Work Text:
Bucky sighed as he rolled over feeling the cold spot on the bed beside him. He clenched the cool sheets in his metal left hand ignoring the glint of a ring there. He sat up slowly, allowing the sheets to pool around his scarred waist. The clang of dog tags echoed loudly in the silence of the room. He brought his flesh hand to his chest gripping the tags. His fingers gently worked over the worn barely raised letters: STEVEN ROGERS, US ARMY, CAPTAIN AMERICA. JAMES B BARNES, US ARMY. He knew exactly what they said by heart, how many nights since it happened had he spent rubbing them. It was the only way they could be together now.
He released the cold sheets and got out of bed, moving to find his discarded tank top, and sighed. He needed to find Tony because who knew what the genius was up to. Bucky turned to look at the alarm clock; half past one in the morning.
He made his way down the hall, pausing on his way to the workshop to check in on the nursery. Inside were two cribs standing side by side under the carefully mounted, fractured shield of Captain America. He walked into the room and looked over the two angelic babes sleeping in the light of the full moon as it flooded through the window.
The girl, Sarah Winnie Rogers Barnes-Stark, was older by only a few minutes than her brother, James Grant Rogers Barnes-Stark. Both babies would be nine months old in a few days. Both were brunettes with blue eyes, and they reminded Bucky of him . He took another moment to look up at the shield and sighed before sliding from the room as silently as he entered it.
He made his way down the hallway and slowly opened another door. Morgan laid tangled in her sheets, cuddled up to an oversized teddy bear and slept peacefully. The six year old had been delighted to have more siblings to play with. She enjoyed her new siblings and, unlike her father, knew how to sleep at a decent hour. She had taken well to Bucky coming to live in the cabin that had been her home since birth. Bucky seemed to be one of her favorite people. She’d asked after Steve many times over the last year. She’d only stopped asking for Cap recently. She’d taken to calling him Papa recently. Neither Pepper nor Tony had corrected her and so it stuck.
Bucky was extremely grateful to Pepper, she was a great co parent and surrogate to their three children. She and Tony had never really gotten back together after their break up following the attack on New York. They had remained friends and during the years that followed Bucky’s dusting Steve and Tony found comfort in each other. Deciding to grow their family with her help. They’d had Morgan and were coparenting her prior to the reversing of the snap.. She had decided to move back to Manhattan to take care of SI while he and Tony stayed at the cabin like kept husbands with the kids.She came home on the weekends.
He left her room and completed a parameter search of the cabin before heading to the guest cabin wherePeter and Harley were asleep inside.. Bucky could see them through the bulletproof glass wall, laying on opposite sides of the bed backs to each other. Peter was cuddling a pillow much like Morgan had her bear. Harley has a stern face even in sleep, his grip tight on the covers. They were still children, but already they’d been through so much. Peter like himself returned from ash and Harley assisting in the final battle in the new Iron Lad suit. He checked the parameter of the guest cabin before heading to the detached garage that lead to his husband’s workshop.
The door opened and Bucky caught a glimpse of Tony quickly closing down his halo screens and carefully turning to greet him.
“Hey Buckaroo, what’s up?” he asked clearly, trying not to appear suspicious.
“Hey, Tones. Are you planning on coming to bed tonight?” Bucky asked, moving his human hand to his hip. The dogtags on his neck seem to shimmer in the lowlights of the lab.
“No, I’m working on something… It’s really important,” Tony replied, moving to turn back to the screens and made sure to avoid looking at the tags around Bucky’s neck.
Bucky walked closer with careful footfalls and wrapped his arms around Tony’s waist. “Doll, you should come to bed. It can wait until after breakfast, can’t it?” he asked as he nuzzled his nose into the place between Tony’s shoulder blades. He tried to sneak a peek at what Tony was working on, but found the screens hazed out with a privacy screen.
Tony must be using Extremis to see what it said. This project must be extremely sensitive if it was even censored for Friday’s cameras.
“I’ll come up in a bit okay?” Tony offered a compromise, “I’ll make it worth it I promise…” He offered, moving his hands to continue working on something and not looking back at Bucky.
Bucky kissed the back of his husband’s neck, “You don’t have to offer me sex cuz you think I’m mad. I understand…Even though we’re retired -“ he made sure to stress the word, “- there are things you still feel the need to do.”
Tony turned. “How passive aggressive of you, Mr. Barnes.” He pecked his husband on the lips.
Bucky licked his lips; Tony always tasted like coffee and chocolate cherries. It was an addictive flavor indeed.
That peck led to deeper kisses to Tony waving the hologram away before he was pressed chest down on the workbench. At some point, Tony’s pants found their way around his ankles and Bucky’s boxers followed suit.. Lube was always in arm’s length in the lab since before. Metallic fingers knowingly opened Tony up, and before long they’re joined together.
Bucky kissed the back of Tony’s neck as he slid in to the hilt, whispering praise into the mechanic’s ear. He ate up all his lover’s moans as they made love in the lab. So much of this was like old times and yet it was something new. The pace was steady until Tony moaned that he was going to come and Bucky sped up to bring them to climax together.
Once Bucky’s pulled out and Tony had been cleaned enough, they stumbled over to lay on that old couch just looking at each other. Bucky laid on his back with Tony laying upon his chest, his fingers carefully tracing the tags.
“I miss him…” Tony mumbled, rubbing his hands along the worn tags. He looked at his left hand where he still wore the intertwined platinum bands on his ring finger.
“I do too, doll,” Bucky said, carefully rubbing Tony’s back. His eyes traveled to the digital clock on the wall. “Come on, let’s get to bed. It’s after two. Morgan will be up soon enough.” He carefully stood cradling his genius in his arms, “Let’s go to bed, Mr. Stark.”
“Lead the way, Mr. Barnes.” Tony gripped the back of his husband’s neck.
//
The next morning, the couple was woken by Friday and a loud rumble from deep within the Earth.
“Friday, where are the kids?” Bucky asked, as he quickly got to his feet and reached the nursery first.
The twins, while scared, were unharmed.
The rumbling was getting stronger and coming from the garage.
“FRIDAY, WHERE IS MORGAN?” Tony shouted as he came out of her room without her.
“Morgan is in the workshop.” Friday supplied.
“Stay with them,” Bucky said and handed Tony the crying twins before he headed out to the workshop. On his way, he passed Harley and Peter and directed them to the house to be with Tony.
He crossed the yard in record time and entered the emergency stairwell, and cleared all four levels down in under a minute, not letting the rumbling and rocking of the Earth around him deter him. It was much safer for him to attempt to find Morgan than Tony.
“Morgan!” He shouted, breaking through the emergency exit door.
He paused at the sight of some sort of portal. What the fuck was that? And why was it in the workshop?
Morgan ran over to Bucky from where she had been standing near the elevator. It wouldn’t activate in the event of an earthquake or instability.
He quickly picked her up and exited the workshop, shouting for Friday to lock it down behind them. Whatever was coming through that portal, they could deal with after they got the children to safety.
Bucky rejoined Tony in the living room and they had Friday pull up the lab surveillance feed on his Starkpad. They watched as the portal remained open for several minutes before something fell out of it and closed.
Tony asked Friday to review the video feed and then paused and looked at Morgan. It was odd; she’d gone down into the workshop and, with odd precision, touched the quantum analyzer Tony had been working on not long after the battle was over. What he had been considering upgrades for last night.
They’d abandoned it when they realized that there was no way to go back in time without more Pym particles and making the universe unstable just so they could bring Steve home could be seen as selfish.
The thing that fell out of the analyzer looked distinctly human shaped, and upon closer inspection appeared to be someone wearing a quantum realm travel suit.
Bucky knew those shoulders anywhere. He’d protected that back for so many years.
He turned to look at Tony whom was standing next to him equally confused. That wasn’t possible. Steve was gone. He’d been gone over a year, gone away ending the fight for their survival. Steve had taken that mad Titan with him but the loss had been nearly too much for Buck. If Tony hadn’t been there with Morgan willingness to try… if Pepper hadn’t talked to him about the type of platonic relationship she had with Tony and Steve, if she’d never let him hold Morgan. Bucky wasn’t sure he’d still be here.
Losing Steve was worse then falling from the train, worse than 70 years of mindless killing and torture, it was like Bucky’s soul was torn from his body and just... destroyed.
Bucky blinked a few times and waited. The man stood up on the video feed and removed his helmet. The blond hair was longer but aside from that, the face was the same.
“JARVIS!” The familiar voice called, “JARVIS, contact Tony!” The blond paused for a moment and then looked at the watch he was wearing. He made a strange face and then counted on his fingers. “Ah! FRIDAY! FRIDAY, call Tony!”
Friday’s voice echoed in the lab, “Please allow me to perform a scan. Vocal scans are a match for Captain Steven Rogers,” she said formally as he began a full scan of the room.
The read out provided for Tony and Bucky made them both pause. Everything from the tips of his toes to the top of his head, along with the beating of the man’s heart matched up to Steve. The Steve they loved, the Steve who had thrown himself into the void to stop the mad Titan, the Steve that was currently standing underground below their garage in Tony’s workshop.
“How is that possible?” Bucky asked, looking over at Tony.
Tony was looking over the screen as the man on the screen continued to let Friday perform scans and answered questions only Steve could answer.
“I… I don’t know…” he said carefully placing Sarah into her swing and then doing the same to James. “He must have found a way out...”
Bucky carefully placed Morgan down on the living room sofa.
Tony turned to Harley and Peter, “Stay here. We’re going to investigate. If anything happens and we don’t come back up, call Sam.”
Tony stood up and offered Bucky his hand.
If this was a possibility that this was indeed their Steve, somehow returned to them from the dead, or rather the void,they would seize it.
Bucky took Tony’s hand and the two ran barefoot towards the garage.
After all, the world still needs Captain America. And even if it didn’t, Tony and Bucky still needed Steve.
//-//
Two hours later Sam got a phone call, but not from the kids, “Hey! I’m back.”
//-//
End...