Welcome to the Neighbourhood

Chapter 11

Warning: This is a sad/angsty one :( - a few light sexual references too

As the weeks morphed into months, Dylan and Bucky had settled into a nice routine as a couple. Dylan spent most of her days writing, while Bucky had joined an outreach program for vets that Sam had hooked him up with. He'd also befriended a few older gentlemen in the park and they would play checkers or pinochle and would moan about the youth of today. He'd even started doing a few shifts at a local auto shop, and was happy to be working with his hands and doing something useful after so long that didn't involve weapons or hand to hand combat.

After several drafts and countless amendments Dylan had finally finished her book. Her Editor was ecstatic and there was a lot buzz at the publishing house as they drew nearer and nearer to publication day. Dylan was truly excited, it felt like her best work yet.

They spent three or four evenings a week with each other and always all day on Sundays, mostly at Dylan's place although she had managed to coax Bucky into finally buying some more furniture for his bare apartment. They went out on dates, Bucky even convinced Dylan to come ballroom dancing once or twice – although she couldn't keep up with the steps the way he could.

Sometimes they had double dates with Paige and her new beau, Mark, a slick investment banker type who was sweet – and clearly very enamoured with Paige. Dylan was amused that he seemed oh so slightly afraid of Bucky, despite his best efforts to hide it.

Sam had visited Brooklyn recently and was delighted to meet the woman who had wrapped Robocop around her little finger. He and Dylan hit it off immediately, much to Bucky's annoyance. Sam regaled Dylan with stories of Bucky's past as she squealed with amusement, grinning at him across the table – elated to find a kindred spirit in Sam, who like her cared for Bucky deeply, but also found him intensely irritating.

Dylan and Bucky had found their transition to couple together very easy. They still bickered and squabbled, still each always had to be the one to 'win' in the silly day to day things, but there was deep seated affection and care between them both.

Bucky supported Dylan's writing unequivocally – checking reviews of her books on Amazon, even offering to hunt down someone who left a 1 star review despite admitting they hadn't read it. He hyped her up every chance he got, with Paige once joking he was one step away from setting up a stan tumblr or instagram - but Bucky had no idea what those were. 

Dylan would hold Bucky after his nightmares, whispering in his ear to calm him down and making it clear she wasn't going anywhere. They had started to settle slightly, and over time he was less and less likely to have them when Dylan slept alongside him.

He would talk about the Winter Soldier days sometimes and Dylan would listen carefully, but would never press him or interrogate him as she knew it was painful. She would never admit to him how scary she found it, how hard it was to reconcile this gentle man she knew with those pictures she'd seen where his hair was long and his gaze was empty.

She arranged for them to go out and visit his family's graves, leaving fresh flowers on his parents' and sister's final resting places. She left him alone for a while to talk with them, and he didn't say an entire word for the entire trip back but that was alright because she kept her hand on his leg from across the car seat until the second they got home. When they got back she called the cemetery staff and organised for them to clean the stones and fix up the engraving so that it all looked a bit fresher. He didn't say anything about that either, but silently made her favourite dinner that night and fixed the flickering lamp in her bathroom after she'd been complaining that building maintenance hadn't sorted it – and that's when Dylan truly understood that most of Bucky's communication wasn't verbal.