Chapter Text
“Steve?”
He relaxes slightly at the recognition of Bucky’s voice calling his name, but Steve doesn’t look up. Instead, he runs a finger over the jacket strewn next to him on the bed, the green fabric wrinkled and bunched up in places as if it had been thrown onto the comforter in a haste, the owner having given a silent, now forever unfulfilled promise to hang it up later. He pulls it onto his lap, rubbing his thumb over one of its brass buckles.
Out of habit, he instinctively reaches to pluck a loose hair off the sleeve. He watches the red strand fall to the floor, his vision blurred slightly from the tears that have been continually welling since Tony snapped Thanos’ army out of existence.
Bucky leans against the doorway, his metal arm leaving a mark against the wooden frame. “You need to eat something.”
Steve huffs in response.
“Was most of her stuff at the compound, or did she not like decorating?” Bucky asks, surveying the room, hoping the quip lands in a positive way.
It does. At least, it gets Steve to look up, which is more than he’s done in a few hours.
His eyes trail across the sparse, white room Natasha occupied during the occasional nights she spent at his Brooklyn apartment. Aside from a lamp and two small, framed photos on the nightstand - one of the Bartons in holiday sweaters, and one of Nicholas J. Fury holding an eyepatch-wearing cat with a matching leather jacket that SHIELD would have definitely considered compromising had anyone but Natasha taken it - the room holds no information about the person who called it home.
Steve’s eyes hover across the pile of case files resting on the dresser and up to the mirror, eyeing his reflection. His eyes haven’t been this puffy since… well, since Peggy’s funeral. He licks his chapped lips, but it does nothing to help. His cheeks are splotched with red.
“You’ve looked worse,” Bucky contributes, making his way to the bed. Steve moves the jacket off to the side, clearing a spot for Bucky to sit next to him.
He does, putting his hand on Steve’s knee. Steve gives a small smile in response, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“It shouldn’t have been her,” he lets out after a moment of silence, his voice hoarse, the first time he’s used it today. “She was always there for us. For me.”
His voice cracks, and he pauses. Bucky squeezes his knee but stays silent, not about to interrupt the first thought Steve has vocalized in almost 36 hours.
His words come slow, pained, straining against the dryness of his throat. “When I came out of the ice, everyone was just happy I was alive. But I didn’t feel alive, I didn’t feel anything. How could I? Got a second chance at life, and all I wanted was to go back to the first, go back to you, back to Peggy, back to Brooklyn…”
Steve shakes his head. “Fury put me up in an apartment, gave me some money. Tried to get me back into the world, but it wasn’t the same world I knew, Buck. You know that.”
He waits until Bucky gives a slight nod before continuing. “I was alive, but I wasn’t living. Not until Natasha.”
He takes a deep breath. His shakiness verbalizes itself in the air, and Bucky gives his knee a slight squeeze again.
“She’s the one who realized I was just going through the motions of what they all expected of me. The perfect soldier.” Steve gives a soft attempt at a laugh, an emotionless action just to give himself time to stop another tear from falling. “She noticed immediately. Always tried to keep me connected to the realities of this century. Invited me to missions we both knew she could do alone. But I think maybe she recognized herself in me.”
Steve lightly shakes his head again. “Natasha was my family when I had none. And I was hers.”
His voice cracks, and Steve falls silent once more, taking comfort in the warmth of Bucky’s arm pressed against his. It’s been a few decades since they’d been this close, a long time since they’d curled up on couch cushions together as kids. Back when their future was only unwritten possibility, and neither could have guessed how the war and their worlds would unfold.
“I knew her,” Bucky says after a quiet moment.
Steve looks up, and a tear falls down his cheek. “Yeah, Buck, she helped us at the airport a few years back.”
“No, I mean,” Bucky starts, turning his head to meet Steve’s gaze, “before all that. I knew her.”
Steve hesitates, not wanting to bring up a past Bucky would prefer to forget. “Before Hydra sent you to kill us?”
“I trained her. In Belarus. I didn’t know why or how I recognized her until Shuri rewired my mind when erasing their programming. She sorted through my fragments and pulled out memories. We stitched together my past. And Natasha was there.” He pauses for a moment, weighing her name in his mouth. “Natalia. Did she ever tell you about the Red Room?”
“Only that they trained young girls to become lethal weapons.” Steve’s brow furrows. “And that she’d never be able to make up for the innocent lives she took.”
“She was so young, Steve.” Bucky tenses. “They all were. And I trained them to kill. Their enemies, each other… it didn’t matter. Death was their first nature."
Steve reaches for Bucky’s hand on his knee, threading their fingers together. “You had no choice, Buck. That wasn’t you.”
Bucky just shakes his head. “It wasn’t Nat either.” He clenches his teeth. “They got in your head. You couldn’t shake it. Those girls, that room… Hydra couldn’t have imagined worse, Steve. They had no identity, handcuffed to their beds each night, taught to kill barehanded, usually in the snow, forced to sit through subliminal messages playing in kids’ movies. You remember when Snow White came out and we went down to the cinema together to see it? They played it on a loop for the girls, over and over, brainwashing them in between, teaching them to be everything society expected them to be, and how to use that expectation as one of their strengths. If one of them got sick, or couldn’t keep up…”
Steve feels the muscles in Bucky’s arm tense against his own before he continues, “I trained the other girls to kill them. Survival of the fittest. The KGB wanted only the best. And Natalia Romanova was the best student they ever had.”
“Did she…?” Steve pauses, not sure he wants to picture the past deeds Natasha tried so hard to keep quiet.
“She did what she needed to survive.” He waits a second, watching Steve’s expression. “We both did. But even though she hid it well, she never lost her humanity. There was a time she almost brought mine back out, too. We thought we were invincible, that we could escape and live new lives, outrun the roles they wanted us to play.”
“What happened?”
“They caught us,” Bucky answers, his voice steady but exhausted. “And they must’ve wiped my mind again. The next memory Shuri could pull out was a mission in Giza. Alone.”
“She told me she never felt more alone than she did in her youth,” Steve says, quietly. “I never knew she had you.”
“Nat was their strongest asset.” Bucky watches Steve’s face, waiting for a change, a frown, a tear, anything. “Anyone else they would have killed for trying to go awol. But they didn’t want to lose her. I think they took her down to conditioning, rewrote her memories. She may not have even known.”
He looks down, watching as Steve slowly traces a finger against the back of his hand. “When you get out, if you get out, it’s hard to know what’s yours. You can’t tell if it’s a real memory or one of their fake ones. It’s easier to just bury it all.”
“But she couldn’t,” Steve says, his voice wavering ever so slightly.
“No,” Bucky agrees. “Nat was always so much more than they expected. The fact she broke free more than once shows her strength. But the past weighs on you. Even if you know it isn’t who you are anymore, you can’t shake the fact it influenced who you became. You know it’s in your DNA.”
Steve reaches out to touch Bucky’s cheek with his hand, turning his chin toward him until their eyes meet.
“We’ve both done things we never wanted anyone to know about.” He turns his gaze downwards, overwhelmed by the compassion in Steve’s expression. “She couldn’t have lived with herself if she didn’t do whatever it took to make up for them. At least she found her peace.”
“Buck,” Steve starts, slowly, grasping his hand tighter as if his fingers alone could prevent losing him again. “You’re here for a reason. You and Natasha are… were… good people. Both of you are two of the strongest, kindest, most empathetic and giving people I know. And neither of you deserved the pain you suffered.”
Bucky stays silent, still unable to meet his gaze, so Steve continues. “The universe put the two of you together all those years ago for a reason, too. And I’m glad you were able to find comfort in each other.
“Buck, look at me,” Steve says, wiping away the tear welling in Bucky’s eye with his thumb. “You’re a good man, Buck. And Natasha was a good woman. And the world is better off because she was in it, and because you are.”
“Steve.” Bucky’s voice is hoarse. “I’ve done terrible things. And so did she. But Natasha has spent every moment since making up for hers. I’m not the one who should be here.”
“I thought you died once,” Steve starts, waiting until Bucky’s eyes find his again. “You were gone, and I was lost, torn apart. Would’ve given anything to trade places with you. Peggy came to comfort me, tried to help me find a reason to live again. And you know what she said?”
Steve waits for a response, but Bucky simply stares at him. “She told me to allow you the dignity of your choice, Buck, because you damn well must have thought I was worth it.”
“You were,” Bucky interrupts. “And are. I’ve regretted so many things in my life, but I’ve never regretted protecting you. But you don’t need protection anymore.”
Steve smiles softly, his eyes searching Bucky’s. “I still need you.”
Bucky freezes for a moment, but Steve leans in, closing his eyes. His lips meet Bucky’s gently, his hand still on his face, reaching confidently for the back of his neck. Bucky takes a second, but then he melts into the kiss, his lips pushing back with more force. Steve doesn’t flinch when his metal arm wraps around his back, pulling him closer.
The two become one for a moment, a moment that neither wants to end. But as Steve starts to deposit more weight onto Bucky, his other hand falling to his waist, all but ready to carefully drop both of them backward onto Natasha’s bed, they both stop.
They press their foreheads together, their eyes still closed. Slowly, Steve pulls away, his hand dropping from Bucky’s cheek. Bucky catches it on the way down, holding on to it as tightly as Steve had earlier. The two are silent, listening to the sound of their pounding hearts and faltered breaths morphing together.
Steve nestles his head in the crook of Bucky’s neck, and Bucky reaches his arm around his back and under the bottom of his shirt, drawing small circles on Steve’s skin, smiling to himself at the goosebumps forming.
“I wish more than anything it wasn’t her,” Steve whispers. “Not you, either, Buck. I should’ve taken the space mission. She should’ve gone back to New York, and I should’ve been in space.”
“Steve,” Bucky starts, turning his head to kiss the top of Steve’s forehead.
“I wish I could hear her joke one more time, hear her laugh, see her face light up with a stupid grin. I wish we could stop losing soldiers who shouldn’t be soldiers but who take on the mantle anyway just because someone needs to. I wish we could stop losing friends and family and sisters and brothers.
“But I know she didn’t sacrifice her life for nothing.” Steve takes a labored breath, lifting his head from Bucky’s shoulder. “We’re here because of her. She sacrificed her life for the entire universe, for us, for all the families who will never know she’s the reason they’re reunited. All we can do is honor her choice and live the lives she’s given us, the best way we can. Because she damn well must have thought we were worth it, too.”
Bucky gives a soft laugh, and pulls Steve closer into him.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Bucky says, shaking his head. “I just don’t remember you being that good at cheering me up.”
“Oh, come on,” Steve says, meeting Bucky’s small smile with his own before his eyes fall again. “What about the time I jumped into the river to rescue your cap after Norman grabbed it off your head down at the docks?”
“Oh, yeah,” Bucky replies, rubbing the knuckles on his metal hand as if could still feel the punch he threw 100 years ago. “Was that Norman? Or Gerald? You were dripping wet when you finally got out.”
“But I found it.”
They sit there grinning for a moment, caught up in the memory.
“A simpler time,” Steve says, breaking the silence. “Before the internet and inflation and…”
“Time travel,” Bucky continues. They fall silent again.
“We can’t even bury her body.”
Bucky pats Steve’s knee again. “The ceremony tomorrow will be everything she would’ve wanted, Steve. You’ve thought of everything.”
He stands, reaching out his hand to Steve. “Come on. You haven't eaten in almost two days, and we leave early in the morning. Let’s get food.”
“Fine.” Steve allows Bucky to pull him up and gives the room one last look before they turn the light out. He hesitates for a moment before reaching down, grabbing the jacket still lying on the bed.
“That would’ve fit you some 90 years ago,” Bucky says as Steve joins him outside the bedroom. “But it’s a bit small for you now.”
“It’s not for me.”
Bucky nods, watching as Steve closes the door behind them. He claps his hand onto Steve’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Steve."
“I know.” Steve blinks to quell the tears starting to form as he holds Nat’s jacket tightly in both hands. “But the world won’t be the same.”
“When has it ever been the same for more than a few moments?”
“You know what hasn’t changed in a century?” Steve asks as they head down the hallway.
“What?”
“A good Brooklyn slice.”
Bucky laughs, his first genuine, heartfelt laugh he’s let out in a while. “Sounds good to me,” he says, his eyes shining. “Pizza. And then your bed? Just like old times?”
“Just like old times,” Steve agrees, smiling at the thought of them cuddling up just like they did all those years ago. “I’m glad you’re here, Buck.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”