Archive of Our Own

The elevator car that took Bucky Barnes to the top of the building at Rockefeller Center was outfitted with gold leaf, warm woods, and plush red carpet, fitting, he thought, for the head of the Federal Broadcasting Corporation. “Office of the president, penthouse floor,” the operator called, and Bucky stepped out into the modern contrast of sparkling blue tile, light wood, and brassy trim in the lobby. Mr. Fury’s vast outer offices were filled with the most modern of furnishings as well as enormous windows that offered an expansive view west over Midtown. He supposed a TV network executive should have a large, hip, modern space, but you could easily fit five of Bucky’s apartment inside it, and these were only the outer rooms. The inner ones must really be something.

The receptionist sent him inside the double doors to Mr. Fury’s secretary; it was another enormous room furnished in a jazzy style. This place went on forever. The young woman, with her short, youthful hairstyle and immaculate dress, appraised him for a while, before asking haughtily if she could help him. Bucky took his hat and overcoat off, folding his coat over his arm. “I’m here for Fury.”

“Mister Fury isn’t in right now. Did you have an appointment, Mr...?” Her nameplate read Hill, and she narrowed pale blue eyes when she asked him. Although her voice was calm and pleasant, he knew what the basic civility masked because he knew the type: ruthlessly efficient, devoutly loyal, and would brook no nonsense from anyone, whether she knew them or not.

“Barnes. Yes, Miss Hill, I do.” He flashed her his friendliest smile. He used to be good at that, once, before the war and the prison camp, but now it never came off as successfully as it had then, he believed. These days, Bucky mostly worked alone—once the machines were in place, his dealings with people ceased for a while and he was able to return to the peace his job afforded him, in his nice quiet office at Stark Industries International.

Miss Hill flipped through a datebook. “Oh, I see—well, I’m sorry, Mr. Barnes, but your appointment is actually for Wednesday. Tomorrow,” she added, condescendingly helpful.

Which, maybe— “Today is...” He would have sworn today was the right day.

“Tuesday,” she said, quite slowly. “So you’re actually a day early, I’m afraid.” Bucky would put money on her having been in the military. It fit with her ramrod-straight posture, her air of competence, her keen eyes. “And Mr. Fury isn’t even in the building.”

“Ah well. I’m terribly sorry. When I’m working on my projects, I can lose track of time, I’m afraid.”

Her gaze flicked up and down, resting briefly at his gloved left hand, assessing whether she wanted to go the extra mile and help him. “Would you like me to see if I can reschedule something for when he returns this afternoon?”

“Oh, that would be”—he supposed he could get busy with measuring the offices, and he mentally raced through his schedule—“yes, that would be good, thank you so much, Miss Hill.” She wrote something down on a notepad and returned her gaze to him, trying to tell him he could go now. “Where might I find the research department? I do need to go there, so I could take care of that until Mr. Fury returns. If his book opens up.”

She considered him, and he felt as though he should loosen his collar—he was breaking out in a sweat under her scrutiny. “Research is on the twenty-eighth floor, twenty-eight oh nine, across from legal. Mr. Rogers is in charge—I’ll write it down for you. If you’ll be with them for a while, I could give you a call down there when Mr. Fury’s arrived, if his schedule permits.”

“Thank you, that’s swell,” Bucky said, and cringed at how goofy it sounded. He’d never gotten used to being in the business world, having to project a polished image. In his mind, he was still in his early twenties, hadn’t come to terms with the fact that he was now in his late thirties. “Thank you, Miss Hill.” As he took the paper from her and turned to go, he said, “You’re left-handed.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, brow furrowing. The dark blue of her blouse set those striking, icy eyes off tremendously, and he thought about how, in his old life, before...everything, he would have flirted with her, maybe even asked her out. He repeated himself, and she responded coolly, “Yes, sir, I am.”

“The office is all wrong for you, then, the light comes from the wrong direction. The desk should be reversed.” She blinked at him, and he put his hat back on and headed for the elevators.

He found his way to the research department. He’d only been in the lower floors before today; when they’d installed the machine in the payroll department, he’d only had to visit a few times after his initial measurements and analysis. That’s what SII’s technical staff were for. But Bucky’d always loved researching information; it had been his favorite thing about school, even more than sports, and he’d spent countless hours at the public library as a kid going through encyclopedias and almanacs. He would open them to random pages and read whatever was there, springing from one card-catalog drawer to another, following the trail of cross-references the books had led him to. Working with the researchers at FBC would be much more fun than payroll’s bean counters, he expected, so this was a job he wasn’t keen to fob off on the technicians.

He slipped through the doors into the large room. There were three desks in the main area arranged in a sort of U, and at the far end an office with a glass door and wall, where he imagined the head researcher, Mr. Rogers, worked. On every available wall besides that one ran dozens of filing cabinets, and to his left were rows of books and periodicals, exactly like at a library. There was a second floor above that with yet more shelves, reached by a small spiral staircase. One woman, a curvy brunette at the left desk, was busy answering a call; another phone was ringing, and the clacking of a typewriter echoed through the room.

“Yes, I’m trying to verify if there’s any truth to the story that the Eskimo people rub noses... Well, if you don’t know, then can you please tell me who would? This is the Society for the Preservation of the Eskimo Culture, isn’t it? Ah, yes... Inuit? Oh, thank you, that’s quite helpful... Could you have him call Miss Carter at the Federal Broadcasting Corporation? I’m very grateful, thank you.” As she spoke, she was writing things down and flipping through a journal, but doing multiple tasks at once didn’t prevent her from giving him the side-eye as he quietly closed the door and moved to the side of the room.

The ringing phone had been picked up by the red-headed young woman at the back desk, closest to the door. “Reference department, Miss Romanoff speaking... Oh yes, we’ve looked that up for you—there are certain poisons which leave no trace, but it’s network policy not to mention them on our programs.” She cast a glance over her shoulder, and there was something about her expression that said maybe she hadn’t had to look that up at all.

He pulled out his measuring tape so he wasn’t standing idly around, looking shifty. At the far desk, just in front of Mr. Rogers’s office, sat a young man, also watching Bucky as though he’d come to steal the good silver.

He set his hat and coat on a chair in the corner and moved over toward the shelves to begin measuring. Bucky had a head for figures and rarely needed to write them down, but for appearance’s sake he pulled a small pad out of his jacket pocket. The young man answered his phone as Bucky moved around, but Bucky pretended not to listen. “Reference department... Yes, this is Sam Wilson speaking. Oh, thank you for calling,” and he dropped his head and his voice and turned away; must be a personal call. Interesting.

Miss Carter’s phone rang and she returned to her questions about nose-rubbing, while Miss Romanoff fielded a new call. It made Bucky’s head spin a little: this department was remarkably active, the very thing EMERAC could be most helpful for—taking care of all the little things so the humans could handle questions requiring deeper digging or greater care. He was so proud of the technology that would benefit them so much.

Bucky moved behind Miss Carter’s desk as she answered a new call. “Yes, Maria...oh? What about him?” Maria was Miss Hill’s first name. Uh-oh, the gossip mill was already grinding. “Of course I will, and thanks.” She hung up and turned around, one perfectly groomed brow curving upward in scrutiny, her scarlet lips pressed in a thin line. “May I help you?” she asked, in a manner that said she didn’t want to help him at all. There was no way that Miss Hill could have known what Bucky was here for—none of the plans beyond the payroll introduction were discussed outside the boardroom—but she had obviously said something to Miss Carter, judging from the way she watched as he paced off the center of the room.

“Reference department, Miss Romanoff sp—” She listened. “Oh, sure, please hold while I put you through to our baseball expert. Peggy, line 1.” Funny that an English dame was a baseball expert, but he’d seen a lot of people fall for the game overseas. Miss Carter picked up the line, her chair turning along with his path as she answered the question about Ty Cobb’s batting averages right off the top of her head. Precisely the kind of question his machine would help with!

He sat down on the chair next to Miss Carter’s desk as she finished. Miss Romanoff’s pencil flew out of her hand when he did, and she bent to pick it up, acting as though nothing had happened—sort of like a cat. “I hope I haven’t intruded,” Bucky said to make them feel more at ease. “Is it all right if I wander around a little more?” and he gestured upstairs.

“Not at all,” Carter said, frosty, shooting a glance at Romanoff and Wilson. “Make yourself right at home.” He thanked her and climbed the little spiral staircase, while the three of them leapt from their desks to huddle in the center of the room.

They couldn’t know he could figure that out based on the sounds of their movements or that he could hear what they whispered to each other. After the prison camp, he’d experienced a lot of physical changes—he had eyes in the back of his head, Stark had said, could hear things that way too. Everything they’d done to make him a better predator.

They were practically talking over each other. “Who the heck is that?” Mr. Wilson whispered, and Miss Carter replied, “James Barnes, I’m given to understand.” Miss Romanoff asked, “What’s he up to?” “Fury wants to see him. If he leaves here, we’re supposed to trail him,” Carter explained. Romanoff again: “Where’d you hear that?” “Maria. She—” Carter must have shushed them because the whispering stopped as he leaned over the balcony and pulled the tape out to measure down to the floor. It didn’t bother him, really. They’d know soon enough what he was up to, and he hoped they’d be as pleased as he was.

When he looked up from the tape, they were staring at him, bemused. “Catch anything?” Romanoff asked, droll, and Bucky couldn’t help it, he smiled.

The phone on Sam Wilson’s desk rang again—he answered it, then held it toward Bucky. “It’s for you, Mr. Barnes.”

“Oh thanks,” Bucky said, but frowned. “Say. How’d you all know my name?”

“Didn’t you tell us?” Wilson asked innocently.

“I don’t believe I did,” Bucky said as he answered the phone, shaking his head.

It was Miss Hill on the line, informing him that Fury had returned and they’d shuffled a few things around. He asked her to ring him again in research as soon as Fury was open. He really wanted to speak with Rogers first—who was terribly late at this point.

He turned back to his audience. “Would you mind holding the end of this tape, Miss...” Though he knew their names now, Bucky always preferred to let people introduce themselves: it made them feel more in control of the situation.

“I’m Natasha Romanoff, and that’s Miss Peggy Carter, and Mr. Sam Wilson,” she said. Her demeanor was daring; she didn’t believe for a moment he didn’t already know their names.

“How do you do,” Bucky said. “I’m James Barnes. But, uh, I guess you already knew that.” Miss Romanoff allowed a faint amusement.

“What are you putting in here,” Miss Carter began, “a wet bar? Bowling lanes?”

He gave a forced smile. “Is Mr. Rogers coming in today, or is he in the building? He is the head of your department, isn’t he?”

“Oh yes,” Miss Carter said. “He might be on the thirty-first floor, having a conference with his boss. I’m sure he’ll be back any minute.” She was covering for him, he could tell. “Why don’t you wait in his office? It’s so much more comfortable.” And you can play with your little tape as much as you wish, her tart tone said.

He rolled up the tape and let Wilson usher him to a chair. Rogers’s office was modern but eclectic: a wooden door at the left had the same diamond-shaped grain pattern as all the other design elements in the building, and there were small sketches, paintings, and art prints—some obviously from the WPA before the war—scattered across the walls. More filing cabinets filled up space, and a long, trailing vine followed the high picture rail for at least ten feet. Piled about the floor were stacks of books, most of them dedicated to art history and architecture. There were many beautifully designed objects placed with an almost curatorial eye about the shelves—tea and coffee pots, cups and glasses, vases and bookends, statues, office supplies, all of which looked like they had come from the Museum of Modern Art. He rarely met anyone on the job who so clearly appreciated art and design—who chose these elements because they simply enjoyed and wanted them rather than because the empty space needed décor—and Bucky grew intrigued.

Through the glass walls, he could hear the staff talking. “Maybe he’s redecorating,” Mr. Wilson offered, which made Miss Romanoff laugh: “Oh, you’re so painfully optimistic,” she rejoined.

Well, he thought, peeking at his watch, if Rogers didn’t make it in soon, Bucky’d have to leave, intrigue or not.

“Hey, kids,” Steve Rogers called out as he burst through the office doors, juggling a large box under one arm while trying to take his coat off with the other, “look what I snagged at Bonwit’s for Shar—”

He was tackled by all three of his staff and they hustled him to the side of room, their combined voices battering him at once. “What the—”

“Shhhh,” they hissed. Peggy pulled his coat and hat off as Sam took the box away. “Look busy,” Peggy warned, “you’ve been in conference all morning.”

“Okay, what the heck’s going on here?” Steve demanded as Natasha unwrapped his scarf and yanked his gloves off his hands, her green eyes flashing him a warning.

“There’s a strange character in your office who’s been waiting for you,” Nat said, jerking her head to the right.

He peered into his office, swiping at his ruffled hair. “What did I do?”

“We hear Fury sent him here, and just in case he’s anybody who can do anything to anybody else, you—”

“Oh come on,” Steve said. “You guys are overreacting. Criminy, I was here till ten o’clock last night and this morning I had to be at IBM for a demonstration of those new electronic brains. So what if I stopped off at Bonwit’s to pick up something nice for my girlfriend.” He’d like to see the bosses do something about it.

A man stepped out of his office—a very handsome man. Almost Steve’s height, with nice shoulders and slim hips not easily camouflaged by his fashionably cut deep blue suit. Dark hair, pale skin, blue eyes that were set off by the suit’s hue and which made Steve think of a rainy fall day. “Mr. Rogers?” he prompted in a slightly scratchy voice. His mouth was...no, don’t notice his mouth, Steve told himself.

“Uh-oh, you got me,” Steve said, swatting at Nat as he tried to take his gloves back.

The man walked over to Steve and held out his hand. “James Barnes. Most people call me Bucky.”

“Like the pitcher.” Steve shook his hand, his heartbeat increasing speed.

“Or the manager,” Mr. Barnes said with a nod. “You know your baseball, too, I see.” He gave Peggy a quick glance, and Steve followed his eyes. How long had Barnes been here that he knew Peggy was a baseball expert? “Though I never had much fondness for the Yankees.”

“Well, they’re no Dodgers, that’s true.”

Barnes smiled serenely. Maybe he was more of a Giants fan. Or maybe he was just bitter because both teams were moving to the West Coast. One sympathized. “This seems like a very charming office. Do you like it here?”

Steve twitched his head to the side. Such a peculiar question to ask right out of the gate. Handsome as he was, Barnes seemed to be fishing for something, and Steve didn’t like it when he couldn’t gauge what someone wanted; he’d always been right about his first impressions of people. His gut said Barnes might be all right, but there was something...masked about him. “Yeah, very much. Why, if I didn’t work here, I’d pay to get in.” He smiled. “So, tell me, are you from the story department, Mr. Barnes? Another network, maybe?”

“Oh no,” Barnes said, “I’m not.” But he didn’t elaborate, infuriatingly enough, only asked, “Would you mind if we had a little chat in your office?”

Steve knew a military man when he saw one. Barnes was young, or at least, younger than Steve, even though a few deep lines etched around those lovely eyes looked pretty damn hard-earned, as from loss or suffering. A veteran, most likely, because there was a glove on his left hand. Possibly from a battle wound? Steve grew more interested by the second. “Yes, of course, right this way.”

With a shrug to his team, Steve followed Barnes in and told him to have a seat. “So, Mr. Barnes, what can I help you with?” Steve asked as Natasha brought Barnes’s coat and hat to him, pretending to tidy something on the filing cabinet outside Steve’s door. Barnes craned backwards to shut it—Steve supposed he could tell him that it wouldn’t make much difference, since the glass really didn’t muffle any sound, but he didn’t care if Barnes gave anything away to his team, and Steve wasn’t interested in making him comfortable.

His guest slipped a pair of dark-blue-framed glasses on, which only served to make him more handsome, and pulled out a notepad and pen. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of your staff, because to be honest, whenever people find out what I do, they tend to panic.”

Steve blinked. “My goodness. What on earth do you do?”

“I’m a methods engineer.”

Settling back in his chair, Steve asked, “Is that an efficiency expert of some kind?”

“Well, that term’s a little outmoded. We don’t really use it these days.” Barnes leaned forward, all polite and friendly.

He shrugged it off. “Oops. Guess I’m just an old-fashioned guy. Outmoded myself.” Lord knew he certainly felt that way, after they’d dug him out and brought him back to life. Five years wasn’t that long, but to Steve it had been eternity.

“You don’t look all that old to me. Did you serve in the war?”

His fishing attempt amused Steve, so he thought he’d go ahead and answer. “Yes, I did. A corporal in the infantry.”

“I would have pegged you for early thirties at most. And a looey at least.”

“No, just a foot soldier.” Steve rummaged in his desk and pulled out his special plant food; he didn’t really want Barnes to see how talking about that made him feel, so he mixed it up while Barnes waited for more of a response. Technically, Steve was only in his early thirties, what with the lost years of suspended animation, but that was not a secret for this man to know.

Steve cleared his throat. “You don’t look like...a methods engineer.” Barnes was impeccably groomed: his tie was a red silk that changed colors depending on the angle of the light, sometimes black or almost brown; the white shirt was blinding and crisply starched; his hat looked brand new; and Steve would eat his own hat if that coat wasn’t exquisite alpaca wool at the least, maybe even vicuña. Either methods engineering paid well or he came from money.

“Oh? What does one look like?” Barnes sounded delighted.

“Usually they’re goofy guys with pocket shields and slide rules on their belts.”

The corner of his mouth tugged up. “I do have a slide rule back at the office.”

This conversation was making Steve feel...very strange, so he changed tack. “I thought I knew everyone in the building, but I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

Out of the corner of his eye as he mixed the plant food, he caught Barnes fidgeting. “I’ve been around a little. Kind of here and there.”

“I see. So...migratory. Like a bird.”

Barnes let out a dry laugh. He had a great smile and a good laugh, Steve thought, the kind you wanted to hear a lot—but he immediately chided himself. His life, his future, was with Sharon. “So, tell me, Mr. Barnes, what would a methods engineer want with my little squad?”

Adjusting his glasses, Barnes said, “Plotting some information, applying that to improve the work and human-hour relationship. Time is money, as they say.”

Steve got up to water the philodendron. “I’ve heard that. Usually from people who make the most money off of the time of those less fortunate than them.” It wouldn’t bother Steve at all to cost Barnes some of either. He did not like being kept in the dark, and if Fury was looking for a way to gut his department by using Barnes’s...methods, whatever they were, then Steve wouldn’t make it easy for them. When he turned around, Barnes was studying him, but not in the way Steve expected: he seemed...enchanted, maybe, and the way he’d watched Steve’s backside made him feel as though the room had suddenly increased in temperature by ten degrees. “Green thumb,” Steve found himself confessing, and Barnes nodded. “I found it helpful to concentrate on growing things, after the war.”

“Building something, creating. I know what you mean.” And Steve believed him, that he knew such sentiment well. That despite his age he’d lived a lifetime of suffering. Whatever had brought him to wear that glove indoors? It hurt Steve’s heart to think.

Steve was saved by the bell—it was Maria, calling for Barnes. He took the phone from Steve and said, after a pause, “Yes, I’m here with him now... Making some evaluations. I think we’re heading in the right direction.” Steve gave a cheerless little laugh when Barnes glanced at him. “All right, I’ll see you in a minute, Mr. Fury.”

“Fury?” Steve asked, but Barnes, infuriatingly enough, wasn’t any more forthcoming than before.

He rose to leave, so Steve stood, opening the wooden door behind him instead. “You’ll get to Fury’s office faster if you take the back elevators.”

“Oh, thank you,” Barnes said, staring just a beat too long. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Rogers.”

He closed his door and sat at his desk, contemplating what Fury must have up his sleeve. Steve genuinely liked Fury: he went out of his way to hire veterans, to offer careers for people who normally didn’t have these chances, but he’d been cagey lately about a lot of things. After seeing the presentation at IBM this morning and coming in to find an efficiency expert sniffing around, Steve was beginning to smell a rat. Picking up the phone, he dialed upstairs. “Maria? Steve. Say—what do you know about James Barnes—” But he was cut off when the door behind him opened and he turned to find Mr. Barnes there, sheepishly looking around the room. He lifted things up on Steve’s desk, crossed to the couch. “I’ll have to call you back with that information,” Steve said, hanging up. “Trouble?” Steve asked.

“Missing my tape measure...” Barnes said.

“What did it look like?”

“Just a plain, ordinary tape measure—ah, there it is!” he said when Steve got up to help him search. Barnes snatched it off his chair and smiled, bringing a little tingle of electricity with it when his gaze landed on Steve’s rear end.

Once again, Steve watched him leave, flummoxed. However, there wasn’t time to focus on it, because Peggy flew into his office, Natasha and Sam fluttering behind. “What’s he on about?” she demanded. “And what’s up with that glove on his hand?” Natasha wondered. The way they surrounded him made Steve think of the time those Hydra chuckleheads had pressed in on him with flamethrowers. Taking his jacket off, Steve rolled up his sleeves and asked Natasha for a cigarette; she pulled a pack out of her dress pocket and reached for the lighter on his desk.

“You don’t smoke,” Sam said, and Peggy tipped her head to the side as she told him, “He only smokes when he believes there’s a crisis. Which there hasn’t been since the war, so tell us—who is Barnes and what does he want?” Peggy had been a spy—Steve couldn’t imagine she wasn’t already assessing every danger their handsome infiltrator represented. But he couldn’t let the others work themselves into a tizzy.

“He’s an engineer,” Steve said, tapping the cigarette on his wrist.

“That explains why he was measuring stuff,” Natasha said.

“Measuring?” That was not good.

“Yes,” she said with a shrug, “he was measuring around desks and on the upper floor.”

“Oh!” Sam brightened. “Maybe we’re getting that air conditioner we’ve been asking for.”

“That’d figure,” Natasha muttered. “Bring it in at Thanksgiving when we were dying in August.” Steve had to bring the anxiety down a notch.

“Sure, bet you that’s what it is.” Someone’s phone was ringing and he looked at the lights blinking on his. “Your phone, Peggy?” She favored him with a withering stare before they returned to their desks. “Sam,” Steve asked, stopping him, “got any requests you want me to check?” Sam had only been here since March and was still learning the ropes; he’d had excellent credentials with a degree from Howard University, but this was a far faster-paced office than most and a fairly intimidating job for anyone. Besides, it’d take Steve’s mind off the Barnes situation.

“A few, yeah,” Sam said, handing the pale green slips on his desk to Steve.

“The Times index for this one,” Steve said, waving the paper. “Use the Old Farmer’s Almanac for this—if not, the weather information service, but see if you can’t find it in the almanac first, I find it’s incredibly accurate and saves time. And this one’s from the Bible. Book of Amos, chapter one.” He retrieved the package from Bonwit Teller that he’d come in with.

Sam was furiously scribbling on the notes, but he raised his head and said, “Thank you.” He was always so cheerful and upbeat, even when Steve stage-managed him.

In his office, Steve set the box down on the sofa and untied the string, peeking at the dress inside. Sharon was going to love this, it would be worth every penny—and there’d been lots of them, because it was an expensive dress even with the discount. Not that he minded so much: he didn’t exactly live an extravagant lifestyle and he had more money than he needed after receiving his adjusted back pay for the missing years. He enjoyed lavishing it on Sharon, especially since he was certain they didn’t pay her nearly what the other executives at that level got, simply because she was a woman—and so determined to make it on her own, to the point of not seeking help from her family.

Steve didn’t have a chance to admire the dress because his phone rang again with a request from one of the quiz show question-prep kids, asking about The Song of Hiawatha, and Steve easily slipped into a sing-song recitation of the familiar poem until the gal had what she needed.

Sam knocked on the glass before entering his office. “Here’s the fiver I owe you, Mr—I mean, Steve,” he said as he handed Steve a crisp five-dollar bill. His pay didn’t truly reflect the level of work Sam was doing, and now that he was out of the trial period, Steve really wanted to get his salary increased. It had cost Sam and his family a fair amount to transfer everything up here after his service was over—New York life was not cheap, and the 1952 GI Bill hadn’t done much to help the black soldiers who’d served their country. Sam and his new bride, Misty, deserved so much more.

“Thank you, Sam, you can keep it if you need it. I don’t want it, I could gladly wait till payday,” and then he laughed, because he realized he was still speaking in the poem’s rise-and-fall cadence. “On the shores of Gitche Gumee.”

Sam joined in his laughter and stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. “James Witcomb Riley!”

He put a hand on Sam’s elbow. “Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.” Oh, he hated correcting him.

With a groan, Sam said, “Sorry. Hey, I sharpened all your pencils before Mr. Barnes disrupted everything. And there’s a bunch of new manila envelopes in your bottom drawer.” After Steve thanked him, Sam added, “And I’d be glad to stay late anytime you need me. You shouldn’t have to stay here as late as you did last night.”

“Thank you, Sam, that’s really thoughtful. Don’t worry about it, though—my cat is very well fed and could easily survive a few extra hours without her dinner on her fat alone.” He tapped Sam’s arm. “You’re really ambitious and generous, and I appreciate that, more than you know. Just get to know the reference library as well as you can and it won’t be long till I can recommend you for a raise, okay?”

“Understood,” Sam said. “Thank you so much.” As soon as Sam left, Steve pounced on the phone to squeeze more gossip out of Maria—but alas, there was little he hadn’t already heard.

This time he got as far as taking the dress out of the box before being interrupted. “I don’t think it’s your size,” Peggy said tartly behind him, and he whirled, face heating. He quickly stuffed the dress back in.

“Maybe little me could have fit in it,” and the two of them shared a smile at the image. “It’s for the dance at Sharon’s parents’ country club on the twelfth. I’m hoping she’ll agree to go—even though I’ve brought it up a few times already, she’s been kind of noncommittal.” Peggy stared at him in that truculent way he remembered from the time she’d tried to shoot him.

Prefaced with a sigh, Peggy laid it out. “Steve, take it from me—when a lady’s that unwilling to commit to a date, it speaks volumes. If the other Carter in your life decides she wants to go to the dance—and that’s a big if—do yourself a favor: suddenly recall that because you hadn’t heard from her, you’d rescheduled. You’re all booked up.” She eyed the dress. “And that I’ll take back to the shop on my own so you don’t get cold feet and acquiesce.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Don’t make that face. It’s why she always waits until forever to make a date with you—she knows you’re always there, waiting with those puppy-dog eyes for a meager scrap of her attention. And like a dog, you forgive her the treatment. For once, don’t wait at the door with her slippers.”

He knew what Peggy was saying, but...he didn’t have that ability to be ruthless or devious about his affections. He’d been a little hurt, once they’d woken him up, to see how easily she’d moved on—at least till he’d found out it hadn’t been easy for her at all. Heartbroken, Howard had told him, and she’d struggled for a couple years, trying to move on. But she’d found happiness after a time with Gabe—not to mention she’d willingly thrown her spy career away to come work with him, so she hadn’t been so ruthless as all that. Steve couldn’t fault her for trying to protect him. They loved each other uniquely, but Peggy Carter was strong in a way Steve wasn’t, and if she knew something was unhealthy for her, she’d cut it out like a cancer.

“She’d just go find herself a new puppy.” Steve shrugged, defeated.

“Would it be so bad if she did?” Peggy asked softly and led him over to the couch.

“Yes. I think it would.” Before the serum, before Peggy, he’d never had any luck in love; after he came back...well. He knew women found him attractive—and men, too, he wasn’t blind to that even though he’d never risked himself in such a way again—but outside of Sharon, he couldn’t bring himself to try dating. She’d been the first woman he’d thought could match Peggy in most respects, and she was incredibly understanding about the scars war had left on him.

Dying, and being resurrected, had put Steve in touch with a part of himself he might not have discovered if he’d continued on as Captain America in the post-war years. All he’d wanted after coming back was to live a quiet life, to be a private citizen again with all that entailed, to keep his head down and just…be in the world. This job—and Sharon—had helped him do that. But Peggy wanted more of the world for him, she wanted Steve to be as happy romantically as she and Gabe were. She didn’t want him to settle.

“Oh, dearest Steve,” Peggy said, drawing his head down to her shoulder, petting his hair. “We only want the utmost happiness for you, you know. You’ve spent five years putting that on hold while she climbs the corporate ladder. I wish her every success, you know that, she’s lovely, but I do so worry that you’ll keep pushing that happiness back until the time you can no longer even see it, and then it’s too late.”

He sat up and kissed her cheek. “Well, if that happens, then I’ll move into your house and take in stray animals.”

She whacked him on the arm. “I don’t like animals—I like men.” She got up and smoothed her skirt. “And so do you, sometimes,” she added with a saucy grin. “Maybe you should think on that.”

“Untrue. You love Biscuit and she loves you.” Steve squinted at her, though. “Are you saying I should...take a stroll on that side of the street again?” In the war, she’d been aware of his dalliances with a few fellows from other divisions, before they’d met—and he’d been a bit floored to find she hadn’t been that fussed about it. She’d had as little patience for jealousy and possessiveness as he had, with a more strikingly cosmopolitan outlook.

With a Sphinx-like smile, Peggy drifted past and landed a smack on his behind, her perfume lingering in the air. “Nothing of the kind, dear heart.”

At the main doors, he saw Sharon pass through, looking as beautiful as always—her blond hair was done up in a chignon, and her smart gray tweed skirt and jacket were accented with a magenta blouse and pumps. “Hello, Sharon,” Steve said as she swept into his office and stood on tiptoes for a kiss, but he only gave her a quick peck on the cheek, and she pouted. “You keep forgetting I work in a glass cage.”

“Oh, Steve, you’re so wonderfully square.” Yet she flashed a smile, and he held up the dress. “That better be for me, because it’ll never fit you.” He pretended he hadn’t already heard that joke. “It’s lovely,” she gushed. The emerald green would make her eyes look like the sea, and the acres of tulle in the skirt would emphasize that tiny waist.

“Just a little something I picked up for you on approval.”

“I approve, emphatically,” and she tried to kiss him again; he dodged it. “They must have seen you coming a mile away, though, and smelled fear. They probably could have sold you a Givenchy gown.”

“I do radiate ‘easy mark.’ Would you like a Givenchy gown?”

“Don’t you dare.” This time she did sneak a kiss in. “Everyone knows you haven’t got a brain in that handsome head of yours,” she said, taking his hand as he set the dress down. “The only way you keep your job is by being nice to me.”

“A fella’s gotta work.” He squeezed her hand, happy to flirt with her. Damn Peggy for putting those thoughts in his head, because he was waiting for Sharon to say something about what she wanted from him.

“Oh, speaking of work.” There it was. She pulled some paper from her jacket pocket. “Those damn budget projections—I wondered if you could go over them for me?” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Peggy watching them. I will not give her the satisfaction of noticing her triumphant smirk.

“Sure, I’d be happy to.” Although he wasn’t. He sat down at his desk and picked up a red pencil; he enjoyed accounting to a degree, though it had never been his strongest suit.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She rubbed his shoulders. “I feel as though I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Not quite. Just a week ago Monday.” He crossed a few things out that they no longer tracked in Sharon’s department.

“Still, I’ve missed you every day. There’s been so much pressure lately with the fellows upstairs. I don’t know why I let it get me so nervous—these meetings.” She took to pacing around, which unsettled him, especially after Barnes’s visit.

“They do that to you because they’re men, and we’re awful to women. You know. It’s just their annual war dance, anyway. End of year stuff puffs up their egos.” Sharon sat down next to him.

“I shouldn’t let it get to me. Any sign of weakness, they attack. And they already think I’m weak just by virtue of my sex. If only all men were like you.”

“That’d be boring. I’m a square, remember.” He looked up from the report, getting lost in her eyes for a bit, her fingers caressing the back of his hand. “It’s as I said before. It’s their war dance.”

“Oh, speaking of—did you still want to go to the dance at Mom and Dad’s club on the twelfth?” Peggy was on the phone but he could see her out there, watching. “You didn’t give up on me, did you, and make other plans?”

The effort to be indifferent made him grit his teeth. “Let me just check my datebook.” He pretended to double-check the blank day. “You’re in luck, looks like I’m free.”

Her smile was awfully knowing. “I sort of thought it might be, unless you’ve taken to buying dance-worthy dresses on a whim.”

“You caught me.” Crap, he truly was a pathetic puppy, wagging his tail for every tiny crumb of affection. They hadn’t always been like this together. “Better mark it down so I don’t forget it.”

When she said with a wink, “Yes, you should,” he frowned. Sharon could play him like a harp. Her hand slid over his. “We’ll have so much fun.”

It made his heart race, everything was instantly forgotten. “You better get going or I’ll never finish this.”

“Sorry. You should finish that, yes.” As she rose, her chest brushed his shoulder. “You could bring it up when you’re done.” Oh, he wanted to—but she didn’t have a glass wall, and that was not safe.

“No,” Steve breathed, helpless when her voice got low like that. “I’ll send it up.”

“All right,” she grumbled. “But don’t forget—we’ll drive up to the club on the eleventh.”

“The dance is on the twelfth.”

“We’re going for the weekend, darling. Staying at Mom and Dad’s.”

“Oh? Great! If it snows, we can get in some skiing.” Not that Steve relished being in the snow—he’d had enough of that for a lifetime and he hated it now; he’d reluctantly learned to ski in the war with the Tenth Mountain, but she was absolutely nuts for it.

“And if it doesn’t,” Sharon purred, toying with the buttons on his shirt, “we can cuddle up by the fire and...chat.” Well, didn’t that sound promising. His hands cupped her elbows, he almost pulled her to him for a kiss but caught himself. “’Bye,” Sharon whispered. As she strode through the office, she said, “See you later, everyone. Remember our motto: be on time, do your work, and be down in the bar at five thirty.” The team had a great rapport with her, which made sense—she wasn’t down here that often, so she could be easygoing with them, relaxed, because in a way, Sharon found this a safe haven.

“Coffee break time,” Natasha reminded everyone, tapping her watch. “We better get down there if we want a seat.”

Everyone headed for the elevators, but Steve had Peggy hang back, beaming. “She said yes, Peggy.”

“Oh, Steve, what a wonderful surprise!” she cried, spinning him around. “I had no idea you were planning to ask her. When’s the date? I’m so happy for you!”

Shaking his head a little in disbelief, he hugged her hard. “It’s the twelfth. It’s always been the twelfth.”

Her whole body sagged and she scowled at the ceiling. “That dance? You’re talking about that damn dance.”

“Of course the dance. What did you think I mea— You thought I meant a proposal?”

“What did you want me to think? ‘Peggy, she said yes!’” Peggy mocked, clutching her hands to her bosom and rolling her eyes. “Usually that sort of buildup is in fact reserved for engagements.”

Steve tapped her lightly on the rear end. “Well, she also said it’d be for the whole weekend, so there. Not just a dance. And she wants to talk.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s episode of Lassie,” she lamented, holding her hands up like begging puppy paws as they walked out the door.

Fury’s office was every bit as large and expensively designed as the outer lobby and secretaries’ areas, and Bucky found himself wandering around it, examining items as he explained what they’d be doing with EMERAC.

Three shallow steps led down into a large circular section, like those sunken living rooms in trendy apartments he’d seen in Architectural Digest. A huge grand piano was stationed to the right at Fury’s two o’clock, Fury’s enormous round desk dead center, and to his nine o’clock was a curved bank with three television screens. Past those sat a large oval conference table in front of a massive stone fireplace wall, and comfortable leather chairs, all modern, were scattered around the room. The objets d’art were a mix of African and Asian sculptures and paintings, with a sprinkling of art deco elements that had probably been here since the building was built in the early ’30s.

It was an appealing space to Bucky’s sensibilities, although perhaps unnecessarily expansive, show-offy. His own apartment was furnished with many similar pieces, though he had no use for so much of it—he just appreciated the tastes of whomever had decorated it. “I think the physical setup is good, there’s a lot of room in their office.”

“That’s good to hear,” Fury said, watching Bucky as he examined a sculpture on the piano.

“But I believe it’ll be pretty different from anything that’s been designed before. It’s a really fascinating puzzle.” And one that he would like to enlist the aid of Steve Rogers to solve, though he’d already been warned by the execs at SII not to talk too much about the project. Bucky’s interests weren’t pure, he’d be first to admit: the chance to admire Rogers’s plush mouth and stunning blue eyes would make every day of this project both a pleasure and a curse. He’d thought for a minute he’d seen a spark in those eyes when he’d introduced himself to Rogers, but that had died pretty quickly once they’d started talking and Bucky’d received such a frosty reception.

“But not impossible, right?” Fury seemed to value getting to the point, which Bucky appreciated, but he also thought maybe Fury was a bit too gung-ho to start before they knew all the parameters.

“Oh no, not at all. We’ve made a lot of strides in just the past few years. Visual readoffs are all centralized, miniaturized, and set on schematic panels now.” Bucky took a pen from the sculpted brass holder on Fury’s desk. “The data is all automatically calculated and then computed, and there’s an automatic typewritten panalog”—he leaned down and started sketching out what he was saying on a legal pad—“you see sir, the—”

Fury waved his hands at Bucky, standing. “Hang on. I don’t understand a damn thing you’re saying. If you think it can be done, that’s all I care about.”

That always seemed to be the point where he lost the executives. What he couldn’t understand was why they didn’t want to understand this stuff. It was dynamic, and futuristic, and changing the world every minute—how could they not be fascinated? But Bucky put on a smile and stuck the pen back in the holder. “All right. I’ll tell you what, though—I’d really like to hang around the department for the next few weeks, maybe even a month. Get a comprehensive picture of how it works.” Yeah, he had work to do—but it was a pretty visually appealing department, so maybe not much of a hardship there.

“I can arrange that. I’ll call Sharon Carter, she’s in charge of that department.”

That was startling—first, that Rogers had another boss above him instead of just the vice president, and second, that the boss was a woman. This was sure different from any other place he’d worked in. “Uhh...you mean Mr. Rogers isn’t in charge? I thought he was overseeing the whole thing.”

“Oh no, he definitely runs things down there, but he’s not in charge of that particular division. Miss Carter is.” How many Carters were running around this building? Bucky wondered.

“Oh, well...how ’bout we not bother her.” If Fury asked him why, Bucky wasn’t sure he’d have a good answer. Maybe he just wanted to focus his dealings on Rogers. That didn’t bear examining too closely.

“Suit yourself,” Fury said, confused. “But promise me one thing—don’t let the kids in research know what you’re doing here.”

“I’m sorry?” Howard Stark had told Bucky plenty about Mr. Fury: that he had run a squad of commandos who often worked with Captain America during the war, that he liked to hire as many veterans as he could, that he’d left a career in the military because Howard had wanted someone tough and efficient and smart to build his fledgling TV network. There might be political machinations going on that he wasn’t important enough to know about, but still—he didn’t want to be party to secret-keeping. He’d had enough of that in the goddamn war, and look where that had got him.

“I don’t want them to know anything about this big merger that’s coming up. It’s vital that it be kept a secret. I mean, it’s tough to keep anything a secret in a place like this, but no matter what happens, don’t answer any questions. Understood?”

Bucky grunted his disapproval, though he held his hands out, as amiable as possible. “I’ll be creeping around there for a while—might end up thinking I’m some kind of Peeping Tom.”

“They work for me, doesn’t matter what they think. And this is one thing I prefer they not know. Did your superiors tell you everything in the war?” He said it with an avuncular smile, but it rankled.

“I suppose not. As you wish, Mr. Fury—they won’t hear anything from me.” Picking up his coat and hat, Bucky went toward to the doors. “You know, your office is bigger than the entire research department.” He didn’t know why he’d said that, other than that he was annoyed to be roped into this funny business with secret mergers. Into something Steve Rogers would probably not like.

“It oughta be,” Fury said. “If the president’s office doesn’t impress the advertisers, then there won’t be anything for the team in research to research. Got another one just like it on the thirty-first floor. Want it?” Bucky laughed along with Fury, just for show.

“No thanks.”

“You don’t really care about crap like this, do you? Don’t care whether you impress people or not.” The way he said it made Bucky think he had once been like that himself. But as much as Bucky appreciated the décor and architectural details in here, he found such displays of importance kind of...pitiable. The world had changed so much in the few years he’d been taken away from it; he deplored the craving for money and status, the desire for useless things he’d seen in so many of his acquaintances when he returned. It fit with the political climate, he supposed, but he wondered sometimes what they’d really fought and died for if all that mattered anymore was accumulating wealth and power and impressing shallow advertisers.

“Just wait’ll you get my bill, you’ll be impressed enough,” Bucky said with a pasted-on grin, and left.

Outside Fury’s office, Bucky stood there for a while, trying to decide if he should go back to SII or stick around. There were things to chat with Mr. Stark about before he left New York—Bucky knew he was still involved with the intelligence agency in Washington and was ramping up his weapons company, divesting some of his other holdings to focus on those—and he still wanted to continue the conversation with Rogers that had been cut off. Seeing Rogers won.

When he entered, the research office was empty, one of the phones ringing off the hook. “Oh, dry up!” Rogers bellowed from somewhere near the back of the shelves, which made Bucky laugh. “Reference, Barnes speaking, can I help you?” he said, picking up Wilson’s phone.

As he was speaking to the woman on the line, a strange little old lady dressed entirely in black came in, taking tiny, mincing steps up the stairs, pulling a volume off the shelf, coming back down, and writing something on a pad. Ripping the piece of paper off the pad, she tossed it at him. He watched the whole thing, frozen, mouth hanging open; she left as inexplicably as she’d entered.

Startled out of his astonishment as Mr. Rogers came around the back corner, Bucky nearly snapped the phone handset in his metal hand at the sight of him. While he’d been gone, Rogers had ditched his jacket and rolled his sleeves up on his rugged forearms, and Bucky could see how narrow his hips were, how his torso tapered dramatically from such broad shoulders and chest. The faint pink of his shirt set off his sandy blond hair and pale skin, the pencil he was clenching in his teeth emphasized that luscious lower lip. A pair of tortoiseshell glasses completed the look, and Bucky was left slightly dizzy by the view.

Rogers took the pencil out of his mouth, flipping through the pages of a book. “Thank you so much for getting that call, I hope it wasn’t too much trouble,” and he picked up the phone, read something off to the caller, then told them he’d send it right up. Something nagged at Bucky’s memory, listening to him talk—his voice had sounded so familiar earlier, he could have sworn they’d met before—but Bucky would have remembered Steve Rogers if they had met. You didn’t forget someone like that. His physical movements, too, the way he inhabited the space around him...it struck some chord Bucky couldn’t quite recall, a long-forgotten song.

“No trouble at all. Mr. Rogers, could I ask you who this person is?” Bucky showed him the light blue check-out slip.

With a warm chuckle, he said, “That’s her right there. She’s our logo.” He pointed to a picture near the door of a woman in a Grecian gown and elaborate Grecian hairstyle, holding a globe of light, leg provocatively thrust forward and exposed. There was a large golden statue of the same woman up in Fury’s lobby. “She’s been with the company for thirty-six years, in a way. I guess I’m not surprised you didn’t recognize her—she’s changed her hair.” He winked.

Christ almighty. Oh, Bucky was a goner. Not only was Steve Rogers gorgeous, he was funny and clever and... Bucky loved being teased by a beautiful boy. This would be the hardest mission he’d ever taken since he’d entered civilian life.

“Where is everyone, anyway?” he asked, masking the nerves that fluttered in his chest. It seemed rough that they’d left Rogers alone to hold down the fort.

“Coffee break,” Rogers explained, stuffing the book in an interoffice envelope.

Bucky tried to regain some composure. “Uh...Mr. Rogers, are you free for lunch? If you don’t take coffee breaks?”

“Lunch? You mean— Me and you?” he asked with a furtive glance around the room.

“Well, yes. Is there a corporate policy against—”

“No, not at all, I just— Never mind. Let me check my book.” He went toward his office but seemed to think better of it, turned. “I just remembered I’m free.” None too happy about it, as though he was being volunteered for a deadly mission.

“Great. I’ve got some questions for you. Quarter to one?”

A guarded expression settled on his face. “Sounds great,” he said through gritted teeth.

If he took a cab, Bucky could zip over to the SII building in a couple minutes, allowing him to catch Mr. Stark. Then he could walk back and stop at his favorite deli, just around the corner from the plaza at SII. He really loved that building; his favorite thing to do in nice weather was to sit by the plaza’s fountain. It made him feel he’d cheated the system, a boy who’d been raised in coldwater flats and rundown houses in Brooklyn now holding down a Park Avenue office with a view, high up in one of the most striking new buildings in the city, friends with someone like Howard Stark, working to bring his machines to the world. Not bad for lowly Sergeant James Barnes.

Stark was his usual preoccupied self, attempting to do at least three things at once while listening to Bucky give the rundown of his discussion with Fury.

“Eh,” Stark said, “I don’t think Rogers and his little band will make any difference to the merger. I know for a fact he can keep his mouth shut very well, and so can his right-hand gal Carter.”

Bucky twitched his head. That was an interesting piece of information.

Stark fixed him with a look. “I knew them in the war, and...well, after, I guess you could say. Miss Carter even helped me out of a jam. But that’s a tale for another day.” If he’d been paying more attention and not leafing through his briefcase, Stark might not have been so forthcoming. Bucky looked out the window at the view, wondering if he should pry more from Stark while he was still unguarded.

The snap of the case’s clasp shook him out of his reverie. He didn’t need to know that much about Steve Rogers. Nothing would happen there. It was just work.

“I like you, Bucky. I like that you’re thinking ahead for the company, and for me.”

“You don’t think that if the merger goes through and you’re not the controlling interest, the FBC might not look into other companies’ machines?”

Stark gave him a dashing smile. “Nah, we have way too many...connections over there, let’s just say.”

He seemed to flit from interest to interest—there must be plenty of other plots Stark had cooking. Bucky just hoped that he wouldn’t tire of this someday soon—it wasn’t as if he couldn’t find employment elsewhere, and Stark wouldn’t leave him behind. But Bucky liked what he was doing: he enjoyed computer science, figuring out the problems of how to automate jobs to allow more freedom for employees. Liked Mr. Stark himself. These past few years had been very good to him.

He held the door open for Stark and they rode in the elevator down to the lobby. When Stark was getting inside his car, Bucky asked, “Any other advice?”

Stark laughed, tossing his case in the back seat. “Let Rogers surprise you.”

At Bucky’s befuddled “Sir?” he said, “He’s a surprising guy, and I think you two could be pals if you keep an open mind. And stop calling me sir.” It drove Stark crazy that Bucky still wouldn’t call him Howard to his face.

He stared at the fountain for a while, puzzling on that, before heading to the deli. Bucky should have asked Rogers what kind of sandwiches he liked—a few days ago he’d scoped out the rooftop terrace and thought they’d go up there for lunch; it was a dry day and there was a fantastic panoramic view. The deli was, unfortunately, crazy busy—and if Bucky was late, he had a feeling that’d be another strike in Rogers’s book.

Sure enough, Bucky was late, bursting into the reference office to find Rogers sitting in a chair by Miss Carter’s desk, coat and hat on, gloves clutched in his hand, glowering. He noted with disappointment that Rogers’s glasses were gone. “Sorry I’m late,” Bucky offered.

“I was starting to think I’d misunderstood.” Rogers said it in a way that imparted he rarely ever misunderstood anything.

“Really, I do apologize. I’m never late, but I got held up.”

His brows went up on “never late.” “That’s evidently untrue.”

Bucky frowned and ushered him to the elevator. “So, tell me, Mr. Rogers, what training did you have for your job?” He pushed the Up button as Rogers pulled his hat off.

“Well... I studied fine arts at the Art Students League, but even with work from print shops and the WPA, I ran out of money, and then the war came. After the war, I went a different direction and took the library course at Columbia. I considered staying on for a PhD, but through some connections I found out about this position, and it seemed like the logical step.” He paused. “Is this an interview? I wish I’d known, I’d have gotten a haircut.”

Bucky sighed inwardly. “Not at all. Just getting the skinny.”

The elevator doors opened and the operator asked, “Down?” When Bucky said “no thank you,” Rogers swiveled his head sharply, scowling. Uh-oh. He waited expectantly for more.

“My father died a few years after the Great War of wounds he’d received but never fully recovered from—he made a good shot at it, but lost in the end, so my mother raised me alone. She was a nurse in Brooklyn, so as you can imagine, we never had any money.” A long exhale. “I’ve read every paper in New York backwards and forwards for the past seven years. I don’t smoke, and drink only socially, and except for a cat named Biscuit, I live alone, and so do you.”

Bucky drew his head back. “Oh yeah?” he challenged.

“Yeah. You’re impeccably dressed except for the fact that you’re wearing one brown sock and one blue.”

He looked down at his ankles. “How do you like that?” He thought of Howard’s parting words—yeah, he was beginning to see how one could be surprised by Rogers.

“If you lived with someone, they’d have made sure you didn’t go out like that.” Was it his hopeful imagination, or was Rogers fishing?

“I guess that’s the advantage of living alone—no one tells you anything about anything.” He cringed at how misanthropic that sounded. He didn’t necessarily love being around people, not the way he used to, but he was still close to a few people and, of course, his family.

The elevator had made its way back to them and the man asked “Up?” this time; Bucky followed Rogers into the car. “Roof” only generated another Rogers scowl.

The brisk wind that had followed him from the east hit them in the face, bitter and hard, as they stepped out of the vestibule, and he pulled his hat down tighter on his head, his collar up. Rogers visibly shrank back, tightening his coat, tugging his gloves on, pushing his hat down on his blond head with a loud groan. He glanced pointedly at the pigeons dodging the flotsam whipped around by the wind.

“I found this the other day—have you ever been up here?” Bucky set the paper bag with their lunches down on the wrought iron table, pulled the two hot coffees out.

“Yeah, a lot. In July.”

“I should have asked you earlier what you liked, but I got a roast beef and a ham and cheese. Whichever you want.”

With a forced chuckle, he said, “Oh goodie, a picnic.”

His reasons for choosing the roof were to get a bead on Rogers without a lot of interference or talking distractions. And, well, to give himself more of a home field advantage, since he was coming into this a little blind and everywhere else in the building was Rogers’s home turf. “Kind of the ideal place to concentrate, don’t you think? No phones ringing, no waiters to interrupt, no people yammering.”

“No central heating.” Rogers folded in on himself, arms crossed over his chest. When Bucky glanced up at him, he said sourly, “I really don’t like the cold. In fact, I hate it. When the temperature dips below fifty degrees, I find ways to stay indoors.”

He tried to placate him. “Got lots of hot coffee. Take a seat.” Rogers dusted off one of the chairs, disgusted, and took the paper sack, sitting down on it and reaching for the roast beef.

“Now, I’ve got a kind of personality questionnaire here that I wanted to run through with you. Some of the questions might seem a little silly, but you’d be surprised what they say about general intelligence and adaptability, that sort of thing. They might be a bit of a tease for that memory of yours.”

He cocked his head to the left. “A tease, huh?”

Bucky took a bite of his sandwich, then burned his tongue with a gulp of coffee. Probably shouldn’t have used those exact words.

“Just tell me your first responses, don’t dwell on the questions.”

“Got it. Shoot.”

“Okay. Um. Often when we first meet someone, a physical characteristic strikes us. What’s the first thing you notice in a person?”

Rogers took a miserable bite of his sandwich and shivered. “Whether the person is male or female.”

Bucky jotted that down while Rogers drank some coffee. “The next one’s a mathematical problem.” He held the container of celery and olives out for Rogers to take some, but instead he examined the container and said, “Four olives, three pieces of celery. Sum of seven items.”

Bucky was amused, and let it show. They stared at each other for a while, chewing their sandwiches—it was impossible to read his cryptic face, to tell if Rogers was dreaming up ways to murder him or he’d suddenly taken a liking to Bucky.

“So that wasn’t the question, but this is: A train started out at Grand Central with seventeen passengers aboard and a crew of nine. At 125th Street, four got off and nine got on. At White Plains, three got off and one got on. At Chappaqua, nine got off and four got on. And at each stop thereafter, no one got off and no one got on, until the train reached its next to last stop, where five people got off and one got on. Then it reached its destination.”

Rogers scratched his forehead, smiling in the tolerant way you do with an idiot. “Easy. Eleven passengers and a crew of nine.”

Bucky pushed his hat up. “Still not the question.”

Rogers blinked. “Oh. Sorry.” He picked a few olives out of the container and popped them in his mouth. Lord—Bucky was in danger of swooning over Rogers the way his sisters swooned over Elvis Presley.

“How many people got off at Chappaqua?”

This time Rogers didn’t even bother to look at him when he said, “Nine.”

Bucky paused mid-bite. That was just irritating. “Right.”

“Yup. I know.” Rogers pulled his gloves back on, apparently giving up on his sandwich.

“You wanna tell me how you arrived at that answer?”

“Spooky, ain’t it?” and Rogers waggled his eyebrows. “Aren’t you gonna ask me how many people got off at White Plains? Three,” he said, holding up three fingers. “I’ve only been to White Plains three times in my life.”

His grin was kind of galling. “Supposing you’d only been there two times.”

“Ah, but I wasn’t. I was there three times. Aren’t you also going to ask how many people got on at Croton Falls?”

Bucky chewed furiously on his ham and cheese, bit savagely into a piece of celery. He didn’t even like celery. “No mention of Croton Falls in this question.”

“No, but it’s the next to last stop on that line.” With a smirk, Rogers added, “Anyway, one.” He shivered and drank some more of his coffee. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked with exasperation.

“I don’t notice the cold as much these days, I guess.” He looked up to catch Rogers’s brows draw together as he scanned Bucky’s face for something—he wasn’t sure what. “Okay, next question. Do you notice anything unusual about this sentence: Able was I, ere I saw Elba.”

His nose wrinkled. Christ, that was cute. He bit his lip. If Bucky had been cold before, he would be heating up now. “No.” After a pause, he asked, “But somehow I doubt Napoleon ever said that.” Another one of his phony laughs, and he added, “Unless you mean it’s a palindrome? I know another one—Madam, I’m Adam.”

“Uh-huh.” Bucky squinted. Fine. While he enjoyed Mr. Rogers’s sarcastic nature, he felt like mouse trapped between the paws of a very hungry cat. “I doubt he ever said that either, though.” Rogers pretended to acknowledge his joke. “Here’s three telephone numbers. I’m going to read them off just once, see if you can remember them.”

Rogers picked up his sandwich again, not bothering to take his gloves off this time, and waited for Bucky to start.

“Plaza 2-3391, Murray Hill 3-1099, and Plaza 2-3931.” He bit into his sandwich; Rogers was frowning down at his. “Tough question?”

“Tough roast beef.” Well, now he was impugning Bucky’s favorite deli. That was a step too far.

Rogers rattled off all the numbers perfectly, and Bucky swallowed his ham and cheese hard. “You mind telling me how you recalled that?”

“First is Plaza 2, with the year of the bank panic reversed. Second is Murray Hill 3, with thirty-three years after the Norman conquest. And of course the last is Plaza 2 with the number the same as the first, the second and third digits transposed. Except there’s something wrong with that, because I’m pretty sure there’s no Plaza 2 exchange.”

All he could do was blow out a breath. Moving on. “What, if anything, is wrong with— Eh, I guess we can skip that.”

“Whew.” Rogers mimed wiping sweat off his forehead.

Bucky turned his gaze to the sky. “Before this next question, I’ll warn you, there’s a trick. Two words of advice about the trick: never assume.”

“Never assume, huh? Don’t worry about that.” Despite his blatant unhappiness about being on the roof and his dramatic shivering, Rogers was obviously enjoying himself.

“A detective broke into an apartment and found Harry and Grace lying on the floor, dead. Beside them was a small pool of water and some broken glass. Above them on a sofa, looking down at them, was a cat, his back arched. The detective concluded without further investigation that the victims had died of strangulation. How was this conclusion possible?”

“Never assume, right?” Rogers pushed the last bite of sandwich in his mouth and shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

“Never assume.”

“The only thing I’m assuming is...” Swallowing, he chuckled to himself. “Hey, could Harry and Grace...ah, nah, that’s dumb.” With a disarming smile, he leaned forward to ask slyly, “Maybe Harry and Grace were goldfish?”

His mouth fell open, even though it was full—his mother would be appalled at his manners. “No, they weren’t. They were rare tropical fighting fish.” Shaking his head, he added, “Like you.”

Rogers blew out a breath, seeming best pleased not just with himself but with Bucky, and his heart did a little flip: his arrogance may have been infuriating, but Bucky wasn’t so certain he disliked it.

“How did your machine do on this test?”

“No machine can evaluate— Say. How’d you happen to ask that?”

Rogers got up, rubbing his arms briskly. “I did a little research on you, Mr. Barnes.” Despite a grumble, Rogers continued. “You were born in Shelbyville, Indiana, on March 10, 1920, and moved with your family to Brooklyn when you were an infant because your father got a job with an import/export company at the waterfront. You studied at MIT before the war, but didn’t have a chance to finish your further degree because you enlisted in the Army after Pearl Harbor, opting out of an officer track. You were promoted quickly to sergeant in the 107th Division. You drop off the radar toward the end of the war for something so top secret that even I can’t find anything about it. A few years later you resurfaced, finishing your schooling with a master’s in science with the help of Howard Stark, one of the fastest in their history. You’re a leading exponent of the electronic brain in this country and the patent holder, along with Stark, for one, and Stark famously doesn’t invent with anyone else these days, which suggests he’s not just a mentor but respects you as a peer. BRAINIAC, isn’t that your machine? And that’s what I’ve found out so far, but I only had a half hour.”

“EMERAC,” Bucky corrected, amused, aroused, and annoyed all at the same time. “Electromagnetic Memory and Research Arithmetical Calculator.” He shook his head. “What would BRAINIAC even stand for?” he asked peevishly.

“Don’t know—Big Ridiculous and Irritating Noxious Idiotic Arithmetical Calculator?” So Rogers was a walking thesaurus, too. With a triumphant flourish, he sat down, pulling his chair closer to Bucky’s.

Bucky sighed; the smugness was so galling. “It’s a machine, not a villain from a Superman comic. The letters stand for actual words that describe how it works.”

“Some might quibble with that. So you read comic books?”

“Sometimes. I used to in the war. Superman, Captain Midnight, Captain America...”

Rogers’s eyes became immense, but his lips pressed into a tight line. As though the names brought some unfortunate shock of memory—maybe a buddy he’d lost in the war? After a few seconds, he gathered himself together. “You like officers.”

Bucky almost choked on his sandwich. “A very rare tropical fighting fish,” he said with admiration.

For the first time, he thought Rogers could warm to him. Like now that they’d touched gloves and had gotten in a few quick jabs, they could stop sparring with each other and instead fight on the same side.

He munched on the tasteless celery. “You ever see one of these electronic brains in action?”

With a nod, Rogers said, “Yeah, just this morning at IBM.” Ugh, their main competitor. Bucky was convinced Emmie was better.

“Did it translate Russian into Chinese?”

“Mm-hmm. Did a little of everything, I suppose.” He leaned his chin on his palm. How the hell was a fella supposed to keep the upper hand around a guy this clever and this handsome? Bucky might just be in a much lower weight class here. “Pretty scary. Gave me the feeling that maybe people were a little outmoded.”

Bucky finished the coffee. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they stopped making them.”

Rogers snapped off a bitter, small laugh.

“Mr. Rogers, I—” Bucky wanted to reassure him that he and his squad were very definitely not outmoded, but he wasn’t quite sure he knew how to do that and keep Fury’s big plans secret. Jesus, but he hated sneakiness.

“I know you’re proud of BRAINIAC. I don’t mean to belittle your accomplishments. You’re obviously smart and creative, and I know enough about Howard Stark to know that he wouldn’t work with someone unless he felt very good about their talents.”

It was a tiny olive branch—even if presented with a jab at the machine’s name—but Bucky’d take it. “I’m always looking for ways to improve the machines and their data banks. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to hang around for a few weeks, see how a smart team like yours works, how you compile data yourselves, and Fury’s interested in how I see your methods. It could be very helpful for my ideas.” It wasn’t a bald-faced lie, more like embellishing the truth—that really was what he was after.

“A sergeant like you, I don’t imagine you haven’t already asked for permission from the high muckety-mucks upstairs. But I have no objections. The staff might not make it easy for you, but you’re welcome to hang around.” He got up, letting Bucky know that the interview was over. “Well, it’s been entertaining, but I really meant it when I said I hated the cold.” The way he said “entertaining” let Bucky know how much he actively resented it.

As he gathered up the trash, Bucky said, “I am terribly sorry. I guess I wasn’t as cute as I thought I was being. Should have taken you to a proper sit-down restaurant.”

His eyebrow curved up, his eyes twinkled. “I hear the poularde truffée at the Pavilion is to die for.”

Bucky’s insides shriveled right up.

Steve’s mood was fantastic when he stepped off the bus; even the bitter wind barreling up the street couldn’t ruin it. Today after work he and Sharon were headed off for their weekend getaway and the dance, and who knew—perhaps they’d have enough time to really talk, no one else around, and she would finally say yes to the marriage proposal he was holding back on making. He had his mother’s engagement ring just in case, tucked into the suitcase he carried.

They hadn’t seen much of each other the past few weeks, something he’d tried not to find too frustrating. Outside of a few stolen moments in the hall, she’d been in meetings or with finance, prepping the budgets for next year. Everyone pretended that there wasn’t possibly a computer coming in to replace most, if not all, of his department, but Steve knew she’d done separate budgets for each contingency.

What was decidedly not trying about the past few weeks was having Mr. Barnes lurking around their office space. Despite what they knew he was doing there—even though no one, from Sharon on up to Fury, would confirm their suspicions—Steve found his presence to be...irritatingly appealing. He was a witty verbal sparring partner for everyone, even Peggy with her scalding wit, and he appeared to be very engaged in what their work entailed. If they ended up helping him put them all out of that work, though, Steve supposed it couldn’t be avoided. He wished circumstances had been different, because he could see a friendship blossoming with Barnes in a different world.

When he’d returned to the office after their freezing rooftop lunch that day, Steve had run into Clint Barton in the hallway between legal and reference, getting a drink from the water fountain. Barton was a chummy fellow but also an inveterate gossip, maybe the biggest one in the building. He was just so pleasant all the time that Steve assumed gossip was his way of having friends.

Steve had said hello, and Barton’s sandy blond head had popped up like a prairie dog’s. As he’d wiped his mouth, he said, “Say, Mr. Rogers...” That couldn’t be good, Steve had thought.

“How’s everything in legal?” Steve had asked. “Haven’t seen you in our office for a while. Any new gossip? Vice presidents getting married or divorced?” He bent over the fountain and took a drink himself.

“No, but I did hear... Uh.” Barton had scratched the back of his neck. Sometimes Steve wondered how he’d managed to obtain a law degree—he really didn’t seem the type. “I heard something that concerns you.”

“Did you.” He unbuttoned his coat, stuffed his gloves in his pocket. “You didn’t hear I’d gotten engaged to be married or something swell like that, did you?” He’d grinned, hoping Clint knew he was kidding, but he seemed more excited that he might have stumbled on some treasured bit of information he could leverage.

“No! Are you?”

With a chuckle, Steve had tried to calm him down. “No, but if you ever do hear that, please come tell me first, okay? And be sure you tell me the name of the lovely lady.”

Barton had knocked Steve’s shoulder with his fist. “See, I had to go to personnel this morning. While I was there, Fury’s office sent down for your file.” He had been tapping a pencil rapidly against his other palm, which usually would bug Steve like crazy, but Steve’s heart had instead plummeted into his shoes, and all he could hear in his head was the blood pounding. God dammit. It had been one thing to trade jabs with Mr. Barnes about it, but to have the fear of being taken out of the ring confirmed in that way... Steve didn’t care about himself, he’d find something—hell, he could even return to Captain America, much as he didn’t want to—and Peggy could always go back to SHIELD, but dammit. She’d taken herself off the fast track to stay with him after the ice, and it would be hard as hell for a black man like Sam to find a comparable job, even in New York. Not to mention Natasha with her Russian heritage.

Steve had tried to regain his composure. “They did, huh?”

“Yeah. And you know, when they’re looking at personnel files, they’re usually adding up severance pay.” He noticed Steve’s troubled reaction. “I didn’t tell you this to worry you, Mr. Rogers. I just like all you folks in research so much, and I thought you should know so you’re not blindsided.”

Steve had patted his shoulder. “No, you did the right thing. I’m not worried, just wondering what they’re up to.” Barton had nodded, and they’d both gone back to their respective offices.

As he was taking off his coat, he’d been hit by Hurricane Peggy. “Do you know what that wanker Bucky Barnes is up to?” she’d snapped, taking his coat and hat from him, smoothing his hair out with a perfectly manicured hand.

“Well, yeah, he’s up on the roof feeding the pigeons. He’s some lunatic who enjoys the cold, I guess.” Handsome lunatic, Steve had thought, and pushed it away because Peggy’s scowl could have peeled paint.

“I thought you’d never get back, so we started doing our own digging. He’s going to replace us all with one of those damn electronic brains. He’s on some special assignment from Fury to see if they can adapt one of his machines to do our jobs. When I get my hands on Howard bloody Stark he’ll wish he’d never heard the words arithmetical calculator.” She’d hurled herself into a chair like Camille or something.

Steve had knelt at her feet, folding her hands in his, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “Peggy, it’s okay. It’ll be okay. Do you really think Howard would do something like that to us? We should give him a call—”

“He’s in bloody Zanzibar! Or Fiji, or something, I couldn’t understand that dithering assistant of his. All I know is that he doesn’t have telephone access right now.” Her face had crumpled; she’d put her hand to his cheek, thumb stroking over his cheekbone. “Howard can be a very narrowly focused twit sometimes, and even if he doesn’t intend to throw us to the pavement, he seems to have abdicated this part of SII to Barnes. Who has no such attachments to any of us.”

“No machine can do our job.”

Rolling her eyes, Peggy had acidly commented, “That’s what they said in payroll.” They’d put the EMERAC machine in there earlier that year, though Steve hadn’t known at the time about Bucky Barnes and his role in it. The migratory engineer. Of course. As soon as his system was up and running, most of the department had disappeared. Steve thought about what he’d seen at IBM earlier that day.

“It’s essentially just a calculator. Think of the things we do here—there’s too many cross-references and digging into things and phoning people... I guess I’d match all of our memories and wits against any machine’s any day of the week.” He’d stood and pulled her up. “The important thing—until we can find a way to reach Howard—is to stay calm and pleasant and act like nothing’s going on. No punching Mr. Barnes in the face.” She’d managed a reluctant smile. “And until we talk to him, let’s also not tell Natasha and Sam.”

“Too late now. They’re at the union offices to see if there’s a law against this.”

“There is one. But let’s not count chickens yet, all right? The last time I spoke to Howard, he told me he wanted to focus all his attention on SHIELD and weapons design, he wasn’t interested in entertainment anymore. Maybe he’s planning to move on from FBC and there’ll be room for us elsewhere. Heck, maybe even out in California at the movie studio. Come on. You know he’d do anything for us. He has done anything for us.”

Peggy’d snaked her arms around his waist and pressed her head to his chest. She liked to hear his heart beat, to remind herself he was alive again and they were still part of each other. “I know. And I for him. Which I suppose is part of the problem, isn’t it?”

“I’m just...I don’t care so much about myself, I can land on my feet anywhere, and I’m not married and settled down just yet.” At her inelegant snort, he’d smacked her arm. “But you gave up everything to stay with me, to come here and take a kind of menial job when you could be running an entire intelligence agency. All because I wanted a different life. I’ve fucked everything up for you.”

“Oh darling, no, you must stop that at once. You’re alive and here and I wanted nothing more than to be by your side no matter where it took me. You’re so happy here! That’s what distresses me so much—and what might happen to Natasha and Sam. Except for...you know, waiting on your engagement, this life seems perfect for you, and I don’t blame you one jot for wanting to leave the uniform behind. SHIELD is running quite fine without me, we’re all doing so much better than if we’d stayed down there. So think of what you’ve given me, too.”

They’d stayed holding each other for a while before they’d had to get back to work and answer the phones that had insisted on ringing. Later, Steve had looked into what was going on with his personnel file, but Fury wasn’t taking visitors from research that week, and Howard had remained stubbornly out of reach.

So they continued to do their jobs, and Mr. Barnes hovered around, constantly scribbling his suspicious notes and measuring and pacing things out. They would catch him going through the card catalogs or the reference books, puttering around in old files, listening in on phone requests with one of the new conference-calling telephones—another recent invention of Stark’s—always with that insipid, cryptic sense of amusement.

And Steve, when he wasn’t thinking about the machine that would replace them, had to reluctantly confess he enjoyed the view. He almost hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t seeing much of Sharon until the day before they were leaving, when he’d begun packing for their trip.

When he got into the office that morning, Natasha and Peggy were standing behind Peggy’s desk, avidly focusing on something on the floor Steve couldn’t see. He dropped his suitcase, coat, and hat in his office and came around the desk. Oh—think of the devil. Barnes appeared to favor the latest styles, so his trousers had the new narrower legs, and they hugged his rear end and thighs quite nicely, especially when crawling under the desk like that. He was making marks on the linoleum, and his suit jacket rode up just enough to give them a prime rear view. His right hand was lovely, Steve had noticed on the first day: he had long, slim fingers and gestured when he spoke, and Steve was often mesmerized by how expressive his hands were. He’d long wanted to ask Barnes about the metal on the left one—he’d finally gotten comfortable enough to remove the glove—but it was rude, and Sarah Rogers didn’t raise her boy to ask such invasive questions. It was probably one of Howard’s designs to fix a war injury, and that was enough for Steve to know.

He glanced at Peggy and Natasha and asked, “Are we just taking a break even though phones are ringing?” and was met with carefully practiced innocent faces. Poor Sam was at his desk trying to juggle all the calls. Natasha’s hand swept past the view as though she was a hostess on one of the quiz shows—as you see. “Plans for BRAINIAC?”

“He’s been muttering to himself about our outdated electrical systems,” Peggy supplied helpfully.

“We’re just letting him do his thing,” Natasha added, as if Steve would fall for that. “We’ll all get shuffled out when the BRAINIAC comes in, so I suppose they can put the plugs wherever they want.”

From under the desk, Barnes’s muffled voice complained, “Please stop calling it that.”

Peggy leered as Barnes backed out from under the desk. Stop that, Steve mouthed at her. She’d been subtly—and not so subtly—hinting for days that maybe he should be paying more attention to Barnes and less to Sharon.

“I can hear all of you, you know, I’m aware of what you’re doing.” The three of them burst into laughter and shook their heads a little to clear the fog, while Barnes stood up, ruddy-faced, dusting off his knees. Good god, he was handsome and built beautifully and his eyes were so—

Stop it. You’re going to marry Sharon.

Sweeping the hair that had fallen into his eyes off his forehead, Barnes smiled and Steve felt like the whole office had dimmed, everything suddenly made dark and dingy by that smile.

“All right, kids, show’s over,” Steve admonished in his best boss voice. “So, Mr. Barnes, you think the department needs better electricity for something?”

“Not at all,” he said guilelessly, leaving Steve to roll his eyes and walk away.

Usually, Steve left the doors to his office open—especially lately with Barnes skulking around, he thought it prudent to keep an ear tuned. Trying to forestall fear about their impending computerization had turned out to be a waste of effort: Natasha and Sam were never uncordial to Barnes, exactly, but they didn’t hide their suspicion or distrust, either. Steve began digging into some books for a thorny question he’d been asked yesterday by one of the documentary crews, listening as Barnes poked around in the file drawers outside his office. A few minutes later, Peter Parker, the mail boy, came by. Steve was too curious to keep his eyes on his books: Peter didn’t direct himself to Steve or any of the squad, instead he went straight to Barnes.

“Here’s the personnel file you requested, Mr. Barnes. They asked in personnel if you’d please return it as soon as you’re finished.” He nervously tugged on his bowtie, only very slowly turning to go, as though he was waiting for something to happen—which Steve realized was for Barnes to turn away so he couldn’t see Peter slip a note to Sam on his way out. It was so unlike Peter that Steve sat there for a minute, blinking in astonishment. Sam unfolded the note with nervous fingers, looked up at Barnes, then darted his gaze over to Steve. “Mine,” he mouthed at Steve, alarmed, pointing at the file folder, and all of a sudden Steve’s mood went from upbeat to seeing red. This was supposed to be a fantastic day.

He’d been trying to get an answer from Fury about what was going on, but it had taken him almost ten days merely for an appointment—and when he’d seen him, Fury’d been more concerned with leaving for a meeting before his big trip to Los Angeles, curt to the point of rudeness. Steve had finally said, as bluntly as he could without turning it into a showdown, “Why exactly is a methods engineer from Stark practically living in my office, taking measurements, if not for an electronic brain?”

Fury’d been reassuring him for days, through Maria, that everything was fine, Barnes was only here to study how they worked because they were unique. He’d started in on the same tired song and dance, but Steve had merely held his hand up and said, “I know, I know. None of you are willing to put my staff at ease. But you must realize what your secretiveness is doing to productivity and tempers.”

“Rogers,” Fury had said emphatically, reminding him for a minute of the man he’d known in the war, “we just need more time, and then we’ll fill you in. You’ve got nothing to worry about!” He’d stuffed his cigar back in his mouth.

“Somehow I doubt that,” Steve had said, belligerent because he was rankled. Of all the people to lie to him, he would never have predicted Fury. That’s what happened when you became a corporate bigwig, he supposed. Sharon and Fury were always repeating the same line: when you work for a network, you have to expect this sort of thing. And “this sort of thing” meant subterfuge, apparently.

After Peter left, Steve watched Barnes sit down in a chair near Natasha’s desk to read through Sam’s file. How utterly brazen; Steve had half a mind to go out there and snatch the file from his hands and frog march him out the door.

The whole thing left Steve in a blue funk, unhappily trying to clear things off his to-do pile before he’d leave early for the barbershop for a cut and shave. They’d be taking Sharon’s car up to her folks’ place as soon as she was off work.

He was in the second-floor stacks when Peggy called up to him, “Steve, don’t break your neck getting down here, but Sharon Carter’s in your office. And she has flowers.”

That sounded peculiar. He almost vaulted over the little spiral staircase. “How do I look?” he asked her.

“Like she doesn’t deserve you.” Disdain dripped from Peggy’s voice.

“Now, now. Play nice.”

He closed the door to his office, beaming at Sharon. She looked gorgeous in her navy suit and pink blouse, her hair cascading over one shoulder. But then he spotted the flower arrangement in a vase on his desk. “Usually, it’s the man who gives the lady flowers if he has to break a date,” Steve said. He didn’t know why he hadn’t expected it. “But they’re nice—pretty yet masculine.” It took some effort to rein in the sarcasm.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his waist, and she genuinely was. It looked like she’d been crying. “You were all packed, too.”

Untangling her arms from his waist, he sat down. “So, where to?”

“Chicago.” Her mouth twisted in a little moue of sadness.

“When?”

“Tonight. You know how it is—when you work for—”

“Please don’t,” Steve cut in with a sour voice and looked away. When she reminded him that they hadn’t made it to the holiday dance last year, either, as though that was an excuse, Steve said, “No, we didn’t, you’re right. You went to Miami. I remember because you came home with that bikini.” And when he’d had the chance to see her in it, he’d forgotten how put out he’d been about her ditching him.

“I’m absolutely sick about it, sweetheart,” Sharon said, “but I can’t exactly say to Fury ‘I can’t go on this business trip because I have a date with Steve.’”

“Oh, going with Fury?” There was so much mysterious crap going on around here. Not that he suspected hanky-panky, because he knew both Fury and Sharon better than that, but it seemed like an awful lot of scheming which involved everyone else in the company but him and his squad.

“Yes. Can you imagine?” Her tone changed from sad to excited. “He could have asked anyone, Steve, any of those boys upstairs, but he didn’t—he chose me, and I can’t let his faith in me down.”

He sucked in a deep breath and put on a cheerful face. “You’re moving up in the world, lady.”

“Thanks to you,” she said sweetly, putting her hands on his shoulders. But he didn’t want to let her make him forget about this so easily. “A lot of this has to do with that financial report you helped me with. I received a lot of compliments, and some of them were even from fellas who really want to see me fail.”

“Well, I’d screw it up for you next year except I want you to stick it to them as much as you do.” He took one of the carnation stems out and handed it to her. “For a rising young executive.”

She dipped her head to smell it, and looked up at him from under her lashes, batting them. “Steve...why don’t you take me to the airport?”

Shaking his head, Steve demurred. “I’d feel like a chump, all those folks flying away and me just sitting there, sitting. Promise I’ll leave a light burning in the window for you, though.”

“It won’t burn for long. I’ll be back by Christmas.” Not like that was such a generous statement, since it was only a few weeks away. “Look for me in your stocking.” Sharon stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, lingering, and he felt guilty for being so sullen when he saw the red rims of her eyes again.

After she left, Steve stayed in his office for a while, hiding. Fortunately, no one asked him to join them for lunch, and they let him be for the rest of the day—probably Peggy had made sure of that. And thank god for small favors, but Barnes wasn’t to be seen the whole rest of the day, either. Steve didn’t leave early—what was the point—instead waited for everyone else to go before he picked up his suitcase and the flower vase, juggling everything trying to get out the door. The building was largely empty outside of the studio floors, so he had to lock the door by himself, awkwardly holding the vase. Once he did, he picked up his suitcase again and turned toward the elevator—when he heard frantic banging on the frosted glass doors. “Hey! Let me out! Hey!”

“Who is that?”

“Barnes,” came the sheepish reply.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize anyone was still here.” Steve opened the door. “Thought you’d no doubt gone to skulk somewhere else for a change.”

“I got wrapped up in something in the bookshelves and hadn’t realized how late it was. Here, let me help you,” he said, eyeing the flowers and holding his hand out for the key. He locked the door, took Steve’s suitcase without even asking, and pressed the button. Something about his casual thoughtfulness always threw Steve off balance. He wanted so much to dislike him, yet Barnes kept stubbornly proving himself to be a decent guy.

As they waited for the elevator, Barton slipped out of the legal office—what atrocious timing. “Hello, Barton.”

“Hello, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Barnes.” Barton looked from one to the other with his hawk’s eyes, smiling in that weirdly predatory yet genial way he had, twisting his hat in his hands. “Going away for the weekend? Those are snazzy flowers.”

“Oh, no, plans have changed. Just going home now.” Barton cut a curious glance at Barnes to see if those plans included him, but Steve didn’t care to set him right. He was just...tired.

“I was going to wish you better weather if you were heading out of the city, but if you’re just going home, then I won’t.” That was such a typical Barton thing to say; everyone chuckled falsely and stared at the elevator.

Steve hadn’t really understood Barton’s weather comment until they got outside the building: rain poured heavily from a black sky, it was positively biblical. He couldn’t really carry this crap on the bus or the subway at rush hour in this weather, and there was no possibility of a cab now. But Barnes valiantly bundled up and waded out into the storm as though one might be hailed through sheer force of will.

Barton came up from behind. “Wait, wait, Mr. Barnes, Mr. Rogers!” he called. “Which way you going?” Barnes made a piercing whistle at a cab crawling by, to no avail.

“Seventy-fifth, just off Lexington.”

“I can give you a lift, if you like. You’ll never get a cab in this rain. My wife’s picking me up in the car, her mother just came in from Chattanooga and Laura had to meet her anyway.”

“Wouldn’t that be putting you out?”

Barton waved a hand. “Not at all,” he said, pulling his hat lower and his collar up tighter. “We go across the Triborough Bridge.” His face brightened. “There she is now.”

The Oldsmobile’s windshield wipers beat furiously against the torrent as she pulled up, and despite the condensation-covered windows, Steve could see the car was full of people. They’d have a hell of a time fitting an extra couple of large men in there. Yet somehow they maneuvered inside, Barton making introductions all the while and his mother-in-law bitching about letting all the water in. As they drove away, his wife told him the fascinating story of how many times she’d had to circle the block. It was an uncomfortable, soggy ride home, and somehow Laura’s mother got it in her head that the flowers were for her—which, honestly, was a misapprehension Steve was happy to oblige, as they only made him think of Sharon. At least they weren’t still trying to lure a cab at 30 Rock, so he was grateful when they dropped him and Barnes off in front of his building.

“Have a nice weekend!” he called to them as he fished his key out.

He wrestled his luggage up the stoop and unlocked the front door; he and Barnes were absolutely soaked. As Steve pushed the door open, he caught Barnes head back to the street, whistling for a passing cab. “That one’s full. Buddy, I hate to tell you, but you’ll never get one. Do you live far?”

“Nah, just up Lexington a little.” It was a terribly cold rain, and even if Mr. Barnes had said he didn’t notice cold much, Steve couldn’t let him walk home like this. He’d catch his death. “I’ll probably be able to find one at the corner.”

“Don’t be a masochist,” Steve chided. “Come on up, have dinner with me. Let’s get you out of those wet things and warmed up.” His heart leapt into his throat—what the hell kind of thing was that to say?

“I don’t want to be any—”

“It’s no trouble. It’ll be my pleasure. I’ve got plenty in the freezer.” For Pete’s sake, they were standing in freezing, pouring rain.

They trudged upstairs, dripping all over everything; Steve turned on his lights as Barnes set his suitcase down. “Jesus, you’ll catch pneumonia unless I get you out of those wet things.” God! Why did he keep saying that? His face burned and he swallowed.

Steve shook his coat out on the entryway rug to cover his embarrassment, rain sheeting off his hat in a waterfall. He’d thought he hated the cold, but this made him realize that what he really hated was cold and wet. It had taken Steve almost a year to reach the point where he hadn’t felt perpetually cloaked in ice, but this was bringing it all back, and he shivered helplessly.

“Well, what do you suggest I change into—your pajamas?” and Barnes pointed at the suitcase.

Steve coughed. “It’s not like I’m a fashion plate or anything, but I do have a big enough wardrobe for a few spare things. You look like you’re nearly the same size.”

Barnes peeled his coat off, and there was something in the way he watched Steve that made him think maybe Barnes had something in mind. Desirous, was what that look was. “I wish. Not many people look like you do, I imagine.” His cheeks pinked up and he glanced away. “Uh, didn’t you say you had a cat?”

“She’s with a neighbor lady for the...well, my weekend away. I’ll go pick her up later.” Being reminded of Sharon ditching him would rapidly ruin his mood. “Here,” Steve said, helping him off with his suit jacket and taking his hat, hanging them up in the tiled entryway so they wouldn’t ruin the living room floor. He went straight to the bedroom, Barnes in tow.

Barnes took in the room, examining the pile of Christmas presents in the corner of his bedroom. “I shop early. Why don’t I give you my robe, it’s nice and fluffy.” Barnes was so appealing with his hair all wet and tendrilly, the damp made his flushed skin look dewy, his lashes sparkled. Steve had always been a sucker for men with dark hair and light eyes, and he wanted so badly to sketch Barnes just this way. His wet shirt-front and shoulders clung to his skin, and for the first time, Steve could see that the metal of Barnes’s left hand in fact went all the way to his shoulder. Steve’s hands trembled a little as he took the robe off the hook behind the closet door, handing it to him.

“I have a dressing gown that I got for Christmas a while ago, but I almost never wear it—I guess I always preferred that soft, fuzzy old thing.” Sharon had given the dressing gown and matching silk pajamas to him, so it wasn’t like he could exactly give them away, but he’d never worn them.

“It looks well loved,” Barnes said.

“Bathroom’s right there,” and Steve pointed behind Barnes. “Fresh towels on the linen shelf by the tub. I’ll just...change in...here.” His nerves were jangling, something about changing in front of Barnes flustered him, which was silly—he’d been in the goddamn army. But Barnes would be in his skivvies behind that door, under that robe... “I don’t really have any slippers, I’m afraid, so I’m not sure what to do about your wet feet.”

“Don’t worry—it’s just the tops of my socks that are wet. I might look laughable but I’ll be fine,” he called through the bathroom door.

Steve leaned around the closet door. “I do have a pair of galoshes you might fit.”

Barnes said something Steve couldn’t hear; he tried to change as fast as possible so they could discuss dinner options. There were his regular pajamas—just old plaid flannels—hanging on the door, but there were also the turquoise silk ones from Sharon. He’d been rather sentimentally saving them and the dressing gown for when they got married. They were a little creased from being on the shelf all this time, but yeah—they’d do, would look nice with the blue, yellow, and gray paisley pattern of the robe.

Plopping down on the bench at the foot of the bed, he mopped at his damp hair and face with his sleeve—not very efficient, really. Eventually, Barnes stepped out of the bathroom, and oh. He looked better in Steve’s old dark blue robe than Steve ever had, and there was a white towel around his neck, tucked into the robe’s collar—just like a prizefighter. Steve swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on Barnes’s for a beat too long; he was tongue-tied and addlepated.

Barnes broke the silence. “Didn’t you say this dinner was white tie?” He twirled. “White tie and bathrobe.”

Christ, he was so impossibly charming when you got him away from the office. Well, he wasn’t such a slouch in the office, either, but he was just...so relaxed and sweet here, that guarded quality washed away with the rain. I bet he grew up in a big family, Steve thought. He was so at ease with people. “Mr. Barnes...uh, how do you prefer your chicken fried?”

“If you don’t mind me banging around in your kitchen, I can just show you?”

“Probably a good idea—I’ve heard tell I’m a lousy cook.”

“I don’t believe that—you know everything about everything, after all.”

With a deep breath, Steve said, “Why don’t you go ahead and I’ll be right there—there’s some dessert in the freezer too that I should get thawing.” He had to piss something fierce, and he needed a towel himself.

On the way to the kitchen, Steve stopped to light a fire in the fireplace, turned on some different lights for better ambiance. Like some sort of romantic hero, for crying out loud.

It appeared that Barnes had made himself completely at home in Steve’s kitchen, so Steve just leaned against the counter and admired him working. In no time the place was filled with wonderful aromas, and when the chicken was almost ready Steve pulled some lettuce and tomatoes out of the icebox for a salad to accompany it. He’d never much cared for salads, he found them unfulfilling and useless, but Sharon always wanted one when he made dinner for her, so he kept stuff around. “Would you prefer wine, Mr. Barnes, or beer with dinner?”

Barnes turned to him, holding the tongs up. “You know, since we’re traipsing around your place in pajamas and robes, we really ought to be on a first-name basis.” He returned to his task. “And beer’s fine.”

Steve hid his face behind the icebox door so Bucky wouldn’t catch his delight. “I think you’re right—Bucky it is, then.” The robe emphasized the breadth of Bucky’s shoulders, and now Steve could verify that his legs were as long and nicely shaped as he’d always suspected.

There was a folding card table Steve kept tucked behind the television so he pulled that out, threw a tablecloth over it with a flourish, and slid over his two armchairs. They set everything on the table and Steve motioned for him to sit. “I’ll put the percolator on.” When he returned, Bucky’d poured his beer for him.

They were both ravenous, judging from the way they tucked into the meal—silently at first before Bucky nodded at the painting above the fireplace. “It didn’t dawn on me, back at your office, that you were the artist of the work on your walls. What I’ve seen here is obviously the work of one person, as well. Those WPA posters in your office by necessity had to be commercial rather than the fine art you’ve got here, but I recognize that the...smaller, more personal details are similar.”

Steve’s breath caught in his throat. Punched right out of him. He felt as though he were floating, as though all his muscles and bones had been replaced by air. It would be easy to fall back to his old ways, make a flippant remark about how his amateurishness gave him away or something like that, but Bucky was so sincere and Steve so touched. Eventually, he found his voice. “Yes, they are mine. How could you tell?”

“The ones in your bedroom, they’re Brooklyn in the 1920s and ’30s, I know some of those places—I recognize Schlumbom’s, for instance, and near Ebbets Field. But they’re not old—they’re relatively recent, judging by the materials and technique, the modernistic approach. And that one there”—he pointed to the wall behind them—“and another in your office, those are England in the war, I saw some of those streets.” He paused, with a tilted head, faraway gaze. “You said you grew up in Brooklyn, and of course, you might have seen those places during your service. You also mentioned studying fine art and doing work for the WPA.”

“You should be a detective.”

Who knew Bucky had such a soft, gentle laugh? They’d never seen it at the office. Not to even mention the little crinkles around his eyes. “I pay attention, is all. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but there’s a quality about them...the landscapes especially make me think the artist feels lost inside them. That he’s...out of place, or feels desolate.”

Steve swallowed hard, his chest gone tight. No one, not even Peggy, had ever looked at his art and seen him in it. “Very little of my stuff from before the war survived, so you’re right, they are relatively recent. When I first—came home, I guess, I couldn’t quite bring myself to pick up a brush or a pencil. It was just too hard, seemed so pointless. But when I finally tried again, all these memories flooded out of me.”

Bucky motioned at the wingback chair in his bedroom that was buried under sketchbooks. “Those pads are all full?”

“Most.” Steve let out a long, shuddery breath. Courage. “Could I—would you allow me to draw you sometime?” It was a bold request—intimate. Maybe too much so.

Ducking his head, Bucky answered, “You must have more appealing subjects to work with, surely.” When he met Steve’s eyes, there was such a sharp, glittering sadness there Steve thought his heart would crack in two. What had they done to him in the war that he thought so little of himself?

“No.” They were fixed on each other, neither moving for some time, before Steve tried to recover the conversation. “I’m impressed with your eye. Did you study art, too?”

Bucky wiped his mouth, took the last thigh piece, and drained his beer. “Just a personal interest—art, design, architecture...and just, well, objects. I like all of it. Spend a lot of time at museums and galleries. Not to buy, but I like to admire—especially modern design.” He jerked his chin toward the coffeepot. “Seems you appreciate it too—I have that coffee set in a different pattern. I admire her work tremendously—form plus function.” It made sense, with what Steve had seen of Bucky’s work, but there was a strange sense of melancholy that his words carried. “The peace that art brings can be...therapeutic, sometimes.”

Pointing at the coffeepot, Steve said, “I met her once—Eva Zeisel—back when she was teaching at Pratt in Brooklyn. When I ran with that arty crowd.” He smiled at Bucky’s smile, because god, that sounded so pretentious, yet Bucky seemed to like it. “Is that why you got into what you do? Because it’s peaceful?” Bucky nodded. “That’s—well, I understand what you mean. Art doesn’t ask anything of you, it just gives you something.” His eyes widened in surprise, or maybe recognition. Steve shrugged. “I mostly end up at museums by myself, because Sharon has never really shared the desire to stand around gazing at paintings or photographs. She enjoys more active pursuits. If not by myself, then I go with Peggy or her husband—they’ll indulge me on occasion.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. “Sharon is...”

“The woman I’m seeing.” Why did he choose to distance himself with that description instead of calling her his fiancée? She’d never let him actually ask the question, but they’d talked about marriage often enough that a proposal was only a formality now. “Sharon Carter? I was given to understand you’d met.”

Now this had tipped over into another direction. “The one who oversees your department?”

“Oh no, it’s not like that,” Steve assured him. “She heads the department we’re in, yes, but isn’t actually my boss. I’m not a direct report.”

“Oh.” That explanation didn’t seem all that satisfactory, but Bucky scrambled for something to say. “So, are the Misses Carter, blond and brunette, related?”

Ugh, he’d made this so awkward, when they’d been having such a meaningful conversation. Steve attacked another piece of chicken before making an effort to answer lightheartedly. “It’s just coincidence, with a common name. We get a few laughs out of it—they’ve both talked about tracing their family trees a ways to see if the English branch and the American branch might have a common link.”

“Huh.” He picked some meat off the thigh bone. “You and Peggy seem close. But she’s married?”

Was Bucky fishing? He tried not to preen and swirled the beer in his glass before answering. “We knew each other in the war. She was an intelligence officer—well, no, she was a spy—attached to...my company.” He was the worst liar on earth, especially to someone like Bucky whose good opinion he cared about more than he probably should, but that had all been part of his Corporal Grant Rogers cover. “We had a romance—it didn’t go very far, but at the end we lost touch, I guess. In that time, Peggy ended up falling in love with a fellow from my unit, a great guy, really, and they worked together after the war in the intelligence service. But he’s black, and even though marriage for them is legal in the District of Columbia, they’re still surrounded by Maryland and Virginia, where it’s not. Which makes it tougher for their kids, too.”

“So they wanted something safer.”

“Yes—she’d lived here for a while after we—they left Europe. Which was great timing, because it allowed us to get back in touch.” This was something Steve never spoke of to anyone except Gabe and Peggy, but he thought Bucky’d understand, of all people. “I struggled, for a long time. That’s why I—just wanted a quiet job, something with human contact but not too much, you know?”

Bucky nodded, face unguarded, tender, and his breath held. He knew.

“Peggy was there by my side, the whole time, her and Gabe. When I was offered the department at FBC, she threw in with me. I took over for someone who’d retired, and I thought, well, who’d be better at information research than a spy?” The army hadn’t wanted to let Steve go, instead attempted to coerce him back into the uniform, use him as a propaganda tool again. They’d forgotten how irascible Steve was, underestimated the cost of doing battle against him, reinforced by Peggy and Howard. “And through Gabe we met Sam, their families are neighbors. Peggy keeps me...grounded.”

“That’s important,” Bucky said, sympathetic. “My sister does that for me.”

There was a tranquility here between them, in the air of the apartment: the only sounds were the rain outside and the crackle of the fire, no sense of the world outside, nothing urgent—and Steve decided he could take the chance. He touched Bucky’s forearm, the left one. “You had a hard time yourself. This happened in the war?”

His breath hitched up, he studied his metal hand, fingers curling and uncurling. “Yes.” He reached for his water glass, previously untouched, and gulped down the whole thing. “In—in ’43, I was taken prisoner after a battle at Azzano. There was a scientist in the prison, he...experimented on the captives. I was one of the few who survived, rescued by Allied soldiers when we thought we’d been given up for dead. This will sound crazy, but one of the rescuers was Captain America.”

The hammering of Steve’s heart was so loud it drowned out Bucky’s voice. Jesus, he’d met Bucky before and never known. He’d saved his life. What odds would Bucky’s machine have computed for the probability of such a thing? In an entire world full of human beings, he and Bucky Barnes had both run up against the Red Skull and Dr. Zola, and Steve had helped save him from them. No wonder he felt like he’d known Bucky most of his life. No wonder he was drawn to him.

It took him a minute to find his voice again. “It doesn’t sound so crazy. Not to me.”

“The things the scientist did to me there helped me survive an...accident, later on. But that was where I lost the arm.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this prosthetic, if it’s not too intrusive to say. Was it Howard?”

Bucky seemed skittish about answering. “After a fact.” Steve wasn’t such a jerk that he’d force Bucky to relive something that caused so much pain—he wouldn’t prod.

Instead he said softly, “Does it hurt?”

“Sometimes. But I have full range of motion and a useful arm, and that’s a worthwhile tradeoff. I keep it covered because people seem...distressed by it.” He gave a heartbreaking little half smile, half grimace.

Steve made a soft noise of understanding. It recalled to mind the badly maimed or mutilated from the Great War, when he was a child, his own father’s lingering injuries. Steve ached for Bucky and what he’d been through, yearned to put his arms around him. In the low light his eyes were a churning sea of gray and blue, and Steve was enthralled. “Why librarian, though?” Bucky asked to break the silence and change the subject. “If you’re an artist.”

“I don’t know—just always liked using that part of my mind. When I was younger, all my favorite radio shows were the question ones: Quiz Kids especially, Take It or Leave It.”

He brightened. “Me too! ‘That’s the sixty-four dollar question.’ I think I might have been more pissed off about the war because it meant I couldn’t listen to them anymore than about the fact that, you know, I had to go fight.” They shared a fond laugh, and Steve almost thought he could feel Bucky wanting Steve to ask him something deeper, something more personal about who they really were. But Steve didn’t know how to ask such a thing—and he loved Sharon. He did.

Yet... If he could stay here forever in this room, cozied up next to Bucky at the table and with the fire crackling, just talking, he would be more content than any time he could recall since he woke up. Was it possible to reconcile these feelings?

Now he wasn’t clear where to take the conversation, so he took the coward’s way out. “You’re a good cook. What’s your secret?”

Bucky grinned. “A great chef never divulges.”

“Hah.” Resting his chin on his fist, Steve openly studied Bucky. “There’s a secret I’m considerably more interested in—what you’re telling Mr. Fury about my department.”

Bucky was determined not to let Steve’s scrutiny get to him: he held up a finger, pretending his mouth was too full to answer, eyes trained on his plate. When he realized Steve could wait him out, he shook his head, still focused on the plate. “Don’t know yet.”

“You willing to admit a machine can’t do our work?” Steve asked.

Wiping his mouth, Bucky finally met his eyes, challenging Steve for being on him like this. Maybe he liked it a little. “You and EMERAC have something in common, did you know? You’re both incredibly single-minded. Get hold of something you want the answer to and keep shaking till it gives up.” He speared the last of his salad somewhat viciously and shoved it in his mouth.

Though it wasn’t meant as flattery, that appealed to Steve. “Oh yeah? What does she do when she doesn’t get the answer?”

Around a mouthful of lettuce, he said, “She’s a sensitive lady—if she gets frustrated, her entire magnetic circuit is liable to go out.”

“Mmm. One sympathizes—something like that’s happening to me right now.” He began gathering things up to take to the kitchen, but looked around the room. Earlier, he’d smelled something odd, but now it was pretty sharp. “Say, do you smell something burning?” Steve asked.

“Might be your kitchen? I noticed you needed a new ventilator fan when we were cooking.” Steve wasn’t exactly incompetent at little handyman chores, he’d grown up with a single mother, after all, and he was used to taking care of himself, but he had a tendency toward the oblivious when it came to day-to-day stuff and what required maintenance—until it was too late and the little problems became much larger repairs. Something in the way Bucky casually identified a problem—and the way he said “we”—left a peculiar, foreign tingling in Steve’s belly. A feeling of being balanced, two equal halves, strengths and weaknesses complementing one another.

Bucky reclined in his armchair, contemplating Steve, like he was thinking the same thing. Simpatico. “Are you serving that dessert you mentioned?”

Favoring him with an indulgent smile, Steve said, “I am, in fact—it’s floating island.” He’d made it with the expectation that he and Sharon would have a nice dinner when they got home from upstate. At least now it wouldn’t be him alone sitting forlornly in front of the fire, eating it all by himself with an assist from Biscuit. “I—” As soon as he’d opened his mouth he was stopped by a rude buzz from the apartment door. Their intimate little tableau was shattered. “Who the hell could that be?” Steve muttered.

Bucky looked alarmed. Was he afraid someone would catch the two of them here wearing robes, in flagrante? “Do you want me to...” and he jerked a thumb in the direction of the bathroom.

With a sharp shake of his head, Steve said, “Don't be ridiculous. We’re a couple of adults.”

So Bucky took the plates from his hands. “I’ll get the dessert instead.”

Steve thanked him, irritated that it wasn’t sufficient for whoever was at the door just to lean on the buzzer, but now they were banging, as well. It couldn’t be Mrs. Putnam, who was taking care of Biscuit, she was far too well mannered—no, he opened the door to Sharon, shaking her umbrella and flapping the hem of her raincoat.

“Hello, sweetheart. Quite an evening—the planes are all grounded in Chicago, it’s snowing like mad, whereas here it’s Noah’s flood.” She hung her coat up on the rack and plunged her dripping umbrella in the stand.

“I’ll be.” It was all he could think to say, he was so thunderstruck.

A quick kiss on the cheek and a nuzzle, then she made her way to the living room. “I know it’s late but... Aren’t you going to invite a gal in? Oh! How lucky can I get—a fire in the fireplace and dinner all ready for—” Her pleasure vanished when Bucky backed out of the swinging kitchen door rump first, floating islands in hand. He whirled around when he heard Sharon’s surprised gasp, bobbling the dishes. She turned to Steve with a bewildered frown.

“Um... I believe you two know each other?” Steve gritted out.

“I suppose.” She scanned him, up and down, eyes lingering on his metal hand.

Setting the dishes on the table, Bucky gave her an insouciant smile. It had the air of something practiced, something false. “Yes, we met the other day. We’re just finishing up—would you like to join us, Miss Carter?”

“Maybe I’ll...yes. I’ll have coffee,” Sharon said, and Steve pulled out one of the dining chairs.

“I’ll get another cup.” In the kitchen, he pressed his head against the cold icebox door, counting to ten. How had he reached a point where Sharon showing up at his apartment was an intrusion and cause for distress? Jesus, he really had to get a grip on himself.

They were like two opposing generals at peace talks when he returned, eyeballing one another across the table. “I suppose I ought to have called first,” Sharon said, more to Bucky than to Steve.

Nodding his head a few times, Bucky said, “Probably.” Steve almost choked on his tongue.

“Thank you,” Steve said, pouring coffee. Not that he needed Bucky to defend him, but Steve kind of didn’t mind him getting in a dig in his honor.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here,” Sharon said, confused. She knew a little of his past—no details, but Sharon was a modern woman and she’d understood well enough that not all his past male friendships were purely brothers in arms. Perhaps she thought things were slotting into place—she raised a suspicious eyebrow at Steve’s robe on a trousers-less Bucky.

“And thank you.” Steve glared, setting the cup and saucer down with a hard clatter.

“Still raining out, I see,” Bucky said lightly, eyeing her damp, loose hair. Sharon was usually impeccable, even in weather.

“Were you waiting here for it to stop, Mr. Barnes?”

“No. Sugar? Cream?” She took the sugar bowl he proffered, declined the cream. Steve glanced back and forth between them, his irritability ratcheting up. There was a whole conversation happening between Bucky and Sharon that he couldn’t quite follow.

“I’m growing annoyed,” he warned. They both looked up at him as he knelt on his armchair, a couple of naughty schoolchildren caught out. “What right do you have to come barging in here and start making insinuations with your—your eyebrows?”

“I was doing no such thing!” Sharon cried, looking exactly as though she had and seeking guilty refuge in her coffee cup.

“There’s a completely understandable explanation,” Bucky offered.

“For you wearing his robe, or for him wearing the pajamas and dressing gown I gave him that he’s been saving? If there is a good one, I’d like to hear it from Steve, I think.”

All at once the three of them were talking over each other, Bucky trying to recount the story of how he got here and Steve defending himself while Sharon questioned just how friendly this little scene was, until Steve barked, “Whoa!” in his best Captain America voice.

Bucky’s brows tented together and he blinked a few times. “It was really just kindness on Steve’s part, saving me from having to walk home in the rain. I wouldn’t have ruined his things otherwise.” Her gaze landed on his metal hand once more as he swept it over his front; perhaps she was embarrassed at picking a fight with a wounded veteran. “Are you going to eat your floating island?” Bucky asked Steve.

“You bet your ass I am,” Steve said, digging in with a frenzy, stuffing his mouth with meringue and crème anglaise as Sharon stirred her coffee and Bucky placidly scooped more of his dessert out, savoring each bite.

“I suppose this is a side of Steve I don’t usually get to see,” Sharon mused. “I didn’t know him in the war, I’ve never seen him around his chums, except for Peggy. I guess I didn’t think he was like this.”

Like what? Steve glowered but continued to stuff his face. Around a mouthful of meringue, he said, “You think I’m just a dog to bring your slippers. I’m Lassie. There’s a lot about me you don’t know.” He was just about to launch into a rant about how he had plenty of visitors who weren’t her when the door buzzed again. “Oh, for crying out loud!”

Bucky rose. “Should Miss Carter and I go hide in the bathroom in case the next visitor thinks this is an orgy?”

Steve huffed. “I love a good orgy. Come on in!” he shouted. Exasperated, Sharon dropped her spoon with a scowl and went to answer the door.

“Good evening!” Peggy said in her light, clipped tones. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here!” She stuffed her umbrella in the stand and shook her coat out. He’d have to get some towels down on the floor, dammit—the foyer was practically a swimming pool at this point. “Weren’t you on your way to Chica—” She stopped, staring open-mouthed at Bucky. “How astonishing,” she said with a saucy grin.

Spreading his arms wide, Bucky spun around in a circle, grinning. “Like it? Got caught in the rain with Steve.” Both of the ladies went wide-eyed. Part of Steve was annoyed that Bucky was poking the fire, part of him was awed. “Guess I better go put on my clothes. I left them in the bedroom. Uh, bathroom, specifically,” he added at Sharon’s sour countenance.

Steve could only wave his hand—I give up. He settled dismally into the chair, spooning up the last bit of Bucky’s floating island.

“Peggy, would you mind...” Sharon offered a coy smile.

“Say no more,” Peggy said jovially, marching to the kitchen. As the door swung inward, she turned. “Do I smell something burning?”

“Kitchen needs a new ventilator,” he said, sounding like he was gargling. He could feel Sharon standing behind him, but he didn’t want to look at her just now.

“Oh, Steve, I’m sorry to be such a brat,” she said softly, pulling Bucky’s armchair closer to him, “but the last thing I expected was to come here and see—”

“If you’re going to say that the last thing you expected was to find me here with someone, anyone—”

“Steve, come on,” she interrupted his interruption. “That’s a bit unfair. I mean, I know that sometimes...well, you know. And here’s a handsome man in your favorite robe, and you’re in silk pajamas. But why would I be with you if I thought you were...interested in that?” She tried to put her arms around him, but he shrugged them off and moved over by the fireplace.

“Some days I wonder that myself.” The day had been rescued by Barnes, he’d thought, but now...

“We’ve known each other for four years—”

“Five.”

“—and it’s been so great, no strings placed on me while I try to get more firmly situated and you build up your department.” She did it again, snaked her arms around him, and he let her, but didn’t return the embrace. He didn’t have it in him to make the cutting retort he wanted to, either. Steve just felt tired again. “I’ve come to depend on you for so much, to value your insight and experience. Your brilliance, and your wit, and your essential kindness. You’re the most important part of my life.” Outside your job, Steve wanted to say. His arms hung at his sides but she snuggled closer to him. “So I want to ask you this one thing.”

Maybe this had made something clearer to her. Sliding his arms around her and pulling her tight, Steve asked, hoping, “What’s that?”

“Don’t let tonight come between us. Promise.” Steve dropped his arms with a heavy sigh. “I was wrong to come here and assume you’d be pining away for me, forgetting that I hurt you. I let myself get so focused on this job and I forget what matters most.” Standing on tiptoes, she kissed his cheek. “I’ve upset you and I should head out before I disgrace myself any further. I’ll see you tomorrow—oh no! Oh, I forgot, if the planes are flying we’ll be trying for Chicago again.” At Steve’s less than impressed face, she said, “I swear I’ll call you first chance I get.” This time she pressed her lips to his.

He helped her on with her raincoat and buttoned it up, kissed her goodbye, and they said goodnight. For a while he leaned against the wall, his face hot with the shame of how easily he crumbled in the face of her desires, her needs. Yes, they had loved each other, but more and more, it wasn’t enough. Not for standing by all these years waiting, not while he sublimated his hopes and dreams to her ladder-climb. Steve wasn’t sure anymore what he wanted to do, and he dropped into the chair, dismal.

In the bathroom, Bucky hastily put his still-wet clothes back on. His second-favorite suit was a mess—the muddy trouser hems could be cleaned well enough, but the jacket was so misshapen he wasn’t sure if it could be saved. His shirt was clammy when he put it on. The silk tie was kind of a toss-up, but he slid it around his neck and started tying it as he cracked the door, checking to see if Sharon Carter was gone.

On the other side of the wall, the brunette Miss Carter was knocking around in the kitchen, talking to herself in her clipped English tones. All the rooms in this cozy, pleasant little apartment were decorated in a way that was sort of haphazard, sort of carefully curated, even the bathroom and kitchen—just like Steve’s office. What interested him most were the art pieces, now that he’d talked about them with Steve: there’d been two small sketches on the far kitchen wall with such precise yet contradictory loose lines he’d expect to find them in a midtown gallery, and here in the bathroom he was surprised to find three small silverpoint portraits, a method few people used because it required so much skill and control. The subjects were soldiers, each of them seeming oddly familiar—though he couldn’t be certain why. And that was Steve, too—Bucky was always reminded of someone when Steve spoke, his voice and his manner felt warm and familiar, particularly when he’d snapped at them earlier.

When he heard the front door close, Bucky ventured into the living room to find Steve slumped in a chair by the entry, chewing on his thumb, an unhappy reverie. “All clear?” Bucky asked, slipping the knot up to his throat.

“Yup. Coast is clear,” Steve answered, shaking himself out of his fugue and sitting up. “You can tell those other guys and gals to come out from under the bed. Orgy’s cancelled.”

Bucky chuckled warmly, and Steve seemed to perk up. Just then, Peggy strode out of the kitchen with his shoes in hand—they were smoking. Oh shit, of course. I put my shoes in the oven to dry out. “Whose fire hazards are these?” Peggy struggled get the words out around her laughter. Bucky coughed, waving the smoke away, and took them gingerly out of her hands.

“You do not need a new ventilator,” Bucky hacked out, leaning on the mantel. “I cannot believe I did that.”

Peggy put her hands on her hips. “Won’t someone fill me in? I feel as though I’ve stepped into a bedroom farce.” Her gaze flipped between Bucky and Steve, eyes twinkling.

Trying to squeeze his foot into his hot, smoking shoe, Bucky said, “It all started with Mr. Barton’s mother-in-law.” He managed to get his other scorching-hot shoe on, to the delight of both Steve and Peggy. “She came all the way up from Chattanooga.” Bucky took Peggy’s hand and kissed it, pulling a deeper laugh from her, and turned to Steve. “It was Chattanooga, was it not, monsieur?” and he bowed, shaking Steve’s hand, taking baby steps in his suddenly too small and very toasty shoes. He was barely keeping it together when Steve broke out in a guffaw, the first time Bucky had ever seen him laugh like that. Oh, Bucky liked that feeling.

“Indeed. Chattanooga, Tennessee,” Steve said, his hand lingering for a moment in Bucky’s. “So many vowels.”

Bucky hobbled toward the doorway, Peggy attempting to help him walk. At this rate, he had no idea how he would make the few blocks home, and his chances for a cab wouldn’t have improved. “It was raining buckets, there was a kid in the front seat with a lollipop, a kid in the backseat with a lollipop, and a one-eyed dog named Lucky.” Now Steve and Peggy were almost doubled over, she leaned on his shoulder to keep upright as Steve held her about the waist. Bucky did look a frightful mess, like Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp or something. His hat was a complete loss—it could probably not be reblocked. He pulled it down over his head as if he were a hobo, tossed his coat over his arm. “And well,” he said, coming around the corner, “good evening, my friends, I’ve had a lovely time.” Peggy collapsed into Steve’s lap with an undignified snort amid peals of laughter.

Hobbling out the door, he basked in the sound. He’d never seen Steve so happy, so at ease, and if he could make Steve so elated all the time... But he was losing himself in wishful thinking again—Steve had Sharon, and he probably didn’t go for fellas.

A small, petty part of him wondered if Sharon had ever made Steve laugh that way.

But it wasn’t to be, and that was that.

The walk home gave him too much opportunity to stew on that, although by the time he reached his apartment, dripping wet, he’d allowed himself to move on to other concerns. The cold rain had let up a bit during dinner, but was still enough to send a chill straight into his bones, so he ran the tub with the hottest water he thought he could stand, tossed his shoes in the garbage can, and stripped off.

Having Steve ask about his arm had been...surprisingly affecting. People didn’t want to ask when they saw his hand, either fearing they’d upset him or too disturbed to want to know. Bucky sank into the hot water, pressing on the scars around the metal, trying to ease that sharp throb the pain pills never did much for.

It made sense that Steve would be the one to ask: he’d been a soldier too, knew the heavy weight of carrying scars people couldn’t even see; learned how to climb back out of the pit combat left you in and attempted to forge a normal life around normal people. Knew whether you could return to a world as changed as you were. Steve was as haunted by something as Bucky was, he could see that much—maybe someday Steve might share it with him, just as Bucky might share the rest of his own story with him.

Steve Rogers was...something indefinable, something impossible. No, Bucky knew what he was: a compass, always pointing true north.

He briefly fell asleep in the tub, half dreaming of Steve’s smile, his laugh, until he figured he’d better drag himself to bed before he drowned. Although he didn’t have a lot of plans for the weekend, Bucky was determined to get his Christmas decorations out of storage and put them up so the next time his family came by, they wouldn’t fret over his lack of holiday spirit. He’d never really had the heart to tell them he didn’t care for it now, not after his captivity—even during the war he could usually eke out some holiday cheer, and he went to mass if he could. But now...no mass with his parents anymore, and he knew it broke his ma’s heart. The headshrinkers at the hospital had recommended going to church, keeping faith to help with “reintegration,” but he’d laughed in their faces.

He didn’t want the bitterness to ruin things with his family, but the constant performance of being all right exhausted him. Still, if slapping up a few decorations would soothe Ma’s heart, he could do it, and he’d invite Becca to go with him to a Christmas music program at Radio City—and all would be well. He hoped, anyway.

By the time he slipped under the blankets Bucky couldn’t keep his eyes open, and he fell into a rare deep, dreamless sleep.

When the work week rolled around, Bucky found almost no time to get over to Steve’s office—the FBC office, rather. With Howard out of the country for who knew how long, it was easy for small crises to erupt at SII—so it fell to Bucky to handle everything related to the computing division, whether it involved him or not.

By Thursday, the itch to get over there and see the faces of Steve’s group was uncontrollable. If he enjoyed it there more than his own office, well, it had nothing to do with a certain person and his low, sexy voice, answering questions and teasing Bucky.

There was a good excuse for visiting: he’d discovered some materials he thought would make perfect challenges for Emmie’s data banks. After work he had a quick bite at home and changed clothes. Rockefeller Center had been decorated for Christmas for weeks, he could hear the music playing at the ice rink when he arrived. He stopped at the security desk for access to the reference department, and they took him up there. This building only really closed down late at night, what with the TV and radio studios on the lower levels—but it still surprised Bucky to see the warm glow of lights through the frosted reference department doors, long past the dinner hour.

The reason for the light was Steve—he was gathering his things, looking...well, as gutted as he’d appeared after Sharon had ditched him last week. A hot flame surged through Bucky, his protective nature fired up; as the oldest of four kids he had always been willing to wade in and knock some heads if his sisters were so much as looked at sideways, and something in Steve sparked that same desire.

A blue duffel bag sat on the desk next to Steve’s hand, he held a ring of keys in the other—Bucky must have caught him leaving. “Hi, Steve,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you here—I came in to get a couple books from your foreign language section. I didn’t think anyone would still be here.” Seeing Steve like this left him tongue-tied. He was dressed in a well-worn brown leather jacket and blue jeans and heavy boots, like a motorcycle rider. Underneath the jacket was a brilliant blue sweater—the same color as Bucky’s own peacoat.

All of a sudden, Bucky’s thick winter sweater was way too hot and he slipped fingers under the high neck, pulling it away from his skin: Steve could have stepped right out of a physique magazine. The fuel for hundreds of secret fantasies.

He zipped the duffel and took his glasses off—and Bucky almost blurted out a plea to leave them on. “Which books were you interested in? I can get ’em for you.”

“I think they were over here...” and he led Steve to that section of the stacks. His heart beat on some awkward cadence, his nerves thrumming in the background. When he located the books, he showed Steve. “I think they’d be a really interesting challenge for EMERAC.” He babbled for a while about punchcards as Steve wrote down the titles on a light blue slip and dropped it in a box, barely paying attention to Bucky’s stream of drivel.

“Probably will be a decent test for a machine.” Oh, he couldn’t have been less interested.

“I don’t want to keep you. I can have security lock up for me if you want to head out.”

With a sigh, Steve said, “It’s no problem. Not in a hurry, not anymore.”

“Oh.”

Steve rubbed his cheek. “Sharon was due back today. We were going ice skating after work, just to take some of the disappointment out of...things.”

“Let me guess—she cancelled on you again.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he winced. But goddammit, the woman just did not seem to understand what she had. If Bucky had Steve in his life, he would never let him down, never make him sad... “My apologies, I hope I didn’t offend you. I had no right to make a comment like that.”

His eyebrows flew up, he twitched his head. “No offense taken—you’re unfortunately correct. At the last minute she and Mr. Fury decided to stay another day and come home in the morning. So, you find me ditched again. I must look awfully pathetic to you.”

“No, never.” Bucky had no idea what possessed him, but he added, “Would you still like to skate? I don’t have any plans. Maybe we could grab some dinner at one of the restaurants there. I haven’t skated in years, but if I recall I wasn’t too terrible.”

Steve’s blue eyes grew enormous, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Bucky’d expected Steve would find the idea uncomfortable, but instead he seemed genuinely pleased. “I—yeah, I’d like that. Makes bringing a change of clothes worth it. Let me just...” and he pulled out a red watch cap and matching scarf, some thick gloves from the bag, then tossed it on his couch.

“You don’t like the cold.” Bucky flashed him a warm, fond smile.

“I’ll be all right once I get moving.” His cheeks were pink, like he wasn’t used to someone taking note of his preferences. Steve deserved someone who did that all the time, and more—someone who’d pull the sun and moon down for him. “And there’ll be a nice warm meal to look forward to.”

That gratified Bucky enough that he didn’t care about his ear-to-ear grin, almost bouncing on his toes. “I’ll just leave these... I’ll come back tomorrow for them,” and he set the books on Sam’s desk.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Steve said, ducking his head. “We haven’t seen much of you lately, I think they miss your skulking.”

They went down to the plaza and got their tickets and skates, Steve trailing Bucky onto the ice as though he were dodging mines at Normandy. It also took Bucky a few minutes to find his footing—he hadn’t skated since before the war, when he used to bring girls here. Maybe he wasn’t an ace, but it was painfully obvious he was a lot better than Steve, with his clomping steps and nervous-horse twitches. He was trying so hard not to slide, and they both slipped and stumbled their way across the width of the arena and back to the fountain.

“You have to give in to it,” Bucky explained, panting. He took hold of Steve’s elbows, skating backwards, getting a feel for it as he pulled them away from the boards. “Definitely don’t lock your knees. You’re fighting against letting your feet glide over the ice. Don’t try to step, but push—one foot, slide the other.”

Allowing himself to be pulled along, Steve gave a sheepish shrug, though he did attempt to push with his right foot, analyzing Bucky’s movements and mirroring him. “I’ve only done this a few times, when I was really little. I wasn’t exactly sporty.”

How odd—he was such a well-built, strong guy; he’d make Charles Atlas feel puny. Maybe he’d just preferred the quiet of art.

“Here,” Bucky soothed, sliding up next to him, slinging his left arm across Steve’s shoulders. “Follow my lead. It’s like dancing. Move your upper body, too.” They kept pushing forward, and Steve began to glide in rhythm with Bucky, his torso following the same beat.

“Dancing being the other thing I’m really lousy at.”

“I thought you were going to a dance with Miss Carter last weekend. Wasn’t that why you had your suitcases?”

“Yeah, but I’m terrible. Doesn’t mean I don’t try. I was a wallflower when I was young, never learned till after the war.”

“That can’t be true, you’re way too—” He cleared his throat, refocusing on Steve’s feet.

Steve scowled at the ice, his nemesis. “I refuse to be defeated by these pastimes.”

“Now you’re talking.” But Bucky found himself squinting at Steve and trying to disguise it: the firmness of Steve’s voice revived that niggling sense of something familiar, something just out of his reach. He could not discern why a shiver crept up his spine.

They skated clumsily for a while, till eventually Steve allowed himself to relax and he let himself go with it, and Bucky wondered what he must have been like on the battlefield: determined, powerful, graceful. A force of nature.

The lights that twinkled around the plaza, the cold night air and sparkle of the ice, the music and laughter and rushing water in the fountain, the joyous shrieks of children, Steve’s handsome face...somewhere along the line, the evening had become magical, a fantasia he wished never to end. How could he have imagined anything like this after Russia, after what they’d done to him?

But no, they only had the hour. Each time Bucky skated circles around Steve, or skated backwards while beckoning him forward, or made any kind of move Steve called “fancy,” Bucky goaded him gleefully, and Steve pursed his lips, shook his head. Magical.

“Showoff,” Steve grumbled when Bucky raced a couple kids around Steve in figure eights. But he watched with genuine fondness wherever Bucky skated, and the soft joy on his face made Bucky think he felt that magic, too.

“Hungry?” Bucky asked, when their time was almost up, skidding up next to Steve.

“An icicle, more like it,” Steve replied amiably. “But yeah, I’ve definitely worked up an appetite. You want to try the Grill? My treat—you rescued my night, it’s the least I can do.”

“I’d like that.” They skated side by side until they had to return their skates, then strolled to the stairs. The flags around the plaza snapped in the sharp breeze, and Bucky brought his hand to Steve’s collar, pulling it up against the wind. They both froze, blinking.

“Uh...”

Steve blinked and shook his head—no worries. They stared at one another until Steve cleared his throat. “So we—we haven’t seen much of you this week, as I said. The gang wondered if we’d lost some of our appeal as lab rats.” He hesitated before adding, “I wondered if I’d made it uncomfortable last week.”

With a minute shake of his head, Bucky said, “Not at all. Things have been a bit busy, what with Mr. Stark being out of the country and some folks taking off early for Christmas. Stark has a lot of irons in the fire that I think he forgets about from time to time.”

Steve blew out a harsh breath. “Yeah, I know. Like sending someone to report on which departments can be replaced with electronic brains and not telling them.” He peered at Bucky, trying to discern something in his reaction to such cutting words.

Bucky simply tried to arrange his face into blankness. Goddamn them for putting him in the middle of this. “Steve—we don’t. I mean, I don’t think anyone wants to replace...” What was he allowed to say here? If he told them about the merger and how much more work there’d be, Fury would have his head, maybe Stark, too. But Bucky hated that Steve hated the machine before he’d even had a chance to see what it could do for them.

Closing his eyes, Steve shook his head, his shoulders sagging. The magic around them had vanished, just like that. “You know what they’re planning to do, don’t you? Why can’t you just be honest with me about what your report is for? I feel like we’ve...become friends, these past weeks. Shouldn’t a friend be honest?”

“I...” Bucky scrambled for something reassuring to say.

Steve’s face grew thunderous, his eyes flinty. His voice was brittle when he said, “Never mind, Mr. Barnes. Don’t put yourself out on my account.”

It was as though Bucky’s stomach had dropped into his shoes. “It’s not like that at all—”

With a scowl, Steve turned, saying over his shoulder, “Thank you for the skating, it was fun,” and disappeared into the bustling crowd. Bucky could only watch him go, mouth hanging open, the sounds drowned out by the blood pounding in his ears.

It was silly to walk all the way up to Peggy and Gabe’s place, he didn’t even usually walk home from work and their brownstone was a good deal north of Steve’s. But he was so steamed that he needed to work it off somehow, and sitting on a bus or the subway wouldn’t cut it.

There had already been plenty to chew on after this evening and now there was something else, because he’d just realized he’d left Bucky’s books and the duffel with his suit in the office. Well, it didn’t matter, really, he had plenty of suits. And Bucky could damn well wait for his stupid books.

They were only planning to feed them into that infernal machine, anyway, and put him and his friends out of a job.

A taxi nearly hit him when he stepped off the curb, not watching where he was going. If it had made impact, it probably would have sustained more damage than he did. Living as plain old Steve Rogers again these past few years had allowed him to forget that he was still peak human, and he should be more cautious unless he wanted his identity known. He wondered what Bucky would make of things if he found out that Steve had been Captain America, the man who’d rescued him from the Kreuzberg factory.

Didn’t matter now, though. He had to forget this irrational fixation on Barnes, because that was nothing, it was less than nothing—and despite the sometimes bumpy road they’d been on, his future was with Sharon.

By the time he reached Peggy’s place he’d worked up something of a sweat, never mind the low temperature. It was satisfying, though: this way he could also be angry at the cold and not merely at Bucky Barnes—not to mention Fury and Stark for their little plot his team had been dragged into against their wills.

Steve really should have called ahead—he’d passed dozens of phone booths along the way, but he leaned on the doorbell and hoped she’d magically know it was him.

Which, apparently, she did: she stood, faintly amused, in her entryway, wearing a purple robe and slippers and with her hair in a flower print scarf. He closed the door and followed her into the living room, where the television glowed blue in the corner. She wordlessly handed him a cup of tea and snatched the cap from his head—never once sinking to the obvious Lassie remark, although she’d known he’d expected Sharon that evening.

Gabe hugged Steve and cleared some space for him on the sofa as Steve tossed his jacket and scarf on a chair. “You look kinda beat-up,” he commented, to which Steve could only respond with a pained face.

“Kids in bed?” Peggy nodded and sat down between him and Gabe, hoisting her feet onto the coffee table. “I’m sorry if I caught you two heading to bed,” Steve said. “I was just...”

When he trailed off, Peggy inquired, “She threw you over again, didn’t she?”

It was better than a scolding, and he gave a ragged sigh. “Well, yeah, she did, but that’s not why I was upset enough to walk all the way here.” She arched her elegant brow, surmising the real reason immediately, but Peggy would make him say it because she was uncompromising. “I ended up...Mr. Barnes came by the office on my way out, and we went to”—it might sound peculiar if he said they went ice skating, so he settled on what they’d intended to do—“have a drink in the plaza. He still refuses to say anything about, well, anything, even when I asked point blank. It just pissed me off so much, Peggy! We know he’s hiding something, he knows we know, and I thought.” Steve gulped. “I thought we might be friends, after last week.”

“Of course you did. That’s why it hurts so damnably much. To tell the truth, I thought you were hitting it off, as well.” Gabe seemed rather amused by this conversation; he’d witnessed during the war Steve dithering about first Peggy and then later a fellow from a British commando unit. Maybe he should have Gabe give him pointers; he’d been quite the Romeo back then, especially in London, and obviously he’d won the hand of a most selective woman.

“I feel so helpless,” Steve said, downing the rest of his tea. “They’re plotting something for us, but I can’t fight back if I don’t know what it is exactly—other than putting that stupid BRAINIAC in. Howard deliberately went out of reach just so we’d be in the dark.”

“And he’ll pay for it, believe you me.”

“Oh, I do. But by then, Sam and Natasha will be out pounding the pavement for new jobs, and you and I will be trying to decide whether our old jobs are worth it. Do you think you will—go back, I mean. To SHIELD.”

“No idea, darling.”

Gabe said, “The New York office would be overjoyed to take either of you back. In a heartbeat.” They didn’t use Gabe nearly as well as they should have there, but it was still better than he’d been treated in DC. When Peggy’d first taken over at the SSR, it had largely been due to Howard throwing his weight around, first in New York, and then later the entire organization. The men around her had always been too short-sighted to comprehend just how damn good Peggy was—they might have eventually given her some modicum of respect, but only in the most grudging way. They treated Gabe the same way—nothing had changed, really, even after a world war, and the injustice festered inside Steve to this day. “It’d still more of a normal life than Cap.”

Maybe he should consider it, try to make a difference again, if only for the sake of more people like Gabe or Peggy. “Have I told you lately how lucky I am to know you both?”

They gazed affectionately at him, and Gabe got up, heading toward the hallway. “I’ll get some linens, we can make up the couch for you.”

“No, don’t bother,” Steve objected. “I have to feed her majesty, anyway, she’ll be screaming for food by now.”

“Are you sure? Perhaps Mrs. Putnam can slip in and do that,” Peggy suggested. “We always stay up for the news, anyway, and the children will adore waking you up by jumping on you.”

“Really, you needn’t bother, I’m all right. Walking helped me calm down. I just needed to blow off some steam.” He glanced at Peggy with apologetic eyes. “I hate thinking of this little family we’ve made being broken up by...by a stupid machine.”

“But we won’t, not really. Gabe and I are staying in New York come what may, and I doubt Sam or Natasha are going anywhere either. We’ll keep in touch.”

Some boss he was. He’d been a super-soldier once, he’d been a hero—now he couldn’t even save their jobs. There wasn’t a clear-cut enemy to fight.

“It’ll all look a bit brighter tomorrow at the party, especially once we open the champagne. It illuminates everything.” Peggy saw him to the door, leaned against the wall. “It hurts more because you are in love. And not with Sharon. Not anymore.” Steve couldn’t put up an argument, because she was always right. She kissed his cheek; he could smell the Jolie Madame that still lingered on her skin. “And take a cab home, you ridiculous man.”

He did. When he got inside, Biscuit was prowling back and forth, yelling at him for making her wait for her evening meal. So much for the extra food he’d left that morning. “Oh yeah?” he asked, “it’s that bad, huh? I’m cruel and neglectful?” Steve picked her up—she liked to be carried in the crook of his arm, kneading his neck—and dished out her food. Even if keeping a cat in an apartment without outside access had been feasible before the war, he’d never have been able to because he’d been deathly allergic to cats—and dogs and horses and, well, everything. But he’d always longed for a pet, was gone too much for a dog, so when the landlady’s flame-point Siamese cat had kittens, he’d latched right on to this one. He loved her cantankerous nature, the way she talked at him nonstop and curled up next to his head at night, purring away his bad dreams. Sometimes it was far too quiet on Lonesome Island.

In the morning, Steve did feel a little better, despite a gnawing ache in the pit of his stomach at the prospect of encountering Bucky. Because Christmas fell on a Wednesday, all the office parties had been scheduled for Friday, and much of the staff would be taking off the two weekdays before. The news programs were still live, however, so a skeleton crew of Steve and Peggy would work Monday and Tuesday, and then just Steve himself on the holiday; same thing the following week around New Year’s. It seemed as though many of the people riding his bus that morning also looked forward to a long weekend ahead, because everyone seemed unusually festive—even the ones who weren’t regulars called out season’s greetings, making it far jollier than a typical Manhattan commute.

It left him in a much-improved mood when he got in. Sam was already there, going through the office decorations that hadn’t been put up earlier. Steve was about to ask him what he was searching for when Sam asked, “There were a couple books on my desk this morning—I wasn’t sure what they were for, but then I saw a slip in the tray from you that said Brainiac had borrowed them?”

There went his better mood. “Yes, he stopped by late yesterday, on my way out. But you know how he is, he set them down and must have forgotten to take them with when he left.”

“Should I reshelve them?”

“Nah. Set them down on the file cabinet by the door.” Steve went into his office and hung up his coat and hat.

“Do you think he’ll be by for the festivities? We’re gonna finish decorating the tree. Nat says this place is quite the shindig for holidays. I’m quoting.” Their tree was sitting on top of Peggy’s desk, half decorated.

Musing, Steve said, “Yeah, I guess people really get caught up in it. And don’t worry—in case they didn’t tell you, there will be bonuses this afternoon.”

“Now you’re talking!” Sam exclaimed, and then instantly sobered. “I mean, that’s not why I work here.”

That amused Steve. “I know. Don’t worry, I get what you mean.” Especially since these might be their final Christmas bonuses.

Natasha and Peggy swept through the doors, arms overflowing with packages, laughing merrily. They set the gifts in the corner and took off their coats, hats, and gloves, waving at Steve. It had been such a long time since he’d had a family and anyone besides them to shop for, and he watched them with affection, looking forward to sharing presents. He’d miss this most of all.

Natasha wore a stunning dress Steve had never seen on her before—a gorgeous, shimmering lilac silk dress with elbow-length sleeves that made her look somehow taller. Set against her red hair, it was so vivid he wanted to ask her to sit for him sometime today. Peggy was resplendent in her own silk dress—shot silk, it must be, because it changed from scarlet to a kind of burgundy as she moved, especially the dramatic, swishy skirt. It reminded him, in a way, of that red dress she’d worn so many years ago in the pub. After Steve had rescued Bucky Barnes without even knowing he’d done so.

He busied himself with hammering out some work, putting tags on the last of the presents, while they bustled around finishing the tree and the décor. The radio was on for a change, playing Christmas programs, and he found himself humming along, blessedly not thinking of the night before.

When he looked up at last, Sam was standing on a maintenance department ladder in front of the door, hammer in hand. “You sure you want this mistletoe hanging above the door?”

Natasha stepped back from the tree, a vulpine smile on her red lips. “Absolutely! That way if anything tasty comes in, I can nab him.”

“Wear it in your hair!” Peggy suggested.

“Round about three o’clock, I may,” she responded with a firm nod.

“That’s the spirit!” Peggy enthused. “This may be our last Christmas party here, so let’s make it a corker.” She pulled a bottle of booze out of the filing cabinet behind her desk.

“Oh dear—before lunch?” Nat pretended to be scandalized.

“Before lunch, for lunch, after lunch.” She pulled the cork out with a flourish, tossed it over her shoulder with a whoop.

Climbing down, Sam asked, “What’s the company policy for parties here, anyway?”

“Anything goes, just so long as you don’t lock the doors.” Natasha was definitely in a celebratory mood—Steve wasn’t sure anyone of the male sex was safe, and possibly not all of the females, either. It made his chest tighten, watching them all like this: throwing tinsel on the tree, enjoying each other. Just like a family.

Peggy refused to let the phone ringing interrupt her pouring. He’d learned a long time ago that she adored champagne—any sparkling drink, really. On New Year’s Eve of ’45, she’d shown him a stash of cava one of her fellow spies had smuggled back from Spain, and the two of them had stayed up all night, bundled against the cold, drinking most of it on the roof of his hotel quarters. That was when he’d discovered he couldn’t get drunk anymore, and they’d tested out just how much booze it might take to push the needle toward slightly tipsy with the cava, brandy, some gin, and eventually a very old bottle of scotch. All it had done was make him queasy and slightly agreeable. Nowadays, he pretended to be drunk so no one would question why imbibing had no effect.

“Reference, Miss Carter speaking. Happy Christmas!” Steve’d never really asked why she still used her maiden name at work—it had made sense at SHIELD, but almost everyone here knew she was married. He’d always believed it unfair that women were expected to give up their names, so he’d assumed it was a conscious choice. “Certainly. Please do me the courtesy of writing this down. Every year, you ask us for the same bloody information. Dasher, Dancer, Comet, Cupid...”

Steve smiled and tidied everything up on his desk.

“They’re running a big early this year,” Nat explained for Sam’s benefit. “Around four, they’ll call for the complete text of A Visit from Saint Nick. Probably the only questions we’ll get today.” Peggy handed them all cups and they toasted; Steve scurried out to join them.

“The tree looks great!” Steve said. “The old-fashioned ones truly are prettiest.” He was sort of glad he’d missed the infamous modern Rockefeller Center tree of 1949: doused in silver paint, he’d heard, with over seven thousand lights in pastel colors, then they’d lined the street with hundreds and hundreds of glowing, whirling, shiny plastic snowflakes. It had been so bright and...arresting that it had caused an enormous traffic jam, and traffic hadn’t recovered till after ten at night. Steve was hopelessly old-fashioned about some things, and Christmas was one of them—give him a scraggly old real tree any day.

They were drinking and toasting when Peter Parker came through the door, carrying a couple of baskets. “Here’s the stuff you ordered, Mr. Rogers.”

“Oh! There you are,” Steve said, setting the baskets on Peggy’s desk, under the tree. “This one’s the food, and this one’s for laughs.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’ve had a couple of laughs already.” He began undoing the cage around the cork. Only the finest champagne for Peggy—he’d picked up a couple bottles of Cristal and Dom, just for him and her later, but for the party, he was providing a slightly lesser vintage of Veuve Clicquot—he didn’t mind splashing out for his team.

“Who among us hasn’t,” Peggy said, ruffling his hair as he sat in front of her desk. “I plan to laugh all day.”

“You also got some more Christmas cards.” Peter handed Natasha a stack. He was almost out the door before Steve realized it.

“Hey, wait up! This is from the reference department to you, Pete.”

“Oh gee, Mr. Rogers, thank you—that’s swell.” He seemed genuinely thrilled with his little bonus from them, but Steve had an idea of just what he could do to better it. He put his hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Did they give you anything yet over in legal?”

“No, sir.”

“So, listen—the mail boy we had last year, we told him to go over to legal and make a big production about what we gave him, and it worked: they met our figure.” At first, Peter looked baffled, but the light dawned and his face lit up. He gave Peter’s shoulder a squeeze. “Tell me something—you got a nice, crisp five-dollar bill?” Peter’s eyes grew immense and he pulled out a five. “Add that to what we gave you. Get my drift?” Peter tapped the side of his nose, practically giggled, and beelined for legal. “Come back to our party later!” Steve called.

When Steve turned around, his team was grinning like idiots. He popped the cork on the bottle and tried to catch the spray in his mouth. Steve had worn his favorite cardigan, the red cashmere one that was most seasonally appropriate, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t survive the day at this rate. At least it would die in service to one last perfect day. As Steve poured more champagne, they dug in to the stuff he’d ordered from Zabar’s. Outdoing other departments on the festivities was a tradition at FBC, and Steve enjoyed setting up a lavish spread no one else could compete with. Natasha and Sam were squabbling over something they’d pulled out of the large basket and he snatched it from their hands, answering Peggy’s phone at the same time. “Reference, Merry Christmas, Rogers speaking,” he said, stuffing a cookie in his mouth. “Why, yes indeed, I can.” He began listing Santa’s reindeer as his co-workers moaned in sympathy.

“Give me that bottle,” Peggy demanded of Sam, who was reading the label.

Natasha plopped down and put her feet on another chair, as Sam perched on the end of Peggy’s desk. “What do you think it’ll be like next year after we’re gone? You think little BRAINIAC will be able to throw a Christmas party?”

With a frown, Sam scolded, “Don’t talk like that. It’s bad luck. It’s Christmas, for heaven’s sake.”

As they raised their cups and toasted the day, Peggy said darkly, “If we do get the sack, we won’t be the only ones to lose our jobs to a machine.” She tossed back her champagne and immediately refilled her cup.

Grimly staring into her cup, Nat concurred. “No kidding. I hear thousands of people are being replaced by these mechanical brains.”

Oh no. Steve had to get them back on track or this would make for a maudlin party. He snatched one of the cards and said, “Look, this one’s from Wanda Maximoff! She had your job, Sam.”

“I’ll wager it’s a picture of her and that rich husband she snared, off in some exotic locale.” Peggy sniffed.

“Like Zanzibar, or Fiji?” Steve asked her, smirking, and she cuffed him on the side of his head. A photo fell out. “Oh look! A baby.”

Natasha and Peggy gasped. He hadn’t expected that, he’d thought Wanda might end up being some sort of jet-setter—she’d always loved the travel questions, knew all the great explorers.

“So cute!” Sam said, to which Nat responded, “All babies are cute.”

“Not true at all,” Sam intoned. “My brother’s kid was the ugliest little old man you ever saw. Like a constipated gangster.”

“Let’s drink to the baby!” They hoisted their cups in another toast.

“Merry Christmas, ladies and gents.” They turned to see Clint Barton samba through the doors. “It’s my great pleasure to inform you that the party in legal has started, and you’re all invited.”

“Yes, let’s go!” Nat cried, jumping to her feet. “I adore legal, it’s all men.” Barton held his arms out for Natasha and Peggy to take, and they skipped out the door with him, followed closely by the men, as Barton began a round of “Jingle Bells” and Steve yanked one of the cheaper bottles of champagne out of the basket.

“They never have good champagne in legal,” he told Peggy, snagging her other arm.

As soon as he exited the elevator on the penthouse floor, Bucky ran smack into a wall of noise: loud voices, drunken laughter, overly cheerful Christmas music, and the constant clinking of glass as people toasted and mixed and stirred.

Apparently, no one here got any work done on the Friday before Christmas. Perhaps something to take into consideration for Emmie: while someone would have to type in the queries, once the parties began, repeat or simple questions wouldn’t have to interrupt a festive mood. That made him smile as he finished the last clue in the Times crossword and went inside to Miss Hill’s desk.

“Someone from my lab may be arriving later”—he fished in his pocket for the slip of paper with her name on it—“a Miss Lorraine. She’ll probably be looking for me—could you let her know, if she comes up here, that I’ll be in research?”

She hiccupped. “Of course, Mr. Barnes.” Miss Hill sheepishly hiccupped again and grimaced, tossing a paper cup in the wastebin.

The cacophony was almost as bad downstairs, but at least it was kept behind the opaque glass doors of the legal department. He went into reference instead of venturing into legal—parties weren’t really his cup of tea anymore. While Bucky’d reached a point where loud noises no longer provoked an urge to crawl into a closet and cry, constant din that couldn’t be shut out left him edgy, overstrung. He’d find himself snapping at people, irritable over the most insignificant things—that was not the person he wanted to be.

No sign of Steve in the office. He’d fucked everything up last night: it was perfectly reasonable for Steve to wonder what would happen when Bucky’s report was filed, what EMERAC meant for his department, and Bucky was goddamn sick over not taking a stand and saying something.

Hanging up his coat and hat, he sniffed at the contents of a paper cup on Peggy’s desk. They too were hitting the booze early—an empty whiskey bottle was rolling around her desk and he set it in the wastebin, alongside an empty bottle of rum. The phone rang.

“Hello?” It was a news writer, asking about Santa’s reindeer. “Sure, I think I know them...there’s Dopey, Sneezy, Grouchy, Happy, Sleepy, Rudolph, and Blitzen.” He would probably catch holy hell from Peggy or Natasha for this, but it was kind of worth it, since the dumb cluck asking was drunk enough to believe him.

As he hung up, Steve barreled through the doors, carrying a bottle of expensive champagne—he really did have fine tastes. He tipped the bottle upside down when he saw Bucky, a playful sparkle lighting his eyes. So they were already down at least the two bottles he’d found, plus champagne. “Hey.” Steve jerked his chin up. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” Bucky tried an appeasing smile. “Listen, about last night—”

Shaking his head, Steve said with vehemence, “No, please. I overreacted. If Mr. Fury wanted me to know what’s going on, I’d know.”

“That’s not an excuse—I’m still sorry.” As much as he wanted to explain, anything Bucky said might only revive what had made Steve angry in the first place. Besides, it was a party. They stared at each other for a while before Bucky tapped the desk with his metal hand. “Um...I tried to find you earlier.”

Steve’s face registered surprise—pleasant? Bucky wondered. “Party,” Steve said, pointing toward legal. “I brought a note from my mother, in case you require it.”

“You look of age to me. Just barely.”

Steve struggled to peel the foil from a new bottle of champagne. “Nerts.”

“Doesn’t seem like much gets done around here this day,” and Bucky attempted to lean casually against the desk. Steve was unbelievably handsome in his red sweater, pale gray shirt that was almost silver, and sapphire and silver-striped tie; he looked like some very nice wrapping paper, a thought which sent Bucky’s imagination running wild. His sleeves were pushed up on his incredible forearms and Bucky struggled not to bite his lip.

“Aw, we never work here anyway. This is just our playpen.” The way he tipped toward Bucky, slightly woozy, set his pulse off-kilter. “But if you’re all work and no play, that budget’s over there. Sam finished it this morning.”

Pulling out Sam’s chair, Bucky sat down and put his glasses on to look it over. He could feel Steve behind him, smell the alcohol on his breath. “So if you get a gander at our budget, why don’t you let us read your report? Hardly seems fair otherwise.”

“My report? Already submitted.” Steve’s face darkened and Bucky sighed. Once again, he’d said the wrong thing. He glared down at the paper, irate.

“There you are!” Peggy called out. “I was wondering where you’d got to.” She looked so gorgeous Bucky almost did a double-take—not that she wasn’t always lovely, but that red dress made her glow and set off her shining brown hair wonderfully. A sprig of mistletoe was placed jauntily over her left ear.

The corner of Steve’s mouth tugged down. “I came in here to look for something... Oh, right.” He held up the bottle he’d been trying to open before like a trophy.

“Don’t take it back to legal, you’ll never get another drop. It’s too splendid to waste on them—let’s drink it right here.” Peggy was absolutely smashed; Steve wasn’t that far behind her.

“Rightio. Right here.” He flashed a sidelong look at Bucky, absurdly charming.

“How well does champagne go with rum, scotch, martinis, and bloody marys?” Peggy asked as the two of them sat down in front of her desk. She kicked her shoes off and stuck her feet in Steve’s lap. Pretending he was actually reading this budget was pointless, so Bucky set the pencil down.

“Marvelously, I would think. They’re all the same base—alcohol.”

Steve finally succeeded in getting the foil off the top, then set about trying to undo the cage. “What year is it?” Peggy squinted at the label. “Oooh, 1947, now that was a good year.” She tipped her head back, shaking her hair, throwing her arms wide.

Steve forced a laugh, dry and brittle. “Not for me, it wasn’t. You remember—that was the year of the very...cold and bitter ice. It was lonely.” The two of them exchanged some kind of meaningful glance, and Peggy looked over at Bucky.

“But you lived to tell the tale.” Her voice was tender, as though she were talking about some great personal tragedy and not the weather. But the cork popped out, champagne poured from the bottle, and they both grinned; Peggy snatched a paper cup and caught some of the overflow. “That reminds me. Just as I was getting off the Mexican Avenue bus the other night—”

Steve snorted, making a mess of pouring his own cup.

“Just what is so funny?”

“The Mexican Avenue bus.” Steve leaned back in his chair, flopping his head back to view Bucky upside down. “Peg has Mexico on the brain right now. She and her husband are going to Acapulco for their vacation in February.” He turned back to Peggy. “You mean the Mexington Avenue...Lexington Avenue bus, Madame.”

She howled, slapping his arm. “Indeed I do!” They knocked back their booze and Steve poured some more. Christ, Bucky thought, Steve couldn’t possibly be any cuter, and he wished he could just...kiss him, right now, kiss him in his drunken sweetness. All his usual prickliness had dissolved in the liquor.

Loosening his tie, Steve dipped toward Peggy and said, “Pegs, did you know that our Mr. Barnes also lives on the Mexican Avenue bus line?”

Bucky shook his head as the two of them snickered over that; his fondness threatened to smother him. Why did this job have to be over soon?

The phone on Sam’s desk rang, jolting Bucky out of his besotted reverie. “They’re gone for the day,” he said, hanging up on the caller.

“Hey, Brainiac,” Steve said, and Bucky moaned. “Stop fussing over that budget and answer a question.” They scooted their chairs toward him, too stewed to do more than hop them across the floor. “I mean, don’t dwell on the question, because I’ll warn you, there’s a trick in it. If six methods engineers get off a train in Las Vegas, and two of them are found floating face down in a goldfish bowl, and the only thing that identifies them are two phone numbers—one, Plaza 0-0000 and the other, Plaza 0-1492—what time did the train get to Palm Springs?” He hiccupped.

Bucky chuckled. “Nine o’clock.”

“Hm. Would you mind telling me how you arrived at that answer?” Steve angled himself over the desk, chin in hand.

“Well, there are eleven letters in Palm Springs. Take away two methods engineers, that leaves nine.”

“You’re a sketch, Mr. Bucky Barnes.”

“You’re pretty cute yourself.” He’d have sworn Peggy squealed a little.

“How’d you like some of our champagne. It’s quite pricey,” Steve offered.

“That’d be nice, thank you.” They both got up, and Steve rather dramatically flung his sweater off, rolling his shirtsleeves above his elbows. Good lord. He took the cup Peggy handed him and held it out while Steve poured rather unsteadily. “Slàinte.” The bubbles tickled his nose and made him snort.

“Well done,” Steve said. “Now you may have your Christmas present.”

Bucky took his handkerchief out and dabbed at his nose while Peggy gave him more. Steve slipped a box out from under the tree. “From the reference department to you.” Fire warmed his cheeks; it hadn’t occurred to him they would care enough to get him something, and he hadn’t brought any gifts of his own. “Just a little something we thought you’d like.” Steve pulled the ribbon off with an impatient flourish so Bucky could rip off the paper. Inside was a huge knitted scarf in maroon and gray. “Your college colors, right?”

“Wow,” Bucky said, pulling it out...and pulling, and pulling.

“It’s six feet long.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Bucky confessed, wrapping the enormous scarf around his neck. “I’m speechless.”

“Merry Christmas will do nicely,” Peggy instructed. He was so touched that Steve had thought of him, had gone to the lengths to find such a thing. But he was pretty lousy at expressing his feelings in words, so he hugged Steve, kissed Peggy on the cheek.

As he was preparing to say something, Sharon Carter sailed through the doors, carrying presents and wearing a cute little Santa cap, dressed to the nines. She really was quite striking, and Bucky felt his heart sink. Steve shouted, “Sharon!” He took yet another bottle of champagne out of her hand and embraced her—Bucky could see how much he wanted to kiss her.

A stunted groan escaped Bucky’s throat. He threw a nervous glance Peggy’s way, but she merely rolled her eyes in commiseration. So he wasn’t the only one who thought Sharon didn’t appreciated a fella like Steve.

“When did you get back?” Steve asked, glowing.

“Just now. Told you I’d make it back for the parties. Hello, Peggy!”

“Hello, Sharon.” Peggy was far too ladylike to be anything but polite. “The parties have begun early this year—the gang’s all in legal. Why don’t you join us?” Bucky had the distinct impression she wanted to separate Sharon from Steve.

“I certainly will, in just a bit!” She handed the gifts to Steve and he set them under the tree.

“Hello, Miss Carter.” Bucky folded his new scarf, putting it back in the box.

“Oh hello, Mr. Barnes. Merry Christmas.”

“I like your hat,” Bucky offered.

“And I like your suit,” she responded, dryly amused. “You should wear one more often.”

Hoping to stave off a contest, Steve said, “Come on in my office,” waving her bottle of bubbly. It was an inferior brand to what Steve had brought. Figured.

Steve suddenly didn’t seem as sloshed as he had moments ago, and even though he shut the door, Bucky could hear everything. The effects of what those scientist had done to him, either in Austria or in Russia, he’d never been sure: he could see a hundred times better, even in the dark, and hear things far away. He was faster, and stronger, and outside of needing the glasses when his eyes got wonky, in every way he was physically superior to what he’d been before the war. Howard claimed they’d been attempting to create their own Captain America serum; it made a sick kind of sense.

The sound of the cork popping was followed by silence. Then: “Does he hang around all the time?” Sharon asked Steve, and Bucky heard him answer, distantly, “Almost.”

Steve’s telephone rang, but Bucky heard him pick the receiver up and put it down hard, muttering, “Not today.” He toasted Sharon’s return; Bucky yearned to turn around and see, but there was no way to do it without embarrassing both himself and Steve. “To us,” they both said at the same time. “Here,” Steve said, “open yours first. It’s a bit smaller.” They must be exchanging presents—which seemed odd: why weren’t they doing that in private instead of at the office? Were there more intimate presents coming later on, or did Sharon plan to spend the holiday with her parents—and Steve wasn’t invited?

“Oh, Steve! The earrings! Oh, they’ll look so wonderful with the necklace.” Well, that definitely sounded like a gift you gave to someone you were in love with. “I can’t possibly give you yours now, it’s just too silly.”

“You know how much I love silly gifts. They’re way better than dressing gowns or tie tacks.”

“Somehow I doubt you’ll say that when you open it. I just wanted to give you a laugh, but after these earrings...”

More quiet followed—were they kissing?—and Bucky tried to take a call while still listening with one ear. When he hung up, he heard Steve exclaim, “Bongo drums! Every man’s dream. How did you know?”

“Well, I saw a sign when I passed a music store that said, ‘For the man who has absolutely everything.’ And of course I thought of you.”

“Do I have everything?”

They must have kissed this time, because there was a deep silence, until he heard her say, “Steve, I had some time to think while I was traveling...you know, I think the whole company has had us married for five years anyway—”

“I guess they succeeded where I failed.”

Shit—Bucky had to nip this in the bud, right now. He didn’t want to be present for their engagement announcement. He knocked on the glass.

“For crying out—” Steve snarled, but his back was to the door. Sharon had spotted Bucky, however, and watched him uneasily.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Rogers,” Bucky said, entering. Steve didn’t seem...too disappointed that it was him. “Your phone must be out of order, I was taking your calls for you.” Perching on the edge of his desk, Steve waited; Sharon stood by, crossing arms over her chest, back rigid. “Someone called ‘Take Home the Loot’ needs the name of Scrooge’s partner, Scrooge’s first name, and how many brothers and sisters Tiny Tim had.”

Steve reached for the yellow notepad, but Bucky waved it at Sharon. “Oh, and Miss Carter, Mr. Fury’s office called, they want to see you right away.”

“Oh!” That instantly animated her, eyes widening, hands fluttering. “When did they call?”

“Couple minutes ago.”

She glared daggers at him for not telling her sooner and made for the door to the fast elevators. “I’ll see you later, Steve—dinner?”

“Of course, of course.” Though Steve appeared confused, he didn’t seem particularly annoyed, which gave Bucky’s hopes a boost.

Just as Bucky started to speak—he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, but that had never stopped him from sharing an opinion before and the stakes were bigger now—a crowd burst through the main doors, singing and chattering and...someone was playing a piano on a moving platform. It had a big sign on it: “Do Not Remove From Studio A.” This place was absolutely bananas at Christmas.

Swirling couples danced their way inside the research office. Most of the time, Bucky didn’t dwell on how much he missed dancing, but Sam and Natasha, especially, cut quite a figure together, Natasha’s purple skirts swirling and Sam’s suit jacket flying out, and he was overtaken with a biting twinge of envy.

Steve grinned, tapped him on the arm, and took his MIT scarf, wrapping it around his neck; Bucky retaliated by swiping his bongo drums. He pulled up a chair next to the piano, set the drums between his knees, absurdly pleased when he saw Steve affectionately watching. Peggy swung past Bucky to haul Steve over and shuffle him around the floor with her—well, he had said he couldn’t dance, and that proved to be true.

Bucky hadn’t the faintest clue how to play bongos nor any rhythm to speak of—when he wasn’t dancing, anyway—but people enjoyed the addition of his instrument well enough. When he grew tired of it after a few songs, he tracked where Steve was, swaying under the influence, staring at the upstairs loft. Curious. “Did you ever notice that it looks like the side of a ship up there?” Steve asked.

Since Russia, Bucky hadn’t been able to get drunk—but he could get a little snockered if he tried, drank fast enough, and he’d been downing quite a lot of that champagne plus the highly unbalanced eggnog. He felt loose, young, so he tapped Steve’s shoulder and raised his eyebrows in challenge, and they raced up the spiral staircase like a couple of schoolboys. Leaning over the railing, he said, “You’re right—it’s just like a troop ship.” He waved at the dancers below as Steve shredded his paper cup and threw the confetti down.

“Bon voyage!” Peggy cried, waving vigorously at them. “Send me a postcard.”

Steve threw some ribbon he’d taken off a package and yelled, “Au revoir! Farewell!” blowing her noisy kisses. Bucky took a long pull from the bottle of champagne he’d brought. “Is this your first Mediterranean cruise?”

“Yes, but don’t tell anyone—it’d upset them.” At Steve’s questioning look, he explained, “I’m the captain.”

“Well, how ’bout I help you steer? I’ve made this journey often—I’m independently wealthy, you see.” Their shoulders were touching; his heat scorched Bucky’s skin.

After Bucky handed him the bottle, Steve took a long swig; Bucky watched his throat muscles move, mesmerized, and he wanted to count all the freckles on Steve’s skin with his tongue. “Would you like to sit down? My deck chair’s right next to yours.” He moved into the stacks; Bucky’s mouth went dry.

“That’s swell, because I’ve lost mine.” Bucky slid down to the floor, Steve sprawling out across from him. He looked so desirable with his sleeves rolled up, tie loose, shirt stretching against those impressive shoulders. If Bucky shifted his left leg just a hair, it’d press against Steve’s. He handed the bottle back. “Thanks, skipper.”

Bucky shook his head, slipping his glasses off and looking up at Steve from under his brows. This was at best only a temporary stay of execution before Steve and Sharon made their engagement official, he knew now, but he was planning to enjoy every minute of it while he could.

“So tell me, skip, why aren’t you married? Don’t say it’s because you don’t like women.” His face twisted up. “I mean, I guess you could have been married, maybe you’re divorced. I didn’t find anything about that when I looked into you.”

“Sure, of course I like women. As a sex, and you know...specifically. Specifically as women.” Ugh, how awful. He swigged from the bottle.

“Not pacifically enough to actually get hitched.” They both sputtered; Jesus, but Steve was a cute drunk.

What should he say here? For a beat Bucky contemplated Steve, biting his lip. Steve’s gaze was fixed on Bucky’s mouth, and the room temperature shot up. “No, I mean, well...never found anyone who’d put up with me, except Janet, of course.”

“A, I refuse to believe that, and B, tell me all about Janet Of Course.” It wasn’t Bucky’s optimistic imagination—Steve was flagrantly flirting with him.

“Jan was a model. Five feet ten in her stocking feet.”

Steve nodded, entertained. “Had occasion to measure her, did you?”

He dipped his head. “Among other things.” An expressive eyebrow leapt up Steve’s forehead. “It was before the war—”

“Oh no, you got a Dear John letter. Oh, that’s never a good thing to hear.”

Bucky chuckled. “Nope. Actually got dozens of letters. But imagine you’re still recovering from being a POW, you’re out there trying not to get frostbite and lose your fingers, let alone lose your head, and you get six-page letters that’re wholly about women’s fashions—-necklines are going up next year or waists will be cinched. I mean, if it’d been about necklines going lower, I might have been more interested. But then the next letter’d be about hemlines going down...I don’t know. I didn’t know what I’d done to make her think I was a fella who’d care about women’s fashions, at least not while I was being shot at.”

Steve leaned forward, entranced, his hand settling right next to Bucky’s knee. “So what did you do?”

Bucky scratched his chin. “I had a friend who was 4F, had housemaid’s knee or something was wrong with him”—Steve chuckled as though he’d had a pal like that, too—“so I asked him to look her up and keep her from being lonely, and he did. Quite successfully, in fact—and that’s when I got the Dear John letter.” They passed the bottle back and forth; it was almost empty.

“That was lousy.” He wrinkled his nose.

“Nah,” Bucky said. “They were happy with each other. As long as she never writes him a letter, he’ll never know the difference.”

The way Steve inched toward him made Bucky scoot closer, too. “That’s not why you didn’t marry her, I think,” he said, voice low and conspiratorial. There it was again: that subtle sense of the familiar, a voice that was deep and confident and kind. He’d heard it before, must have. It was driving Bucky nuts.

“Oh?”

“You’re in love with someone else.”

“Is that so?” He wasn’t sure what Steve was getting at here, but he’d play along.

“Miss Emily EMERAC. Your monster machine. She’s all you ever think about, all day and night.” Bucky heaved a sigh of relief. “That’s why your socks never match.”

“My socks match, usually—they do today!” Bucky pulled up his trouser legs to show off his matching navy blue socks. “You just haven’t noticed.”

“I notice you.”

Steve took hold of Bucky’s right wrist, circling it with his warm hand. Oh. His eyes were like sparklers on the Fourth of July.

Bucky stroked his index finger back and forth over Steve’s skin. “I bet you write wonderful letters.”

The sounds of the party down below—the music and laughter and singing—faded. With his heart hammering in his chest, Bucky took a drink to mask the anxiety: it was now or never. “There was another reason I didn’t mind that Jan ended up with someone else.” He drew a deep, shaky breath. “See, in the war, I’d started to understand something about myself. That I was attracted to men.” Oh, what he was opening himself up to...

Steve’s hand shifted to Bucky’s left, gripping. “For a while, I’ve thought... In many ways, I think we’re the same. That’s another one of them.” God, how he wanted to feel the way Steve caressed his metal hand. “I wish I’d known you then. Wish I could have helped you after Kreuzberg, after the war.”

Steve’s head was bent, focused on Bucky’s hand, the light slanting across his lower face to highlight his mouth, the angle of his jaw. When he lifted his head, he met Bucky’s gaze with those intense, insightful blue eyes, and Bucky gave a small gasp in recognition. He’d said the name of the factory. He knew. He knew because he was there. “It’s you. You’re him, you’re Captain America.” Bucky blinked rapidly; the revelation left him dazed, reeling, overjoyed at the rightness of it. “I kept thinking your voice was so familiar but I just couldn’t place it. Steve. You’re the one who saved my life.”

Steve ducked his head, twined his fingers with Bucky’s. “You’re too clever by half, so I knew you’d figure it out someday, somehow. It seemed like a good time to come clean, up here.”

“I’d never tell anyone.” Swallowing roughly, Bucky struggled to catch his breath. They drew toward one another, the way the moon pulls toward the earth, and Steve’s mouth met Bucky’s, tender and warm. His hand cupped Bucky’s cheek, the kiss more and more insistent, until he stopped. All too brief. When Steve pulled away, he rose to his knees, and Bucky was about to do the same when Peggy’s voice floated up to them. “Steve,” she called, “you’re wanted on the telephone.”

Bucky tried to smile as Steve stared at him, the Adam’s apple in his throat moving up and down. He prayed Steve didn’t regret this, couldn’t bear it if he did. It had been Steve, all along.

He let go of Bucky’s hand and went downstairs. After taking a moment to collect himself, Bucky walked on his knees over to the railing and peered between the bars. Peggy caught his attention, held her hands out, shrugging. Though she hadn’t said what the call was about, he was certain it was about Sharon.

Whoever was on the other end of the line better have a damn good story. Of all the days and all the moments to call him—didn’t they know no one was working, anyway? “Reference, Rogers.”

“Steve? Maria. Flash: Sharon Carter has just been made a vice president. She’s on her way down to your office.” Her slurred words gave away how snockered she was.

“Oh yeah? Who made her one, Maria—you?” he teased.

“No! Mr. Fury did. He did, didn’t he?” This was followed by a drunk male voice agreeing, “He certainly did” before the line went dead. Steve stared at the phone, scratching his head. Maybe it was good that they’d been interrupted upstairs, before he’d done anything else he might regret. If Sharon had finally achieved her vice presidency, that meant they could discuss what they’d been holding off on, at long last, and he wouldn’t be—distracted. But the way Bucky had kissed him... Steve straightened his tie, smoothed his hair down.

Sharon knocked on the back door. “Steve!”

Throwing the door open, he swept her into his arms. “Come on in, Miss Vice President.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” She kissed him. “I could just die!”

“You deserve it.” He set her down and she pulled on his tie, absolutely radiant, playful.

“When Fury began talking to me so seriously, I thought, ‘This is it, you’re done.’ What with the way everything’s been so mysterious around here lately.” Steve could only smile at that—he’d certainly complained enough to her on the phone while she’d been in Chicago. “But it turned out to be vice president in charge of all West Coast operations.”

“West Coast?” Steve repeated dully.

“I’ve gone ahead and ordered two tickets—we can finally take that plunge, Steve. You’ve been so patient and good to me while I worked for this. We can leave here by Tuesday and get married on the coast. Mom and Dad are already in Mexico for the holidays, it’s perfect timing.”

“This Tuesday? Christmas Eve?”

“Well, yes, why not?” Her brow furrowed; she stepped back, dropping his tie.

“Well, for one thing, Christmas Eve. For another, there’s my apartment.”

“Peggy can take care of that—giving away apartments these days is like giving away diamonds. I bet Natasha would love to take it over!” Her enthusiasm was...grating, to say the least. After all this time of sacrificing what he’d wanted—willingly, that much was true, he wouldn’t dispute it—he was ready to put his foot down. This had to be a partnership, equal in giving and receiving.

“Yeah, maybe. But there’s also my job, I can’t just leave at a moment’s notice.”

With a bright laugh, she said, “Now I’m a vice president, I can just order it! I hereby transfer you to the West Coast to take care of me.”

You are in love, Peggy had said last night. And not with Sharon.“What about the squad? I can’t just leave them, not when everyone’s already so worried they might get canned.”

“Steve, they’re not a squad—you’re not in the Army anymore. Besides, they’re all aces, they’ll find something else, and you won’t be here to have to worry about it.” As though Peggy hadn’t given up everything to come work with him because he’d been so messed up after the ice. As though they weren’t his family. “But they’re not coming on my honeymoon.” Taking his hand, she gave him her sweetest look, but that only made him bristle. “I will extend an invitation to them to come out and visit us next summer at our fabulous new house. That’d be wonderful, wouldn’t it—our very own house! All modern, terribly Californian, up in the Hollywood Hills.”

The noise from the piano and the bongo drums, the shrill laughter, was giving him a headache. Sharon’s face was defiant, almost pugnacious, but Steve shrugged. “You threw this at me so fast, I can’t think.” He scowled. “And—take care of you? So I’m just going to leave everyone and everything I know to be a househusband?” He had no objections to a woman being the breadwinner, but he loved his work, he loved working.

With a huff, Sharon said, “Well, would you rather spend the rest of your life toiling for the Federal Broadcasting Company down here in a dingy office?” That was a step too far, and she seemed to realize it. “Of course you won’t stop working, I’d never ask that. Think of it, though—the sunshine and the ocean, Mexico just a day’s drive away. For god’s sake!” she shouted, wheeling around and glaring out at the revelers. “I can’t even hear anything over those damn bongo drums. Who’s playing— Oh, of course. Barnes.” Scorn dripped from her voice.

“What does that mean?” Now Steve was really cross.

“I think maybe you can guess,” she answered flatly. As if Bucky had anything to do with him not wanting to leave at a moment’s notice. “Oh, Steve, when people want to get married, they don’t worry over apartments and jobs.”

“Oh, really, they don’t?” It was as though she had inadvertently flipped a light switch: he’d been stumbling around in the dark all these years and now he could see all the chips and cracks and wear on the relationship.

“I don’t understand. We’d always talked about a future once I got this. I had every reason to think you wanted this as much as I did.” Tears quivered in the corners of her eyes.

Steve thought he might be heading for tears himself. “You had every reason to believe I wanted it twice as much as you did.”

Shaking her head, Sharon shifted nearer the door. “And yet for certain reasons, you’ve changed your mind.”

Oh, he did not like the way she said “reasons.” He regretted ever confiding his romantic history to her. Funny that she’d never been jealous of Peggy, when that had been far more significant to him at the time than an evening spent in robes with Bucky Barnes.

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, Steve, but it’s one I don’t want to play. You know how I hate games. I can’t believe this is how you want it, after four years of waiting for you.”

“Waiting? You—you waited?”

Sharon threw her hands up and stalked out the back door, slamming it shut, and since there was nothing for Steve to do besides sputter, he opened the door just so he could slam it himself. “And it was five!” After a few minutes of breathing in and out, he turned to find Bucky at his office door. Oh yeah. The bongos had stopped. And he’d missed watching him play—didn’t that just beat all.

“I... I don’t mean to be nosey. I saw a lot of pointing and hand gestures and it seemed that things got pretty heated. Wanted to see if you were all right.”

All he had in him was a sigh. Eventually, Steve managed, “I think we just split up.” He jerked his head, indicating Bucky should follow him. They went out to the little back hallway with the direct elevator, the one Sharon had always used. Steve leaned against the wall, wrestling his emotions into submission, before sliding down to the floor. He pulled his knees up, dangling his arms off them, and Bucky followed suit, sitting next to him.

“I can’t get drunk,” Steve said, and Bucky scrunched his face up, smiling politely at the non sequitur. “The serum—Doctor Erskine explained it as my cells always healing themselves, so I can’t really get drunk. But I act like I am so people don’t think it’s odd. Same with the glasses—I don’t need reading glasses, but I wear them because people look past me more easily. There’s not a lot I can do about my appearance, so I try to call less attention to what I do look like. No one except Peggy saw me without the helmet, my identity was secret, but...I don’t want to take chances.”

The way Bucky hung on his words had always made him feel so important, like he was the only person in the world worth listening to. His blue eyes were like a December sky, his soft smile a promise. Steve could get lost in it, never come up for air.

“Howard found me in the ice in 1950. The world had changed just in those five years and I wasn’t so sure I liked it, but when I saw how they were using Captain America as a mouthpiece for anti-Communist hysteria, I knew I didn’t. Red Scare, Lavender Scare...they were going after everyone, it seemed, all these people I knew, scared of the ones who said we should be scared of them. The guy who stepped into Cap’s shoes...his politics are everything that I was built to fight. It’s fascism, just under a different name. After that, well—all I wanted was a quiet life, after that.”

“I don’t need glasses, either,” Bucky said, eyes cast down, “not really, because I see better than ever, but sometimes stress or fatigue make my eyes bad and they...make me easy to ignore. I know what you mean.” As if anyone could ever ignore a man like him. “You see, I didn’t tell you the whole story.” Bucky was so quiet his voice was nearly lost under the music drifting down the hall. “It’s true you rescued us from the Hydra factory. I chose to stay in, even though they offered me the chance to go home, tour the States for bond sales. Instead I joined a commando group, we took on a lot of risky missions. The last one—we went after the scientist who did the experiments on us. On me. It was a trap—I was the only one who’d ever survived and they wanted me back. I fell from a train, nearly died, lost my arm. The Red Army found me and took me to the USSR—Hydra was there, too. I couldn’t remember anything, so they took advantage of that to try to make me into an assassin. To use me against my own country after the war was over.”

“Jesus.” The story was far worse than Steve could ever have imagined. He’d known nothing of what happened after he went down in the Valkyrie. “I’m so sorry. So sorry.” Steve reached for Bucky’s hand, laced their fingers together.

“Some spies found out about the program, about a year or so after the war, I’m not sure how. Things weren’t that bad yet—the Russians had always had that fascination with American industrialists, you know, so Howard Stark was invited for an exchange of technology.” Steve shook his head; he didn’t know that, but now that Bucky said it, he recalled reading something about the Soviets’ obsession with Henry Ford and the automation of his plants, all that Titans of Industry garbage. “He really used it as a way to find the American prisoner. They’d already put the arm on me, and there was a man there...he could make you do things, get into your mind. Things you’d never want to do. It took a while for me to remember who I was, after I came home, he was very effective.”

“So you wanted a quiet life, too. To rediscover who you were. Be your own man.”

“Yeah.” Bucky smoothed his hair, squeezed Steve’s hand tight. “It’s one reason I put my focus on computing machines, I wanted to understand how things worked so I could maintain the arm, have control over this thing that was done to me when I had no control. And to make other people’s lives better. I know that probably sounds dumb.”

“Not at all. It makes me admire you all the more.”

With a blush, Bucky added, “There’s more...a lot I’d like to tell you. If, you know—if you wanted to hear it.”

“I do. More than anything.” His voice was thick, strained, and his pulse thrummed inside veins. “I just realized... You said before that I saved your life, in the Hydra facility. But do you know, you saved mine—Howard helping you was what made him step up his attempts to find me. He started going up there twice a year, as soon as the ice broke up and right before it came back. Like he was on a mission because of you.”

Bucky leaned his head back. “I’ll be.”

“That’s why I can’t ever really be mad at him, no matter how frustrating he can be. I owe him too much.”

“He really loves you. The way he talks about—”

The door to his office opened, and Peggy stepped into the hallway. “There you are.” Steve suddenly realized that the music had stopped, most of the voices too. They hadn’t been out here that long, but he sort of lost track of time when he was around Bucky. Hell, she was right: he was in love, had been for a while now. Steve had hung on for so long to that vision of him and Sharon, that dream of normalcy, he hadn’t realized he’d squeezed the life out of it and all that was left were filaments, shreds of what they’d started with. But Sharon would be okay, she’d find someone perfect for her, he was sure of it.

“We were just taking a little break.” He wanted to ask if she’d known about Bucky, if she’d been one of the spies he’d mentioned; she had worked with Howard at the time, after all. That could wait, however.

Peggy poked his leg with her toe. “Come, come. Kiss him and then get your coats and hats. It’s decided, we’re all going to the Plaza for drinks and an exchange of pressies.”

Delighted, Steve beamed up at her: she was soused in a way he’d never seen her before, even that night with the cava. And Bucky was gaping. She turned a baleful eye on him and said, “You’re both ninnies, by the way.”

“I didn’t...get anyone anything,” Bucky said with embarrassment.

“Nonsense, no one will care. You can pick up the tab, it’s likely to be quite large.” She departed; the two of them grinned at each other. But she popped her head backwards through the door. “And Barton is coming too. Perhaps Mrs. Barton will drive us.” The door clicked shut.

“She’s really something,” Bucky commented, watching her go.

Standing and offering Bucky a hand up, Steve agreed.

While Bucky got his coat, Steve put his sweater back on and buttoned his coat up, watching through the glass. Definitely a ninny: all he really wanted was to look at Bucky as much as he could. Steve wanted to paint him, every day, till his apartment was stuffed full of a thousand paintings. As the team gathered the gifts from under the tree and Bucky wrapped his scarf around his neck, Sam started to open the door—a woman strutted through, her blond hair done up meticulously under a black velvet hat, wearing a severe cinched-waist black jacket and pencil skirt. There was an imperious quality about her, aided by the smirk on her face and the way she snapped her gloves off, finger by finger.

“Mr. Barnes,” she sighed out, as if finding him was the greatest relief.

“Hi,” he said, a little mystified, as the crew tried to move past her.

“I’m Miss Lorraine. From your lab.” Her sour face betrayed her irritation. “You remember me, don’t you?”

“Oh right, yes. Miss Lorraine.” A sinking sensation hit Steve when he saw how distressed and fidgety Bucky was.

“I had a difficult time finding you—things are very strange around here today.”

“Well, yes, it’s a, um, party. As a matter of fact, Miss Lorraine, I’m not sure today was the best day for you to come here. How about we let this whole thing go till later? I don’t think you’ll get the exact right impression of the place today.”

“Oh pff, I’m not interested in that, just in the physical layout.” She brushed right past Bucky to plant herself in the middle of the office, scanning the surroundings, beady-eyed. The gang circled their wagons; Steve had a very bad feeling about this. “It looks as though we’ll be quite crowded in this space—of course, we could move this desk forward...or possibly just get rid of it. I could use it for my punchcards.”

“Hey!” Sam said, irate in a way Steve had never witnessed. “That’s my desk.”

“What is this, Mr. Barnes?” Natasha asked. “What’s she talking about?”

“Yeah, maybe you could tell us what’s going to happen here?” Steve wondered if this time, finally, Bucky would tell him the truth.

“Miss Lorraine’s from Stark Industries, our lab—she’s an expert in electronics.” He swallowed, anxiety oozing out like sweat. “She’ll be overseeing EMERAC. They’ll start installation here on Monday.” He closed his eyes briefly, the sorrow on his face evident. Steve was determined to pay that no mind.

“According to Mr. Barnes’s figures, it’ll save, in this department alone, 6,240 man-hours a year,” Miss Lorraine interjected. The Brooklyn boy in him wanted to tell her to fuck off, get out of his department, but the professional forced him to stand there.

“How ingenious of Mr. Barnes.” Turning to him, Steve imitated a smile; Bucky’s face went blank. “What a shame he’s not as honest as he is clever.”

“We were on our way out,” Bucky said to Miss Priss. Addressing the team, he said, “We can still go to the Plaza for those drinks we were...” but didn’t finish.

Still wearing his phony smile, Steve said through his teeth, “Why don’t you and Miss EMERAC go over and hoist a few instead?”

“Miss Lorraine,” she corrected. Her perpetual smirk was infuriating.

“Oh? Please excuse me, I can have such a bad memory.”

“Really?” Her head drew back, she frowned. “And you chose to go into reference work with a bad memory?”

Bucky dropped his head, squeezing his eyes closed.

Peggy was about to set her packages on Sam’s desk, challenge in her eyes—and Steve wasn’t sure if he should stop her from doing what he thought she wanted to. It had been a long time since she’d punched someone, but no time like the present. Miss Lorraine opened her mouth but Bucky intervened, taking her by the shoulders and steering her around Steve and Natasha. “Careful, you’re in the major leagues here. Come on.” He marched her toward the door as the gang stood staring, gutted.

Bucky sent Miss Lorraine through the door first, turning back to them with an injured look. “I...well, look...”

“And a Very Merry Christmas to you, too,” Steve declared, his throat aching.

After a deep, shaky breath, Bucky merely said, “Yeah,” and left.

They were each of them paralyzed, holding their packages, eyes trained on the floor. Eventually, Natasha breathed, “Yeah.”

Steve put his packages down, keeping his back to them so they couldn’t see the tears that threatened in his eyes. He bit the inside of his cheek, hard; it’d only make the hurt worse to see him lose his composure. It was as though he was sinking under the icy water again, only darkness surrounding him, numb in every molecule of his body.

Steve turned around, leaned on Sam’s desk. “Come on, you guys. Someone say something funny. Don’t let me down now.”

Peggy halfway faced his direction, but the phone rang and she slipped her earring off as she made to move for it.

“I’ll do it,” Steve cut her off, holding a hand out and picking up the receiver. “Yes, sure I can,” he told the caller. He could feel every eye on him. So he sucked in some air, just as he’d done when the Valkyrie hit, and began, “’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” No one moved at first. “The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in the hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there...”

Finally, they shifted, moving like automatons to their desks, setting down their gifts and taking their coats off, getting back to work.

“Hey, Ma.” Bucky bent to give his mother a kiss as she stirred the gravy, and he set the extras he’d brought for dinner on the table. “Everything smells wonderful.”

“There’s plenty of room under the tree still for your presents.” His extended family had been annoyed at having to wait so long to unwrap presents, but he’d had a rough morning, hadn’t even wanted to come to dinner until Becca practically begged him. At least he’d gotten them to agree to share their own gifts with each other while they waited on his.

Dinner was almost done, Becca’s son and Theresa’s daughter were already at war, squabbling over some stupid toy, and Pop was practically asleep in his armchair, newspaper dangling from his fingertips.

He hadn’t meant to make anyone unhappy. It was simply that for the past five days he’d wallowed in misery, struggling to sleep, beating himself up over what had happened with Steve and the reference department. He’d gone to the FBC on Monday as obliged, after starting to call Steve at home at least fifty different times over the weekend—but Steve hadn’t been there. He’d told Bucky when they were skating that he and Peggy would be working the two days before Christmas, but somehow Steve had found a way to make himself scarce when the workmen began hauling in EMERAC’s components. All he’d wanted was a chance to explain to Steve—Bucky wasn’t a fool, he knew there was no way to recapture what had happened between them in the stacks. But he wanted to end it with the truth, even if it was the last words they spoke.

After he’d left, he couldn’t even speak to Miss Lorraine; he’d trudged back to his own office at SII and put his head in his hands. Everything was ruined, all because he’d naively sworn to keep mum about Fury’s merger secrets. Steve would never trust him again. So when installation time came, Bucky’d given it the bare minimum supervision, allowing Miss Lorraine to deal with her precious computer; she was the one who’d bumped it up to Monday, anyway. The crews who’d build the doors to create a dust-free environment wouldn’t be working till after the new year, so she hadn’t needed Bucky around, thank god—getting the machines up and running was her specialty, from what Bucky’d been told, and prowling around, hoping for a glimpse of Steve, who was likely to be simmering with resentment, hadn’t seemed worth his time.

But he’d waffled about Christmas morning. Steve would be the solo staffer today, fielding questions from the only other employees working: the TV news and radio crews. It would be difficult to completely avoid Bucky. Which was what led him to actually go as far as the security desk inside Rockefeller Center before realizing Steve would feel like he was being hunted, so he’d turned away and headed across the bridge to Brooklyn.

He’d feel the scorn of the reference gang soon enough, he might as well enjoy Christmas.

Except he couldn’t. Sure, it was always nice to be with his family, he loved them deeply and their undaunted, unflagging care of him when he came home had meant everything. His mother still struggled with acceptance of his arm, the obvious symbol of his captivity; their first Christmas together, in fact, he’d discovered her sobbing in the bathroom over “what they’ve done to my boy.”

But today, it was the look on Steve’s face—on all their faces—when they’d found out their worst fears were coming true that festered in his mind, spoiling his mood.

If only he could make them understand how much of a help EMERAC would be; if only he could have introduced it properly to the staff. From the beginning, he should have insisted that Fury tell them something, anything, and he should have ridden herd on Miss Lorraine.

You couldn’t change the past.

After dinner, presents, and conversation over dessert, Becca pulled him aside and said, “Come on outside with me. I need some fresh air.” Her cheeks were scarlet from drinking wine all night, her dark hair pulled up in a little ponytail with a red ribbon, and when they got out to the landing, he hugged and kissed her as she pawed at him to leave her alone. She lit a cigarette.

“You know those things’ll kill you.”

She side-eyed him. “Oh yeah? Then why do all those doctors recommend them?”

“’Cause they pay ’em good money to say they do. I read a whole bunch of journal articles about it in the library at FBC. Makes me glad I didn’t start up again after I got back.”

“Well, you’ve convinced me!” He shook his head. “That’s the place you’ve been lurking around for the last month? With the guy you keep talking about.”

“I don’t...keep...talking about him.”

She brayed. “Oh lord. Sweetie, my toddler lies better than you do.” Becca was the only one he could have confided such things about himself to; of all his family, they were closest, and she was a hip, modern gal whose circle included plenty of men and women also inclined toward their own sex. After the war—after he’d come home—she’d moved to the wilds of Manhattan, where she found a place with a couple other Bohemian girls. Becca wore smart, narrow trousers and black turtlenecks and flat shoes, cut her hair in a sleek bob, and made their mother cry with her lack of traditionalism. For a while she’d worked in an art gallery, often took Bucky on museum outings and to art openings, and then she’d met her musician husband. To placate their parents, they’d gotten very traditionally hitched and now had a kid, though they lived in the Village and Becca was hoping to become a writer someday.

Bucky scowled at her.

“You know, we thought we’d lost you forever twice. Getting that letter the first time, saying you were MIA and most likely dead, it nearly did us in, and then the second time...” Wiping tears from her cheeks, she said, “I know now because of that not to take anything for granted.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her eyes widened, she gave rapid little shakes of her head and held out her hands. Bozo, it said. “You’re in love with this guy, I can tell.”

“I’m not in love.” He looked out at the street, dotted with little white and gray piles of dirty snow, sighing. “I’m in love.” She crowed with victory. “But I ruined everything, so it doesn’t matter. I lied, so I can’t blame him—I was stuck keeping secrets and now...” His fingers curled into fists.

“About your machines? You lied about your machines?”

“Among other things.”

All of a sudden she thumped him on the forehead, dead center. What the hell? “You know, you have a tendency to live in here.” She flicked him hard in the same spot for good measure. “Sometimes you think you’re telling us what’s going on up there, but you’re not. Are you sure that it isn’t something you just thought, and whatever it is can’t be fixed?”

He watched as she stubbed out her cigarette and tossed it to the sidewalk. “I doubt it.”

“At least try, you drip,” she groaned and dragged him back inside where it was warm.

Which was easier said than done. Over the rest of the holiday period, he remained mostly hands-off for Emmie’s installation, popping in occasionally to see how the egregious Miss Lorraine was doing. Her obliviousness grated on his sensitive nerves: she seemed completely unaware of anyone else’s needs or feelings, vastly underestimated everyone else’s intelligence, including Bucky’s—the co-inventor of the machine she so loved—and maybe worst of all, she had no sense of humor or ability to catch sarcasm. He’d never encountered a human with zero sense of humor and it bewildered him. All the weeks Bucky’d spent in research, teasing the staff and being teased by them, all the shared jokes...he missed it fiercely, longed for it the way he longed to feel sensations with his left hand.

Steve stayed cordial, those rare times Bucky encountered him. But they shared few words, and Bucky was often in meetings or at his own office when Steve chose to be around. The gang came back to work for a few days between holidays, but were pointedly taciturn. Every once in a while Barton would pop in to say hello, the one person who didn’t freeze him out, but he had a feeling that was because Barton didn’t want to risk missing any gossip. After New Year’s, the doors were installed separating the computer from the library shelves, the desks were pushed closer together, and soon enough, EMERAC was ready to work.

Occasionally, Bucky called Becca to whine at her about the Steve situation, but she’d always tell him the same thing: apologize, do whatever was necessary to get him to talk to you again, even if it meant groveling. It reached a point where she hung up on him because he could never quite figure out the right way to do that—he wanted her to give him explicit instructions, maybe even write out his dialogue for him, and she was having “none of that Cyrano de Bergerac shit.”

Miss Lorraine had set the staff to inputting punchcard information, in between their usual phone calls. They hated it, he knew, but until the merger deal was sealed, they couldn’t bring in new support staff solely for the drudge work of the cards. The department also didn’t seem interested in how EMERAC worked—which they persisted in calling BRAINIAC, no longer to tease him but to annoy.

By mid-January, the system was operating well enough that he could bring the executives down for their first glimpse of it in action. He’d hoped Howard would handle the tour, but he was flitting back and forth between DC and Los Angeles, dealing with his new weapons facility and SHIELD, so Bucky steeled himself to be professionally social. And tried to pretend Steve’s hostility wasn’t killing him inside.

The gang was standing in front of Emmie when the executives came in; Steve was in his office on the phone. Fury practically bounced on his toes, as excited as Bucky’s nephew on Christmas morning. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen! You boys all know Mr. Rogers, of course,” and he waved a hand toward Steve’s office. “There she is—EMERAC, the modern miracle.” Steve hung up his telephone, a dark cloud over his head, and came out to greet them. “Mr. Barnes,” Fury said, turning to him, “would you mind showing us how this works?”

“Of course,” Bucky responded, watching Steve. If only Bucky could just take him aside, explain to him that this would get better, and no one was getting pink-slipped. Make Steve understand how sick it all made him. “Miss Lorraine, how are things going?”

“Miss Emmie is absorbing everything just perfectly, Mr. Barnes.” She patted the console like it was her child. It’d be awfully unprofessional to roll his eyes.

“So, gentlemen, the purpose of the machine is to free the worker—”

“You can say that again,” Steve muttered behind Bucky.

He gritted his teeth. “—free the worker from routine or repetitive tasks and open up their time for the more important or complex work. For example, see all those books there and up there?” He pointed at his favorite sections of the library. “Every fact in them has been fed into Emmie. What are these?” He took a stack of cards from Miss Lorraine.

“This is Hamlet.” She shone with pride.

“That’s Hamlet?” Fury exclaimed.

Bucky flashed a smile. “The entire text. In code, though, obviously. These cards create electronic impulses, which are accepted and retained by the machine, so that in the future when anyone calls up and wants a quotation from Hamlet, all the researcher does is type in the question here”—he touched the keyboard—“and Emmie goes to work. The answer comes out here.” He pulled on the paper EMERAC was spitting out near Fury’s hip.

“And it never makes a mistake,” Fury boasted, slapping the paper. The way the men all chuckled—that kind of oblivious, clubby bonhomie—was something Bucky had learned to hate from officers, especially the career ones who’d often made their ranks through nepotism. There was a twinge of unexpected sympathy for Sharon Carter and what she’d had to put up with all these years.

“Oh, that's not entirely accurate,” Bucky said, trying not to contradict him too boldly. “It can make a mistake.”

Behind him, Steve fake-chuckled. Nothing like being heckled by the man who’d broken your heart. Bucky turned to find Steve and Sam glaring fiery holes in his back.

“Only if the human element makes the mistake first.” Bucky glared in return.

“So, Steve, tell me,” Fury interrupted, “has EMERAC been helping all of you?”

Steve crossed his arms over his chest: he was wearing a light blue shirt that set off his eyes magnificently, and a loosened emerald green tie—and wearing those tortoiseshell reading glasses that made him so adorably professorish. No, Steve was wrong about the glasses—they couldn’t make him look ordinary. Nothing could.

“Well, it hasn’t really started to do much yet—for the past couple weeks we’ve only been feeding it information. But I suppose you could safely say it’ll provide more leisure for more people.” Steve deliberately didn’t make eye contact with Bucky.

“Thank you, Mr. Rogers,” Bucky said, and Steve slowly trained his owlish gaze on Bucky. He wanted to spar; Bucky wasn’t picking up the gloves this time.

“Don’t mention it,” he returned, icy.

Bucky asked the executives, “Do any of you have a question you might like to ask the machine?”

“I have one,” Steve jumped in. “The spruce bud worm: How much damage is done annually to American forests by the spruce bud worm?”

“Miss Lorraine?” Bucky held a hand out in invitation.

Sam whispered to Steve, assuming Bucky wouldn’t be able to hear over all the beeping, clacking, and whirring of the machine, “That took me nearly three weeks to figure out,” to which Steve replied quietly, “I know.”

Miss Lorraine sat at the keyboard, typing, and Fury asked, “Do you know the answer, Steve?”

“One hundred and thirty-eight million, four hundred sixty-four thousand, three hundred fifty-nine dollars and...a few cents.”

The paper rolled out of the track and Bucky pulled it off, handing it to Fury. He read out the exact same dollar figure Steve had cited, finishing off with a dry “and...twelve cents.” He was puffed up, rather pleased with himself—or at least for investing their future with EMERAC.

“How long did that take your department, Mr. Rogers?” Bucky asked. He so hoped Steve would see this for the benefit it really was.

“Maybe forty-five minutes.” Steve snapped his fingers. The distracted way he took his glasses off and stuffed them in his chest pocket was a tell that he wasn’t being totally honest.

“So you can see that the machine saved your staff forty-four minutes on this one operation alone.” Steve, however, did not appreciate Bucky’s enthusiasm or his pointing that out, judging by his dyspeptic expression.

“Fantastic!” Fury said, tossing the paper at Miss Lorraine. “Now let’s go see what the one in payroll has to show us.”

With one last glance at Steve, Bucky followed Fury and his group out, explaining, “That one’s pretty different, though. It’s purely mathematical.” The rest of the stats he rattled off by rote, uninterested in whether they were interested, wishing only that he could have stayed with Steve and his team. It was where he still felt he belonged.

Miss Lorraine, her usual supremely snooty self, patted EMERAC’s console—Steve would almost say stroked—and then gasped in horror when Natasha took a cigarette out of her pocket and lit it. “Miss Romanoff! How many times must I tell you people that there can be no smoking in here!” She stabbed a finger at the No Smoking sign on the door, right above the sign that said Keep Doors Closed At All Times. Whenever she entered the room now, Peggy would deliberately blow dust off the books she brought in or leave the doors open, just because it left Miss Lorraine in an apoplexy, bleating about how “even a speck of dust is Miss Emmie’s worst enemy” or “you know how sensitive she is to temperature changes.”

Honestly, Steve appreciated their pettiness. His own MO was to slink around, furtively checking to see where Emmie’s mommy was and if the coast was clear. When he was forced to interact with her, he didn’t have to try hard to upset her, because every little thing did. Miss Lorraine seemed to have been built pre-upset.

After Bucky and the high muckety-mucks left, the four of them stood blankly, not knowing what to say. When she was assured Natasha had snuffed out the cigarette, Miss Lorraine scurried off to do whatever it was she did. Its little boops and beeps and flashing lights made Steve want to smash it to bits, or maybe it was Bucky who made him want to do that. He’d just...stood there proudly, completely oblivious to their concerns. He’d thought Bucky cared about them.

Natasha’s phone rang and she answered it. “City morgue, can I help you?” She put the receiver back in the cradle. “Fancy that—they hung up.”

Steve leaned on the table, breathing deeply. Fortunately, before he got too lost in his gloom, Peter Parker showed up. “Paychecks, everybody.”

This was definitely the latest Peter had ever delivered them; when Sam had commented on that earlier, Natasha had said, with her usual gallows humor, that they were probably late because they were stuffing them with pink slips. “Hey Peter,” Steve said. He walked over to take the packet and sign for it. “Thanks. There you go.”

They waited, grim-faced. Peggy had her hands in her trouser pockets, and she reminded him then so much of herself in ’44, heading out on a mission. She’d be all right; no one could keep Peggy down for long, not even Steve.

He clamped his own check between his teeth, sorting through the rest and handing them out. They eyed the envelopes like they were poison pen letters. “Ah, come on. Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? All together now.” As one they opened the envelopes, each of them pulling out a slip of pink paper stapled to the check.

“Yikes.” He gave a bitter laugh, shaking the slip.

Peggy said crisply, “Well. At least now we know. We no longer have to catastrophize. Don’t you feel better?” No, they didn’t.

“How long before you can collect unemployment?” Sam asked.

“Two weeks. Looked it up when they brought this damn thing in.” Natasha kicked it with her pretty black pump.

“Let’s not get maudlin, you guys,” Steve insisted. “We’ll show ’em what’s what.” He wished he could resurrect some of that Captain America-style inspiration, the esprit de corps, but he was too heartsick. “You wanna help me, everyone? Somehow in six years I’ve managed to accumulate a ridiculous amount of junk.”

“We’ve got some cartons in the back,” Sam said, taking Natasha out the doors with him.

Steve surveyed his office. This would require more than a couple of cartons. “Everything in the desk is mine, most of the non-book items on those shelves.” Oh no. “Peggy, what am I going to do about this philodendron?” He climbed on the couch and gingerly tried to unwind the trailing vine. “I suppose I could dump all the plant food in and head her toward Emmie.”

“Oh, there’s my teapot!” Peggy grabbed the little round pot. He’d totally forgotten he’d borrowed it once, because the plant had covered it up. “The handle on the lid looks like a Skylon from the Festival of Britain. It so reminds me of my last trip home.” She hugged it to her bosom. Maybe now she’d visit her family again; she was long overdue for a trip back.

“How are you getting that on the Lexington Avenue bus?” Natasha asked as she and Sam set two large boxes down by his desk.

“I dunno—you think if I say it’s alive, they’ll believe me and just charge me an extra fare?” He got most of the vine in his hands and stepped down from the couch. “Oh, Peggy, those books on the shelf above the door—those are mine, as well.”

“I’m going to miss all of you so much,” Sam told them.

“Dammit, there’s my phone,” Natasha griped, stuffing some of his art books in the carton.

She started for her desk but Steve intervened. “So what? Let ’em answer their own damn questions. We’re demobilized.”

With a tilt of her head, she gave an amused pout, accepting that as boss’s orders. “Hey,” Natasha whispered, tapping Sam repeatedly on the arm. “Will you look at that.” Miss Lorraine was back in the office holding a fistful of punchcards. She frowned in the direction of Nat’s desk.

“Shouldn’t someone answer the phone?”

They stopped packing to stare at her. “Yes dear, go right ahead.” Peggy offered an unctuous smile.

The hilarious thing was that Lorraine did it, bewildered, belligerent. “Hello... What?... Does the king of the what drive an automobile?” She glared at the phone. “The Watusis. Would you mind spelling that?” Steve couldn’t believe she had no idea who the Watusi people were. It was just so insulting that the company was replacing four well-read, smart, and curious people with a machine run by someone so ignorant.

They went to stand in Steve’s doorway as she read back the spelling. “Too bad there’s no popcorn,” Natasha whispered.

“What are Watusis?” Miss Lorraine asked crossly. This was going to be good. Steve pulled up a chair, Peggy sitting on the arm, while Nat and Sam leaned against the door jamb. “King Solomon’s Mines? And you want to know if the king drives an automobile... Where would I find that?” Peggy and Steve shared a snicker. “The Herald-Tribune. All right, just hold the line, please.” She went over to her precious machine and began typing, sounding out every letter. It was all the four of them could do not to laugh out loud. When she finished, the phone on Peggy’s desk, now ignominiously crammed against the opposite wall, rang. She got up to answer, spotting them watching her. With a withering stare, Miss Lorraine marched to Peggy’s desk and answered the phone. “Yes? I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t quite...could you repeat that?”

Bucky, damn him, took that moment to enter; Miss Lorraine pounced. “Mr. Barnes! Would you mind taking this please, I’m on the other phone.”

He frowned in their direction but agreed. “Why is everyone sitting there—beg your pardon?” he said into the receiver. “Corfu?” Directing his question to Miss Lorraine, he asked, “All available statistics on Corfu.” Oh, this would be really entertaining. Bucky told them they were working on it and set the phone down, noticing the paper spewing from Emmie’s printer. “Herald-Tribune, November 10, 1950, page thirty-nine. What’s this?”

“The question on the other line was about the king of the Watusis,” Miss Lorraine explained. Steve could tell she was already getting her back up; it wouldn’t take much more for her to explode. When Steve had asked her once what the red button that loudly proclaimed DO NOT TOUCH did, she had informed him in the most condescending tones, “Oh, we never touch that, it would make Miss Emmie terribly unhappy.”

“Yes, but what does it do,” Steve had persisted.

“Well, that’s tough to explain to the lay mind.” Since she’d refused to actually answer him, Steve had made as if to touch it; she’d shrieked like she’d been scalded and swatted his hand away. Maybe they should start a pool on how quickly she’d lose her cool now; whoever won it could probably use the cash during their unemployment.

Instead, Steve decided he could put both of BRAINIAC’s parents in their places easily enough. “That’s incorrect information.” He pointed a finger at the printout.

Bucky threw him a narrow look, went to Nat’s phone. “Could you repeat what the information you wanted was?”

Steve tapped Peggy’s arm, snapped his fingers. “Peggy, Tribune index, last four back copies. Nat, get ’em Corfu. Let’s show him what people can do.” They dispersed to the shelves and Sam stood by Steve, grinning, waiting for his orders. Steve straightened his tie, rolled up his sleeves.

And clearly Bucky was out of his element. “As far as we know, it’s the Herald-Tribune, November 10, 1950.”

“Wanna know what you’ll get on that date?” Steve prompted, casually strolling over to Bucky. “A review of the movie King Solomon’s Mines.”

Miss Lorraine waved, exasperated, at the phone on Nat’s desk. “Hang on,” Bucky told the caller, dashing to it. “What’s the matter with all of you?” and he threw Steve a hot scowl.

“As if you didn’t know,” Sam said, side-eyeing Bucky.

“What—” His mouth hung open; Steve almost felt sorry for him. “We need Corfu, please, Miss Lorraine.”

“Yes sir, it’s coming out now.”

Steve and Sam shared a glance as Bucky set the phone down in frustration, pulling up the printed paper. “‘Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has sent its camera crews to Kenya, East Africa, and is coming up with a whopping good picture...’ What—”

“Pretty popular picture,” Steve said cheerfully, leaning against the console, which he knew Miss Lorraine hated. “That’s alliteration.”

Bucky heaved a lengthy sigh. “I think this might be the wrong classification, Miss Lorraine.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Barnes.”

“So how we doing on Corfu?” Steve bent to check the printout. “‘Introduced into England by William the Conqueror, a bell rung every evening...’ Oh dear.” Steve beamed.

Unable at first to say anything, Bucky’s fists clenched and he managed, “Not curfew, Miss Lorraine, Corfu.”

“I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t know the spelling.” Much as Steve liked seeing them both get a taste of their own medicine, it was a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.

“There’s Corfu,” Steve said when Nat sashayed in with the big index. He listened gleefully while she read off the entry about the island, before turning to Bucky and whacking him on the metal arm. “Wanna see what BRAINIAC has to say?” Bucky’s nostrils flared.

“What the hell is this?” Bucky asked, squinting at the paper.

Reading over Bucky’s shoulder, Steve said, “It’s a poem, Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight. That’s fantastic.” He recited some of the lines he remembered; Bucky just watched him, a statue.

“Mr. Barnes, what can I do?” Miss Lorraine pleaded, raising her voice to be heard over the cacophony of the printing device, the clatter and booping of the machine, Steve’s poetic narration, and Nat’s recitation of Corfu facts. The more lines Steve spoke, the more he remembered—this was fun.

“Well, I don’t think there’s anything we can do, I suppose. We can’t interrupt it in the middle of a sequence.”

“Ooohhh,” the poor woman moaned, and Bucky sighed with relief when Steve finished. “How long does that thing go on for?” Bucky asked.

“That poem is a classic, I’ll have you know. It has about eighty stanzas.”

“Where are we now?” Such despair.

Sam’s phone joined in the chaos, and Steve flung himself at it. “Curfew shall not ring tonight!” he cried, then looked at the phone. “Huh. They hung up. Have no fear—I know a bunch more.”

Poor Bucky was simmering, working himself up to a boil. But Steve wasn’t sure he was quite ready to stop toying with him yet.

“Found it!” Peggy said, swinging by with another index; she picked up the phone and said, “King Watusi does drive a specially built 1954 Pontiac. He bought it with the money he earned making the movie. You’re quite welcome.”

Miss Lorraine had worked herself into such a tizzy that she accidentally pulled the red knob out, staring at it in horror. The most ungodly racket started up, somewhere between gears grinding and an air raid warning, only considerably louder. Verging on tears, Miss Lorraine whirled around a few times like some mad ballerina, unsure what to do.

“What happened?” Bucky asked anxiously. Aw, this wasn’t so fun anymore—he suddenly thought of Bucky’s confession, of how much having control meant to him.

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” she hollered.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, calm down,” Bucky said, going to her, putting a hand on her shoulder to settle her down. Smoke rose from the printer. “I’d like to figure out how to fix it, but I need you to tell me what happened.”

“It’s your machine, not mine!” she yelled. Bucky was taken aback; he dropped his hand. As angry as Steve had been with him, he knew Bucky was a genuinely nice person who didn’t want to hurt anyone, and he took no joy in her distress. Miss Lorraine turned to Steve, waving the smoke away. “Ever since I got here you’ve done nothing but try to sabotage me. You all hate me—I’ve been forced to work in an atmosphere of hatred and suspicion. It’s all your doing!” She pointed an accusing finger first at Steve, then stabbed it in Bucky’s chest. “And you’re as bad as they are. You’re always taking their sides, acting like they’re the bee’s knees. Well, I don’t know what the—” but they didn’t get to hear the rest, because she raced out the door, sobbing.

The entire room stared at each other, uncertain what to do, until Bucky came to his senses. “Don’t gloat,” he said, face a mask of gloom.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Steve responded.

“I have to see if I can figure out what happened...”

“Would this have something to do with it?” Steve asked, picking up the red plastic piece.

“Yes! Thank you!” Bucky took it gratefully. “Has anyone got a little piece of wire?”

Sam sprang to his desk and snatched a paper clip, unbent it, handed it to Bucky. The alarms and beeping escalated rather worrisomely.

Standing behind Bucky, Steve watched as he poked around and jostled things, and then suddenly the machine made a few gasping, wheezing sounds, and stopped. “Blessed peace and quiet. Wonderful,” Steve said.

“Like I said before—the human element. It’s entirely unpredictable.” He pushed fingers through his thick hair, looking down at the console, trying to figure out what to do.

“Mr. Barnes,” Peter Parker called, rushing through the doors. Two visits in one morning—that was unexpected. “This is for you. Sign here?” He held out a pen and his clipboard.

“Me?” Bucky asked, startled.

Peter shrugged. “Well, this is my last pickup, everyone, so I better say goodbye,” and he took the clipboard back.

“Oh Peter, not you too!” Peter gave Steve a doleful nod, and Steve leaned toward Bucky, indignant all over again. “Did you invent some kind of machine that carries mail now?” Dear, sweet Peter appeared distinctly uncomfortable at Steve’s tone.

“What do you mean?” Bucky flinched when Peggy’s phone rang again. He should take all the phones off their hooks; the incessant noise was simply too much right now. They’d have to learn to live with disappointment, anyway, when there was no one skilled here to answer their questions. “Isn’t anyone going to answer that phone?”

“You forget we don’t work here anymore.” Steve shrugged.

Eyes darting back and forth, Bucky repeated in a dull voice, “You don’t work here anymore. You don’t—”

Peggy threw her hands up in the air. “My kingdom for a blunt instrument.”

Opening the envelope Peter had brought him, Bucky pulled out a pink slip. He blinked at it repeatedly, trying to discern its meaning.

“Good night, sweet prince,” Steve gloated and sat triumphantly on the edge of the console. “May choirs of beeps and boops sing thee to thy rest.”

Natasha, Peggy, and Sam snickered. “I’m not even on the damn payroll!” Bucky barked, incredulous. “Wait a minute—let me get this straight. You all got fired?”

“Sure did.”

“Why?”

“Why indeed?” Steve replied, and they were lost in the moment for a bit, in each other’s eyes, before Peter broke in.

“Um, I—I could—I could tell you what the grapevine says? It—it’s that big merger.”

“What do you know about the merger?” Bucky asked, and Steve reeled as if Bucky’d slapped him. So he had been lying to him all this time, covering something up.

“It’s in the afternoon papers,” Peter said matter-of-factly. “We’re joining with the United Network. So I guess that means...they’re letting most of us go.”

“Howard!” Peggy roared. “Oh, the bloody cheek of that man.”

“Now, wait, Miss Carter, hold your horses. I know about that merger—it wasn’t meant to have people fired, it’s meant to do the opposite. Oh, for Christ’s—” He hurled the paper on the floor and charged over to Peggy’s ringing phone.

“What!” he yelled as he picked it up, but quickly came over contrite. “Oh, sorry, Miss Hill. I need to speak to Mr. Fury right now.” He winced. Maria was not someone to mess around with, even an ex-soldier like Bucky. He looked at Steve, pleading for his help, so Steve went to him, putting his ear to the receiver. Very, very close to Bucky, and he could smell Bucky’s spicy after-shave, feel the heat from his skin like a lick of flame, curling through his belly. In spite of all this, he wished very much to kiss him.

“Mr. Fury,” Bucky said sternly when he came on the line, “you broke your promise to me. Did you know everyone in research has been fired?”

“The whole damn building’s been fired!” Fury bellowed, to Steve’s utter shock. “That damn fool machine of yours in payroll went berserk this morning and gave everybody a pink slip. Including me!”

Steve breathed a sigh of relief—and Bucky shivered. My goodness.

“No, that’s impossible. It couldn’t happen, not that way. There has to be some error.” Steve turned to the team, motioning at them to stand down; he didn’t want them to come at Bucky with pitchforks and torches. Peter, poor kid, still appeared lost.

When Bucky hung up, he wheeled around, dazed, apologizing profusely and explaining that there’d been some kind of mistake from the machine in payroll. If they’d been alone, Steve would have thrown his pride away and put his arms around Bucky. “Nobody’s fired.”

“Boy, that was a close shave!” Peter declared; Nat threw her arm around him, pulled him tight, laughing.

“So if we’re not getting the sack,” Peggy said, “then what will happen to us when BRAINIAC takes over?”

Rankled, Bucky huffed, “BRAIN—EMERAC’s not taking over. It never was taking over, because it wasn’t intended to replace you. It’s here to free your time for research. It’s here to help you.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say so?” Steve asked. The anger hadn’t left, after all, because he could feel it bubbling back up.

“Because of the damn grapevine, I guess. They didn’t want the United stock going up before the announcement. Mr. Fury and Mr. Stark were adamant that I keep the merger under wraps—and my reasons for hanging around. There’ll be more work than ever before in here. They’re planning to bring in more staff.”

Peggy was probably still wishing for that blunt instrument, judging by her expression. He wanted one, too.

Steve erupted. “All you had to do was say that! Any of the fifty times I asked you, all you had to do was say ‘the machine is to help you do your work, not replace you. It won’t replace anyone.’ You let us be sick with anxiety for weeks, and all you had to do was say one little sentence! Jesus Roosevelt Christ.”

He turned on his heel and threw the door open, the glass rattling in the frame as he stalked out.

“I thought I might find you here,” Bucky said as he stepped out of the elevator vestibule. Steve was standing at the edge of the roof, staring out at the view. The biting January wind blew his tie to the side like one of those flags below in the plaza—he was probably miserable but too stubborn to come inside. And Bucky couldn’t really blame him for his wrath; it was the least Bucky deserved.

Steve turned his head just enough to acknowledge his presence but not enough to acknowledge him. Bucky sidled up next to him. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, that I could have reassured you all and I didn’t. It sounds stupid, but I was trying to keep Fury’s confidence and I thought I told you what little I could. In some...oblique way.”

Shaking his head, Steve grunted an objection. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that, not in front of the staff and Peter.” His hands gripped the railing so hard they were white. “I think in some ways you did try to tell me when you said EMERAC was designed to help, but I just didn’t quite grasp it. And there were the people who were let go from payroll. So.”

“That’s something a lot of us in the field are concerned with. That’s not why we make the machines, but companies...we’re not happy with how they’re using them. Today’s a great example—if they had the proper staffing, it wouldn’t have happened. Believe me, Mr. Fury’s going to hear about it.”

Steve huffed. “Good luck.”

Bucky yearned for Steve to look at him, but he refused. “I haven’t told you about my family—I have three little sisters, but I’m closest to the middle one, Becca. She’s a bit of a beatnik, that one. And she’s my best friend.” That moved Steve to finally meet his eyes.

“When I first got back...from Russia, I mean, when I first got home, I think Ma and Pop wanted me to tell them that I was all right. That everything would be all right. But I wasn’t, and it wouldn’t. Mr. Stark—Howard—began encouraging me to finish my degree, but I just...couldn’t think about that. You know.” The stiff edge of Steve’s face softened, his shoulders sagged—because yes, he absolutely knew. “Becca started making me go with her to museums and her friends’ art show openings, she’d drag me out to walk the city on our own little architecture tours. She’d remembered that about me, how much I had loved architecture and design, when I hadn’t even remembered that myself—even before they’d tried to take that part of me away.”

“Bucky...”

He gave him a gentle smile, put his hand over Steve’s. “And you know, her plan worked. I started to heal. Sometimes I’m fairly sure that she went to Howard and told him her idea, because he paid for MIT and helped me with everything, so I finished in record time. Then he set me to working on the electronic brains.” Steve exhaled, a long, shivery breath. “The reason I’m telling you is that on Christmas, Becca reminded me of how I have a bad habit of living inside my head. I probably always will retreat there, but I don’t mean to. She reminded me that I often think I’ve said something when it was only ever in my head.”

“I hate myself a little for making you talk about something so painful,” he confessed, his brows drawing together in a V.

“No, it’s not bad. Not with you. What I worry about, though, is—I don’t think you can ever trust me again, even if you forgive me.” And he wasn’t so certain about that, either.

“Ninnies,” Steve said, still tense, but leveling off a bit.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Peggy called us ninnies, and we are. So don’t be one—of course I can trust you. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met. Making mistakes...doesn’t take that away.” His hand tight on Bucky’s, he added, “Do you have a photo of yourself from back then, in the war? I wonder...would I recognize you, from the factory?”

“Yes, of course, I have some at home.” He ducked his head at Steve’s intense scrutiny. “There were a lot of men with you when they pulled me off the lab table. You were gathering as much intelligence as you could carry, I think.”

They stood companionably for a time, gazing out at the vast canyons of New York, until Bucky said, “I can’t feel my face.”

Steve’s deep, loud laugh was rare, and all the more special for it; Bucky glowed with the happiness of knowing he could bring it out in him. “It is really fucking cold.” He slipped behind Bucky and circled him with his arms, grinning and sticking his frozen face on the nape of Bucky’s neck. Bucky yelped, retaliated by lacing his fingers through Steve’s, including his icy left ones. “I should get back downstairs, they’re probably tearing the place up by now.” His breath, however, was deliciously warm on Bucky’s neck.

“I sent everyone out for a drink on me.” Bucky grimaced. “Sam complained that he didn’t want a drink and Natasha said she’d get him a malted off the kids’ menu.”

“That sounds like them.” Bucky didn’t want to leave, not until Steve eventually pulled away and he was frozen again. Steve took him by the elbow.

At the door to the elevators, he stopped and pulled Bucky into a shadowed corner, kissing him quickly. “Don’t worry, there are no sight lines here.” After a few more kisses, they took the elevator downstairs, teeth chattering, the operator looking at them as though they’d lost their minds. As predicted, the phones were ringing, so Bucky picked up Natasha’s phone while Steve gathered up the printouts littering the floor.

“Reference, Mr. Rogers speaking.” Steve turned to him, delighted. “Hmm. Well, purely theoretical, of course.”

“What is it?” Steve held his hand out but Bucky didn’t give him the receiver.

“What’s the total weight of the Earth?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Who wants to know,” Bucky asked the caller. “Promotion,” he repeated.

Steve blew out a breath. “That’s the kind of thing you can spend months finding.” He looked at the now-silent, sleeping Emmie, back at Bucky, raising his eyebrows. “Give her a crack at it? Tell him you’ll call him back.”

Steve beat him to the chair at the keyboard, so Bucky talked him through the steps of getting her running again. The totaling key made a “boop-boop-ba-dooo” sound, earning a chuckle from Steve. Bucky checked the printout, laughing softly. “It’s asking you a question in return.”

“Oh yeah?” He got up to stand next to Bucky.

“With or without people?”

Pleased, Steve patted the console, mimicking Miss Lorraine. “Good girl, good girl.”

The machine was humming away again, and Bucky admired it, rubbing his thumb over Steve’s knuckles. “May I tell you that that’s the nicest compliment EMERAC’s ever received.”

“You may.” Steve’s eyes were fond as he caressed Bucky’s hand, heedless of whether anyone might discover them like this.

He shook himself out of his enchantment. “Well, I better get down to payroll and see if I can sort things out. Can I steal another one of your paper clips just in case?” Steve took a handful off Peggy’s desk and put them in his hand.

“Don’t forget your—” and he gestured at Bucky’s suit jacket on Peggy’s chair; Bucky winked as he left. As he slipped his jacket on in the hallway, he saw Barton at the water fountain.

“Hey, Barton, how are you?”

“Oh, hi, Barnes.” He wiped his mouth. “I’m all right now, but damn, it sure has been a jumpy morning. Aspirin?”

“You can say that again,” Bucky agreed. “But no thanks, I’m okay.” The elevator dinged behind him; as he turned, out strode Sharon Carter, carrying some kind of elaborately wrapped gift.

“Hello, Mr. Barnes,” she said without even casting her eyes his way, her bright blue swing coat flying behind her like a cape. He twitched his head sideways.

Barton watched him with fascination and Bucky sighed, bending and unbending the paper clip, weighing what to do. Wooing Steve back wasn’t a guaranteed success considering where they’d left things, but if she made a dent in his resolve, capitalizing on his past with her...

Aware that Barton was absolutely gleeful over this turn of events, Bucky decided what the hell. He’d be all over the gossip network tomorrow anyway. He returned to research, where he saw Sharon and Steve embroiled in an intense conversation in his office. As soon as Sharon spotted Bucky, she closed the door—she hadn’t taken off her coat or her stylish navy hat. Despite Steve’s reluctant body language—kicking at the ground with his toe, holding his hands behind his back or shoving them in his pockets, constantly shaking his head—Bucky wasn’t so sure Sharon couldn’t chip away at him, win him back.

After watching this for a few minutes, he cracked, rapping on the glass and opening Steve’s office door. “Mr. Rogers—”

“What do you want?” Sharon asked sharply.

“Could you give me a hand with BRAINIAC, please?” He’d hoped to earn a smile from Steve by calling it that, but he wasn’t giving one away so easily.

“Does it have to be now?” Sharon asked.

“Now or never.”

“It’s okay, Sharon, I won’t be a minute,” Steve said, making a conciliatory gesture. “Honestly, Bucky, if BRAINIAC’s going to be this much trouble—”

Now he liked that name. He wanted to listen to Steve say it over and over, forever. “It’s totally my fault, on account of this challenging question I asked it. And...well. If you were to ask me ‘what question,’ I’d have to tell you. No hiding anything, remember.”

Steve’s brows shot up his forehead, the corner of his mouth came up, too. “Oh? What question would that be, Mr. Barnes?”

“Let me just run it through again.” He read it out loud as he typed: “Should Steve Rogers marry Sharon Carter...question mark.”

Steve shot a worried glance at his office, but Sharon was still in there, pacing back and forth. With a sidelong look, Steve said, “You told me that this machine couldn’t evaluate.”

“It can’t.” He shook his head. “It can only repeat what’s been fed into it by the human element.” Bucky pointed to himself, then the printer. “What’s it say?”

At first, Steve made a move for the printer, then stopped, frowning. “You know damn well what it says.”

“Right, right. Same answer I got last time.” At Steve’s long-suffering air, Bucky offered, “How about another question?” He typed: “Should Steve Rogers move in with Bucky Barnes...question mark.”

“Move in?” Steve scoffed. “We haven’t even had a date yet. I’ll have you know I can’t be had that cheaply.”

“Oh right. A date. Well, I hear the poularde truffée at the Pavilion is to die for.”

His face contorted with the effort not to laugh. But to humor Bucky, Steve took the paper and read, “N. O.”

“No?”

“See for yourself,” and Steve ripped it off, tossing it at him.

“Huh.” He flicked his gaze up to Steve’s eyes, chagrined. “Well, I did say that EMERAC was capable of making a mistake.”

“Yeah, but not Steve Rogers. I’m not prone to mistakes. And I say it’d never work.” Steve stuffed his hands in his pockets, coming over all bashful suddenly.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not in love with me, you’re in love with her. If anything went wrong with her, you’d drop me like that,” and he snapped his fingers.

“I couldn’t care less about it! It could blow up right now and it wouldn’t bother me at all.”

His smirk was patronizing in the extreme, and Bucky adored it. “Is that so? Let’s see.” Steve yanked the red switch and the machine went berserk again, cards flying into the air, lights flashing like fireworks. It was deafening. It was delightful.

“See? Doesn’t matter a bit to me. You’re the only thing I care about.” Bucky went to Steve, grasping his arm. “Oh jeez, I...look...it’ll only take a second,” and he pulled one of the paper clips from his pocket, scurried to the control panel. Out of the corner of his eye as he adjusted the override, he saw Sharon step out of the office, setting the gift on the computer console, taking one last look at Steve, whose back was turned to her. With a sad smile, she gave Bucky a little salute before leaving.

Silence descended on EMERAC, and the lights went back to their normal pattern. “Oh!” Steve said when he saw the gift. Something from California, no doubt.

Yet Steve didn’t seem all that broken up about her departure; he didn’t even pick the gift up. Instead he leaned into Bucky, the two of them admiring the machine that had brought them together. Throwing caution to the wind, Bucky slipped an arm around Steve’s waist, happy for the first time in a very long time, and drew Steve in to a kiss.