A/N: Alright, this one's a little different-We're starting with Steve's POV, then switching to Bucky in the middle and back to Steve again for the end. It's fun, it's silly, it's got guest appearances from the rest of the Avengers, and Bucky dances to Nicki Minaj. What more could you ask for?

"I'm ninety-seven years old, Steve," Bucky said in a longsuffering voice. "You'll be gone for three days. I'll be fine."

Steve sighed. He'd gone on a few missions since Bucky had come back, and Bucky had handled it well. (Even that one time he'd had a major flashback, forgotten how to speak English and tried to stab Sam had turned out okay.) Sam had gone on missions too, but this was the first time they would both be gone. Bucky had never been left alone since he came back.

"I can do this, Steve," Bucky said. "I need to do this. I need to know that this is something I can handle on my own."

Steve nodded. Bucky was right. He'd come so far in finding himself again and regaining his independence. This was a big step, but it was a necessary step, and Bucky could do it. He didn't always move at the pace Steve wanted, but he was very good at knowing when he was ready for things and making himself do them. He had this. Steve didn't know why he suddenly felt like a dad sending his kid off to school for the first time. Bucky wasn't a child. Through all of this, Steve had never looked at him that way, and if Bucky knew that that thought was crossing Steve's mind right now, he would probably punch him.

"You're right," he said. "I know. Sorry, I just…"

"You worry," Bucky finished for him. "And you hover." He smirked. "You came by that honestly, though, so I'll let it slide." That got a smile out of Steve. It was probably as close as Bucky was ever going to get to admitting that he'd been a worse mother-hen than Steve ever had. "But stop it," he finished, and his tone was light, but he was serious. "I'll be fine. And I promise to call you if something goes wrong."

"Okay." Steve looked forward to the day that Bucky would join them on missions—and not just because he wouldn't have to worry about leaving him behind. He and Bucky had been back to back in fights since they were six. He'd missed that. And Bucky had spoken tentatively about the future and joining the Avengers some day, but he still wasn't ready to face combat. Not yet.

"And by 'things going wrong', you'd better not mean like what happened last time I left," Sam put in, exiting the hallway with a go-bag slung over his shoulder. "I don't want to come home to find out you've set any more of my appliances on fire." It might've sounded a little brusque, but Steve knew Sam was only ever sarcastic with Bucky when he thought things were fine—which was more and more often these days. That was probably a good thing.

Bucky grinned mischievously. "You know, since I bought the new one, I'm pretty sure it's my toaster."

"Fine. Set your toaster on fire all you like, but everything else better be in one piece when we get back," Sam said, smiling.

"See you in a few days, Buck," Steve said, picking up his own bag and moving to follow Sam.

"Be careful, punk," Bucky called from behind him.

"He'll be fine, Steve," Sam told him as they walked down the stairs.

"I know he will," Steve said. "But what if he…I don't know, what if he has a flashback or something and there's no one around?"

"That is a possibility," Sam admitted. "But he wanted to do this, and it'll be good for him. Besides, I know you've got Clint checking up on him."

"Yeah." He did feel better knowing that Clint was around, even if he was over at the Tower. Clint was still benched for a bad ankle. He was walking on it fine, but the pain medication made him sleepy, in a comically abrupt way. It was funny when they found him sleeping in random spots on the floor around the Tower, but passing out mid-combat would not have been nearly as entertaining. "Alright. Let's go take out a death-ray."

"It's so cliché," Sam said, grinning. "Why even build a death ray? I feel like I'm in a comic book or something."

"You didn't feel like that already?" Steve asked with a grin.

As outwardly confident as he'd been with Steve, internally, Bucky had been less sure he'd be alright on his own. But, like he'd told Steve, he needed to do this—just to know that he could—and he'd been pleasantly surprised that he'd been doing alright.

What he hadn't been expecting, though, was this feeling of loneliness. He'd been on his own for nearly seventy years—when he'd been conscious, anyway. He figured three days would be no big deal. But he'd really gotten used to that feeling of always having someone around. That constant companionship that had been so foreign at first was now something he relied on. Something he missed when he didn't have it. And he realized with a start that he'd always missed it. The Winter Soldier had been lonely too. He hadn't known the word for it, and wouldn't have been allowed to express it anyway, but he hadn't liked being alone.

So, when Barton called and invited him to come over to the Tower, it wasn't as irritating as he would have thought it would be.

"Steve told you to check up on me, didn't he?" he asked. It was still a little irritating, though.

"He did tell me to be available," Clint admitted. "But that's not what this is, man, I swear. I am so bored. Please come over and do something with me. Anything."

Bucky couldn't stop himself from smiling at that. "Yeah, okay. It's pretty quiet around here too." Which is how he found himself eating pizza and being cajoled into playing some sort of dancing video game with Clint Barton.

"Now, J.A.R.V.I.S. has promised not to record this," Clint said. "Right, J.A.R.V.I.S.?"

"You have my word, sir," the ceiling said. "Mr. Stark will never know."

"See?" Clint said. "It's just for fun. You wanna give it a try?"

Bucky eyed the remote in his hand. "I still don't understand how I'm supposed to dance with this."

"You just hold it," Clint said, demonstrating. He slipped the little strap around his wrist. "You don't even push the buttons or anything. You just hold it, and then, see the person on the screen? The hand that's the glowy one, that corresponds to the one you're holding the remote with. You just follow the moves. We'll start with an easy one."

Still a little confused, Bucky mimicked Clint's position, eyes on the screen as the colorful figure started to dance. He felt hopelessly lost at first, but about halfway through the song, it clicked that the little figures on the bottom of the screen showed the upcoming moves, and he was able to follow along a little better. The score at the end announced that Barton had absolutely crushed him, but he thought he got it now. And realizing there was a scoreboard appealed to a competitive streak that hadn't shown itself much since coming home.

"Alright," he said. "Let's try another one." He cocked a challenging eyebrow at Clint, who smirked back. The game was on.

Steve had texted Bucky once they were on the Quinjet heading home, and was managing not to worry that he hadn't responded. Bucky was pretty terrible at actually keeping up with his cell phone—he knew how to use it, but he had a tendency to leave it somewhere and forget it. They landed at the Tower, and decided to help carry down some of the more delicate pieces of the dismantled death ray that Tony didn't trust to the bots.

"Is that music?" Bruce asked as they passed through the living quarters.

"Clint likes to play his stereo loud when no one's around," Tony said.

Natasha smirked. "I don't think Clint listens to Nicki Minaj."

Curious, they set down their cargo and followed the music around to the entertainment area. What they found shocked all of them into silence. Their backs to the door, Clint and Bucky were playing some sort of video game—a colorful figure on the big screen was dancing wildly, and they were following her moves, small blinking remotes held high in the air.

"Get outta my space, Barnes!" Clint yelled, narrowly avoiding a collision with Bucky.

"Wouldn't be in your space if you'd stay on your side of the room!" Bucky retorted, not losing time with the music and executing a frankly impressive hip-shaking-flowing-into-a-high-kick-thing.

Sam made a choking noise next to Steve that dancers did not hear over the music.

The music faded into silence, and Nat slowly started clapping. Bucky and Clint spun around abruptly. "Wow," she said.

"Hey, guys," Clint said casually. "How was the mission?" Bucky was looking a little bit like a deer in the headlights.

"Uh uh," Sam said, shaking his head. "Don't think you can act all normal after that."

"Clint, I've got to say, I'm embarrassed for you," Tony said, shaking his head. "You know it's 2015, right? An original Wii? Really?"

Clint smirked, turning to Bucky. "He's just saying that cause he sucks at this game."

Bucky smiled and Tony huffed, affronted. "I do not suck!"

"Oh, yeah? Prove it, Iron Man," Clint said, holding out his remote.

Thor beamed. "Excellent! A challenge!"

"I don't need to—" Tony protested, but Thor was already shoving him forward.

"No, no! It is a matter of honor! You must!" he insisted.

Tony sighed. "Fine. You're going down, Barton."

Clint's grin turned practically evil. "Oh, no. Since you say you don't suck, you're going up against the reigning champ." He slapped his remote into Tony's palm. "And that's not me."

All eyes in the room shot to Bucky, who held out his arms and inclined his head in a little bow of invitation. An excited murmur ran through the rest of the group, and Steve heard Nat and Sam hastily placing bets with Rhodey and Bruce.

"That hardly seems fair," Tony said confidently, evidently not seeing Bucky as much of a threat.

"It's probably not," Bucky replied with a thoughtful sniff, pretending to study his fingernails. He looked up with a wicked grin. "Because I'm awesome. Bring it on, Stark."

Steve grinned and leaned over to Nat to place ten dollars on Bucky. Clint sidled over and leaned back against the counter. "It's hardly a fair bet, but give me twenty on Barnes," he said, leaning down to snag a water bottle out of the mini-fridge.

"You guys have fun?" Steve asked.

"Yeah, he came over this morning. We had pizza and then did this. I mean, I know you said he was the swing dance champ, like, seventy years ago, but holy crap, that man can dance!"

Steve chuckled.

"Seriously," Clint pressed. "I mean, Nat knows, I'm not half bad at this one myself, but once he figured out the mechanics of the thing, he cleaned the floor with me. I haven't won in, like, four hours."

Steve smiled. Bucky had been a great dancer back in the day. Girls were lining up to dance with him. Sure, it wasn't any kind of dancing like this, but it looked like he'd never lost the rhythm.

They all clapped and cheered, shouting encouragement and insults, and Tony cursed and Bucky smiled serenely and absolutely demolished him. Nat went next, and she gave Bucky a run for his money, but didn't quite pull off a victory. Bucky sat out for a while after that, drinking a bottle of water and laughing as Steve and Sam gave it a try and Steve lost spectacularly. Rhodey cleaned the floor with Bruce, and Thor was even worse than Steve, but was by far more enthusiastic than anyone else.

"Still haven't learned how to dance, huh?" Bucky teased when Steve sat down. Tony and Thor were gearing up for a round in front of them.

"Two left feet," Steve agreed. "I don't think the serum could undo that. Bet I could beat Tony, though."

"Well, sure," Bucky agreed. "But I don't know that's saying much."

"Hey!"

Bucky shrugged and grinned, taking another drink of water. "Just calling it like I see it, Steve. A spade's a spade."

"You're a jerk, you know that?" Steve said, smiling broadly. It was great seeing Bucky so happy, so confident again. And this was…This was fun. Loud, silly, pointless fun. Steve hadn't done anything like this in a long time.

Bucky tilted his head in agreement. "I'm a jerk that can dance, though, Stevie. I am a jerk that can dance."