Chapter Text
It’s been five years. That’s what the man with the glowing hands says. All around him, the news is met with confusion and dismay, but Bucky doesn’t care. He’s lost time before. There’s only one thing he cares about.
“Where’s Steve?”
He’s squaring off against Thanos’s entire army by himself because of course he is.
Bucky follows the Wakandan forces into the fray. It’s a nightmare, but what battle isn’t? Steve is at the center of it but Bucky can’t get to him. So he puts his head down and fights. He doesn’t know if there’s a plan but he’ll fight until they win or he dies. Again.
They win.
It happens suddenly. The enemy forces start dissolving into ash. It’s just as bewildering and disturbing to witness as it was to experience. There’s a hush over the battlefield and then word spreads. It was Stark. He finished Thanos and the stones finished him.
Bucky walks toward where Steve and a few others are gathered. He slows, freezes. This is not his place. They’re standing over Tony Stark’s body. This is not his place.
“I was there,” a woman in a version of the Iron Man armor says through tears. “I knew it would happen. I was afraid he’d go and I wouldn’t—at least I was there.”
“You were. He knew you were.” An enormous man with green skin pats her shoulder. If Bucky had to guess, the green guy is Banner. No wonder they kept trying to get him to “do his thing” before.
Steve is trying to comfort a teenager. Looks like the same kid who laid out both Bucky and Sam in Berlin. The kid is inconsolable but Steve is trying, despite looking equally devastated.
“I’m sorry. I have to—I’m sorry.” The man who brought them there pushes his way to the center of the group. Moments later one of Stark’s gauntlets is floating over their heads in a protective bubble. “Just until we determine what to do with the stones,” he says.
The woman in the armor says something to Thor, Bucky thinks it’s Thor based on the outfit, who picks up the body. He carries it away. Sam goes to Steve, setting a hand on his shoulder. Steve turns and smiles a weary, grief-stricken smile. He throws an arm around Sam's neck.
“Thanks,” he replies to whatever Sam said. He spots Bucky, lets go of Wilson and pulls him into a bone-crushing hug.
“Hey, pal,” Bucky laughs, not sure what to do with such naked emotion. “Good to see you.”
“I watched you die,” Steve says, not releasing him.
“I’m sorry. I’ll try not to do it again.”
Steve lets go, laughing and wiping at his eyes. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Barnes, your ride might be leaving,” Sam interrupts. Bucky looks up. The Wakandans are walking through the reopened portals. If it’s really been five years, T’Challa is going to want to get back home ASAP and figure out what’s happened in his absence.
“Oh.” Steve looks over his shoulder. “Do you have to go right away?”
“I can stay.” Bucky shrugs. He has no obligations, as it happens. His farm is probably in ruins. He hopes someone took care of the goats while he was gone. If that’s not the case, he doesn’t want to know just yet.
Steve regroups with his teammates. The ones who have been with him since the Snap and the ones who just returned.
“We’re going to figure out our next moves together, but not until tomorrow. You both can stay at my place tonight,” he says.
They get into Steve’s car. Wilson sits in the passenger seat, making calls, letting his family know he’s alive. Bucky sits in the back, staring out the window. The streets are a mess, junk piled on corners and boarded up windows in nearly every building, but there are people everywhere. Smiling and waving at each other and yelling excitedly into their phones. It’s a party atmosphere.
“Brooklyn,” Bucky whispers, suddenly recognizing the streets.
“Been a while huh?” Steve grins at him in the rearview mirror. “I moved back not long after… Needed some, I don’t know, continuity? Not that it’s much like the old neighborhood.”
“It’s different but the bones are the same.”
“Yeah,” Steve agrees.
He leads them to his apartment on the third floor of a walkup. It’s twice the size of their old place, but still pretty small for the three of them.
“One of you can take the guest room and one can have my room. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Sam protests.
“You died,” Steve argues. “Anyone comes back from the dead gets a mattress and clean sheets in my home.”
“Fine, but we’ll make dinner.”
“Will we?” Bucky asks.
“We will,” Sam says. “Barnes and I will do the cooking. You take a shower. You need it.”
Steve looks at his filthy hands. “You have a point.” He leaves the room and a few minutes later they hear water running. They wash their hands in the kitchen sink. Sam starts digging through the fridge and pantry and sets Bucky to work chopping vegetables.
“How are you feeling about the being dead for five years thing?” Sam asks.
“Don’t know. Seems like it was harder on the ones who survived. You?”
“I’m not sure about what it says about my priorities that I’m here instead of at my mom’s place. But this is where I want to be.”
They eat Sam’s stir-fry and with a little prodding, Steve tells them how the Avengers brought half the universe back to life.
“Soooooo then I fought myself.”
“Of course you did,” Sam and Bucky say in unison. Steve shrugs.
“He thought I was Loki. Almost cleaned my clock. I had to use the Mind Stone to knock him—me out. Anyway, we got the Mind Stone and the Time Stone but Loki escaped with the Space Stone. So Tony and I…”
It’s a hell of a story, funnier than Bucky expected. Until he gets to what happened to Natasha.
“I’m sorry.” He shakes his head and gulps. “It’s hard to talk about. We knew that Thanos killed his daughter when he took the stone, but we didn’t know that the stone required a death. We… it was Thanos. He’s awful. If I’d known…”
Bucky knows what he’s almost saying. If he’d known they had to sacrifice someone to get the stone, he would’ve been the sacrifice.
They eat in silence for a while. Eventually, Steve continues. “We did it. She did it. We had all six stones. You know the rest. Bruce used the gauntlet and brought all of you back. Then Thanos attacked.”
“Yeah, how exactly? I thought you guys killed him five years ago?” Sam asks.
“Nebula says it was a Thanos from earlier in the timeline. 2014 I think.”
“How does that not break everything?” Bucky read his share of science fiction as a kid. Admittedly, every story explained time travel differently but that sounds wrong. “If 2014 Thanos died, how could he do what he did in 2018?”
Steve sighs. “I don’t know. You’re asking the wrong Avenger. That’s Tony’s thing. Was his thing.”
They finish dinner. Steve changes the sheets on his bed for Bucky before crashing out of exhaustion on the couch. Bucky lies awake. Five years. Steve didn’t say a word about what he was doing for five years. Probably what he’s doing now. Blaming himself and pretending to be okay.
He drifts off but wakes again a few hours later. He wanders into the kitchen for a glass of water, startling someone at the table.
“Steve?” Bucky flips on the lights.
“Shit,” Steve mutters. He’s obviously been crying. “What are you doing awake?”
“It’s noon in Wakanda.” Bucky moves his hand up to cover the scars on his shoulder. It’s strange to be standing in front of Steve in just his boxers. Not that Steve hasn’t seen him in less, but that was several lifetimes ago. Back when they were together so much Bucky thought of Steve as an extension of himself. “What are you doing awake?”
He pours two glasses of ice water. Steve wipes his eyes and makes a sound that could mean anything.
“Oh yeah, that explains it.” Bucky sits across from him, sliding a glass over.
Steve doesn’t quite manage a laugh and takes the glass. Bucky waits.
“We won,” he says.
“You don’t seem too happy about it.”
Steve shakes his head. “I am. I’m so happy. It’s all I’ve thought about for five years. Undoing it. Bringing everyone back. I knew it was impossible and I tried to help people accept that and move on. But I couldn’t stop thinking, wishing. Then it happened. You’re back. So is Sam, and Wanda, and everyone. You’re all back.”
“But?”
“Natasha is gone. So is Tony. Having you all here. It means everything but—” He starts to choke and reaches for the water. “I’m sorry. “
“Don’t be. You lost two friends. Be sad. It’s okay.”
“It’s not just that. That’s awful, it is,” Steve pauses, seeming to consider his next words. “I saw something when I went into the past.”
“What did you see?”
Steve looks into the distance for a minute. “Wait here, just for a second.” He stands and walks out of the room, returning with a shoebox. He sets it on the table between them.
“This is everything I had on me when I went into the ice.” He pulls out a water-damaged pocket-sized sketchbook and hands it to Bucky. Bucky flips through the pages. Hardly any drawings survived but Bucky recognizes a caricature of Dugan with his bowler hat and cigar.
Steve pulls out a pair of battered dog-tags. Barnes, James B. They’d swapped tags shortly after Azzano. Bucky wonders how long it took HYDRA to figure out their prisoner was a pissant sharpshooter and not the Star Spangled Man With a Plan himself. He hopes a couple of heads rolled because of it.
“Want them back?” Steve asks. Bucky shakes his head.
He dips his hand into the box and pulls out a familiar compass. He pops it open, knowing what he’ll find. Peggy Carter’s picture. Still a knockout. He gave Steve shit about the photo when he first noticed it. Steve didn’t speak to him for three days.
The final item in the box is a little silver ring. It’s only the width of a few hairs and badly tarnished. A tiny trinity knot marks the center.
“Remember that?”
“Your ma’s wedding ring.” How could he forget? Mrs. Rogers once hocked it to pay a doctor’s bill. Bucky, only eleven, skipped a week of school, selling papers on street corners to earn enough money to buy it back before Steve found out. When he gave it back to her, Mrs. R squeezed him so tight he thought he was going to suffocate. “What’s this about, Stevie?”
“I was frozen from 1945 to 2011.”
“I know. And?”
“I saw Peggy when I went back to 1970.”
“Oh. That must have been tough.”
Steve nods, lips pulled tight. “She was older than I remembered but still a knockout. She was doing her job. She was so good at it. She founded SHIELD. Did you know that?”
“I heard about that. She was quite a lady.” He’s still not sure what this has to do with the shoebox. Bucky had liked Peggy—eventually. At first, he thought she was just a pretty dame who’d caught Steve’s eye. Who’s head was turned by Mister Super Soldier. It didn’t take long to figure out there was more to her. Even if he still didn’t quite like her, he respected the hell out of her. She was a damn fine soldier. With a good head for tactics and fearless. She appreciated Steve, even before the serum. Learning that, was when Bucky started liking her. Steve had fallen hard for her. Seeing her again, then having to come back? Yeah, that would throw Steve for a loop.
“She was wearing that ring,” Steve says.
“What?” Bucky asks.
“In 1970. When it should’ve been under 300 feet of ice.”
“Are you sure it was the same ring?”
“It might not have been. She was on the other side of a window and across a room. But I know that ring. It was the same ring.”
“What does that mean? She found you in the ice and left you there? But took your ma’s ring? That doesn’t make sense.”
“No. I think—I think she and I were married.” Steve clenches his jaw.
“You were?”
“Or will be? Depending on how you look at it.”
“Time travel.” Bucky nods.
“Time travel,” Steve agrees.
Bucky sits back in his chair. “Fuck.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not. I know Peggy was married. That she had two children. I never found out her husband’s name. Or the kids. They aren’t in any of her files. Their identities were classified because of her position. I was able to find an engagement announcement. A colleague from the SSR. I can’t tell if they got married or not.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know what I can do.”
“Do you want it to be you? The husband?”
Steve opens his mouth a few times. He’s crying again. “I don’t know. I lose something either way.”
There’s a hollow ache in Bucky’s chest. If Steve is Carter’s husband, and it hasn’t happened yet, that means Steve goes into the past and doesn’t come back. No more Steve. They’ve had so little time together that wasn't consumed by a crisis. It hardly feels like they’ve spent more than fifteen peaceful minutes in each other’s company since 1941.
Bucky takes a deep breath. He picks up the ring and rolls it between his fingers. “Okay. We’re going to figure this out. Find out what we can about time travel. And about Carter. You still in touch with her niece?”
Steve’s cheeks flush. He shakes his head. That’s a story. They’ll get to the bottom of it. Maybe they already have. Maybe Steve goes back in time and marries his true love. Maybe Bucky loses Steve again. Or maybe Steve is wrong. Maybe his eyes aren’t as sharp as he thinks and it wasn’t his mother’s ring that he saw. Maybe Carter’s husband was a cheapskate who couldn’t be bothered to buy a proper gold band. Or maybe time travel works in mysterious ways and nobody loses a thing. And maybe Santa Claus and all his reindeer will fly out of Bucky’s ass to bring joy to the good little boys and girls of the world.