Summary: Someday, I will build a house beside the sea.
It was a great big thing, a work of art really, it had large windows all along the front of the house to let in the light from the setting sun and the ocean breeze when they were open.
The colors that were painted on the wood was not a single solid color but many that depicted a scene of fantasy and whimsy with dragons and flowers and butterflies dancing over the wood.
The old man who lived there never quite managed to make any friends in the town, never really tried. He'd come in to town twice a week and collect from the grocery store enough food to feed at least five people even though everyone knew the old man lived alone and never had any visitors that they'd seen.
Sometimes if you woke early or walked along the coast late at night you'd come across the old man sitting serenely on the rocks that lingered at the edge of the water, when it was morning he'd have an easel and paints, vibrant colors and he'd be intent on the painting, if you were quiet enough, quick enough and far away enough you might be able to catch a glimpse of what he painted but often times he'd notice and pack his things, it was unfortunate that the few times someone saw they never could understand why he still tried.
If it was late at night he'd just be staring out at the water as though waiting for something or someone, they never knew what or who, just as they barely knew the man's name.
Very rarely you might come across the man in the park, where children flocked to him and his whispered tales of war and loss and love and tragedy. Their young people had never known war or the type of tragedy of which the man spoke, and the elder people that did were dying or dead already and to their young ones it seemed like a great story but that was all it was, a tale to be heard and enjoyed and made into play-pretend. And the man would smiled sadly with unshed tears as he watched them act out his tales.
It was a cold morning when he was joined by a man that none of them had seen in the town before, he sat near the man beneath the tree that the man had planted in the park some twenty years before when he had first arrived in the town. At the time he'd just seemed so sad and lost that none had had the heart to stop him as he'd dug a hole in the center of the park, and gently placed the sapling where he'd dug.
The sapling had grown and the man had aged and where one had grown strong and sturdy the other had grown weak and frail.
"It's been awhile Barnes." Sam spoke softly.
James Barnes hardly glanced at him, the man had been quiet since the end of the War, since they had lost Steve.
"I came to invite you to the Coronation." Sam said, after the War, after Steve's sacrifice and stupidity had somehow saved the people that Thanos had killed he had stayed in Wakanda with T'challa to help him rebuild, to help everybody adjust to the changed world, most of them had.
Except James, he'd seen Steve fall, saw him gasp his last breath and whatever Steve had said to him in those last moments had changed something in James, he'd stayed long enough to see Steve put to rest and left before anything else could be done.
It had taken Sam several years to track the man here to this little seaside town, where the ocean was cold as it slapped against your ankles and everyone knew each other and was family and where so few of them had been touched by the War and where none of them knew who James had been so twenty years ago.
Sam had left him that first time after finding him without seeing him, after watching the man trace Steve's sketches over the sides of the mansion he'd built, after waching him wander sleepless and alone on the beach for hours calling Steve's name again and again.
James turned slowly to look at him, he blinked and inclined his head ever so slightly.
"It would be nice of you to come, I know Thor and Loki are coming and Groot's bringing Rocket." Sam told him.
"How old is your daughter now?" James asked softly, and if there was a note of wistfulness whenever James asked after their children Sam always ignored it.
"She's sixteen, the Coranation isn't quite the real thing, it's smaller and kind of like a junior Coronation, T'challa is giving her several duties to help ease her into the ruling." Sam smiled a little, "She's grown so much and she's decided that she's going to marry Peter Parker when she's old enough. Peter's terrified."
There was a momentary twitch of James' lips before it was gone, it was the closest Sam had ever gotten to an actual smile since Steve had died.
"T'challa and I thought that you'd prefer the smaller ceremony over the bigger one."
"Thank you." James said softly.
"You know he-"
"Don't." James interrupted, "Don't tell me what he would want. I know what he would want. I know, but I can't just leave him behind, in my head or in my heart. I can't and he didn't ask me to."
Sam looked at James, "What did he ask you to do?"
Sam had always wondered what Steve's last words had been but James had never repeated them, not to anyone, and somehow Sam had known that Steve's last words hadn't been meant for anyone but James, but he still wanted to know.
James looked away, towards a little boy who was dressed in a silly green tutu with large foam hands that were curled into fists screaming 'Hulk Smash' as he ran after several other children, one little girl held the hand of a boy with black hair and dark circles in marker drawn around his eyes and the circular lid of a trash can in the other as she dragged the boy about.
"What we always promised each other, back before it was legal to get married to one another, back when we were only sixteen and nothing else mattered but each other." James whispered, "Back when we had nothing else but those words to offer."
Sam breathed out harshly, he'd heard them say those to one another many times, everyone they'd spent any time with had, they'd always thought it was just a silly thing they said as friends, they never once thought that those words had been a promise, that they had been almost wedding vows.
"I miss him." James whispered.
Sam stopped himself before he said 'I know' or something similar.
"I miss him too." Sam said instead, "Before T'challa and I got married, Quill asked who my best man was going to be and while they were all arguing over who it should be I found myself looking at one of the pictures of Natasha, Steve and me from when we were criminals and I just... I thought I wanted it to be him, you know and it wasn't fair that I couldn't ask him."
Sam started when James just sort of fell against his shoulder and sighed out what might have been a sob for anyone else but was just the way James sounded now days.
All his years of visiting James here in this tiny town and the man had never once touched him, never touched anyone, but didn't refuse hugs from the young ones, never turned away a child in need of comfort or anything else, Sam remembered the year that his daughter, Stevalla had decided to run away.
He and T'challa had been terrified because she'd vanished and they couldn't find her only for Sam to show up at James to ask for his help to find the man with purple and pink ribbons in his hair as the eight year old had braided flowers in to a crown that weaved through his hair.
There had been a few 'keep better track of your kids' thrown at him before James had offered to keep an eye on her for a couple weeks that summer.
That summer had turned into every summer and a couple weekends, and then Stevalla had invited Tony's son and pretty soon summer vacation at Uncle James' had been a thing for the Avengers and Avenger's adjacent kids, Sam was pretty sure that James still wasn't sure what to do with Gamora and Quill's kids or Groot when he'd still been young enough to want to go, but he had done his best.
"When is 'Valla's Coronation?" James asked, James was the only one who'd ever been allowed to give Stevalla a nickname and been allowed to keep using it after the initial testing of it, others had tried, Sam and T'challa included but she'd refused to let them shorten her name, she'd been proud of her name, always had been, glad to be named in a fashion after the man who had traded his life for so many others but something about the way James had been unable to say her name without pain and sorrow in his eyes had made her allow the nickname, just as the Steve's other namesakes had been called by their middle names rather than their first names, only ever by James.
"It's in a week." Sam told him.
"It's going to be small?" James asked.
"Yeah, just the Avengers and the others."
James nodded, "I'll go. It'll be good to see every body."
Sam nodded, though James wasn't looking at him and they sat in silence for a while, watching the children play and laugh.
- Flash back-
Steve laughed at Bucky as the older boy pulled him along the dark and celebrating streets of Brookelyn.
"Where we goin', Buck?" Steve asked.
"Just com'on you, you'll see." Bucky turned to walk backwards to grin at Steve.
"Just tell me." Steve whined.
"Nope, you can be a patient a bit longer, we're almost there."
"Promise?" Steve asked.
Bucky's eyes softened a little, "Yeah, I promise, com'on, and com'ere and close your eyes."
"Bucky, com'on, I can barely walk straight with my eyes open." Steve laughed even as he closed his eyes.
Moments later he felt Bucky's hands settle gently over his eyes, his body close behind him, "Don't worry, Stevie, I won't let you fall, and if you do, I'll catch you, like always."
"You usually end up on the ground right next to me." Steve pointed out with another laugh.
"No place on earth I'd rather be than right next to you." Bucky told him.
"Me either, Buck, 'till the end of the line, right?" Steve asked.
"Yeah, Buddy, 'till the end of the line." Bucky pressed a tiny kiss behind Steve's ear and delighted in the way the smaller man gasped in surprise and stumbled a bit, "Careful."
"Bucky." Steve whined.
"And here we are." Bucky stepped away from Steve and pulled his hands away, "You can open your eyes now."
Steve opened his eyes and gasped a little at the small, candle lit table that stood just passed Bucky.
The table legs were pressed down in the sand and the water lapped softly at the shore passed in.
"I figured this was as close to a moonlit walk on the beach as we could get, since we can't stay out too long without you catching cold, we can eat while the water hits our feet and then we can take a short walk before heading home." Bucky grinned.
"This is perfect, Bucky." Steve breathed as he threw his arms around Bucky's shoulders.
"Com'on, let's eat." Bucky said.
They ate quietly, with their usual conversation flowing between them, then they stood to go on their walk, shoes and socks in hand as they let the ocean soak their feet, Steve's hand in Bucky's and his head on his shoulder.
"This is nice." Steve murmured.
"Yeah." Bucky said, "Peaceful, I like it."
"Me too, maybe someday we can get a house near the beach and do this more often." Steve suggested.
Bucky stopped and spun Steve to face him, making the blond man laugh, as Bucky placed his free hand on Steve's waist and led him in a couple steps of what some may have called a dance.
"A house on the beach?" Bucky asked with a grin.
Steve grinned back, "Maybe we can build one, just for us."
"Alright." Bucky promised, "Someday, I will build you a house by the sea."
"Will you?" Steve asked with bright eyes, "What if you find some dame you might like to marry?"
"We'll she'll have to understand that you're my best guy, and I'm with you till the end of the line." Bucky said.
"And I'm with you till the end of the line." Steve repeated, laying his head against Bucky's chest as they swayed together for a few minutes before Bucky made Steve put his shoes back on and they headed home, still hand in hand.
I don't even know, I'm sorry.