Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There are three Bucky Fics that were set in other universes I've written, so they've been posted elsewhere:

post-and-out: Bucky sitting on Steve's lap with Steve holding his hands while Peggy hurts him.
Title: Thirty Strokes
Rating: PG-13
Summary: They came home a little broken, but Peggy has never shied from the hard ways of fixing them up. (This is attached to the "Devils and Heathens" threesome 'verse, so was archived there as chapter two of three.)
Warnings: Mention of child murder. Kink (whipping with a riding crop).

Find "Thirty Strokes" here.

***

ophelia-rising: I was hoping for something with Bucky and Izzy in the "Hawkeye and Anklebiter" 'verse. I think a piece of day-to-day life would be fun!
Title: Tea And Superheroes
Rating: G
Summary: Nothing can shake Izzy's faith in the superhero Bucky Barnes. (This is attached to the Izzy Barton universe, so was archived as part of the Izzy Shorts.)

Find "Tea And Superheroes" here.

***

lilbrarian: Bucky with Izzy Barton and a dog or cat.
Title: Forever Home
Rating: G
Summary: Clint and Coulson probably won't be thrilled about this. (This is attached to the Izzy Barton universe, so was archived as part of the Izzy Shorts.)

Find "Forever Home" here.

Chapter Text

It's been months -- months in the burn unit, then in PT, but at least Hydra looks after its own (the benefits package tempts a lotta guys). Brock's a hero, and he's got no complaints. All the little kiddie Hydras look up to him. He's practically got a poster on their walls, like Grant Ward: the first open combatants in the war on Captain America, and Rumlow went straight up against him and against the Falcon. That he lost doesn't matter. He fought and fell bravely.

He could do with a little more action around the place now that he's up and walking, though. He'll never be what you'd call pretty again but even an ugly pug like him can get laid in New York; at this hospital in rural Buttfuck, Wyoming, where Hydra's got a grip on the staff and where they've stashed him until he can step up again, there's not a titty bar for miles.

So he gets what jollies he can, doing his laps around the hospital, visiting the younger kids, telling them stories about how he put one over on Steve fuckin' Rogers for months on end, how he still thinks with the right level of pain, they could make Captain America one of their own. He's safe in this hospital, king of this little castle, and the skin grafts are taking nicely. He'll have some kickass scars for sure.

He gets into the elevator one day to go down to the shitty garden on ground level, where the old-as-fuck actualfacts Granddaddy Hydra agents get out when the sun is nice, and an orderly gets on with him. He's wearing scrubs and has his hair back in some pussy ponytail, just the ends hanging down across his face, and Brock's working so hard on a smart remark about the fuckin' ponytail that he doesn't notice the long sleeves under the scrub shirt or the metal hand until it reaches out and pushes the stop button.

He steps back, puts his back to the wall (no glass here, no way out like Cap) and lifts his arms. It hurts to make fists, but pain is discipline.

"Nichevo lichnovo," the Winter Soldier says. Brock lets his guard down slightly. Maybe the Soldier's come back to the fold. Maybe this is a test.

"I don't speak Russian," he says.

There's a flash of a smile behind the loose tendrils of hair.

"It's an American expression, really," the Soldier says, turning to face him. No trace of an accent. Brock thinks he might be really fucked. "It means, It's nothing personal. My friend said you were fond of that phrase. Say it with me, now: Nichevo lichnovo."

Brock's guard rises again. The Soldier never enjoyed anything; he wasn't built to enjoy things. He's obviously enjoying himself now.

"Cap's here, huh?" he asks.

"No, he doesn't know I came. I found you all on my own," the Soldier says proudly. "Say it please: Nichevo lichnovo."

Brock feels his breath coming fast. If he can kill the Soldier, he'll be golden for fucking ever.

"No?" the Soldier asks, when he remains silent. "Okay."

His arm shoots out, Brock lifts to block it, there's a snap and a scream and he's hanging against the wall, held up by the Soldier's hand around his throat. Oh. It was him who screamed.

"Well," the Soldier says, twisting his broken arm with a crackle, "maybe it's a little personal. Can you say a little personal? Nemnogo lichnovo."

Brock thinks he could, if he could just get a breath, and he would; nobody's here to see his disgrace. But he can't breathe. He claws at the metal arm, fingernails breaking, skin grafts splitting open, and the Soldier just smiles.

That's when the pain really starts.

***

Bucky arrives home late on Sunday night; the house is quiet, Steve and Sam both already asleep. He sets the car keys on the counter so Sam will see, in the morning, that he got home safe. Sam doesn't need to know where he went, he doesn't have to tell; he's allowed to take the car if he asks first, and there are no trackers, no orders, he doesn't have to say where he went or what he did. But he has to ask if he can take the car, and Sam likes to know when he's home.

He pads quietly down the hallway, stopping outside Steve's room. The door's open, and he stops in the doorway. Inside, Steve is sleeping like he has since they were both kids, an image so indelible that it was one of the first things Bucky remembered: Steve curled in a ball under the blanket, just a mess of gold hair and his eyes showing -- even his ears and nose carefully tucked under to stave off the chill. It didn't change after his transformation.

He reminds himself that this is fine; he has permission, he's allowed. Encouraged, even. He slips out of his clothes, pulls on the flannel sleep pants Steve bought him, and lifts the blanket, quickly sliding under to keep the warm in. He butts up against Steve's back and sighs happily.

The day he remembered this was the best day: the clutch of Steve's body, the weight of Steve in his arms or the warmth of Steve wrapped around him. He remembered it in the middle of lunch and he said, cool as you like, "You were my fella," and Steve's eyes lit like a sunrise.

In the present, Steve makes a quiet grumbling noise, legs uncurling enough for Bucky to slip his knees in behind them, and tilts his hips so Bucky's arm fits in the dip of his waist.

"Thought you weren't back till tomorrow," he says, pulling Bucky's arm tighter around him.

"Drove fast," Bucky answers into his neck.

Steve laughs sleepily. "Welcome home. How was your therapy weekend retreat thing?"

"Went fine," Bucky said, and then, because Sam likes this kind of detail and Steve has started expecting it, "Worked on some rage issues."

"Productive?"

"Yeah. Miss me?"

"Yeah," Steve says. "You and your stupid cold knees."

Bucky smiles against his skin. "I'll warm up. Go back to sleep."

Sam and Steve aren't angels, Bucky knows this, but they also aren't even as close to broken as he is, and they wouldn't understand. When he goes to do his work, they think he's off at some anger-management workshop, or camping in the woods for a day or two. He doesn't think they'd try to stop him if they knew what he was doing, but they wouldn't be pleased.

What they know, for certain, is that he disappears for a day or two and comes back lighter -- he smiles more, and he genuinely feels happier -- so they leave him to it. That's the best part of being Bucky again: he's left to do his work in peace, and when the work is done, he gets to come home and curl up around Steve, secure in the knowledge that his fella and the world are both a little safer.

Chapter Text

"Does he...know?" Sam asked Steve, standing down the hall, carefully Not Watching Bucky working in the mirror.

Bucky generally didn't react when he heard stuff he wasn't supposed to -- there had been a lot of that in Hydra and old habits were hard to break -- but of course he knew, how could he not know.

"I don't like this," Bucky snapped, pulling singed hair out by the fistful.

"Hey man, I don't know white boy hair," Sam said, holding up his hands. "I mean, there's a smell, but -- "

Bucky snarled in the mirror and Steve stepped up, coming down the hall to rest a hand on his shoulder.

"You have to admit, Buck, it was getting kind of...unkempt anyway," he said.

"I don't like people being near my head with sharp objects," Bucky replied. "I can cut my own hair just fine."

Steve ruffled his hair, which fell out in clumps about four inches from his scalp. The takeover of the Hydra base had not gone a hundred percent to plan, and there had been some...fire. At least he wasn't burned, he thought, and Sam had helpfully sprayed him with a fire extinguisher (which was also, apparently, tough to wash out).

"Why don't you just let me trim the ends," Steve said. "I'll use safety scissors. Sam's niece left some here."

Bucky growled, but Steve's fingers, working their way into his scalp, did feel good. And Steve was trustworthy; Steve had every reason not to kill him.

"Hey, when you're done, I got a flat iron, we can style you," Sam called.

"Don't kill Sam, Sam's nice to us," Steve murmured, but Bucky was already suppressing a laugh.

"Okay, Rogers," he sighed, bending his head over the sink. "Style me."

Chapter Text

"This mission," Clint said, "is important."

"This mission is a grocery run," Bucky pointed out.

"An undercover grocery run. In a small town. Where strangers are regarded with suspicion," Clint said.

"So the clothes," Bucky replied, waggling a finger between them. He was wearing a chambray shirt over a pair of work pants that were slightly too long for him, pulled from Clint's closet at the farmhouse. Clint was wearing a bright yellow rodeo shirt and jeans.

"And the truck, and the dog," Clint said.

"Yeah, where'd the dog come from?"

"You can always find a dog if you need one, out here," Clint shrugged, nudging the stray dog where it was sleeping in the footwell of the passenger's seat. He hadn't actually owned the farmhouse for very long, and nobody in what passed for "town" knew him, which was perfect. He'd just be a guy with a buddy and a dog getting some provisions, passing through. "The important thing is, we are undercover, and we need to act like it, starting very soon."

"How do we act like we're undercover as...hicks?" Bucky suggested.

"Country boys. Like this," Clint said, and turned the volume way up on the radio as they pulled into town.

They never understand why their princess falls
For some camouflage britches and a southern boy drawl

Bucky made a face. "What is this?"

"This is Trace Adkins!" Clint yelled back, joining in on the chorus. "She's ridin' in the middle of a pickup truck, blarin' Hank Junior yellin turn it up!"

"What are you doing?" Bucky yelled.

"Undercover!" Clint yelled back. "Laaaaadies love country boys!"

You can train 'em
You can try to teach 'em right from wrong
But it's still gonna turn 'em on

Clint kept singing, and he gestured to Bucky to start, rolling his hand in a come on, do it motion. This was by far one of the dumbest things Bucky felt he had ever done, but he did have a healthy respect for undercover work.

"Ridin' in the middle of a pickup truck, blarin' Lynyrd Skynyrd, yellin', turn it up!" he tried. He had to admit it was catchy.

"You can raise her up a lady but there's one thing you just can't avoid," Clint yelled, and Bucky joined in, feeling a little more enthusiastic about this mission now.

"Ladies love country boys!"

Chapter Text

"Are you passing the strands over or under?" Thor asked, as Bucky frowned in concentration.

"Over," he said. "You said over, I'm -- "

"No, that's correct," Thor assured him. "Left and then right."

"I'm almost positive I knew someone who did this before," Bucky muttered.

"Not Steven, surely."

"Hah, no. High And Tight Rogers? I think he makes Bruce cut his weekly with a trimmer."

"Such a shame he won't grow his hair out," Thor said. "Not that it could compare to yours or mine, but still, it would be luxurious."

Bucky let the little braid on the side of Thor's head dangle down for a minute, reaching up to pat the french braids in his hair with his right hand. Thor had done a pretty good job and it was keeping his hair out of his eyes, but he couldn't help but feel this was not the most...well, the most masculine thing he'd ever done.

"Are you sure this isn't girly?" he asked, picking up the braid again.

"So what if it is? Are you afraid someone will accuse you of being a girl?" Thor asked. "If you take offense, you can punch them, but I have never seen the point. Some of my favorite warriors are girls. No shame in this."

Bucky supposed he had a point, and anyway it wasn't like he knew what was and wasn't masculine anymore. Thor was, in Tony's words, the most gnarly brutal metal dude he'd ever met, so if Thor liked braided hair it was probably okay.

"Hey, Thor, JARVIS said Bucky was with you, what're you -- "

Bucky looked up, like a deer in the headlights, as Steve and Natasha walked into the room. Steve cocked his head. Natasha cocked hers the other way. There was a moment of tense silence.

"Do mine next," Natasha said, flopping down in front of Thor, and Bucky's eyes went back to Steve, but he was already circling around to sit next to him on the bench behind Thor.

"Show me how you do that thing," Steve said. "Mam would never show me how she did Becca's when you two came over."

Thor caught Bucky's eyes in the mirror and winked as Steve leaned in close to study it, and Natasha fluffed her hair out so Thor could start french-braiding.

Chapter Text

"Jesus, this place is so trashy, why do you live here?" Tony asked, for the fifth or sixth time in two weeks.

"There's nothing wrong with my home," Bucky retorted.

Tony flicked the venetian blinds open and shut, open and shut. "It's cheap and ugly," he said.

"I like Brooklyn," Bucky said. Tony kept flicking them, open and shut, open and shut, so Bucky picked up a knife and threw it, pinning the cord to the wall.

"Is this some kind of self-punishment thing? Are you worried about living in a building with the man whose parents your supervillain alter ego brutally murdered?" Tony asked, stepping away from the window.

Bucky clenched the counter in both hands and thought about the symmetry of murdering the entire Stark family, but then decided against it. Tony was, at heart, a decent person, even if he was a decent person wrapped in a loudmouthed prick, as Steve had explained it.

But Tony always, without seeming to, carefully made sure to differentiate between the Winter Soldier and James Barnes. And in the way of former loudmouthed assholes everywhere, Bucky did sort of like him.

Sometimes.

"Is this a radiator?" Tony asked. "There's cobwebs in it. Is that normal? Spiders growing out of your radiator?"

"Yes, that is normal, they like heat," Bucky said. "Keeps the moths down."

"You are a savage."

"Good, then scram," Bucky said, but he threw a beer to him. Well, at him, but he caught it, so it almost counted.

"Come live in the tower. Steve mopes. He pines. It's a pain in my ass."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you put me on the sixty-fifth floor!" Bucky shouted, snapping. He threw a glass and this time Tony ducked out of the way of it instead of catching it; it shattered on the cheap stucco.

Aside from his dodge, however, Tony seemed unfazed. "The fuck does that have to do with anything?" he yelled back. "Also I'm apologizing to your neighbors who can almost definitely hear us through the paper thin walls!"

Bucky took a deep breath. "This is a garden apartment, Stark."

"Prone to flooding, yes, I know."

"I can't -- " he clenched his hands. "I can't live on the sixty-fifth floor."

Tony blinked at him, uncomprehending.

"I can't go above the seventh floor," Bucky said. "I've tried. I can't get in a helicopter, I definitely can't get on a train, but I can't -- "

"You remember falling."

Tony's words dropped into the silence, suddenly understanding.

"Everyone knows you fell off a trestle above a gorge," Tony said. "You remember it?"

"Yeah, I do now. Do you know how it feels to just fall and fall and -- "

"Oddly enough, I do. I also know what it's like to be intentionally drowned. You know how long it's been since I could go swimming without the suit?" Tony asked. "Fishtanks freak me out."

"Well, then, you know," Bucky said quietly. "Don't tell Steve, I ain't told him yet."

"Not a problem," Tony answered, just as quietly. "You know, there's a server complex in the basement of the tower. Underground. No windows."

Bucky stared at the counter, just breathing.

"It's an expansion office. Take two minutes to clear out the servers in there and hang some posters. There's a full bathroom. Fix it right up," Tony said.

"Underground?"

"Fully and completely. Steve wants to see you, he can take an elevator instead of two trains." Tony's hand fell on his shoulder, squeezing gently. "Believe it or not, everyone you know is broken. We get it."

Bucky exhaled. "No spider radiators?"

"No spider radiators."

"I'll think about it."

Tony set a card down next to him on the counter. "Give my therapist a call if you want. Put it on my bill."

"Thanks, Stark."

"Anytime. I don't see you packing next time I come over, we're gonna have more words."

He left the beer on the counter and walked out, whistling; Bucky sighed, then went to get a broom from the closet in his bedroom, and made a mental note to steal some packing boxes from the local grocery store.

Chapter Text

James -- he'd decided on James after visiting the Smithsonian exhibit, not yet recovered enough for Bucky, definitely too recovered for Winter Soldier -- heard the voice before he saw anyone, which was unusual, for him.

"So, this is awkward."

He turned, dropping the binoculars, gun in one hand, knife in the other.

He was not expecting to have to look up to find the source of the voice.

Hovering above him, in sleek suit of grey metal armor, a man was floating in midair, covered by the trees.

"I mean, wow, here I am, coming to investigate some old project my dead Nazi ex-business partner diverted funds to," the man said, "and here you are, all tricked out to do some serious damage to whatever's in that building -- "

"Who are you?" James growled. The faceplate of the armor flipped up, and James's lungs seized for a minute. He knew the face, for more than one reason...

"I'm Howard Stark's son," the man said. "You remember him?"

"How do you know who I am?"

"Steve told us about you. I did some research on my own. Look, if you're not gonna shoot me in the face, can you...?" the man gestured at the gun, and James slowly tucked it back in its holster. The armor touched down, the lights in the gloves and boots darkening.

"So you're James Barnes," the man said. "I'm Tony Stark."

"You here to bring me in?"

"Nah. Not really my style. Cool to meet you, though. Everyone gets all dreamy about Steve Rogers but secretly I always liked you more. Got a thing for ballsy loudmouths," Stark said. James regarded him warily.

"You ain't gonna tell Rogers and Wilson on me?"

"Nor Romanoff. That said, whatever they're doing in that building over there isn't good for business or the country," Stark said, indicating the large hangar James had been surveilling. "So what do you say we go blow some shit up?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Stark affirmed.

"You're all right, Stark," James said. "I got a plan, if you want in."

"I always want in on a plan," Stark said, crouching to study the diagram James began drawing in the dirt. "Bucky, I have the feeling this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Chapter Text

When Bucky slouched his way down to the workshop in Stark Tower, carefully casual, and threw himself sullenly into a chair, Tony ignored him for a few minutes. He was, of course, working on something important (as all of his projects were) and somewhat delicate. But above and beyond that, he found he got much better results when he gave people a few minutes to stew about not being asked what was wrong before he asked what was wrong.

"So what it is this time," he asked, not looking up from his work. "Steve, food, or the future?"

Bucky was currently in a pitched battle with food, because the Soldier hadn't been given much in the way of solids and Bucky felt he should be able to eat an entire hamburger at this point, even though his body disagreed. He was also in a pitched battle with certain elements of the modern era; some of them he had adapted to as the Soldier, but other things, like reality television and vegetarian sausage, were totally new and apparently unacceptable.

But the sigh he heaved said it was probably Steve Rogers, Pushy Motherfucker, who meant incredibly well and coped incredibly poorly.

"He keeps remindin' me you can camo my arm," he said. "You know what I found him doing?"

"Looking at sex toy stores online to investigate the most realistic flesh covering for your prosthesis?" Tony asked.

"How did you know?"

"I suggested it. He's been bothering me about it too, and I figured if he was going to keep doing it, I might as well force him to look at fleshlights and packers. His poor forties brain is probably twisting itself in knots."

"Well, it's funny when you say it like that."

"Everything's funnier when I say it." Tony leaned back and drummed his hands on his arc reactor. "You know why I never put a cap on this thing?"

"You're Tony Stark?"

"Well, yes. But also, I wanted people to see. I want people to see my reactor every day and be reminded that I survived and my enemies did not. I assumed that was why you kept the arm bare."

"He doesn't understand," Bucky murmured.

"Of course not. He literally can't be scarred. He doesn't get why you wouldn't want to look normal if you had the chance, even if you had to wear dick-skin on your arm."

Bucky's lips curved up a little. "All he ever wanted was to look normal. He means well."

"He'll get over it eventually."

Bucky looked down at his arm -- improved and buffed to a shine courtesy of Tony himself -- and flexed his hand. "I wish I could see it the way you do."

"Don't you?"

"I just...it's part of me now. It would feel wrong to look normal. But it's...not mine, it's theirs. Still."

Tony made a come-here motion with one hand, and Bucky slid off the couch, offering his arm for Tony to grasp. He slid the sleeve of his t-shirt all the way up, turning the arm over and around, studying it.

"Much like most of the US space program, which was more or less founded by Nazis, this is beauty derived from the ugliest man has ever been," he said. "I admire the purity of the engineering that went into it. I can still hate the people who did this to you."

"What do we do?" Bucky asked, sounding lost.

Tony picked up an airbrush canister sitting nearby. "Let's get some face masks."

When they came up that evening for dinner, Steve was in the dining room, setting the table. He looked up and saw Bucky's arm, covered in swirling swoops of vivid blue, lined here and there with white, dotted with metallic gold stars, and just about dropped the pile of plates he was holding.

"We decided against the cyberskin," Tony announced. "Gave him a paint job instead. We're putting the racing stripes on tomorrow."

"Well, it's...different," Steve offered.

"Thanks," Bucky said. "I like it too."

Chapter Text

They come in every week, once a week, and Olesya is certain the poor young boy in the cheap suit must be a kept man.

It's not her place to judge, of course, especially since Natalia and Iakov are immigrants -- their Russian is too good for them to be anything but natives, although she's heard Natalia speak English without an accent too. And they are regular, good-paying customers, after all.

Her tea room is small, and caters to a very specific immigrant population in New York; she knows that it's only a step up from having tea in someone's living room, and a slightly shabby living room at that, but perhaps Natalia and Iakov like that. Certainly they're not like the tourists, who seem very uncomfortable with Olesya's tea room until they taste her blini. (Nobody can ever be uncomfortable with Olesya, once they have eaten her blini.)

It's just that Iakov is always nervous, flighty, in his cheap suit with his shaggy hair combed back, and Natalia always pays. He wears a glove on his left hand, a strange affectation, but maybe he has some kind of disfigurement. And if it were just that Iakov was poor and nervous, she wouldn't assume, but Natalia -- oh, Natalia reminds her of stories of the Imperial age, proud and tall and elegant. Her red hair is always beautifully done, she wears expensive dresses, and she smiles and laughs with Iakov as though she owns the world. Iakov doesn't laugh as much, but Olesya can see him basking in her presence. He always leaves happier than he arrived.

She watches over them, her only two customers just now, as they eat -- caviar for Natalia, salmon for Iakov. There are chocolates and tasting jam for dessert. Iakov especially loves to take tea and eat little spoonfuls of jam.

"Is the tea good?" she asks, as Natalia takes another sip.

"Excellent as always, Babouchka," Natalia replies.

"I don't remember tea as good," Iakov adds, shyly.

"You must miss Russia," Olesya remarks, because Iakov can't have been in the country long.

"No," he says, looking away. "Russia was not good, not for me. But I still miss the tea. It was...familiar."

Poor boy. She wonders what he came from, and how he came here, that he loves his motherland but doesn't miss it.

"May I have a little lemon cake?" Natalia asks. "Jam and chocolates for Iakov?"

"Of course," Olesya says, taking away the empty blini plates as she bustles into the kitchen. She can see, from here, Natalia pet Iakov's hair reassuringly, can hear her murmur reassurances. It is okay to love the familiar. I like it too, see? Shall we take some jam home to Steve and Sam?

Olesya smiles, and packages up a little jar of jam for the mysterious Steve and Sam, adding an extra chocolate to Iakov's plate. It's good such a troubled boy has Natalia to reassure him and support him. Expatriates have to stick together, after all.

Chapter Text

It wasn't that Bucky hadn't been attracted to his friend in uncomfortable ways before Project Rebirth souped him up like one of Stark's fancy cars.

There was a reason he'd always wanted to double date, and he hadn't been any too picky about Steve's dates, because really what he'd usually wanted was just to be out somewhere fun with Steve. Looking back that might not have been his brightest plan, but it wasn't like a fella could just ask another fella to go to the City of Tomorrow with him. That'd be strange, right?

It was just a lot harder to keep it under wraps, after Rebirth. Part of it was that Steve was so much more visible now, to everyone, and everyone seemed to want a piece of him. But most of it was just --

He sighed and stretched, trying not to wake Steve, who had started out back-to-back with him on the little cot, in the little tent, under the really somewhat too-small blanket in the middle of the Italian countryside. They were scouting ahead for the commandos, a good day in front of the front line, and they'd found a good place to bivo for the evening, so they'd pitched a tent in the middle of some thick scrub and set up camp, hitting the sack early so they'd have a fresh start in the morning.

The one sack. In their one tent.

Steve had rolled over almost immediately after falling asleep, curling around Bucky warmly, and it was killing him. The strange intimacies of war meant they were closer than they'd been even when Steve was living with the Barnes family after his ma passed.

Steve didn't notice. Bucky could tell he still wasn't used to being seen and known, to being admired, and on top of that, well, Bucky was Bucky, wasn't he? Steve's pal. His XO. His tent partner. His best friend from back in Brooklyn, that was how Steve introduced him now, even to girls at the USO. I'm Steve, and this is Bucky, he's my best friend -- we're from Brooklyn.

Like the girls even cared anymore who Bucky was. He knew how it felt to be Steve, now, but at least he'd never really been nuts about girls, so in some ways it was a relief.

He just wished Steve would notice him the way girls noticed Steve, now.

No, he didn't even wish. What he wished was for a different world, where Steve noticing him would matter, where Steve might even reciprocate -- because otherwise being noticed was just a humiliation.

"Bucky," Steve breathed softly, arm tightening around his waist.

"Yeah?" Bucky whispered, wondering if Steve was talking in his sleep.

"We are literally the only two people for miles around," Steve mumbled.

"Probably," Bucky allowed.

"So how long do I gotta spoon you before you figure out I figured you out?" Steve asked.

"Scuse me?" Bucky demanded, but Steve pinned him down and pushed himself up in a single move, leaning over him in the dark.

"I know I'm slow, but last time we went to the USO, you turned down three girls to keep talking with me about cold-weather gear," Steve said. "Doesn't take a genius, Buck. How long?"

Bucky swallowed. "Oh, about ten years or so."

"Sorry I'm slow," Steve said softly, and bent to kiss him. Bucky's world blossomed into bright colors behind his eyelids. "Promise I'll make up for it, if you'll let me."

"Serious?"

"Serious," Steve replied. "How about it, soldier? Bet I could keep you warm for a while."

"Yeah," Bucky breathed, burrowing into Steve's neck as Steve's hands found the buttons on his shirt. "Bet you could, Captain."

Chapter Text

When he was a boy, Steve and his Ma had lived in an apartment which had one luxury: a fire escape. True, the ladder was rusted in the up position and if the building ever did catch fire it would probably go up too fast for the fire escape to matter, but his Ma had insisted. She'd seen Triangle Shirtwaist go up in 1911, and she wouldn't rent anywhere without an escape route in case of fire.

For Steve and Bucky, safety was not a concern; they loved the fire escape for other reasons, like the pigeons that would roost in the steps in the spring, tame enough that they would let two little boys peer into the nest and study the eggs they laid. In the summer, when the heat was stifling, they'd go swimming in a nearby canal and come home, drag a bit of cardboard out onto the fire escape to pad out the sharp metal bars, and sleep under the nominal amount of stars in their undershirts and britches. Sometimes they'd get in spitwad wars with the girls and boys camping on the opposite building's fire escapes. The heat eased Steve's perpetual cough, and he and Bucky would lie in the dark and whisper back and forth about plans for the next day, about plans for when they were grown, about anything that came into their heads.

During the war, sometimes they'd lie out under the stars and talk about strategy, about politics, about what they'd do when the war was over. They slept where they could, but it never seemed to matter as long as Steve was there. Bucky loved to see him, giant, strong, healthy, sawing logs under a bush or in the loft of a barn or beneath a transport truck.

After the war -- after all of his wars, when he came home with Sam and Steve -- it felt like he could sleep anywhere except a bed. He slept on the kitchen floor, in the hallway in front of Steve's bedroom door, in the bathtub, under the coffee table, sometimes in a corner of the couch. On the porch out back, or in the long grass on warm afternoons. He slept a lot, deep and hard, but his bed felt unsafe, too comfortable, too unstable. Sam said that was normal, that it happened to him and Steve, too.

Bucky wondered if anything would be normal ever again.

Steve found him one evening on the roof -- he just clambered his way up, the same as Bucky had -- lying on an unzipped sleeping bag he'd liberated from Sam's garage.

"Mind if I pull up a slate?" Steve asked.

"Free country," Bucky said with a slight smile.

"So I'm told," Steve agreed, taking the small throw pillow Bucky offered him. The stars were coming out, and he tucked his hands under his head, gazing up at them. You could see quite a few, out here in the suburbs.

"I been thinking," Steve said after a while. "I was thinking about getting a place, just you and me. Letting Sam have his space back."

"Could be nice," Bucky ventured.

"I was thinking maybe New York. Or somewhere closer in to DC. A walkup. Second or third floor, something old. Nice wallpaper, wood floors. Kinda place we'd have thought was a mansion back in the old days."

"You know I got no money, Steve."

"I got more than I know what to do with," Steve shrugged. "Get somewhere with a fire escape, we can sleep out like we used to when it gets hot in the summer."

"Or just get somewhere with air conditioning."

"It's not the same."

"No, guess not. I'd like somewhere like that, I think. Somewhere with lotsa light, you could start drawing again."

Steve smiled up at the stars. "If you could do anything in the world, what would you do, Buck?"

Bucky realized, slow and sleepy, that Steve was just chatting because he wanted to. That they were talking like they had as kids.

They were normal. Or what passed for, anyway, in their lives.

"I guess I'd go to college," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Get an engineering degree. Build things. Bridges and roads and things. Maybe robots like Stark."

"You always liked the future."

"Can't be worse than our past."

"Oh, some parts of the past weren't so bad," Steve said dreamily. "But the future's gonna be good too. Always was better when we were talking it over together. Everything seems possible. Nice to have someone who'd never laugh at your dreams, you know."

Bucky closed his eyes, letting Steve's voice roll over him, deeper than when they were kids but with the same soft drawl, the reassuring cadence that did seem to make even the wildest visions of the future seem like they were close enough to grasp. He wasn't sure when he fell asleep, but he knew his dreams that night were rich and perfect -- better than he'd had in a long time.

And when he woke the next morning to Sam's voice yelling "You crazy motherfuckers slept on my goddamn roof!" he couldn't help but laugh along with Steve.

Chapter Text

When Natasha showed up at Sam's one afternoon, six months after leaving to...well, to find herself, Steve supposed...she looked at the three of them and shook her head, sighing.

"I suppose I should be glad you're all alive," she said, crossing her arms. "Disgraceful, but alive."

"What's wrong with us?" Steve asked.

"Dude, don't ever ask her that," Sam told him.

"Why?" Steve asked, brows knitting.

"She knows things," Sam said ominously.

"You," she said to Steve, "literally own nothing but khakis, do you?"

"I own a suit," Steve replied, baffled.

"You -- "

"I know exactly how I look," Sam told her. "I like my workout clothes loud. Cars see me coming."

"They might hit you anyway when they start laughing," she said, pointing at the yellow and pink polka-dotted shirt he was wearing. "And I don't even know where to start with you," she added to Bucky, who was sitting quietly, blank-faced, and who was, Steve had to admit, something of a disaster.

Clothes didn't really seem that important, of course; Buck was going through a lot, and if he felt safe wearing tattered t-shirts stolen from Sam's closet with hideous sweatpants that Steve didn't even know the provenance of, Steve wasn't going to bug him about it. But he also knew that lime green wasn't really Bucky's color. Especially not with a bright orange belt, or a deep blue dress shirt over it. And a pair of suspiciously "might have been white before they were washed with a red shirt" pink jeans.

"How many layers are you wearing?" Natasha asked him.

"Didn't I shoot you once?" Bucky asked in reply.

"Twice, counting the thing on the bridge," she replied.

"Sorry."

"Don't be, you're about to pay me back," she said. "Stand up."

Bucky glanced at Steve, then stood.

"Go put your shoes on," she said. "I can't do anything about Steve and Sam except take you away from their influence, but you, I can fix."

"What's she talking about?" Bucky asked Steve.

"Don't look at me, pal, I'd just do what she says," Steve replied.

"In the room, fellas," Natasha reminded them. "I have access to Maria Hill's Stark Industries expense account and a working knowledge of every good clothing store in Manhattan. You are going to let me dress you."

"In what?"

"You'll see."

Bucky crossed his arms. "What if I say no?"

"Don't -- " Sam started, but Natasha just glared. Bucky blinked and dropped his arms.

"Wear clean underwear!" she called, as he retreated to the guest bedroom to put on his shoes.

"I like khakis," Steve announced to nobody in particular.

"I promise to buy him a pair," Natasha replied. "You two entertain yourselves and don't wait up. This could take some time."

Chapter Text

This story has had an expansion added, and so I've removed it in order to archive it with part two in a single AO3 document.

You can now find this story here.

Thanks for your understanding! :)

Chapter Text

"I need a favor," Clint Barton said when Bucky answered the phone, and Bucky said, "No."

"Come on, man, it's not even a save the world type favor," Clint wheedled.

"Good, because you're definitely not getting one of those," Bucky said, amused. He cradled his phone against his shoulder as he cleaned the barrel of his third-favorite gun. "How many people did you call before you called me?"

"Like, everyone," Clint admitted.

"You know I'm in space, right?"

"That's perfect, actually."

Bucky frowned. "What exactly favor is this that requires me, the bottom of your friend-favor barrel, to be in space?"

"I need a dogsitter."

"Again: I am in space."

"But that's okay! See, here's the problem," Clint said. "Wait, if you're in space, how am I phoning you?"

"Magic space technology. You're probably paying like, two bucks a minute."

"No, I'm on an Avengers plan," Clint said.

"Clint. Focus."

"My dog ate a magical Kree doodad and I need to get him off planet so the Kree can't find him and blow him up before he poops it out."

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm going to regret this."

Clint arrived three hours later, which, given the circumstances, was pretty good. He was in a flying car that doubled as a spaceship. Not so long ago, Bucky would have been confused or impressed by this. At this point very little surprised him.

He was expecting a dog, naturally, but he was not expecting this particular dog. It bounded joyfully out of the car, a large rubber chew toy clutched in its teeth, and ran right up to him, rearing up on its back legs to paw excitedly at the air.

"Lucky, no jumping," Clint warned. "Hey Buck, you look good."

"Kiss-ass," Bucky replied, automatically reaching for the toy. Lucky growled playfully and tugged, trying to shake his grip free.

"This is Lucky, aka Pizza Dog," Clint said. "I brought kibble and poop bags."

Lucky let go of the toy and panted eagerly. Bucky threw it, and the dog executed a massive vertical leap, catching it about six feet in the air.

Bucky blinked.

"He's a good dog," Clint said.

"He's certainly a determined one," Bucky answered. He crouched down. Clint's instructions washed over him, something about bagging up all the poop so it could be searched for the magical Kree doodad, and not feeding him chocolate, and not feeding him more than two slices of pizza, and something called a furminator.

Lucky, meanwhile, had sidled up to him and was now licking his prosthetic hand eagerly, nuzzling his face and butting his head against Bucky's chest. Superheroes didn't tend to keep pets, probably because they didn't tend to keep regular enough hours, but Bucky suddenly found himself desperately wanting a dog. Lucky's eyes were full of a deep, unconditional love, a sort of I don't know you very well but clearly you are a good person gaze.

He could see why Clint was attached.

"Hoozagoodboy?" he murmured, scratching behind Lucky's ears. Lucky let out a whine of pleasure.

"Hey, Bucky and Lucky!" Clint said suddenly, laughing. "You rhyme."

"Never tell another soul that," Bucky suggested.

"Fine, be that way. Listen, I have to go, I'll be back in four days. Just -- save the poop for me and don't kill my dog."

"It's okay," Bucky said, as Lucky watched Clint climb back into the car and made soft little worried noises. "You and me are gonna be best friends, Lucky."

Lucky turned to look at him adoringly, again, and then peed on his shoes.

Chapter Text

"Well, I mean, it's an arm," Bucky said, and Sam looked sort of constipated. "It's...better than not an arm."

Ever since Steve had brought him in, cold and hungry and weary and fucked up, Steve's entire social circle had been trying to help him. Some of it was really great; Clint's favored form of therapy was cooking, and Bucky had found that he really loved to eat, plus Clint had kinda been there so he knew about it, more than some of the others. Tony, too, was mostly harmless. He did upgrades to the arm and made tasteless jokes that mostly flew over Bucky's head anyway. Natasha sometimes dragged him down to the gym and beat on him, or let him beat on her, until he could sleep.

Steve just hovered, constantly, but Steve was also an immovable rock, an anchor, and Bucky sometimes aligned his world by Steve just because it was easier.

But Sam and Bruce were tag-teaming him, trying to get him to talk about his experiences and adopt coping mechanisms and positive attitudes and some other words Bucky was still not entirely sure on the meaning of. And it wasn't that he didn't like them, he liked them a lot, but he was deeply suspicious of their methods and he didn't like talking about feelings.

"But you also struggle with it," Sam prompted. "You've told me it's hard for you."

Bucky wanted to disagree just to be a shit about it, but it was true. The arm was difficult. Less painful than it had been, but a constant reminder of what he had been and done. And Sam was only trying to get him to reconcile his anger at his tormentors with the presence of a tool he badly needed.

"Yeah," he admitted, looking down.

"So we're trying to find something positive here," Sam said. "Something you can focus on. It's okay if you can't, man, it's just, you know -- "

"Mindfulness," Bucky said mirthlessly. Sam smiled.

"It's a catchphrase for a reason," he reminded him.

Bucky sat and thought, and Sam let him; he was good at that, maybe too good. He flexed his metal fingers against his flesh ones.

"Can I get back to you on it?" he asked, after a while.

"Sure. You feeling kind of done for the day?" Sam asked, and Bucky nodded, filling with relief. "Okay. You're doing well. I know it doesn't feel like it, but I can see it, even if you can't yet."

Bucky nodded and fled as soon as he could.

The problem was that aside from the obvious plus of having an arm, versus not having an arm, he wasn't sure what he was meant to like. With Tony and Steve's help, he'd buffed the red star off the shoulder, but now it was just neutral. It was just an arm.

He studied it in the mirror, the dulled scratched-up part with the missing star especially, and frowned. After a moment, he turned and headed for the workshop, where Tony wasn't currently, but where all his metal paints were.

The next morning, he walked into breakfast with his shirt sleeve rolled up. "I found the thing I like," he announced to Sam.

"Yeah?" Sam's face lit up. "What is it?"

Bucky proudly turned and showed off the new image on his shoulder. He'd managed to stencil a white circle onto it, then a pretty good blue B, and around the edges he'd had one of Tony's robots carefully print "BROOKLYN" across the top and "DODGERS" across the bottom.

Sam looked confused.

"It's the Brooklyn Dodgers," Bucky explained. "I like them. So I put it on my arm. And now I like that about my arm."

"You know the Dodgers aren't in Brooklyn anymore, right?" Sam asked.

"What's that got to do with the price of eggs? I like my logo."

Sam grinned, then began to laugh, shaking his head. "Barnes, I gotta admit, you are the best at making shit work for you."

Chapter Text

It was Loki -- of course it was Loki -- and he was in one of his crueler moods. Not that Bucky had a lot of experience personally, but he'd heard stories.

"So many secrets you keep," Loki remarked, as Bucky swung his whole body around and slammed his arm into him as hard as he could. Steve was an acrobat, and Natasha was a stiletto, but Bucky had always sort of enjoyed being a blunt instrument. Loki skidded backwards, and Bucky pounced.

"Shut up," he growled, pinning him to the pavement. Beyond him, the others were keeping a perimeter; he hadn't really been ordered to go after Loki, he'd just seen his chance and taken it.

"No, Secret-Keeper," Loki said, and the world flared green around him. "You shut up."

The problem was, really, that the Winter Soldier had never been a talker. James Barnes, back in the war, had liked to talk, but the Soldier hadn't, and he didn't talk much anymore, out of habit. He wasn't big on showing weakness, either. So, while he was technically enchanted, nobody noticed for like.

Four days.

He just kept to himself, hoping it would wear off, and planning that if it didn't (tomorrow, always if it didn't tomorrow) he'd go see Thor about it. It was actually sort of nice, in some ways; the urge to speak was absent, since he couldn't anyway.

It wasn't until Steve called a meeting to brainstorm new ways to try and imprison Loki, who'd made his getaway while Bucky was writhing on the pavement, clawing at his throat (nobody'd seen, thank god) that his newest secret was uncovered.

"James had him nearly down, last time," Thor pointed out. "If we could but enchant his arm -- "

"We're not enchanting Bucky's arm," Steve said.

"I don't know, I think it's an idea," Natasha said, and with mounting horror, Bucky watched her turn to him. "What do you think, Bucky? Worth a shot?"

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He tried to sort of...speak with his eyes, but the silence just stretched, longer and longer.

"Hey, are you okay?" Steve asked finally. Bucky looked at him, mutely pleading. "Buck?"

"He can't talk," Tony said, without looking up from where he was running calculations on the table's built-in holo screen.

"Excuse me?" Steve asked.

"Kid can't talk. Loki got to him," Tony repeated. He glanced over at Bucky briefly.

"When were you planning on sharing this with the class?" Clint asked.

"Exactly when he did," Tony replied. "Not my place to tell. He could've made a sign or something."

"Bucky?" Steve repeated. Bucky waved a hand at Tony and slumped back. "For the love of Pete, Buck, it's been four days!"

"Let me see," Thor said, and turned Bucky towards him. He pried open his mouth and peered in -- unpleasant, also rude -- and then nodded.

"Enchanted."

Steve rubbed his face. "Can you break it?"

"Shouldn't be difficult. I'll speak to Heimdall, he'll know who to ask," Thor said. He took his damn finger out of Bucky's mouth. "He seems to enjoy it, though."

Bucky rolled his eyes.

"When you can talk again, you and I are gonna have some words," Steve said.

"Why not now? He can't yell back," Natasha pointed out. Bucky threw her the bird.

"Well, that'd hardly be fair," Steve said, with infuriating logic. "Okay, Thor, go get him fixed up, the rest of us will work on this. You are in trouble, buster," he added, and Bucky rolled his eyes again as he followed Thor out.

Chapter Text

Looking back, it was a weird, unlikely intuitive leap. Steve liked to think that he was reasonably sensible when it came to interpersonal relations, but he wasn't psychic. Still, he'd known Bucky almost their entire lives, sort of, which had to count for something.

He'd never been to an Ikea before Sam announced they were going, because a good-natured scuffling match in the living room between two super-soldiers had accidentally thrashed one of Sam's bookshelves, and Steve therefore owed him a new one. Steve was unprepared for the Ikea Experience.

He followed Sam around the store, wide-eyed, asking more questions than he knew was sane for an adult person to ask. Sam was looking for bookshelves but they walked the entire store, testing out sofas because they looked comfortable (some looked much more comfortable than they were) and investigating strange light fixtures. Sam bought lunch at the Ikea cafeteria, and Steve at a little of everything and a lot of meatballs.

They'd actually managed to pick out new bookshelves (and a new chair, which Steve said they needed since three men squeezed onto one couch was kind of...intimate) and they were on their way to pick up the boxes when they passed into the home-goods-and-strange-kitchen-implements section, and were faced with a wall of stuffed turtles.

"Those were big for Christmas last year," Sam said. "Year before, it was sharks."

Steve touched one of the turtles gently. "It's really soft."

Sam gave him an eyebrow. "You want a turtle?"

"No, I -- " Steve took one down and squeezed it. "Squishy."

"Because if you want a turtle, I'm not here to judge."

"Not for me," Steve said, inspecting the head and limbs. He shoved the head into the shell, then squeezed. The head popped out again. "For Bucky."

Sam gave him a look that said Crazy super soldiers from the forties be crazy but he just put the turtle in the handbasket with the new spatula and desk lamp he was buying.

By the time they got home, Steve was regretting the purchase, because it seemed weird, but when he put the bag on the table, Bucky set down the box of shelving he'd been carrying in and said, "What's that?"

"Oh, it's uh, I got it for you, it's...a turtle," Steve said. Bucky reached in and took it out of the bag, running his metal hand over the fluffy shell.

"It's soft," he said.

"Well, that's what I said," Steve agreed. Bucky carefully carried the turtle to the living room and set it next to him on the floor, crossing his legs to start opening the bookshelf box. He spread out the instructions on the turtle's shell and set to work methodically assembling shelves.

By the time the shelf was fully assembled, Mischa the Turtle had migrated to the sofa, and Bucky went back and sat with it as soon as the shelf was placed. Sam braced it to the wall while Steve opened some beers and Bucky watched, his hand still rubbing little circles in the fur on the turtle's head.

"You gonna help me with this chair or what?" Sam asked, as Bucky pulled his legs out of the way and Steve started cutting the plastic off the chair parts.

"No," Bucky said, turning the TV on. "We're watching TV."

"I got it, Sam," Steve said, grinning over the edge of the chair's packaging at Bucky. "New pets need a lot of attention."

"Get stuffed," Bucky suggested, popping the turtle's head into its shell. "Misha wants to watch you make fun of the History Channel."

Chapter Text

Bucky had, it was true, been awake and semi-lucid for most of the major events of the twentieth century. It wasn't like Steve, where he'd slept the years away and woken to a changed world. He'd learned some things -- certainly he'd learned about firearms throughout the years, and he was actually reasonably current on politics -- but it wasn't as though his handlers had taken him out to lunch much. If he'd been on a mission longer than a few days, he'd been provided with money for food, but he had gravitated to the familiar: coffee, diners, little holes in the wall where the recipes hadn't changed in decades.

Mostly, though, he ate what his handlers gave him, or he went hungry.

Food in this new world, where he was usually awake and remembering more of his old life by the day, food was challenging. At first he'd eaten whatever he was given, mechanically, until Steve and Sam convinced him it was okay not to like something, to find the taste of white bread too sweet, the chilis in the Chinese food too spicy. He was allowed to taste and to develop his tastes now, and as he'd become more comfortable rejecting food, Steve had become more and more excited about trying new foods out on him.

"It's a whole new world out there," he told Bucky, as they sat in a restaurant decorated with cactus plants and murals of strangely cubic animals. Bucky studied the brightly-colored tablecloth curiously. "There's so much variety now, food from all over the planet. And nobody boils things anymore, it's all sous vide."

"What's sous vide?" Bucky asked.

"It's like boiling, only delicious."

Bucky nodded as a waiter appeared with the drinks they'd ordered -- a margarita for Steve, a Coca Cola for Bucky (even the cola tasted different now, and didn't carbonate right, but it was still pretty good) and a tray of food.

"But we didn't order," Bucky said, leaning in close to Steve, eyeing the food the waiter set down.

"It's complimentary," Steve said, leaning in as well. "You get it free when you buy a meal."

Bucky blinked. "How do they make any money?"

"Don't look at the prices on the menu," Steve advised.

Bucky examined the free food in front of him carefully. He recognized the chips; those were Doritos. Sam bought them sometime. These must be the only plain flavored Doritos he'd ever seen, though, because when he tasted one there wasn't any powdered flavoring on it.

"No, you dip it," Steve said, demonstrating. He dipped one of the Doritos into a bowl of...

"What is that," Bucky asked, alarmed. It was bright green and full of lumps.

"Guacamole," Steve said with relish, around a mouthful.

"It looks like something someone already ate," Bucky pointed out.

"It's supposed to look that way. It's creamy."

"What's in it?"

"Avocado and onion and some spices and things," Steve said.

"You're making that up," Bucky accused. "Avocado's just a made up word, Steve. What is it, really? Is it cabbage?"

Steve grinned. "It's a fruit, Buck, avocado's a fruit. Just try it. It's good."

Bucky frowned. "If this is cabbage I'm gonna sock you."

"It's not cabbage!"

He picked up a Dorito and carefully scooped a small chunk of the green mixture onto it. Steve watched, hilariously engaged, as Bucky brought the chip to his mouth and bit into it.

It was creamy, and it sort of dissolved on the tongue -- grassy, savory, with a hint of spice to it. He chewed, trying to think what it reminded him off, but it had a flavor all its own. It was like cream a little, and a little like pears, and he could taste onion now that he'd chewed it.

"Well?" Steve prompted.

Bucky shrugged. "It's all right for bein' free," he said, and Steve laughed as he took another, larger scoopful.

"Just wait till you try an enchilada," Steve promised him.

Chapter Text

"Who does that guy remind you of?" Bucky asked, when Natasha sat down next to him on the couch.

"Jude Law? Someone I'd bang like a drum," she said.

"Not him," Bucky said, pointing to the shorter man in the shabby hat. "That one."

"Robert Downey Junior," she said. "He's a famous actor."

"Yeah, but, I mean, who does he remind you of?"

Natasha tilted her head, considering. "I don't know. I mean, I didn't grow up watching a lot of movies."

They exchanged a look; Natasha had spent her formative years in a Russia that Bucky had left decades before, but there was a certain level of culture they shared, and Communist Russia's disdain for western capitalist entertainment was one of them.

"But I've seen some of his old movies. Have you watched Chaplin?"

"I saw actual Chaplin," Bucky pointed out. "I'm watchin' Sherlock Holmes now. It's not like the Sherlock Holmes we got in the nickel theater for sure."

"Better or worse?" Clint asked, clearing the couch in a sideways leap to join them, landing with his head in Natasha's lap and his feet on Bucky's.

"Just different. More explosions," Bucky said, giving him a shove. Their bickering match over Clint's feet in Bucky's lap lasted until Thor solved the problem by appearing, moving Clint bodily out of the way, and sitting down next to Bucky. Clint huffed and shifted to another sofa, where Sam was settling in as well.

"That fellow looks familiar," Thor remarked.

"See? Thor thinks so," Bucky said. "CAP," he yelled, and Steve put his head into the room from the kitchen.

"How'd you know I was here?" Steve asked.

"Heard you clomping around," Bucky replied. "Make some popcorn and come watch this movie with us, we're tryin' to figure out where we've seen this fella before."

By the time Steve showed up with two huge bowls of buttered popcorn, Bruce had joined them too, and the heroes were undergoing a very satisfying explosion in a pig butchery, which made Bucky nostalgic for the days of the knackers and the meat packers.

"JARVIS says there's a party I wasn't invited to," Tony announced, just as Steve settled in at Bucky's feet and handed him the bowl of popcorn. "What are we watching?"

Everyone, almost in unison, slowly looked from the television screen to Tony. Onscreen, Sherlock Holmes, with salt-and-pepper hair and a fake beard, was comforting Watson's fiancee; next to it, Tony was wiping his hands on a rag, thumb rising to smooth down some stray hair in his goatee.

"Oh, hey, I like this movie," Tony said, oblivious to the open-mouthed stares that followed him to the couch cushion next to Sam. "I used to party with Robert Downey. Miracle either of us made it past thirty."

"You and him?" Bucky asked.

"Nice guy. Handsome, too," Tony said, relaxing back. "We had a thing for like, a minute, back in the mid-nineties."

Steve leaned back and tipped his head up, looking at Bucky; Bucky put a finger to his lips, and Steve nodded.

"Hey, can we watch the sequel after this?" Tony asked. "I like the part where he goes in drag."

Chapter Text

It wasn't that the future was particularly worse or better than the past, but it sure was different. In the thirties and forties, you lived outside your home; people spent time on stoops, and very few had cars. Bucky could remember leaving before sunrise and returning after sunset, and spending the intervening time on foot, on the street, at work or school, or just chatting with folks in alleys and on corners.

It was harder to get to know folks now, at least in the same way he used to. Steve told him plenty of folks made friends online -- there were whole social clubs -- but Bucky couldn't get used to it, couldn't adapt well to not seeing a person's face. It was fine, it just wasn't for him.

But it made getting conversation outside of the Avengers sorta difficult sometimes.

He tried to make conversation with folks he met, and sometimes it was welcome, and sometimes it wasn't, but it rarely led to anything more than a passing acquaintance. Not like Steve, who he'd met in a courtyard between buildings, or any of his other pals from back when.

"Fine day out," he said to the barista in the coffeeshop, and she agreed and gave him his coffee, and that was that.

"Could I borrow a part of your paper?" he asked an old-timer on the train, and the old-timer handed it over without even looking at him, and didn't much talk when Bucky remarked on the news.

It was the record shop, in the end, with its young punk kids in crazy hair colors and pants so tight you could tell their religion. He went in every week, to look through the old vinyl and pick something out to listen to. They didn't make many albums on records anymore, so he was mostly confined to music he'd missed from the forties to the eighties, but there was plenty of that.

"So you're into psychedelica?" one of the clerks asked, lounging down the row where Bucky was pulling brightly-colored covers out of the racks. He was mostly picking the ugliest stuff he could find, hoping the music would be a pleasant surprise, but he shrugged and nodded.

"Sure, I guess. Don't know much about this music," he said, holding up a copy of something called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

"That's the Beatles," the fella said.

"Oh?" Bucky tried to look politely interested.

"You have no clue who the Beatles are, do you?"

"Not really. I m -- " he was about to say I missed a lot, but he corrected. "I mostly don't know any music from before, oh. Last week or so."

The man grinned. "Just buy a record player?"

"Something like that."

"Well, here, you want some help? I can pick you out, like, a sampler. What's your budget?"

"About fifteen dollars," Bucky answered, which still seemed like a fortune to him, but Steve had shown him his bank statement, thank you Stark Industries for licensing the Bucky Barnes likeness, and he felt like a Rockefeller.

"I can load you up on cool stuff for that," the man said. "I'm Jim."

"I'm a James too," Bucky answered. "Most people call me Buck."

"Sounds like there's a story behind that."

"For the president. James Buchanan."

"Your parents history nuts or something?" the guy asked.

"Something," Bucky agreed.

Jim spent the entire afternoon putting records on the turntable for him, blasting half the sixties through the mostly-empty shop while the other clerks complained he was monopolizing the speakers. They'd listen to a few songs, have a smoke, listen to a few more, until finally Jim said, "Look, my shift's almost over."

"Oh," Bucky said, disappointed. "Well, I guess I should pay up, huh?"

Jim nodded. "Come back on like, Tuesday, right? I'll be here all day, and nobody ever comes in during the day. I'll play you some disco."

Bucky beamed. "Really? That'd be keen."

Jim laughed. "Sure. Okay. See you Tuesday?"

Bucky nodded, and went home with a sack full of records and a spring in his step.

"Have a good day?" Steve called from the kitchen, when Bucky walked in.

"Yeah, made a friend," Bucky said. "Hey, Sam, have you heard of this band, the Beatles?"

Chapter Text

It was Sam's idea to go to the hospital, which was not that surprising. Bucky was getting used to living with two proud, stubborn, bleeding goddamn hearts, and while their chipper Pollyanna outlook on life desperately needed his dark and morbid sense of humor to balance it, he knew in truth nothing would ever stop Steve and Sam from worrying about orphans and crying over ASPCA commercials.

So it wasn't surprising that Sam thought a visit to the children's hospital was just what they needed after nearly a year of what Bucky dryly referred to as "Hydra and Seek" -- where he torched Hydra outposts and Steve and Sam tried to pin him down and forcibly drag him into a group hug.

Steve, Sam said, needed to be reminded that he was a hero, that people liked and admired him, and Bucky would concede that Steve couldn't generally find his self-esteem with two hands and a map. Bucky, Sam said, could use to be reminded that people in general were not horrible monsters. Bucky felt this was overstating things. Most people were just horrible. They weren't monsters. He was a monster.

"What if I snap?" he asked. It was a legitimate question. It'd happened twice, once when Steve had tried to elbow him out of the way while cooking (the knife went into the wall, not Steve's arm, but it was a close thing) and once when he'd been brushing his teeth, and the toothbrush had hit his gums wrong, had reminded him of the bite-guard and the prep machine. Since then, he'd just used mouthwash.

"They're little kids, you won't snap," Steve said. "Besides, I'll be there."

"What exactly are you telling the hospital?" Bucky asked.

"That Captain America and two war veterans are coming to help hand out Cap dolls and stickers to the kids," Sam said.

Which was how Bucky ended up yawning his way through a car ride at 9 in the goddamn morning on a Saturday, with Steve in full getup in the front seat.

When they finally got to the hospital, someone gave him a coffee, and that cheered him up while he watched Steve get mobbed by tiny kids in wheelchairs, on crutches, with bald heads, with bandages. Sam had a giant box of stickers, and soon most of the kids were clutching Cap dolls and covered in stickers as they crowded around Steve to touch the shield and pat the wings on his cowl and ask him questions. It was, Bucky had to admit, really nice to see people who just loved Steve for being awesome. Because Steve was awesome, when you got down to it, and too many people gave him too much crap for it.

He wasn't doing much himself, and nobody seemed to mind that, when he heard the slap of hospital clogs on the floor, and a little kid appeared in the doorway, watching with dark eyes. He held onto the frame with one hand. His other hand was bright blue plastic, jointed at the wrist and fingers.

"Did I miss Captain America?" he asked breathlessly.

"No, he's right over there," Bucky said, pointing to the crowd of kids around Steve.

"Oh," the kid said, looking disappointed. "I guess he's out of dolls, huh?"

"Nah, he brought like, a million of 'em. Go get one," Bucky said, gesturing him forward. The boy started to shake his head, then caught sight of the arm, eyes widening. Bucky tucked it away in his pocket quickly, but it was too late.

"Is that a 'sthetic?" the boy asked, darting forward to grab it. Bucky stiffened. "Whoa, cool. Is it bionic? Mine's 3-D printed."

"Um, positronic," Bucky said, because that's what Steve's pal Tony said it was. He wiggled the fingers, and the boy gasped.

"Is it strong? Can you lift stuff? I can't lift much. Lift me!" he demanded, wrapping his arms around Bucky's wrist. Bucky rolled his eyes, but he raised his arm until it stuck straight out, with the little boy dangling from it and shrieking excitedly.

Like a flock of goddamn birds, the other children noticed that someone was giving Prosthetic Arm Rides, and they all abandoned Steve to poke and tug at Bucky's arm. Bucky scooped the boy up and said, "Captain America's free, you wanna go see him?"

"No, I wanna play with your arm!" the boy insisted. Bucky glanced at Steve, then at Sam, then carefully set the boy down and reached across his chest, disengaging the arm from its socket. The children screamed happily.

"I'm gonna getcha with my arm!" the boy yelled, grabbing it from Bucky and chasing a little girl in a wheelchair, who zoomed around the room, laughing.

"Look, the Grinch's heart grew three sizes," Sam said.

"Get lost," Bucky replied.

"Guess we better put in an order for some Bucky Barnes dolls," Steve said. "We'll get 'em to do the arm in silver, bet they can make it detachable with that velcro stuff. it'll look nice."

"I hate you both," Bucky said, but he crouched down so the rest of the kids could push his sleeve up and poke at the socket mount for his arm.

Chapter Text

"What in the name of God are you watching?" Sam asked.

It was a fair question. It was two in the morning and Bucky was sitting in the living room with Steve's laptop on his lap, and the laptop was singing. Sam could see, over the edge of the couch, what looked like various multicolored animated blobs bouncing around.

"I dunno," Bucky said.

"You don't know?"

"I opened the Netflix thing," Bucky said, "and Steve had been watching this cartoon, Black Butler? But I don't like it."

"Uh, yeah," Sam said. "It's hyperviolent. Why was Steve watching Black Butler?"

"He said he wanted to learn more about....ani....mu?"

"Anime. Got it."

"Anyway the Netflix guy said if you like this, try this other thing, and I thought -- "

"Wait, wait," Sam said, sitting down next to him. "This is Veggie Tales."

"Oh? Do you know it?"

Sam stared at the screen. "Steve was watching anime and it said he should watch Veggie Tales. Buck, Netflix just literally told Steve he needs Jesus."

"I'm confused," Bucky told him. "But I like it. There's singing and vegetables and nobody gets dismembered with a chainsaw."

"Hey, it's your insomnia," Sam said, pulling a blanket off the back of the couch. Bucky tugged on a corner of it and wrapped it around his shoulders, pulling Sam in. "I'm not gonna judge."

"They're vegetable pirates," Bucky said, after a few minutes. He squinted at the screen. "Why does that pirate have a recliner with a lever on the side? He doesn't have any arms to pull the lever with."

"Look, it's a cucumber with a recliner and an eyepatch, I got nothing," Sam said.

"Well, at least you're here," Bucky replied.

"Oh, that's good?" Sam asked, grinning gently.

"Means I'm pretty sure I'm not hallucinating."

"About vegetables singing about being pirates who don't do anything?"

"The future confuses me sometimes," Bucky said in a small voice. "But at least these don't seem like they're meant to make sense."

Sam took a chance, raising his arm under the blanket and wrapping it around Bucky's shoulders, pulling him close. "Sometimes total nonsense makes a little more sense than everything else."

"This is for babies," Bucky said.

"It's kind of a thing, though. I mean. Tons of people watch childrens' cartoons. It's like an escape," Sam said. "You got a lot to escape from."

"So you don't think it's stupid?"

"No. It makes sense to me. I mean, the ultra-Christian vegetables not so much, but -- hey anytime you want to get away from the world for a little while, come find me, we'll watch some cartoons."

"There's about a million of these," Bucky said.

Sam sighed, mock-put-upon. "The things I do for you," he answered, kissing Bucky on the temple. "Watch your show, I'm just gonna sit here and nap."

"Thanks, Sam," Bucky said. "We can watch one you like next time."

Chapter Text

It took only a single workout cycle for Natasha to realize where Bucky was, and only another two days before she showed up in the rafters of the gymnasium, in the dark corner Bucky was watching from. She brought a bag of mixed nuts and two Cokes.

Down below, Tony was stretching, preparing for his biweekly sparring with Steve. It was part machismo and part masochism, but Natasha at least thought he was improving. Across the gym, Clint was doing gymnastics routines on the pommel horse, Sam was doing pull-ups, and Thor was bench-pressing special, super-dense weights, with Bruce pretending like he could actually do anything as a spotter if Thor dropped them.

"So," she said, seating herself on the girder and resting her arms on the bracing above it, as Bucky was. "Are you looking for our weak spots, or do you just like to be a part of things without actually being a part of things?"

Bucky glanced sidelong at her, then took a macadamia nut from the bag and ate it.

"It's a laugh," he said.

"What's that?" she asked.

"I watch 'em like the Olympics," he said. "And then I rate 'em."

"Ooh. The Russian Judge," she said, laughing. He frowned. "Sorry, probably after your time. Russian judges are notoriously mean."

"Oh, I am too, that's okay."

"So what are you grading them on?"

"Ten outta ten. Stark gets points for artistry and smartmouthin' 'cause God knows he ain't gonna get points for much else outta the suit."

"Steve?"

"Steve starts with a handicap, he's gotta earn three points just to break even."

"Seems unfair."

"Hell no. The judges are biased."

She smiled at him. "You handicap him because you like him?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"I suppose. Oooh," she said, as Clint tried to do a one-handed handstand and crashed to the mats.

"Nine point two," Bucky said.

"For what?" she asked.

"Fallin' down. Clint gets points for that, 'cause he always gets back up again."

Clint did get back up again, leapt for the horse, slightly misjudged, and crashed into it.

"Six point five," Natasha said.

"Fair enough."

"What about Thor and Sam?"

"I judge Thor for never doing anything interesting," Bucky said. "Sam doesn't get judged on account of I like him too much and also still owe him for rippin' his wings off that one time."

"Well, I can judge him. I give him an eight point five."

"For what?"

"His butt."

Bucky studied Sam's butt. "Little low."

"Well, if he wore tighter pants, I wouldn't have to mark him down."

Over in the sparring ring, Steve blocked a kick by Tony, grabbed his ankle, and flipped him two full rotations in the air before he landed.

"You know my legs are attached to me, right?" Tony yelled.

"Six point three," Bucky said. Natasha glanced at him. "Smartmouthin'. He can do better."

"What do you judge me on?" she asked, sipping her Coke.

"Grace, core strength, and how often you can make Steve blush," he said. "Also good aim and pretty hair."

She patted his shoulder. "Right answer. Ooooooh," she added, wincing as Tony managed to dodge Steve at the last minute, sending Steve headlong into the wall.

"Judges give Rogers a ten for concussions, a low three for cornering," Bucky announced, and clicked his Coke against hers when she offered it.

Chapter Text

"I don't understand the butts thing," Bucky announced at breakfast one day, and Steve nearly choked on his milk.

"What butts thing is that?" Sam asked, keeping his composure a little better than Steve. He rinsed his plate off and turned around to make eye contact.

"Everything's about butts now," Bucky said, pushing his eggs around on his plate. "There's songs about butts. I don't get it."

"Uh, this might be a sexual liberation thing," Sam said warily, because Steve was bright red and determinedly wolfing down his breakfast.

"We were plenty liberated," Bucky protested. "But back then it was legs."

"Bucky," Steve said.

"What? It was. Nobody talks about a nice leg anymore. Or a fella's shoulders. It's butts all the way."

Steve abruptly stood up, put his plate in the sink, and said, "I'm gonna go...read. Somewhere."

Bucky and Sam watched him go.

"He's awful squeamish about butts," Bucky remarked.

"I think sometimes you're a little much for him," Sam replied. "Maybe he thought you were gonna ask him to rate yours."

"Why, has he done that? I better get a good rating from him, I pulled his skinny butt out of trouble for a decade."

"If he has, he hasn't told me," Sam admitted. Bucky craned his neck as Sam came around the island to pick up his juice glass. "Oh, what, you comparing now?" he asked, wiggling a little.

"No, just checkin'."

"Well?"

"Sure, it's fine. Better than Steve's. He's got none at all. That's good, right, having a butt? Versus not having one?"

"Did you just wake up with your sex drive re-engaged this morning or something?" Sam asked. "Why're you so worried about your butt all of a sudden?"

"Maybe I did," Bucky said stiffly. "It's hard not to, when there's butts everywhere."

"Your butt is fine," Sam said.

"You like my butt?" Bucky asked.

"I'm being objective, here. I gotta go take a shower, you just -- try to keep out of trouble."

"Yeah, you like the butt," Bucky said to himself happily, when Sam was out of the room.

Chapter Text

Bucky wasn't, at first, all that impressed with Mr. Captain America. He wouldn't have gone to see the show, even with the dancing girls thrown in, if he hadn't had to work at the theater that night.

After all, if this guy was so big and strong and good at sockin' Nazis, why wasn't he enlisted and overseas? Put Buck in a pair of tights and give him a shield and a wooden arm to mount it on, and he'd do the job just fine. Hell, give him a rig to mount a rifle on and he'd go back to war, one-armed or not, and probably do a better job of it than some of the goldbrickers he'd served with.

Being invalided home just because you lost a limb was the worst. Even the girls who made moon-eyes at him just wanted to say they'd gone with a veteran, and the pitying looks from the rest of the city were hard to take. And it wasn't easy to get a job with just one arm; ushering at the theater was the best he'd been able to swing.

Still, when the lights went down and the songs started up, he couldn't help but stand up a little straighter, falling into parade rest without meaning to. Captain America, he was -- he was something else, sure enough. It was probably just stage magic, but he did make you feel like you were part of something bigger, like what you did mattered.

After the show, Bucky snuck backstage and waited while the VIPs had their photo taken with him, while the fans got their autographs. He was just gonna watch, to see if the magic faded, but Captain America caught his eye and smiled at him.

"Hey, you look familiar," he said, coming up to Bucky. "You from around here? We met before?"

"Brooklyn," Bucky replied.

"Yeah? Say, me too. Steve Rogers," he said, offering a hand. Bucky stared at him. "What? Oh -- " he pulled off the cowl, a thick shock of blond hair falling out. "Sorry, I forget the damn thing's on."

"Little Steve Rogers?" Bucky asked. "We were in school together 'till your ma pulled you out. It's Bucky. James Barnes."

"Oh, sure!" Steve looked delighted. "Bucky Barnes! I remember you."

"Hell, last time I saw you -- "

"I was pint-sized," Steve agreed, laughing.

"I think we called you Half-Pint. What happened?"

"I joined the Army. What're you up to?"

"Workin'," Bucky said, and he saw Steve's eyes fall on the pinned-up sleeve. "Yeah, guess I made up for not buyin' any bonds tonight."

"I'm sorry," Steve said.

"Don't be. I don't mind it much. More pissed the Army sent me out, you know? I was a sniper, you don't need two hands for that."

"You any good?"

"Yeah, I was," Bucky said regretfully. "Hey, why aren't you overseas, anyhow?"

A look of bitter annoyance crossed Steve's face. "I would be. The brass is keeping me in this monkey suit. They're sending the whole show over, though, I'm hoping...maybe I can get out of the show, see some real action."

"Well, keep your elbows tucked in if you do," Bucky said, grinning, and Steve laughed, bright and clear. "Say, you want to get some dinner? You gotta be starving."

Over dinner, Bucky told Steve about his service, and drew out for him the wooden rig he'd designed for a one-armed sniper, a prosthetic with special mounts and hooks. Steve drank it in, and told Bucky about touring the country, about how balmy California was, how big and empty Texas got to be. And then, in the morning, Steve got on a transport and left for Europe, and Bucky stayed behind.

A month later, a serviceman showed up at the door of Bucky's drafty one-room Army-pension apartment.

"Sir, I've been sent to reactivate your service," he said, saluting. Bucky saluted back, confused.

"You know I only got the one arm, right?" he asked.

"Sir, Captain America has requested you for an elite war squadron," the man said stiffly. He had a large black case by his feet. "You are requested to present yourself in New Jersey two days from now for re-induction and transport to Italy. You'll be given your orders then."

"Okay," Bucky said, a thrill running through him. As soon as the man was gone, he hauled the case onto his bed with one shaking hand and opened it. Inside was a gleaming lightweight steel prosthetic, built to the specs he'd told Steve about ages ago, and a series of leather straps to harness it onto his shoulder.

I got a pal who souped up your design, a note inside the case read. I need a good sniper. Howard Stark will meet you in London and make sure the contraption fits. Get here ASAP. - Half Pint.

Chapter Text

"This is revenge, isn't it?" Tony asked, in Bucky's voice. He was holding up both of Bucky's hands, turning them back and forth, examining them. "This is revenge for me calling her Wandina The Teenage Witch, right?"

"Shut up, Stark," Bucky said tiredly. He was visibly trying not to look at any part of the body he was currently inhabiting, and he kept tossing his head like he was trying to avoid the uplight from the arc reactor. "Jesus, this thing's bright, how do you sleep at night?"

"Very soundly, thank you," Tony replied.

"It wasn't Wanda's fault," Steve said, arms crossed. Wanda, sitting nearby, looked unhappy. "Doom zapped her right as she tried to get both of you to safety, it's not like she did this on purpose."

"I remain skeptical," Tony said, crossing Bucky's arms. "Hey, Barnes, why didn't you ever ask for a heating element? This thing's freezing."

"Why didn't you offer?" Bucky shot back. "You're the mechanic."

"Well, I would have if I knew holding hands with you was like licking a light pole in winter," Tony retorted.

"Okay, enough," Steve said, sounding distressed. "You, Tony-as-Bucky, if you're so hot to get to work, go take your arm off and fix it. Bucky-as-Tony, put a sweater on to block out the light. Wanda, please tell me you can fix this."

"I'll need to talk to Agatha," Wanda said hesitantly.

"Okay, well, get on the horn. Nobody's blaming you," Steve added, more gently, and Wanda gave him a hesitant smile. "But I would really like these two back in their bodies, preferably before either of them has to take a piss."

"Oh, man, I didn't even think about that," Bucky groaned.

"Don't be jealous when you take my pants off," Tony smirked.

"Oh, trust me, I won't," Bucky smirked back. Steve rubbed his temples gently, which was why he missed the significant looks that the other two were exchanging.

"You know what, I think I will go put a sweater on," Bucky said, standing up. "Are you this cold all the time?"

"Not nearly," Tony said.

"I can raid your closet, right, Stark?"

"I'll come with you, show you where the sweaters are," Tony agreed, an eager look in his eye. "It's just through here, and off the bedroom..."

There was a pregnant silence once they'd gone, and Steve rested his arms on the conference table, head pillowed on them.

"They just went off to have sex with themselves, didn't they?" he asked Wanda.

"It's pretty likely," Wanda said.

"Please go call Agatha now, Wanda."

"Yes, Captain," she agreed.

About twenty minutes later, Steve was only mildly gratified to hear two angered yelps from Tony's bedroom as Wanda swapped them back into their proper bodies.

Chapter Text

"How do you have a niece?" Bucky asked. "I'm pretty sure you have no siblings."

"She's Pepper's," Tony said, watching the little girl set up camp in the living room. "You will not believe the story behind this tiny girlchild."

"Try me," Bucky said drily.

"Pepper's got a little sister who is apparently bananas," Tony said. "Little sister's little girl is a very determined tomboy..." he waved a hand at the girl, who had constructed a fairly sturdy fort-tent out of couch cushions and blankets. "Little sister thinks Pepper is the most qualified to teach niece how to be a lady..."

Bucky's brow furrowed. "Has she met Pepper?"

"Apparently not," Tony said, grinning. "Pepper basically told her niece this was a vacation from her gender-norming crazy mom. So we have abandoned the gender-norming crazy mom package over there," he pointed to a pink tote bag in the corner, "and we are letting her do whatever she wants."

Bucky considered this. "Cool," he said. "But does this mean I can't watch baseball in here?"

"Sure, knock yourself out, she'll probably enjoy that."

Bucky carefully approached the one sofa that the Whirlwind had left untouched, settling into a corner and turning on the game. It took the child about two minutes to realize what was going on, creep out from her fort, and crouch near his feet, looking up in awe.

"Hi, Junior," he said, frowning at her.

"Are you Bucky?" she asked.

"Oh God," he said, "you read comic books."

"You're BUCKY I have your COLORING BOOK," she shouted, and dove back into the fort, returning with a coloring book featuring Steve punching his way out of the cover. She practically threw a box of crayons at him, which contained nothing but blue, black, and purple.

"Little goth," Tony said indulgently.

"Color with meeeee," she pleaded, and Bucky rolled his eyes.

"Where's the red?" he asked, pointing to a drawing of Steve she'd half-colored-in. Anywhere that should have been red was black instead.

"I don't like red. Or pink," she declared. "Only blue."

"Well, that's all right, I guess," he said. The drawing of him on the opposite page made him look twelve years old. And possibly he was wearing tights, it was hard to tell. "Let's color me blue?"

"Pepper's sister is gonna kill her," Tony remarked.

"We'll give all the pink stuff to Clint, he'll make it look played-with before she goes home," Bucky said, industriously coloring his jacket blue, while Junior colored his face a lighter blue.

Chapter Text

Bucky hadn't set out to be a sniper; he hadn't set out to be a soldier at all. With a dead pa and a little sister to provide for, not to mention someone had to pull Steve out of alleyway fights on a regular basis, he'd figured on working a factory job, sayin' if anyone asked that he had flat feet.

He also had a low draft number, though, and he might not be a natural born soldier but he wasn't a shirker. So off he went to Basic when his number came up, asking Becca to keep an eye on Steve and asking Steve to keep an eye on Becca. Maybe it'd keep them out of trouble.

But when he got to Basic, they found out he had two things -- a mouth on him, and a facility with firearms that his sergeant said must be from the Devil himself.

"Nah, I'm an angel," Bucky said, and his sergeant laughed and sent him to sniper training. When he got overseas and they asked him who he was and where he was from, one of the fellas said, "That's Barnes -- he's an angel," and mimed firing down on Nazis from the heavens.

When Steve built his team of Commandos, the Quartermaster ordered a patch for all of them, an angel's wing, and it went on Bucky's shoulder and Steve's helmet and somewhere on most of the others. They had a lot of names for them -- the Howling Commandos, Rogers' Raiders, and the one that made Bucky squirm and Steve laugh, the Captain's Angels.

"Yeah, but led by a pair of devils," Pinky said one time in a pub, nodding at Steve and Bucky. "Mischief makers, and neither of them think they can die."

Buck didn't, of course. He was young and strong and fighting a just war with his best friend by his side. Sure, he was cold and hungry sometimes, but he'd been cold and hungry sometimes back in New York, too. And the cold didn't seem as bad anymore as it used to.

There were lots of small things leading up to the one big thing, the first time he really began to worry, but he'd always been able to ignore them before. The fact that the cold wasn't so bad anymore, the fact that he could eat less and still run harder than the others (barring Steve, naturally), the time he took a knife through the bicep and healed before they made it back to HQ -- well, he'd always healed fast.

It wasn't until he was up on the ridge with his rifle, getting ready to cover the team through an assault on a Hydra factory, that he worked out something was wrong.

There'd been heavy snow, and the men looking down on the valley and the factory hadn't realized they were standing on hardpack, nothing beneath it but air; when Steve left Bucky and ran down to join them, the whole ice shelf gave way. Bucky watched, horrorstruck, as their perch started to skid, then tipped over like a giant sled and zoomed down the hill towards the factory, riding light on the powder. The men went down with it, clinging to the thin crust of ice; Pinky went spinning off it halfway down, but he tumbled through the snow and came up sprinting, trying to catch the others. Hydra guards were starting to take notice, and Bucky could see through his scope that one of them stood up from guard duty and turned just in time for the shelf to slam into him, knocking him flat and burying him when the rest of the shelf hit the wall, knocking it over into the factory.

He counted heads as they popped up -- Pinky running, Steve picking himself off the floor of the factory, Dum Dum, Jim, and Gabe climbing to their feet, Dernier checking the half-buried Hydra soldier for a pulse. Helmeted heads began to appear as well, all over the factory in the wake of the collision.

He hadn't been meant to stay at this nest once they'd gone in -- he was supposed to cover them halfway down the valley, join them at a rock outcrop, and cover them the rest of the way there. A bullet from his rifle would go far enough from here to hit something in the factory, but a fella couldn't aim that far and expect to hit what he was aiming at. Still, he didn't have time to move, and laying cover, even if it didn't hit anything, would help Steve get the space he needed to fight.

His first three hits were dead on, though, and his fourth winged a fella who moved suddenly. He didn't stop to think, just kept breathing and firing and reloading until men stopped moving. By then, Dum Dum had found a truck and Jim and Gabe were loading the factory's prisoners into it, while Pinky brought out armfuls of supplies raided from somewhere deeper in the building. Dernier and Steve set charges, and the truck full of rescued prisoners and Commandos reached him just about the time the factory blew.

Pinky had found jam, caviar, and foie gras in the factory manager's office, among other delicacies. They ate pretty well that night, even with the prisoners needing to be fed. Steve huddled next to him at the fire, sharing a mug of rich tinned soup and some caviar on Army ration crackers.

"Fine shooting out there today," Steve said.

"Shoulda been down with you fellas."

"No, you were where I put you, I'm glad you stayed put. Those shots must have been what, a thousand yards?"

Closer to seventeen hundred, but Bucky kept his mouth shut. "Just lucky, I guess."

"Well-trained," Steve replied sternly. Bucky shrugged, and thought of Arnim Zola, and the injections, and the bright blue lights.

"Guess I got some super-abilities too," he said, and Steve laughed and slung an arm around his shoulder, and they both ignored the truth of it.

Chapter Text

At first, when Steve brought Bucky home (almost forcibly, though he didn't have much fight left in him), Bucky wore the arm all the time and wouldn't let anyone else touch it. He'd acquired some tools from somewhere, very specialized-looking, and was capable of repairing it himself; Steve, with more urgent concerns over Bucky's mental health and physical well-being, left him to it.

Eventually, though, as he remembered more, he started taking the arm off more and more often. He went out rarely, and he always wore it when he did, but he almost always took it off within a few minutes of returning home, and kept it off until he went out again. The sole exception was after his first trip to the VA; all subsequent trips there, he left it at home.

"Does it make you uncomfortable?" Steve asked, worried. "Is it hurting you?"

Bucky shook his head no, and didn't volunteer why he left it off when he got in the door. Steve didn't know what to ask to elicit more information from him, so he left it alone -- but less confidently, less carelessly now. He watched, and he searched through Bucky's actions for a meaning behind the removal.

"Leave him alone, man," Sam advised. "He's working through stuff, same as you. Remember how pissed you were when I poked at you about waking up in the new century?"

"I wasn't angry."

"Yeah you were. I only redeemed myself by asking about your bed."

Steve shrugged. "I want to help him, and he's bad at letting me."

"Gee, I don't know anyone like that."

The next time they were out, though, Steve casually slipped it into conversation. "How much can you feel with it?" he asked, gesturing to the arm as Bucky picked up a sandwich to take a bite. Bucky glanced at him, bit into the sandwich, and chewed before answering.

"Warmth and pressure," he said. "I know if it's damaged."

"Is it unpleasant?"

"Well," Bucky told him, a dry twist to his lips, "It ain't better than a real one."

Steve let it go, willing to work around sideways to the question, to do more research.

"Will you show me how to put it on you?" he asked another time, when Bucky was getting ready to go out. "If you're hurt, so I can..."

"You don't wanna learn how to take it off?" Bucky asked, knowingly. Being able to take the arm off would mean being able to literally disarm him.

"Not yet. Maybe when you're ready."

"Sure," Bucky said. "Sometime I'll show you."

He never did, though.

Steve began to notice, too, that if he could, Bucky did everything right-handed. Even when he was wearing it, he avoided picking anything up or touching anything if he could avoid it.

"Are you sure it doesn't hurt you?" Steve asked, when they were buying groceries. Bucky pushed the cart along, one-handed.

"It ain't about hurting me," he murmured.

"Then what's it about?"

Bucky shrugged. "When you've got a grip of five hundred PSI, see how much you want to grab shit."

"Who says I don't?" Steve asked, grinning, trying to make it light. Bucky just looked at him.

"You don't," he said. "Not even you."

Steve had no idea what PSI was or how it was measured, but he felt like he was getting somewhere now. "We should armwrestle."

Bucky ignored him.

That night, as they were getting ready for bed, Steve picked up the arm and brought it to him. Bucky looked at it, then up at him.

"I saw you handle delicate machinery," Steve said. "I saw you load guns and pull grenades out of your pockets. Put it on."

"Steve -- "

"Just put it on, Buck," Steve said, and Bucky sighed and mounted it onto his shoulder. "Now," he said, taking the metal hand between his palms. "Touch me."

"This ain't a good idea."

"If you're worried about your grip strength, there's no better way to test than on me. I'm durable," Steve said, lifting the arm up to his face.

Bucky growled, then snarled and snapped the arm down a few inches, cupping his thumb and fingers around Steve's neck. Steve held still, chin lifted, as the fingers dug into his skin. It wasn't even a choke; just the tips were pressed into the sides of his neck, the palm over his windpipe but not crushing it.

"You won't hurt me," Steve said. "It's up to you, Buck, but I know you won't hurt me or anyone else. Don't be afraid. Own this. It's not Hydra's anymore."

Bucky heaved a huge breath, hand sliding up, cupping Steve's cheek, and Steve leaned into it. The steel thumb pressed against his chin lightly.

"I could kill you," Bucky said softly.

"You ain't yet," Steve pointed out.

"You don't know. I might, one day. Without even realizing it."

"Already took that chance. I don't mind taking it again."

Steve lifted a hand and cupped Bucky's, fingers pressing through the gaps in his, curving down over his palm. They stood like that for a while, silent, until Bucky shrugged out of his grasp and turned away, pulling on his pyjama shirt. But he didn't take the arm off, and he slept that night with it curved carefully around his own belly, like a protected pet.

Chapter Text

"I don't know what you're bustin' my chops for," Bucky complained, arms crossed, standing outside the hospital room. "You said alive, I brought the guy in alive."

"And that's, uh, that's good, Buck," Steve replied carefully.

"Squirmy bastard. It'd have been a lot easier just to kill him," Bucky said reproachfully.

"Bucky!"

"I have no time for Hydra Nazis, I already spent one war shootin' them," Bucky said. "Far as I'm concerned, a Nazi in combat is fair game. It's only because I like you so well I didn't put two in his head."

Steve rubbed his eyes.

"I think what Steve is getting at," Natasha said, her tone measured, "is that while it's good you brought the Nazi in alive, it would have been better if you had brought him in without a broken jaw, so that we could interrogate him and get the intel we need."

"Can he not hold a pen?" Bucky asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Not in his right hand, he can't," Bruce Banner said, exiting the medical suite. "That's the bad news. Good news is, somehow you broke his jaw without concussing him, so he is in fact lucid, and ready for interrogation."

"See?" Bucky said.

"Whose side are you on?" Steve asked Bruce.

"Whoever is...not pro-Nazi in this case?" Bruce hazarded. "I'm gonna go do science now..."

"Okay, we're gonna establish some new rules," Steve said, as Bruce retreated. "Bucky, I'm going to promise you that I will designate exactly how wounded or non-wounded I want a prisoner to be."

"Well, good," Bucky said.

"In return, if I tell you to bring someone in unharmed, I want them in one piece, no broken bones."

"Steve, I don't think that's realistic," Natasha pointed out. "Sometimes you have to break a bone or two."

"A minimum, then, and preferably non-essential bones," Steve said. "Ankles, wrists, that kind of thing."

Bucky scowled. "I guess I can do that," he mumbled.

"Think of it like a challenge!" Steve said.

"Don't push your luck."

"I'm proud of you both for negotiating," Natasha told them. "Now, you two go stare moodily at each other over sandwiches, I have an interrogation to start on."

"Just remember, we have rules about prisoners," Steve said, pointing at her sternly.

"Yeah, yeah, you break a guy's wrist one time..." she sighed, and got a knowing, sympathetic look from Bucky before they went off to eat.

Chapter Text

The problem with game night, which was intended to be fun team bonding, was that neither Steve nor Bucky had ever heard of Settlers of Catan, and Steve -- who was born the year the Spanish Flu took a tight grip on the world -- flatly refused to play Pandemic when Clint suggested it. It could have been a very boring night, except that JARVIS had a database of several thousand games, and access to fabrication units and printers.

"What ARE all these?" Steve asked, shuffling through Yahtzee and Uno, Scene It and Munchkins.

"Where's Monopoly?" Bucky asked. "Find Monopoly."

"Oh! That was a good one! See, there was this board covered in properties, and you had to buy three of the same color, then you could build houses on them," Steve explained to them. He sighed nostalgically. "We could play for hours. I miss Monopoly."

"Are you gonna tell him?" Clint asked Tony.

"No, this is better than board games," Tony said, eating chips and salsa and watching the two bicker over whether Sorry or The Game Of Life was a better game to introduce to the Modern Era.

"Come on, guys, we'll teach you how to play Settlers of Catan," Clint coaxed.

"It sounds colonialist," Steve said firmly, and then, "Good God."

"What, what is it?" Bucky asked, peering over his shoulder.

"I don't think that's funny at all," Steve said, pointing to a display of Cards Against Humanity cards JARVIS had in the database. Clint put his head in his hands. Tony choked on his salsa.

"Do people not play regular old cards anymore?" Bucky asked, taking the remote from Steve and flicking past Magic: The Gathering and another Uno deck. "Someone must still know how to play poker."

"Everyone knows how to play poker!" Clint exploded.

"Well fine, let's play poker!" Bucky exploded back. "Winner picks the board game we play."

"Fine!" Clint yelled.

"Fine by me, I'm great at poker," Tony said.

"Strip poker," Bucky added. Everyone turned to look at him. "What? We're all adults."

"Someone does win a lot faster that way," Steve said thoughtfully.

"Are you two seriously the ones suggesting strip poker?" Clint asked.

"I'm not worried, I'm wearing two shirts and a sweater," Tony shrugged.

"Bet you strip poker is more fun than Settlers of Catan," Bucky muttered, seating himself as JARVIS's fabrication unit began spitting out cards. He picked the deck up, light gleaming on his metal hand as he shuffled expertly and cut the deck one-handed. "Five card stud, aces and eights wild."

"We might be screwed," Clint said to Tony.

Tony patted his hand. "I promise we'll still respect you in the morning. And look on the bright side, if you or I win, we still get to play Settlers of Catan. And if we lose, we'll probably get them at least out of their shirts."

Chapter Text

When Steve was little, he didn't comprehend or even notice that good boys from his building didn't play with the Jewish boys one block over. When he got older he understood it, but ignored it; after all, his mom didn't care, so why should he?

Sarah Rogers didn't give an Irish damn what the biddies in the parish thought of her or her son, as few of them had raised much of a hand to help her when Joseph was alive, and anyone she chose to associate with didn't give a damn either. On the few occasions someone pointed out Steve's choice in friends, she said, with an affectionate smile, "Well, Steve's never been good at idiot rules."

Steve ran about for most of his childhood in short pants with Bucky Barnes (Lefty Commie Jewish ma, Lefty Commie Convert dad) and Arnie Roth (orthodox and kind-hearted father, dead mother), who lived on the border between the Jewish neighborhood and the Irish one, an invisible but very tough membrane.

Arnie drifted off eventually, too scared of seeming any kind of different to play with goyim, but Bucky and Steve battled angry Irish boys in Steve's half of the street and (less often) tough Jewish boys in Bucky's half, and soon enough most people who knew them left them alone. Sarah kept a jar of kosher pickles and a special plate for Bucky when he visited; while she couldn't send food over to the Barnes family, she did look after Bucky and Becca when the Barnes parents needed to go to a rally or a protest, and the time the strikebreakers put Bucky's dad in a bad way because he was trying to Unionize.

If Steve ate a lot more matzoh growing up than most Irish, Bucky and Becca occasionally got a meal that might not strictly speaking be entirely kosher.

"Do you remember Yom Kippur back in '35, the year after my mom died?" Steve asked Bucky one day, decades later. He tried not to ask do you remember too often, but Erev Yom Kippur was in two days, and he didn't know if Bucky would want to remember, or to participate.

"You wanted to fast with us," Bucky said, sitting at Sam's kitchen bar. "Mom wouldn't let you. She had the Rabbi in to tell you the sick didn't have to fast."

"He boxed my ears when I lipped off to him, too."

"He said that you were a gentile anyway, which was punishment enough."

"Never lipped off to the Rabbi again," Steve said ruefully, and Bucky smiled. "It's comin' up, you know."

The smile dropped off his face. "I know."

"Sam would drive you to Temple if you wanted. We could both fast with you," Steve ventured. Bucky hadn't left the house since they'd brought him here.

"Don't remember much -- " Bucky's lips twisted. "Bet I could still make kreplach, all the times we watched Mom do it, but the prayers, the words, it's all..."

He made a faint gesture, fingers fluttering away from his head. Lost to the Winter Soldier.

"They got me," he said bitterly. "They didn't put me in a camp but they got me just the same."

"Hey, no, it'll come back," Steve said. "It will. If you can still make kreplach you can still pray. That kinda stuff doesn't leave you, Buck."

"It's Yom Kippur. I got a lot to atone for. There's too much -- "

"I don't believe that, and I don't think you do either, not deep down. Anyway, your dad always said the best thing about bein' a Jew was wholesale one-day forgiveness," Steve said. Bucky's mom had always swatted him for that.

Bucky looked at him, head bent, only his eyes moving. "What if I can't remember?"

"Well, then you'll have to go back to Hebrew school," Steve said with a grin. "I hear the Rabbis don't box ears anymore."

"Bet they would if you lipped off to them, you were the worst at lipping off," Bucky replied.

"So you'll go? Sam and I will come if you want, at least, you know -- "

"Yeah, fine," Bucky sighed. "I don't know, dragging you two goyim around with me, G-d better send me patience for the pair of you..."

Chapter Text

The Soldier could tell the girl was overawed by him, but he didn't care, or acknowledge the wide-eyed glances she turned on him. It wasn't his first experience of the Red Room's children. His memories were hazy -- it seemed they always were, as though only the moment mattered, and perhaps that was true -- but he'd seen girls older than her freeze (and consequently die) on missions less hazardous than this one.

At least, he thought, this one was still, the stillness of concentration and not just of training. He'd picked her up from her handler an hour ago and she'd come quietly, unquestioning, awaiting orders. It was nice, somehow, to be out without his own handler. He thought maybe it was a test to see if he could be trusted. Maybe she thought it was a test too. Either way, it wasn't as if she could stop him if he did anything...untrustworthy.

Sometimes he thought about snapping the necks of his handlers. Sometimes he dreamed he'd done it to some of them. He didn't know why. He tried to be a good Soldier.

The car was making its way west, into scrubby wilderness, but they had another few minutes before they'd reach the safehouse he'd arranged the week before. From there it was another half an hour to the SHIELD base they were supposed to take. He wondered if she'd been briefed. Still, when he opened his mouth, he asked instead, "What year is it?"

"1972," she answered, without hesitating. Her red hair caught the light of the setting sun and flickered like fire on gold.

"Do you know why I ask?"

She snorted. "If I live as long as you, I might forget too," she said, and then went tense. Amusement welled up in him.

"How old do you think I am?"

"We don't know. We only get legends."

"We?"

"The students in the Red Room."

"Is there no 'I' in the Red Room?"

She frowned. "The individual is a part of the collective. The needs and gifts of the collective are greater than that of the individual."

"You'll learn differently out here," he said, startled by the impulse.

"That's treason."

"They ask many things of us that are outside the boundaries of the state. You'll get used to it, if you survive. Have you been briefed?"

"Only that I'm to do what you say at all times."

"And only what I say?"

She seemed torn, so he shook his head. "Unfair of me to ask. You are to do what I say, and use your own judgement when I am not close by. It'll be a solid piece of work. There's an enemy spy-house sheltering a defector. My mission is to burn the base. Your mission is to get to the defector."

"And bring him back?" she asked.

He snorted. "No. Execute him. Think you can handle that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. What do they call you?"

"Natalia."

"Are you willing to die to keep the defector's secrets from reaching the West, Natalia?"

"I am willing to die for my motherland," Natalia replied.

"Not quite the same thing. Still. We'll rest here tonight," he added, as they pulled onto a frost-rimed dirt track, heading for the safe house. "You seem a little smarter than the others I've trained."

She didn't blush, or look away. "Thank you, sir."

"Pay attention and do as I say, and you might live as long as me," he said mirthlessly, pulling the battered old car up to the shack.

She was young and already hardened, pretty, clever, devious...the kind of girl he'd -- he'd liked -- sometime -- some time in the very distant past.

He decided he liked her, and he'd feel sorry if she died tomorrow. Maybe he'd ask for her again, if she survived.

Chapter Text

It became evident, fairly early on, that Sam and Steve didn't have the means to keep Bucky safe -- and keep others safe from him -- at Sam's house in DC. He needed more attention, more monitoring, and somewhere a little more...enclosed, at least at first.

Steve didn't feel right about it anyway; Sam had already helped more than anyone had a right to ask, and even if he said he liked it, that he was happy to do it, it didn't sit right with Steve.

"Tony Stark's given me a place," Steve said one morning, before Bucky was awake, looking shamefacedly at his coffee. "The Tower has security, it has access to...to doctors and things..." he trailed off, embarrassed. "It's not that I'm not grateful. But we know this isn't working."

"Nah, that's fine. So when do we move?" Sam asked, and he saw Steve blink back confusion, and then tears of gratitude. Steve was still not used to having allies again. Sam was just -- better with Bucky, more patient, more deliberate. He said he had more emotional distance, which was true, and teased Steve that he was just plain better than him, which he thought unhappily that Steve sometimes believed.

"It's easier for me, we haven't got a history," Sam said one time, when they were discussing it. "Besides, you know I have like...years of training in dealing with trauma, right? No offense, I don't think they offered courses in therapeutic counseling in the middle of Nazi Germany."

Sam took Bucky to the Tower the next week, and Steve followed behind with a moving van full of the remains of his apartment and all of Sam's. They settled in easily enough, though Bucky stopped sleeping through the night again while he adjusted, and Steve kept getting lost in Manhattan.

Sam loved the Tower, particularly because New York was a little less hostile to superheroes than DC was just then, and also because he could launch a lot easier from the top of the Tower than he could from his old backyard. He went flying three or four times a week, testing new models Stark tweaked for him, getting back in condition, drawing tourists and curious locals who wanted to see the Falcon, hero of the Battle of the Potomac.

One morning, after showing off for a group of schoolkids on a field trip, he landed on the deck of Stark Tower to find Bucky sitting on the railing. He stopped, retracting the wings a little, and said, "Hey man," carefully.

Bucky shot him a look. "I just wanted to see. I'm not going to jump."

"Wouldn't blame you if you were thinking about it," Sam said. Bucky frowned. "We all hit valleys sometimes."

"Maybe." Bucky looked back at his wings, hovering half-open. "Did I ever say sorry? For throwing you off the Carrier?"

"Wasn't you. Don't need an apology," Sam said.

"Sure." Bucky turned back to look out at the city. "Nice view, at least."

"I got a better one," Sam said. And then, thoughtfully, "Want to see?"

Bucky shook his head.

"Are you sure? I'm Pararescue, you know, carrying people with this on is kinda what I do. Did. Do," Sam decided. "I've carried Steve, pretty sure he's heavier than you."

Bucky eyed the wings again. "Why would you do that? Carry me?"

Sam laughed. "I was gonna fly some more anyway. You look like you could use a little shift in perspective. Why wouldn't I?"

"Why do you do any of it?"

Sam considered it. "The flying?"

Bucky shook his head, gesturing to himself with his steel arm. "All of it."

"Well, I like Steve," Sam said. "And seeing you hurting hurts him. I like you, what little I get to see underneath right now."

Bucky grimaced.

"And I like looking after people. I couldn't do it all alone when I got home after my last tour. I owe a lotta folks for the good place I'm in. If it makes me happy to pay it forward, I don't need another reason. Happiness is an ongoing project, you know, it's not an endgame, but it's a legitimate excuse to do what you want. You can want to be happy, Bucky."

Bucky looked back out over the city, then climbed off the railing. "How do we do it?"

"Here. I got a harness," Sam said, unhooking some straps from his left thigh and settling them across Bucky's chest, around his shoulders and hips. He checked them all twice, then hooked the back of the harness to his. "Just be careful when we land, let me do the driving. Move when I move while we're in the air. Okay?"

Bucky nodded, but his body was rigid.

"Still time to back out, do it another time," Sam said.

"No, I want to see."

"Relax," Sam said in his ear. "It won't hurt. Match my breathing. I won't let you fall."

Bucky's shoulders dropped, and Sam said, "Okay, here we go," and launched straight up, using the thrusters to get some height before snapping the wings fully open and catching the warm updrafts between buildings.

Below him, he felt Bucky catch his breath. They climbed on the updraft until the air grew cold and thin, and Sam leveled out. From here practically half the island was visible, all the roofs and alleys, people and cars on the ground.

"You like it?" he yelled, over the wind.

"Why would you ever come down?" Bucky yelled back.

"Makes going back up better," Sam told him, and fell into a roll. Bucky tucked his legs up with Sam's, curved his body in like he'd been doing it for years, and let them tumble until Sam caught them, level with about the 90th floor of the tower. They zipped past Steve, standing at the window with his mouth agape, and made for Central Park.

"You're a natural," Sam said. "Come on, let's go buzz a hot dog cart," and for the first time since they'd found him, he heard Bucky laugh.

Chapter Text

Steve woke, that morning, to a bedroom floor covered in cups of water.

It was alarming and confusing, especially since he had been in the bed all night and therefore should have heard anyone setting out dozens of cups of water all over his bedroom floor. It took him a while to pick his way to the door and locate a bucket to start emptying the cups into.

"What the hell happened in here?" Sam asked, poking his head into the bedroom.

"I'm...I'm honestly not sure," Steve said.

"Oh, man, is it April first? It's April first. You got pranked," Sam said.

"This isn't a prank, it's like a weird threat," Steve said. "JARVIS says he doesn't know who did it."

"The cameras in your bedroom are disabled," JARVIS reminded him.

"The ones right outside my door aren't," Steve snapped.

"Your...assailant...does not appear to have entered through the door," JARVIS said smoothly. "I assure you, however, that you are in no danger, Captain."

"Well, deal with the rest of it later," Sam said. "Come down to the kitchen, I'm making pancakes."

"You didn't do this, did you?" Steve asked, following him into the elevator.

"I haven't pranked anyone in years, because I'm a grownup," Sam said, and then stopped halfway into the common room, and burst into laughter.

Steve peered around him, eyes widening. Tony Stark was standing in the middle of the common room in a pair of pajama pants. He was also blond.

"What did you do to yourself?" Sam asked.

"I'm going to find out who did this," Tony said. "And I'm going to kill them. I can do that, because I'm a goddamn superhero."

"What happened?" Steve asked.

"Someone put dye in my shampoo is what happened. Some kind of freakish fast-acting peroxide. Jesus Christ, I don't know, I'm not a chemist -- BRUCE," Tony roared.

"What?" Bruce asked, emerging from the kitchen. "Hey, not that it's not hilarious to cover my entire meditation room in tinfoil, but were you trying to trigger the other guy? I thought we agreed you were gonna stop that."

"One, we did not agree, you agreed," Tony said. "Two, I'm under orders from Pepper not to touch the walk-in closet you've adorned with Buddhas. Were the Buddhas covered in foil too?"

"No, they had whimsical foil flowers," Bruce said.

"Do we think this was Clint?" Steve asked.

"Agent Barton is currently attempting to deal with the bathtub full of gelatin in his quarters," JARVIS offered helpfully.

"Natasha?" Tony asked.

"Agent Romanoff is on assignment, but I am given to understand her bed has been 'short sheeted'," JARVIS replied.

Steve stiffened, and put his hands to his head. "Oh, no," he said softly.

"What?" Sam asked, turning to him.

"Short-sheeting," Steve sighed. "That's a -- that's a very old prank."

"So?"

"Bucky did it to Dugan," Steve said, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips. "At HQ he used to pull bull like this all the time. Sugar in the saltshakers, short-sheeted beds -- never on campaign, but stupid funny things on our downtime, to keep us distracted. April Fool's was like Christmas for his stupid ass, and he could fill my bedroom with cups of water without waking me up -- "

"What happened to you?" Bucky asked, strolling into the common room. He peered at Tony. "Man, you're a terrible blond, Stark."

"Buck," Steve said disapprovingly.

"Yeah?" Bucky asked. "How's your floor, Steve?"

"Covered in cups of water," Steve retorted. "Bucky, we're grown adult people, you can't just go around -- dying peoples' hair and covering their homes in tinfoil!"

"Did you laugh?" Bucky asked.

"That's not the point!"

"I laughed," Sam said.

"Oh, yeah, me too," Bruce added, smiling.

"Guys, someone left me a whole bathtub full of cherry jell-hell-HELLO BLONDIE," Clint burst out, walking into the room and catching sight of Tony.

"My point is made, I think," Bucky said.

"I'm gonna murder you," Tony told him.

"Yeah, good luck with that," Bucky replied. "I hid a dye kit in your room somewhere."

Tony narrowed his eyes. "Where?"

"Better find it before Pepper does," Bucky said, and seated himself at the breakfast bar. "You said something about pancakes, Sam?"

Chapter Text

It wasn't easy, being the screwup in a relationship with one other person, let alone two.

Steve wouldn't let him say that, of course. He'd say Bucky wasn't a screwup and that he didn't like that kind of talk; Tony would agree sarcastically that it must be terrible to be Steve's long-lost true love and more charming than Captain America and Iron Man put together.

But the point was, Steve was Captain America, the best man Bucky had ever known, and Tony was Iron Man, a rich, good-looking genius, and Bucky was just the fuckup who got himself captured by Hydra and had one less arm than he ought to. It didn't matter that Tony found his prosthetic fascinating or that Steve looked at him like he was an actual miracle from God. Bucky knew the truth, and he knew that his presence in their lives, and in their bed, was due more to a blind spot in Steve's vision than his deserving to be there.

Steve and Tony had been secretive lately, too, talking more when he wasn't in the room, spending more time than usual in Tony's workshop, exchanging glances at meals. It wasn't -- it didn't feel like they'd grown tired of him, which he'd been expecting. It just felt like maybe they were drawing together, and they were leaving him behind.

He'd had Steve first, in dark hidden corners and silent moments back in the war and before that, in Brooklyn -- but Tony had been with Steve for a year before he even knew Bucky was still alive, had helped him get over Bucky if it came to that. He didn't blame Steve for having mourned him and moved on. And those two were so volatile; Steve and Bucky were solid and easy together, Bucky and Tony had a lot of fun together, but Steve and Tony were intense.

"Well, I don't know, Tony!" he heard Steve say as he walked into the penthouse that Tony had summarily, strangely, and without asking moved them into. Tony all over, but Steve hadn't minded and Bucky liked it here, so it was just as well.

He wasn't meant to be home for another hour or two, but he hadn't felt like sticking around for group therapy after the veterans' luncheon, so he'd ditched out and caught a cab back to the Tower.

It sounded like they were arguing. It sounded like they were in bed, which -- Steve had insisted, if they did this, if they shared each other, they shared. Nobody had sex unless everybody was there, and wanted to, or said it was okay. So if they were, without him...

"You think I do?" Tony replied. "You've been with him for decades, I've been with him for six months."

Bucky frowned. It sounded like they were talking about him.

"I know, but we never -- we didn't talk about it, Tony. You didn't, back then, it's not like now, there wasn't any...any pillow talk."

"He's not much of a talker anyway," Tony said, sounding grim. Oh, God, did they want him to...talk more? During sex? Or just in general?

His stomach rolled, acid pouring into it. He could fix this, if he knew what was wrong. There was time to hold onto them for another few months, at least.

"Don't you dare pester him, Tony."

"I wasn't going to pester! I could do it sexily. I'm good at sexy interrogation."

"Please, please do not."

"Fine, but we still have a problem."

Bucky inhaled, because on the one hand -- he could try to fix this, keep them for another few months, but not if he felt like this the whole time, knowing they were just marking time.

"I can make it easier on you," he said, stepping into the bedroom. They weren't in bed, at least -- they were sitting at Steve's drafting table in the corner, studying papers and Tony's laptop. Their heads whipped up.

"Buck!" Steve said. "You weren't supposed to -- "

"It's okay," Bucky said, consciously keeping his hands from forming fists. "It is, really," he added, because Tony's eyes were wide, mouth in a small 'o' of surprise. "I get it. I'll -- I understand, you don't need to make a production."

"Of course we do," Steve said, sounding confused. "It's important -- "

"It's not that important," Bucky shook his head. "I mean, yes, it's not -- I'd like to stay friends, but I might need some...some time..."

Panic scrabbled at his chest, but Steve didn't try to convince him, Tony didn't try to sweet-talk him. They both looked...confused.

"Well," Tony said slowly. "If you really don't want a party, that's okay, but we were planning something pretty great for after. Or, we were planning to plan something anyway."

"A party?" Bucky asked. The world was a little white around the edges.

"For your birthday?" Steve ventured. "We were thinking maybe -- I mean I was thinking something here at the Tower -- "

"Will you tell Steve, bowling would be so much funnier," Tony interrupted. "The Avengers, bowling! Picture this!"

"And we will come up with something romantic," Steve added. "Just the three of us. For after. But I don't -- I mean, and of course you don't have to tell us, but if there's anything you'd especially like? From us? In, in bed."

"A fantasy," Tony added. Bucky felt a little lightheaded. "We could tell you ours. Not because we want to do them, just to make it seem less weird. Or does that make it more weird?"

"This was about my birthday," Bucky said. He'd forgotten he was even having one.

"What did you think it was about?" Steve asked.

"You leaving me," Bucky blurted, hands starting to shake. "I thought you were trying to -- "

Tony reached him right about then. He hadn't even seen him move; Tony had an uncanny way of seeming to teleport when he wanted to get somewhere fast, and he almost collided with Bucky, arms going around his shoulders, pulling his head down to his neck. Bucky shook and tucked a hand in Tony's belt loop, clinging tightly.

"Oh, God," he heard Steve say, and then Steve's warm bulk was pressed against his back, pinning him between them. "Bucky, no."

"I know I'm not -- I know I'm not right," he managed into Tony's neck, and felt Tony wrap a hand around the back of his neck, soothingly. "I just don't know how to make it so that you don't mind that."

"Shut up, oh my God," Tony said into his hair. "You thought we were dumping you?"

"Buck, we been together almost eighty years," Steve said, and Bucky laughed damply, not really sure what he was feeling anymore. "To the end of the line, remember? We would never, ever -- "

"You really thought that was even an option," Tony said. "Jesus, you thought -- do you know anyone else who will put up with the amount of bullshit from me that you do? Pepper doesn't count, she's paid for it."

"Steve," Bucky muttered.

"He doesn't count either, he's on drugs," Tony said.

"It's the Serum, Tony, it's not a drug -- " Steve started impatiently, then broke off, pressing his face into the back of Bucky's head. "Buck, I'm sorry if we made you feel unwanted, I'm sorry you were worried. We were just trying to come up with something nice for your birthday."

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Bucky answered. "I'm worrying you, I -- "

"Marry him," Tony said, and Bucky stiffened. Steve huffed in surprise. "I'm serious. For your birthday. Marry Steve. Three-way marriages aren't legal in New York and the board would freak out if I married one man, let alone two, but there's no reason you two can't get married."

"Steve doesn't wanna -- "

"Yeah I do," Steve said, when Bucky tried to protest. "Yeah, absolutely. I'll put an ad in the Times. Thor can marry us, he's technically a priest. Or a religious figure of some kind, anyhow, we can get him one of those internet priest licenses." His arms tightened around Bucky's waist, one hand linked with Tony's. "I'll give you a ring for your birthday. Do you want that? Would that make you happy?"

Bucky felt his chest heave, too many emotions working at once, but he nodded.

"And then honeymoon sex! YES!" Tony said, letting him go, and Steve pulled Bucky back against his chest as he laughed in relief and confusion.

"I love you," Steve said in his ear. "And Tony loves you."

"And we both worry someday we'll lose you," Tony said, face serious for once.

"So stick around, kiddo," Steve said, holding him tightly. "Eighty years is just a start."

"I get to pick out the rings!" Tony called, already opening Cartier's website on his computer. "Grooms' boyfriend picks the jewelry! That's the rule!"

Steve, laughing at Tony's enthusiasm, manhandled Bucky over to the bed, climbing in behind him so that Bucky's body was bracketed by his legs, head low enough that he could turn and press his face to Steve's neck. Steve pulled most of the blankets up over them and then tugged the top one free, wrapping it around his shoulders and then around Bucky's from above.

"Tony," he said.

"Yes, what, busy shopping here," Tony said, but he looked up when Steve coughed. Bucky felt Steve jerk his head, a signal to join them, and Tony climbed over them, leaning up against Steve's arm, chin hooked over the shoulder of Bucky's prosthetic.

"JARVIS is indexing the top ten jewelers in the country by volume," he said.

"Cash intake volume, sir, or sales volume by quantity?" JARVIS asked. "Your algorithm was unclear."

"Cash intake. Definitely not quantity, I don't want anything common," Tony said.

"Boy, are you dating the wrong men," Bucky muttered. Tony kissed his neck and tweaked his ear with one hand.

"JARVIS, I want the top five most exclusive designers on there too, I don't care where they fall in the rankings, bump something else off."

"Tony," Steve warned.

"Shut up, I'm buying," Tony said, settling in, allowing Steve to drape a corner of the blanket over him. "Cross-reference designs with Steve and Bucky's known style preferences, secondary to mine," he continued, and then glanced at Steve. "So, what size are we looking at here?"

"For the ring?" Steve asked. "I think I'm a nine -- "

"For the wedding," Tony said. "Presumably I will be there."

"Hopefully," Steve said drily.

"But who else? Do we want closest friends only, or the Avengers and company, or the whole world? Because I can make that happen, like, we can have the mayor of New York and at least two senators in attendance -- oh man, we should invite some of the anti-gay politicians, they'd probably show up to Captain America's wedding even if Captain America is knocking combat boots with a guy."

Bucky shuddered. Steve felt it, and his arms tightened a little as he said, "No politics."

"Well, I didn't think so, but I had to offer. But Avengers and friends, yes?"

"Yes," Steve agreed.

"So. Medium-sized, private..." Tony considered things, balancing his StarkPad on the blankets over Bucky's knees. "3-D projection," he ordered, and a hologram rose in the air, an empty box. "List Stark Industries properties on the east coast, central on Manhattan."

A map of Manhattan appeared, then zoomed out until it covered most of the eastern seaboard. Red dots popped up all along the coast.

"Okay, remove office buildings, manufacturing plants, anywhere that's not a venue. No, get rid of the convention centers too."

Bucky lay back against Steve, watching as Tony muttered and tweaked the map.

"Wait, what's that one?" Steve asked, arm rising to point to a red dot practically out in the ocean.

"That is..." Tony squinted. "A corporate retreat facility in Maine -- big old house, basically. You want to see?"

Steve nodded, and Tony began pulling up photographs of large but pretty, weathered-looking mansion on a windswept beach.

"It's the right size," Tony said. "Kind of isolated."

He glanced not at Steve but at Bucky, who narrowed his eyes. No covert approaches, secluded, and quiet. Reasonably secure. He gave Tony a nod.

"I'll save it in the potentials folder, but I want a few Manhattan locations too. Okay," Tony brushed away the map. "Uniforms, tuxedos, or suits? And if uniforms, modern or military? I mean, I personally think in our current combat uniforms you look like a gift-wrapped present," to Steve, "and you look like a sexy bondage ninja," to Bucky, who rolled his eyes, "but I'm guessing best man in four hundred pounds of gold-alloy armor is tacky in a wedding situation."

"Buck?"

"Doesn't matter to me," Bucky said. He was warm all over now, comforted by Steve's constant touching and Tony's chatter. He felt fuzzy-headed, blandly agreeable to whatever ideas Tony had. He might say yes to anything either of them came up with, just then. After the turmoil of the previous few weeks, he was high with relief.

Steve nuzzled the back of his head, apparently aware that he was stupid from all the attention. "We don't have to decide anything right this minute."

"You don't have to decide at all, I can make this call," Tony pointed out. "I mean, but, consider," he added, and plucked a handful of images out of the floating cloud to present to them: a blond man in a black tuxedo and blue cummerbund, a brunet in a red cummerbund, and an actual photo of Tony in a white tuxedo, taken at some long-ago charity function.

"No," Steve said gently. "You look like a tent preacher."

"It does reek of Jesus Saves," Tony mused. "What about -- "

Bucky could feel Steve's breath catch, but he didn't register why for a moment. Even when he did, he just smiled dreamily. The image floating in front of them now was a welcome one, a happy memory -- Steve in his dress Captain's uniform, sitting on a table at HQ while he waited for a meeting to begin, ass perched just over a map of Italy. He was leaning towards Bucky, who had his hip propped on the edge of the table, a strategy report tucked under his arm. Gabe and Dum Dum were blurs in the background. Peggy had taken the picture.

Bucky's face in the photo, lit up with a smile aimed right at Steve, wasn't fooling anyone who knew well enough to see. Then again, neither was Steve's smug grin.

"Where'd you even find that?" he asked Tony.

"I have many sources," Tony answered. "My files on the pair of you are extensive."

"You tryin'a dig up all our secrets?" Steve asked.

"I prefer to think of myself as your personal project manager," Tony said. "So -- historical uniforms for you two, yes? I can do a black tux. I'll call my tailor, he's discreet, he can do you one of those short coats that show off your ass."

"They're called Ike Jackets," Steve replied.

"Clearly Ike knew the morale-boosting implications of a well-shown ass," Tony said. "Reception, formal or informal? I detest a buffet, but table service doesn't seem your style."

Bucky closed his eyes, drifting as he listened to Steve and Tony argue about food. Steve and Tony could argue about anything, but Bucky would eat whatever they decided on, so it didn't matter much to him. Steve's hand was a comforting weight on his belly, Tony's head warm on his shoulder, and the smell of the pair of them -- metal and hair wax, gun oil and leather -- was familiar and welcome. He had all this and even so he still wanted it so much he ached with it sometimes.

"You still with us?" Steve asked in his ear, and Bucky reeled his mind back to the conversation. Maine; uniforms; a barbecue lunch (yes!); no gift registry, donations to charitable causes instead. That was fine. They hardly needed to set up housekeeping. And finally, a perhaps overly-intensive discussion of newspaper wedding announcements.

"I like the announcement idea," Bucky said. "It's classy. Press releases ain't classy, Tony."

"No, but they are effective," Tony said, a trifle cranky. Bucky turned his head towards him, hand sliding out to rest on his thigh. He knew Steve was perplexed and bewildered by Tony's enthusiasm, but he thought maybe he understood. Tony couldn't marry them, but if he planned the wedding, if he bought the rings and his tailor made their uniforms, then he was still a part of it -- in some ways he owned it.

Trust Tony to want to hold the copyright to their wedding.

He was marryin' Steve. The thought was alien, and at the same time had a familiar flavor. The two of them, back in Brooklyn, had planned to set up housekeeping together when the war was done. There was nothing so strange about a pair of bachelors rooming together, especially such good friends. When Steve had found Peggy, the first person they ever shared -- well, back then Buck was a lot cockier, a lot less unsteady, and he'd been all right with the idea of Steve marrying Peggy and him coming along for the ride.

This was better, though, marrying Steve in front of the whole world, even if Tony had to stay in the wings. Tony never did like reporters poking their noses in anyway, and if Tony was fine with it, Bucky had no cause to complain.

"Honeymoon," Tony said, dragging him back to the present again. "Where do you want to go?"

"Dunno, you know me," Steve said. "I'm a homebody, I'd be happy staying here. Besides, won't it look strange, us draggin' you along on the honeymoon?"

"Not if I'm piloting you two lovebirds somewhere," Tony pointed out.

"Japan," Bucky said. Both of them looked at him, Tony's eyebrows rising in surprise. "I want to go to Japan."

"Any particular reason?" Tony asked. Bucky knew he rarely expressed any kind of preference, but then he so rarely had any. As long as Steve and Tony were there, he didn't much care about the rest. Wherever he was, he could pretty much guarantee he'd been somewhere worse. But...

"Yeah, I wanna see those monkeys, the ones that sit in the hot springs," he said. Steve chuckled into his hair. "Wouldn't mind sitting around in a few hot springs myself, too."

"Tokyo's got a great nightlife," Tony said. "They love Iron Man, too. I fly you two to Japan, do a quick visit to Tokyo like I was just dropping you off on the way, then sneak out to the hot springs after a few days taking pictures with Loli girls in Harajuku. Love it. I'll rent out a resort for the week."

"You don't have to go that far," Steve said.

"I like my privacy, and you don't appreciate being a kept man as much as you should," Tony answered.

"Don't make it sound sordid."

"It's not sordid at all, it's traditional. The Starks have a long, proud history of keeping their lovers in style. Generations of Starks would frown on me if I mistreated the two of you." Tony grinned. "Great-grandma's probably pleased I landed specimens like you. She liked soldiers, so the myths say."

"Aw, let him talk," Bucky said, as Steve inhaled to object. They could indulge Tony's whims, if Steve would stop bullheading around once in a while.

"So -- rings, suits, wedding venue, reception catering, honeymoon, I think we're set," Tony said, with the air of a man who is satisfied with the day's progress. "Hell of a birthday, Bucky, I'm pleased at your greed."

Bucky smiled, letting Tony lean in to kiss him. Steve rumbled behind them -- he loved seeing them together -- and let his hand drift lower on Bucky's waist. Bucky tilted his hips up into the touch, welcoming it.

"Hey Steve," Tony murmured, nuzzling Bucky's cheek, crawling over them to straddle his thighs. "I'm gonna make out with your fiancee, wanna watch?"

"On our wedding night, we're gonna tie Tony to a chair and put on a show," Steve said in Bucky's ear.

Tony laughed darkly. "Can't wait to see you make him scream," he said to Bucky, and Bucky let himself be pulled under, giving up all the fear and relief and excitement to their hands and bodies and mouths.

Later, after they'd worn themselves out, Bucky lay among the blankets, half on top of Tony, fingers of his left hand intertwined with Steve's. There was a beep from JARVIS, and Tony said, "Speak, procurer."

"I have cross-referenced the best jewelers in the country with your parameters regarding price, exclusivity, and design," JARVIS said. "Would you care to see the top selection, Sir?"

"3-D, please," Tony said, fumbling limply for his StarkPad, but one of the ceiling projectors lit up instead. Bucky turned his head, following the beam of light down, and found a ring projected onto his finger, silver with a graceful art-deco engraving, outlined in blue.

"White gold with sapphire chip inlay," JARVIS intoned. Bucky waggled his finger, watching the projection move with his hand. Steve raised his hand, a second projection following it, a matching ring but in red. "Rose gold with ruby chip inlay," JARVIS added.

Tony pulled Bucky close, biting his earlobe, and said, "I'll weld it to your hand. Hell, we'll just pull up the knuckle plate and replace it with the ring. Steve can put his on his dog tags when he's in combat."

A third beam appeared, this one on Tony's hand, and Tony studied the ring on his index finger with interest. The material was gunmetal grey, with two gold bands and a bright silver one crossing it vertically.

"Steel with gold and vibranium bands," JARVIS said.

"What jeweler in the world can work Vibranium?" Steve asked.

"No jeweler, at least not outside of Wakanda," Tony said, turning the holographic ring this way and that. "I'll make this one. That plate we pull off Bucky's hand for his ring, that's to be my ring, eh JARVIS?"

"Indeed, sir."

"Take a shaving from Steve's shield for the vibranium band, set it in gold. Not too flashy. Very durable. I won't mess with the balance, I promise," Tony added, grinning at Steve. "You like yours?" he asked Bucky.

"Yeah, it's swell, for the wedding," Bucky said, shooting a grin at Steve. "But where's my diamond engagement ring, huh, Rogers?"

Steve gaped at him like a fish, and Tony dissolved into laughter. Bucky hid a smug smile in Tony's chest.

Chapter Text

"I realize I'm new to this side of the coin," Bucky said, as he swung his rifle around and neatly took the head off a robot, "but do superheroes normally talk this much in combat, Steve?"

"You know you're not on the phone to Steve, right?" Tony asked, from somewhere way up above. "We can hear you."

"Yeah, I know how comms work," Bucky replied, reloading the rifle and taking out two more robots that were going after Sam. They couldn't fly, but as Clint had discovered, holy shit could they jump.

"Yes, they do," Steve said, with a long-suffering sigh. "I tried, Buck."

"The Commandos talked less than they do," Bucky pointed out.

"The Commandos were trained soldiers," Steve said.

"Dernier wasn't."

"Dernier didn't speak any English."

"Didn't often slow him down, if I recall."

"You'll notice I've been silent for at least thirty seconds," Clint said, "while you two reminisce about murdering Nazis."

"Being fair, that's a great thing to reminisce about," Bucky said.

"Okay, guys, if we could focus back on the robots?" Steve asked. "Tony, any idea where they're coming from?"

"No, but I have found out they have self-destructive EMP generators that will take out my armor at a distance of less than ten feet," Tony said. "I'm gonna have to stay long-distance on this one. Fortunately, my range is considerably greater than theirs."

"Try to figure out where they're coming from and what they want," Steve said.

"How are you doing, anyway, rookie?" Clint asked. "Feeling okay for your first time out with the team? Two on your six by the way."

Bucky turned and fired, taking out both robots with a single shot. "I'm good. Thanks for the assist, you can go collect social security now."

"How old are you again?" Clint asked.

"I dunno. Steve, how old are we?" Bucky inquired, and Clint groaned.

"No fair calling on big brother to help!"

"He's actually six months younger than me," Bucky said.

"You're not helping, you know, Buck," Steve said.

"I'm joining! I'm a joiner. A team player," Bucky said. "Perimeter's clear here."

He dug his flare gun out of the holster in the small of his back and fired; he saw an answering flare from Sam, who swooped down and grabbed him.

"Where to?" Sam asked, as they rose above roof level.

"Wherever there's stuff that needs shooting?" Bucky hazarded.

"Dibs," Clint yelped.

"There's plenty of shooting to go around, Jesus," Steve said. "Clint, Bucky, keep pushing that perimeter towards Tony and Thor. Natasha?"

"Stick with me, kid, I'll show you the ropes," Clint told Bucky, as Sam deposited him next to the archer.

"Gee whilikers," Bucky said, "Thanks, old man Barton!"

"I'm getting realtime feeds from Tony, I think I see the source," Natasha said. "I'd like Bucky, please."

Clint made an outraged noise. "Why not me?"

"Because Bucky's got a metal arm and I think he's gonna need to reach through a portal and rip something out," she said. "So if you wanna risk becoming a matched set with Barnes there, come be my guest."

Clint clapped Bucky on the shoulder. "You go have fun, baby."

"Clint," Steve warned.

"Steve, remember when you were three hundred pounds of angry in a hundred pounds of fella?" Bucky asked, as Thor swapped with Sam and scooped him up to take him to Natasha. "Remember what you used to tell me when I tried to stop you gettin' socked?"

Steve was ominously silent.

"Oh man, I gotta know," Clint said finally.

"Every man's gotta fight his own battles, Bucky, you can step in once they're throwin' punches," Bucky quoted. "Lemme handle Barton, he's not gonna throw any punches."

"Gentlemen, if you're done measuring dicks," Natasha remarked, as Thor set him down next to her. And also next to the giant glowing purple disc that, even as he watched, spat out a robot. He punched the robot in the chest and grabbed its head, pulling his fist back still inside its body and deftly separating the two halves of it.

"My hero," Natasha said drily. She handed him a pair of purple tinted glasses. "Put these on and look through the glowy thing."

"If I had a nickel for every time a lady told me that," Bucky replied, donning the glasses.

"Hey, you look like that John Lennon fella," Steve said.

"You two are so old," Tony groaned. "Bucky, you should see some kind of generator on the other side. It'd have to be close in to cause that kind of distortion."

"Yep, I got it," Bucky said, raising his prosthetic arm and flexing the fist. "Want me to punch the shit out of it?"

"If you would be so kind," Tony said.

"If this wrecks my arm you're building me a new one."

"Do I not do the equivalent of that every month or so anyway?" Tony asked. "Punchy punchy, we haven't got all day."

Bucky swung his arm around, putting his whole body behind it as he punched through the portal, into the machine on the other side, and through that, as well. The portal zipped shut just as he tugged back, nipping off the very tip of his middle finger.

"Hey Stark, I got somethin' for you," he said, as Tony landed.

"What's that?" Tony asked, faceplate flipping up in concern, and Bucky held up his hand, middle finger extended.

Natasha fell down laughing right around the time Steve asked, "What, I can't see you, what's going on?"

Chapter Text

Steve had clearly expected the ambush within hours of moving into Stark Tower. Bucky, once he met Tony, expected it within days. After all, he'd known Howard Stark too, and patience was not a virtue the Stark family seemed to have in abundance.

But it wasn't until they'd been living in the Tower almost a month -- wasn't until Stark had finished helping Sam get his rig working again -- that he appeared like a stealth bomber in the elevator one day and pounced.

"So when are you gonna let me trick you out?" he asked, as Bucky felt the elevator slow to a crawl. "You've got an arm, I've got an engineering degree. We could make beautiful music together."

Bucky looked at him, faintly mistrustful. He'd done minor repairs on the arm himself, and it was functional, so it wasn't necessary to have an expert look at it. Still, the fine motor programming was still giving him trouble, and he sensed Stark was probably one of the few people not trained by the little toad Zola (at this point, since he'd killed all of them, one of the few people alive) who could help him.

But he had concerns, too.

"Would you have to take it off?" he asked warily.

"Probably. Is that an issue?"

"Yes," Bucky said simply.

"Come on, don't you want a drone that pops out of your arm? I could build you some lasers. Spinning blades? No? Or a go-go Gadget wrist," Stark said. Bucky blinked.

"What's a go-go Gadget...?" he trailed off, because Stark had grabbed his forearm and was turning the metal this way and that. He allowed it, because he couldn't see any tools, but he locked the joint. Stark looked up at him, questioningly, and then slowly let go of the arm when he saw his face.

"Sorry. I am not tactful," he said. "No grabbing."

"No grabbing," Bucky agreed.

Stark held up a finger, then pointed at the arm. "But can I just see -- "

The elevator doors opened then, and Steve stood in the doorway, arms crossed.

"JARVIS, you're a traitor," Tony said.

"It may not be evident that I am protecting your health and well-being, sir, but I can assure you, this is the case," JARVIS replied.

Steve stepped to one side and pointed away from the elevator. Stark rolled his eyes, but he went. Steve got on, and the elevator resumed its journey.

"I was handling him," Bucky said reproachfully.

"I'm sure you were, but backup never hurt. Stark needs some lessons in taking no for an answer." Steve glanced sidelong at him. "He could help, though."

"Sure. Maybe. Later," Bucky said. Which he knew Steve took as no.

He just wasn't quite ready to hand off any parts of his body to scientists again. It hadn't traditionally worked well for him.

Stark tried again, twice in the following month. One time Natasha intervened, and the other time, to Bucky's surprise, James Rhodes happened across them and dragged Tony away. He liked Rhodes; he sensed a kinship with another fella who had to follow his moronic best friend around, hauling his ass out of the fire.

But his fingers were locking up more frequently, now, and one morning his wrist threw a shower of sparks that nearly set Sam's shirt on fire while they were cooking breakfast.

So he devised a plan to hook Tony Stark into doing what he wanted, and only what he wanted. It involved letting JARVIS know he could cancel the "Tony's bugging Bucky" alert Steve had programmed, and then spending much of the day making himself casually available in elevators and empty rooms.

Stark lasted six hours before he showed up in the communal kitchen like a stray cat who knew there was a handout on offer.

"So," he said, elaborately casual, as he poured coffee into a large mug. "You still freaked out about the engineering marvel attached to your armpit?"

Bucky shrugged. "Wasn't ever freaked out about it. Just don't like people messing with me."

"I don't mess. Well, I rarely mess. I'm an engineer. I repair. I fine-tune. I could make that arm sing an opera. Conduct a symphony. You get the idea."

Bucky eyed him with well-faked suspicion. "Why?"

Stark sipped his coffee. "Because I love engineering. It's not personal. I don't know you well enough to like you or dislike you."

"If I wanted you to show me all the stuff you were doing," Bucky started, and Stark paused with his coffee halfway to his lips. "So I could do it too..."

"Sure. I'm a shitty teacher, but you don't look stupid, so it'd probably be fine."

"And you wouldn't touch it when I wasn't there."

"Pack it up and take it with you if you want. I am the head of R&D for a giant multinational corporation, I'm not going to spend weeks at a time on your arm."

"I wanna know everything you do and why you're doing it," Bucky said. "And you only do what I say."

"Okay, fine, jeez, do you want a notary? Can I see your damn arm already?"

Bucky obediently held out his arm. The wrist sparked again when Stark turned it supine. Stark looked at him under his brows.

"Have you got somewhere else to be, or are we going to go-go Gadget you right now?" he asked.

"I still don't know what that is," Bucky told him.

"I'll show you, you'll love it. He has a helicopter that comes out of his head. You can watch it while I turn you from a fire hazard into a neurosurgeon," Stark said, and took off, dragging Bucky along by the wrist.

Bucky grinned, waved Steve off when he saw him coming down the hall, and followed Stark down to the workshop.

Chapter Text

Steve and Sam torched the Helicarriers in the early spring, that year. After, Natasha went south, searching for a new cover, which happened to coincide with a Caribbean beach. Fury went east, looking to take out a little of his wrath on Hydra's European networks.

Sam and Steve, after some consultation, turned west. They spent that summer on the road, griping to each other about the heat and the wind. They took their frustrations out on the Hydra outposts they uncovered, zig-zagging north and south as they made their way towards California. Sometimes they came across places Bucky had clearly been, and once they crossed his path close enough for Steve to catch a flash of silver as he fled.

They met again still heading west, long after the summer ended, chasing a Hydra mole across the Bay Bridge towards San Francisco. It wasn't low-profile; their prey was spraying traffic with bullets, and Sam was trying to drive without looking through the bullet-cracked windshield while Steve raced ahead on a hastily commandeered motorcycle, following their mole on another.

It was unexpected for everyone concerned. The mole turned back to take careful aim, a shot that would have taken Steve's head off even at a distance, and there was a sharp clang as Bucky Barnes appeared from nowhere, arm extended, neatly clotheslining their man.

Steve slowed the motorcycle, bringing it to a stop ten feet away as he watched Bucky crouch and ziptie the man's wrists to his ankles. In the distance, they could hear helicopters.

Bucky straightened, turned, and just looked at Steve, expectant.

"Thanks," Steve said dumbly.

"Pleasure," Bucky replied. He didn't move.

"Hey Buck," Steve said softly. "Come home with me."

Bucky looked around. "Well, can't go any further west," he said. "Pretty much just hit open water. Whatcha wanna do with this asshole?"

They left the mole, who had once been an SI employee, in the tender clutches of Stark Industries Malibu. Given that he'd mostly totaled Sam's car, Pepper sent them home on her private jet. Bucky collapsed on the bed in the back of the plane and slept for most of it, barely moving, while Steve paced and fretted, and Sam depleted Stark's bar. Bucky woke in time for landing, but only just; he followed quiet and docile as Steve loaded the three of them into a cab and directed them home.

They arrived back at Sam's house on December 19th. There was no food, and the heat was set low enough that their breath was misting indoors. Sam's sister had been getting his mail, but she hadn't been watering his plants, which were languishing on the windowsill. There was a new electric car parked in the driveway. (Pepper Potts liked Steve and Sam, and was very efficient.)

Sam looked around his house wearily, looked at Bucky, said "Make yourself at home," and went to bed, turning the heat up on his way. Bucky looked at Steve, who shrugged haplessly.

"I'm going to clean up a little. Take the guest bed," he said. "I'll sleep on the couch."

"Sounds familiar," Bucky murmured, and it sent a thrill through Steve.

It was less thrilling over the next few days, as Steve and Sam cleaned the house, stocked the fridge, cooked, shoveled snow...and Bucky slept. He slept almost ceaselessly, certainly deeply, as if he hadn't slept in months. He emerged every so often to eat or bathe (both of which he desperately needed), and he'd ask if there was anything he should do, but when Sam said no or Steve shook his head, he'd retreat to the bedroom and sleep some more.

Steve cleaned out the fireplace on the twenty-third (something had died in the chimney) and on the twenty-fourth came home with a Christmas tree, tangling himself up in lights trying to decorate it while Sam cooked a turkey casserole and mocked him from the kitchen. He didn't mock when Steve put presents out underneath the tree; he had his own stash, including some that his mama had sent for the poor Rogers boy.

Some of Steve's said To: Bucky on them. He hoped it didn't look too hopeful.

It started to snow around eight that night, which would have been nicer if it wasn't such a bitter, windy snow, expected to last well into Christmas day. Steve lay on the couch for a long time, watching the fire burn lower and lower in the hearth, curled up under a pile of blankets. He wondered if Bucky would wake up for much of Christmas.

He woke to the crunch of a log being placed on the fire, but by the time he was actually lucid, nobody was there -- just the fire, crackling again instead of smoldering. A soft hiss behind him made him turn, and he found Bucky standing in the kitchen, in the dark, stirring something steaming in a pan.

"You okay, Buck?" he asked warily.

"Yes," Bucky said, turning to a cupboard, unerringly finding Sam's tin of cocoa. "Would you like something to drink?"

"What time is it?"

"Just past five." Bucky gave him a small, dry smile. "Up early for Christmas, just like old times."

"Glad to see you up."

"I was tired."

"No kidding," Steve said, sitting up. He let his head fall back on the sofa, weary. "Can I help?"

"Not just now," Bucky said. "Soon."

"What can I do?"

Bucky poured out the pan into a pair of mugs. "Stay there," he said, coming around the breakfast bar. He held out one of the mugs and Steve took it, cupping his hands around it, the smell of chocolate rising in the air. Bucky settled next to him on the sofa, tired eyes huge in his pale face, the whisper of machinery in his arm nearly drowned out by the fire. Steve watched him, and past him, the snow blowing against the window outside.

"I'm really messed up," Bucky said finally. He glanced at Steve. "I can't fix it alone. I barely remember you some days. I don't know up from down, others."

"We'll help you, Buck -- "

"I know you will," Bucky said, sharp enough that Steve broke off in confusion. "I know. I do. And thanks. But."

He looked over at the fire, then down at his mug of cocoa.

"Please don't fix me today," he said softly. "Can I just be a little messed up today, Steve?"

Steve set his drink aside and reached over, pulling him into his body, settling them both deep in the couch with a blanket around their shoulders, another across their laps. Bucky pressed his forehead into Steve's shoulder, shivering.

"Yeah, Buck," Steve said, grateful for the fire inside and the wind outside. "Yeah, that's fine. Long as you're here I don't care. Hey, I got you presents. You wanna open presents?"

"In a little while," Bucky said, as the shivering subsided. "When Sam wakes up, we can open presents then."

When Sam emerged a few hours later, Steve was out cold, head pillowed sideways on top of Bucky's, and Bucky was watching the fire, a serene half-smile on his face.