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“Daddy?”
Jack freezes. He’s learned what that tone means. There’s a meltdown of epic proportions in the making, and there isn’t much that will be able to stop it.
“Yeah, honey?”
“Where’s Sippy?”
Oh, God, no.
Jack scrambles to get his backpack off and begins digging through it. Shit, shit, shit, where’s the fucking stuffie?! He’s got a couple other small stuffies as back-up, in case the kid wants a change while they’re out, but no Sippy.
Both Steve and the kid look to Jack, of course.
“I... I don’t have it.”
And there come the water-works! He all but collapses into Steve’s arms.
“I want Sippy!” the kid sobs into Steve’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, honey, it’s okay,” the boss tries to console. “You remember where you had it last? Can you tell me, baby?”
Bucky straightens himself out as much as possible, even while sniveling and sniffling. “Be-Before lunch, ma-maybe?” he says, voice hitching on the tears.
“It’s okay, kiddo,” Jack says gently, removing another stuffie from his bag. “Why don’t you hold onto this one for me, yeah? And I’ll go look for Sippy. How ‘bout that?”
Bucky takes the weird organ plushie (Jack’s pretty sure it’s supposed to be a testicle, which makes him uncomfortable for various reasons), hugging it to his shoulder and soaking up some tears with it. “Okay…”
He melts into Steve’s arms again, and the man looks to Jack. He mouths a quiet thank you at Jack, and Jack only nods; they’ve both seen a few of Bucky’s tantrums before, and neither of them is feeling up to a repeat performance.
“Honey, let’s go home, okay?” Steve suggests to the kid. “Jack’s gonna look for Sippy for ya, and get it right back to ya as soon as he can.”
Thank Christ they’d already made it back to the car before Bucky realized Sippy was missing; it makes it easy for Steve to goad him into the backseat.
“You need extra hands?” he asks Jack before climbing in as well.
Jack shakes his head. “Nah, it’ll be faster on my own. You should be able to keep him distracted with the extras,” he says, offering his bag to the boss. “Got his coloring book in there too.”
Steve lets out an exasperated sigh as he takes the bag. “You’re a life-saver, Jack. Remind me t’give ya a damn good raise.”
Jack snorts. “You got it, boss.”
Jack stands back, watching the car disappear into traffic once Steve has joined Brock and Bucky inside it. The second car stays behind for him, and to allow the extra guys to pack all the shopping into the trunk and so on.
Okay, then.
Suppose there’s nothing to do now but retrace their steps.
They had breakfast meeting with some associates at some fancy restaurant in the morning; Bucky ate lots of pancakes and had a mini-meltdown because sticky when he spilled syrup on his shirt, and Jack thanks God he always comes prepared because it was easy to take Bucky to the bathrooms and put him in one of the extra shirts Jack keeps in his bag (Ah. He suddenly understands why Brock insists on calling it the Nanny Bag). After breakfast, they went through a toy-store in a mall because Bucky saw some cool toys in the window, and they visited a few other stores at the same mall; Bucky had a smoothie, strawberry-banana, that’s his favorite, and then he dragged Jack away alone because he wanted to buy Steve a present, so they went to a men’s wear store and bought a few nice ties, and Steve seemed delighted with the gift when they met back up. They walked around sort of aimlessly for a while, then Bucky got hungry so they stopped for lunch and Bucky insisted on having pancakes again.
Jack remembers holding Sippy when they were in the men’s wear store, when Bucky was sorting through the selection of ties. Then, he gave it back, and he knows Bucky had it when they went to lunch, but fuck if he could say for certain when they left lunch.
After lunch, they left the mall, but they went through a few more different shops; a clothing store because Bucky wanted one of the skirts in the window, then a shoe store because apparently he doesn’t have enough shoes already, and a bookstore where he found a massive coloring book filled with something he called fractals? Jack’s heard the word before, he’s sure, but who fucking knows? And that set Bucky off on a big rant about fractals, and Jack had zero idea what he was talking about the whole time, and to be so bold, both Brock and Steve looked just as confused through it all. Either way, that’s when they finally made it back to the car.
Sippy is either in the restaurant, the clothing store, the shoe store, or the bookstore.
Jack starts moving.
The first stop, the bookstore, is only half a block up from where they parked, and he searches it top to bottom in a matter of minutes. No Sippy.
Alright, shoe store next!
It goes the way of the bookstore; he searches top to bottom, but no Sippy.
To his dismay, the clothing store offers the same result; still, it leaves him with only one possible place left to search, and he hopes to God that Sippy’s there or Jack might very well lose his life. If Bucky gets upset enough about it, he could easily get Steve to end Jack. Steve can say whatever he wants, but it is simply a fact that when it comes to Bucky, he is whipped.
People think Steve is the most dangerous man on the east coast, but they couldn’t be more wrong. No, it’s Bucky who owns that title, solely based on the fact that he has Steve firmly under his thumb, whether he’s fully aware of it or not.
Jack runs through the mall and bursts into the restaurant, completely breezing past the hostess. The table Steve and Bucky used is unoccupied; Jack dives in under the tablecloth for a look, and pulls out each chair to inspect them as well. When Sippy isn’t there, Jack pounces on the tables around this one.
No Sippy.
Fuck.
Shit, okay, maybe there’s a lost-and-found? The table has obviously been cleared and cleaned up so a waiter has to have been by at some point, maybe they found Sippy.
Jack hurries to the small coffee bar at the back of the restaurant.
“Excuse me, d’you have a lost-and-found?” he questions the waitress behind the bar raptly. “We were here earlier and we left behind a stuffed toy, d’you have anything like that?”
The girl nods. “We do, sir, but I’m sure you understand, we can only hand out items on detailed descriptions.”
“Yeah, of course. Um, it’s about this big, I think,” he begins, showing a relative size with his hands. “It’s like, uh, shit, what’s it called? Um, fuck. Bubble tea! It’s like a cup of bubble tea, and it’s purple, and it’s got face on one side, and a little blue straw on the top.”
“Give me a moment, sir, and I’ll have a look.”
He can’t help but pace along the bar as she disappears into the staff area and kitchen. He hopes to God she’ll find Sippy. Jack does not want to consider too closely what will be done to him, if he doesn’t return with Sippy in hand.
“Is this it, sir?”
Jack whirls around. The waitress has appeared again, now standing beside him, and she holds up-
“That’s it! That’s Sippy!” Jack says, taking the stuffie when she offers it. “Oh, thank God, you’ve got no clue how glad I am you found it, the kid was about to lose his mind over it.”
The girl smiles, nodding knowingly. “Believe me, sir, I know, I’ve got a little one at home too, I’ve been where are you are,” she tells him.
Ah.
Uh, Jack refrains from clarifying who the stuffie belongs to and exactly how old he is.
*
Upon instructions relayed through a text from Brock, Jack heads directly to Bucky’s room when he gets back. Only moments after he knocks, Steve opens the door for him.
Oh, man, Bucky looks fucking pathetic! He’s all curled up on the bed, wrapped in a soft blanket, hugging his testicle stuffie while he cries.
Of course, his eyes light up with childish hope when he sees Jack.
When Jack holds up Sippy, Bucky leaps off the bed. He runs across the room and throws himself at Jack, arms wrapping around Jack’s neck almost tight enough to choke him. He cries into Jack’s shoulder for a few moments, before tearing himself away. Then, he snatches Sippy out of Jack’s hands and proceeds to vibrate with excitement as he shows it to Steve.
“It’s Sippy, Daddy! Sippy came back!”
The boss chuckles, patting the kid on the head. “I can see that, baby. C’mon, now, honey, Jack did somethin’ real nice for you, didn’t he? What d’we say to that?” he urges, turning Bucky back around to Jack.
“Thank you, Jack! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Bucky all but screams. “Thank you so much, I missed him lots, I was so sad, Jack, thank you!”
The kid’s excitement is damn infectious. Jack can’t help but smile back at him, patting the boy on the arm. “No problem, kiddo. Just promise me you’ll hold onto your stuffies better from now, okay?”
Bucky nods. “I will, I promise! I promise!”