Author's Note: Feels ahoy! Have fun with this chapter, guys, I know I did!

Also, I don't know if anyone else is having this issue, but FF hasn't been letting me reply to notes, so I apologize if you sent me one with a question and I didn't answer. Hope they fix it soon, because it's definitely annoying!

So, to the person who was asking if there's only one chapter left, the answer is NO, lol, I was just saying that I had one chapter left to write, which is quite different XD There will be 19 chapters total to this fic, and I'm working on number 19 now!

Thanks again to my beta, nighttimelights, who baptized this chapter with her super special editor tears while working on it XD

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Chapter Ten: Not Alone

A week passed and the world outside the compound remained relatively calm, with only a few short missions requiring action from the Avengers. Hydra, persistent cancer on the world that it was, seemed to be up to something, but none of their leads had come to anything thus far. None of them liked to sit around and wait, but it seemed they had no other choice for the time being.

Steve rocketed into wakefulness sometime after midnight, finely honed senses shrieking that he wasn't alone in his bedroom.

The first Avenger sat bolt upright in bed, and was reaching for his shield when his eyes focused enough that he was able to identify the person standing just a few feet away.

"Bucky?" He asked, voice rough from sleep as he immediately relaxed and rubbed his eyes to clear them. There was no answer from his friend, but when Steve reached over and turned on his bedside lamp, the other man flinched.

The ex-soldier was pale and sweating, his long, dark hair tousled as he stood at the edge of the pool of light, clad only in a pair of shorts. He opened his mouth as though to speak, but words seemed to fail him. He looked around him instead, clearly confused as to how he had gotten there.

Worried now, Steve remained very still, not wishing to startle his friend further as he asked in a low, deliberate voice, "Buck, is everything okay?"

The blond's words seemed to bring the other man back to himself and Bucky shook himself a little. Or maybe it was a shiver, Steve thought absently.

"Yeah," the ex-soldier said, voice cracking from disuse, forcing him to clear his throat and try again. "Yeah, I just...had a dream I-" He stopped mid-sentence and shook his head, pushing absently at his sweat dampened hair, seeming fully awake now as he said, "Nevermind. I'm fine. I'm sorry I woke you," then turned to leave.

Unwilling to let his friend go in such a state, Steve immediately pushed aside his blankets and slid out of bed. Suddenly remembering he had gone to sleep wearing only his checkered pajama pants, the blond grabbed a t-shirt out of the chest of drawers that served as his nightstand and dragged it on over his head.

"What are you-" Bucky began, furrowing his brow when the sound of Steve's movements made him look back.

"Come on," was his friend's only reply as he nodded towards the door and laid a gentle hand on the shorter man's bare shoulder. His palm was hot in contrast to Bucky's sweat-chilled skin, making the former soldier shudder in response to the touch.

Steve paused at the reaction and grabbed a hoody from the hook on the back of his door and pressed it into Bucky's arms. The dark-haired man just looked at it for a moment, then turned his gaze up to meet his friend's eyes, frowning as he insisted, "You don't have to get up, Steve. Go back to bed, I'm fine."

Steve nearly asked how his friend expected him to sleep soundly when Bucky had so clearly been doing anything but that, but refrained and simply smiled at him.

"I could go for some tea, how about you?" He asked, the non-sequitur throwing his friend as he turned and walked out the door, refusing to argue.

Bucky hesitated, looking down at the hoody in his hands again. It was navy blue with the New York Yankees' logo printed on the front in white, and looked as though it had seen quite a bit of use. Knowing Steve had likely already reached the kitchen by that point, Bucky sighed and dragged the garment on over his head and followed after. He might as well. After the nightmare he'd had, the ex-soldier doubted he'd be getting any more sleep that night.

Having horrific nightmares was nothing new, but actually showing up in Steve's room after yet another bloody rendition of murdering the man in his dreams was. The desperation to be sure his friend was alright had been too much to resist, and quickly overpowered his sleep-deprived mind of its last vestiges of reason. He hadn't even been fully awake until Steve had called his name.

When he reached the kitchen, Bucky was greeted by the sight of Steve leaning casually against the counter by the microwave as it hummed quietly, warming two mugs of water. The shorter man hesitated at the door, then shoved his hands into the pocket of his friend's hoody and ambled over to the island bar. With a deft hook of one foot, he dragged a stool out from under the counter and sat on it, feeling a little incongruous in his shorts and over-sized sweater.

Steve simply smiled at him again, then turned to check the time on the microwave. Right before it hit zero, he popped it open and pulled the mugs out to keep the alarm from sounding and potentially waking their teammates. The digital clock on the stove read two-eleven in bright green numbers, but it felt later to Bucky.

"What, no teapot?" He asked in an attempt at humor to free himself of the clinging memories of horror that had plagued his sleep.

"No," Steve answered with an amused huff as he rummaged in one of the cabinets, pulling out a bag of loose-leaf tea and empty teabags. "I've been the only one drinking this stuff, and it just hasn't seemed worth it to get one."

Bucky hummed in response, shifting slightly on his seat to make himself more comfortable as he watched his friend turn his back to him to prepare two teabags. The movement brought the scent of Steve's hoody to the man's nose, and without thinking the ex-soldier pulled at the collar and inhaled deeply.

The familiar combination of smells had an immediate, almost soporific effect on the man that relaxed his mind and caused his eyes to drift briefly shut. The scent of his friend's shaving cream combined pleasantly with that of whatever body wash he used and undertones of something indefinably Steve that Bucky suddenly realized he had always known. The fragrance brought him back to the night a week before when they had fallen asleep together on the sofa and Steve's warm presence had wrapped around him like a blanket. Though he had been embarrassed at the time, after the night he'd had Bucky now found himself longing for the chance to repeat their evening together.

If he let it (and for a moment, he did), the smell dragged him even deeper into his memories. Back to a time when Steve's scent had been mixed with blood and earth and sweat, rather than soap. The acrid stench of gunpowder had clung to his hair and skin, just like it had everyone's. Sometimes Bucky was haunted by the reek of the trenches he'd holed up in with Steve and the Commandos, bodies pressed in tight against one another, breath clouding in the wet, frigid, miserable winter air as they waited for the latest round of shelling to stop so they could push forward again.

'Just a little further,' Steve would say, breathless but determined as he turned his electric blue gaze on them all, bolstering their confidence with one of his more vivacious smiles. 'Just a little further and-'

The sound of ceramic scraping against counter-top when Steve lifted their mugs brought the ex-soldier back to himself and made him straighten his friend's hoody guiltily.

"Here," Steve said as he pushed a mug across the bar to his friend, a gentle smile on his face as he hooked his long fingers through the handle of his own.

Bucky accepted the offering reflexively, pulling it in towards him as he cradled the steaming mug in both hands. It was times like these that the difference between his hands was most noticeable to him. While his right nearly burned with the heat of the cup pressed into his palm, the left only registered its weight. The limited sensory information his brain received from his prosthetic limb in comparison to his natural one was something he had never quite adjusted to. He could register pressure against the limb, but little else, leading to a strange dichotomy of sensation.

A comfortable silence settled over the pair as Steve leaned against the bar, occasionally fiddling with his tea bag before eventually pulling it out and dumping it in the trash. Bucky followed suit, then took an experimental sip.

The scent of lavender coiled up from the cup and the flavor rushed over his tongue, the heat of it almost searing his mouth. He swallowed despite it, and was surprised when another swell of memories rose to the surface of his mind.

"Your mom used to make us lavender tea," he said out of the blue as he stared down at his drink, brow furrowed for a moment before he gradually relaxed into a smile.

Taken off guard by his friend's words, Steve stared for a moment and then grinned broadly at him, seeming delighted by Bucky's ability to recall something from so long ago. While the other man had remembered most of what happened during the war and shortly beforehand, memories from their youth had been few and far between. They were there, though, returning in fits and bursts as Hydra's memory suppression slowly eroded with time.

"Yeah, she sure did," he said quietly as he looked down at his own cup. He took a sip, still smiling, but softer now.

Bucky hesitated and closed his eyes as he let the memories flow, a smile tugging at his lips as he reminisced. "I'd scrape your ass up off the pavement after your latest beatdown after school, and drag you back home," a chuckle escaped him as he looked up at Steve, "and she'd make us tea once we'd patched you up."

"Beatdown?" Steve grumbled, but wasn't able to make an argument in his defense. It was true, after all. He'd hardly been in a position to give as good as he got back in the day, however hard he had tried.

Bucky's mouth twisted in amusement and he took another sip of his tea, only to pause as he recalled something else. "If we were lucky, she'd have enough sugar rations left over to make us those little cookies to go with it."

Steve groaned and rolled his eyes heavenward. "Man, I miss those. I still have no idea how she made them so good when she had next to nothing to work with," he admitted regretfully.

"Sign of the times, maybe," Bucky mused absently.

Tilting his head curiously, Steve asked, "How do you mean?"

His friend snorted. "We were all so damn poor back then, Steve. Everyone was. Anything seasoned with more than broth and hope tasted fucking amazing." Bucky paused then, a small frown crossing his features as he admitted, "I still don't remember how she even got her hands on lavender in the first place, actually."

"Ah," Steve said, shifting to lean his other hip against the counter. "She had that lavender bush in a pot she kept out on the fire escape," he explained. "Mom grew it off cuttings she'd taken from the big bush at my grandmother's place upstate before she died," the super-soldier reminisced, expression bitter-sweet. "It wasn't very big, though, so we'd recycle the teabags to make it stretch longer."

Suddenly overcome by a tide of emotions, Steve lowered his gaze and took a long sip of his tea, trying to ignore the tightness in his chest. It hurt, thinking about his mother and the life they'd had together before she'd inevitably passed; far too soon for a woman of her strength. She'd never been quite the same after his father had died, though, and Steve had had to watch her gradually wither and fade.

Just like the lavender plant had after she'd passed on, despite his best efforts.

Worse, though, had been the way she had worried and fretted over him the entire time, and what he would do when she was gone. Her small, sickly boy, all alone in the wide, unforgiving world…

Well, not quite alone, at least.

Watching his friend's eyes darken as he stared unseeing into the depths of his mug, Bucky said with a quiet solemnity, "She'd be real proud of you, Steve."

Steve looked up at him then, a pained but grateful expression on his face as he said with a tight voice, "Thanks."

Before his friend could glance away again, Bucky reached out reflexively and placed his hand on Steve's as he put his mug down and continued, "I'm proud of you."

The super-soldier stared back at his friend, who was looking up at him from where he leaned across the counter with an intensely earnest and completely serious expression.

"I-" Steve began, but was unable to continue as he fought for control of his emotions. He pressed a hand to his eyes as he took a deep breath, hating himself for the tears that threatened to escape them. After a moment, his friend removed his hand from his own, spurring him to say, "That means a lot to me… thank you, Bucky," leaving him dreading what the other man thought of his moment of weakness.

Steve was so fixated on getting himself under control, that he didn't hear Bucky get up from his seat and walk around the bar, bare feet padding quietly against the cool tile. He did jump when he felt gentle hands turning him away from the counter though, making Steve drop his hand in his surprise and look at his friend with red-rimmed eyes.

"It's alright," Bucky said, voice uncustomarily low and soothing as he looked up at the other man, awed by the startling shade of blue his friend's eyes had turned in contrast to the red that plagued them. "I remember, too."

The words were simple and might have seemed nonsensical to an outside observer, but they were nearly Steve's undoing.

Once again acting on impulse, Bucky used his grip on Steve to pull him down into a hug, his arms sliding up and around the other man's broad shoulders. He felt them tense at first, then slowly relax as the super-soldier leaned into him, his own arms going around Bucky's waist. His grip tightened after a moment, pinning the shorter man to him as he buried his face in his shoulder and fought to take deep, shaky breaths.

Steve's hold on Bucky was almost uncomfortably tight, but he didn't complain, just waited and mirrored his friend's deep breaths until their chests rose and fell in time, an oddly soothing practice for both of them.

Born in the wake of one world war, they had lived through the great depression just to be thrown head first into a second world war as young men. They had lost so many people over the years, each other included, something made worse when they were plucked by fate from their own time to awake decades later and find the world a very different place.

Bucky had been used as a weapon of political espionage for years, tortured, abused, manipulated… But when he came back to himself, Steve had been there waiting for him, helping him the whole way. His friend hadn't had that luxury. He'd awoken alone, adrift on strange seas that looked uncannily like the ones he grew up in, but so very different at the same time. He had made a place for himself in the modern day, but it had been clearly difficult. No one looked at the world the same way he did anymore, making for a hard, sometimes alienating, transition.

And despite all that, they had managed to find one another again. Their one other person in all the world that could truly understand. If it weren't for the hell they'd had to go through to get there, Bucky might be inclined to call it a miracle.

Together they remembered the people they had loved and left behind. The ones that had fallen in the war, and those who had passed away as time carried on without them. Family and friends, allies and enemies… Every name remembered long after their owners had all turned to dust. They carried the shape of the world as it had been in their hearts. Its triumphs sang in their blood, its evils lurked in the dark reaches of their minds, and the war that had plagued it was in their every frantic breath.

Steve had carried the weight of a world greatly changed alone for years, but now he didn't have to bear it on his own. James Buchanan Barnes refused to let him.

His friend shifted in his grip, and loosened his hold on Bucky. Gradually, Steve pulled away, and the ex-soldier tried to ignore the fact that his friend's hands were lingering on his hips as he looked down at him. The blond noticed his hand placement a moment later and released Bucky abruptly and stepped back, face flush.

"Um… thanks," Steve said, feeling awkward as his hand went to the back of his neck, heart pounding as he glanced shyly at Bucky, who seemed just as embarrassed now that the moment had passed.

The shorter man shrugged and shoved his hands into the pocket of his borrowed hoody. Unsure of what else to say that wouldn't sound trite, he tilted his head back towards the hall and said, "I think I'm going to head back to bed."

Concern for his friend overriding his own discomfort, Steve instinctively reached out to Bucky again. For a moment, the other man thought he was going to take his hand, but at the last second he grasped his shoulder gently and asked, "You sure you're okay?"

Bucky stared up at Steve for a long minute, wondering what he had done to earn a friend who would so readily put aside his own emotional pain to make sure that he was alright.

"Yeah," the ex-soldier said, offering him a smile. "I'm fine."

Steve searched his friend's eyes for any hint that he was lying for his sake, and only released his grip on him when he was sure this wasn't the case.

"Alright," he said eventually, and together they walked down the hall, pausing again when the hallway split.

"Night," Bucky said, voice low.

"Night," Steve replied, and watched as his friend turned and walked down the opposite hall towards his room. "I'm uh-" he cleared his throat, "I'm right down the hall if you need me."

Bucky pivoted so he walked backwards now, hands still shoved in the pockets of Steve's hoody as he flashed the blond a brief smile and said, "I know."

Author's Note: Remember to drop a review if you enjoyed! They really help me keep writing, whether it's on this fic, or its sequel! ;D