Captain America and Bucky Barnes Imagines

112. STEVE: Silver Christmas

A/N: Hey guys! This was requested by CalypsoStorm a little while back! I thought it would be hard to get into the Christmas-writing vibe this time of year but it was surprisingly easy while listening to Christmas jams! I would def recommend Michael Buble's holiday album while reading this. Also, it got me SO in the holiday spirit that when I was walking around my college campus this week I could've SWORN I heard sleigh bells! I got very excited and shouted "SANTA!?", embarassing my friends completely, and probably scared the poor janitor who was wandering around the breezeways at 10 o'clock at night.

ANYWAY! Thanks for reading! More requests coming soon: including Dare Me Part 2!

LOVE YOU ALL!

Winnie :)

Words: 4.7K

           

A crisp, cold winter breeze brings down flakes of freshly fallen snow from the Boston sky. Bustling people cram the streets that are lit up in lights of gaudy gold and garish green. In the distance a street Santa chimes a bell—the noise echoing emptily through the clashing of car horns, Christmas hymns seeping out of department store doors, and the clips of voices from conversations you catch through the fast-moving crowds. You're frozen in front of it all: more specifically, in front of a department store window. The glass shows a reflection of a woman with long hair tucked under a woolen cap and a scarf looped around her throat like a loosely knotted noose. The tips of your ears are tucked but the end of your nose is cherry bright. Chapped lips are smothered in Vaseline and hands wrapped in mittens to hide away the punching-bag bruises.

You didn't want to go into the store with the others. They'd ducked inside, saying something about picking up a few last minute things for the holiday next week, but you'd rather freeze to death outside than step into the shop where the overly cheerful music blares and children run around aisles with plastic planes and dolls without any cares.

When Steve Rogers joins you by the frosted glass window you imagine he's already finished up inside. He's holding a paper sack to his chest carefully as if afraid to break whatever is inside.

"Nat and Sam are coming. They're still in line," Steve tells you as if you asked. You only nod—still staring emptily at the display racks shown through the cracks between your cold eyelids. Steve's head turns to see the same sight. He doesn't give the display much attention. He looks back to you before very long. His eyes are the same blue as the late afternoon sky. While you watch the toy train make it's fifty-eighth lap around the artificial white-capped pine tree your heart aches deep in your hollow chest.

"Piet always wanted one of those."

Steve continues watching you carefully.

"We never had enough money for the fancy ones, though. But one year my parents saved enough to get a small battery one and my father made his very own track to run around the kitchen." You pause—lips almost turning up at the distant memory. Steve thinks he may be witnessing the first smile on your sweet face in months, but then you quickly stop. He assumes you've just remembered the fact that the very same sweet little boy you're imagining now has been dead for seven months now. Still, Steve wants to see that tiny bit of joy flood back to your eyes—even if it's just for another brief moment in the vastness of time.

"Did they like it? Wanda and Pietro, I mean," Steve tries to bring you back to that happy Christmas memory: not the one you currently live in now, with a dead baby brother and a sweet sister whom you can't stop from feeling ashamed to be around because you—even with your healing powers from the stone—could not save her twin brother from dying in the Ultron War.