1 Set

Don't forget to go back one and make sure you've seen the entire prologue! -BB

Bucky was falling apart and taping himself back together when Natasha and Steve had dragged him out of the facility, struggling to walk, physically ill. He woke up in their hotel later and Natasha booked them another flight when he insisted that he was up to it and he just wanted to be home. Steve noticed a shift in Bucky, however. He was tired, clearly, and fear lingered in his face and he still retained some of that shelled out, hollow expression that Steve saw in him after having seen him be wiped, but there was an element of triumph there, a pride and a change in him from the look in his eyes to the set of his shoulders and Steve felt like, in some aspects, he could breathe a little better seeing that.

SHIELD was by no means completely rebuilt, but it was going up and Nick Fury was orchestrating it all. They were, he seemed to believe, so much better off than before, so Bucky complied, albeit reluctantly, when SHIELD asked if they could check his arm over for him and return it later. Steve convinced him about it in the end, reminding him that they didn't need any more left-over Hydra knockout shocks or remote controlling taking away his autonomy from him. Then days later, when Bucky felt well enough and had spitefully had his arm returned to him by SHIELD, Natasha took Bucky out for the night and left Steve alone and Steve should have been okay, but he wasn't.

He should have been okay.

The next day, when Bucky and Natasha had returned and Steve was still wondering just how he'd made it through the night, Bucky visited him and Steve felt a rush of relief upon seeing him, standing there in his doorway, managing a smile and just enough confidence to lift his chin.

"How are you?" Bucky asked as soon as Steve got the door open and Bucky let himself in, frowning now at Steve's face, the bandages around his crushed nose and the ice packs Steve was trying to keep around his neck with gauze. It wasn't really that his throat hurt so much anymore or that he felt like he needed it, but Bucky's fingers had left dark, dark bruises on his skin and Steve had seen the way looking at those bruises shattered something small inside Bucky, so he took care to cover them until he could heal. He didn't know whether Bucky knew that or not, but he hadn't said anything and Steve liked to think that maybe he felt some level of relief when he didn't have to look at them on Steve's neck.

"Fine," Steve said, shutting the door behind Bucky. "Never felt better. How was your date?" Bucky smiled the way he did when he thought about Natasha, all adoration in his eyes, and told Steve about everything and how wonderful it was and Steve hated, hated, the way he thought about Peggy when he saw that look in Bucky's eyes. This isn't about me. This isn't about Peggy, he chastised himself. But oh, how he missed her.

"Sounds like fun," Steve finally said and Bucky just smiled again.

"She's fantastic," he said, and then he looked down and Steve watched him rub his right hand, some sort of nervous habit he'd noticed that Bucky would do, when he had two hands, of course, and Bucky shrugged, like he had been thinking to himself. Then, he looked up. "And I just kept thinking," he said quietly. "About how I was almost not there. She tells me not to dwell on it anymore, but I just… Do, I guess, I just…" Steve began walking over to the couch, in order to lead Bucky, and Bucky followed, deep in his thoughts, and sat down across from Steve.

"You did it though," Steve replied quietly, both because he wanted to remind Bucky of his victory and because to be honest, Steve couldn't stop thinking about it, either. "You lived." Bucky sat there for another moment, in thought, and then nodded and there were tears in his eyes when he looked up and smiled at Steve.

"I lived," he said. And Steve clung to those words, because he was suffocating and they were something important in the tide of everything he hated to feel, something very nearly inspirational, like if Bucky could do this huge, hard, terrifying thing and come out and smile at him days later, then Steve could most certainly drag himself out of this tide because in comparison, it was nothing. And regardless, if he had Bucky, he could do it. Then, Steve watched Bucky's face change and he looked at Steve and raised his eyebrows and said, "How are you?"

Woosh; the tide, and crackling; the fire.

"I'm fine," Steve said again and smiled and Bucky stared at him and Steve felt with that sinking feeling that Bucky could see right through him. He couldn't talk about it. It hurt too much to put into words.

"Kay, well," Bucky said with a small shrug and he shifted in his seat, his eyes moving from Steve's and Steve let out a small breath because Bucky was letting it go. "If anything's ever wrong, Steve," he said. "Tell me."

"Okay," Steve said and told himself that he wasn't lying because nothing was wrong, he was just fine. He was okay because he should be.

Steve and Bucky chatted more, and Steve told Bucky things about the twenty-first century that he might not have already noticed and Bucky excitedly shared more of his memories and Steve relished in this time spent not alone. Then, something seemed to occur to Bucky and he lifted up his left sleeve and turned his star-ed shoulder to Steve and frowned.

"I was thinking about this," he said.

"What about it?" Steve asked, although he had an idea of what Bucky could be asking, and Bucky turned his sleeve back down and shrugged.

"Don't like it," he said. "But, I was thinking we could do something else to it. Do you have a notebook?" Steve, of course, had an entire stash of notebooks underneath the coffee table, and pencils, too, because he liked to have them around in case the mood struck him to draw something, and he pulled one out and handed it to Bucky, who flipped it open to the middle and sketched out a rough-looking star with a circle around it. "I just want it different," Bucky was saying as he brought the book up to his face and began shading in the lines. Then he handed the book back to Steve and Steve studied his design. "Would you be willing to paint that?"

"Course, Buck," Steve said, looking back up. "This would look great. I'll have to get some new paints, cause oil won't work, but I could do this for you." Bucky looked relieved and he smiled at Steve and thanked him, then Steve grinned up at him. "Nice color choice," he added. "We'll match." And Bucky looked like he was going to make a joke back, but then his face changed and he just looked down and shrugged.

"I thought it might be meaningful," he admitted. "The red, white and blue, I mean."

"It is," Steve replied and stared down at the sketch in his hands and suddenly felt this surge of gratefulness that Bucky was there with him, that he lived, that he made it, and Steve didn't quite understand the way those words attacked him, the words 'you lived'. But they did.

You lived.