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In the end, it is Natasha who ends the squabble over where to begin Bucky's and continue Steve's education of the history of film. "Disney," she says, between Tony's rant about the importance of Star Wars and Clint's seemingly never-ending list of made-for-TV horror movies. "You've got to start with Disney."
Tony pauses mid-sentence to consider the suggestion. Bruce nods, smiling slightly. Clint demands they start with Hercules, and Steve doesn't miss the sly look he gives Natasha, or the way she smiles when she agrees. Thor grins widely — Steve's already heard about his love for Disney. Some of the plots are, apparently, similar to stories he used to be told as a child in Asgard, and he approves of the songs. He approves constantly. And loudly.
Bucky raises an eyebrow. "I never did get to see that one about the elephant," he says, nudging Steve carefully with his elbow.
"You've never seen Dumbo?" Tony sounds shocked, which earns him a scathing look from Bucky. Steve has to hide his smile behind his hand. It took a long time for Bucky to feel comfortable enough to join Steve when he spent time with the rest of his team, and even longer to start believing that they all trusted him. Even now, Steve catches him biting back sarcastic remarks or dirty looks. He knows there's nothing he can do to make Bucky relax more — to convince him that the other Avengers don't expect him to go full-on Winter Soldier in the middle of a film night — but he wishes there wasn't.
If it was just him and Bucky, Steve thinks, Bucky would make a deadpan comment about Hydra not letting him off ice to catch up with the latest cinema releases. As it is, Bucky shrugs, clears his throat, and says, "Saw Fantasia with Steve when it came out, and that one with the puppet — Pinocchio, or whatever. Took a girl to Snow White for a date. Never really— never got a chance to see the others."
Steve catches Natasha and Clint exchanging glances, so he forces a grin and throws his arm over Bucky's shoulders. "I never even saw Snow White," he tells him. "So you're still one up on me."
"You've never seen Snow White?" Tony repeats, his voice squeaking with incredulity, and Steve and Bucky laugh.
"Only kids and couples went to see it," he points out. "And Steve wasn't either, at the time. Though he probably could have passed for a kid."
Steve rolls his eyes. "Well it was hardly my fault you stole all the girls away from me." Bucky's laugh at that is long and glorious, and Steve watches the long stretch of his neck when he throws his head back with a soft, warm smile.
"Don't try and pin your lack of dates on me, Rogers," he replies, once he's caught his breath back. "There were plenty of girls around, you just didn't try with them. Can't blame me for that."
Steve quirks an eyebrow, grins slow and sharp. "Oh, I don't know about that," he murmurs, voice low, and Bucky's eyes go a little darker.
"Okay," Tony interrupts, dragging the word out. Bucky visibly startles. Steve just grins again, and turns to face Stark. "As fascinating as it is to watch Cap flirting — and it is fascinating, honestly, just bizarre, like watching a documentary on those weird deep-sea fish, the ones that you think can't be natural, they're so, well, unnatural-looking — if we're starting with Disney, we've got a lot of movies to catch up with."
"Hercules first," Clint reminds them, as Bucky says, "How many's a lot?"
Tony looks over to Bruce, who shrugs. Natasha rolls her eyes. "Fifty or so," she tells them. "Plus another— what, fifteen, twenty, from Pixar? And that's just the animated ones. There's a whole bunch of live action films, too."
"Shut the fuck up." Bucky looks between Steve and the others with wide eyes. He looks so much like he used to when they were kids that Steve feels something clench in his guts. He's not sure whether it's a good clench or not. "Fifty movies? Seriously?"
Steve laughs. "They kept making them even after old Walt Disney himself died," he says, and Bucky barks out a surprised burst of laughter.
"Well, shit. We're gonna be here for days." Bucky's eyes are still wide with disbelief when he leans back and looks over at Steve, but his smile is painfully bright. He'd raved about Pinocchio for days, Steve remembers, about the artwork and the songs and the cleverness of it all. Steve hasn't seen any of the more modern Disney films, but he's guessing the animation has only become better through the years.
Disney was a good idea, he thinks, a good starting place. Kids films can't be too dark, and the artwork will probably keep Bucky excited for weeks. When he glances over at Natasha, her soft smile tells him that maybe that was the reason she suggested it.
"Alright." Tony claps his hands together once and then proceeds to jab his toes into Bruce's thighs until Bruce sighs and stands up to turn the TV on. "Hercules first. Let's get this party started."
---
Bucky almost chokes on his laughter during the training montage. "So that's how they did it," he says, elbowing Steve in the side again, less gentle this time. "I knew there must have been more to it than some dumb serum."
Across the room, Clint snorts. Steve catches his eye, and Clint flashes him a smug grin before nodding to Natasha, who hands over a ten dollar note.
Steve's cheeks flush dark red, but when Bucky spots the exchange of money he only laughs harder.
---
"Okay." Tony fixes everyone with a steady glare and brandishes his remote in Steve and Bucky's general direction. "Dumbo because these dumbos haven't seen it, and that is a crying shame."
Bruce pushes Tony's arm until he's pointing at the TV again, and says, "Play nice, Tony."
Tony grumbles about geriatric soldiers until the pink elephants scene, at which point he starts cackling madly at Steve and Bucky's horrified expressions.
"I've seen some pretty terrifying things," Bucky says, after the film is over — "But I think that takes the cake."
Worryingly, that only makes Clint and Tony smirk — and, Steve has learnt, anything that makes them both pull that smug expression is bound to be bad news.
"Black Cauldron," they both say, gleefully.
---
"Okay," Bucky says, blinking. "That was fucked up."
"They show that to kids?" Steve asks, eyes wide.
Clint laughs so hard he slides off his chair — although Steve suspects Natasha may have had something to do with that.
---
Thor demands they watch Frozen. The others all groan comically.
"You're gonna sing Let It Go endlessly for the next three weeks, aren't you?"
"Oh, like you can talk, Barton — I've heard you singing that snowman song to yourself." Tony puts on a high-pitched voice and sings, horribly off-key, "Do you wanna build a snowman? Come on, let's go and play."
Clint snorts. "I think you just embarrassed yourself more than you did me. You call that singing? Sounded more like a dying cat to me."
Tony looks affronted, although he doesn't deny the accusation. "You're no better, bird-brain."
"That is an outright lie, and you know it, Stark."
"Oh, it is so on. Karaoke contest, next Friday. Prepare to get your ass kicked."
"Yeah, sure, whatever you say. I'm gonna wipe the floor with you."
Natasha rolls her eyes, and says, unimpressed, "Okay boys, put your dicks away, we've got a film to watch."
Tony mimics her silently, and then yelps loudly when she throws a popcorn kernel right at his eye.
---
Steve tenses up when Elsa's ice accidentally strikes Anna, and then again at the party, when she almost hurts Anna again, but Bucky doesn't look bothered when he glances across at him, so he relaxes a little. The songs are pretty catchy, even if Thor leads a rousing sing-along of Let It Go, as predicted, and then Clint sings along with the talking snowman's song, sending Tony smug looks — Steve's got to admit that he does have a good voice, far, far better than Tony's yowling.
When Hans reveals the truth about his goals the whole team swivel to watch Steve and Bucky's reactions. Bucky plays up a little to the attention, gasping melodramatically and hissing, "The bastard," but Steve can't keep himself from checking Bucky's expression worriedly. His concern only gets worse when Anna starts to turn to ice, and when she throws herself in front of Elsa and freezes fully his whole body locks up, fingers clenching helplessly into fists by his sides.
"Hey," Bucky murmurs, and Steve turns to look at him again. Bucky's smiling, and he uncurls Steve's hand and threads their fingers together. "S'alright, Steve, see? She's melting. She's alright."
Steve is worried about more than Anna, hugging her sister on screen, but it's okay, because there's more to Bucky's reassurance, too.
Bucky's fingers stay gripping Steve's hand tight for the rest of the film, and for the discussion about the next film, until Steve is fully relaxed again.
---
Halfway through The Emperor's New Groove, Bucky turns to narrow his eyes accusingly at Tony. "Did you get them to make a movie about you, only set in, like, Aztec times?"
"Incan," Tony corrects, and frowns. "And no. I resent that accusation."
Clint leans forward to whisper, "He denies it, but nobody believes him. We're all with you on this, Barnes."
Bucky and Clint both collapse into laughter when Tony flicks them the bird.
---
"The Little Mermaid," Natasha says, when The Emperor's New Groove is over.
Tony raises an eyebrow. "Really? I figured your favourite princess movie would be Mulan. The whole fighter-chick thing. I could really see you going for that."
Natasha's gaze is stony. "Mulan is not a princess," she tells him. "The Little Mermaid first. Then Mulan."
"Is it a redhead thing?" Tony asks because he does, in fact, have a death wish. Natasha leans forward menacingly, and he shuts up fast and starts the film up.
---
They're all singing Kiss The Girl for days, even Bruce, who flushes whenever anyone catches him at.
---
Bucky catches Steve's hand again during the conscription scenes in Mulan, and Steve leans in to knock their shoulders together gently. A faint frown flickers over Bucky's face, but it's gone by the time the little dragon appears, and then he's laughing out loud at the training camp scenes.
"That's what it was like for us lowly normal soldiers," he tells Steve quietly, and Steve laughs.
"Oh, trust me, I did plenty of drills myself." He pauses, pulls a face, and then nods to the screen. "Even had to climb a few poles. We had to fetch flags, not arrows, but still."
Bucky raises a eyebrow. "You? You climbed poles? Skinny little Steve Rogers, pre-Captain America?"
"Well, uh, kind of." Steve blushes a little, ducks his head. "I may have, um, unpinned the pole and pushed it down, instead." Bucky blinks, and then laughs so hard Steve almost worries he'll forget to breathe.
"Yeah," Bucky says, once the laughter has stopped. "Yeah, that sounds like you."
He's more relaxed after that, the frown gone completely — it doesn't even show up again when they find the looted village, and Mulan lays the doll next to the general's helmet.
And then Mulan fires a rocket into the side of the mountain, and everything becomes a blur of white and motion as an avalanche fills the screen, and Bucky's on his feet before Steve realises he's going to move.
"Buck?" he says, cautiously, but Bucky's eyes are fixed on the screen, face pale, hands fisted. His shoulders are tight with the same tension Steve sees there when Bucky wakes up gasping and drenched in sweat, eyes wide with the memory of fear.
He's dimly aware of the rest of the team in the background, someone hissing at Tony to stop the film, someone asking if they should leave, but all his focus is on Bucky, and the absolute terror in his expression.
"C'mon, Bucky," he murmurs, though he knows, from experience now, that Bucky isn't hearing him right now. "C'mon, let's get you out of here. Let's get you somewhere safe."
Bucky flinches when Steve curls his fingers around his shoulders, but he goes where Steve directs him, stepping back as Steve steps forward, his gaze still fixed on the blank TV screen. "We're in Tony's tower, remember? In the cinema room, with the rest of the team," he says, keeping his voice steady, like the counsellors have all taught him, and looks Bucky straight in the eye even though Bucky doesn't look back. "Whatever you're seeing, Bucky, it isn't real. It's not happening now. You're safe here, yeah? You're safe."
The lift doesn't seem like a great idea, but Steve wants to get Bucky away from everyone else, somewhere safe, and their room is ten floors away. There's a kitchen down the corridor, though, so he says, "I'm going to take you to the kitchen, okay, Bucky? It'll just be the two of us, nobody else, just you and me, in the kitchen. Yeah?"
Bucky doesn't respond, so Steve keeps walking him backwards until they're in the room by themselves and he's kicked the door shut behind them.
"You're alright," he breathes, sliding one hand to the back of Bucky's neck. Keep touching him, keep him grounded. "You're alright, Bucky. You're in the Tower, you're safe." Keep him grounded.
Steve leans in a little, and when Bucky doesn't flinch away he presses their foreheads together, closes his eyes.
"You're okay," he repeats. Bucky's hand comes up to scrabble against his chest before clenching tightly in the fabric of his shirt.
"It was the snow." Bucky's voice is uneven, raspy, and Steve's grip on his neck tightens automatically. "It was the— the fucking snow, Steve, it — I was back in Europe, falling out of that fucking train, I couldn't— I couldn't breathe, I was falling again, I was— shit, shit."
His fingers twist in Steve's top, his other hand lifting to clutch at Steve's shoulder. The grip is painfully solid, but Steve barely feels it, too busy breathing in Bucky's shaky exhales. "It's okay," he says again. Bucky laughs, and it's a harsh, humourless noise, and then he presses his mouth against Steve's in a rough kiss.
This is normal. This is a routine they've gone through a hundred times already since Bucky found Steve again — this is how Bucky finds his comfort. Steve almost sobs into his mouth with relief.
"I'm alright," Bucky whispers, pulling back a little. They're still close enough together that Steve feels the words on his lips. "I'm alright, we're alright. It was just— shit, Steve, I'm sorry, I ruined the movie."
Steve laughs at that, and if it's a little on the hysterical side, neither of them mentions it. "It's okay," he says. "I won't let Natasha hurt you too badly."
Bucky huffs out a noise that could be a laugh and drags his hand up Steve's neck to his jaw. "Please. You couldn't stop her if you tried," he says, and leans in to kiss Steve again before Steve can protest. "Now come on. We've got, like, forty-something more movies to watch."
"Buck, we don't— we can stop, give it a break for a while. It's alright." Bucky bites down on his lower lip briefly, then smiles sharply up at Steve.
"Nah," he says. "No, I'm fine, Steve, I promise. Let's get back in with the others."
---
"Up," Clint announces when they walk back in. "We took a vote, and we're watching Up next."
Tony nods, and adds, "It's about an old man, so you two should be able to relate to it."
"I don't know," Bucky shoots back. "Does he have to deal with an annoying genius dickhead, too?"
He laces his fingers with Steve's again while everyone laughs, and when Steve looks down there's a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
It's better than alright, Steve thinks.