Bucky decided that Sam had broken taste buds, if he'd suggested that diner they went to for breakfast as a good place to eat. He pushed the memory of the botched food out of his mind and focused on their real destination for the day.

The Smithsonian.

The museum had just opened, and it was already crowded, mostly with whining small children who were too young to appreciate where they were, and harried parents determined that their children would get culture, or maybe just have to tough it out because they wanted the trip and the kids were just shit out of luck.

The otherwise reluctant attitude from the children about the museum turned generally positive as their families neared the Captain America exhibit. Bucky and his friends were forced out of the way as a large family, consisting of what looked like three generations of thousands of people, shoved their way through. It gave Bucky time to look at the advertising banners.

"Wait, it's not the Captain America exhibit anymore?" he said, looking from a banner that had, at one time had Steve's face in uniform on it, to Sam.

Sam shook his head. "Nope. You became such an important part of the Captain America legend by coming back that it'd be impossible to have an exhibit just for him with you as a side note like you were before. This place is as much yours as it is his."

Bucky looked back up at the banner that had the words Captain America and the Winter Soldier with the increasingly familiar round emblem that portrayed half Steve's shield, half part of Bucky's mechanical arm. "So how many people think they're clever for that little picture? I've seen it before on merchandise."

Sam chuckled. "I don't think they consider it clever as much as the obvious thing to go with."

Bruce stepped back out of the way of a double stroller roughly the size of a small SUV, pressed back against the wall. "It's quite crowded, isn't it?"

"Only going to get worse," Steve said. "Come on, we're going to have to muscle our way through, or else we'll be stuck at this wall forever." He stepped behind Sharon, helping her push through the crowd without getting separated. Sam and Bruce pretty much attached themselves to the outside of the group, creating a small wall against other tourists, keeping from getting scattered into the crowd.

Like the evening before, Maria grabbed Bucky's hand, although he suspected that it might've been more a case of trying to keep together than any sign of affection.

The hallway from the outer parts of the museum into the exhibit itself was painted on one side, as it had been before, with a picture of Steve in uniform, saluting the flag, and a quote from President Ellis, reading "Welcome back, Cap."

Unlike before, the other side held one of Bucky in his gear and face mask, and another quote from President Ellis, which made Bucky wonder how creative the man really was. "Welcome home, Soldier."

Lovely play on the name, always appreciate that.

The early part of the exhibit looked much the same, the mural and costumes of Steve and the Howling Commandos. "They replaced your costume, Steve," Sharon said, pointing to the large mannequin wearing a decent replica of Steve's uniform with the original Captain America shield in front of it.

"So they did," Steve said. "Good, means I don't have to give mine back."

There were some memorabilia in a display under video footage of one of Steve's USO performances, including the original helmet with an A on it that he'd worn when he rescued the 107th, the broken transponder that would've called Howard and Peggy in for extraction, the gloves from Steve's USO costume.

"I still laugh at that," Bucky said, watching the video of The Star Spangled Man With A Plan performance. "Gotta say though, I'm impressed with those girls, being able to balance on a motorcycle being held up by one person." He looked up at Steve. "I'd be impressed by you holding that, but I've stopped being impressed by the Project Rebirth effects a long time ago."

Steve gave him an amused look. "Thank you. It means you freak out less at me."

"You miss it," Bucky said, wandering away with the others to the next display. Things from the war, their guns, Steve's original motorcycle. Pieces of Bucky's life that were now just pieces of history.

The display that once was Bucky's, the simple glass etching, was gone, leaving a more open space for moving through. Bucky was glad for the loss and the extra space, but he knew that meant things were just going to get more detailed later down the line. He paused a second where the glass had been before moving on.

They passed through a small section about the Avengers fight in New York City against the Chitauri aliens, focused mostly on Steve's part. His uniform from that fight was cleaned up and on display.

"I'm surprised they salvaged that thing," Steve said, studying the uniform. "That got pretty beat up and bloodied."

Sharon groaned, a hand over her stomach. "And this is what I deal with all the time, you running off and getting beat up and bloodied."

Steve patted Sharon's shoulder. "You didn't even know me then. And you had to know that Fury had given you the toughest protection detail possible."

"I did, but then I got turned over to the CIA and you went mercenary on us," Sharon said. "You were harder to track when we didn't work for the same institution where I can get status updates on you during missions."

Maria looked at Sharon. "You got turned over to the CIA? You weren't given a choice?"

Sharon made a reluctant expression. "No, I joined willingly, because I wanted to help hunt down Hydra. They gave me the protection detail on Steve, which was fine until Bucky came back and they started running off to parts unknown on a regular basis."

Bucky propped his left arm up on one of Sharon's shoulders. "You did all right handling it last month when we were out," he said, careful to not say "in North Korea" in public. It'd made the news, sorta. The North Korean government was blaming them and America for hiring them, but since neither were in uniform and were fairly well disguised, all the North Koreans could do was whine and cry at America and threaten them a lot. America had raised its proverbial much bigger stick in their direction and that had left them with nothing to do but cry.

But, uniform or no, they still were blamed (the fact that they were actually guilty was irrelevant), because why not? They were public faces, easy scapegoats; they were so good at their jobs that it was hard for them not to draw blame and attenti-

Oh.

"Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"I noticed a flaw in our plan here."

Steve looked at him. "I hate it when you say that. What now?"

Bucky motioned to the next part of the exhibit they were coming up on, the walls lined with small cloth flags bearing their faces, Bucky on the left side, Steve on the right. "We did nothing to make it harder to recognize us, and we're walking into a living photo album full of people who will want pictures and autographs."

Sam exploded into laughter, the jackass, and Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, ducking his head, which barely hid the fact that he was laughing just as much as Sam, just quieter. Bucky had a feeling Bruce wouldn't be so amused if things went south.

Sharon looked up at Steve. "Oops."

"Celebrities are allowed to enjoy a day in public without signing autographs or taking photos," Maria pointed out. "Turn them down politely, if it makes you uncomfortable."

"We'll just... try to minimize drawing attention to ourselves," Steve said. "No names."

The final part of the exhibit, the part that focused more on Bucky and his later partnership with Steve, had few artifacts lining walls, just plates and displays with words, lettering out history. James 'Bucky' Barnes was the eldest of four. Met Steve Rogers in grade school. They were friends for life, on the school yard and later on the battlefield. In '43, Bucky's unit was captured. Bucky had been chemically experimented on. It helped him survive an otherwise-deadly fall in '45.

While there were few displays with artifacts, there were still some, and the one nearest to that plaque was a replica of his arm, with speculation on the part of experts in the field of prosthetics as to how it worked, how it connected, what it was made of. The plaque made it obvious that nobody knew about biomechtium.

"They got that all wrong," he said, voice low. "Just as glad for it."

Maria hooked her arm around his flesh arm, resting against him. "If you need to leave, say so. I'll leave with you, let the others catch up."

He smiled, just a bit, and kissed the side of her head. "You're a good woman, you know that? I dunno how I got so lucky."

She lifted her head to look at him. "You had good luck coming," she said. "And you taught me to cook. That earned you points."

"James?"

Bucky stiffened, looking back around. A woman with a child around twelve was saying his name, hands on her hips. "James Avery, come on! You're going to get lost if you don't stick close."

Bucky breathed a sigh of relief that ended when James ignored her, walking over to him. Goddamnit. "Kid, what do you I have to pay you to not draw attention to me?" he asked, voice low.

"A million bucks," James said. Then he shrugged, reaching into his pocket and pulling out an iPhone. Bucky didn't understand why people went with those. Samsung made better. "Lemme take a picture. My friends won't believe me otherwise."

"James Avery!" The woman had moved on without him, which meant she hadn't seen Bucky.

"Coming, Mom! Hang on a second!"

Bucky was immensely grateful that the kid snapped his picture quickly before his mother noticed who it was that her son had been talking to. He looked at Maria. "If the rest of the morning is like this, I am so sorry."

She smiled, loosening her grip on his arm to take his hand. "I'll deal with it. I'm dating a celebrity, it comes with the territory."

"So that was a close call," Bruce said from behind Bucky and Bucky half turned to face him. "I think there might've been more fuss if we'd all been in a group. Putting both you and Steve together might've been too much for that kid's brain to process."

Bucky rubbed his metal hand over his face, his flesh hand occupied with Maria's. "We're either going to get very lucky not be noticed, or this is about to turn into a nightmare." He shoved his hand into his pocket, suddenly aware of how exposed it was, even despite the leather-palmed glove he wore for traction.

They moved on, displays of fake replicas of the weapons Bucky was known for using, of Steve's shield, and two large displays with their uniforms. The display with Bucky's tactical gear had a plaque with more expert speculation of what it was made from. They got the kevlar right, but missed the nomex.

There was a large glass wall between the two uniforms, similar to what had once been Bucky's only memorial in the former exhibit. It was larger by far, though, a column of text between two etched pictures of Steve and Bucky, one on either side. The group walked over to it.

Rogers and Barnes were separated during the war, each thought by the public to have died. While Rogers was frozen under the Arctic ice, Barnes was found by Hydra. Chemically enhanced and mechanically tortured, he emerged into the world as the brainwashed Hydra operative known as the Winter Soldier. Spending time in and out of cryostasis, Barnes carried out assassination missions for Hydra, unaware of his identity or past.

After Rogers had been found and the fight for New York was over, the two met up again. It is unknown what transpired between that moment and when Barnes was first seen in his company. The two quickly formed a mercenary team, Barnes known as nothing more than his former Hydra code name. The news of his identity became public knowledge a year and a half after he resurfaced. The two continue to work freelance.

Bucky shrugged after reading it. "Close enough."

"It's not like they had a lot of details to go on," Steve pointed out. He motioned to one of a few TV monitors along walls. "Come on, let's go see what those are."

"They look like news broadcasts," Sam said, crowding against Sharon, narrowly avoiding getting shoved away from the group.

"They are," Steve said upon a closer inspection. "That one's from Afghanistan." He looked over at another one. "There's a statement from North Korea's leader."

"They still can't prove it was us."

"And yet nobody believes it wasn't you," Maria said. "Including your own brother."

"Peter can smell bullshit a mile away. He's former brass."

A sweep around the room showed a broadcast about their job in Venezuela, where the government officials of the country refused to comment. An extremist attack and hostage situation in Munich that they'd been called in on.

"These are our jobs," Bucky said, counting the five TVs spread around the room. "I really can't believe I stayed hidden for so long. I was constantly in the news."

"Dumb luck?" Sam said.

Bucky almost answered, until he started hearing what he was certain was his working name. Instinctively reacting to it, he turned his head, then quickly let go of Maria's hand to turn completely around and press himself against the glass behind him. "Steve, we've been noticed."

There was a decent number of people gathering as the first people to notice them caught the attention of those behind them, until the crowd had been pressed almost like sardines against the group. Calls for autographs and pictures- that were getting taken anyway, if the number of phones up and flashes from regular cameras were any indication -drowned out the news reports overhead, and threatened to drown out Steve's voice, or the voices of any of the others.

"Steve, how do we get out of this?"

Steve tried to calm the crowd, protesting that they were on vacation, they weren't available for pictures or autographs. That got some unhappy noises from the crowd and there was more breathing room as some filtered back into the sea of people. Bucky heard some of them loudly bitching that Steve and Bucky were disappointments, but that wasn't stopping the rest of the people in front of them.

"Call it, Steve," Sam said. "We're trapped like rats here."

Steve took about three seconds to think. "Sharon, I want you to get Bruce out of here. Hug the right walls, avoid the crowd as much as possible. We don't need the big guy interfering. Sam, you're with me. We'll charge through the middle, take the most attention. Maria, take Bucky along the left, keep his arm from accidentally causing black eyes that might come back to haunt him. We'll meet at the entrance of the exhibit. If someone's missing after five minutes, we go back in for whoever's been left behind."

Leave it to Steve to turn a case of celebrities trying to let down fans and get away into a mission that required strategy calls.

Bucky didn't mind, having plans made his brain feel better when in what might be a potentially hostile situation. Some fans didn't like getting turned down and they were started to crowd closer again. Bucky felt a bit bad doing they physical equivalent of saying 'fuck you, you get nothing', but there were just too many, and the crowded conditions was starting to cause an episode. It wasn't safe there, too many people, not enough breathing room, and these were people he wasn't allowed to kill and beat his way through.

The six of them scattered, following their orders. Maria had Bucky squished up against the left wall, and the sound of his metal shoulder hitting the wall and occasionally scraping along it made his teeth feel like he was biting down on aluminum foil.

The sea of people was stifling, and all he could think was that any one of them could be Hydra agents, or members of some group that he and Steve had pissed off in their career as mercenaries. Every eastern Asian could be from North Korea, every Middle Eastern could be a member of the terrorist group that took the British royal family hostage. Every Latino could be someone from Venezuela. Any one of the masses of white people present could be from Munich.

And then there were the females of all races that seemed intent on pawing at him. Maria was able to keep most of them away, but at least one person got in behind them and either tried to grab hold of his shirt to stop him, or they felt the need to publicly grab a stranger's ass. He really hoped whoever did that wasn't a minor. The younger fans were being more aggressive about trying to get autographs and pictures.

Finally, after agonizing minutes where Bucky felt trapped and more and more desperate to get out from the crushing sea of people, he saw the exit. He couldn't breathe, his heart rate had accelerated, and sweat was starting to run down the back of his neck.

The others were weaving their way through; Bruce and Sharon had already made it out. Bucky kept side-stepping towards the exit of the building once Maria had gotten him safely out to where Sharon and Bruce were waiting. The back end of the crowd had been easier to navigate, most of them unsure what the fuss was about, too far away to have seen the group, and none of them dawdled long enough to be spotted.

"That was entertaining," Bruce said once Steve and Sam had caught up. "Shall we find somewhere else to be?"

"Could not agree with that idea more," Sharon said. "That was a security nightmare."

Any decisions about where to go from there were put on back burner until that decision could be made outside of the museum. Bucky breathed easier outside, not as crowded, not as potentially dangerous. There were positions all over for snipers or other attackers, but there was space to maneuver and get away from potential civilian casualties.

And he wasn't getting squished and manhandled by a bunch of strangers. That was a definite plus about the outside world.

"Okay, new plan," Sam said. "There're a million things to do in DC, it's not like we couldn't find-"

"Oh my god, it's Captain America and the Winter Soldier!" a young woman's voice said from somewhere behind Bucky, outside the entrance of the museum.

Bucky's shoulders slumped, turned to see two women, approximately early twenties, with a small boy between them. The stronger-looking of the two picked up the boy, possibly four years of age, and they hurried over. The boy was clapping and making a lot of happy-sounding noises.

Despite how well it hadn't worked inside, Steve stepped over between the women the others to talk down the two women with sharp eyes. "Fans, I take it?"

Really, Steve, it didn't work before, try another retreat and just get out of there.

"Were we obvious?" the woman without the child said, her hair cropped short with an obvious bleach job. "We were just taking our son in to see the Captain America and Winter Soldier exhibit. He's a big fan, cheers whenever the news talks about you two."

"We were just here to see it, too," Steve said, already moving to cut off any potential conversation. "We're on vacation-"

"I'm sorry," the woman with the child said. "I know, this is so rude of us. But, I mean, I don't like pulling this card, but our son is autistic. Completely non-verbal. But he always gets so excited when he sees you in the news, or plays with his action figures. The ones of you two are the only ones he'll touch. I really do hate pulling this card, but this might be the only chance he ever gets to see his favorite people in person. Could we get a picture? Just one? We won't tell anyone we saw you out here, if anyone asks, we'll try to cover for you so you can get away."

"With all due respect, ma'am," Maria said. "If your child is autistic, he's not very likely to be able to handle the crowd that's in there. It might be too much stimulation."

The woman with the bad bleach job sighed. "We know. But he insisted when he saw the news report about the open exhibit. We're prepared to take him out as soon as possible if it comes to it. Unfortunately, you can't trap your child in a bubble, not even an autistic child. If we could, we'd bubble wrap the world for him. Any parent would. But we're from Kentucky, we're here to see relatives over in Arlington that are going to be moving next month. This is going to be one of his few chances of seeing this."

"It's fine, Maria," Bucky said. He looked up at Steve. "I'm not that heartless."

Steve shook his head. "You know I'm not. All right."

The mother with the child leaned down, letting the boy stand on his own.

Bucky crouched down to his level, deciding that cooperating would make things go faster so they could get back to their cars and get the hell away from the museum. "Hey, kid," he said, holding out his metal hand. "You know what that is?"

The boy didn't answer, but he reached out and started playing with the exposed metal of Bucky's fingers. When Steve joined them down at the boy's level, the child inched around Bucky, still playing with the metal, but putting Bucky between him and Steve.

Steve looked up at the boy's mothers. "He's shy?"

"Autistic children aren't always the greatest at pinning down faces," Mother Bleach Hair said. "He's probably not realizing that you without the costume is still you. He's recognizing Mister Barnes's arm, though."

Taking that as an idea, Bucky pushed up his sleeve. "Recognize this, kiddo?"

The boy lit up, running his hands up and down the exposed metal and laughing with a normal four year old kid's lack of sense of volume control. He didn't look up at Bucky, nor at Steve, completely entranced by Bucky's arm, almost to uncomfortable levels. Bucky wasn't familiar with autism in children, but his mothers weren't acting like it was unusual, although the one that'd been carrying him, told him to settle down a bit.

"Is that the Winter Soldier, Ben?" Non-Descript Mother asked while Bleached-Hair Mother backed up a bit with a camera. The boy laughed, patting Bucky's forearm in excitement.

Despite the moderate discomfort Bucky was feeling from the prolonged contact, he smiled. He looked up at Non-Descript Mother. "Does he get this excited with his toys?"

Non-Descript Mother laughed. "He loves those toys. I don't even know what sorts of games go through his head when he plays, but he's endlessly fascinated by how the metal arm feels different from the plastic of the rest of the doll. He's very tactile. If he's making you uncomfortable, I can make him stop." She looked back at her partner. "Got the picture?"

Bleached-Hair Mother grinned, holding up their phone. "Got it!" she walked over, showing her partner the picture, who nodded in satisfaction. "We're hoping that with therapy, he'll become a least somewhat verbal. And I'm hoping that if he does, he'll be thanking us for that picture." She looked at her son. "Come on, champ, it's time to go in. You ready?"

The boy didn't seem inclined to let go of Bucky's arm. Non-Descript Mother sighed. "Come on, Ben. It's time to leave him alone now, okay?" She picked him up, taking him away from Bucky's arm. The boy started crying, kicking his legs and flapping his hands in a distinctly unhappy way. His mother tried to calm him, but like with any four year old that was being told 'no', he wasn't having any of it.

Bucky stood. "Good luck with him in there," he said. "There's a lot of people."

Non-Descript Mother adjusted her grip on her son, taking his kicks to her hip. "I know. We'll probably take him into the bathroom first, give him a quieter environment to calm down in. Thank you, both of you, so much."

Bucky almost warned them that the bathrooms probably weren't much quieter than the rest of the museum, but he figured they knew better how to handle their child than he did.

The mothers and their still crying son headed inside, leaving Bucky to rub his arm, testing for sticky spots- kids were always so sticky -before rolling his sleeve down. "Okay, before we get caught by anyone else, let's find a place to go where there aren't a bunch of fans."

There really wasn't anywhere to go that fit that criteria. They headed to the cars to make plans, but by that time, they'd shoved through enough other crowds and dodged a few other people with sharp eyesight, and none of them felt up for further travel.

"I hate to say this," Steve said. "As glad as I am to have come here, I think it's time to go home. Tourist season is in full swing, we're never going to find any place to go that's safe, unless we feel like picking up a deck of cards and crashing at Sam's place."

"I don't have enough room for this crowd," Sam said. "And if we get cards, we're getting Cards Against Humanity."

Bucky made a snorting sound that was trying to be a contained laugh. "You don't want to play Steve at that game. He's made Tony cringe with how bad his combinations are."

Sam stared at him like he'd announced that.. well, that Captain America had a terrible sense of humor, like pretty much every other normal adult on the planet. "Seriously?" He looked at Steve. "Man, you've been holding out on me."

Steve looked guilty and amused all at once. "I only do it to win. I'm competitive."

"I hope nobody minds, but I'm going to side with Cap," Bruce said. "Today's been stressful, I think being home now would be good."

When Bruce mentioned being stressed, the others tended to listen, so they said their goodbyes to Sam, piled into their car, and started on the road for NYC.

"So if we ever want to get a better look at how much they screwed up at that exhibit, we're arranging for a private damn tour after hours," Bucky said once they'd left DC.

"Agreed," Sharon said. "I'm not claustrophobic, but that was a bit much. You two didn't get hit or groped too much trying to get out, did you?"

Steve checked his rearview mirror briefly before answering. "I think I escaped the worst of it."

"Lucky asshole," Bucky said. "I'm pretty sure there were some teenage girls that got in behind me and violated my personal space."

"What about the teenage boys?" Sharon asked, and Bucky could hear the laugh in her voice; she didn't have to actually be laughing for him to hear that amusement.

He turned his head to try to give her the evil eye. "Right, because that makes the underage thing so much better."

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize people had gotten by me," Maria said. "I should've been more attentive."

Bucky waved her off. "They snuck in behind us. There were a lot of people there, they could've been trapped into a convenient place by the others around us."

Maria didn't look happy with herself but another assurance from Bucky eased that. Finally, her expression changed. "Do you have your tablet up there?"

Not what he was expecting she'd say next; it was out of left field. He shook his head. "No, why?"

She leaned forward over Sharon's lap, looking at the dashboard. "It looks like we'll need to stop for gas around Baltimore," she said. "Can you get it out when we stop? I'd like to look through your saved recipes. It will be shortly before dinner time when we get home."

Bucky checked the clock on the dash. "You're right, it will be. You sure you wanna cook? It's been a long day, we could always get delivery or something."

"You don't like delivery," she said. "And I can cook a meal just fine."

Bucky's eyebrows traveled up his forehead, and he looked at Steve. Steve looked just as confused. Bucky wasn't sure how jealous of a woman Maria could be, it hadn't really come up yet, but something about that made him worry that Maggie had made her feel a bit insecure.

Better to let her deal with it however she wanted for the moment. And he didn't really mind her cooking, she was getting really good at it. "I didn't say you couldn't cook," he said gently. "I just wasn't sure anyone would be up for it after a long day."

His tone seemed to mollify her. "Thank you, but I'd like to cook."

Bucky shrugged. "All right. Just remind me when we stop."

"Which will be soon," Steve said, glancing down at the fuel gauge.

A couple exits later, Steve pulled off the interstate and up to a gas station. While Steve fueled the car, Bucky dug into his bag in the trunk and pulled out his tablet. He opened Maria's door and crouched by it, one knee on the ground, and handed the tablet over. "Here."

Maria took the tablet, and Sharon tilted to watch over her shoulder as she went through the several recipes that Bucky had saved in case he needed something when there wasn't internet. After a minute, she turned the tablet to him. "What about this?"

He took the tablet, studying the recipe. "Chicken Makhani?" He eyed the ingredients. "I think we have all that. We have chicken breasts instead of thighs, but that's just a white meat/dark meat difference. With all the spices, it shouldn't matter." He handed the tablet back. "Run it by the others."

While Sharon and Bruce looked at the offered tablet, Maria glanced out the front window towards Steve. "What about him?"

"He'll eat whatever we give him, as long as it's not Italian," Bucky said. He looked past Maria at Sharon and Bruce. "What do you guys think?"

"I've had Chicken Makhani before," Bruce said. "It's a good dish."

"Can we cut out the cayenne?" Sharon asked. "The rest is fine, but I think that might be a bit much for me." She handed the tablet over Maria to Bucky.

He took the tablet, looking over the recipe again. "That shouldn't make much of a difference, it should be fine." He looked at Maria and patted her leg. "You have good taste."

She smiled and put her hand over his. "I learned from you, and you spoiled me. I can't eat Amy's anymore."

"Oh, woe and despair," Bucky said, rolling his eyes skyward in an exaggerated manner. He was tempted to put the back of his hand to his forehead, but refrained. He was being dramatic enough. "My girlfriend is forced to eat proper food now. The world is ending."

"Okay, lovebirds," Steve said, getting back into the car. "Time to go."

Bucky kissed Maria's cheek before standing and grabbing her door. "Captain's orders," he said, closing her door for her before getting into the front seat. "We're having Indian for dinner tonight," he told Steve. "Wipe out the taste of that awful place Sam took us to."

Steve chuckled. "Sam doesn't have a gourmet palate like you do."

The rest of the drive went as quickly as interstate driving ever did during tourism season. Too long, in Bucky's opinion, but traffic obviously wasn't interested in his opinion. But he was more than happy to be home when they got to the Tower and unloaded their bags.

"Welcome home, ladies and gentlemen," JARVIS said once they were in the elevator.

Bucky leaned back against the back of the elevator as it started up to the resident floor. "Any messages while we were gone?"

"No," JARVIS said. "I am still conducting my search through Mister Stark's system in Washington."

Bruce frowned. "It's taking this long? It hardly took any time to break through SHIELD's information on the helicarrier."

"The information stored on the helicarrier was not the sum whole of SHIELD's information," JARVIS said. "I am searching nearly every government record I can connect to."

Steve looked at Bruce. "You know, I almost wish that helicarrier had been carrying everything. We could've taken out Hydra a long time ago."

"And Bucky might've been left in cryostasis and moved elsewhere," Maria said. "It may not have been the most pleasant of circumstances, but he is here now because of how things went."

Steve looked at Bucky, standing on his left, then rested his arm on Bucky's shoulder to rub in how Steve was the taller of the two now. "Yeah, okay, you make a point."

Bucky rolled his shoulder out from under Steve's arm. "You're a jackass," he said.

The party split up on the residential floor to unpack before reconvening at Steve and Bucky's. Maria was first there, and beelined right for the kitchen.

"Want any help?" Bucky asked, knowing he'd probably get told 'no'. It hadn't taken her long to pick up the trick of cooking enough to discourage help in the kitchen.

"No," she said. "I know where things are."

Bruce and Sharon joined them, Bruce taking a seat on one of the couches. "It was a nice idea, Bucky," he said. "And I'm glad we went. But I am very grateful to be home."

Steve flopped down on the end of the other couch. "You're preaching to the choir," he said. "I was okay until we got mobbed at the Smithsonian." He put his arm around Sharon when she sat down next to him.

"Next time, bring hats," Sharon said, tone stern.

Bucky scoffed. "Next time? Next time, I'm not going. Not unless we can get that private tour I mentioned."

Conversation had bounced around subjects as the food began to cook, smelling incredibly good and it was making Bucky's stomach protest not eating it, when JARVIS interrupted. "Excuse me, Mister Barnes, Captain Rogers, but I have news regarding the Winter Soldier Project files."

Bucky straightened from leaning on the back of the couch behind Steve. "Bad news?"

"Yes and no," JARVIS said. "I have successfully tracked down and permanently destroyed three copies within the government files. However, it seems one had already been transferred out before my systems gained access."

Bucky felt his blood run cold. "Someone else has that? Who? Where'd it go?"

"I cannot specify who, I'm afraid," JARVIS said. "It has gone through three fictitious email accounts before disappearing from internet access. But its final destination was a computer in Jerusalem."

Before any of them could say anything, the work phone rang, an annoying little voice singing "I'm about to whip somebody's ass." Bucky made an aggrieved noise, pulling it out of his pocket. "I'm going whip somebody's ass, all right," he grumbled. "Name Tony Stark's." He eyed the caller ID. "Hey, JARVIS, what country has nine seven two as its calling code?"

"That would be Israel, sir."