I don't own Captain America. Or Bucky Barnes. Or the Avengers. Marvel does.

Huge shout-out to my two beta readers, who very kindly read over this and anti-brit-picked it for any wording or phrasing that was noticeably un-American (e.g. carpark/parking lot). I've left the NZ/UK spelling alone, so you'll see 'favourite' with a u, etc. But the syntax should be American. It's only fitting. It is a Captain America fic, after all.

Here we go! Seven chapters of angst, h/c, and humour centred around the epic bromance / platonic friendship between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. Fic written post-Civil War; the story is set post CW, post Wakanda, and then some. It makes the assumption that the Avengers get back together, more or less, even if they're not officially called the Avengers, and that they're living at the Facility set up at the end of Age of Ultron. Total word count 32,000. And yes, I've finished writing the whole thing, so you won't be left hanging on this. I promise. Finishing the fic before I start posting chapters is a really good way to make sure of that.

The overall story prompt is below. Each chapter uses an individual prompt as well. And sometimes an art/pinterest prompt.

Leave a review if you enjoy it! Really. Even "I read this and I liked it, my favourite bit was _" makes my day.

Story prompt: Steve and Bucky have a very intense and clearly very deep friendship, and everyone thinks they are together. One day, someone takes them aside and gently explains that it's ok now, they don't have to hide anymore. Bucky and Steve are horrified by the suggestion. Not because they are homophobic, but because they literally regard each other as brothers. They are family.

Inadvertent art fill: pinterest dot com /pin/506936501788675546/

Chapter One

Prompt: Cold

Inadvertent art fill: pinterest dot com /pin/470415123556518376/

Bucky finished slipping into his red shirt and stepped into the common room. Even in the small hours of the morning, the facility wasn't cold enough that he needed the shirt. It was a matter of decorum.

Tony had done his best with the new metal arm, but the scarring around the shoulder joint wasn't anything the rest of the team needed to see. The Russians had all but welded his nervous system into the arm, and his skin along with it. Even a Stark couldn't do much for that seventy-year-old mess. They had called in Helen Cho for a consultation, just to see what their options were. She'd taken it as a personal affront, or a challenge, or both, when Tony discarded her initial suggestion offhand. A few more viable ways and means had been flung around, most of them in technobabble that went straight over Bucky's head.

In the end he'd decided it was a whole lot of fuss and bother over something that didn't matter all that much anymore. It didn't worry him. The scars didn't hurt, physically, and even the psychological damage was mostly dealt with. It might be different in summer, but the hot weather was months away yet. In the meantime, in the interests of public decency, he wore a shirt anytime he stepped out of his room.

A familiar form stood in front of the fridge, silhouetted against the bright interior.

"Couldn't sleep?" Bucky grabbed a glass from the shelf and filled it before taking a sip. Yeah, that was good. Just what he needed. He drained the glass in one go and then refilled it again.

Steve didn't look around from his contemplation of the cold depths.

"Steve?" Bucky darted a look at him and noted the slow drag of eyelashes as he blinked. Awake, then. And more-or-less present. It was a good start.

Despite the warm night, he was wearing sweatpants and a grey hoodie with the Veterans' Association logo splashed across it. No visible weaponry. Bare feet.

Steve still didn't move. Whatever was in that fridge must really be fascinating. But after a minute he spoke. "Do you ever think of going back?"

Bucky blinked. Cast another assessing look over his best friend. No obvious signs of a head wound. Concussion unlikely. Brain damage even more unlikely, knowing Steve's thick head. "To Hydra? Can't say that I do."

"Not to Hydra." The words slurred together slightly; not much, not enough that anyone else would have noticed, probably. But Bucky wasn't anyone else. He'd been listening for it, and he nodded to himself. Steve needed sleep. Yesterday. "To Brooklyn," Steve said.

"You've seen house prices there, right? They're astronomical, and I say that as someone who hangs out with a flying demigod on occasion — "

"To Peggy."

The hairs on the back of Bucky's neck rose. Almost unconsciously, his right hand dropped to check the hunting knife tucked into his waistband at the small of his back. "Peggy's dead, Steve."

"I know." Steve heaved a shuddering breath and swung the fridge door shut, leaving them in the half-light from the night sensors. He didn't turn his head. "I know she is."

Bucky frowned and slid sideways, bare feet silent on the tiles, until he stood directly in front of Steve.

Steve stared over his shoulder, that thoughtful frown furrowing his brows.

"So?" Bucky said softly. "What did you mean?"

"Everyone we knew is dead."

Bucky took a breath. Reconsidered. Let it out. Gently, gently. Steve hadn't needed handling with kid gloves for a long time, not since… oh, long before the war. But there was a time and place for being a smart-mouth. Now and here wasn't it. "Yeah. They are."

"Peggy. The boys. Howard…"

Bucky closed his eyes. He had trouble with that, some days. He and Howard hadn't been particularly close, but they'd still been friends. It was a hard-learned habit to let the guilt wash over him, to resist the siren call as it ebbed.

He wouldn't drown in it. Not this time.

It felt weird, looking at Tony. They were so alike, father and son, with their breathtaking arrogance and their scintillating brilliance. Civilians fighting in a war, doing their best with whatever scraps they had available. Sometimes he looked at Tony and saw Howard instead. He'd had a close call or two, but the name had never slipped out, thank goodness. He wasn't entirely sure what Tony what have done if it had. It wouldn't be anything good.

"I want to go home," Steve whispered.

Bucky opened his eyes. Steve was looking at him, now, instead of past him. Progress. Maybe he could afford to push back a bit. "Home? To who?"

"Our friends. Your family."

"There was a war. Half of them'll be dead, too."

Steve's jaw clenched. "So we'll fight. We'll drive the Nazis back, storm the Hydra bases."

"Okay, say you do that. But the war will end. When did your plane go down? March 1945, right? The war ends in September, that's only another six months of fighting. And what will you do then? Go back to Brooklyn, buy a house, find a girl who can maybe just see past Captain America to Steve Rogers? Settle down, raise a family?" Bucky shook his head. "That's not you, Steve."

"The war won't end," Steve said. "There's always a war."

Which was the crux of the matter, Bucky knew. He'd done his research. He knew what Ultron had said. God's righteous man, pretending you can live without a war. "So you'll just keep fighting. Is that it?"

"Yes."

"In the 40's. Without me, without the team here. With the low tech and the old transport and the rubbish medicine, millions of people dying of diseases that are all but eradicated today."

"Yes."

"Is that all there is?"

Steve blinked.

"The war," Bucky pressed. "Is that everything?"

He didn't answer.

He didn't have to. Bucky knew how inextricably Steve had tangled himself in the mentality of fight and fight and fight and get knocked down and get back up and keep fighting. He knew that as long as there was injustice in the world, Steve thought it was his sole responsibility to fix it. He also knew Steve could be wrong.

"Okay," Bucky said. "One question. What are you fighting for? Or are you just fighting against?"

"There's always a war," Steve repeated. "There's always something to fight."

"Answer the question."

"I —" Steve frowned. "Freedom."

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Come on, pal. Give me the Steve Rogers answer, not the Captain America answer."

A flicker of doubt showed in those true-blue eyes. "I don't — "

"No, you don't." Bucky took him by the shoulders and felt the tremors under the bulky hoodie. "You don't know. That's the problem. Are you sure you want to be fighting a war if you don't know why? Take it from someone who knows: that's not a good way to live."

"You didn't have a choice."

"No, but I do now. And so do you."

"I can't." Steve made a soft, hiccuping sound. "I can't just let them die."

Bucky tightened his grip. "They're already dead."

"But if I'd been there — if I can go back and help them —"

"Don't. Don't, Steve. You can't, and there's no point pretending you can. You're not an army."

Rebellion glinted in his eyes. "I'm near enough."

"No, you're not. You never have been. You're not a one-man cure-all. And who are you to decide who lives and dies, huh?"

"That's not what it is."

"Isn't it? Messing with time, saving the ones you think are worthy, killing the ones you think aren't? That's a very slippery slope."

"Hydra — "

"Oh, Hydra." Bucky snorted. "Because they're all unambiguously evil, is that right? Like the Nazis. The Germans, the Italians. Entire countries are unworthy and you're gonna put them to the sword? They're not just, I dunno, people doing a job to get money to pay rent and buy groceries and have a little left over at the end of the week if they're lucky?"

If Steve wasn't so exhausted, he'd hear the echo of his own words in Bucky's. They'd talked this one out many a time.

"I was Hydra," Bucky said, trying to keep his voice steady. "You going to kill me?"

"They made you do it."

"I still did it. Didn't know why, but I did it. Man on the street out there doesn't know why he's doing it either. He's just working at a munitions factory. Does it really matter what country he's in?"

Steve's mouth opened. Gaped. Bucky saw the moment he hit the metaphorical wall, the moment all the fight went out of him. Good. Whatever ideology Steve was parroting, it wasn't his own. He was clutching at straws to defend his position. He didn't believe what he was saying. "You didn't answer the question," he said finally.

Bucky took a breath. "What question was that?"

"Do you ever think of going back?"

Of course he had. He'd lost hours caught up in daydreams of what if, what if, what if. If he didn't have seventy years of torture and brainwashing and dehumanisation and murder under his belt. If he hadn't given in to the conditioning, hadn't lost his arm, hadn't fallen from the train. If Zola hadn't taken him for experimentation. If the war had never happened.

"Yes," he said.

"And?"

"No." He saw surprise spark in Steve's gaze at that. "It's a pointless exercise, but if I had the choice? I wouldn't go back. Whatever Hydra did to me, whatever they made me into, made me do… it doesn't change the fact that I'm here. And you're here. Yes, we've lost good friends. Family. So what? That happens all the time. Everyone loses loved ones. Jumping back seventy years won't solve that. And we shouldn't want to solve it. Death happens. Sometimes we just — we need to let it happen."

Steve's gaze went distant for a moment. "You know it's going to happen again. Everyone we love will die, and we'll… be here. Existing."

"We'll still grow old."

"Slowly."

"I know," Bucky said. He cast an assessing eye over Steve. Stable. Shivering, but stable. The gleam of manic despair had vanished. His eyes were focused on the here-and-now. Good. "Home's a long way away."

A flash of bitter grief crossed Steve's face. "You're telling me."

"Alternatively…" He waited until he was sure Steve was listening with both ears. "Home's right here."

The facade cracked. Bucky caught Steve as he broke, arms wrapped tight around him. No tears. Steve looked too exhausted even for that. But Bucky felt him tremble, felt the breath coming too fast from his lungs, the desperate way he returned the embrace and clutched Bucky's shirt at his back.

"If — if you weren't here — "

"Shh," Bucky murmured. "If I wasn't here, you'd soldier on like you always have. You'd make new friends, find a new family. But — for what it's worth — me, too." He tightened his grip. If Steve wasn't here… if he'd woken from that seventy-year nightmare to find that Steve was long dead, or worse… He didn't know what he would have done.

No, that was a lie.

He did know what he would have done.

He shuddered and shoved the thoughts away.

Steve gave vent to a jaw-cracking yawn.

"You need to sleep," Bucky said.

"Can't."

"Have you tried?"

"Yes."

Bucky waited, but that was apparently all the intel their revered leader deemed fit to pass along. He sighed. Not that he minded a hug or ten from his best friend, but this would be a lot more comfortable if they were sitting down. "Couch. Come on."

He got Steve settled, wrapped a thick blanket around him, and made him a mug of coffee that was so thick and black and sweet it nearly gave Bucky flashbacks to the war just smelling it. "Here."

Steve took the mug without protest, wrapping both hands tight around it. He sipped and blinked. "It's good. Thanks."

"Yeah, well, it's not like I've had experience making you coffee or anything." Coffee duty had usually been delegated to him or Falsworth, as the two with the best knack for it. Bucky had always loaded Steve's up with as much sugar as he could manage, accounting for their limited supplies. The man burnt calories like there was no tomorrow.

"I noticed, you know," Steve said.

"Noticed what?"

"The sugar."

Bucky stole a corner of the blanket and nestled close, slinging his arm around Steve. The shivering hadn't abated, but he thought it might have settled a little. He'd give it time. "I don't take sugar in my coffee."

"You used to. Back in Brooklyn."

That was true. "Used to do a lot of things back in Brooklyn." At war, well… there had been more important things to worry about.

"I'm not stupid, Buck."

Bucky bit back a grin. "With your borderline-photographic memory? Course you aren't."

"You gave me your sugar ration. Every time we had coffee. For that whole year of active missions." Steve's eyes were soft. The coffee was half-gone.

"It wasn't hard. And…" Bucky lifted a shoulder. "Honestly? It wasn't a big deal. I got used to it. Don't think I could go back to having coffee with sugar, now."

"Thanks."

"Just looking after the Captain. It's what we do."

Steve caught the plural. He frowned. "The guys knew?"

"They didn't just know, they aided and abetted. Jones and Dernier alternated with half-rations to give you a top-up. Morita and Falsworth wouldn't give up their sugar for anyone but they were sympathetic and helped in other ways, and Dugan — okay, he genuinely didn't like the stuff. But it meant there was more for the rest of us."

Steve ducked his head and smiled. "And I never knew."

"You had a command position to worry about. A unit to look after. I don't blame you for not noticing, pal. We weren't flashing neon signs about it."

"Still. Should've seen it."

"You saw me."

"That, I did."

"And you never called me out on it." He'd wondered about that at the time. If Steve had noticed. But Steve had never said anything, not even when it was just the two of them on another scouting jaunt and they had all the privacy in the world, and Bucky had concluded not.

"Bad example," Steve said.

"What?"

"Calling you out, it would have set a bad example. Captain's not supposed to notice everything that goes on in the unit." He peeled a hand from the mug and prodded Bucky in the ribs. "That's what my sergeant's for."

Bucky felt a sneaking smile curl about his mouth. "Rogers, you conniving son of a…"

"Chain of command," Steve murmured.

"That's one I haven't heard before." He leaned over and checked the level in the mug. Empty. Not that he could tell from the shivers. He lifted the mug away and dropped it on the coffee table. "Right. Talk."

"We are talking." Steve's head lolled against his shoulder.

"Why can't you sleep?"

"Can now. Maybe. You're a good pillow."

"Captain, you flatter me." He let the wry tone fade from his voice. "Why couldn't you sleep earlier?"

Steve swallowed. "Too cold."

"Go on."

"I — I don't know, I want to go back, I miss… oh, everyone. You and the boys and Howard and Peggy… and I know you're here, but — " he stopped.

"You miss who I was. Before."

"No!"

"It's alright," Bucky murmured. He kept his eyes fixed ahead, not quite able to look at Steve. Not for this. "I miss me, too."

Steve took a shaky breath. After a minute, he continued: "And I keep thinking: what if I can go back? What if Tony could re-freeze me, what if we could somehow do it? We've got so much technology now, why can't we… But then I think about what it would cost." He shook his head. "And I don't know. I could save hundreds there, but would it mean failing hundreds here? Would it be worth it? Leaving behind everyone here, the team, the family we've built? I — could I leave you behind? I don't think I could."

That was one question answered. Bucky didn't let the slightest flicker of relief show. "And the cold?"

"I can't do it," Steve whispered. His hand curled into Bucky's shirt and clung tight. "I can't stop thinking about it, and it all boils up inside me and freezes solid because I can't face the ice again." Something sick and hollow crossed his face. "I'm a coward."

The shadow of the cryo chamber loomed, dark and desolate. Bucky fought back the instinctual panic, the memory of being naked and freezing and helpless, unable to move, unable to remember.

He couldn't freak out. Steve needed him.

Bucky knew better than most how to control his reactions. He felt a muscle tick in his jaw, but that was all the outward signs Steve would see. "A coward? For not wanting to sleep on ice for another seventy years? I'd call that common sense, pal."

"But if I could save —"

"You can't." Only after he'd said it did Bucky realise he'd slipped into his Sergeant Barnes Making The C.O. See Sense voice. "I know you hate being alive when everyone else we knew is dead, I know, Steve. But you can't go back and change the past, and thinking about it all the time? That's not healthy, that's obsession, it's — it's madness."

Steve dropped his head. Paused. Huffed a breath. "Yeah."

"How often does it…?"

"Not that often. Once a year, maybe." He looked back up and shifted his weight, squirming to get comfortable. "Usually passes in a couple of days. It might be less, this time."

"Oh?"

"I didn't have you before."

"Oh." That made sense. Warmth blossomed in his chest. There was a minute of silence, and then Steve yawned again. Bucky nudged him. "Do you think you can sleep now?"

"Mmm."

He made to stand up, but Steve clutched him tighter and mumbled inarticulate protest. And the man was still shivering. Blast.

"Okay." Bucky sighed. "Hold on."
He snagged the cushion out from behind him and plumped it down at the end of the couch. The black leather sectional was wide enough. They'd made do with far worse in the past.

"You're holding on?"

"Yeah, why — ?"

Bucky braced Steve with his human arm and toppled them sideways to lie lengthwise on the couch. He landed flat on his back, head smacking into the cushion. Right on target. Steve drew a sharp breath, hand clenching, eyes widening; and then he seemed to realise they were safe.

"Warn me next time!"

"Sorry," Bucky said, not entirely sincerely. Time was, Steve's trust in him was so absolute he wouldn't have even flinched at that.

'course, time was Steve hadn't spent seventy years mostly-dead to wake up in a different world, and time was Bucky hadn't tried several times over to murder him.

They were working on the trust issues.

Steve wriggled, ending up half sprawled across Bucky, half tucked into the gap between Bucky and the back of the couch. It was a familiar position. The Barnes house had been far warmer than the Rogers'; in the interests of Steve's health they'd spent winter night after winter night like this when they were kids, curled up in Bucky's narrow bed under mounds of blankets while his sisters slept in the bigger bed across the hall.

And speaking of blankets…

Bucky retrieved the thick blue blanket from where it had fallen to the floor and wrapped it firmly around Steve. He ignored the reflexive noises of protest. "I'm not cold, don't worry about me. Are you warm enough?"

"No." But before Bucky could cast about for another blanket, Steve nestled into the crook of his flesh shoulder, yawned hugely, and mumbled, "But you're like a furnace. I'm warming up already. Give it a minute."

"Alright."

Bucky brushed his fingers against Steve's temple, sweeping ever-so-slightly-sweaty blond hair off his forehead. Hmm. Warm, but not hot. No fever. He wasn't sick; not physically, at any rate. The shivering was settling down.

"I'll be fine, Buck."

Bucky glanced over. Steve's eyes were closed, the frown easing, his hand already loosening from its desperate hold. How had he known…?

"Because I know you. Stop worrying."

The corner of Bucky's mouth twitched. "Yes, sir."

He stretched the metal arm off the side of the couch. Rotated it through a full circle. Took automatic note of how far he could reach, in which directions, with how much force. The German hunting knife, Elsa, was safely tucked into the small of his back. He could have it in hand in less than a second. A triple-set of freshly sharpened throwing knives were strapped to his calf under the sleep trousers. Steve's empty mug sat nearby on the coffee table; it would make a decent weight if he needed a projectile.

And Bucky was on the outside edge of the couch, between Steve and any attempted threat.

He slipped two fingers around Steve's wrist and closed his eyes.

xx xx xx xx xx

A sharp inhale woke him, and then a muffled giggle. Natasha. And… Clint? Yes, there was the second pair of footsteps, not as soft as the first. Both in bare feet. Both trying to be quiet. Thank you. They'd been so kind as to wake him before the others made an appearance for breakfast.

Bucky cracked his eyes open and glared across the room to where they stood by the kitchen bench.

He knew without looking that Steve's blanket had slipped down to drape over their tangled legs. Bucky's metal arm curled up around the cushion. His left leg had slipped off the side of the couch, trouser leg riding up to put the sheath of throwing knives on full display. Steve had an arm flung over Bucky's chest, and the patch of red shirt under Steve's chin was the tiniest bit damp.

Not that he would ever tell Steve that.

Nobody told Captain America that he drooled in his sleep and lived to tell the tale.

Nat had her phone out.

Bucky rolled his eyes. Really? A photo would be bad enough. She'd better not be filming them.

She giggled again, louder than before.

Steve shifted in his sleep, head burrowing into Bucky's chest. Bucky narrowed his eyes. Moving slowly, he lifted his metal arm from the pillow, jerked a thumb at Steve, pointed at the two troublemakers, and drew a finger across his throat with exquisite precision.

And grinned.

Natasha paled.

Good. She'd caught the placement of his hypothetical knife slice. If they woke Steve, they wouldn't bleed out nice and swiftly. He hadn't cut the carotid arteries; he'd severed the windpipe.

They would suffocate.

And with the serrated blade of his hunting knife, it would be no joke.

Alright, yes, it was a joke, and no, he wouldn't really kill the nearest thing to family he'd found in the last seventy five years. But the warning was enough to lower the noise level to something almost sub-decibel.

Excellent.

He rubbed a hand over his face, yawning. Mmm. It had been a good sleep, but there was nothing like cold metal on your eyelids to wake you up. He caught Clint's eye and mouthed, Time?

Clint tapped his phone and held it up. 6:18am.

Ugh. He shot them a thumbs-up and closed his eyes.

Ten more minutes.