Ta-Da! A lovely fluffy chapter for all my beautiful readers out there! This is, after all, a certain one you asked for in the very beginning of this book so I do hope it satisfies you! And I had to use today's date for the chapter title, okay? I just had to. Comment throughout, it seriously encourages me so much when you do! :)

"Petal by petal, leaf by leaf, I will keep growing until I am complete and you will have to watch me."

Christmas passes, as does New Year's.

It's soon discovered that Bucky Barnes does not at all like fireworks. Perhaps the young man from the forties once did, but not now; too much has happened for him to like such a thing. The father and his daughter spent the entire night holed up in one of their disastrous apartments in Austria. Doing her best to comfort him, Svetlana was silent when she only took Bucky's hand and rested her head to his chest while he stiffened and cringed with each firework that exploded in the sky. But they made through it, as the young girl knew they would.

As the weather lightens up just in the smallest amount, they move countries once more.

They spend the entirety of January in Slovakia, watching as the cool white month comes and goes.

And it's in Hungary that February awakens on the horizon and, before Svet even knows about it, the day comes along as quietly and softly as the blossoming girl herself.

"Hey? Svet?"

A hand gently shakes her sweater-covered shoulder and Svetlana peeks a single eye open to see her father's face hovering about a foot above hers. Bucky offers her a small smile and she barely manages to get one back through her sleepiness. His hair has grown longer to about an inch above his neck now and they've given up at even attempting to cut it in the wake of the latest hair-clipping disaster. He's wearing his only jacket and his metal hand still is covered in the black glove which means he must have left the apartment before waking her this morning.

Which is strange, to say the least.

Bucky never leaves Svetlana on her own, even for the smallest of times. When he goes to the market to buy food or finds a small job nearby, he always has her follow along and she's vowed to never leave his line of sight for fear of worrying him again. Even the time that she was sick a few months ago, he had insisted on taking her with him. He had held her shivering and feverish form to his chest as he moved through the ghettos, attempting to find someone who could sell them any kind of medicine. It's not that anyone could or should blame him, but he is definitely stubborn in his ways.

So, for him to have left her alone for no apparent reason this morning is certainly something that demands some explanation of some sort.

And, besides all that, for the first time in a long time, Bucky's ocean eyes look neither dangerous nor tormented, but... perhaps... excited? He can look relieved, amused, and even very rarely happy, but excited has not yet been one of the emotions she's seen from him. With such an expression as that in his gaze, Svet has to open both eyes to get a better look.

"What's happening?" She still can't resist a yawn as she asks though.

"Come," is all he says before he starts to move from her side.

She groans, grabbing his hand and tugging on it, "Papa."

"Vstavay. Wake up, Sveta." He stands up, moving back into the small kitchen they have in the small apartment they're currently squatting in. Wake up.

"But I like sleeping." Svet protests, burying half of her face in the backpack while making sure to keep one eye on her father.

"That I know, but I have a surprise for you."

That certainly peaks her interest.

"Oh!" She quickly slides off the apartment's thin mattress to slip over to him, "A surprise?"

Bucky just shrugs casually.

"What is the surprise?" She hurriedly reaches his side, staring up at him in curiosity, "What is it?"

He just shrugs again, snagging up a brown paper bag from the counter and waving it around, "Nothing really."

"Oh. Okay..." She attempts her hardest to act indifferent and nonchalant about it before she caves in by leaning closer towards her papa and the brown paper bag, "But what is it?"

His brows crease as if he can't remember and he glances inside the bag thoughtfully, "Oh, never mind, you wouldn't want this, Svetka."

Her eyes widen and she hurriedly tries to reassure the soldier, "But I do! I really honestly do!"

"Nah," he continues to play with her, waving the idea off.

"Papa! Hey!" She begins snatching for the paper bag and jumping all around him as he tries to turn away from her, "I want it! What is it? What?"

As he continues to hold it out of her reach, she finally just gives up with a frown and then puts her hands on her hips. He laughs at the adorably angry face she is making with her bottom lip slightly puckered and her big eyes trying to narrow. His lips form into a very small and apologetic smile before he carefully holds the paper bag out for her. Immediately, the girl snatches for it and hurriedly opens it. The sight inside makes her head cock to the side in confusion.

"Go on. Pull it out." Bucky tells her softly, nudging the side of her face.

She delicately pulls out the items and allows the brown paper bag to clutter to the floor. Two yellow frosting covered cupcakes sit in the palms of each of her hands. The frosting is swirled around the top of the white cake and it comes to a soft point in the exact middle. It's the first she's ever held something like this before. Sure, sometimes in the market she would see baked goods such as these, but she's never had one of her own before. And it's lovely and delicious looking, but why...?

"Don't look so surprised." Bucky gives her a slight frown before shaking his head at her in question, "You know what day it is, don't you?"

"Yes!" She thinks for a moment before visibly gritting her teeth and raising an eyebrow, "It's Tues...day?"

He chuckles a bit and crouches down in front of her, even though she does reach his shoulder in height now, "Yeah, but that's," he laughs a little again as she raises her red eyebrows, "that's not what I meant."

"Oh. Well then, chto ty imel v vidu?" What did you mean?

He gives her a soft smile as he rests his hand on the back of her neck, telling her slowly, "It's your birthday."

Her baby blue eyes widen and then glance off in confusion.

"Or, at least, it's close." Bucky stands back up once more, a look of near shame on his face as he thinks about how he isn't even certain about when his own child was born, "I tried to do the math. Pierce," the girl's face curdles at the mention of their superior's name, "never said exactly and men from my time didn't know much about these things, I don't think..."

Svet bites her lip, peering down at one of the cupcakes and repeating, "My birthday."

"Yeah," Bucky tilts his head down so he can get a better look at her face.

"I never knew I had one."

Her father pulls back a bit, "Everyone has a birthday, Sveta."

"Da, yes, I know... but I'm not like everyone." She looks up at him with her ever so big eyes, "Am I?"

He doesn't really answer, swallowing harshly before he scoops her up as if she's practically weightless. He holds the girl around the waist with one arm while she tries to balance the cupcakes and he uses his other hand to pick up a sturdy table that's been toppled over by some unknown event. He briefly wipes off the dust before placing the unaffected girl on the top of it and climbing up onto it after her. They simultaneously criss-cross their legs and Svet gives him a smile before handing over the second of the yellow cupcakes. He takes it from her and they only begin eating when they've finished clinking their own respective desserts together.

"Fourteen." Svet suddenly announces, but her word is rather jumbled by the cupcake stuffed into her mouth.

Bucky lifts his eyes so he can look at her, "How's that?"

"I said, 'fourteen'." She peeks up at him curiously, asking quietly, "That's how old I am, isn't it?"

Bucky nods and informs her, "You're still as cute as when you were four, though."

The girl gasps, pulling herself away from the addicting frosting and cake, "I am not cute!"

The man has to resist a smirk, "Oh no?"

"No!" The now fourteen year old declares passionately, looking even cuter by the second, "I am ferocious! I am fury! I am death!"

Bucky gives her a reassuring smile and nod, "Yes, I'm sorry, Svetka, you are."

She squints and hums at him, slowly looking back down at her present in suspicion.

Though, a small smile breaks back onto her face as she continues to bite into the dessert. It's probably the sweetest thing she's ever tasted, maybe even as sweet as the time Bucky insisted on buying her ice cream. He clearly saw that she has the beginnings of a bad addiction with desserts, after all, her papa is certainly smart. She just decided about a week ago that her favorite color is yellow and now he's gone out and bought her a birthday present with her happy color.

As she glances up at him, Svet sees Bucky staring a little blankly off to the side. His eyes are dark and his lips are pulled down as they always are when the memories come back. She frowns a little, struggling as she always does in deciding if she should or shouldn't interrupt his thoughts. She knows it's good for him to remember the past that apparently was made up of her other favorite people in the whole wide world, Natasha and Steve. Still, she has to watch as his face becomes strained and his hands begin to tremble and his breathing changes.

Sometimes it's painful to see him like that.

And, so, as she savors the taste of her yellow frosting, she interrupts, "Does it hurt to remember?"

He snaps back to reality and goes quiet for a moment, considering her question, "...Sometimes." He then smiles at the fourteen year old, "I feel better when you're talking to me though."

  She smiles rather proudly before poking at her own palms in thought, "Perhaps you should zapishite ikh." She suddenly switches languages, giving him a slight nod, "It helps me when I start to think about all of it again; it helps me keep things straight. Though I don't write memories. I write stories." ... write them down.

His eyes widen in surprise, "You do, Svetka?"

"And poems." Her cheeks are a little pink as she admits it.

"You never said."

She shrugs still a bit shyly, "I was embarrassed to say."

"Don't be embarrassed." He shakes his head, resting on his elbows on the counter beneath her, "That's really nice, Lana." There's a brief pause as he awkwardly pushes his cupcake around the table, "Do you, uh, mind if I read one of them?"

The notion makes her feel a little queasy, but she nods and smiles at him all the same. After having to dig through their backpack to find her journal beside the book she received from the kind vender all those months ago, she returns to the table with her heart beating rapidly in her chest. With a kind of shy expression on her face, she hands him the journal and squeezes her eyes closed as he silently reads the poetry the fourteen year old has written out in her delicate handwriting.

I once saw a thief steal time

    And he held his hand in mine

    He touched the sky

    And he couldn't ever die

    Traveled the space between star and sea

    Then he put me up on his knee

    I once saw a thief steal time

    But he says all he has is mine

    He touched the sky

    But he couldn't tell me why

A hand gently rests on her shoulder and Bucky gives her a nod when she looks at him, "This is very good."

"It's about you..." Svet concedes, still feeling so very embarrassed.

Her father's eyes widen, "Me?"

She nods a little, "Yeah."

Bucky doesn't say anything more; he just looks back down at the yellowing paper where she's written words that talk about him. The man who has killed and tortured so many people. The man who once hit her just to spare her from worse beatings. The man who forgot her name too many times to count. That kind and innocent girl wrote about him.

"Thank you." He says quietly, not really feeling worthy of the words sprawled out across the page.

Svetlana's face is still a little pink before she looks down at the cupcake she's just not quite ready to finish just yet. As she tries to come up with something that will change the topic of this conversation, a small and mischievous smile takes over her features.

She suddenly snaps her fingers into the thick frosty and dots it playfully onto Bucky's nose. The man seriously pulls back in astonishment and his daughter starts to giggle loudly. She claps one hand over her mouth and wraps her other frosting-smeared hand around her stomach as her laughter still echoes against the walls. As the cool frosting stays on the tip of his nose and he continues to stare at a laughing Svetlana, a small smile of his own breaks onto his face.

"Huh." He touches the frosting on his nose before licking his finger and giving her a look, "You think that's funny?"

She laughs again and nods.

"Hm," he hums thoughtfully, spinning his own cupcake on the table before pulling it up and smashing the frosting-covered thing in its entirety directly into her face.

With her oval face now covered in yellow frosting, she gasps in surprise and lets out an even louder laugh. Bucky pulls his head back, laughing so hard at the sight that the muscles his abdomen starts to hurt. Playfully scrunching up her lips, she hurriedly tries to do the same before he scoops her up around the waist. Svet shrieks and laughs as Bucky pulls her from the table and begins to spin her around. Her too big of boots fly off of her feet as they continue to spin and spin.

Months pass and summers do too.

Another country, another Christmas, another new year, and another birthday.

And they just keep on spinning.

Finally, the two get so dizzy that they collapse onto the thin mattress they have set up in their apartment in Romania. This is where they've decided to stay for now and, hopefully, this place will last a while. They both know that it's high time for them to set up a little home for themselves and, as they both stare up at the ceiling, they know that this is what it is.

They've lost so much.

And they're still missing a few others to their small family.

But this is what it is for now.

And it's home.

And there you have it, my darling-est lovelies! A birthday chapter just for you and thank you FandomHoarder for the idea! I hope you all liked it and it uplifted you in some way. By the way, that poem that Svet wrote was mine. It's not one of my best, I am a better poet than that, I swear, but I was going through a bit of a dry spell when I wrote it. Anyway, thank you all for going on this journey with me!

We're just about to step into the beginnings of Civil War so yay and not yay! I hope you're all as excited as I am! Better get caught up on my Iron Daughter story if you haven't!

Okay, vote, comment, and follow!

But, first, shall we do a Funny Thingamabob? We shall (in honor of the upcoming storyline):

I love this mashup, yes! Hahah, oh Bucky.