Title: A Frown a Day Keeps the Christmas Cheer at Bay

Paring: James "Bucky" Barnes X Reader

Warnings: Christmas fluff! Mentions of things and powers and Marvel things. Nothing bad. Clint intends to steal a turkey. 

Spoilers: yes, for Jessica Jones (very minor) and Captain America: Civil War but hey, you're reading this and I'm guessing (long shot here) you're a Marvel fan? And maybe you've seen them anyways enjoy the story sorry about the sarcasm

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For as long as you could remember, you'd wanted to make a difference in the world. That had been a normal idea, before you had gotten into a car accident with your sister, Jess, and adopted out into a home where you were the freak of the family, and subsequently, weren't allowed to reach out to your sister. Perhaps being able to move things without touching them was a little too much for the small suburban home of the Dersluy's, and you held your abilities at bay in order to keep a sort of peace under their roof.

Now, at twenty, you're out and free, and still wanting to do the same thing you'd wanted as a kid; to do good, to make a difference in the world. Except, now there had been an alien invasion in New York City, and the Fantastic Four had decimated a small town and there was the whole thing where the Avengers had actually been a superhero team, and then as soon as they were together, there was the rift, and end of the team.

But that wouldn't stop you from joining them. It's how you found yourself on the bus out of Hell's Kitchen, hitchhiking, catching a handful of trains and walking to the facility you'd heard rumours of in upstate New York. It's also how you found yourself knocking on the door, and waiting for the figure of Tony Stark himself to open the entrance.

"We're not a bed and breakfast, kid," he ran a hand over his beard, and squinting his eyes, he began to close the door. At once, you felt it; the need to use your abilities. There was no way you went this far out of your way to be rejected by Iron Man himself. With just a flick of your wrist, the door stilled, and with not a tug more he couldn't shut the door. "Uh, I think you got the wrong big building. X Mansion is that way," he pointed over your head.

You shake your head. "I'm here to join the Avengers. I can't sit around watching my city turn to shit and people in masks without agendas try and hold the world on their shoulders." You fish into your pocket, and show him your I.D. "I'm _______ Jones. I'm not a mutant, and I'm not letting a pompous arsehole like yourself stop me." You push past him, eyes taking in the facility's high walls and glass displays of many trophies and things collected.

"You're determined, I'll take that," Tony's door clicks behind him, your telekinesis is weakened at your distraction of being in the place you'd dreamed about ever since you'd been a teenager. "But the boy band is broken up. Everyone's gone their ways -,"

You shake your head. "I've done my research. Dr. Banner is working in Haiti, Ms. Romanov in Germany, the archer's in his home, with his family." You shoot back, ignoring the shock on Mr. Stark's face. "Vision is in this facility here today, and Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes are one state over with Miss Maximoff."

The Iron Man's eyes widen like he's just heard the impossible. "That's classified information -,"

You nod. "I can read minds easier than moving things outside my body, Mr. Stark," you interrupt, facing him. "You need to call the team back together. I don't care how many broken hearts and shields there are, but there needs to be a team. We're a planet without heroes, we need defending."

The AI speaks up, a female voice intoning before she is instructed to, "I shall have all of the Avenger I.D. holders contacted to arrive here within forty-eight hours," she tells Tony, and adds, "_______ Jones makes a good point, sir."

He grumbles under his breath. "Fine. But I'm not making eye contact with Barnes until he apologises for what he's done."

But he makes eye contact with him as soon as the car arrives with the two beefy guys you'd seen on social media, and the waif-like Scarlet Witch who seems both warily skirting away from Vision and wanted to draw nearer to him. Tony Stark seems oblivious to it all, especially when the spies arrive; Clint has a tan and Nat is grumbling in a new language she picked up on her flight, pointedly ignoring everyone by playing with a gameboy. But it's your stubbornness that brings them all together; it's the trademark stubbornness of the Jones' who reunites the Avengers and, ultimately, earns you a place at their table. 

It's Christmastime before you know it, and while everyone is just working out and being generally superheroes, you find yourself on recuperation after a mission gone slightly south (someone from something called IGH broke your arm slightly) alongside Sergeant Bucky Barnes himself. After some Googling, a few talks with Steve Rogers (and his permission for you to read his memories of the old Bucky) you had to say that the man you were sitting beside playing Call of Duty wasn't too much of a different guy to what everyone said he was. He was still the ladies man, but quieter. He was still snarky, but only to those he trusted. And, he was a huge science geek, and you knew he freaked out every time he saw a new invention like a true fanboy.

"It's snowing outside," you comment, trying to reach under your cast to itch the skin. But, no avail.

All your words do is make Bucky pause the game, and glance to the big window that's adjacent to the television. After the trouble that he and everyone had been through, Bucky had a new arm attached, but from what you gathered, it wasn't as great as whatever technology he had before. He nods, placing the controller beside his knee, and goes to stand. "Whenever it snowed back in Brooklyn, I'd make Steve wear all his clothes, and we'd go out to make snow people." He shares without a thought.

You raise an eyebrow. "Sounds cool, dude. Want to go out and build one?" you ask him.

He shakes his head, and stretches his back, a cracking noise coming from within. "I'm an old man, ________, the wind goes straight through me," he deadpans, facing you with a smirk on his face. You couldn't help but grin back, all the more amused by his black humour, his dry wit. You weren't sure how it was, but out of all the people at the Avengers facility, he chose to be your friend as well as Steve's.

And it felt good to have a friend.

"I'm going to the store, we need to stock up before Christmas," Clint announces one day. He's made it clear that he is not staying around for Christmas, thank you very much, he has his baby's first Christmas to celebrate, and he's very into Laura, and prefers to see her face over any of our ugly mugs. But, by this claim he makes, you find it hard to believe he isn't going to try and sneak a whole roast turkey home to his family just because he can.

You grab the keys for the team van from his hands using your abilities, and motion for him to follow. "I'm driving. I'm clean out of dry shampoo, and I can't look like more of a mess that I am when this bad boy is broken," you gesture to your arm.

There's a wrestle within your palm, and the keys are out of your fingers by the familiar cold metal ones of your friend Bucky. "You can't drive with one hand, and Clint either drives like my mother or he's panicking because he has a dead body in the back seat." His voice is monotonous, his intimidating murder-walk leading the way to the van.

You glance to Clint, giving him a rueful smile. "Hey, at least you've got another pair of hands to carry the shopping in with, yeah?"

Clint stocked up on all the things everyone needed; whiskey and assortments of puddings, a turkey to roast and many other things. But it was on the confectionary isle when Bucky stood still.

"What's up, Buck?" You stood beside him, trying to figure out what had struck him dumb. On the shelf before him was a stack of advent calendars, each with a different picture to do with Christmas. "You okay?"

He points to the calendar. "Are those the ones with windows with chocolate in them?" He asks you, releasing the frosty the snowman decal from his pensive stare.

You nod. "Yeah, advent calendars. You had them back in the forties?"

Silently, Bucky nods. "Stevie was going through a rough time, after his mom died. I found the pennies to buy one for him, but he insisted we shared it." He smiled at the memory, his lips nearly hidden under the whiskers  he'd allowed to grow. "I'm buying one for Steve."

You grab three from the shelf. "And I'll get one for you, and me. It's no fun watching the two hot super soldiers have chocolate without me." You state, throwing them into Clint's trolley. 

On Christmas Eve, Tony pushes Clint out the door - sending his love to Laura, and season's greetings - and serves everyone eggnog spiked with enough whiskey to make everyone grow a Stark beard themselves. Bucky seems to be already in the motion of keeping his beard, the hairs scruffier than ever when he's stuffed into an ugly sweater Natasha had brought him from Germany, knitted by someone who liked the pattern of white bunnies on the red snow. Under the sleeve, his arm looks normal enough. 

Your're in Nat's ugly sweater, as it fits almost like she knew all your sizes and things before even meeting you. The pattern is of white stags in a mandala formation on a green background ... whoever knitted it probably had too much German lager to drink. But it's nice, and for a moment, where from the corner of your eye, you see it all. Steve is settling beside Tony, and they aren't slapping each other like teenagers. Wanda's hand is encased by Visions, silently sitting before the fire content in each other's company. Nat has a too-large t-shirt with the picture of mistletoe and the words kiss me if you don't want to keep your face written underneath. And you're sitting beside Bucky Barnes. The guy you rooted for ever since you saw him on the news when Nat cleared the name of S. H. I. E. L. D after the information dump. Perhaps the cutest soldier you'd ever met. 

"You're frowning," he nudges you in the side, jolting you from the daydreams. "My Ma used to say something about being off in your head at Christmastime..." he muses.

You can't help but wonder what Mrs. Barnes had said, and without thinking, you settle your head onto his lap like you're a married couple or in a romantic novel like Pride and Prejudice and not the real world where he was a brainwashed assassin and you were a young girl separated from your superhero twin after the death of your family. 

"Tell me, Bucky," you drawl, trying your best to sound like Elizabeth Bennett. 

He stroke the hair that had fallen into your eyes aside, and leaning down, murmurs into your ear, "A frown a day keeps the Christmas cheer at bay," his voice is soft, breath hot and perfumed by alcohol he can't be intoxicated with. "It's just a silly saying..."

You shake your head, and before he straightens his back, you grab his face, and pull him down onto yours, connecting your lips onto his. The scruff around his face is not harsh and needle-like, but soft, and smells of sandalwood and hotel soap. Before you know it, he's kissing back, and the Avengers around you are ooing, and cooing, and someone's taken a photograph of the two of you on the sofa. 

"I wasn't sure how to ask you to kiss me, but if that's how, I'll be reciting my Ma's things all the time," he grins, voice a whisper as he breaks away. 

You beam. "Sure thing, Sergeant."

Maybe you had always thought that you would make a difference in the world. But from that day on, from the sparkle in his eyes, the life in his voice, the way Bucky Barnes looked at you, at the world; you knew you sure as sweet Christmas that you'd made a difference in his world.