Love's New Hope

Central Park and Mischief

Central Park
Bucky grinned as he breathed in all the scents of the park. "Kinda nice here, isn't it?"

"Lot different then when we were kids." Steve replied, smiling.

"Wow, we kinda sound like two old grandpas." Bucky told him, chuckling.

Steve turned to Bucky, eyes shining. "We're gonna do it, right?"

"How could we not?" Bucky replied, beaming.
*
"Quit your whining, sonny, you sound like a chipmunk!" Bucky yelled creakily at a kid who was mouthing off to his mother. Before Natasha had become pregnant, the three of them would come to Central Park, dress like crotchety old people and yell at the annoying "youth". This was enough to keep them randomly bursting into laughter for weeks. It was a similar stunt to the one they'd pulled as kids, though modified to fit their age. It was all a bit of play acting, and one that they enjoyed beyond reason.

"Hey, you!" Steve screamed squeakily at a gang of buff, snooty young men. "Drink your prune juice or your bowels won't work when you reach my age!" After a few more remarks at various unsuspecting targets, the two friends ran behind some bushes.

"Are you ready for the mother of all pranks?" Bucky asked, grinning wickedly.

Steve grinned. They'd been planning this forever. "Oh yeah. Think it'll get out that Captain America is pulling pranks."

"Oh I hope so. That'd be the perfect conspiracy."

The two friends laughed uncontrollably for several minutes. "Ok," Bucky said finally, wiping away tears of mirth. "I'll go get in the tree. When I give you a text, you start hollering like the devil himself is after you."

Steve snickered. "You just do your part and I'll do mine."
*
"Help!" Steve hollered, still maintaining a creaky old man voice. "Oh someone help!"

"Sir?" A police officer approached the seemingly ancient man. "Is there a problem?"

"Why, yes Officer, there is!" Steve said, laying on a thick Southern accent. "My little grandson Elroy is stuck up in a tree!"

"Your grandson... is stuck ... in a tree?" The officer looked appropriately confused.

"Yes! Come on I'll show you!" Steve shuffled along at an annoyingly slow pace and began huffing and puffing, pretending to be out of breath. "He'd just right over here." He led the officer over to a large tree and pointed. "There he is!"

And there he was. Bucky, aka Elroy, has donned a blond wig, sunglasses, and was currently blasting Carrie Underwood's Mexico at the top of his speaker range.

"Elroy! Elroy!" Steve hollered up, voice cracking with the strain of trying to keep his voice sounding old. "You get down here!"

"Elroy" lowered his sunglasses and rolled his eyes at his "grandfather". "Go away, Gramps." He laid back down on his tree branch and nodded his head to the music.

"Son, I'm going to have to ask you to get down from there." The cop said seriously.

"Or what?" Bucky asked, sneering.

"Or else there are going to be some extremely horrible consequences."

"Go ahead!" Bucky said, chortling. "Make. My. Day."

The officer frowned for a moment then walked a few paces away and began speaking in his radio.

While he was distracted, Bucky lowered a bit of hidden rope and Steve shimmied up and sat next to his friend. They fist bumped and waited for the officer to notice.

"Just like old times." Bucky whispered to Steve who chuckled.

"That it is. Once Nat is back on her feet, we'll have to pull a triple." This was one of the many, many times they'd pulled this stunt. When they were kids, they'd get stuck on top of light poles, shop awnings, and anything even remotely high. And somehow, they'd always managed to get away, though they always prepared themselves for the possibility of capture.

"Hey, he's turning around." Bucky said excitedly, holding his phone so he was able to tape the officer's reaction. He and Steve had a hard time not snickering or anything.

The officer stopped dead in his tracks. "Sir, what are you doing up there?"

"Well you weren't getting my grandson down so I thought that I'd better help him down. I may have gotten a wee bit stuck however."

The officer still stared. "But how did you even get up there?"

"How do you think I climbed up here? Do you see a rope? What do you think I flew? Really son, use your brain!"

Bucky let out a snort and almost choked trying to contain his laughter. The officer just paled and backed away. "You two stay right where you are. I'm going to go get backup and I want to make sure you're still here!" The officer literally ran to find his coworkers.

The second he was out of sight, Bucky and Steve burst into laughter. "Should we stay to see the show or play it safe?" Bucky asked Steve in between spurts of laughter.

"We'll play it safe today. But next time..." the two boys laughed thinking about the mischief they would cause. Then they clambered out of the tree and dashed in the opposite direction of the officer. Once they got back to their hiding place, Steve quickly pulled off his outer layer of old man clothing, leaving him with a nice button down shirt and jeans.

"Well, Buck." Steve said as he walked out of the bushes. "What would you say to some pizza?"

Bucky grinned and slung an arm around Steve's shoulder. "You know I'd never say no to pizza!"
*
Natasha eyed Clint. "You mean to tell me you let them go to Central Park all by themselves? Do you know how much trouble they could get into?"

Wanda smirked at Clint. "That's what I said!"

Clint shrugged. "And like I told Wanda, not our problem. Fury's problem."

Natasha snickered. "Has that always been your way of thinking?"

Clint nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."

The elevator doors dinged, saving Clint from further interrogation. Steve and Bucky walked in laughing and eating popcorn.

"Where were you two?" Natasha asked curiously.

"Well, we went to Central Park, annoyed lots of people, ate pizza, got shakes, then caught an early movie called Singing in the Rain, saw that three times, stuffed ourselves with popcorn, and came home." Bucky glanced at Steve. "Did I miss anything?"

Steve shook his head. "Nope."

Natasha eyed them. "And you paid to see this movie?"

The two boys glanced at each other. "The first time." Steve said naughtily. "And we paid for the popcorn."

"And you're America's Golden Boy?" Clint asked incredulously.

Bucky shrugged. "He was broke kid from Brooklyn first."