Slow Dancing & Apple Pie

Fourteen

"What the fuck," Bucky huffed under his breath. Steve looked over to see him searching through his locker in the changing room of the compound.

"What's up?"

Bucky looked up with a rather manic look in his blue eyes. "I'm starting to wonder if whoever runs the laundry service here has a grudge against me."

Chuckling, Steve reached in and pulled out his shirt. "You know you sound crazy right?"

"Well, what else am I supposed to think?" Bucky slammed his locker door shut. "Fricken clothes keep disappearing on me."

Pausing, Steve looked back over to him. "Like your uniform stuff?"

Bucky pushed a hand through his hair, shrugging. "No, more like my work out gear. Several of my Henleys. My favorite leather jacket. Shit like that."

Steve fell into step with Bucky as they left the locker room. "And what makes you think it's the laundry here that's doing it?"

"Because I do my own laundry at home, so it has to be here," Bucky insisted as they reached the garage and stopped by Bucky's bike. Patting a hand on his shoulder, Steve said, "I don't think the laundry service is out to get you Buck. I'll see you later."

"You're not coming out?"

"No, I want to get home, there's something I gotta check on," Steve answered vaguely. Bucky nodded, grumbling under his breath about the annoyance of having to go out and be social when Steve didn't have to. Steve waited until Bucky pulled out of the garage before climbing on his own bike and heading home.

Steve had been watching the two of you over the course of the past three weeks. When he'd first returned from the mission where he warned Bucky he would need to make amends with you or get out, the two of you seemed to have worked things out. At the very least, you were polite to each other. Though at times Steve thought it was a little too polite.

But that didn't last too long before the two of you started bickering again. It was over small stuff really. Bickering over your taste in music, Bucky not being done with the book you wanted to read, or how Bucky thought you put too much cinnamon in the french toast you make. Petty things.

As the days went on, Steve could practically taste the tension between the two of you. However, if these bickering fights of yours helped you and Bucky vent some of that tension, well Steve wasn't going to get in the middle of that.

But Bucky complaining about missing clothes was something different entirely. Steve was a little surprised that his mind went to the laundry service at the compound and not you. Especially considered all the things that Bucky listed were things that had been at home, not the compound, the last time Bucky had used them.

He wasn't completely sure why you were stealing Bucky's clothes, but he had the start of a suspicion and needed to talk to you about it. Before Bucky got home tonight.

~*~*~*~

The scent of lemon greeted him when Steve walked in the door. Looking around the place, he realized you'd been very busy while they'd been on their mission the past couple of days. Cleaning and rearranging—well everything he suspected.

"Princess?" He called out, closing the door and hanging his jacket on the hook by the door. He could smell you under the cleaning smells. That apple pie scent of yours rich and sweet and coupled by something else too. Something that made him think of vanilla.