written for round 5 @stuckybingo, square I5 - Looking after each other
wordcount: 1411
pairing: Steve/Bucky
additional tags: fluff, kidfic, general silliness, slice of life, dorks in love, dorks in love + their baby
Steve never believed in sunscreen, no matter how many times he got the hide scorched off of him. Used to just sit there and let the sun fry his skin, seemingly content to suffer through all the pretty stages of a sunburn, the blistering and the peeling, the stinging and the itching.
The serum just gave his stubborn ass one more excuse to walk outside in all his dumb, unprotected glory.
“You know it’ll have healed by tomorrow anyway,” he would shrug in the face of Bucky’s reasonable worry. But oh, how he’d hiss and cuss through gritted teeth, Later That Same Day, when Bucky inevitably wound up spreading cool aloe over his poor, neon-bright shoulders, the shade of them a hot raw pink that’d probably get them both sued by Mattel sooner or later.
“Fuck. Fuck. I always forget how bad it gets. How do I always forget how bad it gets.”
And it would take a herculean effort for Bucky to refrain from saying ‘I told you so’, but refrain he would; he’d simply smooth his aloe-covered fingers down to the small of Steve’s back, where the tan line made his creamy-pale asscheeks stand out like two (somewhat flabbergasted) halves of a moon, and he’d lean over to whisper-kiss a fond, “Dumbass”, against the crown of Steve’s head.
*
It was fatherhood that flipped that particular switch for Steve.
Already within the first few weeks of her life, Sarah Barnes-Rogers managed a colossal feat which several people, including her very own namesake, had been fruitlessly attempting for no less than a century: knock some sense into her father.
That summer, they brought their five-month-old baby to the beach for the first time, and suddenly Steve’s baseline shifted from a glaring zero, to at least three separate bottles of sunscreen tucked in his backpack at all times – and he wielded them as dramatically and determinedly as King Arthur pulling his sword from the Stone.
“Never thought I’d see the day,” Bucky teased while Steve re-applied lotion on their daughter, and then himself, for the third time in one morning, the delicate scent of coconut wrapped around them like a gentle cloud.
“Protection is important,” retorted his husband, always 101% ready to rise to the challenge, even when it was ridiculous degrees outside and the average human felt distinctly like warm ice cream oozing, slow and tragic, towards an indecorous end on a sizzle-hot curb. Sarah wriggled excitedly in his lap, her pudgy little body slippery like a newborn dolphin.
“Important for you, too? Really? I thought you were gonna heal by tomorrow anyway.”
Steve glared at him, mouth pouting with growing intensity within the neatly groomed frame of his beard.
“We lead by example,” he said petulantly, and since he couldn’t exactly stomp away – at least not with all the dramatic flair required by such indignity as Bucky was willfully subjecting him to – he settled for looking away instead, fixing the hat over Sarah’s ears to keep his hands occupied. Stubborn, mulish smartass. Bucky was sure he’d never loved him quite so ardently as he did in that moment.
He leaned between their loungers and smacked the loudest kiss on Steve’s coconut-scented cheek, not bothering (oh, not too much) to hide his smug grin. “Good.”
*
Now, all things considered, it’s no wonder that Sarah’s grown to be such a sunscreen enthusiast.
The second they hit the beach, she wants nothing better than for Papa to help her get coated in the stuff, from head to wiggly toe; and once the procedure is complete, she’ll scuttle off at lightning speed, drop to the ground, and – to Bucky’s endless horror – roll about until she’s got every bit of her greased-up self nice and caked in sand. Sand which they'll still find sprinkled in every corner, crease and crinkle of every towel, bag and piece of clothing they own for a couple of months at least, but what is parenthood if not self-sacrifice?
Before she gets to that, though, Sarah has her own self-appointed job to do.
She plucks the bottle from Steve’s hand and, as per their private ritual, manhandles him into lying on his belly, announcing with her sweet, recently tooth-gapped smile, “I’ll do your back!”
Steve always indulges her with a smile of his own, and lets her climb onto the small of his back, ready to surrender himself to Sarah’s loving, if somewhat fierce ministrations.
For once, though, she doesn’t simply smear the lotion around with her usual excitement. On the contrary, she holds the bottle up and squeezes it meticulously, her brow scrunched up in concentration as she works with slow, strangely deliberate moves.
It’s only after a minute or so that Bucky really sees what she’s trying to do; and by then, her masterpiece is all but complete. The sight of it makes his heart clench with unexpected fondness.
“Daddy! Daddy, can you take a picture? I wanna show Papa, please!”
He takes one look at her hopeful little face, at the blond curls falling over her eyes, the sun-kissed freckles already crowding the bridge of her nose so early in the summer, and there’s no way in hell he’d ever even dream of saying no.
“’Course, baby,” he says, reaching for his phone with no further ado.
“Show me what?” Steve pipes up, twisting his neck to try and peek over his shoulder. “What’re you guys doing back there?”
“Nuh-uh,” Bucky tuts, pushing Steve’s head back down to rest atop his crossed arms, “you stay put for a second, doll. Can’t ruin this shot. Alright, here we go.” The camera clicks softly, once. “Hm. Nope.” Twice. “Eh– almost.” Thrice. “Ha! There. Perfect.”
He helps Sarah down from her perch on Steve’s back, very, very careful not to smudge her precious work, then hands her the smartphone. “Go ahead, baby, show Papa what a good job you did.”
In her eagerness, Sarah all but shoves the phone right in Steve’s face, with a squeal of “Pa! Look, look!”, watching him expectantly.
It’s there, on the screen, that Steve finally gets to see it. A message just for him, spanning almost his entire back, spelling, in Sarah’s wonky six-year-old handwriting, “I LOVE YOU PA ♥”, big squiggly heart included.
Steve doesn’t breathe for three whole seconds; and when he starts again, it’s with a soft, awestruck, “Oh.”
And it might be the stark light, or the warm breeze, or the scent of ocean salt in the air, but when he props himself up on his elbows to look at their daughter, his eyes have a familiar, watery shine to them. One of his strong arms wraps around Sarah’s middle and pulls her in, and he plants a kiss on her forehead, smiling all the while. “Love you too, munchkin. It’s beautiful, thank you so much.”
“Yah!”
Satisfied with the feedback, Sarah can finally run off to fulfill her destiny as a pocket-size sand monster. Steve gazes adoringly after her, then lifts his big, gleaming puppy eyes on Bucky, looking about as lovestruck as Bucky’s ever seen him in the last ninety-five years or so.
“Buck,” he says, soft and just, just on the cusp of choked up. How anyone ever thought they could teach this guy not to wear his heart on his sleeve, Bucky’ll never understand.
“Yeah, big guy. I know. I know,” he soothes, hovering close to place a sympathetic kiss on the swell of Steve’s bicep. “Listen, I’m gonna ask a dumb question here.”
Steve blinks up at him, curious.
“Do you maybe want me to fix your back for you, so you don’t actually burn to a crisp?”
And see, the truth is, he already knows the answer. He knows it with even greater certainty when Steve sinks his face in the crook of his own elbow, half laughing, half groaning, and a hundred percent utterly defeated.
Of course not. Of course he’s gonna lie directly in the nearest sunbeam, and let himself bake there until the words are branded onto his skin, pale white on Barbie-box pink, no matter how short-lived they’ll be.
“Yep. Called it.” He gives Steve’s bicep a gentle pat-pat, knowing that in about ten hours, even that will make Steve hiss with unrepentant, self-inflicted pain - and possibly loving him just that wee bit more for this tiniest of derring-do’s. “I’ll make sure to grab some more aloe on our way home.”
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