Chapter Text
"Normal" changes abruptly this time, like a fault giving with one huge lurch and a few following stumbles. Some of them are better than others.
Some things are neutral, or don't change much at all: Bucky still reads everything, almost obsessively. He does seem to have more recognizable feelings about what he reads, and a handful of times Steve's seen a book fly across the room to hit wall or floor, or heard the tell-tale thud from inside Bucky's room. One or two get thrown and then picked up again; most of them don't. Steve's cautiously taking it as a good sign that the ones that get shunned are the ones he'd decided were useless, stupid or maliciously ignorant - or all three - and he'd read them all the way through.
(The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog hits the wall on a regular basis until it's finished, but it always winds up open again. Steve's not sure if Bucky disagrees with what he's reading or if he's just angry about it, or some combination of both.)
Some of what he reads is in Russian, some in English, but some in Mandarin, Japanese and German as well. When at one point Steve asks him how many languages he speaks, Bucky shrugs.
"No idea," he says. "I find out when I read something or hear something and know what it is."
Bucky starts adding TV and movies in, and Steve quietly sets up Netflix and iTunes for the TV, because getting new stuff in physical form involves either leaving the house at ground level or asking Steve, and Bucky's still reluctant to do either.
Then Steve makes the mistake of mentioning that to Tony and finds out just how ridiculously large a credit someone can put on an iTunes account.
He restricts himself to making an acid comment about it to Tony, who ignores him and says, "I just can't believe 'steven.grant.rogers' was still available. Seriously. Did you call in for that? Did they kick some poor jerk off his username for you? Because I could see that happening."
Steve doesn't actually wonder why in God's name he spends any time with Tony Stark, not anymore, but sometimes he likes to pretend he does, and this is one of them. Fortunately, this time Pepper is home and exercises her prerogative to kick Tony in the shin when she thinks he's being a jerk, and Steve pretends he doesn't actually think the ensuing conversation via facial expression and gesture is hilarious.
Pepper takes the elevator down with Steve on the pretext of picking something up that she forgot in one of the conference rooms, and - he suspects - actually more so that as soon as the elevator doors close she can sigh and say, "I'm sorry, Steve. I promise, he means to be helpful. He's just - " she gives a helpless shrug. "Tony."
"I know," Steve reassures her. "And honestly right now I think if I really wanted to disturb him, I could just say 'thank you' and leave it. Don't worry about it. Besides," he adds, "he might live to regret it. I know Bucky's going wholesale on decades of television right now."
Pepper gives him the carefully interested-but-not-invasive look she's perfected and asks, "How are things?" The elevator door opens at the level of the supposed conference room, and Steve walks with her because, well, why not?
"Fine," Steve says, and the thing about Pepper is she'd let him leave it at that but she'd also assume he was shutting the line of questioning down, so he shrugs and adds, "in relative terms."
Pepper's eyebrows raise. "I honestly can't tell if that sounds optimistic or not."
Steve genuinely likes Pepper Potts. He has more or less since they met. When they met, he also genuinely could not for the life of him figure out why someone like her would be involved with someone like Tony Stark, but back then he also hadn't spent several weeks having defensive conversations in his head, trying to explain to an imaginary Sam why . . .everything.
And he didn't know Tony quite as well.
And by now, he figures even if he couldn't make a solid guess anyway, he has absolutely no leg to stand on when it comes to wondering about who someone loves, or why, or how much. And it helps that Tony clearly worships the ground Pepper walks on, in his own special way.
But Steve does like her, and he respects her, so he shrugs as eloquently as he can, and she gives him the kind of sympathetic smile that says, been there, done that. "I think everything frustrates him right now," Steve says, and Pepper's look turns wry.
"You think he's angry," Pepper translates, opening the door to a conference room and, as it happens, pulling open a drawer in the piece of furniture that might be a desk or might have some technical business term Steve doesn't know and retrieving a USB drive. When Steve shrugs again in a kind of admission, she says, "Well. He does have a lot to be angry about," and slips the drive into her pocket.
"No argument from me," Steve says.
"Well," Pepper says again, letting Steve get the door this time since she doesn't have to show him which one to open, "if it helps, he's not drinking heavily, he hasn't declared a major festival to his ego, he's not completely destroying the house and he's probably not secretly dying without telling you - ooh." She stops and frowns. "You winced. Which one were you wincing at?"
"Destroying the house - just holes in walls," Steve says, thinking it might be nice not to show quite so much without meaning to. "Nothing we can't fix."
Pepper tilts her head and pushes the down button on the elevator for him. "We?" she asks, and then says, "Well. That's a good sign. And Steve - " she adds as he steps into the elevator and he automatically holds it with one hand to the door, even though he's pretty sure JARVIS isn't going to cut Pepper off mid-sentence. "You'll be getting an invitation in the mail pretty soon," she says. "Charity gala. Please think hard about coming, alright?"
She's harder to turn down than Tony, for different reasons; Steve says, "I promise I'll think about it," and then returns her wave as he lets the elevator door close.
"Shall I arrange a car for you, Captain Rogers?" JARVIS asks from the hidden speakers in the elevator roof, and Steve thinks about it before he shakes his head.
"No," he says. "Thank you, JARVIS. I'll make my own way tonight."
It isn't just holes in the walls, but it's also nothing that can't be fixed or replaced. And Bucky does have more than way too many reasons to be angry, things to be angry about. "Normal" now comes with a repair to something every couple days, a tub of drywall mud in the laundry cubby and a running supply of bandaids and gauze for when whatever it is cuts up Bucky's right arm.
But everything that gets broken is, well, a thing. Honestly as far as Steve can tell, the explosions and the broken things bother Bucky more than they bother him: "normal" also comes with a lot of abruptly empty condo although, as far as Steve can tell, only in daylight now. As far as he can tell, too, Bucky still keeps to roof-tops and abandoned places, still doesn't want to have anything to do with people.
The indifference to the state of clothes, to the need for sleep, or to any kind of pain keeps on like it did before. Again at least as far as Steve can tell, as long as they cover him and keep him warm, Bucky couldn't care less about the clothes he wears, or which parts of his collection are showing holes or tears or wear. On the other hand, Steve figures that caring which ones are his and which are Steve's is progress on its own: there are at least a handful of shirts and pairs of jeans that Bucky definitely thinks of as his, if only out of habit, as opposed to just accepting Steve's division without comment.
And the aversion to cold is new and pretty pronounced. Bucky still doesn't really like chairs, but now if he's on the couch or the bed he'll have the blanket at least right to hand, and if he's decided to sit on the floor he's in the sun or right beside some other source of heat, no matter how warm it already seems to be.
(When Steve notices that despite this Bucky pretty much never wears socks, he asks, and gets a look that's half impatience and half mild confusion, like Bucky can't imagine how it could be something someone needs to ask. Then he goes back to the book on his lap and says, "Floor's wood. Socks slip."
Steve considers buying him some slippers, but given that at this point Bucky's more or less hoarded all the long-sleeved shirts and knows exactly where the sun falls over the course of the day, if he'd considered that a solution he probably would have just taken the ones in the closet that Steve never uses, because it never seems to be that cold.)
It doesn't even seem like Bucky feels the cold more than Steve does, as such. It's more like, if you took the range of temperature most people would think of as comfortable, Bucky cuts off the bottom third and would much, much rather be too hot than too cold.
Steve doesn't remember the feeling of freezing, either because he'd already been unconscious by then or just because he's blanked it out - but he only had the once and considering he crashed it is possible and even likely he wasn't awake to feel anything. He doesn't think Bucky got that grace. And if you had a preference, if you felt like you could, that seems like more than enough reason to prefer heat.
Which is it, in the end - Bucky's acting like a person. Angry, frustrated, unhappy and untrusting, sure - but those are things that people feel. Steve figures you call that progress, and a few broken things are a small price to pay. And he tells himself that. A lot.
Food, as a problem, is . . . erratic. Steve's still quiet on the subject of sleep, for now - at least these days he's pretty sure Bucky's getting a couple hours a night of actual sleep, and a few more of rest, and he doesn't think him interfering is going to do anything more than that. Food, though -
Some days it's fine. Some weeks it's fine. Well, fine if "fine" is defined as "grudgingly eating more or less the required amount of food and at most scowling about it." And then, abruptly, it isn't, and Steve hasn't figured out what the trigger is for the difference. Steve can still win the argument, whether by the force of logic or just because he won't give up, but at least a few times he thinks Bucky's getting close to throwing something at him.
Bucky's weight fluctuates with what kind of week it is, one where he'll eat when he's hungry or one where he resents everything he eats and it's all a fight - or Steve assumes it does, given that he has no idea how much Bucky actually weighs. It definitely looks like it fluctuates, because in terms of whatever regimen Bucky's putting himself through when he is out of the building, he doesn't change it based on anything.
"Need a perspective check?" Sam asks on the evening phone-call, sounding a lot more positive than Steve feels right at that moment. And Steve sighs, because he probably shouldn't need one, and he's pretty sure he knows what Sam's going to point out. But maybe it'll help to hear someone else say it, someone whose expertise on the subject he trusts.
"Yes," he says. "Actually I do."
"Figured," Sam says. "Then remember this time eight months ago he pretty much never talked, spent most of his time sitting more or less immobile in a corner somewhere, had maybe six or seven foods that didn't make him sick and only answered to his name because you were the one saying it and you'd keep saying it if he didn't. Three months ago you were still kind of worried you were gonna start seeing mysterious murders show up in the paper."
"Not re - " Steve starts, but it's kind of automatic and comes from the guilty feeling of disloyalty, and Sam cuts him off.
"Yeah, you were," Sam says. "Steve, I'd be worried about your common sense if you hadn't been - there's hope and loyalty and all that admirable shit, and then there's being completely wilfully blind to what's in front of you. And you're not worried now, and it's not because you've turned into an idiot between times. I know it doesn't feel like it, and I know the changes probably even make it harder for you because he's starting to look at least a little bit the person you remember, except hateful and miserable, but man, as far as measurable progress goes, this probably counts as being in the running for a miracle."
Steve lets out his breath in a huff and says, "I know. You're right. And I tell myself that."
"And it doesn't make it suck less," Sam finishes for him. "Yeah. I know." He pauses and adds, sounding a little bit cautious, "Any problems with resentment at all?"
"At me, specifically?" Steve gives a short laugh. "Kind of hard to separate that out from resenting the entire world. It's - "
He sighs, watches a couple kids playing what looks like tag, except tagging seems to be done by throwing a hand-sized ball at your friend as hard as you can; a little girl with a My Little Pony shirt and a determined expression appears to be winning. "Bucky hates not being in control," he says. "Of himself more than anything. When I found him in the HYDRA factory he could barely stand up, and it was less than a couple minutes before he was forcing himself to walk. By himself."
He's never actually told anyone that, or anything about it, and a small wary part of him, one that goes all the way back to being much too small with a mother who works too hard and too long and one friend in the world, twists up and wants to take it back, is pretty sure he's doing the wrong thing by sharing now.
But he's not seven and scared anymore. Much. Just that one part.
After another pause Sam says, "Yeah, you can see why he hates everything right now, then."
"Yeah," Steve says. The girl in the sparkly shirt successfully makes it to the last one un-tagged and whoops in triumph, and despite everything Steve can't help smiling a bit. Apparently it means she's the next person to start out being "it", and she takes the ball and throws it hard at a taller boy with red hair; he yelps when it hits him on the shoulder. "I just wish I could fix it."
"Time," Sam says.
"Yeah, time heals all wounds," Steve says, a little surprised at his sourness himself. "It also kills us eventually, you know."
"Well somebody's pessimistic today," Sam remarks, mildly, and Steve makes a face which, over the phone, Sam of course can't see.
"Maybe a bit," he admits.
"Pepper told me she's inviting you to the Stark Gala thing they're throwing at the end of the week," Sam says. "Maybe you should go."
Steve almost starts laughing. "It's funny - have I told you she reminds me the most of the women who used to run their families when I was a kid? You really want someone to do something, you make sure everybody else knows you want them to. Eventually they give in under the sheer weight of expectation."
"Mom did the same thing," Sam tells him. "Maybe you should, though. Go have some canapés and let people be happy to see you, get Tony to irritate you some. How much have you actually been out of the house lately? And coffee runs don't count. Neither does grocery shopping. If I'm right, it's probably even less than you were out a couple months ago."
"Yeah, maybe," Steve admits. "I'll think about it."
"Yeah, that's what she said you said," Sam says, sounding amused. Steve rolls his eyes, which Sam still can't see, but he feels - reluctantly - a bit better humoured.
"Started flying to work yet?" Steve asks, kind of pointedly changing the subject, and he can hear the grin in Sam's voice when he answers.
"Nah," he says, "but I am officially the coolest grownup for twenty miles, easily. Haven't had to mow my own lawn in weeks."
Steve laughs.
Sam's flying stories are a good way to get cheerful pretty fast; the feeling lasts until Steve gets home, and it's empty with the lights all off, meaning it's been empty for a while.
Then he sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose, reminds himself of everything he and Sam just talked about and pulls some soup out of the freezer to thaw.
It's dark before Bucky comes home, but he comes home before Steve goes to sleep and heats up the soup Steve left for him, makes toast, eats like the entire world offends him by existing, puts the dishes in the dishwasher, pours a cup of coffee and microwaves it, and then goes to sit in his room, on the bed, reading.
Which is something. Steve'll take it.
******
Make them all almost the same colour. Or make all of them every goddamn fucking colour.
Drop them onto a concrete floor, one after another. Make sure it's high enough, far enough, that some of the pieces might as well be sand or dust.
And then try to put the fucking things back together.
He doesn't miss the distance. He doesn't miss the echoes, being one step unreal, the whole world too fucking loud, too sharp too bright, everything disconnected like someone took the reel of film, hacked out pieces in the middle, burned through others and haphazardly glued everything back together, sometimes with pieces found on the floor from some other reel, old and scratched and stepped on.
First off to miss it, it'd have to finish going the fuck away, which it's not; all of it leaks in around the edges, tells him if he makes one mistake, takes one step wrong it's all waiting for him to drown in again. And secondly, he will never, ever fucking miss it, no matter how long it's gone for.
Doesn't mean he likes this much better. Or at all.
Walls start feeling like cages again, something in his gut convinced that if he can't see the sky he can't get out. Bars and locks and concrete walls. He spends more time outside, away from the building, avoiding people as much as he can.
Steve looks more and more worried again and that grates across Bucky's mind, so he avoids looking.
And maybe wandering makes it a given he'd end up at Stark's monument to himself, which isn't actually as bad as Steve makes it out to be. But for some reason he expects that. Not because he remembers anything concrete, just . . . he knows. One of the feelings it's hard to trace to a source, not least because it's kind of hard to ask someone, so why do I assume your opinions on architecture are pretty narrowly biased?
It's past the hour when expensive places that aren't restaurants are still open; there's only one guard at the desk, the others wandering around presumably being more useful than they look at a glance. The man at the desk is young, tall, blond and pale, and he stands up and smiles.
And if Bucky expected the Tower not to be as bad as Steve says, he doesn't expect to be greeted by name, for the guard to say, "Good evening, Mr Barnes. How can I help you?"
It makes him stop, look at the man with narrowed eyes; if the guard notices, he doesn't show. After a few beats Bucky says, "I'm looking for Stark."
He hadn't been, actually. Before the man said his name, he might have looked around at the closed doors of the main floor in the evening and left, another point added to the ones he knew. But he hadn't expected his name and now he's curious, maybe.
Now it's a challenge, maybe more honest.
The guard glances down at something like a projected computer terminal and says, "Mr Stark is . . . in R&D, D44. The best way to get his attention is probably just to go up," he adds, voice dropping from trained employee to honest observation. "When he's working at night he tends to ignore his messages. The elevator on the left will take you up, and there's a map on each floor."
Bucky nods slightly and walks past the man, noting sidearm, knife, small calibre at his ankle. The others walking around had been more or less the same. Effective against a thief, maybe, but a little light to guard this tower and the attention it could get.
The elevator takes him up in silence except for a soft tone when it hits the right floor. The map on the wall illuminates softly when he steps out, as the elevator doors hiss very quietly closed again, showing a small dot where he's standing and another one at what turns out to be D44. Useful. And suspicious, at least to him.
One "wall" is entirely windows for a few steps, before the hallway runs deeper into the building and the rooms behind the doors on that side start getting the benefit of the light. D44's on that side, rather than the inner side, and he wonders if the difference is used systematically or just haphazard, like so much Stark seems to do.
Like so much Stark's father did, for that matter, or so his reading says. He only remembers dimly - mostly a sense of irritation and contempt, overlaid with forced patience and a sense of needing the man whether he liked it or not. Howard Stark casts shadows in Steve's brain, apparently, but not his.
The door to D44 has a screen beside it, displaying the word occupied with a dash and the name Stark beside it, and underneath block-letters saying PROJECT followed by a string of numbers and letters. Bucky brushes the touch-pad underneath it and the door clicks open, showing dim space beyond.
The space is high-ceilinged and open, the windows showing the night-city beyond, the air smells different, but laboratories, workshops have a look and Bucky feels his breath shorten and his heart-rate rise before his thoughts are derailed by the man on the other side of the room looking up, spreading his arms and proclaiming, "Ah-hah! Winter is coming!"
" . . .what?" Bucky says, jarred completely out of any thoughts as the lights come up and the windows turn to mirrors with the reflected light. It doesn't help his agitation but it doesn't hurt either, so he tries to ignore it. Focuses on the other person in the room.
The family resemblance is there, but Anthony Stark is a little shorter than his father, stockier, frame less frail. He's also in his mid-forties and it shows in his face and how he moves as he steps around his work-surface and waves the question away. "Sorry, couldn't resist - the whole Stark thing, it's this series - "
"I know," Bucky cuts him off. Stark stops and looks . . . interested.
"Books or TV?" he asks and Bucky narrows his eyes. The interest is real. It just doesn't make much sense.
"Both," he says, and adds with deliberate irony, "I don't get out much."
He watches Stark as he crosses to half-sit on what looks like a desk; the movements are meant to look casual, open and relaxed, but they bring him a lot closer, Bucky notes, to computer-connected surfaces and as such probably to a number of panic buttons and programs.
Stark doesn't move quite like a fighter, but he doesn't move like most people, either. Probably the effect of the suit; something like that would force its own patterns, its own adaptation. Supposedly, he destroyed all of those. Bucky'll believe he doesn't have a new one or one stashed away somewhere when someone presents his suit-less dead body to the world.
"So I've heard," Stark says. "Don't worry about it, 'out' is overrated anyway, this day and age, we've made 'in' pretty perfectable. And it was a pretty terrible joke, but also a lot of fun, so I'll probably do it again, but only in discreet company. Coffee?" And he moves again, this time to the side-table over by the wall. Bucky doesn't accept or decline.
It's hard to tell if the constant motion is from nervousness or if it's normal. Steve has a lot to say about Stark's distractibility and tendency to talk; the movement might come from the same place. Or it might not.
"Never read the books," Stark goes on, "but Pepper watches the show. I've told her to let me know if anyone sharing my surname ever seems to do something that isn't incredibly stupid and likely to get them killed." He shrugs. "So far, no luck."
The small machine on the side-table spits out coffee into a mug with a broken handle and Stark puts that one aside, puts an anonymous white stoneware mug where it was and hits another button. Stark pours soymilk into the cup that's obviously his, then takes the white one when it's full. "Anything in?" he asks.
"Sugar," Bucky says after considering for a minute whether or not he's going to take the coffee at all. "Three."
Stark spoons in what looks like raw unbleached cane sugar, leaves the spoon in after the last one and passes it over. Before he can start up another stream of chatter on who knows what subject - and whether or not Stark talks all the time anyway, that much is nervous, as is the hand that ends up in his pocket and Bucky wonder what he's got in there that he's looking to for reassurance - Bucky says, "Your security staff recognized me. And admitted me without question."
Stark leans on the wall. Stark seems to like to lean on things. He gives a humourless smile. "Just between you and me," he says, "complete honesty, no accusation intended but seriously if you were coming here to kill me, exactly how much extra time would any security staff I could possibly hire give me - thirty, forty seconds? Just a ballpark."
Bucky inclines his head slightly, and takes a sip of coffee. Stark gives him the humourless smile again. "Plus a bunch of expensive dead employees - yeah that's not actually enough time for a cold suit deploy. Yet," he adds, almost defensively. "Kind of pointless, get blood on the floors, stain the rugs." He shrugs. "Ma-y-ybe could alert Bruce fast enough but that'd wreck my building, and Pepper would complain."
"You thought it through," Bucky observes, as Stark starts to go back to the desk; Stark turns and he does actually use his hands to talk just as much as Steve says.
"My house did kind of get bombed by helicopters last year, and while I haven't threatened any terrorists since then - yet - it is me. I mean, who knows what's going to happen tomorrow?" He pulls open a small drawer and pulls out a bag of mixed nuts. He does offer them across the desk, but Bucky shakes his head minutely.
"Well," Stark adds, tossing a small handful into his mouth, "and the Insight thing did target me and my building, which I find kind of hurtful considering I told their kind of no-hoper engineers how to design their engines - and I'm still not sure what they planned to do about the incredibly angry Hulk that would have launched himself back up out of the wreckage - but I didn't actually provoke that. Actively." He pauses. "That I remember. And I do a lot fewer things I'm too drunk to remember these days, Pepper also complains."
While the man talks Bucky scans the room, forcing himself to breathe more slowly than he wants to, ignoring the way he can feel his heart trying to crawl up his throat. The shape of the thing on the work-bench looks familiar and when Stark pauses to take a breath Bucky says, "Those are Wilson's."
Stark follows his line of sight and says, "Yep. Had to go back and design from the ground up since all the originals were destroyed and the Army wasn't answering my calls about their existing designs. Then again," he says, tossing another couple nuts into his mouth, "since I'm pretty sure that while Pararescue was using them they were originally designed to counter me, I can't say I'm that surprised." He takes a drink of coffee, and adds, "Which is also kind of hurtful, like it's not enough I gave the Air Force Rhodey's suit, they had to have secret special weapons too, but that's the military for you."
"They're effective," Bucky says, absently, meaning the wings. And then adds, "Fragile," as a counter-note.
"Yeeeah, mine should be a little less that," Stark replies. "There are definitely some design flaws I've corrected, and one of them is it'll take a wider range of damage to actually render the whole set inoperable."
Bucky thinks good but doesn't say it; considering by now Wilson's almost guaranteed to at least show up to back Steve in any stupid fight Steve gets into, it's been a worry nagging at the back of his mind how easy it was to pull Wilson out of the air. Not as much as it worries him how easy it is to shadow Steve, but still.
Stark's tilted his head, watching Bucky through slightly narrowed eyes; it's interest, not fear or suspicion, but given context that doesn't actually help. He's had a lot of experience being interesting. Mostly fear and suspicion have ended better for him.
"Any particular reason you decided to visit tonight?" Stark asks, after a minute.
"No," Bucky half-lies, mostly to see what Stark will do with it. Which is shrug. And Bucky still hasn't managed to catch sight of the speakers he knows have to be there, but he says, "Your AI's quiet," anyway. Takes a needle to the sore.
"I, ah, asked him to be," Stark says, and his voice is a little more cautious now. When Bucky looks at him he gives a different kind of shrug, less jaunty, more uncomfortable, and a little more honest. "All things considered, I wasn't sure how you'd react, decided there should maybe be some warning and context for the disembodied voice."
"Why did you build one?" Bucky asks, not bothering to cover up the fact that he's looking for the optics and receivers now.
"Accident," Stark replies, promptly, and Bucky gives him a disbelieving look.
"You accidentally made a self-aware computer," he says; this time Stark's smile is thin, but real.
"Actually I designed an extremely complicated program intended to run my house, my schedule, my security systems, my grocery list, and protect my personal databases, and keep me from having to hire a human other than Pepper to hang around my space and irritate me. Then - " he opens one hand. "JARVIS happened. Which turned out a lot better than I'd originally planned and so far at least, he hasn't abandoned me to play international chess tournaments."
"I fear that compared to managing your life, sir, even international warfare would seem tedious," the AI says and maybe, Bucky thinks, his subconscious brought him here to test his self-control.
All of it.
It's like a razor-edge down his spine, discord of a voice where there shouldn't be a voice (where he thought he'd never have to hear that voice ag - no, not this voice, not here, not now, he is not doing this), it's like the screaming of metal tortured against metal except inside his head and it takes everything he has right now to stop with his right hand only on the handle of the knife at his back, not to draw it. To have that be the only startled motion he makes.
The effort almost comes with vertigo.
But at least now he knows where the speakers are, running along the join between ceiling and wall. They're either incredibly small or built right into the wall itself, and probably the same with the optics and any other sensory receptor, meaning that the AI wasn't added in afterwards; meaning Stark built his AI a home right into the bones of the building.
The line of thought is easier, makes it easier to breathe: assess, understand - Stark built his AI into the building and if you do that -
"Full control of all the doors," he says out loud, tracing the line of the wall with a look and noting the tiny glimmer hidden in the corners, which he guesses are the lenses, and which also seem to be part of the material structure rather than stuck on afterwards. "Control of power and brakes on the elevators. Electrical charge through the building embedded in the walls and control of the sprinkler system for increased coverage into areas without embedded electrical systems through water conduction." He shifts his gaze to Stark, who for once looks blank, caught without a reaction to perform. "Anything else?"
Stark rallies pretty well. "Ah, toxic inhalants and non-toxic gas sedation through the air filtration system," he says. "Pepper insisted we have one non-fatal method. Nice deduction."
"You're paranoid enough to think through how long it would take me to kill your security," Bucky says, "you're too paranoid not to make sure you could turn this place into a fortress." He turns to catch where the lenses are in the other corners and adds, "Especially not if Potts lives up there with you."
"True," Stark says and then frowns, gestures with one hand towards Bucky and says, "Look - did you want to talk in the hall, or something? Because to be honest you're kind of crawling up your own spine and you have been since you walked in here, and while it wounds my ego to say so I . . . really don't think it's me."
He's not wrong, but the hall isn't going to help; Bucky's having to push into the space around the edges of his thoughts to keep his left hand from closing, his right hand off the knife. He shakes his head slightly, still scanning the walls. "I'm leaving," he says.
"Or that," Stark says, "that works too. Come back any time, though," he adds, "there's plenty of floors that'd be less . . . stressful than this one. Rogers' floor has a pretty cool gym in it, if I do say so myself."
Bucky pauses at the door and frowns at Stark. "He has a floor?" he asks, without thinking, startled into it.
"Well, he never visits, but, yes," Stark says. "Top five floors but one, all Avengers, one each. I have considered renaming the Tower. By the way," he adds, as the door opens, "tell Rogers he should get back to Pepper about whether or not he wants to be anonymous or Captain America for the Gala - either's fine, she just wants to know. Pretty sure she texted him, pretty sure he's looking for an excuse to duck out and I don't think he should."
Bucky doesn't answer. Just lets the door close.
He takes the elevator, in the name of another masochistic test, and pushes it further by saying, "JARVIS," when he judges he's almost at ground level.
"Sir?" and the voice is polite and calm and helpful and also comes from the join between ceiling and wall. It must be able to see God-damn near everything.
"Why do you keep managing his life?"
There's a pause, and Bucky feels the elevator stop; the doors open, and only then does the computer-voice say, "I do not believe I would trust anyone else to do it correctly." And adds, "Have a good evening," as Bucky steps out.
For their sake he ignores the guards saying goodnight, and gets above street-level as soon and as fast as he can.
The invitation for the Gala that Stark mentioned is sitting on the computer desk when he comes in by the balcony door; he pulls it out from under the other semi-official looking mail it's hiding in and tosses it onto the kitchen table where Steve's sketching.
"You're going," Bucky says, "so you might as well text Potts back her answer."
Steve picks it up and looks at it; the worry-line between his eyebrows deepens for just a second before he clearly makes himself stop trying to frown. "I was thinking about it - " he starts.
"Steve," Bucky interrupts him. And when Steve stops in mid-word and stares at him with wide-eyed . . . something, it occurs to Bucky he probably hasn't used that name out loud yet.
He backs away from thinking about that; at least it made Steve shut up. "Just . . .text Potts her fucking answer," he says, and steps away from the kitchen table to throw himself on the couch and reach for the nearest of the fucking books he's working through.
"Yeah," Steve says softly, his eyes still big and wide. "Okay."
The first text might actually be to Potts; the next twenty-odd are definitely to Wilson. Bucky ignores the buzzing of phone against wood and has to stare at the page for a while before the Latin characters resolve into any kind of meaning.
When the day comes, they don't have a fight about whether or not Steve's going to Stark's gala (or whatever the fuck the man is throwing tonight) but probably only because Steve can't figure out a way to say he doesn't think he should go because he's worried about Bucky without being insulting or saying outright that he doesn't trust Bucky's judgement, and Steve's still too scared to actually have a fight with him.
Part of Bucky is really morbidly curious about whether he could actually push it all the way to that, until Steve has to come right out and say it (okay, say it for things other than previously acknowledged categories like have you eaten enough today or are you tired or are you in pain, but those are special cases); Bucky can see the thoughts behind Steve's eyes, marching in little expressions across his face as Steve tries to figure out how to reshape the bald statement I just don't think you're okay to be here alone no matter what you say into some kind of logical coup that doesn't bring it down to Steve's judgement versus Bucky's, or devolve into them shouting at each other.
He doesn't; he's not up to dealing with Steve's guilt afterwards; the worry is more than enough.
The not-a-fight starts when Bucky points out Steve's got all of two hours left to get ready, and keeps going all the way up until Steve's dressed (civillian, having decided to be as anonymous as he ever can be to anyone who's read a damn history book) and has his hand on the door. Even then, he hesitates and turns around, ready to speak.
"Jesus Christ, Steve," Bucky cuts him off, starting to lose what little patience he has, "if you ask me if I'm sure again I am going to throw something at your head and then you're still going. Yes, I'm sure. I'm completely positive. You want a fucking notarized document? Pretty sure the lawyer downstairs would whip one up, your choice of at least five fucking languages and three different fucking scripts.”
Steve does the equivalent of shutting your mouth when you hadn't got quite far enough to open it yet, and in spite of everything still looks like he's having some kind of inner argument with himself. In the end he says, "Okay. I'll be back in a couple hours."
"Better not be," Bucky says to the closing door, and then stands in the hall and quietly counts in his head until he hears the faint ping of a text message from his phone, sitting on kitchen counter. He knows exactly what it's going to be before he reads it and it's not like Steve doesn't have reason to feel like he needs to remind Bucky to eat something, but -
There are some pretty strong smart-phone cases by now, but none of them are quite strong enough to keep his from shattering when it hits the tile backsplash in the kitchen, thrown hard from ten feet. Just strong enough to make it fucking unsatisfying, because all the pieces of the phone mostly stay in the cracked case instead of scattering across half the kitchen in a brittle explosion.
One of the tiles clatters down onto the stove in six or seven pieces. He can't remember if they have replacements for those. The phone doesn't really matter; the messages redirect to the tablet anyway, so unless he breaks that too he'll even still get them. He can get another phone. It's not like this is the first one he's broken anyway. Phones are fragile, the right size to grab and not something Steve's nostalgically attached to - they hit the wall a lot.
But he can't remember if there are anymore of those tiles.
He could look, but the moment passes - both the moment of concern, and the frustration that came before it. He leaves the broken things where they are and goes back to the living room.
Then he loses two hours.
Sort of.
There's no blackout; reality doesn't cut from one moment to one way too much later. Time . . .keeps working. If he bothers thinking about it he can unroll all of the hundred and thirty seven minutes behind him, pinpointing when the siren outside faded into the distance or the stupid hyperactive mutt on the second floor worked itself up into a barking frenzy.
When the tablet did chime softly, presumably Steve being worried.
The hours record themselves all neat and tidy but they slide from one into the other without any need for him to pay attention.
He's sitting on the floor in front of the couch, leaning on it. It's starting to get cool, to get cold, and that worms its way into his head and starts mewling for attention but for a while getting up and getting a sweatshirt isn't appealing enough for it to happen, to interrupt the slide of time for - because if he gets up he's going to be back in time, back in the world and his body and he doesn't feel like it right now.
His feet and the fingers of his right hand get chilled and autumn sunset gives in abruptly to autumn night with only the bathroom and Steve's bedroom lights switched on.
Bucky doesn't grudge the lost hours. He didn't want them anyway. Hard to tell about the visitor; maybe she's running out of patience or maybe she's getting cold too, maybe she just finally made a decision - something makes her move, anyway, finish making her way in through the kitchen window he can't actually see from here.
It has to be deliberate. She can't possibly think he wouldn't hear that, wouldn't notice the change in the air and the way it moves. At least, if she does he'll think a lot less of her. She’s been waiting and watching six days for him to be here alone. She’s clearly got something on her mind.
When she’s got her feet on the ground, he says, in Russian, “So what does the Black Widow want?”
*********
Steve does go. And, he’ll admit it - happily even - he does enjoy himself.
He never actually nails down what the whole thing is for. The Something Benefit for the Somebody Society, except somehow more convoluted; Pepper tries to explain, but Steve gets lost and eventually she concludes with, “Really, it’s an excuse for people to get some pictures inside Stark Tower without getting sued,” and a dry look. And there are a lot of photographers around, but they’re surprisingly polite.
Probably because of all the security standing very politely around ready for the slightest reason to unbelievably politely but firmly escort people to the door.
Tony's relationship with reporters and photographers is complicated: he pretty much courts them out in the street, but he's adamant that the second they step onto his property he's bringing the wrath of God down on their heads if they don't behave. Steve's gathered the non-disclosure agreements you have to sign to even be a janitor in Stark Tower are incredibly comprehensive, even if he also gathers the common-sense version comes down to, "If you're taking a selfie, you're probably fine; if you're taking a selfie in front of something recognizable, check with your supervisor; if you're taking a picture of guests, equipment, facilities or anything else, you're not fine. Don't do it."
It's kind of draconian and is a bit closer to the Stark army of lawyers - or any army of lawyers - than Steve's comfortable with, but he won't pretend it's not kind of a relief.
As usual, it’s interesting how many people don’t recognize him, are completely fooled by the lack of obvious signs saying Captain America Is Here - that, and how many of those who do seem to treat it like a kind of shared secret that gives them a happy glow inside, being very careful not to stare or draw attention to him, or them, beyond maybe a wink or a slight salute.
People like to feel special, he supposes, and it makes for a nicer evening for him. He only gets trapped once - by a politician, and that’s probably not a coincidence - and Elizabeth comes to his rescue, somehow linking her arm in his and getting him away from the man without insulting anyone or showing just how glad Steve was to go. It has something to do with how she smiles and the way she stands - not too bright and not too . . . anything, but somehow making everything she says the most reasonable idea in the world.
It’s still occasionally interesting to contrast that with how he knows for a fact that she once ran out in front of a tank and screamed at it to make it stop. And the minute their backs are to the guy, her eye-roll is expressive enough to require no further comment.
“Exactly,” Steve murmurs. “Thank you very much for the excuse to walk away. You look lovely by the way,” he adds, and she smiles a more genuine smile at him.
She’s wearing a lilac dress and an understated antique silver necklace with matching earrings and bangle, and it’s once again hard to believe that in terms of years actually lived, she’s just old enough to be his mother.
Until she gives him the look she gives him now, which is the knowing one and absolutely the kind his mother would have given him. Did give him, a lot, usually when he was trying and failing to lie to her about, say, how hungry he was or whether he needed new shoes. It's a mom look. As far as Steve knows, Elizabeth's never had children, but maybe years of graduate students amount to the same thing.
"And you look like a mix of worried and worried, with a little worried," and as Steve clears his throat she adds, "and happy." She smiles at him again when he looks down. "It's a good look on you. Something going right?"
"Everything's going fine," he says, and gets a raised eyebrow and clears his throat again, suddenly finding he's more than a little embarrassed - except it's not . . . just embarrassment, he realizes, there's a kind of protectiveness in there as well, defensiveness that doesn't come from feeling like he's done something wrong, but from -
Well. From not wanting something precious dirtied, really.
"You don't have to tell me," Elizabeth says; now that they're close to the edge of the room she lets go of his arm and turns as a server passes to lift two tumblers of something off the tray, handing one to Steve. It turns out to be bourbon, and good bourbon at that.
"It's funny," Steve remarks dryly, after the pause for both of them to sip their drinks, "how whenever you say that, I suddenly feel more comfortable about telling you."
"It's my charm," she says, and Steve laughs, and then looks out over the room, trying to decide how and whether to answer.
"It's not a big thing," he says. "Probably shouldn't make that much difference."
"Mm," Elizabeth says. She looks over the room, too; then she looks back at him, tilts her head, takes a deep breath and says, "Bruce always tucks his shirts in. Even his t-shirts. It looks ridiculous, so I always untuck them. I was trying to drop him off to head off to New York, and I saw his shirt was tucked in and I untucked it." She exhales all at once and then says, a little quieter, "Actually at the time it broke my heart because I was sure I'd never see him again, but my point is, objectively little things can be more important than anyone else knows."
Steve thinks he sees how she does it, in that moment: how she offers vulnerability and it makes you feel like it's okay to be vulnerable, to match. And it's not like he hasn't wanted - "He started using my name," he says, quietly. "My Chr - my given name, I mean. Few days ago."
After a beat, Elizabeth reaches over and squeezes his nearer forearm. "That doesn't sound like a little thing," she says. "Not even from out here."
Steve breathes a little half-laugh. "It just sounds so stupid, out loud," he confesses. "I mean - "
"Not at all," Elizabeth says, patting his arm this time.
After a second or two Steve says, "It's funny - well, not funny, probably not even surprising, but I hadn't noticed feeling it before right, but now I am . . . completely terrified."
She stands up on her toes and kisses his cheek. "I have complete faith in your ability to handle terror, Steve," she says. "Your own, and most other people's. Now come talk to some nice people, I made sure to make Pepper invite a few."
One of Elizabeth's "nice people" is a PhD candidate in history who, after clearly building up her courage for about ten minutes, tentatively asks Steve if he'd mind her asking a couple questions about - of all things - show-business during the War.
It's so unexpected it's, well, charming honestly, and after about two minutes she's begging his pardon and apologizing and groping for the notepad in the purse that her friend - girlfriend, Steve amends pretty quickly, given how close they stood, how quickly she'd been able to lay her hands on the purse and just how resigned and patient she looked while the PhD candidate scrambled for a pen - handed her.
The impression's confirmed when about forty-five minutes later, when the PhD student stops for breath, the other woman puts an arm around her waist and says, "And now since you've already given Captain Rogers your email and this is a gala, not a seminar, we're going to let him talk to someone else for a while and go find some canapés."
The PhD student looks sheepish. "Sorry," she says.
"Not a problem," Steve says, "I don't mind - it's really not the thing most people want to know about, so it's kind of refreshing."
"Careful," says the girlfriend with a look of deep affection, "or you'll never get free." And then she steers the student away by that arm around her waist and Steve looks around to take another drink from a server with a quiet thank you. It could be annoying that alcohol was, basically, useless, but it did mean he could drink as much as he wanted of whatever he wanted without a second thought.
He's aware there's a guy standing behind him to his right, but he's still surprised when it's Barton's voice that says, "Well that was adorable."
Steve turns; it is Barton, dressed for the occasion and holding champagne, which he lifts in a kind of mock-toast. "Rogers," he says.
"Barton," Steve replies. "Pepper's keeping secrets, didn't know you were coming."
"Oh, we're gate-crashing," Barton replies smoothly. "Nat's a Russian heiress tonight, by the way. You missed the fantastic tantrum she threw when they weren't going to let us in without tickets, so they'd go get Pepper and she'd let us in.
Steve looks Barton briefly up and down, takes in the expensive clothes and watch and slight thin goatee, or whatever they called them nowadays. "American boyfriend?" he guesses.
"It's fun," Barton says, "I get to glower at people. She's over with Stark and Pepper, you can tell by Stark's sour expression."
"I find it really difficult to feel that sorry for him," Steve says, glancing over to take in Natasha with her hair in a waterfall of red curls over a body-hugging cream dress, and Barton smirks.
"Oh, likewise," he agrees. He gestures with his drink. "You're looking very under-the-radar tonight."
"Sometimes it's nice not to scream exactly who you are to everyone who catches you out of the corner of your eye," Steve replies wryly. "How long have you been in town?"
"Few days," Barton replies. "Nat had something she wanted to do, we heard about this and thought we'd crash. I think we're heading out again tomorrow."
"How is she?" Steve asks, more seriously and hoping he's not crossing a line by asking. Barton looks thoughtful for a minute, with no obvious signs of minding the question, and then tilts his hand one side to the other.
"Better than I was," he says. "Better than she was a year ago."
"Good," Steve says, and then, because curiosity gets the better of him, he asks, "What have you been doing?"
"Travelling," Barton replies. He grins. "Taking a vacation. Playing tourist. Occasionally getting would-be ambushed by HYDRA strays and feeding the local scavengers." His expression turns to false earnestness. "They seem really mad at Tasha for some reason."
"Well," Steve says, matching his tone, "Nazis. Who knows."
"You know it really pisses them off when you call them Nazis," Barton says, looking amused. "Just a tip if you ever get a chance to use it. Mention Schmidt if you really want to see them froth."
"I'll keep it in mind," Steve replies, and then gestures towards Tony, Pepper and the vrais-Russian faux-heiress. "I think you're being summoned. I'd go, but I'm reliably informed I'm a terrible liar and I might give you away. Say hi for me."
Clint gives a mocking salute with his champagne glass and makes his way in the direction of Natasha's imperious gestures. And as conversations go, Steve decides to find that one reassuring.
By the time he lets Stark talk him into letting someone drive him home, Steve's honestly tired. It's not a bad tired. Actually, it's a good tired. But it's definitely tired, and tired makes it a lot easier to worry.
He’s spent all night refusing to fixate on the lack of any texts from the house; considering how he was when Steve left, there’s a reasonable chance Bucky turned his phone off and chucked it under an available piece of furniture and no reasonable chance, or at least no great likelihood that he’s dead or anything worse has happened.
Probably. Most likely.
There’s also next to no reasonable chance that Bucky’s sleeping, or that he ate real food over the course of the night, but as so many nights previous have demonstrated, that’s not actually going to kill him. At least not all at once.
When he pushes open the door and puts away his coat, Steve finds Bucky on the balcony, wrapped in a wool coat, sitting on the folding wooden chair and staring at the dark, the door still open to let the night air in and the day air out. There’s a mug beside him on the matching side table, steaming - probably coffee - and a mostly empty plate.
There’s also another dead phone on the floor (that would be number six), a broken tile from over the oven on the stove, and in the kitchen, the handle of a spoon - an ordinary dessert spoon, with the head snapped off at an angle to give it a rough point - buried several inches in the wall. And several dents, as if something hit the wall hard, but not hard enough to break through.
There's something subtly off about them. And after a few seconds of frowning, Steve realizes what's off is that they’re at the wrong height - not shoulder or body for Bucky but about right for -
“Natasha Romanoff sends her regards,” Bucky says from the balcony. “She’d’ve stayed but I think that guy she goes around with wanted to yell at her for giving him a heart attack.” He looks darkly amused with himself and shrugs while Steve stares at him. “Whoever made her earpiece has good isolation design. I could only hear parts of the conversation.”
"Barton," Steve says, letting the brief shot of adrenaline settle, letting logistics calm him down. There really hasn't been enough time for Natasha and Clint to get from Stark Tower to here - Natasha was still playing Russian socialite and flirting outrageously when Steve left - which means they came here before going there, which means Steve knows they're both fine.
Steve looks at the spoon, the hole, the dents, and then Bucky. And out of all the next words that go through his head the ones he lets come out of his mouth are, “Do I even want to know?”
It gets him an ironic look, but that’s about all; Bucky doesn't move and his face doesn't really give anything away. “I don’t know,” he says. “Do you?”
This is a better mood than the one Steve left him in, at least, even if it’s still not the best; the humour might be snide, but there's no snarl and nothing Steve can see behind the verbal fencing's malicious or twisted. After thinking about it, Steve leans balcony doorframe and says, “Yeah, I think I do. Since we’re down a spoon and all.”
He tosses the improvised shiv - because that’s what it is, no real two ways about it, the tip ragged with broken metal and probably just sharp enough to cut without ludicrous effort - to Bucky, who catches it out of the air.
“I was making a point,” he says, and after a second to get it, Steve gives him the obligatory disappointed sigh.
“That was a terrible pun, and you should be ashamed. A point about what?" he prods. "Why was Natasha here?”
Bucky’s amused look twists up a bit and he taps the point of the handle on the knuckles of his left hand, the high-pitched noise echoing a little.
He says, conversationally, “You know how just about everyone who knows you who knows about me pretty much guaranteed spends a lot of time strangling their clear and present desire to give me a graphic don’t hurt him or else speech? - except Stark, maybe he really doesn’t like you that much. Don’t,” he adds, when Steve opens his mouth; it's a guess, Steve knows it's a guess, but it's not a bad guess, and Tony is the only one that doesn't give off that feeling, just a little. “Doesn’t matter. They care about you, that’s fine. But the Black Widow either has less restraint or just less tact. I’m pretty sure it’d be fucking ludicrous to say she’s more honest.”
Steve really tries hard not to grimace, and tries not to worry in advance of slowly finding out what the hell actually happened. “Natasha can have some . . . unique ideas about . . . appropriate . . ness,” he says, the statement trailing off, a bit awkward. He finishes dryly, “I’m pretty sure her heart is somewhere in the general vicinity of the right place, most of the time.”
Bucky smiles a brief, small, complicated smile, flipping the spoon handle through his fingers. “Like I said. I was making a point. A couple, actually.” He shifts so that he's looking at Steve more directly.
“What points, Buck?” Steve pushes, carefully, and Bucky’s amusement fades for a minute and he’s not looking at the handle or at Steve or even at the real world anymore; he’s looking through all of them to something else, something only he can see.
Steve knows the look he's wearing, and once upon a time - back when the worst fights they ever got into, correction, Steve got them into involved at the most small knives - he'd've considered it a bad sign. Now - now it's small change next to other looks he knows, but it's still on the dangerous end. The kind that would come up before Bucky's contribution to a plan probably solved the problems they were having, but increased the automatic, no-surrender-possible enemy body-count about three-fold.
“Firstly,” he says, “there is no or else." The handle flips around point down in his right hand and he stabs it into the wood of the table; there's no anger or rancour in it, but the handle stays upright and standing, driven a couple inches in. "Not from her or any of the rest of them.”
He stares at the dark for a minute and then looks at Steve before he lets his expression change to something more amused again. “That,” he adds, “is the part that gave her sniper a heart attack, I think. It’s definitely the part that means I need to fix the wall tomorrow.”
Steve makes a mental note that he owes Clint Barton a drink. Maybe a bottle. Possibly a case. Actually, possibly there's no paying that one. But clearly Natasha's fine, or Barton'd've had something to say about it before.
“And secondly?” he prompts, and Bucky comes back to here and now from wherever it was he went. And Steve knows that look too. It's tired, and all the amusement is at himself, and most of it's not particularly nice.
Bucky reaches over to the plate that looks like it used to have food on it, and picks up the thing Steve hadn’t really bothered to look at, had figured was a crust or something else but now he can see is - well.
It’s Bucky’s pocket knife. The old one, the one Steve found, the one that still exists by sheer accident of his having lent it to Monty, the one that Steve tracked down, reclaimed, kept. The one that technically went missing off the mantelpiece the first night Bucky came here - though Steve supposes it probably doesn’t count as missing if you’re almost sure you know where it went.
When Bucky taps it against his left hand, the sound is lower, quieter.
He looks at Steve for a minute and the distant look is back, but more like he’s looking into Steve or through Steve or back years, or something. Then he tosses the closed knife with a flick of his right wrist that sends it end over end towards Steve, who catches it against his chest.
“That when it comes to saving you from your own fucking idealism and your fucking martyr complex,” Bucky says, “and come to think of it everything else you get your stubborn ass into - I was here first.”
It takes a moment for those words to sink in. For them to reorient themselves enough to hammer in what they actually mean, what Bucky actually just said.
Admitted.
Claimed.
And when they do, for a minute Steve has to look away, stare down at the surface of the deck because otherwise he’s going to lose it, and it might be losing it in a good way but he still doesn’t think it’s a good idea, here, now. Considering the roundabout way of it, the carefulness, it’s probably not even a good idea to act like this moment is that much out of the ordinary. Probably. Maybe?
Honestly he doesn’t know. But it's hard to breathe for a second and then Steve feels giddy and light-headed and he leans a bit harder on the door-frame.
And when he looks up Bucky’s still watching him and it’s pretty clear that he’s pretty transparent, and there’s probably a comment floating around in the air about him being a terrible liar.
“That,” he says carefully, “is fair. Definitely fair.”
It's all he trusts himself to say, and he can see, or at least guesses he can see, that it was as much for Bucky to say as it was for him to hear, except maybe in different directions, and the entire world is a little fragile, and maybe it's better not to push.
“Good,” Bucky says. “And yeah,” he says, jerking his head at the plate. “I ate something. So shut up.”
Steve comes the rest of the way out on the deck, leans on the railing and works hard to keep himself from beaming at the night. But he says, “You’re lucky Barton didn’t shoot you, you know.”
Bucky’s mouth quirks up. “I got her to follow me into the kitchen because that’s where he didn’t have a shot. Solid concrete and steel between him and us."
Definitely a case.
"That was mean, Buck," Steve says, pushing his luck a little, and Bucky shrugs.
"I was in a bad mood," he says. "They'll both live."
Steve's not completely sure what to do with the pocket-knife; in the end he puts it back where it used to be, and it stays there.
When he thinks about it long enough, Steve thinks maybe it was a puzzle; and maybe now the puzzle's solved, so Bucky doesn't need that piece anymore. At least not to hide away or carry. It could stay where they could both see it.
He keeps that one to himself.