Bucky hadn't seen Steve in over a year. He knew it had been the best decision for him personally, but now as he approached the cabin with the rest of the team, he felt like a coward.

Apparently, Sam was capable of reading Bucky's thoughts, because he leaned into his side and quietly said, "This isn't your fault."

"But wouldn't I have been able to tell?"

In that instant, Bucky's greatest fear is that he wouldn't have known the difference.

"I'm going to briefly go into counselor mode, okay? Your first duty in recovery is to yourself. And yeah, you can't completely tell all your obligations to fuck off, but you didn't do that. Steve was your friend, not your job. And what he did to you, did to all of us, was pretty shitty." Sam sighed. "I spent more time with him, and I didn't recognize anything was wrong."

"Not your fault either, Wilson." Bucky knew a lot of the team was feeling some complicity at this point, but Sam didn't deserve that guilt. "Whatever is going on is only the fault of whoever is perpetrating it, right?"

"You've been listening to me when I speak?"

"Occasionally."

Sam smiled and nudged Bucky in the side. Bucky realized he'd made a friend in this man. At least, something good had come out of this whole painful ordeal.

The black SUV carrying Bucky, Sam, Thor, Valkyrie, and Maria pulled up to the cabin. As previously agreed upon, Maria and Sam got out first, to assure Steve all was well and to gain entry into the cabin. Steve was expecting them, as the team had planned this operation for his previously scheduled monthly check-in meeting.

Bucky watched through tinted windows as Steve opened the door and smiled at Sam and Maria. It hit Bucky like a punch in the gut. That was Steve, the older Steve he thought would never come to fruition in the countless hours spent nursing a young, sickly Steve through the cold Brooklyn winters. Is it any wonder a part of him wanted this to be real? In Bucky's mind, an elderly Steve still represented a miracle.

Maria followed Steve into the cabin, and with a subtle glance back at the SUV, Sam left the door almost imperceptibly ajar. It was time. Bucky inhaled and exhaled deeply.

"You alright?"

Valkyrie had been kind to Bucky as they prepared this op. Bucky knew she recognized the damage in him as something she also dealt with. She was another old soldier who deserved rest. He did his best to compose himself, but wouldn't lie to her. "Not really."

She barked out a laugh, and Thor looked at Bucky with approval. "It is always best to go into battle without delusions."

"You really think that could be Loki in there?"

From Steve's stories about this Asgardian god, Bucky knew Thor was uncharacteristically sober as he said, "Our people are not like yours. And our mother was a witch, as well as the queen of Asgard. It was she who trained Loki in the magical arts. My brother is dead, the one from this timeline. But no Loki exists who is bound by the rules of a single timeline."

Steve had spoken of Loki as a formidable opponent, one who was a particular weakness for Thor. "Are you ready for what we might find in there?"

"There is no preparing for Loki." Bucky heard the weight of a long, fraught history in Thor's words.

"C'mon, my lord. Let's get this over with." Valkyrie clapped Thor on the back and then hopped out of the truck. Bucky and Thor followed.

"You first, Barnes."

"Why?"

"If it is Steven, he will be glad to see you. If it is Loki, it is less likely he will kill you on sight."

Valkyrie shrugged in agreement with Thor.

"Great." Bucky muttered as he opened the door.

Years of training had taught him to be silent on his feet. Even with Steve's enhanced hearing, he'd have difficulty detecting Bucky's quiet footsteps in the entryway. He took a quick moment to survey his surroundings. The furnishings were clean, and there were fresh flowers in a vase. But Bucky knew Pepper sent a regular cleaning service to the cabin, so cleanliness and order were to be expected. It was the jacket, though, on the coat rack that made Bucky pause. There was a subtle layer of lint, of dust, as if the jacket had not been worn for a very long time. It was the sort of detail Bucky had only ever noted previously in rooms full of set dressings.

Nobody lived in this cabin.

He gestured for Thor and Valkyrie to follow him. Then Bucky entered the living room.

When he saw him, Steve's face lit up. "Bucky, it's good to see you."

Bucky did his best not to flinch, but he was incapable of smiling at the warmth in Steve's voice. If this was truly Steve, Bucky had wasted precious time when he could have been loving him. If this wasn't Steve, he had wasted time when he could have been saving him. Emotions overwhelmed him, rooting him in place.

Steve started to get up from his chair, but when he saw Thor and Valkyrie behind Bucky, he fell back into his seat. "Well, this is a surprise."

The tone changed from Steve's voice to something sharper and accented. Then Steve faded away, changed into a pale man with long, dark hair and elegant black clothing. He grinned and waved. "Hello."

Sam jumped to his feet, as did Maria, with her gun drawn. Loki rolled his eyes at them.

Thor moved around Bucky, who leaned against the nearest wall for support. He forced himself to pay attention to the conversation in front of him, knowing any bit of information gleaned could be important in rescuing Steve.

"Loki, what are you doing here?"

"More than you, dear brother."

The vitriol in Loki's voice surprised Bucky. He looked around and noted his wasn't the only one. Thor motioned to Maria to lower her weapon, but everyone remained standing, ready to fight.

"Seriously, Loki, what is going on?" Valkyrie was clearly frustrated with the posturing and wanted to get on with the confrontation.

"I had to leave Earth in my own timeline, so I started jumping around, seeing different possibilities, different pasts, different futures. Looking for a new world to rule, perhaps even become the true leader of Asgard. I eventually landed in this timeline." Loki strode to stand immediately in front of Thor. "And what did I find? Our mother, dead. Our father, dead. Asgard, our home, destroyed. And you, my brother, had left our people in the care of a rogue Valkyrie."

Loki turned to Valkyrie, all effusive charm. "No offense, my lady, you are indeed worthy, but my brother and I were destined to be leaders of Asgard."

"But why are you interfering?" Thor demanded.

"Right now, the leaders of this world are isolating the Asgardians in that tiny village in Norway 'for their own safety'." Loki sarcastically used air quotes. "They want to turn away the rest of us before we can land on this world."

Thor turned to Valkyrie. "Is this true?"

"Yes, unfortunately, it is." She sighed in disgust.

As Thor glared at her, Maria added, "There is concern the public at large would not react well to aliens living on Earth after the horrors Thanos wrought here."

Thor did not hide his dismay. "But they fought alongside humanity against Thanos. Does not that earn them fair treatment?"

Maria looked embarrassed, as Valkyrie replied, "I do not think you are as familiar with the leaders of this world as you should be."

"So, you are here for noble purposes?" Sam was skeptical.

Bucky shared Sam's skepticism. Loki had never been known for doing the right thing. And perhaps he was telling the truth. Perhaps Loki just wanted the best for his people. That didn't answer the most important question. Bucky had to know. There had to be a reason. "Why pretend to be Steve?"

Loki lifted his chin, but evaded Bucky's gaze. "Opportunity. A glitch in this timeline due to the time-travel. It led me to the Soul World while he was bargaining to restore the Stone."

"I believe the last part. You saw Steve on Vormir, sure." Bucky had died before, so pissing off a god wasn't much of a deterrent. "But you could have been Ross or the president or the Secretary-General. An elderly Steve Rogers just seems a little boring for you."

Sam nodded. "Yeah. Seems inefficient."

"Well, perhaps I didn't mind ruining Rogers' reputation."

Bucky sucked in a sharp breath. If Loki wanted Steve hurt, it was possible there was no hope left to save him.

Thor apparently had the same concern. "What did you do to Steven?" He narrowed his eyes as he approached his brother. Suspicion laced his next question. "Why did you have to leave your timeline?"

Loki leaned towards, obviously not intimidated by Thor. "Because you, who should know better, allowed fools to meddle in time."

"Steve did something to alter your timeline?"

Loki looked at Sam. He looked at Bucky and Maria and Valkyrie. "None of you were there." He focused intently on Thor. "You don't know what Rogers did, do you?"

"What did he do?"

"When I realized how much the timeline diverged in 2012, I went back to observe your romp though New York City. Rogers was the turning point." He spat angrily at Thor. "He confronted his younger self."

Thor nodded. "Steven mentioned he had encountered himself during our effort to retrieve the Tesseract."

"It wasn't an encounter. It was a battle." Loki scoffed. "It was quite something to see, matched blow for blow. Eventually, the younger Rogers had yours in a head lock. Then he whispered something, and the younger Rogers let him go, stunned by his words."

The room was so quiet, Bucky could hear his heartbeat. He could hear all of their heartbeats.

Loki finally continued. "After you left, in my 2012, Captain America began to tear the world apart looking for a ghost. That Earth is on fire, and he was the catalyst, all because your Captain America defeated himself the best way he knew how, by whispering Bucky Barnes' name."

Bucky was transfixed by the look in Loki's eyes as the trickster stepped towards him. "Because is every timeline, in every universe, Steve Rogers loves Bucky Barnes selfishly. And in every timeline, in every universe, Bucky Barnes loves selflessly."

"Damn." Sam looked at Bucky, who couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"I knew I could count on your love, Barnes. Being so willing to let him go so he could be happy. I knew I'd be on my own here, able to plant the seeds to establish a new world for my people. I just hoped I'd have longer."

Sam walked to Bucky's side and placed a warm, comforting hand on Bucky's shoulder. "Not your fault."

But wasn't it? If Bucky had just been strong enough to face Steve sooner, maybe he would have seen through the deception. If Steve was still alive on Vormir, what torment had he been experiencing while Bucky was finding himself safely back home in the States.

Loki sensed Bucky's turmoil. "I know how it feels to learn everything you knew about your life, your identity, is false. And I am truly sorry for the pain you are feeling now because of this charade."

It was a surprising amount of compassion from a god.

Thor shared Bucky's surprise as he yelled at his brother, "So, you regret your actions after all?"

Loki shook his head. "I know what you think of me. Maybe you even mourn the version of me that you lost, but I can assure you… he and I are the same in the choices we make here."

Sadness overwhelmed Thor's face, and Bucky sympathized with this man who had lost everything and could not get it back with the snap of a gauntlet.

Loki saw the emotions written all over Thor and seized his chance. "We were meant to roam the stars, not be landlocked in a tiny village on this mundane world. Brother, lead our people. You and this Valkyrie, your appointed Queen, can commandeer a starship and find a suitable world to forge a new Asgard. Then you can continue doing whatever it is you've been doing these past months."

To everyone's surprise, Valkyrie sided with Loki. "There has to be a suitable unpopulated…"

Loki interrupted with a shrug. "Ehhh?"

Valkyrie emphasized, "Yes, unpopulated world out there." She elbowed Thor in the side. "C'mon, it'll be fun."

Thor appeared remarkably ill at ease. "I am not sure I am capable of this endeavor."

"Your people still look up to you." Valkyrie spoke supportively. "All of us would welcome you back."

"My brother challenges my ability to lead and has attempted to do so in my absence. I have left my people, I have left you, for my own selfish reasons, and yet you continue bravely on." Thor lowered his gaze to the floor. "I do not deserve to lead you."

Then, Loki said, "Hold out your arm, brother. Find out if you are worthy."

Thor looked up in surprise. Loki nodded encouragingly at him, with a small smile on his face. Thor raised his right hand.

There was a rustling elsewhere in the cabin. Bucky, Sam, and Maria all flattened against the wall as a whooshing noise approached the living room.

And suddenly, the hammer crashed into Thor's outstretched hand. "Mjolnir. How did it get here?"

"I brought it here with me." Loki tipped his head towards Thor. "Good-bye, my dear brother." In an explosion of light, Loki popped away.

"Good-bye, brother." Thor's whisper was likely inaudible to anyone other than Bucky, who heard the pain at yet another unwilling separation.

Which, of course, brought Bucky's thoughts back to Steve. He fought back the tears suddenly threatening fall down his face.

"Hey, man, talk to me."

"I cannot tell you what it's done to me to feel like I didn't know him anymore. That I couldn't be sure about Steve anymore." Bucky looked at Sam, who put a comforting hand on his elbow. "I knew him before I knew myself. And I've been so fucked-up, thinking all that work I'd done to get my memories back and my brain in order was for nothing. That'd I'd been wrong about him, because he was the only thing I was ever sure of, and I never thought he'd leave me."

"He didn't leave you."

Bucky reached out to clasp Sam's shoulder. "He didn't leave us."

Sam grinned. "Let's go get our boy."

"Damned right."

Bucky and Sam walked over to the others. Maria was on a secure phone, catching up Fury on the latest events, while Valkyrie watched Thor play with the hammer with a smirk on her face.

Sam cut directly to the heart of the matter. "How do we get to Vormir?"

"The old fashioned way." Bucky laughed, his stress about the upcoming mission combined with its ridiculousness finally hitting home. "A spaceship."