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Steve was lying in bed. It was dark out and they really couldn’t afford to use the lights that often, so he was just lying there with a candle on his bedside table, staring at the flame. He’d been laying that way for ten minutes when he heard Bucky’s keys in the lock. This surprised him for two reasons:
1. It was still relatively early in the night, and Bucky had picked up a habit of stopping for a couple drinks with the guys before heading back to the apartment
2. Bucky was whispering.
Steve got up and padded his way to the bedroom door, only peeking through the crack he’d left it open. Bucky was standing framed by the light of the hallway, cradling the front pocket of his overalls and groping the wall near the light switch.
“Steve! Why’s it so dark in this joint?” Steve stepped through the door.
“Cuttin’ down on the electricity bill.”
“Where’s the damn switch?” Bucky was still waving his arm up and down the wall near the door frame. “I gotta show you somethin’.”
“Little higher” Steve answered. Bucky found the switch, and illuminated the whole living room at once. “There you go.” Bucky was standing just inside the door, still cradling his pocket for some reason. “What are you doing?” Bucky was also staring down into the pocket like his whole year’s pay was in there.
“C’mere.”
“Why.”
“Because I said so, punk. Get over here.” Steve approached Bucky carefully, mildly nervous about what he might actually have in the pocket. Bucky pulled the pocket open as wide as it would go, and Steve craned his neck. There was a furball; a moving fur ball, all curled up in Bucky’s pocket.
“What is that?”
“For someone with so much education, you’d think you could recognize a simple alley cat. Kitten.” Bucky beamed up at Steve.
“A kitten. You brought a kitten home.”
“Yeah. Found the little guy in the tunnel site today, and he was all along mewin’ away and—I couldn’t just leave ‘im there, Steve.”
“Buck. We can barely feed ourselves, an’ you just brought a kitten home. That’s one more mouth we gotta feed.”
“yeah yeah. But it’s such a small mouth! Look!” Bucky was wiggling a finger over the kitten’s mouth, and Steve had to admit it was making the cutest noises he had heard in recent memory. But still. He wasn’t sitting in the dark for his health. On the other hand, Bucky looked happier than he had in recent memory, too. Steve had to make a choice he knew wasn’t going to be easy. Bucky had clearly already made his choice. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of ‘im. And he can sleep in the living room so that you don’t hafta sneeze all the time.” Steve hadn’t even thought about his allergies. In fact, he had already started warming up to the little creature when Bucky brought it up. It had raised itself up in its hind feet and was now peeking over Bucky’s pocket, staring at Steve with eyes even bluer than his own. He was covered in short brown fur except for the tip of his tail and his feet, which were all black. He made a tiny meowing sound again, and Steve felt a warm glow spread through his whole body—as though his heart had actually cracked and love had seeped out. He couldn’t say no to the kitten any more than he could disappoint his best friend.
“He likes you, see?” Bucky was staring at the kitten with the softest expression Steve had ever seen on his face. Another warm glow made him tingle from head to toe. Steve reached out and scratched the top of the kitten’s head. “I didn’t know he was alive at first, he was lying on the ground in the tunnel where we were building yesterday, and then he made a little sound and I—I didn’t even think, I just scooped him up and put him in my pocket to keep him safe. I looked around to see if his mom was anywhere but I didn’t see any other cats. I think he got separated or something.” Bucky met Steve’s eyes. “I was gonna let ‘im back out at the end of the day but he was nappin’ and I didn wanna—” Steve stifled a sneeze, and shook his head.
“What does he eat?”
Bucky straightened up a little. “Just cream, I think. But milk’l probly do just fine. And then when he gets older we can give ‘im table scraps.”
“How do you know it’s a boy?”
Bucky shrugged. “Just seems like one.”
Steve was trying to quietly blow his nose into his handkerchief as he crossed over to the icebox where they kept the milk. Bucky had scooped the kitten out of his pocket. He sat on the floor with the tiny animal in his hands. Steve sighed. “How much cream?”
“Probly just a little bit—in a shallow bowl so he doesn’t fall in.” Steve laughed a little. Their collection of dishes consisted of little left-over bits from Steve’s mom and various other pieces either of them had found dumpster diving. ‘Shallow bowl’ was not a piece they had in the patchwork of chipped, cracked, and fading dishes that barely filled one cabinet. He brought the milk and a plate to the floor where Bucky was wiggling his fingers at the kitten. The kitten was pouncing on them every now and again, and Bucky would laugh. Steve put the plate on the ground and the kitten backed up so fast he tripped over himself.
“Sorry little guy.” Steve poured a little milk onto the plate, and the kitten watched from behind Bucky’s knee as the creamy white liquid spread over the plate’s surface. “There ya go.” Steve put the milk on the floor against the couch.
Bucky picked the kitten up and placed him at the edge of the plate. “I like ‘im.”
Steve snorted involuntarily. “I can see that, Buck.” Steve liked him too, but mostly because of the effect he was already having on Bucky. Bucky hadn’t taken his eyes off the kitten since he walked through the door. And the determination to take care of another tiny creature was so clear that Steve wanted to scream. He had tried so hard to keep his feelings buried. He’d tried to convince himself it was a matter of friendship; comradery or just proximity were why he felt so intensely fond towards the boy sitting across from him. But watching him reach for the kitten, scratch his head so delicately, move gingerly so as not to spook him—it was all too much for Steve. “Has he got a name yet?”
Bucky looked up guiltily. “I was gonna wait til I got ‘im home and see what you thought but…” Steve shook his head. Bucky was head over heels—he had it almost as bad as Steve did. “I…I think I like Pebbles. Since he was in between somea the smaller rocks we moved yesterday.”
“Pebbles.” The kitten meowed as Steve said it out loud. “You’ve already been callin’ him that all day, haven’t ya?” Bucky grinned. Steve’s heart melted once more, this time completely dripping its way down the rest of his body. He couldn’t stand it sometimes, but all he could do was take a deep breath and hope Bucky didn’t notice. “You’re hopeless, you know?”
“Look at ‘im, Steve. You’da done the same.” The kitten—Pebbles—was lapping up milk with his tiny pink tongue again, and when he looked up at some noise from the hallway, he had milk all over his chin. Bucky wasn’t wrong. The kitten was irresistibly adorable, and his savior was reduced to a mother hen around him, which Steve had to admit was part of the appeal. Bucky pulled his handkerchief out, and picked Pebbles up by his middle. “Little mess, you are.” Bucky patted at the kitten’s face, who protested as loudly as he could manage.
“He can have the old green blanket. I was gonna throw it away anyhow. And he can sleep on a couch cushion tonight. I’ll see if Hawkins has a basket for him tomorrow. And he’ll need a pan with some sand in the bathroom for…his business.”
“You had a kitten before? How d’you know all this?” Pebbles was standing on his hind legs, leaning on Bucky’s knee, and Bucky was petting him with two fingers.
“Ma used ta bring ‘em home sometimes. We had a pan out on the fire escape, too. They never stayed long, though.”
“Well. Pebbles’ll be with us forever.”
Steve had a flash of an image of the three of them—two old men and a fat, greying cat, sitting together on rocking chairs somewhere, and he snorted again. “I’m sure he will, Buck.”
Bucky picked the kitten up and held him to his face. “Maybe—just for tonight—he can stay in our room?” Steve rolled his eyes.
“Just for tonight?”
“I swear.”
Steve knew that “just for tonight” would soon turn into “just for this week” and then “Just when it’s raining” and then “just till it warms up again…” and he already knew there was no point to argue.
“Just for tonight, Buck. But he’s stayin’ in your bed.”
Bucky grinned. “Course he is!”
Of all the medical issues Steve had lived with his whole life and he could see the obit now: Death by heatbreak at age 18.