Archive of Our Own

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Bucky hasn’t seen this much wide open space in a long time. It’s easy to forget, growing up in Brooklyn, that the rest of the world isn’t so dense. That there are entire swaths of it that lie almost untouched, the earth left to its own devices, infrequently disturbed by man or machine.

That sounds nice, he thinks. Impossible, to live that way—but a nice idea.

It’s a long train ride. Has been. Continues to be.

The clerk at the ticket counter had given him the numbers: 32 hours. He has a watch now, but he won’t check it. Steve gave him books to read but he’s turned guessing the time off the sun into a game. The sun’s a poor sport. He guesses, by the angle of the light reflecting off Lake Erie, that it’s getting close to six o’ clock. Twelve hours in. They should be hitting Cleveland soon.

He knows he’s seen Lake Erie before, when he was a child visiting Indiana with his mother and sisters. But even so, when the tracks pass close enough for him to catch a glimpse of the water, he’s baffled by the size. If he didn’t know better he’d think they were headed north along the Atlantic coast. Part of him wishes that were true.

It’s been years and years since he’s been this far west—years since he’s seen Shelbyville. He wonders if he’ll recognize it. If any part of it might recognize him in return.

Surely a sleepy farm town like that won’t have changed all that much in the intervening decade or two. If bustling Brooklyn was still the same city in its bones, then Shelbyville—not even a city at all—couldn’t have mustered the ability to overhaul itself. But then again, maybe that makes it easier. Less set in brownstone—less to change. Maybe he’ll arrive and the whole town will be painted periwinkle. Stranger things have happened—to him especially.

The ride is smooth, at least. Quiet in a way he doesn’t mind, in a way that feels okay, like an afternoon spent in a library.

So it’s peaceful, almost, even if he can’t sleep here. A compartment cost too much, and it didn’t matter—he wouldn’t have slept even if he’d had the bed. Too many people in and out, and he’s afraid he’d miss his change-over—or worse, have to be awoken by the conductor telling him to get off. He can’t remember what a solid night of sleep feels like by now anyway, so it’s not any bother. The chairs are comfortable enough. Better than a cold cement floor—but that’s rude to think. Steve had done his best.

No one has sat by him for most of the ride. It’d kill his young heart to know how grateful he is that people’s eyes seem to skim over him these days, as if he wasn’t here at all. It’s nothing to do with his general appearance—Steve had insisted on outfitting him well. He’s clean and combed and shiny-nosed, presentable as anyone else.

No, whatever it is that’s making them look away... it runs deeper than appearances. A gauntness of the soul.

He doesn’t feel quite so gaunt now, though. Not anymore, canned foods diet of the past few days aside. He feels… almost too full, off rich meals. Uncomfortable with just how much he stuffed inside in so short a period of time. He hasn’t had time to digest much of anything. Hell, what was it—four days ago, that he’d still been on the streets? Four short days since he’d happened upon Steve Rogers skulking through the streets of Brooklyn Heights.

Steve Rogers. What a bastard.

Why didn’t he put his foot down about coming along? So Bucky needs to spend time with his family—that’s true. But having Steve with him too would have made things… easier. He’s not sure how, or what he means by that. Only that he wishes now that Steve had come. If Bucky knew how to turn a train around, he’d send it straight back to New York.

What’s he so worried about anyway? It’s only his own family. His ma and his kid sisters. There’s nothing to—

Bucky sticks his head between his knees, abruptly overcome by a bout of nausea. Goddammit. He wishes his body would quit that—the hairline trigger. Can’t think a single thing.

Steve had asked him about it. He ought to have talked; maybe that would’ve helped settle his nerves, by putting them to words. But Bucky had shut him down, sharp snap of a door. He never was good at talking about his feelings. Now there’s so many he’s liable to choke on them if even one starts to come up. It’s trouble.

Steve had meant kindly by asking; he usually did, even when he was being a pestering son-of-a-gun about it. Bucky should have told him… what?

He had never felt nervous about Steve. Nervous about disrupting his home, interfering with his life, being a nuisance and an imposition on him, sure—but not about Steve himself.
Steve had always accepted him wholesale, off the rack, split seams and all. Even before this mess. Steve, ever the particularist, never seemed to find fault in Bucky. At least not for long.

Somehow Bucky had known, the moment he heard his own name again from Steve’s lips, that he had nothing to fear from him.

His mother, though—he’s starting to wonder if maybe he was always a little afraid of Winifred Barnes. He doesn’t like to think that. It’s an unkind thought to have about his own mother.

Maybe he’s just motion sick after all. He can’t remember whether that’s normal for him, or if it might be new. These sensitivities can develop over time, he’s heard.

The sun drops all too quickly over the horizon, and Bucky is left alone in the dark of a train car chugging determinedly west.

A long night makes for a long day. He has to hurry through the train station in Chicago, his feet too sluggish to stay silent on the polished floors. The signs don’t make much sense to his eyes; it’s almost by luck he makes it to the correct platform in time. He barrels onto the train suitcase-first and takes the first open seat he finds, collapsing into it with a grateful sigh.

Only when his breath has evened out does he open his eyes and realize he’s sat across from a young mother and her child. The mother has a book open on her lap, but she’s staring out the window. The kid is peering at the book’s pages, though Bucky can’t decide if she looks old enough to read. There’s a pinch in her brow like she’s trying really hard at something, and her lips keep moving silently. Every once in while she’ll stick her thumb to the page as if trying to keep her place.

Bucky doesn’t mean to stare, but that’s what he does. He hardly notices when the train starts to lurch out of the station. The girl’s dark ringlets shake with the choppy movement of the car. Bucky decides she must be about eight, actually, and therefore plenty old enough to know how to read. How many books had he himself devoured by that age? Everything they had in the house, which wasn’t a lot but was more than most families he knew had. His father had taken him down to the library to get a card after Bucky asked to read the very book his father had in his hands. After that Bucky usually had a stack of two or three going at once, even when he was busy with school, work, or both. Even overseas he managed to get his hands on a novel or two, and though he couldn’t concentrate much to read them, they were nice to have. He used to run his fingers over the covers like a worry stone.

Steve had packed him a copy of a book called

Catcher in the Rye

which seems fine enough, but Bucky can’t help wishing he had a copy of

The Story of Doctor Doolittle.

The girl keeps reading. Eventually she pulls the book right into her own lap, and a little while after that, Bucky’s eyes finally close.

He awakes with a shock. Someone is tugging on his jacket sleeve.

“Hey, mister,” a small voice says. “Everybody has to get off here. The conductor said.”

Bucky hardly has a moment to focus on the girl’s face before her mother pulls her away with a quiet apology. The girl cranes her neck around in the aisle to wave at him, smiling with snaggle teeth.

They must have hit Indianapolis. He checks his watch. 3:02 p.m. The ticket clerk had been twenty-two minutes off, then. Happens.

Bucky takes his time gathering his suitcase. He double checks the latches, smooths his jacket down, touches fingers to make sure his hair is still mostly intact. He knows a day and a half of travel must have left him looking a little worn, and his breath has surely gone sour, but he thinks he’s still put together alright. Certainly less shabby than he’d been a week ago. He could be any old commuter.

He adjusts the brim of his hat as he exits the train, trying to keep the sun out of his eyes. It’s a bright afternoon—still cold out, but cloudless.

He squints at the people on the platform. The girl and her mother are hugging a tall man near the doors. That’s nice. Others hurry about their day, somewhere to be, something to do. The longer Bucky looks, the less certain he knows what exactly he’s searching for.

His mother. He knows how she should look. The way he expects her to. How she’d looked the day before he shipped out to Italy. But no one on this platform quite matches that image. Maybe he ought to go inside, find a bench to wait on. It could be that she’s running late. The drive from Shelbyville takes around an hour, Steve had told him.

He has a hand on the stair railing when he feels someone’s fingers fold around his elbow. He jerks free on reflex, spinning to see who would touch him—and stops short.

A small woman with iron grey hair peers up at him curiously, her mouth a troubled line. Her hand is still hovering in the air between them.

“Is that you?” she asks.

It’s a real question. Bucky can see it in her eyes that she isn’t sure. His own mother.

“It’s me,” he says.

Her lips wobble, but Freddie nods at him, accepting his word. “Okay. Well. Come on then—we need to head out, I don’t like to drive after dark.”

She turns and walks away from him. Bucky hefts his suitcase up more firmly and follows after. He spares a glance behind him as he passes through the doors. The girl’s father has her held aloft. They both smile wide.

“How was the trip?” Freddie asks, ten minutes into the drive. The engine of her truck whines and rattles like it’s putting up a fight, but she handles it expertly. Bucky can’t remember if she always knew how to drive or if this is a new skill. They’d had that car for a while when they lived in Brooklyn but he can’t recall ever seeing her drive it.

“Fine,” he says. “Long.”

“New York’s pretty far.”

“Yeah.”

The lapse into silence. The news hums out from the radio; Bucky can’t make out any particular words. He stares out the window, watching the flat fields pour by. The new corn crop won’t be planted for a while yet, Bucky guesses. He doesn’t know much about corn but it’s probably still too cold outside.

“How is Steve?”

Bucky glances at his mother. Her eyes are on the road and haven’t left it since they got in the truck. Safety conscious. He understands.

“He’s doing alright,” he says.

“Good,” Freddie says, more brightly. “I miss that boy.”

Bucky hums acknowledgement, his heart twisting uncomfortably. He misses him, too.

“So you’re…” Bucky begins. “Living in town?”

“Mm, outskirts. You remember where your grandparents’ farm was?”

Bucky shakes his head.

“I guess you were pretty young when they died. Anyway, there’s a few houses on the land now. One of them’s mine.”

“That sounds nice.”

“You’ll see it soon.”

They don’t talk much more than that. Bucky doesn’t have much to say anyway, so he tries not to mind. He spends most of the trip studying his mother’s profile, discerning the differences between how he remembers her and how she looks now.

There’s the hair, for starters. He remembers her hair like his own—thick, lustrous, warm brown. Hers had more curl than wave but she’d taught him how to be gentle with his hair, work with it instead of against it. It still has the curl but it’s so shot through with grey that that’s become the predominant color. And she keeps it much shorter—shoulder length. In fact Bucky’s own hair may be longer than hers now.

Her face has changed, too. There had been notable differences in Steve’s face too, but for all his myriad health problems, Steve seems to have aged fairly gracefully. Like he finally learned how to take better care of himself.

Freddie, on the other hand, looks weathered. She must be, what—in her mid-fifties by now. Bucky knows that’s not altogether old. But ten years have put creases in her face where before she hadn’t had any. She looks different, less tidy than he remembers, though whether that’s time or rural living, Bucky can’t be sure. The idea that people in Shelbyville care less about appearance makes sense to him.

It’s strange to think of his mother as old.

Hell, it’s strange to think of himself as old, but he supposes that’s as true as anything else. He does the math. If he’s thirty-five, then is mother is fifty-four. Another nineteen years till he catches her up. He might have grey hair by then, too.

They pass through the edges of town without fanfare. There isn’t much to see; Shelbyville is still about the size of a postage stamp. A tenth of the size of Brooklyn and less than half a percent of its population. Bucky had only just gotten used to the ambient noise of a city again.

“Here’s the house coming up,” Freddie says as they turn onto a long, straight side road.

Bucky remembers this part of town vaguely, in the way one can’t quite decide if something is a real memory or just so similar to others that it may as well be the same thing. Could be he’s remembering another road entirely.

A small cluster of houses crops up in the distance. One of these probably used to be his grandparents’ home—his mother’s parents. They owned a small corn farm once upon a time, till they sold off most of the land. He can’t remember if that part happened before or after they died. Either way, his memories of them are all in clumsy child’s watercolors.

They keep driving till those houses have disappeared in the rearview. Finally, Freddie pulls into the drive of what must be the last house on the lane. “Here we are,” she murmurs, mostly to herself, and cuts the engine. She turns to Bucky on the bench seat. “Help you with your bag?”

“Oh, no,” Bucky says.

“I’ll get it.”

“You don’t have to—”

She cuts him off with a stern look, reaching for the suitcase where he’d stuffed it at his feet. She hauls it free and is out of the cab before Bucky can put up another half-hearted protest. He shuts the truck door firmly behind him, unable to pinpoint why her help bothers him.

The house is small, traditional, covered in faded blue clapboard. Bucky wonders if the fading is to do with time or dust. Maybe both. There’s a squat front porch with a bench that makes the place seem homey even from the outside. Flower boxes with nothing growing, because his mother knows not to plant bulbs in the dead of March.

Freddie doesn’t hold the door open for him. “Living room,” she says, already breezing through it toward the back of the house. “Kitchen, dining. That door leads to the backyard. We have a few goats out there—a small vegetable garden in the summer. Nothing much to look at right now. And then you saw the stairs on your way in.” She gestures back toward the front of the house. “Two bedrooms and a washroom up there. You’ll be staying right at the top of the stairs.”

“Okay,” Bucky says. He nods once, then again, chewing his lip.

“What?”

“Well, Steve told me—Rosie lives with you still?”

“Oh.” Freddie huffs and waves a hand. “She’s staying with Janet for now.”

“Because of… me?”

“There’s just the two bedrooms.”

“She didn’t have to leave on my account…”

“Well, it was that or stick you on the couch, Bucky.”

Bucky stands up a little straighter, too aware of the few inches he has on his mother. “You could’ve.”

“No, I couldn’t,” she says shortly.

The room falls awkward. Bucky rubs at his brow, trying to press away the exhaustion, but it must be obvious on his face.

“Here.” Freddie pushes his suitcase toward him. “Go lie down. I need to run out anyway, but I’ll be back to make dinner.”

“Run out?”

“I have a job, son. I need to go do it.”

“Oh,” Bucky breathes. “Where? What do you do?”

She smiles faintly, in passing. “The tailor’s shop in town.”

“That’s—good for you.”

“Thank you. Anyways, I should be going. Get some sleep—it’s making me tired just to look at you.”

In the next few minutes, she’s out the door again. Bucky listens for the rumble of the truck to fade entirely before he turns for the stairs. They creak as he lumbers upward, the only sound in an otherwise silent house.

The door at the top of the stairs opens easily into a small room. The walls are a soft yellow, a matching quilt folded over the end of a narrow bed in the corner. There’s a small window, a dresser, and a desk piled high with neatly stacked books. Bucky sets his suitcase by the door and takes the few steps that put him close enough to run fingers over their spines. Science texts, mostly—books on biology and zoology and, tucked in amongst the other titles, one copy of

Doctor Doolittle.

Bucky smiles, his thumb catching on the lettering.

Rosie girl’s room. His for now. Maybe this is something owed to him for all the hand-me-downs he’d given her over the years.

He remembers when she was born, just a few weeks before his thirteenth birthday. His mother had her in his parents’ bed and the moment the air hit her face, Rosie started screaming and never seemed to stop. Becca and Janet had been as fussy as any other baby, but Rosemarie was a child possessed. Nothing would soothe her. Bucky didn’t get to see much of Steve or any of the rest of the world in those early days; his mother needed him at home to watch after his other two sisters while she tried in vain to get Rosie to quiet.

On his birthday, Bucky asked very softly if his mother was going to make him anything special. He didn’t like to bother her or seem ungrateful, but she usually made a cake.

She took a long, tired look at him before holding out her arms. Confused, Bucky stumbled forward to take crying Rosie from her. He held her head like she’d taught him with Janet, rocked her a little side to side. And lo and behold, Rosie’s sob-pink eyes blinked up at him, and she went silent for the first time in living memory.

“Well,” his mother said, “now that’s special.”

From then on, Rosie was his somehow, too. Bucky loved Becca and Janet, of course. But not like baby Rose. The feeling was mutual; she always seemed to prefer him to anyone else.

How old was she, last he saw her? Twelve, going on thirteen—barely a turnip sprout. Green and new and breakable—but not fragile. Rosie and Steve had had a lot in common. Maybe Bucky chose his favorites for a reason. Thirteen seems so impossibly young.

He wanders out of the room, struck by a need to know where his family lives. This house, yes—but more than that. He wants to get acquainted with the sounds and smells of their everyday lives, tack them up against his memories, see if anything at all is the same. Would it matter if it wasn’t? What will he do if it is?

It’s strange to know that his family has lived somewhere for so long without him. After settling in Brooklyn, they had never once moved. Bucky and Steve had jumped around a handful of times—but he’d always had his childhood home to come back to. He supposes for his mother this might touch closer to that, but for him, that place and feeling may be as good as gone now. The squeaking kitchen faucet and the pale scratches in the hardwood floors and the smell of vinegar when his mother would do the cleaning. Those elements could be replicated, but counterfeit bills only pay the way if no one’s looking too closely.

There’s a bathroom down the hall. It’s clean and plain. Fresh towels on the rack. Another door further along must lead to Freddie’s room. He’d like to go inside, see if any of the clothes in her dresser jog his memory. But he can’t make himself open the door; it feels like crossing some line to walk into her room without asking first. Maybe later, when he has permission, he can investigate.

The downstairs, too, feels off-limits somehow. He pauses on the landing, looking down, intimately aware that this isn’t his house.

His mother had told him to get some sleep. That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. She did always know what was good for him; far be it from him to stop trusting her instincts now.

The bed is soft and spongy, like lying on fresh lemon cake. It smells like lemons, too. The sheets must be clean; they feel clean on his skin. He should have washed up first, instead of hauling his shoes off and climbing right in.

But what’s been cleaned once can be cleaned again, he tells himself as he closes his eyes to the thinning afternoon light. He’s tired. He’ll sleep now, and he can wash the sheets again in the morning.

The room has gone dark by the time he wakes. It’s a proper darkness, too. Dark in Brooklyn means dim, but here in Indiana, nighttime is well and truly pitch black. Bucky can’t see the fingers in front of his face.

He sits up, trying to remember where a lamp is. The desk, he thinks, and slides out of the bed to try to find it. His knees bump into the desk legs, but he finds the switch and cuts it on. The lamp buzzes faintly. A clock ticking quietly next to it reads 5:02 a.m.

He’d slept for twelve hours, straight through. Goddamn.

A door creaks somewhere down the hall. He hears someone sniffle, and feet padding along the floor, then another door opens and closes. The sound of running water. He waits till he hears the door unlatching again before sticking his nose out into the hallway.

Freddie is headed toward the stairs—toward him. She’s still in her nightclothes, a thin robe cinched around her waist. She moves stiffly like her bones aren’t quite awake yet. Her eyes are on her house shoes.

“Ma?” Bucky says softly.

“Oh,” she gasps, startling. Her hand flies to her throat, then drops just as quickly. “You’re awake.”

“Take it I missed dinner.”

Her mouth twitches. “I thought it best not to wake you.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You clearly needed the rest.”

Bucky shrugs.

“Well,” Freddie continues. “You’re awake now. Come downstairs; I’ll make coffee.”

She leads the way down the stairs and into the kitchen, flicking on lights at they go. The sun won’t rise for another two hours. The house is colder now than it was yesterday. Much as Bucky knows he ought to have changed clothes by now, he’s thankful for the added layers. He lingers in the threshold of the kitchen, rubbing his palms together while Freddie pulls out coffee grounds and a stovetop percolator.

“You do drink coffee,” she says, looking over her shoulder, “right?”

“Of course,” Bucky says, though as he’s saying it, he doesn’t know when he last had any. But the idea of it sounds about as perfect as a thing could be.

While it’s brewing he takes the room in properly. The kitchen itself, it—well, it’s small, but by New York standards it’s massive. The white cabinets brighten the room, even while it’s dark outside. In the dining area to the left, the sight of his family’s heirloom dining set works almost like a muscle relaxant. Something familiar. It’d come from his father’s side of the family—furniture makers by trade for generations—but once it had found its way into Freddie’s possession, she’d latched onto it like a fifth child. Any house without it just wouldn’t be hers.

Once the coffee is ready she pours them both full mugs, topped off with milk. Bucky murmurs thanks as he wraps his fingers around the warmed ceramic. The first sip goes down too hot, but the feeling as it hits his stomach is a comfort. He can already feel himself brightening around the edges. He likes coffee.

“Steve told me I shouldn’t ask about your arm,” Freddie says.

Bucky glances up; she’s watching his hands over the lip of her own mug. A slight frown tugs at her mouth. Shifting the mug to his right hand, he wiggles his fingers at her, same as he’d done for Steve. The kitchen overhead catches and reflects off the shining surface of his knuckles.

Her eyes widen. He can’t tell if it’s horror or fascination. Could be that it’s both.

“Doesn’t hurt or anything,” he tells her.

She nods, but her eyes are pinched together. Bucky wonders what she’s thinking but can’t bring himself to ask.

It doesn’t hurt now but it did,

he thinks.

I’m sure I cried for you but I can’t remember.

“Ma,” he says, and stops.

Her eyes flick up to his face. Their shape is the same as his but instead of blue, her eyes are a warm honeyed brown. The color always reminded him of hot black tea, or maybe whiskey—bracing and comforting at once.

“Steve told me a lot of things,” she says. “About you.”

“I know.”

“It’s funny, he was always the quieter of the two of you.”

“Really? I always wondered when he’d shut up for once.”

“But,” she continues like he hadn’t said anything, “when he does get talking, he never seems to have a problem saying exactly what he means. Sarah was the same way.” Freddie pauses for a sip of a coffee. “I always envied them for that. The Rogerses.”

Bucky forgets sometimes that when Sarah had died, Steve had lost a mother, yes—but his own mother had a lost a good friend. She’s lost a lot of things in her lifetime. And most of those things have been lost without any expectation or hope of them ever being returned.

He wouldn’t know what to do with it, either.

“Thank you for the coffee,” he says.

“Of course,” Freddie says. She closes her eyes a moment, then breathes out. “I need to go milk the goats. We’ll have breakfast once I’m done.”

“Oh. Do you want… help?”

“No, not now, I’ll teach you later. Finish your coffee. There’s enough for another cup—you’re welcome to it.”

The back door clacks closed behind her.

Bucky doesn’t know how he feels about being left alone this much. Steve had dropped everything right to the floor to spend every minute he could with Bucky—his responsibilities, his relationships, his entire life on hold for the better part of a week. He’d insisted that he wanted to; that there was nothing he couldn’t rearrange or reschedule. It never could have lasted. Bucky knows that, and Steve probably didn’t want to admit it to himself but he wasn’t stupid. A few more days and he’d have needed to get back to work, back to life.

Freddie had altered as little of her day-to-day routine as possible, it seems. That’s fine, Bucky thinks—good, even. Why should she? What would they do, sit around the house and play cards? Even Steve, for all his effort, had started to seem listless by the time Bucky boarded the train. So Bucky can’t blame Freddie for heading out to work again this morning. Everything had been so short notice anyway. In fact he’s proud of her; she’s the head seamstress at the best tailor shop in town, which is exactly the kind of thing she always wanted.

But the house is so quiet it’s almost claustrophobia inducing, and

Doctor Doolittle

just isn’t holding his attention like he thought it would.

An odd bleating coming from outside makes him sit up suddenly. He strains his ears, and then it comes again—a whole chorus. He’s off the couch and at the back door in moments. Through the window he can see someone skulking across the backyard, bent low like they’re trying not to draw attention.

Hell. Oh,

hell.

It was too much to think he was safe. He’d known that—he had known, as much as he wanted to believe the opposite, that they wouldn’t just let him get away. How did they finally clock him? The train station. He never should have put himself in such a public place, not when he sticks out like a hemorrhaging thumb. And now he’s lead them here, to his family, and who’s to say they hadn’t found Steve first?

He starts tearing open kitchen drawers till he finds a few suitable knives. One in hand and another concealed in his waistband, he eases the back door open and advances toward the shed he’d seen the figure disappear into. The bleating noise is at a fever pitch now, and bells are jingling, making his head swim. If it’s just the one, he’ll have no problem. They were never much match for him anyway.

Before he can reach the door to the shed, it flies open, and a handful of goats come tumbling out. The goats, of course—dammit. He dodges the stampede and propels himself toward the door, grip firm on the knife. He doesn’t want to do this; he doesn’t like doing this. But hopefully he can take care of it before Freddie comes home, and then he can leave, and she’ll never need to know why.

A girl appears in the doorway. She’s all smiles till she spots him, then the knife, and her eyes go round as the moon.

Bucky stops short. They’ve never sent—a young girl before. They don’t have any, as far as he knows, unless this is some new program. He wouldn’t put something so horrific past them. Damn it all to hell. They probably did it on purpose, knowing it would throw him.

“Bucky?” the girl squeaks.

Redoubling his grip on the knife handle, Bucky squints at her. There’s something disconcertingly familiar about her face…

The knife nearly hits his bare toes when he drops it.

“Rosie?” Bucky asks.

Relief washes over Rosie’s face, but she doesn’t loosen her grip on the door frame. “What are you doing?”

“I thought you were—an intruder,” Bucky says. Then he points at her. “What are

you

doing?”

“Well, I live here, don’t I?”

“You’re supposed to be at Janet’s.”

“I’m feeding my goats.” She crosses her arms and holds the defiant pose for all of five seconds before she snorts, then starts laughing. She doubles over with the force of it, her honey-colored braid sliding off her shoulder to dangle toward the ground. Her laugh is like bells.

“What’s so funny?” Bucky asks.

“You.” Rosie straightens and wipes at her eyes. “Oh, Bucky, come here.”

He doesn’t have to—she comes to him. Before he has time to react, she barrels into him and wraps her arms around his shoulders. Her strength is surprising; it knocks the wind out of him. And she’s much taller than he would have guessed she would grow to be—she’s nearly as tall as him. Not a little girl anymore. Twenty-two and starting veterinary school soon. She has her own goats.

“Hi, big brother,” Rosie says, and her voice sounds like she’s crying.

“Hi, Rosie.”

“It’s so good to have you home.”

“I—” Bucky pulls back, just to get another good look at her. Her smile is as toothy as ever, and seeing it all for him makes him think for the first time since arriving that— “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Steve starts awake with a gasp. He’d been dreaming again. For a moment, the dull terror of sleep stays with him while he tries to place where he is. This isn’t like him, to wake up somewhere he doesn’t know—

Only he does know this place, he realizes. It’s just the studio—his for years now, used occasionally by two friends, Alan and Liel. They keep forgetting to chip in to get the draft fixed. Something about a faulty frame on one of the windows. It’s a problem, but not a priority. The big, white-washed room yawns out wide above where he’s tucked into the couch springs under a rough afghan. It’s only just morning; he could stand to sleep a while longer.

It dawns on him.

Steve flips onto his side and feels his breath leave him—relief, a chamber depressurizing. Bucky lays on the couch cushions, within reach, so Steve reaches for him. His fingertips just barely brush the skin of Bucky’s straight nose, following the line of it up to his forehead. He smooths the hair out of Bucky’s face, and Bucky huffs a shallow breath and presses into the touch, still asleep.

The dogpile on the couch had lasted all of one night. It wasn’t that it had been uncomfortable, per se; Steve’s small enough that he could wedge himself between Bucky and the back of the couch and only wake up with a slight ache in his spine. In fact their combined body heat had made the chill in the room more bearable.

The problem is that Bucky doesn’t seem to sleep much, these days.

Had he ever? Steve can’t remember; he’d been such a deep sleeper in his youth. It’s possible Bucky had always had sleep troubles, and it’s only now that Steve will wake at a pin drop that he’s noticed.

Steve himself doesn’t sleep particularly well either. He falls asleep slowly and wakes up hard, often disoriented even when he’s in his own bed. What was his bed.

He dreams a lot, he knows, but there’s only one he ever remembers. The same dream he’d just had. It’s plagued him less and less over the years, but he remembers a time when he’d dreamt it nearly every night. Once a month at most, nowadays.

This is twice in one week.

The dream always starts the same: Steve, treading water. Nothing particularly remarkable about it—only then he begins to notice that there’s

only

water. Every direction he turns to, the eerily still water stretches out endlessly before him. But some part of him, in the pit of his gut or the hottest core of his heart,

knows

that there’s land. That’s when he starts swimming. He swims, and swims, and keeps swimming till he’s exhausted and gasping for breath, coughing at the water that wants into his lungs.

At some point he tires out enough that he starts to sink. He wakes up when, if the dream were real, he drowns.

Cast out to sea.

Very clever,

he’d thought caustically after the first time. Despite being so on the nose, though, the dream usually left him feeling cold. To call it a nightmare was too generous. It never scared him. He’d felt sad, angry, hollowed out, and resigned in equal turns. Once or twice, the sheer immensity of the water had daunted him. But there was no use in being afraid of it.

He would survive, or he wouldn’t. That’s how it had always been. He swam for land till he couldn’t anymore.

Though he’d had his suspicions—half-formed hopes—Steve had never truly considered that the dream might be trying to tell him something. Dreams as prophecy, as unconscious knowledge, deepest desires… That was all bullshit. It didn’t mean a damn thing.

He’d believed that until two days ago, when Bucky had appeared on Steve’s landing as if he had just happened to arrive the moment Steve stepped out to water the plants. They had met that way a hundred times before, Bucky arriving home from a long day’s work and Steve always happy for his return. For half an instant, Steve hadn’t realized anything was out of the ordinary. For a shining split second, the world was right-ways up.

Honey, I’m home.

Steve had let him inside without a second thought. There hadn’t been a second thought to have. All his doors have been unlocked and open to Bucky since he was seven years old.

At some point that afternoon, with Bucky sitting at his kitchen table looking ten years older but so much the same, Steve began to wonder if his dreams weren’t such bullshit after all.

In 1945, almost two full years after the M.I.A. notification, the United States Army gave up hope and told Bucky’s family they should, too. Steve and the Barneses gone through the motions, like the ritual would help. Funerals are for the living, that’s what they say. Steve had never dared say as much, but the whole thing had felt to him like they were abandoning Bucky, not burying him—which, of course, they didn’t, because there was no body. There was a headstone, though, and despite himself Steve had helped with the inscription. Walt Whitman. Obvious, unclever, and too sentimental, but Bucky’s mother had liked the suggestion:

I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Steve has been laying flowers beneath those words once a month for eight years. He favored white carnations and always sprung for a full dozen as often as he could afford it.

But word choice that had been mere wishful thinking at the time turned out to be relatively close to the truth.

Bucky wasn’t dead. He never had been. He’d been stolen, mistreated in body and mind, abandoned by the Army to the same enemy it had drafted him to defeat.

But now here he was, returned to Steve whether by providence, accident, or sheer force of will. He’d found Steve on a wintry Brooklyn afternoon, and now he sleeps on couch cushions piled on Steve’s studio floor not two feet away from him.

As much as Steve's life may have turned upside down that day, to him it still felt like the universe righting itself.

And somehow, after all that, Steve is supposed to give him up again.

It makes his head spin just to consider it—any part of it, at all.

He isn’t dead, he’s right in front of you, but soon he won’t be.

Train ticket booked—done deal. Bucky’s going to Indiana, and Steve is staying here. He supposes that’s why he’s still having the dream.

Bucky had tried to explain, in halting sentences, his own sense of vertigo. How it feels like taking the stairs in the dark, and being certain there should be one more step, but then it isn’t there. The swooping in the stomach, the feeling that your memory has betrayed you. Then, as if that weren’t enough, turn the light on and the stair is still missing. There’s no getting it back. It’s just gone.

That’s usually about when the vomiting started, Bucky said.

Steve knows the feeling too well. There had been so many evenings in 1944 when he had sat down to write to Bucky only to remember there was nowhere to send the letter anymore. Anger had made him toss the torn paper in the trash; worry had made him dump the contents of his stomach in after it.

Something hot claws at the back of Steve’s throat, and suddenly two feet is much too wide a distance to bear.

The bare cement does nothing to cushion his ungraceful clamber onto the floor, the cold surface already siphoning heat from his skin, over-greedy. Bucky is still sleeping; Steve really ought not wake him. He does his best to curl over the cushions’ edges, to touch gently, but it feels as if every body part that’s not pressed to Bucky’s warmth may well float off and become lost to time. Steve’s fingers cling to his neck, a knee hooks over his thighs, and Steve wishes naively that there was a way for them to fuse into one body. Not

that they might be no longer two, but one flesh

. He wants it literally, viscerally. Conjoined twins, connected at the hip, unpartable except by drastic surgical intervention.

Bucky had promised to come back to him. It’s not that Steve doesn’t believe him. It’s just that last time he’d made that same promise, it had taken him ten years.

Before he knows what’s happened, Steve tumbles back to the concrete. His head connects with the couch leg, a dull

thump

that’s startling more than painful.

He blinks his eyes open to see Bucky, crouched and cautious, his hair a wild fairy’s nest from sleep. His expression somehow seems dead and horribly intense all at once.

“Sorry,” Steve breathes. He picks himself up from his sprawl carefully. “I’m—I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.”

Recognition flits into Bucky’s eyes. When Steve thumbs at the back of his own head, checking for a bruise, Bucky’s expression fades to guilt.

“No,” Bucky says, morning-gruff. He shifts forward out of his defensive position, knees hitting the cushions hard enough to scoot them forward across the smooth floor. He reaches for Steve, then hesitates, his mouth pinched. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Steve says, and it’s not a lie, even though he’s fairly certain that he is bruised. “Not your fault.”

“That’s not true.”

“I knew better than to grope you like that while you were still asleep.”

“You call that groping,” Bucky says, and it’s the corner of his mouth twitching that tells Steve it’s a joke. He’s trying to lighten the mood.

Steve smiles faintly. God bless Bucky Barnes. “Yeah, well,” he huffs, and that seems to shake loose Bucky’s hesitation. His fingers are delicate on Steve’s scalp, probing for injury. “Think I’ll live?”

“Jury’s still out.” Bucky pinches Steve’s chin between thumb and forefinger, then lets him go. “But you’re fine.”

“I know. Are you?”

Bucky shrugs, sits back on his heels, and tries to hide a yawn behind the long curtain of his hair.

“Go back to sleep,” Steve tells him.

“No, I’m awake.”

“It’s okay, Buck. I don’t have any big plans or anything today. Unless you changed your mind about sightseeing.” Bucky grimaces, and Steve squeezes his knee gently. “Kidding, of course. You sleep a while longer, I’ll go get us something to eat, huh?”

“Mm. Fine.”

Bucky lies back down on the couch cushions, and Steve resists the urge to tuck him in like he’s a child. He does allow himself to rearrange the blankets so they better cover Bucky’s shoulders, and his hands linger on his chest. The small smile Bucky gives him in return seems to warm the room by degrees.

“I’ll be back,” Steve says.

Bucky hums acknowledgement and closes his eyes, though as Steve dresses and makes for the door, he would swear he feels Bucky looking at him.

It’s damn cold outside. The temperature’s dropped again—unseasonably cold for March. The paper had said something about snow. Steve ought to have had that draft fixed by now; he’ll freeze solid when Bucky’s gone.

A harsh wind whips at his skin as he heads for a grocer a few blocks over. His hands stay buried deep in his pockets. He has a warmer coat than this, but it’s back at the apartment. He hadn’t planned on running out so abruptly—or at all, really, though he’d be lying if he said the thought didn’t cross his mind at some point.

It’s still his apartment too, technically speaking. He can go get his damn coat, and a few other things while he’s at it. Essentials, for now, things he can’t live without.

Steve pauses before a crosswalk and checks his watch. Mid-morning. Dean should be out by now. Steve’s key is where it always is, tucked into his inside jacket pocket. He sets off walking again and takes a right at the next block.

His key still works. He hadn’t expected Dean to have changed the locks—he’s not spiteful—but a sigh of relief still escapes him when the door opens.

Steve doesn’t linger. He fetches the blanket and pillow still folded neatly on the couch, grabs a few more blankets from the linen closet, then heads for the bedroom. His coat’s hanging in the closet just where he left it; he puts it on over his jacket. Coat, blankets. He piles them into his arms and thinks. What else?

They keep the luggage under the bed. Steve drags one suitcase out and stuffs the blankets inside. He has… maybe two changes of clothes at the studio, that he’s left there for the nights he would stay too late working and wind up sleeping. A toothbrush and comb, too. So one more change of clothes, clean underpants… something for Bucky. Steve’s gut twists with guilt as he rifles through Dean’s drawers, trying to pick things he won’t miss.

Suitcase loaded up, Steve takes a few non-perishables from the kitchen Dean will never bother to eat and tries to squash the strange feeling it gives him. He’d bought the food himself; it’s his to take. He remembers his prescriptions in the bathroom and swipes those too.

He snaps the door shut with too much force on his way out.

His arms are aching by the time he makes it back across the neighborhood to his studio building. He fumbles things around in his grip, determined not to set anything down to open the door. He must inadvertently kick it a time or two, because it swings open with a whine to reveal Bucky.

“You were gone a while,” Bucky says, frowning at him. “Here.” He reaches for the suitcase.

“Thanks,” Steve says. “Sorry—didn’t mean to be that long.”

“You brought breakfast, though?”

“I brought… yes.” Steve glances down at the cans piled in his arms. He ought to have put them in a tote, in retrospect. “You got an appetite?”

Bucky’s laugh is flat. “Guess so.”

Steve dumps the cans unceremoniously onto the counter of the tiny kitchenette in the corner of the studio. They clatter awfully, and one slips off the edge. Steve’s gasp is only halfway out when a silver hand darts out to catch it.

Bucky straightens, squinting at the label. “Canned corn?”

“It’s what was in the cabinets.”

Bucky’s narrowed eyes find Steve instead. “Stealing from yourself?”

“Yeah. C’mon, let’s see if this range still works.”

“You don’t know?”

“Well, I haven’t used it in two years, so—no.”

“Christ. Let me light it.”

The range does not work, as it happens, despite Bucky’s admirable persistence. They put the couch back together and pass a can of cold soup back and forth.

“Huh,” Bucky says, staring at a spoonful of lentils.

“What?”

“Feels familiar. Doesn’t it?”

Steve’s memories fling him backward twenty years in an instant. Canned soup had been a staple in his home growing up, having had a mother who was often too busy working to afford food to spend any time cooking it. Sarah Rogers had cooked full meals on holidays and sometimes Sundays, but that was about it. It had been strange the first few times he had dinner at the Barneses. Bucky’s mother Freddie washed and mended clothes from her own home for work and cooked between stitches.

But Bucky had stayed with Steve enough times to know every flavor of canned soup there was. And later, in their own kitchen, they’d learned why Sarah had relied on it like she had. Soup was cheap and filling.

“Well,” Steve says, “there’s two constants in this world. Canned soup’s one of them.”

“What’s the other?”

Bucky searches Steve’s face. His open, curious expression makes Steve shy all of sudden; he ducks his head and can’t quite get the words out. But when he passes the soup can back, he grips Bucky’s wrist and squeezes hard and quick, hoping that makes his point.

Bucky hums low in his throat as if he understands. He’s still for a long moment, like he’s thinking, and then he sets the soup aside. Their spoons were scraping the sides of the can anyway. His arm inches over Steve’s shoulders and pulls him into his side, gentle at first, then more firmly when Steve relaxes into the touch.

His body is warm and broad. That same ache for closeness from this morning threatens to overwhelm Steve again, but he holds it at bay. He settles for curling into Bucky’s side, for resting his head in the crook of Bucky’s neck. His fingers splay over Bucky’s chest. This plain white cotton t-shirt is one Steve has touched a hundred times over, though never with Bucky’s skin beneath it. It’s soft, well-worn and well-loved—and not Bucky’s.

Steve fights off the tightness in his stomach at that thought, and replaces it with an idea.

“You need clothes,” he says quietly.

A thoughtful, noncommittal hum resonates in Bucky’s chest.

“You don’t think so?” Steve asks. He’s already compiling a mental list of everything Bucky will need before he sends him off. Shoes that aren’t combat boots. Clothes that aren’t Dean’s. Basic toiletries, a hat, maybe a haircut, something to occupy him on the train.

“Well, I don’t have any money.”

Steve scoffs. “I’ve got money.” He can feel Bucky shaking his head, and sits up to look him dead in the eye. “Bucky, I have money.”

But Bucky’s still shaking his head. “You don’t have to buy me anything.”

“That’s stupid. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Don’t get

mad.”

“You really won’t let me buy you clothes?”

“No,” Bucky says, rote and final. But then his face creases, so Steve settles in to wait him out as patiently as he can. Bucky requires a lot of patience now that Steve never would have been able to give him ten years ago. That’s one positive, that he has that and more to hand him now.

Bucky grunts faintly. Words will follow soon.

“I… don’t like imposing on you,” Bucky mutters.

“You’re not imposing. I’ve told you that.”

“Spending money on me is different than letting me sleep on your couch. Couches.”

“Sure. So what?”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking. I’m offering.”

“Jesus, you ever lay off something once in your life?”

Steve fixes him with a flat look.

Bucky’s eyes twitch closed, and he sighs and goes still. The radiator clanks, desperate to heat the room. Steve’s breath gusts out of him too, and he sags back into the cushions. He doesn’t want to fight with Bucky, least of all over something as petty as this.

“I can afford to buy you clothes,” Steve says, “if that’s what you’re worried about. Hell, even if I couldn’t I still would. You need clothes, I’ll buy you clothes. It’s only money. I’ll make more.”

The words coming out of Steve’s mouth—he could laugh at himself remembering all the times Dean had impressed upon him the very same thing. Being poorer than cement is a hard habit to break, though, and Steve had never learned to stop pinching pennies even after he’d started making a comfortable living off his art. He hadn’t even blinked this morning when he’d put on his same clothes from yesterday. Laundry’s for people with time and money for soap.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know what had flipped the switch. Spending his money is easy when it’s not on himself.

“I’m not gonna win this argument,” Bucky sighs, “am I?”

“No dice. But I wish you wouldn’t argue about it at all.”

“That’s rich, Rogers.”

“Will you let me?”

“Fine, sure.” Bucky huffs, but the fight’s already draining out of him even if he still refuses to meet Steve’s eye. “We’ll go tomorrow.”

They spend the next morning in and out of shops. It would have been quicker to head to Fulton, where a department store would have had most of what Bucky needed. But Steve thought that keeping them away from the clamor of the city seemed like the thing to do, so they stick to smaller storefronts along less crowded streets.

Steve settles into his role of reminding Bucky that he can pick out whatever he’d like. He seems almost excited in the pharmacy, taking his time to smell the different products. He lingers over the tins of hair pomade, going so far as to stick his finger in one to test the texture. He touches his hand to the twist of hair at the nape of his neck as if on reflex.

“I can cut your hair, you know,” Steve says. “So you could use that pomade.”

“No,” Bucky says firmly, then softer: “No—just wanted to smell it. Where’s the toothpaste?”

He settles on spearmint flavor and a green toothbrush to match before they head to the counter, and then out of the store. The drawstring bag dangles from Bucky’s wrist as they make their way to another store around the corner, where Steve buys Bucky a sturdy pair of brogues. He puts them on before they leave along with a new pair of socks, and from the faint color in Bucky’s cheeks, Steve can tell the guilt is starting to settle in. But if he’s not going to say anything more, then neither will Steve.

Slacks, shirts, sleep clothes, a hat, a decent jacket—these are more difficult. Bucky’s energy starts to fade quickly after he tries on a few pairs of trousers for everyday wear. Steve doesn’t make any comments about how Bucky would have once given an arm and a leg to spend the afternoon in and out of clothing shops and haberdasheries. He doesn’t ask for a break or to stop, though, and Steve spots the way his hands smooth over the fit of the fabric, how he checks the stitching for errors. Some part of him doesn’t hate this, however small.

Bucky has changed, sure; so has Steve. A decade will do that. But moments like these, like watching Bucky take such care with a piece of fabric, feel like glimpses at his core. A fundamental truth, constant as the rise and set of the sun: Bucky Barnes hates a shirt that doesn’t fit right.

Steve smiles at him the whole walk back, and tries not to think about it when they pack everything into the suitcase.

“Ouch.”

“Hell. You okay?”

“Fine, Buck, just—my knee.”

Bucky’s hand disappears from the back of Steve’s thigh, letting his leg drop back to the couch. “Sorry,” Bucky says.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Steve says, and smooths his hands over Bucky’s bare shoulders. “Just—doesn’t bend as well as it used to, y’know?”

“So that pop was…”

“My joint, yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

Steve shrugs, and reaches up a hand to tuck Bucky’s hair behind his ear where it’s been dangling in both their faces. “I’m fine. Just got a little older. Happens to the best of us.”

Bucky’s chest expands on a heavy inhale. He buries his face in Steve’s neck and rests there for a long minute. The heat of moments before fades—not disappears, just burns down to something steadier, hot coals forming in the bed of a fire.

They’d spent the morning doing… not much. There isn’t a lot to do in the studio, and Bucky doesn’t seem to want to leave it. Steve hasn’t minded that, of course. He really had been joking about sightseeing. They had talked for a while—or rather, Steve had talked, and Bucky had listened, which wasn’t so out of the ordinary for them but still felt strange. Eventually they’d settled into silence, then into each other, and the early afternoon had devolved from there.

Steve really ought to get that damn draft fixed. He’ll call Alan and Liel about it tomorrow. He needs to call them anyway—see if either of them have a spare bed.

Even with Bucky splain overtop of him like a second skin, Steve has chill bumps on his arms. But on second thought, he’s not sure if that’s because of the cold or simply a product of Bucky being slotted between his spread legs.

“Kiss me again,” Steve says. “Please.”

Bucky props himself up on one arm and leans in to kiss Steve’s nose, the dimple that forms in his cheek, and finally his upturned mouth. Warmth kindles in Steve’s center, spreading outward to his limbs, his hands, his toes, till he can feel it in the very tips of his fingernails. Bucky kisses him slow, like there’s all the time in the world—which of course there isn’t; there never has been. Steve kisses with all too much awareness of that, but Bucky doesn’t seem to care, now or ever, not in this. In this moment, that’s the thing Steve loves about him best.

Bucky shifts, bringing their groins to touch again. Steve’s head hits the couch cushions, but Bucky chases him down and finds him again. His hips roll, gentle at first then more insistent, till Steve’s hands are pressed tight to the hollow of his back. The couch springs whine; Steve echoes the sound.

They haven’t touched each other this much since that first night. Steve isn’t sure why, and right now, he can’t be bothered to figure it out. He’s falling apart all over again. He can’t think of anything he’s ever wanted more than this.

“Please,” Steve says. One of his hands slips down to the place where Bucky’s thigh meets his bottom and digs in, urging him on. “Please, oh God, Buck, please…”

“What?” Bucky murmurs. “What do you need?”

“You, you, I’ve only ever—please, Bucky, make love to me, I’ll do anything.”

A sob shakes out of Steve’s chest. He can’t do this without crying anymore apparently, but Bucky doesn’t seem to mind. His thumb catches the tears on Steve’s cheeks, and then he puts his thumb to his mouth and licks it. Tasting, maybe—consuming him. Steve thinks he might let Bucky eat him whole, if he were to ask.

“Like this,” Bucky says, a question and not. “On your back.”

“Yes,” Steve breathes.

“You have the—”

“It’s here.”

The difference between Bucky’s hands doesn’t matter at all when he’s using them to carefully spread Steve’s legs wider. He’s mindful of the knee this time, even leans in to kiss it. Then he’s spreading more of Steve open, and he takes his time, as if he wants to be sure he won’t split Steve clean into pieces, as if that weren’t an inevitability. Steve struggles to keep his eyes open, but he doesn’t want to miss a moment of that all-consuming concentration on Bucky’s face.

When Bucky finally, finally pushes into him, their groans are a low duet. Bucky stays still for a long time, a deep fissure between his brows, and for a split second Steve thinks maybe he’s forgotten what to do. Then he exhales, and kisses Steve on the mouth, and starts to move.

The fullness is more than Steve remembers. They don’t fit together quite perfectly. He wonders for a while whether he can take it at all, if it might be too uncomfortable—if Bucky might well and truly break him apart.

But then something gives. Bucky finds the core of him, and Steve cries out. His fingers sink into the meat of Bucky’s ass and pull, like if he gets the angle right he might be able to fit all of Bucky inside his body.

“Fuck,” he gasps, the last edge of the word stumbling into a moan. “Please,

please,

Bucky…”

Bucky responds with harder snaps of his hips. In the high-ceilinged room, the sound of their skin colliding rings out sharp and loud. Steve’s fingers tangle in Bucky’s hair, surprised to find how much he likes having all of it to hold onto as Bucky drives into him deep as he can again and again. They’re as close as two bodies can ever be, and somehow it still doesn’t feel like enough.

Maybe the train won’t come tomorrow. Could be that it’s canceled, or delayed another day—logistical mishaps. Stranger things have happened. Maybe all of Penn Station will collapse under the weight of its own grandeur and not a single person will leave New York tomorrow. There’s no precedent for that that Steve can think of, but he stopped believing he knows everything a long time ago.

When Steve’s back starts to twitch and arch off the couch, Bucky pulls out of him and fits his fingers back inside instead. He coaxes Steve to the brink with his mouth, out of practice about it but still so, so good.

Steve tries to warn him, but before he can do much more than whimper, he starts to come in Bucky’s mouth. Bucky’s eyes widen at first, but then he lets it happen, his throat working smoothly. His lips are dark and pink after he lets Steve’s cock fall from between them.

Steve grabs for him dazedly, his face and then his shoulders. Bucky complies, gently shifting Steve’s hips till they can tangle chest-to-chest on the couch. For a while they just lie there, Steve wheezing a little as he tries to catch his breath. When he comes back to himself, he kisses Bucky’s chin and gets a hand between them—

“Oh,” he says. “You already—”

Bucky’s mouth twists. “Mm. No.”

“... Oh. Did I—was it something I…?”

“Steve,” Bucky says, cupping his face. “No.”

“Then why…?”

Bucky shrugs, his eyes pinched with discomfort. “I don’t know. Lost it. It’s fine.”

“Well I could try to—”

“I’m okay.”

“You don’t want me to?”

The sigh hits Steve square in the face. “Steve. It really doesn’t matter.”

“But I wanted you to come too. That’s the point.”

Bucky frowns at him. “Is it?”

Steve frowns too, considering. He supposes Bucky has a point, but his own still remains. His guts churns with… guilt isn’t the right word, but he can’t help wishing he’d been able to give Bucky that much more pleasure.

“Well, we’ll try again later,” he says and when he cranes his neck up for a kiss, Bucky gives him several. He pulls the afghan over them and holds Steve close underneath it, seemingly content to stay for awhile.

“Are you thinking about tomorrow?” Steve asks softly.

The rumble of the city outside is the only answer for some time. Then: “No.”

“What then?”

“I don’t know. You, mostly.”

“Hm. That’s mushy of you.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you feel… prepared? I mean, do you need anything else? Are we forgetting anything?”

“I’ve got everything, Steve.”

“Okay. Right.” Steve nods, mashing his lip between his teeth. “So you’re—I mean, you still feel alright? About going?”

“Steve.” Bucky squeezes the base of his neck. “I don’t wanna talk about it. Okay?”

“Yeah. Sure, Buck, okay.”

They fall silent and stay that way, tangled together, until darkness falls. Bucky climbs back onto the floor to sleep, but he keeps the fingers of one hand laced together with Steve’s. The connection is grounding even as the night ticks by. For a long time Steve isn’t sure he’ll ever fall asleep.

When he finally does, Bucky’s hand is still locked tight around his own.

Pennsylvania Station is as good a place as any to say goodbye.

“Train’s on time,” Steve says, nodding toward the board. When he doesn’t get a response, he turns his head to catch Bucky’s eye.

But Bucky isn’t looking at him. His wide eyes are on the plaza, where the first rays of morning sunshine are visible through the immense glass windows set high above their heads. The light catches on the white marble columns, the station’s matching floor glimmering like fresh snow. Even this early in the morning, Penn Station is bustling with activity, commuters and travelers rushing to and fro. The two of them are an island in its midst, standing still, waiting for something to give.

Steve touches his fingers to the back of Bucky’s hand. Bucky’s on his right, so it’s his real one—with skin and bones. Steve tries not to think of one as real and the other as… something else, something apart. Both are Bucky’s hands. As far as Steve has noticed, Bucky doesn’t differentiate between the two of them much if at all, so Steve endeavors to do the same.

Bucky starts at Steve’s touch, then glances at him, softening. He casts his eyes about the plaza, pointedly this time. “Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t expect it to look the same, I guess.”

Steve smiles. “Not everything’s changed, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

There’s tension in Bucky’s shoulders, and for a moment Steve wonders if he might ask to just turn around and walk out of here. But Bucky had made a commitment—a promise—and he won’t abandon that. Far be it from Steve to ask him to; he’s counting on a promise from Bucky, too.

They make their way to the busy train platform in fits and starts. Once there, in fresh daylight, Steve thinks

to hell with it

and grabs Bucky by the hand. It’s not as if matters who sees, what they think—not right now. To hell with all of them, and all of it. He has five minutes left. The train conductor is standing in the open door to the passenger car, hand unrelaxed at his side, waiting for the next ticket to grace it—Bucky’s ticket.

“I’m gonna miss you,” Steve says.

Bucky’s fingers squeeze his back, and his voice is quiet when he starts, “Steve.”

“Just let me say it,” Steve sighs. “Please. I never told you out loud the last time.”

“Steve,” Bucky repeats, and pulls Steve around to face him properly. The winter blue of his eyes has warmed over. “I wasn’t trying to stop you.”

“Oh. Well, good. I mean it.”

“I know.” Bucky smiles. “You always do.”

The train whistle blows, shrill and abrupt. Steve glances nervously at the conductor, whose eyes are elsewhere.

“You still have your ticket?” he asks.

“In my pocket.”

“Okay.

“I’ll—I’ll miss you too you know.” Bucky’s thumb presses hard to the back of Steve’s hand, and while he’d known Bucky felt that way—still, it’s nice to hear it out loud. “C’mere.”

Bucky hauls him in for an embrace, and their arms lock tight around each other like ropes tied. Steve holds him and shudders. He doesn’t mean to feel so torn up about this; he meant to handle himself better. He’s done this before—seen Bucky off. First when he went to basic, and again for one and then a second deployment to the front lines. He should be used to it by now.

But while muscle memory works wonders for riding a bike, it’s never once made a goodbye any easier.

Bucky starts, “Don’t do anything—”

“Oh, Christ,” Steve huffs, “don’t you know me better than that by now?”

Bucky laughs wetly and buries his face in Steve’s hair. They stand that way together for a long time. The whistle blares again. By now the conductor must be watching them, checking his watch for the moment he can forsake them altogether. Part of Steve wants nothing more than for those doors to shut without Bucky behind them, but that’s his most selfish essence talking. Bucky needs to go see his mother, hug his sisters, meet their husbands and his two young nephews. He needs a proper bed to sleep in, and that’s something Steve simply can’t give him right now.

“Call me,” Steve says. He pulls back, so reluctantly—but if he doesn’t, then he’s not sure they ever will. “Or write me, when you get there. Either one. Both.”

Bucky nods, and then his face crumples and he leans in to press his lips hard to Steve’s forehead. Steve’s hands clench around fistfuls of his jacket, his eyes squeezed shut. It could be that they’re brothers, or overly affectionate cousins, or maybe just two queers saying goodbye on a train platform. They spent too long as kids trying to be discreet. In the face of everything else, secrets seem far less important.

They part with one last exhale. Then, with his usual efficiency, Bucky takes his suitcase up again and heads for the train. He gives the conductor his ticket, steps up into the car, and waves at Steve from the threshold.

And then he’s gone.

Steve tries to find his window. But before he can, the train starts to roll out of the station, and then it, too, has disappeared.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

All this quiet is starting to get to Bucky. He hadn’t realized how he would miss the cacophony of the city—a swaddling blanket made of white noise. The comforting closeness of people.

In Brooklyn, if he yelled, someone would hear him. In Shelbyville, his mother’s closest neighbor is a mile up the road.

He knows it’s backward, but the silence is enough to make him feel claustrophobic. It’s an oppressive, heavy cloud cover that never opens up into rain. The lingering cold in the air doesn’t help.

He wakes up on his second night here—dark as tar, dead quiet, too cold—and nearly screams. He muffles the worst of the sound with his fist. It’s only by biting into his own knuckles that he realizes he isn’t where he thought he was. If he’d been in that box again, there wouldn’t have been any screaming; he wouldn’t have been conscious at all. But he remembers the feeling well enough to fear it.

Bucky flicks on the lamp and lies there in its dim glow for two hours till he hears his mother waking up. He doesn’t tell her that anything is wrong, and if she notices, she doesn’t ask; just brews the coffee and fries some eggs for them both.

Maybe he never complained as a child either, so she had learned to stop looking for problems to fix. He can imagine that; much as he griped at Steve for always wanting to be so self-sufficient, he had the same bad habit. Could be why he’d hated seeing it in Steve so much. People are often quick to resent the mirror image of their own flaws and insecurities.

Just take the damn help, Steve.

Still, though, he thinks a mother maybe ought to ask. She’s supposed to have a sense for these things.

Maybe it wears off when your children grow up.

It would be nice, is all. He isn’t a child anymore but he still has nightmares. Her comforting hands might do him good, but they’re busy cleaning the house.

Freddie has to work, but Rosie is coming to visit him today. They clean like she doesn’t live here, and Freddie almost smiles when she doesn’t have to remind Bucky how to dust properly. Of course he remembers. He’s her son.

She leaves, and Bucky is alone again. The claustrophobia patters into his chest like mouse feet—soft at first, inevitably destructive. This house is bigger than anywhere else he’s lived, but the walls still feel like they’ve boxed him in too tight.

He was supposed to have called Steve by now. Let him know he made it, safe and sound. A craving for Steve’s voice sticks in his center like a cherry pit. Steve might not know what to say but just hearing him talk would be help enough.

But Bucky can’t decide if he should ask to use the telephone first. Probably he should; telephone calls cost money, and New York is long distance. He’ll ask. He will.

If Steve were here, he might tell Bucky to try to pay attention to what noises he does hear. See if that helps any. So Bucky sits straight-backed in the overstuffed armchair in the living room and closes his eyes.

Slowly, sounds start to register. Inside: the lethargic wobble of the overhead fan, the hum of the refrigerator, the light bulbs’ buzz. Outside he picks up the tuneless melody of birdsong, a truck disappearing down the road, and the goats bleating softly at one another. A dog barks somewhere. A fly buzzes too close to his ears. All of it adds up to a soft background noise, like the subtlest of film scores, hardly noticeable till you attune yourself to it.

Maybe it’s not so quiet here. Perhaps it’s just that somehow, within a matter of days, he’s completely forgotten how to be alone.

There’s a radio on a nearby table. Bucky flicks it on and tunes into a station playing something he doesn’t recognize. Someone singing, upbeat and catchy. His toes tap against the hardwood, adding to the noise. He likes whatever this song is. Focusing on its rhythm calms him down in time, enough to relax into the armchair. Popular music must have shifted sometime in the last few years. He has a lot to catch up on. Maybe Rosie can help. She always liked listening to records with him. He hopes she continued on.

They hadn’t had a chance to talk much yesterday. Freddie had come home and as good as run Rosie off, in a way that made Bucky wonder if she had told Rose not to visit. But Rose had invited herself over for lunch today, so whatever the reason, it didn’t matter now. He would see her again very soon.

He’s just starting to wonder if he ought to be making them something to eat when there’s a knock on the door. Bucky gets up, leaving the radio on, and goes to answer it.

Rosie smiles at him through the screen door. Seeing her is a shock to the system all over again. He might never get used to it.

“You know this is your house,” Bucky says, letting her inside, “you don’t have to knock.”

“Well, I didn’t want to startle you,” Rosie says.

“Fair point.” That’s more than once his own paranoia has gotten the better of him. “I’m sorry again, for yesterday.”

“Don’t be, no harm done.”

They sit at opposite ends of the couch. Rosie is still smiling, bright as the sun, but Bucky finds himself clamming up, like he’s shy. The calamity of a reunion over, much like with Steve he can’t think of what to say to her. His fingers knead at his shirtsleeves, pulled up to cover most of his hands. Rosie’s smile flickers almost imperceptibly.

“You like Dean Martin?” she asks.

Bucky’s brow folds, before remembering he’s Chambers, not Martin. “Who?”

Rose points at the radio. “The song?”

“Oh. I don’t know. Sure.”

“I like him.”

“Okay. Good.”

“What do you want to do for lunch? We could walk into town—it’s not too far.”

Bucky makes a face.

“Or not,” Rosie hurries to say. “I’m sure Ma has food here. I can fix us something.”

“You don’t have to do all that.”

“Well, we’ve got to eat.”

“I can make—”

“Do you even know where the pans are?”

Bucky drops his eyes to his hands, and stares hard. “Guess I don’t.”

“Sorry, that was rude, wasn’t it? I just mean that I don’t mind to cook. You’re not hosting me, Bucky—you’re the one who said this is my house.”

A half-laugh escapes Bucky’s throat, and he nods. “Fine.”

“Are you hungry? We could wait.”

“No, let’s eat.”

Rose maneuvers expertly around the kitchen. Bucky wouldn’t expect any less of her. Their mother had all the girls helping her cook the moment they were old enough to be trusted not to drop anything. Bucky helped much more infrequently; he didn’t need to learn, his mother said, because his wife would do the cooking. He could laugh—if only either one of them had known. He wonders if Freddie regrets that now, or if it’s crossed her mind at all.

Rose passes him a knife without so much as a flinch. He cuts the vegetables and lets her slide them into the skillet.

They sit down at the table, across from each other, napkins in laps. For a while there’s just the clatter of silverware. Bucky thinks he ought to be talking, but his tongue is still so tied he can hardly swallow his food.

“So,” Rosie says. “Um. How are you… settling in?”

“Fine,” Bucky says. “Thanks for the loan.”

“What?”

“Your room.”

“Oh! Oh, right.” Rose nods, tapping her fork softly on the edge of her plate. “You’re comfortable?”

“Yeah. I like your books.”

“Thanks. I should probably take some of those with me today.”

“I thought you didn’t start school till fall?”

“Well, no, but it’s a difficult program. I want to be prepared.”

“Right.”

They lapse into silence again. Bucky has managed to clear most of his plate, though he couldn’t tell you what anything tasted like. Rose could be an awful cook and he would never know the difference.

Rosie sets her fork aside. “I’ve been told,” she says lightly, “not to ask you too many questions. That it might upset you.”

Bucky’s own silverware thunks to the table. “Who told you that? Ma? Steve?”

Rose’s mouth squirms, like she’s been told not to rat anyone out either. As Bucky watches her, he realizes that he’s not sure how much she knows—or how much their mother knows, for that matter. Steve had intuited more than Bucky had told him or confirmed. Steve had talked to Freddie on the phone but Bucky hadn’t been paying attention, too worked up trying to figure out what he himself would say to her.

He doesn’t like the implication that he’s delicate either, though he knows it’s not necessarily inaccurate. Rose is right; there are things he doesn’t want to talk about, least of all with someone as innocent as his baby sister.

“It’s okay,” Bucky sighs. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I don’t want to upset you,” Rose says.

“You haven’t.”

“Okay.” A long pause. “I am curious, though.”

Bucky’s eye flick up to her. “About what?”

“Where you’ve been.”

“Oh.” Bucky frowns. “Ma didn’t… tell you?”

“Well, she said it’s like those boys they’re starting to bring back from Korea—the ones who were… um, prisoners of war.”

“That’s… sure. Something like that.”

She nods, a pinch between her brows. She was so young during the war, she couldn’t have fully grasped the horrors of it. And though young she may still be, she isn’t a child anymore. Boys her age fought in Korea and are now coming home ragged and rattled, just like she said. Something in her eyes tells Bucky she knows enough about it now. He doesn’t like that look on her face but all his methods of erasing it are ten years out of date.

“Rose,” he says, determined to try anyway.

Her eyes blink rapidly. “Sorry,” she says, “I won’t pry.”

“It’s okay.” Bucky thinks about reaching for her but isn’t sure that he should; she probably doesn’t like being coddled these days. “Can I—I’d like to ask you something.”

“What is it?”

He trips over his own question, grunting softly on the impact. The problem is that there are so many questions. He meant to ask about their mother, but sitting across from this young woman he barely knows, his own troubles seem unimportant. He’ll skip them, for now.

“Did you, um… How was high school? College?”

Rosie snorts a laugh. “Might be easier if I just lent you my diaries.”

“You—you’re not actually offering, are you?”

“No!”

Bucky laughs too, but it fades too quickly. He folds his hands together on the tabletop, deliberate. “I missed a lot, is all.”

“Yeah.” Rose nods. “You did, Bucky.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know. I know it’s not your fault.”

“You can… It’s okay, if you’re mad at me anyway.”

The chair creaks when Rosie leans back in it. Her hand flits up to stroke her hair—a nervous tick maybe. She’s left it down today, framing a face that’s now drawn together. Her gaze drifts to the window behind Bucky, and the light pouring through it turns her pale irises clear.

“I was mad,” she says, “for a while. I didn’t understand why you had to go fight in the first place.”

“Rose, I was—”

“Conscripted, I know. I understand that now, but then?” She meets his eye. “So many men your age were enlisting, the difference didn’t register to me, especially not with the brave face you put on about it all. I thought you were voluntarily abandoning us. You were my big brother, and you left me, and you didn’t come back. Of course I was mad. I was so angry I could’ve killed you myself.”

Bucky shrinks in his seat but doesn’t look away. She deserves that much from him. He tried as hard as he could to come back to her, to all of them. His plan was to fight for them, and for Steve—put the horrors of the world down by his own hand so they never had to touch them—and then come home. But he made a mess of it, and though he made it home, maybe it’s too little too late.

“But I don’t think that now,” Rosie says.

Bucky’s brow raises in slow shock. “You don’t?”

“No.”

“What changed?”

Rose smiles at him again, and Bucky thinks he detects the barest hint of pity in it this time. “You’re my brother, Bucky. I know you wouldn’t have left if you had any other choice.”

“I didn’t mean to,” he repeats, whisper-soft. “I’m sorry, Rosie.”

“You came back, though.”

“I did. I always meant to.”

The chair legs squawk in protest when she pushes back to stand from the table. She circles to Bucky’s side in four neat steps, then slings her arms around his shoulders before he can think to stand. He hugs her close by the waist. With his head pressed to her chest, it’s a role reversal—but not an unwelcome one.

“Okay,” Rose says, sniffling, a long minute later. “We can’t stand like this all day.”

Bucky slowly pulls away from her, craning his head to meet her eyes. He smiles first this time, tentative and half-formed, and she beams in return.

“So,” he says, “you keep a diary?”

“Oh, shut

up.”

She swats him on the shoulder. “For that you’re on scrubbing duty, come on.”

They wash the dishes with hot water heated on the stove. A damp floral-printed towel draped over her shoulder, Rose recounts the last few years of her life for him: her adolescence in Brooklyn, the move to Indiana, her time at the state university. She talks with her hands and her eyebrows as much as her mouth, and doesn’t need much prompting. She has friends, and goats, and in another ten years hopes she might have her own veterinary practice. She can list all the bones in a common animal’s body and says that some don’t have bones at all. It’s no surprise she’s been on the honor roll every year since the seventh grade.

If they take too long to finish the dishes, neither of them cares when the water goes cold.

“Oh,” Rose says as she places the last dry plate back in the cabinet, “you need to meet my goats.”

“I do?”

Rose rolls her eyes. “Ma only tolerates them, and I know she’s going to get tired of milking them. Either she teaches you how or I do, and for their sake I’d rather it be me.”

Bucky’s nose scrunches. “I don’t know, Rosie.”

“Oh no, don’t cry city boy on me now.” She grabs him by the wrist. “Come on, you bonehead, it’s now or never.”

“Is it… Why is its head stuck in the fence?” Bucky asks.

One of the goats, a brown and white one with horns, seems to have gotten its head caught in the wire fencing. The goat bleats at them, guttural and plaintive, looking for all the world about as pitiful as an animal can be.

But Rosie just sighs. “I swear she does this on purpose,” she says, unlatching the gate. Bucky hurries to follow her inside when she gestures for him.

“Why would she do it on purpose?”

“Because,” Rosie says, approaching the still-bleating goat from the side, “goats are smart, but they’re so stubborn it turns them stupid again.”

Bucky snorts. He knows a person or two like that.

Rose takes the goat by the base of the skull and gently helps her free from the fence. As soon as the goat is loosed, she wobbles away from the fence, her troubles already far behind her. The bell around her neck jangles happily.

“That’s Ginger,” Rose says. “She does that two or three times a day, so you should probably periodically stick your head out the window to make sure hers isn’t stuck in the fence.”

“Okay,” Bucky says. Make sure goat isn’t stuck in the fence—easy enough.

“Alright.” Rose pulls a clip from her pocket and secures her hair to her head, out of the way. “Time for some introductions.”

There are four goats, all female: Ginger, Nutmeg, Poppy, and Spike.

“Why is she named Spike?” Bucky asks.

“She likes to headbutt people with her horns,” Rose says fondly.

Rose walks him through the basics of goat care: when to feed them and how much, how to clear their old bedding and lay down new, how to coax them into the shed at night, how to know they’re healthy. Bucky never had any pets growing up—never even took in any strays, unless you counted Steve—but he thinks he can handle this. The goats are loud, but Rose assures him they’re all good-natured. They’re fat and happy, she says, what reason do they have to be mean?

This could be good. Bucky likes being given something to do—some responsibility. The past few days, he’s mostly puttered around the house, careful not to set anything out of order. This, though, is a chance to feel useful. Like he’s not just taking up space in his mother’s home for no good reason. Maybe with this, he’ll have something to say to her over dinner.

It’s only when Rose secures Spike in the milking stand that he balks.

Rose rolls her eyes at him. “I know you’ve put your hand up girls’ skirts before, this isn’t so different.”

“Rose,”

Bucky says, eyes widening.

“What?”

“You’re just—Jesus.” Bucky shakes his head. “Demonstrate for me first.”

“Can do.” Rose plops down on the little stool next to the stand and sets to work. Spike, chewing placidly on some hay, seems completely unbothered by the fact that she’s being groped.

Rose’s hands work deftly, and milk squirts into the pail at a steady tempo. “See?” she says, pausing. “Easy peasy. Now you try.”

Bucky takes the stool and reaches underneath Spike.

“Oh, wait,” Rose interrupts. “Um… your hand, it’s not going to pinch her, is it?”

“No,” Bucky says, meeting her eye.

“Okay, proceed. Just thought I’d—never mind.” She holds her hands up, and mimes squeezing in the air. “It’s like this, okay? Squeeze harder than you think you need to.”

“Okay.”

He isn’t good at it. He tries, but something about his grip isn’t quite right and he can’t seem to correct it. Spike starts to get antsy, fidgeting though she’s locked in place. She could kick him if she really wanted to, and Bucky thinks it’s probably only Rose’s good training that’s saving him from having a goat-shaped black eye right now.

Rose isn’t much help; she’s too good at it, she’s forgotten what it’s like to not know. Bucky’s heart sinks further the longer he keeps trying. After only succeeding in a few weak dribbles of milk, Bucky gives up with an angry sigh. He stands, knocking the stool sideways, and reaches for the latch on the stand to let Spike go.

“Oh, Bucky, don’t—”

“I don’t want to keep hurting her.”

“No, it’s okay, I mean—if you’re done, I need to finish her or she’ll get uncomfortable.”

“Oh.”

He rights the stool for Rose, then backs away. He watches with crossed arms as Rose finishes milking the goat, trying to put a word to the twisting feeling inside him. He’s acting like a pouty child; it’s embarrassing.

Rose gives Spike a treat when they’re all done. Once freed, the goat totters back outside into the pin with the others. She doesn’t seem hurt, but Bucky doesn’t know enough to be able to tell properly.

“Is she okay?” Bucky asks.

Rose turns to face him, her expression downcast. “She’s fine. You didn’t hurt her, I promise.”

“Okay.”

“How are

you?”

Rather than answer, Bucky scuffs his foot through the straw on the shed’s floor. His nice shoes that Steve bought for him are getting dull; he ought to polish them. His gut churns.

“Bucky?” Rose’s voice is small. “I’m sorry.”

Bucky’s head snaps up. “What? What are you sorry for?”

“I made you mad.”

“I’m not—” Bucky breaks off, sighing. “I’m not mad at you, Rose.”

“Then what’s wrong? You can tell me.”

“I just…” He waves a hand at the milking stand. “Can’t do it. Sorry.”

“Oh, you’ll—Bucky, you’ll get the hang of it. Maybe I made it sound too easy. I’ve had a lot of practice, you just have to try again.”

“I don’t know, Rose.”

“Let me go get Ginger, she’s the easiest, you barely even have to touch her and she’ll—”

“Cut it out,” Bucky says, sharper than he means to. “Just leave it alone.”

Rose’s face drops into a scowl. “So, what? You’re just giving up?”

“Guess so.”

“Why? The Bucky I remember would never—”

“Dammit, Rose, I’m not him!”

Silence hits them like a blow. Rose’s mouth quivers. She stares at him, pale-faced, while he tries to get ahold of his breathing. The air in the shed is stale and pungent with the ground-in smell of goats. His lungs don’t want to take anything in anymore.

“Don’t yell at me,” Rose mumbles.

Her eyes are wide and watery. She hadn’t blinked at him with a knife in his hand, but he raises his voice once and reduces her to tears. Damn it all. He can’t do a thing right.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says, voice rough with sudden exhaustion. “I just… I didn’t mean to, Rosie.”

“I need to finish with the others.”

She stands, careful not to touch him as she leaves the shed. Her voice, still wavering, carries when she starts talking to the goats in reassurance.

Bucky’s feet twitch in his shoes. He doesn’t wait for her to return and instead takes the side door to head straight for the house. If Rose notices him as he passes the pen, she doesn’t say so.

When the door closes behind him, he falls back against it with his face in his hands. He gives himself three shuddering breaths, and then another three, and finally decides there’s no pushing this away. It’ll have to run its course.

He’s felt like a raw nerve for a week now. Even the air burns.

He drops his hands and opens his eyes. This house, though it’s more familiar every day, still alienates him. Even the details he knows—some of the furniture and the smells and the picture on the mantle of his father, who he keeps forgetting to think about—are transplanted from a different life. There’s nowhere for him to go. That room upstairs is Rose’s, not his. He might start screaming if it wouldn’t bring her running inside.

Who is he, if he can’t be useful? If he doesn’t have anything to call his own? Is he a person at all, or just a ghost, another piece of his family’s life in Brooklyn thrust haphazardly into this farmhouse?

The future gapes like an open wound in his mind’s eye. He can’t rectify it. He doesn’t want to die but he has no clue how he’s supposed to live. Where does he go, what does he do, who is he and who does he become? Hell if he knows. Hell if he knows anything at all anymore. He can’t even milk a goddamn goat.

Nausea pulls at his gut with the strength of a tidal current. It’s all he can do to keep from spilling his lunch on the kitchen floor. He makes it to the sink and hunches over it, fingers gripping the counter hard enough that it creaks.

No,

he thinks and fights the feeling. Rose cooked this food for him. He helped her. He wants to keep it, keep it down, keep one good thing inside him.

He’s still panting over the basin when the hinges of the back door whine.

“Bucky?” Rose asks, alarm in her voice. “What’s wrong?”

He sucks in as deep a breath as he can manage, enough air to say, “Don’t worry about it.”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing, Rose. It’ll pass.”

He can almost hear her wavering. Her footsteps are quiet as she leaves the room. The stairs creak, then moments later creak again. The worst of the spinning has passed when she brushes the sweaty hair away from the back of his neck. He flinches at her touch, but lets her lay a cool washcloth over his nape. Her hand runs up and down his spine, tentative at first. Guilt clutches at Bucky’s throat, rendering him speechless. He’s supposed to be the provider, the protector. His baby sister shouldn’t have to cossett and coo at him till he calms down enough to stand to look at her.

Despite himself, he presses into her touch.

“Do you want to sit down?” Rose asks.

“No.”

“It might help.”

“I’m done,” he says. “For the day.”

“Bucky?”

“I want to sleep.”

With that he shrugs her away and turns for the stairs, steadier on his feet than he thought he would be. It’s awful how accustomed he’s getting to handling this. He thinks he’d rather stagger.

Rose catches him with light fingers at his elbow at the base of the stairs. There’s no trace of a smile on her face. “I’ll stay,” she says, “for a while. In case you need anything.”

“You don’t have to,” he rasps.

“I want to.”

He nods, and she watches as he climbs the stairs to go collapse into her sponge-soft bed. The clock on the nightstand tells him it’s another hour before the front door opens and closes. Is it Rose leaving, or Freddie coming home? He listens, and the returning silence grinds into his eardrums like nails. He grabs the pillow, buries his face in it, and wails.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Steve doesn’t feel shame the way he used to in his adolescence. He remembers the way it feels: like bile sitting at the top of your throat, hot and uncomfortable. More than one person had accused him of being shameless over the years, and he supposes in some ways that was true. There were certain things other people thought maybe he ought to be ashamed of that he simply didn’t care enough to fret over—and then, of course, some things that ate at him that turned out to be inconsequential in the long-run. It’s all tossed salad in the end; none of it mattered. If he could he’d tell his younger self to just go ahead and be shameless if they were going to say he was regardless.

So it doesn’t bother him any to stand on the platform long after the train has left and cry for a while. No real waterworks—he thinks he might be saving that for later—but it’s a steady mist like a good spring morning, only it feels a lot less refreshing. It’s okay. He’s a big proponent of just letting it out these days, whatever it may be. Leave it to him to turn crying in public into an act of defiance.

Bucky will be fine. Steve’s spent long enough missing him—what’s another few weeks?

He dries his eyes on his coat sleeve as another train eases into the station. High time he got out of here anyway.

He walks most of the way back. It’s a long way, but the day is still young; he has the time. The wind whips harsher between Manhattan’s high rises than it does out in Brooklyn. Something about air tunnels, he can’t remember—he could just be imagining it. Either way his face is so red with windburn by the time he makes it down to the bridge he decides to double back for a subway station, since it would be that much worse over the water. It takes him a while to remember where the closest station is this side of the bridge, but eventually he finds one, pays his fare, and rumbles his way across the East River back to his neighborhood.

As he exits the Court Street station, his feet try to take him in the wrong direction. Muscle memory is hard to shake. He has to remind himself: the studio. He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets and sighs, keeping his chin tucked against the wind still billowing off the river.

He loves that studio. He’s spent countless hours walled up in there, so inspired he felt half-crazy with it. There’s a lot of good memories wrapped up in that room, drafty or not.

But damn if it doesn’t depress him to have to go back there alone right now.

He’d kill to be able to collapse into his own bed, burrow under the covers, and emerge when he’s slept off most of the melancholy Bucky’s departure has brought. But he can’t do that, owing to certain circumstances like him telling the other usual occupant of said bed to go to hell.

Well, he hadn’t used that precise language, but the sentiment was there somewhere. He’d seen the look on Dean’s face. Steve may as well have slapped him.

Maybe he can still feel shame. That or the exertion from walking all the way here has made him feel ill, but he’d like to think he has a stronger constitution than that.

He doesn’t like ultimatums. They’re manipulative. Steve can dig his feet in sometimes but he tries not to make demands like that. God gave the people free will and Steve’s belief in the whole system may be tenuous at best, but he’s not about to say he’s big enough to try to take it away.

I won’t watch you choose him over me in my own home.

Fine. You won’t have to.

That had been that. Hands dusted; goodbye. As much as one can slam the door on a thing like that, anyway—only possible because there’s another door hanging off the hinges and in need of care right in front of you.

It was always bound to happen the moment Bucky reappeared. Steve knows that. He and Dean have been having this fight continuously for the better part of four years, only it took the source of it showing up for either of them to dare speak the words directly. Dean had felt he was playing second fiddle to a ghost for their entire relationship. Steve could never tell him it wasn’t true. They’d made as much peace with that as they could, but some things are predetermined.

The funny part was, Steve was happy. He was happy that morning before Bucky, and he was happy the day before. Some part of him had never recovered from losing Bucky, and though he’d known he would never truly move on from it, he’d found a way to carry it so it didn’t stoop his shoulders so much. He had a half-decent career, a nice place to live, and someone to share it all with. That was more than he’d ever believed he would get.

And now, he’s lost it. You’d think that after a lifetime of losing things he might be used to it by now, but maybe he’s gotten soft.

Not that he wishes the events of the last few days away. Not at all. Never.

Dean’s fears were warranted—he was well aware how much Bucky meant and still means to Steve. They tried not to hide things that important from one another and besides, Steve never was good at covering up his feelings for Bucky anyway. Didn’t matter that Bucky had disappeared; the love never had.

Maybe there’s no free will after all, least of all in matters of love. Steve’s soul has been tied to Bucky’s like a knot in a necklace chain since long before he was old to enough to understand what that meant. There’s no untying something like that. He would never try. He never had a choice but he would still choose Bucky a thousand times over.

As he opens the door of the studio to find it empty and spare, he can’t help but miss his home. The evidence of Bucky’s presence here—the rumpled blankets on the floor, two water glasses instead of one—make his heart long for Bucky's swift return, but it doesn’t stop him from missing Dean, too. His thoughtful precision and humor dry as champagne. How his infinite eloquence only ever seemed to finds its bounds in the face of Steve.

It could be Steve just isn’t used to being alone anymore. That’s an easy enough explanation to follow, even if he knows it’s only a half-truth.

But still, it’s enough to settle him on the couch, where he drags every last blanket over himself and falls into an uneasy sleep.

Steve wakes up with a wheezing cough. It was only ever a matter of time before the cold got to his lungs; now he can feel it lodged there like a cork in a bottle.

He needs something hot to drink—a cup of tea. The range hasn’t magically fixed itself, though, so he’ll have to go back out. The thought makes him groan, and he hauls the blankets up over his face. He

has

gotten soft. The Steve of ten years ago wouldn’t have blinked at living in relative squalor like this, but he’s gotten used to having things like a working cooktop and a kitchen with food in it.

It’s not wrong of him to wish for comforts like that. Every person should have at least that much. He used to crusade for things like that, at labor rallies and the dinner table and everywhere else. He can’t pinpoint what tempered him. Grief, maybe.

Eventually he digs his way out of the blankets and slinks into the hallway with his address book. He has some phone calls he’s been putting off, but he can’t ignore a cough like this. He takes better care of himself than he used to, largely out of necessity. He’s not as resilient as he used to be; a cough like this could progress to something much worse very fast if he isn’t careful. He needs to find somewhere warmer to stay.

He flips open the address book and thumbs through the first few letters of the alphabet, his lip caught between his teeth. He has a fair number of friends these days but few that he’d label as “close.” Any one of them would probably let him kip on their couch for a few days, but he’d rather not have to move around too much till he finds a place of his own—and in an ideal world, he’d love an actual bed and a bit of privacy. That’s a big ask and a longshot, especially given apartment sizes in this city, but it won’t hurt him to call around.

He tries Alan and Liel first. Alan doesn’t answer, so he leaves a message with a neighbor and assumes he’ll never get a return call; Alan’s not known for his memory. Liel picks up and says he’d offer Steve his couch, but his bubbe and zayde are already staying with him and another person would make the place a sardine tin.

“If you need anything else, though, Steve,” Liel says, “please just ask.”

“Thank you,” Steve breathes. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Is everything okay? You and Dean on the outs again?”

“You could say that.”

Liel hums an off-note. “I’m sorry to hear that. I thought you two were doing good this time around?”

“We were. It’s just…”

“If I’m prying—”

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just hard to explain what happened, is all. It’s complicated.”

“I see. Well, you know I’m rooting for you two, Steve.”

Steve takes a deep breath and lets it out through his nose, very slow. “Thanks, Liel.”

“Any time.”

The line clicks off. He flips to another page, and tries again.

A few people offer couches, and even fewer ask questions, for which Steve is grateful. The queers of Brooklyn—and that’s mostly who his friends are, these days—haven’t survived by being indiscreet. He notes the names of those willing to help, but doesn’t stop making calls. May as well alert the whole neighborhood while he’s at it.

He takes a break when someone up the hall asks to use the phone, tries to eat something. His appetite’s gone off. Either that, or he’s sick of cold soup. He forces it down, though, and strays back into the hallway once he hears the neighbor hang up.

He has his fingertips on the handset when the telephone starts cawing. The sound startles him. He almost knocks the handset to the floor, but recovers in time to grab hold of it—only that means he’s taken the call. Probably it’s just for someone up the hall; he’s given very few people this number, on purpose.

He fumbles the receiver to his face and says, “Steve Rogers speaking, who is this?”

“Steve?”

“Yes, I just said. Who is this?”

“Steve, it’s—it’s me. Dean.”

“Oh.” An estuary of feeling churns in Steve’s guts, a collision of bad and good. “Hello.”

Dean stays quiet a while. He inhales a few times like he means to say something, but it takes a solid minute for him to get out, “I hoped I wouldn’t catch you here.”

Steve frowns. “Why’s that?”

“The heating’s poor. I was hoping you were staying somewhere else. Maybe a hotel.”

“You know I don’t like hotels.”

“Well, I thought you could’ve changed your tune. I suppose I know you better than that, though, don’t I?”

Steve fiddles with the telephone cord, ensnaring one finger in its coil. “You ought to, anyway.”

“Steve…”

“What?”

“I noticed you came by a few days ago.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t take much.”

“I got what I needed.”

“Did you?” Dean sighs, and Steve swears he can see his folded expression through the phone. “Look, I hate the thought of… Just come back by, please, and take some more of your things.”

“What, can’t stand to look at them?”

“Oh, good Lord, Steve, do you think so little of me? Really? I just want to know that you’ve got everything you need.”

Steve chews his lip, considering. He’ll need to gather his things eventually, he supposes; he may as well do it while Dean is being considerate about it.

“Okay. Thanks, for the—” Offer, kindness, all of it. He can’t pick one.

“Will you…” Dean’s teeth clack together. “Please don’t bring him with you.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Steve says, clipped.

“No…?”

“He’s on his way to Indiana.”

“Oh? Well. Can I ask—”

“Look, Dean, I’ll come by tomorrow, alright? I’m tired today. Is that okay?”

“I’m… busy,” Dean says slowly. “I’m busy the rest of the week, actually. New showing opening soon—you know.”

“Right.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose, thinking. “Well, what about the weekend?”

“The weekend works. Saturday morning?”

“Sure. Great.”

“I’ll see you soon, Steve.”

“Yeah. Yeah, Dean, see you.”

He hangs up in a hurry and barrels back into the studio, closing the door firmly behind him. He ought to make just one or two more calls, but he’s exhausted from the pity party he’s inadvertently thrown himself today. He wonders which of their mutual friends tipped Dean off after Steve’s call this morning—or if that’s thinking too poorly of everyone, Dean included.

It doesn’t matter; regardless, Dean knows. And he’s being kind. Steve almost wishes he’d said something nasty on the phone so he could bear to be angry with him, but as it is he’s forced to feel grateful. He’ll go, and he’ll get his things, and that’s all. What else is there? Nothing—not anymore.

Steve makes sure to scrub himself clean early on Saturday, and to formulate at least half a plan of action. He’ll tell Dean it’s his last night in the studio, which could be true if he were to call one of the starred names in his address book back. It’s stupid; a week ago he would’ve let Dean see him vulnerable with only one or two thoughts about it. But something significant has changed between them, and he can’t go back. Dean wouldn’t actively try to belittle him, but he can be condescending, especially if he’s hurting. Steve doesn’t want to give him the opportunity; he’s too tired to deal with much more.

The shower runs clear and hot, at least—one thing that works half-decent. He and Bucky had had to haul some clay out of it first, since Liel has a penchant for storing it in the stall. The steam helps settle his lungs. The warm water taps out a soothing rhythm against his skin.

He gives his hair time to dry before bundling up as best as he can and setting out. It’s a decent walk between here and the apartment, long enough that he could stand to take the train. He rarely chooses to, though. He likes the walk; usually he’ll take the time to center himself, get ready to work. Or, if he’s on his way back, the route lets him reflect on what he did or didn’t accomplish. It’s a good walk, an easy one, flat and without too many turns. He could walk it in his sleep.

The building still sneaks up on him somehow. Has it always loomed? Surely not; surely that’s just the afternoon shadows creeping in.

For a moment he thinks about turning around. He’s being childish, though—afraid to face the damage he’s wrought upon them. But they’ll have to negotiate this at some point or another. Hell. The unsticking of two lives is never pleasant; they’ve tried it a few times before, and it never took.

For a long time after Bucky was gone, he’d done his best not to get involved with anyone. But Dean—a catalyst in Steve’s success turned close friend—had been patient and persistent. Eventually Steve had run out of excuses for denying him. It had been natural—logical even—for them to fall together the way they had. Steve broke his self-imposed rules but by then he’d been thinking that it was probably doing Bucky a disservice to make himself miserable. He felt guilty about their relationship a lot, and Dean was too sharp not to notice, but in the past year or so Steve had been able to put that aside more and more.

And then—Bucky. The world sure has a funny way of making Steve second-guess himself at every turn. Just because it was inevitable doesn’t make Steve any less of an asshole for walking out the way he did.

He takes a deep breath to steel himself, then stomps up the steps to the landing outside their door. Dean’s door. The fucking door.

The key is still in his pocket, but just as he’s reaching for it, Steve wonders if he ought to knock instead. He compromises and raps his knuckles against the wood as he unlocks the door.

Dean is standing in the living room, a book in his hand like he hadn’t quite gotten to setting it down on his way to answer the door. His reading glasses are sliding down his nose. He doesn’t smile but Steve sees something flicker on his face that says Dean might be fighting the instinct.

“Hello,” Steve says.

“Are you coming all the way in?” Dean asks, gesturing with his book.

Steve is still standing in the open doorway, letting the frigid air in. “Right,” he mumbles, stepping forward and latching the door behind him. He glances around the room, eyes on anything but Dean. He’s straightened the place up some. Steve always forgets to put his water glasses away, but they’re gone now. He’s surprised to see that other markers of his presence here—his pencils, a stray sketchbook, the novel he’d been resolutely slogging through—are still exactly where he had left them. Maybe Dean just hasn’t had the time.

Dean clasps his hands together, and the sound draws Steve’s attention to him. He has his business face on: smooth, polite. Steve should have guessed he’d default to that—a defense mechanism. Unfortunately Steve feels too flayed from the past few days to muster many of those himself.

“Steve,” Dean says. “It’s good to see you.”

Is it? “Hello,” Steve repeats.

“How—er, how are you?”

“I’m… fine, Dean. How are you?”

Dean quirks a pained smile. “I guess ‘fine’ works for me, too.”

Steve nods, his mouth tacky. The pleasantries are painstaking, but he supposes they’re necessary. They seem to have forgotten how to have a conversation. It’s better than staring at each other in silence, anyway.

“So,” Dean starts, “you said… Bucky is in Indiana?”

Steve glances at the phone hanging in the hall. “For a few days now.”

Dean waits, but when Steve doesn’t offer anything else, he starts prying. “Why did he go to Indiana?”

“Why would that matter to you?”

Dean blinks, frowning. “I can’t be curious?”

“I’d prefer you weren’t,” Steve says flatly. It’s possible he’s overreacting, but without knowing when he’ll see Bucky again, he feels compelled to hoard every last part of Bucky for himself. And he knows Dean doesn’t really want to hear it, anyway. He has too many manners for his own good.

Dean sighs, pulling his glasses off to rub the bridge of his nose. “Let’s not fight, please. We did that part already.”

“You’re right.” Steve holds his hands up, palms out. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m just trying to understand the situation,” Dean says, opening his eyes. “Because it sounds like he’s left you again—”

“No,” Steve bites out, forgetting his attempt to be civil in a flash. “It’s not like that. You don’t know anything.”

“Good grief, then

explain

it to me, Steve, so I

do

know.” Dean runs a frustrated hand over his scalp, disturbing the immaculate coif of coal-colored hair. “You always do this, expect people to squint at the details and put the whole picture together. This doesn’t work like your paintings—I can’t make the meaning, you have to tell me.”

Steve’s lungs wheeze on a difficult inhale. He knows Dean deserves an explanation—deserves at least that much—but the words just don’t want to come. Steve coughs to clear the heavy catch in his throat. He thinks it’ll be just once, but slowly he realizes that he can’t stop. His eyes water, the coughs resonating deep in his chest.

“Steve?” Dean’s voice is alarmed. “Hell. Hang on, okay?”

In no time at all, there’s a hand on Steve’s back, urging him toward the couch. Dean passes him a glass of warm water. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I guess you took your asthma cigarettes.”

His hand rubs steady circles at Steve’s back, trying to calm him enough so he can drink. Eventually Steve manages to breathe long enough to get some water down, and the warmth helps soothe his throat. He stays still for a long time, downing the water in slow increments till it’s all gone. Dean sits with him through it, his face pinched with worry. That—more than the coughing itself—is excruciating.

“I’m fine,” Steve rasps.

“Do you want more water?”

“I can get it.”

“Steve—”

“I’ll get it, Dean.”

He shuffles into the kitchen to refill his glass. His free hand grips the counter edge hard; he’s still a little unsteady, but he really is fine. Dean is still on the couch when he comes back. Steve takes his usual armchair. As he settles into the cushion, it occurs to him that he’d like to have this chair. He doesn’t have anywhere to put it, but when he does, he’ll come back for it. Dean never sits in it anyway.

“How long has that cough been going on?” Dean asks.

“A day or two. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Dean says—a show of trust. “Sorry if I… set you off.”

“No,” Steve sighs, and fights the urge to pull his legs up into the chair. He doesn’t want to get too comfortable. “You were right to say that. I’m being—I don’t know, possessive of him.”

“I can understand why.”

Steve nods his thanks. “He went to go see his family.”

“Oh,” Dean says, tapping fingers to his forehead. “Indiana, right. They live there, I knew that.”

“You did, yeah.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

“I… I thought it’d be better for him to go on his own.”

“That’s very self-sacrificial of you.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Well, you know me.”

Dean snorts, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I do,” he says, and his hazel eyes are filled with some indiscernible emotion. “Are you still staying at the studio?”

“Just for tonight.”

“You’ve got somewhere to go?”

“Yes.”

Nodding as if on reflex more than agreement, Dean studies Steve’s face for a quiet moment. Then he takes a deep breath and says, “You don’t have to go anywhere, you know.”

Steve’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“Come home.”

“Dean,” Steve warns.

“Is he coming back?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“Why? How? Do you have a timeline, or—or anything at all—”

“No, but he gave me his word, and I trust him.”

“I don’t see how.”

Steve sits up straight, planting his feet flat to the ground. “Dean, stop. Please. I don’t want to do this again.”

“I say this out of concern for you, Steve. I know you don’t believe that—”

“Don’t tell me what I believe.”

“Or you’re not willing to see it that way,” Dean continues as if uninterrupted. “I care for you, and I don’t want to see you get hurt—even if it’s inadvertent. He didn’t mean to leave you the first time either, but he did.”

Steve’s hands clench and unclench. “If this is what trying to win me back looks like,” he grits out, “you’re doing a piss poor job of it.”

Dean rises from the couch, his hands spread wide in a gesture of contrition. His face is still smooth, only the tilt of his brow belying the pain he’s in. Steve begins to wonder what his draw toward stoic men is.

“You can sleep out here, if you want.” Dean gestures toward the couch. “Or I can, I don’t care. Just come home, so I can know you’re alright. We’ve worked through so much, Steve. You haven’t done anything I can’t understand or forgive.”

And the worst part is, Steve wants to believe him. That it could be that easy. But few things ever are.

“I slept with him,” Steve says.

It’s the stone that breaks the dam. Steve watches as Dean’s face first drifts into blankness, then splits full-force into agony. He hates to hurt him, but he needs him to know—there’s none of this they can walk back.

“That was quicker than I expected,” Dean mumbles, almost in a daze.

“I’m sorry.”

Dean won’t look at him now; his gaze is pointed toward the hall, as if planning his retreat. “You don’t have to lie,” he says.

“Dean, I didn’t mean… Everything happened so fast.”

“Okay,” Dean says slowly. “Okay. I think you should be leaving now.”

“Right. Um. My things…”

Dean exhales and rubs both hands over his face. “Hell, Steve,” he says under his breath. He sinks down into Steve’s armchair, face still mostly covered, and continues, “Take all you need, then please go.”

Steve stares at him for longer than he ought, wishing there was something he could do and knowing he’s the last person who could help right now. Eventually he pries himself away and heads for the bedroom, where he packs the rest of his clothing into their larger suitcase. He takes a few items from the office—books, files—and then decides that’s really most everything he needs. Strange, that he could pack it all into one box. It ought to have been harder than that.

Back in the living room, Dean has managed to maneuver himself into an upright position. His face is blotchy, though Steve can’t tell if that’s from crying or trying to prevent himself from doing so.

“Um,” Steve says, “I guess we can talk about… furniture, and things, once I have a place to put it.”

Dean nods, the life starting to seep back into him bit by bit.

“Okay. Well. I’ll just—I’ll go then.” Part of Steve truly hates to leave him, but there’s nothing else for it. “Goodbye, Dean.”

He’s nearly to the door when Dean says, “Lily and Kath.”

“What?” Steve asks over his shoulder.

“Try Lillian Lovett and Kathleen Gold. Calling them, I mean. They have a spare bedroom. You remember them, right? I’ve introduced you. Do you have their telephone number?”

“I—I think so. I remember them.”

“Call them. They’ll help you.”

“Okay. I will. Thank you, Dean.”

Dean waves a hand at him, as if it’s no problem at all. Steve makes his exit, and has to force the sticking door closed behind him.

He has one more call to make, before phoning Lily and Kath. This number he knows by heart, though he doesn’t call as often as he’d like to. The long distance connection is expensive.

The line rings, and he taps his foot along to it, impatience his familiar companion. It’s what drove him to call at all. Bucky had said he would phone when he arrived in Shelbyville, but it’s been days now. Perhaps he’s been busy. Or maybe the phone will keep ringing and ringing, broken somehow, and that’s what had stopped him. Steve is sure there’s a reasonable explanation. Bucky wouldn’t forget or forsake him so quickly. Steve knows that.

Someone picks up. “Barnes residence, who is calling?”

“Hi, Freddie,” Steve says. “It’s Steve Rogers.”

“Oh, hello, Steve. I’d been wondering when you would call. How are you?”

“I’m alright. How are you?”

“Fine, fine.”

They fall into a strange silence, the line crackling faintly between them. Something about this feels off, but Steve can’t put a finger on it. He presses his palm flat against the wall next to the telephone and frowns at his knuckles.

“How is he?” Steve asks.

“Bucky?”

“Yes.” Who else?

Freddie sighs. “You did warn me.”

Steve sucks in a breath. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s

wrong,

Steve. He’s fine. He’s doing as well as you told me to expect.”

Her voice is tense, clipped. Again Steve wonders whether he ought to have come along, even if just to act as mediator.

“Be patient with him, Freddie. He’s trying.”

“I know.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Trying.”

“Steve,” Freddie says shortly. “Don’t tell me how to behave around my own son.”

“Sorry,” Steve says, even though he isn’t. A lot of that today. His hand shifts from the wall to his forehead. “I’ve just been worried. I hadn’t heard from him.”

“Well, I’ll let you talk to him.”

“Yes. Yes, please, thank you. Thank you.”

He hears the shift and clatter of the phone being set aside. The line is quiet for a few painfully long minutes. Then there’s more fumbling, and Steve hears him breathing before anything else, a firm exhale.

“Steve? Are you there? It’s me—it’s Bucky.”

Even tinny through the phone, his voice is a balm. Steve’s heart softens and forgives Bucky for whatever had kept him away from the phone. It doesn’t matter anymore.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Steve takes a breath, and smiles on the exhale. “Happy birthday.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The country never appealed to Bucky when he was waist-high in trenches dug out of it, nor when he was slogging through it in the rain with forty pounds of supplies piled on his back. A wide open field wasn’t beautiful. In an active combat zone, poor cover like that was dangerous. If you died in the country, your body might be buried right there, because it was just too far to carry you all the way back to base to ship you home. If you still had a body to bury.

Bucky can’t pretend to feel the draw of it now either.

City boy,

Rose had called him. She wasn’t wrong. The sky shouldn’t be as big as this. It makes him feel unmoored.

But he starts spending his mornings on the back porch anyway, even when it’s cold. The despair has ebbed for now, mostly because he sees no point in dwelling on it. He could have disappeared but he climbed those stairs to Steve’s porch. He could have stayed in New York but he came to Indiana. Inevitability is a poor reason for accepting something, but it’s the one he has right now. Pitying himself doesn’t do anyone any good. So he buries it, and sits on the porch.

After Freddie leaves for work, he brews a second pot of coffee and brings a steaming mug outside with him. He’s decided he likes it best with a splash of cream and hardly a sprinkle of sugar. There’s been time for plenty of trial and error—a pot holds about six cups. The caffeine doesn’t seem to have any effect on him, for reasons he can only guess at. He tries not to let that bother him either.

Bucky doesn’t know if someone who watches goats is still called a shepherd, but that’s how he starts thinking of himself. He won’t milk them—he lets Freddie do that—but he can watch them, feed them, keep them out of trouble. That’s something, at least. They would be fine without him, but they seem to have decided he’s a friend. He likes them, too. Ginger bleats happily at him each time he frees her from the fence, and the others join in chorus. It’s not so quiet out here now.

He starts to think of this rural backyard like all those art museums he followed Steve into—the Museum of Non-Objective Painting and the Frick Collection and the Brooklyn Museum. Something about it may not quite compute for him, but he can imagine what someone else might see in it. He doesn’t need to understand something to think it’s beautiful.

He’ll have to ask Steve if he has any drawings of this backyard, when he calls him. Soon. Maybe Steve can set his head on straight again better than six cups of coffee.

On Saturday morning, Freddie cooks a big breakfast: pancakes and eggs and thick sausage links. Bucky had slept fitfully and has been mostly awake for the past few hours, but he’d been determined to stay in bed till dawn. When he finally hobbles down the stairs, the smell rolls over him like a freight train. His mouth waters. He hasn’t had a proper Saturday morning breakfast in God knows how long, and his mother always did them best. There’s peach preserves, maple syrup, everything. He barely remembers to use his napkin.

“Thank you,” Bucky says emphatically when they’re done.

“Well, it is your birthday,” Freddie says, offhand.

Bucky blinks at her, uncomprehending.

“March 10,” she says, and raises eyebrows at him. “I know there’s four of you but I never mixed them up.”

“No, I—” Bucky sets his left hand flat to the table and frowns at his fingers, their patina just like that of the silverware lying next to them. “I’d forgotten. That’s all.”

“The date, or that it’s—”

“I don’t know. Both, I guess.”

“Hm.”

They sit in grating silence. Bucky can hear the questions she’s not asking. But she doesn’t ask, and for once he’s glad, because this time especially he has nothing to say. He can chalk it up to the chaos of the past week, misremembering the date, but the truth is that he seems to have forgotten his own birthday. He runs through a list in his mind: July 4 for Steve, February 22 for Rose, his mother on October 11.

March 10. He

knows

that. If it’s 1953—and it is, he’s sure—then that makes him thirty-six years old today. He feels each year as if a tally were etched into the space between his shoulder blades.

“Thank you,” he repeats, struggling back to himself, “for remembering.”

“Of course.” Freddie clears her throat of something. “Happy birthday, son.”

“Do you—would you want to…”

“What is it?”

“I like to sit outside.” Bucky points out the back window. “You could join me.”

Freddie arches an eyebrow. “Could I?”

“Will you? Please?”

“Sure. Go on, I’ll put the dishes in to soak.”

There are two chairs on the porch with flat, square cushions in a faded paisley print. Bucky takes the seat on the left and cradles his refilled coffee mug between his hands. If he holds it close to his face, its heat warms the tip of his nose. It’s chilly out this morning, a light layer of frost sprinkled like sugar over the lawn. The goats are lethargic, dawdling over the alfalfa Freddie had spread out for them before Bucky had made it out of bed.

The bracing air works half a miracle, settling his head. People forget birthdays all the time. It doesn’t matter. On a scale of things that matter, of things to shelve in his crowded brain, his own birthday rates very low. Thirty-five or thirty-six makes so little difference.

Freddie settles into the seat next to him with a quiet sigh, clutching her coffee in a mirror image of Bucky. They sip quietly while the birds sing their melodies. Bucky can feel her eyes on him, but he doesn’t meet them. If she has something to say, she should say it.

Her mug clinks when she sets it, empty, on the small table between their chairs. “Your father made these chairs a long time ago,” she says, and runs her palm along its arm.

Bucky’s eyes flick to her. “Oh,” he says, because she seems to be expecting a response.

She watches him for a slow minute, then casts her eyes back out to the yard. The moment passes. Bucky wonders what point she’d been trying to make. If she was trying to make a point at all, besides the obvious.

Bucky’s thoughts around his father are convoluted. He should feel guilty for how little he pauses to remember that he’s gone, but he doesn’t—and in turn feels guilty for that. When Steve had told him George Barnes had died in 1948, it had barely registered. The briefest blip on a radar. He’d assumed that, amongst everything else, he simply hadn’t had the capacity to process his father’s death at that moment.

But now he thinks that maybe he just doesn’t care.

He and George hadn’t been close. When he was a child, before the girls were born, Bucky’s father must have doted on him. He remembers that vaguely—warmth and laughter. They moved to New York when Bucky was four; Rebecca was born right after, and Janet just two years after that. Surely he was kind to them too, but Bucky can’t recall anything specific. As the years passed, their father seemed to pull further and further away from them, usually only making himself known when he disapproved of something. He’d only gotten Bucky that library card because he was tired of Bucky asking to borrow his books.

To Bucky’s knowledge, it only ever escalated to physical abuse the one time. When Bucky was twelve, George slapped him across the face for walking into the apartment holding Steve by the hand.

You’re too old. Men don’t do that.

It took Bucky five years to forget that moment long enough to take Steve’s hand in his again.

Bucky had wondered more than once as a child why his mother stayed with him. Steve’s mother did fine on her own; surely Freddie could too. He didn’t understand why she would want to stay married to someone who hardly seemed to care for her at all.

Now Bucky knows that it was the Great War that ruined his father. George Barnes shipped out a determined, devoted man and came back with his center scooped out. But Freddie loved him, and she did her best—until the very end, it seemed. Heart disease. It struck Bucky as horribly ironic.

So no, he doesn’t miss his father. Awful as it might be, he’s almost relieved to find one thing that he

doesn’t

miss. He can’t remember George’s birthday either.

But he can’t tell his mother any of that. She would be unhappy with him. He keeps it to himself, takes a pull of his coffee, and tries not to wonder whether he’s dooming Steve to a similarly dismal future.

“Your sister invited us for dinner tonight,” Freddie says.

“Which one?”

“Janet.” She purses her lips. “We thought that would be easiest.”

Bucky looks at her then. “Easiest?”

“Just the two of us and your sisters. That’s easier to arrange at Janet’s house.”

“Oh.” Bucky’s face draws together, but he nods. “Okay.”

“We’ll leave here at five. Make sure you’re ready to go.”

“I can do that.”

“And…” She trails off, staring at the goats.

“What?”

“Rose is upset with you.”

The words twist his stomach. He hangs his head. “I know.”

“She won’t tell me what happened.”

Bucky keeps his eyes on his lap. Part of him wants to tell her, ask her to help him fix it, but he can’t get it out. He’s old enough to fix his own problems.

“She’s not fragile,” Freddie says softly. “Rose, I mean. She doesn’t rattle easily, but she’s more sensitive than she lets on. If it was something you said or did, please don’t do it again tonight.”

“I won’t, Ma. Promise.”

With that, she takes her mug and heads back inside. Bucky sighs and turns up his own mug to finish the last of the coffee that’s now gone cold.

Bucky’s hair is clean and drying when his mother calls to him from the bottom of the stairs.

He opens the door of Rosie’s room, still adjusting his shirt hem. He has on the red sweater that Steve liked—he hasn’t decided if he’ll wear it to dinner, but for now, it’s soft and comfortable.

“Yes?” he says, hand on the banister.

“Phone call for you.”

His brow shoots skyward. “Really? Who is it?” he asks, chest slowly filling with anticipation. He can only think of one person who would bother to call him.

“Steve.”

He practically bounds down the stairs, and it’s only by a miracle that he doesn’t trip over his own pant legs. Freddie gives him a stern look, but points him toward the telephone anyway.

“I’m going to run into town for a little while,” she says. “Do you need anything?”

Bucky shakes his head, eyes flicking to the receiver where it rests on the dining room table.

“Okay,” Freddie says. “I won’t be long.”

It’s a gift, he thinks—a bit of privacy. He’s not sure how to react to that, so he doesn’t. Steve said she knew about them, was okay with it, but neither of them have brought it up in so many words. The front door shuts the same moment that he picks up the phone. He has to take a moment to steady himself before he speaks.

“Steve?” he says. “Are you there? It’s me—it’s Bucky.”

“Hi, sweetheart,” Steve says, a smile in his voice. “Happy birthday.”

“Hi,” Bucky echoes. He feels his cheeks pinking—God knows why. “Thank you.”

Steve hums softly, like he wants to say something else, but all he asks is, “How was the train?”

“It was fine. Long.”

“But you made it.”

“In one piece and all.” Bucky pauses and fidgets with the receiver in his hand. “I’m sorry for not calling.”

“That’s okay.”

“It isn’t.”

“Really, Buck, I’m sure you’ve been busy.”

Sighing, Bucky leans his shoulder against the wall, letting it support him through the admission. “No. Not really.”

“Oh.” Steve inhales sharply, and the sound of it crackles in Bucky’s ear like cellophane. “Then why…?”

Bucky fumbles for the words, but none are forthcoming.

“If you,” Steve starts, “well, if you don’t want to talk, then that’s…”

“No!” Bucky as good as shouts and almost drops the phone in his haste. “No, that’s not it!”

“Are you sure? Because it’d be—well, I’d like to talk, but if—”

“Steve, I want to talk to you.”

“Okay,” Steve says, like he’s rolling the word around in his mouth. “Okay, good. I want to talk to you too.”

Bucky nods, before he remembers that Steve can’t see him. He isn’t used to telephones. There had been one for the hall back at his family home, and one for the whole building when he and Steve lived together. But if he thought to call someone, he’d just assume drop by instead. Phones were for emergencies.

This isn’t an emergency, but the longer they breathe over the line at one another, neither saying a thing, the more it starts to feel like one.

“So how have—” Bucky starts.

“Are you getting—” Steve begins at the same time.

They both drop the ends of their questions, until Bucky sighs and says, “You first.”

“Okay. I just wanted to know how you’re settling in.”

“Fine.”

Steve waits. Then he says, low, “Bucky.”

“What?”

“You said you wanted to talk. Do you or don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Then will you answer my question? Please?”

Bucky frowns at the faint floral pattern on the dining room wallpaper, like it might hold the words he needs. His mouth feels tacky and dry. He holds no secrets from Steve, not really, but some things are harder to admit to than others. He wishes Steve could just see his face and know. Steve won’t think Bucky is a failure but he’s bound to be disappointed—maybe even feel like it’s his own fault, which is worse.

“Rose’s room is nice,” Bucky says, a truth.

“Yeah? You’re comfortable?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good. How is Rose? Have you seen her?”

“I have. She’s—” He nearly says ‘good’ before remembering he’s supposed to elaborate. “We had lunch the other day. She came by to visit with me.”

“Was it a good visit?”

“Yes,” Bucky says, voice rough, and he means it despite the way that day had ended. How he hasn’t spoken to her since. “Yes, it was great to see her.”

“Hard, though, I’ll bet.” Steve’s voice is sad.

“Yeah.”

“That’s okay, you know.”

“Sure I know. How are you?”

Steve hums at him, catching the subject change firmly in his mitt, but he seems to let it go. “I’ve been alright. Finally getting out of the studio tonight, I think.”

“Christ, Steve.”

“I said I’m getting out, didn’t I?”

“It’s been days.”

“You think I don’t know—” Steve cuts off, hissing. “Sorry. I’m not irritated with you, I don’t want to bicker.”

“Are you… irritated, though?”

A soft, beleaguered sigh. “It’s been a rough day, is all. I’m just tired.”

“Tell me about it?”

“Oh, that’s alright, Bucky. You don’t need an earful of my bullshit.”

Bucky stays quiet long enough that Steve repeats his name in question. That didn’t make his point well enough, clearly.

“What happened to talking?” Bucky asks.

Steve huffs, and Bucky hears what sounds like his palm connecting with his forehead. “Geez, Buck. Fine. Remember you asked for it.” He sighs, collecting himself. “I went to the apartment today. Dean was there.”

“Oh.”

“That about sums it up, yes.”

“Bad?”

“Not great.”

Bucky’s chest sinks. “Steve, if you—”

“Don’t,” Steve cuts over him. “I know what you want to say but I just can’t hear it today, Buck. Any day. Neither of you is going to change my mind.”

“He… tried to change your mind?”

“It doesn’t matter. He didn’t.”

“I just—”

“Stop.”

“Let me

talk,”

Bucky bites out. Steve falls quiet in a rush. “I just… I’ll listen, if you need to talk, about anything. It’s okay.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “Then—then you’re not still trying to talk me away from you?”

Bucky sets his fist to his forehead, eyes closing.

No,

he thinks, but can’t get the word out. He’s been trying to talk Steve away from him since long before he knew what he was doing—only now, his reasons run deeper than fear for Steve’s reputation. Being queer in Brooklyn was easier than Bucky had liked to admit to himself, years-old hang-ups shackling his self-awareness. As it turned out, plenty of men

did

do that. Sure, they had to be careful, but in the right neighborhoods, they had little to worry about. And it’s not like Steve had much of a reputation to ruin anyway.

Now, though, he’s asking Steve to bank his whole future on a life Bucky is growing increasingly worried he won’t be able to give to him. He thinks of his father, the phantom of his childhood home—how much his mother tried to make up for it. It comes to him suddenly that maybe that’s the reason for her distance these past few days. Maybe years of trying to reach a man who’d lost himself in a war had hardened her heart too much. Maybe she just can’t do it again.

Bucky wouldn’t blame her for that. He thinks he’d be too tired too. It’s almost a comfort, to realize that it might be well out of his control. Almost.

But Bucky knows he won’t say

yes

to Steve either. He won’t tell Steve to forget him, or that he ought to go back to Dean, even if he thinks it might be for the best. Bucky is too selfish for that. He just got Steve back. He’ll let him go again when someone breaks his fingers. And that ought to be nearly impossible, given that five of them are metal.

All he can do is try harder to be more than a ghost.

“I’ll listen,” he repeats softly. “You can tell me anything.”

Steve makes a quiet, pained sound, and his breath shakes out like a sheet. “I know, Buck. Thank you,” he says. “You can talk to me too. Left ear’s still faulty but the right one’s all yours.”

Bucky laughs, a little wet. The implication hangs in the air; neither of them seem quite able to reach for it yet.

“I should probably go soon,” Steve says. “Long distance, it’s…”

“Oh.” Bucky hadn’t thought about that. “Right. I can—the bill, if you need help, I can…” What?

“No, no,” Steve says. “It’ll be fine. Maybe, I don’t know—maybe we could write, like we did when you were… during the war. And then talk on the phone sometimes too? Would you like that?”

The receiver digs into Bucky’s cheek. “Wish I could just see you.”

“I know, me too,” Steve sighs, then clicks his tongue. “Oh, I can fix that. I’ll send you a picture.”

“You will?”

“Sure. I’ve got a few photographer friends, I’ll have one made just for you.”

“Hm. That’d be nice.”

“Call it settled then. I’ll write you, and send the photo too.”

“Okay.”

Steve swallows, too loud in Bucky’s ear. “I’d better go now, sweetheart. I hope you have a good birthday.”

“Okay. Goodbye, Steve. Thank you for ringing.”

“Of course. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Five stagnant seconds pass. Bucky is just starting to think he should say something else when the line finally clicks off. The dial tone seems to echo through the house. Bucky slides the receiver back into place, and wonders where his mother keeps paper and pens.

At five minutes to five, Bucky descends the stairs. Freddie is in the living room flicking pages through a book like she’s lost her place. She sets it aside when she sees him, standing from the couch. Her hair is pinned in a tidy roll at the nape of her neck. The olive color of her dress brings out the gold in her eyes, the creases around which she can’t iron out like the pressed-smooth fabric. He’s starting to get used to seeing them, though. They suit her, in a way.

“You look nice,” he says.

“We all have to clean up sometime,” she says. She gestures toward him. “I like that shirt.”

Bucky smooths the collar against his neck. It’s nothing fancy—a button down in blue plaid. He chose it out of practicality more than anything, because he thought putting on a tie might be too much. The sleeves cover his arms, but below the cuff, his hands are visibly mismatched. He’d brushed his hair back out of his face as well as he could; now that he’s taking proper care of it, some of the loose curl has come back. He glides his palm self-consciously over it to check that everything is still in place.

“I could cut your hair,” Freddie says.

Bucky presses his lips together, trying to decide if that was a criticism or a simple offer. Steve had said the same thing; Bucky had turned him down. But maybe he ought to think about it. He would certainly blend in better, if he took it shorter.

“Maybe,” he says. “Not now.”

“Well, of course not. Get your jacket—it’s time to go.”

The sun is still only drifting toward the horizon when they back out of the driveway. The truck’s engine rumbles and groans, a clear protest, but it moves for his mother anyway. She’s good that way, Bucky thinks. He rests his hands in his lap and watches the house get smaller in the rearview mirror.

“How was Steve this morning?” Freddie asks, sudden enough to make Bucky flinch. He’d expected this to be a silent drive.

“He’s okay,” Bucky says.

“Just okay?”

“Mm. I was glad he called.”

“I’m sure.”

The town emerges around them in bits and pieces—houses first, a few businesses, most of the buildings squat little one-story places. Indiana is mostly two-dimensional, he’s starting to notice. Nothing grows particularly tall here, not even people’s homes. As the buildings get denser, coalescing into a proper town around them, Bucky thinks it’s that flat quality that makes somewhere small like this feel so insular. You can’t see anything past your own block. And why would you want to? Why would you need to? The people that they pass—children playing on front lawns, elderly couples on porches—all seem content with what they have.

Steve would hate that, but the idea catches in Bucky’s head. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to live a small life like that. He wonders if the house he was born in is still standing along one of these streets.

“Steve said,” Bucky starts, “that he told you about us. Him and me.”

Freddie inhales quietly, and navigates a turn before she speaks. “That’s been a few years ago now, yes.”

“He said you asked.”

“I did.”

They drive past a school, probably the one Bucky would have gone to if they’d stayed here. “Did you know?” he asks.

The car eases toward a stop sign, and Freddie lets it idle. Her hands still grip the wheel, but something in her hold is different. She turns to look at him. They watch each other for a long time, and the cab suddenly feels three times smaller. The longer she looks, her brow pulled together, the more feeling returns to him—the feeling of being a kid, ready to spit at the world but scared of it too, desperate more than anything for his mother’s approval. He’d lost his father’s already, but he had thought maybe he could keep hers, if he tried hard enough.

“I suspected,” she says finally.

She must take her foot off the brake; the car starts to creep forward again. When she finally looks away, Bucky’s breath shudders out of him. He’s surprised to find that it feels like relief. At one point, this had been his greatest fear. But now, he knows the worst parts of the world in intimate detail, and this—this is the dullest ping to the side of a tin can. Hardly enough to rattle him, much less break him apart.

“Why?” he says.

“It was Steve first,” she tells him. “The way he looked at you, it was very intense.”

“Steve looks intense about everything.”

“I know, but this was… I don’t know, it was different.” She pauses, the car slowing. They must be nearly there. “And how you talked about him. Like he’d climbed up and pinned each star to the sky himself. For a while I thought maybe I’d just never had a friend like that.”

“He’s my best friend.”

“Yes. But there was more to it than that.”

“Yes.”

“Is there still?”

“Yes.”

“That’s—” She glances at him, just brief. Maybe it was easier to swallow when she thought he was dead. But she continues, “That’s good.”

And then there’s nothing else to say, because she pulls the car up to the curb outside a small house. Bucky doesn’t mind; that’s the most honest they’ve been with each other since 1939. Each bridge in its own time. The truck door

thunks

when he pushes it shut. A river rushes somewhere close by.

Janet’s house is one story, narrow and neat. A concrete sidewalk divides the front lawn in two, and small hedges trim the stairs that lead to the front door. His mother doesn’t bother to knock, just opens the door and ushers Bucky right inside. It’s good, he supposes, that his family is still close enough with one another to barge in unannounced. But he’s not sure that open hospitality still extends to him. If Janet decides to turn him away for whatever reason, she’ll now have to do it from inside her home.

If the house was small from the outside, the inside matches. There’s a modest sitting room that doubles as a dining room, a table with the leaf put in taking up half of it. Bucky recognizes the style of the room if not any of the actual furniture—it’s similar to his mother’s house. Across the dining table, an arch in the wall leads to the kitchen. The sound of the girls chattering away meets him like a warm greeting.

Freddie strides toward the kitchen with purpose. Bucky follows along more slowly. Just before he reaches the doorway, he hesitates, only to watch for a moment. His three sisters swirl around the kitchen like ingredients in a bowl, folding their mother in with ease, broad smiles on their faces. For a second, it’s nice just to see them all together again. It’s everything and nothing like how he remembers.

And then they all pause, as if in sync, and turn to look through the doorway.

Bucky takes two steps forward, and the kitchen light finds him. “Hi, girls,” he says softly.

A rooster-themed clock hanging above the oven ticks too loudly. Bucky looks from Rebecca to Janet to Rosemarie and back again, then down at his feet. Maybe he ought to have set his shoes by the door, but Freddie hadn’t, so then again—

“Hi, Bucky,” Rose says.

Bucky’s eyes find her gratefully. She smiles at him, tentative but true.

Slowly, Becca and and Jan start to breathe again.

“Holy shit,” Janet says.

“Janet, watch your mouth,” Freddie says.

“Sorry, Ma, I just—I know you said, but I guess I still thought…”

“Bucky?” Becca says. Her shoes click on the tile as she comes closer, her eyes wide and shining. “It’s really you. Isn’t it?”

He scrubs fingers at his chin, where it’s freshly shaved. He’d decided to give them something recognizable. That having a smooth face might help things go—well, smoother. Maybe it’s working.

“As far as I know,” he says, then clack his teeth together. “I mean, yes—it’s me.”

“I don’t know, Ma,” Becca says, her face blooming into an incredulous smile, “I think Jan was right.”

“Holy

shit.”

“Janet!”

“What?”

“Good gracious.”

Becca has always been the gentlest of them, and that remains true. She holds her arms out to him in request. Like he’d ever deny anything she asked of him. He nods, and closes the gap between them himself. Their embrace starts loose, easy—but Bucky feels it the moment something changes in Becca’s hold. Her arms lock around him, her face pressed to his shoulder. Her little shakes and shivers tell him that she’s crying.

When Janet decides she can’t wait her turn and wraps them both in a hug, Bucky’s eyes start to water too. Christ, he’d missed these two. His first friends—his worst enemies. His sisters. His family, all here together in the kitchen again, not their kitchen but it doesn’t matter. Standing here, the parts, people, and years that went missing don’t matter for just a moment. Becca cries on his shoulder. Janet tries not to laugh but she never could help it. Bucky gets his arms around both of them and holds them tight as he can, for as long as they’ll let him.

“Oh, yeah,” Janet says, lifting her head out of their huddle. The color in her face gives her away—her one tell. “Happy birthday, you mook.”

“Happy birthday!” Becca shouts in his ear, loud enough to make him hiss and pull away. “Sorry!”

They disentangle properly then, to get a good look at each other. Becca’s face is all wet, but that does nothing to diminish her resemblance to Janet. Despite different hair colors—Becca’s brown, Janet’s golden—they had been mistaken for twins a lot growing up. They both favor their father in looks more than Bucky or Rose ever did, though. George Barnes lives on in the mirror-image arch of their noses.

They’re both older now, too, but Bucky is starting to get used to that particular shock. The changes in them aren’t quite so noticeable. Twelve to twenty-two is more than twenty-two to thirty-two, even if the math works out the same.

He looks for Rosie and finds her leaning against the counter, her arms folded.

“Hi, Rose,” he says.

“Happy birthday,” she says. “Do I get a hug too?”

He fights back a frown, hating that she even had to ask. “Of course.”

Then Rose embraces him too, and Bucky tries not to think about how his mother hasn’t hugged him once since he arrived. That hardly matters, with the girls all here.

“What’s that smell?” he asks. “You making a roast?”

“That’s still your favorite, right?” Becca asks.

“It better be,” Janet says, cracking the oven door open. The rich smell of roasting meat wafts out into the room. “This thing took all afternoon.”

“Okay, okay, the roast is done,” Freddie says. “It needs to rest a few minutes. All of you wash your hands and sit down. Oh, Janet, you haven’t set the table already? Why?”

Janet directs her rolling eyes toward Bucky, but she’s smiling. “See? You didn’t miss much. Things are pretty much the same around here.”

He doesn’t have to say much while they eat. That’s good—he doesn’t mind listening, taking them all in. His family banters, bickers, argues and talks with their hands too much. Janet waves her fork in the air like a weapon, and once or twice Bucky is worried her grip is too loose and it might go flying across the room. Even Freddie is more animated than he’s seen in the past few days while she tries fruitlessly to keep everyone in line. If her stern tone had hit-or-miss success when they were all children, it’s mostly misses now. But she doesn’t seem to mind all that much.

He sits next to Becca, who leans toward his ear to give context to whatever story the others are telling. He could figure things out on his own, but it’s kind of her.

When she bends toward him again, mouth open, he blurts, “Where are your husbands?”

She blinks at him, brow pinched.

“Steve told me you’re married. And Janet, too.”

“Right, no—I am, we are. I just figured Ma would tell you…?” Her eyes flick to Freddie and back to Bucky’s impassive face. “Right. Bobby—that’s my husband, Robert, Bobby—is at our house with Janet’s husband Joel. And the children.”

She tacks the last part on like she’s not sure he knows. He smiles softly and says, “Ian and James.”

A surprised smile warms Becca’s face. “Yes, that’s right.”

“Is James—I don’t want to assume…”

“We named him for you, Bucky. We call him Jim, though—hope you don’t mind. He’s three.”

Something in Bucky’s chest pulls impossibly tight. His nephew. Some little mop-headed toddler wobbling about with his name and Becca’s sweet face. Does he know about Bucky? What would Becca have told him? The edge of his silverware digs into his flesh palm. He’ll bend the fork in his left hand if he isn’t careful.

“What are you two whispering about?” Janet calls across the table, her knife wobbling at them.

“Will you stop that?” Freddie asks. “You’re married now, have some table manners.”

“What does being married have to do with table manners?” Rosie asks.

“I was just explaining to Bucky where Bob, Joel, and the children are,” Becca says. Bucky doesn’t miss the raised eyebrow she sends their mother’s way.

“Speaking of Joel,” Janet says,

“he

thinks my table manners are just fine.”

“I guess he knew what he was getting into when he married you,” Freddie sighs.

“How—” Bucky clears his throat, and the chatter dissipates in an instant. “How long have you been married?”

Janet smiles wide and ducks her head, a moment of uncharacteristic bashfulness. “A year in May.”

“Congratulations.”

“I have a photograph album from the wedding. I’ll show you after dessert?”

“That—yes, I’d like that.”

“And speaking of dessert,” Rosie singsongs. “Bucky, come help me.”

“With his own birthday cake?” Freddie asks.

“I don’t mind,” Bucky says. His chair squeaks faintly against the hardwood as he stands to follow Rosie into the kitchen. She has her back to him, busy at the counter. “Rose?”

“Do you like lemon?”

“Do I—sure.”

“Great.”

“Rose,” he says again, and crosses the kitchen to stand next to her at the counter. He opens his mouth to speak, but stutters over his words when he sees the cake sitting there. It’s simple and small. Neat white icing swirls over the surface, piped by a steady hand—Rose’s. “Oh,” he breathes. “That’s… that’s mine?”

“Well, I think we’re all hoping you’ll share.”

He blinks, missing the joke. “Of course.”

“Good.”

“Are you still upset with me?”

Her smiles falters. “What?”

“Ma said you were. I’m sorry, I—you shouldn’t have had to see any of that.”

When her hand touches his arm, he flinches, but not hard enough to shake her. “I was upset, but not with you, Bucky.”

“Then why?”

“Just… I don’t know, seeing you in pain like that—I didn’t like it.”

Had he been in pain? Is that what it looks like, from the outside? He supposes that makes sense; it never occurred to him to think of it as pain. Which, now that he considers it, may be the worst part of all of it. Maybe it’s good that someone saw, then. Now he knows; he’s in pain.

“Thank you,” he says softly.

“For what?”

“For caring.”

“Bucky.” She frowns at him quizzically and redoubles her grip on his arm. “Of course.”

Nodding, he reaches for the box of candles on the counter. The cardboard lid slides open easily with a flick of his thumb, and he shakes a few candles out into his palm. They’re small and blue, a white swirl scrawling neatly from the bottom to the fresh white wick. They could break so easily. He could pry the wick loose from the wax and tie it into a knot.

“So,” he says, trying for conversational, “are

you

married?”

She snorts. “No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No! Geez, Bucky.” Her nose wrinkles. “Men are gross.”

Bucky nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, you’re right.”

She laughs again. “What do you mean,

yeah?

You like men.”

His head snaps up to catch her eye, body pulling taut with all too familiar worry. “What?”

“You—” Her eyes widen. “You’re… you’re a homosexual. Right? Ma said so.”

And it makes sense, that she would have told them. He’d been dead, or so they thought. What difference did it make? Dead men’s secrets aren’t theirs to hide anymore. He just hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. Does the whole family know? He shakes his head, trying to blink away his bewilderment. Half a lifetime spent burying himself, trying on women like ties, yanking them loose the moment he stepped foot into his and Steve’s apartment to find Steve waiting up on him.

He should be happy, that it doesn’t seem to matter now. That his family doesn’t seem to care, or at least now it’s their turn to hide something if they do. They can make jokes about it, like it’s normal. Maybe they’re just glad to have him back, and the details don’t matter. He should be happy, but the idea that all that effort was for naught in the end leaves him feeling strangely bereft.

Bucky rolls the candles over in his palm. If it doesn’t matter anymore he may as well be honest.

“Just the one man,” he says breathily, “these days.”

Her eyes soften. “Is Steve planning to visit?”

“I don’t—I don’t know.”

“Oh. I thought that—are you two not…?”

“No, we are, it’s just—” He breaks off and squints at her. “I just don’t know if there’s a point in it.”

She stares back at him, incredulous. “What do you mean, a point? Why wouldn’t he visit?” As she says it, he watches it dawn on her. Her face falls with a soft gasp, and she turns away from him to grip the counter. “You’re not staying, are you?”

“Rose,” he says gently, but he isn’t sure how to placate her. Eventually, he’s going to leave, head back to Brooklyn. He’d made Steve a promise. Shelbyville is his hometown in name only; he’s sure that he belongs in New York. “Rosie, I’d come visit. You know I would.”

“We just got you back,” she says thickly.

“I know. Christ, I just—I only just got you back too, didn’t I?”

She turns doleful eyes on him. Her hand juts out, palm flat. “The candles, Bucky. Everyone’s waiting.”

He passes them over, and she drives them deep into the icing, one after another—ten in all. He wonders if the number is deliberate somehow, or if it’s just that she only bought so many.

“Rosie girl,” he pleads. “I’m not in any hurry out, okay?”

“If you say so.”

“Maybe we can try again, with the goats. I can do better.”

“Okay,” she sighs. “Okay, Bucky, sure. Go sit down while I light your candles.”

Sometime after he had left for the kitchen, someone had dimmed the lights. He takes his seat and feels Freddie’s eyes searching his face. Becca and Janet exchange quizzical looks.

Becca leans in and covers his hand with her smaller one on the tabletop. “Everything okay?” she asks.

“Sure.”

She doesn’t seem convinced, but when Rose appears in the doorway with the cake, she must decide to believe him. It’s her voice that starts into the song first: “For he’s a jolly good fellow…”

Everyone else joins in while Rose sets the cake, alight with flickering candles, in front of Bucky. The flames dance in his eyes. Their light is just enough for him to look around the table at them all—his family. Their voices are soft at first, then louder and louder. Bucky’s heart lodges in his throat and threatens to choke him. If his eyes start to water, it’s too dim for anyone to notice. He only

just

got them back.

“And so say all of us!” they finish.

Bucky leans forward, and blows out the lights.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Steve knows he’s not there, especially now, but he still visits Bucky’s grave. He doesn’t know why he goes again—habit, maybe. To check that it really exists at all, and that the past ten years haven’t been some kind of fever dream. The double arches at the entrance to Holy Cross Cemetery usher him in like a familiar friend, which he supposes that he is by now. He’d almost stopped to get flowers before deciding that would make this much too macabre, even for him.

Steve walks along the path empty-handed, the morning chill biting at his fingers. He could find the place with his eyes closed. A short ten minutes later, the stone lies at his feet, same as ever:

James Buchanan Barnes born March 10, 1917 died 1944.

The date had been a guess at the time of inscription; they couldn’t say for sure. How could they estimate a death that had never happened at all? They hadn’t known that, of course. Maybe if they hadn’t believed what they were told, if they’d looked themselves… But it doesn’t make a difference now.

His knees creak in protest when he squats to wipe the moisture away from the smooth stone. The engraved letters catch at his fingertips. The flowers are a month old now, and well decayed. Steve pushes their remnants away, letting them scatter over the grass.

He glances to the right, where George Barnes’ grave lies. The stone is slightly less weathered, though not by much. Sometimes Steve would pull a flower from Bucky's bunch to lay over George, too, but he hadn’t been feeling that generous last month. Steve had never felt particularly generous toward Bucky’s father, truth be told, but he still brought flowers for Freddie’s sake, since she wasn’t in Brooklyn anymore to do it herself.

Freddie had bought these plots for her husband and herself. If she hasn’t already made other arrangements, Steve guesses that still might work. He can’t decide if he would want that for himself, to be buried where they’d laid Bucky’s memory to rest. But it’s a perfectly good plot.

Steve grips the edge of the headstone and sinks his weight into his heels, like he might be able to prise it from the ground. It doesn’t budge; all he succeeds in is abrading his own fingertips. But it was worth a try. He’ll have to ring the church, explain the situation—have it properly removed by someone who knows what they’re doing. Steve’s broken enough things recently.

He sits there in the damp grass longer than he means to. The knees of his slacks start to soak through. After a while it gets harder to remember which part he’d thought was the dream: the past decade, or the past few weeks. One is easier to believe than the other. He can still hear Bucky’s voice—fuzzy through the telephone but undeniably real. Steve couldn’t replicate that sound on his own. That was one of the first things his mind had lost.

The gesture feels final when he rises from the ground and turns his back on that little slab of rock. His ears almost ring with it: the opposite of a death knell.

Good riddance,

he thinks, and heads across to visit his mother’s grave while he’s here. Hell, maybe she’ll be standing there waiting for him. The impossible is possible, these days.

The New York City Department of Health doesn’t seem so inclined to believe that, however.

The clerk, perched behind a narrow counter, stares up at Steve as if he’d walked in and declared he was carrying the bubonic plague. “You need to what?”

“I need to have a death certificate revoked,” Steve repeats. “Can you tell me what that process is?”

“I’m not sure I understand,” the clerk says. He pushes his glasses up his nose and glances around, as if searching for potential backup in case Steve decides to vault the counter. Steve supposes they’ve dealt with that before. He rubs at the ache developing behind his temple, and perseveres.

“Look, someone I know was declared deceased, but he isn’t, and I’d like to know how to get his death certificate nullified.”

“What’s the name of the deceased?”

“He isn’t—” Steve sighs. “James Barnes. Date of birth March 10, 1917.”

“And you claim he isn’t deceased because…?”

“Because… because he isn’t. I’ve seen him” —touched him, held him— “he’s alive.”

“Okay,” the clerks says, squinting at him. “Are you Mr. Barnes’ next of kin?”

Steve closes his eyes, hard but brief. “No, I’m not.”

“Then I’m afraid it’s not possible for me to help you. Only next of kin can—”

“Is it

possible

for you to just tell me what his next of kin would need to do then? His mother lives in Indiana, she can’t exactly pop over.” Steve catches himself when the clerk’s eyes widen. He unclenches his fist where he’d set it down heavy on the counter. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m just looking for some answers.”

“I understand that, sir, however...”

“Please. I just—if there’s anything at all you can do. All I want is to help him.”

The clerk nods, throat bobbing. There’s something like sympathy in his eyes now. “I’m… I’m really not supposed to help if you’re not next of kin.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “But?”

“I can check to see if we have record of the certificate on file, at least. When did Mr. Barnes pass? Or, sorry, when was he presumed to have passed?”

“Forty-four,” Steve says, “according to his gravestone. I don’t remember if his death certificate said that too but it was around in there.” Now that he thinks of it, Steve isn’t sure he ever actually laid eyes on the death certificate. “He was in the army, went M.I.A.”

“Okay,” the clerk says. “Okay, well, actually the Armed Forces Medical Examiners Office would have issued the certificate, and we may not have record of it.”

“Oh.”

“But I can—I’ll call and ask for you, see what I can find out. How about you sit down to wait.”

“Thank you.”

Steve reclaims his spot on one of the long wooden benches to twiddle his thumbs. He hadn’t meant for this to be so complicated; he only wanted there to be some legal, stamped-on-paper proof that Bucky is alive. A level of absolute certainty.

Bucky might need that more than he does. He’d sounded okay on the phone. Fair to middling, which isn’t what Steve had hoped for but about how much he ought to have expected. Bucky’s family can be overwhelming in the most innocuous of situations. But he’ll adjust, reacclimate. Steve hopes so, anyway. There are plenty of men who came home from the war and are living happy lives right this minute.

There are plenty that aren’t, of course. But Bucky’s always been a cut above the rest—he can be in this, too. Christ, Steve hopes. He’ll do all he can to help, deal with the paperwork of undying so Bucky doesn’t have to. If he can’t do anything else for him while he’s so far away, he can do this.

The clerk reappears at the counter more than twenty minutes later, a curious frown on his face. Steve stands and strides across the room toward him.

“What did you say your name was?” the clerk asks.

Steve mirrors his frown and says, “Steve Rogers.”

“Mr. Rogers, I’ve got some—well, I guess this is good news. The Army never officially declared Mr. Barnes as deceased.”

“They… what?”

“No, it seems he’s still listed as MIA. The office told me this happens, if a body’s never found, sometimes they—well, sometimes they never declare a personnel member deceased, if there’s reason to believe they’re a POW, or...”

The rest of the clerk’s sentence doesn’t make it to Steve’s ears. “Holy shit,” he breathes. He scrubs a hand over his mouth and blinks hard at the linoleum flooring. “Jesus.”

Bucky was never dead at all. Not for a minute. Not even according to the United States government.

Steve thinks he remembers something about this, from years and years ago, Freddie explaining in clipped sentences what Bucky’s commanding officer had told her. They shouldn’t hold out hope, but it was often the policy, unless remains were properly identified... He has a vague recollection of helping Freddie draft a letter asking that she stop receiving Bucky’s pay and benefits. She couldn’t stand it, not when he was supposed to be dead. Not when they’d had a headstone engraved.

It’s oddly affirming, Steve thinks. He’d harbored that illogical gut feeling that Bucky was still out there for so long—and then been proved correct. Now there was even a paper trail to back him up.

The clerk clears his throat. Steve glances up at him, noticing the thin sheen of sweat along his hairline. Steve’s made the poor guy nervous.

“Sorry for the language,” Steve says. “I’m just floored.”

“Where is Mr. Barnes now?” the clerk asks reedily.

“He’s in—” Steve breaks off, his hackles raising despite how far out of his way this clerk has gone. Because of that, maybe. “Why do you need to know?”

“The medical examiner would like to confirm that he’s no longer missing in action. They ask that you” —the clerk passes Steve a small slip of paper with a phone number and address scrawled neatly in the center— “put them in contact with Mr. Barnes as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” Steve says slowly, pocketing the paper. He supposes he ought to do that; maybe Bucky is owed some backpay. Maybe he can get some answers as to how to hell the Army left him to the dogs in the first place. Could be there’s no money and no answers, but it wouldn’t hurt to have Bucky formally discharged—formally freed. That could be good for him. Good for them both.

The train ride into Manhattan is slow, caught up in the evening commute; Steve hadn’t timed himself particularly well. He knows it’s only temporary, but as he rolls backward along the elevated bridge toward downtown and Brooklyn gets farther away, he feels like he’s betrayed his borough somehow. Not once has he ever lived anyplace else—nor has he ever had any desire to.

There are storm clouds rolling in from the Atlantic to hang low over Long Island. It’s as clear a scowl as Steve has ever seen.

The Village isn’t so bad, though. Steve has learned the neighborhood well enough over the years that it doesn’t feel completely foreign to him. He’s woken up in beds here before. But never one designated as his. He’s technically paying for the roof over his head, however nominal the fee. Dean must have called ahead for him—still kind, even when Steve has crossed him beyond imagination. Steve is certain he doesn’t deserve it, at this point, but he takes it anyway. His pride takes the backseat to necessity more often than he cares to admit, these days.

Kath and Lily are nice women. He’s known Lily longer—a Broadway not-quite-star-but-rising; he’d worked on the poster and program for a musical she had had a supporting role in a few years ago. She’s in a show right now, a lead role this time, so she’s quiet around the apartment most of the time, saving her voice. Kath is quiet by nature, her dancer’s feet carrying her catlike down the hall so that Steve hardly notices her unless he’s looking for her.

They have a second bedroom, for appearances' sake. Steve isn’t inclined to tell them that having a man in and out of their apartment at all hours is probably just as bad for their reputation as whatever they get up to behind their closed bedroom door at night. He’s sure they know, but like he said: they’re nice. He doesn’t know either of them well—they’d been more Dean’s friends than his; it was Dean’s connection to Lily that had gotten Steve the job designing that show poster. But they leave him well enough alone when it’s obvious that’s what he wants, and Kath always brews enough coffee to share in the mornings.

So it’s an alright set-up, for now. He hasn’t lived with a woman since his mother died nearly twenty years ago. Now there are two.

There’s a desk in the corner of the small room, tucked neatly under the single window. The light is decent enough to work by—and God knows he needs to be working. He’s getting behind on his commissions, not to mention he’s forgotten to tell half his clients how they can contact him. Thankfully he’s earned a reputation of reliability so that it might not hurt him much if he can turn out a decent product in the end.

Some days he wishes he made enough off his original work to give up commercial jobs altogether. With his pencil hovering blankly over the page, the words of the brief propped against the windowsill start to swim. Today is one of those days, then. He’d tear it up and turn the job down if he didn’t need the money for a deposit on someplace more permanent.

The problem is that there’s only one thing he wants to draw.

He must have drawn Bucky a thousand times over by now—each part of him a thousand times, or a number too high to name. He almost wishes he had an official tally, just to know. Bucky had been his first real subject, back when they were still children and Steve was still clumsily scrawling his way beyond stick figures. He’d been his first artistic fascination when they were a little older. And then Bucky had been his muse. More than that, but the language fails; there isn’t a better word.

Used to be, he knew every crease in Bucky’s body, each line and all the places where he was softer, where he curved. Steve hardly needed to look to capture him, though he did anyway—continually, endlessly. Some of his commercial work over the years has been labeled repetitive because all the faces come out similar. The truth is that he never really bothered to learn how to draw anyone else.

But now he has new contours to learn. He’d mapped Bucky’s body out with his eyes and hands, but he hadn’t had much time to put it all to paper before Bucky left on the train. That old itch—that never left, that he’ll never be able to satisfy—crops up again.

To hell with it. There’s always more money to be made.

Steve’s pencil makes soft scratching noises against the paper. The initial shape is easy, just basic human anatomy, lines and circles forming a body. It’s the details that make a person. His tongue caught between his teeth, Steve renders him new: curled on the couch cushions, relaxed and gentle in his sleep. It’s old too, though. Bucky had always liked to label Steve the tense one, and while it was true, Bucky always had this tightness between his shoulders. If Steve carried the weight of the world like a torch, Bucky hauled it like a burden.

Steve rarely saw that tension go slack while Bucky was awake, but in his sleep, Bucky could set everything aside. Steve used to stay awake too long sometimes, just to witness him like that.

He never stopped drawing him, even after he was gone. But for the first time in ten years, it doesn’t hurt. As he draws, Steve feels seventeen again, brimming with life and so much love for every dip and sway of Bucky’s body. Their affection for one another had always been loaded, never simple—how could it be? Now, that was perhaps more true than it had ever been. But this, paper and pencil, is the easiest thing in the world. In all the years that had kept them apart, Steve rarely wanted for inspiration. But this feels like something slotting itself back into place—a long lost key in a forgotten lock.

His hands start to ache, but he ignores them. Kath knocks on the door to let him know she and Lily are headed for their call times, and it’s rude but he ignores her too. He’ll apologize later; he’s busy.

He finishes as the sun is sinking into late afternoon. It’s no masterwork—in fact it’s rusty as all hell—but it’s done. Bucky’s face on the page is loose and vulnerable in sleep, his hands folded together over his belly like they belong together. And they do. All of him belongs. Steve isn’t sure if he has the details just right—there are some lines in his skin now Steve isn’t familiar with yet, and the arm is complicated—but it’s close enough for now.

Kath and Lily had told him to make the room his own, so he digs a pin out of the desk’s top drawer. Back before he had the money to buy proper wall decor, he used to tack magazine articles and news clippings and his own work around the room like wallpaper. If he’s feeling young again, he may as well keep it up. The pin sinks into the drywall with ease. Something of his own to brighten the room. He smiles properly for the first time all day.

Steve spends a lot of time out and about. It’s an old impulse, and an odd one now; he’s become something of a homebody the past few years. He’s always hated sitting still, but he learned to prefer moving about in his own space over anywhere else. But Lily and Kath are home a lot, a reminder that this space isn’t his; he doesn’t like being in their hair.

“We don’t mind, Steve, honest,” Lily tells him when he mentions over morning coffee that he’ll be gone for most of the day.

“I know,” Steve says. “Thank you for that, I just…”

He waves his hands in the air, trying to articulate something he can’t find the right word for. An itch under his skin, restlessness, something. This is a nice apartment, and his room is a decent size. It’s tempting to stay locked inside, trying to remember which shades of oil pastels he used to use for Bucky’s eyes. But he needs to keep moving—needs to do something—or he’s going to lose it. No more dawdling. He’s tired of himself.

Kath exchanges a long, loaded look with Lily. They communicate something through several elaborate eyebrow raises and frowns, till finally Lily sighs and turns to go put her mug in the sink.

“You have the spare key,” Kath says.

Steve nods. It’s in his pocket, nestled next to the key to Dean's apartment he probably ought to stop carrying around.

“Just lock up if we’re not here,” Kath says, then ghosts after Lily into the kitchen.

Steve can’t decide if Kath understands him or hates him, but he supposes it doesn’t matter one way or the other. He shrugs into his coat five minutes later and heads for the door.

The temperatures aren’t consistent enough to call it spring yet, but the weather is starting to think about warming up. The wind still bites. Steve keeps his chin tucked as he sets out toward—well, he isn’t sure. He has his briefcase with him, so wherever he ends up he will be able to get some work done. He’d finally phoned his commission contacts; no one was angry but no one had extended his deadlines either. He needs to get his act together and fast.

It’s a little cold for the park, but Steve heads east anyway. There’s a strip of greenery along the East River that he likes, mostly for its view of the Williamsburg Bridge but it’s nice in its own right. It’s too early in the day for many people to be out, so he has his choice of benches. The trees offer decent cover from the wind. He sits on a bench, the wood slightly damp underneath him, and pulls some materials out of his briefcase.

He’ll be able to get some sketches down here at least. If he wants to accomplish anything properly, he’ll have to head across the river to the studio. Something about that idea repels him, though. Too much time spent there lately—in some ways it had started to feel like a cell. That’s not conducive to creativity.

With his eyes on Brooklyn across the water, he puts some rough ideas to paper. None of this work is particularly difficult; it doesn’t need his full attention. He couldn’t give it even if he needed to. He’s been thinking again about what the clerk at the Department of Health had said,

reason to believe he’s a POW…

Steve wasn’t Bucky’s next of kin; the Army hadn’t told him a damn thing. It'd all been through Freddie.

Had someone with the Army known Bucky was alive? That the Nazis had him? They’d had a lot of people; the world only found out about that later, but

someone

knew and didn’t do anything about it. It’s not so hard to believe they would have done the same to Bucky. Are there others like him still out there? To what end? Bucky still hasn’t told Steve what, exactly, had been done to him. The arm, obviously—but there was more to it than that. It didn’t matter but maybe it did, if the people who had hurt him were still out there.

His pencil lead snaps on the paper. “Dammit,” he mutters, and blows on the page to scatter the fragments without smudging his work.

Steve doubts this is some kind of conspiracy. More than likely, someone had misfiled some paperwork. That happens; there had been a lot of death certificates to issue back then. But regardless, Steve still hasn’t passed Bucky’s contact information to the Medical Examiner's Office—or told Bucky that the office wants to speak with him. These days, he tends to believe people are by default incompetent, not evil, but the whole situation still leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

He’ll write Bucky to tell him about it. Just maybe not in his first letter—he’s got something else he promised to send.

“So what is this?” asks Daniel as the heavy sliding door rolls open to reveal him. “New portraits of the artist or something?”

Steve follows him through the open door into the converted warehouse space. Daniel’s studio is about a thousand times nicer than Steve’s. For one thing, he doesn’t share it—and rarely lets other people in, unless they’ve promised to sit for him. Natural light pours in from two walls stacked high with windows, and he’s got additional lighting rigs besides. It’s his sharp eye for light that has made Daniel as renowned a photographer as he is.

In some ways Steve is glad he only ever dabbled in photography; it seems much more complicated than a canvas and brush. That, and you can’t flub the details as easily—the camera sees everything, which is equal parts thrilling and nerve-wracking.

“No,” Steve says. “Well, maybe, I guess, but this is more… personal.”

Daniel smiles wolfishly as they cross the uncluttered studio floor. “Personal, hm? Little chilly in here for that, but I can turn up the radiator.”

“Oh—” Steve’s cheeks heat. “Christ, not like that. I just mean these are for someone.”

“Shame,” Daniel says, flicking his eyes over Steve—but it’s an appraisal more than anything else. Steve is fairly certain Daniel only sleeps with women, but his eye isn’t as particular as his dick, it seems. “You’re gorgeous.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Thanks.”

Daniel purses his lips, but allows the brush-off. “I was surprised when you called.”

“Why?”

“You’ve always struck me as camera shy, honestly.”

Steve has known Daniel for a few years, albeit not very well. They run in similar circles; proximity more than anything else had brought them together, but Steve has always liked Daniel. He’d been the first person Steve had thought of when he needed to find a photographer.

“That why you agreed so quickly?” Steve asks.

“Maybe,” Daniel says. He ushers Steve up the open staircase in one corner, toward the smaller, more intimate loft above the main studio. It looks like it doubles as Daniel’s office. “You’re elusive, like a forest creature. Can’t say I’m not fascinated to see what you become in front of my camera.”

Steve shakes his head, bewildered, and drops onto the wide lounge chair in the center of the room. He ought to have known better than to talk to a photographer if he wanted to keep to himself. He likes his barricades and boundaries, but that’s not what he’s here for today.

“What did you have in mind?” Daniel asks, straying toward a desk in the corner. There are several cases there, which Steve assumes hold his camera equipment. The latches of one flick open with a metallic

snick.

“I don’t really know.”

“Sure you do. Who are these photos for?”

“Um,” Steve says.

“You’re with what’s-his-name, right? Chambers?”

“No—well, I was, but…”

“Oh, hm. New beau, then?”

“Not… really?”

Daniel spins to face him and points a finger across the room. “See, this is what I mean. I can’t tell if you’re being intentionally mysterious or if you’re just bad at answering questions, but either way, I like it.”

“Do you even want to know then?”

Daniel’s shoulders rise and fall. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, picking up a camera and attaching the lens. “What do you want him to see in these photos?”

“Oh, um. Me. He wants to see me.”

“Okay.” Daniel smiles and holds up the camera. “I can work with that.”

The camera shutter clicks rapidly, before Steve has a moment to prepare himself. “Oh,” he says, and his hand flies to his hair, an attempt to fix it or cover up his face—both. “Warn a man, Daniel.”

“Three, two,” Daniel humors him, but it’s mocking. Steve tries to relax. “One.”

The shutter clacks again, slower this time. Steve fidgets and blinks, unsure whether to look into the lens or not. He ought to have asked Bucky—maybe he had a preference one way or the other. Even if he didn’t it might have been nice to hear him say something like

I don’t mind.

He wouldn’t have said

I like you any damn way, you know that,

but it’s what he would have meant. He knew Steve hadn’t always believed him, so he’d learned to stop bothering with words and just show him how much he meant it. Steve had never really stopped resenting his own body for what it couldn’t do, but he figured out how to be grateful for what it could—and there was a lot, as it turned out. He and Bucky had deciphered each other like new languages, word by word.

“That’s nice,” Daniel says softly. “Whatever you’re thinking about, keep thinking it. I’m going to put film in now.”

“You weren’t even—?” Steve asks.

“Didn’t wanna waste it till you were ready.”

They begin with just the natural light. Early afternoon spills sideways over them in pale yellow. Daniel is the quietest Steve has ever seen him, with the camera in his hands. His focus is like a spotlight, but Steve finds he doesn’t mind so much because he understands it. He’s not used to being on this side of the equation, but after years and years, he supposes he’s paying his dues.

Daniel switches lenses, adjusts the lighting, moves Steve around with soft directions. It’s easy to listen. Steve stares into the camera and lets himself reminisce.

Those early days with Bucky were still some of the best of his life. Everything fresh and new and familiar at once—the feeling like clean sheets on a warm bed. That version of himself, the one who had set his hand on the kitchen table and put words to what they’d been brewing together for years, seems so impossibly young to him now. And he had been, both of them had been little more than children, but without a doubt Steve had never been as sure of himself as he was in that moment.

He doesn’t always feel so bold anymore. The world weathers everything, even stone. But with Bucky back, he feels enlivened again—or at least, he’s starting to. That same fire kindling anew from the coals leftover in his center.

He’d had a lot of dreams back then. Steve wasn’t a pollyanna and never had been, but he expected a lot of the world—and everyone in it, including himself. Most of his visions for the future had fallen apart: never made it into the army, never finished his art degree, never got his hair to behave. If those things were plates smashed on the floor, losing Bucky had been like toppling the entire china cabinet. He’d cobbled together something that stood upright and worked well enough, but it just wasn’t the same.

But now he has Bucky back, and maybe he can have some of those dreams of their life together, too. Even if so many things are different, it’s still more than he ever thought he would have again.

The camera clicks, and clicks, and clicks. Steve smiles without thinking about it. Daniel tells a joke, Steve laughs, and the sound of the shutter firing blurs together in his ears.

When they start losing light, Daniel pops the film roll free. “You want to see them now?”

“Yes,” Steve says, blinking hard. He’d gone off somewhere.

“Come on, you can help.”

Developing film is a complicated, quiet process. Daniel tries to explain the chemicals and the techniques, and any other time Steve might retain the information, but today it’s in one ear and out the other. If Daniel notices, he keeps talking anyway. There are other photos hanging in the darkroom, strung on strings beneath the red lights. Steve peruses them while Daniel busies himself with the tanks. Mostly it’s unfamiliar faces. Daniel provides commentary for a few, saying this is such and such, that will be printed in this magazine, so and so is a real piece of work. Steve decides he likes Daniel a lot somewhere in the middle, and that he ought to try to be his friend. He needs more of those.

“You love this work,” Steve says.

Daniel smiles at him curiously. “Yes.”

“How do you do it?”

“What, are you changing mediums on me?”

“No, no—I mean, you

only

work on things you love. Right?”

“Oh.” Daniel shrugs. “Well, sure. That’s not hard when I enjoy what I do.”

“Yes, but…” Steve presses his teeth together, trying to pinpoint what exactly he’s asking. “I’m sure you get offers for work that you wouldn’t enjoy.”

“Of course. What’s your point, Steve?”

“I guess I’m just trying to figure out how you cultivate… this.” He waves a hand at all the photos. “How you balance it all, earning a living without sacrificing your creative integrity.”

“No small questions from you, huh?”

Steve smiles self-deprecatingly. “You don’t have to answer.”

“No, I want to. The thing is, I assume you’re asking because you want to figure that out for yourself.” At Steve’s nod, Daniel continues, “And it’s not—this doesn’t come easy. I make good money but I’d make more if I did what you said, take the offers I wouldn’t enjoy as much. It’s an immense privilege to be able to turn them down, one that not every artist has.”

“But how do you get to that point?”

“Frankly? Fuck if I can say for sure.”

Steve barks a laugh. “Great.”

“Really, though, Steve. If you want something, go after it. You don’t seem the type to need to be told that, honestly.”

Steve’s finger traces the edge of the chemical tank, where photographs of his own face are slowly fading into view. “Yeah. I wouldn’t, normally, I guess I just—got a little lost over the years, maybe.”

“Happens to the best of us. No time like the present to re-evaluate, though.”

“That’s true.”

“Let me know if you want any help. I know plenty of elbows you can rub. You have an agent?”

“No, I mostly handle my own business.”

Daniel cuts a look at him. “I’m helping you find an agent. Can’t believe Chambers let you walk around this long without one.”

“He doesn’t

let

me do anything.”

“Mm. Yeah, I see that now.”

Daniel’s hands hover over the chemical baths with what looks like reverence. His eyes are narrowed, concentrating, evaluating some degree of quality that Steve can only begin to comprehend. It’s oddly disconcerting for Steve, to be peered at in images like that; it doesn’t feel the same as someone staring him down face to face. He supposes it’s more exposing in some ways. If it were his live self staring back, he could do something about it if he didn’t like it, but photographs are frozen.

“How do they look?”

“Gorgeous.” Daniel plucks one free from the bath and holds it aloft for Steve to see. “You have such an interesting face, you should let me photograph you more.”

“Maybe,” Steve says, stepping in close to get a better look. That’s his face, alright. “Not bad.”

“I’m a fucking genius. Your new boyfriend’s jaw is going to hit the floor.”

Steve will have to take him at his word for it. Given that it’s his own face, he’s having trouble being objective. He isn’t used to seeing himself like this: in soft black and white, the light sharpening the angles of his face as he looks into the camera. It doesn’t look much like him, he doesn’t think, but Daniel assures him he’s wrong. Steve shrugs. He’s never had a particularly strong mental image of himself.

“I think this one,” Daniel says, pointing to one photo where they’re all hung on a line now, “and—how many did you want?”

“Oh, just one or two’s fine.”

“Okay. This one too, then, give him some variation. Sure you don’t want to do some nudes too?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Maybe next time.”

“Any time, Steve. I’ll make a few prints. We’ll do lunch later in the week, I’ll bring them to you.”

“Thank you,” Steve says. “Really. How much do I—”

Daniel waves a hand at him before he can get the question out. “A favor to a friend.”

“Oh.” Steve starts to protest, but bites his tongue instead. “Thanks.”

“Just don’t go telling anyone—we wouldn’t want anyone thinking I’m nice.”

Later in the week, Steve scrawls an Indiana address on the outside of a thick envelope, which holds a too-long letter and two black and white photographs. It’s hard to let go of at the post office, but he trusts Bucky with what’s inside—trusts Bucky with all of him.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Dear Bucky,Here are those photographs, as promised. I had a friend take them on account of how I’m a regular amateur and he knows what he’s doing. I’ll tell you it was a production. I just assumed I’d sit by the window for a few minutes and then we'd move on about our days, but I wound up being there for hours. I figure you’d get a kick out of that because we both know who THAT sounds like, don’t we.Anyway I think they came out nice myself. You can see me and everything! Big nose and all, honk. I hope you like them.I suppose now I’m sitting down to write you a letter I may as well write you a nice long one. Like old times eh? I can’t remember the last time I wrote you a letter. Well no that’s not true now I think on it. It was early 44 and it came back with return to sender stamped all ugly on the envelope. I guess that’s when I started thinking you might
that you
that something might be wrong because I knew my letters took a long time to get to you but I’d never gotten one sent back before. Do you know what happened to all my letters to you? I suppose it doesn’t matter now so don’t feel bad if you don’t, I’m just curious. They weren’t with the personal effects they sent back to your ma.I want to
How are
I
wishI don’t get into fights anymore. Aren’t you proud? This is a bit of a non-sequitur but it’s been on my mind after I closed my hand in a cabinet this morning. Felt like I’d caught somebody’s jaw too hard. No fights but still a klutz. You know how it goes. Anyway I’ll have you know that I have not been in a physical altercation since 1946 thank you very much I’ll take that check now PLEASE.I can’t remember what the last one was actually about. I don’t know Buck but it was around the one-year of when we’d put in your headstone and I’d been to see you and it put me in the usual mood, which I don’t have to tell you wasn’t good. I’m not proud of it but I can say with a level of certainty that I was probably looking to get hit that night. You always suspected this of me and I never confirmed it but I’m here to tell you you were right. Sometimes I wanted someone to kick me while I was down. Then at least I could blame my sour attitude on my black eye. Sorry.Anyway I don’t much remember where I was or what happened. (There’s cause for this I’m not some forgetful nanny.) Probably me and my loud mouth spoke up about something that somebody didn’t like. Yes Ms. Waitress I’ll have the usual. Anyway next thing I know I’m back at my place and there’s blood everywhere. Whoever punched me split my lip so bad that I bled through two towels before realizing maybe I ought to go to the hospital. The doctor stitched me up and asked did I have anybody to keep an eye on me because he thought I might have a concussion. I said sure I did (you know like a liar) and went on home by myself.I guess when I got there I started thinking about how I’d lied to the doctor, and about how much blood there was in the sink and how I’d stained two decent towels before realizing what kind of state I was in. I know this was partly the concussion but it does seem like maybe I ought to have been able to tell and I was mad at myself about taking so long. I felt so bad like someone had filled my head with rocks and stuck me in a washing machine. Probably I threw up but the details are fuzzy because like I said I had a traumatic brain injury. It hit me that no I didn’t have anybody to keep any eye on me anymore because you’d (most likely) gone and gotten yourself shot to pieces and here I was probably gonna die of a concussion right there on our rug. I kept thinking what if I’d accidentally let myself bleed to death? I started crying so bad that my stitches pulled and I had to haul myself back to the hospital. This time the doctor wouldn’t let me leave and I ended up sleeping on a spare bed in the hall so the nurses could make sure I didn’t croak or my brain didn’t explode.I went to see your family in the morning and stayed there the rest of the day. I guess now I can see that I’d been wrong about not having anybody.Anyway I don’t say all this to distress you. I lived, see? The scar on my lip faded so you can’t even tell. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I know I wasn’t always grateful for your help and I’m sorry for it. I bitched and moaned and said I was fine but you always could tell when I was lying or not. Thanks for teaching me to keep my thumb outside my fist when I throw a punch because I never had a father to tell me before I broke my thumb. It’s not your fault I didn’t have enough strength to put behind it. You tried. I’m sorry I was too much of a crotchety bastard to realize how unfair it was to you for me to keeping doing stuff like that. I stopped after that fight, like I told you. Said to myself who is this helping anyway? Nobody but yourself Steve and that’s suspect at best too. Bucky’s not in his grave but wherever he is he’s gotta be rolling.I think you were about the only person in my life who never patronized me. I overextended myself a lot but you let me cut my own teeth. I’m sorry I put you through all that. Thank you for letting me.So here’s a picture of me and my big nose that you helped keep from being TOO crooked. (Still a little bent though, huh, but I guess that’s not just the nose!) We owe it all to you, honey. You make my heart go all a-pitter patter. There now it’s a love letter. Now tack my picture up on your bedroom wall like I’m Cary Grant.Write me back to this address and I promise your letter will find me. Would love to see how atrocious your penmanship is these days. By that I mean that I know I’ve got you and I hope you know by now you’ve got me too.Yours,
Steve

Steve Rogers,I would call you a son of a bitch, except I always liked your mother. That’s unfair to her. I’d ask what’s wrong with you but we already know. You got hit too many times on the head.I knew that already, for the record. You think I didn’t know that? You just as good as laid out why I’m the smart one. Of course I knew that. But I’m not going to waste paper yelling at you. And besides, it’s not as satisfying as doing it in person anyway.Apology accepted, you big lug.I’m glad my family could be there for you. I know they are good people.I like the pictures. Thank you. Wish I had one to send you in return but a letter will have to do.I am now realizing it has been a while since I’ve written anything. My penmanship skills seem to have declined. Sorry if you can’t read this. Maybe it can be like a game where you have to decode everything I write. Krlnm tgro premplkeas. I’m just kidding that’s total gibberish.I guess I don’t know what to say in a letter. Things are fine here in Indiana. I hope you’re taking care of yourself.Love Bucky
P.s. I’m sorry I know I should write more but I just don’t know what to say. Maybe if you ask me questions I can try to answer them and that might give me more to write.

Dear Bucky,Please don’t feel bad about not knowing what to write. You don’t have to write me at all if you don’t want to but I’ll be honest and tell you I like hearing from you. This is going to sound like mushed potatoes but I like holding the paper in my hands knowing you were holding it not too long ago. Stop making that face you’re making about it, I mean it. You probably secretly like holding my paper too. I’d rather be holding your hand but times being what they are I’ve got your paper and you’ve got mine.What helps me is to think, if Bucky were here, what would I want to tell him? I mean when I’m trying to write you. I just think of what I want to tell you and then I tell you, same as I would if you were sitting write
right next to me. Does that make sense?Not a lot has been going on with me at the moment. I’m working on some illustration pages for a magazine. I told you I do illustration too now right? I think I did but let me know if I didn’t and I can explain. Anyways they’re coming out pretty GOOD. I attached a draft of one (don’t worry I’ve got another) in case you want more wall decorations or to put it on your ma’s fridge or something. I’m kidding about the fridge thing but it’s important to make a room feel like yours, you know? Put some personal touches on it and you’ll start to feel more comfortable there. Maybe you’re already doing this in which case ignore me, I’ve just been thinking about it for my own sake too. We’re in similar boats, you and me. That’s comforting for me to think about and I hope you can find some comfort in it too.Okay so you asked for some questions. I’ll tell you I’ve got about eight thousand. First question: can you tell me absolutely everything about you for all time? I’m kidding but I do feel that way. I’m deeply curious about you, Bucky. I always have been. Everything you say is so fascinating to me, even if you think you’re being boring. I’m so glad you like the pictures. Don’t feel bad about not having one to send in return—rest assured I can and have made a few of my own. Artist powers you know.Anyways 1. How are your sisters doing? 2. Have you met Ian and Jim yet? 3. Have you started helping with the goats yet? 4. How is Freddie? 5. Do you have a favorite out the clothes we got you? Why is it your favorite? 6. What’s Freddie been cooking for dinner? (I’m hungry right about now and very jealous you get to eat her cooking every day).
Jeez Buck I could ask you more but I think those are some good ones to start. You don’t have to answer all of them, just tell me anything, I want to hear all of it. Much love.Yours,
Steve

Steve,How are you so good at this? I read your letters, and it’s like you’re in the room just talking out loud to me. Thank you for the advice. I’m being called to dinner but when I get back I’m going to try imagining you here and just talking to you.OK I’m back. My Ma made honey roast chicken for dinner. I can hear your stomach growling from 732 miles away. I looked that up in the atlas so there’s some mashed potatoes for a side dish. (Where do you even come up with phrases like that?)How are my sisters? They’re good!
Have I met Ian and James yet? No. Ma says she wants us to wait.
Have I started helping with the goats yet? Yes. Rosie says they like me but I’m not convinced.
How is Freddie? She’s doing alright, Steve.
Do I have a favorite clothing item and why? First of all, you are a dunce for asking this. Second of all, it’s the red sweater. I like it because it’s soft and warm. You like me in red, don’t you? Maybe that’s why I like it too.
What’s Freddie been cooking for dinner? See above.I think I might have done that wrong. Should I write more? I don’t know what else to say. Thank you again for the photographs, I look at them a lot and think of you. I’m going to go to sleep but I’ll try to write more in the morning.What did you mean when you asked how my Ma is? Do you mean in general or with specific regard to me? Maybe you didn’t know, but I’m asking because I want to try to tell you about it. It’s been difficult, Steve. Rosie has noticed too. She’s trying really hard though and I understand why this isn’t so easy on her. You had such an easy time with it. After that it’s hitting me a little funny. It’s not all bad. She’s nice to me and cooks for me. We just don’t talk much. But I guess we never talked much.? Do you remember? I’m not broken up about it or anything I just wish we knew what to say to one another.I guess I feel the same way with you sometimes. Rose too. That sounds bad. Do you know what I mean?Steve I’m sorry but I think I need to stop writing now.Love,
Bucky

Buck,Sweetheart I know what you mean. We just all have to give things some time I think. We’ll find our way. I don’t know if it will make you feel better or worse to tell you that actually I’m not having such a great time right now either. You didn’t say expressly in your letter but I know you well enough to read between the lines. I’m sorry, Bucky. I wish I could be there with you to help. All I can say is just give it time and if you make the effort, Freddie will return it. You and your mother are more alike than you know. Yes you used to talk.I don’t have much to say today. I caught a cold so I’ve been in bed for most of it.
I’ve been missing you a lot today. I keep reading your letters and thinking. I do like you in red. Red makes your eyes look bluer I always thought, and you know how I’m a sucker for your eyes. You’re so beautiful, Bucky. I swear sometimes I think I dreamed you. But then I think, I’m good but I’m not that good. Do you remember when we were 16 & I almost gave up drawing? It was because I knew I’d never draw something as pretty as you and it really depressed me. But you talked sense into me. I stand by what I said but I’m glad you didn’t let me give it up.Before I get TOO maudlin.
I love you,
SteveP.S. I’ve been trying to remember to ask you about this. I went by the health department the other day. Did you know you were never officially declared KIA? The Army medical examiners office wants to speak with you to confirm. I don’t know how soon you should act on this but I’ll be honest you with you, Bucky, I have a weird feeling. Maybe it’s indigestion. Let me know.

Steve
Steve,Don’t
Stop trying to
I need you toThank you for trying to help
but I need you to ASK
What did they say exactly why were you asking
Steve just

Steve,Sorry for the phone call again and how I acted. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m so sorry. That postscript just scared me. I don’t know why.OK I had to stop writing but I’m trying again. It’s not a
There’s more that youJust leave it alone okay? I’ll deal with it. I want written confirmation that you will not stick your nose in this in your next letter.Anyways I’m sorry to hear you were sick. I hope you’re feeling better now. You did sound congested on the phone now that I think about it. Please drink plenty of water. Please get plenty of sleep. I can only mother hen you so much from here, but I think you take better care of yourself now anyway. At least it seems like you do. Thank you.Rose says hello. I told her you said hello back, which made her laugh, since you hadn’t said actually anything yet.Can you ask me more questions in your next letter?With love,
Bucky x

Bucky,I hereby swear not to stick my nose in it. I will say that we’re going to have to deal with this at some point. I say we because there’s no reason you have to do this by yourself. But just because you don’t have a death certificate doesn’t mean you have all the other documentation you need. What happens when you get a job or if you want to go back to school?That’s all in the future. Please don’t worry, I don’t mean to push you. I like to think I’ve gotten better about that but somedays I know it isn’t true. I just have a lot of time to think these days and mostly I’m thinking about you. It’s like I’m sweet on you or something.More questions like you asked.1) Checking in on you and Freddie again. How are things going? Are they any better? Let me know if you want me to talk to her.
2) And your sisters? Any good stories to tell? Janet is always good for a laugh.
3) What do you do with your time? I’m curious about what your days look like.
4) I’m sending you a sketch that I’m thinking about turning into a painting. It’s been a while since I’ve been to the studio. What do you think?Okay I’m not numbering this one because you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to. Bucky, can you tell me what happened to you? Where were you all those years? You told me that first night it was the Germans. You don’t have to tell me at all if you don’t want to, but I do think about it. I don’t know what it would help for me to know.Love always,
StevePs tell Rose I really do say hello back.

Steve,I know we’ll have to. You were the one who said one thing at a time.Your questions are hard this time. Freddie is the same. I’m starting to wonder why she invited me here at all. That’s a very rude thing to think. I don’t mean it. But I do wonder. You don’t need to talk to her. It just makes me sad because I remember we did talk when I was younger. I still love her but things are different now. I guess that happens. I’m going to keep giving it time like you told me a few letters ago.My sisters are great, Steve. I really mean that. Rose is still upset with me because I told her I wasn’t staying. Did I tell you that already? We’ve been seeing a lot of each other, though. She comes by most afternoons. We even went to eat lunch in town the other day and then we went for an ice cream. It was nice.Steve how am I supposed to leave her behind again?Bucky

Steve,After I sent my last letter, I realized I forgot to answer all your questions.Your sketch is good. You’re going to paint me? I’d like to see it when its done. Maybe if you can wait a while I can sit for you. I’d like that. Let me know what you want to do.I read a lot, listen to the radio, drink coffee, and visit with Rose. Sometimes I see Janet or Becca too, but they’re busier. I met their husbands a few days ago. What was it you said about Joel? I remember you said something about how I might not like him, but I do. I like Bobby better, though. He seems like he would be a good father to Becca’s boys.I don’t know how to answer your last question. The truth is I don’t remember much that’s worth telling you. Everything
When I

There’s just not much to say.I love you,
Bucky

Janet,Hello from Brooklyn. I hope you’re doing well. Congrats on one year of marriage! (almost) Please let me know if you’d like me to do a portrait of you and Joel sometime. You know my family discount is 100%.I’m writing to you about Bucky. Rose is young, and Becca doesn’t like thinking poorly of your mother but I know you have no such problem. Is she treating him okay? I know she would never do anything to him like your father. He just seems upset when I bring her up, but of course maybe I’m imagining things are worse than they are. I’m very far away from him. I worry a lot.Please just if you could keep an eye on it for me? I don’t know what the situation is, but maybe you should talk to Freddie about it if you feel comfortable. Adjusting is hard for him already. I’m sure you’ve seen. I would hate to think his own mother is making it harder.Anyways tell Joel I listen to Reds games when we get them here just to laugh.Sincerely,
Steve

Buck,You can stay in Indiana if you want to.
I don’t You said that
It would ki

If that’s what you need to do then I would understand. I
wouldI could come visit you sometimes. Hell if you gave me some time maybe I could even come there to stay. Shelbyville is kind of a drag if you ask me but Indianapolis isn’t so far away. I don’t think I’d mind a change of scenery.Anyways I’m talking about myself, which is rude. Do what you need to do just please let me know what you’re thinking.As for your second letter, I would love for you to sit for me. I miss that.
I miss

It’s okay if you don’t remember anything about what happened to you, only it seemed like you did. Maybe I was wrong.Oh did I tell you that I finally got to see the show Lily is in? Oh wow have I even told you about Lily and Kath? I can’t remember if I have. They’re the women I’ve been staying with, very kind and definitely lesbians even if all they’ll do in front of me is touch each other’s hair. I hope they’re just private people and don’t think I think bad about them. I imagine they wouldn’t be letting me stay here if they did think that though. Anyways Lily is on Broadway and she’s got the voice of a damn angel Bucky. Kath is a better dancer but give it a couple years and I’ll be able to say oh yeah Lily Lovett? I used to live with her.Like I said they’re kind but I do hope to be out of their hair soon. I’ve been looking at a few places in Brooklyn but none of them feel quite right. Isn’t that a load of hock? Used to we’d take any place we can get and now I don’t want to “live” there if it doesn’t “feel” right or there’s not enough natural light. I got a little spoiled these past few years, pal, and it shows. You got here in the knick of time to knock some sense into me.Yours with love,
Steve

Steve,Thank you for writing. Of course I’ll keep any eye on Bucky and Mom. To be honest, I was already.Mom isn’t taking it well. We’re all having a hard time with it in our own ways, but I think she didn’t expect to have trouble and that’s the problem. You remember how she was when he shipped out, and then when we lost him and then dad. She had been doing good lately. If you think about it it’s ironic that he showed up now.I’ll talk to her, Steve. I don’t know what good it will do, but maybe she doesn’t realize she’s being the way she is. I’m going to talk to Rose too because to be honest she always seems a little shaken up when she comes home from seeing him.I would love for you to do a portrait of Joel and me sometime. I miss New York but I’m afraid I won’t be traveling for a while. More on that another time; I’ve got several things to tell you, actually. Maybe we can send you some photographs to work from?I hope you’re doing okay yourself. Write me if you need someone to talk to. Get some sunshine.In friendship,
Janet

Steve — real letter forthcoming but here is a picture of me that Becca took with her husband Bobby’s camera. It’s not as good as the ones of you. I thought you deserved to have one, though. Honk. Love Bucky.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The picture Rosie takes Bucky to see is all in bright colors—some animated flick that Steve’s probably seen a hundred times by now. A lot of pictures are in color now, apparently, even the ones with real people. There had been a few, before the war and during, but Rose says it’s the popular way to do it now. Black and white is quickly becoming a thing of the past.Bucky’s seen a few of them himself, now. Rose likes going to the pictures, so he goes with her some days—when he feels like he can handle sitting in a dark room with strangers for an hour and a half. Truth be told he couldn’t tell you what the big deal is about color film. It’s more like real life, Rose says. Well, so what? It’s a picture. Nobody’s watching it because they want to be watching real life. That’s not the point.Bucky thinks he might miss the black and white. Everything was easier to separate.But he goes to see Peter Pan with Rose and Janet because Rose asks if he wants to, and it’s nice to get out of the house. From the way Rose talks about it, he’s pretty sure she’s seen it already. But that’s okay. If she wants to see it again, it must be good, so he takes his sisters.Or really—Janet has to buy the tickets. It hurts his pride but it’s not like he has any cash to shell out. It’s just the three of them today; Becca is busy, and Ma says she doesn’t like the pictures. Bucky can’t remember her ever going before, so he supposes she’s telling the truth.It’s a weekday matinee, so it isn’t crowded. Not that the movie house in what Shelbyville calls downtown is ever really crowded. A few other people dot the seats, and Rose and Jan let him choose the aisle furthest to the back. Rose offers her popcorn to him while the lights dim.“Thank you for coming,” she says.“Hey, of course,” Bucky says. He leaves his mouth open to say something else, but decides where else would I be isn’t a very cheerful thing to say. He’s working on that. He means to be, anyway.The movie doesn’t keep his attention very well. It’s based on a book he thinks he may have read when he was very little, but that’s been more than two decades ago. The animation is pretty, though. It makes him think of Steve, who, after Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, had crowed that that was it, he was going to work for Walt Disney. Bucky had believed he would do it at the time. Steve talked a lot of bull but Bucky never bet against him.And he misses him like hell. It’s nice, being here with his sisters, but the image does feel incomplete without Steve. The family with a key member cropped out—an absence more worth noting than that of his father. He wonders if any of the others feel the same, or if it’s just him these days. There’s reason to believe he always felt more strongly about Steve’s place in the Barnes family than anyone else, owing to how he’s the only one in love with Steve.Writing to him has made it worse somehow. It’s supposed to be helping—and it is, in some ways. He loves the days he finds a letter from Steve sitting on the dining room table, plucked fresh from the mailbox by Freddie before she left for work. Loves the photos Steve sent, and how he can wake up every morning and see him, moody and perfect on the desk. But he just doesn’t know how to put his guts on the page like Steve does, even when he’s trying his damndest to say something honest.The problem, maybe, is that there’s still a lot he has to hide.Bucky knows it’s better for everyone if he keeps quiet. Don’t speak the name Hydra and maybe they won’t find him. Steve has this penchant for crusading that’s liable to get them both killed if Bucky tells him everything he knows—if he tells him that Hydra is still out there, in shambles compared to the war but still operating. The name probably won’t mean anything to Steve on its own; as far as Bucky knows, Hydra wasn’t public knowledge during the war. But what they’d done to Bucky… that would mean everything to Steve.But any illusions Bucky had of them being heroes died the first time a bomb went off close enough to make his ears ring and his bladder fail. No, it’s better he keeps this to himself. Staying quiet worked for him before; no sense changing strategies now.He has enough to be getting on with anyway.Rose’s eyes keep flicking to him while the movie plays. She means to be subtle, but she isn’t. It’s sweet that she wants to check that he’s enjoying himself, so the next time she does it, Bucky pulls his mouth up into a smile to reassure her. Peter Pan yells something on the screen. Rose ducks her head, embarrassed about being caught.The colors wash over Bucky’s eyes in a swirl. Everyone in this theater is chewing their popcorn too loudly; it’s making it impossible for him to focus. Janet is sitting next to him with her arms crossed, like she’s not enjoying herself, and that starts to make him nervous. Is it him—can she tell? The room starts to feel darker, then too small, then all at once too big like he might drown in the middle of it. The strings of the score swell too loud.He stands abruptly. “Need some air,” he manages to say, then squeezes down the aisle and out the door before either of his sisters can think to follow him.The sunlight is a shock when he bursts through the side door of the theater into an alley. He always gets confused—always thinks it should be nighttime when the movie is over. His eyes blink heavily, and somehow the light helps to clear the fog that had erupted inside his head.Christ. He’d left for no good reason. He tries the handle to the door—locked. He fishes in his pocket for his ticket stub, already resigned to going around the front way.“Look like you could use a smoke,” a voice says.Bucky spins toward the sound, his body already tensing, cataloguing what’s available to damage—a kitchen knife in his belt, a stray brick on the ground—
But it’s just a man standing there, holding out a carton of cigarettes. “Hey,” he says, “take it easy, okay? Sorry to startle you. I guess I should know better, huh? That movie was giving me the willies too. Don’t know why.”The man has close-cropped mousy hair, and his tired face makes him look much older than he probably is. But it’s a friendly face, one with a wary smile on it. He shakes the carton, rattling its contents—about half-empty. It’s only then that Bucky notices that on his other arm, the sleeve is folded up and pinned just where his elbow should be.“Um,” Bucky says.“You want one? I’ve got a light.”“I—I was trying to quit.” He gets a flash of Steve leaning toward him, then leaning away, coughing like it hurts.“Oh,” the man says, “well, don’t let me get in your way.”But Steve isn’t here right now, and a cigarette sounds damn good. Bucky can’t remember the last time he’d had one. Suddenly his body craves it like it’s never wanted anything else. He holds out his right hand.“No, please, I’ll take one.”The man smiles again. “Sure.”They light up, one after the other, and stand there in the dim alleyway smoking together for a few quiet minutes. Bucky’s chest settles with every inhale. He’s not going to take up smoking again—can’t, around Steve—but it’s good to indulge in a youthful vice one more time.The man exhales, glancing at Bucky. “Name’s Perry.”“Bucky.”“Nice to meetcha.”“Likewise. Thanks for the—” Bucky tips the lit end of the cigarette toward Perry before bringing it back to his mouth.“Haven’t seen you before. You from around here?”“Sort of.” Bucky’s mouth twists. He’s not in the mood to tell a stranger his backstory; would have been easier if he’d just said yes. “I live outside town.” It’s not untrue, for now.“Oh, okay. I’m born and bred.”
Perry laughs, like it’s funny. Maybe it is. Now that Bucky takes a closer look at him, he can’t be older than twenty-two, twenty-three—Rose’s age. He shouldn’t have left her sitting in the theater like that, but he’s just grateful she doesn’t seem to have followed him outside.“So,” Perry starts again, and Bucky hears the question before it comes: “You serve?”Now he wants to laugh. It must be obvious. Even with his hair tied back, even though he’s put weight back on thanks to his mother’s cooking, he knows he still has that look about him. Might always have it; it’s not like these things just go away.“Yeah. ‘Course.”“I guess that’s a stupid question.”“No—no.”“I just got home from Korea a couple months ago.” Perry flicks his cigarette and watches the ashes fall, his lip between his teeth like it’s trouble. If Bucky concentrates, he can hear the film playing through the wall against their backs. “Now they’re sending everybody home, I hear.”There’s a note of familiar bitterness in Perry’s voice. Bucky hums acknowledgement. He’s not well-versed in the American political landscape these days, but it hadn’t surprised him to hear they’d bungled something. Not the first time, nor will it be the last.“How are you doing?” Bucky asks, his eyes finding Perry’s. “Now that you’re home, I mean.”Perry stares back at him, a little taken aback. “Well, I’m home, ain’t I?”And maybe it is as easy as that—maybe it should be. But the smile Perry gives him is wan and unconvincing. It might have been nice, to talk to someone who had come home and settled in seamlessly, as if he’d never left at all. Of course it isn’t that simple. It never is, not for anyone. Bucky’s problems aren’t unique. Like Perry said, there are hundreds of men due stateside any time now. POWs, which Bucky supposes is what he was, if you look at it plainly.Somehow none of that feels like comfort. It ought to; it doesn’t.Their cigarettes burn out within seconds of each other. Bucky lets his fall to the pavement and squashes it out under his heel. His shoes are getting dull—he should shine them this evening, maybe after dinner. Freddie wouldn’t like the smell of shoe polish in her nose while they’re trying to eat.“How are you?” Perry asks.“Me?” Bucky looks up at him. “Oh, fine. You know.”Perry nods, like maybe he does know. “Hey, look. Would you wanna get a drink sometime?”“Hmm? Would I—”That’s when Bucky spots it: a familiar, frantic look in Perry’s eye like he’s eager and terrified out of his shoes and socks all at once. God, what it had been to feel like that. He remembers the exact way his heart had seized the first time he’d approached a man. The way Steve’s ferocity had bled through any other feeling he might have had the day he’d marched up to Bucky.This man is so, so young.“Ah, kid, look…”“No, hey, I didn’t mean anything—”“You did. You did, and that’s fine, okay? Hey,” Bucky says, reaching for his shoulder but not quite making it there, “it’s okay. It’s just that I’ve got somebody waiting on me at home.”“Oh,” Perry breathes, a little fish-eyed, like the word home is wholly new to him. Doesn’t make much difference if Bucky doesn’t mean Shelbyville, he supposes. He can’t imagine what life would have been like growing up here. Would he have ever even figured it out without Steve to push him over the edge?Suddenly, he realizes he’s staring right into the eyes of a possibility he may have lived, if the Barnes family had stayed in Indiana. Maybe he would have lost his arm in the war and come back here, hoping to still find work in one of the plants. Danzinger, where his father used to work making end tables, doesn’t exist anymore, but maybe one of the others would have hired him. There’s less he could do with one arm but he’s still smart, still resourceful. Maybe he would have gotten married and spent the rest of his life trying to figure out why he just didn’t love his wife the way he felt he ought to.None of that matters, though, because that’s not what happened to him. It’s what happened to this kid in front of him—is still happening to him.For once it makes him feel oddly grateful for the lot he’s been given. He hates it.“You ought to get to Indianapolis or something,” Bucky says. “Chicago. It’d be better for you there.”Perry frowns. “My whole family’s here, though.”“Yeah.” Bucky grits his teeth against a heavy sigh. “Look, I have to get back inside.”The kid sticks out his hand for a shake, and Bucky obliges him without thinking about it—uses his left hand, because Perry offers his left, which is the only one he has. Bucky’s hand is gloved, but he can see it in Perry’s face the moment he realizes something is off. His brow pinches.“That some kind of fancy prosthetic?” he asks, squeezing Bucky’s hand to find there’s no give to it. His frown deepens.“Uh,” Bucky hedges, “sure.”“Hey, where can I get one of those?”“I don’t know.”“What do you mean, you don’t know?”“Bucky?”That’s Janet, calling from the mouth of the alley. Rose is beside her, looking worried.“Hey, look, Perry, those are my sisters. Thanks for the smoke, okay?”Perry is frowning properly at him, his eyes darting between him and Rose like maybe he knows her—like maybe he’s just put something together. It feels low of him, to turn around and leave this kid, but there isn’t much Bucky can do for him. Not on any front. He’s not a hero, or even a sergeant anymore—he’s just another civilian now. They both are.“Were you talking to Perry Waterson?” Rose asks when he reaches them.“He gave me a cigarette.” Bucky shrugs to indicate that’s about as much as he knows.“You missed the end of the movie,” Janet says.“Sorry.”“Went about how you would expect.”“I liked it,” Rose says.“Well, good,” Bucky says. He holds his elbow out for her, and she smiles as she loops her arm through his. “Janet, can you take me back to Ma’s?”“Hm? Oh, sure. Let’s go.”
It’s early evening by the time they drive up to Freddie’s house in the sedan. The truck is already in the driveway, so Freddie must be inside, probably getting dinner together. Janet says she won’t be able to stay long; this is their only car and she has to go pick up Joel from the bank. Bucky hadn’t realized she and Rose would be sticking around at all, so he’ll take what he can get.“Hey, Ma,” Janet says as she yanks the front door open. “Don’t worry, we didn’t steal Bucky.”Freddie appears in the archway to the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. A hearty smell like roasting chicken seems to follow her into the room.“Hi, girls,” she says, frowning a little. “Bucky, I didn’t realize you weren’t here.”“You didn’t check?” Janet asks, her tone sharp.“Well, he’s very quiet.”“It’s okay, Jan.” Usually Bucky comes to greet his mother whenever she gets home; she’d probably assumed he was taking a nap. Something like that—reasonable. It’s easier to give her the benefit of the doubt, anyway.“I didn’t realize we would have extras for dinner,” Freddie says. She turns back toward the kitchen, clucking her tongue.“We’re not staying,” Janet says, following after her. Rose and Bucky move toward the kitchen too, since that’s where the center of gravity seems to be. “I’m not anyway. Rose, if you want to, I can come get you later.”“Oh, that’d be nice. Thank you. Ma, do you need any help?”Rose falls in naturally, helping tend what Bucky now sees is a pot of chicken soup on the stove. Something in the oven, too, from the smell of it—maybe bread. Bucky hovers by the dining room table, where he usually waits while Freddie finishes up with the cooking. She doesn’t like him getting underfoot, she says, but she’ll let him chop things if he asks to help early enough in the process.Janet’s car keys jingle in her hand. When Bucky glances at her, her lips are pursed, staring at Freddie. But when she speaks, it’s to Bucky.“I’m going to Becca’s tomorrow for lunch, to visit with her and the boys. Do you want to come with me, Bucky? I’ll pick you up again.”Bucky’s heart lifts at the thought, and he opens his mouth to respond.“Oh,” Freddie hums, before he gets the chance to. She looks at them over her shoulder. “Janet, that’s—hm.”“What, do you guys have plans already?”“Well, no, it’s just that…”It’s Rose that asks again: “What, Ma? They’re his nephews, and he hasn’t met them.”“They’re my nephews,” Bucky repeats, barely a hint of the frustration that’s starting to well up inside him creeping into his voice.“I know, dear, it’s just that they’re so young and impressionable.”“Am I going to make a bad impression?”Janet glances between them, her eyes narrowed, while Rose’s mouth falls further open the longer their mother seems to deliberate. The timer on the soup ticks away the seconds.“No,” Freddie eventually concludes. “I just—I wonder if we should wait, until you can make the best impression.”A sound like a hiss comes out of Rose’s mouth, but Janet silences her with a steady look.“I—I want to—”

“I just don’t think you’re ready yet, Bucky.”He swallows hard, throat clicking, and drops his eyes to the ground. He’d had to walk out of a children’s film today. Maybe she has a point—maybe he isn’t ready. The problem is that he doesn’t know what ready looks like, much less if he’ll ever be it.“Okay, that’s enough.” Janet’s heels click on the tile when she plants her feet. “You’re being unfair to him, Ma. He’s trying so hard and it’s like you don’t even want to see it.”Freddie sets her hand to her chest, looking taken aback. “Excuse me, Janet, but this has nothing to do with you.”“Like hell it doesn’t. He’s my brother.” Janet points to Bucky for emphasis, anger barely contained on her face. “He’d never say it to your face, but you’re hurting him.”Bucky thinks that’s it, that she’s done—but then she turns her finger toward Rose.“You too, Rose. I understand, you don’t want him to leave, but he’s his own person. Stop trying to guilt him into staying here. You’re not helping him.”The timer for the soup rings out shrill and sudden. Everyone in the room flinches, but no one makes a move to take the soup off the burner. Rose and Freddie are looking across the room at them, different shades of upset and offended, while Janet stares them defiantly down, as if begging them to refute her.“Jan,” Bucky says softly. “You don’t have…”“No.” Her eyes soften when she looks at him, but there’s still that hard edge. He’s never seen her like this before. Janet the joker. Nothing ever works her up. “If you think I’m overstepping, Bucky, then I’m sorry. But someone needed to say it.”And he wouldn’t have. She doesn’t finish the thought, but it’s implied—and she isn’t wrong. As upset as he’s gotten over his mother’s distance, enough to write to Steve about it, he never planned to confront her. Steve had said to give it time; that’s what he’d planned to do.Then there’s Rose, his bright girl staring at him with a trembling lip, like he’s given up her secret somehow. She’s wanted to spend more time with him recently, of course she did, but he’d never considered her to be guilting him…Maybe Janet’s right about that too. She’s always been more observant than the family liked to give her credit for.“Bucky,” Janet says gently, only to him. “Will you come stay with Joel and me tonight?”His eyes flick to Rose and Freddie. “I…”“Don’t worry about them. Come on, come stay with me. Tomorrow we’ll go to Becca’s and you can meet Ian and Jim, and then you can come back here if you want to.”“Okay,” he says, still unsure. But then he nods to himself. “Yeah, okay.”“Let’s go, then. We’ll still need to get Joel.”“What about Rose?”“She can stay here,” Freddie offers, finally thawing. She turns toward the stove, takes the soup off the heat. Bucky would think she was unbothered if he couldn’t see the slight tremble in her fingers. “You two go.”“Bucky, I…” Rose’s face is flushed like she’s holding back tears—maybe holding them back on purpose, for fear it’d look like further guilting.Bucky reaches for her, pulling her into a hug. There’s no need for either of them to feel any worse. “I’m not mad at you, I promise,” he says into her hair, and her shoulders heave under his grip.“Come on, Bucky, we need to go,” Janet says, not unkindly. “You can talk about it later.”
The ride to the bank is quiet and, after Janet leaves the engine idling to go fetch her husband, it stays quiet when Joel slides into the backseat. He greets Bucky and falls silent, letting the radio prattle. Janet must have briefed him on the short walk out of the building. It’s kind of her; he’d rather not talk about it.Janet’s house is the same—not that there’s time for it to have changed. He’s been here a few times since his birthday, visiting, letting Rose teach him how to make lemon pie.“The couch is convertible,” Janet tells him, settling back at the table with a cup of tea. He’d insisted on helping with the dishes; he washed while Janet dried, and once everything was done, she put the kettle on. “I won’t lie, it’s not the most comfortable.”Bucky reclaims his dinner seat, his own cup in hand. He didn’t know Janet preferred tea over coffee until five minutes ago. “Thank you. Both of you.”Janet taps her nails against the cup, chipped polish against chipped ceramic. “It’s not a problem, Bucky. I’m happy to have you. And I know you don’t know Joel very well, but he’s happy if I’m happy, so.”“He seems good for you.”Bucky had stayed quiet through most of dinner, listening to Joel and Janet go back and forth. She never had many boyfriends—or even friends, as far as Bucky could remember. But maybe he just didn’t know any of them. Out of his three sisters, he was always closer to Becca and Rose, not for any particular reason; Janet just preferred to keep to herself. She was the middlest of the middle children. Becca was the oldest girl, so the fact that she was the second out of four didn’t mean much. Funny little Janet, always off on her own.Listening to the two of them talk, it’s clear that Joel knows her inside and out—maybe better than anyone else ever has. He keeps up with her, laughs at all her jokes with genuine mirth. And he went to bed early, feigning tiredness but clearly just wanting to give the two of them time to speak.“He is,” Janet says, smiling softly. “Well, so far. I kept the receipt.”Bucky hides his snort in his mug..“In all seriousness, though,” she says. “I’m sorry for interfering like I did. I didn’t meant to do it like that, I just…”“It’s okay, Jan.”The tea’s steam curls up toward her face. . Janet sighs, staring down into the mug like it might have something to say.. “Steve wrote to me.”“He—what?”“I don’t know if he wanted me to tell you, but he didn’t say not to—so. He asked me to keep an eye out for you. Maybe talk to Mom. He said you seemed upset in your letters.”“Oh,” Bucky breathes. Had he? He can’t remember now, and the letters are gone, so he can’t check. He never meant to worry Steve, but maybe he had gotten better at being honest than he’d thought.“Don’t be mad at him. He means well.”“No—no, I’m not mad.” Never, not for this.“I think he picked me because Becca would never criticize Mom, and Rose is…”Young. Unobjective. “Yeah.”“Anyways,” Janet sighs. She sets her mug aside and leans toward him over the table. Her expression is more sincere than Bucky would’ve thought her capable of—but then again, she’s ten years older, too. “I probably shouldn’t have snapped at them like that, but I think it will be good for all of you to have some space to think.”The cup is hot—too hot, since Janet had poured boiling water right into it. He’s used to wrapping his fingers around a mug, though, because he likes the way the warmth sinks into his hands. He can sense the heat in his left hand, can tell it’s warming the metal. It’s warming his right fingers, too, maybe too much. He winces, readjusting his grip.Janet reaches for him, probably more of an effort to comfort than to keep him from burning his palm, but when her hand finds his wrist it has the same effect. He sets the cup down, and the relief in his hands is immediate.It’s good that Janet did what she did. Like she said—someone had to. It never would have been him. These relationships are all so fragile anyway, broken windows taped back together. He doesn’t really know his own strength these days. Doesn’t know when to set the damn cup down.He just hopes that this didn’t wreck anything beyond repair. His family always used to tell each other what was on their minds, he thinks. I’m hungry. This hurts. You’re being rude. It seems like that openness has faltered over the years—or maybe it’s just him. He shut a lot of things down, even back then, in Brooklyn. It’s worse now.But they’ve weathered a lot, the Barnes family.“Can I ask you something?” he says.“Sure, Bucky, anything.”“What was it like, when he died? George—Pa—you know.”Her face pinches, like there’s an unpleasant smell in the room. “That’s hard to say. You know I didn’t know him very well.”“That never got better? Even after I…?”He trails off at her sad, flat look. “I wish I could tell you different, Bucky, but even if he had changed—I’d already written him off. It wouldn’t have mattered. To me, at least. I can’t speak for everyone.”He hadn’t expected anything different, really. But still, a part of him had hoped that his absence might have forced George Barnes into a more active role in the family. Sometimes Bucky had wondered if George only let so much drop because he knew that Bucky would pick it up for him, unasked.“You’re nothing like him,” Janet says. “I know you used to worry.”Bucky’s eyes dart to hers. She looks back at him, earnest. “Thought you said you didn’t know him well.”“I knew enough. You’re not—I mean it. Ma will see that eventually.”“Do you think—” He breaks off, reaching for his cup, but he spins it by the handle without lifting it. “I’d thought that might be it.”“Just a theory.” Janet sips her tea, slow and thoughtful. “She can be—unkind, sometimes, without meaning to be. But she loves you. It’s just been a long time since she got to tell you. Give her some time, she’ll remember how.”Bucky hums and nods, picking up his cup. He can’t decide if he likes tea.“A good kick in the ass never hurt, either.”This time, Bucky’s laugh is real and full-bodied. Janet grins at him, something soft in her eyes. They’ve both let their tea go lukewarm by now, but that doesn’t seem to matter. This is nice, Bucky thinks, spending time with his middle sister. He can’t remember them ever doing this much before. Something new.“Thank you,” Bucky says again—for the tea, the help, all of it.Janet nods and says, “We should get some sleep. Big day tomorrow, huh?”“Yeah. Big day.”
His nephews are—Bucky can’t pick a word. He’s spent most of the morning searching for any of them, fumbling through hellos, too damn starstruck to string a proper sentence together.“Hi, Uncle Bucky,” the older one, Ian—he’s five—says when Becca brings them into the living room, and he has to fight back tears.Both boys took to him so easily, smiling, asking him to sit on the floor and play with them. They hadn’t minded that he couldn’t talk much; they did the talking for him. They’ve never had an uncle before, Becca tells him, because her husband just has one younger sister who’s not married yet. He helps them build a tower out of blocks and finds himself laughing easily, freely when they knock it down just to do it all over again. It’s been so long since he’s been around children. He’d forgotten how much he likes them—how good he can be with them, when he lets himself. He practically raised Rose. Boys aren’t so different. When Jim bangs his finger with a block, Becca rushes over, but Bucky already has him in his lap, soothing and shushing. It takes no time at all for him to quiet.Later, after lunch, the little three-year-old who’s named after him, who has the Barnes family dimple in his chin, falls asleep slumped over his lap. And just like that he can’t help it; the crying starts and doesn’t want to stop.It’s not ugly, though—just tears rolling down his face, a little shake in his shoulders. There’s a child in his lap that’s his sister’s, that looks like her, which means he looks like Bucky—because they’re family. This kid is his too, in some small way. He’s all warmth and innocence, one round cheek still smudged with jam from his sandwich. He sleeps in Bucky’s lap like he has nothing at all to fear from him.“Bucky?” Becca says, quiet alarm in her voice, trying not to wake her son.“I’m okay,” he says, smoothing Jim’s hair out of his sleeping face. “Sorry, I’m sorry.”“No, no—don’t apologize. I’ll get you a tissue.”“Grab an extra? For his face, he’s got…”Becca brings the tissues, and he cleans off Jim’s face and then his own. The couch cushions shift when she settles down next to him, setting her hand over Jim’s folded sock feet.“He’s so little,” Bucky murmurs, mostly to himself.“Really? He seems huge to me. I guess you never saw him as a baby, though.”“No. No, I didn’t.”“I can put him down in the bed with Ian,” she says softly, “if you wanted to get up.”“No, leave him be. This is…”“Perfect,” Janet murmurs, from where she’s perched in an armchair, almost dozing herself. “Wish I could take a picture.”“Oh,” Becca says. “Oh, Bobby has that camera, I’ll go—”“That’s okay,” Bucky says. It’s an indulgence—he can remember this fine on his own.But Becca keeps moving. “Well, I want a photograph, so stay put.”Bucky huffs and says nothing, smiling down at Jim despite himself. He shifts a little in his sleep, his small hand opening and closing—dreaming of something. He likes cars, he’d told Bucky. Maybe he’s dreaming about driving one.He doesn’t notice at first when Becca reappears, only glancing up when he hears the shutter of the camera. She takes another with him looking into the lens.“Make copies of that,” Janet says.

“Of course.” Becca sets the camera aside. “I bet Ma will want one, and then one for you, Bucky. Do you want to send a copy to Steve, too?”“That—yes.” He thinks about Steve opening his next letter to a surprise like that, about the smile it’d put on his face. How he’d have two pictures. “Please.”“You miss him, don’t you,” Janet says. It’s not really a question, even though it’s phrased like one.He scritches Jim’s back, the way Rosie used to like. He’d kept the glove on in front of the boys, but he wonders how they would react to it—if they would just think it’s interesting, and not wonder about its implications. Steve had taken it in stride, just like everything else.“Of course I do,” he says quietly.“Do you have any plans for when you go back? Joel and I will have to come visit.”“Oh.” Bucky chews his lip, thinking. “Well, not… not really, yet.”Janet sits up, untucking her legs. She exchanges a slow, loaded look with Becca before meeting Bucky’s eye, something oddly stern in her face. “Bucky,” she says, “you don’t have to stay here.”“Jan,” Becca says, glancing between them, “just let him—”“Hey.” Janet crosses to him, sits close beside him, so he’s bracketed by his sisters. “Bucky, look at me, please.”He lifts his eyes from where he’d been watching Jim breathe. “What?”“You can leave. You know that, right? None of us are going to blame you for living your own life.”“I don’t… I don’t know what you mean.”“It’s okay, hey, you’re alright. Bucky.” He rocks forward on the couch, not sure where he’s planning to go or why with Jim still in his lap, but Janet sets her hand at his elbow and holds—not restraining, just… comfort, he thinks. The way Steve might reach out just to let Bucky know he’s there. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Becca tentatively stretch her open palm out to rest on his knee. She gives it a squeeze, and Bucky shudders out an exhale.“I’m sorry,” Janet murmurs. “I don’t mean to push you.”“Yes, you do,” Becca says.Bucky snorts. They both look at him with wide eyes, so he squares up his mouth and tries to explain what’s funny about it all. “No, it’s—Jan, it’s okay. Somebody has to be the instigator, and Steve’s not here, so.”His sisters laugh with him this time, though they still seem nervous about it. Of course they don’t quite get it—no one but Steve really would. But Janet isn’t wrong to try to force Bucky’s hand; Steve already did it once, and is probably too scared about doing it again, if his letters are any indication. Whatever you want, Bucky. That’s too big a question some days. This or that feels easier.Becca suggests a game of cards, unsubtly changing the subject, and plucks Jim from Bucky’s lap to take him to the bed. They play crazy eights till the boys are awake, then Bobby walks in the door and suddenly the whole afternoon has passed them by. Janet says they ought to head to the bank to fetch Joel, and makes no mention of ferrying Bucky back to their mother’s just yet.In the car, Janet’s hands wrap around the steering wheel, her modest ring bright on her left hand. “I want to tell you something,” she says.Bucky sits up straighter in his seat to look at her. “What is it?”“Now, this is between you and me, okay? I mean, Joel knows, but you’ll be the only one besides us so far.” When Bucky nods his understanding, she continues. “I’m pregnant.”“Oh,” Bucky breathes. Slowly, her words sink in and then: “Oh, wow, Janet. You are?”Her smile blooms in full force. “Yes. Yes, we saw a doctor last week. I’m due in September.”“Congratulations. Wow,” Bucky repeats. Shelbyville blurs through the window. “Why are you… Why me?”She shrugs. “I wanted to. Thought you might like to hear some good news.”“Yeah, I—wow. Thank you. I’m so happy. I’m so happy for you.”Maybe it’s the late hour or the day he’s had, but he feels almost delirious with it. He’d forgotten what real joy felt like, but surely it’s this: knowing he’ll get to be around this time, maybe even be there when the baby is born, hold his new niece or nephew, not miss any of it. He’d loved meeting Becca’s boys—more than he knows how to put into words—but he’d missed so much. With his sisters he was always there, from the very beginning, but he missed years of his nephews’ lives. No one is to blame for that, but it still aches.
Janet had said he was free to choose. That means he could choose to stay here, right? Witness every minute of it. And Steve had offered to come, to leave New York behind. He’d damn himself to the midwest just to be close to Bucky.
It’s too much for Bucky to ask of him, but if he’s offering it... What would life be like for them here? Find a house together on the edge of town, feign bachelorhood forever, hide behind closed doors and in alleyways like Perry. A quiet life. An imperfect one, but that would be true even in the comparative haven of New York. The two of them could make just about anything work, if they wanted to. They’ve done better with less.Janet turns onto the next street, just a few blocks from the bank now. “I should also tell you,” she says, “that we’re moving to Chicago.”All the pictures floating through Bucky’s brain snuff out faster than they formed. “You’re… What?”“Joel and I, we decided we didn’t want to start our family here. He went to school in Chicago and still has friends there, connections. It’s not New York but it’s something, you know?”“When?” Something like panic is catching in his throat.Janet shrugs, easing the car to a stop in front of the bank. “In the next month or two, before I’m too far along to be helpful. He’s taking next week off from work to go into the city for some meetings at banks. A few with real estate offices while he’s at it.”“I’m happy for you,” Bucky repeats softly. And he is, God he is, he doesn’t know what else to tell her—where does this all leave him? This: go back to New York and keep Steve and scatter his family. That: stay but his family’s still strewn across the country and Steve gives up his life for him all over again. Even when the choice should be simple, none of his options are clean.“I thought it might make you feel less guilty,” Janet says, her voice loud in the quiet of the cab. “About leaving, I mean, if you knew you weren’t the only one.”Bucky stares past her out the window, and thinks hard.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

A board is loose in the bedroom. Steve finds it when he wanders in, his footsteps a faint echo off the bare walls. He’s just seen the kitchen—new appliances, shiny and unused—and the front room, too. The place is tidy and well-built, on the fourth floor, which is probably fine for his asthma so long as he never tries to haul too many things up the stairs at once. A neighbor even said a friendly hello as he followed the real estate agent whose name he keeps forgetting up the stairs. Michael, maybe. Something generic like his own name—he’s certain of that much.

The apartment is smaller than his and Dean’s had been—just Dean’s now, he guesses. It was mostly his the whole time, considering he owned it outright and had never made Steve chip in a dime for the upkeep.

How about you repaint the walls, if you need to stake ownership so badly.

So Steve had spent two days painting everything blue, except the kitchen, which he painted the same eggshell white his mother always cooed over when they would visit the Barneses.

No rent to pay had meant he could comfortably afford the studio without scraping nickels together. Even then he’d kept on sharing it with Alan and Liel, simply because they’d all gotten used to working around each other.

This place could be nice, though it’s hard to picture with it so empty right now. One bedroom; he thinks that’s okay, that Bucky won’t mind—though maybe he ought not make assumptions, about what he minds or whether he’ll live here at all. Steve doesn’t give much of a damn about appearances these days, but maybe Bucky will still want those twin beds they used to have that spent more nights shoved together than not. They got away with that in their twenties; to Steve, it rings a little obvious for two unmarried men in their mid-thirties still feigning like they can’t afford separate bedrooms, much less separate homes altogether. Bucky doesn’t want that, though.

Does he?

Steve presses his foot down again, and the board whines. It’s right by the window—through the pane he can see his studio building, practically right inside. That’d be awfully convenient, almost like having a home studio. He wouldn’t even have to get properly dressed to dart across the street to work, and there’d be no more sleeping on the couch with the smell of oils in his nose, no matter how late he kept at it.

If they put the bed along the far wall, one of them will step on this board every morning and night.

“The bedroom is a good size,” Maybe Michael says from behind him.

“Hm? Oh, sure. Plenty big.”

“Have you seen the closet?”

“No, it’s—that’s this door?”

It’s the only door in the room; the single bathroom isn’t ensuite, which is manageable if inconvenient. Oh, listen to him—poor little rich kid got too used to his comforts. Used to be he had to leave his apartment altogether to use a shared bathroom down the hall that only had hot water for one four-hour window in the middle of the night.

Maybe he shouldn’t feel bad about wanting nice things for himself. Dean told him that all the time. Bucky too, though he’d usually meant it more modestly—milk for coffee, that sort of nice. Not attached bathrooms and an oven so clean you could lick it.

He supposes he could paint these walls blue, too—or green. Yellow, maybe, to make it feel lively. Bucky likes red but Steve puts his foot down at living somewhere with red walls. Next letter he writes maybe he’ll ask Bucky what his wall color preference is, as if that’s something he will have bothered to think about.

Bucky might not care about wall color so much, but a second bedroom, somewhere for guests to stay—he might want that.

Steve opens the closet door and stares into it, wondering if all the nice things he’d bought for Bucky and all the nice things he’s seen in shop windows since would fit inside. It would probably do. The whole place would do—probably. It’s nicer than anywhere else they’ve lived together, and they could always get one of those convertible couches for guests, or move someplace bigger in a year.

The future is wide open in a way it’s never been before.

“What do you think?” Michael asks.

“I don’t know,” Steve murmurs.

“What’s that?”

He turns toward the agent and wipes a hand in the air. “It’s just—I don’t know.”

Michael smiles at him knowingly. “Would it help if we set up a second appointment so your wife could see it too?”

“Ah.” His insides snarl at the assumption—but soften quickly. Maybe Michael is onto something, even if he’s guessed the particulars wrong. “Not possible right now, unfortunately.”

“How about you sleep on it then? You can phone me tomorrow to let me know what you’ve decided.”

“Okay.”

The loose floorboard complains again when Michael crosses the room to hand Steve his business card. Steve’s got one already, sitting on the desk back at Kath and Lily’s, but he takes it anyway just to be polite.

“Between you and me,” Michael says, leaning close like he’s sharing some great secret, “I believe this place is perfect for you.”

It’s a canned line, and not a very good one. As they head for the door, Steve glances out the window one more time at the neighborhood that’s loved him for so long, and wonders if a line like that could ever be true—if perfect even exists.

Even as he’s crossing the street just minutes later to head to the studio for a while, Steve knows he’s not going to call, though he can’t point to why. That apartment would still suit him, even if Bucky decides to stay in Indiana.

Bucky’s letters have gone short and terse again, but Janet’s still writing to Steve too, assuring him that everything is fine, really. That Bucky is doing better than he had been now that he’s staying with her. He knows it’s just that Bucky is still relearning how to share himself as freely as he once did, that he doesn’t mean to keep anything from Steve. He doesn’t like Steve worrying over him but he isn’t lying. Maybe he knows Janet’s keeping Steve informed of the details.

Steve meant it when he said he’d go to Indiana. If it would make things simpler, he would ship himself to any old cornfield and be happy to do it. Maybe when he finishes his work for the day, he’ll write Bucky about it again—assure him that he was serious when he suggested it. It could be temporary. It wouldn’t matter if it wasn’t.

As evidenced by the three half-finished canvases that greet him in the studio, there’s really only one thing Steve cares about these days. And now that he has photos references—well.

Today, though, he has paid work he needs to finish. It’s nothing complicated, and the dab-and-stroke of brushes makes his mind blissfully quiet into the early afternoon.

A few hours in, he takes a break to let layers dry and get something to drink. He grabs his shirt hem to wipe his forehead—it’s unseasonably warm today, and the studio’s big glass windows hold heat. It’s better than it being cold in here, he supposes, though in some ways he feels a little nostalgic for the chill. It’d been nice to have an excuse to sit close, when Bucky was here.

He’ll shower off before he heads back to Lily and Kath’s to knock the sweat and paint smell loose. The room he rents from them—he likes it, feels comfortable there now. Might even go so far as to say he’s made friends with the women he lives with. The shared coffee in the mornings tends to stretch into breakfast now, with conversation over all of it. He likes them both, even if that apartment is never going to feel like home to him.

There are more real estate pamphlets spread out on the desk back in his room. He ought to have brought them with him, for something to do. He really means to get out of Lily and Kath’s way, even if they don’t seem to mind his presence.

It’s just that he hasn’t lived alone in so long, and never particularly cared for it. If Bucky does come home soon, won’t it be better to have waited? Bucky can help decide where they live. Maybe they could look near the park, so they can take quiet walks in the mornings and listen to the birds.

A shrill cawing breaks Steve from his reveries. Not a bird—the telephone in the hall.

He darts out through the studio door, glass of water still in hand, and grabs the receiver off the wall. “Hello,” he says, “Steve Rogers speaking.”

“Hi Steve, it’s Dean.”

“Oh,” Steve huffs. It’s been—God, how long has it been since they’ve spoken? A month, maybe two. Something heavy like guilt settles in Steve’s gut. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Dean says slowly, and Steve can practically hear the way his brows raise. “I called Lily’s. She said you were here.”

“Well, here I am.”

“This isn’t a social call, if you’re worrying.”

“I’m not worrying. It’s—it’s good to hear from you.” He means it, even if Dean sighs. Maybe it was a selfish thing to say out loud, though. “What is it, then?”

“I have a check for you. Three of your paintings have sold in the last few weeks.”

“Okay. I mean, that’s great. Which, um… Which ones?”

Paper flips faintly from the other line, Dean checking his records. His fine-tuned professionality cracks just a little when he says, “Would names even tell you? You never name anything properly.”

“I’ll know, Dean.”

“Red #7, Untitled #23,

and

Untitled #19.”

“Ah,” Steve breathes. These impressionism pieces—it’s always something of a gut punch, when someone wants one of them. All they are is raw emotion slapped onto canvas. Sometimes they felt almost too intimate to sell, but he has too many of them to keep. And people seem to like them, besides. It’s not as if anyone knows what they’re really about, so it doesn’t matter. If it speaks, then it speaks.

Bucky had liked nineteen. He’d told Steve so, when they stood in the gallery together, facing a wall display of Steve’s inner life of the last ten years. Said he didn’t get it, but he liked it anyway. That had meant more to Steve than every positive review he’s ever had in an arts magazine or the newspaper.

“Steve?”

“Sorry—I’m here.”

“If you’re free, I have the check at the gallery. I’ll be here till five. Catherine is here till six.”

His bookkeeper. Dean is giving him an out, if Steve doesn’t want to see him. “I’ll come by. Sure. It’s—what?” Steve glances to where his watch should be, but he’d taken it off when he broke out his paints. “What time is it now?”

“Just past one.”

“Okay, I’ll—I’m working on something now, but when I wrap up, I’ll stop in.”

“Of course.”

“Okay, Dean. Thank you.”

“That’s fine, Steve.”

The line clicks off sharply. Steve sighs into the empty hallway and leans his forehead against the wall.

Well, if you living in squalor makes you happy,

his mother used to say to him when he didn’t pick up after himself—her unsubtle way of pointing out to him that no, actually, the mess was beginning to get to him.

Pick it up yourself. You’re a grown boy.

He’ll work for a few more hours first, settle his nerves. Then he’ll do as his mother told him and try his best to pick up the mess he made.

Around three o’clock, Steve washes his brushes and packs all his paints away. He’ll drop by in the morning when everything is properly dry to wrap and take to the ad agency—he forgets which one; he’ll have to check his brief again. He hopes it’s the one that rarely gives him any corrections to make. Paint is crusted onto his hands, but he’s not in the mood to scrub, so he leaves most of it. Dean’s seen him worse off, and it’s not like it matters anyway. He throws a hat on and heads out the door.

The walk is short, but even so, he’s glad to be off the street once he reaches the gallery. With the weather this nice, everyone seems to have crawled outside and onto the sidewalks, hellbent on getting in his way.

The bell over the door chimes when he walks inside. He hasn’t been here in a while; things have changed, but that’s not unexpected. Dean likes to rotate his stock every few weeks to keep the gallery feeling fresh. He has a knack for drawing people’s eyes exactly where he wants them, which is why so many artists want on his walls—he makes sales.

All that said, Steve’s work has lived on the back wall of the gallery for quite some time now. Dean used to joke that people spent too long looking at his paintings, so he needed to make sure they were out of the way; wouldn’t want anyone tripping. Steve always suspected Dean

wanted

them to stop and stare. Wishful thinking, maybe, but Dean never hid how much he admired Steve’s work.

As he wanders toward the offices in the back, Steve is surprised to find his wall is still intact. A few pieces have been swapped out, but there it is—his as ever. He’d half-expected Dean to take everything down and tell Steve he’ll have to find another gallery. Could be he just hasn’t had the time.

The door to Dean’s office is ajar. Steve pauses in the hall to listen: a pen scratching, a pensive

hmm

filling in a pause. That’s him. A feeling of apprehension grips Steve’s middle. When he approaches, he knocks on the jamb and stays there out of courtesy.

Dean is sitting behind his desk. He looks up and smiles vaguely, his eyes somewhere slightly to the left of Steve’s face. “You made it,” he says, voice neutral.

“Sure,” Steve says. “I told you I would.”

“Right.”

Steve stands and waits; Dean stares and shuffles the papers in his hands, neatening their edges, till he seems to realize Steve is waiting on a proper invitation. He gestures to the seat opposite his, across the wide wooden desk.

Even as he slides awkwardly into the chair, Steve says, “I thought I was just picking up a check.”

“I see you’re as straightforward as ever.”

“I just thought this ‘wasn’t social.’”

“Well, no,” Dean says, sinking back into his seat. Now that Steve is close enough to see him properly, he notices that Dean looks tired, even a bit disheveled. A rare look for him. It makes Steve’s chest feel funny, like he ought to try to do something about it—smooth his hair for him, send him home to sleep. But that’s not his place anymore. He lets the impulse wane; eventually he’ll stop feeling it.

“There are a few other things I needed to discuss with you, actually,” Dean continues.

“Oh. Is there a check, or was that just—”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’ve got your money, Steve.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“No, I know, I didn’t mean that either. If we could just—”

“Tell me what you needed to talk about,” Steve suggests.

Dean glances at the art deco clock on his desk, the one Steve had gotten him for his birthday three years ago. “You have time?”

This dance on eggshells is tedious. “Of course, Dean. What is it?”

“I’m headed to Cambridge next week,” Dean says, glancing up at the ceiling. “Well, that’s misleading. I’ll be staying there for a while.”

“Oh. With your brother?” Malcolm Chambers, Dean’s older brother, teaches French history to pompous undergraduates at Harvard.

“Yes, he has that house now, you know. He offered, I accepted, et cetera. The point is that—”

“What are you going to do in Cambridge? Are you opening a second gallery?”

“Dammit, Steve.” Dean’s hand covers his eyes and rubs. The air shifts, and Steve realizes Dean hasn’t made proper eye contact with him once since he walked in. Something is different—something has changed.

“No,” Dean says briskly. “I just need to be out of this godforsaken city for a while because everywhere I go reminds me of you, which is making it quite difficult to move on—something I would very much prefer to do.”

Steve tries his best not to flinch. He knows—Christ above

he knows

he broke Dean’s heart over his knee like a piece of balsa wood. Hadn’t he stomped on the pieces that day at the apartment? Necessary, maybe, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t cruel. The whole thing felt cruel but it wasn’t like he could have changed the ultimate outcome. They’ve split up before but this time is the worst. Absolutely no hope.

But it is what it is. And it’s for the best that, through whatever means these past months, Dean finally seems to have realized that.

“I’m sor—” Steve starts.

Dean’s hand flattens on his desk, a quick, sharp slap. “Don’t,” he says, eyes hard. “Don’t apologize for something you’re not sorry for.”

Steve bites his tongue and breathes, waiting. The color in Dean’s cheeks fades, and he looks down at his desk again, smoothing his palm over a thick file. Sales records—maybe Steve’s.

“I sold the apartment,” Dean says, his voice rough. “Our things have been divided and put into storage separately. I have a list of everything for you if you’d like to review it, but generally, things we owned together I gave to whoever was most likely to use it.” Dean lifts a sheet from a neat stack and pushes it across the desk; Steve takes it and glances it over, all the even bullet points detailing his belongings. “I have a key to your storage unit too—you can keep using that one or move it all, I don’t care. The bill will come to me each month, but I’ve worked out a system with Catherine of deducting the cost from your commission checks, so it’s all squared away for now.”

“Okay,” Steve says. “I would have helped with all this, if you’d—”

“I didn’t need your help. Anyway, it’s all settled.”

Steve ought to have expected Dean to cross over into anger. He’d hit denial fairly thoroughly.

“Well, thank you.” He chews his lip, then says, “What about my paintings?”

“They’re listed. I stored them properly, I assure you.”

“No, no—the ones here. Do you want me to… take them somewhere else?”

A sigh pushes out of Dean’s lips like he’d meant to catch it first. “No,” he says softly, then louder: “No, Steve, I won’t make you do that. Frankly, I’d hate to lose them. The two of us can be professional about this, yes?”

“Of course. Yes, that’s—thank you.” Before Steve can stop himself, he says,
“I’m looking for an agent. Well, looking is a strong word, but I plan to look.”

Dean hums. “About time.”

“I know, you know I just—”

Let my ambition wither on the vine, despite your constant protests,

he doesn’t say. “Anyway, I’m going to get one.”

“I’m glad.”

The silence grows more strained the longer they sit in it. The clock slugs along, and time with it. It’s strange to run out of things to say to each other like this. Steve opens his mouth to suggest he take his list and his check and get out, but Dean is quicker on the draw.

“I want to ask you something,” he says, then frowns, like he’s confused he said even that much.

“Go ahead,” Steve says.

For a long beat, Steve thinks he might just drop it. But then: “Do you think, if the circumstances had been different, that he and I might have gotten along?”

“Oh. That’s…”

“A stupid question. Forget I asked.”

“No, Dean, it’s not—I’ve wondered the same thing.” He pauses long enough for Dean to look at him again. “Truth is? I don’t know. You two are… very different and very similar at the same time.”

Dean nods, like something he’d long suspected had just been confirmed. Steve wants to tell him that he doesn’t mean it that way, that none of this was ever about that, he loved Dean on his own merit—but none of it would do any good.

“He tried to tell me to stay,” Steve says instead, “if that makes you hate him a little less.”

Dean’s laugh is flat—more of a pained huff. “I don’t hate him, Steve. God knows it’s not that poor man’s fault that loving you is brutal.”

Steve swallows; maybe he deserves that. “Will you… Can I say something to you? Please?”

“Fine.” Dean waves a hand at him. “Can’t really make anything worse, I suppose.”

“I know I can’t give you a good-faith apology for what happened. You’re right. He came back, and I’m not sorry for that.” Steve leans forward, close enough he could touch the desk. “But I handled it poorly.”

“Steve—”

“Please, Dean. Hurting you was inevitable but I shouldn’t have done it like that. I am sorry.”

“If you’re looking for forgiveness—”

“No, of course not. I just wanted you to know.”

“Okay. Well.” Dean’s mouth tightens, goes slack, tightens again. “I heard you.”

“I’ll just… I’ll go now. Get out of your way.”

“That’s for the best.”

Dean’s chair squawks against the floor when he stands. Steve follows his lead, albeit more slowly. A manila folder holds his check, information on the storage unit and what’s inside, the key, a few documents Steve had left at the apartment that he ought to keep. Dean flips through it all, explaining, before slipping everything back inside and sealing it off. He rounds the desk and hands it over.

“Thanks,” Steve murmurs, fiddling with the folder’s edge. “I guess this is it then, huh?”

“I would say we should try to stay friends, but—well.”

“No, it’s okay. I know.”

Dean is breathing hard under the loose buttons of his dress shirt. It’s not as if this is the last time they’ll ever see each other, not if Steve is still showing at the gallery; they’ll have to meet.

But it does feel final this time in a way it hasn’t before. All their business taken care of. When Steve walks out that door, there will be nothing left. And everything,

everything

is on the other side of it, he knows that it’s worth it, but it still feels like grinding gears to make himself turn away—

“Dammit,” Dean says, and grabs him, pulling Steve into his chest. Steve goes willingly, and it’s the crush of them together that holds the folder up when Steve lets go of it to wrap his arms around Dean, who never did anything but love him and got trampled for his efforts.

“This is hell,” Steve says, because it is.

“Damn you, Steve.

Damn

you.”

“I know. I know.”

He lets Dean hold him hard, and Steve holds him back. When Dean presses his lips to Steve’s hair, Steve doesn’t protest, and he doesn’t fight when Dean pulls far enough away to cup his jaw. “You can tell me,” Dean whispers, “you

should—”

It’s a difference and similarity between them, this need for some modicum of closure—a neat bookend like this to seal things off properly. Dean expects certainty because it’s what he’s used to. Steve wants it just as much, but more so because he’s so rarely been afforded it.

So Steve kisses him, and Dean’s mouth presses to his for one hard, short, wretched moment.

Then they break apart, and Steve gathers his things while Dean tries resolutely not to show that he’s crying. He’s stalwart. If Steve didn’t know him so well, he’d worry about him more—but he’ll be fine. He hopes, anyway. Years ago Steve would have said he isn’t memorable enough to cause anyone any lasting damage, but he’s been learning lately that maybe that isn’t true.

In the doorway, he turns and says, “Goodbye, Dean.”

And then he’s gone.

Steve forgot that he’d made lunch plans for the following afternoon till the telephone rings sharply. Lily and Kath are both out—auditioning, workshopping, something—so he toes his way out of the bedroom and toward the kitchen, on the off chance the call might be important.

He fumbles with the receiver and presses it to his ear. “Lovett and Gold.”

“Steve,” a voice says sharply. “Where the hell are you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh beg your pardon. Steven Rogers, where the hell are you,

please?”

When Steve recognizes the voice, he claps a hand to his forehead and sighs. “Sorry—Jesus, Dan, I’m sorry.”

“You know, I’ve never been stood up before. It might be exciting if I wasn’t half-starved.”

Now that he listens properly, Steve can hear the clamor of background noise on Daniel’s end. He must already be at the restaurant they’d agreed on three days ago—these lunches are becoming a standing appointment, apparently. Most of the time Steve is happy to meet with his new friend, but it had completely slipped his mind after the day he had yesterday.

He’d come straight back to the apartment after leaving the gallery and collapsed into his bed. The funny thing was, he thought was done moping over all this—that at some point in the past two months, he’d moved on. And in part that still felt true, but maybe he never gave himself the proper time to mourn it all. Everything happened so quickly. He barely had time to think, much less process. So he spent the rest of the afternoon curled up under the covers, not really crying but not dry-eyed either, wishing the one person he wanted to talk to wasn’t half the world away. He could have called but it felt too desperate, asking Bucky to console him over that particular choice; the one he’d assured him more than once he wanted to make.

He’s fine—better than fine, really. Heartened to know that even if Dean isn’t happy yet, he’s making strides toward it, figuring out his own future after this mess of a situation they all plunged into. They all of them will be fine.

The sound of clattering dishes in his ear brings Steve back to the phone call. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I didn’t forget you on purpose.”

“I’d hope not. What kept you?”

Steve sighs, his eyes tracing the faint texture of the drywall.

“Steve,” Daniel says, more serious. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. I just had—had a rough day, is all. Overslept.” It’s honest; he’d only woken up about an hour ago, and it’s just gone noon now.

“Hm.” Daniel doesn’t pry, which is one reason Steve enjoys his company so much. “Well, I had something I wanted to ask you, but since I guess you’re not making it to this restaurant today—”

“I could still—”

“Steve, forget it, I’ll have a hot sandwich and be on my way, never mind. Back to my question. I’m headed to Maine for a few weeks, family tradition only minus the family—more of a creative retreat these days. Anyhow, the first weekend I usually invite some guests, make it a bit of a party. Would you like to come?”

“Oh,” Steve says, startled. “Maine?”

“Coast of, yes. More of an island off said coast of.”

“That sounds…” He takes a deep breath. “Great. Perfect, actually.”

“There’s the enthusiasm. I’m headed up tomorrow to air the house out, everyone else is driving in on Saturday. Invite those roommates of yours, if you want—they’re not too buttoned up, are they?”

“Couldn’t say, honestly. But I don’t

think

so.”

Daniel laughs. “Bring them and I’m sure we’ll find out. Anyway, the maître d' is glaring daggers at me now. Do you have something to write with? I’ll give you directions.”

Daniel rattles off a cursory route with more commentary than actual directions, but Steve gets the gist of it. They could take the train to Portland, or maybe just drive the whole way. He doesn’t drive, but he’s pretty sure Kath does; she’s from Ohio. They’ll need a car but surely that won’t be so hard to acquire in four days’ time. Did they need to bring anything?

No, no, just yourselves—some alcohol.

When Steve hangs up the telephone, he stands in the kitchen a while, breathing. Maybe it’s indulgent to get out of town like this, but he can’t help but think that maybe Dean had the right idea—that leaving the city for a while might be good for him, too.

It’s just as well that they didn’t take the train. Steve had brief fantasies of walking into the atrium of Penn Station and exchanging his ticket for one to Chicago—from there to Indianapolis. He could have called Janet from the station and surprised Bucky on the doorstep. He shouldn’t visit uninvited, though, and besides—he needs the damn vacation, even if it’s only for the weekend.

The weather is perfect for the drive—a balmy Saturday in early spring. Kath takes the wheel and Lily the passenger seat, leaving Steve to the spacious backseat of the Buick convertible. He stretches his legs out and intends to catch up on some reading, but mostly he watches the city as it fades around them till they’re chugging along the interstate through New England.

Kath had insisted on driving; she knew a friend who would lend them a vehicle so they didn’t have to rent one. Steve has rarely seen her as animated as she was piling everything into the car, checking the mirrors, easing out of her friend’s driveway in Queens.

Somewhere north of Boston, they stop to take the car’s top off. Steve can just barely hear Lily singing along to the radio over the whipping of the wind. It catches at the scarves tied over Kath and Lily’s hair, making the tied ends dance, waving at Steve. He’s content to lean his head back as the country passes them by, with fresh air on his face and his mind as clear as it’s been in weeks. He props an elbow on the lip of the window and lets the cool breeze flow between his fingers. The sun’s out and keeping him warm, and every once in a while, Kath catches his eye in the rear view mirror and smiles.

The briny smell of the ocean—stronger here than it ever is in New York—sneaks up on him as they coast off the highway and into Portland. Steve sits up properly for the first time in hours to help Kath navigate to the ferry along the water. The only way to get where they’re going, Daniel had said, is by boat.

It’s a quick ride across the bay, but they all hop out of the car to catch a look. Lobster trawlers and pleasure boats come and go through the harbor, and seagulls fly overheard against the rich blue sky. The seascape is picturesque, the city sprawled out along the coastline behind them—a speck of a thing, compared to what Steve’s accustomed to. The island ahead is barely a piece of flotsam in the bay.

Soon enough they reach the dock, then it’s back into the car and onward onto Peaks Island. Daniel said his family used to come here when he was a child, only he doesn’t get along with his family these days, so he’d bought the house they used to rent and kept it for himself. The drive to the house is short—would have to be, given the island’s size—and soon enough Kath pulls the Buick off into a dirt drive that curves down to an oceanside cottage. There’s only one other car outside; it seems they’re the first to arrive.

“Oh wow,” Lily says. “It’s sweet, isn’t it?”

Steve worried Daniel had invited them to some massive coastal manor, but the house is modest. Two floors, painted a cheery pale yellow, with neat blue shutters and a lawn that stretches down to a beach along the harbor. As they climb out of the sedan, the door to the cottage bursts open, and out comes Daniel with a grin on his face and a camera dangling from a strap around his neck.

“You made it!” he calls. “How was the drive up?”

“Fine,” Kath says.

“Thank you for inviting us,” Lily adds.

“Daniel, this is Kathleen” —Steve indicates the darker-haired of the two— “and Lily.”

“Of course, yes, happy to have you. Come inside! I’ll give you the grand tour.”

It’s not much of a tour, nor is it particularly grand. The door opens into a small kitchen, which leads into a parlor lined with wide windows to take in the harbor view. Steve spies an upright piano against one wall, and several bookcases lined mostly with books, partly with framed photographs. Daniel points to three doors—a bathroom, two single beds—and the staircase, which leads to the loft. All the walls are white, making the place feel light and airy.

“It’s small, but there’s the porch and then the lawn, and we’ll spill out there anyway. Here, you can stick your things in—”

Their bags go into one of the cigar-box bedrooms. Daniel explains that sleeping arrangements are on a first come, first serve basis; people may wind up on the floor, but most will stay at the inn closer to the ferry.

“How big of a gathering is this?” Steve asks.

“Oh, Steve, you angel.” Daniel loops an arm around his shoulder and tugs him into a one-armed hug. “I’m glad you’re here.”

By the time evening falls, the house has filled up. Music plays from a radio atop one of the bookcases, but there’s hardly room to shuffle, much less dance—not that Steve has the inclination. It’s an honest to God party out here on this little island. How forty-odd people made it all the way here, much less fit into this house, is beyond reckoning.

He stands by the piano, sipping a glass of gin and wondering if he ought to have dressed in something nicer than a favorite old sweater. It’s the off season, though, and there’s still a chill in the air coming off the water and through the open backdoor. People mill in and out, chattering away, charming each other. He lost track of Lily and Kath a while ago; he thinks they might have headed down to the beach for a walk.

A man in horn-rimmed glasses appears next to him and points to the piano with his wine glass. “Do you play?”

“Hm? Oh, no.”

“Shame.”

“Sorry,” Steve says, but the man is already trundling off.

He used to go to things like this with Dean, and before him—house parties, that kind of scene. A room full of creative people getting together to have bad ideas they’ll forget in the morning is not wholly unfamiliar; it’s just been so long since he’s bothered. He feels like a square all over again, trailing at Bucky’s heels from dancehall to dancehall. Not that he’d minded any of that. Bucky was always better in a crowd, could swing them from conversation to conversation as easy as he swung a girl on the dance floor. Maybe that’s not so true anymore, but Steve wants him here anyway. Always does.

He’s not having a bad time, though, really. People-watching and decent gin go a long way. Steve thinks he would like it better if the place was emptier, though. Just people he knows together for an evening, drinking wine and swapping stories, maybe. A quiet night in a quiet house, out on the coast.

He can see Daniel calling his name long before he gets within earshot. “Steve,” Daniel says, a mild slur in his voice, “friend. You’re acting so lonely—come meet interesting people with me.”

“I’m fine,” he says, but Daniel is already sweeping him outside, down the porch stairs and onto the lawn. His camera jostles against Steve’s elbow. “Are you going to carry that thing all night?”

“Of course, there’s so much to

see.”

He’s been taking photographs half the night, mostly candids. “I get the best practice out here, you know. That’s why I come—away from the studio. It can be so repressive.”

“Sure, okay.”

“I’ll take yours, here—just stand there.”

“It’s awfully dark.”

“Who’s the professional?” Then the camera is shuttering away, and Steve just lets himself look up at the wide open sky. So much brighter here than in Brooklyn. “Lovely as always, Steve.”

“You said we were coming out here to meet interesting people.”

“Right! Here’s one now.”

It’s the man in horn-rimmed glasses again, summoned out of the dark. His glass of wine is nearly empty now, Steve sees, and his smile is effusive. “Hello,” he says, holding out his free hand. “The man who doesn’t play the piano.”

Steve takes his hand. “That would be me. Steve Rogers.”

“Oh, are you?” The man casts a meaningful look at Daniel. “You think you’re sly.”

Daniel shrugs,

what can I say?

“Not a sham so much as a wonderful happenstance.”

“Excuse me?” Steve says.

“Steve, this is Leo Herzel. He’s an artist agent.”

When Steve meets his eye again, he can see it—the natural appraisal in his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” Leo says, even as he’s still considering Steve. “Daniel fancies himself a matchmaker. I’m sure you’re just trying to enjoy the party.”

Steve decides to avoid the non-question. “How do you two know each other?”

“Oh, Leo’s mine.” Daniel squeezes the other man’s shoulder. “Agent, I mean. You’re married, aren’t you? Yes, what’s-her-name, Colette.”

“You’ve met her a dozen times if you’ve met her once, Danny.”

“Yes, well, you know how I like to keep people on their toes.”

“Anyway,” Leo says. He turns away from Daniel, the better to face Steve. “I let slip to Daniel that I have room for a few new clients, and he fed me your name. Well, more than that—he commandeered a business meeting to show me your work at that… What was the name of that gallery?”

“Chambers,” Daniel says. He casts an apologetic look at Steve. “It’s the only place I knew of.”

“No, it’s—that’s fine. I’m only showing there.”

“I can fix that,” Leo says. He drains his wine. “If you’d like me to.”

Steve feels his brow raise. “Do

you

want to?”

“Well, for a trial period at least, and I’ll need to see more of your portfolio first—commercial work, whatever else you’re interested in pursuing. Now isn’t the place for any of that, but I’ll give you my card, and you can phone me when we’re both back in the city.”

Leo produces a sturdy business card from the pocket of his sport coat, a name and a Manhattan address printed in sharp letters.

“Thanks,” Steve says.

“I look forward to that call, Steve. But that’s enough business for the night, if you’ll both excuse me.”

When Leo is gone, Steve turns to Daniel and squints at him. The light from the house and the moon up above make it hard to see what he thinks of all this.

“You’re meddlesome,” Steve says.

“Hey now! I said I would help you. A ‘thank you, Dan’ might be nice.”

“You didn’t set this whole thing up just for that, did you?” Steve waves toward the house and the party within.

“God, no. You think I’m that inefficient? Come on, back inside—it’s cold out here, and I’m empty.”

They can hear from the porch that someone has sat down at the piano, and the clatter of the party subsides to a muffled rumble. Steve slips through the open door behind Daniel and presses himself to the wall, where he can see Kath at the bench and Lily perched boldly on top of the piano itself.

“Oh, your friends are show offs.”

Steve flaps a hand at him and says, “Shush.”

Kath plucks out a dainty melody on the piano for a few bars, Lily smiling down at her with a look in her eyes even Steve’s rarely seen. Then Lily opens her mouth and starts to sing, and the rest of the room falls silent. Her voice is clear and warm. Kath picks up the second verse in her warbling alto while Lily hums a harmony, and maybe he’s had more gin than he remembered, but Steve would swear it’s the prettiest thing he’s ever heard.

It’s a love song, plain and obvious. Musical theatre—something recent.

Who cares what happens now?

Just keep your hand in mine

Your hand feels so grand in mine

Let people say we're in love

The melody hangs in Steve’s good ear. The windows reflect the party, the cheering bright faces—and beyond them, the sky is dark and shot through with stars. He would call it perfect, if one more person were here. His eyes slip closed and he imagines it plainly: Bucky beside him in a house like this, but maybe instead of live voices it’s a record Bucky picked out, and they split that bottle of wine because Steve’s celebrating some new showing his new agent helped him land.

Even with the unknowns, somehow the world feels like it’s finally coming together. These questions about the how and where and when all feel novel suddenly—because they

are,

Jesus, here Steve is worrying over paint colors and loose floorboards because he’s planning a home and a future with the man he’s loved since he still had a mother. Even before the war Steve never imagined they’d get to ask banal questions like what city and how many bedrooms.

Somewhere around the third chorus, comprehension smacks him in the face and turns his cheeks pink. He fetches another round of drinks for his friends, and the electric buzz of being alive feels almost tangible around him.

By the time his head hits the pillow hours later, that song is still drifting through it.

The house has emptied out when Steve wakes the next morning, though by his watch it’s still early. He tumbles more than rises out of his bed in the back room to find the house quiet and still. There’s evidence of the party—dirty glasses on surfaces, a forgotten pocket watch, a disturbed look to the couches and chairs. Someone put the cover down on the piano, though, and when Steve wanders into the kitchen to put dishes in the sink, every bottle of alcohol has been neatly corked or capped.

He washes out a glass and refills it with water, standing there with his back to the counter to drink it. The tile is cold under his toes. Back through the living room windows he can see the harbor, all the fishermen out early in their boats. The tide is low. Steve’s hands itch for a pencil and paper to sketch it out—to send to Bucky, to paint later, maybe both—but all his things are in the room Lily and Kath shared last night. It’d be rude to knock.

He really ought to go back to sleep himself, considering how late it had been when he went to bed. Instead he finds a legal pad shoved into a drawer of the sidetable in the living room and a few dull pencils in the cutlery drawer. He takes them and his water out onto the back porch, doubles back for the blanket off his bed, then settles into the wide adirondack chair with a view of the bay. Soon the sound of pencil on page fills in the muted chorus of morning birds and the ocean lapping at sand.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed, only that the sun’s a little higher and his page is a little fuller, when the door opens with a creak.

“Morning,” Daniel says, the smell of coffee following him out. He has two steaming mugs in hand. “Thought you could use the pick-me-up.”

“Oh, thanks,” Steve says. He sets his paper in his lap and reaches for the coffee—plain black. Daniel eases down into the other chair with a soft groan. His hair is sticking up in strange places, and his face is paler than usual. “You look worse for wear.”

Daniel blinks balefully at him. “And you look frighteningly normal.”

“Some of us act our age.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous.”

They sit quietly for a while, sipping their coffee till Daniel seems to finally enter the waking world. He stretches his legs out and sighs, long and loud.

“You had fun, though?” he asks.

“Mm? Oh, of course.” Steve smiles. “Thank you.”

“For Herzel? Don’t mention it. Technically I didn’t do anything.”

“Liar. I mean, though—for all of it.” Steve waves a hand toward the water, the blanket over his legs, the house, everything. “I think I needed this.”

Daniel nods, his fingers tapping on his mug. “Yeah. New York’s murder sometimes.”

“Have you ever thought about relocating here full time?”

“Every time I’m here.” Daniel snorts. “God, if I could—well, actually, no. I love the city too much, and it’s too goddamn far away.”

“Somewhere closer? Long Island.”

“Hm. Maybe. I’d probably regret it.”

Steve hums and drinks his coffee, thinking. “I don’t know.”

“What? Don’t tell me I’ve inspired you.”

“It seems nice, is all. A house like this, a yard. I’ve never lived anywhere but Brooklyn, though, so maybe I’m just drawn to it because it’s different.”

“The heart wants what the heart wants, I guess,” Daniel says. His eyes narrow. “Speaking of. What did that mysterious pen pal of yours think of those photographs?”

Steve’s face colors—easy enough to pass off on the chilly morning. “He liked them.”

“Vague. What’s the story there anyway? You left Chambers for him, right?”

“I didn’t—I mean, well—it’s more complicated than that.”

Daniel smirks. “Is it, though?”

“Yes,

Jesus Christ.”

When Steve turns his head to glare at him, Daniel holds his hands up, placating. “Fine, fine. You’re very committed to the mysterious shtick, aren’t you?”

“No,” Steve says. He pauses on his next breath, thinking. “I don’t mean to be anyway. I just… I don’t know, it’s not

secrets

I’m keeping, so much as—as—”

“You’re a private person, Steve, I get it. You don’t have to tell me anything. But we’re friends now, the two of us, so you can if you want to—that’s all I’m trying to say.”

Maybe he should talk. It’s been so long since he’s had anyone who was willing and eager to listen, and all Daniel is is curious. Benignly, innocently—the way friends ought to be with one another.

So Steve holds out the pad of paper toward him and points to the sharp, familiar lines of a face he could sketch in his sleep. “This is Bucky,” he begins.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“I think I got everything,” Janet says, her hair askew from the day’s sharp breeze. Bucky takes his suitcase from her, careful not to fuss about her lugging it into the house herself—it’s not all that heavy, and she’s not far enough along for it to matter yet. The full skirt of her dress hides any evidence that she’s pregnant anyway, which is just fine by her, she told Bucky. Janet never liked being fawned over.“Thank you,” he says, and sets the case down on the couch where he slept. He sits with it to pop open the latches—not because he doesn’t trust his sister; he just wants to see all his things. He doesn’t have much. Protecting what he does is all the more important.It all still fits neatly inside. He runs his hands over his shirts at the top, folded with the care and precision their mother taught them. Have they been ironed? The cotton is smooth and crisp like someone’s laundered them in the days since he’s been away. Maybe Rosie. It might have been his mother. Janet would know, but he doesn’t bother to ask.Somehow he thought his suitcase might be overflowing now. Bucky shouldn’t be surprised that it isn’t; he hasn’t made any purchases since he’s been in Indiana. Becca offered to buy him something for his birthday, since none of them had time to find him any gifts, but he declined. Wouldn’t even take the soft cardigan she claimed her husband never wore—he didn’t need it; Steve was outfitted thoroughly before he came here.“There’s a few empty drawers in there,” Janet says. She points to the sideboard along the hall. “You’re welcome to them.”Bucky hums and wonders if they’re empty because Rose’s things were in them, and now they’re not. Their little switcheroo turned permanent. “Thanks.”“I’m sorry I can’t offer you more privacy.”It’s just a one-bedroom house, so he’s stuck out here in the living room. “I don’t mind, Janet.”“Still. Oh, I almost forgot—this might cheer you up.” She eases onto the sofa beside him and pulls an envelope from her handbag. “Here.”She hadn’t sealed it, so he flips open the paper and shakes out what’s inside: his two photographs of Steve, which had been tacked above the desk in his borrowed bedroom. Behind them, the two snapshots of Bucky and his little nephew. The ones Becca had taken of Jim asleep in his lap.
“Becca mailed copies to Steve already,” Janet tells him. “Hope that’s okay.”“Mm. I’ll bet he loved them.” Bucky touches his finger to the first photo, where he’s looking down at Jim. In the next one he looks into the camera wearing a watery smile. It’s nice, to see himself like that. Not so artful as the professional shots of Steve—but just as real and good.“You’re welcome to visit them anytime, you know.” Janet lays her hand on his wrist, warm and gentle. “You can use the phone in the hall to call ahead. Jim and Ian just loved you, and Becca was so glad to have you meet them. Her house is walkable from here, but I can always give you a ride, too.”“Okay,” Bucky says. “That’s—I’ll do that.”“When I go into town, I’ll get some picture frames for you, and we can display all those.”“Oh, that’s okay. I can… I’ll just—” He starts to slip the photos back into the envelope, but Janet holds his hand still.“Bucky, like I said—I can’t offer you much here, but I want to give you what I can, okay? We’ll put the pictures up so you can see them. I like them, too.” She glances down at where they’re scattered in his lap and smiles broad and bright. “Steve is so handsome. Did I ever tell you that when I was a girl, I had a crush on him?”Bucky snorts. “No, you didn’t. And good thing, too.”“Why’s that?”“‘Cause I’d have pummeled you for it.”Janet rolls her eyes, but it’s fond. “Well, he only ever had eyes for some other knucklehead, so it’s not like it mattered.”He holds the picture up, the one where Steve’s got this contemplative look on his face, his eyes soft like he likes whatever he’s thinking about. Bucky doesn’t want to assume it was him, but sometimes when he needs the comfort, he’ll imagine it was.The weight of it hits him all at once—that he can share this, that maybe it’s still a secret to the world but his family knows what Steve means to him, that Janet can joke about it—“Bucky?”He scrubs a fist at the hot tears flooding his eyes. “I’m fine, Jan, just… Just thinking about how much has changed.”“Oh,” she says softly. “Not that much, right? It’s okay.”“No, no, I meant—some of it’s good.” He looks at her, where she sits closer, older and wiser and a mother before the year is out. Their own mother can’t speak to him, but he has his sisters and his nephews and Steve, and somehow tragedy’s made them more honest with each other in ways they might not have had before. “Isn’t it?”“Yes,” Janet says. “Yes, Bucky, of course.”

That evening he offers to clean up after dinner. Janet says he doesn’t have to, that he’s a guest, but if he’s going to be staying under her and her husband’s roof, eating their food—well, he would rather pull his weight than sit idle, is all. Janet doesn’t fight him hard, instead just shows him where she keeps the soap and the dish towels. There isn’t much mess; dinner was simple, and there’s only the three of them.Janet and Joel are in the front room, speaking in low voices while he fills the sink with hot water. He thinks about telling him they don’t need to keep it down on his account, that he likes the chatter, only just when he opens his mouth to call out someone flicks the radio on. That works just as well. He used to like this, washing up and humming along to popular music. He likes it now, too.When the water’s soapy and the dishes have soaked long enough, Bucky pulls a plate from the sink to start scrubbing. It’s trickier than he expected, trying to stabilize and sponge the plate with one hand. He’ll have to be careful of making a mess—or God forbid, breaking anything.The left hand—the whole contraption really, down deep into his shoulder joint—has been giving him trouble lately. Nothing he can’t manage; stiffness and stuttering motion mostly, which reminds him of the arthritis his grandfather had. Can metal joints be arthritic? Maybe they can. It’s not as if he has anyone to ask about it. But for now he keeps his forearm pressed to his stomach, out of the way. He’ll ask if Janet has anything to help a headache before he goes to sleep and in the morning, he’ll wake up fine again.He hears Joel laugh deep, probably at something Janet said, and smiles even though they can’t see him. He likes their easy domesticity. It reminds him of what he and Steve had—what they’ll have again in one form or another, very soon. Bucky hopes it’s soon anyway. His suitcase is still packed, sitting at the foot of the couch, and he thinks he may not unpack it all. The telephone number for the train station would be easy enough to look up. He’s been wondering this afternoon if maybe it’s time to call it done and go home. To New York. To Steve.Of course he would visit—maybe take an airplane. Maybe he and Steve could invite his family to visit them in New York, too, if they have room to put them up. The idea doesn’t sound so bad. There are telephones and letters and trains, and who’s to say Rosie won’t end up back in New York anyway? Shelbyville is their mother’s hometown, but it’s none of her children’s. Not really. He pictures his family gathered in the living room the way his childhood saw neighbors and cousins and Rogerses piled in—only this time it’s a house of his own they flock to. It’s a nice picture in his head.
“Bucky?” Janet’s voice startles Bucky out of his reverie hard enough that he slops dishwater onto her clean kitchen floor.“Hell,” he mutters.“Hey, no, I’ve got—Bucky, I’m sorry, it’s all right.” His sister is there with a towel to drape over the spill before Bucky can so much as crouch down. “You’re jumpy, huh? Thinking hard again?”“Always,” Bucky says, managing a smile when Jan straightens up to face him.“Me and Joel are winding down for the night,” she says. “You want help with the pull-out?”“No, I got it figured out now. Thank you, though.”“Of course. Hey, I wanted to mention, it’s our anniversary next week and—”“Oh wow, congratulations! One year, right?”“Yes,” Janet says, beaming. “To celebrate, we have a day trip planned to Indianapolis on Saturday. Just a nice lunch and a theatre matinee, we’ll be back here for dinner.”“Oh,” Bucky says. “Okay. That sounds nice.”“We thought so. Anyway, you’ll have the run of the house for the afternoon. Unless, well—”“No, that’ll be fine.”“Rose asked if she could come visit that day. If you want to see her,” Janet says, her mouth flat like she wants to let him make up his own mind about it. “I told her I’d phone to let her know what you decided.”Bucky doesn’t think to hesitate. “Yes. I’d like—yes, she can come.”“I’ll let her know.”Janet takes over rinsing the dishes for him, then Joel drifts in to dry, and if either of them notice the way Bucky’s holding his arm or how his laugh is a little tinny, they don’t bring it up.

It’s a strange sense of repetition, sitting here in the living room wringing his hands, waiting on his baby sister with no idea what might happen. Bucky is used to the sight of her by now—she stopped by their mother’s every other day, and after the first week rarely bothered to call ahead. The shock of her presence hasn’t worn off but he doesn’t flinch anymore; he’s grown accustomed to the feeling. Why in the world should he be nervous all over again?This time, though, feels different. Things were going fine between them till Janet threw a wrench into it all. A wrench Bucky knows needed to be thrown, but a jarring one nonetheless. Now they have to look each other in the eye about it and do something, or else keep living in limbo like this—which Bucky emphatically does not want to do, not with any of his family, but especially not with Rose.So here he is again, tapping his toes on the hardwood and trying to concentrate on a book Joel recommended. It’s light and breezy science fiction, the kind of book he used to swallow whole, and it’s good but he can’t quite concentrate. Janet and Joel left half an hour ago for their day trip. Rose didn’t say what time she plans to stop by.He could make some coffee. Maybe it would soothe him to have a cup, and it’ll seem hospitable besides, having a pot made when Rose arrives. She likes hers so milky it’s hardly brown, with too much sugar.The electric percolator is gurgling away when there’s a soft knock on the door. Bucky wouldn’t have been able to hear it over the coffee brewing if he weren’t—well, whatever he is nowadays.He rubs his palm on his trousers as he heads to the door, a nervous tick more than any need to dry his hand. The door handle requires some specific jiggling, but then he has it open, and there’s Rose on the stoop. She smiles tentatively.“Hi, Bucky,” she says.Her uncharacteristic shyness grates on him—she shouldn’t be acting like that, least of all for him. So he gets his arm around her shoulders and pulls her through the doorway, into his arms. The left grinds in protest but goes where he asks it anyway, and then Rose is wilting into him with a shaky breath.“Hey, Rosie girl,” Bucky says into her hair. “Missed you.”“I missed you too,” she breathes. “I’m sorry, Bucky—I’m sorry.”“It’s okay.” When she starts quaking against him, Bucky leans back to see her face. “Rose, honey. I’m not angry with you. Look at me, alright? You’re okay.”Big, wet tears catch the midmorning light on her cheeks. She sniffs all snot-nosed and meets his eye. “Still. I shouldn’t have… Janet was right. I didn’t want you to leave again so I was trying to—to change your mind about it. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, I am sorry.”“You’re forgiven,” Bucky says, because she’s right but he understands it. How could he blame her for a second? “I already forgave you.”“You did?”“Come sit down, alright. There.”She settles, sniffling, into the cushions. Seized by some age-old instinct, Bucky reaches out to smooth her hair. A warm feeling uncurls in his chest.“There’s a fresh pot of coffee,” he says softly, “give me just a minute.”She doesn’t jump up after him, or say a word at all as he walks to the kitchen to pour two mugs of coffee. When she was little, Bucky or their mother would make her a cup of warm milk when she was upset. Bucky supposes, with the way she takes her coffee, this is essentially the same. It’s nice, the way she gives him a wobbling smile and wraps her hands around the mug, her shoulders hunching in like she can catch the warmth with her whole body. When Bucky sits, she snuggles in close to him like she remembers this, and that’s nice too. Achingly familiar. If she were a foot shorter, he’d think it was 1938 again.“I was just scared,” Rosie says, whisper-quiet.“Of what?” Bucky knows the answer, but he wants her to say it out loud so he can refute it.“That you’d leave and not come back again.”“I never meant—”“I know,” she cuts over him. “I’m ashamed I thought it at all.”“You had a right to think it.”“No.” She looks up at him. “No, I didn’t, because you told me you wouldn’t and I should have believed you.”Bucky lets his eyes fall and takes a slow, hot sip of his coffee. How is Rose to know that Bucky won’t repeat his pattern all over again? She only ever knew him from a child’s perspective, till two short months ago. She had every reason to mistrust his word, even if he had no intention of breaking it. Steve might've taken him at his word—or lack thereof, as it was—but Steve Rogers sets an unfair standard for anyone to model. Not a very smart one either, in this case.
“It doesn’t matter,” Bucky says. Rose opens her mouth to protest, but he doesn’t give her the opportunity. “Rose, I mean it. We forgive each other. Let’s drop the whole thing, okay?”She sighs and fidgets, maybe making an effort to put every last feeling about it behind her all at once. She drinks her coffee, and Bucky slips an arm around her shoulders—half to remind her that he’s here, and half for himself. They sit in comfortable silence for a long while. Processing, he thinks. There’s been a lot of that for Bucky recently, but it’s less and less like terror every day. He breathes in deep to fill his whole chest.“I have something for you,” Rose says when her coffee is running low. “If you want to see?”Bucky takes her mug and sets it with his own on the coffee table. “What is it?”“Well, I went to the library to look some things up for you. Things you might—well, you don’t have to, and I’m not suggesting you do, but I thought you ought to know about them at least.”“What things?”“Things you’re owed. Because you were a soldier. Here—” She reaches for her purse, and from within pulls out a brochure. In neat black print the title reads The Amended GI Bill of Rights and How It Works. “This pamphlet is yours to keep because the library gives them out. Do you, um… Do you know what the GI Bill is?”Bucky is still squinting down at the brochure, even as Rose tries to hand it off to him. “No, I don’t.”“It’s a law passed during the war that says you’re entitled to benefits because you served.”“Benefits?”“All kinds. People can get business loans or mortgages or… or even go to college. Or vocational school. If you wanted.”“College?” Bucky repeats, reedy even to his own ears. He thought about it once—a hundred times—but told himself he shouldn’t, that it was a waste of time when he could have a job now. There were his sisters, his mother, Steve to think about. He doesn’t remember telling anyone he might want that. Maybe he’s wrong. He finds himself squinting at the mantle across the room from them, where his pictures sit propped up in tidy gold frames.“It’s just an idea,” Rosie says. “Something to think about. I just wanted you to know that you have options. I really liked college but obviously you don’t—well, not everybody…”She sighs, and shuts her mouth with deliberate firmness. Her smile is small and coaxing when she turns it toward him. The idea of it, of putting his best shoes on with his pencils and notebooks and learning something new, something useful but mundane like accounting or engineering—It all sounds horribly nice, but a little dark spot blooms in the back of his head. He takes the pamphlet from Rose, flips it open to skim the black bullet points of benefits and how to apply for them. His grip tightens, and he has to be careful not to tear the paper when the movement sends sharp hot pain crackling through his left arm. Officially he has no identification, is technically alive according to law if the information Steve found is to be trusted, but frankly it all seemed a little too neat, too convenient, and besides he never contacted the medical examiner to confirm that he is indeed living, breathing, and no longer MIA. The thought of the debriefing—the thought that maybe they wouldn’t discharge him, or that perhaps they’d throw him right back to the dogs from whence he escaped… He couldn’t bring himself to do it.But it’s do it or live a tenuous, anonymous existence. He could get some under-the-table blue collar job probably, especially if he’s back in New York, but then what is he giving to Steve? What’s he asking him to risk? Bucky doesn’t know what would happen in the Army found him out in a year, five, another decade. Would they believe him? Can they possibly believe him now? Maybe he’ll get accused of desertion, tried in court for it, sent to jail. Or worse, if they know who had him. What he’s done.Dammit. He’s tried so hard not to think about any of this. Then along comes this pamphlet his sister gave him that promises him a tangible, legitimate future and he can’t so much as thank her for it for fear he’ll wretch on her pretty dress.“I don’t know,” he scrapes out, his voice rough. “I’ll… I’ll think about it.”Rose nods, and if she’s changing the subject because she can sense his discomfort, for once Bucky doesn’t care. He listens to her talk about her goats, and she stays long into the evening and even for dinner when Janet and Joel get home. Sometime in the afternoon Bucky gets his feet back under himself. He tells himself that everything will be fine.

The week settles in like cloud cover. The weather seems to have turned for good now—no more cold mornings in the yard, but Bucky doesn’t mind so much. The world inhales, and out comes blooms and green and life all in a matter of days. The trees have leaves again, and Bucky never realized how precisely he missed seeing them shake in the breeze. Maybe missed in the wrong word—he liked the park as a kid but preferred the pavement. A new feeling, then. Not wholeness but the idea of it, like he could turn green in the springtime too, if he wanted. Maybe he will.He’s called his mother three times this week. Rose convinced him. Each time they spoke, it was quick and basic—how are you, fine, did you catch that radio program last night? Joel has been thinking about buying a television but hasn’t done it yet. Bucky tells her this without mentioning that Joel decided to wait until he and Janet are settled in Chicago. They haven’t told Freddie yet, but Janet says they mean to. This weekend, maybe, if they visit for lunch.Neither Bucky nor his mother bring up what Janet said, and neither of them offer to see each other. Maybe this is what they can have—cursory telephone conversations, pleasantries exchanged. Bucky misses his ma but maybe she’s changed too much to be that warm hand on his shoulder anymore. More likely is that he’s changed too much for her to know she could still put it there, that he would let her. The result is the same. He’s making his peace with it, day by day.He phones Steve too, to tell him he’ll be headed to New York soon. Bucky hasn’t picked out a date yet, but it’s high time, he’s decided. Janet and Joel will have to pack up the house soon, and then where will he go? Becca doesn’t have the room.
Steve is happy to hear from him, though there’s a rueful note in his voice when he says I’ll be glad to have you back. It’s okay, Bucky tells him. He’s had enough of Indiana, and he has a promise to keep.“Have you found us someplace to live yet?” Bucky asks him, and Steve laughs.“Trying to, sweetheart. Work in progress.”Everything is.
It’s a Thursday afternoon, and Janet is teaching him how to cross stitch. She tries to tell him it’s fun, which he doesn’t buy, and then she says it’s soothing, which doesn’t convince him either. She’s grasping for straws when she says you can make something nice for Steve. Bucky hates how quickly that idea takes hold, and sometime in the process she pushes thread and a pattern into his hands.“Once you know the basic stitches, it’s easy,” Janet says. A new hobby would be good for him, and besides, she looks so pleased to be teaching him.
Bucky has the outline of a simple flower stitched out when the telephone rings. Janet leaves him to it to answer, calling over her shoulder that it’s probably just Joel telephoning for no good reason except that the bank is slow and he’s bored. He’ll call sometimes just to tell her hello.It isn’t Joel.“Bucky,” Jan calls out, “it’s for you.”He follows her into the kitchen, where she’s holding out the receiver with a sour pinch to her mouth. He mirrors her frown when he asks, “Who is it?”“Ma.”“Is she okay?”“She sounds—well, here, you decide.”Bucky takes the telephone from her and presses it to her ear. Normally Janet would walk off and give him privacy, but this time she hovers, one hand on her hip and the other pressed gently to her belly.“Ma?” Bucky says. “I’m here.”“Bucky.” Freddie’s voice is clipped, which isn’t unusual, but the breathy quality is. She sounds… nervous, almost. “There’s someone here for you.”Bucky’s fingers tighten, and the plastic telephone squeaks in protest. “What? Who?”“She, um—what did you say your name was again, ma’am?”“There’s someone in the house? Ma, Mama, who is it, what is she—fuck—”“Bucky!”“I’m sorry, Ma, but you gotta tell me—”“She says she needs to speak with you,” Freddie says, like she’s repeating something as it’s being relayed to her. “She’s an agent from—oh, that’s a funny name, really? Why haven’t I heard of that?”“Ma, listen to me,” Bucky growls into the phone.There’s a pause, and then Freddie’s voice comes back quieter, focused. “What is it?”“Where’s Rose?”“Visiting with a friend. I think one of her goats is in labor, though, so I was going to see if I could reach her—”“Don’t. Leave her where she is. I’m coming to you, I’m gonna—we’re gonna be okay, everyone’s going to be safe.”“Bucky, you’re scaring me.”“I’m coming to you, Ma.”He miscalculates his strength when he’s hanging up the phone, and the plastic shatters in his hand. It’s the left one thankfully, so he doesn’t gouge his palm, but he still gasps and curses. “Sorry, Jan, Jesus—”Janet grips his shoulder, hard and steadying. “What’s going on?”“I don’t… Fuck, I don’t know, but I gotta go. Listen, can you go to the neighbor’s, call Becca to tell her to stay put? Then stay there, don’t come back here by yourself. I gotta—shit, where are the car keys?”He could go on foot, but driving is easier—faster.“When’s the last time you drove?” Janet asks. “I can take you—” “No,” Bucky shouts. Her eyes widen, and he reaches for her, cupping her face with as much tenderness as he can manage right now. “Just do as I say, Janet. Please.”“Okay,” she says, her breath hitching, “I trust you, Bucky, okay.”He doesn’t have the time to walk her to the neighbor’s house, but he does it anyway so he can know that he kept at least one of them safe—maybe he did. Then he’s in the sedan, cranking the engine, and whipping out of the driveway fast. It’s the middle of the day but he guns it, the car groaning. Stop signs flash in the corner of his eye as he blows past them. People in their yards pause to stare—people having ordinary days in their ordinary lives. Bucky sets his teeth and drives faster. Shelbyville blurs around him.He can only imagine what they’ll do with his family. Maybe nothing. Why would they want Rose, his mother, any of them? He’ll go back to them if he has to, if that’s what it takes to keep his family safe, but if they think he won’t fight them on his way down—Will he have the chance to write something for Steve first? A note: I’m sorry, I love you. Hell, maybe they have Steve already too. It’s not hard to connect the dots between their lives. If Bucky can’t write to him, Janet will. Maybe that’s easier anyway.
He can’t dwell on it anymore—the house comes into view, sharply outlined against a blue May sky. No sense in pretending they don’t know he’s coming, so he sends a cloud of dust into the air as he hurtles up the dirt road and only slows when he plows into the front yard. An unfamiliar car sits in the drive. Beige. It doesn’t seem like Hydra’s style to just park and wait for him, but then again—they have live bait. Why waste the energy of going clandestine when they can lure him into a trap in a matter of minutes? Is it even a trap if he’s willingly walking in?He leaves the engine running. His shoes slam hard into the wood planks of the stairs—his training gone all to hell, they’ll be unhappy to see—and bursts through the unlocked front door. Two figures sit in the front room, his mother
looking over her shoulder at him because of course she heard him—in the armchair across from her, a woman he doesn’t know with a mouth like blood—Bucky doesn’t pause to consider the scene. He has the woman pressed to the wall, one of Janet’s kitchen knives snug against her throat, before anyone so much as greets him by name.Faintly, he registers his mother shouting behind him. His shirt is wet and the smell of coffee hits his nose—the woman had a mug of it, now shattered on the floor behind them. She doesn’t fight his hold, but her eyes stay on his. Oddly calm.“Hello, Sergeant Barnes,” she says, as if she were shaking his hand. Her accent is English, of all goddamn things. Bucky can’t remember any English Hydra agents but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. It’d fuckin figure if the Brits were conspiring with them somehow.“Bucky!” his mother yells again. “What are you doing?”“It’s quite all right, Mrs. Barnes,” the woman says. “I expected this.”“Who the hell are you?” Bucky growls. “What are you doing here?”She swallows under the press of his blade. “Let me go and I’ll answer you, Sergeant.”“Don’t call me that.”“Bucky,” she amends, “please. I don’t want to hurt you, but rest assured, I’m capable.”Bucky adjusts his grip on her wrists, where he has them pinned over her head. He’s bruising, he knows, but he can’t modulate the left hand very well right now. The woman grimaces but doesn’t struggle.“Are you alone?” he asks.“Yes. Let me go,” she repeats.His lungs heave on a breath. It’s a gamble, but he has to. “Ma,” he says, “Mama—go. Now.”Freddie croaks protests, but she must decide to take him seriously, because soon Bucky hears the creak of the back door and the clatter as it clacks closed again. Letting the woman go feels like a mistake, but it’s all he has, unless he wants to incapacitate her.“Any weapons on you?” Bucky asks.“A pistol in the car. I assumed I wouldn’t need it,” she says, pointed. “Feel free to check. I’ll keep my hands where they are.”He glares hard at her, scrutinizing, but she won’t give him so much as a twitch. Calm and collected. He used to be able to do that—could do it two months ago. But he chooses optimism and relaxes his hold on her, staying in close while he executes a quick pat-down. She isn’t lying; she isn’t armed. He heaves a heavy exhale and backs off, but keeps his knife in hand.The woman smooths her skirt with both hands, ignoring the coffee stains. Then she straightens and smiles. “Well, Bucky, that was quite the greeting. My name is Peggy Carter, and I work for an organization called SHIELD.”“SHIELD?” Bucky says.“Yes,” Carter says. She takes her seat back—the armchair, placing herself lower than Bucky. It’s stupid or bold, given that Bucky still has a knife pointed toward her. Maybe both. “Complicated acronym, but essentially, we’re the intelligence and counter-terrorism apparatus of the United States government.”Bucky thinks back to his civics lessons, decades ago. “Never heard of it.”“Hm.” Carter eyes him like he’s revealed something, though he can’t suss out what it might be. “SHIELD was founded after the war.”“Oh,” Bucky says, then presses his mouth together. What is Carter implying? “Alright. Mrs. Car—”“Agent. Or Director, if you’re feeling formal.” Her smile is brief.“Agent, then. Why are you here?”At that, Carter’s face turns considering. Her eyes flick over him, lingering on the arm—of course. He wore short sleeves today, thinking he wouldn’t leave the house. There’s no shock registering on her face. Bucky can’t decide if that’s bad, or very bad.“I apologize for frightening you,” Carter says gently. “We worried any warning of our intention to contact you would have made you run.”Bucky snorts. Carter’s mouth twitches, like he just confirmed her suspicions. He supposes he did.“I came alone,” she tells him. “I thought it best not to overwhelm you. Mr. Barnes, won’t you sit down? I came here to speak with you.”He can’t trust her to leave it at that, though, can he? What’s SHIELD except—well, a shield for something else? But his options are limited. “Stay there,” he tells her, slowly backing into the kitchen. He keeps her in his sightline as he yanks open one of the back windows, gritting his teeth against the grinding sensation in his arm.“Ma?” he calls out.
“I’m here, Bucky,” comes Freddie’s voice. She appears under the awning of the goat shed. “I’m okay—there’s nobody else out here.”She grips a shovel in one hand. Good, he thinks, and hates it. “Okay,” he says. “Yell if anything changes. I’ll come for you.”Carter is sitting exactly where he left her when he returns to the front room. He decides that he might as well sit; she’s had the opportunity to jump him a hundred times by now, but hasn't. He doesn’t let go of his knife.“I don’t trust you,” he says.She blinks mercurially at him. “I don’t know that I can trust you either, Mr. Barnes, but I came here to make that decision.”“I don’t—” He sucks in a breath. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”“Answers,” Carter says simply. “For now.”Bucky grits his teeth, but some small part of him appreciates the honesty.“SHIELD has its roots in the military. Colonel Chester Phillips, formerly of the SSR, is one of our co-founders.” When Bucky’s eyes tighten, she notices. “Do you know him?”He thinks back to those few tense days in Italy, before his unit marched into Austria. His last few days as himself—if any of the war really counts for that. “Not personally,” he says. “Answers to what?”Carter has these wide eyes, not doelike, but as if she can see everything very clearly for what it is. She looks at him, calculating something—how frank she wants to be, maybe. Bucky holds himself steady under her scrutiny.Finally: “Where you were the last ten years,” she says. “What you were doing there, and on whose orders.” Bucky feels his hackles raise, but Carter keeps talking. “I just want to draw a line between your imprisonment in Krausberg in 1943 and your arrival in Shelbyville two months ago.”“Why?” Bucky breathes.Her brows raise. “Because, Mr. Barnes, when your friend Steve Rogers showed up at the New York City Department of Health asking for your papers, some people who were very sure you were dead got suspicious about your sudden reappearance.”Bucky snorts. “Sure enough to leave me MIA, right.”“Well. It’s protocol. No body, no ‘killed in action’ status. The factory in Krausberg was liberated in December of 1943. Did you know that?”“I…” He feels his mouth open and close. “No. I didn’t.”
It had been—what day, when Zola took him? They’d lost track but someone in his cell block was pretty sure they’d ticked over to December. Had he been that close to freedom?“Hm. Well, it was, and sure enough—you were listed as among the prisoners, but there was no sign of you. Your fellow POWs last saw you being taken away a few days before. Am I correct on your story so far?”“Yes.”“Now, you see, we’ve come to the part where things get fuzzy. By all accounts, you were not at the factory at all by the time it was liberated. Where were you?”“I don’t remember leaving,” Bucky tells her. His chest feels tight. “I—I don’t know, they took me someplace else, I remember being there. But don’t ask me how I got there or where it was because I don’t know.”“It’s alright, Mr. Barnes. If it helps, I have theories about you.”“Theories.”“Yes. I’ve spoken with several men who served with you in Tunisia and Italy.” She flashes a smile. “Glowing character reviews, all of them. It’s hard for me to imagine that a man who displayed such steadfast loyalty as his men described would ever desert them. Or turn traitor.”Who did she speak to? When? Bucky blinks hard at his lap, remembering, wondering if any of them would recognize him now. If he would even want them to.Carter clears her throat. “Unless you’d like to prove your men wrong.”Bucky glances up at her, sharp. “I wouldn’t. Never.” Even when it was clear the army saw them as bodies, expendable, when all he wanted was to come home— “No.”“Okay. Who are ‘they’? People took you, you said. Who?”“Um. Scien—scientists. They called themselves that.”“There were rumors,” she says softly, “that besides forcing you to build weapons, someone in the factory was also experimenting on prisoners. Do you know anything about that?”Bucky swallows. She asked out of courtesy, maybe, or to see if he would admit it; she knows the answer.“Were you a test subject for their experiments?” she prompts softly.It’s not as if he can deny it, with the evidence catching the afternoon sunlight from the windows. He nods, quick and jerky. He had a dream while he was strapped to that table that Steve came to save him. He woke up alone.“And when those experiments were successful, you were taken away from the factory.”“I guess so,” Bucky says, “but like I said before—”“I know, you don’t know where specifically. That’s alright.”
He clenches and unclenches the hand, the movement sticking, his fingers seizing. Soon it’ll just be dead weight against his side—useless.“They called themselves Hydra,” Bucky says. He means to continue but he stops instead to gasp an inhale.“Yes,” Carter says, her voice quiet but full of steel. “We know all about Hydra. The Nazis’ science division. It was dismantled just before the war ended.”“No, it wasn’t.”“Excuse me?”Bucky raises his voice. “You’re wrong. They let you think that. Cut off one head, remember?”

For the first time, he sees something other than careful neutrality on Carter’s face. Her brow furrows, and she stares at him, first skeptical and then slowly, slowly, while Bucky looks unwaveringly back—her expression turns to shock.“You’re quite sure,” she says.“Yes. I know it.”“My handbag—on the floor, near your feet.” Bucky glances down at the patent leather purse a foot or so away. “You can look inside it first, if you need to, and then I’d like you to give it to me.”He pops the clasp and rifles through the contents, but if there’s anything out of the ordinary, he can’t place it. Well, beyond—“My apologies,” Carter says when he pulls a slim recording device from a side pocket. He’s never seen anything like it but the little blinking red light gives it away. “I don’t believe my motives for recording our conversation are hard to understand, though.”“No,” Bucky says, and tosses the purse to her.She catches it nimbly and pulls out a pen and paper pad. “Right. I’d like to take notes, too.”“On…?”“Everything. Start from the beginning, Mr. Barnes, and tell me any- and everything you can remember.”

Talking to Carter takes a long time. He wasn’t prepared to unbox himself like this today—and even if he had been, he wouldn’t have been very good at it. She hums and scribbles her way through the worst years of his life, and in a way it’s easier than if she sat there giving him sympathetic eyes. He can’t get a bead on her but at least she doesn’t cry when he tells her about the cryochamber, or the rig they’d been testing, the one that if he cobbled scraps of information together correctly was supposed to scramble his brain like eggs till he was pliable and impressionable. Hydra got as far as disorienting him for days at a time, giving him massive headaches—but any memory suppression he experienced he’s still convinced was largely his own doing. Maybe he’s wrong about that. Carter’s pursed lips don’t tell him anything about what she thinks.She only reacts one time. Bucky is rubbing absently at his left shoulder, where it aches deep in the socket, and she pauses her note taking to say, “We have someone who may be able to help you with that. I’ve noticed it seems to be hurting you.”“I’m fine.”“You’re not. If you let him take a look, Dr. Zola may be able to—”She cuts off when Bucky abruptly, violently gags. He slaps his hand over his mouth and pants through the nausea, staring daggers at her, hoping to God she’ll understand without him having to say that wretched man’s name.Carter sits up straight and says, very politely, “Oh. Hell. Really?”She explains in short, clipped sentences about an Operation Paperclip, how SHIELD recruited scientists of value to work with them. “He’s not working for you,” Bucky says, “he’s infiltrating you.”They continue with the debriefing—because that’s what this has become, really—for another ten minutes, but Carter seems wholly distracted now.“I beg your pardon, Mr. Barnes,” she says. Bucky’s been sitting quietly for some time now; she hadn’t looked up from her notes. “May I use your telephone?”“In the kitchen.”He decides to let her go unaccompanied. Carter’s no threat to him—at least not right now. SHIELD itself seems to be another story. Her conversation is terse and over in less than a minute. When she reappears in the doorway, Bucky looks up at her.“Thank you for your time today, Mr. Barnes. It’s been quite enlightening.”“You’re leaving,” Bucky says.“Yes,” she says. She raises her brows at him. “Something more urgent has come up. It seems we have some internal investigations to begin.”“So—so what now? Are you—am I—” Bucky casts around for the right words. “Are you taking me with you?”“What? No.”“You’re not arresting me.”Carter takes a slow, deep breath. Her eyes soften. “No. From what I understand, any crimes you may have committed were under extreme duress. If it were up to me, I would have your discharge expedited so you can receive your benefits and start living the life you’re owed.”“But it’s… It’s not up to you.”“Technically speaking, no,” Carter says, setting her hands on her hips, “but I’m going to do what I can for you, Mr. Barnes. Are you in Indiana permanently?”“I’m—no.” He glances at the window. “I’ll, um, I’ll be in New York again soon. Just—you can look for Steve. Steve Rogers. He’ll know where I am.”The pen seems loud when Carter writes down the address Bucky gives her—the one for Steve’s studio. It seems unlikely that she didn’t already have it on record somewhere, but he appreciates the effort. “I’ll be in touch,” she tells him. “Bucky—you have nothing to worry about.”He snorts humorlessly. “If you say so, ma’am.”“I do.”When he looks at her, with her jaw set and this raw determination in her eye—she reminds him of Steve. Can he trust her? Believe her? He doesn’t know, has no way to confirm it, but he thinks he might want to. There aren’t many people standing in his corner these days. Maybe he ought to let the ones that want to be there, stay there.“Okay,” he says.“Thank you again.”He sits on the couch with his legs tense, listening to her walk through the door, the sound of the car engine, the gravel crackling as she drives away and leaves them alone and unharmed. The cushions catch him when he collapses backward and lets all the breath in his lungs rush out fast. His hand is cramping around the knife he’s still holding; he lets it clatter to the floor and spreads his fingers wide, clenches them, spreads them again. Feeling filters back in one nerve at a time, first in his hand, then slowly into the rest of his body.He’d thought he was dead. He thought they were all dead. But instead—One of the goats gives a panicked bleat.Bucky is on his feet in an instant, the room around him blurring as he runs for the backdoor and pushes it open hard enough it could be broken; he doesn’t turn back to see. His mother is nowhere in the yard. He races for the goat shed, grabs the door handle and wrenches it open and sees—he sees—“Ma?” he says, but Freddie doesn’t turn to acknowledge him. She’s kneeling on the ground with one of the goats—Ginger, the sweet one, flat on her side and breathing too hard. “Ma, what’s wrong?”Still she doesn’t answer him, too busy murmuring to the goat. Her hands are on her belly. Rose told him just a few days ago that she thought Ginger would kid any time now. Is that what’s happening? He drops to his knees, shuffling forward and dirtying up his nice pants, but maybe his mother needs help—maybe she needs an extra set of hands. He has strong ones.“Ma—” he starts again, just as his knee collides with something small and dark. He glances down, then does it again, harder, and gasps. It’s a kid, a baby goat, but it isn’t moving. He reaches for its tiny ears, still wet with fluid, and it doesn’t twitch a muscle. “Mama, what’s wrong?”“You’re okay, sweet girl, I’m helping,” his mother whispers.“Ma. Freddie, what’s—” He picks the baby up with both hands and shakes it gently, thinking maybe it just fell asleep, but its head just lolls to one side. Does it need warmth? He gathers it to his chest and holds it close, rocks it, thinking maybe humans and goats aren’t so different. What did he do for Rose when she went strange and quiet like this? He can’t remember, she was always so vocal, she was—“Bucky, what are you doing?”“I’m trying to—Ma, it’s not breathing.”“Stop, just put it down—”“I have to help it!”“There’s nothing you can do.”“Maybe if you just—Mama, what do I do, just tell me what I—”“I have to save the one that’s still alive, Bucky, dammit!”His teeth press hard together. Freddie turns sharply away from him, back to Ginger, who’s panting awfully. The other goats are bleating outside like they know something’s off—something’s gone wrong. Bucky can’t bring himself to put the baby goat down, even though he knows now that it’s dead. Was it alive at all? He doesn’t know. Maybe his mother watched it breathe, however briefly. Its little body is cold in his hands but there’s nothing he can do. Ginger cries—from pain, maybe from knowing one of her babies is gone before it ever got the chance to live. His mother’s voice is a soft string of comforts.Then there’s a wet sound, and Freddie sighs with relief.“Here,” she says, “Bucky, come here—help.”He shambles closer to her. There’s another kid now, messy and small but it’s twitching and shifting like it’s trying to figure out what just happened. Bucky stares down at it with wide eyes.“Give me that one,” his mother says gently. She trades him for a towel and tells him to clear the new one’s eyes, nose, and mouth. He does it dazedly, dabbing at its face till his mother tells him rub harder, it’s okay and the baby starts coughing and spluttering and then, God, it’s breathing just fine. This one is alive. This one’s fine.“Hi,” Bucky tells it. Ginger is sitting up now, eager to get to her new baby. The kid seems just as anxious about it, making soft noises that Ginger returns till they find each other in the dim light of the shed.“There you go,” Freddie says. Bucky’s eyes snap to her, where tear tracks cut down her cheeks, fresh ones still falling. She meets his gaze properly for the first time in weeks—and holds it, looks at him like she’s seeing him clearly for the first time in years and years. He shudders under the weight of it.“Mama?” he says.“Bucky.” Her hand raises, and at first it’s a question, but then she settles her palm against his cheek. Her thumb rasps over his stubble. “You’re all right?”“She left. She didn’t—she wasn’t here to hurt me, or you.”“You’re okay?” she repeats, like he didn’t answer her question.“Am I …?” He takes a deep breath, his jaw working under her firm touch. “I’m—”Bucky doesn’t try to answer her. Instead he falls forward, and she catches him on instinct, a habit as old as he is. Her arms fold over his shoulders and pull him in closer. It should be awkward—he’s too big for this now—but she tucks his head under his chin and lets him rest against her. He trembles, his hands fisted in the skirt of dress, and they’re both covered in grime and bits of blood but it doesn’t seem to matter.“I’m sorry,” he says, “Ma, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to—to—”She runs a soothing hand through his hair. Her voice is quiet and he can’t pick out any words, but he knows it’s comfort, whatever it is. “I’m sorry too,” he catches her saying, “my only boy, sweet boy.”He cries for a long time, and she lets him. He thinks maybe she’s crying too, by the way her shoulders are shaking. Maybe they’ll just stay this way. Bucky wouldn’t mind—her hands are warm. It’s minutes or hours later, though, that his mother says, “Bucky, the kid is trying to stand. Look, dear.”They untangle enough to sit up, but instead of standing, his mother pulls him by the hand to lean against the wall of the shed, their shoulders pressed together. She squeezes his knee and leaves her hand there; he covers it with his own. The baby is wobbly and Ginger is nervous, and they work in fits and starts till the baby gets all its legs under it and finally finds its balance. Bucky feels himself smiling, but when he looks over, his mother is frowning down at their fingers.“You’ll be leaving soon,” she says.He swallows. “Yeah. Steve, he’s waiting for me.”Her nod is slow and thoughtful. “I haven’t seen him in such a long time.”“What if he came to visit? Before I go.”“I’ll have to think of where to put him,” Freddie says, glancing at the wall like she can see through to house and right into her linen closet. “One of your sisters may have a cot to borrow.”“He’s not picky,” Bucky says. “The couch.”“Oh, no, he can’t sleep there. I’ll think of something.”“Okay. So I can—”“The garden,” his mother says, still looking away from him. “It needs tilling and planting for the summer. I’ll—I’ll need help. Before you go, will you help me?”She lifts her face, and her frown is still in place but he doesn’t think it’s for him. “Of course, Ma,” he says, “anything you need.”“Okay.” Then she says it again: “Okay, Bucky. Thank you. I’m—I’m glad you’re here. ”Bucky feels it in his heart when he says, “I am too.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It’s a bright afternoon, and Steve has managed to pry one of the studio windows open. They stick like glue in their frames after a frigid winter—or whoever rented this place before him painted them shut. But the window on the far left usually opens with some coaxing and heave-hoing, and then he has a steady springtime breeze to ruffle his hair while he paints. It’s nice. For all its faults, he’ll miss this place if he gives it up. It’s been a lot of things to him—studio and sanctuary both.

When the telephone rings, Steve sets his paint palette aside and strolls into the hallway to catch it before it goes quiet again. “Steve Rogers,” he says into the receiver, swinging around to put his back to the wall.

“Bucky Barnes.”

“Oh! Hello, hi there,” Steve says, a second-nature smile on his face at the sound of Bucky’s voice. “Did we make plans to talk today and I’m just forgetting?”

“No,” Bucky says. “I just wanted to. Hoped you’d lend me your ear for a while.”

“Sweetheart, you can have any part of me you want.”

Bucky’s laugh is sudden and sunny, and he lets it go on for a long time, like it feels good to him to hear it. Steve can’t say he minds either—the sound makes him feel warm in the chest, and a little tight too. Has he heard Bucky laugh like that this side of the decade? No, he hasn’t.

“Alright, Rogers,” Bucky says, “I’ll hold you to that.”

“Mm. You’d better.” Steve glances along the hall out of habit more than anything else. It’s not as if anyone can hear who he’s speaking to but he wishes the cord were long enough to fit behind his closed door.
He never bothered to get a telephone line in the studio. Maybe that was a mistake, but maybe it won’t matter soon. There’s a lot of that going around.

“How are you, Buck?”

“I’m—I’m good.” Bucky pauses to breathe. “I’m doing good, Steve.”

Steve takes his own breath and lets it sit. “I’m really happy to hear that.”

“I’m happy to be feeling it. And you, what about you?”

“I started painting something new today.” At Bucky’s interested noise, he continues. “Just experimenting, really, but I like what I’m doing with it so far. I don’t know if you know what color field painting is but I’m using a lot of greens—God, did you miss green? Spring about kills me from all the sneezing—well, you remember, I’m sure—but I love it.”

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes, “yeah, it’s green here too,” and then he tells Steve about the garden he’s helping his mother replant in the backyard. Tomatoes and onions and some garlic this year too, among other things. Steve bites his cheek and waits to ask, “So the two of you… ?”

“Oh. Right. I wrote you, but I guess you haven’t gotten it yet.”

It’s a slow conversation, Bucky explaining everything that’s happened the last few days. Steve feels terrified, then angry, deep relief—then circles back around to nervousness. “But is it really—”

“Steve, it’s okay. Carter hasn’t shown again. No one has.”

“Sure, not yet.”

Bucky sighs, loud and crackling over the line. “I know. But I’m tired of running scared.”

“Alright,” Steve says. “Alright. I’m glad you’re safe.”

They tread through easier topics for a while, with Bucky talking about his sisters and doing a terrible job of trying not to tell Steve that Janet is expecting. He figured it out from her letters a month ago, but he’ll let Bucky keep his sister’s secret and pretend to be surprised when he officially finds out. Bucky does fill him in on the latest with Janet and Joel’s move to Chicago, though, about what sort of houses they’re looking at. Three bedrooms, they’re thinking. Somewhere with a view if they can manage.

“That sounds nice,” Steve tells him.

“We’ll have to visit. You and me.”

“Of course. Any time you want, Bucky.”

“Mm. And how’s your own hunt going? Anything you like?”

“Our hunt,” Steve reminds him.

Bucky snorts a laugh. “Yes. Ours.”

Steve hums and fiddles with a loose thread on his sweater. He could talk about it—wants to, even—but he doesn’t like to seem impatient. Now that Bucky and his mother seem to be moving toward better, Steve wouldn’t want to get in the way of that. Bucky ought to be able to pick ripe tomatoes with her later in the summer, maybe can them together—if he wants. He’s made noises recently about coming home. Steve believes he will, but his sense of urgency about it has calmed. He’s prepared to wait him out, and happily.

But when he does come home, they’ll still need somewhere to live. Hell, Steve needs somewhere to live now, and he’s given up on the idea of a transitional place. He wants to move once, and make it a home—together.

He’s had some thoughts about this situation, but doesn’t know if it’s an idea Bucky will jump for. Only one way to find out, he supposes, so he says, “I’m looking at places out on Long Island.”

“Are you?” Bucky doesn’t sound disinterested. Steve imagines if they were in person, across a table, he might have leaned forward to hear that much better.

“I like the thought of living by the ocean with all that fresh air,” Steve says, thinking of Maine. “There’d be enough room for a studio, too, all in one.”

The telephone line is quiet for a while. Steve just listens to Bucky breathing; he’ll give it a few seconds longer before he says anything else. He doesn’t have to, though.

Bucky’s voice sounds thicker when he says, “That sounds nice.”

“You think so? Thought you’d always be a city boy.”

“The fresh air’s growing on me.” Steve huffs a laugh. “You could come get some, you know,” Bucky continues. “Air, I mean. Out here.”

“Could I?”

“How about weekend after next, if you’re free. The girls and all will be over for dinner on Sunday. Wait till you see Jim, he’s sprouting like a weed. And you know Ma’s dying to see you.”

“And what about you?”

“Me? Oh, sure.” Bucky’s tone shifts to something more sincere. “Yeah, Steve. I miss you like crazy.”

“God, Buck, I want to see you so bad.”

“Come out here and see me then. You and I can bunk up, and I’ll show you my garden.”

If it’s a joke, Steve doesn’t take the bait. “Buck, you know I’d be glad to.”

“You know, I’ve been missing New York.”

Steve laughs. “Oh, that so? Thought you liked that air out in Shelbyville.”

“I have,” Bucky says, like he’s chewing the words over, “though I don’t know a thing about Long Island, so I guess you’ll have to tell me about it.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

“I’d like to see what you have in mind, if you’ve got any pictures you can bring when you visit. And I’m real particular about window treatments, so I’ll want some input there.”

It’s the specificity, more than anything, that clues him in.

“You mean it?” Steve breathes.

“I do.”

“Any curtains you want, Buck.”

He could pick lilac stripes, for all Steve cares. All that matters to him now is this: soon, Bucky will be home.

The train from New York to Indianapolis takes over a day, but to Steve, it could be simple minutes. He tries to sketch the countryside as it hurtles past outside his window, but it’s all a blur—figuratively and literally. He sleeps in bits and pieces and knows he’ll be groggy and sour-breathed by the time he’s disembarking, but he just can’t seem to settle enough to rest properly.

It’s understandable, he thinks. Every mile of track brings him closer to Bucky than he’s been in months. He remembers from Bucky’s letter: 732 of them, eaten up in hours. Just a handful more, and they’ll be together again.

When the train shudders to a final, complete stop in the Indianapolis station, Steve is already on his feet. He does his best to be polite—lets an elderly couple and a traveling family off before him, even—but in the end he finds himself worming his way between bodies with a muttered

excuse me

and his travel bag pressed to his chest. He’d had to borrow one from Kath, since his luggage is already in Indiana, with Bucky.

He bounds down the steps of the train and onto the platform. It’s busy today, which is terrible, and Steve’s too damn short to see much in the crowd of people. He finds an empty bench along the wall and climbs it, hand over his eyes to squint into the sun. He spots sweet kisses and embraces, moments of reunion and thinks,

Any minute now. Any minute and it’s my turn.

In the end, Bucky spots him first. Steve ought to have guessed. That’s how this whole situation came to be in the first place.

He hears his name before he sees him. “Steve!” someone calls, close by. “Steve!”

And then the crowd’s rippling, then it parts at his feet—and then there’s Bucky, beaming up at him.

Steve’s first thought is that his eyes seem bluer. His second:

Touch him right now.

His hands are full of luggage but he shifts to hold it one-handed, reaching his other forward to cup Bucky’s face—to feel the way his smile’s pulling his cheek up, and what it feels like for that grin to get bigger under his palm. Steve is smiling too, and it’s watery. Something about Bucky and train stations just seems to pull tears out of him.

“Hi,” Steve says, over the din.

Bucky, rather than answer, turns his face into Steve’s hand and kisses the center of his palm. It’s brief, and it’s all they’ll get for now, but Steve’s heart sings with it. Then Bucky takes his suitcase from him and simply sets it aside. He takes Steve by the hand and helps him leap ungracefully down from the bench, and they laugh as their knees clatter. Steve grabs Bucky’s waist for stability, but once he’s holding him, he doesn’t really want to stop.

“Hi,” he says again, and this time they’re close enough that there’s no doubt Bucky can hear him. Steve’s eyes scan him, cataloguing, shirt and shoes and everything in between—including the plain cloth sling pinning his left arm against his side. “What’s this?”

“Oh,” Bucky huffs. “I’m okay, it’s just—I’ll explain.”

“Okay. Can you still hug me?”

“Can I—” Bucky’s laugh is half-startled, half-euphoric. “Yes. Of course, c’mere, Steve—come here.”

His good arm wraps Steve up and reels him in, fingers cupping the back of Steve’s head. He buries himself against Bucky’s chest just to breathe him in deep. His smell is different out here, clean and earthy like freshly tilled dirt. Maybe that’s exactly what it is. Steve tries not to knot his hands in Bucky’s smooth shirt but it’s hard; all he wants is to squeeze tight and never let go again, not for a single goddamn second. Never. It’s decided—if for whatever reason Bucky still chooses Indiana, then Steve chooses it too. He couldn’t follow him once, and it cost them everything. He’s never letting that happen again. He’ll tie rope around their waists, cuff them together, whatever it takes.

It just feels so good to love him again.

Bucky’s lips press into his hair. “Welcome to Indiana.”

They find Freddie, who decided to wait by the truck. Her face lights up when she spots them, and when Steve reaches her side, she pulls him into a firm embrace. “Steve, it’s so good to see you.”

“You too, Freddie. It’s been too long,” Steve says, his eyes on Bucky over Freddie’s shoulder. His smile’s gone tight but it’s still there, so Steve decides it’s okay to hold onto Freddie a while longer. As frustrated as he’s been with her from afar, seeing her again for the first time in a year is enough to put him in a forgiving mood.

“We’d better start back,” Freddie says. “I packed sandwiches.”

They pile into the truck for the drive into Shelbyville, Steve between Bucky and his mother on the bench seat. His and Bucky’s knees knock but they keep distance between them without communicating any intent to. Unspoken agreement—Freddie’s known about the two of them for years now, but it’s not as if she’s ever seen them act blatant about it. Steve finds that he minds less than he thought he would. Bucky’s still sitting by his side, head turned toward him like he doesn’t want to look away, and Steve knows he’ll get to kiss him later. For the first time in a long time—maybe ever—they have all the time in the world.

The house hasn’t changed since the last time Steve came to town, for Janet’s wedding. He stayed in a motel room downtown to keep out of everyone’s hair that weekend, but he’d spent his waking hours bouncing between Barnes houses, this one included. He always liked this place—liked watching Bucky’s nephews hurtle around the yard and picturing a pipsqueak-sized Bucky doing the same thing.

“Steve,” Freddie says as she cuts the engine, “you remember Rosie’s room, right? Bucky’s been sleeping there. I set up a cot for you on the floor.”

“Thank you—that’ll be great.”

“There’s extra linens in the hall closet if you need them. Bucky knows.”

“Sure,” Bucky says.

“Alright. Well, I’ll let Bucky show you inside and get you settled—I have to check on the goats”

By the time Steve and Bucky exit the cab, Freddie is disappearing around the side of the house. Steve glances up at Bucky recognizes the gift she’s just given them, intentional or not: a modicum of privacy.

“Well,” Bucky says, his smile lopsided. “Grand tour?”

“I’ve been here before.”

“Spoilsport. Come on.”

Inside Bucky gestures to the sitting room and the kitchen behind it, perfunctory, and then leads the way up the stairs. The old wood creaks under their weight. Steve keeps his eyes on Bucky’s back—the way his shirt tuck’s coming loose at the small of his back, and his hair gathered back in a low, loose knot. He’s glad he hasn’t cut it. Maybe he will, and probably ought to, but for now Steve’s looking forward to the moment he can dig his fingers in and feel how soft it’s gotten over months of careful attention.

“Ma tried to put us up in her room,” Bucky says as he pushes open the door to where he’s been bunking, “you know, with the full-size bed and all. But I told her we’d be just fine in here.”

Steve trails into the room behind him. Bucky’s just been back here for a few days, but the pictures are still on the wall—his face and Jim’s and a few of his sisters that must be new. The twin bed is made up neatly, but there’s a paperback on the nightstand with a worn spine and a plate with toast crumbs beside it. Taking up most of the floor space is a low-lying cot piled with pillows and blankets.

“You’re staying with me?” Steve asks.

“Where else?”

“I wasn’t sure. It’s just—”

“She’s… She’s trying, Steve.”

“Okay. I’ll take it.” He smiles. “Pretty used to making this set-up work for us by now anyway, huh?”

“Oh, always.”

Bucky is smiling too, sideways and shy. Steve finds himself staring at him, and not much else—nervous all of a sudden, maybe, and a little awkward. He wonders if this is what it feels like for a dog who’s finally caught his tail. What do you do, now that the one thing you wanted is right here, in your grasp?

“Steve?” Bucky asks.

“Mm?”

“Can I—can I get you anything, or do you want to—”

“Oh, just… Where can I set my things?”

“Here, the desk is—” Bucky takes his suitcase from him and lays it gently on top of Rose’s sturdy desk. “There’s space in the closet if you wanted to unpack.”

“Maybe later.”

“Okay.”

They stand there a while, the room quiet again, like neither of them are quite sure how to start. Bucky’s face is starting to pinch when Steve says, “Do you mind if I freshen up? The train, you know.”

“Oh, hey, of course. The bathroom’s down the hall—but you know that, go ahead.”

“Thanks,” Steve says. He sways first toward the door, but then follows his momentum the opposite direction, to Bucky. He sets his hand on Bucky’s chest and cranes himself up to kiss him. It’s light and brief, a promise more than anything, but when he pulls away Bucky’s eyes have already fluttered closed.

“I’ll be back,” Steve tells him.

“Okay.”

The bathroom is the same as he remembers, small and spare but stocked with nice soaps and soft, worn towels. Steve washes his hands in the sink, splashes water on his face and neck. It gets all down his collar, which he ought to have expected. He strips to his undershirt and then stands there, stuck staring at his own reflection. If he puts his hand over his chest, he’s sure he could feel his heart threatening to jump right out. “Hell,” he mumbles, and turns too quickly toward the shower. The knobs are easy enough to figure out, and soon enough steam is filling the room. Steve shucks the rest of his clothes and steps under the spray. It’s hot and soothing, pulling an unbidden sigh out of his mouth.

What’s gotten into him?

When he’s clean as he can get, he grabs for the nearest towel and dries himself. The mirror fogged over, but he scrubs his hand over it to look himself in the eye.

It’s only Bucky,

he tells himself. He stares too long, thinking about the ways his face has changed since the first time Bucky kissed him. Nose more bent, less freckles—replaced by faint lines. He’s never really minded them, or any of his other changes. Still doesn’t, he’s pretty sure, but then again he’s never thought about it quite so hard. His mother took aging in stride; he learned everything he could from her.

He takes his dirty clothes under an elbow and walks back to the bedroom. When he pushes the door open, Bucky’s still there. He’s on the bed, book open in his lap, but his eyes are already on the door.

“Hi,” Steve says, and hitches the towel higher on his hips. “Sorry. I wasn’t gonna shower, but then I—well.”

“Feel better?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Steve takes a deep breath and moves toward his suitcase, to look for clean clothes. Maybe his blue jeans, and the sweater with the hole in the collar—his hand’s not deft enough to fix it, but he could ask Freddie if she minds. He might not have to ask, if he wears it in front of her.

Bucky’s voice is soft. “Um, do you want me to—”

Steve looks over his shoulder, to where Bucky is thumbing toward the door. “What? No. I don’t mind.”

“Okay.”

“Do you?”

“‘Course not,” Bucky says, flashing a smirk. Steve snorts and turns back to his things, but when the soft towel’s grip starts to give, he lets it. The whole thing slides an inch, then another, before it tumbles off and pools at his feet. Steve’s hands are mostly still over his clothes now, waiting for—something. Bucky. Always Bucky.

The bed springs chirp, and Steve sucks air into his belly and holds it. He feels his warmth before his touch—Bucky close, and then on him, his right hand sliding warm over Steve’s hip, up, to press against his ribs. “Hey, Buck.”

“Hi.”

“Your ma gonna be outside a while?”

“I think so.”

His lips press to Steve’s neck, barely there at first, then bolder—bolder than he’s yet been since his return. His hand wanders higher, his mouth opens over skin, and he eases forward till his hips are a cradle against Steve’s. Steve leans his weight into him and hums.

“Turn around,” Bucky says, “let me see you.”

He does, Bucky’s hand never leaving him, till they face each other again. Bucky looks for a beat, maybe two. Then he closes the distances between them, wholly and properly, and kisses him.

“Mm,” Steve says, delighted, and sets his hands at Bucky’s waist to keep him near. He kisses back. It’s old and easy and new all at once—he’ll never get tired of it. The feel of Bucky’s lips against his. He sighs into the feeling and lets it deepen, his lips parting to Bucky’s gentle exploration. They stay this way for a long time, making quiet sounds and simply basking in the glow of it. Bucky seems so much looser now, more sure of himself—still different than before but more like himself, maybe. Steve maps him out with his hands, touching just to touch more than with any purpose or goal. He likes pressing his thumb into Bucky’s belly, and dragging his fingertips along his spine. Bucky’s body—real, substantial, and right in front of him.

His caresses don’t go unnoticed. Bucky shudders out a sigh and breathes, open-mouthed against Steve’s cheek. “Always liked your hands.”

“I remember.”

“I love you, Steve.”

“Yeah. I remember that, too.” Steve smiles into Bucky’s neck. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

“You think so?”

“C’mere, let’s—what can I—” Steve’s hands flutter toward the sling, frowning at it. He’s not sure if he should take it off, or even touch it, but it’s in the way of Bucky’s shirt. That, he wants off, if Bucky will let him.

Bucky is steps ahead of him. “Here,” he says, and unclips some fastening till the whole thing falls away. Steve doesn’t waste another moment; he’s rougher than he means to be, stripping Bucky down, but Bucky just chuckles and helps him where he’s able. Finally, finally, he steps free of his underpants and then they’re both standing there, naked and wanting.

He’s filled out, is the first thing Steve notices. He saw it in his face already—how his cheekbones didn’t cut quite so sharply anymore—but it’s clear in the rest of him too, his middle and his legs. Meat on his bones makes the wear and tear easier to handle. He looks good. He looks—

“Hell,” Steve says. “Buck, you’re so beautiful.”

Bucky’s mouth mashes together, but he doesn’t duck the compliment, or even his head. His cheeks just pink up and he tells Steve, “You too.”

“Lie down with me?”

“Yeah, we can—here.”

It’s a long descent to the cot, and they have to lie half on top of each other to fit, but that’s the point anyway; neither of them mind. Steve tucks himself against Bucky’s right side and tosses a leg over his hips. Bucky pulls him in snug and sets to kissing him again, no real care to it now—just hunger. Birds are calling to each other outside in helter-skelter song. The light from the window is warm on Steve’s bare skin. He glides fingertips along Bucky’s belly, down and down till he can dig them into a wiry thatch of hair. Bucky gasps when Steve’s hand circles his cock and tugs, dry the first few times before Steve thinks better and spits into his palm. It’s easier after that. Bucky’s mouth falls too slack to keep kissing, but he keeps his eyes open this time, on Steve. He’s going to come this time—Steve is bound and determined to give him that, whatever he has to do. He wishes they could go slower, take time; maybe he’d open Bucky’s body up and fit himself inside, fuck him tenderly till they both felt raw with it.

As it is, Steve does what he can, mumbling love into Bucky’s skin and tightening his grip. Bucky trembles besides him, stays mostly quiet until he gets close. He’s hot in Steve’s palm. “Steve,” he says, “Steve, Steve—”

He repeats it, some kind of chant, till he comes. His stomach tenses and he spills over Steve’s fist, long and almost gentle. Steve keeps touching him till Bucky says stop, and then they lie there, both catching their breath. “Steve,” Bucky says, one more time. His hand is shaky on Steve’s thigh, coaxing it up and out of the way, so he can wrap his fingers around him. Another time Steve might be embarrassed about how little it takes to get him there—a minute of quick strokes, a few words in his ear, and he boils over. All he feels right now is the way his toes curl, and the warmth that radiates through his body as his pleasure tapers off.

“Still pretty good at that, aren’t we,” Steve yawns into Bucky’s shoulder.

And Bucky laughs, deep enough it shakes them both. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Can I sleep a while?”

“Sure. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“I know,” Steve says, and drifts off with Bucky’s heart beating steady under his ear.

When he blinks his eyes open a few hours later, it’s to Bucky’s voice, softly coaxing him awake. The smell of something cooking has wafted upstairs and straight into Steve’s nose. He smiles and stretches, and slowly they untangle and dress for dinner. Steve half-expects, as they head down the stairs, to feel a little jittery—the way he used to get around Bucky’s family, when he’d just been kissing him on the other side of the door. The feeling doesn’t come, though, and all through dinner Bucky keeps his ankle pressed to Steve’s under the table, easy as anything.

Later, when they’ve eaten their fill, Steve digs out the photos and the pamphlets he brought from the real estate office and spreads them over the coffee table. The couch is a good size but he and Bucky sit close anyway, bent over to look at them all together.

“This neighborhood is supposed to be nice,” Steve says, his fingers on a particular pamphlet. Bucky hums and shifts to see. “But I don’t know what they mean by that.”

“Sure.”

“Or this one—see, there’s a little yard.”

“Garden space.”

“Could be, yeah, if you wanted to plant one.”

He’s mostly quiet, skimming over layouts and cheerful descriptions that Steve’s pored over two dozen times by now. They won’t pick anything today, of course not, but Bucky had asked him to bring these, so here they are. He picks up a few for a closer inspection, his mouth twisting. There’s clatter coming from the kitchen—Freddie had insisted she wash the dishes, even though she did the cooking, too.

“Boys?” Freddie appears in the doorway, wiping her hands dry on her apron. “Coffee?”

“Freddie, you’re an angel,” Steve says.

“Please,” Bucky says, smiling faintly.

“Look at this one.” Steve points to another photograph. “With the porch? I’ve seen the inside, I liked it.”

The warm smell of coffee slowly permeates the room. Freddie drifts back in a few minutes later, three mugs carefully balanced on a clean dinner plate. “Here,” she says, passing two off to Steve and Bucky. She takes her own and settles into the armchair, her gaze out the window.

Steve waves a hand at the table, his mouth full of coffee. He swallows and says, “Oh, oh, look at these, see? They’re not quite done yet, so we might be able to pick out the paint colors and some of the finishings.”

“That’s nice,” Bucky says, taking the pamphlet and leaning back into the couch with it. Steam curls from his cup and frames his face, faint and then gone. “Oh, I like—they’ve all got these big windows along the back?”

“I think so.”

“You could set your easels up in there.”

“Pretty sure that’s supposed to be the dining room, sweetheart.”

“Well, what does it matter? We can eat in the spare room, for all I care.”

Steve snorts a laugh. He told Bucky and Freddie over dinner all about his new agent, and how as soon as they get back to New York he’s supposed to start working on some new projects—a few commercial things, which he plans to keep doing, but a small collection for a gallery show, too. A new space to work in might be just what he needs.

He reaches for the pamphlet to flick to the next page. “See, it looks like this bedroom will have good light too, so I could use that one. If you don’t mind having the bed in the smaller room, anyway.”

“I don’t.”

When Steve glances up, Freddie is watching them over her mug, neutral-faced. For a split second Steve thinks about sitting up, taking his hand off Bucky’s thigh—but then she smiles at him, small but bright. Bucky is looking at her too, he realizes.

“Ma? What do you think?”

“Well, let me see.”

She offers her opinions in short, thoughtful sentences, leaving them to hum about it alone after half an hour of back and forth. Bucky grabs up his favorites while Steve pours them another mug of coffee to split, and they head upstairs with it all to fall into a heap on the bed. He means to climb into the cot to sleep, but the travel catches up to him again without him realizing; he nods off against Bucky’s shoulder. The sound of the lamp cutting off makes him stir, but only long enough to burrow under the covers with Bucky, legs all twisted together in the narrow bed.

They’ll buy a bigger one of their own.

A thin manila envelope arrives in the mail the next morning. There’s no postage or return address, just Bucky’s named scrawled neatly in the top left corner—hand-delivered on a Sunday.

“Give me that,” Bucky says as soon as his mother holds it up for him to see. He takes it indelicately and tears the paper right down the seam, rather than open it properly. His breathing has gone a little haywire. Steve stays where he is, sitting at the kitchen table with his coffee and his scrambled eggs. He woke up later than everyone else, so Bucky cooked breakfast for him while Freddie went out to tend the yard.

A short stack of papers shake out onto the tabletop. Bucky frowns, picks them up to rifle through them, his eyes scanning faster than Steve thought it was possible to read. “What is it?” he asks, when Bucky starts to scowl. “Buck, you’re scaring me. What is it?”

“It’s—” He barks a laugh, sudden and strange. “Discharge papers. Mine.”

“What?”

“Here,” Bucky says, still breathless. He flips the papers around and holds them out to Steve. “Steve, look. That’s my name.”

Sure enough, printed at the top of an official report of separation, reads Bucky’s name. The rest of the document lists his record in clipped sentences, so brief it turns droll—and is, of course, deeply inaccurate. “Who sent this?”

“I can guess. Ma, did you see?”

With the papers backlit, Steve spies that the one at the back seems different. “Is the last one a letter?”

“What? Oh.” Bucky swallows as he pulls the last sheet free. “Yeah, it’s—it’s from Carter.”

Steve stays quiet while he reads, much slower this time. His eggs get cold but he doesn’t care; all he cares about is what that letter says, and why.

“Bucky,” he begins, just as Freddie says, “Dear, what did she write?”

“She wrote—she said she arranged it all. As a thank you. I’ll get back pay, she said.” He takes a deep breath. “Zola’s been arrested. Criminal conspiracy. A few others, too.”

When Freddie frowns, Steve offers, “That was the doctor who—” He waves at Bucky’s left arm. “Right, Buck?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Freddie breathes.

Bucky sets the paper face down on the counter, his hand flat and firm on top of it. “They better let him rot this time.”

The envelope is easy enough to forget when the Barnes family crowds into the backyard that afternoon. The cheerful cacophony pitches Steve backward in time to a hundred Sundays just like it. There’s Becca sitting primly, and Janet leaning over the back of her chair. Rose is a heap in the grass, her hair in braids, and Freddie is off in the house somewhere but still somehow keeping up with the conversation as it twists and turns and circles back on itself.

There are, of course, a few new additions: Ian beside Rose on the ground, helping her comb for four-leaf clovers, and little Jim tugging at his mother’s dress. Bobby and Joel stand together just off the porch steps, trading jokes. There’s someone missing—George, Steve thinks with a start, but Freddie was always the head of the household anyway; now that title is hers by rights.

And then there’s Bucky, a steady presence at the center of it all, just as he always was. Steve sits on the side table next to him, making somewhere for himself in the midst of this big family. He’s been grateful for the Barneses and his place among them a thousand times over, and today he feels it again. All shoved together, they’re loud and calamitous—and every last one of them is radiating joy.

“Hey,” Steve says, leaning in close to Bucky.

He half-glances at Steve, still listening to his sisters recount some childhood escapade. “Mm? What?”

“Nothing, I’m just—I’m happy to be here.”

“Oh.” Bucky turns to him, and the afternoon light catches on his hair. Maybe if they get outside enough this summer—plant that garden, like Bucky wants—then it’ll sunbleach like Steve used to love so much. Maybe they’ll both get freckles. “Yeah,” Bucky says, “I am too.”

Rose is saying something to Ian and pointing at them both. Ian bolts past his father and up the steps, a brown-headed blur headed straight for them. He rattles to a stop and grins, snaggle-toothed. “Uncle Bucky, I got something for you.”

“Yeah? What is it, champ?”

“Here.” Ian holds his palm out, where a four-leaf clover sits in the middle. “It can be for Uncle Steve too, but Aunt Rose told me you should have it.”

“Oh, Ian, thank you. I love it.”

“Here,” Steve says. He takes the clover and tucks it behind Bucky’s ear. “How princely.”

Bucky smiles, and Steve can’t stand it another moment—he takes Bucky’s hand, right there in front of everybody. The feeling is still a marvel.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The gate has a terrible whine in the hinges. Bucky has been meaning to grease it—says it twice a week, at least—but part of him likes the sound. It’s becoming familiar to him, the twice-a-day squawk that heralds the coming and going. Sometimes, when he hears it, he can make it to the door and throw it open before Steve even makes it up the front steps.

Bucky doesn’t leave the house all that much himself, but he’s learning to. He walks around the block, greets the neighbors, maybe visits the grocery a few streets over if they’re low on staples so Steve won’t have to. The city intimidates him after all that time around empty cornfields; he’s had to reacclimate, even out here on the outskirts.

He’s in the kitchen when he hears the gate, but rather than turn, he keeps his eyes on the letter in his hands. The front door deadbolt clunks, and then Steve is clambering into the hall, exclaiming about how godawfully hot it is outside.

“I swear, Buck, you could wring me out,” he continues, his footsteps headed toward the kitchen, like he knows intuitively just where Bucky is. The house isn’t big—there aren’t all that many places to run off to, but still; Bucky looks over his shoulder to give Steve a warm smile.

“Maybe I will,” he says. Steve’s face is flushed, and his dress shirt clings to his underarms. “You look half-miserable.”

“I’m gonna strip right here.”

“It’s your kitchen. Do as you please, honey.” Bucky snorts a laugh when Steve drops his portfolio case to the floor and starts popping the buttons of his shirt with one hand, the clasps of his trousers with the other. “Hey, before you get any other bright ideas, we got a letter from Janet today.”

“Yeah? How is she?”

“Close to bursting, apparently.” Steve’s wince is sympathetic. “Here, read it, I’ll get you a glass of water.”

Their cabinets are still a hodgepodge of secondhand things; none of the glasses match. Steve’s made noises about buying a proper set, but Bucky doesn’t see much point. A glass is a glass, and a plate’s a plate. He drops a few ice cubes from the tray into the glass and saves a few to wrap in a tea towel, then sets both on the counter in front of Steve, one after the other.

“Thanks,” Steve says, and keeps reading while he downs half the glass. “She said they decided on names but didn’t tell us what they are? The tease.”

“We’ll find out soon enough. She’s due in less than a month.”

“I want pictures.” Steve swaps the empty glass for the cold compress and sets it to the back of his neck. His color is starting to calm, finally. “Or maybe Rose can just nab the baby and bring it when she visits for Christmas.”

“Rose is not gonna steal our niece or nephew, Steve.”

“I know, I know, I’m kidding. Mm. Hi there.”

“Hi,” Bucky says, pressing his nose more firmly into Steve’s sweat-damp hair, where he’s sidled up beside him. Steve breathes deep and turns toward him. “You stink.”

“Imagine that.”

“Didn’t say I minded.” He brushes a kiss over Steve’s temple, light and sweet. Things like this—the easy affection—come so much more naturally to him now. Easier than they ever were, maybe. “Go wash up, huh?”

“Fine, alright.”

While Steve is off in the shower, Bucky rifles through the rest of the mail; mostly junk, but he likes to be sure. Sometimes he’ll have a postcard, or there’s something important for Steve. This time there’s a thin information pamphlet from Brooklyn College. He has a few of those now, and he keeps them all in a kitchen drawer with spare pens and other loose ends.

Steve wanders back in with his hair wet and his feet bare, and says something about working for a while. Bucky hums and waves him away—Steve likes the light of late afternoon best when he’s painting. They converted the back bedroom into a studio. Steve always keeps the fans running to help with the smell, but in truth, it doesn’t bother Bucky. Steve’s been painting in all these summer yellows and blush pinks—and green, shade after shade. He asks Bucky to sit for him sometimes, and that’s one thing Bucky has never minded at all.

Steve finds him on the couch an hour or two later, chewing on the eraser end of a pencil while he thinks through a reply to Janet. “Mind if I join you?” Steve asks.

“Hm? Sure, sit.”

The couch is more of a loveseat, but Bucky likes the excuse to sit so close. Steve curls his legs up and slots himself against Bucky’s side, and Bucky’s arm circles around his shoulders. The record player is humming from the corner. Bucky sets his pencil and paper aside, singing along so soft he can hardly hear it himself. This close, though, maybe Steve can—he presses his ear to Bucky’s chest like he can feel him. It’s nice, evenings like this. They arranged the living room so the couch faces the back windows, with a view of the sky and the yard and a little bit of sea. He could stand a lifetime of this.

“Good day?” Bucky asks.

“Oh. Yes. Turned some work in to clients, met with Leo. He found another gallery that wants a few things.”

“Hey, that’s great. I’m proud of you.”

“Yeah?” Steve smiles up at him. “Proud of you too, Buck.”

Bucky snorts. “Thanks, pal.”

Steve huffs but doesn’t fight him, and they settle into quiet for a few long minutes.

“Peggy called,” Bucky says eventually. “Wants to have lunch this week, if I’m able.”

“Are you gonna go?”

“May as well. I don’t know how much else I can help her with. I heard Stark howling on her end, though, so maybe it’s not her who wants to see me.”

Steve’s breath is hot when he laughs into Bucky’s chest. “Lord. He’d be happier if you just gave him the thing.”

Peggy Carter gave him one more gift—albeit in an unlikely form. The only man who knows enough to fix him is deep in a prison cell now, put there by Peggy herself, but she found him someone capable enough to give it a try: Howard Stark.
Bucky’s met with him a handful of times, but it all makes him nervous—and besides, he’s learned to cope with one good arm just fine. If the world made any sense, maybe that’s how things should be anyway.

Maybe.

“Should I just let him fix it?” Bucky says, absently carding fingers through Steve’s hair. “It’s worth a shot, I guess. I don’t know. Then maybe I could go to trade school. College.”

“You can do that with one working arm, Buck.” Steve’s tone is patient; they’ve talked circles around this topic.

“I know. All the same. If it’s fixable, maybe I…”

Steve presses a kiss to his shoulder. “You’ll call him when you’re ready.”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs, and puts his worries away for the evening. Steve’s right; time is nothing but his these days. And it’s not the only thing that belongs to him now. This very house, for example, which has his name on it next to Steve’s—official as goddamn anything. Couches and coffee tables and a bed big enough for the two of them, which is novel even months in. They have nice neighbors and rude ones and a record player that cranks up loud enough Bucky can hear it from the yard. And Steve to share it all with.

The song playing turns sweet and waltzy—romantic. He looks at Steve and thinks the refrain that’s been stuck in his head for months now:

Who could have thought?

But it doesn’t matter anymore who thought what, who was right or wrong. That’s all just static. All he can hear now is the music, and Steve’s deep breathing.

“Dance with me,” Bucky says.

“What?”

“Old time’s sake.”

Steve’s brow folds. “You know I can’t.”

“Sure you can, Steve. Don’t tell me you’re still too stubborn.”

“I’m worse,” Steve says, but he stretches and stands anyway, humoring him. There isn’t much floor space amidst the furniture, and Bucky can’t hold him how he wants to with his left arm pinned, but they find that standing chest to chest and swaying together works just as well. He feels Steve’s smile against the tender skin of his neck, and that’s all Bucky really wanted—a chance to hold him close.

They dance till the record ends.