Brooklyn Baby || Stucky

Chapter 2

Steve woke up with a jolt, and automatically checked the clock. He slept in by a couple hours, but luckily it was Friday so he wasn’t supposed to open for two days. He yawned and rolled over in his bed, making the frame creak under his muscle mass. A brunette, sleeping mass laid next to him, snoring softly. He ran a hand down her back and she looked up immediately, squinty eyed and wagging her tail.

    “Hey Peggy,” he smiled, getting another thump thump of her tail hitting the mattress. The chocolate lab shoved her wet nose in to Steve’s face and gave him a modest lick on the cheek. She nuzzled into his palm next for some ear scratching, before getting up and hopping off the bed with the shake of her glossy coat.

    The man knew that he’d have to take his puppy out on a walk within the hour, otherwise she’ll get antsy and tear apart the apartment. He rolled over and unplugged his phone from the charger on his night stand, before checking it. Most of the notifications were reminders for him to take his medications, or an order that he finished before Shabbat. The only notification that he really noticed and cared about was from Nat.

pancakes for ur thoughts? ;)

He knew better than to think it was a request. She was commanding that he have breakfast with her to talk about his date. Even though it had been almost a week since then, Steve wasn’t exactly hurdling over chairs and tables to talk about it. Nat hadn’t even asked for him to, so he was simply waiting for the storm. This fluffy, syrupy storm.

Steve wasn’t scared. Hell, he always faced something head on, even when he was a scrawny tenth grader. This was Nat, however, and he knew that despite her love of gossiping and femininity, she could probably rip his head off with the brute strength of a gorilla. If she doesn’t hear about Steve’s love life, she will probably sneak egg shells into his bread to sabotage his career, or even his bed to sabotage his not-yet-existent sex life.

Steve wasn’t about to jinx the first romantic relationship he’d had since college. Well, potential romantic relationship. Bucky and him hadn’t yet established whether or not they were going steady, but they were definitely flirting over text. Call Steven Grant Rogers a hopeless romantic, but he was pretty sure that he felt something with Bucky.

Actually, now that he thought about it, Steve actually felt really warm inside when Rebecca called him “Bucky’s partner”, and he hadn’t even formally introduced himself to her yet. (He was a stranger looking into a fishbowl, basically.) Somewhere in his chest, behind his ribs and asthma, he felt a twinge of pride.

Steve was realizing this as he was drying off from a shower. He was hooking Peggy up to her leash by the time he started thinking about a different topic. She was all riled up because she knew they were going someplace fun, with food and Tasha.

“Rawroo-roo-roo!”

“Yes, love,” Steve says enthusiastically, grinning to the pup. He was crouched down to meet her face with his, which she ran her tongue all over lovingly. “Yes, I know!”

“Roo-roo!”

“Yes! Good morning!”

They were on their way to Natasha’s apartment by eleven o’clock. The usually busy street was quiet and stagnant, like it usually was the day of sabbath. Some neighborhood kids were running around the street closer to the metro station, and an older man--Steve concluded it was a grandpa--watched them closely from the stoop of an apartment building, taking puffs from a thick Churchill style cigar.

As soon as Steve got to Nat’s front porch, the door flung open and Peggy began yanking the man toward Natasha, who had her arms out for a hug. They travelled back into the small house, which was full of the smells of breakfast. Peggy situated herself on her little nest, under the circular table in Nat’s kitchen--once she was let off her leash.