All Previous Disclaimers Apply

A/N: So, I lied a bit. There are going to be more chapters than I thought to finish everything off. Not certain how many yet. I hope no one minds. The rating for this fic has been updated. I'd like to apologize for not doing it sooner. I didn't think, when I started, that it would get as "M" rated as it has. Thanks for reading!

WARNING: Steve thinks about suicide in a hypothetical way a lot in this chapter. Please do not read if that is going to be triggering for you.

"Stevie? You doing okay, Slugger?"

Steve's heart rate increases slightly and it's only the familiar voice that turns the jump into a flinch when Bucky is suddenly at his elbow. For a man just a few months from his ninetieth birthday Bucky is still incredibly light on his feet and doesn't look nearly his age. It's the same with Peggy. They both attribute it to good clean living and keeping each other young, but Steve is almost certain that they must have done something along the way, used some of the S.H.I.E.L.D tech they helped to create, to keep themselves fit and strong. Not that he blames them. He looks at all they've accomplished in the half-century that he slept and is blown away. The world is so very different from when he went into the ice that sometimes it's hard to believe he isn't still just dreaming. But, no…some things he just has to accept are real. Including the new reality he finds himself in.

He is grateful that the first face he saw when he woke up was Bucky's. At first he didn't recognize him, of course. He looked over at the older gentleman in the comfortable slacks and sweater seated next to him, confused for a time. Satisfied that the man couldn't hurt him, even if he tried, he took a moment to turn away from the kind eyes and small smile and looked at the room. It was like nothing he'd ever seen. Not that there was anything out of place in it. Dresser, bed, mirror…But, all of the edges were harsher than he remembered. The bed was bigger than any other he'd ever slept in, the frame huge and heavy, ornately carved wood with black metal accents. No one he'd ever known had a mirror that big in their home unless they had a good deal of money. He turned his face to where he heard music. Summertime. Gershwin. At least that was familiar, but the radio it was coming out of was like no radio he'd ever seen before, sleek and black with the title of the song scrolling across a small screen with a picture of Billie Holiday on it. He felt tears of frustration and confusion welling up in his eyes and the anger beginning to rise in his chest when he turned his face back to the man seated in the chair next to the bed.

"You know I always liked Abbie Mitchell better," the man said gently, "Liked her real high voice. But, I know you're a Billie fan. Could never get enough jazz, could you?"

Like lightning out of the blue Steve knew who was sitting next to him, "Bucky?"

The blue eyes that were suddenly so familiar warmed at being recognized. For the next three hours Steve listened carefully as Bucky filled him in on everything he'd missed, everything that'd happened since he'd gone into the ice that day. Steve stayed on his back in the middle of the bed, his eyes closed, and tears slowly leaking out the entire time as he took it all in. Almost all the Commando team gone. Only Bucky, Peggy, Dum Dum, and Falsworth left, most of the rest taken by time and illness. Howard and his wife killed only a few years after their first and only son was born. Betrayed by a man that Howard had thought was his friend, but who only really wanted the business they'd built together to himself. Howard killed for the one thing he'd never really had a care for. Money.

Bucky told him about the many changes in the world since that day. What the world had gained, what they'd lost. He told him about the army trying to re-create the super soldier program and S.H.E.I.L.D., the covert intelligence agency that he, Peggy, Howard, and Phillips started together, stepping in just before disaster could strike a brilliant scientist who's life would have been forever altered if the test had been allowed to proceed. He told him about the changes in America, how everything they'd once fought for was now considered "quaint" and was honest when he told Steve that he didn't know if he would still want to call himself Captain America if it was this America he was defending. If there was one thing Steve had always been able to count on it was that Bucky was always going to tell him the truth. So when he stopped Steve finally worked up the courage to ask.

"What about Loki? He went down with me. He…he'd been shot by one of Schmidt's weapons and he was…Did you find him?"

"No, Steve," Bucky stood for a second, but only to come to the edge of the bed and then lay down on it next to Steve. Steve had never known his father, but he imagined it was very much what a father would do when Bucky took him in his arms, allowed his head to rest on his chest and stroked his hair, "We searched the entire wreckage for Loki, but we never found him. Not in ice like you were, not a body, nothing."

"There has to be something!" Steve howled, gripping Bucky's sweater in his hand, Loki's loss being the one thing that could send him over the edge. He'd accepted as they were going down and Loki went limp in his arms that his lover was gone, but to not be able to say goodbye, to not give him a proper burial. He'd already lost so much. How could he lose that, too? "He had to be there! He was in my arms!"

"I'm so sorry, Stevie. He wasn't there."

Steve didn't know how long he screamed and raged against all of the grief and anger inside of himself. He was careful not to hurt Bucky no matter how angry he was, but even though he knew Bucky knew how much damage he could do the older man never left him go. He just held Steve until the storm was over, stroking his hair and whispering words of comfort.

"Maybe…" Bucky spoke quietly when the screams turned back to quiet tears, "Maybe whatever he was…maybe his people…maybe something happens to their bodies when they die. I've seen it a couple of times since the war. They just…fade."

Steve's head jerked up so fast Bucky had to pull back in a flash to prevent a broken jaw, "You knew?"

"That day he saved me on the train," Bucky nodded, "I saw…I don't know what I saw, but he wasn't…he was blue."

"I don't think he ever realized he sometimes did that when we…when we were…"

"Stevie, I've known you were gay since the moment we went to our first burlesque and you couldn't take your eyes off the bouncer. Do you really think I've ever cared who you want to sleep with?" Bucky tucked Steve back against his chest like a child and began running his hand through Steve's hair. Steve felt something in him settle into place as he relaxed against the still strong chest.

"Sometimes when we were making love he would turn. God, he was beautiful. I didn't care that he was something I'd never seen. From the moment I saw him I knew I wanted him and I would want him for the rest of my life. I was willing to wait until he was ready to tell me everything. I know he wanted to. I…I fell for him so fast, Bucky, and I know he felt the same for me. Some of the stuff he said…I'm pretty sure he defied his people to stay with me. And I…I thought we were going to die together. I was at peace with that. Buck…why am I still alive?"

It took weeks before the primary thought in his head wasn't the wish that he was dead. He spent full days laying in the large bed in Bucky and Peggy's guest room planning exactly how to take his own life before his healing factor could save him. The only thing that kept him from implementing any of the plans he made was the fact that he was staying in the home that Peggy and Bucky had built for themselves. He couldn't bring himself to disrespect them and the effort they were making for him in that way. He'd heard the raised voices from where he was laying in the bed the day Nick Fury, the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and one of the many that Peggy and Bucky had raised as their own visited, demanding that he, basically property of the government, be turned over on direct orders from the World Security Council. For training, for operations that only a super soldier could pull off, for whatever they wanted.

"Fuck the Council," was Bucky's response.

"We raised you, Nicky," Peggy said in her quiet, strong way, "You get your stubbornness from us. You also learned how to be the world's best spy from us. Don't for a second believe that we ever shared all of our secrets. And don't for a single moment believe we wouldn't go toe to toe with the Council for Steve just as we would for you or any of your brothers or sisters. Tell them that if they try to demand him we will bring them and S.H.I.E.L.D. down. We will plaster all of their dirty secrets across the internet and step aside when a very paranoid world burns them for every secret operation, every under the table dealing, every mistake of the last sixty years, even if it brings us down with them."

"He fought his fight, Nick. He gave up more than anyone should ever have to. Let him live in peace now." Bucky's voice was gruff.

Nick's voice after that was quiet and respectful, "You know that this is exactly what I wanted to hear, Pop. Now I can give the threat and mean it."

"You're a good boy, Nicky," Peggy said, and Steve could hear the sweetness back in her voice, "Now give your mother a kiss and set the table for dinner."

"What're we having, Mum?"

"What do you take me for, son? We so very rarely see you anymore. Of course I made your favorite."

It was Bucky and Peggy and their children who kept him sane over the next weeks and finally brought him out of his darkest days. Each of the children they'd taken as their own after they'd realized that they weren't going to have biological children had been damaged in their own way. Some, like Natasha, Pietro, and Wanda, had been enhanced like he had by various groups around the world, usually not for any good purpose. Some, like Tony and Clint, were entirely too intelligent for their own good and very skilled in areas most people wouldn't understand. Bucky and Peggy understood and loved them all. They took broken children and made them all into a family. A family that ended up working for a covert intelligence, true, but Steve could see and feel the obvious love between the so many disparate personalities. The kids took to him as if he were another brother to take in and love. Bucky and Peggy encouraged it and try as he might he couldn't seem to think of them as the friends he once knew any longer. They became the parents he never had and slowly, but surely, they helped the jagged wounds in his heart to become sore reminders. But, Loki was never far from his mind.

He comes back to himself, drawn out of his thoughts by Bucky at his elbow. The sun is setting over the hill of the park that he has walked through for miles and miles over the past months. Sometimes the twins come with him. They're the ones closest to him in age and Wanda's quiet strength and Pietro's lightning chatter are like balms on his worst days. But, today they didn't come with him and he is surprised that Bucky came all the way out to the park when he knows that he'll be home for dinner. He's nothing if not punctual.

"I'm okay," he says quietly as Bucky sits next to him on the bench.

They sit quietly for a time, but Steve isn't surprised when Bucky starts talking again, "It's not getting any better, is it, Stevie?"

"It…No. No it's not, Buck. It's not as raw. I don't think about a way to kill myself every minute or so anymore. But, I ache for Loki. I feel it right here…all the time." He places a hand over his heart and rubs. The ache has been getting more and more pronounced with each day.

"God, Stevie. I'm so sorry."

"I know, Buck. Being here with you and Peggy and the whole family…it's been like the family I always wished I had when we were kids. I love you all so much, but if there were any way I could go back, Bucky, I would leave this all behind in a minute. If I could make it so that I died with him that day, I would."

"I know, bud, I know. I wish I could make everything okay for you. I wish I knew how to make things right for you. What can I do?"

"I wish I wasn't thinking about this. I wish I could heal, but I just want to rest, Bucky. I know you have cryogenic research happening at S.H.E.I.L.D. I want you to put me back on ice."

"Stevie, I can't do that."

"Buck I need you to. If you love me at all…"

He's cut off by a sound like a roaring fire and they both jump to their feet, Bucky reaching for a sidearm and Steve reaching around his back for his shield, neither of which are actually there as they each throw up an arm to block their eyes from the bright light that blinds right in front of them. It fades as quickly as it comes and outlined against the setting sun is a very familiar figure. One from the past only, like Steve, he hasn't aged a day.

Steve breathes out and feels the ache in his heart spike.

"Thor…"

I am thinking of starting a side story with my now very very AU involving Bucky, Peggy and their big hodgepodge family. If there is any interest, please let me know.