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Sam looks at the two little toddlers – toddlers? No. they look about six. Kids. Little people. Tiny humans – sitting on Bruce’s exam table, and he sighs.
“Y’know, they didn’t tell me this was a part of the job.”
“Baby sitting kid super soldiers?” Tony asks, lollipop in his mouth even as he speaks. Little Baby Bucky’s eyes follow it, big and grey and focused right on that lollipop. Little Baby Steve, meanwhile, looks at his own bare toes, wiggling them in a way only a child could find amusing. “Yeah, no, that’s definitely in there somewhere. Did you read the fine print?”
“It’ll not be for long, Sam.” Bruce placates him, opening his drawer to take out two more lollipops. He hands one to Bucky, and the other to Steve. “We’re working on an anti-serum now.”
“Sure.” Sam says. He scratches the back of his head, and watches the two of them.
So as adults, they have a pretty odd dynamic. Like magnets, they move according to each other, even when not looking at each other. Steve will shift to face the television, and Bucky will shift ever so slightly to face him. One moves, the other moves.
And of course, they do things as if they’re one half of the same body. Sam has watched them, on multiple occasions, make a bowl of cereal. Mundane, perhaps, but not when they do it. They’ll chat about stupid things, as Steve grabs a bowl and Bucky pours the cereal, and Steve pours the milk and Bucky gets a spoon, before Steve goes off to ear his cereal elsewhere. The best part? He never questions what Bucky puts in his bowl. He just eats it.
So Sam has no idea what they’re going to be like when they’ve been shrunk down to pint size, but really, he should expect them to be just as weird.
Steve can’t get his wrapper off. He tugs at it, and tugs at it, tiny fingers picking at the plastic. So, Bucky takes it from him – when they had found him, his tiny baby self had been missing an arm. Tony had a prosthetic brought in within a half an hour, and it worked just like a functioning arm, looked just like his real one, and so far, the child hadn’t even notices the difference. He’s already unwrapped his lollipop, actually, so Sam expects him to shove it in his mouth and unpick Steve’s, but he doesn’t. He just hands Steve the already opened lollipop, and then begins to fiddle with the other, until, at last, he liberates it, and puts it in his mouth.
Now, Sam doesn’t have a lot of experience with children, but that still seems weird.
“Alright, guys, time we went to the playroom.” Because they have a playroom, actually. Whilst Bruce and Tony have been analysing their cells and their DNA and whatever else, Clint and Natasha have been setting up a play room – one room, with two beds, and a hell of a lot of toys. They need to keep them entertained, after all.
Sam relocates both boys to the floor, lifting them down one at a time. He looks at their bare feet. “We’ll see about getting you some socks, too.”
Bruce pulls a face. It must have been his job to get the socks.
“We’ll let you know if we want ‘em again.” Tony says, tapping away at some screen, squinting as he does.
“Sure.” Sam nods, before he begins to lead the children from the room.
~*~
“Alright, a hand each.” He says, holding both his hands out to the little boys.
Steve, who is currently rakishly thin and looking up at Sam with a mop of blonde hair in his eyes, frowns. “But my hands are full.”
As soon as they were set on the floor, Sam had noticed, they had taken hold of one another’s hands. Just another weird thing to add to the list of weird things they were currently, and no doubt about, to do. So now, each boy is holding the hand of the other, and holding their lollipop too. Steve has a point. That means their hands are full. But Sam doesn’t want them to trip and fall and choke on the lollipops, so he’s pretty settled on his one hand each policy right now.
“So let go of each other’s hands, and take a one of mine.” He urges gently, elevator doors sliding open.
The boys look at each other, and then look at Sam. In sync. It’s fucking weird.
“Nu uh.” Bucky says.
Sam says. “Alright. Into the elevator then, guys.”
They do as they’re told. At least they’re obedient, he thinks, as he takes them upstairs.
~*~
Okay, so Nat and Clint did a pretty amazing job with the playroom.
It’s not been made to look like a 1930s nursery. This isn’t immersion therapy, they’re not going to freak out, they’re going to be fine. But still, Nat and Clint have done it tastefully. There’s a blackboard with little coloured bits of chalk, and building blocks, as well as a whiteboard and actual Lego. There’s toy trains and toy cars, a full track set up for each, and various little army men scattered around the place. Colouring books and felt tip pens are stacked up in one corner of the room. Neither kid is going to get bored, that’s for sure.
When Sam opens the door, the two of them stare. No doubt they’ve never quite seen something like this before, so many toys at once, so Sam gives them a second.
“This is your room.” He explains to them both.
Steve looks at the room, eyes casting over everything, squinting every so often. Sam had forgotten that this little Steve will be set before the serum, and not after it. They’ll need to be careful, he’ll have to get some inhalers, and get him a pair of glasses. Poor kid looks like he can’t see a thing. Bucky looks up at him, little hand still in Steve’s.
“It’s ours?”
“Uh huh.” Sam nods.
“What about all the toys?” Steve asks.
“Well, seeing as they’re in your room, I guess they’re your toys.” Sam says, and both of their little faces light up. They let go of each other’s hands when they enter the room— Steve dives first for the colouring books, marvelling at the pens, and Bucky picks up a little toy Bentley and begins to roll it across the floor until it hits Steve’s leg. Steve seems quite content with his colouring book, but Bucky grabs one of everything, toy planes and toy trucks and toy trains, moving them across the floor, making noises.
“It’s weird, huh?”
Sam looks down to see a rather familiar redhead lean against the doorframe, and he smiles at her. She smiles back, and the two of them look at the children as they play. Children who, before a weird alien blast they both received about forty five minutes ago, were actually their very grown up friends. Even if they don’t act particularly grown up.
“Pretty weird.” Sam agrees. “But you did a great job with all of this.”
She cocks her head a little bit, smiles as she watches them. “Yeah, well—I’m starting to get into the habit of living with children.”
“Ow!”
Both heads whip round to find Steve staring at his finger, and it takes seconds before Bucky abandons his toy car and crosses the room to sit in front of him. He takes Steve’s hand in his own, and observes it, before he presses a kiss to his finger. Steve’s only response is to smile.
“You okay, boys?” Natasha asks.
“I had a paper cut but Bucky fixed it!” Steve beams.
Natasha and Sam share a look.
“Okay – well be more careful.” Natasha says, smiles, and the two boys nod before going back to play. Sam stands a little bit closer to her, wanting to ask her something.
“Do kids usually do that?” He asks.
Natasha observes them for a second longer, and shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’ll ask Clint.”
And with that, she moves away, leaving Sam to look after them both.
~*~
Clint gives him everything he needs: inhalers, epipens, and medicine for Steve. Because kid!steve is not like his older counterpart, packed full of superserum and healthy in every sense of the word. No. He’s tiny and slender and looks about four when he’s actually about six (according to Tony and Bruce) and he looks like a strong breeze could just whisk him away – maybe that’s why Bucky holds on to his hand so tightly. So Sam has enough to make sure his asthma doesn’t kill him, and his allergies don’t kill him, and the deadly, disease-riddled outside world does not kill him either.
For Bucky, all he has is lollipops.
“One a day.” Clint tells him. “Otherwise you’ll knock all his teeth out, and I don’t know how that’s gonna impact on his big grown up self.”
Sam nods, and stows the bag away in his pocket. He’s changed into a pair of pants with a lot of pockets, because he has a feeling he’s going to need them. He puts the inhalers away, and the epipens, and he puts the medicine in the cupboard.
“Don’t you wanna watch them for the day? You’re better with kids than any of us.” Sam says, as he buttons up said pockets – he has a feeling Steve’s tiny wandering hands and Bucky’s eager to follow hands will be straight in to fish something out if he doesn’t.
Clint shakes his head. “Nah – I get more than enough at home, man. And those two are weird; you’re on your own.”
And then he, just like Natasha, is gone. Sam huffs a sigh, and heads back to the room.
The boys are changed into tiny clothes, jeans and sneakers and a jumper for Steve, because he’s tiny and he’ll catch a cold, and a t-shirt for Bucky. They seem even happier in their new clothes, and Sam’s glad – though he knows, at some point, he’s gonna have to feed them.
They’re going in blind when it comes to food. All they know about Steve is that he has a hell of a lot of allergies – they don’t know what they are, or how severe they are. So Sam stays away from the basics – he leaves the peanut butter in the cupboard, and the eggs in the fridge, and he makes them plain jam sandwiches. Boring, maybe, but they have the least potential to make Steve blow up like a balloon.
They take them with the crust still on, and both tuck in without a question asked. They wolf them down, get halfway through the first one, when Steve stops. And he chokes.
Well, it was always going to happen sometime.
He coughs up whatever was in his mouth and hacks, wheezes, and Bucky looks like he’s about to burst into tears as he watches Steve turn beat red. Sam has moved around the counter and fumbled an epipen from his pocket in record time, so that when he gets to Steve he can jab him in his little thigh and watch as the colour drains from his face, and he breaks into sobs.
“Hey, ssh, it’s okay.” Sam says, cradling him as best he can, holding onto him. “It’s okay, Steve. You’re alright, huh?”
Steve sniffles, and rests his head against Sam’s chest. He wiggles his tiny fingers at Bucky and the other moves to take them, grasping his hand.
“Is he gonna be okay?” Bucky asks, looking to Sam.
Sam nods. “Yeah, he’s gonna be fine.” He promises, rubbing Steve’s back in slow circles with one hand. He shows Bucky the empty epipen with the other. “See this, it’s an injection that stops him from getting sick if he has an allergy. So if we give him that, he can be okay. We just gotta take him to the hospital to be sure.”
Steve sniffles. More shock than anything, Sam reckons. Hes still looking a little red in the face, though.
“Where do you inject it?” Bucky asks, curious as they walk. Sam thinks it’s actually kind of sweet. He wants to know where to stab Steve with a big bulky needle if he starts going into anaphylactic shock. Kid’s dedicated, that’s all Sam can say - even if now maybe isn't the best time to do it.
“Right here.” Sam answers, showing him distractedly.
“So I can do it too?”
Sam ruffles Bucky’s hair. “Maybe leave it to me, kiddo.”
Dinnertime is cut prematurely short - he palms Bucky off on Clint whilst he takes Steve down to the lab, to their very own little ER. Banner checks Steve over, and so Sam returns with a tiny, pale-faced six year old, hand in his, Bucky already waiting at the elevator for them to come back. It's not how Sam expected the day to go, in all honesty, but at least now they know: no strawberries.
~*~
Natasha reads them a bedtime story.
Sam and Clint watch from the doorway, arms folded, smiling softly.
“She’d be a good mom.” Sam says, looking to Clint. The two little boys had refused to go to bed unless they could share, and so after a lot of back and forth arguing, and lego-throwing, they got to settle in their own bed, together. Sam thinks giving in was probably a bad idea, but they could be big again by this time tomorrow, so what does it matter?
“She doesn’t want to be a mom.” Clint says, softly. “She’s a good aunt, though. Kids love her.”
“I bet.” Sam gives a small grin, and watches as Natasha tucks them in, flicks the light off, and heads to the door, closing it gently behind herself.
“Am I gonna have to read to you two as well?” She asks, wiggling We’re Going On A Bear Hunt at them, and earning a soft chuckle. No one wants to wake up the children.
“I think I’m good.” Sam says, to which Clint echoes, “Me too.”
They’re just heading back to the living room when Sam’s phone rings – Tony. He answers in a heartbeat.
“How’s it going?” He asks, settling on the couch. He puts the phone on speaker, so that Clint and Natasha can hear too.
“Not too great. We’re looking at a week – if we live in the lab for said week. Which we’re planning on doing, right Bruce?”
“Right.”
“So keep the tiny tots busy for a week, and we’ll have them back to their big buff selves in no time.”
Sam huffs a sigh. Nat chews her thumb nail, and Clint shrugs his shoulders. He can probably deal for kids with a week no problem, that ass. It still kind of surprises Sam that he has a whole family parked in the back end of nowhere, but never mind. It’s an advantage right now.
“Thanks anyway, Tony. Keep us posted.”
“Will do.”
And with that, he’s gone. And Sam has to think of how he’s going to cope with two six year olds for an entire week.
~*~
Handy hint: He doesn’t.
They get into a lot of trouble. Steve will pull Bucky into it, and Bucky will pull Steve out of it. They go through a lot of inhalers, and a lot of epipens. Finding Steve something to eat is a challenge all its own, but at least Bucky seems to have the asthma covered – whenever Steve’s breathing hitches and stutters he yells “Sam!” and Sam will arrive to find the littler boy propped up against a wall, back straight, head back, Bucky’s hand in his. So at least he has a little bit of help.
But it’s not always so easy. Sam brings them some chip sandwiches on the third day to find the wall covered in pen; Steve and Bucky had been drawing all over it, apparently deciding that paper wasn’t enough. Bucky had said it was his idea, and Sam had no way to tell if he was lying or not – so he punished him. Seemed a bit fruitless, seeing as Stark and Banner were getting close and closer to finding their miracle cure, but he did it regardless. He made Bucky sit in the corner, and face the wall. And he sat on the sofa, with Steve, who glared at him the entire time.
But now it’s Friday, and Stark and Banner have promised that their super soldier reboot serum is just three days away, so all Sam has to do is muddle through it. He wakes up, he gives them their breakfast. He puts the drawings they make up on the fridge, just as he has done every other day. He hasn’t been on a run in a while, and he hasn’t been to the VA, but he’s put their drawings up. Every day. Every damn day.
Sam puts them down for their nap at about two in the afternoon – big for a nap, maybe, but at the same time they do a lot of tearing around the place, so a nap is probably welcome. Steve drops off first, huddled between the wall and Bucky’s body, and it’s just as Sam has tucked Bucky in that he feels a soft tug on his shirt hem.
“Sam?” Bucky whispers.
Sam crouches down beside him. “Yeah, buddy?”
“Where’s our mas?” The child asks, brows furrowed. “I didn’t wanna ask in front’a Stevie because I think he’s missin’ her, ‘n I don’t wanna make him cry.”
Sam’s heart skips a beat. In the four days he’s had them, he’s never thought that maybe their mind would wander to their mothers, and where they were. Why would they leave their little boys for so long without any explanation? Why would they up sticks and leave without taking their babies with them? Sam settles in, and runs a hand over soft, thick brown hair.
“They’re on holiday.” He answers. “They went all the way to California; they just needed a bit of a break.”
“Were we bad?” Bucky asks. His lower lip wobbles. “Because I know we get in trouble a lot but I didn’t want’a make ‘em go away—“
“No, no,” Sam says, head shaking, his voice still a whisper. “no, it was nothing you did, Bucky. Not Steve either. You’ve both been really good little guys, they just had to go away for a while.”
“It wasn’t our fault?” The child clarifies.
“No, kiddo.” Sam soothes. “Not at all. They’ll be back before you know it.”
Bucky nods, looking a little glum.
“For now, though, they want you to be a big boy. You gotta look after Steve, right? You’re the very best person to do it.”
“He’s my very best friend.” Bucky explains, voice sleepy as his eyes close.
“Yeah, I think you’re his very best friend too.” Sam smiles, but Bucky is already gone – he leaves silently, and makes a mental note to get a move on with that serum.
~*~
The rest of the week flies by. They still get into a hell of a lot of trouble, but they always do it holding each other’s hand. On Saturday, they go to the park. Bucky falls off the swings so Steve kisses it better, and they play in the sandpit – which leads to bathtime for both of them. On Sunday Natasha bakes cupcakes with them, which turns into flour everywhere and sickly tummies as they stuff their faces full. Monday brings about a tiny Bucky Barnes comforting an even tinier Steve Rogers in the middle of a Disney film, so grown up, arm around his shoulders, telling him his Ma is okay. And then Mufasa dies, and Steve is putting an arm around Bucky as the child hides.
And then the final day finds them on separate tables, close but not touching. Steve holds one hand out, and wiggles tiny fingers. Bucky takes it without even asking, and they lie like that.
“Do they do that all the time?” Tony whispers. Sam nods. Tony grimaces. “Gross.”
“Alright, boys, I’m gonna give you this little tiny injection, and we’re gonna be done here.” Banner says, checking each one over briefly, and then smiling at them both. He’s the best person to do this, Sam thinks. He’s very friendly. Good with kids.
They both nod, and still don’t let go of each other’s hands.
The serum Banner injects them with is a shocking blue colour, electric, and it has almost that effect. Both tiny bodies jolt, fingers still tangled, before the two of them begin to grown before Sam’s very eyes. They grow to older children and into adolescents, gangly and awkward. The tiny prosthetic Bucky had been given falls away, no use to anyone now. They grow and grown, until eventually they stop, hanging off the tables in places, muscled and panting, sweating a little with the pain. They had been screaming throughout. Sam had blocked it out.
“Welcome back, tiny tots.” Tony beams. “No need to thank me, just doing my job.”
“Wha-?” Bucky asks, sitting up and wincing. His hand is still in Steve’s, and remains there until Steve sits up too. Tony brings over the metal arm, to give back to Bucky.
“What the hell happened?” Steve asks, scratching the back of his neck.
Sam has so many photographs, and so many drawings. The nursery, the evidence. He beams. “Just you wait until you see.”
Steve and Bucky hold hands as they walk back up to the nursery that was their home not a half an hour before. Sam decides it’s definitely odd, but he really doesn’t care.