Author's Note: My best friend Bailey is a dirty, rotten enabler. She sends me fanfic, fan art, screengrabs, publicity photos, fodder for way too many new ships… And then one day, she told me about this dream she'd had. And my Muse woke up and said "God bless America." So, this character study is lovingly dedicated to my Femme Cap, with love from Steve.

In terms of timeline… I have no idea, really. Somewhere post- Cap 3: Up All Night to Get Bucky (I refuse to accept any other title), I guess. So yeah, we're neck-deep in canon non-compliance and AU. It's meandering and fluid and I don't give a hoot, because I'm doing a character study, not a cohesive world-building thing.

Also, the T rating is because of Bucky and his inability to go more than four words without cursing. Scene 5 should have been a strong T as well, but… Steve decided to not go along with my plans, and instead write that scene out himself. Because he's a punk.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even the ideas for the scenes – those came straight from Bailey. I'm simply providing the novelization to her dream. Though, if you want to send an Avenger to come punish me for theft or copywrite infringement or defamation of character… I'm partial to Bucky, Natasha, Tony, and Sam.

01. The Shield

Tony liked to give him shit for the way he would, without fail as soon as debrief was completed, sit down in the common room of Avengers Tower with a soft chamois and meticulously clean and buff his shield.

"Penis envy" (yes thank you, Stark, he didn't need help translating that one, the phrase had existed in his time too, SHUT UP TONY) was the unspoken accusation as Tony's dark gaze slid from one side of the common room where Nat, Clint and James were cleaning their guns, back to Steve and his "clearly inferior no seriously this is breaking the heart I don't have can't I even put a repulsor on it" shield. Sometimes, it would be a crack about his "old-fashioned values" and Depression-era sensibilities, and another reminder that even after five years unfrozen there were still (always) so many ways that he was out of step with the modern world.

On most days and over most points, Steve would come right back with some sort of snappy comeback, because never let it be said that Steve wasn't up for the fight that was going toe to toe with Tony Stark's SassTM. But the shield? Steve never bothered to articulate what his deal with the shield was.

It was true; the shield didn't require the same level of maintenance as the others' weapons. She was a sturdy one, his girl; he could count on one hand the number of times she'd been dented. And no matter what happened out there, at most he usually just had to touch up her makeup and she'd be ready to dance with him again.

She was a special lady, his Maggie. She deserved some TLC.

Yes, he'd named the shield Maggie. Of all the diminutives of Margaret, Peggy had hated Maggie the most.

Never let it be said that Steven G. Rogers wasn't a little shit.

If Steve were being perfectly honest, giving his best girl post-battle attention wasn't just for her benefit. He needed it too; needed the time to transition out of Cap Mode and back into being Just Steve.

Doctor Erskine had told him the anticipated effects of the serum. Steve had thought he'd understood what "enhanced senses" and "peak physical conditions" would mean – no more asthma, high blood pressure, heart murmurs, scoliosis, color-blindness, or anemia; no more risk of contracting diabetes or cancer or tuberculosis, and no more winters struggling to draw even one full breath. Instead, he would be tall and strong; fit and whole and healthy.

And yes, all of that was great, and Steve never once allowed himself to forget the miracle that was a correctly-functioning body. But the "enhanced senses" part? Steve was still getting used to that, even after nearly a decade (not counting that sixty eight-year-long nap) of being a Super Soldier.

Sensory overload, the SHIELD-issue shrink had once called it (back when there was still a SHIELD). He could take in so much information now – every single feature of a battlefield down to the last pebble, every single noise in his immediate area including the other end of cell phone calls, the smells. Added onto this were, apparently, a number of shocking high-level mathematical calculations his brain underwent to help him throw his shield in ways that shouldn't be possible. It made his tactical skills unparalleled; no one could assess a situation and make plans like he could. But when it was over, when the fight was won and the danger was past, the adrenaline pounding through his veins combined with so much sensory input was too much to deal with. He wanted to rip off all his clothes and run away into some dark, small place where he didn't have to see and hear and smell and taste and touch every last goddamned thing.

Back during the war, Bucky had been the one to figure out that what helped Steve most was to have some small, simple task that required repetitive motion. If he focused all of his attention on that one task, he could calm himself down to the point where he could function with his enhanced abilities again.

In the modern day, his SHIELD shrink had tried to get him into meditation, but Steve wasn't very good at just sitting still and doing nothing. Reminded him too much of being sick, lying in bed staring at the ceiling and having no energy for anything beyond the next breath… Stark's innuendo aside, polishing his shield was the best option.

The routine was always the same; the comforting ritual had almost become another kind of Mass. Start at the outer rim of the shield, work in a counter-clockwise spiral. Check for chipped paint; buff every inch until she gleamed. On bad days, flip to the inside of the shield, and make sure to note where the leather was fraying or getting worn. These days, by the time he'd worked his way in to the inner red circle… Ah. Yup, there he was.

Once upon a yesterday, Bucky would have hovered around Steve for a good few hours after debrief, making sure he ate and didn't isolate himself in his head in the post-battle adrenaline hangover. James was every bit that same mother hen, but he expressed it differently; it was mostly a lot of watching, and at some signal known only to him he would silently sit down on Steve's left. He wouldn't speak; he'd just wait Steve out, and until then he was a solid, comforting, familiar presence.

Despite all the horrors HYDRA and the Red Room had inflicted on him, the patience he'd developed was one of the changes Steve kinda liked about James. Bucky would never have been content to just sit there without speaking or trying to mother Steve, but James never showed any trace of discomfort or impatience. They just sat there, side by side, until Steve had finished his polish, drew a deep breath, and slowly straightened, meeting his best friend's gaze.

They assessed each other for a long minute. Steve didn't have to say "I'm okay;" there was no need. James found what he was looking for, and gave him a small, single nod of acknowledgement. Steve, meanwhile, didn't need James to say "I'm stable;" he could tell that it was James looking at him from behind the curtain of dark hair, not the Soldier.

Then James turned to tell Stark that he was fucking stupid and no way were they watching any cheesy 80s movies tonight, he wanted to watch the Muppets, goddamnit. And Sam don't you fucking dare order any veggie lover's supreme, what the hell sort of godless heathen put vegetables on a good honest New York slice? Jesus, he had not died for this…

And if Steve slumped a little on the couch, leaning slightly into James so he could feel another warm body beside him… Well, that was all part of the post-battle routine.

02. Sketching

Once upon a lifetime ago, Bucky used to joke that Steve would start drawing before he'd fully woken up in the mornings. Steve had tended to respond by chucking an eraser at Bucky's head (he missed, more often than not, but it was the principle of the thing, damnit), but… Well, Bucky hadn't exactly been wrong.

His mother had been the one to get him into drawing. Steve had been young, maybe six or so, and he'd come down with a nasty case of the flu. While Sarah Rogers had expertly nursed her little boy, she had also pressed a pencil and a piece of paper into his hands.

"I know you're upset about missing the springtime, Stevie," she said softly, her lovely voice still tracing the cadences of the land she'd left behind. "Why don't you draw it for yourself? That way you can experience it, and you'll never lose it, even when your memory fades."

Steve hadn't looked back.

He'd drawn everything. Comics and cartoons and caricatures, copies of the ads around the neighborhood, still life and landscapes. But his favorite were portraits. He loved drawing people, in all their infinite varieties; loved the way that the tilt of a head or the angle of a mouth could tell him so much about a person's personality.

When he grew up, his drawings had often been the only way he could make an income. With his frequent health issues, he was shit outta luck getting a lot of jobs – especially the labor-intensive jobs that Bucky could get, being broad and strong. But drawing was something Steve could do even when he was laid up in bed. He didn't bring in nearly as much money as
Buck, but it was something, and in those days every last penny helped.

Then the War had happened, and the Super Soldier Serum. And the drawings had changed.

You'll never lose it, even when your memory fades. His mother's words echoed in his ears every time he drew bombed-out HYDRA bases, copies of maps, the faces of dead soldiers.

Then Bucky had fallen. And in the five months before he hit the ice, Steve had stopped drawing.

When he'd woken up into the future, he hadn't really picked his drawing back up. Not like he'd used to. Once, Steve had drawn things he'd seen around him; on the rare occasions when he did pick up a notebook now, somehow all the drawings were of the past. The old Brooklyn skyline, landscapes of places in Europe, page after page of Peggy… of Bucky…

Slowly, without thinking about it or questioning why, Steve's drawing had tapered off to nothing.

What makes you happy?

I don't know…

He didn't decide to start drawing again; he wasn't left with much of a choice. He and Sam had been in Gdynia, Poland, tracking down a possible lead on the former Winter Soldier. Steve had gone out for his customary morning run, and when he came back, a Moleskine notebook and a set of drawing pencils had been waiting for him on his hotel bed. They'd chased Bucky throughout Eastern Europe, and again and again gifts of art supplies would appear on Steve's bed while he was out running.

Eventually, he took the hint. He'd started out slowly; he was rusty, and the new pencils took some getting used to. He'd warmed up with some landscapes – Brooklyn, Paris, Coney Island, the Alps; places they had both been. Eventually, inevitably, he'd moved on to portraits. His mother, Bucky's mother and sisters, Colonel Phillips, Peggy, Howard, the Commandos. Then it was memories; Bucky shirtless in their shoebox of an apartment, towel around his shoulders and waiting for Steve to give him a haircut. Bucky in a crumpled suit, breathless and laughing and dancing. Bucky in uniform, cocksure and carefree, and then in his Howling Commandos kit, deadly and somehow more beautiful for the shadows in his eyes.

Steve wasn't certain if Bucky was looking at the sketches. Until a certain one. Steve hadn't been able to sleep for the nightmares, so he'd sat down and drawn for hours. What emerged under his hands was a head shot of Bucky that somehow managed to catch everything. The laughing, summer sun of the Brooklyn boy, the still, shadowed poise of the Army sniper, and the deadly, efficient, brutal grace of the Soldier. As dawn had lightened in the sky, Steve had stared down at it, blinking back tears as the past and present collided and mingled. He'd left the book open on his nightstand, and gone out for a run.

When he came back, the page had been ripped out of his notebook.

Three days later, Steve had come in from his run to find Bucky sitting on his bed, staring down at the portrait, the sum of all his faces.

He'd never felt as helpless in his life as he did when Bucky was in New SHIELD's custody. Agent Less Dead Than Presumed Coulson still didn't have even one tenth of SHIELD's former clout and resources, but he'd called in enough favors to spare them what he could. An underground bunker in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Colorado, with enough drugs and doctors to give Bucky what aid they could, given the unique parameters of his case.

For a long time, Bucky hadn't talked. He'd screamed when the nightmares came, he'd growled when anyone approached the arm, but he didn't talk until one day when Steve came to sit with him. Bucky had looked him over, frowned, then given the room a sweep before turning back to Steve.

"Where's your notebook?" he'd asked, his voice raspy and rough with misuse.
Steve had shrugged. "Upstairs, in my quarters," he replied.
Bucky shook his head. "You… You're never without a notebook…?" he'd said, voice trailing off into a question, trying to place whether it was a memory or a dream or a lie.

After that, he wasn't.

Talking wasn't always easy for the man who'd taken to calling himself James (not the Soldier, but never quite Bucky again; James was a good median).

He'll never be your old Bucky again, Cap-

The old Bucky died in a POV camp in Italy in 1943. You think I don't know that he'll never be the same? You weren't there when we were out in the field, when he would wake all the Commandos with his screams when the nightmares got bad. HYDRA didn't start from scratch, they built the Soldier out of what the Army had already begun. I'm not trying to bring the old Bucky back, I just want to help the new one put himself back together.

With James' mind shattered as it was, following the thread of a conversation while also cataloguing exits, movement, escape routes and threat levels, on top of trying to place flashes of images and slot memories into their proper places… it was a challenge. On a good day he could manage for a short while, but sometimes it was easier for the both of them if Steve drew, showing James memories through his sketches. It was a way for Steve to escape thinking for a while, and James seemed to find it soothing to watch places and people appear beneath Steve's pencil.

And so, he preserved the world for both of them, long after the objects of their memories were gone beyond recall.

03. Cooking

Apparently, Tony had started a number of bets regarding Steve's reaction to things food-related. Betting that Steve would freak out about the taste of bananas, that he would get hopelessly lost among all the choices in the aisles of the grocery store, that he would have a coronary at the price of food.

Well, okay, maybe that last one a little bit. But seriously? Steve loved the grocery store. He loved the variety and the quantity, loved that there were so many more options and recipes now, loved that he had a Super Soldier's metabolism and more money than he knew what to do with, so he could buy every last thing that looked interesting and figure out how to use it.

Back before, cooking had been Steve's job. With Bucky frequently working double shifts down at the docks, Steve had taken it upon himself to ensure that they always had supper. Times had been tough and sometimes Steve had had to figure out how to make their "everything but the kitchen sink" soup stretch for a third night. Steve had gotten very creative with spices, and he'd gotten them through. He was still pretty proud of that.

When they'd both gone to war, the Commandos had unanimously voted to put Steve in charge of making their rations edible after Bucky somehow managed to burn the coffee. Managing the rations had been pretty easy whenever they were close to a town; he'd just send Bucky and Dernier in to charm the ladies out of whatever they could spare. When they were out in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere… well, Steve got creative with salt, pepper and rosemary again. And again, he'd managed to pull his guys through.

But now that they were living in the future? Steve thought he would probably cook all day every day, if the bad guys would just give it a rest for a while and let him finish his fucking soufflé, Jesus.

It had started when nightmares kept Steve away from his bed. He'd flipped through the obscene number of channels on TV until he found the Food Network. There'd been a marathon of Cutthroat Kitchen on, and it took about half an episode before Steve was hooked. Before a week had gone by, he'd decided he loved Alton Brown, Guy Fieri, and Ina Garten; his favorites were the hearty recipes that looked like they'd stick even to his ribs for a couple of hours.

After the business with the Chitauri, Steve had gone on a cross-country road trip, and had made a point of stopping at a number of the restaurants featured on Guy's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. When he'd gotten back to the East Coast and moved down to D.C. (and don't even get him started on that, Captain America living in the nation's capital. SHIELD's idea, not his.) he'd gone out and bought all his favorites' cookbooks, and that was how he'd entertained himself when there weren't STRIKE missions to go on.

There's something very… soothing in cooking, he thinks. He likes the process of chopping and mixing and browning and combining, taking raw ingredients (some of which were harvested from James' rooftop garden – James and gardening went together about as well as Steve and cooking) and making something delicious out of it. Making a complete mess, but instead of worrying about civilian casualties or insurance claims it was just whose turn it would be to do the dishes.

Plus, y'know, if he had to eat four times as much to keep up with his metabolism, might as well enjoy himself while he was at it.

04. Clothing

Tony had chosen Steve's ongoing struggle with pop culture for his preferred battleground. The man never passed up an opportunity to mock Steve for his enormous knowledge gaps, his antiquated slang (and if Tony wasn't making those jokes, well… that was a good indicator that something was actually wrong with him).

Natasha had chosen Steve's fashion sense for her Waterloo.

Steve had tried to resist, at first, he really had. So damn much of the world had changed on him, why couldn't he have this one touchstone to his past? If he wanted to wear khaki slacks and shirts that buttoned up, why shouldn't he?

But apparently what Natasha had seen aboard the helicarrier had offended her sensibilities, because soon after that whole alien kerfuffle she'd started bullying Steve into a new wardrobe.

Well, "bullying" probably wasn't the right word; nothing Nat ever did could ever be described in such blunt terms. Plus, could you call it bullying when all she did was fold her arms and level you with a Look and a raised eyebrow?

Honestly, after that one time where they'd stood at a silent standoff, each gripping a pair of grey slacks and glaring at each other (Clint had walked in, seen them, and slowly backed away with his hands raised in surrender)… It was just easier to do it Natasha's way.

Steve actually didn't object to the dungarees - no, they're called jeans now. Jeans fit better now, encasing his powerful thighs without feeling as revealing as the spandex of his uniform, while also nipping in at his waist and rendering belts unnecessary. Yeah, Steve could appreciate a good pair of dark wash jeans (while also sincerely thanking God that Nat had never once tried to wrangle him into a pair of skinny jeans. Just… no.).

But the shirts… Steve could not get used to the shirts.

"You're sure these aren't too tight?" Steve asked, plucking at the neckline and distrustfully eyeing the way the fabric clung across his arms and chest like a second skin.
Natasha raised one unimpressed eyebrow. "Don't you trust me?"

No. No he did not. In the field, absolutely and without question. In a dressing room? God, no.

They came to a truce, eventually. Nat no longer got to buy him t-shirts, and he submitted to wearing oxfords that weren't cut along as square lines as he was used to. Again, nice not to have all that extra material pooling around his waist; kind of weird not to tuck shirts in anymore. At least Nat allowed him to roll the sleeves up when he was cooking or sketching or driving or… well, any activity really.

Oh, and Natasha's peace offering of v-neck cashmere sweaters? Steve would accept those until the cows came home. He had never in his life felt anything as soft as the high quality cashmere, and the sweaters fit absolutely perfectly, with everything both he and Nat wanted. Loose enough in the chest that Steve didn't feel like he was in a bodysuit, tailored enough to please Nat, soft as sin and officially Steve's third favorite thing in the future after the Food Network and Candy Crush (don't judge him).

05. Touch

Those who didn't know Steve well assumed that he wasn't a very touchy-feely guy. Whether it was because of his size or because of that image of 1940s machismo and "men don't cry" bullshit, apparently the vast majority of people assumed that Steve didn't like being touched.

He supposed it was at least partially deserved. Of the two Brooklyn boys, Steve had always been the more reserved one. After all, a host of diseases and illnesses could be transferred via touch or through the air. Repeated illness had by necessity forced Steve to keep his personal space bubble larger than other people's.

But the supposition that people in The Good Old Days had never touched each other? With all due respect, that was complete horseshit.

One of the things Steve truly mourned about the modern age was the taboo on touching people. How did these people survive in their self-imposed bubbles? If Steve had had to live his life without his mother's hand holding his during his sicknesses, Bucky's arm thrown carelessly around his shoulders while they prowled the streets, Mrs. Barnes' incessant smoothing of his hair and Becky's teasing kisses on the cheek while Rachel and Hannah clung to him demanding stories, he would have gone utterly insane.

In the Army, touch had been a way of checking in with his men after missions. A hand on Falsworth's shoulder, a punch on Dum Dum's arm, nudging Bucky as they sat around the fire… It was all a way to reassure each other that they were alive, that even through the nightmare of this war they were together, they were whole, they were real.

In Steve's day, you touched other people. You shook someone's hand when you first met them. You placed a hand on their shoulder when you needed them to focus on you. You clapped each other on the back and hugged in celebration.

Steve wasn't sure how that had changed. But people today, in general, didn't touch each other. Breaching another's space bubble uninvited was a social taboo – and, in the case of the Avengers, akin to a death wish. And so Steve had once again withdrawn into his own personal space, stopped reaching out to others with casual nudges and touches.

When he and Sam found Bucky and brought him to the SHIELD base, the shrinks had told him not to touch his best friend. They said that the Soldier wouldn't react well to anyone advancing on him, that any attempt at touch would be interpreted as an attack. Maybe they were right. But nearly seventy years of being treated as a weapon, an Asset, a thing… denied human comforts and care… Shit, Bucky had to be even more touch-starved than Steve.

He'd been careful with it; despite all jokes and bemoaning of Steve being an adrenaline junkie with no self-preservation instinct, he didn't actually want to trigger the Soldier and end up a Cap-sized splat on the wall. But even when Bucky hadn't remembered who Steve was, he'd trusted him enough to allow him within his bubble (not that Bucky had a bubble to speak of; Assets and weapons are inanimate objects and don't have a choice in such matters). Steve took it one step further, clearly telegraphing every move before he made it – laying a hand on Bucky's hand when reassuring him, a hand on his knee to encourage him, nudging the other man's shoulder.

As James started to piece himself together and the shrinks tentatively declared him ready to leave the base, touch had become another layer of the two men's conversation. Words were still hard for James sometimes, especially in unfamiliar situations. But they had their own language of touches and looks, and Steve knew what it meant when James nudged his shoulder as opposed to a quarter-turn in and leaning into his side.

Touch grounded James in a way nothing else did. When he woke screaming from the nightmares or relapsed into the silent, glazed stillness of the Asset awaiting orders, there were no words in English, German or Russian that would soothe him. But Steve would cup James' neck and press their foreheads together, rubbing James' back with his other hand until James relaxed, blinked, and refocused on the here and now.

Steve knew that there was a lot of speculation (all behind his back, of course, because God forbid anyone just come out and ask him straight) about the nature of Steve and Bucky's relationship, Before; whether they were friends or blood brothers or something more. For the record, they hadn't been lovers then. Steve, so stupidly and recklessly brave when confronting bullies, had never quite been able to reconcile his feelings for Bucky with what the priests said on Sundays, and in any case Bucky had been out with a different dame every Friday night.

When he'd finally gotten Bucky back, Steve had told himself he'd always be content with just this; that he'd thank God every day for the miracle of having his best friend beside him again. He'd never ask James for anything he couldn't give; he'd just be grateful for the fact that James was alive at all, and here next to him.

That resolution lasted right up until James turned to him during the seventh-inning stretch of a San Francisco Giants game (Because Steve had needed a baseball team to cheer for, and he would never, ever forgive the Dodgers for moving, the traitors. He picked the Giants mostly as a "fuck you" to the Yankees, and because he would never, ever give Tony the satisfaction of becoming a Red Sox fan) and kissed him.

He'd frozen, eyes wide in shock, and his breath had hitched as though his lungs were trying to remember what pneumonia felt like. It had only lasted a second, but that was more than enough time for James to process his lack of response and to pull back (no no no get back here don't ever stop).

"Uh… I… huh?" Steve tried.
James frowned, his brow furrowing. "I thought I remembered… never mind."
"No, tell me," Steve insisted.
"I thought… Weren't we…?"

His brow was furrowing again, this time in the way that meant he was trying to separate memory from illusion.

"Didn't I love you?" he blurted out.
To his credit, Steve didn't choke, but it was a close thing. "I, uh… I don't know," he said, rubbing the back of his neck as he muted the game. "We… We weren't. Uh… that is… Fuck," he muttered.
"I'm sorry," James muttered, standing and stalking toward his room.
"No!" Steve yelped, jumping over the couch to intercept him. "Jesus, just… Wait a minute, alright?" he begged, both hands on James' shoulders in a sad attempt to get him to stay.

They stood there for a moment, staring each other down as the touch settled James and Steve tried to get his thoughts in order.

"I loved you," Steve blurted out (yeah, real smooth there, Cap). "Always did. But you… You were always out with some dame or other, I didn't think…"
James shook his head. "Don't remember them," he said, voice gruff. "I remember you."

Steve swallowed, making a split-second decision.

"Look, I… In the end, I want to say the past doesn't really matter," he said haltingly. "You're here, when I thought I'd lost you forever. And I'm here. And maybe… maybe that's what matters. That we're here, and that we can… I mean, it's not illegal now, maybe we could…"
"You askin' me to go steady, Rogers?" James asked, one eyebrow rising in a shadow of his old self.
He huffed out a laugh. "Yeah, jerk. Maybe I am."

James' face softened then, lips curling into that half-smile Steve remembered so well as he leaned forward enough to rest their foreheads together.

"You learned to dance yet, punk?" he asked.
Steve smiled, shaking his head. "Was waiting for the right partner."
"Think you waited long enough," James replied, before leaning in to kiss him again.