Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Steve wakes up from the defrosting, after running through the city barefoot and confused, Director Fury kept him under house arrest in SHIELD headquarters. He's treated exceptionally well, but the nurses and agents are wary around him. They don't reveal any information then what he already learned from the weekly checkups from Fury.

Stark's son, Tony, visits him on the third day and there's hostility laced with his introduction. His smirk doesn't quite reach his eyes and his erratic movements are just a bit forced and calculated. Steve doesn't understand how Tony can be so narcissistic and egoistic and so different from Howard. He makes the mistake of mentioning Howard, and Tony visibly flinches and shuts up. He leaves after a few more minutes of awkwardness and doesn't visit until Steve's recruited by Fury for the Avengers Initiative. Steve doesn't know how he feels about that.

The Avengers Initiative is the somewhat nonconsensual recruitment of a handful of dangerous people Steve's never heard of, plus Tony. Fury doesn't give them much of a choice other than join us or watch the world get conquered by aliens. The team meets Thor halfway through the mess, and after the whole ordeal Steve gains a little group of reluctant friends and a broken and mismatched team that makes him ache for the Howling Commandos. And Bucky. Bucky, who's dead and gone, and will never see the future with Steve.

-----

The media goes crazy over them; interviews and talk show requests clog Ms. Pepper Potts' inbox, and tabloids and gossips are all that's on the front pages of magazines and newspapers. There are pictures and videos of their fight on the Internet, guesses and bets about the secret identities of the superheroes.

Steve didn't take off his mask, but the iconic costume was enough to make historians and the government freak out about the return of Captain America. Speculations and in depth analyzes of his jawline and nose surface around the web, and crazy rumors spread like wildfire. Fury wants him to reveal himself and help gain some good publicity for SHIELD. Steve politely declines.

Bruce moves in with Tony in the tower to have 24/7 access to his labs and equipment, Thor goes back to Asgard with his brother in tow, Clint and Natasha stay with SHIELD for further missions from Fury. No one talks about Agent Coulson. Steve buys a simple wooden box from an antique store with the savings in his account and puts the bloodied trading cards inside.

-----

After two weeks of pestering from Tony and Ms. Potts and feeling claustrophobic and lonely in the new apartment that SHIELD got him on the edge of the city, Steve moves into the Tower.

He's got his own floor and unlimited access to the gym. He talks to Jarvis, orders random things online with the credit card Tony set up for him, and sometimes when he gets restless, he watches Bruce and Tony tinker in the lab, listening to them bickering and rambling.

Tony was pleasantly surprised when Steve asks him about the suit and the coding behind Jarvis. "I piloted a German plane on my own without any help," Steve tells him dryly. "I maybe old, but I'm not an idiot."

And with that, Bruce and Tony teach him about computers and modern technology every other day in the privacy of the lab. Steve's memory's always been exceptionally good, he WAS an artist after all, and the serum enhanced it to the point where Tony calls it 'eidetic'.

With the help of two geniuses, Steve learns about computers and coding at an alarming rate. In a few short months, he can take apart and build from scratch a computer, hook up tracking devices with a few office supplies and wires, he can hack into a ton of major security systems and disable any firewalls and decrypt the codes. Even Tony was impressed.

-----

On a Tuesday morning, Fury calls them all in for another 'defend the world' mission. This time, it was a bunch of terrorists attacking the city, and once again the five of them and Thor came together and eliminated the threat. Then they were paraded in front of cameras and microphones and screaming reporters who swarm around them with questions here and there. Not for the first time, Steve feels like a show monkey; dressed in red, white and blue tights, face hidden under the mask, looking like the poster boy for American patriotism.

He pulls Fury aside after yet another debriefing with the team on how to avoid giving away classified details and dodging tricky questions from stubborn reporters.

"I can't keep doing this forever," Steve tells him. "Steven Rogers was declared KIA more than seventy years ago, his life is over."

"What are you talking about, Captain." It wasn't a question.

"I quit, I'm done," Steve says after a few seconds. "I can't keep doing this."

Fury closes his eyes and sighs, fingers digging at his temple.

"No one can confirm that you're the original Captain America," Fury says. "People are saying it's an imposter. We'll diffuse that rumor, pull some strings, but you must run anything you want to do by me."

Steve nods sincerely. "Thank you." He turns to leave, but turns back and gives the Director a salute. "You have my gratitude."

-----

Within a month, he gets a new identity, the reluctant approval of his teammates, and a new life. He leaves his shield and uniform with Tony, and gives his permission to use them when the team sees fit.

Steve cuts his hair to a buzz cut, gels the top with Clint and Natasha's help, and packs a bunch of T-shirts given to him by Tony and Clint as gag gifts. Bruce gives him one of his old pair of glasses with the prescription lenses knocked out and replaced with glass. Pepper takes care of the legal procedures and runs him through his new identity.

Jacob Jensen is a 21 year old with no family other than an older sister, Virginia Jensen who lives in New York, and a high school diploma with a GED of 4.3. Steve agreed to list Pepper as his sister on the grounds that she won't alert the team of his whereabouts unless he tells her to. He knows Tony would be keeping tabs on him with Jarvis, but he trusts him not to interfere.

With that, he leaves the Tower in a bright yellow sweater, dark jeans, a pair of well-worn converses and squinting into the sun with his new glasses.

-----

Chapter Text

It took him two months, eight awkward introductions and an unsuspecting Starbucks barista to get him used to his new name. 

Walking out of the coffee shop with a green tea frappe and 'Stee-Jay' crudely sharpied on the side, Jacob Jensen was made. 

The small apartment he rented from an old senile lady was cramped and drafty on windy days, but Jacob doesn't have asthma or bad lungs, and he can't get colds from walking on the floor barefoot anymore. 

His neighbors are nice, but quiet. He buys canvases, brushes and colors from the art store down the block, and paints the sceneries from his window. But there's only so much you can paint with one window facing the back of a greasy Italian restaurant and the other in the bathroom. He's tried setting the easel on top of the toilet seat, but after an attempt to pee in the middle of the night while half asleep turned out being a lot more difficult than he expected, he sighed and moved the setup back in the living room. 

-----

When the three months lease ends, Jacob's faced with the daunting reality that this is not the life he wants, not even close. It's too quiet, too calm, and the desperate attempts to keep his voice down when the nightmares come at night to prevent another noise complain is getting to him. He's made no new friends and his landlady just barely tolerates him. 

His misses Tony and Bruce's rants, Pepper's nagging when he forgets to eat, Clint and Natasha's games of hide and seek that usually result in more collateral damage than necessary, he even misses Thor's loud booming voice and the trail of Pop-tart wrappers that he leaves behind. 

Sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning, when he just can't sleep, he thinks about his old team, Peggy, Howard, his ma, Mrs. Barnes, and Bucky. He thinks about going on his computer and hacking a few databases and looking for his team's grandchildren, because he's read a few biographies and memorials about the Howling Commandos. He knows Bucky was the only one besides him that didn't make it through the war. He knows Dum Dum named his twin sons James and Steven, and Peggy got married but never had any kids. He knows Mrs. Barnes received condolence letters for both him and Bucky, and had passed away from poor health the following year. 

Steve wants so badly to dig up the old files and reconnect, but he's not Steve anymore, at least not until the nightmares hit and the sound of Bucky screaming as he falls becomes the only thing that matters. 

-----

The morning of the last day, he turns in the key, packs the few belongings he has in a box and drives away in his crappy old car. 

He leaves a painting of the skyline view from the roof of the building on the table; one last gift to the landlady for putting up with his bullshit. He doesn't sign his name. 

He calls and reserves a room for a hotel. On his way there he stops for gas and meets an army recruiter. Jacob Jensen never showed up to claim his room that night. 

-----

The army is not like what it was in the old days. The training's stricter, the weapons are more advanced and the rules are more enforced than ever. But the people's still the same: cocky, full of shit and tough. 

It’s the third week into Basics and he's been I.D.ed more than ten times. But it's the first time a commanding officer mistakes him for a kid visiting his big brother that became the last straw. He's gonna to grow a damned beard. 

His attempt at growing a full and manly beard is mediocre at best, and he ends up looking like a scraggly gorilla than a man. He doesn't know what prompted him to style the pathetic frays of hair into a goatee, but it ends up looking better than anything else he's tried so far. He decides to keep it. 

Somewhere across town, Tony wakes up gasping from a nightmare where his beautiful goatee was set on fire by a toaster. He leaves a message for Pepper to insure his beard for twenty thousand dollars and goes back to sleep. 

-----

Jacob manages to piss off almost every single person he runs into, either with his charming personality or with his uncannily high IQ he's not sure, but he's pretty sure it's one of them. Or maybe it's the Avengers T-shirts that he wears every day. 

By the end of Basics training, the only two people that haven't decked him in the face is a mechanic named Pooch and a small Mexican named Cougar. 

He searches their names up on the military files, Linwood Porteous and Carlos Alvarez, it says, and he hacks into their library accounts and pays off their overdue books. Pooch had five dollars of overdue fines from over two years ago, and Cougar still hasn't returned his Star Trek DVD. 

Pooch offers him the occasional greeting, and Cougar just doesn't give a shit about him, which is better than getting punched or sneered at. 

They call him 'Jensen', and sometimes 'JJ' when they run out of insults. Steve Rogers wants to come out and teach them a lesson on respect and bullying. Jensen smiles and ruins their credit history. 

-----

Pooch gets recruited into a platoon and he's shipping out in two weeks, Cougar gets chosen for some special sniper training. They both leave without saying goodbye and Jensen tries to not feel bad about it. It's not like they were his friends or anything.  

Jensen gets recognized as a pretty good hacker and decent code breaker, paired with his almost perfect training scores he gets thrown into Special Forces training almost instantly. 

They lend him off to a shit load of different units and give him just as many tests and evals. He hacks into the system and fucks up the records so he doesn't have to test his eyesight and his blood. He may be Jacob Jensen, but his metabolism and rate of healing says otherwise. 

-----

Fury calls him a few days after he enlisted. 

"Are you serious," Fury says when Jensen picks up the phone. "I risked my ass to get you away from the fighting and the minute I turn around you decide to join the fucking army?" 

"Nick," Jensen sighs over the phone. "It's not the fighting that I'm want to get away from, it's the fact that I'm a glorified boy scout that's supposed to be dead. I became Captain America to help my country, but became a show monkey instead. This time, I'm gonna do it right." 

"Just, for fucks sake, don't do something noble and heroic like blocking bullets with your chest or some shit." 

"Yes, sir." He nods solemnly. 

-----

Apparently Tony called in a few favors with James Rhodes, a good friend of his, and got in contact with the higher ups about an aspiring young soldier named Jacob Jensen who's got more talent than any other field experienced soldier. Ever. 

Jensen doesn't know the specifics, but he's called down to Colonel Franklin Clay's office a few days later and offered a spot on the new Spec Ops team. His second in command is a scary looking man named William Roque. Jensen hesitates for a full two seconds before signing the papers and demanding a fist bump. 

-----

It turns out, Pooch is their mechanic and transpo., and remembers him from Basics. Jensen was happy enough to pull him into a hug. 

Jensen knows, with a team this small and experienced, there will be just as many illegal missions as there will be legal. And it's only a matter of time before Fury develops an aneurysm. So he orders an edible arrangement of fruits and chocolate for his office and convinces Bruce to knit him a pink eye patch. 

The team can’t work without a sniper, so they go on small missions with trial snipers, and so far Roque's managed to scare the literal crap out of one, send another to the ER and lodge a pen into the thigh of the last one. 

Pooch tried to run over  the first one with his truck when the poor guy decided to insult his girlfriend, and Laura, Clay's bat shit insane ex, 'accidentally' stabbed the second one with a kitchen knife. The fifth one punched Jensen in the face and broke his glasses, and it took Clay and Pooch to pull Jensen off of him, because the son of a bitch broke Bruce's glasses. 

Jolene, Pooch's wonderful girlfriend, gets her colleague's husband to fix the broken glasses, and earns herself a permanent spot on Jensen's disappointingly short list of friends. 

When Cougar shows up as their latest sniper replacement, Pooch high fives him and Jensen thinks, this is it, this is the team. 

Clay is still overbearing and growls a lot, Roque still threatens to skin him alive if he doesn't shut the fuck up, Pooch hasn't warmed up to him and Cougar hardly even looks at him let alone talk. But Jensen knows, just like how Steve knew the Howling Commandos would become a legend, this is gonna be the best team ever. 

-----

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

It's been two years since Jensen's confession about Bucky and he's only slipped up once. That one time in Peru when Cougar took out two guys with one bullet, earning a 'holy shit bro' from Roque and a 'nice one, Buck' from Jensen. The radio was silent and tense for a moment, filled only with Jensen's ragged breathing, before the tension was broken by Clay's oddly calm voice, informing Cougar of his position.

-----

They're in LA, staked out at a five-star hotel two blocks north of the casino where the owner is smuggling illegal drugs from across the border. Their order is to kill the two heads of the operation and leave without a trace.

Cougar and Clay is undercover, trying to get a better visual of the floor plan, Pooch is stationed across the street for backup and Roque is going over the files again with Jensen in the room, trying to track the trail of money from account to account.

The intel they've received is insufficient and short; Brian Miller is the head of the operation, his right hand is Scott Burns and they're disguising the ill earned drug money as lottery money, collecting them periodically every two months. In two days, they will be making a deposit which will then be won by a man named Horatio in a rigged game of poker. The money will then be transferred to a safe house in five different vehicles going three different routes.

All Jensen needs to do is hack into the security cameras, draw a map, and pinpoint the locations of key persons. Under Clay's suggestion, he also made three escape routes and two rendezvous points in case shit happens which-according to Clay-is going to happen. Meanwhile, Clay and Roque will put trackers on the getaway cars, and Pooch will follow them.

But something doesn't it sit right with Jensen. The intel didn't mention anything about who Horatio was; there was no picture, no last name, no description, only the amount of money that he will pick up. There was no solid proof that this even was a drug deal.

The team was also skeptical at first, but Clay really couldn't find anything wrong other than the lack of important intel, and they have gone into mission with less information and somehow fumbled their way through. Cougar had been tracking their every move for the last three days and can confirm that they are in fact having contact with at least seven other gangs.

With five hours left before Horatio is supposed to enter the casino, the team is on edge and a bit frustrated. Of all the training they've done, there was nothing about how to proceed when there are one to many unknown variables in play.

Jensen is idly tapping away on his laptop, contemplating on hacking to the military base to see if they were withholding information on them when a notification pops up.

"You have (1) new mail from the University of Brooklyn."

He clicks on it, looking over his shoulder to see if anyone is watching.

"'Thank you for applying to the University of Brooklyn!" it says. He scans the content for worms and viruses, and when it comes up clean he hesitantly opens it.

"Hi Sarah,

Thank you for your application to the Arts and Entertainment program at our university.

Your portfolio has been reviewed and considered. Unfortunately, it has been rejected as it did not meet the requirements of the rubric.

CUSTOMERS WILL BE ARMED. THEY ARE SUSPICIOUS. H WILL NOT BE THERE TONIGHT. ABORT IMMEDIATELY.

Thank you for your understanding. If you have any questions or concerns please contact Eddard Winterfell via email or telephone."

"Jesus christ, man," Jensen murmurs to himself before yelling for Clay. "Hey! I've got something!"

Apparently, 'Clay' is code for 'everyone' because soon the whole team is crowded around his computer looking at the email.

"This has to be a joke," Pooch scoffs. "What kind of name is Eddard Winterfell?"

"No, someone is in on this as well," Clay says. "As far as I know, no one else had been briefed on this mission other than us."

"Well, someone must have," Roque reasons.

"And that someone is Ned Stark? Lord of Winterfell? Ruler of-"

"Wait, wait, wait, did you say Ned Stark?" Jensen whirls around in his wheelie chair. "Stark, as in stark naked?"

"Yeah man, the Starks of Winterfell. Whoever wrote this letter must have be a Thrones fan." Pooch sounds oddly intrigued.

"Oh, that son of a bitch," Jensen says fondly, to no one in particular. "How did he even-"

"Wait, you know this guy?" Roque says.

Jensen looks at him sheepishly, then turns to Clay.

"We'll discuss this later," Clay sighs. "Can we trust him and the information?"

"Yes, sir," Jensen says, then breaks into a smile. "Believe it or not, he taught me almost everything I know about computers and hacking. If anyone can get some good intel, it's him."

"So what now, boss?" Cougar says, eyes never leaving Jensen's face.

"We abort. Pack everything up and leave no evidence. We're getting the hell out of here."

-----

They're two hours away in a black van when they get the news that there's been a shoot out at the casino after some drunk got into a fight and someone called the cops. The cops showed up and was gunned down by the guards, but not before they radioed for backup. The shooters had gotten away before backup came but none of the customers were hurt.

The car is silent after Pooch turns off the radio. Cougar is once again staring at Jensen, expression carefully blank.

Clay clears his throat and Jensen schools his smile victorious grin off his face.

"So, you wanna tell us why your friend decided to hack into a secure military network and send you an email, breaking every fucking rule in the book, and somehow ended up saving all of our asses?"

"It won't happen again, I promise," Jensen shrugs and ducks his head down to hide his grin.

"That's not the point, Jacob." Jensen's head snaps up at the mention of his first name. "Do you know how much legal and illegal shit we can get into if anyone finds out about this?"

"Clay, man," Roque sighs. "It did save our lives, and honestly, I was about to back out of this mission anyways. The intel was crap, and the motive didn't make sense. Something was off."

"We could have walked right into their ambush," Pooch reminded from the driver's seat. "And we didn't. And that's all what matters to me."

Clay sighs and runs his hand through his hair.

"Alright, alright, " he relents. "Send your friend a fruit basket or something. But don't let there be a second time."

Jensen gives him a thumbs up and smiles. "Will do, sir!" But his skin prickles under the intensity of Cougar's stare.

Jensen turns to face the window, letting his smile drop into a frown.

Cougar, whose scrutinizing stare hasn't left Jensen's face since they got in the van, shifts slightly in his seat.

-----

Chapter Text

Everyone’s got their own demons, Jensen is willing to bet his entire left arm on that fact, and in the few odd years this band of merry losers have been working together, each and every one of them have slipped up, and have had spilled their guts—metaphorically and literally—because of it. It became almost an unspoken rule, that if anything could potentially compromise the mission, or the livelihood of each other, it better be said.

Jensen prides himself in keeping as much of secrets as he can; it’s not that he doesn’t trust his team—fuck, it’s that he trusts them too much. And in this field of work, trust is inevitably a liability. But even then, Roque and Clay have picked up on the fact that he is a lot stronger than he looks, and that Pooch has remarked many times that he eats enough calories to feed a small army. But Cougar is the most observant of them all, and Jensen can feel his eyes on him whenever he feels his smile slipping, or when he catches himself thinking of the past.

His decision to leave the Avengers, to leave the people who he thought knew him the best, weights on him. On sleepless nights, Jensen lets his mind wander, and sometimes, he feels a hint of regret. The guilt of keeping his real identity from his new family threatens to tip over and spill. They’ve all bared their deepest hurts and loneliest times with each other, and the vulnerability in each of their eyes when the job gets too much—each time is like a sucker punch to Jensen’s stomach.

It’s for their own good, Jensen thinks to himself as he clicks away on his laptop, frowning into his coffee as he shakes himself out of another deep daydream—one he’s been having way too frequently for his liking.

“They back yet?” Pooch asks around a mouthful of salad, chewing obnoxiously. Cougar wrinkles his nose at the noise but doesn’t say anything. He looks over at Jensen.

“They’re just pulling up,” Jensen zooms in on the red tracking dots on his screen, which are moving ever so slightly towards the safe house they’ve holed up in in Slovakia. Their latest mission had taken them across the Northern parts of Asia, tailing after and just barely missing a high-profile black-market arms dealer. It seems like their intel falls short every time, and even with Jensen’s relentless monitoring and Courgar and Clay’s undercover ops, their target eludes them every single time.

Jensen can only count on one hand how many times a mission has been this tedious. The Losers weren’t exactly the type to sit around and be sitting ducks, and they prefer to act on instinct rather than careful planning. So at this point, everyone is restless and frustrated, itching to get to the part where they can go in guns blasting.

From the corner of his eyes, Jensen can see Cougar open his mouth, most likely to tell Pooch off for chewing so fucking loudly with his mouth open, when the door slams open, and Clay and Roque storm into the room.

“Anton’s fucking dead,” Roque grits out.

“What?” a few crumbs of bread escape from Pooch’s gasp.

“Found his body in his car. Bullet between his eyes,” Clay rubs his hands over his face and sighs. “Someone beat us to our target.”

That was unexpected.

“Um, so now what?” Jensen asks. No one answers. It seems like they're all processing this information in their own way. “Soooo, can we take credit?”

“We don’t know if whoever took out Anton is also after us,” Clay scolds. “Mission control didn’t mention any competitions.”

“Could be a hit.”

“A man like him’s got many enemies, won’t be a stretch if he pissed off the wrong person,” Jensen nods at Cougar in agreement.

“Well, let 's lay low and keep an eye out for any developments,” Clay finally says. “I’ll update mission control once we get more information.”

---

Here’s what they know: Anton was shot from long range; one clean bullet between the eyes. The shooter was skilled—Cougar confirms from Clay and Roque’s descriptions, and most likely an unaffiliated party, judging by the impartialness of the killing.

This leaves the team uneasy; Jensen can tell. The shooter had taken no trophies, or any evidence to confirm his kill, so that rules out the possibility of a contract kill. The team had looked for any unusual activities from rival arms dealers, but there were none. And that rules out the possibility of competition.

They’ve exhausted all leads short of reporting back to mission control—which is something the team all agreed should be left as a last resort. They’ve been burnt by their own people too many times to trust the higher ups.

It’s been four days since Anton was shot and killed, and the only plausible explanation was that his death was a message. A message to whom, exactly? The Losers have their own opinions, but Jensen can feel a storm brewing. The uneasy feeling in his stomach has gotten worse since Clay and Roque had come back.

It was all on their minds, but no one dared to voice it—no one except Jensen.

“Maybe it’s a message for us.”

---

Their safe house was safe, as the name suggests. But eventually they had to leave. Squatting there like sitting ducks is not the smartest thing to do in this situation, and Jensen can attest to that—they have done plenty of stupid shit in their careers. So, they pack what little equipment they brought with them, wipe the house clean of any evidence of their recent stay, and squeeze into the tiny jeep that Roque refuses to get rid of and start heading farther away from the city.

The next closest safe house is in a secluded area on the Northern borders of Slovakia and Finland, three hours away. They stop once, to fill up their tank and refuel their snack hoard, where Jensen ditches their cellphones behind a bush next to the gas station washrooms.

“Doesn’t hurt to be proactive,” Clay says.

To which Roque replies, “Didn’t know you knew words longer than two syllables.”

---

They see the smoke before they even turn into a hidden driveway on the side of a highway, crooked and off trail, offering a bumpy ride at the best of times to what the Losers call their “cabin in the woods” safe house.

“Looks like someone’s home,” Jensen tries to joke.

“No fucking shit, Sherlock,” Roque snaps from the front. His knuckles white against the steering wheel.

“The sniper,” Cougar growls.

“Could be,” Clay says. “Either way, be on high alert.”

There is no way that whoever is in that cabin didn’t hear them coming from kilometers away, the jankiness of their beat-up jeep rattled them like a tambourine all the way up the rocky and uneven road.

But there was no commotion from within the cabin when the jeep parked hazardously across the front lawn. The only sign that there is even someone there is the slow but constant flickering of a warm yellow glow, streaming through the curtained windows like a furnace. That, and the slow and steady rise of smoke seeping from the chimney. Roque unsheathes one of his many knives hidden in his mysterious bodily orifices, and Jensen hears Clay clicking the safety off his gun. Jensen reaches behind his belt, where his own pistol is stashed, and grips it in his hand. Cougar and Pooch stand a few meters behind, keeping an eye out for flanks coming from behind.

Clay and Roque nod to each other and kick the door open before Jensen has the chance to release the breath he didn't realize he was holding.

If the slam of the door didn’t startle all the birds into flight, Clay’s yell of “Don’t move!” definitely did.

Jensen looks past Roque’s outstretched arm, where he had thrown his knife at the intruder inside the house. Jensen looks to the knife, now clutched in the hands of—no, a metal hand, of—of, a man, who looks as haunted as Jensen feels on his worst days. The deep bags under his eyes, the dirty strands of brown hair framing his unshaven face—

Time seems to slow, Jensen swears Clay yells something at him—he can see his lips moving, arms reaching out to grab onto him, but the magnetic pull is too strong. His legs walk forward before his brain can catch up, and he absentmindedly shrugs off panicked arms grabbing at his shoulders. It feels like he's falling into orbit.

Striking blue eyes lock onto his.

“Bucky?”

“Steve?” It’s a quiet prayer. And it’s like Jensen’s whole world halted in its tracks, every fiber in his body is focusing on the man with the metal arm, standing in front of him, looking as broken as Steve’s heart feels. He wants to say something, but nothing comes out. 

“What the fuck is going on?” Pooch’s voice snaps him back to reality.

“Who the fuck is Steve?” Clay demands, gun still not wavering, pointing straight at the brunet.

But Bucky doesn’t notice the threat, perhaps doesn’t even register it as one. Instead, he lets the knife clatter on the ground and takes a hesitant step forward.

“Stevie, it’s really you?”

And just like that, the dam breaks, and Steve finds himself meeting Bucky halfway, clinging to each other in a log cabin, in the middle of the Slovakian forest.

“You’re alive,” Steve murmurs into Bucky’s shoulders; he's aware of the other man shaking slightly, and he tightens his arms. A mantra of the other man's name under his breath as the rest of the Losers shuffle into the house.

“Jensen, what the fuck is going on?” Pooch says again, but this time, an octave higher.

Steve reluctantly pulls back, arms still wrapped around Bucky, who turns his head to glance at the others, standing around in various awkward poses.

“I think you have some explaining to do, Jensen.”

And Steve laughs and laughs.