A/N: Welcome! This story was originally published on AO3 in 2016 as the first part of a trilogy. I am going to be migrating the story over here, posting two chapters a day until it is updated. The entire series is complete, including one-shots that offer behind the scenes insight into different parts of the series. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the story!

Chapter One: Till the End of the Line (2004)

Summer had always been Bucky's favorite time of year. The sun was bright and warm, and it stayed out well into the evening so that he didn't have to go inside. There was no school, so he could stay up as late as he wanted (until his mom told him he was keeping his baby sister up and had to stop playing, which wasn't fair). On the weekends, the weather was perfect to beg his parents to go to Coney Island or spend the day at the beach. There were people everywhere, and they were out enjoying the weather with smiles on their faces, which was a rare sight. Brooklyn in wintertime meant everyone hustling to get where they were going to hopefully warm up, but Brooklyn in the summer? That was when everything really came to life.

Unfortunately, that also meant the weather was just right for his stupid best friend to get himself into a stupid fight over something stupid.

Bucky ducked into the alleyway, his chest already heaving from running toward the sound of flesh hitting flesh and a body hitting the ground. It was always the same near the convenience store just at the end of their street: Steve would walk by, see some punk kid doing something they shouldn't, and stick his big nose in where it didn't belong. Two months ago, back when it hadn't been so warm outside, Bucky had found him in the same alley with a bloody nose and a bunch of random groceries littering the ground all around him. When Bucky started laying into him for picking fights he couldn't finish—again—he just said he couldn't sit around and watch while some thugs took food off the shelves inside and shoved them in their puffy winter jackets without paying. The time before that, he'd been trying to stop some bullies from hustling a kid out of his lunch money a few blocks closer to their school. Bucky could only wonder what it was that Steve was fighting over this time.

His question was answered the moment he rounded the corner and made it past the huge dumpster hiding most of the alley from view, although he had heard the barking all the way down the street.

There was Steve, facing off against three kids at least twice his height with a mangy dog almost Steve's size barking and whimpering a few steps behind him. Bucky couldn't quite see Steve's face, but from the way he was favoring his right ankle, it looked like he'd already taken a couple of tumbles. One of the bigger kids was shaking his head while the one at the front of their little gang said something to Steve that Bucky didn't catch. As he approached behind them, he saw Steve straighten his thin shoulders and raise his fists again.

"I could do this all day," he spat, glaring up at the kid who'd spoken to him before swinging way too wide with his right arm.

Despite his concern for his friend, Bucky couldn't help rolling his eyes: Steve could always do this all day, till he couldn't.

It was a stupid decision, really, one that would have gotten him in so much trouble if his mom had been around. He couldn't just stand by and do nothing, though, not when Steve was about to get his head separated from his neck! Narrowing his eyes and screwing up his face in concentration, Bucky felt a sudden breeze as he glared down at the bully's feet.

The latter caught Steve's punch easily, but when he shifted forward to throw Steve back against the brick wall at the end of the alley, his left foot was yanked right out from under him as if by an invisible hand and he was the one who went sprawling instead. Steve tripped forward slightly but managed to detach himself in just enough time to regain his balance. While the other two kids were distracted, Bucky (who was much closer to their size than Steve) ran up behind the one on the right and jumped on his back, tackling him to the ground. The bully went down hard and, as he tried to figure out what had hit him, Bucky glanced at the dog and focused all his concentration again.

Right on cue, the animal growled and jumped forward, his teeth sinking into the forearm of the last one standing while Bucky sank his fist into his bully's face. The kid rolled over on top of him, and the air whooshed out of Bucky's lungs in a painful gasp when he found himself trapped between the bigger body and the pavement, but it looked like there wouldn't be any blows coming his way: the leader was regaining his feet but clearly still thrown off, and the one wearing the doggy bracelet was too busy shaking himself free and sprinting out of the alley with the other two (and the dog) hot on his heels.

Sometimes Muggles were just too easy.

Bucky coughed a couple of times before he was able to fully draw breath again and managed to push himself up onto his knees, glaring at Steve through his bangs. "Seriously, Steve? Again?"

His best friend's jaw clenched tightly the way it always did when Steve heard something he didn't like, but he didn't actually address Bucky's rebuke. He simply brushed himself off, pretending that his ankle wasn't bothering him and he didn't have a nice bruise already blossoming over his left eye, and folded his arms. Then he was leveling a pretty impressive glare at Bucky considering his rather unimpressive size.

"You shouldn't've done that."

Rolling his eyes, Bucky challenged, "So I should've let that guy crush you?"

There was a brief flicker of something behind Steve's blue eyes. The lid of the dumpster behind Bucky gave a tiny shudder and Bucky could swear the temperature dropped a few degrees.

"I could've handled it. I had 'im on the ropes," Steve finally huffed, the magic around them dying down as he deliberately took a deep breath. Steve didn't give him a chance to retort before he whispered fiercely, "'Sides, I'm not the one who used magic on No-Majs!"

"We're not old enough to know how to use magic yet—accidents happen," argued Bucky, echoing his father's excuse for when he did something magical in the heat of the moment at home. Steve was mad enough that Bucky didn't bother trying to teasingly get him to call them "Muggles" instead of "No-Majs" like his mom had taught him.

Steve's glare went from angry to unimpressed. "Bet your mom won't see it that way."

"Don't you tell my ma!"

"Then stop doing it!"

"I couldn't just let them hurt you!" Bucky exploded, his irritation finally getting the better of him. He admired Steve's bravery and sense of justice—he really did. The fact that he was stubborn and hotheaded was something they needed to work on before he got himself killed, though, not that he ever listened to Bucky about that. "It was a little bit of magic—tiny! And I didn't hurt 'em."

"The dog—" began Steve, but Bucky cut him off.

"The dog would've done the same thing if there hadn't been three of those guys," he reasoned instead, brushing the dirt off his jeans and stumbling to his feet. "I'm not gonna say sorry. I've got your back, whether you want me to or not."

For a minute, he thought Steve would keep fighting him on this, but he simply continued to glare daggers at him for a long time before finally deflating some. He pushed his hair off his forehead and shot Bucky a grudgingly grateful yet still exasperated look as he limped toward him.

"Just stop using your powers to help me," he muttered, eyes on the ground. "You could get in trouble for that. I don't want it to be my fault."

Bucky just shrugged, throwing an arm around Steve's shoulders in a disguised effort to steady him on his injured side. He knew he wasn't fooling Steve, but his friend never appreciated when someone openly offered him help he didn't want, regardless of whether he needed it. "It was my choice, so it's not your fault. And I'll stop as soon as you stop getting into it with guys like that."

Steve's shoulders stiffened. "They were trying to hurt a dog, Buck."

"I didn't say do nothing!" Bucky went immediately on the defensive. He was already toeing the line of making Steve angrier and less likely to accept the small amount of help he was allowing Bucky to offer. "But you could've gotten a grown-up."

"There wasn't any time," countered Steve dismissively.

"Sure thing, Stevie," Bucky scoffed, recognizing an argument he wasn't going to win.

In spite of his sour mood, Steve dug his skinny elbow into Bucky's side and grumbled, "Jerk." Bucky could hear the smile in his voice, though.

"Punk," he shot back lightly as they exited the alley and moved down the street toward home.

It wasn't that he thought Steve was wrong—it was cool that he was brave enough to fight for what he believed was right even when he had absolutely no chance of winning. That was part of what made Steve such a good friend. He was smart and kind, he always tried to make the choice that was best for everyone, and he could be pretty sneaky about it if he really put his mind to it. But even for being almost eight years old, Steve was tiny, and he was always sick. If it wasn't his asthma acting up, he had a cold; if he didn't have a cold, he had a fever; if he didn't have a fever, he had a full blown case of pneumonia and spent a few days in the Muggle hospital when every potion known to the Wizarding world didn't work. In all the time they'd been friends—which their parents said was since they were born and therefore forever—Bucky was pretty sure Steve had been in the hospital more often than he'd been out of it. Even when he wasn't sick, Steve wasn't strong and he wasn't fast. A punch that could bruise a normal guy could snap a guy like Steve in half.

It wasn't that he thought Steve was wrong—it was just that he wished his best friend had the wherewithal to back it all up the way he pretended to.

As they made their way back up the street toward their houses, no one really paid them any mind. Anyone who knew little Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes knew that them being in a fight was really just a normal day of the week; anyone who didn't was far too busy going about their own lives to be worried about a couple of kids.

Steve let out a disappointed groan as they came in sight of their neighboring brownstones, shaking his head and letting his blond hair fall back in his eyes. "Aw, man…"

Frowning, Bucky strained his eyes to see what had gotten Steve so down only to cringe at the sight of his mom's car in the space outside the house. "I thought she was working a double?" he asked.

Steve always came over for dinner on days when his mom had to work two back-to-back shifts at the hospital in Manhattan and couldn't get home early enough to cook or bring takeout. (She'd wanted to work in Brooklyn, but wizard hospitals were few and far between, so it was the best she could get.)

"Me too," was Steve's gloomy response. Bucky felt a pang of sympathy for him: if there was one thing Steve hated more than losing a fight, it was telling his mother he'd been involved in one in the first place.

Steve started dragging his feet, but there was no way to stave off the inevitable. Bucky half-carried, half-dragged him up the front steps to the brownstone and rang the doorbell when Steve patted his pockets and gave him a look that clearly said he'd lost his key somewhere.

Probably in the alley, he thought, sighing internally.

There was half a second's pause between the door opening and the high-pitched, "Steven Grant Rogers!" that threatened to deafen both of them. Steve flinched slightly under his arm, but managed to somehow meet his mother's eyes.

"Hi, Ma."

Bucky's mom always said that if looks could kill, Sarah Rogers would be a serial killer, and he immediately felt bad for Steve as he was the sole recipient of said look.

"Don't you 'hi, ma,' me," huffed Sarah, ushering them inside and closing the door before surveying the two of them with her hands on her hips. "What. Happened."

"There was a dog getting the crap kicked outta him." Steve didn't bother explaining the rest; it was nothing his mom couldn't figure out herself.

"And so you stepped in the middle."

"Yeah."

"Between the dog and…?"

Steve cringed slightly, but it wasn't a good idea to leave Sarah waiting when she was in a towering temper, so Bucky answered for him, "Some kids."

Now the razor-sharp glare was on him. Great. "How many kids?"

"…Three?"

Sarah's face went from pink to an interesting shade of burgundy in less than two seconds flat, a new record.

"Three kids?! Three! And all bigger than you are, I'm sure." She turned to Bucky for confirmation, and he nodded slowly under Steve's betrayed sidelong glance. "Steven Grant Rogers, how many times do I have to tell you not to go getting involved with things like this! One day it's a punch in the face and the next you're dead in an alley somewhere! Do you have any idea how lucky you are?"

The tirade went on a few more minutes until Sarah noticed Bucky shuffling slightly under Steve's weight on his side and hustled them into the kitchen. She was still grumbling under her breath about this kid being the death of me as she hauled Steve off the ground and sat him on the kitchen counter, leaving the room to get the first aid kit out of the downstairs bathroom. The boys glanced at each other in mutual commiseration, their eyes immediately dropping to the ground as Sarah returned and set the kit down beside Steve with a huff.

For a while, the only noises in the house were the air conditioning and the sound of bandages being cut and wrapped around Steve's ankle. Sarah had retrieved a bag of peas from the freezer that Steve was holding to his rapidly blackening eye while she worked, and Bucky took a seat at the table as he watched the proceedings. After what felt like an eternity, Sarah finally seemed to calm down enough to ask how exactly Steve had managed to fight off three bigger kids and come home with only a twisted ankle and minor cuts and bruises to show for it.

Steve and Bucky exchanged a furtive glance, but it was enough for Sarah to get the picture.

"Oh, Bucky," she sighed heavily, shaking her head. Her focus was still on taping the bandage on Steve's leg, so at least he didn't get the full effect of her disappointment. She was a witch and could easily heal Steve if she wanted to, but Sarah had long since made it a house rule that if Steve came home a bloody mess after picking fights, he would suffer through the aftermath the Muggle way. She probably thought it would be effective, but the stubbornness of Sarah Rogers was nothing compared to the absolute mulishness of her son.

"It was pretty much over by the time I got there," Bucky hedged, not meeting her eyes when she turned around.

"Uh-huh." Suspicion laced her tone and then there it was—the trademark Don't You Lie to Me, James Buchanan Barnes expression. "So I'm guessing by the time you got there, they were just talking it out."

Steve coughed to hide his giggle. Traitor.

Mumbling under his breath, Bucky decided to change his story: "Okay, maybe I helped a little."

"A little?"

"…Y-yes?"

Sarah raised an eyebrow at him, just waiting. They always broke—it was just a matter of time—but Bucky refused to do it this time. Nope. No way. Not him.

…Man…

"They were gonna make dog food outta Steve!" he exclaimed when he couldn't take any more of That Look.

Sarah met him blow for blow. "So you took on three boys practically by yourself to help him?!"

"W-well, I… I mean, I kinda… It wasn't just… They weren't that—" She cut off his stammering with wide eyes, and it was times like these when Bucky was positive Sarah could read minds.

"James. Buchanan. Barnes. Do not tell me you used magic on those No-Maj boys."

Bucky intelligently kept his fat mouth shut.

"James."

Apparently she wasn't going to let him avoid the subject, though. "You said not to tell you," he murmured, flinching when Sarah threw the bandages back into the first aid kid and slammed the lid shut. Steve's only visible eye was flicking back and forth between his raging mother and his soon-to-be-eviscerated best friend.

Absolute silence followed the exchange, not even the air conditioning willing to risk Sarah's wrath by breaking it. Whatever she was thinking, though, Bucky figured she must be too angry with him to speak because she chose instead to take the first aid kit back to the bathroom and then check Steve's eye as if he weren't even in the room. Bucky couldn't look at her, couldn't meet Steve's eye, and he surveyed his shoelaces like somehow they had the answers to getting out of the punishment that would undoubtedly await him at home when Steve's mom told his parents.

The thing was, Bucky barely used magic. There were those few times when he was feeling strongly about something when stuff would just happen—like the time when his mother's favorite vase had shattered into a million little pieces because his baby sister Becca had chewed the head off his teddy bear a couple of years back. (Thank goodness for repairing spells or he would have been in deep trouble.) That was normal, though; even Steve had accidents like that recently now that his powers had finally shown up. But except for those few incidents, he never tried to use magic on purpose, especially not when Muggles were around. That was the first thing any kid from a Wizarding family learned growing up: don't talk about magic where a Muggle might hear you, and don't ever perform magic on or around Muggles unless it's an emergency.

Hadn't this been an emergency, though? Steve could have been really badly hurt if he hadn't used magic, the small amount that it was. The two of them never would have been able to get away from those bullies if Bucky hadn't; Steve wasn't much good in a fight anyway, but a bad ankle would have left him vulnerable and more likely to get worse. That had to count for something, right?

They weren't going to haul him away like they did to bad wizards who used their powers on Muggles…were they?

Bucky was so lost in his thoughts that he barely noticed when Steve left the room to change out of his filthy clothes and Sarah pulled out the seat next to his at the table, sitting down with a heavy sigh. A finger under his chin prompted him to raise his eyes to meet hers, but he was surprised to find they didn't look angry. Sarah just looked tired.

"I understand why you did what you did," she began with a small, reproachful smile. "You've always looked after him, and I hope you know how much that means to me. But Bucky… You can't start going down that path. You're going to grow up, go to school, and learn how to really use your powers, and then the Magical Congress isn't going to care what reason you had."

"But…"

"And just think about what would have happened if something had gone wrong. What if you hadn't been able to control your powers? What if one of those boys got seriously hurt?"

Bucky's gaze fell back to his shoes. He honestly hadn't thought about that, not when he had Steve to worry about; he figured if he was concentrating enough, what he wanted was just going to happen. The thought left him feeling mildly nauseous.

"'m sorry," he whispered, embarrassed to find his eyes tearing up involuntarily. "I just didn't want Steve to get hurt."

Sarah nodded at the edge of his vision, blurry through the tears he was desperately trying to keep from falling. "I know you didn't, and I know you two would do anything for each other. You just need to think before you act, Bucky. Nothing happened this time, but that doesn't mean it'll always be that way. You understand?"

Sniffling, Bucky muttered, "Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Now, come on, none of that." She put her hands on his cheeks and shook his face from side to side until he laughed wetly, not mentioning it when he hastily wiped his eyes just seconds before Steve hobbled back into the room. "Now I'm sure your parents will be wondering where you've gotten to, so let's get you home."

Sarah gave his leg a gentle pat and rose to her feet alongside him, smiling knowingly at Bucky's confused frown. He only lived right next door, so he wouldn't need a ride or an escort. Which meant…

"Oh, no." Grinning, Sarah shook her head at his widening eyes and horrified look of realization. "You're not getting off the hook that easy."

Three weeks.

No computer. No hanging out or sleepovers with Steve. No video games, movies, or television. No beach or Coney Island.

For three weeks.

"Believe me, James Buchanan Barnes, that is nothing compared to what you deserve," his mother had screamed at him after Sarah told her what Bucky had done.

"Easy, Winnie, or everyone in Brooklyn will hear." His father's warning had practically fallen on deaf ears, and his mother's ire found a new target mid-rant.

"George, by the time I'm through, everyone in bloody London will hear."

He'd had his doubts, but Bucky was surprised to find his mom had done her best to make good on that promise. All he could do was sit quietly on the couch and stare at his feet while his mom yelled at him, a few obscenities even finding their way into her usually prim and proper English-accented diatribe. By the time she was through (almost two hours after she started—his dad was the one to finally leave the room to call for pizza), Bucky had been flayed up one side and down the other, then sentenced to three weeks of being grounded in his room.

This was one of those times when he thought how great it would be to not live in a magical household. If he were a Muggle, he could have snuck out anyway—his dad was out job hunting now that he wasn't in the army anymore, his mom Apparated to the Ministry of Magic in London most days of the week, and Sarah had a pretty steady schedule of overtime—but he knew better than to try in his house. One simple Tracking Spell meant his mom could check in on him any time and know exactly where he was, and he knew she wouldn't hesitate to use it.

So he faced three weeks of marathon wall-staring, comic book-reading, and banging-head-against-desking. It also meant he got to spend some quality time with Becca, who was just about to turn three and could actually be kind of entertaining even if she did still like stupid baby toys. (Bucky refused to tell anyone, including Steve, but a part of him still enjoyed playing with the hand-me-down toys that had long since migrated from his toy box to Becca's room, and he may or may not have squirreled away a few of his favorite stuffed animals to his own closet. Everyone just thought he loved playing with his baby sister, which he guessed was half right.)

Unless it was to see if he had learned his lesson, his parents mostly left him to his own devices to find things to do that weren't against his grounding. That was why, just over a week into his parent-mandated exile, he was surprised to see both of his parents standing in the doorway of his room, Becca in their dad's arms.

His mom gave him a soft smile and stepped inside, sitting down by his feet on the bed while his dad remained hovering in the doorway. "Bucky, there's something we need to talk about."

"Okay," whispered Bucky with great trepidation. When a conversation with his parents started out with "there's something we need to talk about," it had never ended well in the past.

"You know how I'm from across the ocean in England?" Bucky nodded. He'd only asked her about twelve million times over the years if he would get to see England someday since the time they went when he was a baby really didn't count. Obviously she remembered, because the next thing she asked was, "How do you feel about spending some time there?"

Bucky immediately bounced up onto his knees from where he'd been morosely slumped against the headboard making headway on beating his previous wall-staring record (eight minutes), excitement bursting through his chest. "Awesome! Can we really go? When—this summer?!"

His mother laughed, but it wasn't her usual one. There was something tentative and sad about it, but Bucky hardly noticed in his exhilaration. "Yes, this summer, baby."

"This is so cool! I can't wait!"

"I know, baby. Now, Bucky…"

"Can I tell Steve? I know I'm grounded, and I promise I'll come right back up here, but can I pleeeeeease go tell h—"

"Darling, hold on a moment and listen," interrupted his mother gently, putting her hands on his shoulders to calm his bouncing. She glanced back at his dad before she pressed on, "I know you're so excited to go, but… This isn't going to be a vacation."

Blinking, Bucky frowned in puzzlement. "Huh?"

"Baby, we're moving to England."

"…M-moving?" he asked, his stomach churning suddenly while the rest of his senses went numb.

"Yes, moving. Now that your father isn't stationed here anymore, we discussed going back to London. That way I can be closer to the Ministry, and he's already found a job there in the city—"

"But…b-but what about Steve and Sarah? What about school and my friends?" Bucky didn't mean to start crying; he didn't even realize his eyes had been getting misty until the tears were trailing fast and hot down his cheeks. But Brooklyn was home—they'd always lived here, and he thought they always would. If they went to England, he'd have to leave everything and everyone behind, and he didn't want to do that!

"Oh, darling," cooed his mom, pulling him in to sit on her lap and stroking his hair as he cried into her shoulder. "You'll get to go to a new school and make new friends… In a couple of years, you'll get your Hogwarts letter—"

"But you said we'd go to Ilvermorny!" he hiccoughed roughly.

"I know, baby, but Hogwarts is an amazing school too. That's where I went, and you're going to love it. And you'll still get to see Steve—we'll come back and visit, and maybe we can get him and Sarah to come stay with us in London. Wouldn't that be lovely? Steve could stay with us over the summer holidays, and you two have the internet to talk as much as you want during the school term. When you go to Hogwarts, you can send owls to each other…"

Bucky stopped listening as his sobs reached their zenith, and he couldn't bring himself to care if he was acting like a baby. It wasn't fair! He and Steve had already made so many plans for when they went to Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry—they were going to take all the same classes, be in the same house, and play Quidditch together (if Steve's lungs got with the program). There was no way Sarah would let Steve come stay with them all summer, Bucky thought, not with how sick Steve got all the time. Mr. Rogers had died in Afghanistan not even three years ago, and Sarah was protective of her son as the only family she had left—she'd never let him go all the way to another country for months even if it was Bucky's family he was staying with.

He could feel his dad rubbing his back as he wept. He could hear his mom whispering reassurances that everything was going to be okay, that he'd get used to their new home and things would turn out just fine.

He could feel his heart breaking as he wondered who he was going to be without Steve Rogers by his side.

"But you can't just leave!"

"'S not like I have much of a choice, Steve."

Bucky's parents must have felt pretty bad about the veritable bomb they had dropped on him and his grounding was prematurely revoked, so he sat with Steve on the floor of Steve's bedroom, staring moodily at his best friend's wall since he didn't have to stare at his own anymore. The Barneses had gone over to have dinner with Sarah and Steve, partially because it was just what they did every now and again, but mostly to tell them the news. Sarah had been happy for them, although Bucky was getting good enough at differentiating between her happy smiles and her sad smiles to see that it was the latter, and asked if he was excited to get to see a new country.

"I'd rather stay here," had been his grumpy answer, and he'd responded to his parents' scolding with the best pout he could muster.

Steve shared his opinion, and the first thing out of his mouth when they retreated to his room was some…colorful language that Bucky knew would get him a smack on the back of the head if Sarah had heard him utter something like that in her presence.

"Maybe you can ask your parents if you can stay with us?" Steve suggested, desperately trying to come up with a solution that wouldn't end with having an entire ocean between them despite the fact that they hadn't managed to come up with anything yet. "We've got plenty of room, and Ma loves you. You could go to London for the summer and then come back here to go to school."

Bucky shook his head with a heavy sigh. "I already tried that. Mom shut me down."

"But she already Apparates every day—they could come see you anytime they wanted."

"That's what I thought!" Bucky groused. "But she just said the change of scenery will be good for you, James." He imitated his mother's accent with a slightly nasal, obnoxiously superior tone he reserved for only the worst things she ever said to him.

Grumbling under his breath, Steve balled up the paper he was trying to sketch on and threw it at his trash can in frustration. Bucky would have teased him for missing his target from two feet away any other day. "So go on a vacation."

Bucky just grunted his agreement, letting his head drop back against the edge of Steve's mattress to stare up at the ceiling. Little stars winked down at him, and Bucky couldn't help smiling just a tiny bit. Those had been there for as long as he could remember, since they were still little enough to be scared of monsters in the closet and Sarah had found a spell for the ultimate night-light. The little stars were invisible to Muggles just in case anyone saw through the window outside, but offered just enough light to see by in the room on their own. They'd stared at those stars every night Bucky had slept over at Steve's house, giggling and chatting into the early hours of the morning in an attempt to see who could stay awake longest (a contest they could never figure out who won).

Soon those stars would blink down at just Steve 3,458 miles from where Bucky was. (He'd Googled it.)

He wasn't quite sure why that thought made him ask, but he honestly couldn't help himself as he avoided Steve's eyes and tried to get his voice to work a few times. "We'll still… We're still gonna talk 'n stuff, right?"

"Of course!" exclaimed Steve immediately. Bucky turned his head to see that Steve's eyes were alight with a fierce gleam. "You're my best friend. I'm with you till the end of the line, Buck. You know that."

They'd been saying that to each other for years. It started as a joke the first time they'd tried to go on the subway by themselves (which neither of their parents were really aware of) and accidentally missed every stop in their excitement until they reached the literal end of the line. Since Bucky was the one who had said, in all of his six-year-old wisdom, that he knew which stop was theirs, Steve had teased him mercilessly that he supposed it was a good thing they were best friends because he was the only person who'd be willing to ride with Bucky to the end of the line. After that, it had become their special way of telling each other that they'd always be there, that they'd always be best friends no matter what.

Bucky couldn't think of a time he needed to hear that more than right now, and he sniffled softly before crawling across the floor on his knees and throwing his arms around Steve's skinny shoulders. The two held on tight to each other as if that could somehow keep Bucky from going anywhere.

"Yeah. Till the end of the line, pal."