"I've told T'Challa I want to be available to help you, if needed."

Sam looked in surprise at General Okoye as she escorted him through the corridors of the Citadel, the royal residence, in Birnin Zana. "Really?"

"I helped Romanov in the years you were all away. I'd be glad to do so again."

Sam knew Natasha led a small group during that time. It still pissed him off that she'd been abandoned by other members of the Avengers, left to hold some semblance of a team together. He was grateful others did not want to leave him in the same circumstances. "We'd be honored to have your assistance, General."

"And tell Barnes I miss kicking his ass during our sparring matches."

Sam laughed. "Oh, I will. Definitely telling him that."

They came to a stop in front of a door. Okoye waved her kimoyo beads in front of a panel.

Sam didn't expect to see Vision's metallic body on a table in Shuri's lab. He knew, rationally, that Vision had been an artificial construct with great capabilities, not a human being. But death had reduced him to a pile of metal, so much less than the sum of his parts.

He was ruminating over Vision when he heard. "Hello, Sam. Or should I call you Captain America?"

Sam turned and grinned. "Wanda, come here." He pulled her into a hug. "So good to see you."

And it was. Wanda was hard to get to know. She tended to shy away from people, realizing how much she scared them. Sam knew Wanda worked hard to keep herself from inadvertently using her powers, and he no longer feared her. Instead he just saw a young woman who had lost most of the connections she'd had in her life: Pietro, Clint, Natasha, Steve… Hell, in the midst of dealing with his new duties and reconnecting with his own family, Sam hadn't been around for her either. Guilt caused him to tighten the embrace.

"How have you been?"

"Lonely without the team, without Viz." She tilted her head back to look up at him. "You?"

"I miss those goddamn assholes."

Wanda burrowed into Sam's chest and said, "I'm so glad you're here."

"Wouldn't be anywhere else, kiddo."

Sam and Wanda were still hugging when Princess Shuri and Doctor Helen Cho entered the room.

Shuri smiled at Sam and said, "Thank you for coming."

"I'd never turn down a summons from my favorite princess."

Shuri playfully rolled her eyes and then gestured for everyone to gather around Vision.

Shuri wasted no time. "As all of you know, I was in the process of disassociating Vision's operations from the Mind Stone during the initial battle with Thanos here in Wakanda. Although I could not finish the work in time, I did get very close. I saved the data I had extracted, and the memory cores it was stored on survived the battle."

Helen added, "I've now had more time to study Vision's body, and I can give him a power core to replace at least the energy properties of the Stone."

Shuri said, "We can, for lack of a better term, power him back on. We can do it using his internal systems in the hopes the data might still be intact, and if that doesn't work, we can transfer the data I extracted."

Sam let out a breath he had not known he was holding. Having Vision back would be a tremendous help to the team, if he returned with even a small fraction of his abilities.

Helen looked at Vision's body with a mixture of pride and sadness on her face. "Technically, I was under the employ of Stark Industries when I was forced to help create Vision. Part of his system is a transfer of the Jarvis AI, also a product of Stark Industries. Its CEO Pepper Potts has given us her permission to go through this procedure, but…"

Shuri reached out and gently clasped Wanda's hands. "But out of respect for your relationship with Vision, we request your permission as well."

Wanda's voice trembled. "Will this bring him back to us?"

Helen and Shuri exchanged looks. Helen finally said, "We have no guarantees for you, but at least we will have tried."

Sam put his arm around Wanda. "Your call."

Wanda placed a hand on Vision's face, over the space where the Mind Stone once rested. How much of Vision was the Jarvis AI versus the Mind Stone nobody, not even Vision himself, had known. "Is it selfish to want him back so much?"

Sam had spent a lot of time recently thinking about being selfish. What did it mean to be selfish? At one point, Bruce and Maria had tried to convince Sam, convince themselves, that Steve's choice to live in the past had merely been selfish. But Sam knew better. Selfish was a word reserved for the person who swipes two slices of pizza before others who chipped in even get one. Selfish was Fury taking a vacation in a Skull spaceship without telling anyone. What Steve had done wasn't selfish, it was arrogant and reprehensible and disappointing. But this?

"Wanda, from what you told me, Thanos turned back time to kill Vision. He messed with the natural order of things. It isn't selfish to want to undo that, to save someone you love."

"Thank you." Wanda took a deep breath and nodded. "You have my permission."

"Wilson?"

Sam realized everyone in the room was looking at him. Oh. That's right. He was Captain America, which meant people usually looked to him for the final decision about anything regarding members of the Avengers. "Yeah, let's do this."

"Alright, get out of my lab. You can watch from over there." Shuri made shooing motions towards an adjoining room with floor-to-ceiling windows.

Wanda placed a tender kiss upon Vision's forehead, then followed Sam. They could see Shuri and Helen through the windows. The two women were calmly hooking up cables, pressing buttons, waving hands over floating control panels, and carefully observing information on viewscreens.

Wanda worried her hands together. After a long while, she broke the silence. "They are so calm."

"That's because they know what they're doing while we're just waiting for the results."

"It feels wrong to hope." Wanda looked up at Sam with a pained smile. "I was grateful to have been Dusted, after watching him die. Returning almost felt like punishment for not being able to stop Thanos. I didn't think I could have hope again."

"I understand. I mean, I'm Captain America now. I'm supposed to be happy about that. But I miss Nat, I even miss Tony, and I barely knew him. And Steve…" Wanda didn't know the truth about Steve yet, so Sam merely said, "I'm angry he isn't around to help with the recovery effort. Half the world was gone for five years, and we don't quite fit back in." Sam let out a bitter laugh. "Hell, this must be what Steve and Barnes felt like, but at least Barnes is still…"

Vision abruptly sat up on the table. Wanda ran back into the lab, Sam quick on her heels.

Shuri held up a hand to keep them at a distance as the last of the cables were disengaged. Sam noticed for the first time that the cables had served as restraints.

Shuri placed herself directly in Vision's line of sight. "Do you know where you are?"

Vision inclined his head, as if he was listening to internal voices as well as Shuri's. "Yes, your highness. I am in Wakanda, in a laboratory, although it is not same the laboratory I was in previously or the last place I was."

Sam relaxed, his muscles slack with relief. That was Vision's voice, his cadence, his gentle persona.

Vision continued, "I fear quite some time has passed."

Helen surreptitiously poked his foot to test for reflexes. Vision stared at her curiously instead of flinching. "May I run some diagnostics on you?"

"Of course, Doctor Cho. It is good to see you again."

Both scientists smiled, as Helen said, "Good to see you, too. It's been awhile."

Wanda hesitatingly approached the table. "Viz, is that really you?"

"Wanda." Vision reached out a hand to cup her cheek.

"How do you feel?"

Vision's red, metallic hand turned into one with the appearance of a human hand. "I just feel you."

Wanda gave a quiet sob as Vision gathered her in his arms.

Sam hated to interrupt the moment, but he had to ask, "I thought the Stone gave you your powers?"

Wanda stepped out of Vision's arms, but held onto his hand as he responded to Sam's question. "It did, but I was trying to understand that. To know how it worked. The stone could manipulate the technology I was built from on the molecular level, and I was working on subroutines to help me mimic the Stone's ability." Vision seemed amused. "I guess I must have figured it out."

"Can you still fly? Emit a beam from your forehead?"

"Forehead beams?" Vision seemed lost in thought, then brightened. "No. Flying? Perhaps."

"Don't try it in my lab. I don't care how happy we are to see you."

Vision, looked around, tallying those present and those conspicuously absent."I gather I have missed many things."

Sam knew that duty would fall to him. "We'll fill you in on the important stuff."

Shuri added to what Sam said. "And you can compare your data to the backup files I've stored."

Wanda interrupted. "But not yet."

Sam heard the plea in Wanda's voice and agreed. "Not yet." She smiled in gratitude and gripped Vision's hand even tighter.

"Everything looks good." Helen stepped away from the view screen. "Welcome back, Vision."

"I think we all deserve some rest." Shuri gestured towards the door. "Allow me to show you to your quarters. We have a wing of the residence set up for honored visitors. Your belongings are waiting for you there."

Shuri guided all of them to the floor with their accommodations. Vision would be staying with Wanda, and Helen and Sam each had their own spacious suite.

After showing Sam around his rooms, Shuri paused at the threshold and asked, "How are you doing?"

"Me?" Sam realized with a start how few people had asked after him in recent weeks and gained greater sympathy for how surprised Steve was when he had asked him something similar when they met. "It's weird, you know? Some of my nieces are five years older than the last time I saw them, some aren't. My mom doesn't look like she aged a day, but emotionally sounds like she aged a century."

Shuri reached out and squeezed his hand with understanding.

"I miss Nat like hell." Sensing Shuri's expectation of another name, he rushed to add, "And Steve, of course." It wasn't quite a lie.

"It is no wonder to me that Bucky needed to strike out on his own, without Steve."

"General Okoye was kind enough to take me to Barnes' cottage. I picked up a few of his things for him. You know, just in case I see him." Sam winked at Shuri. "He didn't have much, though."

"Perhaps more of his belongings are in Captain Rogers' apartment?" Shuri gestured to a door at the end of the corridor. "Did you not know he had accommodations here?"

"He never told us where Barnes was. Didn't even tell us he was visiting him, although we knew he must be. I kinda thought he was staying with Sharon Carter when he took breaks from our missions." Sam couldn't remember how he had come to that conclusion, but he knew Steve had never dissuaded him from it. He frowned at the realization.

Shuri waved for Sam to follow her. "I'm sure he was just trying to protect Bucky. The more people who knew his whereabouts, the more likely he would be discovered."

They stopped in front of the door, and Shuri waved her hand in front of a small panel which lit up the same color as her Kimoyo beads. "I've been told Captain Rogers did not return here after the battle of Wakanda, and we've left the room untouched since then."

This apartment was larger than Sam's guest suite. There were floor-to-ceiling windows with a magnificent view of the city. There was a balcony granting access to fresh air. The furniture was modern, but comfortable, with throw pillows and blankets making the couch look particularly inviting. That's when it struck Sam: this wasn't a place where a guest stayed for a few nights. This was a place Steve had lived.

Sam started to look around. There were doors leading into adjoining rooms, and Sam walked over to open one of them. It was a bedroom.

"They would split their time between Bucky's cottage and here. It depended on their moods."

"Was Barnes having difficulty around crowds?"

"No, he was fine, but being on the run weighed upon Captain Rogers. He was far more moody than Bucky ever was."

Sam stood by the one large bed. Both bedside tables were in use. Science fiction books, leather-bound journals, and a framed portrait of three young girls stacked on one; military history, sketchbooks, and a drawing of sweet-faced blond woman on the other.

He raised an eyebrow at Shuri, who shrugged. "Bucky said they shared the bed, like they had as children. He said the proximity to each other helped keep the nightmares at bay."

Sam raised both eyebrows as high as they could go.

The rest of the apartment also displayed signs of comfortable cohabitation. The second door led into a bathroom with two toothbrushes on a double-sinked vanity. Two comfortable chairs on the balcony overlooking the city. Two coffee mugs on the kitchen counter, still hoping to be filled.

The familiar outline drew his attention to a painting on the wall. It was the Brooklyn Bridge, one side in sepia tones, the other in brilliant color, like the past was merging with the present. He noted the signature.

"Wow, this is amazing."

Shuri drew his attention to another canvas. "Rogers said he loved the light here."

That light spilled over Bucky, bringing out the auburn highlights in his brown hair and warming his bare shoulders. "I didn't realize Steve was such a talented artist."

"Those family portraits on the bedside tables were by Rogers as well."

On the wall opposite the Brooklyn Bridge, Sam recognized portraits of himself, Wanda, Clint, and the dearly missed Natasha. A recent photo of Steve and Bucky, arms around each other. Everywhere he looked, Sam saw Steve and Bucky's past and present living harmoniously together.

He pointed to a stack of papers on the dining room table. "Are these Steve's sketches, too?"

"Oh, yes, they were in the early design phase."

"Of?"

A new voice entered the conversation. "Their future home."

Sam turned at T'Challa's words. "Good afternoon, your highness."

T'cholla embraced Sam. "We do not need to observe formalities here, in the home of absent friends."

"So, you say they were designing a house?" Sam continued to leaf through the pages. Spacious kitchen, artist studio, bathroom with large sunken tub and separate shower stall, one bedroom with a skylight above the bed.

"Bucky is officially a citizen of Wakanda now. As such, he was granted a plot of land. Bucky turned it down, of course, like the stubborn pain in the ass he is, but it made him think of making a home." T'Challa leaned against the table. "Rogers was contemplating retirement after passing along the Captain America role. He wanted it to go to you."

"There is so much in what you just said that I did not know."

"We granted Bucky citizenship to protect him. We have no extradition treaties with other governments."

Shuri added, "Bucky is like a brother to us."

T'Challa nodded his agreement. "He found peace here. That we could give that to him, an outsider, when we have been closed off for so long… his presence in Wakanda is meaningful to us. And we have grown to care for the man himself. Bucky knows he is welcome here for as long as he wishes."

Shuri ran a gentle hands over the house sketches. "And when Rogers visited, he, too, found some peace. Two old warriors, simply wanting to rest."

T'Challa asked Sam, "You did not know any of this?"

Sam shook his head. He thought of how the man he considered one of his best friends could hide so much from him. Keeping Bucky safe made sense, and Sam could not be offended by that. However, he was definitely unsettled. Not just by the secrets, those he could justify by the need for discretion for Bucky's safety. But Sam waved his hands helplessly around him. "This is not the home of a man who could not move on from the past."

T'Challa agreed, "It is a shame Rogers did not survive to reach the future he wanted with Bucky."

But he had, and he'd rejected it. Steve had rejected Bucky. He had rejected Sam and the team and the decades of life with all of them.

Sam had spent the first few months of being Captain America asking himself What Would Steve Rogers Do? He had come to the conclusion that Steve had learned to trust in his team, and most importantly, trust in his own instincts. Sam had to learn to trust his own gut. "T'Challa, Shuri… There is something I have to tell you."