The first time he ventured off of Steve's floor was a trip to the common area kitchen, because Pepper had baked chocolate cake and Steve said her chocolate cakes tasted a lot like his ma's did and that Bucky used to have a weakness for his ma's chocolate cake when they were kids, but he refused to go fetch a piece. Bucky was going to have to start leaving their floor (Bucky did not miss the fact that he said "our" and not "my", which might have something to do with why he agreed.) and interacting with people eventually, so if he wanted a piece of cake then he was going to have to fetch it in person. So he went, nerves jangling, but Steve's presence next to him a comfort.

He had hoped that by waiting until midnight to decide that he wanted cake he could avoid running into people, but that tactic didn't seem to work in Avengers Tower. Pepper and Bruce had gone to bed and Tony was back in his lab for the night, but Natasha and Clint were in the kitchen with their own pieces of cake, still in their dusty gear from a mission.

"Hey boys." Natasha greeted them around a mouthful of cake, tilting her head back to look at them upside down over the back of her chair. "You're late to the party. Much later and we wouldn't have left you any cake."

Bucky eyed her suspiciously. He'd shot her at least once. Was she going to want revenge? He wasn't exactly in fighting condition. As if sensing his anxiety, Steve's hand found the small of his back.

Seated on top of the fridge, Clint raised an eyebrow at the gesture. "Care to introduce us to your boyfriend, Cap?"

Bucky expected Steve to snatch his hand away at the implication, but he didn't. "Clint, Natasha, this is my best friend Bucky. They're also Avengers, and were SHIELD agents before that."

"Doing alright, Bucky?" Natasha asked, "You and Steve were punching the crap out of each other not too long ago, and he's got a mean swing. You do too, but I know he's got super healing and I don't know whether you do."

"I, um." Bucky stammered, caught off guard.

Steve grinned proudly. "Bucky was the one who first taught me to fight, you know."

"No wonder you're a match for each other." Natasha smirked a little. "Bucky, you look ready to bolt. Relax. I'm not planning on zapping you again."

Bucky shuddered, remembering the experience. "But...I shot you."

"Yeah, twice. Do it a third time and I'll shove a taser so far up your ass the next person you kiss will get shocked."

Clint snorted. "She will, too. Hey, have some cake, man, before I decide to finish it off myself."

Bucky's eyes darted between the cake and the people in the room. Steve gave him a light push. "Go for it. You don't need permission to eat."

Bucky caught Steve gaping at him when he looked up from cutting himself a slice. "..what?"

"I just realized that you actually do wait for permission to eat. Since I found you again you've never expressed hunger or satiety. You eat whatever is offered to you, when I tell you to."

"Not always. I got hungry enough to steal food before you found me in the museum." Bucky mumbled through a mouthful of cake. Steve was right; this was really tasty.

Steve sighed. "If you need permission, I hereby give you permission to eat whenever and whatever you want."

"Geez Steve, are you trying to get him in trouble?" Clint hopped off the fridge. "Bucky, the pop tarts above the sink belong to Thor, and taking them would not be the way to start off on the right foot with him. If you want pop tarts, I advise getting them yourself and keeping them in your own kitchen to avoid confusion about whose you're eating."

"Duly noted. Don't touch the things in the cupboard over the sink. Whatever they are."

"Now come on guys." Clint picked up a huge shipping box from the corner. "I've been dying to do this, and you've gotta see it. This is gonna look awesome."

Natasha rolled her eyes, but got up anyway. "I still can't believe you spent 50 bucks on this."

"Shut up Nat, this is gonna be epic."

The others followed him out of the kitchen to the rarely-used stairwell. However cool Tony had thought it would be to have a tightly coiled spiral staircase down the entire height of the tower, it was impractical for such a tall building.

Except apparently for Clint's amusement. The box turned out to be full of at least 100 light-up bouncy balls, which Clint proceeded to empty down the stairs as the three of them leaned over the railing to watch the flashing lights ricochet around the seemingly endless twists.

Wait. Three. Steve turned around to see Bucky sitting on the stairs against the wall. "Come look at this, Bucky! It's like a light show."

Bucky eyed the opening in the center of the stairwell. "No thanks."

"You okay?" Steve sat down next to him. "Getting tired?"

"Not all that tired, I just hate heights."

Steve blinked in surprise. "Oh. Right. The train. I should have thought about that."

"Train?"

"You went missing by falling off a train and down a ravine while we were trying to capture Zola."

Bucky shuddered. "Thanks so much for the nightmare fodder, you ass."

"Sorry for reminding you. You know you can wake me up when you have nightmares. I certainly won't hold it against you. That fall would make anyone scared of heights."

"It didn't." Bucky looked confused.

"Huh?"

"I've been scared of heights since I was little, I think. Definitely before the war. I have the vague feeling that my cousin dangled me off a fire escape as a joke when I was like four." Bucky cocked his head and looked sideways at Steve, frowning. "Surely you knew that?"

"No. No, you never told me you were scared of heights." Steve rubbed his forehead. "God, Buck, I've made you do so much stuff up in high places over the years. Dragged you up onto roofs and fire escapes because I wanted to sketch things, made you go on Ferris wheels with me, top row of seats at the circus, made you stand guard while camping on ledges with the Commandos, made you walk across a support beam over a flaming chasm in that factory instead of finding another way out, made you zip line off a cliff onto the top of a moving train... Why didn't you ever tell me you were scared of heights? Maybe not all of those could have been avoided, but a lot of them could. I wouldn't have minded."

"I don't think I really minded scaring myself silly doing things that made you happy all that much." Bucky squirmed awkwardly. "And the rest of the time I probably just wanted to look tough in front of you. You were always utterly fearless, despite being tiny and fragile. I was probably embarrassed to admit that I wasn't as brave as you."

Nobody appreciates Tony's whimsical ideas.

The amnesia causing lifelong lies/omissions to get revealed thing is shamelessly swiped from The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan. And I can tell you right now, this isn't the last time it'll happen in this story. ;P