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Steve sat at the desk in his new apartment, looking over the files he had been given, so many thoughts going through his mind. Peggy was still alive, had a family living in London, he was happy she found someone to be happy with. The big read letters stamped across each of the Comandos files were burned into his minds eye as he looked at them.
One file he hadn’t been able to pick up yet, on file he couldn’t will himself too look at sat closed on the desk. He swallows and carefully picks it up, willing his self to open it, his chest tightens like it did back in the days when he could still have an asthma attack. He opens the file, James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, DOB 1919 DOD: -----
Steve blinks at that, and blinks again there aren’t large red letters that read DECEASED splayed across the folder instead it says inactive. It makes something like hope flutter in his mind, but he crushes it. Because he had watched Bucky fall. He heard his best friend his only family, and something they couldn’t name back then, scream his name as he fell into the snow. The war had pushed forward, no one even looked for him realizes.
Though it says inactive, it give the location of what is labeled an empty grave, a place for mourners to go, but who would mourn for Bucky other than Steve. He can’t bring himself to go to an empty grave... because a small part of him hopes, even if a larger part tells him it’s ridiculous.
Then Loki attacks, and he has to set Bucky aside for the greater good once again... but in the back of his mind he still hopes.
It’s a year after the Chitari attack, a lot had happened in that year, they found out Fury lies, and Coulson was alive, witnessed Clint punching Fury, and Fury making it clear it was the only shot Clint would get, and downtown is rebuilt.
Soon murmurings of a russian assassin after a powerful artifact in the possession of SHIELD start to make the rounds. Natasha calls him the Winter Soldier and says she used to work with him in the Red Room. Her eyes go far away as she tells them about the place, the way they change who you are.
They hunt the assassin chase down leads and and The Winter Soldier almost shots Steve but misses by less than an inch and this has Natasha arching a single brow. Because she knows he doesn’t miss unless he wants too.
Then Steve finds out who The Winter Soldier is and and the tiny seed of hope that the inactive stamp had placed in him a year before blossoms into something too big for words. Because they brought Natasha back, they could bring Bucky back as well.
The Winter Soldier gets the the cube and Steve goes after him begging Bucky to remember.
“Bucky.... Please.” He says grappling with the man on a roof top.
“I don’t know why you keep calling me that Captain, I have never been known by such a name...” He says flatly words cold and icey, barely a hint of the guy from Brooklyn Steve grew up with and grew to love.
He punches James The Winter Soldier in the gut and gets his hands on the cube.
“Please remember....” Steve says voice low and pleading, then there is an explosion of light and The Winter Soldier is on the ground clutching his head.
The light fades, and Bucky, it’s truly Bucky now looks up at Steve before a slow look of horror crawls across his face and he looks at himself as he climbs to his feet. “Oh god... Oh god... What have I done.... I’m sorry Steve.”
and Bucky is gone in a flashbang disappearing off the roof. The look of horror and guilt on his best friends face is a punch to Steve’s gut, worse is him running off into the night.
He looks and looks but he can’t find him, Natasha tells Steve to give James time...
So He does and a month later, he gets a call from Fury telling him that Bucky called and is ready to come in, to come home.
Steve picks him up and really he should have known he’d be laying low in Brooklyn, but he never thought completely straight when it came to the man.
Bucky gets into the jeep and looks at Steve then back down at his boots, “Steve...”
Steve cuts him off, “I should have come after you, I should have done something...” He blurts out.
“No... you had a war to win and world to save, I would have punched you if spent your time looking for me. “
Steve lets out a dry and cracking laugh shaking his head a little. “I guess.”
“You still found me and brought me back... just took you damn near 80 years.” It’s a light tease but it’s Bucky. His Bucky, not the ruthless man on the roof, Steve can still see the coolness around him, but in the same way it’s around Natasha, guarded and cautious for reasons he can now understand thanks to a file Fury handed him to read. A file that made him want to gut everyone who did that to people he cared about to anyone really.
“Yeah... better late than never I guess...” Steve shrugs.
“Hey... I’m back, not planning on going anywhere.” A gleaming metal hand shoves Steve in the shoulder and there is a crack of a small on his lips.
“Better not stupid, was about to start looking for a new roommate, you just saved me the trouble.” Steve says testing the waters a little.
“Hmm good, hate to put you out like that.” Bucky snorts.
Steve knows they have a long way to go before they are back to normal, but he also knows they’ll get there.