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Steve was sitting on the couch sketching with his feet resting on Bucky’s lap who was reading. They were quite content sitting in amiable silence when Natasha crashed in through the door and burst their peaceful bubble. Steve jumped, accidently drawing a thick black line through his sketch of Bucky, but Bucky just flicked his eyes up to Natasha then back down to his book. One of the side effects of being an assassin was that he didn’t scare easily.
“Bucky, I need you to come and help me with some Christmas shopping,” she addressed this to Bucky but stared intently at Steve when she said it, as if trying to send him a mental message.
“Um, Nat it’s Christmas Eve,” Bucky stared at her, his blue eyes full of confusion. “I was kinda spending it with Steve,” he absentmindedly stroked Steve’s foot in his lap.
“Please, Bucky. I’ve left it all to the last minute,” she pouted. Bucky could tell there was something up, Natasha never acted like this.
“Are you sure I’m the best person? Pepper’s good at getting gifts,” Bucky tried to convince her.
“I don’t want her to see what I’m going to get for her. We’ll only be an hour, two at most,” Bucky gave a sigh of resignation then looked over to Steve to check if it was okay with him. Steve gave a shrug but there was something in his eye, he looked like he almost wanted Bucky to go. There was definitely something going on.
“Fine,” Bucky huffed and leaned over to give Steve a kiss on the cheek before following Natasha out. He could have sworn he saw Steve wink at Natasha.
- - - - - - - - - -
Bucky was absolutely exhausted. Although Natasha had promised that they would only take two hours at the most, they had been out for five hours. Bucky’s feet killed from walking, his arms ached from carrying mountains of bags, and he had a throbbing headache from the endless Christmas music played in the shops. He would take fighting Hydra over shopping with Natasha any day.
He kicked off his shoes and shrugged off his jacket as soon as he was inside. He turned around and headed towards the living room but stopped. In the middle of the living room there was a massive box, probably around 4ft tall. The box was wrapped in red and white striped wrapping paper, with a thick blue ribbon tied around it and a large bow on top. Bucky approached the present cautiously, it could be a bomb, or a prank from Tony. He reached for the tag and flipped it over to read it. ‘For Bucky, Merry Christmas XX’. Bucky knew that he should call Bruce or Tony or someone and get them to check it out before he opened it but…
Bucky’s curiosity got the better of him and he flipped open the lid of the box and peered in. Steve blinked back up at him from inside the box, his eyes trying to adjust to the bright light.
“Alright?” Bucky smirked. He was desperately trying not to laugh at his 6ft, 200lb boyfriend crammed into a box wrapped up as a present.
“Shit,” Steve rubbed his eyes blearily. “I fell asleep, you were only meant to be gone for an hour,”
“Steve, why are you in a box?” Bucky asked patronizingly.
“I was gonna surprise you by jumping out and-” Steve was cut off by Bucky’s laugh.
“Are you serious?”
“What part of this doesn’t look serious?” Steve deadpanned as he struggled to extricate himself from the box, causing Bucky to laugh even harder. “Bucky…”
“Gimme a second,” Bucky wheezed holding up a finger as he bent double with laughter, his arms wrapped around his aching stomach. When he finally managed to compose himself he straightened up to find that Steve was in front of him on one knee holding out a box.
“James Buchanan Barnes,” Steve smiled, trying and failing to keep his voice steady. “Will you marry me?”
Bucky stared at him in astonishment.
“Um, Bucky?” Steve was starting to look a bit worried. Bucky cupped Steve’s face in his hands and pressed their mouths together in a teary, passionate kiss. “Is that a yes then?” Steve laughed shakily.
“Yes! Yes of course!” Bucky laughed wiping a tear away from under his eye. Steve stood upright and slid the simple ring on Bucky’s shaking finger. The ring had an inscription that read ‘Til the end of the line’. They stood there for a while, both staring at the ring on Bucky’s finger, both in shock at what had just happened. Bucky threw his arms around Steve’s neck and held onto him tightly, Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky’s waist and squeezed back as Bucky repeated “I love you,” into Steve’s neck.
“Do you want to go and tell the others?” Steve asked when they finally broke apart.
“Let’s wait a while,” Bucky smiled pulling him towards the bedroom.
- - - - - - - - - -
Natasha gave a triumphant whoop causing the Avengers around her to jump in surprise.
“Everybody!” she called out. “Look what’s trending on twitter!” everyone pulled out their phones or gathered round Natasha to see what she was talking about. It was a photo of a grinning Bucky lying against Steve who was beaming and pointing to the ring on the hand that Bucky was holding up.
Everyone cheered and, once Natasha had texted Bucky to check that they were safe to come up, ran for Bucky and Steve’s floor to congratulate them.