Found My Way Back to You

by beingxwest

Steve goes to France looking for Bucky, but Bucky hears that he's gone (read: that S.H.I.E.L.D. has lost Captain-freaking-America) on the news and goes to wait with Sam for Steve to come back because he's worried. Sam comes to a realization about said super-soldier best friends, and is not at all disappointed when they are reunited in his doorway. Full summary inside. (SLASH)

Title: Found My Way Back to You

Summary: Steve goes to France looking for Bucky, but Bucky hears that he's gone (read: that SHIELD has lost Captain-freaking-America) on the news and goes to wait with Sam for Steve to come back because he's worried. Sam comes to a realization about said super-soldier best friends, and is not at all disappointed when they are reunited in his doorway. OR Steve and Bucky get a really emotional reunion scene (which both the fandom and the characters were robbed of in the movies) and Sam suddenly has two super-soldier best friends to drive him insane.

Takes place sometime after CA:WS, in a better universe where CA:CW doesn't even think about happening.

Ships: Steve/ Bucky (Stucky), brotp Sam and Natasha

-/-

Sam did not get paid enough for this.

Surely S.H.I.E.L.D. would be able to find it within themselves to give him a raise after the latest round of shenanigans. First, Steve Rogers picked up and ran off in the middle of the night (he'd been staying in D.C. with Sam so that Sam could keep an eye on him - and prevent that precise thing from happening for the forty-third time), and then S.H.I.E.L.D. lost contact with Steve - basically lost track of the national hero, who they thought was somewhere in France (or, according to the guy that Sam had been yelling at on the phone that morning - the poor guy was obviously a new hire, not Agent Hill, who would've stood a better chance when delivering the news that Sam's best friend could've also been "in Germany" or "even Switzerland" when they'd lost contact with him the night before), but could've been anywhere in Europe (or possibly on a flight to a different continent) by that evening.

It had been ten and a half hours since that entertaining phone call. Fourteen hours since they'd lost contact with Steve (and decided not to call Sam as soon as they'd noticed, like they should have done).

(Sam felt bad for chewing out the guy on the phone. He really, really did. The guy had sounded pretty new, and certainly hadn't had time to become accustomed to the superhero shenanigans that had become S.H.I.E.L.D. since Loki had attacked New York. He'd send the poor guy a fruit basket or something once they'd found Steve, and Sam could be furious with his stupidly reckless self instead.)

It had been five hours since the news broke on national television, on the eight o'clock news. (In hindsight, that was probably why it hadn't been Agent Hill calling him - she had probably been trying to contain an information leak that had informed the nation that S.H.I.E.L.D. had managed to lose Captain America on another continent.) It had been approximately four and a half minutes since a soaking wet and nervous-looking Bucky Barnes had knocked on his door.

Sam had opened the door roughly four minutes before, and he'd spent every one of those minutes since blinking owlishly at his guest.

He supposed he was being rude. He needed to say something.

To his surprise, though, as he was racking his brain for something both appropriate ("What in the name of everything good and holy are you doing outside my home at one in the morning?") and polite ("My name is Sam, it's nice to meet you, I have beer, would you like to come in?"), Bucky opened his mouth to say something.

"I heard about... about..." His voice was deep, a little gravelly. Weak from disuse. His eyes trailed off, fell to his shoes. He seemed to be looking for the right words.

Usually Sam would've jumped in and tried to make it less awkward, but it seemed to be a bit of a struggle for the other man to put the words together, and if he wanted to try... Sam wasn't going to interrupt him. He knew that it must've been awkward, trying to have this conversation with someone he didn't even know.

Bucky looked up and locked eyes with him again. "I heard about Steve. They don't know where he's at."

Sam nodded. His chest tightened again (how could Steve be so stupid? How could those S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, who knew perfectly well that Steve shouldn't have been doing whatever it was that he was doing anyway, have literally lost him?), but he forced himself to stay calm. Neutral. "Yeah," he affirmed, "but they'll find him. Steve's a smart guy anyway." It took a colossal amount of self-control to not roll his eyes with that. Even as he spoke, though, he knew that Bucky wasn't buying the brush off. "They'll find him."

The man just blinked at him for a moment before rolling his eyes. "I think you might be giving Steve too much credit."

The Falcon was not one to be caught off guard easily. In fact, he prided himself on his ability to keep it together under pressure and to roll with the punches (literal or metaphorical).

In his defense, though, he had not been expecting the former Winter Soldier (standing outside his front door, soaking wet, looking miserably out of place) to actually make a joke.

He stood there, blinking hard, for a few more seconds. Then he laughed - a guffaw that had him leaning on the door frame for support, so loud that Bucky actually jumped.

A few more seconds passed, though, and then Bucky Barnes (standing outside his front door, soaking wet, looking miserably out of place) was actually laughing.

When they finally stopped laughing, and then both of them caught their breaths, Sam gave him his most charming smile and extended his hand. "I'm Sam Wilson."

Bucky lifted a hand. It glinted in the dim light from the hall, and Sam realized it was the metal one. The arm was not at all noticeable, aside from the hand that Bucky had extended, due to the man's long sleeve shirt and jacket. (Part of Sam wondered if this was purposeful, to keep people from seeing it and identifying him as Bucky Barnes, former Winter Soldier.) Bucky looked unsure and Sam pretended not to notice.

This didn't seem to work.

"Are you just going to stand there or are you going to shake my hand?"

The words flew out of his mouth before he could stop them. He didn't know Bucky well enough (read: at all) to know whether or not he would offend him (and how he could avoid doing so). A nauseating wave of seriously, man? What is the matter with you? washed over him.

And then, just like that, the tension disappeared - both corners of Bucky's mouth tilted up, and he raised his hand (attached to the metal arm) to shake Sam's hand. "I'm Bucky, Bucky Barnes."

It appeared that they would get along just fine.

"Why don't you come inside, man? I've got beer." That was how he'd convinced Steve to come over (read: start leaving his house a couple of times a week, because he was not letting his new best friend turn into a recluse), so he figured that it might work on Bucky.

The super-soldier nodded. "Cool."

-/-

Sam walked to the fridge. Pulled out a six-pack of beer - it had been for him and Steve's movie night, but Steve was gone, and Sam was unbelievably angry, and Bucky Barnes, former Winter Soldier, was following him around his apartment like he wasn't quite sure what to do with himself.

He couldn't blame him for that. Sam wondered when the last time someone had invited him inside for a beer had been.

He pushed the fridge closed. When he whirled around, Bucky was standing closer to him than he'd thought that he'd been, and it took every ounce of Sam's self-control for him not to jump and further startle his guest. Good grief, this guy is quiet. Sam hadn't even heard his footsteps as they'd walked from the door.

It was going to be an interesting night.

Without saying anything else (what was he supposed to say? Sam had barely managed to learn to talk to one super solider, and that had taken a while. He wasn't sure he had the time to learn a second sort of super-soldier-whispering), he side-stepped the dark-haired super soldier and headed towards his couch. He grabbed the bottle opener off the counter on his way. Thankfully, saving Sam the trouble of awkwardly asking if his guest wanted to sit, Bucky followed him from the kitchen and sat down on his left.

Sam sat the six-pack down on the coffee table and grabbed the remote. "Do you want me to see if there's any news on?"

Bucky cocked his head to the side without looking at him. A few seconds too long passed, and Sam was about to repeat his question when he said, "Yeah, sure. We can see what other kinds of trouble Captain America has gotten himself into."

His voice was tired, and didn't sound quite like humor - it was closer to a bad impression of someone that was trying (and failing) to be funny - but Sam recognized the attempt at comedy for what it was. He chuckled without thinking too hard about it. Maybe Bucky wouldn't be so bad after he'd had some sleep (if the circles under his eyes were any indication, he couldn't have had much lately) and he'd chilled out a little bit (he was uneasy, even in Sam's quiet apartment, and Sam knew that this was likely due to everything that the guy had been through in eighty years, and then everything that had happened in the past couple of months).

He might have even been kind of cool to hang out with.

Sam had been skeptical, he had to admit, at first. When Steve had told him that he was going after Bucky, and that he was going to bring him back to New York or D.C. or wherever they could carve out for themselves, if Bucky would let him, Sam hadn't quite known what to do. He'd learned relatively quickly that Steve was not the kind of person that could be deterred once he set his mind to something. So he hadn't quite had any other option than to help Steve - he would never have tried to talk him out of it, because he knew what it meant to him. And in his position... If someone had called and told him that Riley was alive and that there was something he could do to help him... Sam had known that he would've done the exact same thing.

That had really been what had convinced him. He'd known, in the back of his head, that Steve never would've tried to talk him out of it. That Steve would've done nothing but be a supportive best friend, who would've done exactly everything in his power and nothing less to help him when he needed it.

So Sam had set his mind to helping Steve. And, on some level in his mind, he knew that he was doing the right thing - not only for Steve, who was clearly lost without Bucky, even with the life he was slowly building for himself, but for a soldier who 'd deserved to come home just as much as anyone else. He was happy to help. It was the right thing to do.

That had led to Bucky showing up at his front door, he knew. That had led to everything leading to that moment. He believed in karma, in the idea of what-went-around-coming-back-around, and he knew that fate had intervened somehow.

(This was likely because this was his opportunity to verify that Bucky was trying - if Steve had shown up, former Winter Soldier in tow, and said that everything was okay, Sam didn't know if he would've believed him. He would've wanted to decide for himself, but with Steve around, he would've questioned everything that he saw. It would've made him uneasy. So this was his opportunity. To make up his mind for himself.)

Sam scrolled through the channels as he thought about all of this, but discovered that there was no news on. He didn't really know why this surprised him. Even though he was wide awake, it was one in the morning, and the news wouldn't come on until around four. You know, he thought to himself, when normal people get up to go to work.

"There's no news on right now, but I can find us a movie if you want," he offered. He certainly didn't mind getting to know the super solider (Sam had a scary feeling that they would be spending a lot of time together as soon as Steve got back, so they might as well talk like normal people), but that would likely have been more awkward than the trouble was worth.

Bucky nodded and grabbed a beer. He looked at it for a minute, his expression kind of funny, and Sam nearly laughed. It was almost like he was willing the cap of the bottle to pop open on its own. Or with the Force.

Sam couldn't help it. The smile forced itself onto his face, even as he reached over and handed Bucky the bottle opener. He nodded and mumbled a "thanks" before instinct kicked in (Steve had not been confused by the bottle openers, Sam had discovered when he first started having Steve over, because that's what bottles had been like way back when) and he uncapped the bottle on his own. The dark-haired man carefully sat the bottle opener back on the coffee table before downing half of his beer.

On instinct, he reached out to tell him to slow down, but even with half of the bottle already gone, Bucky's eyes were as steady as they'd been a moment before. He calmly set his drink down in front of him. Raised an eyebrow at Sam and then shrugged when Sam's eyes flicked to the newly half-empty bottle.

While Sam wasn't sure whether or not Bucky could get drunk, he knew that Steve couldn't. Steve had told him so, and Sam had watched as Natasha had tried to get him drunk (this had happened a few times before she'd decided that the answer was really no, and she only really gave up because she'd only managed to drink herself into a couple of massive hangovers), and he'd never seen his best friend falter. Steve and Bucky were both super soldiers, so he assumed that the rules worked the same way for both of them, but there was no way to be sure except... (The answer was that Sam would actually have to pull a Natasha and watch to find out, but he didn't want to do that. He was more mature than that. And kinder. That would've been rude of him, and he knew it.)

Sam really hoped that Bucky couldn't get drunk. He really didn't know what he would do with a drunk super soldier sitting on his couch. And he couldn't imagine what that hangover would be like.

He sighed, grabbed a beer of his own, and popped it open. There's not too much I can do besides sit here and observe, anyway, he reminded himself. He did not feel like arguing with a super soldier about his drinking habits.

Drink in one hand, Sam went to the good movie channels that ran on cable, and decided on a re-run of Forrest Gump. It had just started. The only other options were old war or action (and one random old western) movies, and Sam didn't think that that would be good for either of them. He sat back into the couch and propped his feet up on the edge of the coffee table. When he looked over, Bucky had done the same.

In the light, he could see him better, and Sam saw that he looked like he was taking care of himself - his clothes looked clean, and looked pretty put together. He wasn't as pale as he'd been the first few times that Sam had seen him. Tired. Like he'd come back from an eternal work out. A little confused, kind of freaked out. But good, considering what he'd come from, and the long road he had ahead of him.

The movie played on. He'd seen it more than a few times, though, because it had been his favorite growing up, and so his mind began to wonder back to what Bucky had said before. We can see what other kinds of trouble Captain America has gotten himself into. The way he'd said 'Captain America'... Sam had guessed, when the other man had arrived at his door, obviously worried about Steve, that Bucky remembered a lot - enough to be concerned. Enough to have cracked a couple of jokes about Steve's behavior, which meant that he had predicted, Sam assumed, what Steve must have been acting like.

Sam wondered what Bucky had remembered about before - what he remembered about Steve becoming Captain America, about Steve's being such a hero but also behaving so recklessly. It was clearly a pattern, but what all did Bucky remember about that? And what did he think?

Sam knew that Bucky had been trying to make a joke, but there had been an odd edge to his voice that he couldn't quite place. Sam obviously didn't know Bucky well enough to draw a realistic conclusion about this, but he still wondered.

He chalked it up to lack of sleep and moved on.

-/-

Steve knew that he was being dumb.

He could almost hear Bucky's response to his behavior, regardless of the more than seventy years since he'd heard his best friend's voice (the "Who the hell is Bucky?" was still ringing in his head, but he still couldn't seem to count that as the voice of the man that he'd known). Bucky would've glared at him, shoved at his shoulder. He would've said, "What in God's name are you doin', ya punk?"

The thought of his voice, of that playful shove, was enough to make an already out-of-breath Steve brace himself against the wall. He'd been running from some Hydra agents (they had found him more than he had found them, which sort of drove a truck through his original plan to ambush them, and they'd gotten the drop on him about thirty minutes before), and even though he spoke French, it was late, and he still had no idea where he was. The realization that he had to figure something out, lest they catch up with him (he'd gotten away from them, but just barely, and he was willing to bet that they were still looking for him).

But he had another problem, he realized, as he took a step forward. His adrenaline was starting to wear off, and his right leg nearly gave out underneath him as he put his weight on it. He swore under his breath - his ankle was sprained.

That was fine. He'd had worse. It would heal soon, it just wouldn't be pleasant to walk on until it did. (He wouldn't heal until he slept, which meant that he had to find time, not to mention somewhere safe, to sleep. Soon.)

The bigger problem, in all likelihood, was his other injuries: he was pretty sure that he'd dislocated his shoulder, and he'd definitely gotten a few scratches (via the knife that the five-foot-one assassin girl had pulled on him after asking if he wanted to buy her a drink - they'd been at a bar, and he'd managed to recognize the odd accent cutting through her French a half-second too late).

He pulled out the burner phone that he had been carrying for emergencies. Sam had to be furious with him, but calling the S.H.I.E.L.D. number that he had would only make matters worse - even if they could come and rescue him, there was no telling what sort of Hydra members might notice and come along for the ride. The last thing Steve needed to do was cause an actual international incident. Natasha and Sam would kill him when they saw his face plastered on the news ("Captain America: Captain MIA?... S.H.I.E.L.D. anonymous source reveals that the American hero is nowhere to be found." It was the most ridiculous headline he'd ever heard, but whatever. He certainly deserved it, for running off without saying a word to anyone.)

That was what Natasha would say to him - that he deserved to look like an idiot for being so stupid. That the universe was doing him a solid by reminding him that he, too, needed to think things through. She would be livid. (He deserved that, too.)

He just hoped that they hadn't seen it yet. He didn't want them more worried than they needed to be. (Maybe they needed to be a little worried. He was starting to feel lightheaded. Every part of his body ached.)

Steve shook his head, but went ahead and dialed Sam's number anyway. If his vision started getting blurry and he couldn't, he didn't know what he would do.

He just hoped that Sam was up (he probably was - it had to be nearly seven in D.C., and Sam was a morning person) and that he was in a good mood.

-/-

When the phone rang, both men jumped.

Sam had nearly been asleep (maybe dozing off in the same couple of square feet as the world's (formerly?) most dangerous assassin was a bad idea, but he was exhausted); Bucky had (somehow) still seemed wide awake, but his attention had been focused on the movie. He hasn't seen many movies, Sam realized. The movies would've just been getting started when World War Two started, so Barnes never really got to see them before Hydra captured him. The idea of watching one at home must've been even more wild to him.

Sam reached for his cell phone, haphazardly brought it to his ear as he swiped the screen to accept the call without looking at the caller I.D. His voice slurred and his words nearly tripped over each other as he spoke - he suppose that he really was dead on his feet after being awake for so long (light was already seeping through the cracks in the blinds across the room, and Sam had been up and busy since six a.m. the morning before). "If you aren't Captain America, I don't got time to speak with you." Maybe telling people you know Captain America isn't a great idea, dude, a voice snapped in the back of his head. Get it together, dude.

Bucky looked over and chuckled (his joke had gotten an actual laugh from the aforementioned World's Greatest Assassin, Sam realized), but he didn't say anything. His attention went right back to the movie.

"Glad to know that I'm appreciated," a man's voice laughed from the other end of the line. He was quiet, like he was trying to make sure that no one could hear him, and his laugh was shaky, like he was out of breath.

"Steve?"

His exclamation got Bucky's attention. The dark-haired man sat forward, his gaze locking on the phone pressed to Sam's ear. His eyes were as wide as coasters. He mouthed the word No, and though Sam thought that Bucky hadn't meant for him to see, he nodded in response.

When the color drained from Bucky's face, Sam raised his eyebrows and mouthed back: Yes.

On the other end of the phone, Steve inhaled sharply. Sam's insides lurched (that was his best friend, that was obviously in pain, and something was obviously wrong), but he couldn't let it show, and he knew it.

Bucky didn't need that - Sam didn't need that. He didn't want to run the risk of scaring or startling the man currently taking up the other end of the couch. Bucky seemed to be okay, but Sam couldn't be sure how he was with how little he knew about him.

And getting him worked up over Steve's condition was not going to go well at all.

"Do you want to tell me where you are, dude?" Sam sighed, faking his early level of exasperation. Something was really wrong, and his exasperation was quickly turning to a more anxious form of worry. But he had to keep his act up, so he added, a smirk stretching across his face, "And if you even think about saying" - he deepened his voice comically for his best Captain America impression - "'on your left', I will kick your star-spangled-"

Steve chuckled, cutting him off. He sounded much worse - good grief, what had happened to him?

"Listen, Sam, I'm making my way to the U.S. embassy, but I'm going to need someone to come and get me." There was a pause. "I don't want to risk getting on a plane and discovering Hydra agents bent on pulling any more stupid stunts."

The U.S. embassy. Sam played the words back through his mind. He kept his face between neutral and mildly irritated, hoping that 21st-century-Bucky wasn't perceptive enough to notice his lapse. So he really is out of the country.

"What do you want me to do, Steve?"

It briefly occurred to Sam that he should consider telling Steve who was sitting on the couch next to him, but he decided against it. If Bucky wanted Steve to know, he would've pried the phone out of his hands, right? Or told him to tell him?

It didn't matter. Steve didn't need to know that. It would make him stupid, and stupid made you sloppy. Stupid especially made you sloppy when you were Steve Rogers, and Sam didn't like the odds on that for his best friend. Sloppy would get Steve killed, and that... No. Sam couldn't consider that a possibility.

Sam decided that he didn't really want to know what Steve's master plan was. His master plan so far had involved, but certainly not been limited to (and not necessarily in this order): running off, nearly getting himself killed, getting into it with Hydra agents, causing a national panic... The list certainly went on, too. So, no, Sam definitely didn't need to hear what he was thinking.

There was suddenly a pounding noise, and then Steve was breathing heavily. Sam decided to speak up.

"How about I have some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents come and pick you up, and then they can drop you off at my place once they get you back on this side of the pond?"

Steve's eye roll was nearly audible. "I'm a grown man, Sam, I can take care of myself."

The pounding noise was Steve's feet on the concrete - he was hauling his star-spangled self down the street. How far was he from the Embassy?

"You told me that a few weeks ago, and, um, I hate to break it to you, dude, but you're on your way to the U.S. Embassy because you make bad decisions when you try to take care of yourself." His voice lacked the humor he'd been reaching for, but the emphasis he left on the phrase in the middle there drove his point home. Steve didn't continue arguing with him.

Beside him, the corners of Bucky's mouth turned up.

"Is he going to be okay?" the dark-haired man asked, voice barely loud enough to be heard.

The footsteps on the other end of the line stopped, and Sam heard Steve say, "I'm from the U.S., I need to speak with someone in charge." Then, into the phone he said, "I'm going to hang up, I need to get checked out by a doctor."

This was a relatively wise thing to say, and Sam grinned at the former assassin (who had very wide eyes and was holding on to the edge of the couch in a way that made Sam both glad he didn't let on that something was wrong and worried about how Steve would be holding up when he got back, more for Bucky's sake then his own) before speaking into the phone. "I'll see you soon, Cap." He hung up the phone and tossed it onto the couch beside him.

Sam turned to look Bucky in the eyes - he'd asked a decent question, and he wanted to give him an honest answer. So he grinned wider and responded, "He'll be fine. The laws of physics, especially those concerning stupidity, have never really applied to him."

Bucky's eyes glittered. He chuckled, his shoulders shaking as he laughed. "Tell that to somebody who doesn't know."

-/-

They decided to order pizza as soon as the shop down the street opened up for the day.

It wasn't New York style pizza (and it definitely wasn't 1930s style pizza), but Sam hoped that Bucky would like it.

He asked Bucky if he had any idea what kind of pizza he might want. "It's not going to be like, you know, it was back in the day, but some of the stuff is still the same." Bucky gave him a blank look, so Sam gave him an example. "The pizza crust, the pizza toppings... Stuff like that."

"I don't really remember that sort of stuff." He shrugged. "Sorry."

Sam shook his head, chuckled it off. "Nothing to be sorry for, my man." He gave Bucky a once-over reminiscent of a mad scientist. "I bet I can guess what kind of pizza you like."

The twinkle of laughter that had lightened the other man's expression before returned. "We'll see about that."

There was a lull as Sam placed the order for the pizza. Bucky made himself comfortable on the couch once again, his gaze on the television. It was only once Sam had thanked the girl on the phone, and she'd actually chirped (far too cheerfully for the morning hour), "Your pizza should be delivered in 45 minutes or less! Have a pizza perfect day!", that he heard Bucky speak again.

Sam hadn't been planning on pushing him on the subject. Really. His memories, the state of his head... Those things were his business. And sure, Sam would be lying if he said he wasn't curious - he wanted to know about how things would go between Steve and Bucky once Steve got back. Sam had become protective of his super-soldier friend (who had the self-preservation skills of a Christmas tree ornament) in the few years that he'd known him, and he definitely wanted to try to steer Steve in the right direction - he didn't want him to be too badly thrown off by Bucky's presence.

But that didn't mean that Sam was going to interrogate Bucky either.

He wasn't going to try that. It would've been rude, and if Bucky was planning on sticking around, then Sam was all for it. Which meant that the two of them should, at the very minimum, get along decently.

So Sam hadn't been about to say anything after Bucky had made the comment about the things he didn't remember.

But as Sam was doing the math in his head for when the pizza would be there and calculating the tip on his phone, Bucky said, still facing the TV, "I remember most things, I think. Not the specific things, like how I liked my pizza or my coffee. But I remember going to see movies with - with Steve." He stopped abruptly, his voice becoming thick.

He sounded small, almost like a lost child, and Sam realized (not for the first time) that it must've hurt thinking about the life that they'd had before. It was almost like considering his memories of Steve for too long was painful for him.

He was so unsure, all of the sudden. A few minutes before, he'd been okay (not perfect, Sam had realized not long after Bucky had arrived - the former assassin still had a long way to go to heal, but it was certainly looking up, considering the evident progress that he'd made), but now that he was trying to explain himself to Sam... It appeared that the chink in the other man's armor was that very subject, and he had absolutely no idea how to handle it.

(It dawned on Sam that Bucky likely thought that Sam would try to protect Steve from Bucky, even seeing the progress he'd clearly made (he was clearly no longer trying to kill them on a highway), and Sam made a mental note to apologize for the way he'd acted before, when he was sure that the last thing that Steve needed was to try and chase the friend that he'd known half a century earlier, who clearly no longer knew him.)

"I didn't, not at first. But things kept coming back. I remember..." He trailed off, shook his head. When he turned to meet Sam's gaze, he went in a different direction, trying to answer a question that Sam hadn't asked. "Some of it may not be real. I'm still trying to figure it out, but..." He let out a shaky breath and continued, "I wanted to wait until I had gotten everything figured out before I came to see him, but..." He shook his head again. "I saw that he was missing on the news."

So he'd come because he really had been worried about Steve. That's what Sam had imagined, yeah, but hearing it out loud was another thing.

"Well," Sam started, "he'll be fine." He glanced down at his watch. Even though he certainly wasn't feeling the easy confidence he was going for, he owed it to his best friend to try. (Sam also wanted to see if he could use the time before Steve's return to make peace with the dark-haired man he was speaking to - as much as Steve talked about him, as much as his eyes always lit up when he did... Bucky couldn't have been a half bad guy.) "He should be almost ready to hop on a quinjet and fly his starred and stripped self back here so that we can chew him out."

This got a weak laugh out of the former Winter Soldier, and Sam allowed himself a chuckle as well, going to sit next to him on the couch.

Sam put on another movie. Once it got past the opening credits, and Bucky was thoroughly paying attention to it, Sam allowed his thoughts to wonder.

Steve had told Sam that Bucky had always looked out for him, always worried about him.

And Sam wondered if it mattered that Bucky didn't remember everything - if that impulse to protect him, even nearly-bullet-proof and capable-of-fighting-six-people-at-a-time as Steve was, was what could never be taken away. If that mattered more than everything else.

If that would be enough to give them a starting point.

Because that was what Sam was really afraid of: Steve coming back, them having their heartfelt reunion, and then losing each other in the process of trying not to hold on too tight too fast.

-/-

Steve was indeed injured.

The doctor had shaken his head at him when he walked into the room, ready to give him a thorough scolding, before his assistant had muttered something along the lines of "You have to be nice to Captain America, Dr. Byron, he's literally Captain America!"

After that, the doctor had stumbled back half a step (he was obviously very shocked by the realization that he was talking to the one and only Captain America in the flesh), and Steve's own arm had flown up to keep the doctor from falling. Dr. Byron had simply regained his balance and carefully (in a way that could only be described as clean and clinical) treated Steve's wounds.

Steve wanted nothing more than to throw something or yell or maybe a bit of both, because he hated being treated like that - with kid gloves, or as if he was better than someone else, or at all different from anyone else. It reminded him of being a sickly kid in Brooklyn, with no one to talk to but a mom who worked day and night and did far too much trying to keep her only son healthy.

Even when it had felt like the universe was conspiring against them both.

However, the blond man was too exhausted (and, let's be honest) far too polite to do either of those things after his run in (and then the subsequent running away from) with the Hydra agents. So he let it go, tried to breathe calmly as the doctor only spoke to him about his pain and what he'd been doing when he was injured and if he had anyone back home to look after him for a few days because, as the doctor's assistant put it, without even once looking him in the eyes: "Even with your, um, intensified healing abilities, you still won't be good to go for a few days, maybe two weeks, maybe a month or so. I'm not, er, so familiar with your medical history, Captain, or your healing abilities to tell you how long it should take for you to be back on your feet."

When the doctor and his assistant left the room, Steve took deep breaths. Went in search of something else to focus his attention on.

Even though the pain wasn't that bad - the slashes that the assassin-girl had gotten in with her knife hadn't been very deep, just stinging enough that they would be bothersome for the next few days, and the dislocation of his shoulder had yet to be fixed, so it had dulled down to a bearable ache unless he moved around too much. His ankle was sprained, and though he'd forced himself to walk through the embassy on his own two feet (they'd offered him a wheel chair, but he turned it down - what if someone else had needed it?), he'd been sitting long enough that pain was nearly forgotten unless he moved it the wrong way - it still wasn't much use.

He couldn't seem to concentrate on anything other than the assassins he'd faced earlier in the evening.

Were they Winter Soldiers too? Had they faced the same horrors Bucky had - being torn from everyone they'd ever loved and everything they'd ever known, all to be tortured and maimed and brain-washed and turned into a weapon?

Steve knew that what he was doing to himself wasn't good for him, but he couldn't seem to help it - his heart broke all over again every time he even imagined someone putting their hands on Bucky (the insurmountable rage had passed a few weeks before, prompting him to start looking for Bucky again - even after telling Sam he wouldn't be doing that for a while - because he hoped that doing it in a calmer and less ferociously angry state might make it easier to draw out the man he had once known, even for just long enough to make sure that he was okay), and even as he'd fought off the Hydra agents that had injured him and prompted his visit to the embassy, he'd wondered if they'd lived through what Bucky had.

If it was right for him to fight them like that, when they might have been just as lost and scared and confused as Bucky had been.

(Steve knew that some of this was the sleep-deprivation talking. He hadn't had a good night's sleep in too many months to keep track of, not since he'd known that Bucky was up and walking around and very not dead, and the lack of any sleep at all over the past few days (he'd been busy preparing to leave the country, and then busy tracking down the lead he was working on as soon as he got off of the plane that had taken him to France) was taking its toll. The people he'd been fighting a few hours before had been trying to kill him, and both the Bucky he'd known and Sam (and even Natasha and Tony and Thor and everyone else that he'd begun to call family in the new, strange, technicolor world he'd woken up in a handful of short years before) would've shaken him for the thought. He could practically hear Bucky in his head: "You could've died! It's definitely self-defense, which is always completely understandable, especially when someone is trying to kill you!" Maybe that voice was right, he considered - if the people you were fighting off weren't pulling any punches, it wasn't smart to try to on your end.)

The memory of Bucky shaking his shoulder, loud and angry and in his face (eyes wild with terrified hostility, full of angry tears and something that told Steve all he needed to know without Bucky saying a word of the you-can't-get-yourself-killed-and-leave-me-here-alone that was playing in his head - Steve knew what it was, because he'd felt it all those months before, when Bucky had walked out of their apartment to go serve his country, and Steve had thought for the first time that he would never see the man he loved again) played in his head. He remembered how horrible it had been, seeing that look in Bucky's eyes again (it had always been there, when Steve was real sick and Bucky was real scared, but he'd done his best to never let Steve see it, because his weak body wasn't his fault - it seemed that Steve's stunts during the war were a different kind of awful, because they were his choice, and Bucky hadn't pulled any punches that night), how helpless it had made him feel.

He remembered pulling Bucky as far from the camp and as deep into the frozen woods as he dared to crash their mouths together and whisper, "I'm not going anywhere, Buck, I love you, I love you, I'm right here," to the man shaking in his arms.

(Steve's chest ached. He'd learned a lot about the strange, new, technicolor world that he was living in, and the thing that had somehow hurt the most was that, if he and Bucky had been born eighty, maybe ninety years later, they never would have had to hide, never would have had to pretend to be anything less than exactly what they were. He was so proud of America, so proud that the country he loved had come so far, that teenagers who weren't too different from the ones that he and Bucky had been could do the things that they couldn't - hold hands on their way home from school, pull each other into corners and kiss like the world was ending and not wonder who saw or what they had to say about it.

It just hurt that he and Bucky might never have that - he would never tell Bucky a word of what they'd had seven decades before, of how things had been between them in their youth, because he would never want Bucky to feel obligated or that he owed him something.

He'd never told anyone else but Peggy, and then Natasha, when the red-head had gotten him drunk off of something Thor had brought from Asgard for the purpose of giving them all a well-deserved break. He could imagine Natasha rolling her eyes at Steve's noble plot to protect whatever semblance of friendship that was still possible between him and the man he'd loved for all those years.

It didn't matter, though. He knew he was doing the right thing.

And none of that would even matter unless he could find a way to find Bucky, which was why he'd gone to France in the first place, because there'd been a sighting of someone that matched his description and enough evidence for Steve to decide that the plane ticket (and the lecture he was going to receive from Sam and Natasha) was worth it. But Bucky hadn't been there, and Steve had gotten pretty decently banged up in the process of checking out the lead.

Bucky would've torn into him. Read him a new version of the Riot Act, Steve knew, for running off like that without a word.

But he's not here to do it, Steve reminded himself rather pathetically. That line of thought was morbid even for him, and he knew it was because he so desperately needed sleep. And a break. And then more sleep.)

The doctor came back after a little while. The squeak of the door pulled him out of his reverie (and incredibly morbid thoughts) long enough for the doctor to offer Steve something for the pain that he would feel as his shoulder and ankle were treated. He shook his head. It wouldn't help him anyway - he doubted the embassy's infirmary had anything that would override the serum's defense against anything alien in his system.

It hurt like a mother when they put his shoulder to rights. Steve clenched his teeth and prayed and even swore.

He thought of Bucky, of his perfectly creased uniform and inability to have the terrible morning breath that Steve was so prone to. Of bright laughter in a barely lit room. Of the man that had worked three shifts in a row at the docks to pay for Steve's medicine and the rent on the same paycheck.

He didn't feel it as his shoulder and ankle were wrapped. Didn't hear as the doctor rattled off instructions for caring for his injuries once he got home, so the doctor wrote all of his notes on two sheets of paper and handed them to Steve in a manila folder with the words IMPORTANT INFORMATION scribbled across the top in handwriting that would've made Peggy (with her loopy cursive, so gorgeous it was practically calligraphy, and Steve spent more time admiring her penmanship than actually reading what she had to say, to the point where she handed everything with important information written out inside right over his head and put it into Bucky's waiting hand) proud.

An embassy official (clearly a woman who spent her time behind a very important desk, she wore a flawless pencil skirt and suit jacket and heels high enough that the sight alone made Steve's sprained ankle start throbbing again) stepped back into the room a minute later. The squeak of the door drew Steve's attention, and he snapped out of his daze to hear the woman's no-funny-business, no-room-for-argument (but still somehow kind) voice say, "Captain Rogers, there is a quinjet waiting for you on the roof."

She reminded him so much of Peggy that he somehow forgot the doctor standing behind him (who was still babbling on about something) as he followed her out of the room.

(He'd always loved Peggy like a sister, and if there was one person he could've asked a single question, it would've been her - he wanted nothing more to ask for her advice, to ask how he was supposed to get over Bucky and find him and build some kind of trust between them without feeling like his heart was being shattered in his chest every time he took a breath.)

But Peggy was gone, and Bucky was nowhere to be found, and Steve's ankle nearly gave out every time he put any sort of weight on it.

Maria Hill was standing just inside the open entrance to the aircraft, a look of rage (that was somehow nothing short of put together and professional) on her face. He was so glad that the embassy woman had wished him a safe trip and stayed put at the door to the stairwell that led back inside - he made it to about a foot in front of Agent Hill before his ankle finally gave out, and the look of professionalized anger turned to real concern for her friend as she helped him catch his balance and walked him to a couch about three yards away.

Once he was seated, she shook her head at him. He must've looked well and truly pitiful, though, because she snapped her mouth shut just after she opened it to start berating him.

Instead, she said, "I have strict instructions to take you to Sam Wilson's home ASAP."

Steve just nodded and leaned back against the seat. Hill walked back towards the cockpit, understanding his wish to be alone.

Well. Not alone. He didn't want to be alone.

He just wanted to be with someone who was very much not wanting to be found.

-/-

"So," Sam said slowly, "Steve's quinjet just landed. He'll be here shortly."

Bucky nodded, taking another swig of the beer he was nursing. "Is he alright?"

Sam fixed his gaze over Bucky's shoulder, shoving his phone back into his pocket. "He's..." He didn't want to lie to the man - after spending nearly twenty-four hours getting to know the guy, he was actually pretty decent once he loosened up a bit and let the metaphorical (and literal - his ponytail holder was now around his wrist, and his long hair was drying from the shower that he'd taken in Sam's bathroom while Sam had taken a short nap) hair down. "He's been better, but he's a little bit beat up."

"Beat up how?"

He couldn't help but notice the strangled-tone that Bucky's voice had taken on. He sounded terrified for his friend.

"His shoulder was dislocated, and his ankle was sprained, and he's a little scratched up, but he'll live." That was the run down that Agent Hill had given Sam over the phone just moments before.

Just before she'd warned him to go easy on Steve, because while she'd known him for a few years, she'd never seen that look in his eyes. He'd actually heard a tiny degree of fear chasing the worry in her tone. She'd said he looked heartbroken and exhausted, and Sam was willing to bet he knew why.

Steve had been in France looking for Bucky, chasing down a lead. When he hadn't found him, combined with the exhaustion of the past couple of years and the horror of finding his best friend to be a man that didn't know or trust him, who was very alive and not dead, but also had been subjected to atrocities that none of the Avengers could fathom (except maybe Natasha), it had probably hit him hard.

I guess it's a good thing that I've got good news for him, Sam mused.

He noticed that Bucky hadn't said anything else after hearing what injuries Steve had suffered. He let it go for a few more minutes, but he noticed the way that the other man's jaw was clenched and how his knuckles were white around the neck of the beer bottle in his hand. "Bucky? Are you alright?"

Bucky looked at him, eyes sizing him up, half-angry all of the sudden. The words that came out of his mouth, however, didn't line up with what Sam was seeing. "How did it happen?" His tone wasn't the slightest bit harsh.

Sam decided that the truth was the best option here, too. "We won't know until we hear it from him, but..." Sam paused, and then Bucky narrowed his eyes in a way that very clearly meant keep talking. "I think he was looking for you."

"So it was Hydra agents that he picked a fight with?"

"I don't know that he picked the fight," Sam replied, going for some degree of devil's advocate and an attempt at calm mediation (this was a feat, because he wanted to agree with Bucky, wanted to knock Steve's lights out for being so stupid).

Bucky downed the rest of his beer in a gulp, dragged the back of his hand across the lower half of his face to wipe his mouth. When he spoke, his voice was hollow but he was angry. "Oh, trust me, he picked the fight alright."

Sam raised an eyebrow, but said nothing in response.

"He picked fights all the time when we were kids," Bucky spat out, leaping to his feet. "That's how we met. I had to drag the school's bully off of him and take him home to his ma before she worried herself half to death."

Sam still said nothing, though he filed that tidbit away to ask Steve about later (he'd heard some of this story from both of them now, but he imagined that he was still missing some of it). He wanted to let Bucky keep talking.

But he didn't.

He plopped back down in his chair, all of the fight in him suddenly gone, the fire in his eyes extinguished in favor of a terrible anguish.

Sam waited an entire sixty seconds before asking again, "Are you alright?"

"I remember - " He choked out. "I remember Steve - I loved him, and I was always the one that pulled him out of stupid fights. I don't remember much of it, but I remember enough to know that that's how he was." His gaze flew up to Sam's, then, pinning him to where he sat. "Is it true, that he's been doing this to himself without me? I read about him at the museum, online - he's a hero, but he's been so reckless. Has he really been...?" Bucky trailed off here, his breathing short and shallow. "He's really been running himself ragged and all over the place looking for - looking for God knows what?"

There was enough self-loathing in the statement for Sam to work out that Bucky also felt guilty for Steve's ridiculous behavior, blamed himself for not being there, just like Steve blamed himself for not being there with Bucky to protect him from everything Hydra did to him. (Sam knew that neither of these concepts that the two men had of protecting the other would've been at all feasible - Bucky was literally a prisoner of war, and had Steve been there with him, he would've been in the same boat, and no one would've been around to remind them of who they'd been before, like Steve had managed to do for Bucky before they'd fallen from the burning helicarrier and Bucky had pulled him from the river. Also: the world would've ended, because Hydra's plan with the attack would've been carried out, which would've been bad.)

Sam took a moment to process the power of that - that Steve had managed to pull the person he'd loved most in the world back to himself like that. That was a lot.

I need a drink.

Sam shook his head, took a drink of his own beer just to satisfy the beginning of the pounding in his skull. Considered going to the store to get another six pack, because he was going to need it to digest every individual revelation that had just been thrown at him. "He hasn't been looking for 'God knows what'." He kept his voice quiet on purpose, trying not to startle his new friend. "He's been looking for you."

Bucky didn't waste a second before shooting back: "Even before he knew I was alive?"

Sam remembered his own mother telling him something about love when he was a child. Love is a powerful thing, she'd said to him and the first girl he'd told his mother he loved. It can save us, and it can destroy us. And if we lose it, when it's really meant to be, the universe will keep pulling you back together. You will find your way back eventually, because you will never stop looking for each other in everyone you meet.

He understood, then, that Steve hadn't just loved Bucky - no, Steve had been in love with Bucky, and he obviously still was. No wonder Maria Hill had said he'd looked so heartbroken.

He was.

But Sam didn't want to say too much, because this was obviously a Steve and Bucky conversation, and it wasn't even a conversation he'd had with his best friend yet. He wasn't even sure that Bucky had realized what his own words had implied.

"You were everything to him." Sam finally responded. "I can't tell you how many times I've heard him say that he's always had you, even when he had nothing else."

Bucky stared at the floor for a few minutes. "I meant it." Sam looked up at him, head cocked to the side to show that the other man had lost him. "What I said." Seeing that Sam still looked confused, he explained, "I don't remember much, but I remember the room brightening up just because he stepped inside. I remember being so terrified of losing him that I couldn't breathe. I remember" - he paused as his face turned beet red, and Sam was pretty sure that he knew what was coming - "I remember waking up next to him, and kissing him, but knowing that we weren't supposed to do those things."

Steve's voice flashed through his mind. Bucky was always dragging me on double dates. He was always going out with girls. He was a real charmer. That had been their way of hiding their relationship, Sam realized. They really had been together, and they'd had to cover it up - Sam didn't know much about the rampant period-typical homophobia (he knew that it was rampant, but that was about it), but he knew that it had been bad. They would've had no choice but to hide from everyone around them in New York, and then it would've been even more difficult overseas during World War II. But obviously, they'd been in love - Steve's words echoed in his mind again: Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky. He was always there. In every single way that mattered, even though, half the time, I could never figure out why the popular, charming ladies' man was spending so much of his time with the sickly kid from down the block who couldn't leave his house for half of December - and they'd managed. No wonder it had hurt Steve so much to wake up in this new century without him.

And Steve had lied to him about it?

No, no, you need to hear him out. Sam ordered himself. Being angry at Steve wasn't going to make this better, even if it did hurt that Steve hadn't trusted him with that secret that weighed so heavily on him. None of this could've been easy for him, so you should cut the guy some slack.

Besides, Sam reasoned, Bucky was going to want to be the first one to tear into him. About all of the stupid things he'd heard and read about Steve doing.

-/-

Bucky was more full of nervous energy than he had any recollection of being.

He went through the mental list of memories he had of the same feeling - at some point, this had become his tactic to calm himself, because he always went through the new memories he had from his days with Hydra (these were few and far between, but sent him careening over the edge faster than anything else - even a snatch of the torture they'd subjected him to was enough to leave him on the ground shaking, so he usually tried to shove them from his mind and move to the next memory on his list whenever he could), to the memories he'd made since he'd been free, and then all the way back to the few, cherished memories he had of Steve.

Those were his favorites, after all, and somehow always managed to bring him back down to Earth.

He dragged a hand through his still damp hair and leaned back into the arm chair he'd plopped himself down in. He had a perfect view of Sam's front door from there, which was why he'd moved there from the couch. "Alright," he muttered to himself, closing his eyes and drawing up the first memory on this list.

On the run, it was easy to be scared of every shadow, on an adrenaline rush from every gaze that stuck around too long. He'd been so afraid that someone would find him. That he would lose the relative freedom that he'd achieved for himself and become little more than someone else's scapegoat, forced to do someone else's bidding. (This had been overridden by his need to find Steve and know that he was okay - he'd seen the news that Steve had gone missing, a ridiculous headline about how S.H.I.E.L.D. had somehow managed to lose Captain America, and he'd immediately sprang into action, packing what little he'd had and making his way to Washington D.C., where he knew he would find Sam, Steve's best friend in the brave new world he'd woken up in. His fear of being found had suddenly disappeared, chased away by the fear that his hiding from Steve for so long would be the very reason why he never got to see him again.)

He didn't have a whole lot of memories to go off of, but what he did have was surely eclipsed by the feeling that had currently resulted in his gripping the edge of the coffee table in front of him with white knuckles.

Going and looking for Steve, ready to give the blond man both absolute hell and the lecture of his life, after his mother's funeral. He'd found Steve half-dead and a complete wreck, and the feeling that had torn through him had nearly knocked him off his feet. (The memory faded to black just as hands that Bucky was pretty sure were his had grabbed the front of Steve's shirt, pulling the blond off of the couch and likely towards a warm blanket, because his teeth were absolutely chattering. Bucky wasn't sure, though.)

He remembered asking Steve to be his - remembered Steve laughing, because he was the so-called ladies' man, but he could barely look Steve in the eyes until Steve finally nodded and said, "I want this, too, Buck." He had a flash of his hands shaking in front of him as he reached for Steve, and then nothing more than a snatch of Steve rolling his eyes (his eyes and smile bright, the dim light and cheap liquor that had empowered Bucky to make his confession turning Steve's blond hair into a halo, he could've been an angel) and stepping right into his personal space instead.

He had very few memories of his past, and most of what he did have was incomplete and little more than snatches of a laugh (his younger sister laughing at the way that Steve had tried so hard to learn to dance) or a song (sang drunkenly, courtesy of the cheap liquor that they could barely afford) or a hand running up and down his arm (after he'd spent a too-long day at the docks, Steve had often tried to massage the ache out of his muscles).

He'd been holding on to what whole memories he did have, and the flashes (bright eyes and loud laughter) and snatches (a freezing, twig of an arm reaching for him in the dark of the room that they'd shared in Brooklyn; cords of sunlight streaming in through the window in the early hours of the morning, putting a shine in the blond hair that Bucky had rested his cheek against as he'd drifted off the night before) of memories that had come back to him, for months.

He'd wanted to wait to come back until he had more, until he was more of the person that he'd been before, but at some point he'd wondered if he could do that. If he could be that again.

Footsteps, travelling in his direction, pulled him from his thoughts. "You're worried about something."

Bucky didn't bother asking Sam how he could tell. He could already tell that Sam was an oddly perceptive person, so he imagined that his new friend could practically see the nervous energy rolling off of him in waves. "I'm not the person that I used to be."

"Well..." Sam shrugged. He walked around Bucky's armchair and carefully sat down on the couch, taking a drink of the glass of water in his hand before putting it down on the coffee table in front of him. "Neither is Steve."

"How do you know?"

This seemed to throw Sam - an expression darted across his face, but Bucky couldn't discern what it was before Sam pulled his expression back together - off a little bit. "I guess I don't," he said slowly. "But at the same time, I've known him for a few years, and I know that it wasn't easy for him waking up alone in another century. He grieved for you all over again - I caught the tail-end of it when I met him. He was turning into a recluse."

"Steve? A recluse?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. He wasn't really sure where they'd come from, but... Somehow, the idea of Steve locking himself in his new living space (Steve hadn't ever been a buy-a-house-in-the-suburbs kind of guy - he'd liked the apartments in the city, hadn't he? Yeah, yeah, that sounds right, Bucky thought to himself, and the word home just didn't fit Steve being alone and lonely like Sam was implying) just didn't sit well with him.

Sam offered nothing but a nod. "He was really lost without you."

When the other man didn't say more, Bucky cocked his head to the side, trying to restrain the wave of emotion that was building up inside him - he still hadn't gotten all the way through all of these feelings, and he couldn't rationalize everything he felt, and it scared him to be so full of emotion when he really didn't know what so much of it meant. "He had you. And the other Avengers."

"Yeah," Sam affirmed, a knowing smile on his face, "and he still does. And he definitely needs us - it takes a team of Earth's Mightiest Heroes just to keep him from trying the dumb stunts he likes to pull." This made Bucky laugh, and Sam paused to take a drink of his water. "But he needs you in a way that he doesn't need us - we're his friends, his family, but you are something else entirely to him."

Bucky nodded. He was glad that Steve had found those things - friends, family - in the bizarre new world that they were all living in. He was happy that Steve hadn't been alone.

But he also understood what Sam meant. Steve was something else to him - Steve was a friend, and his family, but he was also something else.

There was an easy silence that Bucky knew, somehow, that he hadn't felt with anyone but Steve or his sister or their mothers. He liked Sam, he really did - he was a nice guy, and he was trustworthy.

Almost as if he could sense Bucky's train of thought, Sam leaned forward on his elbows and said, "We can be your friends, your family, too, you know. If you want to stick around." His expression was thoughtful, and genuine, and something in Bucky could've cried at just hearing that he could have that, too.

"What do you - what do you mean?" Bucky wasn't really sure what he was asking, because he thought Sam's statement was rather self-explanatory, but the words came out anyway.

Sam, still, took this in stride. His response came with another whoosh of that easy confidence that Sam exuded. "Not just because of you and Steve being so close, I mean. We've spent almost" - he paused and glanced down at his watch - "twenty hours straight in this apartment, and it took me ten of those to decide that we're going to be wonderful friends."

It was kind of weird, but Bucky was both relieved and confused to hear that. "Even after everything I did when I was...?" He waved a hand in a vague gesture, trying to reference the events of the bridge (and the attempt that he'd made on the lives of several of the Avengers when he hadn't been himself).

There was a pause as Sam blinked at him once, twice, three times. When he spoke a few seconds later, his voice sounded strange, like he wasn't quite sure what to say all of the sudden, but also like he didn't know how to word what he wanted to say.

"You weren't yourself, man, none of that was your fault." Sam was still blinking owlishly. "None of us hold that against you."

Bucky nodded slowly and then looked up at his new friend. "Thank you, Sam."

"Of course." He said it like it really was such a simple thing. Like the way that Sam had just brought Bucky into his home, and was about to stage a reunion between Bucky and the guy that he loved, was really all in a day's work. "We all need people in our lives. And you and Steve, I imagine, will have each other, but you guys are family." His phone began vibrating in his pocket, and Sam threw a Look in that direction, shaking his head. He gulped down the rest of his water before pushing himself to his feet. "Family is family, especially when we decide to make it for ourselves. When we choose the people that we would do anything for."

Sam disappeared back into the bathroom to answer the phone, and went he came back into the room a few minutes later, there was a grin on his face.

"That was Natasha. She is with Steve and Agent Hill, and they will be here in about twenty minutes."

Bucky suddenly felt sick.

-/-

Even with Sam's reassurance that Steve wouldn't care that he was a different person, with the concept of family warming him from the inside, Bucky still felt nauseous.

He'd been waiting so long to see Steve - he'd wanted to wait, yes, and the waiting had been one thing, but the waiting had been an excuse to put off the tidal wave of emotions that he felt whenever he thought of Steve.

Now that their reunion was so imminent, Bucky didn't know what to do.

Didn't know how to feel.

"You don't look as excited as you were a little while ago, my man." Sam raised an eyebrow, a hand waving in front of Bucky's face.

Bucky knocked the hand from in front of his face, not sure how long he'd been zoned out.

Bucky let out a shaky breath. "I just don't know what to do." He looked up at Sam, felt the clear panic that must've been in his eyes. "What do I say to him? How do I talk to him?"

Sam chuckled - the fool had the nerve to actually laugh at him - and when he took a deep breath, the sight of Bucky's glare sent him into an actual fit of laughter. He bent over at the waist, reaching for the back of the couch to keep him upright, and when he stood up straight again, his chest was heaving, and he was wiping actual tears out of his eyes.

"What's so funny?"

"It's like high school in here," Sam guffawed, sides shaking with silent laughter once again. He did a rather pitiful and far too high-pitched impression of Bucky's voice: "What do I say to him? What if he doesn't like my new hair?"

Bucky kept glaring at him, but Sam batted his eyelashes at him in a way-overdone fashion and kept going: "How do I know if he likes me back?", and Bucky finally lost it laughing.

"Trust me, he liked me back," Bucky coughed a few minutes later, standing up straight and trying to catch his breath.

Sam looked at him, a question in his eyes, and swore in a way that would've made Dum Dum (Bucky's memories of the Howling Commandos had started to return, and he remembered Dugan swearing up a storm on more than one occasion - he had a vague memory of Peggy entering a room, before they'd really known her, and warning Dugan not to be so improper in front of a lady; Peggy had pinned him with a heavy glare and proceeded to make even Dugan blush, all while Steve laughed on Bucky's other side) proud. "What the -? You can't just -" Sam stopped short, hands flying into the air. "You can't just do stuff like that, he's my best friend, I hardly need to know about you two getting down and dirty - why would you even say that-?"

He was cut off by Bucky's laughter. "Hey, I didn't say anything." He held his hands up in a placating gesture.

"No, but you implied it!"

-/-

They were interrupted by a knock on the door not long after. They'd continued trading back and forth jabs at each other until the knock sobered them both, instantly bringing them back down to Earth. Bucky was grateful - he realized as he straightened himself up, suddenly fighting an urge to fidget with his clothes and make sure he was presentable, that Sam had been trying to distract him.

That was a very Sam thing to do, Bucky knew, even after only having spent a day or so with the other man. He was very grateful for his new friend.

"Natasha told me that Steve was literally half asleep when the quinjet landed. Apparently, it took several people just to haul him out of it and to the car," Sam explained as he walked around Bucky and to the front door. "I doubt he's much better now, so it shouldn't be too difficult."

Sam pulled the door open just before Bucky's nerves could hit a crescendo.

And there he was - Steve, the man that Bucky had loved since he was fourteen and didn't know what those butterflies in his stomach were, didn't know why he thought Steve was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen when there were girls throwing themselves at him left and right.

There he was.

Bucky took his time sweeping his eyes over Steve's limp frame. He was being held up by a familiar looking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent (she had red hair and a bright smile, one that she'd aimed at Sam once her eyes had swung between the man she was half-holding up and Bucky) and another woman with a similar uniform to the redhead's.

Steve's chin was resting against his chest, his feet (which were not wearing shoes, likely due to the ankle injury) were on the floor but not still - he was trying to find a way to take some of his weight off of the two women (and the two male agents, standing behind them and helping to support some of Steve's weight) and stand on his own.

Sam stepped forward. "We can take it from here, guys."

The two male S.H.I.E.L.D. agents nodded in a way that said that they registered Sam's casual (but polite) dismissal. They both threw him a smile and a thumb's up before heading back down the hall.

"Steve." Sam's voice was soft but firm. "Are you still with us?"

Bucky wasn't at all surprised that Sam wasn't yelling at Steve - he would wait until Steve was coherent enough to suffer through the lecture, he was sure, because that was exactly what Bucky was going to do, too.

"Yeah, yeah... I'm..." Steve mumbled, making a feeble attempt at lifting his head. "'M here."

Bucky looked over to see that Sam and the red-head were exchanging eye rolls, facial expressions, and small hand gestures in a silent argument. He raised an eyebrow at the both of him, and Sam shook his head. "I was offering to help," he muttered. "Steve's a little heavy for someone who so frequently nearly gets himself killed and renders himself in need of being dragged to the nearest medical facility."

Bucky cocked his head to the side. His eyes had drifted back to the man in question, and while he was curious about the silent argument going on next to them, he couldn't find the words to ask what they were arguing about.

"I offended her." Sam chuckled, and the redhead glared with such force that Bucky unconsciously took a step to the side.

The dark-haired S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, the one that Bucky couldn't identify at all, rolled her lips together. She was looking a little pale under her share of Steve's weight, and without thinking about it, Bucky charged forward to help.

She only smiled at him, holding Steve's arm up for him to slip under, and stepped to the side. She was immediately all business, simultaneously seeming like a kind and straight forward person (an image of another kind but straight-forward person who had also been a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent popped into his head, and Bucky's chest almost burned at the memory of Peggy's laugh when she found out about him and Steve's feelings for one another). "Sam, I'll brief you inside, once we get Cap settled."

Her voice was quiet, but it got Steve's attention, even as Sam nodded his okay and motioned for everyone to step inside.

Steve looked up, seeming to realize that the woman's voice was farther away that it had been before. He managed to get his head up just enough to see that it was Bucky holding him up, and his jaw dropped open.

"Hey, punk," Bucky whispered, breathless with the intensity of Steve's gaze.

Even half-dead on his feet as he was, Steve was looking at him like - like -

Like he loved him.

"Let's get inside, guys." It was Sam's voice breaking through their reunion. "You can have your moment inside, once we get Steve sat down somewhere."

Steve opened his mouth to protest, suddenly empowered, without taking his eyes off of Bucky's. But Sam wasn't having it, and his voice left no room for argument when he shut Steve down. "A little birdie told me that you sprained your ankle. It's never going to get better if we don't get it propped up and with some ice. Same thing for your shoulder."

The red-head agreed, too. "Steve, this can't be good for your shoulder." She nodded her head towards the thick bandage near her ear (he was considerably taller than her). "Much as I'm sure you like being held up like this," she said with narrowed eyes, voice dripping with lethal-sounding sarcasm, "this could hyper-extend it or something, and trust me, you don't want that."

"'M fine."

"No," Bucky said, finally finding his voice. "They're right."

Steve opened his mouth to protest once more. His words were cut off by his own lack of balance, and Bucky slipped an arm (it was his metal arm, and he did it without thinking that maybe Steve wouldn't like that, but Steve didn't flinch away - didn't do anything more than lean into the touch as best he could, throwing Bucky for yet another loop) around his waist just as he swayed dangerously on his feet, even between Bucky and the redhead as he was.

Bucky decided waiting for Steve to well and truly pass out was a bad idea. He began to twist them around so that the three of them could fit through the door. Somehow, he and the redhead worked well enough together (he really felt like he knew her, he just couldn't place it) to get through the door and into Sam's guest room. Once they were at the side of the bed, they turned again, and Bucky and the redhead helped Steve sit down.

As soon as he was safely on the bed, he leaned against Bucky - he was so exhausted that he didn't even bother with a declaration of love or questions, just rested his head against Bucky's chest, whispering, "Bucky, Bucky, Bucky," over and over again.

"I'm here." Bucky put his mouth at Steve's ear, and fixed both of his arms around him. "I'm here."

The redhead went to lift Steve's legs onto the bed. "I'm going to get him an ice pack."

It was the first time that she'd spoken directly to him, and it hit him then, just as their eyes met. "You were - you - "

"It's Natasha, now," she cut him off, a gentle smile on her face. "Steve's pretty much my best friend, Barnes." She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm going to get him an ice pack."

"It's Bucky, now."

She giggled - actually giggled - at his mimicking her words. "I'll be back in a minute, Bucky."

Bucky looked down at the blond man in his arms. "How did you do this to yourself, Stevie?"

His murmured words were mostly rhetorical (he was fairly sure that Steve was too far gone to respond), but he got an answer a minute or so later, as he was pulling Steve's shirt off.

"I was looking for you," he breathed out. He winced as Bucky maneuvered one of the sleeves around his injured shoulder. "In France."

Bucky folded the shirt slowly, put it down on the nightstand. He glanced back at Steve's feet, which were not wearing shoes, and this made the process easy.

"I know." Bucky ran a hand through Steve's hair. He slid his arms under Steve, one under his back and the other (his metal arm, so that Steve's sweats would keep the cold metal from his skin) under his knees, and lifted him into his arms so that he was pressed against his chest. "Sam told me."

Bucky stood there, holding Captain America to his chest, for a few minutes. If his arms were starting to ache, he hadn't noticed - the closeness had calmed the wild beating of his heart, the frantic panic of his nerves as he wondered if Steve would really want to see him after all the time that had passed.

(Bucky was very glad that it didn't send him into complete panic to be so close to Steve. He'd had a few close calls with other people - Hydra had managed to take away even his sense of relative security and safety, and there were very few people he could stand to be so close with, and it seemed that they were, for the most part, all in Sam's apartment - and he could've cried, he was so happy, that Steve's closeness had a positive effect on the fear that tightened his chest instead of worsening it.)

When Natasha walked back into the room, humming a tune that sounded way too familiar, she squeezed between Bucky (and the six feet tall super-soldier in his arms) and the side of the bed to draw the blankets all the way back to the foot of the bed. Bucky laid Steve down, and Steve's left hand fisted in the front of his shirt - it was the way that Steve had told Bucky, all those years ago, don't go when he was sick, and the familiar motion nearly sent Bucky to his knees with a wave of emotion.

Sam entered the room with an armful of pillows and, with Natasha's help, managed to get them situated underneath Steve's injured ankle. Natasha added the ice pack, wrapping it around the bandage as best she could, almost like it was the metaphorical cherry on the cake.

Steve groaned when the cold pack touched his skin, and Bucky ran his hand through Steve's blond hair a second time. The gesture worked, and Steve relaxed as he got used to the cold.

Sam and Natasha pulled the sheet over Steve's body. Bucky just stood there, wondering what in God's name had led them here, how they'd gotten here, and what they would do going forward. Natasha slipped between him and Steve, an apologetic look in her eyes, just long enough to lean down and kiss Steve's cheek and whisper something in his ear.

Sam put a hand on Bucky's shoulder, then, pulling him from his thoughts. "We're going to be in the living room with Agent Hill. You two take all the time you need, and let me know if you need anything or if you get hungry. Natasha is going to bring you guys some water, and Hill is getting some medication called in for Steve for something. You guys should eat soon, though, so that he can take his medicine."

Bucky nodded, not really sure how to put together a sentence with everything in front of him.

Sam traded places with Natasha, going to tell Steve to rest, probably.

(Or maybe warn him about you, a voice in the back of Bucky's head sneered. Bucky shut the thought down quickly - Natasha (the words little spider rang through his head) was staring at him with big, round eyes, and Stevie was half-asleep not five feet away from where he stood.)

In a move that shocked him further, Natasha stood up on her tip-toes and kissed Bucky's cheek, too. "We can talk later, but I want you to know that if you ever need anything, I'm here." Natasha paused to squeeze his arm, swing her eyes up and down his frame. "And you and me are going to be great friends." She lowered her voice and glanced around conspiratorially. "And we're going to have a great time messing with these morons once Steve gets better."

She turned on her heel and headed for the door without looking back.

Sam followed after her a minute or two later, a silent laugh twinkling in his eyes that said that yes, she's always a force of nature, and no, there's really no arguing with her.

That was always how Bucky had remembered her, in the brief flashes of her that he had from his days in Russia. (There wasn't much, but in the brief time since he'd been free and started trying to put his head back together, he'd always wondered what had happened to the bright-eyed, red-haired and red-lipped spitfire that he'd trained.)

Sam pulled the door closed behind him as he left. At the soft click, Bucky began pulling off his own shirt, careful of his metal arm, and folded it up. He deposited it on the dresser, which he passed as he walked to the other side of the room. He was glad that he'd left his shoes by Sam's front door earlier in the day so that he didn't have to deal with them then - exhaustion was catching up with him. When was the last time he'd slept?

Bucky stood at the empty side of the bed, trying to will himself to lay down. This was Steve, his Steve, and he'd spent all night and all day and most of another night with Sam Wilson, so that meant he had to be doing better, right? That he could be around other people and function at the same time, right?

It was starting to feel like it didn't work that way.

Because now they were alone, and Bucky was still having some trouble with people - anytime anyone moved too fast, or startled him, or suddenly touched him (even in a kind way, like a hand on his shoulder)... there was still a fifty/ fifty chance that it would send him into flashbacks of his time as the Winter Soldier.

It hadn't happened too recently, as long as he had a warning - like Sam, who'd been so careful not to startle him, had done during the day. Sam, who'd purposefully stomped through his own home in order not to scare the man he'd said could be his friend, his family.

"Buck?" Steve's voice breathed from a few feet away. "What're ya doin'?"

He really was half-asleep - his voice betrayed it, even as he tried to force his eyes to open and stay open.

"I'm - I'm goin' to stay with you," he whispered back. His voice had a strange twist to it, leaving off some consonants and doing strange things to vowels, and he identified it as the accent (courtesy of being born and raised in Brooklyn in the twenties and thirties) that came out when he became too emotional to think properly enough to enunciate his words. "Because you're hurt."

Steve just nodded. Somehow, after everything, he understood, and Bucky didn't have to say a word.

"You don't have to. I - I would appreciate it, but it's been a while, and you don't owe me anything. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

How Steve was thinking so coherently when he looked so miserable was beyond him, but he supposed that that was one of those things about Steve that he hadn't remembered yet. It sounded like the kind of thing that Steve would be weirdly good at.

He swore in his mind. He didn't know how to tell Steve the truth, that he was just scared of being that kind of close to someone, after everything that he'd been through. It was a beyond inopportune moment, and he didn't even know where the feeling had come from. What had set it off.

(It was weird to Bucky, that he'd held Steve to his chest not ten minutes before, but even the thought of sitting down next to him was making his hands shake. He supposed that it was because he knew that he would drift into slumber lying next to the other man, and he was afraid of the vulnerable state it would leave him in. He was scared to be vulnerable like that around anyone, which was why he had avoided sleeping for so long, even though he had come to trust Sam.)

Part of Bucky knew that he had no reason to be afraid, even after everything. He shook the feeling of hands on him - hands that should never have been on him, he knew, that had taken whatever they'd wanted from him (his will, his sanity, his choices, his freedom) because they'd had the technology to do so, and the weapons to torture him into a resigned submission when he'd fought back), that had only ever brought pain - with the image of the more-asleep-than-awake man in front of him, who was trying to help in whatever way he could, beat up as he looked, and who had fought and fought and fought for Bucky since they'd been young and in Brooklyn together (Steve may not have had to physically fight for Bucky until he'd rescued him and his unit during the war, and then to protect him after they'd started working together as the Howling Commandos - all of them had had to fight to protect one another, though - but they'd had something special, even when the time period had been against them, and he suddenly had a flash of Steve saying, "No, Buck, we're here, we're together, and I believe it's for a reason. There's not an army in this world that could change that for me.", his eyes inflamed and defiant of the social norms of the century).

It was Steve. Steve, who had come after him on that helicarrier, who had talked him down, who had been ready to let Bucky kill him rather than fight back, because he would never have hurt him, even as the Winter Soldier. Even knowing all that he'd done.

The memory and the flash of Steve from their youth, when combined, was enough to calm the raging panic inside him. He never would have hurt me. Steve hadn't wanted to hurt him - hadn't hurt him at all - when he'd had every right to, and no one could've held it against him for defending himself. Why would now be any different?

Steve wasn't going to hurt him.

Bucky sat down on the edge of the bed, scooted over until he was next to Steve, but above the sheet that had been used to cover Steve up. "What if I want to stay with you?"

His eyes had already drifted closed again, probably as Bucky was getting situated, but they snapped wide open at his words. "Then - stay, please. At least until I fall asleep."

"I'll be here when you wake up," Bucky murmured back. He turned on to his side so that he was facing Steve, propping himself up on his metal arm and using his flesh hand to run up and down Steve's arm. "I'll be here as long as you want me here."

Steve turned his head to the side to look at him. "I'll always want you here, Buck." His eyes were reddening, and Bucky didn't know what that meant, but a feeling of dread and something else he couldn't quite place (the feeling that had washed over him before, in the hall, when he'd taken Agent Hill's place holding Steve up) made his chest tighten up. "One day," Steve continued, his voice barely a whisper, but still choked up. "One day, we'll find our way back to each other."

Bucky didn't know what that meant, but before he could ask, Steve dozed off, a single tear running down his cheek.

-/-

Steve had been asleep for two or three hours, and Bucky felt like he was going to pass out at any moment.

Bucky'd been watching him sleep for the entire time, so bewildered that they were there, together, and not fighting. Steve trusted him enough to sleep right next to him. With his hand on his arm.

Bucky was really tired, and fatigue was starting to make him more paranoid than usual. He was jumping at every tiny sound, and shadows were dancing across his line of sight. He needed sleep.

And Steve was right there. Nothing bad (that he could remember, anyway, though that wasn't saying a whole lot) had ever happened when he'd been so close to Steve.

So he gave in to the impulse to scoot down, to lay himself down on his side on the bed. He wasn't touching Steve, save for the metal hand that he'd left on his shoulder and the flesh one that was resting on his wrist.

(Bucky wasn't sure why he was so comfortable touching Steve with his metal hand. He chalked it up to exhaustion, and wondered if Steve would mind when he woke up. If the arm would scare him as much as it still scared Bucky sometimes.

But this was Steve, he reminded himself, who wasn't afraid of a whole lot. And this was Steve, who he remembered loving. Who he remembered being loved by.

Maybe it wouldn't matter after all.)

Bucky drifted off a few minutes later, lulled into a peaceful slumber by the sound of Steve's deep, slow breathing. He wouldn't know it until he woke up, but it would be the first time he'd slept peacefully in almost eighty years.

-/-

Steve woke up to find Bruce Banner examining his ankle.

"Hey, sorry, Cap," Bruce said without looking up. "I didn't mean to wake you."

He opened his mouth to say, no, it's fine, I needed to get up anyway, and winced when he realized how badly it hurt to even swallow. What had happened to him?

Why was Bruce messing with his ankle?

Steve made a feeble attempt at blinking the sleep from his eyes, at forcing himself to some degree of coherency, and it came rushing back to him - going to France without telling anyone, Captain America: Captain MIA?, Sam's bizarre reaction over the phone, his injuries, the cold doctor from the U.S. Embassy, collapsing on Agent Hill at the quinjet's entrance, sleeping practically the entire flight and being roused to be helped into a car that took him to Sam's apartment, the words "international incident" being scoffed at his ear (Natasha, he realized, had actually been lecturing him on responsible behavior as he'd dozed off on her on the car ride to Sam's), being half-dragged and half-carried up to Sam's apartment, Agent Hill nearly giving out under his weight (he remembered feeling her fatigue, trying to help somehow, even as pathetic as he felt), and then -

And then Bucky taking Hill's place. And Bucky helping him inside, holding him to his chest like he weighed nothing. Tucking him into the bed.

Laying down next to him, even though Steve had told him he didn't have to stay with him, because he didn't owe him anything.

He cursed, drawing Bruce's attention. "Did that hurt?" the doctor asked.

Steve quickly shook his head and muttered an apology. "No, sorry, I was talking to myself."

Banner nodded. "Alright then." He looked over at a manila folder, scribbled something down in it. He glanced at Steve's ankle every few seconds, narrowed eyes obviously searching for something. When he was done, he looked back up at Steve and said, "I already had a look at your shoulder, since I figured it would be less pleasant to do while you were awake. It's going to hurt something awful for a while, but it should go away soon. Same thing for your ankle, though it's healed enough that it shouldn't bother you too much unless you walk on it."

There was a pause as Bruce shuffled the papers in his folder, trying to find something. "Oh," he added, "let me know if anything hurts more than it feels like it should."

Steve nodded, mumbled his assent. Banner didn't take his eyes off of his papers.

He was suddenly hit with the overwhelming desire to find Bucky - the illusion he'd dreamed up in his injured state had been cruel, and he likely owed the poor S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that had actually done all of those things an apology and a fruit basket (which Stark could never find out about, lest Steve be listening to jokes about his grand case of sleep-deprivation-induced mistaken identity) once he was well enough to get up and walk around on his own.

"So you must be pretty excited, right?" Banner asked a minute later, dragging Steve from his self-inflicted melancholy.

Steve shook his head at first, realizing he had no idea what the other man was referring to. "What do you mean?"

Bruce narrowed his eyes at him. "I mean, your friend..." He pointed towards the door. "Bucky, right? I mean, he stepped out to take a shower while I was looking at your shoulder. He's kinda quiet, but he seems like a nice guy."

Steve had absolutely no idea what to say.

Bucky's really here?

If Bruce was seeing him, too... There was no way that both of them had completely gone bonkers, right?

Steve was going to pay for it later, but he didn't really care as he sprang to his feet. Bruce chased after him, telling him to slow down and sit down and calm down, and hey, let's talk about this first, because "you are only going to further upset your ankle!"

He yanked the door open so hard it bounced back off the wall behind it, and didn't stop as he stumbled into Sam's living room. The room fell silent and tense as he felt himself began to shake. He looked around frantically, wondering if this was all a cruel, horrible dream, and right as he'd managed to convince himself that both he and Bruce needed to be committed -

Bucky stepped out of the master bathroom, unwinding a piece of plastic wrap from his metal arm.

"Bucky," he breathed.

"Hey, punk," the dark-haired man said slowly. The plastic wrap came off all the way, and Steve could see that it was wet from the angle that Bucky held it to as he wadded it up. He threw it into the trash can just inside the bathroom. "You should be resting. You don't want to make your ankle worse."

"Bucky."

The man in question stopped trying to argue with him, just crossed the room and, right in front of all of the people there (Steve hadn't gotten a good look at everyone, but he imagined that it was at least Sam and Natasha and Hill and Banner staring at the scene in front of them), smashed his mouth to Steve's.

It was a surprisingly gentle kiss, considering how Bucky had gone about initiating it. A second in, they both seemed to realize that they should be more careful with each other, and their mouths moved together in a sweet kiss that had Steve's toes curling.

Not with desire, though there was plenty of that, but with epiphany.

He hadn't dreamed Bucky up the night before. The lips moving gently against his, the hands (one metal and one flesh) that had secured themselves at his waist in an effort to keep him upright, the body that his own arms had tightly wrapped around... they were too real to still be lies created by Steve's psyche.

Bucky was real. He was right there, right in front of him, in his arms.

The kiss ended slowly, until their lips were no longer moving against each other. Bucky leaned his forehead against Steve's, looked right into his eyes. "I'm real," he murmured, his warm breath fanning around Steve's face in a way that made the blond man's knees weak.

Steve didn't have a chance to respond before he stumbled forward and to the side a step - his ankle really wasn't having it, and he wasn't able to hold himself up after all. But Bucky caught him, and then swung him up into his arms bridal style, and carried him back to the guest room.

Steve didn't even bother blushing at the gesture, he was so busy burying his face in Bucky's shoulder.

When they'd managed to get themselves situated on the bed again, Steve's foot propped up and a fresh ice pack resting against his ankle, Steve looked up at Bucky with wonder in his eyes. The dark-haired man was sitting with his back to the headboard, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall. The words slipped out of Steve's mouth before he could stop them: "You're here."

"Yeah, I am." He paused, gulping, and then decided to elaborate. His eyes never met Steve's, though his fingers tapped across Steve's bare shoulder like he was playing the piano. "I saw on the news that you were gone, and I panicked. I showed up on Sam's doorstep at one in the morning."

"The night that they announced that I was Captain MIA?"

Bucky chuckled at the humor in Steve's voice, and something in Steve warmed. Sure, they had a lot to work through (on their own and together), but he loved hearing Bucky laugh.

Loved that he could still make him laugh.

"Yeah, that night." Bucky laughed again. He laid down on his back, got comfortable. "Sam and I have spent a lot of quality time together."

Steve's stomach flipped over. They were two of the people he loved most in the world, and he didn't know what he was going to do if they didn't get along.

"Don't worry, Stevie." Bucky flipped over onto his stomach, resting his head on Steve's shoulder. There was a pause as he waited to see if he liked that position enough to stay put and stop squirming around, and he stayed there long enough that Steve began to wonder if he'd fallen asleep. Finally, he explained, "Sam said that I could be part of this family deal you guys have going on."

There was a sudden cacophony of laughter (Sam's deep, hearty laugh; Tasha's bright and warm but also high-pitched giggle; another laugh he didn't know so well, but it was female and sounded warm, so he assumed it was Maria's; and Bruce's contented chuckle that none of the Avengers heard often enough) from the living room. Neither man jumped.

"And what do you have to say about that?" Steve felt nervous all of the sudden. What if Bucky didn't want to stay? What if he didn't want to be around the obnoxious but happy bunch that they'd managed to make themselves into?

Bucky's breathing had slowly started to even out (Steve knew because Bucky's breath was warm against his neck, fanning up to reach his chin, too, and he was being lulled to sleep even as his nerves kicked into high-gear over Bucky's lack of a response) before he said anything back. "I'd love to be here, Stevie."

"Really?"

The dark-haired man pushed himself up enough to look Steve in the eyes. "You said last night that we'd find our way back to each other one day."

"Yeah, I remember that." Steve felt his face turning red. "I didn't think it was you; I thought I was dreaming."

Bucky ran a hand through Steve's hair, down his face and neck and past his collar bone to rest on his other shoulder. "I've found my way back. I'm here. I'm not leaving again."

Steve felt like the air had been whooshed from his lungs. He didn't know what to say.

"But you have to promise me something."

Bucky's words were a welcome distraction. "What? Anything. Anything you want," Steve breathed.

A bright smile broke across Bucky's face, lighting up his eyes. It was like the sunrise personified. "No more running off to France looking for me while I'm sitting on Sam's couch."

A laugh bubbled up in him, escaped his lips with a happy sigh, and he slid a hand to the back of Bucky's neck, drawing him in for a sloppy kiss that was more pressing their faces together as they laughed than real kissing.

"You really were right here the whole time," Steve sighed, a smile still on his lips.

Bucky said nothing, just laid down and got comfortable, his head resting against Steve's shoulder. His arms wrapped around Steve's waist.

It would be difficult, but they had something together. They could build something new for themselves together - including a family, with the rest of the Avengers. It would be difficult, but it could be done, and they had each other.

They would always have each other.

-/-

A few minutes later, when Sam poked his head in to check on them, he found them fast asleep, Bucky's head on Steve's chest, and their arms tight around each other.

Natasha's red-manicured hand stuck a phone just inside the room and snapped a picture before disappearing. He didn't bother turning and trying to lecture her (it really wasn't an argument he was going to win). He ignored it, simply pretending he didn't see her arm or her phone or hear the soft click of the camera, as she scampered back to where Maria and Bruce stood on the other side of the room, making polite conversation.

When the photo of the two men curled up together was found on Sam's fridge the next morning, he kept his eyes on the movie playing in front of him, hid his smile behind his daily cup of coffee, and pretended not to notice that either.