and you've begun to fade

But whatever Bucky is trying to ask Sam, it's lost to Figaro rounding the corner and meowing loudly when he sees Sam at the door. He pads right up to Sam and rubs up against his legs, catching Sam up on everything he missed at home and likely complaining about being left behind.

Once Sam has scooped Fig up and sufficiently apologized, he comes down the hall and into the kitchen, where he finds Bucky holding Alpine out of the way with his right hand and picking up shards of glass with his left.

"Welcome home," he says, looking up at Sam from his spot on the floor. "You make it back all in one piece? Did Torres keep you out of trouble?"

"I'm a grown man; I don't need someone to keep me out of trouble," scoffs Sam. Then he thinks about earlier today, how he'd banked left around the corner of a skyscraper and only known to dodge an incoming acid bolt because of a heads-up from Joaquín. "But yeah, he did."

Bucky snorts. "Remind me to write him a thank you note."

"Aww, Buck," says Sam, "I didn't know you cared."

In spite of how pink his face goes, Bucky still manages to level an unimpressed look at Sam. "I'm still undecided," he says. "But Fig would never forgive you if he got stuck with me, and you know Alpine would just copy him."

"Alpine could stand to copy him a little more often," says Sam. "Maybe then she wouldn't be such a menace in the kitchen."

"She's not a menace, Sam; she's just expressing herself."

"By smashing all my glassware?"

"She's only ever broken one of your glasses, Sam. The other thing that she broke was my favorite mug, and I'm pretty sure you entrapped her into it."

"I would never," lies Sam.

In his defense, it was a hideous mug and so badly shaped that it was impossible to drink coffee out of it without spilling, and putting it in Alpine's path when she was in a mood had been an act of mercy towards Bucky's shirts specifically. (And maybe also towards Sam's sanity, which he'd felt unraveling every time Bucky spilled coffee on another shirt and immediately took it off and remained that way without any consideration for anyone who might have been in the kitchen at the time, trying very hard to cook some eggs without burning them because he was busy ogling his roommate.)

Bucky gives Sam a look that says he knows perfectly well that Sam hired his baby as a coffee mug assassin, but he has the good grace not to bring it up. "You don't need to worry; your wine glasses are safe. She broke a jar."

"A jar of what?"

"A jar of nothing, Sam. It was empty."

That should be the end of the discussion, but Bucky is turning red again, and Sam's curiosity won't be beaten. He looks at the kitchen floor again, reaching out to snag the dustpan as Bucky grabs the broom.

It's not until he's crouched down to hold the dustpan in place that he sees it: a flat round lid and a matching gold ring, the sort of thing he saw all the time when canning season rolled around back home.

"Was it a mason jar? Is that what you broke?" He turns to look at Bucky, eyebrows raised. "I know we live in Brooklyn, but you weren't even here when the streets were crawling with hipsters."

"It's just a jar, Samuel. It's not a big deal."

But Sam is on a roll now, reaching for a chunk of glass that skidded between the fridge and a cabinet. It's larger than his palm. "What were you doing with a big-ass mason jar? Did Kate try to talk you into meal prepping? Because I don't care what she saw on Tiktok, no adult is trying to eat a whole salad out of a jar every day."

"How would you even--" Bucky starts to ask, but seems to think better of it. "Never mind. I'm not making jar salad, okay? I don’t even know what that is. I just...I read that you could use one of these jars as a cocktail shaker, and we had one from that time you brought up Miss Inez’s spiced peaches, so I was going to try it. That's all."

Sam furrows his eyebrows. "You needed a cocktail shaker."

"That's what I said."

"You needed a cocktail shaker?"

"Is there an echo in here that no one told me about?"

"Bucky, I can barely get you to drink wine. You drink shitty cheap beer or fancy scotch and that's it. What are you making cocktails for?"

The red has spread to Bucky's neck and ears now. “Nothing,” he says, a little too quickly, then gestures at the paper bag full of glass shards. “I’m not making cocktails at all, clearly.”

Sam looks at Bucky.

Bucky looks at Sam.

(Alpine hops out of Bucky’s grasp and Fig follows suit, both of them clearly deciding that they have better things to do.)

“I don’t believe you,” Sam finally says. “You don’t even like cocktails. I had to bribe you with late night beignets just to get you to try a Sazerac once. What’s going on?”

"There's nothing going on, Sam," says Bucky, but his movements are quicker than they were a moment ago, the same brisk pace he uses when they're doing final sweeps after a mission.

The glass shards end up in the trash with barely a pause, and he's at the counter with his back to Sam a second after that, gathering up the ingredients that Sam had missed on the counter when he'd first come in. Bucky's shoulders are broad enough to block some of it, but Sam can see something wrapped in paper printed with the name of the fancy cheese shop down the block. There's a new reusable grocery bag on the hook by the fridge, labeled with the name of the nice deli where Sam and Bucky get sandwiches after stressful missions, and there's a colander in the sink with strawberries in it, the tiny dark red kind that had to come from the farmer's market.

Bucky's ears are red, and his shoulders are tense, and it's only when Sam sees the wrapped bouquet of flowers on the counter and remembers Bucky's conversation with Alpine that he understands what's happening here, and he feels his own face go warm.

"Okay, Buck," he says, trying to sound casual. "I'm gonna go get changed, maybe do some paperwork. You want me to keep Alpine out of your way so she doesn't break anything else?"

But Bucky just makes a noncommittal noise in response, so Sam slips out of the kitchen, bound for his bedroom and the boxes that he never got around to unpacking when he moved in. He finds the one that he was looking for fast: Nat's cramped handwriting detailing the contents, one of the last boxes left over from when she packed up his place during the Blip.

He slides it out from under the bed, slicing through the tape across the top and unwrapping a few neatly packed rocks glasses before he finds what he's looking for, tucking the packing paper back into the box.

Just before he steps back into the hallway, he hears Bucky's voice carrying out of the kitchen, soft and a little bit tired, and it makes his heart squeeze in his chest.

"You want a snack, too, Fig?" he's asking. "I feel like we have to pay you for babysitting at this point. I know she's a handful."

Sam didn't realize cats could sound skeptical, but Fig's responding meow is surely as close as it gets.

"Don't look at me like that," Bucky says. "It's not a bribe. I'm calling off tonight's plans anyway."

That's Sam's cue to hurry down the hall. He tries not to look too hard at Bucky as he sets his own cocktail shaker on the counter.

"Here," he says, "I never got around to unpacking this, but it's metal. Might fare better if Alpine decides to practice her kickboxing again."

"Sam, you didn't have to--"

"I don't think you should cancel your plans tonight," Sam says hurriedly. "I'll bribe both the cats if I have to."

Bucky's face relaxes into something soft and he leans back against the counter, arms crossed. "Sam, you don't even know what my plans are."

"No, but I want to find out."

He watches a smile appear on Bucky's face then, small and a little shy. "You just want to get out of making dinner, don't you?"

"Hey, I saved the world today," Sam says. "I think I've earned a little wining and dining."

Bucky turns to Figaro. "What do you think, Fig? Should we put him to work?"

"Fig would never."

Figaro looks over at Sam, who opens his arms in response and then feels his jaw drop when Fig turns away and butts his head against Bucky's hand instead.

"This is how you want to start the evening, Barnes? By turning my baby against me?"

"It's not my fault he has good taste, Sam," says Bucky, but he looks entirely too pleased for it to land.

He should have something clever to say in response, but Figaro is already purring under Bucky's hands, and Sam is powerless against how cute it is.

"Well, just so you know," he says, looking steadily at Bucky, "Fig takes after his dad that way."