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Iām never sure about posting fanfic directly here since I never feel it gets a big response but I might add an art to this, not sure yet, and since itās one bit of a bigger bit then I thought I might as well. So hereās story 1 of Sections of Significance. It is on AO3 also and the rest will be too.
Edited: not one but two bits of fanart have been added in here, Iāve (hopefully) hidden them at the end so they arenāt able to spoil the story.
Hope you like it and pleeeeeeeaaaaase leave me some thoughts if you doā¦..?
- Sections of Significance #1-
There are few things which beat the sound of genuine laughter. Laughter is contagious, it can even help to cure depression. It's also a thing that Children do much more than grown adults. Bucky had read something about it in the New York Times, the newspaper he still recognised from his youth, albeit smaller than it once was. The article said that studies showed young kids laughed about as much as 300 times in one day whereas adults only laughed 20. He hadnāt been surprised by the figures until he remembered most adults werenāt him - many didnāt even have the basic level of war traumas to contend with.
Usually, kids had the purest forms of laughter, they could fall into fits of giggles which made them forget to breathe and fall about. Those laughing fits could fill a person's heart with so much love, and make them forget everything that happened in the cruel and treacherous world. It was less often adults laughed in that way. When they did, there became something even more pure about the experience.
When he heard Natasha giggling like that, struggling to stop laughing enough to speak it was the purest sound he had ever heard. Like a naturalist seeing a near-extinct animal out in the Rainforests Bucky felt he had experienced something so rare and so fundamental that he doubted anyone ever had before.
Natasha laughed, of course she did, sometimes at genuinely funny things, other times out of sarcasm. She was also very convincing at fake laughter when trying to flirt with a mark. She laughed with joy too, a rare sound which he doubted many others had heard. Sometimes those joyous laughs felt like a blurring in the time continuum, a quick glimpse back to the innocent child she had once been. It showed the child who had never danced in the rain and ran home soaked to the skin. It showed the marvels of the planet through the eyes of a first-time viewer.
This, however, was the first time he had seen her so overcome with laughter that all her emotional walls fell away.
She sat on the kitchen floor, knees up towards her chin with feet spread wider apart. Her hair was bundled into a ponytail, shorter strands of hair around her ears escaping from the tie. She wore a pair of baseball sneakers on her feet, old jeans which he was sure were supposed to have those holes at the knees and a tank top. On top of the simple outfit, she was wearing a rain poncho. A rain poncho that was now also covered in paint. Natasha sat on top of the plastic tarps laid on the floor, not caring that she was likely sitting in one of the main pools of paint spattered across the entire floor.
She looked up at him, wiping tears of laughter from her eye while smearing the green paint across her cheek from the back of her hand. Shaking her head she spoke, the two-syllable word broken in half by laughter.
āLi-, ho.ā
Bucky looked over to the cat who had started it all, sitting atop the covered kitchen counter licking her paws. She was spotlessly clean, feigning innocence while she bathed.
Liho had started it all, deciding to behave in a typical cat manner. She tapped at the lid of a Greek Green Olive paint can until it fell to the floor, bounced and sprayed paint across the newly painted wall. Natasha had sworn at the cat for messing up her half-dried work and then tried to chase her from the room.
He wasnāt exactly sure what had followed, only that Liho had decided that she was not leaving the room. At one point Bucky had slipped on the paint-covered tarp, throwing an arm out in reflex and pulling Natasha down with him. Liho had chosen that precise moment to try and leap onto the edge of the second open paint can. To shouts of āNo!ā Liho had landed on the edge of the can, pushed it off balance and sent it flying from the countertop onto the floor, pouring a waterfall of emulsion as she did so. Bucky had worn most of it, grabbing a handful of Natashaās top to wipe the green from his face.
She had playfully batted his hand away and turned, only to slip again in the puddles on the plastic-covered floor and splash down onto it. Alpine had picked the wrong moment to wake up from a nap and come to investigate the commotion as she was knocked over by Liho finally escaping the scene of the crime.
While Liho sat on the countertop without a speck of the green paint on her black fur Alpine lay under the heavily covered kitchen table, tail twitching and growling at her feline friend. Alpine was more green than white and proceeded to try and lick the paint from her fur only to mix it further in.
As if to add insult to injury Liho decided to make a neat jump onto Buckyās shoulder. His t-shirt was now so caked in half-dried paint that it was beginning to harden but Liho decided to purr loudly in his ear, rubbing her jaw against his stubbly cheek.
āOh, so weāre friends now? Thanks.ā
Natasha laughed again, shaking her head as her whole body seemed to vibrate. Bucky couldnāt help but smile, as much as part of him wanted to put the cat in time out or whatever it was parents did now he also secretly wanted to thank the little devil. If it werenāt for the cat then he would never have witnessed the inner child laughing on the kitchen floor.
The little Natasha who had never been able to make a mess like this, who could never have wasted the paint in such a way. The little girl who had never had a pet and who had never seen the joy that came from animals behaving as they will. The small child in her mind who was able to have fun in the disastrous paint job, knowing it would never be an issue that they couldnāt fix.
His heart swelled in his chest as he walked the few steps over to where Natasha sat against the back door and crouched to her height. Alpine hissed from under the table, pushing herself further back against the wall. Her tongue was now turning green from licking the paint.
āPoor Kotenyok, I hope she forgives us,ā Natasha spoke through giggles. Bucky quickly grabbed hold of her hand as she went to push the hair from her face. She looked at him, then her hand before laughing again.
He looked into her eyes, bright and almost glowing with the basic joy she felt. The green of her eyes contained elements of the green paint on her cheek, nose, chin and across a part of her neck where it had evaded the rain poncho.
Bucky smiled to himself, gently taking her chin in his hand and kissing the tip of her nose. He accidentally left a smudge of dried green under her chin as he did but presumed that could be fixed at another time.
He stood, heading from the room and fumbling in his pocket for the cell phone he was always losing.
āWhere are you going?ā Natasha called after him.
Bucky stopped at the door, holding the now ringing phone to his ear,
āCalling Sam. Think it's time we abort this mission. Heāll know a guy.ā
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