Here we go again! Originally, this was supposed to be a one-shot collection, but these babies developed their own life and took over, there was no stopping them. I wanted to do a new fic and just wrap this up quickly, but they wouldnt let me. This story isnt told yet. Oops.

Also, I hope some of you noticed that I chose the names of songs that seemed fitting for the chapters as titles. Kinda stole that idea from Degrassi but it just felt right.

Anyway, Infnity War spoilers ahead! The chapter will catch up with the movie and also include some Avengers 4 Headcanons/Fan theories.
I've only watched IW once when it first came out (they didnt have many screenings in English around here) so I might remember some things incorrectly, please forgive me.


"Don't leave. Please." Bucky said again, tugging at the dirty uniform.
Steve smiled, running his hands through Bucky's long hair. "That's what I said to you before you went back into cryo." He said, arching his brows.
Buck sighed. "And you let me make my own choice, I know. But that was before..." He shoved him slightly, pouting.
"I'll be back." Steve promised. "There are still people out there that need help and I'm taking much less of a risk helping them than anybody else on this planet. I can't just sit and watch."
"yeah, 'feel like I've heard that speech before. 'There are men down there laying down their lifes and I got no right to do any less'..."
"You remember!" Steve laughed, his lighting up.
"I hated it back then and I hate it now." Bucky said grumpily. He sighed. "But I know you have to. You've always been a stupid hero with stupid morals and stupidly good hair."

He pushed Steve away softly, taking a step back. "You better fucking text me this time, though." He added.
Steve grinned and nodded. "Promise." He turned around and climbed into the jet, throwing one last look over his shoulder before disappearing behind glass and metal.

T'Challa took his place next to Bucky, hand resting assuringly on his shoulder.
"Don't worry, Shuri put a tracker in his armour when she patched it up." He laughed at Bucky's arched brow. "With his consent! We will have to know where he is in case of trouble and my sister's technology has proven to be reliable and secure."
"So you know where he's going now? His mission?"
The king shook his head. "He did not say and we didn't ask. But I do know they have safehouse in Scotland."
Bucky nodded thoughtfully. "So he's still with Natasha and Sam. At least he won't be alone."
"You are not worried he will be unfaithful, are you?" T'Challa asked. It was a very smooth way to ask his actual question without getting too awkward.
"So Shuri told you." Buck said, equally amused and terrified by the girl's skillful observations. She kept surprising him.
"I am not worried. Steve isn't like that." Something about the subject, talking so openly about his feelings for his best friend made him uncomfortable. Not because he was a man, Bucky had seen too much of the world to be bothered by such silly things as labels, it was more about ... feelings. It was strange to him, after all the years he spent as the Winter Soldier, to feel again, and even more to talk about them openly. Steve's presence had made it easier, made him feel more like the man he used to be. But without him, the vulnerability scared him. Still, no time like the present to face that fear.

"I would think-" Bucky said carefully, "that we are now official. As a ... couple...? That means something..." He sighed. "Or at least it did when I last dated."
T'Challa grinned. "I am sure it still does to most people. Fortunately, Steve Rogers seems like the kind of man to do so. My father would always say the men of today can learn a thing or two from the gentlemen of the forties."
"People tend to romantize the past." Buck said kindly, not wanting to mention the many boys he had visited in an alley after seeing their girlfriends come to school bruised and haunted, or the men he had taken into the forest for a good talk after overhearing their conversations about the girls of nearby towns.

"In any case," T'Challa said confidently, "I do not doubt Steve Rogers is, as my sister put it, 'husband material'. Not that I know what how exactly she defines that." He cocked his head to the side.
Bucky laughed. "She called him that?"

The king nodded and furrowed his brows. "She also told me to give you a laptop so you could 'educate yourself on stuff that they didn't talk about in the thirties'?"
Bucky snorted. "I'm good, thank you. Tell her I've done my research." He shook his head, laughing as the realization spread on T'Challa's face.
"I did not need to know that." He said simply, patting Bucky's shoulder before turning around. "But good for you." He added as he walked back into the palace, leaving Bucky to stare into the distance, past the glistening buildings of the city, where somewhere his stupid boyfriend would be saving the stupid world.


Steve dropped into the battered couch, groaning, his hand clasped around his shoulder.
"You sound like an old man, Rogers." Natasha commented, prying his fingers away from the wound. She knew not to lose time getting the bullet out before the accelared healing made the flesh grow around it. Over the past months, they had peeled more bullets from his body than she would care to count. Nat herself had been injured a fair amount as well, of course, but mostly it was Steve who threw himself in front of her and Sam like a human shield, knowing his body could take more hits than theirs could. It had hurt her pride a bit at first, but she knew they couldn't afford any major injuries that would knock them out for a longer time.

"I am an old man!" Steve said through gritted teeth, watching his friend expertly fish the small piece of silver from his torn skin. He did feel old sometimes. Tired. But as long as these wounds healed within a few days, he knew he couldn't back down.

"You're a drama queen." Nat said kindly, patching up the injured shoulder. "There you go. Another one for the collection." She glanced at the soft scars on his chest and stomach. There used to be hardly any trace of his injuries, back when they'd first fought side by side. Recently, the skin had not regenerated as smoothly. Maybe he was getting old. The thought pained her more than she'd expected.

As she inspected his semi-naked body, she noticed another thing that was different. At first it had looked like a regular bruise, god knows they had alot of thise, but the placement and shape seemed suspicious.
"Steve Rogers, is that a hickey?" Natasha laughed out loud, grabbing at his neck to get a closer look.
Steve pulled away, blushing a deep red under his beard. "What makes you think-?"
She laughed. "I knew it! You have that... glow in your eyes!" She punched his good shoulder playfully. "Who is the lucky girl that finally took the Saint Rogers' virginity?"

"It's ... complicated ... I really don't think we need to have this conversation." He tried to flee but his friend tackled him down, her hand firmly pressed against his chest.
"Don't you dare! I spent ages trying to hook you up with someone, I deserve to know!" She narrowed her eyes, trying to read Steve's body language, Super Soldier against Super Spy.
It had to be someone in Wakanda, that was obvious.
"Nat, I really don't -"
Someone in the palace? Warrior or royal?
"If you could just get your foot out of my spine-"
Was it someone they knew? That they'd met when they first brought Bucky there?
"How are you even doing this, your legs are everywhere."
Breaking through that wall would take more than a pretty face, she knew, she'd tried. It would take trust. A trust that Steve had in no one ... except-

"Oh my gosh!" Natasha gasped, jumping backwards, releasing her slightly terrified friend. "You slept with Bucky!"
She grinned brightly, clapping her hands. "I knew it, you know, I knew there was this tension between you, I mean, you refused to leave his side the entire time we took him in and..." She shook her head. "That is so cheesy."

Steve buried his head in his hands. "When I first visited him in Wakanda after his Cryo.. We sort of ... I don't know. Things between us changed I guess."
He looked up, genuinely confused. "I just couldn't help it. I ... fell in love... with him."
Nat threw herself on the couch next to him, pulling her legs up, looking like a girl on a sleepover. "So are you official"
"I don't know... I guess? Not like I have any experience, I don't know how you're supposed to..." He buried his face back into his hands.
"I'm happy for you." Natasha said softly, placing her hand on Steve's back. "If anyone deserves peace and happiness, it's the two of you."

She stroked his back reassuringly. "Why did you leave?" She asked softly.
"Duty." Steve muffled against his palms. "I can't just abandon our mission."
Nat furrowed her brows. "That's what you tell yourself. What's the true reason?" She said. The super spy wins again.
Again, Steve looked up, his eyes dark with worry. "Happiness doesn't happen to people like us. Especially not to me." He voice was quivering. Damn Natasha for being able to coax whatever information she needed out of even the most determined soldiers.

"Everytime I got Bucky back, something happened to take him away from me again. Every time that I felt like I could be happy, war and hatred followed me and tore him away. I don't know if I can bear to lose him again, Nat. It would kill me." His voice broke into a whisper, tears glistening in his eyes.

"You can't run away all your life, Steve. There is your chance to live the normal life we are all dreaming of. Don't let war and hatred win by being afraid to reach for it." Her eyes darkened. She imagined, just for a moment, getting to lay down her weapons, move into a small house, a lover by her side, with nothing to worry about outside of their own small bubble of domestic life.
Could she do it? Could she have faith in the illusion of happiness? Or would she shy away, one hand on the trigger, watching the shadows?

Without another word, she pulled her friend into her embrace, resting her chin on his head, palms flat against his back.


Something wasn't right with the goats. They had been acting odd all week, only moving in close bundles of fur, jumping at every odd noise and unexpected movement. It had been worrying Bucky for a while. He knew the creatures where much more intelligent than him and if there was something that made them feel uneasy, he felt like he had reason to be worried. He hadn't told Steve. They had called and texted and skyped, but their conversations had been short and light-hearted, mostly memories and joking and discussions about TV shows that Shuri had forced him to watch so he would get her references. It had seemed so innocent and peaceful, an escape for his boyfriend who was fighting and running all day, Bucky hadn't wanted to darken the mood.

He supposed it had been too good to be true. The peace, the feeling of safety, his slowly blossoming relationship with Steve... It wasn't the sort of thing that happened to them. Somehow, their past would always catch up to them. And he dreaded the day that it did was coming close.

As Bucky looked up to the city now, hearing the yells and the clanging of metal, the dark silhouettes of multiple jets appearing on the sky, his assumptions seemed confirmed. He had looked forward to seeing Steve again, to disappear into his hugs and drown in his eyes.
This reunion wouldn't be like that.

He could feel it in his bones, too familiar with the ice cold calm as terror broke out around him, guards escorting the farmers to safety, children crying.
Against everything he had told himself for the past year, despite all of his efforts to never go back to who he used to be, Seargant James Buchanan Barnes put his feelings into a box and became a Soldier.
He knew what was in that box before they had even reached his hut.

"Where's the fight?"


"...Steve?"

"Bucky..."


He had been wrong. Losing him again didn't kill him. He wished it did. It felt like dying. Everything inside him shattered.

For a moment, the pain was unbearable, tearing through his heart worse than any knife or bullet ever could.
Then, there was emptiness. He dropped to his knees, hands clawing at the pile of dust that was all that was left of him.
Nothing.
There was nothing in him anymore.
Just a black hole that devoured everything.

No good deed goes unpunished.


They moved on. Like they always did. Because if they didn't, who else would? But they left themselves behind.

The group of broken people that had once been the protectors of the earth kept moving. Kept fighting. There was nothing else they could do. They didn't know what would happen if they stopped.

An entire universe in pain. Half the people might have died, but all of them had gone.
After the roar of battle and the screams of fear and grief, the silent loss that followed was deafening.

Captain America was dead. That man, that idea, had died the moment he dropped his shield and turned his back on the country he had loved.
Steve Rogers was gone. The name had vanished with the man who last spoke it.
The Nomad was all that was left. Lost and empty, in constant movement, hunting and running and fighting.

He never said word. Not a single one. There was nothing left to say.
The others understood. Most of them where silent as well, communicating over single words and gestures. Falling into a rhythm, like a machine.

There was a new Captain now. A woman that none of them had heard of before.
Fury had called her in, during his last moments before he, too, disappeared into a cloud of dust.
She was their last hope.

The Captain took over their group, pulling them out of the ash and dust. No one questioned it. They where grateful for it, following her orders quietly and discreetly.
She was a natural leader, determined and tough, but with kindness in her eyes.

Let someone else be the hero. Let her save the world. Let her hope. Let us go.

The Nomad watched her, the woman who now bore a title he once carried with pride. Captain. He didn't envy her.
She also carried the burden that came with it.
And she had suffered loss as well, he could see it, behind the strict voice and intelligent eyes.
There was pain. Emptiness.
If anything, the Nomad admired her for refusing to give up.
Taking over their broken pieces and trying her best to make an army out of it.

The world would always need a Captain.


He would've thought death was cold and dark. That it would hurt. Burn?
He had died before. In fact, he had only just started being alive again.
But this death was ... different. Light. Warm. Disconnected. And ... crowded.
All around him where people, wandering between the ancient-greece-looking pillars and structures, looking confused and lost.
So many faces. He looked around, equally sadened and relieved that he didn't recognize any of them.
Whatever had happened, where ever they where, it didn't seem like a good thing.

Instinctively, he backed away from the crowd, trying to find a shadow to hide in. He found himself in some sort of broken-down temple, leaning with his back against a pillar. His head felt oddly light. Like he couldn't think. Like he didn't want to. It wasn't new to him, fighting against his own head.
He tried to remember. Fought through the barrier in his head, pushing through the misty bliss that tried to take him over. It hurt like hell. Good.

A face flashed before his eyes. A man, looking dirty and battered, his face distorted in pain, but his eyes where kind. The image floated in his mind. The man was saying something. He kept pushing, groaning in agony. A slurred voice sounded in his head. A part of him wanted the pain to end, to return to the warmth and carelessness. But something told him he had to keep going.

"You are-" The man said. I am? He tried again, envisioned a wall in his head that he kept kicking until the rocks crumbled away.
"You are James Buchanan Barnes-"

Bucky gasped, hands grabbing at his head as he felt the wall collapse, an unbearable pain tearing through him, making every inch of his body tense in agony.
Steve.
Wakanda, the arm, the battle, the monsters, Thanos, the stones,...
Steve.
The last thing he remembered.

"You've fought it off." Someone said, an edge of surprise in the defeated sadness of their voice. "Most people just give in to the peacefulness."
Bucky looked up, wiping hair from his face. A woman stood before him, her arms crossed, an expression of grief and pity on her face. She sat down in front of him, eyeing him curiously. "Do you remember your name?" She asked.

"Bucky." He breathed. "What's happening?"
The woman smiled sadly. He realized her skin was green. it made him think earth wasnt the only planet that had been attacked.
"My name's Gamora, thanks for asking." She sighed. "You're inside the soul stone. Stored away. With half of the universe."
She looked at him, curious, like she wondered how much of that he understood.

"So Thanos really won." He said, the pain pulsing in his chest. "And we're all ... dead."
Gamora shrugged. "I guess he did. But I don't think this is death. This is worse than that. It's an eternal limbo, somewhere between life and death, somewhere outside of the universe."
"Is that why people forget their names?" Bucky asked.
"They forget because they want to. The truth hurts, so they choose not to feel it. That means giving up part of who they are."
She gestured towards his chest. "That pain you're feeling. It means you're alive. It takes strength to accept that."

Bucky smiled darkly. "I'm not exactly new to that concept." Gamora cast him a questioning glance. "I was ... taken. In another life. They ... got inside my head. Made me into a weapon. Took all my memories, everyone I loved. I've fought against that all my life. Learned that pain means being me. And I'd always choose that over chains."
Gamora nodded slowly. "I know the feeling."

It hurt like hell.

He missed ... life. Steve. His boyfriend. He missed his hut and his goats and T'challa and Shuri and the beautiful sunsets.
Bucky wondered if he would ever see that again. There was a chance that Steve was here too, taken by the soul stone, but something told him he wasn't. For one, because he had seen him, standing in fron of him, very much alive, heard him speak his name. He hadn't faded the way Bucky had.
And then, of course, because that was what Thanos had threatened: Half the universe. And half of him was missing. Seperated, again.

But, if that was true, if Steve was still alive, out there in his universe, then there was still hope.
If there was one thing that Bucky knew about Steve Rogers, it was that he would never give up.

Steve would save them.

He hoped.