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Steve put the records on the shelf four at a time, unpacking the only box of them that had made it out of his apartment in DC. The rest were destroyed--acetone dumped on them by, he assumed, some particularly disgruntled SHIELD/HYDRA employees looking for the reason Fury had come to him. He and Sam had picked through the pile for an hour to save what they could.
Months of Saturdays spent in flea markets, combing through sellers' grandparents' collections, wasted.
Of course he had a digital music player, but it just wasn't the same. Some nights, he needed the cracks and the pops and the tinny, watery sound of low fidelity.
When they were on the shelf under the secondhand record player, and he'd put the books (so few left; he pulled out his phone and added "bookstore" to his to-do list) on their shelves, he snapped a picture of the finished corner... and the mess of opened boxes, moving paper, and luggage scattered through the rest of the living room.
He sent the picture to Sam. I can't believe I have to do this alone. I thought we were friends.
Not that he begrudged Sam a night off, especially when Steve saw the picture reply: Sam and Natasha, in line in front of the Cyclone, cheek to cheek and grinning big.
Seeing them together was bittersweet. Natasha deserved happiness, and Sam was good at fostering it. But it kindled a hot ache in his chest and made him all too aware of the gaping Bucky-shaped hole in his own life.
Bucky deserved to be happy, too.
Steve rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. He was getting mopey. Dramatic , as Peggy would say--would have said. He decided it was time for food, a shower, and his bed, in that order, and as quickly as possible. He could start all over tomorrow, unpacking and planning his next moves so he could bring Bucky home.
In the kitchen, he narrowed it down from the dozen or so takeout menus to just two and was trying to decide between Thai--which he knew he liked, thanks to Natasha--and "soul food"--which he definitely knew he liked but doubted could possibly be as good as what Sam's grandma Sylvia came up with.
The knock on the door startled him. Steve looked up, through the kitchen doorway and across the living room. The bad guys didn't usually knock, he reminded himself, forcing down the hope and the fear. He glanced at his phone as he passed it on his way to the door, slowly. He couldn't see any missed calls or recent messages, but Sam and Nat had developed a habit of dropping by unannounced.
They'd probably taken pity on him.
"I knew you couldn't live with a guilty conscience," Steve said when he opened the door.
"Come on, Steve. I was a prisoner of war, it wasn't like I did it on purpose ."
Steve stared. His jaw dropped, his heart crawled into his throat, and he felt suddenly like he was falling. "Bucky?" His voice sounded faraway, quiet under the rushing in his ears--blood in his head that sounded too much like the wind through the mountain as he clung to the side of a train.
Bucky looked good. Like he'd stepped right out of Steve's memories. He was clean, wearing new jeans and a half-button shirt and a motorcycle jacket and boots. His hair was still long but he'd pulled it back, and he hadn't shaved for maybe a day but his eyes were clear and bright. That half-smile on his lips was familiar, cocky, a little vulnerable. It was Bucky .
"I know who I am." He hefted the Army bag from the floor at his feet and shuffled forward. "I hope this place has two bedrooms. I'm not sleeping on the couch."
"I don't have a couch," Steve said automatically.
Bucky sighed. "Of course you don't. Move over, punk, let me in." He nudged Steve's thighs with the end of his bag.
Steve stepped back, making room, and couldn't stop staring. Bucky barged right in like it was nothing. Like nothing had changed.
"Your bike doesn't have a pillion, of course you don't have a couch. You might have people over if you had somewhere for them to sit. When are you going to make friends, Steve? I can't be there for you all the time, you know." Bucky dropped his bag next to the wall and hung his motorcycle helmet on one of the hooks Steve had put up for his own gear and he started tugging off the glove covering his metal hand.
Still, Steve stared. He thought he might have been dreaming. Maybe he'd fallen asleep on the floor with his head in a box.
Bucky shrugged out of his jacket and hung it up, too. Then he wandered into the living room.
Steve scrambled to shut the door and follow him.
"Bucky?" he said again.
"Yeah. Nice place." Bucky stopped in the middle of the living room and turned slowly, looking at everything, until he faced Steve once more. He smiled again, and it wasn't as cocky as it could have been. "Now, how about we get some dinner and have some beers and I'll answer all the questions you're too dumb to ask right now."
Steve swallowed the lump in his throat. "Yeah, Buck. That sounds good."
***
Takeout containers covered the table, open, half-empty, and empty beer bottles were scattered between them. Bucky had picked the spiciest Indian foods Steve had ever had, and it was fun watching him eat, it was nice to know his appetite was healthy (Steve remembered the weeks after he'd gotten Bucky out of Zola's lab, when he'd picked at his rations and handed most of them off to guys who looked like they needed it). They'd made it through most of a twelve-pack with no ill effects on either side and it was fun. It was normal .
"Your new team hit the bases I couldn't," Bucky was saying between bites of something so hot it made Steve's tongue feel like it was melting. "But I've got a report for your boss, anyway." He nodded to his bag still on the floor near the front door.
Steve glanced at it and looked back at Bucky. "How did you know to write a report for my boss?" And which boss did he mean, Fury or Hill?
Bucky gave him a strange look. "Peggy always wanted reports. SHIELD is hers, isn't it?"
"I don't work for SHIELD anymore."
Bucky shrugged. "Whatever, it's Peg's legacy. "
Hearing the old nickname made Steve's heart clench.
Bucky was quiet as he set his fork down. He said, carefully, "I went to see her. I thought she might be able to tell me something important."
Steve's heart hammered. He'd seen Peggy, too, so many times, and she'd never once mentioned Bucky. "Did she?"
Bucky leveled a hard stare at him. "She told me what a fucking mess you were after I fell."
Steve winced. Of course she had. Bucky must have caught her on good days. "Traitor."
Bucky scoffed. "Don't talk about Peg like that. She worked her ass off for you." He shrugged. "I guess I can't blame you. I probably would have done the same. I would have gotten drunk, though, you just didn't try hard enough." He paused again, eyes down, and added quietly, "I was at her funeral, too, Steve. I'm so sorry."
When Peggy had died, Steve had thought that was it, between her and Bucky everyone who had known and loved him was gone and he was even more alone than he'd been when he woke up. He cleared his throat, fought the stifling, overwhelming heat that always seemed to precede the tears of loss he'd gotten used to crying, and said, "I guess we're just at that age when God stops giving you things and starts taking them away."
Bucky blinked at him, then rolled his eyes. "Yeah, she told me what a dramatic sap you were, too."
Steve looked helplessly at Bucky. Traitor , he thought affectionately, though Peggy had never let her affection for him get in the way of the reality of him, so of course she wouldn't pretend even to--especially to--Bucky that Steve was something he wasn't. He shrugged. "She was probably right."
"No 'probably' about it, pal. Peggy was always right."
Bucky had him there. Steve conceded the point and asked, "So what else were you up to? Besides seeing my best girl behind my back and sneaking around in the shadows and leaving me to deal with killer robots on my own."
"And killing HYDRA."
"And killing HYDRA."
"You weren't alone," Bucky pointed out. "You had a god and Natasha, you were fine."
Somehow, Steve had forgotten how infuriating conversation with Bucky could be when he was right.
Bucky set his food down and sat back in his chair, spreading out, getting comfortable. "I was getting my brain back," he admitted. "So it's mine. Did you know there aren't any handbooks or how-to guides online for that? It's not easy."
He'd looked online for how-to guides? Steve frowned at him, sure he was just fucking with him. "Bucky."
"I'm still not sure I'm the only one in my head," he went on, paying no attention at all to Steve's frown. As usual. "But I hear Fury does good deprogramming work. Natasha's fine. I thought I'd give him a crack at me."
The blood drained out of Steve's face and he felt queasy. "Can't you take this seriously, Buck?"
"It happened to me, Steve. I'll take it anyway I want." He tried to smile, a pained thing, a pale imitation of the smile Steve had known all his life. "I have to joke about it, buddy. It's too horrible otherwise and whiskey doesn't cut it anymore. Never did, really. Not since before Zola."
Steve ached. His head and his heart hurt and all he really wanted was to leap across the table between them and hug Bucky as tight as he could until all the bad stuff was gone. But he hadn't done that in Italy and Bucky probably wouldn't welcome it now, and if Bucky was here that was all that mattered.
So he decided to take Bucky's lead. He gave a sardonic little smile. "Yeah. I understand that."
Bucky cocked an eyebrow at him. "Don't think Peg left out the part where you sat in a bombed-out bar and drank all the whiskey you could find."
Steve winced. "Was there anything she didn't tell you?"
"I don't think so." Bucky grinned at him.
Steve sighed. That woman had taken hundreds of secrets to her grave, but she'd spilled all of his to his best friend before she'd gone.
Bucky shrugged. "So that's it. I've got a report for your boss and a résumé and I'm hoping they're hiring."
Steve frowned. "You want to work with the Avengers?" The last time he'd asked Bucky to join his team...
"I'm not saying I want to be on the news like you and Howard's kid and the Jolly Green Giant or anything, but yeah. I want in. I got enough of me back to miss the guys."
"Gabe's grandson works for us," Steve said abruptly.
Bucky's eyes lit up. "No shit?"
"Yeah. I mean, he's still technically dead right now, but when he's alive again, we'll get him to come out with us."
"He's still technically dead," Bucky repeated in a deadpan, "but when he's alive again."
Steve shrugged. He stopped pretending that his life made sense when the guy he fought ripped his own face off in front of him. "Do you want me to take you to see Maria in the morning?"
Bucky gave him an incredulous look. "What? On a Saturday? Are you kidding?" He shook his head. "I'll wait for Monday, like a regular person."
"We're not regular." But maybe it would be nice to pretend. "So what are we doing all weekend?"
"We are sleeping in," Bucky said immediately. "Then we're going grocery shopping, because I just looked around your kitchen and I know you just moved in, but, Steve, you can't eat takeout every night. It'll kill you."
Steve snorted. "I don't think bad food is what's going to kill me, Buck."
"We've outlived everyone we knew, let's not take any chances."
Steve gave Bucky a look .
And Bucky pretended to ignore it. "You been to the movies lately? Without starting any fights?"
Steve sniffed. "I never started fights." That was a lie and they both knew it.
Bucky smirked. "Of course not. You just thought the other guy wanted to start one and figured you'd let him finish it on your face."
Steve rolled his eyes even though his heart felt full fit to burst. "I'm so glad you're back," he said, truth under the sarcasm. "It's great that you got your memories back."
"I still have gaps," Bucky admitted. "But I got most of them, yeah. We'll see how glad you are I'm back when I've taken over your DVR and eaten all your junk food." He sighed. "Food is so much better now."
Steve could definitely agree with that.
But... "I don't have a DVR."
Bucky's mouth opened and closed and his eyes were wide. He sputtered. "You don't-- Steve . All right, put that on your list." He looked around the living room and sighed the sigh of a man long-suffering. "Where's your TV? No. Don't tell me. I don't want to know that you don't have one."
"I did! It just didn't make it from DC." It had gone the way of the records, broken well beyond reasonable repair.
"I don't care. We're getting a TV. We're getting two TVs. And DVRs. You've been home for four years and you haven't gotten a DVR yet?"
"I've been busy." Steve frowned at him. "When did you become such an expert on leisure time, anyway?" How long had it been since Bucky's life had even allowed for that?
"Do you think I spent this entire last year hunting down HYDRA?" Bucky glanced down a gave a little shrug. "TV is good for reality issues. I talked to a guy about it."
The lump that rose in his throat nearly choked Steve. He swallowed past it. Sam had mentioned that. He'd mentioned video games, too. "We'll get some TVs, Buck." And maybe a game console.
It would be like board games, but better.
"You're damn right we will."
"Need anything else?" He was only half-joking. He didn't think he'd be surprised if Bucky asked for a car. A flying one, even. He couldn't deliver on that, but he knew someone who could.
"I'll make a list. We'll borrow Sam's car, drive over to Jersey. It'll be fun."
"Jersey? Fun? Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?" Too late, Steve realized what he'd said. He winced. Quickly, he added, "I haven't enjoyed shopping yet." Most of what he'd done on his own he'd done online. It was easier that way. No crowds, no salespeople, no painful awareness of how very alone and out of place he still was.
"You haven't done enough shopping to know you don't like it," Bucky said, like he knew.
"I'm not sure Sam will loan us his car." It wasn't a big deal; Steve knew where to get one if Sam said no. But the last time Steve had "borrowed" someone's car, as Natasha was fond of retelling, he'd gotten it blown up. Sam was understandably wary about loaning anything expensive to Steve.
Bucky winced. "What if I promise not to shoot holes in the roof this time?"
Steve gave him an exasperated look. " Bucky ."
He grinned like he knew exactly what he'd done. "I hear we can rent them now, we wouldn't have to steal one. Would that be better?"
Steve buried his face in his hands. You liberate a few trucks from the Nazis and suddenly you've got a reputation.
"We'll figure something out. Come on, Steve. It'll be fun."
"Sure," he said, voice muffled.
"Hey, don't be like that. I'm not going anywhere. This isn't a dream."
Steve looked up through his fingers. "I thought you were dead."
"And I thought you were smaller. We've had this conversation before. We're all wrong sometimes, even you. Now." Bucky stood up, stretching his arms high over his head. "Where's my room? Am I going to like it? Even without the TV?"
Steve sighed and dropped his hands and stood up. "I set it up for you," Steve admitted. That was part of why he'd had such a hard time finding a place he could afford: he needed two bedrooms. "Sam told me I was nuts."
"Sam was in the Air Force, what does he know?" Bucky waved toward the hall. "Show me." He shuffled a little and looked away, briefly. "I'll, uh, get my own place eventually. Just, for now..."
Hope flared inside him like a match struck in a dark room. "All you gotta do is shine my shoes?"
Bucky rolled his eyes. "No one shines their shoes anymore."
"That's not true." Steve went around the chair and started for the hall, pausing to pick up Bucky's bag. "Just most people don't."
Bucky trailed after him. "Getting dressed is a hell of a lot easier these days."
Steve didn't think so. He still hadn't gotten used to wearing his undershirts in public and jeans weren't nearly as comfortable as everyone seemed to think, and now nothing fit for entirely different reasons. He didn't say so, though. He'd thought for years that Bucky would love all the ways men could dress and be fashionable now. It wouldn't surprise him at all if they ended up shopping for clothes as well as TVs.
At the end of the hall, Steve pushed open the door to the second bedroom, the one on the inside of the building. It had only one narrow window looking out on the rickety fire escape. Of every room in the apartment, it was the most easily defensible.
Bucky peeked around him. "Wow," he said. "This is way better than couch cushions on the floor."
Relief made Steve sag. "Yeah?"
The big bed was the firmest one he'd been able to find. He'd gone to three mattress stores and laid on probably a hundred beds until he'd found it, but there was still an Army-style cot folded up in the corner with an Army-surplus sleeping bag rolled up beside it just in case. He'd slept on the floor for a while; he didn't want Bucky to have to do that. Sam had helped him paint the walls a calming green--and they'd even added something to the paint that made it smell like lavender. There wasn't much in the way of other furniture, just a low bookshelf and a dresser and a nightstand and a chair, but there was space for more if Bucky decided he needed somethig else.
And there were a dozen hiding spaces for weapons, thanks to Natasha. The walls had been reinforced and soundproofed, thanks to his own memories of those first few months out of the ice. Steve thought about telling Bucky, but he decided not to; he didn't want Bucky to think he'd thought the worst even though he had.
Bucky would figure it out on his own or Steve would tell him later.
Bucky smiled a little. "You really were waiting for me, huh?"
"Told you I was."
"Thanks, Steve."
That lump in his throat was back. "Like I wouldn't." He cleared his throat and dropped Bucky's bag inside the door. "But, uh, rent ain't cheap here."
Bucky huffed a laugh. "Yeah, yeah. I got a job interview on Monday, you'll get your damn money." He passed Steve and threw himself down on the bed. He waved a hand behind him. "Go away," he said, voice muffled. "Bedtime."
Steve shifted his weight. "You gonna be here in the morning?"
Bucky rolled onto his back and sat up on the edge of the bed. He leaned over and started unlacing his boots. "Told you I am. I'm sticking around. Someone's gotta keep you safe, God knows you can't do it yourself."
He couldn't even argue with that. He knew he had no sense of self-preservation. So he nodded and started to back out, already thinking about Monday and what it would be like, taking Bucky in to meet Maria.
He thought of the first time Peggy and Bucky had met and paused.
"Uh, about Maria..."
Bucky rolled his eyes. "I've done my recon, buddy. I know. Don't flirt with the boss, she ain't Peg."
Maria and Peggy probably had a lot more in common than Bucky realized, but things were different for women these days, too. "You could probably flirt with Fury," he offered.
Bucky snorted. He kicked his boots to the side and shrugged out of his jacket. He dropped that on the floor, too. "You know, one of us had to make the girls feel wanted, and you couldn't do it to save your life." He stripped his shirt over his head, unselfconscious of the scars around the seam between skin and metal.
Steve wanted to ask about that. But not yet. "Peggy knew how I felt."
"In spite of you, not because of you." Bucky dropped his shirt on the floor. There was a knife in a sheath strapped to his forearm. Steve watched him slip it off and tuck it under his pillow. "Now go away."
Steve smiled a little, fond and so happy he hurt in a whole new way. "I'm glad you're home, Buck."
"I know you are." He stood up and started opening his belt, but he paused and looked at Steve. His mouth did that strange thing Steve remembered from the weeks after he'd come out of Zola's camp, a weird firming he seemed to fight, as if it would give too much of himself away to fully form. "You can leave the door open if you want."
"Nah, I didn't miss your naked ass." He reached for the door and pulled it behind him as he retreated. "Good night."
"You're still such a jerk. Good night."
Steve padded down the hall to his own room, feeling lighter than he had since 1944.