Author's Note:

This is set post-Civil War and discounts all subsequent canon. Also, I know the Met is no longer pay-what-you-wish, but my canon-divergence fantasies extend to real life.

Corrections are always welcome since I don't have a beta reader or the patience for proofreading.

As a final note, I have no idea if it's Hydra or Ashton Kutcher, so if anyone wants to make a suggestion, I might write another chapter.

"Huh."

"What?" asked Sam.

Tony waved a piece of paper. "Someone sent us a letter."

"So?"

Steve and Sam had spent the summer backpacking through Europe like a couple of gap year kids, but instead of searching for sex and the meaning of life, they were searching for one James Buchanan Barnes. Well, Steve might have also been searching for sex and the meaning of life. Sam honestly couldn't tell, and he didn't want to ask. Steve was in the service long before DADT got repealed, and he was barely holding his shit together without being forced to pull it out of the closet.

Steve had started to let himself go. After three months, he only looked like a Greek demigod, and Sam had to stage an intervention. Steve had eventually agreed to let Tony move their search to the ether, as long as he was informed of the Winter Soldier's involvement in his parents death. Tony offered to help without demanding a tax break, award, or beer, which made Sam more than a little nervous.

Two more months came and went with no sign of the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes, or anything in between.

"Well, first of all, no one sends letters anymore," said Tony. "Other than Huckleberry Finn here, of course. Is this from you, Huck?"

Steve winced and shook his head. He hadn't even been ribbing Tony, which was how Sam knew he was really depressed.

"What's second of all?" asked Bruce.

"There's no return address."

"So?"

"The last time someone sent us a letter with no return address, it was Loki."

"Oh, yeah," said Sam.

"Maybe you should wait to…" Bruce got five words out before Tony ripped open the envelope. "...listen to anything I say."

The envelope contained a single flash drive, Kingston Data Traveler, 32 GB, no label. Tony plugged it into a port on the wall, and Sam was secretly satisfied to see that even tech genius billionaire Tony Stark had to try three times.

The wall became a screen, and Tony started typing on a holographic keyboard.

"It's a video. Think it's another Evil Villain Monologue?" Without waiting for an answer, he added, "If so, it's a long monologue. Eight hours."

"Could still be Loki, said Thor.

The video opened on an empty lobby. It was a time capsule, both in the sense that it appeared stuck in the 1970s and also that Sam wanted to launch it into space. The waiting room was full of mismatched chairs. The reception desk had a half-dead ficus. The walls were orange, but whether that was from age or aged interior design, Sam couldn't tell. On the wall were plastic letters spelling the words...

"Public Defender?" Even Steve looked slightly interested. "Is that like us?"

"What, you didn't have public defenders in the 30s?" asked Sam.

Steve shrugged. "If we did, I didn't know about it."

He sighed. "Of course you didn't. Public defenders are pro bono lawyers, appointed by a judge when someone gets charged with a crime but can't afford to hire a private attorney."

"Free attorneys?" Tony gasped. "You mean all this time I could have been spending my money on coke and hookers?"

"How can they afford to work for free? Steve asked, a little unsure, like he was afraid they would think he was fucking with them too.

"Public defenders are non-profits, paid for by the state, but not maintained by them so there's no conflict of interest with the prosecutor's office."

"That sounds fair," said Steve.

"It really ain't," said Sam. "There's been a push for pay parity across the country. Public defenders are paid much less than district attorneys-"

"To defend criminals," said Tony.

"And people accused of crimes they didn't commit," Sam said pointedly, because the Avengers had all been charged with crimes at some point in their lives. "And brothers disproportionately charged with possession and other misdemeanor charges that would never stick to a white guy-"

"This public defender is in Portland, Oregon, so that's probably half their caseload," Tony interrupted, still typing.

"They also help people with addictions get treatment, people with mental health issues get therapy, the homeless get housing, veterans get their benefits-"

"Okay, I get it. We should all become public defenders. That doesn't explain why someone sent us a video of-"

"Bucky!

"What?

Steve was sitting up straight, staring at the screen. "Bucky!"

Barnes stepped off the elevator and paused to type something into his phone.

"I don't understand," said Steve. "If he showed up in the system, we should have seen it, right?"

"If he's using a different name-"

"We still should have seen it," said Tony.

"I don't think he's a client," said Sam. "Look at the clock. It's a public defender. They're not going to have Stark Tower security-"

"Avenger's Tower," Tony corrected.

"But I doubt the elevators work before eight without a fob, or code, or something."

"You think he's breaking in?" Steve's brow furrowed, and Sam did not want to be the one responsible for giving Captain America wrinkles.

"I think he's clocking in."

Barnes put away his phone, and pushed through the door to the left of the dead ficus. He was absent from the screen for three minutes before reappearing sans coat and sitting behind the reception desk.

"Fueling up the jet for a trip to Portland," said Tony.

"You might want to hold off on that," said Sam.

"What?" Steve sounded a little winded, but that was probably just because he'd stopped breathing when Barnes was out of sight. 'Why?"

"Ten minutes ago, we didn't know if he was crazy, or comatose, or dead, or back with Hydra. Now we know he's well enough to get up, get coffee, get a job-"

They watched Bucky greet a coworker and log into a computer at reception.

"Get better computer skills than Steve," said Tony.

"Get better social skills than Tony," said Steve, and Sam never thought he would be so happy to hear them bicker.

"If he hasn't come home yet, it's because-"

"He doesn't want to," Steve finished for him.

"Yet," San finished for him. "Maybe he doesn't remember."

"I thought Steven was the first person he remembered," said Thor.

"Recognition isn't the same thing," said Nat.

"You push him now, you might push him away," said Sam.

"He might not have a choice," said Nat. "Someone was filming him."

"Oh, god." Steve actually managed to go whiter, which Sam hadn't thought was possible. "What if it's Hydra, and they kill him at the end, and they just sent me this to taunt me, and-"

"Jarvis, does the monster at the end of this book get ganked? Tony asked, with less tact that Nat's smallest tactical knife.

"At the end of this video, Sergeant Barnes leaves the office," said Jarvis.

"No news is good news," Clint said cheerfully.

"With Hydra, no news means they've been infiltrating your workplace and torturing your best friend for seventy years," Steve said, not at all cheerfully.

"If I may?" Jarvis interjected smoothly. "The Human Resources department of the public defender has Sergeant Barnes' address on file as 1312 SW 10th Avenue, Apartment 3030 of the Saint James Apartments, where I am currently detecting a body with a prosthetic left arm."

"Oh, yeah," Sam squinted at the screen. "The arthritis gloves are a good idea."

"I thought that was just because he's old," Tony said in his most innocent voice, which was not innocent at all. "So the Saint James apartments, huh? That's modest."

"It is the only low-income housing near the office," said Jarvis.

"They really don't make much," said Sam. "By the way, It's both creepy and impressive that Jarvis can do all that without your permission."

Tony shrugged. "Jarvis has better judgment than I do."

"I guess you really meant it when you said you should have seen him if he ended up in the system," said Bruce.

"I should have seen him if he ended up in a Starbucks."

"He probably can't afford Starbucks," said Sam. "What is that coffee? Dunkin' Donuts? Jesus. I thought the feeding tube was sad."

"Okay," Natasha said in her gentlest voice, which was surprisingly gentle. "We'll watch the video, figure out who filmed it and whether or not we need to dickpunch Hydra or Ashton Kutcher."

"Who?"

"Don't dickpunch Ashton Kutcher, Steve," said Sam.

"Seriously?" said Tony. "You won't check out Star Wars, but watching the Winter Soldier do paperwork for eight hours is your idea of quality entertainment?"

"Don't call him that," said Steve. "And I watched Star Wars."

It hit eight o'clock in the video. The phone lit up, and Barnes started taking calls. Clints lips moved silently, before he said, "Wrong number. They're trying to reach a car wash."

"Eight hours," Tony grumbled. "I won't even watch forty-five minutes of Undercover Boss."

"That's just because they wouldn't let you be on it," said Pepper.

"It's not my fault that I'm famous!"

"Look, you don't have to stay," said Steve.

Tony got up and left. Steve went through the seven stages of grief in the time it took for Tony to reach the door before putting on his Captain America Face™. He did this without once looking away from the screen.

Sam seriously considered attaching a "Big Truck Little Penis" bumper sticker to the ass of the Iron Man suit. (He was saving it for a special occasion).

He'd been trying to teach the Avengers compassion, which they were surprisingly short on, for superheroes. They could save children and kittens in trees, but give them an emotionally vulnerable coworker, and they were worse than the comments section of YouTube.

Bucky took another call.

"Um, they want their lawyer to know that they're moving to California because it's Crackhead Season in Portland."

"Crackheads have a season?" asked Sam, wondering if it was like mosquito season or like deer season.

Tony came through the door to the kitchen carrying a jar of Pumpkin Pie Spice. "What do you want on your popcorn, Cap?"

Steve was so moved, he actually tore his gaze away from Bucky for three whole seconds. Sam timed him.

"Thank you, Tony. Uh, I like butter?"

"Of course you do, Paula Deen. Are you sure? I'm making pumpkin spice popcorn."

"White girl," Sam muttered.

"Hey, I can't help it if Uggs are comfy."

Bucky took another call.

"You also can't handle anything spicier than pumpkin spice," said Sam, even though he and Rhoades had been working on the Avengers' spice tolerance. Steve could now eat Doritos. Not even the Cool Ranch kind. Sam had high fived him (and then wiped off his hands).

"Just butter," said Steve.

Tony rolled his eyes. He didn't return to the kitchen. He must have ordered Dum-E to make the popcorn again. The little robot had gone through a few upgrades, and now only had butterfingers when actual butter was involved. A crash came from the kitchen.

"None of you have to stay," Steve added, a little self-consciously.

"I could use a movie day," said Clint, and Natasha performed the most controlled couch flop Sam had ever seen.

They watched Barnes disappear and reappear with a Diet Coke.

"Diet?" said Tony. "What, is the Winter Soldier watching his figure?"

Steve sighed. "Don't call him that."

"He probably still can't process simple carbohydrates," said Sam without thinking.

"What?"

"Steve-"

"What, Sam?"

It was Sam's turn to sigh. "Look, I asked a couple of docs at the VA, hypothetically- because: reasons- what would happen if someone was on a feeding tube for more than ten years."

Steve winced, because it had been a lot more than ten years. "What did they say?"

"They might never come off it.

"This is what you meant when you said he could be dead in a ditch."

"I did not say 'in a ditch' Steven Grant Rogers. Look, he might still have some trouble with carbs, meat and dairy, but I figured the serum would help."

"Hydra made him a gluten-free vegan?" asked Tony. "I know they tortured him, but that's just cruel."

"Take a breathe, Steve," said Sam. "You don't have asthma anymore so there's no excuse for this shit."

"Maybe I could send him some vegan protein powder, or-"

"Steve, if you were running from people who forefed you some kind of vegan protein powder for seventy years and someone sent you vegan protein powder, what would you do?"

Steve looked hangdog, in the sense that he looked like a dog who was about to be hanged. "I would flip my shit."

Sam nodded. "You would flip your shit."

A woman entered the lobby, and Barnes greeted her twice before apparently realizing she was having a conversation with one of the chairs. If Clint's lip-reading was correct, that conversation went something like:

"Stop torturing me, physically. I was a member of the French resistance. Yeah, we had our own tactical weapons, because I work for all people in all dimensions. Yeah, I brought the dimensions myself. Stop messing with my body from head to toe, illegals."

"At least he's doing better than that." Bruce gestured to the Chair Whisperer.

Barnes seemed to realize the same thing because he began having a panic attack.

They watched him fight to control his breathing, while continuing to answer phones in what had to be an increasingly unsteady voice. Sam knew how much Steve hated to feel useless, an anathema that went back to his days as an asthmatic, scoliosis-ridden dependent during the Great Depression, but Sam didn't really understand how useless Steve was feeling until he whispered, "Bucky used to help me breathe."

Sam kept quiet, and for once the other Avengers did too. It would have felt like a victory, but he knew it was more about curiosity than compassion.

Steve kept whispering, even though the video didn't have any sounds to drown out.

"When I had asthma. The doctors said it would help if I could regulate my breathes to someone else's, you know? Bucky would put my hand on his chest. He helped me breathe. He helped me- He helped- He always helped me, when I was sick, or starving, or starting fights." Steve had unconsciously matched his breathes to Bucky's, even though his hand was three thousand miles from Bucky's chest. That, or he was having a panic attack of his own. "I got- I finally got strong enough to help him and I couldn't- I couldn't- He saved me so many times, and I couldn't save him."

"Just because you're Captain America doesn't mean you can save everyone," said Sam.

"Not everyone. Just him. What's the point of being Captain America if I can't save him?"

"Uh, I think all the children and kitten in trees, Steve. Besides, look at the screen. He's still here."

"Most of him," said Tony, and no one asked whether that was an arm joke or a mind joke, because the answer was: Yes.

Sam glared, and Tony actually looked contrite, which Sam had not thought was in his repertoire. The goatee had something to do with it.

Well, it wasn't exactly a victory, but it was at least a truce.

After a couple of minutes, a coworker came to relieve Barnes for his break. He knocked on a door behind the reception desk. When no one answered, he pulled it open and stepped inside.

"Jarvis, zoom in on that sign." Natasha was squinting, and even that looked good on her, for shit's sake.

A paper sign was taped to the door. In bright pink Comic Sans, it said:

Lactation and Feelings Room!

"I never thought I would say this," said Tony, "but I hope it's feelings."

Sam glared harder.

"What? We don't know what Hydra did to him."

"Yes, we do," said Sam. "We've seen the file."

Sam had heard some fucked up POW stories at the VA, but that file had given him some Inception style meta-nightmares.

"They had him for seventy years, and the file was not that thick," said Tony.

Steve looked like he was going to start crying, which was mental image that Sam did not need, right up there with Barnes lactating- and now they were combined, thank you very fucking much, Tony.

Sam tried to remember where he'd hidden "Big Truck Little Penis" bumper sticker. Underwear drawer? No, he hadn't wanted the words "Little Penis" anywhere near his own, even by association. Under his bed? No. Too many pairs of underwear got lost down there.

He'd hidden it in a common area so he couldn't be blamed if someone did find it.

Shit.

Under the popcorn tub.

Tony gave him the most evil grin Sam had ever seen, and yeah, the goatee had everything to do with it.

Sam was going to have to check his wings very carefully.

Barnes emerged from the Lactation and Feelings Room!, his eyes a little pink around the edges. He returned to reception and closed the digital switchboard to check his email.

Tony snorted.

His desktop background was a painting of Socrates preparing for his execution. He was surrounded by weeping figures, but he himself was unafraid, one hand reaching for the cup of poison, with the other raised to illustrate some final point.

At the bottom, someone had added in large capital letters: SUCK A DICK, YOUR HONOR.

"The Death of Socrates!" said Steve. "That was Bucky's favorite painting! Walter Pach sold it to the Met in '31. I was always dragging Bucky there when he had a day off. He liked Jacques Louis David best. All those heroes."

"I thought you little matchstick girls were too poor to afford a whole crust of bread, let alone museum tickets," said Tony.

Steve smirked. "The Met's free, Tony."

"No, it's not. It costs, like, twenty-five bucks. I mean, I'm sure it was less in the 1931, but-"

"That's a suggested donation." He sounded smug, and Sam wondered how bad an influence Barnes was going to be if he already had this effect on Steve. When they first met, Sam had been continually amazed by how someone that big could be such a little shit. He got the feeling he hadn't seen nothing yet.

Tony frowned. "Jarvis-"

"Captain Rogers is correct." Even Jarvis sounded smug.

"You're a billionaire, Tony," Pepper soothed.

"I know, but-"

"You've donate hundreds of thousands to the Met."

"I know," said Tony, "but it's the principle of the thing."

Steve cackled.

Bucky took another call.

"This one is something about a guy wearing a Darth Vader mask, riding a unicycle, and... playing a bagpipe that shoots flames," said Clint. "Bucky's telling him that he doesn't need to call the police unless the flames get any higher."

"Anyone else see the Captain America bobblehead?" asked Bruce.

"Sure," said Tony, "but that doesn't necessarily mean he remembers anything. He could have just collected all six Cheerios QR codes."

"What's a QR code?" asked Steve.

"It's a machine-readable optical matrix barcode."

"It's like a box top," said Sam.

"Why didn't you just say that?"

"Look," said Tony. "He also has a Queen Amidala bobblehead, and I know he hasn't met her. Wow. The Winter Soldier is a fuckin' nerd."

Steve sighed. "Don't call him that. Oh, and-"

Tony put a hundred dollars in the Swear Jar (they each contributed what they were able; Captain America was surprisingly Marxist when it came to swear jars).

That right there was why Sam only swore in his goddamn inner monologue.

"What? It's the computer age. Nerds are in. We're still in, right?" Tony put a bill in the jar Dum-E held out.

Sam would have called him on the Buffy The Vampire Slayer quote, except that would mean admitting he recognized it.

Steve's face softened. "Yeah. Everyone thought I was the nerd, because I was small, but Bucky was the one who liked going to your dad's expos. I was the one who liked punching people in alleys."

"Dad's expos, huh?"

"We went to one the night before Bucky shipped out. I think that's just because he's bad at goodbyes."

Tony snorted. "Yeah, he's not so good at hellos either."