บท 30: Chapter 30
They spent the next few days holed up in their safehouse, not doing much besides eating, sleeping, and lots and lots of kissing. Maggie was glad she'd found a safehouse before the Fuck You, HYDRA party, because her brain was running on half-capacity ever since she and Bucky kissed. She had just enough brain space on the way to the safehouse to remind Bucky that this was her first time doing anything like this, and they agreed to take things slow.
For days they existed in a romantic fugue state, only really breaking off to speak a few times, mumbling things like "been wanting to do this for a while now," and "do that again". Bucky discovered sensitive spots on Maggie's neck and behind her ears that made her mind melt into a puddle of goo, and she in turn discovered that he liked her hands in his hair, and that he would shiver every time she brushed her lips against the point where his neck met his shoulder.
They fell asleep fully clothed (well, mostly – Maggie had taken the first possible opportunity to get Bucky's jacket and gloves off) on the safehouse couch, limbs tangled and hair in each other's faces. The next morning Bucky woke from a nightmare about falling off the train in 1945, but it turned out that was very easily fixed with a short discussion and then lots more kissing. Over the next two days they learned each other's bodies, breaking off to put together some hasty sandwiches, or pour cereal, and more often than not ended up abandoning the meals in favor of each other. They showered separately, but it was a near thing.
Now that Maggie had worked out how to breathe through her nose, things were a lot easier. They were honest with each other about what they liked and what they didn't, and Maggie checked with Bucky that she was doing things right, as he was the one with experience. He had no complaints.
By the second day, Maggie was already questioning why she'd wanted to go slow. Each touch only invited more; with each kiss her body just wanted another, and another, every part of Bucky with every part of her. Bucky seemed perfectly happy to go at the pace she wanted, his more experienced hands and mouth keeping up with the thoughts and feelings that she sometimes found hard to express. Every now and then they had to slow down, either because Maggie got overwhelmed and didn't know what to do, or because one or both of them got a little too into it and they had to back off, to keep up some semblance of 'going slow.'
Maggie kept waiting for some kind of rational thought to enter her mind, but she existed only in a heady rush of Bucky, and her body discovering new and wonderful things.
In the end, it was Bucky who pulled back for air after who knew how long, and said "Meg, we need to…" he cleared his throat. "We need to talk about this."
Maggie, who had been happily exploring his bottom lip while sitting on his lap on the couch, blinked at him dazedly for a few moments. His hands were on her waist, both metal and flesh, and his torso was warm and solid against her right leg. Her hand had somehow found its way under his shirt and was resting just over his navel.
"Right," she said, and couldn't help the brilliant grin that crossed her face whenever their lips weren't locked. He grinned back. Things had gotten heated very quickly, but when that fell away they were left with their sheer affection for one another. Then they usually started kissing again, and then… well, it was self-fulfilling cycle.
But this time, Bucky was right. It probably wasn't sustainable to do nothing but kiss each other for the rest of their earthly existence.
Maggie cleared her throat, retracted her hand from under his shirt and leaned against the back of the couch, with one arm still slung around his neck. She kept her legs on his.
Bucky kept one hand at the small of her back, but his eyes were a little clearer as he looked at her. His lips were swollen and Maggie noticed a purple mark blooming on his neck. She could feel mirrors of the bruise forming on her own neck.
"Meg," Bucky said, and there was a laughing note to his voice that made her meet his eyes. He'd noticed her ogling his neck.
She grinned unabashedly. "I'm listening!"
"You sure about that?" His grey-blue eyes glinted and his flesh hand slid up her leg to snag her hand. It was very unhelpful for her focus, but she saw his challenge and met it, tangling her fingers with his and arranging her face in the perfect picture of rapt attention. The sun glowed through their papered-over windows, casting a halo over Bucky's mussed up hair and illuminating the sparkling blue in his eyes.
"Alright," he smiled, and then his eyes grew serious. "Meg, I gotta know… was this why you left?"
Maggie sighed, and looked down at their joined hands on her thigh. They hadn't actually talked about it yet, and she supposed it was time to come clean.
"That day I…" she hesitated, and frowned at her lap. "I saw someone who reminded me of a man who… who tried to hurt me, back in HYDRA." Her eyes flickered up to Bucky's, and she could see from the stormy expression on his face that he understood exactly what she meant. She swallowed. "I killed him. Without any orders, and without a second thought."
Bucky worked his jaw. "Meg, you can't feel guilty for that – you recognised a threat and you took it out the only way you knew how."
She sighed. It was going to take a while for her to come to terms with it, but she knew Bucky was right. Of all the people she'd killed, she didn't think she needed to be particularly guilt stricken about him.
"I'm sorry, Meg," Bucky murmured, and in his blue-grey eyes she could see it, his concern and his sympathy and some remaining shreds of anger for the long-dead soldier.
She offered him a watery smile, then took a deep breath. "So I was thinking about that, that day, but there's more." He nodded for her to go on. "I really freaked out… because of this." She gestured between the two of them, and bit her lip. Bucky's eyes softened. "I don't know what normal is. I've been feeling this way for a while, but I only realized what it was a few weeks ago. And I didn't understand." At that she looked up, and noticed that Bucky's eyes had gone soft and sad. She shook her head and squeezed his hand. "I've been pretty much exclusively researching attraction and relationships for the past few weeks, I'm a bit more caught up now."
That made him grin and lean into kiss her. "Of course you did," he said when he pulled away, eyes crinkling. "Particle physics?" he questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Maggie flushed. "What was I meant to say, that I was googling the phrase 'butterflies in my stomach'?"
Bucky grinned again, that dazzling flash of white teeth, and his arm whirred. "Find anything useful?"
"Well…" Maggie bit her lip again. "I sort of came to the conclusion that I shouldn't do anything about… this." That made his grin slip away. "I read that relationships needed stability, mental health, room to grow. And I was scared that we'd become too dependent on each other – a person needs more than just one other person in their life, Bucky, we can't be all things to each other."
Bucky nodded, and she could see him turning it over in his mind. "That makes sense. So what changed your mind?" He lifted their joined hands as illustration.
Maggie took a moment to run her eyes over him, his mussed-up hair, the hickeys on his throat, and the air of easy happiness in his frame. "You make me really happy," she said, and her whole body lit up at the smile that brought to his face. "I realised it was stupid to turn that away."
"Very stupid," He agreed. "Poor decision."
She elbowed him with her free arm and then threaded her fingers into his hair. "But, the problem still remains. So if we're going to do this – and I don't know about you, but I would really like to–" Bucky nodded enthusiastically, and she continued. "Then we need some ground rules."
"Agreed."
In the end it only took them ten minutes to come up with a set of rules – more like guidelines – to make sure that a romantic relationship wouldn't compromise their safety, identities, or their already solid relationship. They agreed that they wouldn't be beholden to each other – if one of them wanted to keep something to themselves, or didn't want to talk about something, the other had to respect that. But they both firmly agreed that there would be no lying.
They were going to keep more or less the same rules around personal contact that they'd had before – asking permission unless they were completely, one hundred percent sure that the other person wanted that contact.
Maggie also pointed out that they couldn't be around each other every second of the day, as they had been for over 48 hours now. She said that they needed some mandated alone time, whether that was splitting up naturally for surveillance, doing activities by themselves, or a simple walk.
"It's probably worth picking up odd jobs if we're going to be staying places for longer," Bucky suggested. "That's time apart, and it'll avoid suspicion."
"Great idea," Maggie said. They'd slid sideways on the couch, so her head was now on the armrest and the side of his face was pressed against the back of the couch. "And… if we think of anything else or if anything else comes up, we'll discuss it then."
Bucky nodded. "Sounds like a plan. We're pretty good at talking about stuff." He winked at her and pinched her thumb, and she dug her toe into his ribs in retaliation.
"We had it pretty good before, all things considered," she said. "Healthy. We need that same respect and trust, but with like, exponentially more kissing."
Bucky nodded sagely. "You are the genius here," he agreed, and slipped forward to hover over her on the couch, their legs hopelessly tangled and their skin crackling wherever they touched.
"Don't forget it," Maggie grinned, her vision filled with his laughing grey-blue eyes and his dark hair. She'd thought that talking about why she'd run away would bring a pall over this new joy they'd found, that acknowledging the new complications in their relationship would make things more difficult. But it seemed all it took was a ten-minute conversation to ease her doubts. She could see some semblance of a future now, despite the fact that they were both on the run and still a little bit crazy.
Bucky closed the short distance to kiss her again, one hand sliding up her leg, over her hip and into the dip at her waist. Maggie looped one arm around his neck and wanted to kick herself – they could have been doing this ages ago. She bit Bucky's lip and grinned at his murmured grumble. She decided she wouldn't punish herself for not doing this sooner – it was happening now, and she was determined to enjoy it.
The next day they packed up their safehouse and got on a bus to Western Australia. They'd been fairly visible, what with the juggling and the dancing and the kissing that leaned towards publicly inappropriate on the dance floor, and they thought it was best to get moving just in case.
They sat at the back of the bus, Bucky by the window and Maggie in the aisle seat. They were surrounded by empty seats, as they'd made sure to book tickets for a bus that would have some passengers on it, but not too many.
It felt strange being in public, calling on her skills as the Wyvern to stay alert, when so much had changed between she and Bucky. It had only been a few days, but something about taking that extra step had changed something between them that couldn't be undone. Not that she wanted to undo it. Their fingers were linked and her left arm pressed against his right, offering each other comfort. But it wasn't like the lazy, exploratory touches they'd shared in the safehouse – now they were both on alert, albeit surreptitiously, monitoring the other inhabitants of the bus and the traffic outside the windows.
Maggie was reading a book, so Bucky was more alert than her, but that didn't stop her from counting how many times each passenger on the bus went to the bathroom. She'd already checked the bathroom for bugs and communication tech, but it paid to be safe.
Maggie stretched her neck and winced – she'd bruised her shoulder that morning, when she and Bucky had fallen off their safehouse couch like a couple of idiots. The bruise would heal soon enough, just as the hickies already had, but it was a reminder that they had to be careful with each other. They'd laughed that one off, but she'd noticed that Bucky was more careful than usual with his metal arm now, when it came to her.
Halfway into the trip, Maggie finished her book – a collection of biographies of female WWII spies and agents, including her Aunt Peggy – and followed Bucky's gaze out the window. It was beautiful here, red sandy deserts fading into thick bush, with the occasional glint of the cerulean blue ocean.
Maggie rested her head experimentally on Bucky's shoulder, and smiled at him when he turned to look down at her, eyebrows raised. "It's your birthday in a few days," she murmured.
Bucky huffed a laugh. "The big nine-eight."
"Mm, you're almost a centenarian. What do you want to do?"
"I don't mind," he said. "Scotch and steaks like last year, maybe. Why, did you have something in mind?"
"Always," she grinned. "You should know that by now."
"Oh, I do. Your mind is terrifying."
That made her laugh, and she knocked her knee against his. Out of the corner of her eye she saw another passenger walk past them to use the bathroom. It was that passenger's third visit, but it was a long trip and they were elderly, so she didn't suspect anything untoward.
"You know," Bucky said, playing with her fingers. "All things considered, you're handling this pretty well."
She rolled her head to look up at him, frowning. "Handling what?"
He squeezed her hand in answer. "Figuring out how you felt, talking about us… all of it. I'm sorry you had to figure it out on your own. When I started wanting something more I was sure that I was going to be asking for something that you didn't understand. But I think you've got a better handle on this than I do."
She grinned again. "Well there's a lot of information out there, once you start looking. But I think mostly it comes from practice, so I'm working on it. Did you have a lot of experience with relationships, before the war?"
Bucky ducked his head. "Uh… not serious ones, exactly."
"You're blushing!" Maggie exclaimed, and lifted her head from his shoulder so she could get the full effect.
"Well, it's… I was a different guy back then-"
"Not so different, surely," she smirked.
"Okay, maybe, but… I'm serious about this, Meg, about you. Maybe if I'd met you in a Brooklyn bar in 1940 it'd be a bit different, but-"
"Oh?" Maggie straightened and pressed her free hand to her chest. "Bucky Barnes, are you saying that you would seduce me and then leave me?"
He was really blushing now, and Maggie was thrilled. "Aw, Meg, c'mon-"
"I'm just teasing," she said, and leaned in to press a kiss to his pink cheek. "You menace, you. I understand." His blush faded a little, and he scowled at her. "We'll figure this out together," she smiled, and that made the scowl fade into a dopey look.
"You're lucky I like you," he huffed, and let her lay her head back on his shoulder. He dropped a kiss onto her hair, and Maggie felt warmth bloom in her chest and melt down to the tips of her toes.
They were on the run, and in hiding, but they'd lived like this for over a year now. With this new piece of happiness in their lives, Maggie could almost imagine that they had a future.
March 10th, 2015
Karratha, Australia
It had only been about a week since the night at the dance hall, but Maggie had resigned herself to the fact that she would forever be wanting to touch Bucky, and be touched in return.
She'd imagined worse fates for herself.
They'd been travelling most of the week, hopping from town to town on the west coast and spending every spare minute wrapped up in each other. They were still ostensibly taking things slow, but Maggie had discovered that she was a very impatient person, when it came to what her body wanted.
They'd settled for now in Karratha, a small city in an arid region, separated from the ocean by salt flats and mangrove forests. They'd found a relatively nice safehouse, a small place with one bedroom and a tin roof, and they were working on finding casual jobs that they could get away with fudging CVs for, and which would keep them from being too exposed to many strangers who would recognise their faces. Though they doubted that anyone would expect to find a former HYDRA assassin in a mining town in regional Western Australia.
But she wasn't going to think about any of that today, because today was Bucky's birthday.
Maggie woke up first, uncomfortable in the early-morning Australian heat. It didn't help that she and Bucky were sandwiched together on one bed, with his metal arm looped under her torso and her face pressed into his neck. Bucky had remarked yesterday that he was impressed by the fact that she didn't seem to need to breathe while asleep, as evident by how deeply she burrowed her face into his skin when they slept together.
They still hadn't gone much further than kissing and a lot of touching, and they'd set up two cheap bedframes with threadbare mattresses in their safehouse, but most nights in the past week had seen them falling asleep together, dropping off in each other's arms. They'd only had a few nightmares between them, and their routine for dealing with that didn't change much when they were in the same bed.
When she woke, Maggie took a moment to smile to herself, and then extricated herself from Bucky's neck, craning her head back to get a look at him. As was true of most people, he looked younger when asleep, his lips slightly parted and his face relaxed. Maggie had a flash-memory of a picture of him with closed eyes and a frozen face. She frowned, placing the memory: Project Leader Peters had given her a file with Bucky's face in it before the second time she fought him. It had had the name: Barnes.
Maggie sighed and brushed away the memory. It was a part of her now, settling in beside her other memories of fighting Bucky in a cage, flying through frozen air, and obeying orders from the Project Leader. But she wouldn't let it taint today, or the sight of Bucky sleeping peacefully, with his metal arm wrapped around her and his eyelashes brushing his cheeks.
"You get a good look?" Bucky mumbled, eyes still closed.
Maggie grinned. "I'm trying, but it's just… your face, you know? Hard to see anything good about it."
Bucky cracked an eye open at that, and the bleary glare he shot her made her laugh. "Please," he grumbled, "You can't resist thi-" he trailed off into a yawn, and Maggie blinked at his tonsils.
"It's true," she said, because it was his birthday, and when he was done yawning she rolled over, lying flat on his torso and propping her chin on his chest. Bucky grunted – an Adamantium-reinforced skeleton was a lot to have unceremoniously dropped on your body first thing in the morning – and lifted his head to look at her.
Maggie grinned at his sleepy features. "How's it feel to be ninety eight?"
Bucky blinked, and his flesh hand reached up to brush her cheek. "So far? Pretty great."
"Sap," she accused, and leaned up to kiss him. When she pulled away, she hesitated at the careful blankness on Bucky's face. "What?"
"Doll," he said, "It's my birthday, and I like you very much."
She squinted at his tone. "But…?"
"But," he shot her an apologetic look. "You have terrible morning breath."
Maggie's hand flew to her mouth, and she carefully sniffed her breath. She grimaced. "That's fair," she said. "Hang on." She rolled off Bucky and jogged to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She was embarrassed, sure, but the idea that she could have something so mundane as morning breath, and have someone like Bucky to tell her about it, was a novelty and a joy that she wasn't going to take for granted.
When she came back into the room she was smiling. Bucky was a little more awake now, trudging through the kitchen and making a cup of coffee. Maggie followed him into the kitchen and hopped up on the counter, watching him grumble at the glowing buttons on the kettle. She liked his half-awake morning rituals, the way he was cranky and barely legible until he had a cup of coffee. He'd apparently been like that in Brooklyn and during the war, too. She liked that about him, that despite all of HYDRA's brainwashing and training, Bucky Barnes was not a morning person.
Bucky caught her grinning at his grumbling, and he scowled at her. It didn't stop him from brushing his hand against her thigh as he walked to the sink, or leaning in for a kiss that tasted of coffee and toothpaste. That kiss turned into two, then three, and Bucky then grumbled that his coffee was cold, but he didn't turn away from her.
Maggie grinned against his mouth. "Are you ready for your presents?"
"Is it warm coffee?" he asked, ducking to kiss her jaw. Maggie laughed, and felt the shape of his smile against her skin.
"It can be," she said, then nudged him until she had enough space to hop down from the counter. She opened the fridge with a flourish, and gestured at the items inside: a half-full bottle of milk, a plastic bag with two premium porterhouse steaks, and a collection of vegetables that would go very well with a steak dinner. Bucky grinned and moved in to kiss her again, but she gave him a stern look, and retrieved the bottle of scotch she'd stashed on top of the fridge.
"Ta da!"
At that Bucky did kiss her, squashing the brown bottle between their chests. "Thank you, Meg," he said, when they came up for air. "It's perfect."
Maggie smiled, and reached up to snag the ends of his hair between her fingers. She bit her lip, and then said: "There's more, but we're going to have this for dinner and I wanted to show you now. Bucky, I…" she frowned, avoiding his gaze by focusing on her fingers in his hair.
"Meg?"
"I'm sorry that it's just me," she eventually bit out, and met his eyes. "I mean, I'm not sorry that I'm here, but… You're used to spending your birthdays surrounded by friends and family, and I'm sorry they're gone." She felt like she knew Bucky's whole family by now, he talked about them so often – his three little sisters, his hard-working mom and his busy dad. Bucky's eyes softened, sadness filtering into his gaze.
"And…" she took a breath. "I'm sorry you can't spend this birthday with Steve, either. I wish you could." That said, she put the scotch on the kitchen counter, watching the emotions play across Bucky's face. She didn't want to make him sad, but she'd needed to say it.
Eventually, Bucky's shoulders sagged a little and he leaned into her. Maggie took his weight, arms wrapping around his chest.
"Me too," he sighed into her hair. They didn't usually spend their time wishing, but Maggie had spent over a year getting to know Bucky, and she got the sense that he was used to having a lot of friends and family around him, and when he couldn't have that, he had Steve. But now he couldn't even have that, because it was just too dangerous.
"What do you think he'd say, if he was here?" Maggie murmured, pressing her palm against his heartbeat.
Bucky huffed a laugh. "Beyond all the obvious things?"
"Sure."
"Probably something corny. He likes birthdays."
Maggie pressed a kiss against his temple. "Let's do something for his birthday, then."
Bucky pulled back and smiled at her. It was a sad smile, but it was there. "That's a good idea." He heaved a sigh, and then squared his shoulders. "You said there were more presents?"
"Well don't look too excited about it," Maggie teased, but her tone was soft.
She'd wrapped his presents this time: a small box covered in dark blue wrapping paper, with an exuberant silver bow on top. Sitting on the creaky floorboards of the safehouse, Bucky raised an eyebrow at the bow and proceeded to carefully unwrap the box, folding the paper and setting it aside. Maggie supposed that habits born in the Depression didn't die easily. She sat cross legged on the floor across from him, and watched him inspect his presents. He peered at the first item, which looked like an oddly clunky set of binoculars, and finally looked up at Maggie for explanation.
"It's called a Virtual Reality Planetarium," she said, showing him how to turn on the device. "You look through the lens and it'll show you what's in the sky around you – there's a bunch of different modes, and you can look at closeups of planets, constellations, galaxies and nebulae. The images were all taken from the Hubble Telescope."
Bucky held the binoculars up to his eyes, and his mouth dropped open. "That's Jupiter!" he exclaimed, pointing straight ahead. Maggie dodged his finger, laughing.
"And," she added, "It also comes with an audio explanation of the things you're seeing." She showed him where to put in the headphones.
Bucky spent the next ten minutes staring through the lenses of his new present, pointing out where each planet was in the sky, and marvelling at the images. Maggie watched him, arms wrapped around her knees, grinning.
"You like it?" she asked, rather unnecessarily, because Bucky hadn't shut up since he'd looked through the thing.
Bucky peeled his eyes away from the lenses and looked at her. "Meg, this is the pinnacle of human invention."
She threw her head back and laughed. "Bucky, no!"
But he was shaking his head. "Nope, I'm convinced. Humanity can't do any better than this."
"Okay, you know there are actual telescopes, though? That you can use to look at the real thing?"
That took the wind out of his sails a little. "True."
She shook her head. "This is just a more portable option." She knew he still had the copy of El Hobbit she'd given him last year, despite the fact that they only had so much room in their bags to carry things from town to town. She'd been a little more weight-conscious this time around.
Bucky grinned and picked up the last part of his present, a metal and leather multi-purpose tool.
"Is this a very small telescope?" he asked, holding it up to the light.
"No," she laughed. "I, uh, built it."
He glanced up at that. "Oh?"
"Yeah, it's a custom-designed tool for your arm." She nodded at the limb in question, gleaming silver in the morning light. "Pretty much everything I could think of that your arm needs for regular upkeep can be done with that tool – it's got torque wrenches, soldering irons, brushes… you name it. A mirror, too, so you can see what you're doing." She trailed off, not sure how to read the dumbstruck expression on Bucky's face.
He swallowed, balancing the tool on his palm and looking from it to Maggie. "How long did it take you to make this?"
Maggie wiped her palms on her sweatpants. "I've been thinking about it for a while. Putting it together only took a couple of days, though, with the right workshop. Is it… okay?" She suddenly had the thought that Bucky's arm was a large source of trauma for him, and it might not have been the smartest idea to bring it up on his birthday.
But she was thinking that one moment, and the next she was wrapped up in Bucky's arms and his mouth was on hers, as he showed her just how okay it was. She climbed into his lap, grinning into the kiss. This was the first thing she'd designed since the fall of HYDRA that she'd been able to manufacture and put into use, and so far she was pretty satisfied with her payment.
When Bucky pulled away, his blue-grey eyes warm with affection, Maggie couldn't help herself:
"I guess it is a pretty handy tool."
Bucky froze. "Meg."
She grinned, her shoulders shaking with contained laughter. "What?"
He looked horrified. "You just ruined it." He shook his head as her laughter spilled out, making her clutch her stomach and fall backwards off his lap. "That was worse than your elephant joke."
"Hey now," she argued, sitting up. "That elephant joke was the first joke I told in twenty years, I think I did alright."
Bucky shook his head again. "So what's this thing called?"
Maggie cocked her head. "Uh, nothing yet. I didn't think about naming it."
"Hmm." He flipped the tool over and flicked out a few attachments. He found the precision knife, raised an eyebrow at it, and then kept inspecting it. After a moment, he froze. "Oh no."
"What?"
"Meg," he said, eyes darting back and forth. "I've just thought of a terrible name for it."
Maggie scooted closer and pressed her hands together. "Tell me!"
"A Swiss Army Knife."
She deflated a little. "Bucky…" She knew the name hadn't been in circulation in the war, but she was sure he'd heard of them by now.
"No, Meg-" he looked up at her, and a faint grin played about his mouth. "A Swiss Army Knife."
Maggie had to close her eyes at the sheer awfulness of that pun. She was just about to tell Bucky off for making a pun when he'd just complained about hers, when a thought occurred to her. Her eyes snapped open. "Bucky, you lost your arm in Switzerland."
His grin spread across his face.
"Bucky." She gaped at him. "That's terrible!"
"I know."
She opened and closed her mouth a few times, watching Bucky grin wickedly at her. She eventually settled for reaching over and thumping him on the shoulder. "You can't go making jokes like that when I think your arm is a touchy subject!"
He raised an eyebrow. "Well it is a touchy subject," he said, and prodded her with one metal finger. Maggie swatted it away, and he laughed. "I'm sorry, Meg. But I don't know, it got in my head. And if I don't laugh about it, then…"
She softened at his remorse, and at the shadow of seriousness that fell across his face. "I get it," she said, and reached for his metal hand. She brought it to her mouth and planted a kiss on the cool metal. "Swiss Army Knife it is."
Bucky leaned in until their foreheads pressed together, noses brushing. Maggie stroked her thumb across his metal palm and listened to the faint whir of machinery.
"I almost feel like you don't deserve the rest of your birthday, after that," she eventually murmured.
"That's probably fair," Bucky chuckled, watching the juxtaposition of their fingers, metal and flesh. "Wait, there's more? Meg, don't spoil me."
She laughed. "Well we have to go outside for the next part."
"Terrible," Bucky said. "Worst news of the day. I can't do this outside." At that he wrapped an arm around Maggie's middle and pulled her forward, rolling onto his back and bringing her with him. He let out an exaggerated oof when she fell on him, and she retaliated by digging her elbow into his ribs even as she kissed him, her hair tumbling around them.
They lay like that for a while, kissing in a tangle of limbs, surrounded by Bucky's presents and carefully folded wrapping paper. When his arm let out a particularly loud whir, Maggie broke away with a laugh.
"You're a menace," she breathed, pushing Bucky's hair affectionately off his face. "Come on, we've got outside plans."
"Don't you know I'm ninety eight? I'm too old to be going outside." But he let her pull him to his feet.
"You'll like this, I promise. Go get dressed."
"Are you sure you want me to?" He asked, winking over his shoulder as he strode toward the bathroom. She threw a pillow at his head.
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