The Moose

When Peggy, Bucky, and Sirius go on a mission for SSR, they get caught in a snowstorm.

Pairing: Peggy/Bucky, Bucky & Sirius
Rating: teen
Warnings: Pessimism About Survival
Tropes: Bedsharing, Sirius Lives!, Bucky Lives!, Coworkers (SSR), Time Travel
Words: 1,995
Original Release Date: 14 Dec 2018
Additional Notes: This holiday one-shot happens between Anomalies of Time chapters 2 ("Half-Cocked Plan") and 3 ("Deed I Do").

A moose. Jesus fucking Christ.

Bucky, Peggy, and Sirius had driven upstate and into the Adirondacks for their most recent case. It had taken about two weeks, total, for them to investigate the crime and present the evidence to the local police department when they realized what they'd been working on wasn't paranormal so much as a well-disguised case of jealousy-induced homicide.

The drive up had been pleasant despite the borderline freezing temperatures outside the car. The weather had even played nice while they were there. However, it was not playing nice as they drove back.

Bucky shivered as he looked out the window at the snow coming down fast and heavy. It wasn't even the pretty kind of snow with fluttering flakes; it was wet. Unfortunately, the texture of the white stuff falling from the sky didn't seem to have any effect on its ability to stick to the ground and every other surface available to it.

It was accumulating. Quickly. Faster than they were moving, at least. Peggy had shifted the car into a lower gear to deal with a road slick with ice but they were still a long way from home. They were a long way from anything, really.

And then it happened. A godforsaken moose emerged from the woods just ahead of them on the road and despite the slow speed, Peggy's control of the car slipped and they went careening into the ditch. Thankfully they hadn't slid across the road and off the side of the damn mountain.

Unfortunately, the impact caused enough damage to the car that it turned off and wouldn't turn back on.

Peggy had insisted that surely someone else would come along shortly and they would be able to flag the driver down and get the help they needed. Bucky had looked around at the snow-blowing wind and the white shit all over the ground and decided that snow would be the end of him eventually before suggesting one of them start walking to get help.

Sirius offered, saying he had spells that could keep him warm but returned an hour later as a dog, shivering and whimpering like someone had kicked him.

As the sun was starting to set and the snow was just piling higher, Bucky was starting to think that maybe this was it. He and Peggy and Sirius-as-a-dog were all squished into the backseat of the crooked car, with Sirius laying over their laps. Before he'd set off, he'd conjured them a blanket but it wasn't doing much to keep their ears and noses from being cold. Peggy had laid her head on his shoulder and buried her face into the crook of his neck. Her breath, while she slept, was at least keeping that side of Bucky's neck warm.

"Heyo!" Someone called from outside the car.

Sirius perked up first, sitting up and setting down a sharp-clawed paw right on Bucky's lap. He swore and then scrambled from the car, waking Peggy up in the process.

"How long you been stuck down there?" the stranger asked. He was standing on the road next to a large pickup truck with chains on the tires, peering over the embankment at them.

"A few hours," Bucky called up. "Would you be willing to give us a ride? To someplace that's got a phone, maybe?"

"I reckon I can. Don't got a phone, though. I'll be able to take ya into town tomorrow or the next day, depending on the weather."

"As long as you've got heat, that sounds wonderful to me," Peggy said from where she'd crawled out of the backseat. Bucky turned around to help her climb back out of the ditch, following the path they'd made a few times when they'd first been stranded.

"Neither of you from around here, I take it?"

"Brooklyn," Bucky said, he patted his thigh and clicked his tongue. "Come on, Sirius." The black shaggy dog needed help up the embankment too. Bucky could have grabbed their suitcases from the trunk but didn't think it was worth it. They were wearing enough layers that they should be fine wherever this fella was going to take them.

Once Bucky was standing next to Peggy with Sirius at their feet, the stranger offered his hand to Bucky to shake. "Name's Clyde."

"Bucky. This is Peggy and," he dropped his hand and patted Sirius on the head, "this is Sirius. I hope it won't be too much trouble to bring him along."

"Of course, not. Though you might need to hold him back. My dogs might not take too kindly to him."

"He's very friendly. I'm sure he'll be fine," Peggy said. Clyde smiled at her, showing off a mouth of half missing teeth. He nodded at Bucky's claw. "You in the war?"

"107th Infantry," he said with the slightest bit of pride.

Clyde's smile firmed up as he nodded. "Well, come on," he said. He offered his hand to Peggy to help her into the cab of the truck and Sirius jumped in after her. Bucky followed even as he wondered if Clyde had been in the war. Normally, if someone asked, they would have offered their own division.

The truck cab was crowded. Sirius sat on Bucky's feet and Peggy's legs were in the way of the gear shift. She sat with her knees pressed together and digging into Bucky's thigh. The ride was uneventful, mostly, with Clyde getting the story about the moose out of them in bits and pieces. They even cobbled together their reason for being out of the comforts of the city in such bad weather without actually speaking to each other about it. They were a couple, with their dog, and they'd gone up to visit some of Bucky's family—his sister had had a baby—but he needed to get back to work in a few days.

Clyde's cabin was not much bigger than the apartment Bucky had grown up in. He had two tiny bedrooms and the living room and kitchen shared the same space. The bathroom was a small cubicle building some distance from the cabin with a crescent moon cut into the door. Bucky refrained from sighing, though he had hoped his days of shitting in the woods were behind him.

There was a wood stove roaring merrily in the corner that kept the entire place stuffy but so warm Bucky was ready to start shedding his layers after five minutes. Clyde offered them some leftover venison stew and Sirius some of his dogs' chow though Sirius didn't seem inclined to eat it. When Clyde wasn't looking, Peggy reached down and gave Sirius part of her bread, which he gobbled down and licked her fingers clean.

Shortly thereafter, when evening had set in completely and the darkness of night had clothed everything in inky blackness, Clyde bid them goodnight. Peggy, Bucky, and Sirius slipped into the second bedroom, where there was barely any room to walk. Sirius shifted and whispered as quietly as possible, "Do you think he's got anything other than deer-meat to eat?"

"What do you have against venison?" Peggy asked as she sat down on the bed to remove her shoes.

"You know how I go dog? My best friend went stag. Venison makes me queasy."

"I'm sure you could eat the broth? There were vegetables in it. Potatoes," Bucky offered.

Sirius nodded. "I'll dip a bowl and duplicate some without the meat then. That might be the best I can do, I guess."

Peggy's lips quirked. "What was wrong with the dog kibble?"

"Deer guts."

"Oh," she answered, wrinkling her nose.

"Yeah, me too. Well, I'll leave you two to... you know, be a couple." He winked in Bucky's direction, peeked his head out the door and crept back into the living room.

Bucky looked at the bed and Peggy, who was undressing further now that Sirius had left the room. "I... umm, I'll take the floor, I guess." She raised an eyebrow at him and then looked pointedly at the very little floor space available. "Or I'll sleep out on Clyde's sofa."

"And these are your only two options?" she asked.

He ducked his head and looked back up at her from under his lashes. Unlike what they'd told Clyde, they weren't a couple. They'd gone out on a double handful of dates, mainly dinner after work or dancing on one of their days off. He'd barely even kissed her. For the most part, he thought she indulged him when he asked out of pity rather than interest. She'd heard all about his ridiculous string of bad dates from their coworkers at SSR teasing him. After a moment, he asked, "Are they not?"

"You can get in this bed with me, you know."

"But I'm—" he shrugged a bit helplessly, gesturing mainly to his left arm and the prosthetic there.

She let her gaze travel deliberately from his face down his body. He could almost feel the heat from her look as she studied his chest and groin and legs. She unzipped her skirt and let it fall. He couldn't help but follow the material with his own gaze, trailing back up her legs to her slip. He watched as she did a complicated looking maneuver and removed her bra without letting anything show from under her slip. Then she crawled into the bed. She turned and gave him a look over her shoulder. "Well, are you coming or not?"

He almost choked on his tongue and fell over his own feet in his attempt to strip. He only slowed his hurried movements when it was time to remove his shirt. He wasn't quite dexterous enough to remove the prosthetic without removing his shirt but he was also a bit anxious about what his body looked like now.

"Bucky," she said. Her tone was soft but it reassured him. She was in the war just like him, had been there when he found out about Steve. Had been there when he'd felt so low he couldn't go on. He removed the shirt, and unbuckled his arm, setting it down in the corner so it wouldn't get banged up or broken. Like her, he kept his lowest layer of clothes on—his tee shirt and shorts—but that felt bare enough. She had turned away from him and he took the moment to rearrange his dick. He knew that they weren't stripping down for sex but his dick hadn't got the picture. Once he was as comfortable as he was going to get, he crawled under the covers with her. At first, he thought he'd be able to lay there without touching her but he soon realized that the bed was just too narrow for that. He scooted closer so the blankets would cover all of him and pressed his chest against her back. She hummed softly and said, "That's better. Goodnight."

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder and laid his arm over her waist. "Night," he muttered. The word had stuck in his throat. He took a deep breath and told himself to relax.

When they woke up it was to dogs barking and pots banging around. Bucky's sharp inhale upon waking had Peggy's tea and jasmine scented hair tickling his nose but when he registered how they were laying, he didn't want to move. They'd rolled over in the night. He'd ended up on his back and she had turned over completely and slipped down the bed, so her head was pillowed on his left pectoral and shoulder. He thought he'd have been more worried about what she would think of the scar tissue and the missing limb in general but the nervousness he'd felt last night was gone. Her eyes fluttered opened and when she realized where she was, she smiled. She pressed her lips to his chest over his shirt.

"Good morning?" he asked.

"Yes. I do believe so."