"Thought you were afraid of heights."

Bucky turned away from the window. "I am. It's a nice view though, so long as I look out instead of down. The city's changed a lot."

Steve nodded, joining him. "That it has." He knocked Bucky's shoulder. "Any plans for the afternoon?"

"Nope. Tony said he didn't want me underfoot while he plans the party. You gonna be a sap and suggest we go on a date?"

"We could. Where would my mighty hero like to go?"

Bucky rolled his eyes. "I spend twenty years rescuing your punk ass from fights you started, and you complain about it. I choke a few bad guys and suddenly I'm a hero."

Steve messed up his hair, leaving him pawing it out of his face with a scowl. "I had them on the ropes, jerk. But rescuing me from Colonel Phillips' boring administrative lecture and making a fool of Hodge would qualify you as a hero too, if you hadn't done it completely by accident and slept through it."

"How'd I do that?"

"Fell asleep on my shoulder while Phillips was rambling."

Even while the other rescued men scattered to the medical tent or empty beds, Bucky stayed at Steve's side. He didn't have to, but neither really wanted the other out of their sight. Now Phillips was talking at Steve about everything they needed to do to figure out who was back and get them all in to find out everything anyone might know about anything, Bucky next to him and visibly on the verge of collapse after captivity and torture and miles of marching. Steve was trying to pretend that the colonel had his attention, but a pointed look from Peggy had him giving up the act to wrap an arm around his friend's back as Bucky's head dropped onto his shoulder. Now even Phillips was trying hard to keep a straight face.

Not even pretending to pay attention anymore, Steve deftly hooked his free arm under Bucky's knees as they finally gave out, scooping him up so gently he barely stirred.

"So I picked you up like this," Steve swept Bucky off his feet, to half-hearted protest. "And gave him a Look and he was like 'oh fine' and I carried you to bed."

Phillips almost rolled his eyes. "Go."

Back in his tent, Steve somehow managed to wriggle out of his boots without untying them and stretched out on his bed with Bucky draped half on top of him, still well and truly conked out. Taking care not to wake him, Steve eased Bucky's boots off one-handed and made himself comfortable.

Not long later, Hodge's voice brought Steve out of his light doze. "D'you see that? Tinkerbell and some guy are all snuggly like a couple of fucking fags. I thought we were supposed to be men here."

Steve sat down lengthwise on the couch, depositing Bucky in his lap and leaning back against the arm. "Gilmore Hodge-guy I knew from basic, big bully-came in and saw us napping on the same cot. Took issue with it, because he reckoned it looked gay."

"If only he knew!" Bucky snuggled theatrically into Steve's chest and batted his eyes, fighting laughter. "Oh Captain, take me now, here on this tiny army cot with our men watching."

Steve took a minute to stop laughing before continuing the story. "The other men hanging around took issue with him giving us trouble after what we'd been through."

A few guys glanced over. "Both of them outrank you, Hodge." One of them pointed out. "Might wanna be careful."

"I'm not afraid of a couple fairies. Who wants to help me teach 'em a lesson?"

"For fuck's sake." One of the other rescued men, bigger than Hodge, gave him a withering look. "They're not queer. They were raised as brothers, and Sarge was being experimented on by one of the crazy scientists. If you'd just rescued your brother from that, you wouldn't want to let him out of your sight either."

There were murmurs of agreement throughout the group. "What sort of experiments?" Someone asked.

"Dunno, exactly." One of the rescued men said. "Sometimes someone would be taken back to the scientist's lab. None of them ever came out, not 'til the captain rescued him. We'd find their body on the pile to be disposed of, looking like they died of something other than overwork or a bullet, and someone else would be taken back there. Something had been done to them, but I dunno what. Usually had needle marks and bruises, other than that it varied. Weird shit. Skinned, giant body parts, liquified guts leaking out of them, imploded heads, floppy like their bones were gone, creepy as fuck."

Hodge snorted. "That's no excuse."

"Probably why you didn't get picked for the project." A guy that Steve recognized from training put in. "You're a self-centered antisocial bastard who nobody likes. Do you even hear yourself? Rogers just singlehandedly rescued 400 men from deep behind enemy lines, and you want to pick a fight with him because he's relieved to have his lifelong best friend, who he thought was dead and personally retrieved from some perverse experiment, back and is now, after getting everybody back safely, allowing himself to show his relief. Show of hands, guys, who wouldn't be reacting the same way if it was your brother?"

Hodge was the only one who raised his hand. Someone made a scornful noise. "Yeah, and this is why you don't have friends."

"I have friends. I'm hot stuff around here." Hodge puffed himself up.

"Sure. Show of hands, boys, who can think of a single person who actually likes him?" Nobody raised their hand. Hodge stalked out. Steve noticed that quite a few men decided to hang around and quietly play cards nearby instead of wandering off.

"They told him off, described the condition they'd found the bodies of the experimental subjects before you in, pointed out that nobody liked him, and then spent the rest of the day hanging around quietly as a sort of guard while we slept."

Bucky shifted into a more natural position, leaning against the back of the couch with his legs across Steve's lap. "I actually really got lucky, didn't I? Just to survive it."

"Yeah."

"And to heal fast enough to not get sent home." He didn't truly remember, but the few fuzzy snapshots that he had hinted at the kind of condition he'd been in. He should've been sent home, like that, but evidently he'd recovered before anyone had noticed.

"Were you hurt?" Steve looked concerned. "You never told anyone."

"Course I didn't. Wasn't gonna leave you again." He rolled his head all the way to the side, cheek resting on the top of the couch back as he looked at Steve. "I can't leave you alone or you get in trouble." Steve poked his tongue out at him, then caressed the exposed side of his face. The memory of the rescue already fresh in his mind, Bucky flinched away hard, hand going to his face.

"Oh shit. I didn't mean to...How did I...? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I..." Bucky leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, eyes shut, trying to fight the flashback. Cold metal. Whirring machines. The feeling of bones breaking. Steve's hand rubbing his shoulder kept him from falling all the way into the memory. "Yes, I was hurt. Their brainwashing machine. The first one, the one in that factory. It was...tight. And vibrated a lot. I had breaks down the side of my face from it. The memory of walking back was near the surface, and in it I had all those facial fractures, and then you touched the same area they were, and that triggered the memory of them happening..." Steve pulled him into his arms, dropping soft kisses on the top of his head. "I couldn't really see out that eye or hear out that ear when you found me. Both came back, gradually, before anyone remembered that nobody had checked yet whether I was hurt, so nobody was the wiser. I just always kept my good side toward you, so you wouldn't notice anything." His posture relaxed, allowing himself to sink into Steve.

"Gosh, your head must not be as hard as I thought." Steve quipped. "We'll make sure to check for any lingering damage from that when you get your full physical. Which keeps not happening for some reason." He brushed his fingers along Bucky's chin, gently urging him to lift his head. "But c'mere. Let's try and crowd out that bad touch association with some good associations, yeah?"

"Yeah." Bucky lifted his head off Steve's chest and changed position so that he was kneeling over Steve, straddling his lap. They began kissing, gently at first, and Steve's hand migrated slowly up his face as the kisses deepened, starting resting on the side of his neck with his thumb stroking his jaw and winding up at his temple, cupping his head and pushing his hair back.

"Good touch again?" Steve gasped when they briefly came up for air.

"Mmm, yes." Bucky braced his metal hand on the couch arm behind Steve's back for balance and wrapped his flesh hand around the back of Steve's head. He nuzzled Steve's neck and then started nibbling and sucking at the corner of Steve's jaw. Steve gasped and lolled his head back, which Bucky took as an invitation to expand his attentions to the rest of his throat.

"Oh my god, that's...wow." Steve gasped when Bucky backed off to catch his breath.

Bucky smirked. Steve had a clear hickey (or five) on his neck which he sincerely hoped Steve wouldn't notice before the party. "Have you ever..."

"Gone this far with someone? No."

"Me neither."

Steve looked shocked. "But all those girls..."

Bucky shook his head, blushing slightly. "Nope. Told myself it was improper, ungentlemanly to try. Maybe the reality was that my heart wasn't in it." He sat back so that he was sitting on Steve's legs instead of leaning over him. "What about all the girls who must be swooning over you? You're Captain America, surely there are girls lining up to sleep with you."

"Went on a few dates. Nice girls, wanted to come home with me. I walked them to their doors and let us both believe I was too much of a prude." He shrugged. "I think my heart just wasn't in it."

"Your heart is in it now, though, right?"

"Every inch of it." Steve confirmed. "You?"

Bucky pecked him on the lips. "Yup. No hurry though."

"Nope. No rush, no pressure." Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky's waist and buried his face in his chest. "I'm content just to have you, no matter how far we do or don't ever go."

"So about that date..."

"I am very sorry to interrupt, sirs, but both of you are requested." JARVIS said apologetically.

Steve groaned and looked up at the ceiling. "Who and what?"

"Agent Hill spotted a moving truck with some men previously linked to Hydra in the cab pulling into a warehouse that just changed hands, and wishes Captain Rogers to accompany her and Agent Barton to, I quote, break shit."

"Not Tasha?" Steve frowned.

"Cracked wrist from her last such outing. Doctor Banner won't clear her to go for something expected to be minor, which this is expected to be since the previous inhabitants only vacated yesterday."

"Of course."

"I'm going with you." Bucky informed him.

"You're not cleared for fieldwork either, not 'til you've had a proper physical." Bucky set his jaw and raised an eyebrow.

"Agent Romanoff would like Sergeant Barnes to accompany her for some shopping." JARVIS added.

Steve affectionately tucked back a strand of Bucky's hair that was falling in his face. "Buck, I know you want to stick close so you can have my back, but I'll be fine. Even the three of us that are going is probably overkill with only a handful of guys who are just in the process of moving in. I need you to go with Tasha. She's injured, even if not too badly, and we're all more or less walking around with targets painted on our backs lately. It makes me feel better if we all run errands in pairs so we've got backup if anything happens. Indulge me and go with her, please?"

Bucky scowled and poked a metal finger into Steve's nose. "Not. A. Scratch. Understood?"

"Understood."