Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author Note: Set after 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier.'

WE ARE

The first time that Bucky Barnes met Agent Thirteen, he pointed a gun at her. A split second later, she was aiming a firearm back at him. Considering the fact that they were both stood outside Steve's apartment, it was incongruous to say the least.

The Winter Soldier had met Agent Thirteen before so Agent Thirteen was staring at him as though she was waiting for him to behave in the exact same way. She didn't lower her gun in inch, despite the long pause. She was smarter than a lot of the government agents Bucky had encountered, especially recently.

She looked tired as well, her fingernails were clipped short and she was wearing a pale green beaded bracelet. She wasn't suited up, dressed instead in a soft-looking gray sweater that almost bared a shoulder and scuffed worn jeans. Her hair was loose and blonde but Bucky had to blink away an image of brunette victory curls and distinctive red lipstick.

A red dress and a woman who'd wanted to dance with Steve. A woman who'd been worthy of Steve.

Steve had said that Agent Thirteen had been one of the only people he'd been able to trust when SHIELD had fallen. The Soldier remembered Agent Thirteen being quick and determined, she hadn't obeyed Pierce's orders but she had followed Captain America's. The Soldier remembered her as a target. Bucky saw that determination still, and training and strength in her wiry deceptive body.

Whose orders was she following now?

He blinked and he saw blood pooling around his feet, a blonde woman falling in 1974, books falling from her grasp. He remembered taking one of the books to read, he could only remember fragments of the text but it had meant something to him.

"Sergeant Barnes."

Agent Thirteen sounded as though she'd said that more than once. Bucky snapped back to the present. Concern was shading Agent Thirteen's expression. She wet her lips and her gaze darted to Steve's door. She didn't seem surprised that he hadn't appeared so she knew that he was away. So why was she here? Bucky's stance didn't waver for a moment.

"Captain Rogers isn't here, do you need me to take you to the VA?"

Sam wouldn't be there yet, he was working on something with Clint Barton. Why didn't Agent Thirteen know that? Bucky saw Peggy Carter in army-green and then bright red, he saw the blonde target fall again, book pages fluttering as the volumes tumbled down.

Agent Thirteen clenched her jaw. "Captain Rogers asked me to come here. There's a door key in my pocket."

It was possible that Steve would give out a spare key to somebody he trusted. But why was Agent Thirteen here, Steve didn't have any pets. Blood had stained the blonde's hair he remembered, and she'd been wearing a horseshoe necklace. That was how he'd known he'd completed his mission correctly.

It wasn't possible that Agent Thirteen had read his expression but she still addressed his previous thoughts somehow "Captain Rogers wants his apartment checked for listening devices."

And probably anything else that had been placed there without his permission. A smart idea. Agent Thirteen suddenly almost smiled, a corner of her mouth lifting as though she was sharing a joke, with Bucky.

"And he needs someone to keep an eye on his houseplants. He kills them, on a bizarrely regular basis."

He did. Natasha didn't have greenfingers either and Bucky thought very little about plants, at the moment. He slowly lowered his weapon and Agent Thirteen did the same, retrieving her key at the exact same pace. Bucky watched her open the door, feeling her gaze still on him. Good. She still wasn't dismissing him as a threat and she hadn't hesitated in pointing a weapon at him. Steve needed people around him who wouldn't hesitate when he would, especially when it came to Bucky.

"Captain Rogers isn't due back for several days," Agent Thirteen told him, her hand resting against the doorjam.

"I know."

Bucky's voice sounded unused, it often did when Steve and Natasha were away and Sam was busy because then Bucky had less people to talk to. He still didn't feel comfortable in Avengers Tower without Steve, Natasha or Sam around so he tended to stick to Brooklyn, often sleeping in Steve's apartment. Agent Thirteen didn't seem unnerved by the raw sound of his voice. Instead, she looked at him for a few moments and then nodded slowly. It seemed like she'd reached some kind of peace and decision but she didn't turn her back on him as she entered Steve's apartment.

She left the door open though. Bucky had a key too but the gesture of the open door struck a chord in him. He stayed out in the hallway for a few moments but Agent Thirteen remained inside, moving around as though there wasn't a dangerous frequently-brainwashed assassin close by as she began an impressively-thorough sweep for anything suspicious. It was good that Steve hadn't asked him to do this because if the Soldier reasserted himself then Bucky couldn't be trusted in Steve's apartment. He couldn't be trusted at all. Agent Thirteen could be, her friendly affection for Steve was clearly genuine, she believed enough in him that she had risked more than physical harm in his name.

Bucky stepped forward to watch her work. He could tell that she'd noticed by the way her back stiffened but she didn't draw her weapon. Bucky stepped inside the apartment but made sure that he still had clear access to the exit and a good defensible position. Once she'd more than competently checked every surface and corner, Agent Thirteen retrieved a watering can with a long spout from under the sink and filled it with long-practiced eases. There were several window boxes to tend to and some spider plants that Natasha liked. Agent Thirteen seemed to know what she was doing, smiling softly as she dealt with each plant and not seeming to care that Bucky was watching her.

When she was done, she briefly looked around the apartment and then focused again on Bucky. She measured him with her eyes, making Bucky tense and see blood in blonde hair in a dizzying flash. Then she merely nodded and left. She closed the door behind her, leaving Bucky frozen in his good defensible position. When he did his own sweep of the apartment, he found a sheet of notepaper by the cordless phone. The handwriting decorating it wasn't Steve's.

It was a number followed by If you need anything.

It wasn't an order; nothing that Agent Thirteen had done or said to him had been an order. He stared at the notepaper, then turned on his heel to strip off in the bathroom and stand under the shower for half an hour. The luxury of running water whenever he wanted it still hadn't worn off; he couldn't imagine it ever would. Natasha looked at him sometimes when he was bathing and wore a small smile. The luxury hadn't worn off for her either.

Tony Stark regularly left messages on Bucky's cellphone; he always wanted Bucky to visit Avengers Tower so that he could take another look at Bucky's metal arm. He'd improved it a whole hell of a lot already but Bucky didn't want any more changes and he hated people poking at him with soldering-irons and scalpels. Tony seemed to understand that but he still persisted in bugging Bucky, trying to cajole him in.

The next time that Steve checked in, Bucky mentioned that he'd met Agent Thirteen and that Steve's plants were looking better than when Steve was caring for them. Steve sounded like he was smiling when he replied, his voice cracking in a way that made Bucky's fingers twitch. He wanted to smooth away the lines that he instinctively knew were creasing Steve's face.

He cleared his throat, ready to hang up when a garbage truck backed up loudly outside and Bucky was suddenly looking at a couple of men in khaki, then he was staring through a sniper's scope at a balding man wearing a green tie. He had to wait for the second bang, he had to...

"James."

Natasha's voice was firm in his ear, her tone breaking through Bucky's splintered memories. Natasha was Natalia and both were important, important enough to matter. Bucky's fingers began to unclench, they were trembling. When had that happened?

Natasha was speaking calmly in his ear, describing the apartment that he was still standing in, as though it wasn't a problem to bring an assassin back from flashbacks and panic attacks. She never acted like the Soldier had disappeared whenever Bucky returned to the fore; she knew that he was always both of them. The Soldier respected her, Bucky cared about her. Natasha treated both with quiet steadfast affection, she and Bucky knew what an impossibility such things had once been for both of them. They walked similar paths slowly.

When Natasha mentioned the trailing fronds of her favored spider plants, Bucky croaked out "They're still alive."

"Sharon works miracles," Natasha replied without missing a beat.

Steve sounded rueful in the background, acknowledging his questionable gardening skills. But he still liked having plants around and wanted to keep trying. That was Steve all over, refusing to admit defeat.

Natasha spoke in Russian for a while, calling him Yasha and describing coldness that had reached through to her bones and that she still missed. She recalled ballet routines she remembered dancing and though those memories were false, she could still smell the resin and sweat that permeated such rehearsal rooms. She asked if he remembered the day that they'd worked together in Bulgaria, when she had discovered a hole in her right stocking so big that it had revealed several toes. He had painted her toenails green to match her dress and she had bought him bread and thickly-herbed stew. It was a rare memory, something that they had experienced together without the natural lockstep of orders. It had been theirs. Bucky could remember the vividness of the green silk against her pale skin and the feel of that contrast. It made something in his throat catch even now.

Natasha could talk of her old life with lightness though a starkness was always present in the corners of her words. Bucky appreciated that she didn't pretend with him. She was still learning how to be Natasha, not Agent Romanov of SHIELD. So many of them lived in multiple skins.

Bucky slept in Steve's bed with Natasha and Steve's voices rolling in his ear. He only woke up once.

He went running with Sam, threw a basketball around with him once or twice, and haunted the VA a few times a week, listening to stories until something dislodged memories that he viscerally didn't like. He avoided the VA for a while after that. Agent Thirteen dropped in a couple of days later, opening the door noisily to announce herself. Bucky drew his weapon but didn't point it at her. She nodded at him and didn't give him her back once as she walked through the apartment to begin a thorough sweep before checking the plants again. She was wearing a purple button-down shirt this time with dark slim jeans. Her weapon was holstered and on full display but he could tell that she had a piece strapped at her back too.

The TV was on because Bucky had come to hate the silence that descended whenever he was alone. He needed noise to ground him, to convince him of where he was. Agent Thirteen paused by the couch and looked at the screen for a moment.

"Well, that's going to end badly," she commented.

Bucky glanced at the screen and then back towards her. He'd watched a lot of soap operas recently, their modern look kept him tethered to the present, so he knew a lot about the characters' lives.

"The brother's a hitman," he said at last.

"Definitely, did you see his meeting with Thomas last week? He was carrying under his jacket."

"His right ankle too."

Agent Thirteen perched on the couch arm, giving Bucky plenty of space, until the end of the episode. Then she left with a slight smile. Bucky frowned as an infomercial began airing. He hadn't thought of blood or blonde hair while Agent Thirteen had been present. Instead he'd felt something odd and yet also familiar.

He also felt compelled to send Sam a text message I talked to Agent Thirteen about a daytime soap opera.

Sam's message arrived quickly afterward If she turns you onto General Hospital just say no. I still owe you for the hoops. Later?

Sam often made Bucky smile, it was still a foreign feeling but Sam had told him that that didn't mean it was a bad thing. Sam had frequently been right so far. Bucky texted an affirmative back and watched the next few commercials without much interest. When Agent Thirteen had been there, he hadn't wanted to run or aim loaded weaponry at her. Pathetic but that was his idea of friendship now. He knew from what he'd read that he'd once enjoyed pursuing women as attractive as Agent Thirteen, but he had Steve and Natasha now and he wasn't interested in anybody else. Agent Thirteen hadn't been pursuing him either; she'd revealed herself to be smarter than that.

The next day, Agent Thirteen brought warm pastries from a nearby bakery and ate one, leaving the rest on the coffee table, telling Bucky he could have one if he wanted. She never did give him orders, sometimes Bucky still waited to hear some though. But Steve only gave orders in the field and Bucky was learning how to choose, with and without Steve and Natasha's support. Agent Thirteen didn't twitch when he used his left hand to pick up a pastry.

She had a lot of opinions on daytime television though because apparently she experienced uneven off-times in her current line of work. Bucky knew that feeling now and told her so. Agent Thirteen told him that he could call her Sharon.

Bucky frowned. "You still call me Sergeant Barnes."

Agent Thirteen nodded, steady as she shifted to make herself more comfortable on the couch. She still kept a chunk of distance between herself and Bucky, maybe for both their sakes. Bucky felt more than a trickle of gratitude. Touch wasn't something he responded to well, unless it was Steve, Natasha or sometimes Sam.

"I thought it might help keep you here, hearing your rank."

That made sense. Bucky turned the idea over in his mind. Sergeant Barnes was still different to who Bucky was now, Winter Soldier was his codename in the field and he didn't flinch when he heard it. He didn't always enjoy the memories that came with that name though and sometimes remembering who he'd been as Sergeant Barnes still frustrated him because he didn't feel attached to everything he remembered. In fact a lot of it felt extremely far away.

Steve had told him more than once that while he missed the Bucky that he'd known all those years ago, he liked who Bucky was now too. Maybe Steve was lying to himself and to Bucky, though his hands backed up his words every time he and Bucky touched. Bucky knew what the truth felt like but he still had trouble believing that Captain America, Steve Rogers who was good down to his bones, truly wanted him, now and then.

Natasha felt the same way but she stroked Bucky's hair and murmured in Russian that Steve would always be too good for them but as he trusted in their choices, they had to trust in his. It was a more than fair trade.

Agent Thirteen didn't look frustrated or unnerved by Bucky's long stretch of silence. Instead she watched the television, curling her feet up under her, and wondering aloud if a day out at one of the lush public gardens currently being talked about on the local news show would be something Steve might enjoy if he was so interested in plants.

"He'd like it, Natasha too," Bucky told her quietly, breaking his silence at last.

He refrained from adding himself to the list. He tried to imagine himself amongst the leafy shade being shown on-screen, the flowers that would make Natasha's expression wrinkle upward and the many scenes that Steve would want to sketch. It looked peaceful. Bucky tried to imagine feeling that kind of contentment.

He turned back to his previous thoughts. "You were right, about my rank."

Agent Thirteen waited a moment, looking at him shrewdly before asking "But would you prefer me to call you something else?"

"Bucky," he answered steadily after a moment's thought. "Unless I'm fading away."

He didn't quite look at her but he caught her single nod. Steve called him Buck and Natasha called him James and Yasha and they were the only people who ever got to do that. If anyone else did, it felt like something was piercing him, like something more was being taken.

"Bucky," she repeated and it didn't hurt or taunt him.

He nodded slightly. "Sharon."

Give and take, that was what Steve often said, according to Steve it was important and Bucky was learning to anticipate and almost enjoy that teetering balance of fresh connection. Sharon smiled and he saw a bright-red mouth again and eyes full of love for Steve.

It was a week later that Sharon talked to him about her aunt, Peggy Carter, who'd founded SHIELD and had been a trailblazer in every sense of the word. Then old age and neurological disease had begun to eat away at her once-sharp mind. She regularly forgot people and places, sometimes she remembered them later, sometimes snatches of her life were lost forever. Sharon still visited her.

"She's losing herself," Sharon remarked, her voice soft with sadness and pain.

She hadn't told Steve yet about how she was related to Peggy, she didn't want to make things harder for him when he already found it painful to visit his old friend. Bucky nodded at that, Steve had always taken on other people's burdens and Agent Thir-Sharon didn't want him to treat her differently or feel more pain when he saw her because he was reminded of her aunt. Maybe Sharon was only telling Bucky because he might forget Peggy and who her niece was at some point. Why else would she tell him?

Bucky hadn't visited Peggy. He couldn't think what he'd say to her. He was dead in her mind, when it was whole. Perhaps seeing him would make things worse. But he remembered her, flashes of her vivid beauty, how she'd only had eyes for Steve.

"She wore a red dress," he said aloud, his mind stuck on that one image. "She wanted to dance with Steve."

Sharon's eyes were bright and she smiled. "I've heard stories. She fired a gun at him when they were testing his shield out, right after she caught him kissing Private Lorraine."

Bucky remembered hearing that story, his mouth smiling. He remembered Steve's protests that the private had kissed him, not the other way around. He remembered laughing and smirking and telling Steve that he was finally growing up and that he should use his new physique with care, it was clearly more dangerous than everyday warfare.

He related this to Sharon who laughed; it was a clear amused sound. Bucky heard it often as Sharon spent more time in Steve's flat with him. She witnessed Bucky getting mired in flashbacks and uncertainty, reaching for his weapon or being unable to trust what he saw. She used his rank and called him back or waited him out. She always looked worried when he returned to reality but she didn't make him feel suffocated. Sometimes her expression was too much so he left the apartment but he and she always came back afterward. She didn't ask him to explain; she just gave him leaflets describing good counseling services, some for the armed forces or those in governmental jobs, including one that she'd used.

Sam told Bucky that a support system was good but so was just talking to somebody, relating and connecting were important even when rooted in daytime soaps. He also revealed through piecemeal stories that he'd gotten to know Sharon quite well and that she made a great lasagna. Bucky teased him when they went running together and Sam retorted that Bucky wouldn't be mocking him if he'd tasted Sharon's cooking

Stark texted again, wanting to know if the problem was Bucky not being allowed out the house while Mom and Dad were away or was the lockdown due to kinks that Stark was absolutely and completely interested in? Bucky deleted the message, Sharon laughed at his satisfied expression.

The day that Steve and Natasha were due back, Sharon made oatmeal cookies studded with M&Ms. She'd brought a couple of lasagnas to leave in the fridge for when Steve, Natasha and Bucky needed them. She knew what it was like to come home and not want to cook or buy in groceries for a while. Sharon wasn't doing this because she'd been paid to; it wasn't part of her duties. No wonder she got on well with Sam.

The kitchen smelled of baking, of a warmth and comfort that triggered a little overflow of images in Bucky's head. He saw his Mom telling Steve to eat a little more, Bucky ate too much anyway. He saw the two of them tramping into a kitchen covered in mud and his Mom telling them that they were scrubbing the floor once they were clean again and that there'd be oatmeal later if they were good. He saw his Mom and he saw Steve.

Sharon didn't have to call him Sergeant Barnes to bring him back. She didn't comment on his expression either, offering him coffee instead.

He wondered when Steve had last eaten something homebaked. He watched Sharon pull a cookie sheet out of the oven; he suddenly remembered using something similar in a very different way in Leningrad when faced with unimportant security. He didn't shudder; perhaps the baking smell helped.

He stared at the cookies and wondered if he could make something like that, something good.

That evening, Steve and Natasha returned, both weary but satisfied. Natasha tipped her head towards Bucky, a pleased gesture. Sharon sat beside Bucky, her feet close to his thigh but not touching it. Steve's smile was happy and so relieved, like he was glad Bucky was there. Bucky put down his takeaway box of buttered noodles, needing to know that he wasn't seeing things again. Steve immediately dropped his bags and pressed a hand to Bucky's shoulder before ducking down to kiss him. Steve tasted of recycled air and cheap coffee. Bucky pressed his forehead to Steve's for a moment, determined to remember the feel of Steve so close to him, the texture of his skin. All the things that he couldn't just imagine.

Natasha was talking to Sharon and was already eating a cookie, having snatched one from the cooling rack. Steve peeled off his jacket and kept up steady contact with Bucky as he stowed his gear and then sat down on the couch. Natasha brushed a hand through Bucky's still-long hair as she made her way towards the bathroom and Steve intertwined his fingers with Bucky's metal ones. Steve liked the feel of the metal digits, he'd said so before. As far as Bucky was concerned, it was part of him and it almost always had been. He did like Steve's reaction to the metal though.

Sharon stood up, having finished her dinner. She wished them all a good night and told Steve and Natasha that it was good to see them again. She smiled at Bucky differently and said that she'd see him soon.

Natasha returned to thread her fingers through Bucky's hair and kiss him almost gently, like she needed a moment of tenderness after the tiring grind that not-quite-SHIELD work could be. He'd missed her too, it felt good and grounding to touch her again, better than any words. She tasted of Sharon's cookies.

Sharon left quickly and quietly. She'd probably go and find Sam or talk to Deputy Director Hill. Bucky knew her route home, what she thought of Tony Stark, how often she went to visit her sick Aunt Margaret. Sharon could take care of herself, Bucky still thought about her though.

Steve and Natasha told him what they could about their mission, about snow-capped mountains and schoolteachers and the Hydra cell that they'd found there. Deputy Director Hill had been right about the information that they'd dug out eventually, Natasha had a flash drive to hand over once she'd checked through and copied the contents herself.

"My plants look good," Steve noted.

Natasha appeared to be close to smiling with knowing eyes as she gazed at the spider plants' delicate white flowers that had started blossoming recently like they'd known she was on her way home. Bucky thought about the public garden he'd seen on television and Sharon's idea.

"I know a place," he started.

He could feel Natasha's thigh pressed against his, Steve's hand touched Bucky's metal palm. Most people after being away from a partner might be frantic and desperate to be skin-on-skin. Perhaps Bucky would have felt that way once too, now he just felt steady grounding relief and desire, like an echo that was solid because Steve and Natasha were actually there to catch it. He hadn't imagined them. For now, that was enough.

Sam had probably left him more messages, asking if he'd tasted the lasagnas that Sharon had brought over yet, a heavenly experience not to be missed, right? Bucky thought about Sharon's number, written on notepaper and tucked away inside his go-bag. He'd probably want to know what she thought of next week's soap-opera episodes. Sam didn't keep up with those shows so Sharon might want to hear from Bucky too. She might call him or knock on the door, not using her key now that Steve and Natasha were back.

The weather was hot and Bucky could smell candy-corn and hear the shrieks from a long ago Ferris wheel, Steve beside him always and somewhere tucked away an unauthorized vacation in the sun that he'd taken with a red-headed girl who'd had a mind as sharpened as his. He felt like he was breathing through memories.

"There's somewhere we could go."

Steve smiled with interest and Natasha wrote in the Cyrillic alphabet with her fingertips, asking questions across his knee and onto Steve's. They should sleep first. Steve's bed smelled just of Bucky now, his pajamas did too.

Natasha would want to check in with Clint and Steve probably had to let Deputy Director Hill know that they were back in one piece. But they could sleep afterward and then eat one of Sharon's lasagnas and maybe later they'd go out into the greenery. It'd be a good place to just exist, like this, together. Bucky wasn't thinking in orders, he was thinking in wants. It made his stomach clench but he didn't push the idea away. He even managed to voice it

He wondered if he'd be able to bake something someday that smelled like candy-corn.

-the end