The Collection- Bucky Barnes

Just Friends viii: February

"Look at my feet!" Said feet are propped up on the coffee table. They're swollen from the toes to the ankles. Jules is wiggling her toes all crazy as Bucky watches. "They're like balloons!"

That's the one thing she won't miss after giving birth: swollen feet. Everything else she'll be sad to see go. Well, not the intense drive to consume chili cheese conies and chocolate milk at all times, or the heightened emotions 24/7, or the morning sickness. Or peeing eighty seven billion times a day. She won't miss the whole no-sleep for three months deal either. Okay, so maybe she'll really just miss the baby bump and having a little life inside of her.

But those can go in exchange of finally getting to hold her baby in her arms.

"Are the cucumbers and watermelon not helping anymore?" Bucky doesn't look up as he flips through the notebook. It contains all the reports of their weekly measuring of her stomach. As of last week, when he came back from the dead and she rolled right into the ninth and final month of pregnancy, they've been measuring every day. He got up immediately his first day back and wanted to measure her. Opening the book, he'd been shocked to find reports from his two weeks away. Jules had told him that Nat measured her because they both knew he'd want that information.

They haven't left the house yet since his return. Groceries are delivered, they're cooking instead of eating out. Well, okay, they left for her doctor's appointment, but that's it. Neither wants to let the other out of sight. And despite being home all the time, the nursery still isn't done. Time is spent either curled up in Bucky's bed or on the couch, watching tv and movies. A lot of naps, one because Jules no longer sleeps through the night and two because she swears up and down they need to stockpile rest.

She shakes her head. "Nope. Good thing we've only got four weeks left or I'd probably make a good hot air balloon."

Pen between his teeth and tape measure around his shoulders, he motions for her to get to her feet. He goes first, helping to pull her up and steadying her when she teeters back towards the couch. She's continued her now tradition of not wearing shirts around the house. She's fully comfortable in just a sport bra and still his athletic shorts. Bucky never seems to mind. In fact, he always just gives a little smile when he sees her in a different pair, but he never says anything. He just smiles.

"Thirty-six, huh?" Bucky mumbles, wrapping the flex measuring tape around her tummy. "Really just four weeks 'til we get her?" His tongue clicks as he memorizes the new number and then scrawls it down on the paper. "Little more every day." He rubs over her tummy before closing the notebook. As he does, the doorbell rings off. "That'd be the pizza. Can you grab forty from my wallet while I go get it?"

Jules is already hobbling off to the kitchen to get it from the key bowl (why he always tosses it there, she has no clue). The squared brown piece of folded leather is, like always, lopsided in the bowl where they keep their keys. She can hear him chatting at the front door, saying something about how glad he is Maurice's delivers outside the city.

She swipes up his wallet and pulls it open. Right there, right in the photo placeholder on the inside, is a picture of her. It's from Christmas. Out on the balcony of their room. She has a mug in one hand and the other is absently on her stomach.

God, she doesn't even remember being that small and it was only two months ago.

She pulls a frown, looking down at it again. She doesn't remember him taking this, but of course she wouldn't because her attention was on the mountain view. Why is-why is this in his wallet?

The placeholder on the other side is empty and she wonders what he plans on putting there.

"Jules?"