Okay, so Cap had adopted and rehabilitated his best friend the former brainwashed Hydra assassin. That sort of thing happened in their line of work. (Case in point, the redhead currently bouncing rubber bands off his hand, occasionally hitting one off the ear of her partner who was all but in his lap.) Tony had a bruised face and was inexplicably ill, which Phil would have thought he was faking if JARVIS and Bruce hadn't confirmed that he had in fact been throwing up, but he still wanted to hang out with them in the hopes that Phil was there to yell at Cap. (As if he ever could. In reality he'd just stopped in to check on them and the video in question had shown up on a news site while he was playing with his phone in the elevator.) Cap had accidentally started a public fight about vaccines, and had to be dragged away by his friend. They'd have to keep alert for repercussions, whether publicity-wise or Hydra recognizing their escaped asset. (The cell phone videos had been mercifully grainy and his metal arm and long hair tucked out of sight though, so hopefully they'd get lucky.) Maria had been in and out, but left a few days prior to meet up with Nick someplace secret. (Drat, Phil had hoped to see her. But at least she seemed to be doing well.) All in all, not the craziest he'd seen life with the Avengers.

Thor bounced into the room, Steve trailing after and looking apprehensive. "Good day Son Of Coul!"

Steve stopped dead on spotting him, paling. "Good afternoon Agent."

"Hello Thor, Steve. It's Director now, actually. Steve, you look nervous."

"Am I in trouble for this afternoon?"

"I suspect that anything I would have to say about it has already been said by your friend. Where is he by the way?"

Steve looked, if anything, more nervous. "Why? Are you going to try to bring him in? He's not Hydra. He was brainwashed but I broke it and he's himself again and he's not a criminal and if you want to do anything to him you're going to have to take me down first."

"Good lord no. I want to welcome him to the team, if he wants to join, that is. SHIELD is dismantled, we're rebuilding, some of our best agents started out as enemies." Phil motioned them to come in. "Make yourselves comfortable. I insisted on waiting for everyone to get here before we watched the video of this afternoon."

"Bucky is upstairs putting the groceries away." Steve conceded, sitting down in the last armchair reluctantly. "Don't wait for him. I don't know if he's planning on coming down after, and besides, if he watches it again he might be tempted to swat me again but with his metal hand this time."

"Oh my fucking god, Captain Tightpants, I have never seen you so... Un-polished." Tony snickered. Steve wordlessly held out a jar. "Oh come on!" Steve quietly shook the jar under his nose. Tony groaned and stuck a dollar in it.

"What's that?" They turned around to see Bucky hovering in the doorway. "And who is this?"

"Swear jar." Clint filled him in. "A dollar per swear word. And this is Phil Coulson, he was the liaison between the Avengers and SHIELD, and is now the director. He's a good guy. You can trust him."

"I'll watch my language then." Bucky could only imagine how much money Steve had lost to that jar. "Nice to meet you, sir."

"And you." Coulson looked him over, making Bucky squirm. He had the feeling that a lot of people had looked him over that way before. "No need to hover. Take a seat if you can find one. This is just a social visit, seeing for myself that everyone survived the Hydra incident."

Bucky looked around at the filled seats and decided on perching on the arm of Steve's chair much the same way as Clint was doing with Coulson's. "Did...everyone survive?" He didn't want to hear the answer, but at the same time he needed to.

"Nobody we were close to who wasn't secretly Hydra died." Steve comfortingly rubbed circles on his lower back. "Don't worry."

"They seemed to more or less reserve you for the big targets, like Steve and Nick and me, and we were a pretty decent match for you." Natasha reassured him.

Bucky nodded, looking at the floor. "Thanks."

"You're awfully quiet, Phil." Tony taunted. "Would've thought you'd be talking Bucky's ear off begging him for stories about life with the great Captain America. Are you too distracted by the birdbrain trying to sneak into your lap?"

Phil, Steve, and Clint all turned red. Bucky looked confused.

Tony smirked. "Oh and the trading cards! I'm sure you've got the trading cards for all the Howling Commandos, don't you? You haven't asked Bucky to sign them yet!"

Bucky started and fell off his perch. Steve caught him instinctively. "We have trading cards?"

"...yeah." Steve turned redder, if that was possible, and hid his flaming face behind Bucky.

"And Phil is Cap's biggest fanboy." Tony pointed out gleefully, enjoying the embarrassment he was causing.

If anybody was going to embarrass Steve, it was going to be him. Bucky slung his arm around Steve's shoulders, depriving him of his hiding spot. "Well that's poor taste if I ever did see it. Who'd fanboy over this idiot? You should've seen the dumb stunts he always pulled. Did you know that one time he got himself stuck in a trash can overnight?"

"You are such a jerk. Of all the things for you to remember. What about the time you fell on your butt right in a mud puddle while running because you were paying attention to the girls who were watching you instead of your feet?"

"Don't remember that." Bucky told him cheerfully.

"I do. Boy were you a sight slinking in with your pants all wet and muddy."

Bucky jolted upright in bed with a choked sob, waking Steve.

"Buck?" Steve sleepily tugged on his bedfellow's waist, "What is it?" He didn't think he'd ever seen his friend like this. Upset, yes, scared, yes, crying-upset, no.

Bucky practically dived into his arms, clearly not truly awake. "Steve. You're healthy. You're alive. You were sick and there was nothing I could do and you died and..."

"Shh, hey, I'm here. We're both okay." Steve refrained from wincing at the strength with which he was being clung to, although he was sure his ribs were going to be bruised from that metal arm. Now he felt really guilty about having brought up having almost died from so many diseases before the serum. Giving Bucky nightmares bothered him much more than causing a public relations disaster, or even making Bucky mad at him. "We're okay. We're both healthy and alive."

"Thank god." Bucky mumbled into his neck. "Never told you I loved you."

"You didn't have to." Steve told him softly, burying his face in Bucky's hair, "I knew." He didn't know in what way Bucky had meant that, and he realized that he didn't care. Whatever this was, had been, would be, it was right. Lying here tangled up with Bucky. Insulting each other. Worrying about each other. It was just right.

After a minute, Bucky's frantic grip loosened, and he pulled his head back, still resting on Steve's shoulder, enough to look at him searchingly. He didn't know how he'd meant it either, still halfway in a dream and semi coherent, or how Steve had taken it, but he had meant it.

Steve brushed a tendril of hair out of his face. "And I love you too, Bucky, I hope you know that."

"Even now? Even after they took me apart and rebuilt me?"

"Yeah, I do." Steve pulled him in close again, pressing a light kiss to Bucky's forehead. He wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do, but he was barely awake and it was a comforting somebody sort of thing to do, and he'd already done it so it was too late to take it back, and hopefully if it wasn't the right thing to do then Bucky would just write it off as his imagination because it had been light and neither of them was totally awake. "I'm with you to the end of the line."

Bucky tilted his head up, and his mouth met Steve's, and they both acted automatically. It wasn't passionate or possessive, but soft and lingering. Realizing what they were doing, both looked away, blushing. "Did we just...?"

"Yeah." Steve barely brushed Bucky's jaw with his fingers, and that was all it took to bring his chin up and their lips back together. When they pulled away for air, Steve ducked his head and kissed the scars on Bucky's shoulder where they peeked out the neck of his slightly too big borrowed t-shirt.

"What are you doing?"

Steve pulled the neckline down and kissed the ones across his collarbone and the top of his chest. "You're beautiful." He caught Bucky's arm and brought it to him. Bucky was unresisting with surprise as he pressed a kiss to the metal palm. "All of you." He kissed Bucky on the lips again, softly. "And I love all of you. Just the way you are. No matter what they did to you or made you do."

Bucky hooked his leg over Steve's, pulling their bodies closer together, and kissed him again. He didn't know if what they were doing was considered normal or okay nowadays, and he didn't care. All he cared about was this. "It was always you, even if I didn't realize it. It never worked out with any of the girls," He kissed Steve again, "Because I don't think I really wanted it to." He nuzzled Steve's throat. "And at the end of the night, all I wanted to do was go home and keep you warm."

The fact that Steve was still lying on his chest despite being awake already certainly seemed to confirm that the night's events really had happened. Bucky ruffled Steve's hair. "Morning, punk."

Steve swatted at his hand. "Jerk." He bit his lip. "Any regrets about, you know..."

Bucky gave him a crooked smile. "Shut up and kiss me."

He did. "Should we tell the team?"

"Will they be okay with it? I mean, is this a mainstream thing now?"

"Yep." Steve rested his chin on Bucky's chest again, looking for all the world like a faithful golden retriever, "In fact, two men can now legally get married to each other. Or two women."

"I think I like the future."