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Steve stared out to the edge of Wakanda, watching the blinking lights of the city beneath the waning night. It was almost dawn, but time had been lost to Steve these past weeks; months. He slept in the day, moved at night and survived in between.
He didn’t even know what day it was anymore.
Steve turned, running a hand over his aching head and looked around for a calendar or anything that would help him place what day he’d turned up on. Bucky had always hated Tuesdays. He loved Sundays. As did Steve. They’d always found an hour in the morning when their neighbourhood was so quiet when many went to church or the market and they’d spent alone together by a spot beneath the bridge, watching the world go by, side by side. Hand in hand if they were feeling brave.
Bucky had kissed him for the first time there.
Steve closed his eyes as he savoured the memory. It almost felt...unreal. Like another timeline, another world, another person. It was so happy. So simple. Something that didn’t fit into their lives anymore.
Rolling a shoulder, Steve opened his eyes and saw what he thought might be a holo terminal. He touched the pad with a finger. It flickered, the holokeys extending, time, date, and the demand of a retinal scan and voice command. T’challa had given him the peace and kindness of his quarters for a moment’s respite and to freshen up with clean clothes while he prepared Bucky’s cryostasis lab for their arrival. Steve had done neither. He drew his fingers over the keys idly. Time. Date. That’s all he needed. 5:34am. Thursday 1st March. He smiled realising Bucky’s birthday was in nine days.
101, Buck.
He stared at the terminal for a while, before stepping away and back to the wide, open window. Coming to Wakanda had been like waking up in the modern world again to Steve. The last time he had come, it hadn’t been alone, yet it had been brief. The company had helped him adjust to the memories, the sensations, the panic of that moment stepping out into Times Square that returned with just a heartbeat.
Bucky had been there then. Because they were there for him.
Now Steve was here alone. A fugitive. He didn’t need to come alone, but it was best this way. And he knew that when he got here, he no longer would be. And the anticipation of that alone, was the best he’d felt since the day he’d gotten Bucky back. Was he going to get him back again today? Had they found a way to help his mind and memories? There were too many questions. No answers.
And it felt like the world was ending again as the sky rained with destruction. With chaos. With fear.
He’d always been surrounded by his friends all the other times though. In the 40s with his Commandos and Buck. Then with the Avengers who steadily grew around him into not just friends, but family. But Steve knew all too well how broken apart family can become in moments. And all at once, you were alone. You were just, you. The Avengers were splintered, fractured, most forced into hiding for simply doing the right thing.
It was the right thing, wasn’t it?
Bucky was alive. It was the right thing.
Steve ran his hands over the ornate gilding of a pictureless frame, but as his fingers touched the edge, the screen changed to a mirror, the edges blinking with symbols. He almost took a step back as he saw the man who looked back. Hair, ragged and longer, with a beard to match. He ran a hand over the beard, staring at the dark skin around his eyes, painted from a palette of insomnia and anxiety. His eyes no longer looked blue. They were dull. Muted. Grey. An echo of his spirit. He felt a twist in his heart that in a place of such resplendent beauty as Wakanda, he felt withered and so very out of place.
He touched his bare arm, noticing a bruise. He didn’t remember how or when. Steve glanced to his discarded suit on T’challa’s bed, weathered and as worn as it had ever been. He could barely tell it was his. And that was just what he wanted. He turned to try and somehow turn off the mirror just as the door hissed and clicked open.
“Is everything ready, your majesty?” said Steve as he pressed some of the symbols around the mirror in an attempt to turn in off, but it just illuminated around the edges a soft purple.
“Your majesty? I could get used to that.”
Steve turned, stepping away from the mirror, knocking off three things from the dresser, almost running, as that familiar voice filled the air and his ears in a way music, laughter and no-one else ever could.
“Bucky.”
But before Steve could take another step, Bucky was a blur; he was no longer there, but here .
Here.
Crashing into Steve, Bucky leaped into his arms, and Steve caught him, just like Bucky had done for him under that bridge in Brooklyn. Like Steve used to do when they snuck away at night in the army. When they were happy. When they were free.
Warm lips met his in a messy, smiling kiss, tangled with strands of hair, with breaths of their laughter. Steve leaned into Bucky’s hand, tangled through his hair, just as he felt his other hand knead gently into the taut muscle of his shoulder.
Steve smiled through their kiss, pulling away, breathless, as their foreheads touched.
“New arm, I see. Or, can feel,” he said against Bucky’s lips, watching the sunrise catch the soft blue of his eyes.
Bucky drew his fingers against Steve’s face, feeling the brush of his thick beard against his new vibranium hand.
“New beard, I see. Never knew you could even grow one of these,” he teased, drawing a thumb beneath a tired eye. “You look like shit, by the way.”
Steve laughed, catching the bottom of Bucky’s lip with his teeth, gently. “I like to call it ‘tired’. Not all of us have been dreaming for months.”
Bucky stared, quiet, holding Steve’s face for a while, his vibranium thumb caressing his cheek. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you these past months.”
“Buck -”
“I know, I know,” he said his gaze shifting between Steve’s eyes and the Wakandan horizon, where the first fingers of light stretched over the kingdom, basking it’s beauty in the warmth of daybreak.
Bucky blinked, his hand twitching.
“You alright, Buck?” said Steve, touching the cold, black vibranium hand that still rested on his face. He stroked it gently, feeling the grooves, the details, the ridges and joints. It felt smoother than his last one, and something about it radiated Bucky’s power; his inner strength and beauty. Steve hooked his thumb around Bucky’s.
Bucky nodded, giving Steve another small kiss, then paused, feeling the beat of his heart in his ears, his throat. “They - Shuri - she fixed my mind.”
Steve smiled, his heart lifting, and the world disappeared as if it didn’t matter anymore and that it was ending. Because Bucky was back. Just Bucky. His, Bucky. And he’d be there at the end, like they always promised.
“Buck, that’s the best thing I’ve heard since you said you remembered me,” he said, squeezing his hand.
But Steve’s joy, it wasn’t echoed in Bucky’s eyes. There was….worry. Doubt. A leash around his freedom that persisted.
Bucky slid from their embrace, his bare feet meeting the floor with a gentle thud. Toes twisted into the soft carpet as he looked away. But he kept their hands together, the gentle touch of Steve’s hand against his arm becoming familiar again. It had taken a while for normal sensation to come back again, like his first arm. This time it was a lot quicker, and the sensitivity and strength of this one was unbelievably more. But...it felt right. It felt like it belonged to him. Rather than he belonged to it, and he to them .
Bucky smirked, looking from his arm to Steve, the worry etched on his face quelling the joy at their reunion. And it broke his heart.
“I’m getting used to your touch on my arm again,” he said, running his hand down Steve’s face, his neck, his bare arm. “Reminding it how you feel.”
Steve brushed a lock of hair from Bucky’s face, some strands caught in his lip, then slowly began to run his fingers over his arm from where it began, just beneath the edge of his tank top, over the curved, vibranium muscle, so beautifully sculpted in black and gold it looked...organic. He had admired Bucky’s last arm. He had come to love it because it was part of him. He loved all of him. But that arm had never been his choice. It had been intended as a weapon for the assassin he’d been made to be. This arm was his choice, now. It was given by a friend and it felt like it belonged to Bucky as much as his skin, as his hair, his eyes.
He paused as his hand touched a familiar etching on Bucky’s upper arm. He looked down, his heart missing a beat as his finger began to trace the three lines of the Howling Commando’s logo, glimmering in the beautiful gold, so vibrant against the dark vibranium.
“Buck….” said Steve, tracing it again, and again, remembering the days the stood side by side. Partners in war with their team; their brothers; their family.
“It was a given they weren’t going to put the star there again. They didn’t ask if I wanted anything else, but I know that I did. So I asked for this,” said Bucky.
Steve paused, realising there were three small golden stars there too. One above, and two below.
“The stars-”
“I know. I know we talked about this before I went back under. You want to shed your Captain America image a bit. You’re jaded. You want to drop the stars and stripes bullshit, especially since you don’t have your shield anymore.” As Bucky spoke, he held onto Steve’s hand tight, still feeling the beat of his heart in his throat.
Steve looked up with a lopsided smile. “I was just going to say they look like the stars on the first shield I ever had.”
“When you rescued us,” said Bucky. “And me.”
They shared a small, quiet smile. The sun was higher now, basking the room in the soft gentle glow of morning.
“I didn’t tell them what the stars meant, and I’m not going to tell anyone else but you,” said Bucky with a soft laugh. “The two small ones are for us. Our pasts. What we became. Stars were both a symbol of what we were. One good, one...not so good.”
Bucky smirked. Steve leaned forward, their foreheads touching, and just held him, silently.
“The big one, I dunno,” he shrugged beneath Steve’s embrace. “The future I guess. Us now, together. Our pasts ripped us apart, but if it wasn’t because of what and who we became, we would never have lived to make it to now.”
Steve closed his eyes and buried his face into Bucky’s neck.
Bucky smiled, wrapping his arms around Steve, letting his new hand feel the curve of his lover’s back again, again, and again.
“Are you crying, Steve?”
“Is your new arm waterproof?”
Bucky laughed, pulling back just enough to kiss away a tear.
“I was worried you wouldn’t like it-”
“Is that what you were worried about?” asked Steve as he pulled back and wiped away a tear.
Bucky’s smiled faltered, faded and he looked away. Shaking his head, he took Steve’s hand.
“Shuri is beyond convinced she has taken away the conditioning in my head and helped ease my memories somewhat,” he said, fidgeting with Steve’s fingers. “And I believe her. I do. I really do.”
Bucky paused, squeezing Steve’s hand. He wanted to say more, but the words caught in his throat, drowned by the thump, thump of his heart.
“But…?” Steve pushed Bucky’s hair gently behind his shoulder. It had gotten long. And felt so soft.
Bucky took a deep breath. “I want you to do something for me.”
“Anything Buck, you know that,” he said, watching his lover curiously.
“Come on,” he said, turning to leave T’challa’s room, Steve’s hand in his.
Bucky knelt on the dusty, cold stone floor of the lowest level of T’challa’s residence - his private warehouse. Shuri had found him down here more than once, just sitting here in the silence and cold. It reminded him of Siberia; of his time as the Winter Soldier; of being someone - something - else. He didn’t know why he spent so much time down here, but he did.
Maybe it was a strange way of saying goodbye and trying to let that part of him go. For all the good that Shuri had done to his mind, releasing the conditioning that H.Y.D.R.A. had clawed into it - memories and trauma were something that no-one could switch off just like that.
She had helped make it easier for him. For he had felt like the dead weight of fear that at any point someone else could just reactivate him, and it would start all over again just like it had that day with Zemo was lifted.
Well. It was almost lifted. He had to be sure.
He had to.
“Buck, what are we doing down here? I know you like things a bit kinky and off the wall, but we just missed our chance to do it on the king of Wakanda’s bed” said Steve with a smirk as he leaned against the cold wall, watching Bucky punch a hole into the ground and shatter the stone before him to reveal a small wooden box that he tore apart just as easily.
Steve frowned. “Alright. Not quite where I guessed this was going.”
Bucky pushed aside shattered pieces of stone and wood, staring down at the hole he’d made and took a steadying breath before he pulled out a small red book and a gun.
Stepping away from the wall, Steve’s heart began to race. “Buck - what-”
He rose from the floor, both items in hand and turned to Steve who was already an inch from him, wide eyed, a trembling hand touching his temple.
“You said you’d do anything for me,” he said, looking up at his lover as he placed both book and gun against his chest. “Don’t worry. The gun doesn’t have bullets. It’s got an extremely potent sedative that’ll take down guys like us.” He paused, taking a step back, his vibranium hand still resting on Steve’s chest with the book. “For a little.”
Steve stood rigid, silent, staring at Bucky. He felt the book and gun pressed hard to his chest, trembling, from Bucky’s hand. Was he really asking him to do this?
He could feel the leash of control frayed so thin, ready to snap, but it was still there, lingering with Bucky’s doubt. He could feel it in the way his hand shook; in the way Bucky couldn’t hold his gaze; in the way his smile should be brighter; in the way that they should be lying in each other’s arms, basking in the morning light, bare skinned and free.
Not like this.
“You sure?” said Steve, running his hand over Bucky’s hand before he took the book and gun.
“There’s no-one else I trust to do this, Steve,” he said, stepping back, his fingers flexing back, forth; back, forth. “Please.” He looked up, and Steve saw the same eyes that remembered him on that helicarrier; afraid and desperate. “I need to know.”
Steve looked at the gun and book in his hands, and nodded.
“I don’t need the gun. I’ll take you down myself-”
“No. Steve please. This new arm - it’s - it’s unbelievably strong and I’m still getting used to it. The other day when I was putting on my jeans I ripped them in half by accident,” he said, extending his arm, listening to the way the vibranium, the hinges and synthetic muscle moved with him.
Steve smirked. “I’m not jeans. But alright. If that’s what you want,” he said, tucking the gun into his belt. “As for the words….” At that, Steve paused, looking up at Bucky, afraid. He ran his hands over the front of the old leather, feeling the star beneath his calloused fingers. “I already know them.”
Bucky shuffled on the spot, his bare feet marking the dusty stone. “I guessed you might, since you knew what I did to the Starks.” Bucky clenched his fist. “They need to be said in russian and don’t stop, no matter what I do or say. Just. Do it.”
Steve look one last look at the book before he took a deep steadying breath, taking a step closer, book in hand, as he began.
“Longing. ”
Bucky looked away, taking a step back as he felt Steve approach. Every sense in him knew this was not going to work, but his memories were many, and his trauma even louder.
“Rusted.”
His vibranium arm touched his other, and he scratched.
“Seventeen. ”
But they wouldn’t mark. It wasn’t like his old arm.
“Daybreak .”
He pinched the skin, but two hands held his hand. Warm hands. Hands he knew. Hands he’d known since he was 13.
“Furnace.”
He shook. The words, he heard them, but it was different. The fear, the desperation, the silent screams for it to stop were still there. But it was different.
“Nine.”
He cried out on instinct, tearing away from those hands. They tried to bring him back. But he hit them away.
“Benign .”
They came back. They wrapped around him. Touched his face. Stroked his hair.
“Homecoming .”
Bucky stood rigid. It was almost over. His body screamed with memory. With the pain of what it used to be. But it was almost over, over, over.
“One .”
He felt those hands on his face, slide down his arms and take his trembling hands; hands which gripped tightly. He could see nothing, and everything.
“Freight car .”
Steve stared into Bucky’s wide, wet eyes.
“Soldier ?”
Bucky smiled. “My name is Bucky.”
Steve wiped away a fall of tears from Bucky’s cheeks and caught him in the gentlest of kisses, remembering the way Bucky had kissed him beneath the bridge in Brooklyn for the very first time.
“Welcome back, Bucky.”
Shuri found them both this time, hours later, asleep against the wall in each other’s arms, the Winter Soldier journal shredded at their feet.