Archive of Our Own ^beta

After the S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists declared themselves finished with their scan of his brain, giving him a more or less clean bill of health with no more Winter Soldier trigger words to be found, Bucky rolled over onto his side and started retching. The embarrassment he felt was secondary to the killer migraine and the all over, hot-and-cold sickness.^[1]

This needs to be done, was what he kept telling himself before and during the procedure. He had to be certain that no one would ever control him again, and these few hours of complete and total invasiveness was entirely worth that peace of mind. It was over now. He retched again.

Distantly, he heard Stark telling everyone something that sounded like ‘give the kid some space’, and one of the agents handed him a bucket before leaving the room. Bucky was grateful to have no one watching him, but couldn’t give Stark his thanks on account of him coughing up whatever was left in his stomach. Peeking at the contents, he saw his vomit was entirely clear and winced. When was the last time he’d eaten again? Definitely before the Red Skull and Faustus got a hold of him. Groaning, he wiped his nose on the back of his jacket sleeve.

An agent briefly returned to his side with a pile of clean clothing and gave directions to a locker room with a shower, taking the soiled bucket from him as they went. Forcing himself up with fresh clothing in tow, Bucky noticed that Stark had vacated the area. He mechanically followed the instructions he was given - down this hall, turn here, turn again, down this other hall, until he found himself in front of an empty men’s locker room.

Finding the shower, he turned the water up as hot as it went, and stripped himself of his clothing as quickly as possible, making a point to not look down at his own body more than necessary. Stepping inside, he closed his eyes, and tried his best to will the thoughts in his head to static.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he finally shut the water off.

The clean t-shirt, sweatpants, and socks that were provided are at least soft, he thought after he’d changed into them and pulled his own jacket back on. As much as they did help, the clothing and the shower didn’t change the fact that his whole body still ached, his head especially.

He opted not to look in any of the mirrors in the locker room, already knowing he looked like shit - no need for visual confirmation, thank you very much. His hair was already getting too long for his liking again, uncomfortably touching the back of his neck and tops of his ears, and he hadn’t been able to shave in who knows how long. Between that and the bruising all along his back and sides, it was sensory hell.

Sitting on the bench between a row of lockers near the exit, he pulled his boots back on, shoving the laces inside them, feeling too exhausted and shaky to do even something as simple as trying to properly tie them. He consciously slowed his breathing, hanging his head, and rubbed at his face with both hands, focusing on the scratchiness of his stubble instead of all the pain. Calm down, come back to the present, calm down, back to the present…

What the hell was he doing, honestly? Agreeing with Stark’s interpretation of Steve’s letter, thinking that he of all people should be the new Captain America? It was audacious, that’s for certain. He was a wanted terrorist, he had no super powers, didn’t consider himself a leader, didn’t possess the same seemingly unwavering optimism that Steve had… His skill set was very specific: infiltration and assassination.

He was an attack dog, really - not a symbol to rally behind.

Bucky sighed, not having to look up to know who’s standing at the entrance now - the clanging footsteps down the hall gave him enough time to brace himself for the inevitable conversation. When he removed his hands from his face to look to his left, sure enough, there was Stark. He silently held up a bottle of water and a small snack bag of pretzels before tossing it Bucky’s way. Catching both, Bucky quickly uncapped the water bottle to down half of it.

“Better now?” Stark asked.

“Sure,” Bucky said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve before downing the rest of the water.

It would be an understatement to call the silence that stretched out between them ‘awkward’ or even ‘uncomfortable’ as Bucky tore through the bag of pretzels. It had only been a few hours since he had escaped from his holding cell with the intention to kill Stark, hadn’t it?

Bucky could feel Stark’s eyes on him, maybe thinking the same thing.

“I didn’t get a chance to say this earlier, but it, uh, it’s just more than a little weird seeing you here,” Stark told him. “In the flesh and all. You were just a story for so long.”

Bucky frowned, drawing his brows together and glaring at a patch of grime that had collected at the edge of the locker in front of him. The fuck does he say to that? ‘Sorry I’m not the bright-eyed, catch phrase having sidekick from the propaganda shorts. That was never real’?

He could hear Stark continue to fidget with his armor.

“Right. So, hey, if we let you loose, kid, you’re not gonna… you know…” Stark trailed off and then cleared his throat. “Right?”

Bucky turned to Stark who shifted uncomfortably once more at the doorway. The guy was still in the Iron Man get-up sans helmet, looking just as exhausted and haggard as Bucky felt.^[2] Bucky at least had a leg up now, being showered. How long had it been since he was kicked out of a plane and turned over to S.H.I.E.L.D.? Hell, how long had it been since he was knocked out at the Kronas Corporation with a trigger word? He didn’t get a chance to ask anyone what time or day it even was now.

Stark was still looking at him with an expectant stare, leaned forward with his eyebrows raised.

"What?" Bucky was really trying to be civil with this guy, but, man, if he wasn’t making it difficult. He thought Stark was being straight with him now - why couldn’t he just say what he meant? How did Steve put up with this guy?

"You know." Stark raised two fingers, his index and middle ones, bringing them to his temple and cleared his throat again.

Bucky inhaled sharply and turned away.

“Don’t you think I would’ve done it already if I was planning that?” Bucky said, his right hand returning to rub at his brow bone to soothe his headache. It wasn’t entirely a lie - his plan was to kill Stark, Lukin, the Red Skull, and then himself. It just turned out that, even from beyond the grave, Steve had other plans for him and Bucky guessed he now had to see them through.

“Right, right… just checking, kid,” Stark said, but he still lingered in the doorway. Bucky wondered if Stark had spotted the long since healed over scar running down his right wrist, a previous 'escape' attempt from his handlers.

“You need something else from me?” Bucky asked, exasperated. He knew it came out shitty, but he was starting to get paranoid that maybe Stark lied to him earlier, that maybe he wasn’t making it out of this Helicarrier without handcuffs. All he wanted right that second was to be left the fuck alone, and sleep for at least twelve uninterrupted hours.

“Yeah, actually, yeah… I had some time to think while you were getting your brain picked at,” Stark said. Bucky could see in his peripheral Stark looking down at the floor and scratching at his beard, either not noticing how agitated Bucky was or just not caring. Likely the first, if Bucky was being fair - guy probably had a lot on his mind. Bucky felt another intense pang of discomfort between his eye and brow bone and grimaced.

“You’re a decent amount shorter than Steve, so I’m going to assume that you’re not going to literally be filling his size thirteen boots, “Stark went on. “I’m pretty sure Janet had some designs laying around somewhere for a new costu-”

“Tony,” Natalia said, her stern voice cutting through.

Bucky jolted and snapped up to look at her, not having heard her approach - still as good as he remembered. She, like Stark, was still in her ‘work clothes’: the black leotard with her gold gauntlets, arms crossed and glaring holes into Stark’s head.

Bucky couldn’t help almost gawking at her, eyes wide and feeling his stomach flip. It was the first time he really got a proper look at her after their two brief encounters: the fight in the street for Steve’s shield, and then earlier this evening when she stormed into Stark’s office, agents in tow, as Bucky read Steve’s final letter. What a reunion.

She still looked - she’s still -

“Hey, ‘Tasha,” Stark said as he turned to her, voice faltering only slightly, clearly trying to hide how much she’d startled him. She must’ve done that on purpose; if Bucky didn’t feel like he’d been hit by a train, he would’ve laughed.

“Is this really the best time?” Natalia continued, still glaring. Stark let out a long exhale and held up both hands in surrender.

“No, no, you’ve got me there. You’re right, as usual. Kid’s been through enough today. Enough for a whole lifetime probably,” Stark said as he dropped his arms and looked back to Bucky. “I’ll tell the guys to get ready to drop you off back in Brooklyn like I said before. Unless there’s somewhere else you had in mind?”

Bucky opened his mouth, but the words died in his throat. Natalia’s sharp gaze was on him now, looking much more sympathetic than she had just a moment ago towards Stark. He snapped his mouth shut and shook his head dumbly, feeling self conscious. He definitely regretted not checking how he looked in the mirror before - he imagined his eyes were bloodshot and his damp hair was sticking up in all directions.

“James,” Natalia said, and he felt his face warm. “It is good to see you.”

The ‘again’ went unsaid.

He didn’t get a chance to think of anything to say back before she simply nodded, turned back down the hall, and left.

Stark looked to Bucky, the empty space where Natalia just was, and back to Bucky.

“So - “ he started, eyebrows high.

“Don’t,” Bucky warned, feeling his headache get worse. Dammit. He was such an idiot; he should’ve apologized for knocking her out during their fight for Steve’s shield.

“Alright,” Stark said, turning to leave himself. “Keeping my word - getting my men, turning you loose.”

The nagging thought Bucky had earlier made its presence known again, and an icy panic went down his spine. It was the same sick, disorienting feeling he had when he used to get when he got pulled out of cold storage by his handlers, not knowing when, where, or who he was - he’d been feeling it since he woke up in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, it now intensifying again.

“W-wait - Stark - “ Bucky asked before he could stop himself, feeling like some pathetic child needing reassurance from a parent after a nightmare.

“Yeah, kid?”

“What, um, what day is it?” He really felt like his head was about to split open. His right hand returned to put pressure on the space between his eyebrows to alleviate the pain. It almost helped. “And the time,” he quickly added.

He heard Stark sigh again, but didn’t need to look up to know that he was giving Bucky a pitying look.

“It’s the 18th now, and nearly 6 in the morning,” Stark said, sounding suddenly so, so tired.

“Aces,” Bucky said, it coming out constrained as he squeezed his eyes shut tighter. “Thanks.”

There was that armor shifting sound again, followed by another sigh.

“I really am sorry, Bucky. May Steve’s memory be a blessing. Hope the next time we talk is under better circumstances.” And Bucky heard Stark clang back down the hall, finally leaving him alone once more.

The trip from the Helicarrier down to the Brooklyn neighborhood of DUMBO was short, quiet, and uneventful; almost anticlimactic.^[3] From when he was taken to Stark’s office after their fight to now, Bucky was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, this all seeming a little too good to be true. Weren’t there rumors of a gulag for Unregistered heroes that was in another dimension?

He was sure he looked bewildered when he was more or less booted out of the small plane with very little fanfare, stepping off onto the roof of the nondescript, brick building with the keys to it provided by Stark in one hand, his Winter Soldier uniform folded up in the other. All he received was a grumbling from an agent that sounded vaguely like ‘keep out of trouble’ before they flew off into the early morning, back to the Helicarrier hovering high above Manhattan.

A flock of pigeons flew by, and one broke off to land in front of him. Bucky thought of the Falcon, wondering where he was now as the bird looked at him, cocking its head to the side. It cooed once before taking off again, and Bucky watched it go, then turned to head towards the door on the roof.

Unlocking it, he entered the building that was Steve’s home, feeling exhaustion begin to overtake him as he went down each stair. At the end of the stairwell was a second locked door to the actual inside of the building; after fumbling with the keyring again, he stumbled inside into a kitchen and dining area, closing and locking the door behind him.

There were black spots forming in the peripherals of his vision as he threw the keys onto the kitchen island and struggled to pull off his boots, steadying himself with a hand on the brick wall. He beelined for the L-shaped couch he spotted, flopped face first onto it, dropping his boots and uniform to the floor in the process, and was thankful that sleep took him immediately.

In his dream, Bucky was falling from Baron Zemo’s plane again, crashing into the frigid English Channel. He was back in his army fatigues, back to only sixteen-years-old, with the sound of the bomb going off and Steve screaming at him to drop off ringing in his ears.

It was a memory he’d revisited often in his dreams, but this time, when he rose back up to the water’s surface, the setting before him had warped and changed to the Hudson River. Ahead was Manhattan, in ruins, with what looked like hundreds of S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarriers hovering overhead in the night sky, their searchlights further illuminating the burning city.

Bucky blinked, finding himself in the remains of the West Village with his ODs now ripped away to reveal his sidekick costume: the blue coat with the red collar, and its matching red pants. A swarm of those Registration enforcers, the Cape-Killers, flew overhead, moving more like fighter planes than human beings in suits, briefly blocking out the searchlights above. Bucky ducked into an alleyway as they passed, but wasn’t able to shake the feeling like he was being watched.

Looking across the street, Bucky saw a mural on a more intact building of Faustus advertising his therapy sessions with Crossbones and Sin both flanking him - their eyes all seemed to follow him. Bucky flipped the three of them off before bending down to check one of his boots for the spare knife he always kept, but felt his anxiety worsen when he found nothing.

Alone and with no weapon… no, this was fine, he would be fine. He’d been in worse situations with less. He was powerless, sure, but he was observant and good at hiding, and, while he wasn’t a New York native, he’d visited enough to at least know where he was. He just needed to find the rest of the Invaders! His friends would know what to do.

Cautiously leaving the alley, but keeping close to any overhead cover he could find, his feet carried him through the city, past collapsed building after collapsed building. Some looked bombed out, while others looked smashed through. Above the still standing buildings, there were billboards reminding citizens of the Registration Act, its text in Cyrillic translating to ‘IT IS THE LAW’, featuring Iron Man surrounded entirely by Cape-Killers. All of them pointed down accusatorially behind their featureless helmets at Bucky as he strode past.

An air raid siren then went off, drawing Bucky’s attention away from the advertisements, making him jump in the process. He looked up to see the Helicarriers above preparing to drop their bombs. Fully panicking now, he racked his brain, trying to think of where the closest subway station was to use for shelter.

Fuck! He couldn’t remember where one was, and there wasn’t enough time!

He ran into a nearby building, a movie theater it turned out, and ducked under the ticket booth inside, desperately hoping it could withstand the bombardment. The theater was still running its newsreel in the closest auditorium, playing a propaganda short of the Invaders at what must’ve been full volume as an audience cheered them on. The first bomb hit the roof of the building, rocking it, but the audience was unfazed.

“-tain America… and his sidekick, Bucky! The super human Sub-Mariner! And the flaming furies, the Human Torch and Toro! Leading the fight to bring down Hitler and Hirohito! The incredible Invaders!” the reel’s narration went on and the audience’s fervor grew, like nothing was going on outside. Maybe they weren’t cheering, but screaming and Bucky just couldn’t tell the difference. "So, look out, Axis! Here they come!"^[4]

The laughing-screaming-cheering almost drowned out the exploding shells above and around him. Bucky curled into himself as tight as he could, eyes shut with his arms crossed over his head. How could anyone survive this? He didn’t want to die alone.

After what felt like days, maybe weeks, maybe even decades, the sounds of the bombing and the audience stopped - the theater ceiling miraculously sustaining the raid, leaving Bucky only with his own heavy breathing and heartbeat in his ears. He crawled out from under the ticket booth, going back to the exit only to find it was no longer there.

Turning back, he went deeper into the theater, but every door he went through just led him into another hallway. Through each door, it became more and more decrepit, the wallpaper peeling and the wood flooring starting to rot. He felt sick with anxiety, thinking maybe he was stuck in this loop forever.

It was only after the thirteenth attempt when, finally, Bucky got something different. He entered into an empty auditorium, and it was there Bucky saw him. Walking up the staircase to the theater’s stage was Steve, his back to Bucky, in his Captain America costume and shield in hand. The wall at the back of the theater was completely blown out, revealing the severity of the shelling and the firefight still going on outside.

A hoard of Cape-Killers had surrounded the building, all firing their weapons as Steve shielded himself from the shots taken at him and the light pouring in, shouting indistinctly at something Bucky couldn’t see. As if on instinct, Bucky ran through the auditorium past the rows of seats towards Steve, thinking - no - knowing he would be safe with his mentor.

Before Bucky could call out, Steve turned to face him, like he knew Bucky was there, and the two stood staring at each other for a moment as the gunfire outside ceased. Bucky, still below the stage and looking up to Steve, inhaled, then saw a red dot appear on the star on Steve’s chest. Three gunshots rang out to Bucky's right. Steve’s face twisted into shock and pain before collapsing into rubble.

Looking down at himself, Bucky saw not only was he holding the smoking gun, but he was now wearing a Captain America costume of his own, ill-fitting and soaked with blood.

You’re not supposed to be wearing that, he heard someone behind him say, a mix of his own voice and Faustus. You’re not supposed to be here.

The world around him turned dark, ash and snow now falling from above, everything seeming to close in on himself and Steve. He was frozen where he stood, ice seeping into his bones, unable to turn away from watching Steve bleed out in front of him again. He tried so hard to fight it, tried to help, tried to find his voice, and -

“No!” Bucky yelped as he jolted awake.

Oh hell, where was he? He scrambled to sit up, covered in sweat and feeling his head spin. What year was it? What mission was he being pulled out for? He felt like he was going to be sick again. He couldn’t breathe. He squeezed his eyes shut, hunching over.

The last few days came back to him as he struggled to get oxygen into his lungs: the fight with Crossbones and Sin in Lukin’s office, being drugged by Faustus, the attempted escape with Agent 13, waking up in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody without her, the fight with Stark, the scanning of his brain, and then this place.

Bucky opened his eyes and lifted his head to focus on what he could see around him to prove to himself where he was. There was the record player in front of him on one of the windowsills, and the bookshelves beyond it, the flat-screen television to his right, and his clothing on the rug below him - all still in the same place as they were before Bucky passed out.

He wasn’t being held anywhere. He was in the 21st century, he was in Brooklyn, in Steve’s home, and his mind was his own. He made sure of that. Everything was fine - or as fine as it could be, given… well, nearly everything else. Steve was still dead, and his girl, Agent 13, was still missing. Bucky slowly exhaled.

The nausea he felt faded as quickly as it came, but in its place was a sharp pain where his collar bone met his left shoulder, where the prosthetic met flesh. His right hand went to put pressure on it. You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine… he thought, trying to will the residual panic away.

As Bucky steadied his breathing, he turned to look out the window behind the couch that pointed across the East River to Manhattan. The city looked normal - the Helicarrier was even gone now, too - though it was dark again, the sun no longer rising. He watched cars drive over the bridge until the pain in his shoulder passed and the sweat on his body cooled, making him all the more aware of how freezing the house was.

It dawned on him then as he followed a boat passing through the strait below that he really didn’t think he was going to make it out of his fight with Stark on the Helicarrier, or even the one with Crossbones and Sin before, nor had he cared. But he was still here.

He was still alive, and agreed to take up Steve’s mantle… he had a vague plan for the future that didn’t solely involve his revenge quest.

He still felt uneasy about it all.

Leaning back, he turned on the standing lamp beside the couch before getting up from it, slowly this time, and wondered if this building was old enough to not have any heating system. After stretching, he brushed some loose hair out of his face, and was reminded of how long it was getting. He absolutely hated it. He’d have to look for some scissors to deal with it later, but first he figured he should… what?

Actually take care of himself, and stop acting like he was already dead? Find something warm to drink, and explore the rest of the house? He guessed that was a fine enough place to start.

Returning to the kitchen area that he entered through, he saw the clock on the microwave read 3:37 confirming for him that his ‘nap’ was indeed well over twelve hours. Below the microwave and on the stove, was just what he was looking for: a kettle that he then filled with water. He opened a few cupboards, hoping to find hot chocolate mix, his sweet tooth from when he was a kid never going away, but instead was met with a cache of Earl Grey tea. He raised an eyebrow at the hoard before pulling a box out - maybe Steve never broke his Depression era habits.

If Steve was here, he’d probably comment on Bucky not eating enough, how thin he was getting - a nicer, more subtle way of saying he looked terrible - and force some solid food on him. Shaking his head and forcing himself not to dwell on what-could-have-been’s, Bucky looked to the refrigerator to the left of him and all the magnets stuck to it.

There was one for the city of Miami holding up a menu for a takeout place nearby, another advertising a store called Golden Orange Comics in Los Angeles, one just of the Statue of Liberty, another in the shape of a spaceship, and one all the way from Bayeux in France that held up a postcard from London. On the top left corner, there was a small white board with a grocery list written out along with a note to call someone named Peter in dry erase marker. Bucky winced at the confirmation of Steve having mundane plans he didn’t get to do.

Turning around to the kitchen island, Bucky saw the keys he threw there earlier, and a small photograph he missed before that sat on top of a matching frame, still in its plastic wrap. Leaning against the island, he picked the photograph up and blew off the thin layer of dust that’d accumulated on top.

It was a group shot of a wedding, taken somewhere in the city. The only people Bucky recognized were Steve, Stark, a woman in uniform who he was pretty sure was Ms. Marvel, and Logan, jacket slung over his shoulder and a beer in hand. There was a woman with long, dark hair in all black beside Logan, and between Steve and Stark was another man with shoulder-length, blonde hair; Bucky wasn’t sure of those two. Was the man Thor? No, that’s not right - that was the man they called the Sentry, who Bucky had seen on the news with Stark when they announced the Initiative.

He had no guesses for the newlyweds either. The bride was in traditional white with her brown hair piled on top of her head, and the groom, with a hand on her shoulder, was in a sleek, black turtleneck and gold chain. The bride was holding a small bundle in her arms, and a little hand was reaching up to hold part of her veil. Both stood at the center of the group, beaming at the camera, and Bucky couldn’t help smiling a little with them, too.^[5]

The man on the bride’s right stood more casually with hands in his pockets and his tie looser around his neck. His shirt and jacket looked wrinkled, like it had been balled up at the bottom of a laundry hamper for a time or stuffed in a bag before arriving at the event. Bucky swore he’d seen this guy somewhere before, and pulled the photograph closer, squinting. Dark hair and eyes, his nose was slightly crooked as if it had been broken once or twice in the past and not properly set…^[6]

Bucky gave up, figuring if this guy was at this wedding that maybe he had been in one of the papers or newsreels Bucky had seen in passing like the Sentry and the Danvers woman, and turned the photograph over.

There was a note, hastily written, addressed to Steve.

St Ca S Cap -

Th It was go nice to see you at the ceremony.

Thank y Thanks for all that you do.

Jessica (+ Luke & Baby Cage-Jones)

Bucky smiled again at the note, this Jessica trying very hard not to sound too sincere, but his face fell when he saw written below was the date the photograph was taken. It was only a few weeks before the Stamford incident. He flipped it back over to the group’s cheerful faces.

Was Stark already thinking of Registration when this was taken? Did the guests feel change coming?

The kettle started whistling from the stove top behind him, bringing Bucky out of his thoughts, and he set the photograph back down.

He found a mug with the logo for the Baxter Building printed on it, and a spoon to add sugar from the jar on the countertop. As he steeped the tea bag in the hot water, the smell of Earl Grey brought him back to all the time he spent in Falsworth Manor, probably not being the best house guest. Snorting, he thought about how if Jacqueline saw how much sugar he was using, she would be appalled.

He returned back to the living room area as he drank his tea, seeing through the window an increase in cars now going over the bridge. With the lamp now on, he could see on the shelving unit beside the windowsill was a framed photograph of the Patriot.

“Hello, Jeff,” Bucky said to the portrait of his old friend, giving it a salute.

Beside it was a larger, horizontal frame holding a photograph of Steve with the rest of the entire company stationed at Camp Lehigh.^[7] Bucky chewed the inside of his mouth, remembering how he at age twelve was pouting just behind the camera on the day this was taken, being specifically barred from joining as he was ‘just the camp mascot’, and not part of the army in any official capacity. Never mind the fact that this was taken in the fall of 1941, after all of his special training in England, though not all the officers on the base were privy to that information.

At the time, Bucky figured it was just Sergeant Duffy still punishing him for the time he tried to keep a squirrel for a pet the year prior. Or for his little contraband grift. Or for when he had stolen and crashed a jeep. Regardless of Duffy's reason, after the photograph was taken, Steve offered to make it up to him by getting him a comic from the PX store. Bucky wondered if that comic was still in one piece somewhere or if it had been lost to time.

He crouched down, drinking more from his mug as he looked over the records on the shelves below. Along the spines he saw music from a number of his favorites: Kay Kyser, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, The Ink Spots, Vera Lynn, and Glenn Miller, all of them kept in protective plastic sleeves.

Almost starting to hum Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition, he thought maybe he could put one on if he just kept the volume low, so as not to wake Ste-

No, Steve wasn’t here, and Bucky really had to stop thinking that he was. It was just Bucky alone.

Standing again, he turned to the adjacent brick wall seeing the shelf attached to it that held up two framed photographs and a plant that had survived all this time without being watered. He stepped closer to them.

On the left was a shot of the five original Invaders, stuck in a bitter winter on the Eastern Front earlier on in the war. Bucky could remember that day with full clarity. Prior to it being taken, Bucky, Steve, and their platoon had been marching for hours through the small country of Transia’s dense forests covered in heavy snow.

Bucky had assumed his usual role of cavalry scout, going ahead to see if he could pick out where the enemy line was, wishing with each crunching footstep through the snow that they’d been sent to somewhere in North Africa or even to be part of the Pacific campaign instead - his early childhood experiencing winters in Indiana didn't prepare for how cold the Eastern Front could be. He remembered not being sure if he was disappointed or relieved to find nothing of importance during his reconnaissance, only a scattering of bodies that looked weeks old, both Allied and Axis, frozen solid.

The worst thing was all his running around, plus the constant fear of potentially being spotted and shot at, would make him sweat, which would then freeze, which would then make him all the more cold. When he’d returned to the rest of the group, Bucky’s lips had turned blue and his teeth were chattering so hard he could barely stutter out an apology when Steve chastised him for not saying he was too cold sooner. Steve then just shook his head, quickly pulled off his own outer coat to throw over Bucky’s shivering frame, and kept Bucky by his side for the remainder of their silent walk back.

They’d reconnected with the rest of their company about an hour later, who had already dug in for the night. Steve, still keeping Bucky close to him, had called for Toro immediately.

“Hey, Buck. Glad you didn’t turn into an icicle out there,” Toro’d told him when he found Bucky, eyes bright and not bothering to hide how unaffected by the cold he was. He’d still just been in the same costume he’d worn throughout the summer months, and the snow melted around his boots as he approached Bucky.^[8] “Gonna hug you now.”

Toro ended the hug sooner than Bucky would’ve liked, and it would’ve been even nicer without the audience of Steve, who’d been looking just as concerned as he was before. Toro had at least kept a warm hand around Bucky’s wrist as Bucky’d reassured Steve that yes, he could wholly feel his fingers again, and Steve could stop hovering now, thanks. Nodding once, Steve reluctantly left the two of them to go reconvene with Jim and Namor back at the command post.

“I take it you didn’t see anything exciting out there then, huh?” Toro’d said when he pulled the two of them along to get in line for that evening’s rations.

“Bupkis. Hey, would you rather be in Morocco, Italy, or… uh, Australia right now?” Bucky’d asked, being slightly distracted from Toro’s hand still on his wrist and trying not to think too much of it. He’d imagined Toro burning the shape of his hand into the glove.

“Morocco,” Toro’d replied after considering his options. “That Dietrich picture made it look nice.”

The private in front of them in line then turned his head to tell them to shut up, and Toro had stuck his tongue out and, with his other hand, gave the soldier’s back a fiery middle finger. Bucky'd bit his lip to stifle his laughter.

Afterwards, they’d made their way to the tent that Namor and their respective mentors were holed up in, all looking over maps of the surrounding area and comparing notes. It was then a photographer came by, snapping this shot then saying something about ‘keeping up the morale on the homefront’.

In the cramped tent was Steve, who noticed the photographer in time to react accordingly, smiling and nonchalantly leaned over the table, doing his best to cover any important intel that might’ve been written on the maps. Bucky was beside Steve with Toro, the two of them mid laugh over something Namor said that he definitely didn’t intend to be funny. At the end of the table, Jim was turned to his left, smiling at an almost out of frame Namor, who was exiting the tent.^[9]

How a picture like this did anything for morale was beyond him.

Despite Steve and Toro’s best efforts - the extra outer layer, the tarp over his foxhole, plus all the hand holding from Toro - Bucky’d still ended up with a horrible wet cough, getting sick by the end of that week. He remembered being so fatigued, he was barely able to get out of his hole or even hold his rifle, resulting in being taken off the line for a few days to recover, much to his upset. At the aid station, he at least got to practice his German and Polish with some of the other patients who were willing to humor an American teenager with a conversation, but he still counted down the minutes until he was well enough to hitch a ride back to the front.

Upon his return, and when Steve was out of earshot, Bucky’d leaned over to Toro just to whisper to him about how ‘everyone’ at the aid station were ‘total drips’. Toro had just smiled, telling Bucky he was glad he was back, too.

Sighing, Bucky felt his heart hurt at the memory the photograph brought. Having his whole history returned to him via a cosmic cube was overwhelming initially, the more unpleasant or just downright horrific memories in his life outweighing the better ones by a wide margin, but he was willing to take it if it meant he could remember moments like this. Reuniting with Namor in the graveyard the other week did ease some of the pain of long gone friends and teammates, but, as much as he knew Namor cared for him in his own odd way, he just wasn’t ever going to be someone Bucky could regularly keep in contact with, not unlike Fury, who’d recently gone underground.

He didn’t have a desire to return to the past, not really, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t miss his friends. He shook his head to himself, then turned his attention to the other frame on the shelf.

It was about the same size as the one of the Invaders and was what Bucky assumed was an iteration of the Avengers featuring Steve as its leader, outside where the mansion used to be on 5th Avenue. Prior to his meeting with Namor, Bucky had gone to visit the ruins of it seeing the gates were chained shut with only a DANGER - KEEP OUT sign attached. If he really wanted to, he could’ve easily scaled the wall and gotten a closer look at the remains of the place the Avengers called their home until recently, but Bucky had a schedule to keep to that night and hadn’t gone back since.

In this photograph, in front of the still intact mansion, Steve was standing tall, shield in hand, smiling big, and waving to the crowd at the bottom of the staircase. Bucky could see the tops of a few heads and a few cameras raised above them at the bottom edge of the frame.

To Steve’s left, stood a woman with dark skin and hair dressed entirely in shades of red and magenta, including a glimmering crown and a long cape flowing behind her. Her smile and wave to the crowd before her was smaller, more tentative. Beside her, with his hand on her shoulder, was a man with similar dark skin, but with short, white hair that looked windblown - his smile and wave almost bigger than Steve’s. His costume was green and teal broken up by bold, white lightning stripes, contrasting with the woman next to him.

Finally, at the end of the line up, and slightly behind the others, was a man in navy and deep purple, with his arms behind his back. A majority of his face was covered in a cowl similar to Steve’s, but, unlike the others, his expression was completely neutral, almost frowning.^[10]

Bucky made a mental note to look through the files Fury shared with him to get more information about the heroes of this era. If Bucky hadn’t gotten himself killed towards the end of the war, his body never found, and somehow miraculously woken up in the future alongside Steve… would Bucky have been included in this lineup? Be teammates with these people?

Would he have even kept in contact with Steve at all?

He looked back to the photograph of the Invaders all together in Transia, and Bucky’s mind drifted to the conversation he had with Namor in the cemetery. He asked how Toro died, and learned that he and Jim had fallen out of communication in the years after the war, ending in both of their premature deaths.

If Bucky hadn’t been lost, and was present through the end of the war, could he have somehow prevented Toro’s murder? Jim being dismantled?

Yeah, right. He couldn’t even stop Steve’s assassination with the help of Nick Fury.

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at his brow bone with his right hand, frowning.

He had the chance to truly reconnect with Steve prior to the Registration Act, and Bucky had completely wasted it, hiding out in Europe for a year. Then, he at least had the excuse of ‘tying up some loose ends’, but he didn’t attend the funeral at the capital when he very much could have. No, instead, he sat at some seedy New York bar, watching it and its subsequent coverage on tiny television screens. What was it the Falcon had said during his speech? ‘Heroes… friends who wanted to be here, but… for whatever reason… felt they couldn’t attend.’^[11]

He had no excuse for not going, not really. Would he have been arrested on the spot for being an unregistered vigilante? Or for his actions as the Winter Soldier alone? Maybe. Probably. But that would’ve been worth the risk - should have been.

Removing his hand from his face, he spared another look back to the framed shot of the Invaders before finishing the rest of his drink. He returned to the kitchen to put his empty mug in the sink, then continued down the hall to the rest of the house.

Entering the spare room nearly made Bucky sneeze from all the dust that had accumulated inside, it clearly not being used that often for much beyond storage when Steve was still alive. He cracked the window slightly to at least get some air flow in there before leaving.

Across from the spare room and beside the bathroom, Bucky entered into an office after flicking the light on. It was by far the messiest room he’d been in, to the point where it almost surprised him, having known Steve to keep everything relatively tidy. There were tall shelves lining nearly every wall, stuffed as full as they could be with books and other mementos, and art supplies covering every other surface.

High above the desk was a large, framed art piece that Bucky couldn’t name, but definitely recognized - it was a black and white horizontal piece, consisting of stylized humans and animals twisted into interesting shapes. Below it was another art print of a futuristic space shuttle zooming across a vibrant planet and twinkling stars. Bucky smiled at that, remembering space was always Steve’s longtime interest and passion other than art.

There was a larger frame-set holding other smaller photographs on the wall. He crossed the room and leaned over the desk to get a closer look.

The biggest was of the same quartet from the frame living room with an additional person, an older man. The five of them were squished closer together to all fit in the shot, smiling wide and holding back laughter. Bucky could see the others’ faces clearer now. The woman with the red crown and the man with white hair looked related, possibly twins - same skin tone, same freckles, same nose. He could see more details on the crown the woman was wearing; ornately covered in gemstones with fringed bead work hanging off to frame her round face.^[12]

There were others of a young man with dyed red, white, and blue hair posing with a blonde woman, the two of them in patriotic themed costumes, one of his old friend Roger Aubrey in front of the D-Day memorial at Omaha Beach, one of Jacqueline and Brian Falsworth together, and one of a brunette woman wearing a Magen David necklace. The others Bucky assumed must have been various members of the Avengers: a Black woman in all white with an eight-pointed star on her chest, a man in a knight's armor holding his helmet under his arm, one of a woman with bright fuchsia hair, and another of a man in a costume similar to Wolverine's, but wasn't Logan, judging by the orange beard.

The one of Jack Monroe with his adoptive daughter made Bucky grimace. Last he checked, the girl was now called Julia Winters, and she was doing well in her new adoptive family.

To the left of the pictures of Jack and all the others, there was an older, worn newspaper clipping matted in a wooden frame. Crumpled and torn in some of the corners, it had clearly been well cared for and was important enough to keep. CAPTAIN AMERICA’S NEW PARTNER? the headline read, followed by a long exposé about what must’ve been the Falcon’s first outing. The photograph accompanying the article was more of Falcon than it was of Steve, whose back was mostly to the camera. The Falcon was smiling with his pet bird perched on his shoulder and his hand outstretched to shake Steve’s.^[12]

Bucky raised an eyebrow amusedly at the very interesting costume Falcon was in: it was green and gold, instead of the red and white Bucky had seen him sporting in their few encounters, and had a very low neckline. He snorted, thinking about how clearly the Falcon’s taste in costuming had changed in the years since this was taken.

Bucky was glad it seemed like the Falcon believed Bucky when he said he wasn’t the one who shot Steve. Bucky really did hope he could see Falcon again.

Turning his attention away from the wall, and all the thoughts and some memories it brought with it, he looked down at the desk that was in complete disarray and covered in a thin layer of dust. There were a collection of well-loved sketchbooks piled in a corner, a jar holding a collection of alcohol based markers, graphite and colored pencils scattered all over, a tin case holding oil pastels, and a number of art reference and tutorial books.

Did Steve ever get to finish his art degree? That was something Steve mentioned to him when they first met and asked if Bucky had any further aspirations outside the military. He still wasn’t sure if he had any skills beyond knowing the most efficient ways to kill another human being or how to properly dress a wound in the middle of a firefight. He guessed he liked reading well enough, but didn't consider himself to be creative in the way Steve was to be something akin to a writer. Maybe in another universe.

At the center of all the mess on the desk was a laptop. Curiosity getting the best of him, Bucky slowly pried open the computer to find it was still on. Its fan now whirring loudly, the welcome screen and a small box to enter a password blinked at him. His hands went to the keyboard, thinking he could probably manage to get in.

Bucky hesitated, fingers still.

Did he know this man? Any guesses for Steve’s password Bucky would have would be related to the person he met back in 1941. Steve had been in this era for nearly an entire decade, teamed with the Avengers longer than he ever was with Bucky and the Invaders.

He drew his hands back from the laptop, putting his right thumb to his mouth to chew on the nail, and wondering again if Stark was wrong in his assessment of Steve’s final letter. Did Bucky even have the right to stay in this house? Maybe Stark should’ve asked the Falcon to do this job instead of him…

Still biting at his nail, he closed the laptop and turned back to the other side of the room where the window and a paint covered tarp covered a portion of the floor. He stepped around the painting easel to see the canvas it still held. It looked like Steve had been painting the view of the Manhattan Bridge from the window. Sitting down in the stool in front of the easel, Bucky leaned around the canvas to look out the window, wondering if Steve chose this room to be his office so he could have a view of the Lower East Side in the far distance across the strait.^[13]

He turned back to the small table beside the easel, and saw a number of CDs sitting next to a player along with a mess of painting materials. There was a Sounds of Light and Fury by someone called Dazzler with cover art of a woman holding a microphone in one hand and what looked like a beam of light in the other. Under it were two others that looked to be closer to where Bucky’s own taste in modern music lay. The first from a band called Seduction of the Innocent, its cover art being taken from old comic book panels to create a vibrant, psychedelic collage, and the other by a Lila Cheney titled Steal this Planet! with artwork of a woman in all black posed with an explosion behind her.^[14]

There was another small stack of CDs that were missing proper cover art, instead having a list of songs scribbled out in marker. This was clearly a labor of love, seeing as all the artist and track names were carefully handwritten with even the release dates beside them. The years jumped around a bit, so Bucky could only guess that these burned CDs were separated by genres or maybe just ‘mood’.^[15]

He looked over the list of the one in his hand, and, unsurprisingly, didn’t recognize any of the artist names - Queen, The Clash, Oingo Boingo, The Cure, Janis Joplin, Gorillaz, Jimi Hendrix, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Talking Heads, Donna Summer, Tears for Fears… The other CD still on the table looked to be folk and country music, judging by the inclusion of Pete Seeger who Bucky did recognize. Maybe he should get caught up with more modern music himself, and could listen to these later.

At the bottom of the second stack was another more professional looking CD titled Making Art is Never Frustrating and was signed, presumably by the artist. FOR CAP! THX FOR EVERYTHING :) - RJ was scrawled out in the same handwriting as the compilation lists.

Bucky flipped the case over, and saw the landscape from the cover art of vibrant desert sky at sunset continued along the back, with stars acting as bullet points running along the track list: That’ll be the Day (Cover), A-Tomic Beast, King Jack, Ground Zero, Destiny Force, From the Negative Zone - With Love, Bucky read. One song titled With the Old Breed was circled in the same marker with the note YOUR SONG! :) beside it.

“Holy shit,” Bucky said under his breath. A dedicated song? The Steve Bucky knew wouldn’t have liked that kind of attention on him. Then again, this was for a Steve who lived for nearly ten years without him. Bucky had certainly changed in that amount of time.

He put the signed CD back down on the table, and swiveled the stool around to the bookshelf behind him. It was shorter than the one closer to the desk and on the other side of the door frame, and sitting on top was another photo frame that looked like another wedding group shot, judging by everyone’s attire. If Steve got the chance to frame the one sitting out in the kitchen, would he place it in here, beside this one? Bucky leaned over to grab the frame from its place on the shelf to get a better look.

Steve and three others were standing at an outdoor venue, trees and mountains behind them, all happy and posed for the camera. The shot seemed to be taken during the golden hour, all of them bathed in the warm setting sunlight.

Bucky couldn’t decide who looked more out of place between Steve or the near eight foot tall, green-skinned man on the other side of the frame who could only be the Hulk. Steve was in a tuxedo with his Captain America cowl and gloves still on over it, and the Hulk was dressed in his own oversized vest, bow tie, and dress pants.^[16]

The bride to the right of Steve looked to be taller than him, especially in the heels she was presumably wearing, though definitely not as tall as the Hulk. Her long, red hair was pulled over one shoulder, and her veil was adorned in small flowers that matched the ones on her short, glittery dress.

The groom standing to the Hulk’s left at the center, however, gave Bucky pause.

Whoever this was, he looked exactly like Bucky. Almost.

The man was sporting a nose ring and his hair was maybe a more auburn shade than Bucky’s, plus long enough to be tied back in a ponytail, but beyond that, Bucky and this stranger could probably pass as twins. They even had freckles and a mole in a similar spot. It was uncanny.^[17]

“What the fuck…?” Bucky asked no one, dismayed.

This was too fucking weird. Was this guy a long lost family member or something? His clone even?

Did Bucky get replaced?

He put the frame back in its place at the top of the shelf, and forced himself to focus on all the books it held. Books on fascism, books on nuclear fission, on dark matter, on marine life, fantasy books, science fiction books, books in Korean, in Ukrainian, in Italian… at least he would have no shortage of things to read while he was here.

Sandwiched between what looked like two photography books, one called WEBS: Spider-Man In Action and another called The Marvels, was a book titled Sidekick: My Life in the Super Hero Biz by a Rick M. Jones that caught his eye.^[18] Sidekick? Jones? Bucky had definitely heard the name Jones somewhere recently…

He pulled the book out from its place on the shelf, and was met again with the man who could pass as his double on the cover, though notably younger here than in the wedding picture Bucky just looked at, surrounded by other heroes, including Steve and Stark.

Opening the book to the back interior dust jacket to see if there was any information on his doppelgänger, Bucky saw the author portrait was more candid than a professional head shot. Seated in what looked like a recording studio, Jones was in three-quarter view, mid conversation with someone out of frame and a guitar in his lap. One of his hands was tucking his shoulder-length hair behind a pierced ear, and Bucky could see his nails were painted black - no wedding ring though, so this autobiography must’ve been written before he tied the knot with his girl.

Pulling the book closer, Bucky tried to make out a few of the stickers that decorated the guitar - the largest one proudly proclaimed ‘THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS’ near where his other hand rested, and another simply said ‘BAN THE BOMB’ next to a sticker of an eight-pointed star.

Below, the blurb about the author read:

Activist and founding Avengers member Rick Jones exploded into public consciousness with his debut solo album ‘Making Art is Never Frustrating’, but is most well known for his partnerships with the Hulk, the first Captain America, and the late Captain Marvel. When not touring with his band, Seduction of the Innocent, or stuck in the middle of interplanetary disputes, Jones lives at his home in Reno, Nevada.

Bucky looked down to the stack of CDs, making the connection that the signed CD, the compilation CDs, and Seduction of the Innocent were all from this same guy. But where did Bucky hear the name before? He chewed in the inside of his mouth looking at the picture of Jones on the interior dust jacket and thinking… was he someone Fury mentioned in passing? Or from somewhere on the news?

Yes, the funeral! Bucky was only able to watch the coverage sporadically, trying to hear over loud bar patronage and it often just replaying the clip of Stark being unable to speak on repeat, but Jones was one of the pallbearers! Falcon even shouted Jones out in his speech!

Bucky turned the book back over to the front cover of Jones smiling sheepishly.^[19] Steve had this guy’s book, his original music, a dedicated song, was part of his wedding… Jones must be someone special, and Steve seemed to have really supported him as a fellow artist.

And Jones happened to look just like Bucky, even getting to play the role of Steve’s sidekick for a time.

Something akin to jealousy settled in the pit of his stomach as he shoved the book back into its spot on the shelf, feeling even more like an intruder in Steve’s home and the life he left behind. It wasn’t like Bucky didn’t know there were other kids who took up his mantle while he was ‘gone’ so to speak. It was just Fred Davis and poor Jack Monroe were the Bucky to different Captains - never to Steve.

Looking back up to Jones’s wedding photograph, Bucky exhaled, and his envy morphed into remorse and more or less an understanding. Jones probably made a fine partner, and he was probably just as upset as Bucky was over Steve’s death. Maybe Bucky and this stranger had more in common than their appearance… He could look to see if Jones was included in Fury’s files, or Bucky could read about the man in his own words from this autobiography.

Not right now though. He got up and flicked the light off before leaving the office.

Across the hallway was the last room in the house. He stood in front of it with a hand on the doorknob, Steve’s bedroom just on the other side.

When he was younger, he felt like he wasn’t allowed in his parents’ room, that that was their space all their own to have a break from him and his sister. Even when he’d gone back to the house in Indiana for one last visit before officially becoming the ‘boy wonder’ to Steve’s Captain America, he chose not to enter his sister’s or their parents’ bedrooms. He wasn’t sure of his reasoning - maybe it was something he felt he should only do with Rebecca, but she was long gone by then, off to her boarding school while Bucky was left at the army base.

Bucky realized how hard he was clenching his jaw, his hand still stationary on the doorknob.

This was stupid. He was being stupid. He knew Steve wasn’t asleep on the other side. There was no one here at all. It was just Bucky, and this was where he was supposed to be living for the foreseeable future, right?

“Fucking idiot,” he mumbled to himself as he turned the doorknob and stepped inside Steve’s bedroom, flicking on the light switch to the left.

It was about the same size as the office and seemed only hold the essentials: there was an upright armoire to his left beside the threshold with one of its doors slightly ajar, a horizontal dresser to his right with an attached mirror, and a full sized bed that looked like it had been made in a rush with the corners not properly tucked in.

Bucky still couldn’t look at himself. He spotted a throw blanket folded up on the end of the bed, and grabbed it to quickly cover the mirror, knocking over one of the photograph frames lined up on the dresser in the process. Bucky lifted it to set it upright again, hoping it wasn’t cracked and glad to see it wasn’t, but that feeling of relief was overtaken by another wave of intense guilt washing over him as Sharon Carter stared him down from the photograph the frame held.

In it, she was reclining with a book in the shade at a beach resort, looking into the camera with a skeptical face, an eyebrow raised and holding back a smile - likely at Steve, who Bucky assumed was behind the lens, bothering her while she’s trying to read. She looked younger here, and was lacking the scarring near her eye and on her nose that Bucky noticed during their two unfortunate meetings.^[20]

He didn’t want to think about what Faustus and the Red Skull could possibly be doing to her now. She seemed dazed, probably drugged, when he saw her last, promising her that they’d make it out of there together. Instead, she managed to push through whatever conditioning had been done to her just enough to save him.

Bucky had to return the favor, start to atone with her first. Maybe she could give him some book recommendations when they meet again. Well, after he thanks her for saving him and apologizes for decking her during their first meeting, that is.

Someone else Bucky probably should thank and apologize to, if Bucky ever saw him again, was in the frame beside the one of Sharon: the Falcon was posed with Steve, the two of them in fishing gear and both busting up at the tiny fish Falcon was displaying for the camera.^[21]

On the other end of the dresser was a triangular shadow box displaying a few medals. It looked too small to hold all the medals that Steve must have been awarded during their time in the European Theater, but he also wasn’t the type to display something like this for his own achievements. Were these his father’s? Yes, it had to be - Bucky could recognize they were from the Great War, having seen similar ones on display in General Phillips’s office during all the time he spent there after getting in trouble on the base.^[22]

Resting beside the medal display was another framed photograph of an older woman with blonde hair who could only be Sarah Rogers. The picture looked as if it had been torn at some point, right down the middle, but now painstakingly repaired. Despite the age and state of the photograph, Bucky thought she looked kind and beautiful, just like Steve had always described her to him. Bucky wished he could’ve been able to meet her, and hoped wherever Steve was now, it was with his mother.^[23]

On the wall beside the dresser, there were two additional framed pictures. The first was of a much younger Steve standing stiffly in front of an apartment complex beside another taller boy - Steven & Arnold, 1930 was written below them. Looking at Steve when he was around the same age Bucky was when they met gave him a funny feeling.^[24] Would they have still been friends if they were the same age? Bucky wasn’t so sure.

The other was a shot of a bustling street corner with kids playing in the middle of the road, vendors selling newspapers and magazines, and laundry hung up on wires between buildings. It was probably the street where Steve grew up, judging by the note in the corner indicating it was the Lower East Side with a date of 1939 and no specified month.^[25] Was this taken before or after Namor made his presence known to the surface world by flooding Coney Island? Bucky was still states away then, but already orphaned and stuck at Camp Lehigh.

Looking back to the display on the dresser, he wondered if he’d missed something, but knew he didn’t. Was he hurt he didn’t see something of his there? Bucky had only come across the photograph of himself with the rest of the Invaders out in the living room, and he was now in the last room in the house… Was there really nothing that Steve kept that was his? Something had to have survived, right?

Turning to the opposite side of the room, there was one solitary frame on the wall to the left of the bed above a nightstand.

The photograph featured Sharon, who was seated on a different beachfront, fancier than the one of her solo over on the dresser. Her head was thrown back and a hand on her chest, caught in the middle of a laugh. Sitting to her left was Fury, lit cigar in hand, befuddled at Sharon’s outburst. Behind him was Stark, looking like an asshole in a polo shirt, grinning with his own cigarette in his mouth, and a hand covering his left eye, clearly to mimic Fury. Steve was sitting to the far left of the table, at the edge of the frame, shaking his head and chuckling into his drink.^[26]

They all looked happy. No one was kidnapped and brainwashed, no one has gone into hiding, or appointed head of a morally dubious security apparatus. No one was dead and buried in the ground.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he couldn’t help wondering again how much things would’ve changed if he was around earlier during this age of heroes. Probably not by a lot, if at all - he was just the sidekick. 'A vain, foolish boy' was how the Red Skull once phrased it. 'Merely a mascot and a follower.'

He thought, too, of the last time he saw his real father, and how he expressed his disappointment in Bucky just before he died. Bucky at nine-years-old just sat in his bedroom waiting for his father to come home to properly apologize, staying up until the early morning, only for the knock at the door to tell him the worst had happened at the base.

Was Steve disappointed in him?

Was that why there wasn’t anything of his in this house? Not having earned it? Was that what he meant in his note to Stark telling him to ‘save’ Bucky for him?

He slid down from the bed onto the floor with a thud. Bucky only knew Steve for those 4 years during the war. Steve to Bucky was everything he wanted to be, but Bucky might’ve been just another person he knew. Did their partnership matter at all? Was Bucky really just some brat the military higher-ups stuck him with that entire time?

He looked up to the photograph of Sharon, Fury, Stark, and Steve again, but then saw he’d completely missed two tiny, vertical frames connected in the middle by a hinge on the nightstand, tucked under the lamp and pointing towards the bed.

Turning it to face him, both pictures the frame held made Bucky take in a sharp inhale.

The first was him and Steve, dressed not in their costumes, but in their army issued Eisenhower jackets, both fast asleep on a train station bench. Steve was slack jawed with one elbow on the arm rest, propping up his head with his other arm wrapped loosely around Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky was leaned into Steve’s side, his arms crossed and scowling, even in his sleep.

He had no guesses for who could’ve taken this, but did remember when and where the shot was from - mid February, 1945, at the Gare du Nord in Paris, waiting for the train carrying the rest of the Invaders to catch up with them.

He remembered he’d been kvetching endlessly about anything he could think of to Steve while they waited: all the comics that he’d missed out on in the last few months, how the person sitting behind them on the train had the most annoying voice, the pain of the blister on his heel and the fingernail he’d bitten down too far, how hard it was to get ahold of anything sweet due to rationing, how the last two times they’d been lucky enough to catch a movie, it was ones he’d already seen, and on and on. Steve just listened, laughing at Bucky’s jokes and offering his condolences.

Eventually, Bucky’d just ran out of steam, eyes drifting shut and slumping over, evident by this picture. He just remembered waking up to Steve’s gentle nudging to see their friends had arrived, and thinking they all just might live to see the end of this together.

It wasn’t that long after though that he and Steve had their last mission with the Invaders, and the war ended early for the two of them with their fateful plane ride.

The second one though… the second photograph in the frame was of only Bucky, long before he ever met Steve.

It was from early April, 1935, and Bucky had just turned six-years-old a few weeks earlier. He had been playing in the backyard of the house in Indiana, one hand up to shield his face from the sun and the other holding a wooden baseball bat, trying to enjoy the beginnings of spring weather.

Behind him was a sycamore tree he used to climb. As a child, he felt like he could see the whole world from the top of it, though the view of Shelbyville he got was nothing compared to mountains of Austria and Switzerland he’d see during his tour in Europe. He hoped the tree was still there, growing after all this time.

Bucky remembered his mother took the shot from the back porch with Rebecca by her side, half in her lap. It was slightly blurry not only due to the age, but also from Rebecca trying to play with the camera, bumping their mother’s hands as she snapped the photo. Although at the time Bucky didn’t know, their mother was already sick by then, and she ended up passing by the end of the year.^[27]

It’s 1935, and ten years from when this photo was taken, Bucky would be listed as killed in action over the English Channel, and his body found by the Soviet army.

It’s 1935, both his parents were still alive, he hadn’t been separated from his sister, and the world hadn’t yet heard of the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, or Captain America.

Bucky could see an impression of... something hidden behind the photograph of six-year-old him. A note?

As he turned the frame over, heart hammering in his chest, he realized how bad his hands were shaking. He held his right wrist for a moment, willing it to be still, then pulled the backing of the frame off. Just as suspected, there was a small piece of paper that he then unfolded as carefully as he could.

He recognized the cursive handwriting immediately.

Steven,

Thank you for bringing part of my brother back to me. I thought in return you’d like this photo of James.

I meant what I said, that you’re part of our family now, too. Feel free to call or stop by anytime - our door is always open!

All my love,
Rebecca

He lost track of time sitting on the hard bedroom floor, back against the bed frame, while crying and holding his little sister’s note.^[28]

When he removed his hand from his face, he saw the sun was starting to rise again, light coming through the gaps in the curtains, causing his shadow to cast out in front of him. He finally caught a better look at himself in the mirror on the open door of the armoire: his eyes were red-rimmed as he expected, and there was a bruise on his cheek from when Crossbones punched him along with a cut near the bridge of his nose. He felt exhausted again, but this time, there was some relief that came with it.

He should’ve died in 1945 when the bomb went off in his face - and there were hundreds of times before then when he should’ve died - but he was still here. Steve fought to save and restore him. That can’t have been for nothing. If he couldn't see anything that good in himself, then he had to at least trust Steve’s judgment.

Bucky hauled himself up from the floor, and carefully returned the note and the backing to their places behind the photograph. He went to leave the bedroom, but turned back and pulled the top blanket off of the bed, taking it with him before he could think too much about it. Closing the door to the bedroom quietly behind him, he returned to the living room.

Curling back up in his place on the couch from earlier, blanket wrapped tightly around himself, Bucky pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, being careful with the left one. He allowed himself to be selfish, just for a few minutes, and pretended that he was thirteen-years-old again.

He pretended that maybe world history went differently: Steve still had met Bucky at Camp Lehigh, but the world never went to war so there was no need for a super-soldier. Steve had adopted Bucky, they found Rebecca at her boarding school, then she was adopted, too. Steve’s office would instead be Rebecca’s room (because she would’ve liked the better view of the city and the ocean), and the guest room would be Bucky’s (it’s closer to the kitchen anyways). Maybe Jim and Toro would still be in Brooklyn, too, and Bucky could visit.

They’d be together, and the only thing he would have to worry about is potentially being teased for his name being Buck Rogers.^[29]

But that’s… that wasn’t fair to all the people who Captain America saved, and to all the people in the photographs that decorated Steve’s home that he clearly loved so much. It wouldn’t do anyone any good to remain in the past, dwelling on what if’s.

Bucky felt guilt over not including his parents being alive in this daydream, but with their deaths, from sickness and a training accident, he’d had more time to process them. Steve’s was still a fresh wound.

His fantasy was entirely unrealistic anyways; Steve, being a single twenty-something with an unfinished art degree, would never have been seen as fit for adoption for a child, let alone two. He snorted as he rolled onto his back, almost smiling at the fact that, even in his own daydream, he couldn’t stop being a pessimist.

The sunlight coming in from the window bathed the entire room in warm, orange light, and Bucky settled into the couch, closing his eyes. If Steve hadn’t stopped after Bucky and nearly everyone else he knew was gone, then Bucky couldn’t give up after Steve was gone either. This passing of the mantle was still something he was terrified of fucking up, being well aware of how the idea of Captain America meant so many things to so many people, but how did that one proverb go? ‘One should not be overcome by fear.’

Yeah, nothing to fear.

A year and a half later, after Steve made his triumphant return, Bucky was arranging his own photograph shrine on the wall in his apartment.

There was the one from his surprise birthday party that the Avengers threw for him that Luke took, where he was still laughing at all the candles that Clint, Bobbi, Carol, and Peter managed to stick into the cake and Natalia trying to get frosting on his face.^[30] Above it was the one of him with Sam at a baseball game, both of them enjoying it despite how cold it was that day.

There was another of him during the war with the rest of the Liberty Legion, all of them holding up V for Victory signs after their first mission together. Beside it, there were photographs of Bucky with Washington Jones just before his passing, and of him with Toro, Gwenny Lou Sabuki, and Davey Mitchell taken during a moment of rest on the California coast. Another still was a newer one of him and Toro together at Coney Island after Bucky showed him how to work a digital camera.

On the other side, there was the one of him with his sister and their parents in 1933 celebrating Rebecca turning one-year-old. He was holding Rebecca in his lap as she squealed in excitement over the candle in her cake.^[31] Below it, there was a more recent shot of the two of them when he visited her at her nursing home, having caught her at a time when she was more lucid.

He had just enough room for the last picture to go below. When he was done hammering the nail in place, he placed the frame on it and stepped back to look at his handiwork. At the center of the wall, a photograph hung of him and Steve at Camp Lehigh shortly after they met in 1941. They were sitting together in an empty mess hall, Steve doodling away in his sketchbook, and Bucky beside him. He was resting his cheek against Steve’s arm, entirely engrossed in watching Steve draw in real time, his comic completely forgotten on the other side of the table.

In the present, his watch beeped, letting him know he was already late to meet with the Avengers. He cursed under his breath before grabbing his backpack with his gear and the keys to his motorcycle, climbing out the window to the fire escape.

It wasn't as big a life as the legendary Captain America had led, but it was still a good one. He had survived and made it his.