A Stucky Story

The Asset's Birthday part 1

March 9th

A day before Bucky's big day and Steve couldn't feel more nervous. He left the rest of the Avengers to deal with decorations and making things not overwhelming for him. Steve, so badly, wanted to make tomorrow extra special for him. But there was limits for Bucky and they needed to respect that.

There wasn't much Steve could do to prepare Bucky for such a party. The last party he was at was Nat's and that was months ago. Plus Nat's party was kind of an adult party with the exception of Bucky. Bucky's birthday would be mainly child. Steve just hoped Bucky wouldn't be too overwhelmed.

If he could find him.

"Bucky, where are you, pal?" The game hide and seek was taken to new extremes when Bucky realized the many places he could hide in. The vents somehow ended up as a favorite and Steve was always close to a heart attack when he couldn't find him. Today was one of those times where a heart attack was in the making. Steve has been searching for Bucky for almost ten minutes. He looked everywhere; cabinets, closet and the vents. Bucky wasn't even under the bed and Steve didn't want to cheat by asking Jarvis but at this point he was at that option.

"Okay, Bucky game over. Please come out." Harley wasn't being much help, when Steve asked her if she could find him, she just tilted her head. That only escalated Steve's fear.

"Bucky, where are you? Please stop hiding." Fear was laced in Steve's voice. He really started to hate Bucky's spy skills.

"Jarvis, where's Bucky?"

"Sensory room sir, under the bean bag chair." Said Jarvis. Steve's chest instantly released all the tension. He was still on the floor and wasn't injured or stuck somewhere. Steve went in the sensory room, that he thought for sure was locked; then he heard a giggle.

"I think I hear something." The giggling got louder, Steve slowly walked to the bean bag chair then lifted up the chair. Bucky laughed and tackled Steve.

"You're so good at hiding, you scared me."

"Sowwy."

"It's okay. Let's talk for a minute." Steve sat him on top of the bean bag chair. "Tomorrow is an important day for you, do you know why?"

"Me?"

"It is about you. Tomorrow is your birthday. So everyone is going to be here tomorrow celebrating you."

"'Oki?"

"I don't know Buck, I've asked Thor the other day and he said Loki looks better but he's not sure if he's ready to be out for even a day." Steve's heart cracked when he saw Bucky pout a little. At that moment, Steve just wanted to bring the party to Loki or just have Loki video chat. But maybe Dr. Cho could figure out something for Loki.

"But hey everyone is bringing you presents and a little birdie told me someone special to going to arrive." Steve could already imagine Bucky's face.

"So how about today, we have a fun day?" Bucky nodded. It was finally nice of enough weather that Bucky can go outside. Steve put on his long sleeve flannel shirt and jeans, he sort of had the whole day planned out and wanted Bucky to be comfortable.

After a short breakfast, and because Bucky was too excited, they started to head downstairs. Steve packed Bucky's bag full of the essentials and Bucky had his toys. Tony still advised against using his old car since the chance of it not starting was too high for Steve's concern. Steve put Bucky in one of Pepper's SUVs, Bucky and Harley was instantly comfortable. There was so much room than his tiny car. Steve turned on the child locks and went to their first destination.

The mall.

Bucky has never been to the mall because the amount of people there. But Steve decided to just stick to one store to minimize the chance of a meltdown. They haven't even entered the store and Bucky was already becoming a nervous wreck.