Hey everyone! I hope you've all had a good weekend so far!
Thank you so, so much for all your amazing reviews! That put a huge smile on my face! I really appreciate the feedback!
Well, here you have the next chapter! I really hope you enjoy!


Chapter 33

"Is this a bad idea?" Steve asked Sam, lifting his worried eyes to fix his close friend with a look akin to helplessness.

"Are you serious?" Sam raised an eyebrow, watching the way Steve's long fingers were picking at the blueberry muffin he had ordered along with his black coffee. Steve's fingernails were bitten short- a habit he had picked up in his last year of high school.

Sam's hands were wrapped around a steaming mug of espresso of which the taste was still lingering on his tongue.

The café they had taken to frequenting was quiet, the morning rush having only just passed. The smell of coffee and freshly baked pastries hung in the air like the smell of gingerbread and cinnamon at a Christmas market, making the Sunday morning seem just that little bit brighter. The sun was shining through the panorama window in front of which Steve and Sam were sitting, bathing them in greatly appreciated gentle warmth.

"Why would this be a bad idea, Steve?" Sam asked after a short pause.

"What if he doesn't remember them?"

Sam leant back in his chair, giving himself the chance to consider Steve's question before answering. "Judging by the fact that he remembered your birthday last week, I'd say that he will remember them. Maybe they're not present in his mind at the moment but when he sees them, I'm sure it'll click."

"And if it doesn't?"

"If it doesn't, then seeing them will be the first step towards him actually remembering them." Sam assured Steve patiently, smiling at the way Steve was so worried. Steve was a notorious over-thinker; not when it came to himself, but definitely when it came to one James Barnes.

"He'll be thankful." Sam offered one last word of encouragement.

Steve let out a sigh, nodding slowly. He let Sam's words play back in his mind like a mantra while he continued to mutilate his blueberry muffin.


A while later, once his muffin had been eaten and his coffee was only half full, Steve fished out his smartphone with a heavy sigh and an even heavier heart.

He searched his contacts list, looking for a name he hadn't looked up since Bucky's memorial service. Guilt and heartache had stopped him from contacting the number, had made him feel sick just to think of.

Looking at the contact name now made him feel a mixture of guilt and determination that drove him to open a chat window with said contact. His phone immediately supplied past conversations filled with silly emoticons, gifs, hilarity and the name Bucky.

Steve's eyes immediately found Bucky's name and he felt his tongue want to form the name like a forgotten promise.

He forced himself to focus on the task at hand and forgo the past conversations and look only at what he was typing, knowing that looking at the past chats would send him plummeting head-first into a pit of melancholy.

Sam watched Steve, noting the way his face screwed up a little while he wrote. His jaw was working, the muscles pulling at the skin covering his cheeks and his eyebrows were furrowed, his lips pressed into a tight line.

"By the look on your face I'm assuming we're doing it today?" Sam enquired gently, his voice coaxing Steve's attention away from the smartphone like a gentle pat on the shoulder.

"Buck's been having a good two weeks. Now is as good a time as any." Steve replied, sending off the message and pocketing his phone immediately, "Besides, I get the feeling that if I don't do this now, I won't ever do it."

Sam could see the tight line to Steve's shoulders. He could see the worry, the fear and the hope flickering in Steve's eyes like a simmering flame. He knew that all of this was just as much about Steve as it was about Bucky.

Sam knew that Steve felt guilty for not having contacted them after Bucky's apparent death and the memorial service held for him.

This was Steve's way of making it up to them. This was Steve's apology.


Steve grumbled, suppressing the urge to swear while he struggled with his key. He was busy playing with the idea of throwing them out the window when Sam put his hand on Steve's shoulder.

"You need to calm down and at best, stay calm." Sam advised Steve quietly, knowing all too well that Bucky had extremely good hearing, "He's gonna notice that you're tense, and you know how quickly your mood affects him."

Steve had to ruefully admit that Sam was right- Bucky had always been sensitive towards other people's moods and feelings and the super soldier serum paired with his hypervigilance gave Bucky all the tools he needed to improve that skill of his.

A moment of introspection on Steve's part brought the tightness in his back to his attention and he could feel the frown on his face. He took a deep breath before letting it out slowly, the way he used to before firing a shot while he was still an agent at SHIELD.

"This is a good thing." Sam assured Steve, "Bucky's gonna be really grateful to you."

"What if they hate me for how I acted?"

Sam gave Steve a long look. So that's what was making Steve so nervous. Steve knew that they would accept Bucky with open arms- of course they would. But Steve? After disappearing from their lives after the memorial service and then never talking to them again until now?

"You're bringing Bucky back to them." Sam pointed out, giving Steve's shoulder a squeeze, "It'll be fine!"

Steve nodded stiffly, grasping onto the words like a lifeline. "You're right." Steve stated, hoping he sounded more convinced than he felt, "This is a good thing." He repeated Sam's words, smiling weakly when his friend nodded at him.

With one last, calming breath, Steve pushed the key into the lock and turned it, listening to the way the apartment door clicked open.

"Bucky?" Steve closed the door once they had made it through, "I'm home! Sam's with me!" The habit of announcing himself to Bucky and making sure that he knew exactly who was with Steve, had become a fixed part of their day to day life. Despite Bucky's much healthier state of mind, it still gave him a sense of security despite the threat from Hydra having become zero to none.

As usual, Flake beat Bucky to Steve. She greeted him with dog-kisses and propeller-like movements of her tail. Once she was done with Steve, she moved on to Sam enthusiastically, soaking up all the attention she could get. Meanwhile, Bucky had made his way from his room to Steve, greeting his boyfriend with a warm hug and a peck.

"How was breakfast?" Bucky asked Steve with a carefree smile.

"Good." Steve replied briskly, cringing inwardly when he noticed how hoarse his voice sounded. The light twitch of Bucky's eye showed that he had noticed as well but obviously, he chose not to mention it.

"You ready to go?" Sam interjected casually, twirling his car keys around his index finger.

Bucky visibly perked up, his attention shifting from Steve to Sam immediately.

"Where are we going?"

"Well…" Steve spoke up again, quieter this time to hide the strain in his voice, "It's kind of a surprise."

"Yeah?" Bucky's eyes lit up even more, "Like the Coney Island kinda surprise?"

Bucky's enthusiasm was inevitably infectious, and Steve felt himself relax a little, an easy smile finding its way onto his face.

"Better." He assured Bucky.

"Seriously?" Bucky rocked back and forth from his heels onto his toes excitedly, "Do I need anything special?"

"Just the usual." Steve assured him with a smile.

"Okay le'me just get my backpack, a jacket and a glove." Bucky waved his left hand in the air, "Be right back Stevie." With a grin, he rushed into his bedroom, leaving Sam, Flake and Steve at the front door.

"To think of what he was like when we first found him at the police station." Sam muttered.

When Steve looked at him, he found Sam smiling brightly, his eyes soft and fond.


They walked. The midday traffic was in full swing, angry drivers hooting and swearing while they tried to make their way through Brooklyn. Bucky watched the cars idly, observing the way smaller cars tried to squeeze past yellow school busses and SUVs. The sky was spotted with cotton-bud clouds that hid the sun in steady intervals.

The path they were taking was painfully familiar to Steve who kept shooting assessing glances at Bucky nervously to see if he remembered anything. As of yet, Bucky seemed oblivious, too busy assessing the traffic situation to pay much attention to where they were heading.

His hypervigilance had calmed down considerably but he did still seem to zone in on the louder objects first, feeling the need to gage those before being able to relax. Steve was suddenly glad for the heavy traffic, breathing a quiet sigh of relief.

They walked in comfortable silence for a few blocks until they came to a painfully familiar T-junction.

Upon entering the road Steve had dreaded to revisit, Bucky stopped dead. His hand, firmly holding onto Steve's, twitched and his eyebrows furrowed.

"I know this place." He admitted, but the confusion on his face betrayed the fact that Bucky didn't know from where he knew the street. Out of a mixture of instinct and habit, Bucky's free hand began reaching for his backpack to pull it forward.

"It'll all make sense just now." Steve assured him, his promise halting Bucky's hand and returning it back to his side.

"Steve?" Bucky looked at Steve with wide and vulnerable eyes, Do you know this place?"

"Like the back of my hand." Steve admitted, pained by the many memories that badgered him. They demanded for him to tell Bucky all the stories that he was busy pushing to the back of his mind frantically in order to keep his fragile composure.

After a while, with a hardly-visible nod, Bucky signalled that he was ready to continue and the three of them walked on. Now Bucky didn't seem care about the traffic anymore, regardless of how loud a car hooted or how fast the vehicles sped past. Instead, he was looking up at the buildings with calculating eyes, at the many medium-sized, slightly worn-looking apartment buildings lining the road. Some had miniature courtyards in front of them, littered with old toys, plants, bicycles or old couches that no-one wanted. Trees, fenced in by round metal fences were spread out evenly along the pavement, forming a neat row on both sides of the road. A small corner shop was located at the end of the road, two apartment buildings away from the building that immediately caught Bucky's attention.

A feeling of yearning and melancholy washed over him, and he had to slow down to compose himself, feeling his chest tighten.

Steve was acutely aware of all the emotions Bucky was going through while they walked- they were playing out on Bucky's face like a movie; but he knew that there was no avoiding the onslaught of emotions associated with this road. All he could do was grasp onto Bucky's hand a little tighter in hopes that it would give his boyfriend a sense of security and remind him that he wasn't in this alone.

Briefly, Steve wondered if Bucky could sense the unease Steve was feeling and that he wasn't the only one suffering under the feelings associated with the road they were walking along.


When they came to a standstill in front of the building Bucky had noticed, a shuddering sigh passed through Bucky's lips.

"Steve…" He whispered hoarsely, realization slowly starting to seep into his mind, "Steve is this…?"

Steve swallowed and without a word, nodded. A small smile passed between the two of them before Steve began to slowly and carefully lead Bucky up the porch stairs and through the front door, their fingers staying firmly interlocked the entire time.

The stairwell smelt slightly musty, just as it had all those years back. They passed by the mailboxes and Bucky's eyes, presumably more out of old habit, immediately found the mailbox with the name Barnes written on it. Tears began to form behind his eyes and a lump developed in his throat. His steps sped up gradually until he was the one leading Steve up the stairs, hurriedly.

Bucky rushed up to the fourth floor, down the corridor that led to the left, onwards until he was standing in front of a familiar door with the apartment number 4E written on it.

He took a deep breath before letting it out slowly, concentrating on the way his shoulders dropped with the exhale.

He stared at the golden letters for a long moment before looking down at the doorbell. His surname was written in bold black letters on a white card stuck to the wall above the doorbell.

Unsure as to what to do, he turned to Steve for help, looking as lost as he had after each flashback, after each nightmare and relapse he had had over the past years. Nervously, Bucky licked his lips. "I'm scared." He admitted readily, feeling a weight drop from his shoulders the moment Steve's warm eye met his.

Steve was smiling at Bucky sympathetically. His trembling eyes held the same sort of vulnerability and fear that Bucky was near to overwhelmed by.

"Me too pal." Steve confessed, "But we can do this. Together."

"Yeah." Bucky agreed, trying to swallow around the lump in his throat, feeling as though it was about to choke him.

"If the two of you are ready, I'm gonna ring the bell." Sam warned, pausing when both Steve and Bucky tensed notably, "You two sure about this?" Sam enquired, smiling understandingly when Steve and Bucky exchanged wary glances.

"I gotta." Bucky said, "I want to remember this too."

"I'll help you." Steve promised, "Whatever it takes- I'll do it."

"Thank you." Bucky smiled at Steve crookedly, edging closer to Steve when Sam pushed down on the doorbell.


There you have it! I feel like I have to give you guys a heads-up: this story is coming to an end slowly. Which makes me sad. But if you have an prompts or ideas for any other Stucky fanfics you would like to see me write, let me know! Either inbox me or leave it in the reviews! :)