avengers even though more than one of them had recognized Steve.

When Bucky finally kissed him, Steve hoped the world had forgotten them and would never think of them again, because they were where they were supposed to be, and they would never leave.