Bucky's first two Christmases in the Avengers tower. Neither goes as he expected.
Last Christmas I gave you my heart
Bucky felt nervous as they approached the Avengers tower. Having spent most of his year just him and Steve working through his issues at T'Challa's place, he hadn't been expecting to be moving in with the Avengers on Christmas Eve. He felt sick.
"Buck relax!" Steve wrapped his arm around his shoulder and squeezed gently.
Bucky had to take a breath to calm the spike in his heart rate at the sudden contact. He really needed to get a grip on this.
"It's gonna be fine." Bucky just shook his head a little.
"How can you say that? After everything that's happened..." But Steve cut him off. "I wouldn't be doing this if I hadn't okayed it with them first. You're going to be fine. Look how far you've come in the past year." Bucky really couldn't find a way to argue with that. He took a breath and nodded. "Thanks, Stevie."
It was awkward, but not as awkward as Bucky had imagined it would be. They all made the effort with him and did their best to include him and even Tony was being civil to him. It was all slightly overwhelming.
"Not so bad huh?" Steve asked as they settled down in what was to be their shared room. Bucky shrugged. "Could've been worse." Steve chuckled and smiled affectionately. "Told you so." Bucky shoved him lightly. "Shut up, punk."
Bucky wasn't really sure what to expect, it had been years since he'd actually celebrated Christmas. It turned out it was actually a lot of fun.
The morning had been a little awkward as everyone gave out their presents. The last minuteness of Bucky's arrival meant none of them had anything for him and he had nothing for them. Not that he'd been expecting anything.
The food was good though, a lot better than what he remembered of Christmas food and everyone was happily chatting and passing things here, there and everywhere.
After food came the games. Everyone split into teams and a scoreboard was set up as a competition started up. He hadn't had this much fun in a long time.
The evening rolled around and everyone was lounging around, the exhaustion and gorging finally taking its toll. Bucky sat slouched against Steve, head on his shoulder whilst Steve played absentmindedly with his hair. Bucky sighed in content.
"I have eggnog!" Tony declared, bringing in a large jug of creamy white milk-ish liquid and a tray of glasses. "Who wants some?" He started pouring glasses and handing them out. Bucky looked at the glass wearily before sniffing at it.
"Jesus Stark!" Barton coughed. As Bucky took a weary mouthful he could understand why. All he could taste was pure bourbon. "What? It tastes fine to me." He defended taking a long swig of the drink like it was water. "Could do with a little more bourbon." Tony mused as Natasha rolled her eyes, not even bothering to touch her glass. "Spoken like a true alcoholic."
