A/N: this idea is based on a (probably false) synopsis for CA:CW I found on the internet. So - possible (but not probable) spoilers.

Two years. Two years we've been chasing shadows, ghosts, and our own tails trying to find this guy, and one night he just up and walks into our safe house like we sent him an engraved invitation and GPS directions.

Walked? No, man, he materialized.

Steve and I were at the dining room table, going over a map of known and suspected HYDRA bases across the globe, when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.

Barnes.

He was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, in serious need of a haircut and a shave, decked out in his riot gear, bruised and bloody and looking like something had chewed him up and spit him out onto our doorstep.

Steve had his back to the door and Barnes was staring at him. Even when I straightened up, he kept his eyes on Rogers. It wasn't the cold 'you're already dead' expression burned into my memory from the helicarrier. He didn't look like he was waiting to flay anybody alive; he looked like he was willing Steve to turn around and see him. I wonder how long he would've stood there if I hadn't tapped Steve's arm and nodded to the scruffy ghost in the doorway.

Steve looked, then stood, slowly, like he might just spook Barnes back into the void.

"Bucky."

"I know where HYDRA is stockpiling vibranium." Barnes said it like he suddenly remembered he had a message to deliver and no other reason for being here.

"Are you all right? What happened to you?"

"They're shipping it to other HYDRA bases, to make weapons."

Yeah, like Steve was going to care about that when the answer to his every prayer and every nightmare was standing eight feet away from him.

"What happened to you?"

"You've got a map? Does it include Soviet Georgia?" Barnes walked to the table and while he pointed to the map, Steve pulled a chair out for him.

"Sit down. You're hurt. Let me have a look... "

"The base is here, near Mtskheta, just north of Tbilisi..."

"You're hurt, let me have a look…"

"I'm fine," Barnes said, never mind the dried blood he was sprinkling all over every time he pointed to another spot on the map. Even his metal hand was dark with blood. "They've built their base underneath the Armaztsikhe fortress, here. They're stockpiling the vibranium and sending it to other bases."

"Bucky - "

Barnes brought his head up fast, like maybe he had something sharp and nasty to say. But he only stared at Steve a few seconds then went back to the map.

"They have people working inside the Tbilisi airport, here. They take the vibranium out in private planes."

Steve gritted his teeth and stomped out to the kitchen. Barnes watched him go, still with that 'willing you to see me' expression, so I took a chance.

"He's been looking for you for two years," I said to him. "And grieving you for seventy. Throw the guy a bone, why don't you?"

He turned his head to glare at me - "One of yours?" - and a shiver ran up my spine that had to be a draft because it was not fear. No sir, not fear. Not. At. All.

Before I lost the staring contest Barnes seemed to be having with me, Steve was back with a bowl of water, a towel over his shoulder and a massive first aid kit under his arm.

"Sit down. Let me look at your wounds."

"I'm fine," Barnes said. Again.

"You're not fine, so shut up and sit down." That was an unequivocal order and I tensed for Barnes' reaction, which I expected to be somewhere high on the Lethal Scale.

But he sat. Sort of hard and stiff and 'happy now?' For a second, though, he closed his eyes, even sighed, like it was a relief.

And Steve looked at him like 'Man, I can't believe you're here and if I can't hug the crap out of you right this minute, I might just be sick.'

Then Barnes opened his eyes and Steve quick turned to set his supplies down and open the first aid kit.

"Who did this to you?"

Barnes didn't answer and I figured, what did it matter? Whoever did it, they were dead. They had to be. I'd seen this guy in action. They were dead without him even breaking a sweat.

"Who?" Steve repeated and when he looked up, Barnes looked down. But Steve didn't wait very long for an answer he must've realized wasn't coming. "This'll sting," he said just before starting to take a damp washcloth to the face of the man who was both immoveable object and unstoppable force.

But Barnes took the washcloth from him and washed his own face, fast and harsh and thoughtless. For good measure he used it to scrub his right hand of blood and dirt, then he tossed it back into the bowl of water.

"We need a team, now. HYDRA's sending the next shipment out in ten days. We need to take them out."

"We'll have a team tonight," Steve said, and he rinsed the washcloth out in the bowl. "First, we need to get you taken care of. You need food and a shower and some rest."

"I need to destroy HYDRA."

"And we will. I need to take care of you."

"You don't need to take care of me," Barnes argued back, but he hadn't even finished his complaint when Steve took his left hand, Barnes' metal hand, into his own. He pulled off the sniper glove off of it and washed the metal just as gentle and as thoroughly as if it'd been a flesh and bloodied hand.

"That's not - that's not -" Barnes said, but he didn't pull away. He stared at what Steve was doing like the answers to all of his prayers and all of his nightmares were in the gesture of Steve washing his hand. He seemed a little wide-eyed when he looked up at Steve.

"Why did you do that?"

"Do what?"

Barnes gestured with his metal hand like he couldn't say the words.

"I told you - I'm taking care of you," Steve said. "All right. Sam'll get supper started while I bandage you up, then we'll talk about getting a team together to go after that vibranium. All right?"

It took a few seconds of Barnes staring at his metal hand, looking like he'd never seen thing before, then he nodded.

"Yeah. All right. Yeah."

##

"Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey. At other times, it is allowing another to take yours." ― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

A/N 2: Tbilisi, Georgia (near Russia) has had disastrous flooding recently. Their zoo was severely damaged and many of the animals escaped. One person was apparently killed by an escaped lion. So - thoughts and prayers for the country, the city, the people and the animals, and anyone anywhere in the world in similar situations.

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