#fluffcember2024

Not many people know what to do when there's a strange man in their kitchen. The usual ports of call, according to life and TV, is to:

a. Scream

b. Call the cops

c. Hide

d. All of the above

But somehow you created your own special fifth option (hereby referred to as option e): Give him soup.

He pokes at the soup with his spoon and you watch him over your own bowl. You can't tell if he's about to burst into tears or dart off into the night. There's something about his eyes, something that tells you he's a lost, stray in need of food and probably a hot bath rather than a six foot lug of a man in tac gear.

After a particularly hot slurp of soup, doing the whole hoo-ha-ooh charade, he looks up at you.

"Sorry," You mumble with an apologetic look. "Hot."

He nods but doesn't say anything. So, he clearly understands English. You watch as he stirs his soup again before finally bringing it to his lips. The air is heavy. You don't know why you care about what he thinks of your soup, but you do.

You want to make a joke; asking him not to kill you if it's awful but you think better of it. You still don't know if he would kill you.

His hum catches you off guard and you jump, looking over at him. His eyes flutter, and you think he definitely will cry. He sniffs a few times and raises a shaky hand with a second spoonful again, before he's suddenly gorging the soup.

His spoon clatters against an empty bowl and he looks over at you worriedly and you just smile at him around your own spoon.

"Want seconds, sweetheart?" You ask gently, getting to your feet and angling yourself to the stove. You're face is blasted with the smells of basil, garlic and roasted tomato as you lift the lid from the pot. You hold out a hand for his bowl which he carefully hands to you.

Ladling the soup to the brim (thank God for Bulk Soup Sundays), you reach into the bread bin and butter two slices of bread, placing them next to his soup when you set the bowl down. Retaking your seat, attempting to finish your own bowl, you watch him curiously.

He mumbles a thank you as he tears into the bread with his teeth, and you offer a warm smile.

"No worries. Help yourself to as much as you need."

"Ah, look my love. Mistletoe."

Loki smiles sweetly, pointing up at the berries held precariously by string above the doorway. You glance up and give him a quizzical look before saying, "Isn't that what you used to kill Baldur in the lead up to Ragnarok?"

Loki’s face drops, looking at you with an irritated (yet somehow loving) smile. "What?"

"Yeah, you know, uhhh..." You glance back up at the mistletoe thoughtfully, trying to recall the story. "Nothing could kill him except mistletoe because his mom forgot to ask the mistletoe or something. And you launched one of the little berries into Baldur's mouth and-"

You make a garroting motion and a choked sound and Loki fully glares at you.

"Maybe in your fables, yes. But that wasn't me. I was thinking more along the lines of the kissing."

"Oh." You purse your lips, letting the embarassment wash over you.

"Yes."

"Well then." You clear your throat and lean up to him, about to pucker your lips when Loki gently pushes you back with a teasing smile.

"Nuh Uh. Not a chance. You ruined the moment."

"I was being informative." You argue, giggling slightly. "I thought it was an excellent conversation starter."

Not once did you think, despite Bucky's grumbles, that you would have to keep him from eating your hard-work. Now that you were both stood opposite each other, sticky, thick overly sweet icing covering your fingers as you made one final desperate attempt to hold together the gingerbread walls; you thought that finally he would stop trying to eat your masterpiece.

But alas, he did not.

Picking up a gumdrop when he thought you were reading the instructions, he popped it into his mouth quickly and licked icing away from his metal fingers. Your head whipped around as he was dragging a finger out of his mouth slowly with an audible pop.

Your eyes narrow at him. "Did you just eat one of my candy trees?"

"No." He says quickly, his mouth thick with gummy goodness, trying to give you an affronted look after being accused of the thing he 100% did do.

"You did! You're eating the house!" You exclaim, trying desperately to hold the slabs of gingerbread together. Your icing was too runny, despite its thickness, and couldn't withstand the weight of the thick gingerbread walls.

"I am not. It was just one." Bucky pouts at you and whilst you're stuck holding the walls together picks up another gumdrop. He gives you a smug look as he throws it into his mouth. "Now it's two."

You remove your gooey hands, watching carefully as your foundations stay put and point an accusing finger at Bucky. "I knew it was a bad idea to ask you to help! You have such a sweet tooth."

Bucky throws up his hands in a sorry-not-sorry way, making you huff. "It's not my fault you've got all these sweets in front of me. That's just cruel, sweetheart."

You sigh in defeat, knowing he's right. Candy never lasts long if there's one Bucky Barnes around. Speaking of not lasting long...

You watch with slow dismay as your gingerbread walls slowly collapse in on themselves, finally buckling under the weight, leaving you with stacked, sticky gingerbread slabs that look nothing like the image on the box that they came in.

Bucky bites back a laugh at your reaction. "That could be salvaged."

"This is your fault." You say quietly, looking at your pile of gingerbread.

"How is it my fault?!" Bucky tries to sound offended but he's fighting back a smile and from the way your lips are twitching; so are you.

"For eating the furniture and trees." You say, flicking a gumdrop at him. You sigh again and then throw up your hands. "Wanna eat the pile of goo and gingerbread with me and watch a shitty Christmas movie?"

"Of course I do." Bucky says breaking off a corner of gingerbread wall. "I heard the Merry Gentlemen is all the rage from Natasha."

"Oh yeah it is." You chuckle, gathering some of the sugary decor you had set out. "We're watching that."

The crack of ice is louder than Steve expects. Thunderous roars from beneath the sheet of ice as he rushes forward to shove a small child out of the way of a harsh, jagged line. Then there's a snap as the ice gives way beneath him.

And the water is cold, so cold.

Steve's small body is wracked with white hot pain from the cold. His lungs burned with a need to cough, his asthma flaring with the sudden change in temperature and he had to fight it as he tried to swim to the surface. The heavy coat Bucky had insisted he wear dragged him downward.

Then it's black. Entirely black.

Fear settles in the pit of his stomach and then he's... being lifted? There's arms around his middle, and someone is definitely kicking at his shins occasionally as they pull him back up to the surface.

When he breaks the surface he takes a long gasping breath that causes a coughing fit. Bucky's blurry face comes into view as he helps to lift Steve out of the water muttering away about how he can't turn his back for one second.

Steve is still hacking up a lung on the ice when Bucky reaches behind Steve to pull Steve's rescuer from the icy depths. Vaguely aware he's gaining onlookers, Steve curls in on himself to shield himself from the embarassment.

"Hey! You alright?"

There's a hard tug on Steve’s shoulder, turning him onto his back and Steve's eyes widen as he looks up into the eyes of prettiest, yet soggiest, dame he'd ever seen. His heart thuds angrily, he pushes down a wave of coughing to let out a choked, "I'm good, thanks."

You sit back onto your haunches and sigh with relief. "I saw you save that kid then go under. I just... dived right in after you."

You give a nervous chuckle and Steve sits himself up onto his hands, his cheeks beginning to turn a sweet shade of glowing pink. Bucky glares between you both.

"You're both morons." He says folding his arms. "I had to grab you both."

Both you and Steve offer Bucky a sheepish grin and a quiet thank you and he sighs.

"Yeah, well, you made me look good in front of my date I guess so there's that." Bucky cracks a smile before turning to Steve. "Go home and change. Your ma would haunt me if I let you get pneumonia.... again."

Steve rolls his eyes and gets to his feet carefully before offering you a hand. You try not to pull too hard as you stand and give Steve a smile. The cool breeze makes the both of you shiver, your wet clothes clinging to your skin and sending a chill to your bones.

"And you," Bucky turns back to you. "Thanks for saving Stevie."

Before Bucky can add anything about walking you home, Steve beats him to it.

"How many blocks away are you?" Steve asks as you shuffle past Bucky with another small thanks.

"About five." You puff, fighting another shiver. "You?"

"Two blocks." Steve says, shucking off his heavy, soaked coat and placing it over your shoulders. "We could..." Steve clears his throat. "Stop at mine first and get you some dry clothes first?"

Bucky watches with an impressed smile as Steve acts the gentleman, but there's a slight worry in his eyes as he know how dames usually respond to Steve.

But you wrap Steve's coat around his shoulders as well, cocooning you both from the cold. Your heart had been skipping wildly, even more so when Steve had given you his coat despite also being soaked in this freezing weather. You couldn't resist a gentleman.

"Don't suppose you have any coffee you could give me too?" You ask playfully as you both begin to walk to Steve's apartment.

"I... um, yes." Steve doesn't know how to process his excitement or how his heart rate has spiked again.

He halts to cough hard almost doubling over but he feels your hand gently placed on the centre of his back. He looks up at you bleary eyed and you smile down softly at him.

"So do you two... fondue?"

"What?"

"Uhh. I mean-"

Steve's day couldn't get any worse. He was supposed to ask if you were seeing Jared in accounting and his brain just decided that the best way to ask that was if the both of you fondue?

And he only wanted to know so he knew if he had a chance with you. Although considering his awful choice in words, that chance may have just evaporated in front of his very eyes.

You blink at Steve and then you look thoughtful, actually considering what he said. Steve groaned internally. Way to go Rogers.

"Well, yeah. I like a good fondue as much as the next person." You say, not noticing how Steve's cheeks begin to glow. "It's just a lot of cheese. Definitely more than one person should be involved. Although, I'm more of a baked camambert person myself."

You raise an eyebrow at Steve. "Why do you ask? Do you like fondue?"

Steve can't manage words. His brain stopped functioning after your first sentence. You had somehow misinterpreted his question and then turned it back onto him. This was exceptional luck but also incredibly stupid. "Erm..."

"Or have you never had it?" You press, watching Steve's cheeks grow redder and redder with impish curiousity.

He clears his throat awkwardly and finds his voice. "No but I-I would like to."

You clap your hands together excitedly. You'd been trying to figure out a game plan to ask Steve out for weeks, and lo and behold, he was the one to randomly drop a great date idea into your lap.

"I know a great place for fondue. I could... take you there sometime?"

"Yes!" Steve blurts excitedly before clearing his throat one final time and in a slightly less excitable, totally cool tone adds, "I'd love to go with you."

"Alright!" You grin at him. "It's a date."

You miss the way Steve practically trips over his own feet to tell Bucky and Sam what just happened, his eyes going gooey as he tells them how you'd smiled at him.

Sam and Bucky share a look and Sam snorts.

"Sooooo," Bucky drawls. "They asked you to fondue with them?"

Steam clung to every surface it possibly could. The mirror was fogged, the cold porcelain of the toilet and sink had droplets of condensation running down their curved edges and you were sweating uncontrollably.

You'd half dumped a bottle of muscle relaxant bubble bath into the tub and a lit a few tealights were glowing orange around the edge of the tub. Pushing yourself to your feet, groaning as your knees clicked out of their kneeling position, you exited the bathroom, wiping your wet clammy hands on your jeans.

The click of the lock signalled Steve's return from work. You halted in your tracks, waiting for the door to open and smiling warmly at him with your arms outstretched. Steve's furrowed brows instantly melted away and he cast his duffel aside to rush in and sweep you up.

"Hey sweetheart," you chuckle as he squeezes you, your feet dangling loosely three inches from the floor. "There's a hot bath waiting for you."

Steve sighs into your hair, relaxing as he breathes. Your toes finally ease onto the floor as Steve lowers you, beaming down at you with a love-struck smile.

"What would I do without you?"

"I dunno. Keel over?" You shrug jokingly then peck his cheek. "Hurry before the bath gets cold. I'll make a start on dinner."

"Yes ma'am." Steve nods, kissing you again before making his way to the bathroom as you shooed him away, looking back once he reached the doorway. You were already grabbing things from the fridge to prepare dinner, humming away to yourself. It was such a small thing, so mundane, but Steve's heart skipped anyway as he entered the bathroom.