Positive Regard

Chapter Twenty-Five

Bucky and I were still in bed sleeping when Steve opened the door.
"Rise and shine." Steve said the day the family in the house Bucky bought was supposed to move out. "Time to get you guys the hell out of my house."
"It's six in the fucking morning, Steve." Bucky mumbled, pitching a pillow at him.
"Ow!" Steve said. "That hurt. Do you weight your pillows with rocks or something?"
Bucky moved over and put his head on my pillow, since he'd disposed of his. "No. But this arm does come in pretty handy when dealing with little fucks like you."
"We don't have that much to move, Steve." I opened my eyes. "It's not gonna take long. We have, like... two boxes combined."
"I know, I know. But I made breakfast."
Bucky opened an eye. "What's for breakfast?"
"Biscuits."
"I'm up." He climbed out of bed.
"I brought you coffee." Steve held out a mug to me.
I sighed and sat up. "All right, all right. Thanks." I smiled a bit.
Someone knocked on the door while we were eating, and Steve got up to answer it.
"What are you doing here?" Steve asked.
"I want coffee." Loki's voice said.
"Not here."
I called for Steve to let him in, and a couple seconds later, he came in with Loki behind him. I got up and fixed him coffee.
"Want a biscuit?" I asked.
"No thank you." Loki said as I handed him a cup of coffee. He turned to Bucky. "Congratulations on your marriage. And you, Rose, well. Now you're stuck with him. But, if you're happy, then congratulations to you too." He took my hand in his and kissed it.
"Get off my chick, buddy." Bucky said flatly.
Loki raised his eyebrows, looking amused. "Jealous already? Not a good sign. If you can't keep a girl for a month after the marriage, perhaps it isn't meant to be. But as you wish."
I sat back down and gestured for Loki to take a seat. "Is everything okay, sweetie?"
Bucky looked at me. "Don't call him that."
I ignored him.
Loki smiled. "Yes, everything's fine. Ragnarok is coming, though, so I figured I should get a good cup of your mortal coffee before things... well."
"Go to shit?" Bucky asked.
Loki looked at him with barely concealed disgust, but nodded. "Yes, precisely."
Loki reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out an envelope. He put it on the table in front of me. "This is for you. You can't open it right now, so don't bother. It's sealed with magic."
"Then what's it for?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.
"For you."
"When can I open it?"
"You'll know." He said. "I don't soon forget my debts."
Bucky looked at me, looking far too interested in what this debt could be for. Unfortunately for him, I didn't know what it was either.
"What would you owe me for?" I asked.
"I doubt you would know." He said casually, standing. "I'm afraid I must go now. Thank you for your hospitality, Rosie."
I stood too and followed him to the door. "Loki?"
"Yes?" He turned around in the doorway.
"Is something wrong?"
He smiled, perfectly normal. "No, nothing's wrong. I just like to be prepared."
"Come here, give me a hug."
"I don't hug."
I waited, and a second later he came forward and hugged me.
"For the record," he said, "I owe you quite a large debt."
"For what, though?"
"It's in the letter."
"The letter that I can't read?"
"That would be the one." He kissed my cheek and let me go.
"Good luck with whatever you're about to do." I said.
"I'm afraid we'll need all the luck we can get. My brother and I are on the same team this time, though, so I think it will turn out all right." He smiled. "I really must go now. Good luck with whatever your future holds, Rosie."
"You too, sweetie." I smiled. "I love you."
He smiled. "And there's the debt."
When he left, I went back inside. Loki wasn't acting like anything was wrong, maybe, but I felt like something was terribly, terribly wrong. I didn't care what Steve or Bucky or Tony or anyone else said about him, I liked him—I loved him, really. I couldn't shake the feeling I'd never see him again, though.
"What's wrong?" Steve asked when I came back to the table.
"I'm gonna go kick his ass." Bucky started to stand up, and Steve followed his lead.
"Sit down." I said curtly.
They both sat back down.
"What happened?" Bucky asked.
"Nothing." I shrugged.
"Then why are you upset?"
"I'm not."
Bucky held up his hands and backed off. "All right." He said when we'd all finished eating. "Let's get out of here."
"What's your rush, Buck?" Steve raised his eyebrows.
"You woke us up at six to get out, and you're gonna ask me about a rush?"
"I made breakfast."
"At six."
"I couldn't sleep." He shrugged.
"We could." I assured him. "So... are you guys gonna... you know, gonna shave your faces any time soon?"
"Why?" Steve asked.
"You don't like it?" Bucky raised his eyebrows.
"No, no. I do. You look great. Very.. rugged." I nodded. I did not like it, not at all. On either of them. At all. But I didn't wanna tell either of them that, so I wouldn't. I wasn't a big fan of beards—Beards like Tony's were okay. Right now Steve and Bucky's were just scruffle and that was okay—good, even--especially Bucky. I mean, damn. But I wasn't a fan of Steve's. Either way, I wanted to make sure that it would be gone.
"She means no." Steve said.
"No I don't." I smiled my sweet smile. "I'm gonna go get dressed."
All we really had to bring with us were clothes.
"We're gonna have to go shopping." I said as we were leaving Steve's.
"We?" Bucky asked.
"Yes we."
"Why?"
"Because I don't wanna go alone."
"Why do we have to go shopping?"
"We don't even have anything to cook with."
"So?"
"So, how are we gonna eat?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. Can't you just, like, snap your fingers or something?"
"I wish."
Steve drove us there. "I'll help with the boxes and get out of your hair." He said, grabbing the box from my hand.
"No, you don't have to run. You can stay." I smiled, grabbing another box.
Bucky started to grab it from me, but set it back down in my arms. "He can what?"
"I said he can stay." I repeated.
"Then you can carry your own damn box."
"No problem." I laughed and started walking.
He sighed and followed me. "Okay, stop. Give it here."
"I got it, Bucky."
"Give it to me." He picked it up out of my hands.
I went back to the car to get the last box, but Steve had already gotten it.
"Let me take one." I said.
"I got it, just shut the door." He smiled and went inside.
Sure, it was nice and gentlemanly and all, but I could carry a box of clothes. This was when my father would have said something along the lines of "Well, I guess if you have to marry an idiot, he should at least be a good idiot" and probably something along the lines of "Well, Steve turned out okay, I guess."
I hadn't walked into the house when Bucky and I came by, but it looked good. They were selling it furnished because they were moving in with his sick mother, because she wouldn't move in with them. That sounded like something Granny would do. The place had obviously been renovated since the forties, but that was definitely for the best.
The flooring was the same wood, but glossier. The walls were a light gray. The couch was dark gray. On the floor was an off-white rug with teal and gray streaks through it. Granny hadn't had curtains—she said the neighbors could see whatever the hell they wanted to—but now there were long curtains that matched the blue in the rug. There had always been a big tree in the front yard that blocked the sun from shining in directly through that window. The dining room was attached to the living room, and the curtains on the windows there were faded from the sun. Through the doorway to the kitchen, I couldn't see anything but a table, new tile, and the door to the back bedroom.
"Steve's leaving. Say bye." Bucky put his arm around me.
"No he's not. Are you, Steve?" I looked at Steve with a smile.
"Why do you do this?" Bucky asked.
I smiled sweetly. "Remember that time you guys put a snake in my closet?"
"Babe, we were seven."
"Yeah, and I was traumatized."
"Oh, come on. You don't hate snakes."
"I didn't; I do now. But I can hold a grudge. Just wait. We're gonna go hiking and stand on the edge of a cliff."
"Why?" Steve asked, looking confused.
"Because—"
Bucky put his hand over my mouth. "Probably so she can push me off it, if I had to guess." He said lightly.
Steve raised his eyebrows. "Are you scared—"
"I'm not scared of anything."
"You didn't tell me that."
"I thought you knew I wasn't scared of anything." He grinned cheekily.
"We jumped out of planes and onto moving trains. And you fell to your death—well, near death, I guess. Dang. I'm sorry, Buck."
"Yeah, well, I didn't join the army to stay in a box, now did I? Are you gonna leave, Stevie?"
"You don't have to leave. Patience is virtue, Bucky."
Steve smiled. "As much as I love to watch you torment him and to watch him squirm, I'm gonna go ahead and get out of here. Being in this room with you guys makes me really uncomfortable. So, you know, see you."
We waited until the door closed, and then Bucky looked at me. "Is this a trick? Is he coming back?"
I laughed. "No."
"So... you're actually gonna actually go through with this? Cause remember that time in '39 when you said you would, but then you hit me and told me we weren't having sex until I came home?"
What had happened was that Granny said that "nothing was a sin if it was for a soldier" and I decided that made sense, but then I remembered I didn't want to get pregnant. "It's called incentive." I laughed.
"Well it worked really freaking well. I dragged you all the way to 2016 for this shit."
"Are there beds here?"
"Yeah."
"We're throwing out the mattresses. I'm not sleeping where strangers slept for years."
"Okay. Will you have sex there, though?"
I smacked his arm. "No!"
"Okay. So we'll fix that. But later. There's a couch. So let's go there." He kissed me and started moving towards the couch.
The doorbell rang. Bucky closed his eyes and sighed. I started to go get it, but he pulled me back. "Sh. Pretend we're not here."
"That's rude." I shook him off and went to get it.
"It's not rude. Rose. Don't open the door. They'll go away. Rosemary." He sighed and followed me.
I opened the door to see Sam. "Hey." I smiled.
He smiles, looking amused, like he knew what he was doing. "Hey. So, I just wanted to say congratulations on your marriage. Also, you have a lovely home. Can I tour it?"
"No." Bucky said quickly. "You've got to come back—or don't. I don't really care. Just get out of here."
Sam gasped in mock shock. "Oh, no, am I interrupting something? How silly of me! I should have—"
Bucky closed the door.
I turned to raise my eyebrows at him.
Sam called goodbye and walked away, laughing loud enough for us to hear through the door.
"What? He was interrupting." Bucky said.
"Do you wanna start off sleeping on the couch?"
"That's what I'm trying to do, doll."
"No, I meant at night."
"Where are you gonna sleep then, huh? You don't wanna sleep on a stranger's bed."
"You're gonna go get me a new mattress."
"After."
"Now."
He sighed. "Really? Now? It's been eighty years."
"Really."
"Eighty years. Full of war and torture and more war and more torture, all to go buy you a mattress."
I nodded. "Yeah, and you're gonna enjoy it, because you love me."
"And I'm gonna enjoy it because I love you." He agreed. "But for the record, I'm gonna get a really hard mattress. Usually I would get a soft one because you want that, but in light of this event, I'll choose to satisfy my own wants instead of yours—"
I laughed. "I'm kidding, Buchanan. You don't have to go get a mattress—now, at least. You will have to before tonight."
"Why tonight? You can sleep on the couch and I can sleep on the floor—"
"No. You're gonna get a mattress."
"Fine. It's gonna be a hard ass mattress."
"If that means you'll sleep better, you can get the hardest mattress in the place."
"I'd rather you sleep. You get mean."
"I'm always mean." I smiled.
"Yeah, but I love you anyways."
"You should. I'm fantastic."
He kissed me. "Yeah, I know."