The Collection- Bucky Barnes

Just Friends- ix: Life As We Know it

Their first 'date' is a three hour stint between four and seven in the morning, three weeks after bringing Oliver home. These, if you were unaware, are the most romantic hours of the day.

For the three weeks before that, what rests between them is unspoken understanding and a lot of exhaustion. And, every so often, spit up. Being home with baby instead of bump is a big adjustment for both of them. Oliver- Ollie, as everyone has grown accustomed to calling him- least enjoys sleeping through the night. Or really at all. Something Jules was prepared for, considering he hardly ever let her sleep while he was growing inside her.

Both she and Bucky are guilting of spoiling him to the point he won't hardly sleep in his crib. Or his bassinet. Mostly, the chunky little baby sleeps in the arms of whoever is holding him. Which is almost always his mom or his dad.

Both baby monitors crackle with white-noise at the same time before exploding with the harsh, high-pitched sound of Ollie's four a.m. wake up call. Eyes still closed and legs tangled together with Bucky's, Jules groans. She lightly smacks her hand against Bucky's bare chest. They've been teaming up for these middle of the night calls, so if she's up, he's up. Bucky grumbles out a wordless response. "He's up. Again."

Ollie really, really hates sleeping in his crib. They're both pretty sure he's ruined on it forever, which is far from good. They just put him back down about two hours ago, and then an hour before that, and so on from nine the previous night. During the day, oh sure, yeah, he sleeps great. He's always being toted around by one of them or curled up on a chest, cradled in arms.

"I'll get him." Bucky's already sitting up. "Go back to sleep." He kisses her cheek briefly before tumbling out of the bed. Her eyes stay closed until she hears him leave the room.

That's another thing. Her room has pretty much been abandoned. Her things are still in there but every night for three weeks, she's slept in Bucky's bed. With him. Not so different than the couple weeks before she'd given birth, when they refused to sleep away from each other because he'd almost been lost forever. But, it is different. There's no longer a Russian prayer he whispers against her stomach. Instead, there's a haze of velvety words she can't translate whispered in her ear, against her neck, her shoulder, her mouth.

Of course they haven't done anything but kiss. She's three weeks post-Caesarean and recovery is a massive bitch. Bucky's more worried about tearing her incision than she is.

Jules rolls out of the bed and plucks up her robe from the floor. Following the faint tune of a lullaby, she finds Bucky rocking the baby back to sleep. She doesn't enter the room, rather she tiptoes down the hall and stairs down to the kitchen. She puts on a pot of coffee and sets out two of the larger mugs.

It's about ten minutes later when Bucky comes trodding down the stairs, sans baby, but a monitor in hand. Jules meets him at the foot of the stairs and hands him a coffee, made just the way he likes it. One spoon of sugar, no creamer.

"Coffee at four a.m.? What are we coming to?" Bucky mumbles after taking a sip.

Side by side they walk into the living room and practically collapse next to each other on the couch. Bucky stands the baby monitor on the coffee table.

"It's called having the world's most spoiled newborn." Jules yawns. "Didn't you hear? We won the grand prize."

Bucky laughs under his breath. "Wouldn't trade it for the world. Any of it. Not the boy," he places his mug on a coaster on the end table and turns toward her, "'specially not you."

The way he says it makes her insides flip around. Between catching up on sleep, trying to keep the house clean, and spoiling the ever-loving shit out of Ollie, they've not spoken at all about what they're doing. It's just a lot of kissing and cuddling. Not, of course, that she minds.