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Steve Rogers has a plan.
“It’s not like you can keep renting your apartments, now that your income source is ever so slightly non-existent,” Tony points out, fiddling mindlessly with a tablet that looks unspeakably technologically advanced. “So you have no money to rent, and you also have custom made floors in the most secure building in New York. Seems like a no-brainer to me.”
“I don’t know, maybe I want to check what’s on the market first,” Steve replies teasingly. He’s leaning against a counter and watching Clint cook some sort of stew. Clint’s been narrating everything he does, giving him an idea of how something like this is made, before he throws Steve in the deep end. It smells homey and comforting – exactly what Steve needs, after this week. “Doctor Banner, how are you liking it here?”
“Hmm? It’s, yeah, it’s good here. Really guys, you’ll love it,” Bruce mumbles. He scribbles something down on his own tablet and holds it next to Tony’s, whispering something. Tony makes what Steve is quickly coming to recognise as an Excited Science Noise and writes something on Bruce’s tablet before frantically tapping on his own screen.
“They’ve been like this every time they come out of their science cave,” Clint laments, adding a few shakes of something powdery to the stew and stirring. He dips a spoon in, then holds it up to Steve’s face. “Taste.”
Steve obeys. It’s delicious, and he says as much. “Maybe a bit more spice,” he adds. “I like spicy food.”
“Yeah, so does Bruce, I swear he cooked us this south-Asian curry the other day and-“ Clint mimes an explosion in front of his mouth. “There’s still some in the freezer, if you wanna try it tomorrow.”
“I will,” Steve decides. Somehow, this is what breaks through the scientific haze enveloping Tony and Bruce.
“So, you’re staying, then?” Tony says. “Because I have a gym in the basement with like, three hundred different machines in it, and I only use maybe three of them? Angry Bird over there uses five, big man that he is.”
“You already called me that today,” Clint points out. “Unimaginative much?”
“Maybe I like that one,” Tony retorts. “If the shoe fits, and all that.” Clint just shakes his head and turns the stove off.
What this all comes to is that Steve has a plan, and it mostly involves wheedling JARVIS into running as thorough a search as he possibly can for Bucky without Tony, or Bruce for that matter, being aware of what he’s doing. Then he’s going to go out, find Bucky, and…
Well, he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.
But sitting here around some ultra-designed table that is definitely not designed to withstand being in an Avengers common space, eating a delicious beef stew that warms his bones with the exactly right amount of spiciness, he decides that his plan can wait until tomorrow. Bucky has apparently survived this long without him; he can survive one more night before Steve comes to get him.
---
Morning comes, and with it comes a flaw in his plan.
The city is busy at 6am, especially around Stark Tower. Steve’s been looking forward to jogging around the area since he left DC. The bright lights and frantic traffic that was once bewildering is now soothing, reminding him that life in the city continues on in spite of chaos and destruction. The world of espionage was dealt a massive blow barely days ago, and yet here they all are, fighting traffic and straggling down the sidewalk, no thoughts except as to how late they’re going to be for work, whether or not they turned the stove off. It’s a balm to his guilt, knowing that life and society as he knows it hasn’t screeched to a halt because of what he set in motion.
In this state of peace and goodwill, he goes to set off on his jog, but halts just outside the tower doors. There’s a man sitting against the wall a few feet from the door, huddled into a lightweight hoodie and thin-looking gloves, seemingly trying to disappear entirely, from how tight he’s curled up. Steve thinks of the soul-heartening stew they’d had last night, of the six separate guest bedrooms on the common floor, and steps over to crouch down in front of the guy.
“Excuse me, sir,” he says softly, trying to make his shoulders less intimidatingly broad. “Are you cold? Hungry? Can I help at all?”
He really isn’t prepared for the man to lift his face from his knees and stare at him with Bucky’s eyes, and Bucky’s face, and oh shit.
“Steve?” he says plaintively, expression crumpled.
He hadn’t even considered that maybe Bucky would come to get him first.
“Bucky,” Steve breathed, eyes drinking in the sight of him. “Are you hurt? Are you alright?”
“I didn’t know where I had to go,” Bucky whispers, eyes moving to a point over Steve’s shoulder. “There was no one left. I knew you,” he says abruptly, eyes shooting back to Steve’s. “I found you. Captain America, leader of the Howling Commandos,” he recites. Steve can feel his heart sink as he starts to realise how much damage has been done to his friend. This isn’t quick-witted, charming and sly Bucky Barnes – he doesn’t know what this is. “They said Howard Stark was your friend, and Tony Stark is an Avenger, I knew this building, I knew-” His voice cuts out. Then, “There was – James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. I didn’t recognise…” he trails off, voice thick. He gulps, then continues, almost inaudibly in the early morning sounds of traffic, “Am I Bucky? Steve?”
For a moment, Steve’s too overcome to even breathe. So he crouches on a New York street at the base of a superhero’s tower, ignoring the curious pedestrians, and tentatively puts a hand on Bucky’s knee. “Yeah,” he says. He swallows hard, then smiles. It’s painful, but it’s real. “Yeah, you are, Bucky.”
He does know what this is, he thinks as Bucky looks at him with shiny eyes and inches his hand up to cover Steve’s. It’s not his best guy Bucky Barnes, but it is a start.
---
After he guides Bucky into his bed and cracks the heating up, he calls Natasha. It rings to voicemail, but the message is a sweet, blissfully carefree, “Hey! Leave me a message,” so he doesn’t worry. If he stays silent for a few moments after the beep, it’s only to savour how she finally sounds someone that might even be herself.
After he hangs up, he mentally reviews his plan. And panics when he realises that he has come to the bridge six blocks before he should have, and is now balanced precariously on the railing, trying to figure out how to get across – on one side, churning water, and on the other, rush hour traffic. Or something. He’s a strategic planner, not a poet.
But it’s fine. He’s always done alright with plans made on the fly, after all.
He knocks on Clint’s door, sharp and loud, and half a minute later Clint is standing there in boxers and a baggy Army Rangers shirt. “Morning,” Steve says shortly, before Clint can say anything. “You up to teaching me how to make those French toasts? I think I need to talk.”
Clint yawns and stretches. Something in his back makes a loud cracking sound and Steve winces. “Yeah, I’m up,” he mumbles, then squints. “This is going to be a long cooking lesson, isn’t it?”
“I found Bucky sitting outside the tower on the street when I went out for a jog and he remembered me but I’m pretty sure that’s all he remembers.”
Clint just waves a hand and heads for the kitchen, Steve shuffling in his wake.
---
Things happen quicker than Steve had ever dared to hope.
---
Bucky screams his way through nightmares, screams until his voice is hoarse and cracked, but stays deathly still the whole time. Steve sits in the bed next to him and reads recipe upon recipe on the tablet Tony gave him, thanks anyone who may be listening that the walls are soundproof, and tells himself that nightmares means memories, and any memory at all is better than Bucky being a blank slate with an empty stare.
For those first few days, Bucky drifts through the tower like a ghost and sticks to Steve like a shadow. Similes once used to describe his terrifying and brutally efficient career as an assassin now serve only to reinforce how drained and diminished he’s become.
“You sure you got this handled, Cap?” Clint murmurs after running into them on Bucky’s second day, tense and flighty. “Because lemme tell you, there’s a reason I had a month of downtime and mandatory psych evals after Loki…” He taps two fingers to his temple.
“I don’t know,” Steve replies lowly. “But I think…” he looks over his shoulder at Bucky, who’s poised on the edge of an armchair, looking over the bookshelf opposite him. “I think he just needs time to remember. That’s what they didn’t give him, back there. Time, and kindness.”
“You sure he’s in the right place, then?” Clint says wryly, but he punches Steve affectionately on the bicep and says, “If that’s all he needs, then I guess you’re the best one to deal with him. Honestly, Cap? I’m looking forward to meeting the famous Bucky Barnes.”
“You will,” Steve promises, and carries the glass of water he was fetching back to Bucky.
He gets more and more verbal each day, and with it, more confident. Memories come back to him in fits and starts, and he gets into the habit of announcing them, describing them if he’s with Steve, or writing them down on the increasingly often occasions they’re not together.
“You always had something against running away,” he says suddenly one morning, staring into his scrambled eggs. Steve looks up from where he’s frying bacon under Clint’s watchful eye.
“Still do,” he says with a shrug. Tony and Bruce are already working on experiments in Bruce’s lab, or possible are still working on experiments, or (most likely) have long since passed out on their benches.
“No, I remember… that damn cat.” And suddenly Bucky’s whole manner is easy, conversational, and so so familiar that Steve could cry. “Ugliest son of a gun you’ve ever seen, but these three older guys were kicking it around this alley, so you know Steve had to be a hero,” Bucky says to Clint. Clint is grinning and nodding, caught up in Bucky’s story. Steve just rolls his eyes and flips the bacon carefully. “So he charges in, half their size and his hair was too long at that point, I remember, I was thinking I had to… I have to…”
And just like that, he slips out of storyteller mode and back into his own head, lost and confused without an anchor. Steve ignores the churn of his stomach and finishes the bacon, sliding it off the pan and onto the paper-covered serving plate. He can see Clint looking at Bucky with an unreadable look, but at a second glance, the expression is easy to understand. It’s just sadness, after all.
“He’s getting better,” Steve reminds him softly. He places the plate in front of Bucky and gets an uncertain smile in return.
Natasha arrives unceremoniously early in the morning one week after Steve pulled Bucky off the street. Steve doesn’t even know she’s there until Bucky trails off to fetch a book while Steve fixes them a bowl of apple slices. They’ve gotten into the habit of going up to the roof if they both wake up early enough, Steve with his sketchbook and Bucky with whatever book Bruce (with whom he’d formed a mutually quiet companionship) had recommended, and a bowl of apple slices or Clint’s specialty trail mix (that he’s sworn to only teach Steve when he’s “ready to handle it”) between them. It’s a window of time that seemingly belongs only to them, and it’s usually so peaceful that Steve sometimes has to stop and close his eyes.
Plus, he’s really learning to appreciate those small instants where their fingers brush while reaching into the bowl.
He’s humming something jazzy and doing unconscious little dance moves as he slices the apples when Natasha slinks out of the corner of his eye and leans against the counter.
“Good morning,” she says, smirking. Steve supresses a blush and stops dancing. “How have you been?”
“Good,” he tells her honestly. She looks – healthy, is the first thing he thinks. In an oversized light purple hoodie and comfortable-looking jeans, she seems more relaxed than he’d seen her in months. “Found your new cover yet?”
“Would I tell you if I had?” she says, eyes sparkling. Steve grins, and that’s when Bucky walks into the kitchen, calling out, “Come on Steve, get a move on already-”
He’d wondered what would happen when Bucky met Natasha again. There was every possibility he would be inundated with memories of KGB missions, of the Red Room, of brutal things they had done together.
What happens is this: Bucky drops the book he was holding, eyes going wide. Natasha stands her ground and pointedly doesn’t shift to a fighting stance, but rather, smiles warmly. A few breathless seconds pass before Bucky hesitantly steps close, and says, “Natalya?”
Natasha says something in Russian that is most likely a shockingly rude phrase. Bucky grins and rushes to embrace her.
Much better than he’d expected, Steve thinks, ruthlessly squashing the unexpected spike of jealousy he feels at Bucky’s easy and instant acceptance.
After Steve had dumped Bucky in his bed that first night, he’d meant to find Bucky his own room. But then the nightmares started and he couldn’t leave Bucky alone, and the next night Bucky automatically went to Steve’s room to sleep and didn’t say a word when Steve climbed in the bed next to him, so he’d never really gotten around to it. It wasn’t all that different to when they were sharing a bed in their flat back in Brooklyn, too skint to afford another bed, and why would they need one anyway? Sharing meant they didn’t need to turn the heat up so high in winter, giving them a few extra cents to spend on medicine for Steve’s perpetual cough.
They hadn’t exactly gotten back to the days of Bucky spooning up behind Steve with a hand over his chest, ready to soothe any breathing problems in a heartbeat, covering him up almost entirely – these days Bucky sleeps on his back, so that the metal of his arm doesn’t bother him, Steve guesses. He no longer twitches and sighs, but is instead terrifyingly still. Steve finds he misses those whuffling breaths and restless leg jerks.
So they’re not exactly cuddlebugs anymore, but for the last one or two nights, Steve’s been waking up with Bucky having inched closer to him in the night. Like everything else Bucky does these days, Steve takes it as a sign of something he can think about later, and moves on.
So he watches Natasha draw back from the embrace and start gently asking questions, focusing instead on how sure of his words Bucky is now, after only a week of walking free.
“Say, do you want to move this conversation onto the roof?” Steve asks suddenly. The two look at him and he holds up the bowl of fruit. “We can have breakfast up there.”
Natasha’s smile is breathtaking in its sincerity, and the look Bucky gives him makes the sacrifice of their silent time together worth it a thousand times over.
---
“Of course we have to have a movie night. Isn’t that a rule?” Tony says over a tray-bake dinner that Steve had only needed minimal help from Clint to make.
“Whose rule would that be, then?” Bucky drawls. “This some fancy future thing?” he continues, winking at Steve, who muffles his laughter with a mouthful of chicken and tomato.
“Don’t even pretend like you’re as behind the times as the good captain there, Barnes,” Clint says, laughing openly. “Literally no one is fooled.”
Bucky gives them all a charming smirk and a shrug, falling silent again. “But really, where did this rule come from?” Natasha says through a mouthful of bacon. Bruce wrinkles his nose and pointedly spears some capsicum on his vegetarian plate, then has to duck out of the way of Tony’s flailing left hand.
“I don’t know, it just is!” Tony insists. “Listen, Pepper’s flying in tomorrow, whole night free, I say we put a movie on and veg out for once.”
“You have the whole night free with Pepper and you’re choosing to spend it with the rest of the team?” Bruce says sceptically. Tony grins and murmurs something in Bruce’s ear that makes him snort like a dam bursting while his cheeks turns bright red. Bucky and Clint share an alarmed look as Bruce hangs his head and Tony hoots with laughter. Natasha has a fascinated look on her face, and Steve adds the moment to his rapidly growing list of “Things I Shouldn’t Ask and/or Think About”.
“So, that’s a yes from you people?” Tony says after he finally stops laughing. “Movie night-” He points to Bucky, “-meet the in-laws, yeah?”
“Oh!” Everyone looks at Clint, who had jumped guiltily. “Knew I forgot something,” he mutters, pulling out his phone and rapidly tapping away at the keyboard.
“If you are texting your in-laws right now, Barton,” Tony threatens, then frowns. “You never told us about in-laws. You better not have in-laws.”
“I don’t have in-laws,” Clint repeats obediently, biting a lip in concentration. Natasha snorts and says something in Russian that makes Bucky choke on his food.
“Movie night tomorrow, 6pm start?” Steve says, pounding Bucky on the back with restrained force. “We’ll be there. You’ll like Pepper,” he says in an aside to Bucky.
“Will I, now?” Bucky replies, sly glint in one eye.
“She’s dating Tony, of course, but maybe she’ll bring a friend,” Steve says without thinking. Bucky’s blank look makes the food in his stomach turn sour, mood dropping, until Bucky’s expression abruptly clears, and he throws back his head and roars with laughter.
“I don’t remember the joke being that funny seventy years ago,” Steve says.
“This family is so dysfunctional,” Tony moans. Bruce pats him sympathetically on the head.
So 23 hours later Steve’s baking under Clint’s supervision, squinting through the oven door to check if the chickpeas are done yet, dressed in comfortable sweatpants and the grey, tiny hoodie that he maybe-sort-of stole from Natasha. Clint is sitting on the counter next to the stove in yoga pants that Steve would bet his shield had also been stolen from Natasha, with the Army Rangers t-shirt he’d been wearing on that first day over top. Steve opens his mouth to ask when Clint had been in the Rangers and is interrupted by the beep of the timer.
Steve pulls the tray out and breathes in the smell of spices and seasoning. “They look pretty done,” he says.
“Try one, that’s how you know,” Clint replies. Steve picks up a chickpea and pops it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
“Crunchy,” he decides. “Definitely done. These are amazing, Clint.”
“You were the one who made them, Cap,” Clint replies. He slides off the counter and stretches. Something deep in his back cracks sickeningly, and Steve winces.
“It was your recipe. So I just put them in a bowl?”
“I only ever box them up to take away,” Clint says with a shrug. “Bowl’s fine. Nothing too fancy tonight, as the rule goes.”
The rule (the other rule, Bucky had pointed out, seeing as The Rule was apparently that they had to have a movie night) had been issued via sticky note stuck to on button for the coffee machine, which had read: “Wear your rattiest comfy clothes, come with movie suggestions, and make some snacks Barton or I’ll find your non-existent in-laws and tell them what a terrible house guest you are.”
So here they are, making smoky roast chickpeas. There are toffees cooling on the table after Natasha had demanded some, because “you’re the only one who makes it how I like it, Clint,” she’d said with an innocent fluttering of lashes. There’s kale chips for Bruce and Pepper and finally, an industrial sized bowl of caramel popcorn, “For reasons,” Clint had insisted.
“Right on time, too,” he says, looking at the clock. “Five minutes until go time, wanna go snag some seats?”
“Sure, let me get these,” Steve agrees, hefting the chickpea and popcorn bowls into his arms. Clint grabs the toffees and kale chips and they wander into the living room area. The lights are already dimmed, and the only one there is Bruce.
“Wow, you guys,” he says, putting down his knitting needles and squinting at the haul being placed on the low coffee table. “I think Tony was joking about the snacks?”
“I needed to put my young padawan to work anyway,” Clint jokes, then passes Bruce the shallow bowl of kale chips. “Those are yours and Pepper’s. Don’t let Natasha get into them, she’ll eat them all without remorse, and she already has the toffees to herself.”
“I’ll try my best,” Bruce replies in amusement. As if on cue, Natasha stalks out of the shadows in enormously oversized sweatpants that are somehow not falling around her ankles, and a loose sweater that hangs off one shoulder and looks as soft as kitten’s fur. She stops when she sees what Clint and Steve are wearing, and narrows her eyes.
“Those are my yoga pants,” she says. “And that is definitely my hoodie.”
“We made you toffee?” Clint says hopefully, holding out the plate of toffees like an offering of appeasement to an angry god. Natasha inspects them, then nods.
“You’re forgiven,” she says graciously, settling on the same couch as Steve, but leaving a gap between them, as Clint flops into the overstuffed armchair beside them. Tony and Pepper stride in, looking less like billionaires and more like the rest of their technically unemployed friends in their ragged comfy clothes, and take the two-seater Bruce is sitting on. Bruce protests and starts to get up, only for Tony to grab him around the waist and force him back onto the couch, threatening to sit on him if he doesn’t behave. Clint and Natasha are cackling, Bruce is blushing but obviously pleased, and Steve can’t help wondering where-
The couch dips beside him. “Almost didn’t make it,” Bucky says, letting one arm fall along the back of the couch, behind Steve, and his other arm rest gently on Natasha’s leg. It’s covered in a bright pink glove, and Natasha grins. He takes the arm around Steve away quickly, and he feels a flash of hurt before he see Bucky lean over Natasha to offer that arm to Pepper, shaking her hand firmly. “You must be the famous Pepper Potts,” he says, charm oozing from his voice. “Bucky Barnes, ma’am.”
“Just Pepper is fine, thank you, Bucky,” she says. Amusement seeps into her tone. “It’s good to finally meet you.”
“You too, Pepper,” Bucky returns, then settles back against the couch, nonchalantly putting his arm around Steve’s shoulder. It makes Steve smile, warm and secretive, a smile that grows when he realises what Bucky’s wearing.
“Is that my shirt?” he murmurs. Bucky leans in to answer, shuffling a little closer, so their thighs are pressed together. The long-sleeved blue shirt shifts a little as he moves, meant for shoulders broader than even Bucky’s.
“They said to wear what’s most comfortable,” he replies softly, and that’s when Steve knows, surrounded by his friends and under Bucky’s arm with a movie starting up on the big screen like it’s 1934 all over again but better, that’s when he knows that he’s passed the damn metaphorical bridge and left it in the dust.
Smooth sailing from here, he vows, and settles against Bucky’s side to watch the technicolour onscreen burst into life.