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A fine Wednesday noon finds a few of the Avengers team members sitting down in the lounge to eat lunch together after spending a good part of the morning carrying out an extensive combat training session. Steve, Sam, Bucky, and Blake are all engaged in a conversation about trivial matters until a certain subject comes up.
“Stop moving around so much, you’re gonna make me spill my drink,” Bucky gripes while holding his glass aloft.
The Sergeant is sitting right next to the Falcon, which he deems absolutely unfortunate for reasons such as the other man constantly shifting in his seat and threatening to push Barnes into spilling his water. In front of them, Rogers and Summers stare at the interaction between the two frenemies, amused by their little quarrel.
“I wouldn’t be moving around so much if I wasn’t so uncomfortable! You want someone to blame? How about your BFF then? He’s the one responsible for my sore ass.”
Wilson is so mad with himself for having taken such a beating that morning that he doesn’t even register how his last comment might have come across to the other people present. He thought he would have come out of his spar with Steve in better shape, having held his own far better than he ended up doing. But as things are, he knows he’ll be in pain whenever he moves for the next couple of days.
“If it weren’t for that serum, I would probably be the one to kick your ass,” he continues, this time towards the Captain sitting in front of him.
It’s obvious to the other three that Sam is pissed, yet they know that trying to cheer him up will lead them nowhere. Instead, Bucky tries to reroute the conversation altogether, as the good friend that he is.
“You wouldn’t be the first, he used to get beaten up on the regular back before he got all buffed,” offers Bucky with a sardonic lopsided grin.
The former Winter Soldier, despite having lived through decades of brainwashing and memory erasing, can still remember some things from his life back in the 40s. Especially, how he used to go around looking for a scrawny young Steve Rogers who constantly got into trouble with others.
“Hey, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Rogers attempts to defend his honor while his cheeks take on a pinkish hue.
The memory of being saved by his best friend from being beaten time and time again by bullies still makes him somewhat embarrassed, but a lot grateful for Buck always having his back despite everything.
“What wasn’t ‘that’ bad?” Blake asks, curious, inserting herself into the conversation while looking at Steve.
The face of the man sitting next to her becomes even redder upon realizing that the young woman has no idea what they are talking about and thus he’ll have to tell her about his past stint as an amateur vigilante. And even though he isn’t ashamed of his actions back then, recognizing how helpless he used to be and feel, after years of being none other than Captain America, takes a harsher toll than expected.
However, Steve can’t resist Blake’s expression of open curiosity and wonderment. So, he gives in pretty easily and begins retelling the story of how he sometimes got into fights with guys bigger and stronger than him (which were pretty much every male his age or older, and sometimes younger as well) to protect others. He emphasizes how much he dislikes bullies, and how he has always stood up for everyone that has been unfairly attacked by others. Even if that meant (and means) putting himself in danger.
Despite his small and sickly body, Rogers couldn’t stand the thought of standing by while injustice was taking place, so he always intervened, whenever and however he could, which often ended with him being beaten up in alleys and left inside dumpsters. That’s why oftentimes Bucky had to come to his aid and either help him out with fighting whatever jackass he had stood up against (which of course meant finishing the fight for him) or help him limp back towards his home.
And although some of the other Avengers would have probably laughed and made fun of him after hearing such a story, Blake just smiles kindly and tells him that what he did back then already made him into a hero, no enhanced physicality needed. The girl even goes on to praise his bravery and altruism for protecting others even when he was also the one that could have needed protection himself.
Such words make the Cap blush even more, yet he can’t help but smile shyly at his teammate’s compliments.
Nevertheless, his best friend doesn’t share her opinion completely.
“Yeah, it might have been brave and selfless of him to do that, but it was still dangerous and reckless considering your poor health,” Bucky chimes in, stern face and concerned glare aimed at his friend.
Barnes then goes on to complain about how he always ended up finding Steve either beaten up in an alley or in the middle of the process. In case the latter was the situation he ran into, he would then proceed to intervene and kick the jerk’s ass before he could keep hurting Steve ‒who, honestly, never knew when to give up and would continue to get up no matter how many times he was knocked down. He considered those times to be the lucky ones, but the rest? He had to help carry Rogers back home since he could barely stand up by the time whichever asshole he was fighting was done with him.
Albeit all of that, Barnes can’t deny how proud he was, and still is, of his best friend’s heroism back then. He admits that it’s one of the qualities why he continues to look up to him, even though it also made him worry sick all the time given the frequency with which the other man put himself at risk. Bucky further explains that most of the time, he only found Steve almost by chance, because he had developed a habit of checking whatever alley he came across while he walked down one street or another.
It’s after that last statement that the Sarge suddenly grows quiet, his expression turning pensive while the others look at him, expectant and confused. They are waiting for Bucky to keep talking, but the man seems deep in thought at the moment.
As the seconds tick by, Sam, Steve, and Blake grow more concerned for their friend’s well-being until his expression finally clears and his eyes don’t appear glassy anymore. It’s only then that he dares to speak again.
“I just remembered,” he starts to explain, brow creased slightly in concentration, “I think I did that too while I was under Hydra’s control.”
He isn’t entirely sure how he knows that to be true since some of his memories are still foggy at best, yet the conviction of their veracity is still present. Bucky truly believes that the habit wasn’t erased alongside his memories, but that it remained as if it was ingrained in his muscle memory. He can recall being on different missions, in different cities, yet still stopping at the entrance of all kinds of alleys to look down them.
At the time, he didn’t understand why that custom remained with such insistence inside him. He didn’t get why he did it or what triggered it; he just stopped as soon as he walked in front of an alley, checked it out for something he didn’t even know what could be, and then moved on with only a feeling of slight uneasiness taking a hold of him until he was able to shake it off a few minutes later.
Buck can’t explain either how that sort of instinctual trait survived despite all the times his memory was wiped clean, but the bits and pieces that he can recall are real. He knows it so, yet finds it strange that he’s just now remembering all of that, but he supposes that the topic of their conversation was what triggered the memories to resurface at last.
It is then, though, that he realizes that those memories weren’t buried, but that he just hadn’t made a connection between all of them nor did he try to figure out what they meant. Up until then, they seemed rather unimportant, but when seen through a new light for the first time ever, they finally make sense to him. The reason why he used to stop and look down alleys when he still was the Winter Soldier was because he subconsciously remembered doing the same years prior while looking for Steve.
Thing is that, back then, while being brainwashed and having his memory wiped, he never knew what he was looking for all those times. Now, he does. Part of him, buried deep beneath all the mind control, remembered little Steve Rogers, who started fights he couldn’t finish in order to protect others, even when he couldn’t protect himself.
And Bucky tells his friends and girlfriend exactly that.
A moment of stunned and heartfelt silence goes by before Steve –who’s sitting diagonally to Bucky– wordlessly gets up and round the coffee table to embrace his best friend, trying to comfort him in a way he knows words can’t. The Captain wants to say many things to the Sergeant, yet he doesn’t even know where or how to start. So, instead, he hopes that the affection he imbues into the hug sends the message clearly enough for him.
“Thanks, Buck,” Steve finally dares to whisper while tightly hugging said man, “and I’m so sorry.”
Rogers doesn’t know if he’ll ever apologize enough to Bucky for not being there when he needed him, no matter how many times Barnes tells him that he doesn’t need to ask for his forgiveness in the first place. Still, Steve keeps doing it every time he feels the guilt gnaw at him.
The rest of the day is spent in quiet peace when the small group of Avengers decides to watch a movie together and enjoy each other’s company, relishing in the fact that they have one another, to begin with.
Sam also uses the opportunity to reflect on his opinion of Bucky. And even though he still feels disgruntled about the things the other has done as the Winter Soldier, he recognizes the genuine care he holds for Steve and how much he cherishes their friendship. That in itself, not even needing the addition of the loving relationship that Buck and Blake have, is enough to assure Wilson that the Winter Soldier won’t ever return to haunt them or anyone else.