Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Packing began as soon as the celebrating ended, though the celebration didn’t end until well into the night. T’Challa had arranged for a plane to fly them back to the Avengers Facility upstate – the beauty of a private plane was that it could leave any time you wanted, but the team was ready to go, so Steve gave them two days to wrap things up. Bucky wasn’t anxious to leave and he wasn’t anxious to stay, but he felt a little sadness at the impending departure. He’d grown comfortable in the apartment, appreciated the feeling of safety that came from living in the complex, and enjoyed the small friendships he had with the team and Itobo and A’kane. Wakanda was unsullied by the crimes of his past, but the US hadn’t forgotten them.

He was looking forward to getting some real cigarettes, though.

Steve was absent a lot in those two days, conferring with T’Challa, his lawyer in New York, and filling in paperwork. Bucky packed up his small collection of things into a new, sturdier rucksack and cleaned the apartment up. He was sure that T’Challa had people who would sterilise the whole place once they were gone, but it still seemed like the polite thing to do.

The team were in and out of each other’s apartments, but Wanda held back, hardly participating at all. Once he was done cleaning the afternoon before they were set to leave, Bucky sought her out, going down to her apartment and knocking on the door.

“Wanna go for a walk?” he asked, holding up his packet of cigarettes.

It took some time before she spoke, as they looked out over their favourite beach. “I’m not coming back to the US with you.”

He smiled. “I figured as much.”

She looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “You’re the psychic now?”

“Maybe you rubbed off on me.”

She laughed softly and drew on her cigarette for a moment. “It won’t be forever, but there’s nothing for me to go back to right now.”

“You don’t have any other family in Sokovia?”

“I do,” she said. “Our grandmother raised us after our parents died, but she passed when we were nineteen. I have aunts and uncles, cousins, but they’re scared of me now. I went back to Novi Grad to bury Pietro and I could feel their fear, their disgust. How could a Jew submit to being experimented on? How could I have let that happen to our city?” She dropped her chin down and shook her head. “Perhaps one day I’ll be able to be near them again, but not yet.”

“Hey,” Bucky said, and pushed the cigarette to the corner of his mouth to put his arm around her. “We’ve all been experimented on.”

She swatted him lightly on the shoulder and shook her head.

“You know we’re all here for you if you need us,” he continued.

“I know. I think I’m going to explore the country, climb some of these mountains I’ve been staring at for months. I’ll come back eventually.”

“All right,” he said, and gave her squeeze.

She patted his hand on her shoulder. “You’re a good brother to have, Bucky.”

-

Steve wasn’t happy to hear about Wanda’s absence, but there was hardly any time to argue before it was time to go, and before Bucky knew it, the six of them were on a plane bound for New York. It was a fifteen hour flight, but the plane was like a lounge and set of bedrooms in the sky, so the trip didn’t seem that gruelling.

“This is what I’m talking about,” Sam said, and threw himself down on a couch. “This is the only way to fly.”

“Better keep on T’Challa’s good side, then,” Steve said, checking the fridge. Bucky peered over his shoulder at the array of food and raised his eyebrows. “No more cat jokes.”

“Hey, we got internet up here,” Scott called, then rushed on quickly. “Oh… Ross has resigned as Secretary of State.”

Clint switched the television on as Bucky and Steve came over. The news was indeed reporting the resignation of Secretary Ross, for ‘family’ reasons.

“Doesn’t his only daughter hate him?” Bucky asked.

“Passionately, according to Bruce,” Steve replied. “Go figure.”

Natasha sat at the far end of the plane, looking at her phone, and Bucky wondered if it stung, hearing them talk about Banner. He hadn’t seen much of her since the video conference and Steve had elected to stay out of it all, citing love life advice as not part of his wheelhouse. That was putting it mildly.

Bucky took a seat and pulled out a book. He had no desire to watch earnest newsreaders pondering on the reasons why Ross might have resigned. Steve sat down with his laptop and started reading something, and the cabin fell quiet.

There wasn’t much to do besides read or watch movies, which they did intermittently over the next few hours. Steve talked to Natasha about the Inhuman woman that the ATCU was hunting and Inhumans in general. Bucky could tell he felt guilty about not getting involved. Natasha said she knew some good people working on the situation, but didn’t elaborate.

Scott went to his bunk just under ten hours in, followed shortly by Clint. It was only nine pm, Wakanda time, but jetlag was ‘a bitch’ apparently, and they had more travelling to do on the other end to get to their respective homes.

“You’re not going for catnap too?” Bucky asked Sam.

“Cat joke,” Steve murmured.

“Nah, I’m stopping off in Harlem, plenty of time for sleeping then.”

“You live in Harlem?” Bucky said.

“Used to, parents are still there. Dad moved us to New York to minister to all you heathens when I was teenager. First stop is my old barbershop.” He ran a hand over his hair. “Wakandans just can’t get it right.”

Bucky looked at him cockeyed but didn’t say anything. Steve closed the lid of his laptop over. “Buck used to cut quite the rug in Harlem,” he said.

Sam raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

Bucky shrugged. “I used to go to the Savoy Ballroom and do the Lindy hop with my girlfriend.”

“Show us,” Natasha called from her seat and he waved her off.

“Girlfriend, huh?” Sam said.

“The closet was very deep back then,” Bucky replied and Sam laughed. Steve smiled too, but looked a little uncomfortable. “She ended up becoming a famous dancer, so I think she did an okay job teaching me.”

“Anyone I’ve heard of?”

“Hazel Landale.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Hazel Landale? No way, man. My grandpa was crazy for her, she was right up there with Josephine Baker; no way she dated your dumb ass.”

“Well, to be fair,” Steve said, “she did dump him after a few weeks.”

Bucky pulled a face. “She took off to California without telling me, I found out from the bartender.”

Sam shook his head. “Nah, I don’t believe it.”

Bucky leant down to his bag and fished out his biography, then came over and sat down beside Steve. The book had long seen better days, the pages were crumpled, stained, and water-damaged in places. He flipped to the index and found where Hazel was mentioned, then opened to the page and handed it over to Sam. Sam took the book between his thumb and forefinger on each side and read with a vaguely offended look on his face before handing it back.

“I guess we all do stupid things when we’re young,” he said.

“Like your denim on high-waisted denim look?” Natasha said, and smiled at Sam’s wide-eyed stare. “Your mom should review her Facebook privacy settings.”

“Like Bucky’s Oliver Hardy moustache,” Steve added.

Bucky dug his fingers into Steve’s leg and pinched as hard as he could, but Steve only laughed. “Like Steve’s… face,” he said in frustration. He couldn’t remember anything embarrassing about Steve’s childhood, only sad things like his health problems or admirable things, like standing up to that kid with the face. He slumped down on the couch in defeat.

“Don’t worry, Buck,” Steve said, grinning widely, “you’re good at things other than talking.”

They started their descent a few hours later. Clint and Scott rejoined them and they all packed up their things. Bucky only had his pack and Steve had the most out of all them with a medium-sized suitcase, which he seemed embarrassed about. Natasha travelled in just what she was wearing.

They buckled in to land just after seven pm, local time, rolling a few hundred feet before finally stopping. It was a much smoother landing than any of the times Bucky’s had been at the controls.

Sam unbuckled his seatbelt first and looked out the window. He lingered there for a moment before saying, “Huh.”

“What is it?” Steve asked.

“Well.” Sam turned back and cleared his throat. “We have a welcoming committee.”

Steve grimaced. “Police?”

“Worse, depending on your perspective.”

Steve went to window and Bucky followed behind, peering out at the windy, wet New York evening. On the tarmac were several cars of varying sizes and a man and woman standing side by side under an umbrella. Tony Stark, wearing sunglasses at dusk. He looked up at the plane and saluted.

“Shit,” Steve muttered.

The rest of them had come over now, gathering around the windows. “What’re we going to do?” Scott asked.

“Turn around and fly back?” Bucky said.

“Not enough fuel,” Steve said. “They’re pulling up the stairs. We’re going.”

Sam pulled a face behind Steve’s back; Bucky replied in kind, but there really weren’t any other options. He guessed he always knew he’d need to face the music. He shouldered his pack and steeled himself as Steve set about opening the plane door.

Steve went out first, followed by Sam. Natasha gestured for Bucky to go next, a bored expression on her face at his hesitation. Light drops of rain hit his face and lightly dusted his jacket. On the ground, Stark stood with his feet spread, one hand in the woman’s, the other holding the umbrella. Bucky took up the space near Steve as they spread out on the tarmac. Steve eyed Stark and the woman and smiled slightly.

“Ms. Potts,” he said.

“Captain,” she said shortly.

“Rogers,” Stark said, and jerked his chin towards Bucky. “Barnes, skulking slightly behind you.”

Bucky stepped up beside Steve, perfectly in line, and Stark’s eyes drifted to the empty sleeve of his jacket. “Wakandan scientists couldn’t fix you up?”

“I didn’t want it,” Bucky said, and his voice came out quiet, betraying his anxiety. Stark narrowed his eyes.

“I hear you’re cured nowadays.” At Bucky’s nod, his face hardened. “So if I started saying random Russian words, you’d be cool?”

“Tony,” Steve said sharply. Potts, Bucky noticed, was squeezing Stark’s hand tightly. “That’s enough.”

“It’s not nearly enough, Rogers,” Stark said, and Steve dropped his gaze. “No Wanda?”

“She decided to stay in Wakanda a while longer,” Sam said.

Stark clicked his tongue. “Vision wanted to apologise.”

“She’ll come back when she’s ready,” Steve said, his voice tense.

Stark quirked an eyebrow. “So, I hear you blackmailed the president.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess I rubbed off on you.”

Steve smiled slightly in response to that, but otherwise didn’t react. Stark, Bucky realised, must have hardly known Steve at all to think that he wouldn’t have always been all over blackmailing someone for the greater good. The old Steve, anyhow; Steve had stumbled into this world and become someone else, reduced and removed from everyone around him. No wonder they didn’t know him.

“Hey,” Scott said, stepping forward and breaking the uncomfortable moment of silence. “I know we didn’t meet under the best circumstances last time, but it’s great to meet you now.” He stuck out his hand and Stark looked at it for a moment before letting go Potts’s hand to shake it.

“It was very cool how you turned yourself into a giant,” Stark said.

“Yeah,” Scott said and grinned. “It felt pretty rad.”

“So, Tony, what are you doing here?” Steve asked, always so polite.

“I was in the area. Training new recruits, you remember how it goes.” Stark turned and gestured to the cars. “Brought you some cars if you have somewhere to go. Arranged another plane to dropped off Clint and Giant-boy back at their homes. You know, Avengers stuff.”

“Well, thank you,” Steve said. His phone buzzed in his pocket, as did Potts’s, Stark’s, and Scott’s.

Bucky looked over his shoulder as he pulled it out and swiped it on. He tapped around for a moment before bringing up a page that read, ‘SECRETARY ROSS, HYDRA? SHOCKING EVIDENCE LEAKED ON WHIH’. Bucky didn’t miss the glance that passed between Steve and Scott.

“Huh, you really destroyed him,” Stark said, looking up from his own phone. “Remind me not to get on the wrong side of you.” He flashed a quick, humourless smile. “Oh, wait...”

“I did what I had to do,” Steve said and Tony’s mouth pressed to a flat line. He looked away, the muscle in his jaw jumping.

“You can take the car if you want to go into the city,” he said.

“Thanks. I’ll drop it back at the tower when we’re there.”

Stark shrugged, still leaving his gaze distant. “Tower’s not mine any more. Just keep it.”

Steve hummed a little and pushed his hands into his pockets. Another uncomfortable silence stretched out, until Natasha cheerfully said that Laura was expecting Clint home.

Steve nodded and looked back to Tony. “Congratulations, by the way,” he said, and gestured to Potts’s hand. An engagement ring glinted on her finger, Bucky saw now, and the team murmured awkward congratulations as well.

Tony smiled brittlely and Potts answered for him. “Thank you, Captain,” she said, her tone just a touch cold. “Your car is ready.”

They split after that, Clint and Scott heading to their next plane, while Steve, Bucky, Sam, and Natasha went to one of the cars. They could drop her in Midtown, she said.

Steve claimed the driver’s seat, despite groans from Bucky and Sam both, and Bucky called shotgun. Unfortunately, the car was a lot bigger than the Bug had been and he wouldn’t be able to give Sam a little payback.

Stark and Potts retreated to their own car and started getting in when Sam popped his head back out of the back seat.

“Hey, how’s Rhodey?” he called.

Stark paused for a moment getting into the car and from the passenger seat, Bucky could see Potts gesture for Stark to go over as she sat down. He straightened and approached them.

“He’s doing all right. Physical therapy’s a bitch, but he’s a stalwart kind of guy, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam said. He looked relieved, yet it didn’t seem to alleviate his anxiety. “Give him my best.”

“I will.” He seemed softer now, when talking about this guy who Bucky guessed must be a very close friend. He remembered how upset Steve and Sam had been about what happened. It seemed to Bucky that it wasn’t their fault, and certainly not Sam’s, but he wasn’t about to have a heart to heart with the guy.

Steve got out of the driver's seat and came around the car to Stark. He held his hand out decisively; Stark let it hang there for a moment before taking it.

“I’m glad that you and Pepper patched things up,” he said quietly, but loud enough for Bucky to hear.

“Thanks,” Stark said, and lifted his chin. “She got me and Rhodey through a hard time.”

Steve dipped his head in acknowledgement and let go of Stark’s hand. “I’ll see you around, Tony.”

“Maybe,” Stark said, and turned away.

It was a three hour drive from the Catskills to Manhattan and Bucky spent a while watching the scenery go by. He vaguely recalled coming here when he was little – he must have been very little, because he didn’t think they went on many vacations after he met Steve. He took one of his notebooks and a pen out of his pack and opened it on his knees. Steve glanced sidelong at him, but didn’t comment, and Bucky wrote a few impressions down. Ma’s wide brimmed straw hat, the rumble of the car’s engine, the vast mountains in the distance and the clean country air. He remembered a resort and a glittering blue pool that was too deep for him to swim in.

He flipped back to the early pages of the book and scanned his writing. He’d been disjointed then, his handwriting jagged and sharp, his words short and confused. Caramels. Woman with chicken feathers. Red hair. Blue plate. It’s you I’m thinking of. He smiled, remembering the days at the movies clearly now; the memory of the lady in Freaks being tarred and feathered had definitely given him some trouble.

“So, where are you guys staying?” Sam asked from the back. Bucky closed the notebook and turned his head towards him.

“I have business in Manhattan,” Natasha said. Sam arched an eyebrow at her and she smiled back.

“Steve?” Sam prompted. “Mom’ll put you up if you need it.” He gestured to Bucky. “You’ll have to sleep out back.”

“No one’s sleeping out back,” Steve said. “I have a place.”

“You ‘have’ a place?” Sam repeated. Bucky turned back to Steve with similar interest.

“Yeah,” he said and checked the mirrors. “A house in Brooklyn.”

“A whole house in Brooklyn?” Sam said. “Jesus.”

Steve shrugged and reached up to fiddle with the rearview mirror. To a guy who had never owned much more than a set of paintbrushes, it must have felt pretty strange to own a house. “I had a lot of back pay and apparently you don’t get anything from letting it sit in the bank. Pepper told me I needed to invest it. I also have a ‘diversified stock portfolio’ and a lot of shares in Stark Industries. I thought they’d want to buy them back, but they haven’t so far.” His cheeks had turned faintly pink now.

“Where in Brooklyn?” Bucky asked.

“East New York. Eldert Lane.”

Bucky snorted. “Eldert Lane ain’t Brooklyn.”

Steve looked over at him. “It’s on the west side of the street, it’s within the boundary.”

“I mean… Tell yourself what you like, Steve, but it’s still not Brooklyn.”

“Spoken like a true New York hipster,” Sam said with a laugh.

“I’m still right,” he said, and Steve shook his head slightly without taking his eyes off the road. “How long have you had it?”

“I bought in 2012, but I never got to live in it. I rented it out cheap, but the tenants left last year and I didn’t get round to re-renting it. Kinda convenient now.”

“Steve...” Natasha said slowly. “You know a house can’t just sit empty, right?”

“I pay all the bills,” Steve said.

“Yeah, but the plumbing and everything is going to get messed up if it’s left,” Sam added. “You know?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Steve said quickly. “I have a… guy who comes in.”

“Steve,” Natasha said.

“It’s fine,” he said firmly.

-

It wasn’t fine. The house smelt musty and when Bucky tried the water in the kitchen it sputtered and spat out sediment, running brown for a few minutes. In the living room, a window had been left open a crack and there were little flies in the air and ants along the skirting boards; not the superhero kind. The house had a yard out back that looked as overgrown and unkempt as the front, though after dropping off Sam and Natasha, it was close to midnight and Bucky suspected the yards couldn't be fully experienced in the dark.

There was a mop, bucket, and some spray bottles left behind which Steve took up with a sigh.

“You hungry?” Bucky asked.

“Yeah… Don’t open the fridge.”

Bucky laughed. “I’ll go out and get something.”

Steve pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped at it for a minute. “There’s a pizza place a few blocks east of here on Rockaway. Closes at midnight, better hurry.”

Bucky leant over and looked at the map on the phone. “So, Queens, then?”

Steve looked at him irritably. “Yes. Get two larges, I’ll give you the money.”

Bucky took the forty Steve gave him, still amazed at how much food cost these days, and headed out as Steve went upstairs to check out the bathroom.

“Oh, come on,” he heard Steve say in utter exasperation as he went out the door.

There were no beds in the house, though it had three fair sized bedrooms upstairs, and all that was left behind by the tenants was a rickety kitchen table and a suspect looking couch. They ate their pizzas on it, then took all four couch cushions off and made makeshift beds like old times.

“You got any good scary stories?” Bucky asked. Steve’s scary stories had been the best when they were kids; slow and almost boring at the start, alarmingly brutal at the end. He got them out of Weird Tales, a magazine Ma wouldn’t let Bucky read, but Steve always put his own blood-thirsty spin on the ending.

“The government,” Steve said.

Bucky snorted and closed his eyes. “Night, Steve.”

-

They woke early the next day and found a diner for breakfast, a real old-fashioned looking place; Bucky half expected Steve’s steak and eggs to come out on a blue plate. Bucky got waffles and an egg cream, since that was the closest thing he could find to a malt on the menu. He absently blew bubbles as he read about the dessert specials and Steve watched with narrowed eyes before calling the waitress back to get one of his own.

Bucky still blew better bubbles.

They went to the store after, stocked up on food and cleaning supplies. So far, Bucky didn’t think anyone had recognised them, though he got a few looks. That was more to do with his empty jacket sleeve, he figured. When they returned to the house, Steve got out his laptop and started ordering furniture to be delivered the next day. He’d paid all the bills for the property since buying it, including the internet, so they didn’t have anything to set up.

“I just wanted to help someone out a little,” he said when Bucky asked why. “It’s never been easy being poor in New York.”

They spent the rest of the day cleaning and the next day putting together furniture, though Steve did the majority of it while Bucky tried to explain the confounding instructions to him.

“It’s very convenient that you can’t help me with this,” Steve said, twisted up like a pretzel as he forced a screw into a bedpost.

“It’s convenient that I only have one arm?” Bucky asked.

Steve scowled up at him and brushed his hair back. “For you it is.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows as Steve pressed harder and the post split from top to bottom. He growled under his breath and held his hand out for the glue. All the furniture he’d put together so far had a liberal coating of wood glue.

“God, why didn’t I go to a nice antique store?” he muttered.

“‘cause you said it’d be quicker and cheaper to get everything online.”

Steve hummed irritably and Bucky bit back a laugh. They were in the back bedroom, overlooking the yard which, as expected, looked terrible in the daylight. “What’re you gonna do with the backyard?”

“I was thinking I’d like to plant a vegetable garden. Mam used to say we’d have one of our own when we had a place with a patch of dirt. I kinda want to get some chickens, too, like Mr Adamczyk had.”

“Chickens?” Bucky repeated. “Who are you?”

Steve laughed and shook his head. “Apparently it’s the in-thing these days, anyhow, being self-sufficient. I like to stay relevant.”

“Uh huh,” Bucky muttered and helped Steve set the finished bed frame down.

“Better leave that till the glue dries,” Steve said, and started to peel said glue from his skin. “Let’s get something to eat.”

They spent the next few days like this, building furniture and cleaning, until they had two beds, some bookcases, a couple of chest of drawers, and a new, less spongy, couch. Bucky mailed a short note to Eugene’s church, unsigned with no return address, to tell him that he’d be in touch as soon as he could. Despite the charges being dropped, he still felt uneasy about his status and the risks he posed to his family. Steve seemed to feel the same, and it drove him to avoid going out much further than the local grocery store or a couple of restaurants on Rockaway that reminded him of the past.

Over breakfast, Bucky floated the idea that they go out and reacquaint themselves with Brooklyn.

“I never did go see the old house; it got converted into apartments in eighties.”

Steve made a face into his cereal. “The yard,” he started.

“Will still be there when we get back. Anyway, it’s winter, you can’t plant anything out yet.”

Steve glanced around the kitchen. The house certainly needed a lot of work done to it – every wall needed painting, for a start, but none of that meant they had to be shut-ins for the duration. Bucky had spent too much time apart from society, he wasn’t about to go back to that.

Steve relented. “All right, yeah, yeah, it’d be nice to get out.”

They got on the A train to Inwood around nine. There were no free seats, so Bucky hung onto the top bar and Steve leant against the vertical one.

“I miss streetcars,” Bucky said.

“Mm,” Steve murmured, “they’re talking about bringing them back.”

“Yeah?” Bucky watched as the train rolled into Utica and stopped. He shuffled closer to the seats to let people pass. “Well, it gets my vote.”

A guy bumped past Steve and whipped into an empty seat before anyone else got there, opening a newspaper across his knees. Steve raised his eyebrows irritably and sighed.

The train rattled on, sending Bucky swaying slightly. After a few minutes, they pulled into Nostrand and Steve pushed off from his bar. “Let’s get off here.”

“We can get closer than this,” Bucky said.

Steve inclined his head to the guy with the newspaper, who had it open to a double spread with the headline, Captain America and the Winter Soldier Return to New York, Sources Say, with a grainy image of Steve and Bucky from the airport fight. The man lifted his eyes slightly towards them and Bucky turned his face away.

“Yeah, this is a good stop,” he said, and followed Steve out.

They left the station and headed west down Atlantic, walking for a few minutes with their heads down before passing a convenience store.

“Hey, you mind if I get some smokes?”

“You mean, do I mind paying for your smokes?” Steve said.

“Yeah.”

Steve sighed and gestured to the door. “Sure.”

There were a few people in the store, but nine thirty on a Tuesday morning in Brooklyn wasn’t a busy time for buying cigarettes and chips, so they moved around the aisles unfettered. Steve picked up a few candy bars and a can of coke and brought them up to the front.

“Pack of Lucky Strikes, please,” Bucky said. The guy turned to the cabinet and Bucky looked down at Steve’s selection.

“Hershey’s don’t taste the way they used to,” he said, gesturing to the bar.

“Nothing does,” Steve replied. “Not always a bad thing.”

The guy turned back and started ringing them up. On the magazine display on the front of the cash desk, there was an array of headlines - Winter Soldier Back For More, Terrorist Pardoned!, Lock Him Up!. The last was in reference to Steve and used an unflattering picture of Steve hiding his face from photographers, it looked like.

The cashier looked up at them and Bucky could see it on his face, that he recognised them. He held the guy’s gaze while Steve kept his head tipped down.

“That’s sixteen dollars ten cents,” the guy said carefully. Steve pulled a twenty out of his wallet quickly and handed it over without raising his eyes. Bucky kept on watching the guy until they had change, candy, and cigarettes in hand.

“You’re not keeping a very low profile, Buck,” Steve said when they stepped out onto the street.

“I’m not trying to,” he said and took the cigarettes, flipping the lid open and taking a cigarette out with his teeth. Steve watched as he stowed them in his pocket and got his lighter out. He lit and took a deep drag.

“How is it?” Steve asked.

Bucky blew out smoke rings and smiled. “Disgusting, thanks.”

They started walking again. It was about half an hour to his old house on 2nd Street at the pace they walked, and they passed around the perimeter of Grand Army Plaza. It had started snowing and Bucky gathered a little in his hand. He’d been so anxious to get away from the cold after escaping HYDRA, but now it brought back good memories of winters in Brooklyn.

They arrived on his old street past ten. For the most part, it looked the same, a few houses had been knocked down and replaced with new ones, but he saw houses from his memory; the Lipshitz’s house on the corner, Pam’s house where he had once stood on the doorstep and half-heartedly asked her out on a date.

Then they were at the house. The frontyard was different, different trees, different plants, gone were Ma’s beloved pink petunias; in fact the small flowerbed area had been covered over with concrete. The front of the house looked the same, the red brick and fussy detailing of the columns on either side of the front door. Through the window above the door, he could see a chandelier, though it obviously wasn’t theirs, which had grown dull and dated over the course of his childhood. He looked up at the second floor window that had been his bedroom’s. There were a couple of flower boxes hung from the windowsill there – definitely not something he had had.

“You want to ring one of the bells?” Steve asked, gesturing at the row of doorbells to the side of the front door.

Bucky shook his head. “I don’t think anyone is anxious to let a known terrorist look around their apartment for old time’s sake.” He brushed snow from his hair and looked at Steve. “You been back to your old places?”

“No. The place with the walkways was demolished in the seventies.”

“What about the boarding house?”

“That got converted into apartments like this place,” Steve said.

“Let’s go see it.”

“I don’t know,” Steve murmured, turning away from the house and rubbing at his face.

“Just to stand outside like this. It’s only a forty minute walk from here.” He jostled Steve’s arm. “Come on.”

Steve glanced at him pensively, then sighed. “Okay.”

The snow got heavier as they walked, following a path that Bucky remembered clearly, though he had normally been in a car when he travelled it: down 9th, under the Gowanus Parkway good old Robert Moses had built in 1941, around Coffey Park, past the corner where Steve’s news stand had stood – though the area was unrecognisable now – and finally to Dikeman. It didn’t seem as if much had changed here, the same houses remained, not in a much better state than Bucky remembered, litter still collected in corners of the sidewalk.

“There it is,” Bucky said, pointing to Steve’s old home from the intersection. Steve stood beside him, his hands dug into his pockets and nodded. “Come on.”

He wrapped his hand around Steve’s elbow and guided him over. Steve didn’t seem thrilled, but he didn’t put the brakes on, so Bucky figured he wasn’t that opposed. They came to a stop outside the low wrought iron fence that enclosed the front of the building and looked at it.

“Hey, look,” Bucky said, and pointed towards the door. “There’s a plaque.”

He opened the rickety gate and gestured for Steve to go ahead. Steve glanced around, but they were alone on the street so he reluctantly went through.

“‘This building was the residence of Captain Steven Grant Rogers from 1919 to 1934. As Captain America, he fought in World War II and died in 1945’,” Steve read.

“Needs updating,” Bucky said.

“Yeah,” Steve said and they both looked up as the front door opened. A woman stepped out, wrapped up in a scarf and coat. She nodded politely, then stopped in her tracks and looked again. Her mouth opened.

“Your plaque’s wrong,” Steve said.

“I--” She peered around and looked at it. “The condo board keeps putting off changing it.”

“Ma’am, can we come in?” Bucky said, and her eyes widened as she looked at him.

“Sure,” she said slowly, eyeing them as though they were aliens just landed here on her doorstep. He guessed they were aliens, of a sort. She stepped back into the building, and let them pass by her, then closed the door behind them. Bucky’s immediate thought was that it no longer smelt like piss and the floors were nice hardwood, not spongy carpet.

“We aren’t keeping you, are we?” Steve said, shedding some of his stiffness.

“Oh, no,” she said, and shook her head as if she was shaking off cobwebs. “Only grocery shopping.” She removed a glove and held out her hand. “I’m Prasha.”

“Steve,” he said, and smiled self-deprecatingly as he returned the handshake.

Bucky waited until she turned to him to offer his hand, which she took, though she was clearly more anxious of him than Steve. No shit. Prasha was a small woman with curly, greying hair, dark skin, and small silver stud in her nose, forty years old or thereabouts.

“Bucky,” he said in introduction. “Do you mind if we look around?”

“No, no, of course not,” she said, withdrawing her hand. She crossed her arms over her chest, then uncrossed them again and cleared her throat. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions. I moved into this building partially because of the history and...”

She trailed off and Steve smiled. “Yeah, that’s no problem,” he said, and looked around. He nodded to the door on their left. “That was Dot’s door,” he said. “The landlady.”

“She eyeballed me every time I came in or out,” Bucky added. He looked around the lobby, which seemed so much smaller than he remembered. He pointed to the wall beneath the stairs. “The telephone was over there. She used to hover around it like a hawk.”

“She helped my mother deliver me,” Steve said to Prasha. “Your plaque says 1919, but I was born in this building in 1918. Dot had been a contract nurse in the Philippine-American War in 1899, she spent two years in the Philippines. I was born at twenty seven weeks, which these days isn’t so much of a problem, but back then it was practically a death sentence. Dot knew about a guy in Coney Island who looked after premature babies, so they took me there. I spent two months in one of his incubators.”

“The baby incubator exhibit at Coney Island?” Bucky asked. He remembered that place, though he’d always thought it was kind of ghoulish to go in. “You were a sideshow baby?”

Steve pulled a face. “Yeah.”

“You never told me that,” he said. How many times had they been to the Island? And it never came up?

Steve shrugged. “It was embarrassing. I didn’t want to be a carnival attraction.”

“Right,” Bucky said.

Prasha cleared her throat. “Which room was yours?”

“Upstairs,” Steve said, and looked to the stairs. “Can I?”

Her face lit up. “Of course!”

They climbed the stairs to the second floor landing. Bucky remembered this hallway having a door every ten feet, but now there were only a few doors. Steve approached the wall where their main door used to be and pressed his hand against it.

“They gutted most of the building in the eighties,” Prasha offered.

Steve nodded. “We had two rooms here. There were a couple of other rooms connected to ours but Mam couldn’t afford to rent those so Dot locked the adjoined doors and let them to other people. A lot of people rented by the room here.” He turned and looked across the hall. “Eva lived over there.”

Bucky looked over and smiled. There was a door in the approximate place where hers had been. “She was a prostitute,” he told Prasha.

“She used to babysit me,” Steve said, and laughed a little at the look on Prasha’s face. “She moved in here when she was seventeen. Mam was only twenty but she felt protective over her. Reading between the lines, Eva left something pretty bad behind in Colorado to come to New York.”

“What happened to her?” Prasha asked. Bucky felt a little sad that he hadn’t thought to ask that already.

“It’s hard to tell, really,” Steve said. “I found a death record for her from 1977, but she never filled out the census and she never got famous like she wanted, so there’s almost no trace of her.”

“Shit,” Bucky murmured, then glanced at Prasha. “Sorry.”

She laughed and shook her head. “It’s fine. There are a lot of questions I could ask you, too.”

“I’m not really in the habit of answering questions,” he said. “But I’ll tell you that I spent a lot of time in this building, and it was happy.” He glanced over at Steve, who was smiling softly. “Eva used to play her music, Dot would let us play with her little dogs occasionally, some neighbours always had some cookies for us to eat. I loved coming here, despite the stink.”

Prasha asked more questions, most of which Steve strove to answer, though he demurred on a couple, and looked like he might be getting upset over some questions about Sarah. Bucky took a picture of the two of them together and then she insisted on a picture of all three of them, a ‘selfie’. Steve groaned about the press, but she promised she wouldn’t go talking to any papers. Bucky thought she was sincere, but he didn’t care too much if she wasn’t; for Steve’s sake, though, he hoped for the former to be true. She said she didn’t believe the garbage the press was peddling about them and that she was glad that the charges had been dropped. She promised the plaque would get updated.

They left the building a couple of hours later, into even heavier snow. Steve popped his collar up against the flurry and they started walking.

“Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the incubator thing,” he said.

Bucky shook his head. “Nah, it’s not like it was some big, important secret or anything.”

Steve nodded. “Kids in the neighbourhood knew, used to hassle me about it. I didn’t want you to think I was a freak too.” Oof, Bucky wished he hadn’t used the phrase, ‘sideshow baby’ now. This certainly put a new light on why Steve had liked Freaks so much.

“I wouldn’t have.”

“Yeah, I figured that pretty quick, but then it seemed like a strange thing to bring up.” He looked up at the sky, squinting against the falling snow. “Thanks for making me come out here. It felt really good to be back.”

“No problem.” He jostled Steve’s side and grinned. “Wanna go to the docks and look for treasure?”

-

They spent the next couple weeks decorating the place. Steve had very firm ideas about how the place should look – yellow in the kitchen, pale green for the hallway, dark stain on the bannisters – and Bucky just did as he was told. Steve did eventually get some much desired furniture from a local antiques store, a leather armchair and a Sears Silvertone console radio.

“Does it even still work?” Bucky asked when Steve came home with it.

Steve set it down in the hallway and fussed over it. “No, but I don’t really listen to the radio any more, anyway.” He cleared his throat and looked a little embarrassed. “I just really wanted it. The guy said it could be fixed up, if I wanted to invest money in that.”

Bucky thought about him and Steve and Becca sat around his family’s Radiola, listening to The Palmolive Hour and Jack Benny cutting it up, and smiled.

“Looks good,” he said.

By the end of January, the joint was coming together pretty well. Freshly decorated and only housing the occasional ant, there wasn’t much left to occupy Steve’s time with. Bucky had heard him have some tense and even overtly hostile phone calls over the last few weeks.

The rest of the team had settled back in to their lives and it felt, to Bucky, like time they do the same.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said as he cleared away the breakfast dishes. Steve murmured something as he faded from the kitchen. Bucky stuck the dishes in the dishwasher – what an invention – and followed him out. “Steve, come on.”

“Yeah, yeah, let me just check my emails.”

It took twenty minutes to pry Steve out of the house and Bucky set their path towards Flatbush. They stopped a few times along the way, got an early lunch at a hole in the wall, and headed further in. The area reminded Steve of living with the Burnsides, and he talked about that for a while, wondering aloud at what had happened to Willy, remembering with a groan the conditions of the living room he slept in, woken up at the crack of dawn everyday by the whistle of Mrs Burnside’s kettle, the smell of Mr Burnside’s clothes after a day labouring. He was so distracted by the memories that he didn’t notice where they were until Bucky stopped walking and nodded to the building in front of them.

“How long’s it been since you’ve been in a church?” Bucky asked.

“Bucky,” Steve said warningly, and looked at the brick building. “I know where we are. This is Eugene’s church.”

Bucky shrugged. “He probably won’t be there, he’s ninety,” he said, even though he’d called yesterday to make certain his brother would be there.

Steve looked at him for a moment, his mouth a straight line, before his eyes drifted back to the church. “Fine,” he muttered.

He walked slightly behind Bucky as they pushed the doors open and passed through the lobby. He stopped as they entered the hall itself, his eyes lifting up to the crucifix. There were only a few worshippers scattered among the pews.

“Have you been here before?” Bucky murmured.

Steve shook his head. “I went to St. Catherine’s a few times, on the other side of the cemetery,” he said softly, his voice uncertain.

They went further in, kneeling to genuflect at the end of the aisle. Bucky slipped his hand into his pocket and drew out Eugene’s rosary that he had taken from his nightstand drawer this morning, then pressed it into Steve’s hand. Steve’s eyebrows went up for a moment, but he closed his fingers around the beads tightly and crossed himself before standing again. They chose a pew halfway up and Steve tangled the beads between his fingers as he laced his hands together, closed his eyes, and bent his head.

Bucky prayed for a minute beside him, his hand spread out on his leg, but he’d never had the concentration for it and opened his eyes again, looking around. A woman stepped out of the confessional across the hall and he watched for a moment but no one took her place. He pressed his hand to Steve’s shoulder and murmured he’d be back, to little reaction.

He took up the familiar position in the confessional and peered through the latticework.

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen,” Eugene said.

Bucky smiled to himself. “Amen,” he said, and saw Eugene’s head moving towards him. “Bless me, brother, for I have sinned. It’s been three years, give or take, since my last confession.”

“Ah, well, none of us without sin,” Eugene said, the smile evident in his voice. “Especially you.”

“Hey…!” Bucky murmured. “How are you?”

“Old,” Eugene said. “We weren’t sure we’d hear from you again.”

“I just had to make sure things had settled down.” He sighed. “As much as they ever will. I’ve got Steve with me. I tricked him into coming here, but I’m pretty sure he’s figured out my game.”

“Is that right,” Eugene said, “to force him to come here before he’s ready?”

“What kind of best friend would I be if I didn’t make him do things that make him uncomfortable?” He smiled to himself, but there was some truth to that. “He needs to get himself right; for me, if not for him.”

Eugene hummed in a way that wasn’t really agreement or disagreement – Bucky remembered the sound well from his childhood visits to Father Joseph. “If I come out to see him, will he leave?”

“I don’t think so. He knows I can run as fast as he can.”

Eugene laughed a little and opened his door, stepping out carefully. Bucky followed suit. The three years showed on Eugene, in his movements, even stiffer than before, and the sudden thinness of his hands and his face. They took each other in for a moment before hugging and Eugene’s hand pressed against the space where Bucky’s arm used to be.

“What happened?” he asked, worry evident in his voice.

Bucky pulled away and smiled. “Long story, don’t worry about it.”

Eugene looked sceptical and Bucky figured it was pretty hard not to worry about someone turning up with one less arm than usual, but he tipped his head to Steve on his pew and Eugene followed him over. Steve kept his head bowed, hands clasped, but he’d gone still in a way Bucky knew meant he was aware of what was coming next.

“Hey,” Bucky said, “don’t freak out.”

Steve lifted his head and raised his eyes to Eugene.

“Steve,” Eugene said, and Steve stood up, holding Bucky’s gaze for a moment before he held out his hand.

“Eugene,” he said, clasping his hand tight. “I’m sorry it took me so long to come here.”

“We come to places in our own time, but maybe you’ll come back to my office now?”

Steve smiled and told Eugene to lead the way. As they followed him, Steve leant in to Bucky and whispered, “You’re a manipulative piece of shit, Buck,” without much force.

Bucky winked back at him.

-

Steve seemed more relaxed after seeing Eugene, even if he was annoyed with Bucky. They’d stayed for over an hour, shooting the shit – if a Catholic priest could shoot shit – and Steve lost some of the tension in his shoulders after a while, though it came back briefly when Eugene asked where they were living.

“Eldert Lane,” he said.

“Ah,” said Eugene. “Queens.”

Steve did not appreciate Bucky’s muffled laughter.

Still, it was a pleasant afternoon; it felt good to see Eugene again and it dealt with one of the elephants in the room that him and Steve were currently living with. He rang Florence in the evening and they filled each other in on all the news since they’d last parted. Katie had got a job in marketing and moved out to an apartment in Excelsior with a room mate, so Florence was alone in the house now. She didn’t sound particularly upset about it, but it gave Bucky a pang of regret.

Steve decided to start clearing up the yards, going hard at it with shovels, hedge shears, and lawn mowers – most of which ended up mangled by the end of the day. February was a good time to start preparing for a herb garden, apparently, and Steve sectioned off part of the backyard to dedicate to it. Bucky helped, sometimes, but couldn’t muster any sort of enthusiasm. It just reminded him of army busywork. He didn’t mind doing stuff in the house and futzed around with the plumbing when faucets got especially leaky, but the yards were Steve’s thing, and Steve worked them like it was his job. Today, for instance, Steve had been out back from nine, breaking up the hard ground

“I’m going out for smokes,” Bucky yelled from the back door at three. “Want anything?”

Steve straightened up from where he’d been digging and stretched his arms. He was wearing one of those undershirts that didn’t fit him right, streaked with dirt, looking like he was ready to set hearts racing. “Can you get a reuben from that deli I like?” he called back.

Bucky sighed. “I wasn’t planning on going that way,” he said.

Steve stared back at him until Bucky sighed again. “Large?”

“Thanks,” Steve said, and smiled. “My wallet’s in my leather jacket.”

Bucky really needed to figure out what to do about his money situation, but he took some cash out of Steve’s wallet with only a little embarrassment and headed out. It was pretty frigid today, though he wouldn’t have been able to tell by looking at Steve. For his part, Bucky had a jacket on over his hoodie, and a scarf hanging loose around his neck.

He walked the twenty minutes to the deli and the nearby drugstore that sold cigarettes. He went in there first and got his Lucky Strikes, then crossed the road to the deli. School had just let out, it looked like, and there was a line of teenagers up to the counter. He joined the back and shuffled forward every couple of minutes until he reached the front.

“A reuben and a pastrami on rye, big as they come,” he said.

“Coming up,” the guy said, and Bucky moved up the counter to wait. There was a cat lounging between the napkins and the plastic cutlery.

“Hey, cat,” Bucky said, and stroked it.

“Isn’t that…?” he heard someone whisper behind him. He leant his side against the counter and angled his body slightly towards the voice, but didn’t turn his head. In his periphery, he could just make out two kids, both wearing the kind of dumb t-shirts he saw kids wearing these days, clutching greasy sandwiches to their chests.

“Don’t point!” the other boy hissed.

“Didn’t you--” the first boy started, but was swiftly hushed. Bucky rubbed at his nose, trying to keep a straight face. “Maybe we should--”

“Ned, no!” the lanky kid whispered urgently and pulled Ned back, hard enough that his feet slid along the linoleum.

“Dude,” Ned said, sounding hurt.

“Eighteen dollars,” the guy called out, and roused Bucky from his eavesdropping.

Bucky handed the money over. “Keep the change.” It was just Steve’s money, after all. “Can I get that in a bag?”

By the time he got the paper bag of sandwiches around his wrist and turned to leave, the kids had disappeared, and he dug his cigarettes as he made it to the door. It didn’t take long to spot them again, loitering by a lamp post, pretending to be engrossed in the lanky kid’s phone when Bucky stepped out onto the sidewalk. He pulled a cigarette from the carton and lit it, then leant against a wall, bracing one foot on it.

“He’s smoking,” Ned said. He sounded betrayed. “What happened to the kickass arm?”

The lanky kid shrugged.

Bucky sucked in a lungful of smoke and blew it out in a long, thin stream. “Don’t you kids have homework, or something?” he said, without looking at them.

One or both of them squeaked and when Bucky flicked his eyes towards them, they were already disappearing around the corner. He laughed to himself and went back to the cigarette.

The front and back yards came along really well, even Bucky had to admit. Steve had cleared away all the overgrown shrubbery, broken up the hard earth, placed low wooden fences around future vegetable patches, and spread woodchips all around. It reminded Bucky of those victory gardens he saw in London in the war. Steve finally manage to arrange for someone to take Stark’s car back and in its place, a motorbike was delivered along with a note that read, ‘it was taking up room in the garage’. Steve happily bought a parking permit and cover for it.

The second week of February, Sam came over with beer and pizza to christen the house.

“Well, this place is okay, isn’t it?” he said, unashamedly checking out the place as soon as he stepped through the door.

The place was pretty okay, now; the walls were all freshly painted and decorated with pictures Steve had picked up from local thrift stores and there was enough furniture to make the place feel pretty homey and inviting. Every decision about the house had been made by Steve, not a single item given or imposed on him. There was no uniform colour scheme or matching pieces of furniture. This was in every inch Steve’s home.

Steve took the pizza boxes from him and smiled. “Thanks.”

“The yard looks good,” Sam continued.

Bucky groaned. “Don’t get him started on that.”

Sam grinned and followed them into the kitchen. “Oh, I’m definitely going to get him started on that now.”

The yard talk went on for much longer than Bucky had hoped, because Sam’s mom was a ‘back to nature’ kind of woman since his childhood and they’d always had vegetable gardens, so he had a lot of advice.

“You should come over,” he said. They’d set up in the living room, the pizza boxes open on the coffee table, beers in hand, rain coming down in sheets outside. “She might let you take cuttings. Maybe.”

“Your mom’s probably not my biggest fan,” Steve said.

Sam shrugged. “She’ll forgive you, she’s a child of God, after all.”

Steve snorted into his can. “I’m getting forgiven by a lot of holy people at the moment.” At Sam’s raised eyebrows, he gestured to Bucky. “Bucky’s brother, he’s a priest.”

“Right,” Sam said, and looked at Bucky, sitting across from them in an armchair. Steve and Sam had done most of the talking so far, which was fine. Steve was comfortable with Sam in a way that maybe he never had been with Bucky; maybe that charged atmosphere Bucky created between them had prevented it. “I met him. So, what happened to you, if he decided to become a priest?”

“I was the cautionary tale,” Bucky said, and smiled a little.

“Nah,” Steve said, “Eugene idolised you, even if you weren’t always on the same wavelength. You always wanted him to be the best he could be. Him and your sisters, and me.”

Bucky twisted his mouth and glanced away at the sudden earnestness of Steve’s words. “Yeah.”

A beat passed before Sam cleared his throat. “So, your one hundredth birthday is coming up soon.”

“I guess.”

Sam grinned. “How old do you think you are, really?”

“Coming up thirty three.”

“How do you figure that?”

He shrugged. “Just decided I looked thirty back in 2014. I guess I’m a few months short, though, with the cryo.”

“Huh,” Steve said. “I figure I’m coming up thirty two.”

Bucky smiled. “Well, see, I’ll always be a year older than you, Steve, just how it is.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, looking pleased at the thought of it.

-

Florence called again near the end of the month. She’d been out to dinner with Michael, Arnie’s widower, who was newly married to a man fifteen years his junior.

“Cradle robber,” Bucky said with a laugh.

“And what about you, old man,” she said. “It’s your birthday soon.”

He sighed and leant back in Steve’s squashy leather chair. “So I’ve been told.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking,” she said, and he thought uh-oh. “I’m going to come over to New York and help you celebrate.”

“You’re going to come all the way to New York,” he repeated, stretching his legs out in front of him until they touched the coffee table. “That’s a long flight.”

Florence hummed sternly down the phone, if a hum could be stern. “I remember when you still had to dress up to get on a plane,” she said. “I have thousands of frequent flyer miles, may as well use them while I can.”

He felt a pang at that, the thought that his little sister would one day not be there to use them, but he knew better than to argue. There wasn’t a woman in his family that could have been dissuaded from a decision. “Okay,” he said. “You can stay here, we’ve got a spare room.”

“Shouldn’t you ask Steve first?”

“Nah,” he said, “he’ll be fine.”

He wasn’t. He scowled a little, said that the flight was too long for a ninety year old, that they didn’t have a bed in the third bedroom, that Bucky should have asked first, but inevitably admitted defeat and opened up his laptop to look on furniture sites.

Florence’s flight was getting into JFK the afternoon of the 5th and they both agreed that they should pick her up in a car and not subject her to the subway, but Steve was reluctant to get a taxi or rent a car and endure the scrutiny of the great New York public. Instead, he asked Sam, who said he wouldn’t lend Steve his mother’s car but was happy to drive them. Too happy, maybe.

He rolled up at the house in the late morning, in a car with a long bonnet and trunk that he referred to with some embarrassment as ‘Mom’s old station wagon’, although Bucky thought it was fine – that was what cars were meant to look like, not those funny little snub-nosed compact things he saw these days. They picked Eugene up from his parish rectory and got to the airport with forty minutes to spare. They set up at the terminal, next to the baggage claim, Steve and Bucky both wearing baseball caps, Eugene in his collar and frock coat.

“This doesn’t look strange at all,” Sam muttered.

Steve tried to stay inconspicuous by keeping his head in a pamphlet he’d picked up from a sightseeing display, but Bucky was pretty sure he was just making it weirder. To be fair, though, the last time they’d gone to an airport together hadn’t worked out very well.

Florence’s plane landed on time at twelve forty five and Bucky hopped up immediately to look for the people coming out the doors.

“It’ll be at least twenty minutes till she’s out,” Sam said, “chill.”

Steve continued to scrutinise the bus tour of Atlantic City pamphlet.

At ten past one, a new wave of people starting arriving and Bucky craned his neck to study the faces of the passengers until he caught a glimpse of Florence’s face, her white hair shorter than the last time he’d seen her. He hurried forward again, pushing through the crowds, and hugged her right there, in the middle of it all.

“Bucky,” she said warmly, and pulled his empty left sleeve from where he tucked it into his pocket. “Eugene said something about this.”

“We’ll talk,” he said. “Come on.”

Steve stood at ease, his chin tipped up as if in defiance, but Bucky knew he was just trying to appear confident.

“Steve,” she said, and held her hands out. He took them and hugged her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come see you before,” he murmured.

She waved her hand, dismissing the idea, and turned to Eugene, kissing him on the cheek. They had both shrunk with age, but she was still taller than him. Finally, she turned to Sam and smiled.

“It’s nice to see you again, Mr Wilson.”

“Oh, please, call me Sam, Ms. Barnes,” he said, with a voice as smooth as butter.

“Florence,” she said, and shook his hand.

Bucky gagged. “I’ll get your bag, shall I?”

After an interminable wait at the baggage carousel, they piled into the station wagon, Bucky, Florence, and Eugene in the back, Steve and Sam in the front.

“You all buckled up back there, kids?” Sam called, the glee evident in his tone. Bucky kicked the back of his seat and he started the car. The journey out of the airport was a little hairy, all five of them bouncing around as Sam took an alarmingly sharp turn to get back on the road. Maybe Steve should have driven them.

“I hope you’re keeping these two out of trouble,” Florence said to Sam once they were on the Van Wyck.

“Oh, I’m doing my best,” Sam called back.

“We’re not getting into trouble,” Steve said, then paused for a beat. “Any more.”

She laughed. “Ma always used to say you were a bad influence, Steve.”

“Steve, a bad influence?” Sam said with unconvincing disbelief. “I won’t believe it.”

Steve turned his head slightly towards them, his face studiously blank, and didn’t respond.

“Not in an unkind way, of course,” Eugene added, and a look passed between him and Florence.

“No, of course not. She thought you were a good boy,” Florence said, “just a little too full of Irish fire, perhaps.”

“And I was just full of shit,” Bucky said. Steve grinned, relaxing back into his seat, and Sam smacked him on the arm.

“There is a priest in this car!”

Eugene sighed deeply. “I’ve heard much worse from everyone in this car besides you, Sam.”

Bucky grinned and glanced out at the scenery racing past them. “Can I smoke?”

“Don’t you dare--” Sam’s voice went up a pitch, “--light one of those cancer sticks in my mother’s car.”

-

They settled Florence in when they got home and ordered food. Sam stuck around to eat and to drive Eugene home, allegedly, and the five of them passed a pleasant evening together before Sam and Eugene left. Once they were gone, Florence cleared her throat seriously and asked Bucky to bring her one of her bags, a cloth one with what seemed to be a box inside it.

“Steve,” she said, and lifted the box out, “this is for you. I wanted to wait until things were a little more settled before I gave it to you.”

It was a simple cardboard, grey with nothing adorning it. Steve frowned and took it from her, lifting the lid. He paused, his hand raised with the lid, and stared down at the contents.

“These are… my things,” he said softly.

Bucky got up and joined him. The box had a stack of photos, some jewellery, and papers in it.

“After Becca passed,” Florence said, “we cleared out the attic properly. It had been hidden away for years, the things you left behind in Becca’s apartment when you enlisted.”

Lying on top was a photo of a young woman, heartbreakingly young, holding an impossibly tiny swaddled baby in front of what looked like a metal cupboard. Sideshow baby, Bucky thought; Sarah looking like a child with babe in arms. He gestured to it and Steve nodded stiffly, letting him pick it up. Underneath it was a photo of an old man in small round glasses holding a baby up that fit into the palm of his hand.

“That’s the doctor,” Steve said, his voice rough. “Dr Couney. He was the one that… saved my life the first time around.” He looked back down and reached out slowly for a ring, a tarnished silver band with a speck of a sapphire winking dully at them. Bucky had vague memories of Sarah wearing such a ring and that it had always seemed so little in comparison to Ma’s ostentatious rock. It looked tiny against Steve’s fingers, wouldn’t even reach the first knuckle of his pinky.

“Mam’s engagement ring,” Steve said quietly. “She pawned it so many times. Eventually the guy just… just held it, even if she was late coming back for it.” He cleared his throat quickly and put it back gently. Bucky followed his lead with the picture and Steve placed the box down on the coffee table. “I’m gonna clean up,” he said, and hurried out.

Bucky watched him go, then turned back to Florence. “That was a nice thing to do,” he said, “he’s grateful, just...”

“It’s fine,” Florence said and patted the couch cushion next to her. He sat down and she took his hand. “You have a nice home here,” she said.

“It’s not really mine.”

“Aren’t you planning to stay?”

He lifted his shoulders, turning his body towards her. “I dunno. It’s, uh, complicated with me and Steve and I’m not exactly pulling my weight, financially. It’s not like I can just go out and get a job at the local deli, you know?”

“Mm,” she said, and nodded. “And what’s so complicated with you and Steve?”

He looked at her and she smiled like she knew he didn’t want to talk about it but was going to dig anyway; the privilege of age, he guessed. “Just the… the way he feels about me.”

“You mean…?” she murmured, giving him a significant look.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“How do you feel about him?”

He shrugged again. “I have to take care of myself first.”

She nodded and took his hand, squeezing it hard as Steve returned to the room. He looked at them with a slight frown.

“Everything okay?” he asked softly.

Bucky smiled up at him. “Yeah, everything’s good.”

-

It was nice, having Florence around. Steve came out of his shell a little, if only for politeness’s sake, and stopped tilling the damn fields all the time, though Florence was interested in the herb garden.

“Jimmy used to grow ‘herbs’,” she said with a smile.

“Oh yeah, did he cook a lot?” Bucky asked, and Steve burst into laughter.

“She means reefer, Buck,” he said, when the laughter had subsided.

Florence smiled mischievously and Bucky squirmed, trying not to let old feelings of embarrassment take hold of him like he used to. “Oh,” he said. “Well, man after your own heart, then, Steve.”

“Sure is,” Steve said cheerfully and ran his hand over his hair. He looked at Florence and sobered. “Is it okay to talk about him like this?”

“It’s good,” she said, still smiling, though her eyes were a little watery. “He’s still a part of us.”

“He always will be,” Bucky said, and put his arm around her.

-

The days ticked by until his birthday. He wasn’t necessarily excited about it, though he was looking forward to spending it with family after so long, but it was a comfortable feeling: his birthday, which he was going to celebrate like any other guy off the street.

If any other guy had Captain America and the Falcon messing around in the kitchen, rattling plates and cutlery.

“Hand me the flame thrower,” Sam said loudly, and got a laugh from Steve in response.

Bucky sighed and looked at Florence on the couch beside him. “How bad is it?”

She just smiled and a look to Eugene confirmed that it was bad and they weren’t talking.

“Close your eyes!” Steve called and Bucky did just that, listening to the twin sounds of Steve and Sam’s footsteps coming up the hall.

When they made it to the room, he could feel the heat of the candles and laughed to himself. Sam told him to open his eyes again and he beheld a cake that looked to be on fire. There probably wasn’t time for singing, Steve said – very conveniently for him – because the whole cake might melt under the intensity of the candles.

It took a few goes to put them all out, Bucky holding his hair back with his hand, and then Steve had the task of pulling out all the candles and picking off the globs of dried wax.

“Hey,” Sam said with an unrepentant shrug. “How often do you get to put one hundred candles on a cake?”

“Too often for my liking,” Bucky said, and accepted a mashed up slice of the cake from Steve. It tasted good, at least, and that was what mattered. “So, what did you get me?”

Sam didn’t get him anything, as he had firmly stated when he arrived; Steve had got him some books, ones he thought Bucky would like; and Florence and Eugene gave him a photo album like Steve’s but thicker, filled with photos Bucky hadn’t seen when he visited. He spread it out over his knees and looked through it. There was Ma and Dad, Grandpa, grainy photos from Bucky’s time on the stage at Trinity, and Steve on almost every page.

“Look at those freckles on you, Steve,” Sam said with a laugh, and took the album eagerly when Bucky handed it to him. Steve groaned.

“There’s something else,” Florence said. She glanced at Eugene, who nodded. “Before you came back, Bucky, me and Eugene, we were thinking that he would move out to California to live with me.”

“And leave the parish?”

Eugene smiled. “Even priests get put out to pasture eventually.” He said it cheerfully, but the thinness of his face, the dulled eyes, made Bucky’s heart clench in his chest.

“But,” Florence continued, “now that this has happened… I’ve decided that I’m going to sell the house and move back to New York.”

Bucky blinked. “Really? You’ve been living out there so long.”

Florence shrugged. “You never leave New York in your heart,” she said, and Sam muttered something about New Yorkers which made her smile. “I’m knocking around in that house all on my own, and I’d like for us to all be in one city, back home. Now I’ve already consulted a realtor and she thinks I can get three million for house, half of which I’m giving to you.”

Bucky’s mouth dropped open as Sam whistled and Steve shifted in surprise. “Three million... dollars?”

Florence laughed. “I certainly hope so. Becca wanted to put you in her will, but of course… Ma and Dad would always have wanted you to have a share of the inheritance.”

“But...” He looked up at Steve, who looked almost as shocked as Bucky felt. He looked back. “But… why half?” He gestured to Eugene. “What about you?”

Eugene raised his hands. “Vow of poverty, my child.”

“But he’ll be living in my million dollar apartment for free,” Florence added and Eugene pursed his lips at the back of her head. She leaned forward and took Bucky’s hand. “This is what we all want. This is what we do for family.”

He looked down at her frail little hand resting in his. Over a million dollars sounded like an out of this world amount of money to just be given. Even when he was young, when there was money all around him, he never saw amounts like that in hand; that was how much skyscrapers cost to build.

He felt his eyes heat up. “Well, uh, thanks,” he muttered.

“Is that the best you can do?” Sam said behind him, tutting, but Steve shushed him.

-

Eugene was staying the night, and Bucky was happy to give up his room and sleep on the couch, but Steve vetoed the idea firmly.

“You can bunk with me,” he said, “like old times. Top and tail it.”

Bucky wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure that they could sleep in a bed together without the weird atmosphere becoming too much, but Steve was insistent. Bucky wondered if he’d sleep at all with that million and half dollars knocking around in his head, so maybe it didn’t matter.

Eugene went to bed early, eight pm, and Florence headed up at ten. Bucky and Steve knocked around the house for a while, Sam long gone, before Steve excused himself to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Bucky did his teeth in the kitchen and dressed for bed in a t-shirt and pants while Steve had a shower, then came up to his room. He sat against the baseboard of Steve’s bed with a pillow behind him for comfort, reading one of the books Steve had given him, using his thumb and pinky to hold the stiff paperback open.

When Steve came in, his hair curling a little at the ends from the shower, he stopped and looked at him. It was the arm, still, Bucky realised. Steve had done his best to act normal about it, and Bucky had helped with that by wearing sweaters and long sleeved tops in the day, but his t-shirt only highlighted the abruptness of his amputation, the capped off metal stark and unavoidable.

“I can still sleep downstairs, if you want,” he said.

Steve twitched and shook his head. “No, it’s your birthday, you’re not sleeping on the couch.”

Bucky looked over at the clock. “It’s after midnight.”

Steve shrugged and came over to the bed, sitting down carefully. “It’s fine.”

“All right,” Bucky said, and went back to his book as Steve stuck his nose in his phone.

Steve turned the lights out half an hour later and they both scooted down to sleep. Steve shifted around for a while, sighing every now and then, then stilled, lying on his back with his arms at his sides like rigor mortis had set in. Bucky rolled onto his left side towards Steve and wedged the pillow under his head and shoulder.

An hour passed and Steve didn’t sleep, Bucky could tell by the cadence of his breathing, the odd twitch and smack of his lips, which in turn stopped him from dozing off, hyper aware of every movement Steve made, as always.

“Steve,” he said, when the illuminated numbers of the clock ticked over to one forty five.

“Yeah?” Steve said quickly.

“Wanna talk?”

“About what?”

“The huge elephant in the room?”

Steve didn’t respond for a moment, staring up at the ceiling, then said, “Don’t call me an elephant.”

Bucky snorted and sat up. Steve did too, and switched on the lamp beside him. He looked tired, the soft light making his skin look almost translucent, the blue of his veins visible like they had been when he was young and sickly. He was smiling a little, but it didn’t last long when Bucky cleared his throat.

“Look,” he said, “you kissed me a few months ago.”

“I remember,” Steve replied softly.

“Yeah, well, I know I didn’t want to talk about it then, but can we talk about it now? You’re kinda messin’ with my head here, Steve.”

Steve widened his eyes, then frowned. “I didn’t mean to,” he said, and of course Bucky already knew that. He knew Steve had never intended to make his life harder. “I just...” He bit his lip and sighed. “I don’t know.”

“What about you and… Sharon?” He’d heard Steve on the phone to her a couple of times and the conversations were always stiff and stilted, but she hadn’t been by and he knew Steve hadn’t seen her because he hardly went out without Bucky.

Steve groaned. “I definitely don’t know about that.”

“It’s a bit weird that she’s Peggy’s niece and you still...”

“I know. In my defence, I didn’t found out about that until the funeral.”

Bucky’s raised his eyebrows. “That’s pretty fucked up.”

“I know,” Steve sighed.

“So, what about me? How do you feel about me?”

Steve folded his hands in his lap and picked at the quilt. “You’re… When I realised you were still alive, it was like… I was alive again. I’d been drifting for so long and then you--” He spread his hand out, pushing it into the mattress, not meeting Bucky’s gaze. “I love you, Buck, you’re my home.”

Bucky sat up on his knees and shifted closer, until his knees were touching Steve’s stretched out leg. Steve lifted his head and his eyes were red, though he wasn’t crying. He leant in when Bucky did, his eyes dropped to Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky rested his hand on Steve’s shoulder carefully and pressed his lips to Steve’s, as chaste as Steve’s kiss had been in Wakanda. Steve opened his mouth on a breath and Bucky kissed his bottom lip, Steve moving in tandem with him until the little moment passed. He pulled back slowly and Steve smiled.

“Did you like that?” Bucky asked.

Steve pressed his lips together. “I didn’t not like it.”

Bucky nodded, watching him. Steve was blushing slightly, looking surprised but not upset or panicked. As for Bucky, he felt… good. Not wildly passionate, but happy. Happy to be here, alive. “Let’s go to Coney Island,” he said.

“What, now?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, why not?”

“It’s almost two am.”

“It’ll be an adventure.”

“Not much of one. What about the-- kids.” He laughed and shook his head. “Florence and Eugene.”

“I think they’re old enough to take care of themselves now. Come on, put some shoes on and we’ll take the bike.” He shuffled to the edge of the bed and got up, Steve watching him with confusion written all over his face. “Come on.”

“I’ll have to get changed.”

“People wear worse these days, come on.”

Steve fussed a while longer, but acquiesced, like Bucky knew he would. They left a note for the kids and got out the door at two, shoes and jackets on over their bed clothes. Steve started his bike as quietly as he could, commenting that the revving his engine wouldn’t win him any friends in his neighbours, and they were off. Steve pushed the speed, yelling over the wind that if he got a speeding ticket, Bucky would be paying. Bucky said he was good for it, and wrapped his arm tighter around Steve’s waist. This was perhaps the closest they’d ever been, physically, and it felt good.

They made it there in fifteen minutes. Steve found a place to park and looked around.

“Now what? Nothing’s even open until April.”

“Let’s just look around,” Bucky said, and Steve sighed but agreed.

They walked down Surf Avenue, taking in all the store fronts, half of which Bucky recognised – the place really hadn’t changed that much in seventy plus years. Nathan’s was in the same place, though it was closed.

“Well, now I’m hungry,” Steve complained.

Almost nothing was open except an ice cream parlour, which Steve grumbled about but still ordered a triple scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough. Bucky got a strawberry milkshake, large, and started on it before Steve had even paid the sleep-deprived server. Steve clicked his tongue and Bucky stamped on his foot; Steve gave him a shove and Bucky stumbled back, still holding his milkshake, grinning around the straw.

The server eyed them tiredly. “We don’t want any trouble in here,” she said.

“We’re no trouble, miss,” Steve said and Bucky laughed. Steve accepted his change and smiled politely. “We’re going.”

He turned back around and clapped his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, pushing him out the door. Bucky went willingly, but fell a step behind Steve when they got outside and pressed his milkshake to the back of Steve’s neck. Steve cringed away and struck out at him as Bucky danced out of reach. Bucky kept his distance for a minute, sucking hard on his straw, before they fell back into step.

Steve turned to him and grinned. “One of us, one of us--”

“I swear to God, Steve!” Bucky yelled, his shout reverberating around the empty streets.

They both burst into a fit of laughter which eventually subsided, lapsing into comfortable silence as they walked down towards the boardwalk.

“Hold this,” Bucky said, when they walked out onto the deck, and handed his milkshake to Steve. Steve held it with a sigh and Bucky took his cigarettes out, lighting one and taking a couple of drags before taking the milkshake back. He pushed the cigarette to the corner of his mouth and slotted the straw between his lips, taking another sip.

“Don’t you think that could’ve waited?” Steve asked.

Bucky shook his head and gestured to the beach with his foot.

“It’s too cold to go down there,” Steve said.

Bucky swallowed and lowered the cup. “Don’t be a chicken.”

“I’m not chicken, I’m--” He sighed and shook his head. “Fine, c’mon.”

They left the boardwalk and went out onto the sand, their heavy shoes sinking in and making it hard to walk. The tide was low and Bucky went as close to the water as he could, his shoes leaving deep prints in the wet sand.

“If you think we’re taking our shoes off and wading in that,” Steve said, a little way behind him, “you’re more screwy than you look.”

Bucky set his mostly empty milkshake down in the sand and took his cigarette between his fingers again. “Nah, I know you’re too delicate for that.”

Steve came up beside him, wind whipping his hair forward over his forehead, and started eating his ice cream cone, the rest of it already demolished. At length, he said, “This was a good idea.”

Bucky looked at him and smiled. “I do have ‘em occasionally.”

Steve smiled back, wide and genuine. “Yeah, you always do. It feels good to be here, with you. Being together. How are you...” He trailed off, watching Bucky carefully.

“We’ll just take it as it comes, no pressure,” Bucky said. He lifted his cigarette and took another drag. “I think I’m gonna visit Gabe again, though.”

Steve nodded, the smile still on his face. “I think that’s a good idea. You know, Morita’s grandson only lives in Queens, maybe we should go see him.”

“You can talk about how great it is to be Queens’ boys.”

Steve let out a breath of irritation but didn’t take the bait. He sniffed and ran his fingers through his hair, pressing it back off his face. “I think I might grow a beard.”

“You’d look terrible,” Bucky said. “Can you even grow facial hair?”

“Yes,” he said firmly, and reached out, grabbing Bucky’s chin. “You haven’t cornered the market on ‘mountain man’.”

Bucky pushed him away, cigarette ash falling on Steve’s jacket. “It looks good on me.”

“You keep telling yourself that, Buck,” Steve said, pulling back to brush his jacket off.

The cigarette rapidly crumbling away in his hand, Bucky bent down and picked up his milkshake cup, popped the lid off and dropped the butt in. A hard wind blew against them, his hair tangling in front of his face. He pushed it back with the inside of his arm and turned, looking back at the boardwalk, the Wonder Wheel lit up in red and yellow. It was like going right back in time to 1935, like nothing had changed at all, Steve still by his side. But everything had changed, and everything would continue to change and he’d always be a step behind the world, trying to catch up.

And that was okay.

He looked back to Steve and Steve smiled softly at him.

“Hey,” Bucky said, “you know what?”

“What?”

He grinned and shuffled closer to Steve. “We’re living in the future.”