AN: We made it, folks! Thank you so much for reading! :D
'Is that courage or faith
To show up every day?
To trust that there will be light
Always waiting behind
Even the darkest of nights
And no matter what
Somehow we'll be okay...
Don't be afraid.'
"Six" ~ Sleeping At Last
"Has he decided yet?" asks Peter, where he's being carried on Steve's hip to the kitchen. "Tell me he's decided. He has to have—it's been two weeks since King T'Challa's offer and he's barely left his room and—"
"Pete." Steve laughs. "Breathe. Buck will decide in his own good time."
Peter frowns.
He can't choose cryo-freeze over staying here. He can't.
As if reading his mind, Steve shakes his head. "He's afraid of hurting us. Of hurting you, really, because all the programming they gave him is still in there. Zemo activated him in five minutes flat. It scares him."
"Being frozen won't fix that. It just delays the inevitable, meaning he'll still have to deal with it when he gets out."
"That's what I've been telling him," Steve mumbles under his breath.
Peter tenses in anticipation of being set on his feet. He's careful not to push on the still-tender, almost-healed fracture of Steve's shoulder. "You don't have to carry me. That's what the wheelchair is for."
"Humour me."
"Don't I do that every day?"
Steve swats the back of his head. "Cheeky kid."
Peter giggles. "So are you!"
"Sure, but we can't let the others know that."
Steve sets Peter down like he's a china doll, which is infuriating and heartwarming all at once, right at the kitchen entrance. Peter waits for Steve to remove his hands so he can begin the usual lunch time practice of walking on his own.
It hasn't been a complete failure the last two days—being that he only fell twice instead of the usual slip for every step—so Peter takes it as a win. He's just finished physical therapy with Bruce for the morning and wants to see if it's making a difference.
Bruce promised that if Peter walks the fifteen feet from the kitchen entrance to the fridge, without falling once, he can go back to school.
And Peter dearly misses school.
It's that or the wheelchair and Peter doesn't want to use it, to feel abnormal with his classmates.
"Just take the wheelchair to class," says Steve, reading his thoughts yet again. "Nobody will care. Aren't there kids who can't walk at your school?"
"Well, yeah, but I used to be able to and now I can't. That's worse. For the other kids, not walking is their normal. I want to go back to school like my old self."
Steve hesitates and so does Peter, realizing the impossibility of these words.
"Your healing factor is taking care of it faster than we expected," Steve reassures him. Peter breathes a silent sigh of relief at the change in topic. "This would be a six month process, minimum, for a normal human."
"Yuck it up, you insensitive jerks." Clint smiles around a samosa. "There's a 'normal human' sitting right here."
Peter laughs and then it turns into a groan when Clint holds his hands out with a 'come to papa' face. "I am not two years old!"
"Of course not," says Clint. "You just walk like one."
"Hey!"
Steve cants his head. "And right now you're not even doing that. It's okay, Frodo. Just try."
Peter's bravado and humour leaves him at the prospect of failing. It's a small stretch of floor by normal standards. It shouldn't be that hard.
Steve gives him a nudge with knuckles to the back of his spine and Peter wobbles forward.
"That's it." Clint praises him as he goes, all teasing gone. "Smaller steps, just like we practiced."
"And no sticky feet," Nat throws in, shuffling past him for the kettle. "That's cheating."
Peter bites his lip to concentrate on contracting the right muscles at the right time. His feet roll heel to toes, as Bruce drilled into him. He can feel his legs, they just don't always remember what to do.
His left knee wobbles and he gasps.
"It's okay," Steve says, walking along behind him. "Push off. You got it."
What do you know—Peter makes it all the way to the fridge!
And promptly crumples. Steve catches him on the descent, swinging him back up into his arms. "You did it!"
"Now you're all just being patronizing."
"His first steps," Bruce crows from where he apparently has been lurking in the doorway. He holds up his phone, flashing as it records. "This one's going in the album!"
"No," Nat drawls. "That is patronizing."
"Forgive me if I want to get in on some milestones here." Bruce takes the other stool. "We didn't meet Peter until he was fourteen. We missed all this stuff!"
"Uh…this stuff was caused by a back injury," Peter points out.
"Which forced you how to relearn to walk—hence your first steps!"
Clint leans near Steve to stage whisper in Peter's ear. "Let him have this."
Bruce doesn't take the bait. He frowns while glancing around. "Where's Barnes? Did someone take him lunch already? I have news for him."
Peter perks up, forcing Steve to juggle his weight so he can lean forward. "I'll take him lunch."
Clint rolls his eyes at the same time Bruce sighs.
"We've had this conversation already," says Steve patiently, though the 'many times' is loud and clear. "Bucky specifically asked Friday to lock you out. He's scared to be around you after what happened in Siberia."
"It's dumb," Peter says, brows drawn low, angry.
"It sure is," says Clint. He and Steve share a weighted look.
Nat holds up her mug. "Compromise—Steve goes with you."
"That could work," Steve admits.
"What will work?"
Peter smiles. "Bucky!"
They turn and there he is, standing uncertainly in the doorway, hand visible and at his side.
Steve eyes him intently. The ex-soldier is in a long sleeve polo, left sleeve tied back since he refuses to use the arm Tony designed until he's assured he won't hurt someone without realizing. His hair is in a low ponytail.
He looks…polished.
Peter is ecstatic. He hasn't really seen the man since the lobby incident two weeks ago.
Bucky's worn eyes gentle into something tender. "Hey, malysh. Heard you made the full walk."
"Without help," Peter adds, with a significant look at Bruce. "Which, you know, means I could certainly walk down a hallway with just a cane. Like, a hallway filled with other kids."
Bruce tries to stifle a laugh and is almost successful. "You're cleared for school on Monday, Pete. I'm a man of my word."
"Yes!"
Tony materializes beside Bucky and nods to Bruce. "I told him about Shuri's analysis."
"Wakanda cooperated? Told you their full story?"
Tony nods. "Seems they've had a change of heart as a nation and want to announce their technological status to the world."
"About time," Nat mutters into her tea.
"You knew?" Tony puts a hand to his chest in mock betrayal.
"Tony, I've infiltrated the North Korean border ten different ways and you're asking if I know a private nation's secret?"
"…Point taken."
Peter looks between the adults and their animated looks. "What? What's going on?"
Bruce adjusts his glasses. "I wasn't lying to you, Steve, that day in the infirmary—I really did make Barnes' neural state a top priority. I've been studying psychological programming and I think we, along with the lovely kid genius, have found a way to rewrite Bucky's synapses, isolating the ones around his hippocampus."
Steve blinks.
Peter taps the wrist around his knees. "He means they might be able to take the brainwashing out."
"I know what it means, Pete." Steve's voice is kind but taught, a rope about to snap. "I just realize that this will force Bucky, he'll have to…"
Bucky, normally so blank faced, so guarded, lets loose an expression of such fond amusement that even Nat straightens.
This is what Bucky Barnes looked like before the war. This is him inside.
"Punk," says Bucky to Steve. "I'm not flying to Wakanda. I can't run from this problem anymore. No cryo-freeze, never again. I've had enough for two lifetimes."
Steve's ribs catch against Peter's. The man's eyes are wide. "Does this mean you're staying? You've decided?"
Then Peter realizes the sleeve isn't tied—Bucky's left arm is hidden behind his back.
He brings it out, revealing the freshly waxed plates of the arm.
Tony admires his handiwork smugly. "He finally let me install it. The nerve-to-electrode signals need some tuning but it's even more effective than his old one."
That's a bombshell in the room for a solid minute.
It's a testament to Tony's concerted effort to forgive the former sniper that he was willing to give him back the very prosthetic that nearly killed Peter.
It's forgiving Steve that has been the hardest. By a long shot.
There have been a few tense moments and hushed arguments in the past days. Tony slapped him once. Yet there's hope, a light at the end of the tunnel, that trust can be formed again.
Nobody has told Peter the whole story but he's not stupid. He put a few pieces together.
"Like you said." Bucky gazes warmly at Steve. "How about a compromise—I've bought a little apartment in Manhattan. I need time to figure my brain out, but I'll still be nearby. I have to be for these neural therapy sessions."
"Sessions?" Peter asks.
Bruce winks. "With yours truly and some leading psychiatrists and neurologists from around the world."
Steve's breaths are short and Peter reaches up to pat the flushed cheeks.
"I'm okay, Peter."
"Happy tears?"
"Yeah." Steve smiles. He nods at Tony. "Happy tears: I finally get to have both."
Peter doesn't know what this means but Tony must because he immediately deflects with a flapping hand gesture to cover up his reddening neck and touched eyes.
"Congratulations on the arm," says Peter. "We're both hitting a milestone."
Bucky lights up. "I've been saving it until I heard what the Wakandans had to say—and so I can do this."
He steps forward and tugs Peter out of Steve's arms. Steve holds Peter out so he doesn't fall. Tony watches but doesn't intervene, resolved. His eyes are keen, though a faint smile trails across his face at the sight.
Peter throws his arms around Bucky's neck. The man's chest is stocky compared to Steve's, meeting his perfectly, and the hand under his knees is colder due to the metal. His right holds Peter in a claw shape unlike any of the others, like he's remembering the feel of a rifle or another small person.
It's new.
It's home. Peter didn't even realize he was missing this piece of the jigsaw puzzle that makes up his family until he met Bucky. The man fits perfectly in their cracked portrait.
Bruce snaps another picture. "This is going in the album too!"
Clint steals a sip of Nat's tea. "We're becoming a bunch of grandmas. Softies…"
"Like you're any better," Nat huffs, grabbing the mug back out of reach. "We're all a hot mess."
"Yes," says Tony. "But we're a hot mess together."
Clint grins.
Peter closes his eyes in the dark hair and his world slots into place. Whole. Over his shoulder, he reaches out for Tony's hand and when it obliges, clasping his, he squeezes it.
"Thank you," he whispers.
Tony's eyes go maudlin with an overflow of love. It's perhaps the most exposed and free Peter has ever seen him. Like liquid gold sealing up the cracks in a vase, Peter knows that love, from Tony and all the rest, will make them stronger than they ever were on their own.
In answer, Tony pats Bucky's metal hand. "Welcome home, Sergeant Barnes."
FIN
Written August - November 2018, during an absolutely horrendous time in my life. But this story made it a little brighter, and hopefully will do the same for anyone who reads it.
