Unfortunately, not everything was perfect. It felt like it was when the sun was shining and they were up and about together, but at night... Bucky hadn't left the war behind quite as much as he'd wanted to. He couldn't sleep on his bed. It was too soft. He'd moved the old couch cushions to the floor in his bedroom to sleep on. He'd done it with a sardonic, fondly reminiscing twist to his mouth – he and Steve had slept on the floor, on the couch cushions, when they were kids and Steve was staying over.

It had worked for letting him get comfortable enough to sleep, but the act of sleeping had become a new problem unto itself.

During the war, the most sleep he could remember having gotten at a stretch was four hours, apart from when he was bunked down at the SSR camp, and that's if he was lucky. There had still been the sound of artillery fire somewhere, or the rumbling of an engine as he slept in the back of a truck.

Brooklyn at night wasn't exactly quiet, but the sound of engines was more distant, and the noise of ordinance completely absent.

Bucky started turning the radio on in his bedroom, just quietly, before he went to bed. Just to have a bit more noise. Something going, voices, because there had also always been someone awake and talking about something back on the war front.

Then there were the dreams. It hadn't been much of an issue during the war. He rarely slept long enough to dream, and he was living in the middle of a nightmare anyway. Occasionally he woke up in a cold sweat, afraid he was back under Zola's knife, but he hadn't dwelt on them. They'd almost completely vanished after Evangeline had lobotomised the man, and Bucky had gotten to see the worm sitting in his cell, nothing but a drooling husk.

It was an issue now. He slept longer, but while he slept, his mind conjured up all the horrors of war that he'd seen... and made him watch them again. The dreams put him back in the trenches, back in Hydra's clutches, back behind the scope of a rifle he didn't want to shoot... even back on that train, hanging on for dear life, Steve looking at him desperately and then brokenly when he fell to his death. A few times, Bucky had woken up with a jolt and immediately reached across with his right arm to make sure he still had his left, had made sure he could feel every finger and that each one worked.

During the war, the lack of proper sleep hadn't been something that the one-oh-seventh let themselves worry about. They slept in shifts, mostly napping any time there was a lull. It wasn't as difficult after Steve had saved him from Hydra, Steve's very presence in the next bunk soothing enough to let him get enough sleep. Even when the nightmares came. After he'd been put through the Super Soldier Process, lack of proper sleep became a non-issue entirely. The serum took advantage of whatever small amount of sleep he got, so he was always sufficiently rested when he woke; he wasn't ever tired, and he could always get on with the mission. It was doing him similar favours now.

Which meant that Evangeline had no idea he was having trouble sleeping, that he was having nightmares, until he fell asleep in her lap, on her couch, with her humming softly and carding her fingers through his hair. When it was him in his bedroom, and her several rooms away in her tent... the few times he had woken with a scream in his throat, she wouldn't have heard.

Evangeline definitely heard when he screamed, rolled off her couch onto the floor, and landed at her feet with a heavy thump.

He didn't look up. He knew Evangeline loved him, knew he loved her, knew she wouldn't think less of him for having nightmares about the war. What he knew didn't help him much in that moment, where it felt like shame and weakness to still be dreaming of the horrors he'd escaped.

"The nightmares are almost as bad as the war itself, aren't they?" Evangeline offered softly, her voice knowing. "Or maybe worse, because the war is still tormenting you when it's supposed to be over, and you're supposed to be free of it. But you're not, and it's. Not. Fair."

That's right. Evangeline had been in a war when she was a teenager. She'd probably been through this special hell that was trying to sleep.

"The bed is wonderfully soft, but you can't lie on it for more than ten minutes. Sure as hell can't sleep on it. It's too soft, you're sinking into it and you can't fight against the heavy blanket and the soft bedding at the same time, but you need to. The noises aren't right either. It's too loud, or too quiet, and you're exhausted all the time," Evangeline paused, and corrected herself. "No, you're not. You've got the serum, so you're not tired physically, but your mind feels the strain."

"I dream about the trenches, and Zola, and falling from the train, and that my arm is gone again," Bucky admitted, his voice a hoarse croak. His confession was made to the floor beneath him, rather than facing Evangeline.

There was a shuffle of fabric. A warm body stretched out against his back, slim arms wrapped around his chest, a delicate chin propped over his shoulder, and a kiss was lightly planted on the corner of his jaw.

"I've got a potion called Dreamless Sleep," Evangeline said. "It's slightly addictive, so dosage has to be very carefully controlled, and you can't take it for too long because of reasons. Side effects, a bit like being addicted to morphine. I don't know if it would even work for you though," she admitted.

"The serum," Bucky guessed.

He felt her nod.

"It might just burn through the potion before it could do any good," Evangeline agreed.

"What did you do about your nightmares?" Bucky asked in a mumble. "You just said the potion was slightly addictive. Can't see you being willing to risk it."

Evangeline pulled back.

Bucky sat up and turned to look at her, surprised.

She sat in a tailor-seat, her mint-green silk pyjama pants pooling a bit around her ankles, her eyes dark, shadowed emeralds that were fixed firmly on the point where her limbs crossed before her.

"I did, at first," she admitted. "Madame Pomphrey, the school nurse, gave me a small dose on Friday nights so that I'd be able to sleep through until lunchtime on Saturday if I wanted to, since Saturday was the only day there weren't classes going on."

That's right, she'd told him, she'd gone back to school after her war. Done her last year and graduated.

"She was very firm that I wasn't to continue taking it at all after I graduated," Evangeline recalled in a horrible, detached manner. "She even wrote to the hospital and the potions suppliers to make sure I wouldn't be able to buy any. My potion-making ability at the time prohibited me from making my own. I've gotten a lot better since then, but I haven't taken any more of that potion, either. Do you think less of me?"

"Never," Bucky swore solemnly, and wrapped his big, calloused hands around her slim, delicate (also slightly calloused) fingers. "I'm a bit surprised, but you were a teenager in a war, so I'm also not. If we could be sure the potion would work for me, then I'd be taking it. Hell, I'm just about ready to take morphine."

"Absolutely not," Evangeline denied.

Bucky smiled.

"I said 'just about', not that I was going to," he assured her. "Besides, you're the doc. You know best about this stuff."

Evangeline sighed.

"Morphine probably wouldn't work for you either, again, because of the serum. I just don't want to risk you having an adverse reaction," she said softly. "Unlikely as it is to happen at all."

Bucky nodded. He'd kind of guessed that for himself. His girl loved him, and she looked out for him, and because she was a doctor, that gave her extra scope for knowledge that he was fine and worry that he wasn't.

"So, no Dreamless Sleep, and if you tell me you also tried morphine..."

"I didn't," Evangeline said with a vaguely wet chuckle. "The side-effects of morphine were and are too well known for me to want anything to do with it, ever. I took to knocking myself unconscious, and having a servant wake me during the week before I graduated. Sometimes I still did that after as well."

"That... doesn't sound healthy," Bucky offered cautiously.

Evangeline shook her head.

"It wasn't," she admitted freely. "I lasted about a year after graduation before my friends staged an intervention. Well, about my sleeping habits, at least. They tried to make me leave the house and get back out in the world too, but I managed to win that argument," Evangeline recalled fondly. "I marked the date on my calendar. It's not every day I won an argument against Hermione, Luna, Susan, and all of the Weasley clan. Daphne gave me a glass statue of a sleeping dragon a year later, exactly, in commemoration, so I know I wasn't the only one to mark the date."

Bucky chuckled at the story.

"It was also Daphne that actually solved the sleeping issue," Evangeline continued. "Suggested I cast a Patrounus to guard me as I slept, and introduced me to tai chi."

"What's..." Bucky frowned in confusion. Not about the Patronus. He'd read about Evangeline's Patronus in Great Wizards and Witches of the Twentieth Century. It was the other one that had him furrowing his brow. He was unsure if it was some Asian herb like the kind that got burned like in the grocery shops that catered to the Chinese-Americans that made the places smell funny, or something a person ate, or what. "What's tai chi?"

Evangeline smiled, pulled them both up from the floor, and promptly showed him. Turned out tai chi was quarter-speed exercises and stretches while doing funny breathing and thinking about very specific things at the same time.

Bucky, while willing to sacrifice a little of his dignity in private if it saved him nightmares, requested that they dance at least one song every evening before going to bed in trade. A compromise that Evangeline was more than happy to make.

~oOo~

They were married on the twenty-seventh of February in the year nineteen-forty-six. Peggy, Steve, Howard, and all of the Howling Commandos and their families had been invited. They'd even invited Colonel Philips, though he had regretfully declined, as he had some big brass meeting on the same date that he couldn't get out of – and it would be going all week. Evangeline had offered to pay for all of them to fly to New York to make it, those who weren't in or near New York already (and didn't have Howard's bags of money). Naturally, Trudy and her family were in attendance as well.

The pair had decided that they would make Evangeline's world tour (her rich-heiress-doings) their honeymoon. They'd go everywhere, do everything, and Bucky would use the time travelling and meeting people to figure out what, roughly, he wanted to do with himself for the rest of his life. He could go back to selling furniture if he wanted to, or he could be a stay-at-home father (because they both wanted at least one child, not immediately, but some day). He could become a musician or an artist or a writer, he could go to one of the universities and study if he wanted to, Evangeline was happy to support him if that was what he wanted.

He could decide to follow Steve again, and Evangeline would follow along as well if he chose that, because the sort of organisation that Steve and Peggy were building with Howard and Colonel Philips? People would get hurt, somehow, some way, maybe not always terribly, but they'd need a doctor eventually.

If he wanted to open a coffee shop, or a gym, Evangeline would back him up. If he wanted to become a baseball coach or a high school teacher, she'd be right there with him, all the way.

If Bucky decided that he just wanted to keep travelling, seeing the world and everything in it, with her, at leisure for the rest of his life... then they could do that, too.

The little church in Brooklyn that they got married in was a pretty place. It was the same church that Trudy had been married in before Bucky had been shipped out. They had the same minister as had performed the service for Trudy as well. Reverend Meesham was old and creaky, but his smile was bright and his joy at getting to lead their wedding was real. It might well be the last one he got to officiate before his legs were too weak to hold him up any more. He'd also known Bucky for most of the young man's life, so he was even happier to get to do this for him.

Bucky wore a brand new suit for the occasion. Howard had dragged Bucky (and Steve, who was the Best Man; Howard's job was to walk Evangeline down the aisle and give her away) off to the clothes stores that he stocked his own wardrobe from, and insisted on paying for the suits Bucky chose – in lieu of a wedding present, he claimed at the time. That didn't stop him from giving them a very fine, very large, bed-frame as well. Complete with mattress bought almost-according to Steve's recommendation, since he knew better than Howard the sort of bed that Bucky would be used to sleeping on. It was a bit softer than Steve had suggested, but Evangeline and Bucky would either adapt to the mattress, or replace it.

Evangeline, on the other hand, had claimed Peggy as her Maid of Honour (and only brides' maid), and pulled out her wand rather than going around the bridal shops. For herself, Evangeline conjured a dress similar to what she recalled seeing Kate wear when she married Prince William (not that either were born yet. Elizabeth the Second wasn't even due to marry until the following year). The dress wasn't an exact replica, of course. Evangeline had decided that she could very happily live without the great long train, and the slightly-revealing lace was replaced by simple (ha!) plain, white silk.

Yes, it was the myth that a bride shouldn't make her own dress, that for every stitch she sewed she'd loose a tear. Evangeline wasn't sewing it though. She'd conjured it as seamless. She thought that neatly side-stepped the myth. Even if she put no stock in the myth at all.

Peggy's dress was blue, and similarly conjured by Evangeline. Initially on a dressmaker's form, so that Peggy could give opinions on what she did or didn't want. The only thing she wasn't given a choice on was the colour. Evangeline was adamant that the only red she wanted at her wedding was going to be her hair, and that was done up in a bun and largely hidden beneath her veil. Even the roses were white.

She conjured a dress for Trudy too, having become good friends with her future-sister-in-law since meeting her. Trudy had opted for a lovely butter-yellow colour for her dress when Evangeline was making the dresses and offering options.

"Do you, James Buchanan Barnes, swear to love this woman?" Reverend Meesham asked.

"I do," Bucky answered.

"Do you swear to honour her, comfort her, and keep her in sickness and in health, in times of richness and of destitution?"

"I do."

"Do you swear to be true to her, to forsake all others, and cleave only to her side?"

"I do."

"Do you swear to cherish her as your wife, for better or worse, to be parted by nothing less than death itself?"

"I do," Bucky swore solemnly, gladly.

"Then claim her as your wife," Reverend Meesham instructed gently.

Bucky took one of the two golden bands that Steve held for him, the smaller one, and slipped it onto Evangeline's finger. He slid it up the digit until he was butted against his mother's ring.

Reverend Meesham turned to Evangeline.

"Do you, Evangeline Rosalind Potter, swear to love this man?" the smiling old preacher asked, and there were tears starting to well up in his eyes now, barely hidden by his glasses.

"I do," Evangeline declared at once.

"Do you swear to honour him, comfort him, and obey him in sickness and in health, in times of richness and of destitution?"

"I do."

"Do you swear to be true to him, to forsake all others, and cleave only to his side?"

"I do."

"Do you swear to cherish him as your husband, for better or worse, to be parted by nothing less than death itself?"

"I do," Evangeline said, and bit down on the urge to add that she would not let even death separate them.

"Then bind yourself to your husband," Reverend Meesham permitted.

Evangeline took the second ring from Steve, and slipped it onto Bucky's hand. When she looked up, it was to see that the smile on his face matched the one on hers for sheer joy.

"What has been united in the sight of God this day, let no man tear asunder, for it is folly to attempt to break apart what God our Heavenly Father has made whole. I pronounce thee -" and that was the first 'thee' to have slipped in, the whole service. "- Husband and Wife. You may kiss the bride."

Bucky lifted Evangeline's veil, bent his head, and claimed her lips as his for all to see.

They were married.

If someone had told him, back in March of forty-two, that he'd find the one dame for him, he'd have laughed. In part because he'd liked dancing with so many girls, and in part because he genuinely felt that having been drafted was the same as being handed a death-sentence. If someone had told him, back in August of that same year, that he'd some day smile like his was fit to burst, he'd have just shaken his head and given name, rank, and serial number in a hopeless, defeated, half-dead-already tone. If someone had told him, back in April of forty-three, that he'd get a happily-ever-after some day, he'd have scoffed that one-armed men didn't get 'some day' (he wouldn't have done it where Evangeline could have heard him, but he'd still have done it).

But here he was, the war finally over, and he had it all. If it was made just that bit more real by the smooth gold bands, one on his hand and one on hers, then who would mind if he smiled an extra-goofy smile? After all, it was his wedding day today.

They signed the register while the guests all sang Amazing Grace, which Bucky and Evangeline had both felt was perfectly fitting for them.

After the reception, Evangeline got changed out of her wedding dress and into leather slacks and a jacket, and Bucky pulled on the red dragon-hide jacket that she'd made for him, and he slid into the side-car while she straddled the motorcycle (much to the surprise of all the people who hadn't seen, or had forgotten, the day Evangeline first rode into camp on the big black beast, Bucky an arm down but surprisingly, wonderfully alive in her side-car. Trudy was the exception, as she had much more recently been driven by Evangeline in that side-car on a girl's day out, when Bucky had been left with Trudy's children).

For the first part of their honeymoon, they were going to road-trip all of the Americas. All of it. From the northern most reaches of Canada (but not quite the Arctic) all the way down to the very tip of Chile or Argentina.

Then they'd figure out where to go next.

~The End~