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The fighting is over. They lost people along the way. Good people. But it's over.
Steve Rogers was a man who wore a patriotic suit and fought for what he thought was right. But now it's over. He's just a man, and he deserves some peace.
It hits him every once in a while that it's been less than a decade since he woke from the ice. He's not even thirty—technically—and he feels as though he's lived the lives of a thousand men.
The person he's known the longest, the only person who really knows him, is his best friend, Bucky Barnes. "Inseparable on the playground and the battlefield," he remembers from the Smithsonian exhibit, and they couldn't have said it better.
The poor man's been through worse than Steve. Though Bucky would never admit that. He was always tough—the kind of tough Steve wishes he could be.
Steve got to be a hero, America's sweetheart. Meanwhile, Bucky was painted as the villain because of a mind he couldn't control and an evil vendetta he wanted no part of.
That's all behind them now. Steve wished his farewells to the Avengers that wanted to stay in this life, but he was tired. 100 years’ worth of tired.
He took Bucky and went off the grid without a trace. He'd learned well from a redheaded Russian who used to scare him but has since only been associated with familiarity and war-induced trust.
"Where are we going?" Bucky asks for the eighth time in half an hour. The man never liked surprises.
Steve had been driving a U-Haul with their few (and some new) belongings for a couple hours now, and they'd just finally entered New York. At first, Bucky thought they were going to the old Avengers Tower, but then they passed the exit and kept going, so he was at a total loss.
Mostly because he was actually lost given that the city had changed so much since the last time he paid attention to it.
Then he saw a green sign that read "Brooklyn, next exit," and his face lit up like a damn Christmas tree.
They were going home.
Steve had looked it up not long after he woke to see if their old building was still around and not torn down to be turned into a Starbucks or something. Luckily, the entire block had barely changed.
He pulled up to their old road and parked into the front of the complex. Bucky makes quick to take the stairs four at a time because there's still no elevator. Steve meets him up there and leans against the door frame with a grin as he watches his best friend walk through each of the small rooms.
He was sporadically pointing to sections of the near-empty apartment with child-like excitement saying that their couch was facing that window, and their bed was in that corner, and their bathtub was still in the same spot.
"It's just how I remembered," Bucky says when he finally stops in from of Steve. He tugs him forward in a hug, a way of thanking him for the kind gesture. "Is it really ours again?"
Steve nods happily, facing Bucky again. "Bought it last week, got the key yesterday."
It's been so long since Bucky's been genuinely happy, and Steve is proud to be the one to make him that way.
An hour later, they're still sitting at the bar stools left behind by the previous owner and talking about what they want to do with the place. They each have their own input on the interior design and Bucky's dying to fix the cracked kitchen floor.
"Since we're back here," Bucky begins vaguely, deciding to change the topic, "there's something I want to do."
Steve raises an eyebrow at this until he's brought into the bathroom with Bucky's trusted backpack. He takes out a razor and a pair of scissors, telling Steve that he's decided to make a slight change.
The younger man is enthusiastic to help because even as much as he appreciates the look and texture of this specific style, he's been wanting to bring a pair of scissors to that head for years.
Once it's done, locks of brown hair fill the tiled floor, and beard stubble floods the porcelain sink. Steve stares at Bucky for a moment. He knows he's staring, but he can't help it.
Bucky looks up at the feeling of a gaze to meet a pair of crystal blue eyes and chuckles, "What is it?"
Steve shakes his head, smiling as he spoke softly, "You look like my Bucky."
The now-short-haired man rolls his eyes playfully, and if Steve didn't know any better, he'd think Bucky was almost blushing.
"Knock it off, Punk," he replies.
Steve takes a step forward anyway to lightly pat him on the cheek and say, "You look good, Buck. I missed you."
Bucky grabs Steve hand before he has a chance to pull away, holding it against the side of his face and leaning into it. "I never left you."
Steve's heart picks up a tick, having flashbacks to their time before the second war. Suddenly he's a sixteen-year-old kid again, looking up at his dashing best friend who he'd never think would go for a scrawny boy like him.
He's remembering that first time Bucky kissed him in his bedroom when they were supposed to be sleeping. It was bold because Sarah could have walked in any moment, but Bucky couldn't hold himself back anymore.
Steve remembers going on dates with Bucky, and to others, it must have seemed like just a couple of friends out for ice cream or drinks or a diner meal, but to him it was everything.
He remembers the first time they made love in this very place and being such a nervous mess, but Bucky was there for him as he always had been, as he always will be.
Now they stand in that apartment with a sense of security they haven't felt in a long time. This era is different. No double meanings, no secret glances, no hiding—they get to be themselves.
Steve flashes himself back to the present and decides he doesn't want to wait any longer for the rest of their lives. He takes that one more step forward and kisses Bucky as though no time had passed since their last embrace.
The only difference now is physical.
Steve is taller, and bigger where he used to be an underdeveloped boy. Bucky is wider, so Steve's arms don't fit around him as easily as they used to. Bucky won't have to let up often to give Steve's asthmatic lungs the extra air.
Even with all these differences, they wouldn't have it any other way. Because they were there and together and for once in too long a time, they were happy.
Time passes after hours of moving boxes and furniture. Of course, they didn't need to hire a moving team because hell, either of them couldn't have picked each item up with three fingers.
"We're being domestic," Steve teases when Bucky asks why they both need to carry an armchair up four flights of stairs.
Bucky scoffs at that because "We're super soldiers, Steve. I could tip over this whole building if I wanted to."
"But you don't, so shut up and lift the damn thing higher, your side is shifting a little low there," he taunts with a wink.
Now they sit on the couch, their bodies pressed against each other from their shoulders to their knees. They look out the front window at a beautiful view of the city—their city.
Bucky glances over at the other man and tries to swallow the question itching at the back of his mind all afternoon.
"Are we safe now, Stevie?" he asks, almost worried of the answer. The 105-year-old veteran is exhausted, physically and mentally. Years of torture and forced murder will do that to a man's head.
Steve nods, reaching his arm around to place across the back of the brunet’s shoulders. They look out onto the horizon and can picture a future here. Taking walks together to the local farmer's market, cooking meals in their kitchen, making small repairs around the place, having quiet talks after nights of limbs intertwining under bed sheets, slowly dancing to music in a living room draped in moonlight like they used to before their worlds changed.
It's not much—to others, insignificant—but it's theirs.
A beat later, the blond finally answers aloud, "Yeah, Buck. We're safe now."