A/N: Whew! Hey all, I'm alive, in spite of a lot of really sudden things that jumped on me lately. You know, life. Anyway, God willing, I'll have that regular posting schedule I promised. Many thanks to Mish, the baker around here, and to Julianna for their ideas in the end of this chapter. Hope you enjoy this break from your reality scheduled Civil War angst! Let's see Bucky's side of the story in A Slice of Cake.

Just the Icing on Top

Bucky Barnes had a new nemesis, and it was piping bags. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Steve was actually responsible for giving Bucky the idea to make him a cake for his birthday, one warm July afternoon when he'd interrupted Bucky's game of soft darts.

With a flick of his wrist, the tiny missile left Bucky's flesh hand and sailed through the air towards the wall-mount target. It hit the bull's-eye (as had all the others) and knocked another dart off and onto the living room floor.

"Hey, Bucky," Steve called, poking his head in from the hall.

Bucky stiffened reflexively, but tried to cover it up by flopping backwards onto the couch. "Hey," he mumbled, trying to shift into a less awkward position than the one he'd landed in.

Smooth, Barnes, ground out some sardonic voice that had slowly become more welcome in his mind. Steve said he'd been hella sarcastic before. Maybe that voice was it all coming back.

Steve smiled and took the liberty to enter the room. "I just wanted to let you know that I'll be running out for groceries." He took a long look at the target hung on the wall and added, "Where did you find that?"

"Closet." Bucky nodded at the linens closet across the hall.

"Seriously?" Steve looked honestly surprised. "I had no idea we had soft darts."

Bucky shrugged. He'd discovered it one day when he was particularly bored and was looking for a good place to hide a pistol should HYDRA show up. Somewhere on a fairly inaccessible top shelf in the linens closet, there was a set of soft darts. Goodness knew if it belonged to the last person who'd owned this apartment.

"Huh." Steve took another look at the bulls-eye crowded with five darts, the sixth one still lying on the floor, and something like a smirk crossed his face. "Should I be surprised that you're such a good shot?"

Bucky's jaw tightened into something very much like a smile, and suddenly found the armrest on the couch interesting.

Steve laughed and stepped a bit closer. "Well, if you get bored of target practice and think of anything you need, let me know. I still have to finish my list."

Bucky nodded, running his right forefinger along the hem of the armrest.

Steve would constantly invite him to voice his opinions, needs, or wants, and Bucky wasn't always able to bring himself to take him up on the offer. Defying decades of programming was hard. Getting over his own stubborn need to be self-sufficient was harder.

But he was grateful for the offer when it came, if only because it was different. It reminded him that, no matter what happened next, Steve would never treat him like They had.

Looking up, Bucky realized that Steve had already left for the kitchen. Bucky sat on the couch for a moment longer to weigh his options.

Finding nothing better to do at the moment (and with nothing against being near Steve for a few more minutes before he left), he got up and trekked down the short hall to the kitchen.

"Okay, I think that takes care of frozens..."

Bucky leaned against the wall and watched Steve talking to himself as he jotted down notes in a long notepad. There was something familiar about Steve's mannerisms in a way he couldn't place, something that reminded Bucky of a skinny blonde kid in clothes that were too big for him...

The impression faded in a moment when he caught Steve jotting down 'cocoa powder'. Bucky frowned. He didn't think they were running low on that.

He headed for the pantry, found a clear bag full of brown powder near the flour and sugar, and held it out at arm's length. "Steve."

"Yeah, Buck—what?" For a moment, Steve looked confused. Something cleared in his expression and he responded, "Oh, no, that's the wrong kind of powder. Yeah, I know we have plenty of that."

Taking the pen to the notepad again, Steve explained further, "That's for baking. Like...for cakes."

Bucky felt his eyebrows knit as he stored the bag where it belonged. Chocolate cake?

And then the small, dark walls of the pantry gave way to dim, sunlit walls and a faint smell that he only vaguely remembered.

"Now take this straight to the Rogers', and don't you eat any of it on the way!" A woman's voice, half scolding, half teasing, penetrated the image, and he saw the vague shape of someone in a skirt folding a rich brown desert into a basket.

Who...? Bucky wondered.

"I won't, Ma, promise!" cried the shrill voice of a small boy. "Cross my heart and hope to die." The little boy's fingers made a cris-cross motion over his chest—something Bucky only knew, though there was no child to be seen.

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far," the woman laughed. "I trust you. There you go." She passed the basket to a small pair of hands—

And suddenly Bucky remembered, the rough feel of the wicker on his skin, and the weight as if he held the burden himself. Me! Bucky realized, almost staggering back with the force of the idea. It's me, the boy, that was me...

He faintly remembered the feather-light brush of a mother's kiss on his head. "Now, go. And make sure Steve gets the first piece. It's his day, after all."

"Yes, Ma!" A heave to settle the burden in his arms, and haphazardly-placed footsteps, running out the door...and then, Bucky was in Steve's kitchen again, leaning against the shelves in the pantry for support.

He could feel his breathing heavier and faster than normal, yet there wasn't the lingering pain, fear, or anxiety that usually followed his flashbacks. He tried to calm himself, mentally running over what he'd seen and assessing it.

This one was good...

"Memory?" asked Steve, his voice low. He faced Bucky, both thumbs looped in his pockets, the grocery list lying abandoned on the counter behind him.

Stupid punk worries all the time. That much was familiar enough to calm Bucky, and he nodded, immediately awake and aware.

Steve's expression softened, but none of the anxiety in those blue eyes had left. "Good?" he asked slowly. "Or bad?"

"Good." Bucky's voice sounded rough from disuse. He licked his lips and ran his thumb over the ridges in his metal arm. "There was...um...a woman."

My mother...Bucky pushed the thought into a corner of his mind for later and made himself continue.

"And she—there was a cake," said Bucky, getting his bearings back. "I think she made it. Had me take it...somewhere." His voice fell. "I was little. The guy was called 'Steve'." It fell further, and he ducked his head. "Dunno if it was you, maybe."

Steve had begun to smile as Bucky relayed the memory, and that smile only got bigger. "Your Ma," he said. "Winnifred. We called her Winnie. She could bake pretty well."

Steve's voice dropped a decibel, and the smile turned vaguely into something playful. "Not as well as my Ma, though."

Bucky managed to return something that was like a smirk. Sure, Steve, sure. Not that I'd remember...

The concern was back in Steve's eyes, though he still tried to smile. "You okay?"

Bucky straightened and nodded. "M'fine." He glanced past Steve at the list and took a deep breath. And I don't want to forget this one...

Steve kept pens around his house, that much Bucky knew—mostly in those flat cups on the corners of tables and desks. He'd searched them out, the first night he arrived here, as even before then he'd gotten into the habit of writing what he didn't want to forget. You never know when a pen, like a gun, could come in handy.

He snatched one ballpoint pen out of its place on the counter-top and whisked a napkin out of its holder. Winni...Winnifred? How are you supposed to spell that?

"Aw, Bucky, you don't have to do that." Steve's voice interrupted him.

But I still don't know how to spell it...Bucky protested internally, but the idea didn't reach his voice as he turned to look at Steve.

"Hang on." Steve had begun to search some drawers in the kitchen, but didn't seem to find what he was looking for. "I'll be right back," he said, heading out into the hall with a quick glance in Bucky's direction.

Bucky sat in a chair at the table, unsure of what was happening, but he figured it would be best to sit still. He put down the pen and waited, waited silently until he could hear the clock ticking in the den, and the sound of Steve moving things in his bedroom across the hall.

Bucky's flesh finger began to tap on the table, and he made it stop.

Steve was back soon enough, ripping the first few pages out of a blue spiral-bound notebook. "Here," he said.

Bucky stared at the new object. He hadn't seen Steve with one of those before.

"I've barely used it at all." Steve threw the first few pages away in the kitchen trash can. "But you can have it."

Bucky continued to stare, this time slightly incredulous. Seriously...?

Steve shrugged and set the book onto the table in front of Bucky. "All yours," Steve explained, tapping the cover with his fingers, and then he moved away.

A gift? Bucky examined the blue cover as if to pick out every blemish in its surface. He could hear Steve walking behind him, and wasn't sure if this was some kind of test.

Bucky traced the edge with his finger, then shifted it an inch toward him on the tabletop. He said 'all yours...'

Still half afraid there was some sort of catch, he peeled back the cover. The first page was bare and clean, marked with faint blue lines horizontally, and there were still the outlines of letters made by pressure when Steve had written on the page before it.

Bucky picked up his pen and carefully jotted down Winnifred.

From there, the pen couldn't move fast enough, and Bucky found that all of his apprehensions blew into smoke.

He hardly heard Steve chuckle, pick up his keys, and promise to be back in an hour. When Bucky looked up, the door had closed and the apartment was empty, save for himself.

Bucky picked up the notebook that was all his. He'd be getting his worth out of this thing.

Between the mattress and the springboard of Bucky's bed (and somehow still undiscovered or untouched by Steve), there was a thin collection of cards, envelopes, wrappers, scraps of paper, and napkins, on which he'd jotted down many the things he hadn't wanted to forget.

There were maps of HYDRA rendezvous points that he'd sketched out, half by instinct, half by memory. There were short, often disjointed accounts of memories from before, before—records of a past he couldn't quite believe still belonged to him. And then there were various facts and pass-codes that he'd found to be useful, like the address to Alexander Pierce's apartment (which was for sale last he checked), the code to the electronic lock outside Steve's apartment, and the password to Steve's tablet.

Bucky pulled every scrap out, one at a time, and paying no attention to any sort of order he copied each one down, letter for letter, into the new book that Steve had given him. One of his earliest notes was on a smudged old envelope that never made it where it was addressed.

I recognize this...he thought absently.

'Steven Grant Rogers born July 4 1918 James Buchanan Barnes born March 10 1917'. He'd recorded the information from plaques at the museum, instinctively knowing that the names and numbers were important.

Bucky set the envelope aside and made his way through the pile, until every note was in its place and he could throw the old scraps away. The dates and names had given him an idea, but that could wait. He knew better than to begin one—mission?—no, task before ending another one.

A ghost of a smile began to creep onto his face. The last time he'd done anything like that was when he ignored the order 'kill Steve Rogers' and replaced it, on his own. His new mission was 'protect Steve Rogers'.

With a thump in his heart, it suddenly occurred to Bucky that he ought to be wherever Steve was right now. No, no, he schooled himself, it's fine. Calm down, Barnes.

Any mission, even one he gave himself, could stay on hold for a grocery run.

After bagging the scraps and throwing them all away, Bucky paged back through his book until he could find the names and dates he'd gotten from the museum.

Steve's tablet was on the chest-of-drawers like it always was, and Bucky typed in the password that, by now, he'd memorized. He sat on Steve's bed and pulled up a calendar. Today is...

He found the highlighted box on the screen. This one. June 25.

A quick swipe of his finger confirmed his suspicion. Nine days until July 4.

Google seemed to think that birthdays were the times for people to buy candles and cakes and things like that.

Is that right...?

Bucky rested both elbows on his knees, the device held safely between his hands. The afternoon sunlight sifted through the curtains, casting a white square of light onto the floor by his feet.

Bucky was beginning to thread together the different ideas and scraps of information in his mind, and the book that was a gift lay on the bed beside him like the beginning of all his ideas. There would be less than nine days to complete the new mission—

Wait. New mission?

Bucky sat up, thought over the concept, and finally decided that it felt right. Yep. A new mission, just a smaller one. Bucky set his jaw, they way that those in charge are supposed to, and a light sparked in his eyes. I'm calling the shots now.

Bucky was up to his elbows in flour and frosting, but all he could think was oh boy, was this worth it?

"You made a cake?" asked Steve, an unreadable expression on his face as he stood in the kitchen doorway.

Do you like it? Bucky wanted to blurt out, but he couldn't. Too many worries had been swirling through his mind since Steve arrived, not the least of them being that Steve would be mad that it wasn't done, or that the mess wasn't cleaned up, or that Bucky had dared to do anything on his own in the first place.

He'd been brave planning all of this. Real easy when the man's not standing right in front of you. Bucky gulped, and could feel his head ducking against the burn of Steve's gentle gaze.

Well, you did it. Face the music, Barnes.

He simply nodded.

The smile that it earned from Steve made all of Bucky's worries fly up like smoke through a chimney.

"Can I see?" he asked.

Yes, yes, it's yours, you can have it, here! Bucky wanted to say, but when he looked at his arm and told it to move the cake closer to Steve, it wouldn't budge.

Oh come on! He hated being nervous for no reason. It's Steve!

After a moment, Steve reached forward himself. He stopped, and he and Bucky searched one another's faces for a moment—What's he thinking? Bucky wondered—and he reached forward and paused one more time before pulling the cake out from behind Bucky.

Okay. Good. That's fine. Bucky wanted to say a million things by way of explanation.

But when Steve looked around the kitchen, he smiled, and seemed to get it.

Bucky couldn't take it anymore. He could feel his shoulders rising to enclose his head and face, but it was less from fear and more from something warm and hungry in a way that felt good. He shifted on his feet, hoping to get Steve's attention—and then he did.

Come on, come on, just ask him!

"Good?" asked Bucky, when he found the voice.

Steve's beaming smile was worth it all, even without the enormous hug that followed it. Bucky bit down a noise of surprise at the sudden contact.

Boy, you smell like outside, he thought, and decided that wasn't a bad thing.

"Yeah, Buck, real good," Steve praised, his voice soft and filled with happiness. "Good job. Thank you so much."

Bucky could feel his face heating a little, hidden as it was between Steve's chin and shoulder. 'Good job...thank you so much...' The words bounced around in his mind and left warmth everywhere they touched.

He buried his face in Steve's shoulder, wanting to hide for a misplaced reason.

"You're back too soon," whispered Bucky. It would have to do for an apology.

"What?" Steve asked.

And then a loud, sudden laugh made Bucky jump and stare at Steve accusingly. What?! What was that?!

"Whoa, Buck—sorry," he apologized, still laughing and trying to catch his breath. Bucky shrank down into himself, disgruntled.

"It's okay," Steve assured him. "Aw, was that it? You wanted me distracted, so you stuck me in the one place you knew that had awful long lines. Boy, you're smart, Bucky," he praised warmly, and Bucky could feel Steve's fingers messing up his hair. "Sorry I rushed home. I was worried about you."

Time seemed to slow down. He couldn't even hear the clock ticking in the den, he was focusing so hard.

And that was the moment Bucky realized he'd done it.

The smile pulling at his face felt more like a smirk than anything, but Bucky couldn't stop it for the life of him. "Mmn...got you," he muttered, and then buried his face in Steve's shoulder because he couldn't remember tricking anyone before but man, it felt good.

"Yeah, you got me," Steve answered, still overjoyed.

The tight hug that followed that made Bucky absently wonder how effectively Steve could break a man's bones. But Steve soon released him, and smiled widely enough to make Bucky forget it.

"Tell ya what, pal. You finish the cake," suggested Steve, "I'll put all this stuff away, and when you're done, I'll act surprised."

Bucky felt his jaw twitch. Steve laughed again.

He looked so happy...

Oh, yeah, this was worth it.

Dang it! Again...

Two minutes into the continuing battle of getting frosting onto the cake, and Bucky was seriously reconsidering his earlier sentiment.

It wasn't that getting frosting onto the cake was hard. No scooping motion could possibly be hard. No, it was more that spreading it raked up a number of crumbs from the chocolate surface and got them all mixed into the icing.

Bucky was pretty sure that a cake wasn't supposed to look like a pale thing with freckles, and his irritation was beginning to get to the point where his teeth would not move from being grit together.

Come on already...

Almost an entire layer of chocolate brown cropped up on the underside of one wave of frosting, and Bucky growled aloud as he wrestled it down.

"What's the matter, Buck?" asked a surprised Steve, poking his head out of the pantry.

Bucky fixated him with a look that was wholly disgruntled and let the spatula rest limp in his hand. What do you think the matter is? Look at this!

Steve's gaze wandered to the cake, and he began to look like he was biting back a cough. "Oh, having trouble?" he asked, his voice strangely controlled. His eyes twinkled in a way that confused Bucky.

Giving up on figuring out Steve, he glared at his uncooperative creation and grumbled, "Crumbs," as a way of explanation.

The odd biting-back-a-cough thing came over Steve's face again, this time stronger. "Don't worry," he said, coming to Bucky's side and taking the spatula from him. Steve looked like he couldn't stop smiling. "Oh, I see. This always happens. You can finish the crumb coat and let it set, and then we'll put on another layer. You made enough icing for that, right?"

Bucky blinked as he considered all of this. A quick glance at the bowl under the stand-up mixer proved that they did have enough to put on another layer of frosting, so Bucky nodded, but still...

What do you mean by 'crumb coat'?

"Good." Steve had taken over smoothing the frosting over the cake's surface and sides. "I've got all the stuff put away, so I can help you now."

He straightened and turned to Bucky, who didn't quite know what to do with himself and was still wondering where Steve learned to use this strange other language. "Was there anything you wanted to do to decorate this? Besides just plain frosting, I mean. I think we have some piping bags."

Bucky blinked. Steve had a bad habit of following up his questions with words and burying them so deep that Bucky had to backtrack to figure out what he was actually asking. Decorating...? he wondered, before the image he'd found above the internet recipe came rushing back. That was a decorated cake!

I want to do that...!

Bucky made a dash for Steve's room and swiped his tablet off of the chest-of-drawers. It woke up when he opened the cover, and Bucky jabbed in the password as he walked back to the kitchen. The internet page with the recipe was waiting for him.

Steve seemed mildly surprised when Bucky entered the kitchen again. "Why do you—?" he began.

Bucky had already faced the screen toward him and held it in arm's reach. He figured it would get the message across.

Steve took the tablet in one hand. "Okay, we can do this," he answered slowly, his eyes roving the picture before he glanced up at Bucky. "Uh...Buck..."

Bucky straightened.

"You know my password?"

Bucky didn't have to think about that one. "Yes."

Steve blinked.

"Okay," he said, looking back at the screen. "Um..." He seemed to get his composure back after a second. "If you want to do this, I'll have to separate the frosting into two bowls. One for the extra coat, one for the piping."

Bucky thought about this and nodded. That seemed to make sense...even though Steve was using a bunch of special cake words that Bucky didn't know. It was only slightly annoying.

"The picture has chocolate icing, though," Steve went on. He'd pulled a large bowl out of the cabinet and was divvying it up between that and the mixing bowl. "You only made vanilla, so we can add colors if you want."

Colors? Bucky paid more attention at this point. Steve noticed and smiled.

"That sound good to you, pal?" Steve reached up and pulled a small box out of the cabinet.

Why do you keep having things around here that I don't know about? Bucky grumbled, before he remembered the soft darts set and felt better about himself.

"Here's all the food dye we have," offered Steve. "A little goes a long way, so don't worry about the size. You can just pick a color, and we'll do that."

He set the box down in front of Bucky and went right back to work.

Bucky frowned intently, as if he wanted the box to be absolutely sure he didn't like it. He'd just caught on to the fact that Steve wanted him to choose something. Again.

Bucky looked up at Steve and found him almost pointedly busy with putting on a second coat of frosting.

Bucky felt himself starting to roll his eyes. Well, there's nothing for it, he relented.

Touching the box as little as possible, he pulled back the lid. Four little bottles with nozzles stared up at him.

Each one bore a single color of green, yellow, blue, or red.

Red...

Bucky felt himself start to freeze. Stop, stop, snap out of it, something in his brain screamed at him, but it was no use. He hated red. He hated red. He would always hate red. Red was the color of the Book, the color of the fires, the color of...of when he shot Steve, and he...

Bucky didn't want to look at the red again, so he yanked the other three out of the box, shut the lid as tightly as he could, and pushed the box away, hiding the red in the dark where he couldn't see it.

Steve looked surprised. "That was quick," he remarked, glancing at the three little bottles in Bucky's hand. "You want those?"

Bucky blinked, dragged himself back to reality, processed what Steve said, and copied his gaze. In his flesh palm lay the three little bottles of yellow, blue, and green.

Sure, Bucky thought, why not, as some of the tension began to slip away from his shoulders and he could think again. They weren't...that. And he didn't have to choose any more if he just said yes to Steve.

So Bucky nodded and dropped the three bottles onto the counter where Steve could reach them. Steve smiled. Something told Bucky that he always would.

"Sure, we can do that," Steve assured him. "You wouldn't want to mix all of those into the same bowl, though. Can you get three small bowls from the cabinet?"

Bucky moved to do just what Steve asked.

"Thanks." The smile was back. "You can put one color into each of those. I'm almost done here, so I'll get the piping bags ready for you."

Bucky nodded, setting the thought aside for later that he still didn't understand why Steve was so happy to say 'I'll do this—or that, or anything—for you'.

It's for the same reason he always smiles, something in his mind supplied.

He'd think about that later.

Bucky had a new arch-nemesis, and it was piping bags.

His first go had been with the blue icing. Steve had put the nozzle into the bag and showed him how to hold it before placing the whole thing into Bucky's hands. "Just squeeze gently," he instructed, when the point was hovering just over the surface of the cake.

Bucky's left hand had shut like he was grasping a grenade, and the result was a blob of blue frosting that Bucky had no idea what to do to about.

What...?

Steve had a sudden fit of covering his mouth with his fingers, fighting a wide grin, and acting like he couldn't breathe. "That's okay, Bucky," he'd finally said, after wrapping both arms around his middle twice and wheezing. "It's okay, I'll fix it, just..." He made another strange noise, and Bucky realized that he was trying not to laugh.

It's not funny! Bucky cried inside his head, his face quickly heating up.

"Sorry. Shouldn't laugh, sorry," Steve apologized, schooling himself into composure. "Here." He arranged Bucky's fingers differently on the edges of the piping bag. "That's why I said 'gently', Buck. There. If you can manage, try and give it another go."

The second go had been less spectacular, but still Bucky got a blob. He could think of a few imaginative curses in languages he couldn't remember learning.

Why is this so hard?!

Steve switched colors to yellow, saying they were using too much of one color, but the telltale smile was still there.

Bucky rolled his eyes with a mental grunt. I give up.

They'd practiced until Bucky could get a steady border around the edge of the cake, and Steve taught him how to push the nozzle back into the path it left to create ruffles. When they were finished, the white surface had an encircling ring of green, blue and yellow.

That's not so bad.

The little symbol said that the tablet's battery had run low, and Bucky left to put the device on its charger. When he came back, Steve was bent over the cake with a paring knife and a spoon, and had turned the blue and yellow blobs into flowers.

"They're morning-glories and jasmines," Steve had explained, with a big smile and a twinkle in his eye that felt like something Bucky had forgotten.

And Google was right. It did turn out that birthdays were times for cake.

Twenty minutes later, munching on another bite of the desert (and privately deciding there should be a lot more times for cake), Bucky couldn't help but note how it tasted almost exactly like that faint smell that had come along with the memory.

He'd gotten it right this time. And he even made sure Steve got the first piece, just like his mother had asked.

"It's his day, after all," she'd said, and suddenly a gap in the memory from over a week ago was filled with her voice. "And wish that boy happy birthday for me."

"Yes, Ma!" he'd replied before charging out the door.

Bucky looked up. Steve sat across from him at the dining room table, his own slice of cake very nearly devoured, and he'd just ended a call to Sam.

Leaning forward, Bucky waited until he caught Steve's eye and quickly whispered, "Happy birthday." Punk...

Steve had the best smile ever, one that even made crinkles around his eyes. "Thanks, Buck," he answered, glowing.

Bucky felt himself smiling back.

A/N: Okay, I'm done. No, really. I swear, I am! I'll start working on those other stories that...why are you looking at me like that?! *grunt* Anyway, thanks for sticking with my ramblings, you guys. Reviews are Steve being a cinnamon roll and great big flower nerd. Have a great one, all.