Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“That proves you are unusual," returned the Scarecrow; "and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Land of Oz

—

As it would turn out, recovering from open heart surgery was a bit of a struggle, especially when you were in love and trying not to seem like you’re falling apart every damn second.

Bucky was still not accustomed to vulnerability. It chafed against him, like a sweater you receive for Christmas that you wear because you know just how much it would mean to your mother to see you in it, if just for a few days.

Bucky knew he had to show Steve that he was vulnerable. That he could be someone who could be taken care of. But the thought of doing that sounded as warm and comforting as swallowing a spoonful of fire ants.

Sometimes, it’s easier to just hide a sunburn beneath clothes than to admit that your skin aches in such an infinite way, like there will be no softening edge to the pain.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

Steve’s voice was quiet, but not because he was hiding it. Bucky knew that Steve wanted him to hear his voice–but he was sparing Bucky himself. Allowing him that bit of privacy he’d always so desperately clung to with chewed away fingernails. He didn’t know why he still cared so much, why he was still constantly in a state of trying to hide as deeply as he possibly could.

Old habits died hard. Especially when they’d died and been resurrected so many times.

And speaking of dying.

“You’re not fooling me,” Steve murmured. “You’re about to go goddamn mental if you don’t sit down and stop forcing yourself to talk to people.”

“Can do it,” Bucky grunted.

“I know ‘can do it,’ Caveman, but should do it?” Steve said with a raised eyebrow.

Steve was one of the few people who hadn’t criticized his clipped way of talking, who hadn’t waited anxiously for him to become normal. Because despite everything, Steve was still the only person who had ever really known him. The person who hadn’t accepted all those moments when Bucky had pretended to be located. No, Steve had known a damn decoy when he’d seen one.

It was both beautiful and so terrifying to know that you can’t hide. Not really. Like your whole life you’ve been trained to play hide and seek, and then, all of a sudden, everyone’s only playing tag.

“You do it all the time, so I can definitely do it,” Bucky said with a low grunt. Steve let out a soft huff.

“I do it because I’m seen as the nice one, Buck. You don’t have to do it because you’re seen as an infernal crank. And honestly, I’m a bit jealous of you–so go enjoy your well-earned solitude and get me a drink while you’re at it.”

Steve, as always, was unfailingly, forever right. Which was perhaps the best and most irritating thing about him.

Bucky had once thought that Steve had had no flaws. Now he knew that Steve had plenty, but that he seemed to be aware of them. Christ, when you’ve got that level of self-knowledge, you could be a tangle of nothing but wrongness and people would still love you endlessly, deeply.

Which was why this dinner was happening in the first place.

Not really a dinner. More of a gala. Everyone was in tuxedos and evening gowns. As much as Steve had wanted his return to be a private affair, people would not allow him that. After all, he was Captain America. America’s Captain. That meant that the people of America felt very much entitled to Steve Rogers.

“I know it’s stupid, but I feel like I owe them this,” Steve had said earlier that evening as he’d gotten dressed. For the fifth time, he moved to Bucky to try to help him straighten his bowtie which continued to be relentlessly, irritatingly crooked.

“You don’t owe them anything,” Bucky mumbled. “We could just stay home. Make popcorn. Watch Love is Blind. I wanna know what happens next.”

“I know, we both do, Buck,” Steve murmured. “But I kind of feel like it might be a straight up dick move to not show up at the party that was thrown in my honor.”

“A dick move, maybe, but fully justified when one thinks about the idea of parties.”

Steve stared at him for a moment, his eyebrows raised.

“That was a lot of words, B. Didn’t know you had it in you,” Steve grinned, chucking Bucky under his chin. “Speak more poetry to me, Shakespeare.”

“Roses are red, violets are blue, Steve sucks and parties do too.”

“Beautiful,” Steve laughed. “Alright, sourpuss, go sit down. I got this.”

And Bucky went, because, well–

America might have thought that Steve belonged to them, but really.

Really.

Call him ridiculous but there was something so pleasurable about being able to sit off to the side and watch Steve schmooze, thinking the entire time that’s my man.

“Christ, roll your tongue back into your mouth already,” Sam snorted, sliding to sit next to Bucky. “When the hell are you two going to get over your lovebirds phase? It’s nauseating.”

“It’s gonna last as long as we damn well please,” Bucky grunted.

“Great,” Sam drawled. “Also, can I just say this whole thing is damn offensive? They’ve got a Captain America sitting right here. A man who is, dare I say, even more handsome than the original?”

“You can dare to say that. Doesn’t mean it’s true,” Bucky snorted.

“Yeah, you’d like me as much as you like Steve if you fucked me too.”

“Probably,” Bucky said idly, watching Steve laughing with a ridiculously wealthy looking couple.

And there it was. That little feeling again. One that he’d been trying to ignore.

When they were in Hawaii, it had just been then. Now there were all these people. And Steve hadn’t wavered in his attention to Bucky, not even for a single moment, but...

Well. All these people had some idea of what had happened. They didn’t entirely know, of course, but all they knew was that Steve had left Bucky. Yes, he’d come back, but he’d also left.

And now, everybody knew. And while Bucky could have said until the end of time that he didn’t give a shit what other people thought, well–

They were thinking what he had thought when it had all begun. And in some ways, it brought him right back there. When Steve had left–and again, he’d come back, but the leaving in and of itself was impossible to forget. Almost like having a bomb in your chest poisoning your blood with every pound of it. Imagine that shit.

He wanted to let it go. He wanted to let all that shit just fall right out of his mind, gone forever, wiped fucking clean. It wasn’t worth thinking about any more. He wasn’t going to punish Steve for what he’d done before he’d realized–

What, exactly?

Everything that had happened with Marx had been a welcome distraction from it all, but it was still there. And despite how much he’d grown and worked on himself, there was that little part in the back of his head that wondered if they’d ever really talk about it. If it would ever be cut from under his skin.

If it would ever be wiped smooth in his mind.

Damnit, I just don’t wanna think about it any more.

“Penny for your thoughts, Winter Soldier?” Sam said lightly.

“My thoughts are way more damn expensive than that, Sam.”

Sam shrugged a shoulder and continued to watch Steve.

“Bet it’s hard to see this all as a reason to celebrate.”

Bucky was pushing to stand up almost instantly. Sam grabbed his wrist. “Okay, okay. Sorry. I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it.”

But that was kind of the problem with the whole damn thing, wasn’t it? This huge expanse of not talking. Of not addressing. It opened up so wide between him and Steve, like there was a damn ocean between them.

Or. Like there were a few decades.

“I don’t wanna punish him for it,” Sam said quietly. “That’s never been something that I wanted to do because I’m really glad that he’s back. I missed him a lot. But also...”

Sam shook his head. “He did it on a whim. That’s not him. I just don’t understand why he did it.”

And that was the damn question that kept running through Bucky’s head. Like an infuriating dog convinced that it could catch its own stubby tail.

It didn’t make one damn bit of sense.

Not when they’d survived together. Not when Bucky had just come back from being snapped. Not when, before all of the shit had gone down, they had been planning a life together. It should have been a chance for them to celebrate together, and to start everything the way they had always planned. If there had been some kind of damn fight or something or hell, even a minor disagreement, Bucky would have been able to live with it, but–

Mistakes happened, of course. People could even make it past cheating. But this...

I had decided you were second best. I’ve changed my mind. Now I want to come back.

It sat in his stomach like he’d swallowed a pound of lead. Poison.

“I want to ask him about it, but I don’t even know how to start,” Sam said quietly. “Have you asked him?”

“We did talk about it, but...”

The thing about loose threads is that you can tie them up, but they are never really part of the garment again. They still hang, strange and unwanted and never really able to be anything again.

Bucky didn’t want to take any steps back. They were together. He wanted to forget, he wanted to be happy, and when everything had happened with Marx, it had been so easy to simply be grateful that they were alive. That they could be together without shame, like they had always dreamed of being. When the sex was new and they were still rediscovering each other’s hearts and minds and bodies.

Bucky had thought he’d purged that poison from his mind, but it was still there. And it was something more than just he never wanted me. Because that alone wouldn’t be enough to make him speak up. If that was true, then Bucky knew that he should just leave–that he should accept that the loose ends would unravel once more.

It was because he believed in Steve and because he loved Steve with every bit of his goddamn battered heart and once-controlled mind that he continued to think on it. To turn it over and over in his hands like it was a particularly confusing piece of art. Just what precisely is this and what do I do with it?

Either let it go or do something about it, Barnes. You don’t get to have both.

Imagine being so goddamn geriatric (even with the ice preserving you) and still being as insecure as a goddamn tween at times.

Irritating.

“Don’t wanna talk about this,” Bucky grunted. “Can’t we just... enjoy the night?”

Sam turned slowly and stared at him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use that word before. Enjoy. Are you sure you know the definition?”

Bucky shook his head with a snort. And Sam got the message, heading over the schmooze.

Sometimes, Bucky wondered if Sam actually knew him even better than Steve did.

Either let it go or do something about it, Barnes.

And so did the man of action sit there, staring at his drink. Doing neither of those things.

Christ. If he only had a brain.

Chapter Text

“To 'know Thyself' is considered quite an accomplishment.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

—

“I’ve risked my life God only knows how many times, and still, those events feel ten times more dangerous.”

Steve had been saying little comments like that ever since they had gotten home. Bucky wasn’t sure what to say to them, but he was prickled by the notion that there was absolutely a right thing to say in response to little searches for communication like this. The problem was that he didn’t know what to say.

It was a frustrating place to be in–especially when communication with Steve had gone from easy to difficult back to easy and now... well. Back to difficult.

All because he’d gotten stuck in the whirlpool of his own damn brain.

He was undoing his tie and tell himself over and over again, with each repetitive movement I’m not gonna ask him about it.

They had already talked about it. There was nothing left to say.

He had been turning their conversation through his mind, over and over again, examining it for the cracks that he knew were there. The cracks that had been hidden by his own grief, his own fear, his eagerness to make everything right.

Why you left and why you came back.

In that night, it had been enough–it had been more than enough. It had sent a flurry of declarations of love from Bucky, from the bottom of his soul. That prayer of let everything be right tell me you want to be mine again tell me you still love me tell me tell me tell me.

Tell me so often that I will finally believe it’s possible.

The heart really does override the brain, doesn’t it? Almost like it knows its self destruction codes. Leaving everything behind in its pounding, blood thumping wake.

A heart could race. But so could a mind. Which would win?

“You’re quiet,” Steve murmured–and Bucky jumped a little. He was standing closer than Bucky had anticipated. Bucky huffed and shook his head.

“Like that’s anything new,” Bucky murmured.

“No, but...”

Bucky focused on the mechanical movements of his fingers as he removed his tie. He was telling himself that it was fine. It was more than fine. It had to be fine.

If it wasn’t fine, that meant that maybe–

He wasn’t ready to think about that.

“I know these... events aren’t your thing,” Steve admitted. “Next time, I can just go by myself if you’d prefer not to come.”

Getting left behind felt like a slap in the face. One that Steve didn’t know that he was giving Bucky, but it stung nonetheless.

“I can come,” Bucky said–and his voice was sharper than he wanted it to be. Christ, Winter Soldier, are you frozen solid to this question or what the hell is going on? Just let it go. You can’t punish him forever. You either need to forgive him or you need to move on.

Move on.

There didn’t feel like there was anywhere else to go.

When they’d come to the realization, Bucky had been able to so easily accept that there had been so little of him that he couldn’t blame Steve for leaving. For running. For wanting more.

Was that still the case? That there was too little of him left?

Goddamnit. No. He wasn’t going down this path again.

All the doubting and the misery and the worry and the constant self abuse that came with all of this. It wasn’t welcome in their relationship any more. It had already smashed around and through them, leaving so much damage in its wake. Not again.

“Sorry,” Bucky mumbled. “Just–you know I’m not my best there.”

“They’d fawn over you too,” Steve huffed. “But they’re all scared of you. They tell me all the time. And you have to admit, you are a little... intimidating.”

“Damn. And here I was, thinking that I gave off the same vibes a fluffy bunny,” Bucky drawled–and Steve let out a quiet laugh. One that made Bucky smile.

It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. Maybe some questions could exist without a constant need for answers.

Maybe some questions needed to exist that way.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked quietly–and Bucky felt him behind him. His hand on his waist. That closeness. The smell of Steve. Clean linen. Just a hint of cologne. An addictive smell if he’d ever known one–and smell was so deeply linked to memory, whenever Steve was near, it all came tumbling on him. Everything they’d been through–everything they’d weathered and conquered and been crushed by. How they’d done every bit of it together.

“‘M’alright,” Bucky murmured. “You’re the one who had to sweet talk people who wouldn’t shut the hell up tonight. I know you love doing shit like that so much. You wake up every morning and think–goddamn, I just can’t wait to talk to some real goddamn narcissists.”

“Okay, okay, not everyone who is extroverted is a narcissist,” Steve huffed.

“But you admit there is a sizable overlap,” Bucky shot back.

“Well, I have to say there’s nothing more narcissistic than sitting around and thinking about how much better you are than people who are narcissists. Pot, meet kettle, etc.”

Bucky let out a little huff of laughter. “Touche, Rogers. You always were a hell of a sparring partner.”

“And here I was hoping that I’d just be a hell of a partner in general.”

And there it was.

The gentle nudge for more intimacy. Not the first one that Steve had offered him.

Admittedly, things had been... difficult after Marx. Hawaii had been one thing. It had felt like a fantasy, another life. But this was...

Well. This was different. When it was just him and Steve and they were home with people they loved near.

Not a fantasy. And Bucky thought in some ways it still was, but...

Bucky turned around in Steve’s arms, reaching up to run his fingers lightly along his jaw. Steve just loved that he was taller than Bucky. In some ways, Bucky liked it–but in other ways, it would have been nice to have more power in one part of this relationship.

After all, Steve had the social skills. He had the connections. He had the popularity. And Bucky didn’t really want any of that crap, but...

Well. At least he had one thing.

Moments like this, when Steve looked down at him with such tenderness and sweetness, Bucky knew that he had Steve’s heart. Something that others had been trying to get for so, so many years. Fruitlessly.

And hadn’t that been what Steve had said? He had loved Peggy, still loved her in some ways, but it had always been Bucky.

Always.

Bucky had never thought of that word as a flimsy one, and yet...

“You’re a million miles away,” Steve murmured–and Bucky realized that he had lowered his head so that his lips were in his neck. And with Steve’s hand on his lower back, pulling him in closer, welcoming him into that warmth, that softness, that safety. A tender place to hide. And for so long, that was all that Bucky had wanted to do. To cower from those who wanted to find him, to name him, to identify him.

To disappear.

Steve had pulled him out of it, but he knew he couldn’t live his life for someone else.

“Sorry,” Bucky murmured, and then, he thought about what Marx had said to him a lifetime ago and quickly added, “I’m sorry.”

“You can’t really be blamed for where your mind goes, especially when you’ve lived as long as we have,” Steve murmured. “I’m just wondering if I did something wrong.”

Wrong.

Wrong was a funny word.

Wrong implied a sense of willfulness, of understanding what was right, and choosing the opposite. It meant that whoever had done wrong had done it to harm someone else.

It seemed so simple to define, and yet.

And yet.

Bucky didn’t know what he was seeking here. Comfort? Did he want to know for certain that Steve would never do something like that again?

Or was it because no matter what, he didn’t really believe what Steve had told him. As hard as he had tried, it felt wrong–and wrong in the real sense of the word.

In a way that intended serious harm.

“No, Steve,” Bucky said, and he meant it. Because he didn’t want to believe it, even if it was true, and you had all kinds of control over where your faith went and didn’t go, right? “You didn’t. It was just a long night with way too many damn people fawning all over you and hogging your attention.”

“Oh.” Steve gave a small smile. A smirk, really, which made Bucky’s entire digestive system perform a rather athletic hop. “So it was my attention that you wanted?”

Bucky smirked back. “I always want your attention, soldier. Would have thought that you would have figured that out by now.”

Sex was easy. Sex had always been easy.

Steve leaned down and initiated the kiss–and that was enough to make Bucky forget about everything that he’d been worrying over. For the longest time, it had always been Bucky moving in for the kill–Bucky kissing him first, Bucky touching him first, Bucky... well, there was no polite way to say it.

Bucky on top.

That commonality had changed, and Bucky loved it. As much as his mind had been racing, as bitter has he had felt, as much as Sam’s words had woven themselves into the wrinkled tissue of his brain, Steve’s kiss and Steve’s touch had everything rushing away so damn fast it was like it was carried away on a damn river.

A frozen river that wasn’t so locked in place any more.

“Goddamn,” Bucky breathed into Steve’s mouth–and that seemed to awaken something in Steve even more, and before Bucky knew what was happening, he was pushed up against the wall and being kissed so damn hard he was seeing stars, constellations, planets, hell, the whole universe was rupturing in front of his eyes. Another Big Bang, as it were, throwing all that chaos into a sense of order.

“The fuck are you kissing me like that for,” Bucky managed out in between rough kisses, though the last thing he wanted to do was talk.

“Because I missed you, that’s why,” Steve said roughly–and there was a tone of desperation. One that Bucky recognized, but didn’t want to.

He had a terrible habit of turning fully invisible.

Bucky realized with a stab of agony into that old fucked up heart of his that Steve wasn’t doing this just because he missed him, but rather, because he was afraid of the possibility of missing Bucky more. The worry that Bucky could fall away again, that he could rip away that intimacy so quickly as it was found.

Bucky didn’t want to do that. They had both worked so hard. For a moment, Bucky considered what it might be like to lose Steve again.

That lit a damn fire. Straw is so dry, after all, just the smallest spark could send the whole thing ablaze in a heartbeat.

Bucky brought both of his hands to either side of Steve’s face and kissed him. A rough, claiming kiss. You’re mine and I’m not losing you. Not again, not ever.

Even if that meant that some doors had to remain closed, no matter how hard secrets knocked at them.

They kissed roughly and for awhile, each tried to assert dominance, but it was Bucky who came out on top this time.

As usual, Bucky felt like the one who really had something prove here.

I’m not leaving, and I hope you never leave either.

Steve didn’t want him to leave. And Bucky didn’t want to go.

That would be enough.

It had to be enough.

Right?

Chapter Text

“Everything in life is unusual until you get accustomed to it.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

—

Back to work. Always back to work.

There had been a time in his life when Bucky might have resented that he had to work all the damn time. But of course, that had been well before the freezing, before his first job, before his mother had turned him out on his ass at the age of eleven and had told him to do something useful for Christ’s sake.

It had been a different time back then, of course. Bucky watched young people grown up now with all their technology and their leisure time and their convenience and all he could think was–

Kids these days.

Damn. He really was an old man.

Bucky and Steve had stayed up way too damn late and while the super soldier shit definitely helped with hangovers and exhaustion, Bucky felt like he was a different kind of tired. A different kind of hangover.

Too much thinking.

Because even after Steve had gone to sleep, his own rest had eluded him. The damned sheep just refused to be counted.

He kept thinking about what Sam had said. It looped around his mind and every time he thought he had safely tucked it away, it came lurching out. The monster in the closet.

Ironic. In the closet. He could relate.

“You look terrible.”

It was Sam Wilson because of course it was. The man spoke his mind when no one asked–especially when no one asked. Bucky shook his head with a little grunt.

“Didn’t ask, Wilson,” Bucky groused.

“As if that’s ever stopped me before,” Sam smirked. “Saw Steve this morning. He didn’t look nearly as tired as you. Wonder which of you is the extrovert and which isn’t.”

“Neither of us are, Steve is just more... socially resilient.”

“... I’ve never heard that term, but that shoe sure as hell fits.”

“It really does,” Bucky deadpanned. “What’ve you got for us?”

The extent to which this newly made team of four worked was a little precarious and more than a little strange. Steve had come back, and while he still had parties thrown in his honor, it was crucial that he stay behind the scenes. He and Sam had talked it through thoroughly–putting Steve permanently back on the frontlines would only make the population more and more antsy to have their old Captain America back. Sam was doing a damn good job, and people still found reasons to criticize him.

He wasn’t Steve, and the asshole citizens at large felt it their duty to remind him of this constantly.

What they didn’t see, of course, was that Sam was a badly needed breath of fresh air. They didn’t need someone who had led a battalion against a horde of aliens. And besides, people seemed so quick to forget that Sam had been there to fight against Thanos. He’d been right there, in the heat of battle, every single time.

Besides, Steve was old and probably should have been retired. Bucky too, but goddamn did he hate sitting still for long periods of time.

Bruce was part of their crew too–and Bucky knew that he’d always owe that man his life for so many reasons. He’d never be able to fully make it up to him for everything that he’d done for him–and this was beyond just all the shit with Marx. Bruce often hid in the shadows, but he was the one who always ended up keeping a level head when everyone lost their shit. Pretty damn ironic considering who he was.

“I was showing Steve this.” Sam sat at one of the many computer screens and tapped a few buttons before he pulled up what looked like a map. Maybe.

“And this is...?”

“It’s some readings we just got. Some strange electromagnetic pulses,” Bruce said, carrying his size-appropriate coffee mug (God, had it been funny to see the giant green man carrying around a mug, the handle squeezed between his thumb and forefinger). “Ever since I... you know, invented a time machine–”

“God, every time you say that so casually, I kind of want to punch you–” Sam groaned, rolling his head backwards.

“--well, it’s what happened,” Bruce said flatly, “ever since we invented time travel, I’m always trying to keep an eye on what’s happening in the various timelines–to see if there’s anything that has damaged or shifted ours.”

“But I thought that changing things in the past just created alternate timelines,” Bucky said with a frown.

“Well, yes, but–that’s how everything works now,” Bruce said with a sigh. “And I really, really thought that would always be the case until...”

Bruce glanced up at Steve. Bucky looked back–and then immediately wished he hadn’t.

He saw that shroud of shame cross over Steve’s face. The same look that he got whenever someone mentioned that he’d gone back–and then come back. Again.

“You going back should have just created an alternate reality where you lived out the rest of your days, but after you left and we were trying to figure out where you were, Sam and I found... well, we found you,” Bruce said a little hesitantly.

Bucky hadn’t been part of that search. He couldn’t remember if that had been a choice on his part, or if Bruce and Sam had intentionally left him out of it. Either way, it was for the best, of course, but still.

He might have liked to know. Or maybe it would have made everything so, so much worse.

The latter seemed more likely.

“We found records of someone we thought was likely you. We even found your...”

Bruce glanced at Bucky. God, this was absolute hell. Bucky stared at the ceiling.

“It was your wedding announcement,” Sam said bluntly–and Bucky seriously appreciated the new Captain America in that moment. A man who didn’t mince words and dance around painful realities.

And in that moment, in a terribly sick way, Bucky was remarkably glad that he knew how to turn everything off, how to float away, how to feel like he was staring directly forward and saying ready to comply.

Disappearing had its advantages when you were at work. Especially when your boyfriend’s extremely painful love life came up. Who the hell would have thought.

“It didn’t make sense,” Bruce pushed onwards, and Bucky recognized the little note of panic in his voice–the eagerness to move on, to push past that oily discomfort that had settled over the room. Bruce was always so damn mindful of the emotions of others–almost like he was scared that everyone had a green monster living inside of them that they couldn’t control. “Your return should have sent you branching off into a new reality, not into this one.”

Steve was frowning. “I... thought it did.”

“I don’t know how it happened,” Bruce said with a frown. “That kind of overlap shouldn’t be possible. It begs the question of what else can change now that time travel is possible. Or–were you always destined to go back in time and be with Peggy?”

Destined. That was a hell of a word. Bucky stood stock still, his tongue working over his teeth. Still staring straightforward. There wasn’t really anything to say anyway.

Who the hell knows how long that scarecrow hung there before Dorothy bothered to come along and pull him down? It could have been an eternity. Not like he would have remembered anyway. Straw for brains, remember?

“So what do we do with that?” Steve was eager too to move along, Bucky could tell–and for one moment, he saw it from Steve’s perspective. They’d had a breakthrough last night. They’d been intimate after what had felt like an impossibly long dry spell, and now, all of this was happening.

It threatened to rip apart everything that Steve had worked so hard to mend.

Christ. Bucky had always known that relationships were hard work, but he hadn’t really ever wanted to be anyone’s damn arts and crafts project for the rest of his life.

“I honestly don’t know,” Bruce said almost apologetically. “But it is very concerning. At first, I thought maybe... I don’t know. It wasn’t something to be concerned about. There’s so much regarding time travel that we don’t understand–that I fear we will never understand. Something like this...”

Again, Bucky felt his mind thrash up against the wrongness of it all. What the fuck had Steve been thinking anyway? Running into Bruce’s lab, carelessly using technology that they had only tentatively started to use to try to fix an apocalypse just because he wanted to see a girl again? One he’d barely known?

It wasn’t like Steve. It wasn’t like him at all. It was reckless, stupid, and it was–

Well. Bucky supposed the last adjective he wanted to use didn’t really matter.

God, what a sad sack he was. Just a bag of straw hanging from a pole, feeling sorry for his damn self. Oh well.

Oh fucking well.

Sometimes you got to have sex with the savior of the universe, arguably the most handsome, charming, kind, and perfect man alive.

And sometimes you got kicked in the metaphorical nuts by him.

“Well, we just don’t really know how to proceed, but I know that we need to move as quickly as we can,” Bruce said once he’d pieced his thoughts together. “In about an hour or so, I should have pinpointed exactly where this disturbance is taking place. And then, we’ll need to...”

Sam groaned.

“Damnit. Please don’t tell me we’re traveling through time again. That made me queasy last time.”

Bucky had never gone through time before. And he sure as hell didn’t want to.

Especially if there was a chance that they’d go back and see–

“Obviously you can’t go,” Bruce said, gesturing to Steve. “So it’d have to be Bucky and Sam.”

Of course. Great.

Perfect.

Well. Bucky had never been one to shy away from a challenge. And he’d learned during his hell with Marx that sometimes you just had to hold your hand as long as you possibly could on the stove before you couldn’t feel it any more.

Sometimes you had to just cauterize the hell out of the wound.

Because Bucky knew that if he saw Peggy and Steve together, it would feel like fucking heart surgery all over again, but at least he’d see it. At least he’d know. At least it wouldn’t be wrapped around his throat like a goddamn noose and he might not feel any more like he was just waiting for someone to kick the box out from beneath his feet so he could just get his neck snapped and get over it.

At least it would be on his own terms. Sort of.

Whatever.

The Winter Soldier knew how to shut down. He knew how to be nothing more than a tool and a weapon. They needed to figure out what was going on, so Bucky was going to figure it out. Two plus two equals four.

Of course, there were a hell of a lot more numbers in this particular equation, but Bucky had determined that they would be imaginary as hell.

“Are you sure–?” Sam said and for once in his life, he was actually trying to be sensitive towards Bucky–and it rubbed him so hard the wrong way, Bucky wanted to hit him as hard as he could. Of course Bucky could handle it. He’d been through shit that was a thousand times worse.

“It’s fine,” Bucky said shortly. “Let me know when it’s time to go.”

He turned on his heels and walked away like the militarized prick he was. He thought that he heard Sam repeat him in a slightly mocking tone–Let me know when it’s time to go.

He knew he was being an irritating dick. He knew that he was making all this shit a thousand times worse. Bucky knew all this, but hell, he was about to go back in time and see his man wrapped up in the arms of the woman he’d thrown everything away for.

A little slack might be required, Sam Wilson.

Chapter Text

“For although I feel that I know a tremendous lot, I am not yet aware how much there is in the world to find out about. It will take me a little time to discover whether I am very wise or very foolish.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

—

In some ways, it was much better that there was no choice.

If Bucky had had a choice about whether or not he was going to go back into the past, he knew what he would have chosen. He would have picked the same damn thing that he’d picked over and over again ever since Steve had come back.

No, that wasn’t quite right. When Steve had come back, Bucky had thought he’d been exceptionally brave. He had stood up for himself. He looked the problem right in the damn eye and he hadn’t run away. He and Steve had even talked about it for Christ’s sake. They’d been open and real with each other. He had felt like there had been so much healing–so much more than he had ever dreamed was really possible. And for that beautiful moment in time, when they’d laid together under the Hawaiian sun, he’d thought that the problem was fixed forever. They’d never go back. They’d never want to, and they’d never have to.

But now. Now, things were different. Or perhaps they were the way they’d always been–the way they were always destined to be. An infinite aching loop. Maybe one that would go on for the rest of Bucky’s life.

He didn’t want to think about it. It all seemed so goddamn pathetic and pointless to ruminate over the way that his life–as long as it had been–had broken down so much of him. His trust, his ability to find and express love.

Any sense of joy.

And he’d thought in that beautiful tropical sun that maybe, just maybe, he could find all of it again.

And then. The cloud had come.

The rain hadn’t bothered him at first because he’d thought it would pass, but it hadn’t. It had pelted down on him, relentlessly, painfully day after day. Hide, the rain had seemed to say. If you hide long enough, I’ll go away. I’ll stop.

It hadn’t stopped.

He knew that Steve could see it in him. That was maybe the worst part of the whole thing. Bucky tried as hard as he could to mask that everything seemed so goddamn gray, but Steve knew. He had always known. And what Bucky wished that he could know profoundly was that there was no pulling him out of it, nor did Bucky even want him to try.

It was too much for anyone to take on. He wouldn’t wish it on his worst goddamn enemy.

“I am sure we can figure out something else,” Steve was saying softly that night. The night before Bucky thought he might be able to wake up again.

And Bucky appreciated Steve trying to protect him (if that was, indeed, what he was trying to do), but Bucky had the most goddamn pathetic thought that maybe if he saw Steve and Peggy locked in some kind of embrace that looked a thousand times more natural and romantic than Steve and Bucky had ever looked, he might actually feel something. Anything.

“It’s alright,” Bucky said–and he tried to convince both himself and Steve that it was true. Because it had to be true. Bucky couldn’t be stuck any longer. Not like this. He was suffocating. “There really isn’t any other option. You heard Bruce. And we can’t expect Sam to go alone–he needs back up.”

“I know there’s someone else that we could ask. There has to be,” Steve continued, and Bucky felt something prickle in him. He fought it back. He always had. Steve was not responsible for him, whether Bucky was mentally well or not. And Bucky didn’t want him to be goddamn responsible for that.

The thought alone made him feel sick. That was something that no one in the goddamn world should have to carry.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bucky said simply and much more flatly than he intended. “I’ll go. I want to go. It’ll be fine.”

Silence hung between them. Steve had changed in his pajamas–a pair of sweatpants. He looked heartbreakingly beautiful and too goddamn good for this entire world. Bucky wanted to throw something at him.

There was all that feeling again. Maybe he did have a damn heart and mind that could work together after all.

“Bucky,” Steve murmured, and he was so gentle. Always so gentle. Because he thought he needed to be around Bucky. Bucky felt tears of embarrassment sting in his eyes. “If you don’t want to, I know we can figure something else out.”

Being treated like you’re delicate is a goddamn horrible fucking thing.

Bucky could feel every bit of it–the way that Steve handled him like he was so breakable, like any second he’d fall and shatter into a thousand pieces. Like he was someone who couldn’t handle even the smallest bit of strife when his life had been nothing but strife and goddamn adversity and yes, he had come out bruised and battered, but he’d gone through hell so many times and come back that he knew every damn landmark in the Underworld by name.

Bucky knew pain and hurt better than Steve ever would, of that he was certain. Maybe that was a selfish and nearly arrogant thing to think. Maybe it didn’t matter at all. Maybe things were just fucking things and there didn’t need to be such a sense of trying to put everything in order and categorize it.

Maybe some things were just destined to be shit forever.

“I just said that I wanted to,” Bucky said, and he intentionally made his voice as even as possible. He knew that lashing out, that snarling would only confirm how difficult this was. Yes, he wanted to feel something again, but he knew more pain was around the corner and he wasn’t sure just how much more of it all he could take before he finally broke.

Hung on a stake in a field forever. Nothing more than a carcass to scare away birds, too afraid to even pick at a dead body.

Pathetic. But is it pathetic if it’s true?

“I know that you think it’ll spare me from something if I don’t go, but I think it’ll be the opposite,” Bucky said quietly, and he used his nouns and his verbs and his conjunctions and he wasn’t going to let anyone else ever point out that he dropped words when he was trying to hide. When people find you, you start looking for better places to hide next time. “I think I have a right to know. And to see.”

Bucky let those words hang in the air, knowing what they would do to Steve. Steve, who was standing there, looking so wounded. Steve who, as always, hadn’t done a damn thing wrong and was now suffering because of it.

As it would turn out, being in love with a goddamn saint is pretty fucking exhausting for the sinner.

“To see...?” Steve murmured, and Bucky knew what this was. Steve was giving him space to say it out loud. No secrets. They had told each other that once when they were too young to understand that secrets didn’t always hurt someone. Sometimes, they were the only thing that could keep someone alive.

“To see you and Peggy,” Bucky said quietly, and he couldn’t look at Steve when he said it. He looked away.

And for a long time, neither of them said anything. But the silence wasn’t silent. It screamed and rushed through the air and shoved up against both of them. Like a rib-cracking CPR. Say something. Say anything, goddamnit all to hell.

“Bucky,” Steve said first and of course he was the first to break the silence and the sound of his voice had a horrible, embarrassing lump grow in his throat because there was only one thing that Bucky was able to keep feeling on a day to day basis, and that was profound shame.

“Steve,” Bucky said quietly. “I know that everything has been so fucked up lately–and that ever since we got back from Hawaii, I’ve been all...”

He swallowed. He couldn’t look at Steve. Not right now.

“Something changed,” Steve said very quietly. “What changed, Buck?”

The nickname felt like a cut directly to his throat.

“S’all fucked up,” Bucky muttered, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I want to move on. I want to fucking move on so bad, and I thought everything was fixed after we had gone to Hawaii, after all that shit with Marx. And in some ways, it is fixed–dealing with him fixed a lot of the broken shit inside of me, but there’s one part that just... I’ve been trying so damn hard to let go of it, but I can’t. I can’t, Steve.”

Bucky sat down heavily on the bed. Steve was so quiet that Bucky wasn’t even sure if he was in the room or not.

“And it’s not just that,” Bucky added because it was true. It wasn’t just that. There was so much, he didn’t even have a damn clue as to where to start. “It’s like... everything feels wrong. All the fucking time. I don’t know. And I don’t know how to fix it–and I don’t want you to fix it. But nothing about this–about us feels real. It doesn’t feel like–it was supposed to happen. Because for so long, it was never gonna fucking happen. Before you left, when you were gone, even after you left. It was like... I never imagined a world where we were together because I wasn’t allowed to and I don’t...”

Bucky was pressing his palms so hard against his eyes it hurt.

“If I start now and it doesn’t happen... I’m just not fucking doing it again, Steve. I can’t. I don’t fucking have it in me.”

All that foul language. As if peppering it into that sentence could make it mean more. Or maybe make it mean less. Bucky didn’t know, but it felt necessary. Or rather, it just happened, like so many things in his life did.

Steve sat on the bed behind him. Bucky felt the bed groan with his weight. He felt Steve’s hand gently on his arm. He wanted to push the hand away, but he didn’t.

“I deserve that,” Steve said quietly. “I deserve all of that and more. And I understand. I broke your trust. I know I did. And maybe you just need... maybe we need...”

Bucky heard Steve swallow thickly. He mirrored the action because how could he not. He still loved the man so damn much, he would never be able to stop, he had tried so damn hard until his brain and his heart stumbled over each other and tangled themselves into an eternal knot.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” Steve said in that same soft voice. “But... will you stay with me tonight?”

Bucky so rarely ever felt like Steve needed him. It was always the other way around, Bucky falling apart and Steve desperately trying to put the jagged pieces back together. But he was here now, asking Bucky something. And as much as Bucky wanted to say no, all he had ever wanted was to be needed by Steve Rogers.

Bucky turned and wrapped his arms around Steve. And neither of them wept. It wasn’t right. But they comforted each other in soft touches that turned into kisses that turned into lovemaking that proved that they loved each other, always had, this irrevocable knot, this endless tumbling back into each other, inevitable and terrifying and the ache, my God, the ache of it all.

When the morning came, Bucky left without waking Steve up. It was the only way for him to do it. If he had seen Steve stir, he would have stayed. He would have let the rain pound into him.

He would have stayed asleep.

No more.

He had to wake up.

Chapter Text

“Do not, I beg of you, dampen today's sun with the showers of tomorrow."
― L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

---

As usual, Bucky knew that Sam knew a lot more than he was letting on.

Sam thought he was so damn subtle, but he’d always been far from it. The little glances, the raised eyebrows. The silent waiting before they started getting set up in the machine.

He would look at Bucky. Then he’d look at Steve. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Bucky knew how it looked. He was sure that Steve also knew how it looked.

Well, in this case, how it looked was probably how it was.

“Sooo,” Sam said with a faux casual tone that made him both somehow constantly insufferable and endearing in the same aggravating breath, “We’re just gonna ignore the elephant in the room, huh?”

Steve looked away. Bucky figured that was enough of an answer for both of them.

“Oookay,” Sam said–and it was in that immature word that Bucky saw himself and Steve from an outsider’s perspective. All this will they, won’t they bullshit. One might expect this behavior from pre-teens, but from two men who were over a hundred years old? Probably not.

But that didn’t change anything. Not really. It still was the way that it was–and maybe this was the way it would need to be. Bucky knew that he wouldn’t really know the answer until he went back and saw–

His stomach twisted horribly at the thought–and as much as Bucky despised the uncomfortable feeling, he had to admit that there was a sick pleasure in knowing that he was still capable of feeling. Even if it was only awful things.

Like when your foot is asleep so long you fear you’ve lost the limb entirely, and then it explodes into sharp static.

“You’ll have to be very careful there,” Bruce was cautioning them. “Do your best to not to draw any attention. There are enough multiverses, the last thing we need is a thousand more.”

“Yeah, but won’t the very presence of us being there like–make a butterfly flap its wings differently or some shit?” Sam said, wrinkling his nose. “Are we dealing with Back to the Future style time travel or 12 Monkeys style?”

“Well, that’s the issue with time travel,” Bruce said, “I just really don’t know. Before, I would have said that it’s the ‘you can’t really change anything that happened and if you do, it just makes new universes’ one, but now... with these little changes in the electromagnetic pulses and the fact that it seems like Steve was able to change what happened in the past... It’s got me wondering that if you just tweak something slightly–or rather, make a big change in the machine that I made–if you could make something different happen. Really happen. But I don’t know how.”

“Does it matter?” Bucky said–and he knew that his voice was too loud and too blunt. He internally winced at the sound of it. He’d caught himself doing that lately–speaking too loudly, too forcefully. Almost like he was afraid that if he didn’t force his voice into the empty air that nobody might hear him. “We’re going back right now to see what’s going on. So we’ll just–look around and then tell you what we see.”

And Bucky still didn’t know what he’d do if he saw Steve. They weren’t supposed to talk to him–no, they were supposed to be taking readings and be looking for any clues that reality was warping–but Bucky had a feeling that if he actually saw him, something might happen.

He didn’t know what. Part of him didn’t want to find out, but another part of him needed to find out. Like this might be the key to the whole thing. That it might break the whole goddamn thing wide open.

It’s a true masochist who wants to find out why his heart was broken. Who wants it to be broken again just to make sure that the shards are as jagged as he felt them the first time.

A man who wanted to see it all happen again just to be sure it really happened.

A man with a match right by a cornfield of husks. Just one spark and the entire thing is engulfed in flames so big and bright you could see it from miles away.

That smoke signal of loss might be the thing to make it all make sense. And if it hurt too damn much to bear, at least he would be carrying something after having empty hands for so goddamn long.

“You ready?”

Sam’s voice, as usual, cut through the bullshit. Once upon a time, it had only been Steve who was able to reach him–but then, Steve hadn’t been there to stretch his hand out. So the Winter Soldier had been forced to become resilient. Yet again.

Always, always resilient. Always bouncing back. Always thawing and ripping his mind free from brainwashing and fighting against all of the things he’d done against his will.

You get so goddamn tired, but the world doesn’t have much space for tired people. Especially when they are supposed to just hang there and scare all of the bad things away.

You have one job, Bucky. One thing you’re supposed to be doing. Shut off your heart. It hasn’t done you a bit of damn good.

The damn thing had nearly gotten him killed, after all.

“Yeah,” Bucky murmured.

“Be careful.”

At first, Bucky had thought that Bruce had said it–but no. It wasn’t Bruce.

It was Steve. Because of course it was.

Be careful.

I’ll be very damn careful, Steve. Unlike you.

Bucky met his eyes. So clear, so blue. Like the empty sky with no damn horizon. Nowhere to go. No clouds. Just blue.

Bucky gave him a small nod because he had always given Steve something. The thought of the man he loved being empty-handed had been too much to bear.

Sometimes streets are two-way, as it would turn out. Sometimes the yellow brick road only leads you to one place.

Bucky closed his eyes and as the machine turned on, he only had one thought:

You left. And now, I think I’m going too.

—

“Goddddd.”

When Bucky came to, he was privileged to witness the sight of Sam retching in a ditch. They were on the side of a street just outside of a very familiar little row of shops.

Christ.

It wasn’t possible, was it? It was–

Fuck.

Oh my God.

Bucky stood up and he couldn’t hear Sam any more. The little general store that he and Steve had always gone to to get suckers. The post office where he’d mailed letters for his mother. The old abandoned warehouse where he and Steve had grown up playing jacks on the concrete floor–and the winding fire escape. Christ, was that the place where he and Steve had first–

“Oh my God,” Bucky whispered, and there it all was.

All of that feeling rushing on him, overwhelming him, suffocating him, but it felt like such a beautiful goddamn death.

Home.

Nothing had felt right ever since he’d been ripped away from his time, from everything that he’d known, and all of a sudden, everything felt so–

“Bruce promised I’d never have to do it again, that was even worse than the first time–” he could hear Sam muttering in the background and it seemed almost absurd to him that Sam would think that Bucky was listening to a single word that he was saying.

To have everything you’d ever known suddenly fall back into your open hands. To realize that you were always reaching and longing for something and then, there it was.

Home.

You never realize that you’ve lost home until you find it again.

“It’s all here,” he heard himself whisper–and there wasn’t a single word out of place because he didn’t need to hide. Not here. Not where everything was just the way it was supposed to be.

He looked up. Blue sky. No clouds. Just that endless, aching color stretching as far as he could see. As far as he wanted to see, and not an inch beyond.

“That bad for you too?” Sam said with a huff–and before he knew what was happening, Sam was pushing a packet of tissues into Bucky’s hand. It was only then that he realized he was crying–and the ragged breath that he sucked in only spoke further to that reality.

“Christ,” Bucky muttered, quickly mopping at his face with a hastily crumpled tissue. “Sorry, I just–”

I didn’t think that seeing it all would make me feel so much.

And as much as he didn’t want to feel this way, all of a sudden, he understood. He knew why Steve had gone back. Because losing someone hurt, but losing everything was like the world falling out beneath your feet. You don’t recover from that. You just fall forever and ever and ever.

And now that he was here, the thought of going back was–

Maybe it wasn’t Peggy you wanted. Maybe it was this feeling.

“You good?” Sam said, and there was that perception again. Irritating and endearing. Sam knew how to study you like you were the only damn person in the world–and he was infuriatingly good at knowing the truth and the falsehood in your answers.

“I–” Bucky said, still wiping at his face to catch the tears that were falling faster than he could stop them. “It’s all... I can’t believe it’s still here. I mean, obviously–it’s not still here, but I’ve been gone so long I forgot that this was even... possible.”

Sam waited for him to continue, somehow knowing there was more. God, there was so much more, more than he could even begin to express, but after what felt like decades of chosen silence and dropped words and hiding behind shadowed expressions and a jaw so tight even the finest oil wouldn’t loosen it, he wanted to. He wanted to try to say what he was feeling. To put words to every bit of it.

“It’s all still here,” he just found himself saying again–and to him, it was enough. “This is my home. This is where I... this is where everything I know is.”

Everything that had made him feel comfortable and safe and held. Family, friends. No ice. No words whispered between his ears that made him murder and kill and destroy. Just him. His mother. His family.

A boy who he’d kissed on a fire escape.

“I didn’t even think about how this would feel for you,” Sam said softly. “Obviously I knew it would be hard with Steve, but–”

“I didn’t think it would be like this either,” Bucky whispered.

Everything you’ve ever known suddenly back in the palm of your hand. And you didn’t even reach for it. It found you. Almost like it had been looking for you.

And before Bucky realized what was happening, Sam’s arms were around him. A safe, strong embrace. Not like Steve’s. It was different, but somehow it was just as sturdy and strong. No fear of lacking masculinity in the hug either–it was just there. A support. A silent I see you and I got you.

It was more than Bucky felt like he deserved after everything. To be seen when he’d done nothing but try to hide, but Sam had been so good at looking for him.

Steve had always been good at that too, as much as he might have tried to deny it. And as much as it absolutely goddamn enraged him, as much as he tried to blame Steve for going back, now that he was here–

He understood. It hurt like fucking hell, but he understood. Because a person can be home, yes, they can, but there is nothing like home itself.

No place like it, really.

Chapter Text

“Do try to be more cheerful and take life as you find it.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

—

“So.”

A single syllable that rudely–but necessarily–shook Bucky out of the depth of his thoughts. And truly, those thoughts were unfathomable–and maybe he didn’t need to try to reach the bottom of them. Not right now.

Especially when they had something else that they really, really needed to do. Something bigger than him.

That was one of the best things about being part of The Avengers (if that was still what they called themselves, Bucky had never really been clear on whether or not he’d fit under the umbrella of that title, or if that was something they wanted to use to identify themselves as any more). Even when you were in the mire of your own bullshit, you could always trust that someone else’s bullshit would absolutely trump yours resoundingly.

There are always things bigger than you, and thank God for that. Sometimes it’s a relief to feel small and unimportant.

“Are you gonna give a tour or are we just gonna stand here?” Sam said, and though it was a snarky comment, he was gentle as always. Because the bastard always knew what the people around him needed. He was such an exquisitely emotionally aware straight cis man. Really, the rest of the universe should have been trembling at his feet at the sheer width and depth of his emotional IQ. A man like this could change the world for good.

In fact, Sam had. In both small and large ways. Though Bucky never would have said it out loud (mostly because there was no way that Sam ever would have let him live it down), he was incredibly grateful for Sam. He knew he was lucky to be the bastard’s friend (and Sam didn’t let him forget that either).

“God,” Bucky muttered in feigned disgust. “Can’t let a guy have a moment of nostalgia, can you?”

Sam’s eyebrows raised. And Bucky realized it in the same moment. So many words. It had been so easy for him–and he hadn’t even been remotely tempted to drop a noun here and there. It felt normal to be here and to say exactly what he wanted to say with as many words as he wanted to.

He might not have come back in one piece, but he had come back. And it mattered. God, it mattered so much–and it tasted so sweet to have something matter so much.

“Alright, Shakespeare,” Sam murmured, and Bucky caught his expression–a fond smile. “Show me Brooklyn, Bucky Barnes style.”

“Quit grinning at me,” Bucky said with a scowl.

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this because I sound like your sappy boyfriend, but you’re being pretty damn adorable right now, Bucky. I’m not gay, but if I was, I’d see the appeal.”

“Adorable??” Bucky spat, horrified. “What the fuck.”

“I know. I can’t believe I’m saying it,” Sam said with a dramatic sigh of disappointment. “But it’s precious to see you all dreamy-eyed. As opposed to your normally braindead stare.”

Braindead. Yeah, that was a good word for it. When everything was running ten times slower than it should and all the neurons were so tired they didn’t even fire any more. They didn’t see the point.

Like the heartbeat slowing down had had a profound impact on every other organ in his body. Like they all might just start going on strike, waving little signs of protest in response to the the hell that he’d put himself through.

The hell that he would probably continue to put himself through, if he was being fully honest with himself (which he wasn’t often in the habit of doing).

Christ, he was brainless, wasn’t he?

“Wow, thanks,” Bucky drawled. “Alright, you want the tour? Come on.”

And for a moment, he just took in the sight of Sam dressed like he himself had dressed for what felt like his entire life. The smart suit, the dress shoes, the hat placed carefully on his head. And Bucky felt his own clothes–not quite the same feeling as they’d had when he’d first worn garments like this (everything was made so goddamn cheaply in the twenty-first century), but it felt right. And though he never would have admitted it, he was excited to show one of his friends what life had been like.

The life that he’d always thought he would live. One that he was looking forward to before it had all been taken from him.

(Of course, now he knew that joining the military had been the beginning of the end. None of his friends had come back from the war. Well, no one except for Steve. Somehow, they’d both been extremely lucky–and horribly unlucky. Which was no great surprise, considering who they both were and how their lives consistently played out.)

And so, Bucky led Sam to the street that he’d grown up on. Maple Street.

He had tried to come back to the street later with Steve, but it hadn’t been the same. It had all had that similar sheen of sameness that everything had nowadays. Completely stripped of all of it’s character. Metal and shiny and new, but empty of any kind of beating heart.

But the street that he was looking at now? It was so beautifully imperfect. Rugged and ugly and dirty, sure, but it was home.

Bucky might never forgive Bruce for holding home captive from him. And he wondered why Steve had never told him how had all felt so–

Well. Probably because Steve had known Bucky didn’t want to hear it. And he was right about that.

His brain might have been able to handle it, but his heart was made of much weaker stuff. Stupid thing. Would have been better off without both, maybe.

“God,” Sam breathed next to him, looking at all the little shops. There was Mr. Patterson’s candy store, displaying a wide and audacious variety of lollipops bigger than Bucky’s head. There was Mr. Klein’s tidy little General Store, complete with Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Teags standing outside and gossiping, eyeing anyone suspiciously who passed by too closely, protective of their gossip like a lion standing over its prey. A shiny blue bike rested against a brick wall, clearly some little boy’s precious Christmas present just waiting to hit a pothole and have its tire completely warped, just like had happened to Bucky when he was twelve.

“I didn’t think it would all be so... I don’t know,” Sam continued–and experiencing all of this with him was both wonderful and crushingly vulnerable. Almost like telling an embarrassing secret. You hoped it would mean as much to the other person as it did to you, but you were simultaneously afraid that it would change everything. “It’s all exactly like I expected it would be, but I guess I never really thought about how it would all be so... real. And normal.”

“Yeah,” Bucky grunted. “It was hard to explain.”

That it was all real, not just a page in a history book. That back then, even though people were different, they were the same at heart. Still filled with hopes and fears and dreams and loss and tragedy and victory in the same terrifying breath that everyone still drew in the twenty-first century.

It was all still there.

“I don’t even know where we’re supposed to start,” Sam admitted. “Do we just like... go find Peggy Carter’s house and... kick in the door? Or knocking I guess would be more polite? Christ, we should have talked through this more thoroughly.”

“Well, thank God you’ve got me and I know not to do the goddamn weirdest thing that you can possibly imagine,” Bucky scoffed. “Bruce said that there was something interfering with the past. Obviously Steve changed history, but something is getting changed even more.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t make a damn bit of sense to me,” Sam said with a sigh. “Sometimes Bruce just starts talking and I tune it out because it’s a bunch of scientific mumbo jumbo.”

“It means that it’s almost like... there’s someone else back here causing problems,” Bucky said quietly.

“Uh. Like us?” Sam suggested, raising his eyebrows.

Bucky paused. “Well, that would be some damn irony. But I don’t think so because things were already out of whack before we headed back. I think we’re just gonna need to keep our eyes peeled and look for anyone who looks like they don’t belong.”

Sam paused for effect. “Like... us?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re very fucking annoying?”

“Yeah, actually. They were wrong as hell though. How embarrassing.”

Bucky let out a low groan as he pushed open the door to the little general store. The tinkle of the bell overhead incited a wave of nostalgia big enough to be a damn tsunami. Suddenly, Bucky was eight years old and rushing into the store to use the shiny nickel his mother had given him so he could get a cold bottle of Coke.

He’d missed it so much. The simplicity. The clean smell of the air. How easy everything seemed, but how it all had so much depth that went beyond what someone was hiding behind their damn phone screens.

Everything felt right here. For once. For this single blessed goddamn moment.

Mr. Klein looked up from his till, his shiny bald pate reflecting the light from the warm lightbulb that hung exposed above him. His face spread into a smile of recognition and pleasure.

“Bucky, good to see you again,” he said so kindly that Bucky felt the need to nearly choke back a sob (Christ was he a lonely bastard). “You need anything special or just looking around?”

“Just browsing for now, sir,” Bucky said warmly, easily, and he was startled to hear in his voice that old Brooklyn accent he’d thought had died in Russia along with most of his damn soul.

“Well, let me know if you see anything you want. It’ll be on me. Just damn glad that you’re back and around these parts. A lot of boys didn’t come home, you know.”

Bucky felt a pang at those words–but also, something felt off about the way he was addressing him. There was familiarity there, of course, because he’d known Mr. Klein ever since he’d first come to Brooklyn, but it felt like there was something else there.

“I know it,” Bucky said solemnly with a dip of his head in respect. Sam had wandered off to go probably gawk at the extremely low prices displayed throughout the store (honestly, Bucky could hardly believe his eyes too). “A lot of faces missing and friends missing. It’s hard.”

“We knew we’d lose a lot of them, but I gotta say, I didn’t realize just how empty it would all feel when they didn’t come back.” And Mr. Klein’s voice was even more grave now. And Bucky then remembered–while Mr. Klein had only daughters, his oldest daughter’s beau hadn’t come home. A young man named George who had loved Cora Klein until the day he’d died in Germany on that damn beach.

But still. Things felt strange. Just what was going on?

“Well, I’m sorry you didn’t get what you were looking for yesterday, Bucky. Not sure why you wouldn’t tell me just what you were hoping to get. I could have checked the catalogue and ordered it for you if it was that important, and–”

“Yesterday?” Bucky asked sharply.

Sam peered towards the till past a neat line of bags of flour.

“Well, yes,” Mr. Klein said, blinking in surprise a bit.

“I... was here yesterday?” Bucky repeated slowly.

“Unless these old eyes are playing tricks on me,” Mr. Klein said with a bit of a nervous chuckle, passing a hand over his smooth shiny head.

Bucky’s mind was spinning so fast he was concerned that the whole goddamn thing might unravel. Yesterday. But that would mean...

Sam’s eyes widened.

“I was here,” Bucky repeated.

“Yes,” Mr. Klein said again, still a little apprehensive. “And might I say, I’m quite glad you got a haircut. All that long hair was not suiting you so well, if I may so.”

And then, Sam dropped a bottle of Coke on the ground.

Chapter Text

“And I' declared the Sawhorse, filling an awkward pause, 'am only remarkable because I can't help it.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

—

“I am so sorry, sir–”

“It’s really no trouble–”

“We’ll pay for the Coke and help you clean up the mess–”

“No, no, I won’t hear nothing of the sort,” Mr. Klein was saying, waving a dismissive hand, and honestly, it was much to Bucky’s great relief.

At this point, he was resisting looking at Sam, knowing the moment that he did, it would be nearly impossible not to speak and say everything that was rushing through their collective mind.

Another time traveler. Another Bucky Barnes.

What the fuck.

“I know that after coming back from the war, boys are bound to be a little extra jumpy,” Mr. Klein said very kindly–and Bucky felt a pang of guilt, wishing that he didn’t have to be caught in all of this time-traveling, intergalactic nonsense. It really should not have involved ordinary people at all, but they so often got caught in the damn crosshairs. “You both have a Coke on me and enjoy the nice weather out there. Go have a pleasant walk and let the fresh air do you some good.”

“Thank you, sir,” Sam said quietly with a dip of his head–and Bucky could hear the tension in his voice. They had to figure out what to do, and it was going to be a damn challenging task to do so without disturbing everything that was going on back here.

“And while you’re at it, why don’t you take an extra Coke for your friend Steve Rogers? So good to have him around again,” Mr. Klein said with that same warmth, and Bucky yet again nearly dropped another glass bottle on the floor.

It was more than a previously dead heart could take, really, all of these significant revelations being dropped so goddamn casually.

“That’s a great idea,” Bucky said with a smile that felt extremely wrong, and he knew it must have looked that way too because Mr. Klein was staring at him with a furrowed brow, opening his mouth likely to ask if he was feeling alright, but before he could say anything, Bucky blasted, “You have a good day now, sir!”

The bell jingled rather violently as Bucky swung the door open, practically shoving Sam out the door before they arose more suspicion that they already had.

They walked together, next to each other, but there was something both comforting and deeply disconcerting that Bucky knew they were thinking the exact same thing. It was, of course, Sam who was the first to actually say it out loud because when the hell had Sam Wilson ever held back before?

“What... the fuck.”

Bucky took a sharp left turn towards the small park that was perhaps dangerously near where Steve was now living (at least according to Bruce), but they needed to be somewhere secluded so they could try to pull apart this tangled web that... well.

This tangled web that apparently some version of Bucky himself had woven.

Goddamn. Time travel was confusing enough in movies, and it was turning out to be a hundred times worse in real life.

“We gotta contact Bruce,” Bucky said quietly. “I don’t even know what the fuck to think about all this, except–that we’ve now figured out who’s fucking shit up in the past.”

“Yeah,” Sam said almost blankly, staring at Bucky as he struggled to get out the phone that Bruce had intentionally designed so that they’d be able to communicate from the past to the present (truly, the man was a giant green marvel). “You’re fucking up the past.”

“Oh my God,” Bucky muttered. “This is so goddamn complicated already.”

“You’re telling me. One of you is bad enough, now I know there’s two running around?”

Bucky glared at Sam before he made the call.

“Hey, what’ve you got?” Bruce said–and Bucky sighed loudly.

“We found–”

“Bucky’s messing up the past,” Sam nearly tattled, shoving his face close to the phone. “I don’t wanna point fingers, but–” Sam pointed at Bucky. “Oh, I guess you can’t see what I’m doing–I’m pointing at Barnes.”

“Great explanation, Sam,” Bucky deadpanned. “We were just told by the guy who runs the General Store here that I apparently already stopped by yesterday.”

“And he had long hair,” Sam reported loudly.

“Oh my God, are you planning on being helpful or just fucking annoying?” Bucky growled at Sam.

“Whatever works.”

“Bucky’s already there?” Bruce repeated, somehow able to get the actual information they were trying to communicate through their little fight (that probably wasn’t particularly important in the moment except that Sam had the habit of getting annoying and pointing out weird shit loudly as if nobody else could possibly understand that the stuff that happened in their lives was, by all accounts, very fucking weird.)

“Yeah,” Bucky said, rubbing a hand down his face. “Apparently some other version of me. We didn’t get any other information except that the guy at the General Store said that he’d seen Steve too.”

“Alright,” Bruce said, and Bucky was so grateful for the man’s ability to keep calm even when the most chaotic shit you could possibly imagine happened (which was something that Sam could absolutely learn how to do because Sam was now wandering away from the call, pacing back and forth and muttering about “Bucky clones”). “Whatever you do, it’s crucial that you don’t have any contact with Steve. We just aren’t sure quite yet how everything ties together–and Steve said that he doesn’t have any memory of you in the past. If you do make contact with him–”

“But what if this other Bucky makes contact with him?” Bucky asked suddenly. “Is that going to impact our future? Or will it make a different timeline?”

“I know you’re not gonna like this, but I don’t have any idea,” Bruce said, and Bucky could almost hear him shaking his head. “It shouldn’t even be possible that anyone could disrupt what’s already happened, but there’s no doubt that there’s been some kind of disturbance.”

“What if it’s us causing the disturbance?” Sam asked rather loudly, suddenly appearing next to Bucky in a display of annoying neuroticism. “What if we are literally ruining the entire present by just being here? That’s it. I quit. Beam me up, Scotty.”

“Calm down!” Bucky snapped, shoving Sam away who then decided to walk off, pace, and mutter again. “Let’s just say that I don’t think Wilson was the best pick for this mission. Him and time travel don’t really seem to agree with each other,” Bucky murmured into the phone.

“Well, he brings up a fair point,” Bruce said with a sigh. “We’ve got to be really careful with this. We don’t know what we’re doing.”

Bucky paused for a moment, watching Sam pace and mutter. Making sure that nobody around was questioning why there was a man losing his marbles in a public park (not that he really thought that Sam had too many of them to begin with, but you know).

“Is Steve there?” Bucky finally forced himself to ask. Because while this was awkward as hell, he knew that he couldn’t let whatever was going on between the two of them get in the way of actually fixing things here.

And all of this was clearly coming down to Steve. This other version of Bucky was back here for a reason, and Bucky knew himself and knew that there was was no other reason.

“Yeah,” Bucky heard Steve say–and Bucky would never have admitted that his formerly dead heart seized up at the mere sound of his voice. “I’m here, Buck.”

Fuck, I wish you wouldn’t call me that.

It had forever been Bucky’s greatest weakness. After all the shit had gone down with him being the Winter Soldier, being an assassin, being a chess piece, being a fucking terrorist, Steve had been the only one throughout all of it who had held onto the belief that he was still a person, a flesh and blood human with a beating heart.

A man who was worthy of a name. And when you’ve been nothing for so long, just the sound of someone saying your name–the only thing you have from the moment you’re born to the moment you die–well, it sure as hell sounded a lot like home.

Like clicking your damn ruby slippers and finding out that maybe your worst nightmares could be resigned to nothing more than terrible, terrible fucking dreams that lived nowhere but in your pillow.

“Hey Steve,” Bucky forced himself to say because they were doing something that was bigger than the tension between them (even though, in that moment, it didn’t feel like anything could possibly be larger than what loomed in the space they’d opened up with their perhaps inevitable separation). “What are your thoughts on all this shit? After all, it seems like whatever this other me is doing has something to do with you.”

Steve was quiet for a moment–and fuck, it was so awkward. Awkward didn’t feel like a big enough word to explain the squirming discomfort that came with their communication now. How it felt like this time, they might truly be finished for good–and now, there would always be holes shaped like each other in their lives. Spaces that would never be filled.

That feeling like there always might be a yawning hollow space in yourself that you knew you couldn’t fill, because if you put the thing that fit in there, it might be too big and it might rip you clean in half.

Goddamnit. Time travel was confusing, but it had nothing on the fucking metrics of the whole Steve and Bucky thing.

“I really don’t know,” Steve finally said. “But I get the feeling that this version of you is trying to prevent me from coming back to the present.”

“Why?” Bucky said immediately, and even as he said it, he thought he might know the answer.

The mind always knows things that the heart doesn’t, and vice versa. Those particular organs are excellent at keeping secrets from each other.

“I don’t know,” Steve said again, and this time, Bucky was sure that it was a lie, but it was one that he was grateful for. Sam and Bruce were already entangled enough in their relationship–they deserved an iota of freedom from that particular endless maze. “But I feel like there might be only one thing to do right now. And... maybe it’ll be best if you let Sam handle it.”

Bucky felt himself tense. Again, he thought he knew what was coming, but–

“I can handle it,” Bucky said, knowing full well that if it was what he thought it was, there was no damn way he could do it. “She knows me.”

There was a silence between them–and in a sick way, it felt good that Bucky had said what they were both thinking–what they were both so valiantly stumbling around, trying to ignore.

The very thing that had been making Bucky into a mess of anxiety ever since Steve had darkened his door again.

Because before Steve had come back home to him, he’d thought his home was with someone else. And in his worst moments, Bucky wondered if maybe–

“I mean, she might not like me, but–” Bucky mumbled, “--she doesn’t know who I am. She’ll talk to me. She knows you traveled in time, and this is her line of work too. There’s probably nobody better suited to help us.”

Steve was quiet again–and Bucky knew that Bruce was being quiet too. Goddamn, awkward. Again, not a big enough word, but it was a start at least to explain just how fucking terrible all of this was.

“Peggy’s a good person,” Bucky forced himself to say. “And we have the same taste in men, so how bad could it really go? We got so much in common.”

Sam had wandered back over–and now, he was absolutely staring at Bucky.

“Oh my God,” he said quietly. “You really are a masochist.”

He had to be, because this was gonna hurt like hell.

“I’ll talk to Peggy. Don’t worry,” Bucky said into the phone, “I’ll fix this.”

Maybe there was no better way to fix a broken heart than to confront the person responsible, after all.

Chapter Text

“We all have our weaknesses, dear friends; so we must strive to be considerate of one another.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

—

“Yet again, I really do not feel like we have thought this through.”

As usual, Sam Wilson’s only purpose was to point out the obvious. And yet, when Bucky had the tendency to do shit first and then think about said shit later, it was probably a good thing that someone was thinking about all those damn pesky details.

You know, details like the little old space time continuum. Boring shit like that.

“So you’re just gonna knock on her door and be like, hey, your boyfriend home?” Sam drawled. Bucky felt a pang.

“Probably married by this point,” Bucky mumbled, and he didn’t even feel the need to throw a noun on the beginning of the sentence, nor did he really give a shit if Sam noticed. Fuck nouns. Everything that was getting under his skin right now was a noun.

Marriage. Life. The pursuit of happiness (or what the fuck ever).

Steve.

Peggy.

Christ. Peggy.

Bucky had never outright hated Peggy–at least for not any reasons that made any sense. All she had ever done was want to be with Steve Rogers, and he couldn’t exactly blame her for that. And besides, if Steve was to be believed, she was part of the reason Steve had come back in the first place.

Bucky prickled at that particular memory. How Steve had told him that Peggy had given him the nudge. Almost like she’d given him permission.

Like she could have kept him forever if she wanted to.

But no. This was Peggy. Smart, reliable, beautiful Peggy. The one who Steve was allowed to end up with. The one that he could marry without worry or embarrassment.

The one who he could kiss in public to cheers instead of disgust.

“There has got to be a better way to do this,” Sam was protesting.

“Open to ideas,” Bucky grunted.

“Yeah fucking right,” Sam said–and then, Bucky felt his grab onto his arm. “Okay, come on, man this is getting ridiculous. There’s no damn way that you actually think this is going to help. This is just more of your martyr bullshit. Or maybe you think that if you do this, Steve’ll...”

Bucky stopped walking. The sun was baking him in his too-heavy suit. Damn, so this was why nobody dressed like this any more. He was sweating–and even though it wasn’t just from the heat, it was definitely part of it.

A scarecrow is just waiting to be set on fire, after all. And think of what an incredible pillar of smoke it would make. You could see that shit from miles around.

Just like Bucky knew what he was feeling was so painfully goddamned obvious to everyone but himself.

“Steve’ll what,” Bucky repeated flatly, glaring at Sam. Daring him to say it.

As if Sam had ever backed down from any kind of challenge before. The man really was Captain America. He stood up for that damn country even when it had turned its back on him and every one of his ancestors more times than any damn mathematician would be able to keep track of.

That kind of thing took a degree of grit beyond anything that Bucky knew he could ever muster, personally.

“Christ, you really are about as masochistic as they come,” Sam muttered. “You think that Steve’ll end it once and for all and then you’ll be in the right for the rest of your life. And you won’t feel like a piece of shit for breaking the heart of America’s hero, even if you and I both know that you had every right to end that relationship.”

End that relationship. Felt like a goddamn dagger, but Bucky also knew that he deserved it. He also knew that Sam was one of the only friends he had who cared enough about him to give it to him straight. Not an ounce of bullshit in the mix.

The thing is when all you knew for years upon fucking years was pain and pain and nothing but pain, it started to feel like home. Like if you tapped your ruby slippers together, your ankles might explode open and it would be the most natural thing in the world, to feel like everything was on fire.

Like if you hung your lifeless body in a field for long enough that everyone might become so damn scared of your hulking, lifeless form that they’d run away for good.

If you really think about it, a scarecrow is a pretty pathetic thing. To believe that you are so goddamn horrible looking that not even a bird would choose to share your company.

“It’s much easier to the victim than to take control of your own fate,” Sam said quietly, and Bucky felt a razor sharp retort on his tongue start to form. “And I’m not saying that terrible shit hasn’t happened to you, so don’t tell me I’m saying something that I’m not. You know me better than that. All I’m saying is that you do a damn good job making sure all of that horrible shit perpetuates. How long are you gonna keep that shit up, Bucky?”

A very fair question. And one that Bucky should have had the goddamn guts to ask himself.

Or maybe just the brains. Courage, brains, where was the damn difference?

And besides, both of those particular things required a functioning, blood pumping organ in the chest, and Bucky’s had been known to be a bit touchy when it came to working consistently. Doing what he wanted it to.

Beating at any kind of a regular tempo that he could anticipate. And even now, even when it should have been pounding out of control, Bucky wasn’t sure it was beating at all.

It was so damn easy to return to the ice when everything got too hard.

“What if this wasn’t about me at all?” Bucky said, forcing himself to use every part of the sentence without fear (there was plenty of fear, but he pushed through it with the same bullheaded stubbornness that had carried him through most of his life). “What if this was about setting shit right and figuring out what was going on with this whole–time disruption thing?”

“What if?” Sam said flatly. “Goddamn, that would be an interesting fairy tale, wouldn’t it? You can lie to yourself all you want, Bucky, but you’re gonna have a much worse success rate with me.”

Goddamnit all to hell. There really was nothing more irritating than having friends who actually knew you, inside and fucking out.

As if anyone really wanted to see each other’s guts, all of that wet messiness that somehow made you who you fucking were. We were all just a group of meatbags, living life as if there was some greater purpose, when in reality we all turn into the same shit at the end of the day.

But in moments like this, shit didn’t really seem random and pointless. Because people could see each other and know each other and recognize each other.

They could help each other make things better. Or at least point them in a better direction.

“I need this to not be about me and Steve,” Bucky said quietly, and again, there was every part of the sentence because he knew that right now, he couldn’t hide–nor did he want to. “And–that’s why I need you to come with me. So that it isn’t just about us–because at the end of the damn day, all of this really doesn’t have a damn thing to do with my... relationship. Or what the hell ever. That’s just–a casualty. If this is what Bruce says it is, it could change everything. I mean, he made it sound like... something really catastrophic could happen.”

Bucky took a moment to let that sink in–to let it feel real. And for that moment, he made sure that this was all more than just another roadblock for him and Steve. Because while there had been so much happening around them, there had been so many moments where it had felt like it was just the two of them.

But it wasn’t. And it never had been. And because of the tumultuous nature of their relationship, people had been hurt and people had been pushed to the side and stupid damn choices had been made. All because two boys who’d been frozen in ice couldn’t let go of each other.

It needed, for once, for once in his life to not be about Steve Rogers.

He needed to be someone who could live and breathe independently, even if for the longest time he had drank in Captain America like he was oxygen.

There had to be more, because if Steve was all that there was, there was a chance that the entire world could go completely dark again. And Bucky didn’t want Steve to be his only source of life. That wasn’t fair to Steve, but more importantly, it wasn’t fair to Bucky.

No one should hold all the keys to your heart, after all. You should probably keep an emergency set on you, just in case everything goes very, very fucking wrong.

“That’s why I need you to come with me,” Bucky said quietly. “Because I know that this can’t be about Steve and me. If it is, that’s how people get hurt–and the world gets fucked up.”

“Because you’re two emotionally stunted morons with more superpowers than you have a single idea what to do with,” Sam drawled. “Poor you, Bucky.”

But his eyes had softened now–and Bucky thought about how lucky he was to have one single true friend in this damn world. Not only one person who would follow him to the end of the line, but a few. That was a goddamn blessing, and he had been stupid to forget about it, even for a moment.

“So now that you’ve got your big head screwed on straight, can we actually pause for a damn moment and talk this through?” Sam said in that same flat voice, but Bucky knew that he wasn’t pissed any more–and that was a relief. God, Bucky couldn’t stand it when Sam was mad at him–and it usually just turned into Bucky being pissed in return, and then the world turned into snappy comments and slamming doors until Bruce finally made them make up.

When Steve had been gone, all they’d had was each other. And sometimes, if Bucky was being honest with himself, he missed that. At first, they’d pushed each other away, but then, there had come a time where they had learned to work together so well that Bucky had been certain that if it was necessary, they could take on the damn world.

“First of all, you let me do the talking,” Sam said, and when Bucky opened his mouth, Sam loudly (and perhaps appropriately) said, “BAP BAP BAP. Close your mouth. I’m not hearing it. If you do it, you’re just going to end up grunting out something that you didn’t mean. And besides that, you’ve never know what Peggy is like when she’s with Steve. She knew about your relationship. She’s too smart to have not had some idea. So there’s a very good chance she’s gonna try to get a rise out of you, and knowing you, you will absolutely gobble up that bait like it’s your last damn meal on death row. So do not argue with me.”

As much as Bucky wanted to argue (and as much as he resented being told to obey, even if it was for his own good), he obediently closed his mouth.

“Yeah, you can glare at me all you want, Winter Crybaby, but I’m not gonna budge,” Sam snorted. “This is what I do well. Diplomacy. Because, if you recall, I actually know how to talk to people, not just glare at them and grunt.”

And Sam was right, of course. Because he generally was. Bastard.

Well. At least one of them had a functioning brain. Maybe for now, they could share it.

Chapter Text

“Okay, so let me make sure that we are clear on what we discussed,” Sam said irritatingly for what was probably the fifteenth time in the past five minutes.

“Oh my God,” Bucky muttered. Apparently, he had no issues using all of his words when Sam was annoying the ever loving hell out of him. “Haven’t we talked through this enough yet?”

“Depends,” Sam said unflinchingly. “Are we going to go knock on her door and you’re going to start flapping your gums?”

“When has me talking too much ever been a problem,” Bucky deadpanned.

“Oh, great question,” Sam said breezily. “Tell me, Bucky, just how many times have you come face to face with Peggy Carter? Oh sorry, or should I say–Peggy Rogers?”

Bucky felt his entire body flinch–and he tightened his jaw. He could feel Sam’s smirk without even needing to look up.

“Alright. Listen, you can do this Bucky,” Sam continued–and his voice was still annoying, but this time it got under Bucky’s skin because he was being gentle. It was so frustratingly out of character that it reminded Bucky of just how volatile he was being. How ridiculous. How uncontrolled.

He was the Winter Soldier, for Christ’s sake. He’d been through more than most people would ever dream of. Torture, brainwashing, murder, losing his arm.

Losing everyone and everything he loved. And it all went so fast.

He could do this. And beyond that, he had to do this. And even further beyond that, he found that he wanted to do this. On this frustrating tour he was taking now of all of his past grievances. How much they still hurt him, and how much he still tried to fruitlessly bury them beneath the rotten floorboards that he kept inside of himself.

It had never worked before, and it wouldn’t work now. That telltale heart was always pounding away, and even if no one else could hear it, the throbbing of it was enough to make Bucky admit to anything.

“I know,” Bucky said quietly. “And I’ll let you take the lead. Even though it drives me goddamn crazy and I still think that I could handle it, but fine.”

“Yeah, well, pride goeth before the fall, Buck. And I’m just trying to keep you from hitting the ground. I know you’ve got a vibranium arm, but that shit would still hurt like hell.”

Hurt. Yeah. Bucky was becoming accustomed to that. It was a part of being alive, being present, and being awake. Something that he had been able to almost completely escape when he was the Winter Soldier (or at least he had thought that he had escaped. He had learned later, of course, that all of it was still there, it was just being hidden from his own eyes, and it would come bursting to the surface later in a wave that would threaten to overcome him completely).

Yes. He’d been through a lot. But that only meant that he could make it out on the other side, alive. Somehow, miraculously, beautifully alive and in his own skin–even if he was missing an arm, he was still here. Not whole, but still.

Better than being gone like he’d been for so goddamn long.

And being present in your body was bullshit in moments like this. It fucking sucked, but Bucky knew he’d survive it–and his friend would be by his side the entire time.

Before he even really knew what was happening, he and Sam were standing in front of a beautiful chestnut door. A stunning little house, perfect for two. And could easily house a third if the two decided to expand their family.

A family. A real, proper family.

“Get out of your head, Barnes,” Sam murmured and for a moment, for one startling and strange moment, Bucky thought that he was Steve–and then, he didn’t care what state Steve would be in, he just wanted him there. Standing beside him, comforting him in all the ways Bucky had told himself that he didn’t need, but knew he did.

No. There was no Steve, and it was better this way. This had to be all him.

“I got this,” Bucky murmured. “Let’s do this shit.”

Sam nodded shortly–and without hesitating (Bucky wished he had), he knocked smartly on the door three times.

Movement inside. Sounded like the creaking of a rocking chair. A lock turning–and then, the door opened.

Bucky had met Peggy Carter before, but it had been so long that he had forgotten so goddamn much about her. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, he had forgotten just how damn beautiful she was. Bucky greatly preferred the company of men, but he’d loved a few women in his time–and he had to admit, looking at her now, taking her in–in a sweet summery dress cinched at her waist, her hair perfectly curled, and red lipstick always in place–he understood. He understood more than he would have cared to admit.

Her lips parted–likely to ask what their business was–and then, her gaze settled on Bucky’s face. And Bucky saw the ice settle into her eyes. After all, he’d had so much personal experience with warmth freezing over into something hard and unmovable.

In fact, for one strange delirious moment, Bucky thought that this must have been the same look he’d given Steve when he’d had the nerve to come back. Looking at Bucky like he’d half expected him to pin a medal on his chest for doing nothing more than being where he was supposed to be.

For actually saying goodbye instead of just flying off into the damn sunset and leaving Bucky behind, feeling so–

“Ma’am, my name is Sam Wilson–” Sam started, but Peggy spoke and immediately, Bucky knew why Steve loved her.

“You have a lot of nerve coming here, I must say,” she said, not even sparing a glance at Sam. No, her eyes pierced directly into Bucky’s goddamn soul–and even though he knew he had nothing to be sorry for, suddenly all he wanted to do was take his hat in his hands and try to aw shucks his damn way out of getting a lecture from a fine lady. “I thought it would be clear that you are not welcome here. Now please leave before my husband returns home.”

“Ma’am,” Sam tried again, reaching up like he would block the door–and Peggy, to all of her incredible credit, actually reached up and knocked his hand away.

“Who the hell do you think you are,” she said, and she still was not even glancing at Sam. It was like she and Bucky were the only two people in the world.

Well, no. There were three people. Because Steve Rogers was part of this. Steve was always a part of their lives, and that would never change.

And for a brief moment, Bucky wondered how Peggy must have felt when Steve left. And how she had encouraged him to go after what he had truly wanted because Steve hadn’t had enough nerve to make that choice himself. She was twice the person Bucky ever could be because try as he fucking might, he’d always been terrible at letting go. It took more goddamn courage that he could ever even begin to muster up.

“Peggy–” Bucky tried–and he could feel Sam staring at him, glaring really, but he knew that he didn’t have a choice–and Sam knew it too. It would have been easier to let Sam handle this, of course, but Bucky was realizing that it had to be him.

To have all of that damn nerve to look someone in the eye, someone that you were afraid of. Someone who had the power to take everything away from you because she wasn’t nearly as defective as you were.

Someone who deserved so much more than what she’d been given.

“Mrs. Rogers,” she said simply, smoothing down her dress. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage for a lifetime, Mr. Barnes? Or are you here to attempt to torment my husband even more? I assure you, he has shed enough tears over you.”

Bucky felt something bottom out inside of him–like all of his organs were falling into a place they were not meant to go. What had he done? He knew that he’d hurt Steve, but–

“What are you–?” Bucky tried–and before he knew what was happening, Peggy had stepped out onto the porch and had given him a solid shove that was so solid and so unexpected that his back banged into one of her porch beams. The poor wood gave a miserable groan, as if it was disappointed to be disturbed in such a way.

“You might be able to fool him, but you can’t fool me,” she snapped, and her brown eyes were on fire. “This was what you wanted, right? You wanted him to go back to the place where he belonged. So now don’t you dare come here and try to find your way back into his life. You know that he would welcome you back–and that he misses you fiercely.”

She had tears in her eyes and while Bucky wanted to stop her, to ask her what she was talking about, and to try to get some goddamn logical ground under his feet in regards to just what the hell was actually going on, he saw the pain in her eyes and he knew that if she didn’t get it out now, it would sit in her and fester and make everything about her life rotten and fetid.

She had just enough nerve for this very moment.

“And now you come here and you try to ruin him when he is finally happy. After everything he’s been through–after all of the pain and the worry and the loss–you come back now? You do realize there is so much more in this world than just you and him. I’ve been here. I’ve been here waiting the whole time, and you...”

She impatiently wiped tears off of her cheeks, her lips pulling down sharply at the corners.

“This was what you told him you wanted,” she said, and he could see her trying to even herself out. And he knew how hard that was when everything was tearing through you at a pace that you could hardly even understand, like fire ripping through a broken and parched cornfield. “This what you told him every version of you would always want. Even if you didn’t know it. You told him what I’ve always known–that you will do nothing but do incredible harm to each other.”

“Ma’am,” Sam said, and finally, his voice cut through. For a moment, Peggy just continued to look at Bucky. He didn’t know how long they stood there, just looking at each other, but it felt like it was so damn long. Because in her eyes, he saw himself.

And he knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. And he wouldn’t want that for anyone. Not even for a woman that he had once thought he’d hated.

“Ma’am, I promise you,” Sam was saying slowly, holding his hands up in a pose of surrender–and Bucky couldn’t blame him for that. The woman clearly had some strength (he could still feel the pure power of that push). “We just got here. Unless I’m very, very wrong, this conversation that Bucky had with Steve... it wasn’t him.”

“Oh, it wasn’t?” she scoffed, giving Sam that look that was so cold it burned. “So you’re saying it was some other Bucky Barnes who hurt him?”

“Yes,” Sam said, and to his credit, his eyes never left hers. “Do you know where Steve came from?”

Peggy hesitated a moment. Almost like this was something she wasn’t supposed to share. She looked at Bucky–and then at Sam.

Back at Bucky again. And Bucky hadn’t looked away from her once.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“We’re from there too,” Sam said slowly. “A moment of your time, Mrs. Rogers. That’s all.”

A moment would feel like a thousand years for both Peggy and Bucky, but this was what they needed. And both of them knew it.

It took a hell of a lot of nerve, but Bucky saw Peggy nod slowly. Her eyes still cold. Frozen in a timeless river.

“Alright.”

Christ, if only Bucky had that much nerve.

Chapter Text

“All magic is unnatural, and for that reason is to be feared and avoided.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

—

It wasn’t as though Bucky had expected any of this to be particularly easy, but. Well.

Well.

This was proving to be remarkably more complex than he had even been able to imagine in the very dustiest and most distant shores of his imagination. Not that he’d ever had much of a creative mind, but still.

This other version of Bucky sure as fuck had made a mess of things, but then again, Bucky felt like that fact alone shouldn’t have surprised him too terribly much. It would seem that this was a common trait among all variations of Bucky Barnes that skulked through every dimension.

And hell, maybe this Bucky had actually gotten it right. After all, what had Steve and Bucky ever done to each other except–

No. Not right now. Not important.

Throw all of that self flagellation in the trash for now, Barnes. Nobody wants to see you nail yourself to a cross because everybody knows you’re not the type to hang yourself for all the sins of the world.

Dammit all to hell. Even his own subconscious couldn’t cut him a damn break.

“I do hope you make this quick,” Peggy said crisply as she let them inside. She held the door for Sam–and then let it slam in Bucky’s face.

Your feelings are duly noted, ma’am. Thank you for hitting me with your screen door just to make it ten times more clear.

“Is Steve coming back soon? We’ll go as quick as we can,” Sam said much more politely than anything Bucky had managed ever since he’d found himself in her (admittedly) rather intimidating presence.

“If it is all the same to you, I’d much prefer to hear whatever it is you have to say from you instead of him,” Peggy said, not even so much as sparing a glance in Bucky’s direction.

Sam half-glanced towards Bucky (and she did not follow his gaze). “Can’t say I really blame you for that one, ma’am. This guy tends to fuck up a lot of things that he encounters. Pardon the language.”

“No pardon necessary when you’re speaking what is the unequivocal truth.”

Et tu, Brute? Damn.

“The truth is that we really don’t know what’s going on either,” Sam said simply, sinking onto her sofa while she settled into her quaint and charming rocking chair. Bucky decided that while she might criticize him for skulking in the doorway, it was a better choice than sitting down uninvited into one of her chairs like he was the guest of honor.

This was precarious, and Bucky was very much aware that even an ounce of his weight would tip the whole thing in a direction that none of them wanted to go. Peggy’s cooperation here was key.

I’ve never been very goddamn agreeable, but I’m gonna do my best here, ma’am. Consider it a miracle that I’ve kept my mouth closed as long as I have. Because while I don’t always have a lot of shit to say, if you’re gonna come for me, it’s gonna be hard for me to not come right fucking back for you.

Jesus, this petty squabbling over a man shit was pretty embarrassing and overdone, and it wasn’t any better even when you added a queer element to it.

“You say that Steve spoke with Bucky before he came back,” Sam said, reaching into the pocket of his jacket to pull out a small notebook. “You got any more you can share about that?”

Peggy hesitated. He saw her perfectly manicured nails dig briefly into the armrest of her antique chair.

“I don’t know as much as I would like to,” Peggy murmured. “Only that when he returned to me, it was one of my first questions.”

Her eyes skittered over to Bucky for half a moment before slamming back onto Sam. Focused, business mode.

I get it. You lock in because you know that if you slip out of it for a second, you’re gonna get locked out of your own damn brain and how do you ask for a key for something that’s supposed to be yours? That’s some embarrassing shit.

“I... wanted to know what happened to Bucky,” she said quietly. “Because while we were very close during the war, there was always the smallest bit of distance between us. Like something was getting in the way. And I didn’t understand it until I saw the two of them together. And even though it’s not polite to talk about such things, I always knew. As much as I might have tried to deny it to myself.”

Her gaze dropped into her lap. Bucky saw her fiddling with her own fingers. Something that he himself did when he felt like there was no ground beneath his feet and if he wasn’t careful he would start falling forever, down that endless goddamn rabbit hole of what ifs.

I get it. I know you. I’m sorry about all this shit. Even though it’s not my fault. Even though no matter what, it always feels like I’m apologizing for someone who should actually be saying sorry. Not because that person isn’t sorry, but because if I admit to myself just how wrong he is, it opens up a pretty fucking rotten can of beans that I have no interest in examining. Because even though I know realistically that he’s not perfect, every time I stop to think about it, I just feel so–

“I didn’t want him to feel any shame for it, if he did feel that way towards men. I have never had any great concerns with men who have those particular desires. And he assured me that while he might want both men and women, what was between the two of you was over. Permanently.”

And now, she was looking at Bucky. Looking through him–like the most goddamn powerful x-ray machine in the world. Like she could see into his scarred heart and like she recognized it.

Or maybe that was just the general wear and fucking tear that came with being unfortunate enough to love Steve Rogers.

“I should have known he wasn’t being truthful,” she said, and her voice was barely a whisper now. And it hurt to hear in a way because Bucky knew what it was like to finally learn how to wield your own voice only to be told to put it back in its sheath. To be told that you can trust your own instincts, and then to be told to check those particular inklings at the door. That painful space between knowing, and wanting to protect someone you love by pretending like you don’t know.

“And I think he wanted it to be true, but we know that those aren’t the same thing. You can hate the truth with every bit of yourself, but it doesn't change anything,” she said in that same whisper thin voice, as transparent as a cloud passing in front of the sun. And Bucky knew that she knew she couldn’t hide what was really beneath. And maybe she didn’t see the point in it any more.

Loving Steve will do that to you. It’ll turn your whole damn world upside down, and while it’s fun to be dangled like that for a bit, eventually, all the blood rushes to your head and you find you can’t think a damn thought. At least not one that came from you.”

“So it wasn’t you that spoke to him before he left,” Peggy said finally, and now she was looking at Bucky–and Bucky realized that it had been for both of them that she hadn’t looked at him. Not Some petty attempt to hide her gaze from his–but because she knew that the moment they looked at each other, really saw each other, it would be like looking into the end of the world.

Because no matter what, they always knew that they were both heading for disaster. And who the hell wants to see that kind of prophecy form right before you?

Especially when you knew that even if you did see the end, you’d still make the same choice again and again. Not because you enjoy pain, but because it’s all you’ve ever known.

“No, it wasn’t me,” Bucky said quietly. “But it was a version of me, I guess. Do you know what he said?”

Peggy wet her lips, seemingly uncaring that she no doubt tasted lipstick. A thin covering for what was real. Just another way to prop up something so no one thought for a moment what might be underneath–and no one even wanted to know.

The spectre of what could be is often so much more thrilling than what really is there. A crow might not run away from a real man, but a scarecrow would send it skittering away in terror.

What could be. What is. What we want to be, but what never will be.

It can’t be about that, Bucky. The world doesn’t revolve around you and that shield hauling idiot.

And for a moment, Bucky thought maybe he was right for once. Because it was becoming more clear that no, the world didn’t revolve around Bucky Barnes. But it certainly did seem to spin around the axis of Steve Rogers.

And for a moment, Bucky thought about how good it might have all been if Steve had never–

“He told him that Bucky said–only what was true. Only what was inevitable,” Peggy murmured. “Steve never told me exactly what he said, but... I think I might know.”

And Bucky thought that he might know too. There was that truth again, shimmering beneath the surface. What looks to be gold at the bottom of the riverbank might be nothing more than a rock though.

And what we choose to believe to be true might be a thousand times more compelling than what was real. And what was so painfully rushing towards us, carried by the ripples of what always is and what always will be.

“I think I know too,” Bucky murmured, and all of his words were there, every grammatical device possible, but he wished that they weren’t. Yet again, he wished that he could hide–or rather, that he could hang himself in plain sight and everyone would think that they knew him, but they didn’t. To be the Winter Soldier again, where violence carved every inch of him, but at least he had a precise shape.

When you hid, you weren’t always trying to stay out of sight of others. Sometimes you were just hoping that you might be lost to everyone and everything–even to yourself. Because if you never have to look at who you really are, you might not see just how cracked the mirror was.

And you might never understand who had done all the damage, and maybe it hadn’t been as self-inflicted as you’d previously thought. Because the wounds that both he and Peggy both wore, those craters of battle scars, they were starting to look remarkably similar.

A man who claimed he wanted the real thing, but was so terribly disappointed when he got close and found out it was just a thing made of straw. As if he expected someone to be formed to be something unique and fully knowable. No flesh allowed, and certainly no foreign matter.

Nothing had made him happy. Maybe no one could.

“He always leave,” Bucky murmured, barely audible, and their eyes met again. “Sometimes it’s not his fault. Oftentimes, it is.”

Because he was so determined to live in the midst of gray, never selected black or white because that would be too damn hard.

“What the hell are we talking about?” Sam finally broke in. “All these damn riddles aren’t doing us a bit of good. The fact is that whatever this other version of you did screwed up the timeline, and it seems like he’s trying to do it again.”

Peggy frowned, her gaze finally turning to Sam. “He’s here?”

“Another one of me,” Bucky huffed. Peggy met his eyes. A flicker of genuine warmth.

“Just what the world needs. More Bucky Barnes.”

Maybe a thousand Bucky’s knit together would finally make a full version. And maybe if he laid all those yellow bricks just right, they might lead somewhere.

And maybe it wasn’t where he thought he was supposed to go all along.

Chapter Text

“‘Why, when it comes to Law, I have nothing to say’ answered that personage. ‘For laws were never meant to be understood, and it is foolish to make the attempt.’”
― L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

—

“So now that we’ve gotten all of this absurd metaphorical random dialogue out of the way, what are the chances of us actually having a practical conversation? You know, one that isn’t just completely made up of meaningful, knowing looks?” Sam asked flatly.

Well. He had a point, as reluctant as Bucky was to admit it.

“Where’s Steve right now?” Bucky asked.

“Downtown,” Peggy replied. “He works with the police force.”

Of course he did. Wherever he went, Steve Rogers couldn’t resist the opportunity to be the hero. Bucky wished that he could say that the particular thought crossed his mind with no small amount of ire, but unfortunately, it was more fond than anything.

Almost as if being able to look all of the problems they had in the eye, identify them clearly, and address them might make their relationship something that could be saved. That is, if Bucky ever got back home.

That is, if Steve was still there when he got back. If he and Sam could prevent there from being some major rift to, you know, that pesky old space-time continuum.

“Okay, I think it’s really important that Steve doesn’t know about any of this,” Sam said quickly. “If he does–”

“He’ll try to take charge,” Peggy provided. “I agree. And I recognize that it was already quite dangerous to include me, so I appreciate the risk. I know that I can be an asset in this if you allow me.”

Peggy was more than just someone who was widely considered to be Steve Rogers’ first and best love. She was someone who was trained in her own right to be perceptive, brilliant, and determined. The fact that all of this involved technology that was nearly a hundred years beyond where they were currently standing would not slow her down either. For lack of a more elegant phrase, Peggy Carter had seen some shit.

“The first thing we need to do is find this pain in the ass other version of you, Buck,” Sam said. “That is, if he’s still here.”

“I think he is,” Bucky murmured. “It seems like he might have showed up to make sure that everything is going the way he intended it to. And to maybe... intervene if he thinks that things are going to go down a different path.”

“Such as Steve leaving to return to Bucky,” Peggy said, and there was a bracing quality in her voice. As if she was saying it in order to force herself to look the possibility directly in the eye, no matter how painful it might be for her. Because Bucky could see clearly that she was so much more than someone he had so easily relegated to being the other person in the relationship, someone who periodically and annoyingly got in between himself and his own destiny.

The truth was that if he was being honest with himself, he was the one playing that particular role. The man who consistently got in between Steve and Peggy and their theoretical happy ending that always seemed to be just out of reach.

“So what is our end goal here?” Peggy said briskly. “My assumption is to make sure that all returns to the way it was in your universe, which will mean...”

She was looking at Bucky when she asked the question, as if he was the one she trusted to tell the truth. She wasn’t wrong to do so because Sam became almost immediately fascinated with his shoelaces.

“The goal isn’t to get him to leave to come be with me,” Bucky said firmly, and what was even more surprising was that he actually believed himself. “We are just concerned about what might happen if the timeline is disrupted. And... maybe if we’re being honest with ourselves, we don’t know when the timeline rift actually happened. There’s a possibility that it happened when...”

He didn’t need to finish his sentence. Peggy’s eyes were dark and clear with understanding–and he thought he might have seen a flicker of respect in them, which he’d realized was something he’d never seen before, at least not when Peggy was looking at him.

In another lifetime, he was now keenly aware that they would have been very close. Best friends, more than likely. Perhaps even been in a kind of marriage that would have allowed freedom for both of them. She seemed like the kind of woman who wouldn’t value marriage as highly as she valued her own happiness and the joy of her friends.

She was a good woman, through and through, as much as he might have tried to convince himself that it wasn’t true. Damn, things were all so much easier when they were in black and white. Throw in a dash of color and the whole thing gets twisted up nearly beyond recognition, like it was wrecked by some kind of violent natural disaster.

“So the goal is to just make sure that everyone remains safe and nothing gets changed too much,” Sam said somewhat loudly–and Bucky realized they were relying on weighted looks yet again to communicate. “And in order to do that, we need to find Bucky. Or rather, the Bad Bucky. Is that a good codename? The Bucky That Sucks also has a certain ring to it, though it doesn’t necessarily narrow the field.”

Bucky glared at him. He thought he might have heard Peggy snort, but by the time he looked back at her, she had carefully schooled her expression into one of the utmost seriousness.

Well. All things considered, he could admit that he deserved that.

—

“Okay. We might need to stop so I can throw up,” Sam wheezed from the backseat

“You never would have survived in this century,” Bucky said dryly.

“Yeah, between this and all the racism, I’m sure something shitty would have happened,” Sam said in a flat voice. “And now you feel bad.”

“Unfair,” Bucky retorted.

“And also true. I’m not kidding about the throwing up thing, by the way, and this is coming from a man who literally flies for a living. When did they build cars that didn’t have consistent turbulence the entire time?”

“Oh, and automobiles in the future ride completely smoothly?” Peggy said a bit crisply. “You know, if the vehicle is not to your liking, you could always walk.”

Silence from the backseat. “Point taken. But next time, I’m sitting in the front.”

“Shouldn’t be surprised that Steve joined the police force, but I always thought he’d work with you given the chance,” Bucky said with a glance to Peggy. She was effortlessly fashionable as she drove, her gloved hands holding onto the leather steering wheel, a scarf securing her hair in place, and a pair of beautiful horn-rimmed sunglasses. She looked like she was far too good for this town, and that was a pretty damn fair assessment.

“He does work with me a fair bit, but we try not to double dip as much as possible,” Peggy murmured. “There is plenty of work to be done locally, and Steve enjoys helping out wherever he can. He primarily works with the police and will assist me on more specialized missions.”

“Damn. How many of those you got?” Sam asked.

“Classified,” Peggy said with a self-satisfied smile. “Here we are now.”

As nervous as Bucky was to see Steve in this environment, he was also reminding himself repeatedly and consistently that not everything was about him and Steve. Nor did he want everything to be all about them. The more that he spent time focusing on the unraveling threads of their relationship, the more likely it was that he would miss an important detail. When he’d left, he and Steve had agreed to give each other space. They needed to do that. Bucky needed to focus on something that wasn’t just Steve Rogers. It wasn’t healthy, goddamnit.

Besides, they had a lot of shit to do here, and there was the entire damn universe at risk if they didn’t figure out what to do. And they would. Bucky knew they would. With Peggy and Sam, they had plenty of fortifications.

Bucky just had to accept the fact that he was by far the mostly likely one to disrupt everything and get in the way. Perhaps he shouldn’t have even gone on this mission, but once a bell was rung, there really wasn’t shit you could do about it.

Peggy had parked with a bit of distance between the vehicle and the police station. Yet again, a wave of nostalgia tumbled over Bucky, which he pushed aside as quickly as he could. Sometimes it felt like fighting his way through damn cobwebs, or staggering around when everything suddenly snapped sepia tone.

Another pang. He missed it so much. Maybe it was cliche to say that everything was simpler then because there were so many things that were astronomically more complicated (one of them being the fact that even him and Steve holding hands would have been reason enough for them to get the shit kicked out of them), but it was simpler. When he was just a boy. No goddamn superpowers weighing him down, and he never known the bite of a frozen river. Or the loss of a goddamn limb.

“I’ll go in and speak to him,” Peggy offered. “And you are certain–”

“Yes,” Bucky said simply. “If Steve is here, he’ll be close by. He’s on a mission, he’s not here to just wander around.”

Bucky remembered what Mr. Klein had said about the other version of him, this version with long hair, who had wanted something from the General Store. Damnit. He should have figured out a way to ask the old man. They’d go back at some point. But what the hell did that Bucky want that could be found out here in 1950?

Goddamn. It hit Bucky that Steve had been out here for a year already. Steve hadn’t even been back a year with Bucky right now. Bucky imagined how terrible it would be to have a year with Steve, only for him to realize that this wasn’t where he wanted to be. And for him to leave.

Alright, Hamlet, enough with the dramatics. Let’s get back to the matter at hand.

“Shall we say return to the automobile in about twenty minutes?” Peggy suggested as she got out of the car. “That should give you enough time to canvas this area as well as any building nearby. I suppose it goes without saying to very much keep your head down.”

“Yes ma’am,” Sam said politely with a lot more manners than he’d ever shown to Bucky. And with that, Peggy gave a quick nod and headed off in the direction of the station.

“As much as I wish I could say that we should split off, I know that we need to stay together,” Bucky murmured. “It’s not safe for you to be alone.”

Sam sighed. “You got that right. Just be ready with some excuse of why we’re running around together.” It wasn’t something that either of them particularly wanted to discuss, but it was also a reality that couldn’t be ignored.

“Doing this the old fashioned way is going to take awhile,” Bucky sighed. “We’re going to need to hustle if we want to get this done in twenty minutes.”

“Then you’d better stop flapping your gums and we’d better start walking,” Sam said flatly.

It was a quiet afternoon. Very few cars were parked nearby, and even less passed them by as they checked through each of them carefully. It was a bit hard to look when you didn’t know what you were looking for. Not unlike searching for a needle in a haystack, except that you don’t know it’s a needle you’re supposed to be seeking out.

“So,” Sam murmured as they entered the post office, which stood conveniently next to the police station. “What are we gonna do when we find him?”

Bucky grabbed Sam’s sleeve. Sam opened his mouth to say something, but he stopped.

Standing at the desk was a man with shoulder length brown hair, and a build that Bucky immediately recognized because–

“Holy shit,” Sam whispered.

Yeah. Staring at your own back was definitely a holy shit moment.