A/N: For the sake of clarification of our timeline... Tony giving the letters back happens six weeks out from the forth of July, when he's finally actually done some research, read the letters, and cooled down significantly. Onward.

Eight weeks, three days post the Battle of Liepzig/Halle Airport...

It had taken the Wakandan medical team three days to bring him out of cryosleep, Steve reflected as he watched his friend sleep. Two to fully defrost him slowly, and one to let him sleep it off. He was supposed to wake up any time, but hadn't yet because one of the medical team had already started the process of deprogramming by knocking him out when they'd first defrosted him with one of the one-use knock out words to quell any outbursts. Then, of course, T'Challa had had to explain what a Sputnik had been in history. A day later, it still didn't make much sense for why the Russians would use the name of a satellite like that.

In front of him on the bed, Bucky started to stir, and Steve was brought back to the present. "Hey, Buck."

Bucky opened his eyes to stare at the cryolab's ceiling for a moment before tracking to him with a frown. "Hey. What's going on?"

"We have a solution. It's... they said you'd hate every minute of it, but it's a solution nonetheless."

"Oh. Can't be any worse than how it happened."

Steve smiled wanly. "No. Before that, though, let's get you something to eat." He waved down one of the medics. "He free to leave the lab for a bit?"

The doctor smiled. "Just as soon as vitals are over. With your permission, Sergeant."

Bucky sat up, wobbled at his messed up center of balance from the missing arm, nodded. "Granted."

"And I apologize for knocking you out with a trigger word," the doctor told him as he pulled out a blood pressure cuff and attached it securely to Bucky's remaining right arm. "It was safest to do, to prevent you panicking."

"What was it?"

"Sputnik." The doctor watched him carefully, then put the ends of his stethoscope in his ears. "Nothing?" Bucky shook his head. "Good." The doctor proceeded to take his blood pressure, pulse, and respiration count which made Bucky feel like they were meditating for a minute. "All right. I want you back here tomorrow morning, no sooner."

"Tomorrow?" Bucky wondered, as the doctor took the cuff off his arm.

"Yes, Mr. Barnes. Tomorrow. For the start of your un-triggering procedures."

"Oh." Bucky looked at Steve. "What exactly happened that now it's a certain thing that this can happen?"

Steve smiled. "We had extra-dimensional visitors show up from my in-absentia birthday party in Brooklyn."

"Huh?"

"Don't ask questions like that if you don't want an actual answer, Buck. It's like asking if Jane Wyman ended up the first lady or not. She didn't, by the way."

Bucky paused, thinking back... hadn't Jane Wyman been an actress? How would an actress end up the first lady? "That made no sense."

Steve laughed. "Ronald Reagan ended up president. Make sense now?"

"The actor?"

"Yes. The actor. Unless you know of some other Ronald Reagan that would have been married to Jane Wyman..."

Oh. Now it made sense. Maybe. "Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"You're still a punk. Big or small."

Steve helped him off the bed, steadied him on his feet. "Come on. Let's go get you something to eat."

"I want fruit."

Steve smiled. "Oh, we've got fruit..."

Breakfast, though really it was closer to dinnertime, turned out to consist of omelets that Steve was still making, and fruit salad, Bucky discovered when Steve ushered him to a kitchen area and sat him down at a table, and went about cooking. "Uh... Steve?"

"The doctor gave me a list for the things you could eat, right off, out of cryofreeze. Eggs and fruit were on it, so... omelets!"

"Oh."

"And you mentioned fruit before, on the way to Liepzig. So I get just how much you must want some."

Bucky nodded and happily started in on the fruit. "Think they could get plums?"

"I could ask his highness, sure. Why?"

"Good for memory."

Steve paused, glanced back at him. "Oh yeah?"

"Yes."

Just then, Sam, Wanda, Clint, and a woman with three kids that he'd not met before rounded the corner from the hallway, and Sam rolled his eyes. "Steve, you were supposed to text me."

Steve laughed. "He's not actually been up very long, Sam. How was the great outdoors?"

"Good." Sam noted Bucky's curious frown and followed his gaze to the woman and the kids. "Oh. Barnes, this is Laura, Nathaniel, the baby, Cooper, and Lila. Wave to him, kids. He's awake!"

"And confused," Bucky said as Wanda came over and sat down next to him. "When... where..."

Laura handed Nathaniel to Clint, and joined them at the table. "Six weeks ago, in order to evade Ross after Stark said things he shouldn't have at the Raft and blew our cover. Steve, does he know about...?"

"Brooklyn? No. No time to tell him. And unless he says something first, don't. Not about her. She was adamant about that, and his amnesia."

"Ah."

"Stark blew your cover?" Bucky wondered. "There was a cover to break?"

Clint sighed. "It was a precaution, getting them here instead of leaving them at home, after Tony let it slip that I have a family. And I'd rather I could have sent them to Brooklyn, but-"

"We like Wakanda, Dad!" Cooper told him.

"Yes, Dad! We do!"

Clint looked down at his son and daughter, shrugged. "But it's a good learning experience."

"Wait," Bucky ventured. "Why Brooklyn?"

Steve finished on the first Omelet, and put it aside on a warming plate, started on another. "Your family is in Brooklyn, Buck. Plus, it's close to the tower. But due to the not-exactly-covert detail being run on your family... for you, in case you show up... sending Laura and the kids to Brooklyn was impossible."

Bucky looked around at the assembled people. "Where's Ant-Guy?"

"San Francisco," Sam answered. "He was the easiest to get out of here, and the easiest to keep out of sight, due to him not actually being an Avenger or internationally wanted under his own name. Lang was carrying false ID in Germany."

"And what do you mean by not-exactly-covert? Either it's covert or it isn't."

Steve finished the second Omelet and started on the third. "Cooper, Lila? Any requests for your Omelets?"

"Cheese!" Lila said as she took a seat at the table. "And ham!"

"Okay. Cooper?"

"Broccoli?"

"Broccoli it is, then." Steve paused, staring down at the stove for a long moment, then shook himself. "As for the detail... it's covert, but not to members of your family, because they know about it. It's being run by your grandnephew on orders from Secretary Ross. Has been for a year and a half. Ross doesn't know it's your grandnephew, though, and members of your family all think he's an idiot for trying to catch you, when you actually went nowhere near Brooklyn in two years."

"I did, actually."

Steve glanced back at him, frowning. "You did?"

"Ended up at the Brooklyn Bridge, two months after DC. Didn't stay very long."

Sam chuckled. "She's going to be so mad, Steve."

"Maybe. Miriam certainly will be."

"Miriam?" Bucky wondered.

"Um-hmm... you were in Romania, so: remember more than your mother yet?"

"What does Romania have to do..." Bucky blinked as a memory of a woman in a house dress and an apron came to him, giving one of his little sisters a talking-to in Romanian. In the memory, the woman called her... "Becca."

Silence fell as they all stared at him and Steve smiled down at the Omelet he was making. "Good. Remember anything else?"

"I... Did Ma always yell at us in Romanian?"

"She did. And Miriam is your grandniece. And Wanda? Only if he asks, because too many choices were taken from him."

Wanda opened her mouth to protest, glanced at Bucky, then nodded. "How did you know I was going to ask?"

"You're you. Physics first, then maybe the complexities of the mind."

Wanda sighed. "Because I didn't realize the power of a bomb. And I'm starting to hate physics."

"Gotta crawl before you can walk, right?" Steve started another omelet, glanced back at Bucky again, who appeared very confused. "There's been a lot of discussion since May. It's July seventh, now. Wanda needs to learn physics to better control her abilities, and his highness is helping her."

"Oh."

"And we'll see about putting you on a Skype call with Becca, sooner or later. Probably later, because of the State Department shenanigans going on and we don't need even more attention brought down on your family then there already is."

Bucky paused. "Becca's alive?"

"She is." Steve finished the last of the seven omelets and brought the warming plate over to the table, blinking when he realized it hadn't been set for seven. "Clint? Two more plates?"

Clint laughed and handed Nathaniel to him. "Were you not expecting us to be back so soon? The waterfall isn't that far, you know."

"No, I just miscounted when I left to sit vigil." Steve turned and handed Nathaniel off to Laura with a grin. "Does Nathaniel eat solids yet?"

"Some," Laura told him, smiling as she held her son. "What do you think, Nate? Want some eggs that Uncle Steve made?" Nathaniel burbled back at her with happiness. "That's what I thought you'd say!"

Clint got two more plates and silverware, and they all sat down to eat together, enjoying each other's company.