12 Days of Christmas || Seb and Chris One Shots

Tree Saver || Bucky Barnes

On the first prompt of Christmas, we proudly present to thee... Bucky is responsible for getting the Christmas tree.

Delacroix, 2024

Bucky had been staring at the tree for far too long. If he felt the cold, he thinks his fingers might be numb even hidden under leather gloves. Even if one hand was made from vibranium. It's sad, the branches drooping slightly as if their pines were too heavy to hold. Leant against a wall as if someone might have considered it, laughed at their stupid suggestion and pushed it away from them.

"You okay or do you need rebooting?" Sam asks, a heavy hand on Bucky's shoulder almost slapping against the leather of his jacket.

"Huh?"

"You'd win a staring contest with a tree Buck, thing doesn't have eyes." He continues, still smiling, glancing at his friend but Bucky doesn't look at him. Still lost to the tree, pools of blue dark in the Delacroix night even if the moon is bright above them not quite reaching his face.

"Oh, yeah, right." Bucky forces a brief smile, but it doesn't crease his eyes as they often did. The line at the bridge of his nose deep, brows slightly furrowed.

"Okay, what's up, T-800?"

"Does that tree remind you of Steve?" He asks, ignoring the millionth reference to the Terminator franchise. Not even offering Sam an evil glare for the nickname, just staring at the tree.

"Rogers?"

"Yuh."

"Cap? Steve Rogers as in...?" Sam tilts his head trying to see if there was a shape of a face in the branches of the trees, or maybe it cast a shadow of the man on the wall. But nothing. A small and forgotten tree looking like it might slide to the floor at any point, nothing like the man he knew.

"Yeah, the only Steve Rogers we know."

"No. Should it?"

"Kind of reminds me of him, yeah."

*

Brooklyn, 1939

"Don't be mad." Bucky started, pulling the door close to his body, chest flat to the frame. His face still stung from the cold outside, the fire not quite reaching the walls yet. Just enough flames to warm Steve on the bed that he'd protested didn't need moving earlier but Bucky did it anyway.

Metal feet dragging against their wooden floors, pulling at the rug that they'd bought to cover the marks of their shared lives. The black smudges of Steve's charcoal that never seemed to shift or the stains from their shoes from dancing hidden under a thin square that curled at the edges.

"You know, when you start with that it doesn't give me much hope." Steve manages from the bed, the fire dancing across his face and Bucky felt like he could stay stood by in the door forever just staring. Watching as the orange didn't quite pass the crook of his nose.

Bucky smiled, hand tight around the surprise, pines scratching at his palm before he pushed against the door and stepped inside.

"Ta-da!"

It's a pathetic excuse for a Christmas tree. Cut too early so the branches are bare in parts, more brown than green. He swears it leans slightly, the trunk a little curved as if whatever had been on top was too heavy. If anyone had even wanted it at all. Bucky did. It was better than nothing, and nothing was all they had.

Apart from each other.

"A tree?"

"Well, I can safely say that while your lungs might be busted, your eyes are okay." Bucky chuckles, dragging the tree inside as if he couldn't lift it with one hand. "Today, at least."

"Why have you got a tree?"

"It's Christmas Eve, Steve." Bucky bites at his lips, dragging them between his teeth as he swallows at his slight laughs but they force their way through his nose as breaths anyway.

"Don't say it. Please don't say it."

"It rhymed."

"You're a jerk," Steve manages with a cough, lose and sticky at the back of his throat, "you know that?"

"Jerk with a tree." Bucky kicks the door closed behind him, heading towards the warmth. "You're just a punk."

"A punk with bronchitis," Steve says, pushing himself to sit, arms shaking underneath the weight of his body. Which wasn't much. Limbs even weaker when he was ill, which seemed to be always.

"Where shall I put it?"

"You're being serious?"

"It's Christmas Eve," Bucky states as if that's explanation enough, as if that's a good excuse for the trail of slight brown pines scattered on the floor and stopping at his feet.

"As you keep saying."

"It's tradition to go see the tree. Since you can't go, thought I'd bring the tree to you. And yeah, okay, it's smaller and –"

"A lot smaller," Steve says, no hint of a cough again, Bucky wishing he might be forced to clear his throat soon.

Anything to shut him up. 

"Well yeah."

"And I think it's balding." He points at the tree, lips in a tight smile like he's trying to stop himself from laughing.

"That too."

"It's crooked."

"Slightly," Bucky says, face as straight as he could keep it, dragging the word out like a warning knowing Steve was on the verge of chuckling. On laughing so hard his lungs might actually give out. That today would be the day they'd give up, his happiness too much of a strain on them as he wheezes.

"It looks dead."

"So do you," Bucky points to the bed, Steve's cheeks pinched red, "but here you are. Defying science. Being a pain in my ass."

"You took pity on the tree, didn't you?" Steve asks as if he didn't know. As if Bucky didn't give the last of their cheese to any stray cat that might end up at their door. That he didn't catch spiders in cupped hands to set them free on their stairs.

That while he was the toughest of the two, he was the softest. That there was nothing Bucky wouldn't try to help.

And now that included trees.

"Maybe. Might call it Steve."

"Please don't."