☏︎𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 ℙ𝕖𝕣𝕜𝕤☏︎

6: Pretty Confident(Stucky)

   Chapter Summary: In which Maria has discovers that she more in common with her Dad than she initially thought.

   Chapter Soundtrack: Unstoppable by Sia

   Requested by ZahriaB2

   Prompt: "I just wanted to ask for a fic where Steve and Bucky recently adopted this 14/15 year old girl and she's pretty comfortable with them but they're still somewhat new to each other. So she's starting to find all these feminine things around the house that aren't hers and starts to get suspicious. So one day she's going through laundry and finds mascara in Bucky's pants and decides to talk to Steve and Bucky about it and they explain to her that he likes to feel pretty sometimes to forget and unlearn all the things Hydra put him through and she and Bucky bond over makeup."

   Note: This is set two years after Endgame. Maria was adopted one year after Endgame, and has been living with Steve and Bucky for almost a year. There will be a spoiler, but I'm fairly sure that most people already know about this.

   It had originally started when Maria found a pair of baby pink socks.

   At the time, she hadn't thought much of it. At first, she thought that maybe they were hers and she just didn't remember buying them. Later on, however, she noticed that they  had disappeared from her dresser.

   The second time she noticed anything, she was brushing her teeth. As she went to spit, something caught her attention. Out of the corner of her eye, something had stood out against the stark white counter. It was a small, red smudge. She ran the tip of her finger over it, and it smudged further when she did so. It was only an hour or so later, however, when she realized it was lipstick. And it was a color that she never wore.

   Over the course of a few weeks, Maria kept noticing little things here and there that snagged her attention, all having to do with feminine products(mostly makeup). And every time, she kept it to herself.

   Her adoptive parents, Steve and Bucky Rogers-Barnes, had adopted her from Penny's Home for Cherished Children a year prior. She had just turned 14 a few days earlier when the headmistress called her into her office and told her that she was being adopted. She had met Bucky and Steve before, of course, but hadn't actually thought that they would adopt her.

   Bucky, she referred to as 'Dad,' and Steve, she referred to as 'Papa.' She already knew, of course, that they were part of the Avengers. She met them a week after moving in with Steve and Bucky, and, as predicted, all of them immediately loved her. The only who she didn't particularly like was Nick, mostly because he always sent Steve and Bucky on missions. When they were away, she usually stayed with Sam Wilson, AKA Falcon, AKA Uncle Sam.

   Over the past few months, Maria happened to notice that Bucky spent a lot of time with Wanda and Natasha, as opposed to Steve, who spent more time with Clint, Bruce, and Tony. Thor wasn't really around often enough for her to determine who he spent the most time with.

   Maria had dismissed it at first, assuming he was just more comfortable talking with women. As time passed, however, and the instances kept piling up, her suspicions grew. The only thing that was stumping her was determining which one of her parents was responsible for the occurrences. On one hand, Bucky seemed to gravitate towards the female Avengers more than the male ones. On the other hand, Steve seemed to give off a little bit more of a feminine vibe than she got from Bucky.

   She didn't have to wonder for long.

   ...

   Maria had always preferred doing her laundry. Whether it was because she valued her privacy or it just served as a way to make her feel independent, she didn't really know. Her dads didn't complain, so she just kept doing it.