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There’s times when it’s acceptable to be awake and then there’s this: a perfectly grey, thunderstorm-y morning where no birds are singing and the ambient temperature is just chill enough to make the bedspread extra comfortable. Yet he can hear Morning coming for him all the same. Bucky tugs the comforter all the way to his chin but he knows that’s not going to save him. He’s seen enough of monsters to know that blankets can’t protect you.
“Morning, Buck,” Steve says, sunny and happy and obnoxiously vertical. “Time to get up.”
Bucky gives him the finger and throws his pillow at Steve’s head.
“No.”
There’s a satisfying thwack and now Steve is squawking something about revenge. Because of course he caught it. Throw anything smaller than a couch cushion and inevitably they descend into a pillow fight, and while most of the time that's fun and hilarious (Steve throws stuffed animals with the same precision as his shield), this morning is too fucking perfect for letting cold air beneath the covers. So when the return volley comes, Bucky dodges it by rolling - and he keeps rolling, all the way to the far edge of the bed. He takes the blankets with him, wrapping himself up not unlike a peach and polka dot burrito, and the end result is so even, so aesthetically pleasing, that both he and Steve burst out laughing.
Then Steve lunges after him and Bucky figures why the hell not - might as well double down.
He takes a deep breath and rolls his burrito self right off the bed.
It's not as far of a drop as it feels like when you wake yourself up by falling out of the bed. Steve makes the most perfect indignant noise too. The distraction buys him just enough time that he's inched halfway under the bed before big hands clap down on his hips. Bucky howls and rages in Steve's hands, but Steve lifts him up like nothing and slings him over his shoulder.
"Sam made pancakes," Steve explains.
"Fuck pancakes," Bucky grouses into the small of Steve’s back. He hates being upside down but he does get a pretty nice view of Steve's ass, which is a decent incentive not to struggle.
“You want waffles, you can cook.”
Bucky blows a raspberry into Steve’s stupidly well-defined lats.
“I cooked Sunday.” Like he’d sign up for a morning slot anyway. He’ll do the dishes from now until the end of the universe if it means not waking up before nine ever again. He cranes his neck to look longingly at the bed but Steve is a merciless, heartless creature. Steve is carrying him out of the room, farther and farther from the blessed mattress, and the best he gets is a glimpse of his lost pillow.
They thump-bump down the stairs and into the living-dining-kitchen region which at least is warm, with the slight hint of smoke and bacon. Steve plops him down next to the couch, not on top of it, because he's an asshole.
"Good morning, sunshine," Sam calls without looking, because he's even more of a morning person and thus even more of an asshole.
"Hey," Natasha says. She's ensconced with her laptop on the couch, all cozy and warm in her floppy owl hoodie. She waves in Bucky's general direction. "What's with this?"
Bucky rolls over face down in protest.
"Fuck off, I'm a burrito."
"A breakfast burrito?"
"Too late, already started the pancakes," Sam calls back.
"You can make burritos out of pancakes," Steve suggests. He's slouching around next to the stove, all innocent, like he isn't dying to snitch something.
"Not unless you wanna die of diabetes," Sam says. He elbows Steve away from the frying pan. "Now get out of here, I know you ain't helping."
Natasha and Bucky look up and cackle at Steve's complete and abject shock. Like he honestly thought he was going to get away with that shit. He looks like a goddamn dog-shamed retriever.
"We should start #capshaming," Bucky suggests.
Natasha pokes him with her long, perfectly painted toenails. "Says the burrito."
Bucky rolls back on his side to glare at her.
"This is the best idea I've ever had," he informs the room. "This is comfortable as fuck."
"Well, you're gonna have to come out of there sometime," Steve says. He's given up stealing a taste and is setting the table, though the set of his jaw says 'still sulking'.
"I'm never and you can't make me."
"Oh yeah? Bacon's ready."
He can't see Sam's expression but he knows damn well the bastard is grinning. He maybe once swore he'd propose for Sam's bacon. He maybe hadn't heard the end of it.
"Psh. You think I'm getting up for your goddamn bacon."
"I think you get it up for Sam's bacon all the time," Natasha grins. Bucky ignores her. It's not that far to the table. He draws his core tight, hangs on to his blankets, and rolls.
And it’s surprisingly pleasant. The comforter is squishy enough that his flesh limbs don’t bang on the floor (much). Natasha can bite him if she thinks he’s giving up.
“Locomotion by burrito,” he announces.
Steve catches him with his foot and toes him over right before he smacks into a chair.
"I'm not picking you up," Steve says.
"Good," Bucky sniffs. He can make it. He's escaped padlocks and handcuffs, underwater, in an airtight tank. Crawling into a chair is a fucking cakewalk. Just as soon as the room stops swimming.
Sam walks around the table with two plates laid out on each arm, all classy-style. Sam was a waiter, then a caterer’s assistant, in college which is where he claims he got his skills from, but you don’t keep perfect plating and pastries without a little bit of practice. Best Steve ever managed was bar back, and he sure doesn’t remember how to wash his goddamn dishes.
Sam stops and toes Bucky in the butt.
"What the hell, Barnes."
"Welcome to the conversation," Natasha says. "Glad you could make it." She's sliding into the chair Bucky is flopped against, because she's the biggest asshole of all.
“I repeat: what the hell.”
"It's comfortable," Bucky informs them both, then folds up into his front, inchworm style, so he can crawl around to find another chair.
"Earth's mightiest zeros," Sam mutters.
Bucky crawls to the open chair next to Steve and rocks onto his knees, holding the blankets tight so they don’t fold down. It takes him longer than he'd like to admit to heave his way onto the seat. By the time Bucky's wiggled up to the table, they're mostly settled like human beings: glasses, utensils, matching(!) plates. None of which he can use right now.
"I'm not feeding you," Natasha says, on his left. Bucky turns to Steve.
Steve raises sticky hands up. "You made your burrito, now you gotta lie in it."
Like hell. Bucky knows what he looks like when he bites his lower lip, how it makes his mouth all soft and pretty. He looks across the table through his long lashes and sucks until his lips are a brilliant red.
"Sam will take pity on me.”
Sam glances at him - and pauses! - but still looks away.
"Sam will do no such thing," Sam says. “Sam’s turn ends at making the breakfast.”
"I'll do the dishes."
"I cooked! You already got the dishes."
"I'll cook...tomorrow?"
Sam sucks on his own lip, considering.
"Tomorrow and Thursday. And you don't get to make that goulash-thing."
"Hey!" Steve puffs up like a pissed off chicken. "What's wrong with chili-pasta skillet?"
"The part where you make it every time?" Natasha adds.
"It's not every time!"
"Every Tuesday?"
Bucky leans around their squabbling. It's not like stew is hard, no matter how much Natasha and Steve bitch. Cut up a bunch of stuff into the slow cooker, turn it on, it's good. And Bucky’s great with a knife.
"Deal," he tells Sam. "Hit me up."
Sam dishes up a pancake as wide and round as Bucky's plate, stacks the fluffiest eggs and the most mouthwatering, floppy-curled bacon on top. Bucky nearly moans when he puts on just the right half-stick of butter.
"You are a gift," he tells Sam, waiting for the first bite.
And keeps waiting.
"...you're not cutting it, are you?"
Sam shrugs.
"Didn't specify I had to work the fork for you," Sam says. "You're not five. I'm not your Momma."
"Deal's off," Bucky huffs.
“Okay.” Natasha reaches over and pulls the pancake away from him. Bucky yelps and drags the plate back with his teeth.
"You're lucky I'm a burrito or I would stab you with this fork."
"No stabbing at my Gramma's table," Sam says mildly. "And the deal's on. I got an appointment."
"Alright," Bucky says. He's still not unwrapping. Stubbornness has got him this far, it can get him the rest of the way through breakfast. He leans down and puts his face directly in the plate to gnaw at his food. The bacon is surprisingly difficult to pick up using only his tongue, but the honey butter goes down like a dream.
Next to him, Steve sputters in his seat.
"Are you eating straight butter?"
Bucky jerks his greasy chin in Steve's direction.
"Yeah? You're drinking syrup."
Everybody looks at Steve's juice glass, which is more than half full with maple-brown. Steve flushes down to his neckline.
"It's for dunking," he mutters. He demonstrates by rolling a pancake into a tight cylinder and shoving it into the glass. It gives Bucky a similar idea.
"That's a good goddamn idea," he says, and nips at the closest edge of his pancake. With a little tongue work, he manages to flop it over top of the bacon like a demented soft shell tortilla.
"Breakfast burrito, now with breakfast taco," he announces.
"Still gotta get it in your mouth," Sam grins.
Bucky sticks out his tongue and uses it to lift a corner of the "taco". The pancake slips over his lips, leaving him with a nice bite of air and mostly sugar.
"I got it in! That counts!"
"That's what she said," Natasha adds.
"And you wonder why we never go anywhere nice." Steve shakes his head as he drowns a third pancake in syrup.
"We never go anywhere ‘cause of goddamn SHIELD Nazis," Sam says. “Remember Chili’s?”
For a moment, Steve looks stricken. Like HYDRA’s his fucking responsibility too. Bucky loves him, but Christ, there are times he gets tired of Steve Rogers, Atlas-at-large.
"Sam..."
Sam reaches out and squeezes Steve's shoulder.
"I'm messing with you, man. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.”
“All right, well, it’s not fine. But it’s okay.”
“Don’t make me give you a burrito hug,” Bucky mutters.
“What’s a burrito hug?” Natasha asks.
Bucky shrugs. “Same as a regular hug. Only more flaps.”
He goes back to the messy task of eating his pancake-taco using only his tongue and what remains of the teeth on his left side. He lost a bunch recently in the aforementioned Chili’s incident, and they haven’t had time to grow back. It makes taking large bites kind of hard, and he finds himself tipping his head more and more to the right to compensate. Which means his hair keeps falling down in his plate. Which means he accidentally eats it. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Natasha holds a blue scrunchie out where he can see it.
“You’re going to smell like bacon,” she says simply, before gathering his hair behind his ears.
“I could be into it,” Steve says, as nonchalant as possible.
Natasha laughs, husky and beautiful. And puts her foot down. “No.”
Sam tips his glass of orange juice in her direction.
“You know there’s perfume research about guys and meat? They tested out all these different notes to figure out what attracts men. Come to find out it’s steak and cheese.”
“That’s nice,” Natasha says. “I like hair that’s not covered in grease.”
She gives the side of Bucky’s head a friendly kiss. He gives Sam and Steve his best shit-eating grin.
Sam rolls his eyes. “Hate to break it you, but burritos and grease are nature’s best friends.”
“I could be one of those healthy burritos. Egg whites and spinach and - " Bucky wrinkles his nose. "Ugh, nah. Fuck that.”
“You cannot possibly back that up,” Steve agrees. He’s still sucking syrup off both his hands.
Bucky continues attacking his plate, until the pancake is down to a tiny, maimed lump at the center. He rubs his face against his napkin and then slumps off his chair to curl up under the table.
“I hear that,” Sam groans. Bucky watches his feet shift as he stretches. “Gonna have to roll me away too.”
“That was excellent,” Natasha agrees. She has her napkin on her lap, like an adult. “What did you put in for the spice? It was different.”
"Cardamom and yogurt? It’s what gives them that fluffy texture.”
Sam always sounds so excited when he’s talking about fancy cooking stuff. Like that’s what makes him a badass, not the wings and the Steyrs. Bucky closes his eyes and hums along to the cadence of their voices, warm and sated and drifting again.
Something large and made of mostly elbows clunks down on the floor beside him. Bucky cracks an eye open and finds Steve, cross-legged, still casually drinking syrup from his glass.
“You gonna get up today?” he asks Bucky.
Bucky considers, then shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Buck.”
“You’re the one who decided to be awake,” Bucky says. “You can live with the consequences.”
Steve drains the rest of his glass and sets it off beneath his chair.
“Shove over, then,” he says. “I wanna try this burrito thing, too.”
Bucky huffs and scrunches away from him.
“You had your chance. You wasted it.”
“Seriously.”
“Not a chance.” Bucky sticks his tongue out. “I know your bullshit. You want me to unroll so we can go outside and fucking exercise, when it’s a perfectly nice day to stay inside, and--”
He doesn’t even get to ‘Netflix and chill’, because bony fingers are seizing at the edge of his blanket. Bucky flails and tries to flip away but the table legs are against him. The funny bone in his weak arm gets banged up against one and that’s all it takes for the first fold to come undone, exposing his vulnerable, fleshy burrito insides to the open air. He looks up, expecting Natasha, but it’s Sam who has so horrendously betrayed him.
“Wilson, what the fuck!”
Sam gives another hard tug, grinning like a loon, and the blanket flap becomes a larger expanse. Sam drops down to sprawl out on it before Bucky can gather himself together. Steve topples over beside Sam, hammering the final nail in that coffin.
“Have to come out sometime,” Sam says, which is completely fucking unreasonable. Bucky covers his eyes with his stupid, tingling flesh arm.
“No, I don't.”
Natasha appears on his left side, dragging her laptop and powercords with her. She leans up against the table leg and him both, using his hip for a goddamn lap desk.
“Or at least, let us share,” she says. “It’s more fun to slack off together.”
Bucky closes his eyes again, lets his limbs go floppy and loose.
“All right,” he says, giving into the inevitable. It’s not quite as comfortable anymore - Sam’s bony hips are pressing against him, and Steve’s beefy arm is flopped over them both, and he can feel Natasha’s goddamn keystrokes - but maybe that’s okay.
Some days aren’t meant for waking up, he thinks, but all days are meant for spending with family.
