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“Do you want to talk?” Sam had asked because despite how they treated one another, Sam really did care about Bucky and Bucky would begrudgingly admit the reverse was true as well.
Today, he just shrugged as he blankly stared at the quantum machine in the compound’s hangar. He pulled his hands out of his jacket pockets with an exaggerated sigh.
“I wanna talk to him and that’s the hard part. I don’t even know how to talk to him now. It’s like he’s not the same person.”
Sam nodded, no doubt feeling somewhat the same way Bucky did.
Natasha had been quieter too and she’d been staying in her room. They half expected her to go off on her own again any day now.
“I don’t know the answers anymore than you do, but I do know this awkward silent treatment isn’t going to make anything better.”
Bucky looked at Sam with complete resignation.
“I know why he did it. I understand. I just don’t know who he is anymore. What are we supposed to talk about?”
“You died on him once,” a voice spoke up and Bucky looked over at the man he knew was named Scott, but whom he had never properly spoken to. “And he had to live years without you around. And I’m sure when you returned, you were a different guy. It’s the same thing, right?”
“He had some years to adjust,” Bucky defended.
Sam agreed. “Steve gave us five minutes.”
“Not even.”
“So you never even had to go without him,” Scott reasoned. “What are you so upset about now? He’s Captain America so, of course, he made the sacrifice play. He gave one of his vials of Pym particles to Natasha so she could come back from the soul realm. And he did it knowing that he would be trapped wherever he returned the last stone. It makes sense then that he would save the last one for the location he knew best.”
“He’s lived a whole lifetime away now,” Bucky argued. “He got married, had kids, fuckin’ learned to dance.”
“He did the most that he could with his time,” Hope said, walking up to stand beside Scott. “What would you have done if the situation had been reversed?”
Bucky’s face fell and he shoved his hands back into his pockets. Sam looked at the ground and after a few moments of perfect silence, Bucky jerked away from the group with a grumbled, “I’m going back inside.”
Steve’s door was open as Bucky walked down the hall of the compound. He kept doing that and Bucky knew it was a silent invitation- one he’d yet to be able to bring himself to accept.
He glanced inside just briefly as he walked past and Steve sat at his desk drawing something in a sketch pad. He’d been drawing a lot since he’d returned and his back straightened up just a bit as Bucky paused by the door, but Bucky knew it also sagged again as he walked on by to his own bedroom.
Well, he didn’t technically have a bedroom. He had been staying and sleeping in one that wasn’t decorated with anything specific and wasn’t assigned to anyone either. It was only a bed with off-white sheets and a desk and chair. There wasn’t even a television, but honestly, Bucky hadn’t even noticed until Sam commented on it the other day.
Before that, in the time they’d had between the battle where they had defeated Thanos and the time when Steve returned the stones to their own timelines a week later had been nice. There had been this background feeling of sadness to everything they did. They had lost two of their friends in the effort to undo the damage from the Mad Titan, but Bucky wouldn’t deny there was happiness as well. He and Steve had found where they left off in Wakanda. There was a smooth and easy feeling to the things they did. They moved around one another with more surety that they knew where they belonged around one another. Steve would slide his arm around Bucky and Bucky would hook both hands around Steve’s waist. They kissed long and languid most nights and slept tucked into their own pillows side by side, hands touching or once Steve slid his arm around Bucky’s middle and pulled him closer. And the night before Steve had returned the Stones, Bucky had given him a long massage and then wrapped his hand around Steve’s cock and worked it until Steve was panting and spilled over onto Bucky’s fingers.
To Bucky, that had been last week. It was the most time he and Steve had gotten to spend together since 1945 and they had been making so much progress.
Then Steve returned the Stones. And Natasha returned in Steve’s place. And Steve stayed back in 1949 and became a complete stranger.
Bucky closed the door to the room where he had been staying and rested his forehead against it.
Steve was right down the hallway. He looked barely aged,-three or four years maybe- but everything about him was different. Before, Steve had been a man reconciling the past and the present. Now, he was a man who had somehow lived two lifetimes.
He returned to them as promised, but not through Pym particles. Steve just waited throughout the decades for the time to pass and then went to the Hank Pym of that timeline and got the particles needed to return to his own. Then he waited for the proper date, donned the old suit, and used them to return to their shared timeline.
Now when he looked at Bucky, there was a certain something that was different and it made Bucky uneasy.
Steve had returned as a man who smiled at Bucky as if he loved him, but also as if he didn’t remember him the way he should have.
Bucky would see Steve watching him now in ways that he hadn’t before and it hurt to think that Steve was trying to remember things that he forgotten in all their time apart.
Just last week, Bucky thought they were a few confessions away from being the closest he had ever come to believing in soulmates. Now, time had somehow placed them at two different stages in their lives. Steve looked at Bucky as a relic from his past that he had found like one finds a favourite childhood book or toy in an old dusty box in the attic. And Bucky looked at Steve as the man who had changed his life in so many ways, but all of them for the better up until now.
Bucky heard the footsteps approaching so he knew to expect the interruption and pulled his head away from the door before he ever heard the knock.
Bucky stepped back a step.
“Yeah?”
“May we talk?”
Steve wasn’t supposed to find his nerve before Bucky did. Bucky sighed and reached out and opened the door.
“I guess.”
Steve’s eyes darted around the bare room as Bucky stepped back farther to allow him entrance.
Bucky sat on the edge of his bed. Before this, Steve would have sat down the bed a little distance away, but today, he chose to sit at desk in the chair Bucky had never even used except to sometimes place things on in lieu of a shelf.
There was silence a second and then Bucky waved for Steve to go ahead.
“Bucky-“ Steve started and looked him in the eye. Bucky looked away. “Buck, I know I made things difficult. You have to know that was never my intention. It was just the only way I could come up with to get Natasha back and also myself.”
“Dr. Pym is fine. You could have come back with Natasha and he could have made more for another trip.”
“I considered that option. It crossed my mind too late to try it.”
Bucky scoffed a little under his breath.
“Please, just let me explain.”
Bucky looked up and met Steve’s eyes with a hard expression.
“I didn’t go and forget about you. I never let you leave my mind.”
“That’s kind of weird. You got married and had kids.”
Something sad flickered across Steve’s expression.
“I did. You’re going to tell me you wouldn’t have done the same? You wouldn’t have made the most of the years you knew you had to wait?”
Bucky looked away again angry, but didn’t reply.
“I got married. I had three incredible children. And now they’re all gone and I’m still here. And the only thing that kept me here and that kept me going was knowing that you would still be here for me. Strong and alive and well. I have thought of nothing else for years.”
“Your kids are gone too?”
Steve furrowed his brow and looked off at the floor between them.
“Sarah died in a car accident when she was thirty-eight. They’d been living in London only a few months at the time. Her daughter Carter came to live with us and died four years later from leukemia. She was eleven. Michael fought HIV and then AIDS for three long years before we lost him in ‘85. Jamie died in Vietnam when he was twenty-three. Peggy and I outlived all of them.”
“Do you have pictures of them?” Bucky asked. He didn’t know why he asked. He wanted to distance himself from the entire situation. But suddenly Steve’s pain felt like it should be shared and he was hopeful of seeing them when Steve nodded.
“I didn’t bring any with me. I never had any of you or anyone so it didn’t seem right, but I’ve drawn a few of them since I’ve returned and I have a pretty good memory.”
Bucky gave a sad smile.
“Did you name your son after me?”
Steve did smile then. “You know I did. Sarah after my mom. Michael after Peg’s brother. And James after you. Not Buchanan though. There’s only one Bucky.”
“It’s probably for the best. It’s not an easy nickname to grow up with.”
“Told them all about you. Sketched pictures of you for them to all see and know you the best they could.”
“What did you tell them?”
Steve laughed a little under his breath and leaned back in the chair. “Told them you were nothing but trouble, always making me risk my neck to get you out of some kind of situation you’d gotten yourself into. Told them you were the best marksman I’ve ever known and the most loyal friend anyone could ever hope for.” He paused. “Told them I was in love with you.”
Bucky’s mouth actually fell open a bit, but Steve wasn’t looking so he never saw.
“How did that go?”
“I decided pretty early on that it was best to never hide anything from my family. The government? Sure. But my family? You don’t keep secrets from family. So I told Peggy the truth before we ever became serious. Told her about Thanos and losing everyone and the time jumps to get the Stones and then to return them. She knew it all. And she knew I had plans to return if it was ever possible. So we never hid that truth from our children either. They all knew that I had loved you before Peggy and that if I lived to see it, I was planning to return home to you after. Being honest with them made it a lot easier for Michael to be honest with us when he realized he was attracted to men. There was never any fear of prejudice in our home.”
“Better than how we grew up. If my dad had known-“
“Yeah, the same with mine.”
Bucky kind of nodded to himself.
“Peggy’s reaction to-“
“To Michael? I think she knew all along or at least as long as I knew and that was very early on.”
“No, I meant to us.”
“Oh,” Steve looked across at Bucky and met his eyes before offering him a reassuring smile. “I told her before we ever became serious the truth about how I was there and the very next follow up sentiment was that I had left you behind and that I had every intention of returning to you because I love you. And she didn’t question how I love you. She knew. And I told her my future was with you. I know it is. I still know it is.”
“And you’re telling me that never upset her?”
“I think she occasionally had a hard time understanding that I could be her only love, but that she had to share me with someone that to her didn’t exist. She remembered you from the war, but the Bucky in that timeline had a different story. And I had to get back to the Bucky in mine. And she occasionally brought it up when we got into arguments or I took her for granted, but most of the time, she understood. Before she died, she told me it was time to come back and find you.”
“I wasn’t the one who went anywhere.” There was a bite back in Bucky’s voice.
“I know,” Steve agreed. “But neither did I. Not exactly. I made sure you never had to go without me. Because I told you I would be there till the end of the line and I had every intention of doing that. I still have every intention of being there. If you’ll let me.”
Bucky looked at his own hands- one pale and soft, one metal and unrelenting.
“I don’t know how.”
“If you want, I’ll give you time. I took time for me, you should be able to take time. You don’t have to decide anything right now. Just know that I’m here for you. I have your back even if you choose to walk away.”
Bucky immediately shook his head.
“I’m not going anywhere, Steve.”
He looked up and saw the relief on Steve’s face.
“I’m upset, but not-“
He didn’t remember starting to move, but suddenly he was standing in front of Steve and reaching for the other man’s hands.
“Give me time. We’ll start back small.”
Steve allowed Bucky to hold both of his hands between them and he looked up at the man standing in front of him.
“We’re start however you want.”
“Maybe make dinner. I’m hungry. We could see what’s available in the kitchen.”
Steve got a small smirk on his face.
“That sounds alright,” he agreed. “I could do that.”
He stood up, letting Bucky pull him to his feet just a little and they both headed out of the room and down the corridor, hands hung loosely at their sides.
They passed by one of the common rooms and Sam and Bucky exchanged a look that seemed to say neither of them knew exactly what was going on.
“Did you learn to cook any during your little escapade?” Bucky asked as they flipped on the lights and he headed toward the pantry.
“I’m afraid not. I learned woodwork, tennis, and golf.”
“That’s not going to help us much in the kitchen, now is it, Steve?”
Steve glanced over in time to see Bucky’s playful expression.
“Not exactly,” he agreed, “But if nothing else, I learned that with this serum in our veins, you and I are gonna live forever. And there’s no time like the present for learning new things.”
Bucky raised an eyebrow skeptically, but Steve just continued,
“We are young and everything around us is so temporary, we have to make the most of every minute.”
“Does ‘making the most’ include learning to cook?”
Steve smiled softly and reached out for the fridge door. “I don’t see why not.”