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"Ma?"
It's very quiet, all of a sudden.
"Hello, love." Sarah Rogers is healthy. The yellow, sallow tint that came to her skin at the end, that Steve has tried over and over to erase from his memory, is finally gone. She opens her arms and, like a little boy, her son runs into them. He fits into them just like he always has.
He fits into them. Steve realises he's looking up at his mother's face. He looks down at himself and sees skin and bone, and suddenly it all rushes back to him.
The battle. He was too close when the bomb went off, ended up with his legs pinned under rubble and all the super-serum muscle in the world couldn't shift it. Bucky wouldn't leave him, wouldn't stop trying to get him out no matter how dangerous it was and that there was likely another explosive hidden somewhere in the –
Bucky.
"Bucky?" He's been waiting for this moment for more than half his life, to see her again, and he tears himself out of his mother's arms without a second's hesitation the moment he remembers Bucky. "Bucky?!"
The waiting room is pale, airy, other family members waiting placidly while nobody seems to notice his panicked cries. Then he sees a figure hunched over in the corner and Steve runs the way his shitty lungs never let him, throwing himself to his knees.
"Bucky?"
"This is a mistake, Stevie. I'm supposed to be downstairs." Bucky stares at him with wide eyes, shocked, his hands still held up where he's been looking at them in disbelief.
Both hands. Both flesh. Whole.
"It's not a mistake." Steve grins and Bucky's eyes roam over him. The kid he knew, like they've both been hit by the reset button.
Old men in young men's bodies, young again.
"I've tried to tell you for years you'd end up here. Guess you gotta believe me now." He smirks, like the little shit he's always been, and Bucky surges forward and kisses him.
He doesn't even care about dying, not when they're still together.
"I think there are people waiting for you." Steve points out when Bucky lets him breathe again. Bucky looks over his shoulder and hears his sister laugh at the same time he sees her, standing with his folks like nothing's changed since the day they waved him off to England in a uniform.
"Better come find me after. Ma's gonna want to know why you let her baby die."
"Fuckin' excuse me for trying to save your stupid ass." Bucky rolls his eyes and stands, Steve helping him this time rather than the other way around. They look at each other and grin, boys again.
"This is the end of the line, right?" Bucky takes Steve's hand, no longer afraid.
"Yeah." Steve squeezes his fingers and waves to Bucky's parents. Proud. "It ain't so bad."