Natasha spun around, more of a stumble than a pirouette, and he felt a surge of regret for his impulsiveness. This was too much of a burden to lay on her after whatever improbable journey she'd just made. But the question in her eyes kept him moving forward. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

People were starting to stare at them, but they were easy to ignore. She walked toward him, and he matched her pace for pace until they were an arm's length apart. He wondered if everyone else really saw how bone-tired she was. "Do you?" she asked, still cautious, but her eyes were lit with something that made his breath catch. Hope, he realized.

She raised her hand and his eyes flickered closed as her palm made soft contact with his cheek. He remembered music, and pain, and a dazzling field of snow. When he opened his eyes, hers were bright with tears. There'd been a lot of tears today; he never imagined any would be for him.

"Prosti menya, lisichka," he whispered.

"For what?" she asked, and her body met his with a force that knocked him back a step. She wound her arms tightly around his shoulders, the pad of her thumb at the base of his neck, and he felt his equilibrium failing. His arms hung helpless at his sides. The last time he'd touched her had been in violence; that was all too clear in his mind. But it was being pushed aside by the warmth and solidity of her against him, the simple grace of her acceptance. When she sighed in his ear, his right arm wrapped around her waist, followed, after a moment's hesitation, by his left. The softness of her hair under his fingers, against his face...if he ever forgot his own name again, he swore to himself he would remember that.

He could feel her ribs underneath her battered Black Widow uniform. Whatever she'd been through had taken too much out of her. And even though it had been years since he'd held her, and he'd had his skull scraped out multiple times since then, there was no doubt this woman was the woman he had known, the one who had been his only brief lifeline to the surface when he'd existed, or what passed for it, in the depths. Something shiny in the blackness, for a little while. Zvezda moya, my star.

She drew back abruptly, and he had a moments' panic that he'd overstepped, as if she had somehow overheard his thoughts, until he realized from her shocked expression that she was looking at something over his shoulder.

"Is that…?" Steve. Still standing under that damn tree.

"Yep."

The old man waved at them, and she lifted her hand to return it. "Time travel?"

"Yeah, it seems to be the thing these days." He figured Steve would fill her in on the details. He hoped so, because he barely understood them.

"I wondered where he was. No one would give me a straight answer." She looked back at him, tilting her head, and then back at Steve. "God, I really have missed a lot."

"Oh, no, that literally just happened. Go talk to him," he nudged. "He missed you, too."

She took two steps, eager, but then hesitated and turned back to him. "We should talk later. You'll stick around?" He couldn't blame her for guessing he might run.

He tried to smile reassuringly. "Gotta. Sam's my ride." She huffed out a little chuckle as she turned on her heel and jogged down the path toward Steve.

His nerves were still lit up like she'd hit him with one of her darts, and he took a deep breath to steady himself.

Natasha and Steve hugged for a long time, swaying a little now and then, Steve rubbing circles on her back. When they separated, he took a handkerchief out of his pocket, and they both used it, laughing through tears. Bucky turned away as they started talking, feeling like an intruder. They were connected, the three of them, but those two also had something he wasn't a part of.

Clint Barton ambled over to him, sizing him up in a way that said, 'Look, we're both killers, but let's keep this light.' "I take it you two knew each other in a past life."

"You could call it that, yeah."

He squinted at Bucky as if drawing a bead on him, and then slapped him on the back with an emphatic whap. "If you're okay with her, you're okay by me," he said, making it clear the appraisal was extremely conditional on that 'if.'

"Thanks..." The Hawkeye seal of approval wasn't something he'd been looking for, but it couldn't hurt, he guessed.

Barton crossed his arms and looked toward Natasha. He sniffed. "And this, none of this..." The loss, the mourning, the shock return. "...Ever happens again."

Bucky knew what he meant. He'd crossed his own arms reflexively to mirror the other man's posture. "Agreed."

With a big smile, Barton waved at Nat. He pointed back toward the house with his thumb. Before turning to go back to his family, he looked Bucky in the eye and nodded once, the smile gone. It was the first time they'd ever spoken.

Under the tree, Natasha put her arm through Steve's, the way you'd help an old lady cross the street, and led him up the little hill to the house. She might have been the only one who could have successfully coaxed him to rejoin the party, reintroduce himself to the time-travelers and geniuses, gods and royalty, super spies and freaks. Bucky watched his resurrected ex-lover and suddenly geriatric best friend walk past a wizard talking to an alien.

What a weird fucking day.