Chapter Text
Oh, shit.
So this was it. This is how he went—in a blast of light and energy. Maybe death would stick this time.
Bucky closed his eyes. When the pain hit, it was so intense, his brain didn’t register it as pain. Instead, it manifested as a wave of dizziness and nausea. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was having an aneurysm or a stroke.
Maybe he’d see the people he loved again…the people who’d loved him. Maybe he’d finally find peace.
-000-
“Uh, Doc, this seems bad.”
Steve had to agree with Tony. “What’s happening, Doctor?”
“A rift in the multiverse…I think.” Dr. Strange’s face was a mask of concentration, his eyes fixed on the leaky spot of light hanging in mid-air as his fingers worked around him, seemingly casting and rearranging spells. “I need quiet!”
This was supposed to be a simple spell. Steve didn’t believe it would work. Hell, up until a couple of months ago, he didn’t believe in real magic at all, but he’d seen Dr. Strange do amazing things, including finding Bucky when everyone else failed.
So, when Steve stepped through a portal and convinced Bucky to stop running—to let Steve and his friends help—he was determined to make good on his promise. Undoing 70 years of Hydra’s brutality wasn’t easy. Bucky’s brain would take time to recover from repeated electro-shock treatments designed to wipe his memories, if it even could fully recover.
Bucky had some memories back. He knew Steve, though he only remembered bits and pieces of their lives together. He had snapshots of his childhood, remembered the names of two of his sisters, and was plagued with the budding memories of being forced to kill good people.
It was hell to watch, with each step forward paved with shards of glass and landmines. So, when Dr. Banner, Tony, and what remained of SHIELD failed, there was Dr. Strange. Apparently, he could cast a spell to remove or restore memories. Bucky agreed, wanting the band-aid ripped off, desperate to remember who he’d been before Hydra burned away his identity.
Now, as Steve studied the widening breach of something in the middle of the room, he had the sinking feeling they had just made a very big mistake. When a figure emerged from that rift, hurtling several feet into the room and crashing to the floor in a messy heap of limps and singed clothes, the rift closed, and everyone stood motionless for a second, staring at the figure.
Steve moved first. The figure was male, laying face-down with short locks of dark hair obscuring what would be visible of his face. He wore a navy blue jacket that was missing a left sleeve. The arm didn’t look human. It was black and gold.
Steve touched it. “I think it’s vibranium.”
The man wore jeans, singed with holes from whatever had caused the burns. The glints of skin confirmed he was flesh and blood elsewhere. Steve checked the neck for a pulse. It was rapid and weak. “He’s alive. Can we turn him over?” He looked up at the two medical doctors in the room.
Doctors Strange and Banner knelt next to the figure. Bruce did his own check of the pulse, and his expression confirmed Steve’s fears. The man was in bad shape. Steve and Sam helped the doctors gently turn the figure on his back, keeping his spine in a safe position since they had no idea what injuries the man had.
When Steve saw the face, he went numb for a second. “Bucky?” He looked up at the faces in the room—Tony, Natasha, Sam…and Bucky, standing with his back to the wall, eyes riveted on his unconscious doppelganger.
“Damn.” Dr. Strange stood, his cape fluttering as though it reflected his agitation.
Steve shifted his gaze to the sorcerer. “What is it? What did you do?”
The sheen of arrogance that hovered around Dr. Strange vanished. The man looked uncharacteristically sheepish as he took a breath and shifted on his feet. “We have a multiverse breach.”
Tony walked over, peering down at the short-haired version of Bucky. “Again, I’m gonna go with this seems bad.”
“It is.” Dr. Strange rubbed at his forehead. “If left unchecked, it can result in a multiverse incursion.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Sam asked.
“It means one or both universes can be destroyed if we don’t fix this soon. I think I’ve managed to repair the rift, but these things are tricky. Frankly,” he lowered his voice, averting his gaze, “I’m a bit out of my depth here. I, uh, need to go do some research.”
“Now?” Sam asked, eyebrows flashing. “Now you’re doing research?”
“I’ll be back.” Dr. Strange opened a portal, stepped through it, and vanished.
“Well….” Natasha was there, staring down at their unconscious guest, her head tilted quizzically. “This is…unexpected.”
Steve had no idea what the multiverse was, but he decided Tony was right. It was bad, and that’s all he needed to know. He’d leave that part to Dr. Strange. At the moment, they had a problem in front of them. “He needs medical attention.” He nodded at Bruce. “Do you have the equipment you need here?”
“Yeah.” Bruce gave Tony a grim glance. “We’ll need a gurney or board to transport him to the lab, and we need to work fast. He’s in rough shape.”
-000-
His head hurt. Hell, his whole body hurt, and if he hurt, that had to mean he was still alive. Maybe. Death hadn’t hurt the last time—not that he remembered, anyway. When he’d looked down and watched himself dissolve into ash, there was numbing shock, but no pain. He remembered the last thought that made it through his brain before it, too, dissolved was that Steve was watching him die again.
Tough luck, Pal.
At least Steve and Sam hadn’t been there this last time.
“I think he’s coming around.”
Steve? He must be hallucinating.
“Uh…Bucky?”
He opened his eyes. Three blurry faces were over him. He blinked a few times. As his vision cleared, the faces took on impossible definition. These specific faces couldn’t be staring down at him.
Steve. Natasha….
And Tony.
A deep wash of bone-numbing fatigue spread through him, and he closed his eyes, taking a breath that he figured must be imaginary because if he wasn’t hallucinating and they were really there…. “I’m dead?” His voice sounded like it came from someone who’d lived 108 years without the halting effect of cryogenics. “It’s about time.”
“You’re not dead,” Steve said.
“And what do you mean it’s about time?” Sam’s head came into view just over Steve’s left shoulder.
“Sam?” Bucky tried to sit, but the room spun, and a pain flared in his gut that had him collapsing back to the bed. He looked down. It was a bed – a narrow hospital-style bed, angled upward at the top so his head and shoulders were slightly elevated.
He took stock. He had an IV in his right arm. He was bare-chested, hooked up to a heart monitor. A sheet covered his lower half. “What happened?”
He was about to get his ass handed to him, and then… “Where the hell am I?...or rather…” He looked back to Steve.
Steve.
God, Steve. A whole new kind of pain blossomed deep in his soul. He swallowed hard and took a breath. “When the hell am I?”
Time travel was a thing, after all, but if he somehow ended up back in time, he had no idea how. There weren’t Pym particles involved—at least, not that he knew about. No time stone, either.
Steve smiled, eyes full of bright warmth. He put a hand on the crook of Bucky’s neck. “You know us? All of us?”
That touch sent agonizingly familiar tendrils down his spine. Steve was the only one who’d touched him like that in 80 years. “Yeah, I know you. I have my mem….” He looked around at the spacious lab. His eyes settled on the long-haired figure leaning against the wall and staring at him with hooded, cautious eyes. “Shit.” A cold knot formed in his gut.
Something was very wrong.
His eyes darted to Stark, but the man’s face betrayed nothing but slightly amused curiosity. There was no hint of murderous intent behind those sharp eyes. Did Stark know?
Did the assassinations happen here…? Wherever or whenever he was, because this couldn’t be the past. Not exactly. Not with a version of himself standing in the same room with most of the Avengers like he was one of the gang.
“Yeah, so,” Tony began. “turns out there’s a multiverse, and one of our local sorcerers did a big oopsie and ripped it wide open. You fell through and ended up bleeding on my floor. Thank god it was tile, not the softest landing for you, but easy to clean up.”
Bucky processed that slurry of information through a pounding headache. He didn’t see Dr. Strange or any other sorcerer in the room, and he tried to figure out what scenario would lead to a version of himself—still obviously raw from Hydra—in a room with Avengers.
“What year is it?” He figured it was best to start with the basics.
Natasha raised an eyebrow. “2015. What year is it where you came from?”
“2025.”
Steve’s brow crinkled in obvious confusion. “So, are you just from the future or a different universe?”
Bucky eyed his sullen counterpart with the titanium arm who raised his eyebrows when their gazes locked. “I’m gonna say both, since this —” he swept his arm toward his other self, “never happened in my time.”
Sam crossed his arms, head tilted. “You seem to be taking what should be earth-shattering news in stride.”
“I’ve seen some things.” That was the understatement of the century.
He tried to sit up again, stifling a groan. Steve’s hand slid behind his back, helping him up. There were 90 years of familiarity in that touch.
“You should take it easy.” Steve’s eyes shimmered with barely restrained affection. He was raw. Much rawer than the Steve who’d stepped on the platform and vanished into the past. “You’ve got a couple of broken ribs, contusions, and what looks like burns.”
“And a concussion,” Bruce piped up.
Bucky followed the voice and saw the doctor sitting at a control panel a few feet behind Tony.
“What happened to you?” Steve asked, expression conveying a symphony of agony and hope all mixed up behind those blue eyes.
Bucky knew if he kept staring into them, he’d crumble, so he looked at the large window showing the Manhattan skyline.
Might be easier to tell you what hasn’t happened to me, Pal. “Let’s just say the only time anyone contacts me these days, with one exception,” he glanced at Sam, “is when there’s a fight, and this time I got my ass handed to me.” It wasn’t the first time, but there was no need to point that out.
Saved by the bell again – or this time, by a rift in the multiverse. What was it with death repeatedly chewing him up and spitting him out?
Bucky sighed and swung his legs off the side of the bed, stifling a grimace as glanced down at the IV in his arm. “What is this?”
“Fluids and something to take the edge off the pain,” Banner said. “It works with the serum…well, better than anything else right now.”
“Can you get this thing out of me?” He held up his hand.
Bruce nodded, approaching. A moment later, the IV was out of his arm and he was free of the heart monitor. He decided to test his legs. Steve eyed him with a pinched brow, hovering too close, as though he fully expected Bucky to take a header.
Please. He’d had worse than…
The room spun. He gripped the bed, and Steve’s hands were suddenly on his chest and under his armpit, supporting him.
“Maybe you ought to stay horizontal a bit longer.”
Bucky took a breath, and when the room stopped spinning, he waved Steve off and looked down at himself. Thank God… he was wearing someone’s sweatpants. “Look, it’s not that I’m not happy to see you…” just looking at Steve hurt, but he’d had decades of practice hiding pain, so he was sure not even Steve could pick up on the crushing ache trying to burst out of his chest, “...but I suppose I need to get back to my universe. How’s that gonna happen?”
“Dr. Strange is working on it,” Natasha said. “He’s the sorcerer responsible for this.”
“We assume,” Tony added. “He pulled a disappearing act.”
“Dr. Strange? Right. He doesn’t become a sorcerer for something like five years in my time, I think.” He was on Hydra’s list during Project Insight, but at the time he was just a garden-variety rock-star surgeon with an ego bigger than Thanos’. What changed in this universe?
“Well, he’s a sorcerer now, a bit on the newer side, but apparently all the rage.” Tony sauntered to a control panel, tapped the screen a few times, and then leaned against it, crossing his arms. “So, Bucky Barnes,” he strolled to a cabinet and pulled out a packet of nuts, pouring a few in his hand. There was something sharp in his movements that betrayed the air of casualness. “You kill my dad in your universe, too?”
And just like that, Bucky was back in that night, his fist smashing Howard’s skull in with two blows….his hand wrapped around Maria Stark’s throat until the life drained from her.
He gripped the table. So, Tony knew, and they were going to do this. Again. At least this time Tony wasn’t suited up and gunning for him. Yet.
“Yes.” He hated the subtle tremor in his voice.
All eyes were on him, but he kept his focus on Tony and maintained a healthy distance, already cataloging the best exits…just in case. The fact that the other Bucky was here and no one was bleeding indicated that the Tony of this universe was taking the news surprisingly well.
When no assault seemed forthcoming, Bucky risked a glance at the others. Steve’s face was a palette of commiseration. Natasha’s gaze was cool and assessing as usual, with a hint of something almost sympathetic beneath the calm exterior. When he met Bruce’s eyes, the doctor decided to study the control panel nearest him.
Sam had his arms crossed, his expression something between sympathy and skepticism. This Sam didn’t quite trust him yet.
“It wasn’t his fault, Tony. You know that.” Steve’s hand was suddenly on Bucky’s shoulder, squeezing, offering support.
Bucky looked at his silent counterpart. There was a suspicious shimmer in those familiar eyes. The other guy remembered that night, too. Too bad for him.
He didn’t know how far along in his recovery the other Bucky was, but it had taken him, on his own and on the run, over a year and a half to regain most of his memories. Hell, there were still times he was surprised by one. A smell or a song would trigger something, and he’d be plunged into a dark crevice of his mind he hadn’t stumbled across before.
It was fun, in the way that getting one’s shoulder sawed through without anesthesia was fun.
“Yeah, yeah,” Tony mumbled. “Hydra brainwashed you, too, I supposed?”
He hated the term brainwashing. It conjured up notions of his participation, as though they’d sat him in front of reels for a few months and suddenly he was drinking their Kool-Aid, and sure, they had sat him in front of reels, eyelids forced open, strapped into a chair. They’d done that. They’d tried sleep deprivation. Torture. Never-ending mantras from speakers.
Eventually, they stopped trying to wash his brain and started frying it.
“Yeah,” he said.
Tony had asked only about his Dad, not his mom. Not his ‘parents.’ Just his dad.
Tony’s pained voice from that terrible day in Siberia came back to him. “I don’t care. He killed my mom.”
Now was probably not the time to ask if or how things happened differently in this universe, at least not in front of Tony. Still, he needed to find out what had happened to get them to this point—with his counterpart inside Stark’s tower—and why Dr. Strange had messed around with the multiverse.
“Steve, can we, uh…” he tilted his head toward the window, “talk in private?” He gave Steve a look that, hopefully, he still recognized, even after 70 years. The walls in Stark Tower likely had ears, and this conversation needed to be private.
“Well, uh….” Steve’s gaze swept the group, hovering a moment over the other Barnes still pressed against the wall, eyeing Bucky suspiciously. “Sure. We can step into the hallway.”
Bucky limped after Steve, cradling his ribs with his right hand. “How long was I out, by the way?”
Once in the hallway, Steve closed the door and turned to him. “About 10 hours. What happened?”
“I was trying to fight for something bigger than me. I was losing…story of my life.”
The edges of Steve’s eyes pinched, and his mouth made a tight line. “Who were you fighting?”
“I’m not with Hydra, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I wasn’t implying that,” Steve said, almost tripping over the words. “I just mean, uh…. It’s uh… You seem…a little more like you.” His smile crinkled his eyes. “It’s nice to see….to have hope.” He leaned forward. “Can I, uh… I mean, I’ve really missed….”
“You’re a sap. Come here.” Bucky went to yank Steve into a hug, and all the pains in his body screamed at once. He caught his breath and compensated, easing into the hug.
Steve’s arms were practically weightless as they wrapped around Bucky, his chin settling on Bucky’s left shoulder. “Your arm’s vibranium?”
“Yeah.” Bucky took a breath and pulled back. “It’s actually related to what I want to talk to you about. Stark. The other me in there killed his…father?”
“Yeah.” Steve’s smile faded, his eyes heavy. “Did it happen differently in your…world?”
“Just his father? Not his mother?”
Steve’s eyes went big for a split second, and he glanced away. “Just Howard Stark. Yeah.” He looked back with a suspicious shimmer. “Hell, Bucky, I’m sorry. Both?”
The lump in his throat made it hard to speak suddenly, so he nodded instead as he swallowed. “Stark’s mother…is she still alive?”
“Yeah, she’s on the board of Stark Industries.”
Bucky let go of the air inside his lungs and sagged against the wall, cradling the ache in his ribs from the motion and blinking past the painful release of something in his chest. “I’m glad he’s not an orphan.”
“Hey.”
The warmth of Steve’s hand slid around the back of Bucky’s neck. “You remember everything?”
“All of them.” He looked away from the penetrating blue directed at him and toward the closed laboratory door. “Stark seems surprisingly congenial given the circumstances.”
Steve nodded. “He understands you had no choice.” He tilted his head toward the lab. “How did events develop in your…universe? I guess, that’s what we call it?”
With a glance at his vibranium arm, Bucky shrugged the metal shoulder. “Let’s just say I needed a new arm after he found out. He tried to kill me. I can’t blame him. If I were in his shoes, I’d have probably reacted the same way. How did he find out here?”
“We poured through the information Romanoff dumped. He found out that way. He was on a mission to find you and get justice, until we captured Karpov during our Hydra mop-ups. He stashed documents related to the Winter Soldier project in his wall.” Steve took a deep breath that seemed to wash through his entire body. “It was… eye-opening. Brutal. Inhuman. After that, Tony had a different outlook.”
Bucky processed that information, visualizing how things happened differently here. No Siberian showdown. No Accords…at least not yet. And Karpov….He’d been the man who ordered Bucky to go after Stark.
“Is Karpov still in custody?”
“He committed suicide.” Steve’s shimmering gaze drifted to the lab door. “If you got your memories back….”
“Your guy will, too. How much does he remember? Around this time, I had fragments back.”
“He remembers…some things. The train. Falling. Zola. Fragments from the war. It’s all traumatic, all bad. It’s hard to watch. I don’t know how to help him. That’s why we brought in Dr. Strange.”
“Well, he’s a real doctor, right? But, what does that have to do with the multiverse?”
Steve shifted on his feet, gaze flickering to the floor.
Shit. “You did something stupid, didn’t you?”
Steve’s eyes snapped up to meet his, his lips parting, a protest obvious on his tongue, then his shoulders relaxed.
He nodded, expression melting to contrition. “He said he could cast a spell to restore Bucky’s memories — all of them, good and bad. Bucky wanted to remember who he’d been, what Hydra had taken from him. He wanted to remember the sisters I told him about. His mother. His father. Our history together. The Commandos. He had pieces, but not the full picture. Something went wrong when Dr. Strange was casting the spell. Tony was talking a lot, and… well… “ Steve ran a hand over his face. “We messed up. We should have waited it out. Now, we’ve ripped you away from your home.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, it doesn’t feel much like home.” By the look on Steve’s face, the statement was as pathetic as it sounded.
“Guess we’d better get back in there.” Bucky limped to the door. “Any idea when Strange is coming back?”
“Hopefully soon.”
The moment they walked into the lab, the resident Barnes’ eyes plastered Bucky with a steely glare. Jealousy didn’t look good on his face. He’d have to remember that.
“So, you two catch up?” Tony asked, leaning against a workstation as though they hadn’t just discussed the murder of his father a few minutes ago.
Steve hurried to the resident Barnes, smiling. “Yeah, and since our visiting James Barnes has all his memories back, you’ll get yours, too. Eventually.”
Barnes’ gaze darted between Steve and Bucky. After a moment, he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “How long?”
Bucky shrugged. “Little by little, every week you’ll gain more. Write things down in a journal. It helped me to keep track.”
“He’s doing that,” Steve offered.
“He can answer for himself,” Barnes added dryly, throwing a narrow glare Steve’s way.
Bucky bit the inside of his bottom lip to suppress a smile. “Yeah, you can. You should talk more, stare less.” Sam was right. He did have a creepy stare.
Barnes’ gaze remained steady and flat. “You’re talking enough for the both of us.”
Tony made an angry meow noise. “Don’t make me get out the spray—”
A portal opened up in the middle of the room. Dr. Strange and Wong stepped through just before it closed, and by their expressions, things were bad.
“It’s leaking,” Strange said, raising his hands.
Bruce glanced at Tony, looking unusually alarmed. “What’s leaking?”
A sliver of light flashed in the room, so bright Bucky had to close his eyes until it faded. When he opened them, two figures were on the floor in the center of the room, one’s hand firmly gripped around the wrist of the other.
“Well….” Dr. Strange sighed. “Damn.”
The two interlopers were unmistakable. A version of Steve Rogers dressed in sweatpants and a snug T-shirt had a death grip on the wrist of yet another James Barnes, shield held in the Captain’s other arm.
“What the hell is going on here?” Interloper-Steve asked, shield raised, eyes challenging as he released his grip on Bucky and stepped in front of him. His gaze settled on Stark, and his brow creased with lines of confusion. “Tony?” He gave long looks to the other Buckys, head whipping between all three as though not entirely convinced he wasn’t hallucinating.
I sympathize, Pal. Bucky gave a wave. “Hey.”
“This shouldn’t happen.” Wong shook his head. “The spell centered around Barnes, so it should only affect James Barnes.”
“What should only affect James Barnes?” Interloper Steve looked a second away from using his fists to get answers.
“The crack between multiverses,” Dr. Strange explained. “It’s pulling James Barneses from other universes into our own.”
“Other…universes?” Interloper Bucky shook his head and pushed a few long locks out of his eyes. “I told you to let go, Steve.”
That Steve shifted toward his Bucky. “Not a chance. I watched you fall once. Not again. You go. I go.”
“Well, here we are.” The newest Bucky looked around. “In Stark Tower, apparently. It looks surprisingly the same. I’m not following on this ‘other universes’ thing. Does someone want to explain?”
Wong and Dr. Strange did their best to explain the multiverse and what a rift means, but the two newcomers remained skeptical. Still, being in Stark Tower amongst familiar faces seemed to make the new Steve and Bucky relax. They ventured toward the bar as Romanoff poured drinks for everyone while Dr. Strange and Wong talked about multidimensional rifts and incursions, all of which sounded terrible, but really, just another day for the people in the room, himself included.
Sometimes Bucky wondered why he didn’t just hole up in a cabin and spend the rest of his life reading, listening to music, and catching up on decades of television and movies.
Even the other guy –the hybrid Winter Soldier/ James Barnes version of himself—seemed to relax, or at least as much as he could, sitting next to this universe’s Steve at the bar. Bucky remembered being in that state—hypervigilant, one live wire wrapped in flesh with a metal arm.
“We think we have a way of closing the rift,” Dr. Strange said.
Bucky remembered something about an Ancient One. Why wasn’t that person here? “Isn’t there another Sorcerer? The Ancient One?”
The subtle darkening of expressions on the two sorcerers told Bucky that person wasn’t in the picture.
“The Ancient One was murdered last year.”
The timeline in this universe was all over the map. The new Steve and Bucky were from 2017 in their timeline. Natasha honed in on that.
“Why is it pulling people from different times?”
“Must involve the quantum realm,” Bucky said.
All heads swiveled his way. Tony’s eyebrows were arched in surprise. Bruce blinked rapidly, scratching at the back of his head.
“The what?” 2015 Steve asked.
Bucky enjoyed the shocked looks. For once, he wasn’t the one out of the loop. “Time moves differently in the quantum realm.”
“How do you know that?” Tony asked.
“A little ant told me.” He kept a deadpan expression, enjoying the varied expressions of confusion and skepticism.
While he was stuck in this universe, he might as well have some fun.
The day faded, and it became clear they weren’t going to solve anything soon. Strange and Wong were working out a couple of spells, and hopefully, by morning, they’d figure out a way to get everyone where they should be.
“Guess we better turn in,” Natasha said, stretching. “I’m gonna head to my room.”
Steve nodded in agreement. “Bucky, we all have living quarters here in the tower. I’ve got an entire wing, so there’s more than enough room for you.” He looked at the other Bucky and Steve. “Both of you, too, of course. Everyone should stay here while we work out how to get you home.”
Bucky processed that new information. “You all live here at Stark Tower?”
“Avengers Tower,” Stark corrected. “Yeah. Makes sense.”
“I thought you had a place in DC?” That I shot up, he thought, wincing inwardly.
“That was monitored by SHIELD and…” Steve looked at Winter Soldier Bucky, “it needed some repairs.”
The resident Barnes frowned.
“Yeah, I remember.” God, that was eleven years ago, six for him, counting the Blip. “Sorry.”
Steve shrugged. “It wasn’t home, anyway.”
“Since I’m turning in,” Natasha interjected, “why don’t I show our two guests to some private quarters? “It’d be weird having two Steves and three Buckys in one suite, don’t you think?” She tilted her head with a wry smile.
“There’s no way to not make this situation weird,” Bucky said. This was weird even for him. “But, uh, I think we need to come up with a way to differentiate us.”
With a drink in his hand, Tony pointed to this universe’s Steve. “Steve.” His finger shifted to the newcomer. “Rogers.” He pointed to the resident Barnes. “Bucky.”
Damn. Well, he hadn’t called dibbs.
Tony pointed to him. “Buck.”
That wasn’t too bad, all things considered. At least he didn’t get James.
Tony gestured to the newest Bucky. “James. We all good?"
Buck nodded, flashing a smirk at James. “I got ‘Buck’ instead of James, so no qualms on my end.”
Rogers draped his arm around James. “Don’t worry about it James. You’re the one and only Bucky in my book.”
James rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”
They followed Natasha out of the lab, Rogers’ arm sliding around James’ waist as they disappeared into the hallway.
“Uh, hold on…” Tony stared after them, mouth open, drink half-raised to his mouth. “Are they?”
Sam nodded. “I think they are.”
Buck felt the curious glances. He wasn’t looking at Steve, and even without looking, he knew Steve sure as hell wasn’t looking at him. This was a lot to process.
Just because a random Steve and Bucky in some other part of the universe were gay or bi or whatever the term was these days, didn’t mean that all were.
God, this was awkward.
“Pepper’s going to pay up!” Tony hopped up on the counter, legs swinging almost gleefully, “So, uh, Cap, got anything you’d like to get off your chest? Or either of you Buckys? We’re all friends here.”
Buck kept his face a blank slate. He couldn’t say he was surprised that Stark had a bet on Steve’s sexuality.
“Um…” Steve seemed to have difficulty figuring out where to look and finally settled on his Bucky, “Bucky and I aren’t…I mean, we never…”
“It’s not cool to ask, you know,” Sam piped up.
You’re a good man, Sam.
With the way Steve was shifting on the heels of his feet, he was obviously still processing the revelation.
Buck cleared his throat. “It doesn’t matter. It’s 2025, after all…”
“2015,” Tony corrected.
“Right, but…still,” Buck caught Steve’s eye. “I mean, things were different in our time, but you know, if you were…or anyone is…just so you know, it’d be fine. I mean, I’d be fine with it.”
Why did he say that? He never had to say he was fine with someone being heterosexual.
“I know,” Steve said quickly, looking between the Bucky and him. “Same goes for you. Either of you. I mean, you know, if that…if you ever…”
“Yeah, right,” Buck said.
This conversation needed to end. Now.
Bucky huffed and went to the bar, eyeing the collection of alcohol bottles on the glass shelf.
“Oh look at this.” Tony eyed his phone screen. “Identical twins can have different sexual orientations, but more often than not, they do share the same orientation. Sixty-five-point-eight percent, to be exact.” He eyed them over the top of his phone. “Interesting.”
Steve went over to Bucky and leaned against the wall. “You know, I don’t want this to be awkward.” He lowered his voice. “I mean, I haven’t been checking you out.”
Bucky looked him up and down as though he were sizing him up as a potential threat, but then the edges of his mouth twitched. “It’s the metal arm, isn’t it? It’s a turn-off?”
Buck shook his head. Steve hadn’t yet picked up on the joke, judging from his horrified expression, but when Bucky’s eyes softened and the hint of a smile took shape, Steve’s shoulders visibly dropped, and he grinned.
“You’re still a jerk.”