Chapter Five – Old and New Friends

Steve watched as Bucky walked towards him, the brunette's hand held tightly in his, the wary-eyed platinum blond man trailing along behind. And it truly was Bucky, not the blank-eyed, lost man he'd fought in Washington DC; this really was his old friend, even if his hair was far too long and the dapper Bucky would never have been caught with a growth of beard like that. There was the familiar spark of mischief in his blue eyes, though. The protective swagger in his gait as he stayed close to his soulmate.

And who was she, this mysterious woman who was Bucky's soulmate? Wide dark eyes fixed on him, and he realised she was very young, barely out of her teens if that.

"Hi," he said with a smile. "I'm Steve Rogers."

Wanda was too shy to speak. Bucky could feel her withdrawing, trying to hide behind him. Holding her hand firmly, he said; "This is Wanda Maximoff, Steve, and her twin brother Pietro. Wanda's my soulmate. And both of them were being held prisoner by HYDRA."

Steve's mouth firmed into a hard line. "Then you're welcome with us," he said evenly, meeting first Wanda's eyes, then Pietro's. "We can find a place for you, whatever it is you want to do."

Pietro sucked in his breath, his blue eyes going very wide, and he seemed almost on the verge of bolting. Wanda yanked her hand free of Bucky's and grabbed at him. "Pietro!"

"What the hell?" Steve said in an undertone to Bucky, as they watched Pietro bend almost double, nearly hyperventilating, Wanda petting his back and muttering to him in that unfamiliar language.

"Beats me," Bucky shrugged, confused.

They stood watching for a moment, and then Bucky felt rather than saw Steve staring at him.

"Wotcha lookin' at, punk?" he turned his head and gave Steve a half-smile.

"Don't give me that, Buck! Last time I saw you…"

"Last time you saw Bucky, he was fallin' off a train," Bucky said quietly, the smile falling off his face. "That - thing they made me into, the Asset - that wasn't Bucky. I've got his memories, but - that wasn't me."

He wasn't actually at all surprised by the roughness of the hug. He returned it gladly, let Steve try to crush his ribs for a good minute before knocking on Steve's back with his metal fist.

"Enough, punk, or my girl will start to get worried."

That made Steve chuckle hoarsely. His eyes were suspiciously watery when he pulled back. "We got a lot to catch up on, Buck."

"Tell me about it, but in the middle of the Italian countryside don't seem like quite the right spot, somehow. Let me go and try to sort that out," he nodded to where Pietro was still clinging to Wanda, "and we can get moving."

He approached cautiously, not wanting to startle the siblings. "Wanda, darlin'? Any chance we could take this someplace else safer? Like, in that nice aeroplane Stevie's brought?"

Wanda whispered in her own language to Pietro, and after a moment the blond boy nodded, straightening up from his hunched posture. He seemed to be clamping his lips shut and biting on them hard, considering how white they were.

"You going to tell me what the problem is?" Bucky asked gently.

Pietro shook his head. Wanda nudged at him. "He's being foolish. Your friend said his soulmate words."

"He did?" Bucky said, startled. "Oh - do you prefer guys to girls?"

Pietro hung his head, red-cheeked, looking shamefaced.

"Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of!"

"But he's Captain America!" Pietro burst out. "I'm quite sure he's not - not gay!"

Bucky grinned, slinging an arm around Pietro's shoulders, taking Wanda's hand with his free hand. "I'm quite sure he is, my boy. As more than one very satisfied member of our old company could tell you, if they were still around to ask."

"Oh! Really?" Pietro peeked at Steve under his eyelashes as they drew closer.

"Sure. But you're not gonna find out if he's your soulmate unless you say somethin', so… how about it?" Bucky kept his arm bracingly around the younger man's shoulders as they stopped in front of Steve.

Pietro gulped. And then he gabbled out in a rush of words; "I think you might be my soulmate, only I'm sure I couldn't be that lucky because you're, well, you."

Steve did an excellent impression of a startled fish.

"Toldja," Bucky said with a chuckle. "Ain't we lucky, Stevie, findin' brother and sister to be our soulmates?"

"Unnn," was about all Steve managed to get out.

Wanda was smiling too, and she let go of Bucky's hand and gave her brother a little push. "Go on, Pietro. We won't look."

"Who won't look?" a voice interrupted, "And at what? Are we ready to go yet, Cap, what's the hold up?"

Bucky reached instinctively for a weapon as another man came striding down the jet's rear ramp. Broad-shouldered, average in height, he had thickly muscled arms shown off to advantage by his sleeveless black tac jacket, short blond hair and a lived-in sort of face. Crinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth seemed to indicate that he smiled often.

"Clint," Steve said, at the same moment that Wanda and Pietro both gasped;

"Hans!"

"Well, well, if it isn't the Trouble Twins," Clint's grin was broad. "Oh, uh, I'm not HYDRA, by the way…"

"We kind of guessed that, when you disappeared," Wanda replied, and much to Bucky's, and indeed Clint's, surprise, she hurried forward and gave him a hug. "I'm glad you're all right," she told him sincerely.

Clint returned the hug a bit awkwardly. "You too." His eyes were on Bucky, though, wide and wary. "Cap, we're quite sure this is all on the level? No traps?"

Bucky nodded approvingly at him. "Good, I'm glad to see someone around Stevie has the sense to think of these sorts of things. He has a tendency to rush in headfirst not caring if there's a trap or not."

Clint started to grin. Offered his hand. "Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye. Archer extraordinaire."

"Bucky Barnes," he shook the offered hand, hesitated slightly. "Formerly known as the Winter Soldier."

"I gathered that," was the dust-dry reply. "As long as it's definitely formerly, we won't have any problems."

"No problems," Bucky agreed. "I'm guessing you were the friendly prison guard Wanda told me about?" He'd felt a bit jealous when Wanda talked about the man who'd let her play with his phone, but he felt no such emotion now. Not with Clint's distinctly paternal attitude. He was probably in his early forties, too, old enough to actually be the twins' father.

"I was," Clint agreed, "and when Cap here blew SHIELD and HYDRA wide open, I had to run for my life. No time to get you two out," he apologised, "and by the time I got back with reinforcements, you'd already been moved on."

"It's all right," Wanda reassured his self-recriminating expression. "I still had to meet Bucky. And the things you taught me with your phone came in very handy today in helping us get away."

Pietro and Steve had taken no part in the conversation, just edging slowly closer together, staring at each other. Fingertips just brushed for a moment, shy smiles were exchanged, and then Steve seemed to recall just where they were.

"We'd better get out of here," he said, turning to Clint. "We can have happy reunions later. Time to get Bucky, Wanda and Pietro to safety."

"You're the boss," Clint said equably, and gestured to them to enter the jet.

It wasn't as utilitarian as the SHIELD/HYDRA quinjets Bucky had travelled on so many times. It was much more nicely equipped, with thickly padded jumpseats instead of plain hard benches. Clint made his way forward to the pilot's seat, calling over his shoulder;

"Wheels up in two!"

Wanda looked uncertainly at the straps, so Bucky urged her gently to sit down, pulling them down over her shoulders. "These jets are pretty smooth in flight but landing and takeoff can be bumpy. Don't want you to hit your beautiful head now."

She smiled shyly at him, her eyes dropping to where his hands were pulling the straps down over her breasts. Which made Bucky fumble at the simple task and Wanda giggle.

He seated himself beside her, cheeks still a little red. She put her hand over and took his, but it was the metal hand and he couldn't really feel her, so he put his other hand on top and stroked her fingers gently.

"'M sorry," Bucky mumbled. "I've forgotten, if I ever knew, how to behave around a nice girl."

She leaned her head against his shoulder, uncaring that it was unyielding metal beneath the thin fabric of his jacket. "I'm just happy that you think I'm a nice girl."

He turned his head to kiss the top of her hair. "You're the only girl, doll."

She smiled as the jet's engines rose to a hissing roar and they lifted off.

Both Wanda and Pietro fell asleep within minutes, Pietro's head lolling onto Steve's shoulder. Steve kept smiling down at him with an incredulous look on his face.

"Where the hell did you find them, Buck? And - what happened to you?" Steve asked finally, looking over at his oldest friend.

"They found me, actually. Well, Wanda did. They're both powered, Stevie. Pietro's fast - way faster than anyone I've ever seen, and that includes you."

Steve raised eyebrows at that. Bucky nodded before continuing. "And Wanda does this weird thing where she can affect probability. I don't really understand how it works, she says if something is possible she can make it more likely. Something like that. Anyway, once she figured that I was her soulmate, she messed with the probabilities - I guess it was possible that I'd spontaneously regain my memories, so she was able to make it happen. She kissed me and it all came floodin' back. All of it."

Steve winced.

"I'm sorry, Stevie…"

"Please don't apologise! God, Buck, I know about some of what they did to you - we found a cryo chamber, and that horrible chair, and records…"

Now he understood why Steve looked so green. And now he thought about it, it should be affecting him more. At the very least, he should have a raging case of PTSD. Huh. Maybe Wanda had messed with that probability too. She did seem to have a very fix-it mentality.

"Look," he said quietly, "I'd rather not talk about it, if it's all the same to you? It's all kind of hazy anyway."

Steve frowned, chewed on his lip. Bucky couldn't help but stare at him. "Maybe you could explain to me how the hell you still appear the same, though?" he asked. "Because I'm pretty damn sure HYDRA didn't put you in cryo too! I - was at that exhibition at the Smithsonian, and it said sumthin' about you crashing a warplane into the Arctic?"

Steve smiled wryly. "Ah. Yes. Well, yeah, that happened. I guess we've got a lot to catch up on."

Bucky raised an eyebrow meaningfully. "I'm thinking now's a good time to start, ya punk."

That finally made Steve laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is." And he drew a deep breath. "Well. After you - after you fell off the train…"

The jet flew on into the darkening sky, the controls in Hawkeye's steady hands, while in the rear the brother and sister slept against the broad shoulders of their soulmates and two old friends talked long into the night of times long past and friends long gone.

I hate to do this, guys, but I've genuinely run out of inspiration for this story. So… I'm gonna mark it complete and move on to work on other things. Hope you enjoyed and sorry it's taken me so long to finish off!