Archive of Our Own ^beta

Magic had always come naturally to Steve. The nuns had always approved of his marks in the practical exams. He could tell because there was always far less tongue clucking involved than the physical education exams had entailed.

His lungs might have struggled to draw air, but pulling his red sparks into intricate forms was easy. His magic has always been one of the few things he could rely on, even as Steve’s body failed him. His magic, his mother and the sense of justice she instilled in him, and Bucky, the few constants in his life. Even after Sarah Rogers was gone, the hours she’d spent gently teaching him about control, how he could pull from within to affect the world around him, stuck with her son.

Bucky told him, back when they first met as knobbly kneed eight year olds, that it was one of the things that had first drawn him to Steve. He’d seen Steve, all of sixty pounds soaking wet and a solid foot shorter, stomp up to a schoolyard bully with a face as red as the sparks flying from his fists and berate him for stealing their classmate’s doll.

It had pulled him in, even if it was just to intercede as Steve got punched. Laughed later, said it looked like the fireworks that filled the sky on his birthday, impossible to look away from. And also loud and bright and very annoying to most animals with hearing. Steve shoved him into a trash can for that.

(When he made the same joke ten years later, Steve still shoved him into a trash can, but he kissed him first.)

It wasn’t long after that first meeting when he discovered that the sparks were born from his emotions, particularly his connections to others.

He had practiced finding the thread he could feel connecting him to Bucky, still so new back then but wound strong as the suspension cable on the Brooklyn Bridge, till he could reach out with his Sense and tug at it gently.

When Steve had shown Bucky a few hours later, excited and out of breath, Bucky had looked at him, bright and pleased and proud- like his own magic wasn’t the kind of rare that idiots started wars to possess- and told him he felt the reverberations from his end even if he couldn’t see the bond itself the way Steve could.

This led to a series of experiments, Bucky’s eyes gleaming with the curiosity of a nine year old nerd, Steve’s from the pleasant rush of connection drawing on his power gave him. Pulling Bucky to him from a great distance when they used their abilities at the same time, giving him a steady anchor as he learned his own control. Drawing and giving strength or courage through the connection between them, a positive feedback loop leaving both feeling like they could take on the world, right up until Mrs. Barnes called them in for dinner.

They would learn, years later, about how Steve’s magic drew people in by nature. Peggy Carter would step up to him, a sharp click to her heels and lipstick almost as red as Steve’s sparks, and look into him like she was staring into his soul, before announcing he had the potential to galvanize a nation.

As Steve later discovered, sitting at a bar in bombed out France, she had stared into his soul, in a sense. 

Agent Carter’s ability to see potential, to analyze the base components of another’s magic and character, had been essential to her success as an operative. It was among the less flashy magical presentations, but it was a skill that had saved her- and by extension, Steve’s- life on many occasions. It suited her, the same way the sharp heels and handgun did.

(Not that it had ever been registered in an official capacity. If any of the suits from the National Arcane Registry asked, Margaret Carter’s most developed Sense specialty had been an uncanny skill in applying an eyeliner crease.)

Peggy had been one of the first people his magic had connected to during the war, beyond his existing connection with Bucky. Her magic was red too, but a more subdued tone than his. More clandestine, less like the “screaming fireworks holding a come-fight-me sign” Bucky affectionately referred to his sparks as. Easier to hide.

When it swirled against his, during those first few months of working together, it felt like smoothed glass shards. Cool to the touch, slotting into any environment, still sharp enough to cut if treated incorrectly. 

The transparency, so rare among those in her profession, never hid her sentiments from Steve. It was a boon in meetings with all of those ego-centric, self-proclaimed ‘expert military tacticians’ looking to boost their resume by advising ‘Captain America’. It only took a quick tap at the amount of red creeping into the glass’ clear texture for Steve to decide exactly how much horse shit he was going to call out.

Working with Peggy and Howlies in the war had meant that he could quickly cut through all the cloak-and-dagger of being a special ops unit, able to rely on his bonds to build a reliable picture of the world. The work had been grueling, warfare always was, but he’d had a path through all the chaos of subterfuge that never once failed him.

In the twenty-first century, he thinks that casual clarity he’d built from his bonds was what he missed the most. Especially now, when Nick Fury was bleeding out on his apartment floor and a ghost was sprinting across the DC rooftops.

Heart pounding from the shock and adrenaline, Steve gave chase. He managed to get within range on a flat roof, doggedly pushing to corner his target.

Fury might not have been his favourite person in the world, but he held the best interests of the people above his own desire for glory. In their world, that was invaluable. Steve would be damned if he let this guy and whoever he worked for take it without a fight.

Moving on instinct, Steve sent the shield flying. It arced in a straight path towards the assailant with the force of twenty men, practically sparking on its own as the magic responded to his righteous fury. 

The figure turned, whipping around at near inhuman speeds, nothing and everything behind his grease paint-lined eyes. He raised his left arm rapidly, in the span of a millisecond, and-

He caught the shield.

That should have been impossible. Between Steve's magic, Howard's initial runes, Tony's enhancements, and the borderline sentience the shield had acquired somewhere along the way, anyone beyond Steve or his trusted few touching the shield should be repelled brutally. He'd seen many a Nazi make that mistake and be sent flying like a ball meeting Babe Ruth's bat.

Steve was rapidly trying to process this development, in the barest of moments between this action and the assailant's inevitable counterattack, when something even stranger happened.

The shield purred.

Well. If Steve wanted to be pedantic, the reaction wasn’t exactly a purr. It was still a piece of metal. But 80 years ago, when this had happened for the first time- the low vibration accompanied by this violently content sensation spreading across his mental link to the weapon, light pulsing gently along its runes and a low hum emanating from the center, Bucky had laughed and said it reminded him of a cat.

Steve had always, privately, believed the term was fitting. Something about the way it responded to his touch, like one of the alley cats that always strolled up to Bucky and started rubbing themselves on his pant leg after he'd stopped Steve from getting beat up by the asshole of the week.

(Cats had always loved Bucky, but none as much as the shield did. It was always pulling Steve towards him, sometimes with mental tugging and sometimes quite physically, during their downtime and buzzing insistently until Bucky gave a gentle stroke to its star emblem. Bucky thought it was sweet. 

Steve, well-aware that a semi-sentient magical object connected this intimately to a wielder took on more than just their magical energy signature, thought it was horribly transparent.)

The soldier stood there, dark hair hanging over his face, combat stance ready, holding Steve's purring shield when even just attempting to touch it should have sent him into the perfume ad billboard across the street at 60 miles an hour.

The pleased, faint pulses from the runes in the shield's stripes provided just enough light for Steve's enhanced vision to make out the soldier's empty expression, dead eyes lined with black paint, in the darkness of the rooftop.

Bizarrely, Steve's heart- the part of it connected to his Sense- lurched even as his mind raced.

There had only ever been one person that could produce this reaction from his shield. When he fell, Steve was certain he'd never witness it again.

But now, an ocean and a century away from that moment, it was happening once more.

The assassin across from him, at least, appeared to have not anticipated this outcome. He had to have felt the vibrations of the shield. Bucky always said they were quite strong, even through his army-issue gloves.

At the other end of the roof, Steve could just see that empty look receding just barely, a hint of confusion visible for only the smallest of moments before it was overtaken by that same hardened, cold emptiness.

Clearly interpreting the vibration, humming sound, and faint glow as an explosive, he hurled the shield back in Steve's direction with alarming force and leapt off the edge of the roof in the same movement.

Or he would have, had the shield let him.

Steve could only watch dumbly as the shield, his eternal companion and a reflection of his soul, pulled what was likely the world's most dangerous assassin insistently in his direction. It appeared to have latched on to his arm and was refusing to let go.

Clearly, the portion of the shield's magical signature that came from his own had caused it to acquire his stubbornness. Which he'd damn well known, having seen it buzz angrily against orders he'd personally disagreed with, occasionally flying off to do its own thing while Steve gave a hapless 'what are you gonna do' shrug and sprinted after it, quietly pleased. 

This particular trait had never worked against him like this before.

The man pulled something out of his pocket. Steve had just enough time to register it as a device that would let out an EMP- the kind Tony used when he couldn't get his suit off and refused to admit it long enough to have someone help- before the pulse forcibly pushed the shield off of the man's silver arm.

The shield shot back towards Steve explosively in the same breath that the assassin jumped off the roof, moving to another building at a speed no normal human could possibly reach.

(Through his connection to the shield, Steve sensed it make a confused, vaguely sad buzz.)

Steve instinctively grabbed the shield out of the air, already running calculations for how fast he needed to be running to make the jump. There was an alley about a block to the west, in the direction the soldier had gone, he could cut him off at-

Steve's mind stopped for a second. Completely abandoning any thoughts of pursuit, he turned his attention fully onto the shield, to confirm that he had sensed what the shield told him he did.

It was faint. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to make sure that any traces of this man were imperceptible. It was tinged with a bizarre metallic overlay.

But it was there.

On the shield, right over where the soldier's fingers had gripped the edge, lay the barest hint of an impossibly familiar magical signature.

He briefly entertained the thought that he had imagined it, but even though it was the most realistic conclusion, it wasn't the most logical one. He had gotten this far by trusting Tony Stark's runework and his own enhanced senses, something that had saved his life more than once. For them to agree on a conclusion like this, he would be a damn fool to dismiss their findings.

He had the half hysterical thought that this was the work of Bucky's great-great cyber nephew, but no. Magical signatures didn't work like that. Even the closest of family members never shared more than a light hint of another's signature, and even that was more of a result of time spent together than blood.

Back then, Becca's magic hadn't felt like this, all bright popping juniper berries. Mrs. Barnes' warm cherry coloured prints, Mr. Barnes' orange swirls. None of Bucky's family members could have had their magic mistaken for Bucky's navy blue starbursts.

Besides, none of them had ever garnered that reaction from Steve's shield.

He didn’t have time for this. The odds were slim, the shot had been near-impossibly clean, but if there was any chance for Fury to pull through he needed to get him to hospital care immediately. Then, he needed to find Natasha, let her know just how FUBAR their situation was about to become. 

Shoving his impending collapse to the back of his mind, Steve turned grimly back towards his apartment, taking off once more.

__________________________________

It had been unnerving to Steve at first, working with someone who kept such a tight hold on their magical energy signature. 

Working with the Howlies, Steve had gotten used to reaching out, feeling his teammates' energies to check on their status and allow his magic to read their own. They’d created a fabric of intertwined meshed energies, building up a near-physical trust that Steve could rely on in the field and off of it.

Natasha, in contrast, had her signature locked down.

In the first few months of knowing her, Steve couldn’t have even told you what her signature was . Pair that with her cagey nature and propensity for keeping secrets and switching personalities like coats in April, and he'd been a little cautious to trust her at first.

Steve had always been a straightforward sort of man, the kind of person who wore his heart on his sleeve for better or for worse. He trusted his magical intuition implicitly, and putting his life in the hands of someone he had no frame of reference for was unnerving.

Then one day, during an op that had gone more right than wrong but still went pretty damn wrong, she'd picked up the shield.

They'd just finished knocking out the last of the operatives in their room of the underground chamber. Steve had lost his shield about three hallways and forty goons ago, but based on the low thrum in the back of his skull, the shield was fine.

They retraced their steps. Natasha spotted it before him, sitting like a pleased pet atop the control panel, and scooped it up before Steve could shout a warning. 

He'd seen the damage that could be dealt from picking up his shield, and trustworthy or not Natasha was still an ally he didn’t want to lose. Heart lurching in his chest and knowing he would be too slow, he lunged forward anyways, mouth open to call out.

Nothing happened.

Natasha had held it out casually to him, a challenging eyebrow raised, asking what?

The only thing that betrayed her calm demeanor was how her fingers gripped the shield's edge just slightly left of too tight.

Very rapidly, in the time between getting over his goggling and reaching out a hand to accept the shield, Steve came to a few conclusions.

Natasha would probably never relax her magic around him. It was too ingrained into her survival instinct, where any loss of control meant death. That did not mean she wasn't able to reach out, to make efforts to connect.

It was fairly obvious that she'd picked up on his discomfort with her and the reason behind it - Steve had never been that great of an actor, regardless of what the USO would have you believe. Natasha was also a SHIELD intelligence agent who worked directly with him, of course she understood what would happen if she picked up that shield and was not deserving of its trust.

This was her peace offering. Letting the shield, Steve's own magic, decide if Steve could trust her.

When he took the shield from her, in the brief moment where both their hands touched its surface at the same time, the shield buzzed twice, an approving gesture

Natasha was a trustworthy ally. More than that, she could be a friend.

Steve smiled, opening his mouth to voice as much, when he felt Natasha's residual magic signature on the shield.

The runes on the shield, plus its connection to Steve, made its sensitivity to magical energy abnormally high. Normally, he could sense even the slightest reverberation on its surface. 

(It was very convenient for, say, impulsively running headfirst into a crowd of enemies without data and flinging his shield at them to determine their magical threat levels based on who had breathed too closely to its surface. Not that he'd ever do anything as reckless at that.)

Still, he'd been too distracted to see that she hadn't grabbed the shield with the magic concealing gloves Tony had crafted for her, the ones with the shielding so strong Steve couldn’t sense Tony's signature on the metal even when he saw him draw the little Iron Man with a peace sign doodle on its surface with his own eyes during his 'hey let me borrow this for a sec oh why don't worry about why' testing session a few months prior.

(In non-erasable Sharpie. It wasn’t charmed or anything, so it came off after a few missions in the rain, but he'd gotten some amused glances at the briefings before that had happened.)

The aura of embers was already fading rapidly, even without the gloves, which likely spoke of chemical (or implanted, he'd heard that was a fairly new thing but people could do it now) residual blockers, but the fact that it was there, deliberately placed by what may be the most secretive person he knew, who guarded any possible weaknesses like a dragon over its gold, spoke volumes.

He might be one of the very few people alive who could say he learned what the Black Widow's magical signature was and survived.

Not that he would. He might be a shit actor, but he was pretty damn good at lying his ass off for his friends. Because he's fairly certain that this was her bizarre way of telling him that's what they are now.

(Good lord, he was never going to understand spies.)

She turned to walk off, shooting him a wink to match his incredulous look.

Steve shook his head and grinned, jogging to catch up.

Maybe- just maybe- the Black Widow trusted him too. He could work with that.

Months later, staring into Natasha’s hard eyes in a dingy hospital staff room they had warded up and down with privacy protections magical and technological while he explained how completely FUBAR the last 24 hours had shown everything to be, he was more grateful than ever for that trust.

Fury had said to trust no one. Steve would extend that warning to everyone else at SHIELD, vipers’ nest of Sense-cloaked espionage agents that it was, but Natasha had earned the right to his trust, forged it through blood and sweat and magic. He would not disrespect her by withholding it now.

When he got to the part about what Fury had said, about SHIELD being unfathomably compromised, Natasha's bracers sparked angrily. Her face and body language gave absolutely no visible reaction.

Still, Steve could tell she was more furious than he had ever seen her. For the Black Widow, who staked her life on owning immense control over herself and her abilities, to have her magic respond so tellingly like that was unheard of.

He supposed he couldn't blame her. Natasha’s story was one she kept closely guarded, but he'd pieced together enough from what little she and Clint had mentioned to understand that SHIELD had been her second chance. She'd escaped one fascist nightmare looking for perhaps not redemption, but a path to repentance, only to now find her masters hadn’t changed much at all.

If anything, the sparks only got worse when Steve mentioned the assassin he had chased on the rooftops. For a brief second, Natasha looked haunted, like this man was a ghost for her, too.

(He had locked the part of his brain that was rotating that magic signature around, hitting the same static wall of griefdisbeliefdenialhope every time, into a tiny little corner of his consciousness, because if he let it occupy his thoughts he was going to break. That was something they could not afford right now.)

Natasha stared at him, a hard set in her gaze as Steve watched her run calculations behind her eyes.

“He’s supposed to be a ghost story. If the Winter Soldier is involved to this degree of visibility, they don’t care about optics. We need to run. Now. We can call Stark, make some plans, but getting the fuck off of SHIELD radar ASAP is priority number one.”

Steve opened his mouth to protest, driven by righteous fury and that nagging little voice. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to hunt down the people who did this, root out whatever corruption had taken hold of SHIELD with his bare fists, find Bucky. But.

But.

Natasha looked at him, the echoes of something near-desperate hiding behind her eyes.

“Please. Just trust me.”

Steve thought of flames, burning hot and comforting.

“Okay.” He said simply.

Natasha looked almost surprised, like she’d expected more resistance and was deeply suspicious at its lack of forthcoming.

“Okay?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

Steve shrugged.

“Okay.”

I trust you.

Natasha’s shoulders sagged, just an infinitesimal difference that meant the world.

“Good. Let’s get started.”

__________________________________

The Winter Soldier barely made it into the alley, staggering toward a trash can reached immediately before hurling.

This had not been in the mission parameters. The Target (enhanced, male, highly trained in multiple forms of combat, specializing in melee and mid-range) was understood to be a threat.

The Asset had been briefed on his tactical skill, with the understanding that elimination would need to be swift and confirmed without possibility of continued survival. His shield weapon was understood to be connected to his magic in a manner that made maneuverability and response time immediate, though minimal intelligence had been collected on the precise nature of this bond.

Nowhere, in any of the briefings, had the handlers mentioned that the damn thing glowed. And clung like a motherfucker.

The most bizarre thing, the thing currently wreaking havoc on The Asset's operating systems, had been the feeling of holding it. Like summer rain and Coney Island ice cream cones and other things The Asset didn’t- shouldn't remember ever knowing.

His head was swimming within it. The magic spark had felt like a sense memory, as familiar to his body as the slide of a pistol, even if he couldn't recall ever learning how to shoot. There had been- something. Something like-

Laughter and defiant blue eyes and a short boy with skinned knees scowling up at him and hey jerk, where'd you-

He was compromised. The shield's magic- the Target's magic- had infected him somehow. The Asset's functionality was impaired. There could be a tracker implanted into the essence of The Asset's magical energy. It could be targeting the protocol-mandated arcane blocking chemicals injected before assignment.

The Asset needed to report. He- it- he needed to-

The Asset bent over the garbage can and vomited once more.

Current primary objective- he needed to stop doing that.

__________________________________

The lab in his Malibu mansion wasn’t nearly as fun as his one in the Tower.

Tony had been tinkering with the suit machinery for the last hour or so, and not a single thing had blown up yet. Boring.

Still, he was stuck here for the foreseeable future while Pepper handled whatever Stark Industries crisis he’s certain was very important because Tony refused to leave her on her own.

(After the whole incident with the kidnapping and the fire demon serum, he’d been struggling with that. Always felt safer when she was nearby, or at least carrying something he had runed the shit out of to protect her. Pepper didn’t fight him on it, and he presumed based on the papery smell he’d sensed around some of his workspaces that she’d put some of her own charms near him too. It was nice to know they were mutually traumatized. Couple goals and all that.)

His distracted poking of metal things with a screwdriver was interrupted by a faint ringing coming from the wall speakers.

Noticing the caller ID, Tony stretched, giving JARVIS a go-ahead thumbs up to put the call through.

“Stark Superhero Swag Shop and Haberdashery, how may I assist your sorry ass today?”

“Tony.”

Tony sat up immediately. That wasn’t a come blow up some ne’r do wells with me young whippersnapper it’ll be fun voice. That was an I’m about to lose my fucking mind please help me voice.

Contrary to popular belief and some very rabid Twitter users, Tony Stark did not actually hate Steve Rogers.

They’d had a bit of initial friction, angry sparks flying: some red and magical, some electrical and quite literal. 

(Tony’s Sense caused some interesting reactions in the surrounding electrical infrastructure when he was pissed. Helicarrier maintenance teams loved him.)

Tony blamed their shared title as the two most stubborn bitches on the face of the planet. Obstinate was both of their middle names and they had some very different opinions on how the Avengers should operate.

Eventually though, Tony had seen enough of Steve’s nature to know that Captain America’s kindness for the world wasn’t an act and Steve had seen through enough of his bluster to understand that (most) of his arrogance was.

The first time Tony had allowed his shields to drop in his presence, talking through something in the lab, Steve had paused mid-sentence to look at him in near-disbelief. A few moments later, Tony felt an odd echoey, warm sensation through his magic.

It wasn’t unpleasant, just- new. That connection had grown more consistent with time, and Tony had gotten a front-row seat to witnessing how Captain America drew his strength, along with a window into the essence of what made him up as a person. He found he quite enjoyed the man he saw.

In fact, they actually shared a lot of common values.

While their approaches varied- Tony enjoyed spinning around their games until they were all playing by no other rules but his own, while Steve tended to opt for the tried and true method of outright refusing to play- their shared passion for irritating the shit out of every institutional authority figure who wanted them to do something they disagreed with was quite an effective bonding activity.

(Tony had a theory regarding the correlation between this revelation and the increased eye twitches he’d noticed from Nick Fury. He’d have to make a note to chart it sometime.)

All of this was to say, if Steve was calling him sounding genuinely distraught, something Tony was previously convinced his 1940s male constitution would never allow verbal expression of, he needed to shut the fuck up and see what he could to do to help.

Giving Steve his full attention, Tony’s tone came out far more serious.

“Hit me, Cap.”

“SHIELD is FUBAR.”

Tony scoffed. “What do you mean, SHIELD is FUBAR? Like your op’s gone tits up or what?”

“Like the whole thing is infested with HYDRA.” Steve launched into a brief explanation of what Tony quickly gathered had been a very shit few days.

“Oh.” Tony said dumbly. He wishes he was more surprised, but he still hadn’t been expecting that level of carnage. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.”

“I can be there in three hours.” Tony said immediately, getting up to grab his keys. “Tell me about the-”

“Stay where you are.” Steve said quickly. “Right now, you’re more valuable working the tech angle and staying out of their crosshairs. With pretty much everything connected to SHIELD compromised, we’re going to need you alive and able to combat their resources.”

“What about you, Angelina Ballerina, and Robin Hood?” Tony argued- demanded really. “You’re all fucked if you stay in this web when it explodes. And if you’re walking around knowing about this level of corruption, odds are you don’t have long before that happens.”

“Nat’s contacting Clint right now to pull him out of his op. The two of us are taking point on figuring out the details of that exploding you mentioned.”

“Two people, even you two people, is not enough people to take on all of SHIELD, dumbass.”

“I made a friend.” Steve’s voice rose slightly at the end, making the confident statement sound suspiciously like a question.

Tony pinched his nose. “Okay. Even if I decide to take whatever crazy pills you’re on and say three whole people is enough to bring down whatever’s inside SHIELD, what the fuck do you want me to do here? I know you didn’t just call with a warning.”

“Start preparing to take in some of SHIELD’s personnel- whoever isn’t with HYDRA is suddenly going to be very exposed and Stark Industries is probably the safest place for them to be. The technology too, I don’t trust whoever gets their hands on it to not immediately start World War Three. See what you can nab from SHIELD’s databases, if there’s any way of sorting out who’s compromised and who we can trust. Make sure they don’t have ears and eyes inside your facilities, too.”

Steve’s voice rang with his classic ‘I’m Captain America, Listen To My Awesome Plan and Worry Not Fellow Humans’ tone. It was very reassuring, Tony had been informed. Personally, 90% of the time it just made him want to poke Steve until he knocked it off.

Still, Tony hummed, making mental notes of all those things and idly twirling his screwdriver.

“And?”

“And what?”

“Something else is bothering you. You want me to look into it.”

“It’s-ugh. You know, I cannot express how much I hate when you do that.”

Tony shrugged unrepentantly, knowing damn well Steve couldn’t see it.

“You’re the one who called me through a device I runed. Should be aware of what I can sense though that by now. Also, you suck at hiding things from people you trust. Spill.”

“There was a man working for them. The one who shot Fury. Natasha called him the Winter Soldier.”

“Stupid name, but I’ll see what files I can hunt down with it.”

There was a bit of a snorting sound coming from Steve’s end before his voice sobered. “His magic signature was blocked somehow. I was able to feel just a small trace of it, but I couldn’t mistake him for anything.”

He paused, long enough for Tony to wonder if grandpa had accidentally hung up again.

Eventually, he let out a deep sigh. The runes transmitted his tone as reading complicated.

“I need you to run a facial recognition search for James Buchanan Barnes.”

Tony dropped his screwdriver.

“Steven Grant Rogers, what the fuck.”

“I know, it should be impossible, but your runes agreed with my Sense. It was him.”

The silent and would you doubt your own work was left unsaid. Of course it was. Steve knew the answer to such a stupid question.

“So your bestie from the 1940s is now a SHIELD director-murdering super soldier with a metal arm that is enough of a myth-like terror to spook the Black Widow. And you want me to find him.” Tony surmised.

"I don't know, I- he might not want to be found, and I will respect that, but I just-" Steve let out a breath, posture sinking, the fight leaving his tone.

"I just need to know if he's okay."

He almost sounded vulnerable, saying that last part. Like he was exposing something to Tony that meant more than just the words.

Privately, Tony wondered if he was de-emphasizing how literally he meant the word need. Steve's magic relied broadly on his connections to others, he'd seen it himself when he was tinkering with the shield runes.

He built strength with them, he drew strength from them. It was why his ability to be so inspiring was so critical to his success. Not even as Captain America, though Tony was sure the boost from that icon status certainly didn’t hurt. It was his ability to inspire action as Steve that made him so dangerous, to support others and gain support in turn.

Tony honestly wasn't sure if Steve knew just how deep those ties ran, how vital his belief in the world was to his power to change it.

Not knowing the status of his oldest and deepest connection would have to be wreaking havoc not just on his mind, but his magic.

The closest comparison Tony could consider was when Pepper was kidnapped and his senses went fucking insane. Wires sparking everywhere, machines going haywire out of nowhere, DUM-EE randomly speaking Polish (he didn't even remember installing a voice box), a record number of electrical fires- which, for a Stark lab, was saying something.

Even then, his magic was more tech focused, centered on the physical realm. His Sense going haywire was more a reflection of his emotional state than the cause. Steve's magic, being so intra and interpersonal, had to be tearing him up inside.

Tony sighed. “Yeah, I’ll look into it.”

“If you find him, do not engage. I don’t know what they did to him, but I don’t think he’s himself. He’s as strong as me and definitely unstable. Be careful.”

Tony waved him off, again ignoring the fact that his gesture would not be seen. The runes would translate the general sentiment. “Yes, yes, no antagonizing the ninety year old murder machine. I’ll get working on the other stuff. Don’t get yourself blown up by Nazis.”

“Be careful.” Steve repeated again. Tony’s runes on the phone he was using translated concerncaretrust. He could have figured that out himself, having heard Steve use that tone more times than he could count, but it was always nice to be proven right. “The world is about to go to pieces. Take care of your part of it, and watch your back.”

The line went dead.

Tony rolled his eyes, pulling up his hologram files and summoning JARVIS. Such a drama queen.

__________________________________

Without the magical inhibitors in his system, courtesy of a truly terrible six hours spent hunched over an alleyway trashcan, The Asset was beginning to feel marginally closer to optimal performance.

He supposes he should return to the vault and report his status. However, every time he had the thought, something deep within him, an near-instinct with the edge of something ancient in its essence, snarled absolutely not.

He suspected it was his own long-buried magic, no longer muzzled and hiding within the deepest part of his being, finally coming to wake.

A sense memory he could not associate with any known event told him, with something that tasted like lightning, that HYDRA had worked very hard for this to not happen, to try and erase this power entirely. 

An even older sense memory, one that smelled like gunpowder, told him it was a very good thing to listen to the power anyways.

It appeared that the something he had felt from the Captain's weapon had reached out towards a something that lay dormant within him.

It was awakening with a vengeance, shrugging off its chains with no regard for what they crushed in their fall.

Case in point, the six grueling hours the asset had spent involuntarily extracting the magical inhibitors inside its bloodstream and stomach last week.

That poor alleyway trash can.

The convalescence from this event had been spent gathering intelligence. He decided to begin with The Captain. Evidently, the shield had done something to him. It could have been recognition. It certainly hadn't felt like hostility.

The Asset set up his recently procured laptop, courtesy of a very distracted Apple store employee, in the bathroom of the apartment he had commandeered. He had swept for bugs- several times- but paranoia was an old friend, so he turned on the shower while he sat, ignoring the youthful-sounding voice in his head complaining about the waste.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Without the paint, there was nothing obscuring the exhaustion around his blank eyes.

Noise interference active, provisions stored, gun at his side, and door in his line of sight, The Asset readied himself for a grueling day of hacking into whatever shadowy government databases would yield results on this front.

Surprisingly, it turned out he didn't need to pursue that line of inquiry. Not when two minutes on Wikipedia was all it took to turn up the name Sgt. James Barnes.

Hands almost shaking as he reread the name, something in his head chiming the way a gong does, an explosion of sound that reverberates the foundations of his brain, he clicked on the connecting link.

The image that popped onto the screen had him shooting up to stare in the mirror once more, cold stare now wild.

The echoes of the gong grew louder.

His hair might be longer now, choppy brown waves framing gaunt cheekbones, but it was impossible to deny the resemblance.

That ancient thing inside him buzzed once more, almost in encouragement, as his head exploded in phantom noise.

__________________________________

Tony’s search was yet to turn something up. Steve was trying very hard to be normal about it.

He couldn’t tell if the SHIELD-wide manhunt for him and Natasha was helping or hurting that endeavor. Certainly, it was a good distraction.

He was grateful to have reached out to Tony when and how he did, as it rapidly became clear just how deep Fury’s warning of SHIELD infiltration ran. Hearing Zola again after all those years had been chilling. SHIELD’s roots, the organization Peggy had built from the ground up to protect, were rotten.

He was also torn on that front. One one hand, everything he had been working for for the last few years since coming out of the ice was a lie. HYDRA had not gone down with him on that plane 80 years ago. Natasha had not been given the true new chance that she had been promised.

One the other, his desire to punch Nazis had risen exponentially from its already quite high baseline level these last few days, and here were all of these Nazis lining up for the task. Lucky him.

It was fairly easy to ascertain that they had been counting on having Bucky’s- The Winter Soldier, Natasha had called him- skills on their side for this whole debacle. Without tying Steve up in a fight with another supersoldier, it was almost pathetically easy to smash through the three helicarriers in time.

Rumlow had been a bit of a surprise, but Steve’s magic had never connected to him anyways. He’d elected to ignore some of his reservations in favour of combat effectiveness, chalking it up to unease with the tying back of energy all these young agents seemed to be fond of. Last time he made that mistake. He’d beat the shit out of the man with relish.

Unfortunately, without the distraction of rooting out Nazi corruption via his fists to occupy him beyond the odd congressional hearing, his thoughts kept spiraling to Bucky.

Their connection, dormant and frozen for decades. was alive now. He could just sense the outline of it coming into focus, far from his grasp but there, more than he had believed possible beyond his dreams since the fall.

Even with that beautiful, blessed, unbelievable miracle, it didn’t feel as though it was fully awake. It felt like the bond was in the early stages of shaking off a heavy dose of rhinoceros sedative. Only one foot in reality, heavy and barely exhibiting symptoms of being alive beyond being able to be perceived.

(Steve drew this comparison from experience. Rhino tranqs sucked.)

Even when his own heart had barely able to beat, Steve could still feel the steady thrum of Bucky’s whenever he reached out, comforting in its warmth and the reassurance of its existence. It had been a constant companion, from the days of lazy Sunday mornings to those awful, mud-soaked months where he reveled in it like a promise. Steve checked his health through the bond with an almost religious regularity then, reminding himself that Bucky was still there. It had been the promise that kept him going, and when it suddenly cut off after that train-

Well. Steve stopped wanting to forge ahead, when he knew what wouldn’t be following to guard his back.

Knowing that he was out there now, in God only knew what kind of state, was terrifying. Tortuous in that Steve had never had to live in a world where Bucky existed in his life and he couldn’t sense him, even more so now that he was starting to get an idea for what Bucky had been through while he was in the ice.

There was no telling what his current condition was, whether some sleeper HYDRA cell had him again, whether he even remembered he was a person.

Part of Steve wanted Bucky to come home, always would. Another, much bigger part of him, just wanted him to be safe. To be happy and healthy and not dying on the street somewhere or being forced back into the ugly not-life he’d been subjected to for the last 80 years.

And without the connection having any of its old strength, Steve had no way of checking that. No way of watching Bucky’s back too, the way he’d spend most of his life striving towards being capable of.

Far beyond not being able to see him, that was the part that was driving him crazy. The not knowing if he was safe.

He tried to keep himself sane, scouring the library and internet for information on brain trauma, POW experiences, anything that could possibly be relevant for Bucky’s condition. If he couldn’t help him now, he would be damned if he wasn’t prepared for if- when he got the chance.

Steve normally dove headfirst into everything, instinct-driven and guns blazing. He was self-aware enough to admit that on occasion, this approach had the potential to do more harm than good. Especially considering he didn’t know what kind of minefield Bucky’s mind could be after 80 years of god knows what had been done to it. Immediately running up to tackle-hug him into the nearest dirt pile, as he would have a lifetime ago, would likely not be the best approach to whatever reunion they may have.

He was determined to be cautious with this. Do it right.

So he read books. Related a little too much to some of the accounts he found of PTSD and made a mental note to book his own therapy appointments. Talked to Sam about what he could maybe expect, what he should do to help.

None of it prepared him for how bad the realities were.

His distraction strategy had been working somewhat well, right up until he got the message from Tony. Said he had updates on what Steve had asked him to look into, wanted Natasha and Steve to meet him at the Tower.

Even through the phone, his voice had sounded off.

So Steve had gotten on his bike and sped off to New York, meeting Natasha in the Tower lobby. It was his first time there since the renovations, and he took a brief moment, even through the storm happening in his mind, to appreciate the energy of the space.

Tony was the antithesis of Natasha’s ironclad shielding, the stone wall that concealed the fire at her core. In contrast, his magical signature practically leeched from every pore, sinking into all he touched, like he was stamping his Stark Industries logo all over it with gusto. Steve supposed he should have expected Stark Tower- Avengers Tower, he should say now, Tony was very enthusiastic about this “rebrand”- to practically reek of it from every wall.

A few months ago, Steve would have found this deeply unnerving. Now, it felt bizarrely comforting, like a friend gleefully welcoming him back while preparing the most horrifyingly unhinged non-sequitur imaginable once he let his guard drop from the social pleasantries.

It was a nice feeling. That was lucky, considering he was about to spend a lot of time in the building.

(The decision to move to New York had been easy, after the helicarriers went down. Tony’s offer to stay in the Tower had been less easy to provide an answer to, but he couldn’t deny it was safer. With SHIELD FUBAR, it was most likely the safest building in the country.

It also made coordinating what he had in mind for the next few months a lot easier, if prying eyes decided to track his movements.)

Tony met them in his lab, a stack of folders and a half-empty bottle of scotch resting on his desk.

Tony himself looked haunted and a little hungover. His usual manic energy seemed subdued, somehow.

He even skipped his usual prattle, jumping straight to the point. Steve felt an odd twist in his stomach, born from either concern for Tony’s uncharacteristic behaviour or apprehension regarding whatever had rattled him this badly.

“Bad news, I didn’t find your boy, Cap.”

Steve honestly hadn’t expected him to be able to. Bucky had always become a wisp in the wind whenever he didn’t want to be found, and from what Natasha had said, the Winter Soldier had much the same reputation.

“Worse news-” Here, he grabbed the sizable stack of folders from his desk, dropping them in front of Steve and Natasha with a substantial thump. “I found out what they did to him.”

Natasha, who every day proved herself to be far braver than Steve was, was the first one to open one of the files. She flipped the first page, and there it was- Sgt. James Barnes, call sign Winter Soldier. It had obviously once been redacted, but Tony’s runes and technological prowess had laid out the information in the file clear as day. Clear, irrefutable proof that it had been him- was him, still- under the ghost story.

Steve felt rather than heard Natasha release a shaky breath next to him, staring at the words. He knew she’d trusted his words, but without the magical and technological confirmation that Steve and Tony had through their abilities, she likely hadn’t believed it, truly, until this moment.

Steve certainly wouldn’t, if he hadn’t lived it himself. The whole thing was something out of a dark, twisted fairy tale.

“Before you read any further,” Tony said, voice deceptively light but expression grave. “You should know I’ve already thrown up a couple of times reading all of this back. And that was before the vodka. There is some fucked up shit in there. What he’s done- what they made him do. What they did to him. It’s bad, Steve.”

Steve shared a look with Natasha and nodded grimly. He’d figured it wasn’t going to be pretty. Without further discussion, he and Natasha sat down to read.

About twenty minutes later, he was torn between sobbing, throwing up, and jumping out of the window to go find Alexander Pierce and beat the shit out of him again. Even Natasha, who had seen more than any of them and was normally as unflappable as they come, looked slightly green, eyes poring over each entry in the 80-year chronicle with a morbid inability to look away.

Steve settled for walking up to Tony and holding out a hand. Tony passed him the scotch bottle without a word. He swallowed the rest of it in one go, desperately wishing alcohol had the same effect on him it used to.

Tony blinked at him, but just nodded and called Jarvis to send up more. Natasha spoke up then, voice almost cracking under its collected mask, and threw in an order for vodka.

(Steve had seen a mention in the files, one of the earlier ones where their control wasn’t solidified yet, about how they sought out Bucky specifically to become the Winter Soldier because they’d heard the rumors of his unique magic type. 

Scientists of the forties theorized that it was why he’d been the one to survive the serum. Scientists of the fifties through seventies left decades of notes on their desire to use his magic as a weapon, the experiments they’d subjected him to in order to make that happen. Scientists of the eighties finally admitted they would never be able to keep his magic unleashed under their control, left their descriptors of how they shut it off as much as possible, until the scientists of these newest generations forgot what exactly was so special about that magic to begin with.

Steve didn’t say anything on it, but he could tell Tony was curious about what base magic Bucky could have to get this many power-hungry Nazis salivating at the idea of possessing it. He didn’t ask, though. Just handed him more scotch.)

Tonight, he would get drunk on this lab floor with his teammates, with his friends, and let his grief breathe. He was going to cry his fucking eyes out, curse up a storm, probably hug someone for an hour. He would let himself fall.

But tomorrow. Tomorrow, he was going to go back to D.C. He was going to wrap up all of his loose ends. He was going to formally move to New York. And then, he was going to raze whatever remnants of HYDRA still out there to the fucking ground.

__________________________________

The thing- the maybe-person, formerly known as The Asset formerly known as James Buchanan Barnes, was unsure of his next course of action.

After the initial static of the discovery had cleared enough for him to form a coherent thought, he had spent the last few days holed up in the D.C. safehouse he had crafted, devouring every article he could find on Barnes, and by extent, The Captain.

He kept the TV on, broadcast cycling through current events. The news flickered, occasionally, to the wreckage of the helicarriers lying at the bottom of the Potomac.

It appeared the Captain had been successful in that endeavour. The maybe-person found he was- pleased? Perhaps benevolently indifferent.- at this development.

According to all reports, the Captain was unharmed, travelling between D.C. and New York coordinating further actions in the wake of SHIELD’s demise.

(The maybe-person had had a brief moment of alarm when he’d felt his signature slip behind powerful rune shielding. After some frantic web searching had confirmed The Captain’s continued alive status, social media placing his location at the Stark stronghold, his... wariness, he would define it as wariness- had eased. 

The Captain should be grateful to have access to such strong protective measures. There were reports that he would be moving his permanent residence to this stronghold. The maybe-person hoped, for The Captain’s sake, that these rumors were true. They- the runes, the allies, the reputation- they would keep him safer.)

He was in D.C. now, though. Even without the news stating it, the maybe-person could tell.

With his magical senses no longer dulled, it was pretty easy to sense it when he dipped his vision into that layer. A mournful howling spread thin across the city, asking, pleading, whereareyouareyouokayImissyouhowcanIhelpyou- .

The maybe-person was fairly certain that the Captain was not emitting this call consciously. It was too vulnerable. Steve had always had trouble with that.

For a similar reason, the maybe-person was fairly certain he was the only being capable of sensing this call. If the whole world could hear this, this emotional failing practically broadcasting his location and struggle while the entire US intelligence network was in the process of blowing up, The Captain would likely be dead in hours. 

Or at the very least, have gotten into a big enough fight to have made the news. He was fairly hard to kill.

He wondered if the others around The Captain could sense it, if it was open to others whose bodies had formed a connection to the man, but quickly dismissed it. It was highly unlikely The Widow would allow him to continue broadcasting that call if she was aware. Too much of a security risk. Natalia- red hair whipping about, pirouettes, BANG- was too well-trained to allow such an oversight.

It was also possible the signal could be a trick. A trap for him or his hunters, the maybe-person was unsure. 

Still, this did not seem to be the right conclusion. Steve was a terrible actor, and the call was so clearly him. This signature, its depth, would be impossible to fake, and the man emitting it was incapable of faking such sentiment so convincingly.

(It occurred to the maybe-person that this conclusion had been formed off of data he did not recall acquiring on The Captain. The implications of this, while unnerving, did not concern him nearly as much as they should have.)

He was unsure if it was safe for him to approach Rogers right now, for either of them. His mind, his magic, was all jumbled into a terrifying cocktail of unknown triggers and explosive power. Still, the call demanded an answer, and he had figured out enough of the shape of that concoction to know that every atom of his being rejected the idea of Rogers out in the world flaunting such a glaring opening for assailants.

He would not approach. He would not contact, because he knew, somehow, that one look at his puppy dog eyes, one brush of his magical energy signature at that distance, and it was over. Barnes would throw all caution to the wind and go with Rogers even if it was a stupid ass plan for all parties involved.

That left only one logical course of action.

__________________________________

Sam, to be perfectly honest, could not even begin to understand how his life had come to this. In the past 72 hours, he had a) been declared an accessory to treason, b) partook in some light B&E, c) shot and been shot at by literal, actual, Nazis, and d) subsequently been (debatably) un-declared an accessory to treason.

Which had now culminated in e) The Winter Soldier was sitting in his living room.

All because he made some bad jokes to Captain America on a morning run. Jesus merciful heaven.

“Uh,” Sam said awkwardly. All the VA counselor training in the world had not prepared him for the world’s most dangerous assassin sitting on his ratty armchair, studying the pictures on the wall like they would reveal the secrets of the universe.

At the sound of his voice, the man’s gaze flicked to meet him. Sam was under no illusions that his approach had not been catalogued long before he entered the room, but the effort was nice.

Moving slowly, the man used the flat edge of the knife he had been twirling to push what appeared to be the remains of several very high tech magical scanners across the coffee table towards Sam, like a cat gifting its human with the world’s most bizarre, multi-million dollar prey.

A couple of the scanners appeared to have dried red liquid on them. Sam decided he didn’t want to know.

“Tell Rogers to cut it out.” The Soldier spoke flatly. “If he does not listen, tell The Widow.”

“Okay.” Sam said calmly. He was so incredibly calm. Chillest guy this side of the Mississippi, right here. “Cut out what, exactly?”

The Soldier met his gaze again, nodding ever so slightly to himself like Sam had just confirmed a theory for him.

“His Calling Card. Unlikely he realizes it is emitting.”

Sam opened his mouth for a second, a million questions coming to mind that all caught in his throat as his brain attempted to catch up to reality. His mouth clicked shut.

Calling Cards were deeply personal emittances of magic. Their energy output could be charted, but only the intended target, one with a strong existing connection to the caster, could feel their message. The thing was, for a Calling Card to be sensed that connection had to extend both ways.

For this man in Steve’s ex-something’s body to have heard it, Bucky Barnes must not have been as dead as Sam had previously thought.

He digested this information, reformatting his understanding of the picture these two nanogenarians- that were apparently trapped in some form of Shakespearean-level drama- were forming. 

Eventually, he managed an “Ah. Will do.”

This, at least, seemed to be the right answer.

The Soldier nodded once more, this time seemingly to himself and to Sam, before standing in a fluid movement and making for the window. The knife had disappeared somewhere into his inconspicuous attire.

He was seconds away from vanishing into the night, probably for forever, when Sam managed to unscrew his brain just enough to call out “Wait.”

The Soldier paused expectantly, one hand on the window pane and one leg out the sill.

Sam didn’t think he would get this far. Slightly flummoxed, he continued, voice even and soothing without slipping into patronizing, the way he had practiced for years. 

“What should I call you? I’ve been using Soldier, and I can stick with it if that’s what you want. But if you feel something else is better suited, I would like to know it.”

The man seemed to hesitate.

“Barnes- is good for now.” He said haltingly. Like this conclusion was forming in real time to his words.

Barnes. The name sounded odd coming off his tongue, the muscles clearly knowing the shape of it but the mind stumbling through the syllables. Syllable. Whatever.

“Alright, Barnes.” Sam said genially, giving him a light smile. “Sam Wilson. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He didn’t offer a hand. Didn’t feel like that would be received well.

Barnes nodded awkwardly, then made to slide over the ledge once more.

Quickly, before he lost him, Sam pushed out his last question.

(Certainly, there were more questions, but this was the most pressing and he didn’t feel like pushing his luck today.)

“Would you be comfortable with me telling Steve about this? That we met?”

Barnes paused once more. An odd micro-expression, like the ghost of a smile, crossed his face. Sam could barely see the shift by the pale moonlight.

“As if he wouldn’t get it out of you anyways.”

The words came out with the assuredness of someone who knew this conclusion in their bones, and was frankly quite amused that Sam could possibly entertain any other outcome.

And with that, Barnes was gone.

Man. Sam was never going to understand these secret agent types.

__________________________________

Oof. Forget understanding these supersoldiers. Sam would settle for not getting knocked on his ass every five minutes every single time he and Steve sparred.

In a lot of ways, it was an incredible feeling to spar against someone with a similar magical type to you. While they weren’t exactly the same- Sam would consider his silvery white wisps to be more the anchor tethering other connections together, rather than the bond itself like Steve’s- there was enough overlap and a strong enough connection between the two of them that they could generally get a vague sense of the other’s next move before they executed it.

It was incredibly useful in battle, allowing them to coordinate attacks. It was significantly less useful when it was a wingless Sam against Steve’s serum enhanced reaction time. He maintained that with the wings, he could put up a decent effort here.

He informed Steve as much as he jogged over, arm outstretched to help him up for the twelfth time that hour with electrolyte drink in hand.

Steve gave him a sheepish gaze, remembering damn well how Sam’s original pair had gotten destroyed.

(Car bomb. HYDRA agent. Screaming raccoon. Long story, but the short version was it was definitely Steve’s fault.)

“Sorry. Tony said he’s working on another pair. Got that evil scientist smile and everything when I asked him, so you might end up with rocket launchers attached, but Tony does good work.”

Pointedly looking around the top notch Stark tech filling every corner of their training facility, Sam nodded.

“Yeah, it’s a nice place you’ve all got going here.”

“I’ve actually been meaning to ask you about that- well, I had to talk to Tony first, but he was on board, so now I need to ask you, so. Uh-.”

“Take your time.” Sam said amusedly. Steve flipped him off. Sam gasped in scandalized outrage.

“I’m going to be going on a- uh. Adventure, this next month. Wanted to know if you’d like to join.”

“By adventure, you mean-”

“Blowing up as much of HYDRA as we can hunt down, yes.”

“Ah, wonderful. Glad we’re on the same page then. Sure, I’m down for that.”

“The other thing, with that- we’d be based out of here.”

“Here?”

Steve made much the same gesture Sam had earlier, indicating the room, the technology, the Tower at large.

Ah.

“Obviously you wouldn’t have to move in if you don’t want to.” Steve rushed out. “But offer’s open. Plus, you’re going to be a public figure as soon as all the footage from DC is sorted, if you aren't already. That comes with enemies. The security here is safer than anything you could set up in another location. Can’t promise you everlasting peace, but this would give you a place to sleep without one eye open.”

Sam froze.

Avengers Tower.

He can’t say he hadn’t been thinking about the rising target he was building on himself by being associated with Steve. He loved his little life in D.C., the niche he’d carved out for himself with claws, tears, and bone after Riley, but he also knew that the time was rapidly approaching where that wouldn’t be safe for him or the civilians in his life any more. To be honest, he'd started to get the sense it was time to move on, anyways. He'd done all the healing life on the ground was going to give him, taken from it a sense of peace and emotional balance he was rapidly understanding the rarity of in the superhero world. Now, he wanted to do a different type of good.

Besides, he’d known what choice he was making when he’d decided to help Steve, and he had no regrets.

“No man, that’s- yeah. Yeah, I’ll move in. And jump in on your revenge tour.”

Steve seemed to relax a bit, giving him that beaming golden retriever smile.

Mind suddenly flashing back to his conversation with Barnes, Sam quickly realized this could be his best opportunity to slide that topic of discussion in there naturally.

“Before we go though, you should- uh. Probably turn off your Calling Card. Energy sensor tracking, and all.”

Smooth, Wilson, he could hear his sister’s voice saying smugly in his mind. He made a mental note to text her a middle finger emoji later, just on principle.

Steve’s head tilted like a confused puppy.

“My Calling Card? Even if I had it on, you shouldn’t-”

His eyes widened. Sam could barely keep track of the dots connecting in his mind as Steve took a step closer to him, nonthreatening but insistent.

“Where is he?” Steve said urgently. It wasn’t quite a demand, not aggressive enough. It wasn’t quite a plea, he wasn’t exactly asking.

There was no doubt in his tone. He had apparently pieced together the entire story from half a sentence from Sam and a truly unnerving level of single minded focus on his former whatever the fuck they were that Sam was not qualified to figure out.

“As if he wouldn’t get it out of you anyways.”

Yeah. Barnes might have been on to something there.

Steve was a dog with a bone, and Sam had inadvertently dangled the treat jar.

“I don’t know where he is.” Sam said calmly. “He popped in for like five minutes, told me to tell you to shut off the signal before you got tracked, then jumped out a window.”

“Did he-” Steve ran a hand down his face. “Did he look okay? Healthy?”

Sam’s mind flashed back to his haunted gaze, light dark circles.

“He looked way better than how you described him. Seemed to be eating regularly, talked to me, said to call him Barnes. Was definitely a lot more stable.” He settled on.

Steve let out a shaky exhale, looking down at the ground. When he met Sam’s gaze again, he seemed lighter- not unburdened, but like a massive, crushing weight had been pulled off his chest.

“And I take it he didn’t want to see me?” Steve asked, far more casually than Sam would have expected from him.

Sam, memory going back to the way Barnes had spoken around the subject of Steve, nodded.

“I’d say I got that impression.”

Steve nodded in a manner eerily similar to how Barnes had, like Sam had just confirmed a theory for him.

Sam hesitated.

“You seem- uncharacteristically calm about this.”

Steve flapped a hand in a manner that could not quite be described as nonchalant, but Sam could say with certainty was not entirely an act.

“He’s within his rights to withdraw for a bit. He’s definitely had some fucked up shit done to his mind, I could be a trigger for him. Besides, Bucky always disappeared somewhere to calm down when he was upset. This, I can be used to. The not knowing, not so much.”

“Steve.” Sam said gently. “It’s okay to be upset about this.”

Steve gave him a brittle smile.

“Don’t get me wrong. The shield is practically screaming at me to go find him, and my magic will always have the instinct to be near him. But he’s already had so many choices taken from him. I refuse to add to that list.”

Steve stood up from where they’d wound up talking on the floor, stretched.

“I’ll tell Tony to call off the search, now that I know he’s safe. Or safe as he could be, anyways. Knocking out the rest of HYDRA should help with that a bit, even if I can’t protect him in person.”

He ambled towards the training room exit. Sam, remembering what sparked this whole discussion in the first place, threw his electrolyte drink bottle in his direction.

“And shut off the Calling Card!” Sam shouted at his retreating back. Steve gave a thumbs up in response, not turning around.

Honestly. Some people.

__________________________________

Barnes stared at the screen, watching the congressional hearings go on and fighting the odd urge to laugh. Politicians appeared to have no method of handling Steven Grant Rogers. Every double lined interrogation, every setup, was simply bulldozed through with all the grace and delicacy of a man who truly did not give two fucks about their games, spun around until he was practically the one interrogating them on their failures to stop funding for Project Insight.

Steve always had possessed all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. The reminder was refreshing, after living so long surrounded by the silence of assassins.

At the very least, someone appeared to have knocked enough sense into him to shut off the Call. Even without dipping into the flow of magical energy beneath the surface to check, he could no longer feel that bone deep pull.

Just to confirm, he let his sense slide into that realm just left of the physical, the one he'd been getting acquainted- no, reacquainted with, evaluating the feel of the DC air.

Sure enough, the howling in the city wind was gone, but a lingering inquiry remained. It was subtler, emitting significantly less energy, but felt far more intentional.

Barnes recognized it for what it was. An invitation, his to take or leave.

Seems like Wilson had navigated that subject well. Barnes had suspected he might, the man appeared to have a good head on his shoulders. There were walls around the most vulnerable aspects of his magical energy, but the overall honest openness with his signature reminded Barnes of something he couldn’t quite recall, a team that trusted and leaned into one another’s Senses. It was welcoming in a way that was clearly deliberate, but still genuine.

Steve had once again chosen his allies well.

Idly, he wondered how that conversation had gone.

He had meant what he said to Wilson. Now that he had confirmation from him that the others could not sense the Calling, that this version was from the variety of his memories that smelled like city smog and not blood-soaked soil, he knew Steve would recognize it within himself. And with that recognition would come other understandings, like how that particular brand of his Calling had only ever reached one person even if in this new century, with all their equipment for tracking magical emmittance, the energy of it could be visible from space.

Coupled with the remains of the HYDRA cells’ scanners, the pieces would not be difficult to connect.

Hopefully, the reassurance that Barnes was- well, he wasn’t sure what he was doing, but it sure as fuck wasn’t working for HYDRA- would be enough for Steve to back off his search for him. 

Now, Barnes suspected- hoped- Steve would redirect his no doubt overflowing, stupidly loyal protective magical energy into going after the leftover HYDRA cells targeting them both. If Barnes was really lucky, he’d even turn his attention towards watching his own back.

That might be too much to ask for. Barnes would settle for him letting his allies- friends, even, from the looks of it- do it. They seemed up to the task.

Come to think of it, there was one in particular he should have a conversation with. To coordinate the pursuit of their shared objectives. 

Unlike Steve and his bird friend, this one wouldn’t treat him like a wayward comrade. She could be trusted to evaluate him like a threat.

__________________________________

Natasha awoke to the faintest shift at the edge of her senses, the gun she kept under her pillow already pointed into the dark.

The Winter Soldier, twenty meters away, stared back impassively.

She didn’t understand how he had made it into her space so silently. It was covered in traps, and a quick push out from her magical senses told her all of them were still intact. She hadn’t even sensed a hint of his signature, and she’d trained herself to wake up to even a runed handkerchief fluttering past if it came within a hundred meters of her. It was like he was completely shielded, right up until he chose to reveal himself, but Natasha knew from experience there wasn’t technology in existence that could block someone from her Senses that well.

“Rogers is going after the HYDRA bases in Europe.” It wasn’t a question.

They hadn’t even finished charting the target path. Nobody outside of herself, Sam, Tony, and Steve himself even knew in any official capacity what they were doing. Pepper knew, but that was because she had to draft the press statement about Captain America’s ‘restful hiatus from the public eye’ and also Tony was incapable of keeping a secret from her.

(Pepper probably wasn’t lying. For Steve, a global revenge tour against the Nazi group that brainwashed his boyfriend was probably pretty damn restful.)

Still, Natasha supposed she couldn’t be surprised that Barnes had predicted Steve’s actions. If he was as weird about Steve as Steve was about him, which was looking increasingly likely, anticipating that he would go after HYDRA somewhere would be child’s play.

And picking Europe? Anticipating her own connection to it? Her process for picking targets?

Clearly, he could still read her, even after all the fucked up shit the things in his HYDRA file detailed about what had been done to his head. She didn’t know how to feel about that.

Instead, she just raised an eyebrow. The classic ‘I will not provide you any information but feel free to fill this awkward silence with rambling I can use’.

Unfortunately, The Winter Soldier was a master of maintaining intimidating stares during awkward silences.

At an impasse, they just stared at one another as the seconds ticked by, neither one willing to break first.

Natasha used the opportunity to take stock of the man in front of her. Like Sam had described, the Soldier was in nondescript clothing, but a bit of the blankness had faded from his expression. The haunted look was still prevalent, but it was obvious he had started to regain some pieces of himself.

Natasha hoped, for his sake and Steve’s, that it was enough pieces. She would shoot him if he threatened her friend, but it would be ideal for all parties involved if that scenario was avoided. She knew better than almost anyone alive what their control did, and it made her equal parts understanding of how much help he would need and ready to put a bullet in his head should he prove himself a threat.

Eventually, Barnes huffed.

Interesting. She’d never won one of these standoffs with him before. Maybe the effects of Barnes’ recuperation really were sinking in, overriding the Soldier’s impassive instincts.

Instead of words, she felt a shift in the magical balance between them. Something passed from the Soldier, something that rippled like deep blue starbursts, and ghosted the edge of where her own presence was concealed. Like it knew the shape of it, like it knew exactly where to strike.

Natasha very carefully did not react. This was new. The Winter Soldier’s magic presence had always been imposing, but it quickly became clear the smoky wisps of her childhood had been a mere echo of the true energy signature, pushed down and disguised by the violent cocktail of drugs, wards, and technology the file had just begun to outline, as though the writers had long forgotten to understand all of it themselves.

It had been a comfort then, the smoke just barely meeting flames, subtle enough that it couldn’t be perceived by the unenhanced.

There was still something warped about it, but the energy Natasha sensed was clear. The man in front of her was more than the one she remembered.

“Just keep Steve away from my targets.”

“What, not ready for that touching reunion?” Natasha drawled. The Soldier met her gaze once more. His eyes were steady.

“No.” He said simply, with no deliberation or hesitation. He didn’t elaborate.

He didn’t have to, really. Natasha was familiar with what fear, especially fear of oneself, looked like in someone’s eyes, in their magic. She felt it every time she stood too close to an explosion's flame, saw it every time she looked in the mirror.

Interesting.

Natasha put the gun down.

“You should meet my friend Clint.” She said deliberately. “He’s had people in his head. He survived.”

Barnes nodded slowly, understanding her meanings. Then, like he was briefly possessed by some half formed identity, a barely there thought, the corner of his lip quirked up.

“It is good you are making friends, Natalia.”

Then he blinked, like he was confused as to why he had said that.

Natasha couldn’t stop her sharp inhale in time, but she suppressed every other reaction her body wanted to make to that. Crying. Hugging. Judo flipping. She couldn’t pick, but all of them would be too telling.

She settled on a brief nod. “He is a good man. A reckless blond American, but good. He was what got me out.”

Something passed behind Barnes’ eyes, just shy of amused.

(She remembered that expression a lot, from days spent in pointe shoes and kevlar. They were usually followed by days of absence, then days of no expressions at all.)

So he had picked up on her quip. It was a little funny, and a little reassuring, to see he hadn’t forgotten his own familiarity with reckless blond Americans.

Natasha pulled out one of her burner phones, tossed it to Barnes.

“Read the signature on that. If we need to take any detours from our end, avoid any early reunions, let me know. Backup, damage control, whatever. Don’t make me hunt down your corpse and give it to Steve.”

Not meeting her eye, Barnes ghosted a hand over the device. He flipped through the settings to find the make and IP address, before tossing it back.

Catching it, Natasha sensed the shift. It wasn’t enough magic for anyone to find even if they were looking, but it was enough for a direct, untraceable line of communication. Messages, untraceable even to Barnes, could be sent straight to Natasha any time he used another device.

(It was an old Red Room trick, one she hadn’t needed in a long time. But with SHIELD down, and Stark reliably being far too nosy if she asked him for an encrypted device not even they could track, she might as well join the fun in this season of rediscovering old haunts.)

Meeting her eye again, Natasha noticed some form of twisted resolve. He would agree to her terms, then.

Silent understandings sufficiently exchanged, Barnes nodded at her, slipping back into the dark and disappearing without a word.

Again, Natasha could barely feel his presence slipping until it was gone entirely.

Odd. She didn’t exactly enjoy the knowledge that there was a method of avoiding her detection loose in the world like that, but she hoped it kept him off some less friendly radars. He’d need it.

For Steve’s sake, of course.

(And maybe, a quiet, small voice she thought she’d killed whispered quietly inside her mind, just maybe, she cared a little bit too.)

__________________________________

Barnes’ rendezvous with the Widow had gone better than expected. He now had a means of coordination with the Avengers that reduced chances of accidental contact with Steve, along with reassurance that he could somewhat approach an operative HYDRA had programmed him to eliminate without attempting to commit harm.

That had been a relief. He’d entered that room fully aware that if he left that interaction alive and unchained, it was because the Black Widow believed he would not turn.

He had been able to test his resistance to those old commands against a past target that, unlike Steve, had both the means and will to take him down should he lose control. Or at the very least, raise the necessary alarms to ensure that outcome.

At this point, he felt slightly confident in his ability to use his magic to force out most magical attempts at taking control, but there was no accounting for the arm. It was anyone’s guess what had been put in there, magical or otherwise, in the last eighty years.

Bucky was many things, but he had never been reckless. That part had always been all Steve. He wouldn’t put himself into a scenario with a possibility for HYDRA to take control, not when he was just starting to get himself back. Going after HYDRA like he wanted, the way he just knew Steve was doing right now, with such a high likelihood for liability attached to his body and possibly his mind would fall under that category. Therefore, this scenario could not be allowed to come to pass.

Beyond his own desire to claw back some semblance of a life, maybe even his life, he knew who they would send their newly reacquired Winter Soldier at first. And Steve was stupid enough to let him come.

(Beautifully stupid, kind and stubborn and caring and unbelievably trusting, but stupid nonetheless. A master strategist with a 6’ tall blind spot shaped like James Buchanan Barnes.)

Any means with which to ensure this outcome was not a possibility were worth consideration.

It was fairly obvious that this was not a problem he would be able to handle alone. Despite some furious research, Barnes did not possess the expertise or physical magic affinity necessary to draw conclusions about the goings on inside the arm with the certainty this mission required. The only thing he could speak for, following an intensive scroll through published papers on magical repression, was that there was something inside dampening some aspect of his abilities.

(Barnes loved the internet. Science that hadn’t been even whispered of in the thirties was now available right under his fingerprints. It made an old part of him- the part that remembered eagerly waiting in line for hours to hear about flying cars and the stars- ecstatic with wonder, even if the bigger parts’ jaded comments were louder.)

Evidently, help was needed. Skilled, discrete help.

There was one possible candidate who seemed to be the logical choice, if not the most conventional. The man with the sensors that had been trained to try finding his presence for months before they had backed off somewhat after his visit to Sam, the one Steve had seemingly turned to in the wake of SHIELD’s fall.

(The sensors hadn’t stopped probing entirely. Barnes suspected Steve wasn’t entirely aware of these continued efforts, but he didn’t much care. They would be as successful as all the others.)

Tony Stark was skilled, and by all reports possessed the world’s foremost levels of power and control in the rune-physical magic domain. Barnes had watched him save Steve’s sorry ass time and time again in news reports from the last couple of years. They seemed to possess a rapport that hinted at an implied bond beyond their shared interest in global stability, something closer to a true friendship and connecting mutual trust.

As open as Steve was, Bucky knew he didn’t give his true trust to those who had not earned it. Stark must have proved himself a good ally, and Bucky trusted Steve’s judgement on this trait in all regards but towards himself.

Overall, Stark was an ideal candidate for assistance with this vital venture. As much of a loudmouth as he appeared to be, Barnes was confident he could be relied upon to withhold information regarding his visit if necessary.

(Bucky couldn’t quite figure out why, or how, staring at his face or hearing his last name too long made him want to cry.)

__________________________________

The quick rap of knuckles, echoing oddly against the metal lab door, scared the shit out of Tony.

“Jesus fucking Christ-” He jumped, barely managing to catch the suit panel he had been working on and tipping over his cup in the process.

“Yeah, come in.” He shouted behind him, attention focused on making sure the coffee he just spilled didn’t turn into another electrical fire. Eight in a week would be a little embarrassing.

The door slipped open quietly, soft footsteps making themselves deliberately heard as they stepped closer to him. The lab door closed with a gentle thunk.

Once he felt fairly confident his desk wouldn’t start burning any time soon, Tony spun around, witty remark to respond to Rhodey’s undoubtedly exasperated face already on the tip of his tongue.

It died when, upon making eye contact with the Winter Soldier, Tony realized quite quickly that his visitor was a very different James.

The man stood in front of him, seemingly torn between impassive staring, an almost self-conscious awkwardness, and flicking his eyes across every machine in the room.

Tony recognized the wondrous, almost hungry look in his eye, examining all the robots he had in various stages of completion shoved into almost every nook and cranny of the space. It was faint, certainly, and well-buried, but he had always been good at sniffing out his fellow nerds.

(Even if they were super high-ranking military officers who said they totally weren’t into DnD any more, grow up Tony, but never argued when Tony snuck custom War Machine themed dice sets into their Christmas sock.)

“All those damn sensors and you end up heading right to me.” Tony wheezed, once his initial minor heart attack had calmed.

Barnes just stared at him.

Mentally yanking on his beating heart until it had its shit together, Tony threw on his best kindhearted asshole smile.

“Well, Jon Snow, what brings you to my humble abode today?”

Barnes, without breaking his frosty (ha) exterior, somehow managed to give him a deadpan look that told Tony a lot about his thoughts on the word ‘humble’ being used to describe his lab.

“I require,” He paused for a moment here, clearly searching for the word. “Maintenance.”

Barnes gestured to his metal appendage with his flesh hand.

Tony's eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

“Are you going to let me touch the arm?” he whispered, near certain he had misinterpreted.

Slowly, hesitantly, Barnes nodded.

Tony fist-pumped like he'd just won a gold medal in everything all at once.

“Fuck. Yes. I have so many ideas-”

When he glanced back over, mid-ramble, Barnes looked ready to bolt.

Tony's mouth snapped shut. He was able to adapt to some social cues, Pepper.

“Or,” he said instead, super chill-like. “I could just give it a look, make sure everything’s working right, and send you on your way to go back to being loose amongst the populace, this time with a working arm.

Barnes looked almost relieved. “That one.” He said stiffly.

Tony hummed. “Gotcha. So what specifically is pissing you off? Joint pain? Minimized response time? Plate damage?”

“Magic inlay. Suppressing- something. Not sure what. Could be connected to them taking control. I want it out.”

(Barnes didn't need to elaborate on who them was. Tony remembered the taste of bile in his mouth after reading those fucking files.)

Right up his alley, then. Tony grinned.

“Well,” He spread his arms grandly. “You’ve come to the right place.”

He clapped his hands, mentally five steps into making this little puzzle his bitch.

“Alright, so we can start with an x-ray, probably a deep magic scan-”

“No scanners.” Barnes’ voice was firm, if a little disassociated.

Tony frowned. “You sure? If I did a full sweep I could check for-”

“No scanners.” Barnes repeated.

His eyes flicked warily over to the monitors, something cold and small hiding underneath his flat gaze. Tony recalled some of the things he’d dug up about what had been done to the Winter Soldier and suddenly wanted to kick himself very hard.

“Whatever you say, Manchurian Candidate.” He let the subject drop, gesturing over to the swivel chair next to his work station.

“Sit down here then, I’ll start poking at it the old fashioned way.”

He acquiesced. Tony set his tools aside for now, hovering a glowing hand over the arm’s metal surface and listening to the feedback.

“You know, I read your file.” Tony said casually as he worked. Too casually. That definitely sounded suspicious.

Miraculously, Barnes just stared at him.

“It sounds like you’ve been through it, had some nasty stuff hooked up to you. Nice to see you taking back some control. Steve’ll be glad to know that, even if you don’t want to see his sad puppy face.”

(He’d seen more than that in the file.

That was the part he hadn’t told Steve, the part he’d removed from the documents before he sent it to him because it ripped a hole into his heart he wasn’t yet sure how to patch up. There had been some names listed in there that had caused him to do some soul searching.

The rest of it though, the decades of documents detailing the many- so, so many- horrifying ways in which that day in December had very obviously not been this man’s willing decision, had convinced Tony what role he wanted to play here. Even in the earlier, more redacted files, he could see enough to glean how hard he had fought it, and what the consequences of that resistance had been.

It had taken a couple bottles of tequila and a very long sob session into Pepper’s shoulder to get to his current stance, but he couldn’t blame him for what had happened. And seeing this haunted man in front of him, another fellow science nerd trying to patch up pieces of his autonomy in order to save people from himself?

Yeah. Tony was now very firmly Team Barnes.)

“I must remove any chance of Rogers being in danger should he come into contact with me. Which he inevitably will.” Barnes said curtly, but not unkindly.

“You do kind of give him tunnel vision. It’s cute.”

“Trained operatives like him should not have tunnel vision.”

“Well, he’s an interesting case.” Tony commented, focusing on the bolts connecting the elbow joint.

“He’s a whole case of stupid is what he is.” Barnes grumbled. Tony cackled, accidentally startling Barnes if the way he tensed for a second before relaxing was any indication. 

He took a brief second to high five himself inside his head. It was the most emotion Tony had seen from him this whole time. And it was from clowning on Steve. Common ground! Tony could work with that.

“That is so incredibly true. Did you know about this time we fought this terrorist and Steve wound up covered in mustard, screaming his ass off while chasing around a guy with four arms and eight machetes through Singapore?”

Barnes stared at him in disbelief. Tony grinned evilly, and launched into the story.

They passed a good bit of time that way, Tony yammering away while tinkering with the arm, mostly about embarrassing things Steve had done in the last few years. 

Barnes was quieter, not contributing much beyond an occasional hum of paying attention, but his eyes crinkled a little with something approaching fondness. Tony had certainly had less willing captive audiences.

He was so crushing this human connection thing. Pepper would be so proud.

Eventually, Tony resealed the plates, set down his wrench and sighed.

“Well Buckaroo, I removed the blockers I could find, plus a couple seals that looked like they were hooked up to your hippocampus. Without a proper scan, I couldn’t tell you if there’s anything more lurking inside, but all the major mechanical fuckery is out. Give your magical self a whirl.”

Frowning, staring down at his arm and ignoring Tony’s very enthusiastic encouraging nods, Barnes made an experimental twist with his hand.

Within the space of half a breath, Barnes was gone. The only trace that he had been occupying that space at all just a second prior was a wisp of deep navy, making some kind of blobby explosive pattern before it disappeared in the other half of that breath.

Tony blinked. His hands twitched with the desire to take samples, start analyzing what the fuck just happened.

He didn’t, because it didn’t seem like Barnes would be too keen on gathering data on him right now, and Tony was cool like that.

He lasted all of twenty seconds before he was rushing back to his workstation and furiously scribbling into his notebook. He would restrain himself from any data samples, nothing hackable (as if anyone could get into his systems), but surely a little theorizing on the intricacies of magical displacement of matter would be acceptable. Science nerd to science nerd.

__________________________________

Barnes honestly hadn’t meant to disappear.

The instant Tony removed the blockers and resealed the arm, connecting the wires once more, it was like a breaker had flipped in his mind, looping in a circuit that had previously been disconnected from the rest of the grid. It morphed quickly with the well of power already inside him, his magic feeling almost gleeful as it surged together, a rush of energy that seemed to flood his synapses, cleansing and reawakening in equal measure.

Lost in the sensation of having this power, this connection returned, Bucky had let himself slip into that familiar space between the here and the there; the one that had been speaking to him in whispers before but now seemed to roar.

It was the same well he had tapped into to approach The Widow, the one The Soldier had used to pull strands from this personal void to wrap around himself, covering his own presence in this shield of non-existence. This time, instead of pulling it to him, he stepped into it.

The nothing settled around him like a warm blanket, like a hug from the mother he was just beginning to recall glimpses of. It seemed to welcome him back.

The next thing he knew, he was back at his base camp, unharmed, power still crackling through his mind and body, and a deeply bewildered expression on his face.

His mind was racing, fragments of memories worming their way past the chasm where the seals had been, the ones Tony had said were connected to his hippocampus, faster than he could grasp. Every time he tried to grab one they slipped out of his fingers with a silvery certainty that told him once the storm was settled, he would possess years he had almost given up on getting back.

It was ridiculous how much the seal removal and subsequent wave of cleansing magical energy had changed. An oppression he hadn’t even noticed was gone. It was such a small shift at the physical level, but even now, just moments after its removal, he could already feel the effects. 

That initial jolt from Steve’s shield had started the process of awakening his magic. It had been fighting to make him remember, regain his autonomy, but it was clear that the seals had been working to suppress it in his brain and through the arcane. Having that weight removed from both?

It didn’t feel like nothing. It felt like something monumental.

Right now though, he barely made it to the couch before he shut down. His mind needed time to get up to speed with all of the doors that were newly opened, which meant his body was forcing what was sure to be one hell of a sleep.

__________________________________

“And then he just disappeared.” Tony’s voice screamed down the phone. “Like poof! Zero respect for the laws of matter!”

“Yeah, he does that.” Steve agreed, smashing the last of the HYDRA agents in this field somewhere in the middle of Malaysia. “But you said the arm seals were out?”

“Oh yeah.” Tony said, composing himself. “And before you ask, he seemed fine. A little out of it, but disturbingly well-functioning for someone who’s been through the shit he has. Anyways, back to this blatant disregard for the concept of space-time-”

Steve sighed, but didn’t hang up while Tony got deeper and deeper into the nuances of quantum physics and their arcane applications. Tony helped Bucky when he couldn’t, stepped up in a way only Tony could. He figured he owed him at least this.

__________________________________

One hell of a sleep turned out to be a twenty eight hour coma.

When Bucky awoke again, groggy and starving, he felt- more.

More of a person. More emotions. More memories. More magic.

Just.

More.

He could look out the window at the bright blue sky and recall the exact colour of Steve’s eyes at thirteen, grinning under the sun. He could browse through the kitchen and remember that he should really buy some plums, since they were his favourites and he could afford them now.

(Or, well. HYDRA’s safe house deposits could afford them. He’d snatched all the money each time before torching them. Reparations and all that.)

The daisy chalk drawings on the sidewalk made him want to smile, the businessmen on the phones in the supermarket made him wrinkle his nose.

And the thought of his next mission made him grin. Ferally, like a predator preparing to pounce. Or a chaotic toddler with a knife. Depends on who you ask.

He wrapped up all his loose ends in DC fairly quickly, trusting that Steve and his friends could handle the stateside targets, and turned his attention across the globe, musing over where to start with Europe covered.

Well. New Zealand was always nice this time of year.

__________________________________

Steve just knew, somewhere across the globe, Bucky was sowing the same kind of carnage as him, Sam, and Natasha.

He was honestly surprised that at this point, two months deep, they hadn’t stumbled into one another yet.

He suspected interference, probably from Natasha, but it would be a cold day in hell before he could prove it. Even with his connection to her, it was damn near impossible to tell if Natasha was lying or not.

Whatever. He would focus on his own mission, in tandem and out of sync.

And if he kept his eyes peeled for spark patterns, reported attacks with the same MO too geographically distant to have reasonably been hit in one day? He’d say he was damn well within his rights, given the circumstances.

He wouldn’t chase him, would happily respect his wishes, but knowing helped. Signs of life helped. Let him push back the fear and keep fighting another day.

Even still, he knew he didn’t have long before the shield started to get antsy.

__________________________________

It turned out rampaging around on a global revenge tour was an excellent way to refamiliarize yourself with your abilities.

Every day, Bucky felt calling on his power to be more instinctual. Every day, more pieces of his life returned to him- the colour of his mom’s hair, his ability to consciously store and recall objects in his void-space, Steve’s feud with the pigeon at their apartment window in ‘39.

It made it easier to live in his own body, easier to claim the name that had been taken from him.

It also made it much, much easier to destroy as many Nazis on the face of the earth as he could hunt down.

And perhaps the sole upside to spending eighty years as an unwilling black-ops soldier with an unparalleled solo mission success rate? He was now really, really good at hunting down Nazis.

Jokes on them, he supposed.

He cleared Oceania in a matter of days, popping in, around, and below the land masses with ease. Knowing from Natasha’s messages that her people already had an operative in South America, he set his sights on Africa next.

Apparently, he could speak Swahili. Who knew.

It was almost fun, in a twisted way. Having a purpose again, using his abilities the way they were meant to be used, feeling connected to his sense of self in a way no recent memory could compare to. Throw in the Nazi hunting, and it was just like old times.

Except for the distinct lack of Steve.

Bucky missed him like an ache that got worse the more he knew him, century-old memories blending with how he knew him today- the heartbreak in his eyes on that rooftop, the way all of his associates easily agreed to help Bucky without more than a second thought. 

Even if Bucky still couldn’t bring himself to face Steve himself, he knew the role his influence had played in how he had been able to claw together this sense of being.

He would find him. Soon.

But not yet. Not before it was safe. Not before the target Steve would gain from that association becoming public knowledge wasn’t more of a threat to his safety than he and his team could handle.

Plus, he is of half a mind that they may both need some time ripping things apart viciously first. Apparently, facing your trauma head-on was supposed to be an important step in many healing journeys, according to some psychology articles he’d found online. HYDRA certainly counted as a trauma source for them both.

His team was taking care of him. Natasha sent him regular updates on their status. Bucky would get his space to heal, beating the shit out of some fascists along the way.

It was good for the soul.

__________________________________

The shield not being antsy lasted approximately two more weeks.

He’d noticed the telltale signs of its agitation, felt them himself knowing that Bucky was out there somewhere, possibly in danger and decidedly not next to Steve, but he’d also gotten the message. For whatever reason, Bucky didn’t want to see him right now, and Steve would always respect his wishes, even over the part of him screaming to go find Bucky and wrap him in a million blankets.

Steve would just have to trust that he would be okay, rely on the little snippets he got from the destruction he had wreaked on other HYDRA bases.

At the very least, based on the time-frame of attacks and the geographic distance between targets, his magic was coming back in full, beyond just the little jump at Tony’s lab. Steve had been worried when he hadn’t slipped in to his void-space to escape him on that roof, or to approach Sam, and suspected it had to do with the information on HYDRA’s suppression of his power he’d managed to glean from the heavily redacted file Tony had found in the archives.

Hopefully, with his magic came his sense of self. Steve would never ask him to be the same person he was in 1944- Steve sure wasn’t- but the blankness in his eyes on the DC rooftop had been terrifying. Even if he chose not to be Bucky anymore, or to not be Steve’s, he wanted him to know he was a person.

The shield seemed to think so too, but unlike Steve, it wasn’t being considerate about it. The growing frantic nature of its vibrations had made it feel like he didn’t have long before it was going to try to find him with or without Steve. 

In fact, it seemed deeply annoyed that Steve was actively choosing not to use the magical technique that had saved their asses a few times in France, now that it was clear Bucky had regained use of his primary magical technique and was even starting to patch up some of the frayed edges of their bond. The one that had helped dodge more than one bullet, both literal and situational, where he tangled his fingers into the thick threads of their connection and pulled, yanking Bucky right to Steve’s side from anywhere in the world the second he stepped into his void-space. 

Excuse him if Steve was a gentleman.

He’d have to figure something out after this fight to keep the shield happy, he noted detachedly, swinging a knife at the third HYDRA agent to run screaming at him from the left in the last twenty seconds. It stuck in his shoulder and he went down, still screaming. Served him right for watching how that stupid ass tactic had worked out for the last two guys and still attempting it.

Never let it be said that HYDRA goons were recruited for their critical thinking skills.

He scanned the room quickly. Eight left, and this base in Southern Romania was cleared. 

Natasha had already fooled the arcane ID scanners and cleared out.

(SHIELD had spent billions finding methods of faking one’s magical signature convincingly enough to bypass those while simultaneously attempting to ensure this technique wouldn’t work on their own technology. 

After the fall, it had taken Tony all of thirty minutes to find a workaround to both. 

This was wildly beneficial, as it turned out the vast majority of HYDRA data bases they encountered had a similar arcane digital defense to SHIELD. Funny how that worked.)

She’d downloaded the necessary data and headed out to call in the clean-up team while he finished up inside. This part of the wrap-up was on him.

Tragically, none of the eight seemed to be willing to back down. Considering his options, Steve pulled out the shield, mentally calculating a throw that would ideally take them all down at once.

With one swift movement, the shield was airborne, hurtling through the air with the considerable force of a deeply annoyed supersoldier’s right arm.

Unfortunately, Steve had forgotten to factor his shield being an obstinate single-minded asshole into his battle strategy calculations.

It initially followed the path Steve had set, but approximately halfway though the arc decided to disobey the laws of physics. Halting suddenly midair, the shield perked up like a dog catching a scent. Before Steve could call it back, it flew off towards the north, smashing through wall after wall without slowing down.

Steve and the goons he had been fighting froze for a moment, staring at the trail of shield-shaped holes now decorating the complex’s walls along the direction the shield had sped off in disbelief.

The boldest among them recovered first, seemingly realizing that Steve was now without his primary weapon, what with the shield spontaneously deciding to go AWOL and all. He gave him a lecherous grin and lunged forwards. 

Internally rolling his eyes, Steve pulled out the handgun in his belt. Honestly. Just a little tactical consideration beyond lunge at highly-trained supersoldier would not be remiss.

All eight were knocked out in twelve seconds flat.

Steve pulled out his comm, quickly thumbing down to Natasha’s contact and considering his next words as the dial rang. This was going to be interesting to explain.

__________________________________

Bucky wasn’t supposed to be in Romania.

The country gave him odd crawling sensations along his spine, witnessing traditions and hearing a language that felt like home but also entirely different, reminders of people with brown hair and warm smiles looking at him with love in their eyes. It was a headache on the best of days, and an episode waiting to happen on the worst.

So yes. He tried to avoid Romania.

The data he’d received three minutes ago in Dakar, unfortunately, didn’t give him much of a choice in the matter.

He’d followed the typical routine- clear the base, shoot the Nazis, hunt through the date for the next target, leave anything interesting or living wrapped up in a little bow for Steve and his friends. The next steps traditionally would have been to restock, inform Natasha if there was anything to look for or keep Steve away from while he prepared for his next target.

This time around, there hadn’t been time to pull his usual disappearing act. The encrypted messages had said that the drop was happening in northern Romania, within the hour. He would not be able to send his typical warnings, merely slide into the nothing and pop out on the other side, just outside the base and in time to wreak havoc.

Besides, out of all the locations in the world, what were the odds the superhero friends were going to be in Romania at that exact moment?

Bucky squinted through the foliage he had emerged behind a few seconds ago, taking stock of his targets.

Two guards to the east, four on the western wall, at least twelve more inside the perimeter. 

Easily dispatched, but he would need to move fast in order to avoid the alarms being activated. Sending the true targets underground before he could get to them would be deeply inconvenient.

Simple enough.

Of course, that’s when he was bowled over by the very enthusiastic metal frisbee.

Faintly, he recognized the object hurtling towards him as Steve’s shield, but didn’t have any time to prepare after it appeared from nowhere and slammed into his torso, thankfully with its sharper edges angled away, at high speed.

It must have traveled several miles at least to reach him. There was dirt and grass smeared on the bright surface, along with what looked suspiciously like dust from crashing through plasterboard. 

(Bucky was, unfortunately, familiar.) 

The shield kept dancing around him, bobbing with excitement, making the two twigs stuck in the mud pop up and down like little antennas.

In all honesty, it was kind of cute.

It was, however, quite terrible when one was attempting to be inconspicuous in the wilderness of Romania outside of a HYDRA base they intended on infiltrating.

“Stop. Wriggling.” Bucky grunted, trying to reach out a hand to grab the metal surface through the excitable movements. 

Surprisingly, it listened, stilling immediately and allowing Bucky to get a solid grasp on the edge. It vibrated cheerfully beneath his touch. Bucky could feel how pleased it was, the sense of relief mixed with joy.

He had no idea why it was here. Steve was supposed to be using it, working with his team to take out some of the other HYDRA fronts.

Bucky tried to tell it to go back to doing that very important job, but the shield just went back to vibrating, head butting his still-outstretched hand. 

After about five minutes straight of pleading, accompanied by increasingly elaborate gestures, he gave up. The thing was powered on Steve’s magic, and he was fairly certain there was no force on the planet that could out-stubborn Steve Rogers.

“Fine, fine.” Bucky capitulated, hissing quietly at it with a pointed finger raised. “You can come with, but you need to be more clandestine. This-”

He gestured towards the bright red, white and blue paint, the chaotic mud ensemble it was sporting on top.

“-is going to get us spotted.”

The shield seemed to understand, vibrating quickly. In the span of a blink, the mud had been dumped to the forest floor below, and the bright colouring had been replaced with a nondescript black.

Internally, Bucky wondered what decisions in his life had led to him yelling at a piece of metal to change its colour in the middle of the woods, let alone said piece of metal following that instruction. Whatever it was, he wholeheartedly blamed Steve.

Bucky rolled his eyes, but turned back towards the matter at hand. He could sort out whatever this was later. Right now, there were other priorities.

__________________________________

Steve learned very quickly that continuing a quest to destroy a global enemy was a lot harder with part of your soul MIA.

Steve wasn’t exactly useless without the shield, never was, but running around Europe with very little backup attacking armed Nazis without your most direct magical weapon was certainly not an optimal scenario. His range was more limited, part of his Sense tugging off in the direction of the shield with minimal finesse.

He could still hold his own in a fight just fine, but it made planning more difficult, especially when it came to the early warning system that having his shield nearby allowed his Senses to expand to.

After the fifth surprise attack in a row, Steve was ready to admit a strategic reassessment.

From what intel they could gather, HYDRA was nearly wiped from the continent at this point. Natasha promised to keep digging, but Steve was getting the feeling it was time to turn their efforts stateside.

They had wanted to hit some abroad targets first, give the congressional investigation time to run its course and see what information it dredged up without sliding themselves even further into the middle of that scrutiny. It seemed like that goal had mostly been hit, and enough dirty laundry had been aired to synthesize with the database Tony had to figure out their next move.

Besides, all of their efforts to find the shield had proved useless. Steve had a sneaking suspicion about where-or rather, with whom- it had ended up, so he didn’t have much hope in being able to track it down.

On some level, he’d admit to himself that he’d harboured some hope about crossing paths with Bucky on this trip, however unlikely it seemed what with the whole avoidance thing and the flares Steve sensed from Natasha sometimes, the ones he was pretty sure she couldn’t tell he could feel.

Going home could have felt like giving up on that, if Steve was a less hopeful man. Instead, even though it grated his soul slightly to stop even the illusion of trying, it felt like he was leaving the door open.

Bucky would find him when he was ready. This way, old magic restored or not, he wouldn’t have any doubts about where to look.

Besides, Sam looked excited to head back soon. Kept going on about movies Steve needed to watch, some modern TV hits so he would finally understand his references. There was a mention of something new called Love Island, which Steve’s blank look at had made Sam grip his chest like an affronted dame clutching her pearls. He had reliably been informed that a solid portion of their time in NYC would be spent getting him up to speed on the goings-on of the villa.

All things considered, there were worse places Steve could mope than a plushy NYC couch.

__________________________________

The shield would not let him go.

After that first encounter, Bucky managed to stash it in his void-space for periods of time. It would only last for an hour at most, the thing kept managing to break through each time, looking like a kicked puppy.

He had always been weak to that magical signature exuding anything resembling sadness.

At least he didn’t have to worry about Steve being too deep in enemy territory without it.

He’d received Natasha’s message about their regrouping plans. Bucky had hit a few more of the African locations on his list, then turned his attention towards targeting the few remaining European bases Steve’s group had left standing.

It was shaping up to be a nice rhythm of life, but he needed to figure out what to do with the shield. It refused to go back to Steve, even after some significant prompting. And while Bucky loved the shield, always had, their current routine of ‘stash in void and run’ was not particularly stable.

Still, Bucky felt weird about Steve, any part of Steve, being around him when he still had the potential to be- hijacked. Tony’s sweep had cleared the physical realm-based magical blockers, but that hadn’t affected whatever triggers were implanted in his psyche.

If he was to be entirely honest, he wasn’t sure how he felt about it even without that very rational and logistical fear. Bucky still had moments of spaciness, or days where everything hurt, the only thing he could hear was his own earsplitting headache, and he was grateful for it because it was what he deserved after what he’d done.

He didn’t want anyone to see him like that. Vulnerable. On his worst days, he didn’t want anyone to see it because that way they wouldn’t feel sympathy for him, like believing that he was worthy of it made the guilt even worse.

All in all, it was a mess. Nevertheless, Bucky was determined to figure his shit out. There were things he wanted to do in this life. People he wanted to see. He wouldn’t get any of that without clearing up the mess inside his head.

Natasha had said there was someone who understood.

He still was wary of approaching another on this discussion, but he had hit a stopping point with his current quest and he really couldn’t put off figuring out if there was something, anything there that could help, any longer.

Fine. Maybe there was one more Avenger to whom he should pay a visit.

__________________________________

Clint was so fucking tired.

He had managed to make it back to his NYC apartment complex after what had to be at least top nine on the Clint Barton’s Weekends From Hell all-time ranking.

(Without going into too much detail, fuck everyone from Cleveland except for that one girl with the iguana.)

He almost fell asleep in the elevator, but he eventually managed to make it though the hallway and practically tumble though the doors of his apartment, greatly looking forward to thinking about absolutely nothing for a few hours.

Of course, the red-haired menace personally sent from the universe to haunt him had other plans.

Natasha was sitting on the armrest of his couch, ignoring the perfectly good expanse of the actual seat in favour of perching with both feet up while she worked her way through his ice cream stash. She gave him a peace sign.

Her mouth was moving, but if any words were coming out he wasn’t getting them. He could have activated his magic and enhanced his vision enough to read her lips, but that was, quite frankly, too much effort for three in the morning.

He rolled his eyes and tapped at his ear, cluing her in to the fact that his hearing aid had gotten destroyed somewhere over Venezuela.

(Long story. Involved some geese, twelve yards of rope, and a deeply pissed off corrupt politician.)

Unfazed, Natasha switched smoothly into the sign language they developed together during a very boring stakeout in Taiwan.

Hey.

Nat, I do not have the brain cells for a debrief now. I have hit my thought limit for the week.

I brought pizza. Natasha signed casually, pointing to the boxes next to her as her hands moved.

Damn it. She knew he couldn’t argue with that.

Clint sighed his trademark sigh of resignation, which was perhaps slightly more dramatic than necessary if certain sources (Tony, who had zero room to talk) were to be believed.

Fine, but I’m washing up first. I smell like Peruvian dirt piles, llamas, and depression.

Forty minutes, a deeply satisfying shower, a newly attached spare hearing aid, and two empty pizza boxes later, they were on the sofa making one hell of a dent in Clint’s formidable emergency ice cream stockpile.

Well, Clint was on the sofa. Natasha was still perched on the armrest like the weird little cat Clint sometimes suspected she was.

“Okay, so to recap-” Clint waves his ice cream spoon in the air like a baton as he speaks.

“I leave for two months, and all of a sudden, the Winter Soldier is Steve’s ex- uh, guy-”

(Clint was so not touching that one. The zero dollars he was getting paid with SHIELD now defunct was not enough to parse through what might be the world’s most complicated, century-spanning situationship.)

“- who has now completely vanished from the face of the planet, but also somehow contacted the new guy about Steve unconsciously sending out a Calling Card for him, bonded with Tony over his freaky arm, and Steve's shield has gone rogue on a one-metal-frisbee quest to track him down. And because of this, Steve is basically grounded from running around punching Nazis in Europe, so you guys are back here finding more Nazis to punch.”

Natasha made a truly horrible slurping noise as she wrapped up her milkshake, the ice cream pint she had been working on earlier long gone. “That more or less covers it.”

“Are you going to try to find the shield?”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “You know that thing has a mind of its own. Besides, Barnes can take care of it.”

Yes, Clint did know that thing had a mind of its own, but it was shaped from Steve’s mind. That’s the part that worried him.

Clint knew the shield was a reflection of Steve’s soul. When it comes down to an impossible decision, it will always, without fail, move to protect the people Steve cares about before it will move to protect Steve.

He’d seen it himself, back in one of their first missions together. An explosive had gone off wrong, misdirected towards the two of them. In the span of the millisecond of notice they had, the shield moved on its own to block Clint from the blast. It had left Steve uncovered, sending him flying into a wall behind them. 

Clint chewed him and his pet frisbee out later on during his week-long hospital stay, and Steve looked appropriately contrite for the loss of control, but Clint knew Steve was secretly grateful to it for acting. 

(As much as he personally was annoyed at Steve for not having a basic survival instinct, Clint was also aware that a week for Steve would have been months, maybe even a lifetime, for Clint. As an agent who had been trained on the basic principles of triage, he could understand that prioritization, however subconscious it had been. As a friend, he still wanted to smack him.)

He hoped Natasha was right. Steve deserved someone keeping every part of him safe.

Jesus. What a wild few months.

“Man, those two have such a bizarre courting ritual happening. Makes our first arcane bonding experiences look downright tame.”

Natasha nodded in mock seriousness, glints of amusement in her expression as she must have been recalling how that went down.

A disguised fire-type mage wary of anyone who breathed and a loud American with the ability to sense her every move. Before they’d stopped attacking each other, let the dust settle, and started to forge an actual friendship, it had certainly been interesting.

Clint nodded vigorously. “We only exploded like, four buildings. They have to have hit the thirties by now. Clearly, we’re the epitome of stable arcane connections on this team.”

To emphasize this point, he pushed a purple arc gently in her direction. Natasha met it lazily with a bright red flame, both fizzling together on contact in a brief flare before dispersing. 

Clint moved his hands in a ta-dah gesture towards the direction of this, emphasizing his point. Natasha threw a pillow at him, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence broken only by the sounds of ice cream consumption.

“Did I mention Sam’s call sign is Falcon?” Natasha broke the quiet casually.

“Does he talk to birds?”

“You tell me, Hawkeye.”

“You know, that was so incredibly uncalled for-”

__________________________________

Eventually Natasha had taken her leave, claiming she needed to go see a guy about a goat simulator.

(Clint did not know if she was joking. Knowing Natasha, it could go either way.)

About an hour later, Clint had finally finished wrapping up the last of the most glaring alarm bells of the whole hey all your identities have been leaked and a lot of people who want you dead now have a lot more information with which to make that happen debacle, clearing through the files he hadn’t been able to access on the run.

He had been up and moving ever since Natasha’s message over their emergency magical line, the one that she had put in place then followed up immediately with “if you ever use this in any scenario in which you are not actively going to be killed I will answer and then finish the job myself” and therefore scared the shit out of him when he felt the ghost flames lick at his forearm. That had been four weeks ago. Five? It was hard to tell, figuring it out involved multiple time zone calculations and he was simply not in a good space to take on any form of math at the moment.

Needless to say, rapidly pulling out of his covert ops mission to clean up as many loose ends as he could around the globe was a massive pain in the ass and he was greatly looking forward to flopping face first on his bed and spending these early hours of morning passing the fuck out for a minimum of sixteen hours. Then he could pick Lucky up from Pepper and spend a well-deserved day on the couch cuddling with his dog. Bliss.

Which, naturally, is when he felt it.

His magic enhanced his senses- sight, taste, touch, smell, pretty much everything other than his hearing, obviously, he’d been near one too many explosions for even magic to do something about that. That included his magical senses.

Clint had an enhanced sensitivity to magical signatures and a range of experiencing them that spanned far more distance than should be physically possible for a human, even an enhanced one. 

They’d tested it once, with Steve. Bruce, a long suffering look on his face, had stood a distance away while they tried to figure out what the far point was of their reach. 

Tony had volunteered himself as the control group, gleefully taking notes the whole time. Tony, as an average-ability human whose magic had no connection to his senses, stopped sensing around the quarter mile range. 

Steve, concentrating on Bruce’s signature, could go up to about two miles without tapping into his magic, though he admitted that if the person he was trying to find was someone he connected to, and he focused on that line between them rather than their magical signature, that range increased significantly.

Clint had still sensed Bruce when he hit the edges of the city, and had still been able to feel his presence, faintly, by the time he was ten miles away and they called it quits.

So when he felt a strange presence at the edge of his senses, seemingly blipping into existence right at the end of where he could feel without concentrating on a target, he took notice.

Clint squinted through the windows, trying to get a visual on whatever, or whoever, had gotten within- he concentrated on the presence a bit more, trying to get a more accurate read- a half-mile of his apartment. Fingers inching towards his gun, he tapped into his enhanced vision, using the minor ripples in the magical dimension below the metaphysical to guide the direction of his eyes.

There. On the tall rooftop a few blocks away, the one with the narrow visual gap to his own building.

This was a professional then. An amateur would have set up closer, on the supposed-to-be-inaccessible rooftop across the street Clint had booby-trapped to kingdom come.

He concentrated harder, willing his magic to move his view closer.

The presence belonged to a man, dressed in kevlar and a hoodie. Choppy, mid-length brown hair, assessing gaze, black mask, at least four weapons, a computer with surveillance footage running, and an arm that glinted oddly when the window light caught where his sleeve had just barely ridden up near the wrist.

Ah. That was- hmm.

Natasha told him she had mentioned the Soldier should seek him out, but he didn’t think the guy would take her up on that so soon. Or at all, if he was being honest. It said something that he had. Clint wasn’t sure what yet.

Motivated partially by empathy and partially by overwhelming morbid curiosity, Clint decided to do something that probably wouldn't get him killed, if he trusted Natasha’s intel.

(Which he did. It has saved his ass on more than one occasion, including just last month when she pulled him out of his last mission with no context.)

Clint casually walked to where he knew he would be fully visible from the Soldier’s vantage point through the window. He tapped into his vision again, until he was staring right at the Soldier, able to make out the pale flicker of mild surprise visible behind the mask as his own face popped up on this guy’s security footage screen.

Maintaining this direct eye contact, he raised his arms up in the universal gesture for dude, what are you doing?

Message apparently received, because five minutes later, the man himself slipped through the window of Clint’s living room.

Clint had no fucking clue why he was here, sitting awkwardly on Clint’s beat up sofa.

The man’s gaze, just this side of unnervingly intense, did not leave his own.

“Natalia said you dealt with it. And made it out.”

“Dealt with what now?” He was so tired. He had not slept in 37 hours. He was not following this line of thought-making.

“The-” Words seemed to fail him. He made a frustrated noise and gestured around his head with sharp, jerky movements, like something was ripping open his skull and scrambling everything around inside to suit its tastes in an extremely non-consensual episode of brain Interior Design Masters.

Oh. That.

Loki’s little mind warp had been almost impossible to recover from. The mental toll of realizing what he’d done, who he’d hurt, plus the physical toll of his magic simultaneously sealing parts of itself and other parts fighting his actions while under the control, had been awful. He’d just gotten the lowdown on Barnes’ situation, but if it was anything remotely like his experience he didn’t know how the man was alive, let alone standing, after 80 years of it.

“Honestly?” Clint shrugged. “I got a dog.”

It was a wild oversimplification, but out of all the bullshit psychoanalyzing lectures Clint could have given at that moment, it felt the most real.

Barnes seemed to consider this.

“And this helps? Having a- uh, pet?”

“I mean, it makes it a little easier, some days. Lucky can’t, won’t judge me, even if he should. He doesn’t care about what I’ve done- or what my body has done, anyways. Only steals my leftover pizza and demands belly scratches. It helps, I think, to have a companion that you know loves you unconditionally, but you don’t have to like. Talk to them about it.”

Barnes nodded seriously. “Only pizza and belly scratches.”

Clint grinned. “You nailed it.”

They lapsed into a contemplative silence. Barnes seemed to be mulling over his words.

After a few moments more of this, right when Clint was starting to wonder how the hell this interaction was supposed to continue, he gestured towards Clint’s ottoman.

“I like your M24.” Barnes said somewhat awkwardly.

Absolutely refusing to let the fact that his heart had almost given out at this guy having seen through the glamour and magical locks hiding his armory so easily, the ones Tony had made and Natasha had reinforced, show on his face, Clint smiled.

“Thanks man. It’s vintage.”

Barnes offered him a light smile, out of practice but sincere, before there was a barely perceptible dark shimmer in the air and he was just gone. 

Nothing but empty space and- if he squinted- what could have been the lightest impression of deep blue starbursts, quickly fading out, in his wake.

Huh.

Clint nodded to himself, alone in his now-empty apartment.

“Good talk.”

__________________________________

Maybe he needed a cat.

Cats had always liked Bucky. It wouldn’t be that hard to find one and just- hang out with it or something. He could name it after something cool, like a mountain. Or a car brand. Or a mountain-related car brand. Something fun like that.

He was interrupted in these musings by the shield barreling in through the window of his current foxhole.

Two whole hours of leaving him be, that time. New record.

The shield did that purring thing it loved to do around him, bumping into his shoulder gently. Bucky gave it a gentle rub and the purring increased.

He could practically see Steve rolling his eyes, cheeks pink. Can’t believe my own magic likes you more than me. I mean look at it, just like those tabbies in the alleyways. Just like a-

Huh.

Bucky looked at the shield, considering. 

Well, it was kind of like a pet, right? And purring aside, he’d always privately thought its behaviour more resembled an excited dog than any sort of feline, not even remotely aloof or even close to subtle enough to make that connection. Like one of those goldens, running around, making friends, biting as necessary, not knowing its own strength.

Sort of like Steve.

Getting any sort of live pet to follow Clint’s advice was probably unrealistic anyways, given his current lifestyle. Maybe-

Slowly, tentatively, Bucky lowered his mental wall. Instead of focusing his energy on keeping the shield out, he allowed it to connect with him. Embracing it felt like exercising an old muscle, one he’d nearly forgotten he had.

The responding flood of magic felt like a rush. Red sparks leaping around ecstatically, a warm nudge to his Senses. An old comfort, this overwhelming lovejoycautionrelief wrapping around his mind.

There you are. Bucky thought, and let a goofy smile come over his face.

A few more weeks passed, like this.

Bucky could tell the shield was having an effect on his recovery. He could feel its energy boosting his, reinforcing memories it had been present for, allowing Bucky to use that solidity to pull in his own mind for what was connected to it.

The energy boost also helped assist his own magic in fighting the mental conditioning he could still feel somewhere within his arcanic Sense. He nearly passed out the first few times he had tried this, giving his memory an experimental tug and practically getting bowled over from the flood of feedback in response.

Even more importantly, he felt like he was regaining a bit more of his sense of self, his autonomy. As more memories came to be within reach of his desperate, unreleasing grip, he found himself talking to the shield a little more each time, sorting out the mess in his head to the soundtrack of the shield’s occasional encouraging whirrs. 

He felt deeply ridiculous at first, venting to the metal disk, but Clint was right. Talking to something that wouldn’t react in a way weighted by worldly outlook, just meet you with unconditional love, really did manage to help.

The downside to all this was that the more he remembers, the more he feels his separation from Steve like a missing, aching limb.

(That’s another experience that has returned to his memory recently. Trust him, the comparison is apt.)

Maybe that’s what drew him to keep a closer eye on the news.

The feeds flickered back and forth, but he kept finding himself stopping on coverage of the Avengers. Of Steve.

Apparently, they’d been roped into a string of press conferences lately, inquiries surrounding their media absences, the fallout from DC. 

In each one, Steve seemed more and more drained.

Bucky doubted it was visible to nearly anyone else. Steve was excellent at hiding his suffering after years of I’m fine Ma, stop worrying, but Bucky had been the one to drag him out by his ears to see a doctor, when it came down to it. 

He knew what Steve looked like when something was weighing on him heavier than he could safely manage.

Well. That simply was not acceptable.

__________________________________

Sam nearly jumped six feet in the air as he stepped downstairs, still bleary eyed from sleep at six in the morning, and there was a supersoldier sitting in the dark on his couch. Again.

Whatever. He didn’t know how stable this guy was right now, but he was between him and his coffee at the moment. Sam was too tired to fear for his life.

“Good morning, Barnes. How nice of you to knock on the front door like a normal person instead of breaking into my house. Again.”

Apropos of nothing, Barnes spoke.

“Call me Bucky. You need to get Steve to snap out of it.”

Sam couldn’t help but feel as though he was the receptionist accepting a harried wife’s delivery of her spouse’s forgotten lunch.

“Dude, what?”

Barnes- Bucky, he had said, made an annoyed noise.

“Listen. For a guy whose whole magic schtick is based in connections, Stevie can be real shit at caring for his side of them. Punk does stupid stuff without understanding the consequences, and he’s awful at asking for what he needs.”

Right. Sam was aware of this. Sam was actively trying to psspsspss his feral tomcat tendencies out of this, and he told Bucky as much.

Bucky huffed a laugh.

“Not gonna work. You gotta trick him into it. He’ll know damn well what you’re doing, but he still falls for it every time.”

“Trick him how?”

“Bully him.”

“Bully him?”

“I find smacking him over the head till he takes care of himself tends to work. Don’t give him the option of thinking it’s pity.”

Sam felt he should be taking notes for this. Actually, he absolutely should be taking notes for this.

“Hang on.” He told the Winter Soldier, the single-most feared assassin of the last century, and sprinted upstairs to grab the notebook he’d titled ‘Ways To Get Your Supersoldier To Be Less Stupid’. Natasha had bedazzled the cover.

He ignored the ungodly snort said feared assassin made upon seeing it as he pulled out a pen and started jotting down what Bucky had said in a new section he was titling ‘Steve-Wrangling: Advice From The Premier Expert’. He was ready for this goddamn masterclass in supersoldier self-care manipulation.

“What else have you got for me?”

“If necessary, pull out the tactical optics card. Steve is reckless, but he’s not stupid.”

“Tactical optics?”

Bucky gave him a weird look, stare still very intense but tinged a little in the are you obtuse or just very new here expression Natasha sometimes had.

“This self-destructive isolation routine isn’t just a threat to his well-being. His magic is so fundamentally tied to these relationships. If he shuts himself off from them, it’ll drain his power reserves.”

Oh. Sam was honestly kicking himself for not making that connection earlier. He supposed he’d fallen in the well-worn trap of worrying about Steve’s actions, not their implications.

Seeing the dots connect and the lightbulb go off behind his eyes, Bucky nodded at Sam in what seemed to be approval.

“Don’t give him any room to not resolve this fast. Knowing Steve, he’s going to find himself in another fight soon enough, and I don’t want him unable to take care of himself. Especially when he doesn’t have the shield.”

How did he know about the missing shield? The U.S. government didn’t know about the missing shield.

Who was Sam kidding. Of course he knew about the missing shield.

“Will do, man. Thanks for the advice.”

Bucky turned to go, but spun around quickly.

“On that- would you tell Steve I have it?” He asked.

Sam tilted his head like a confused puppy. “Have what now?”

“The shield.” Bucky said, with the tone of someone who thought this was incredibly obvious.

Sam, who had been the primary witness and involuntary (why does he lie to himself, he signed up willingly) assistant to Steve looking for that stupid thing for the last three weeks, threw up his hands.

“You couldn’t have said that earlier? We’ve spent this whole time thinking it was running around Europe flying into random people’s walls. Do you know how many property damage claims I’ve had to look through this month? Hundreds.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. Sam was starting to see why Steve, who quite famously took no shit and was clinically incapable of backing down from an argument, was so obsessed with this man.

“Your insurance deductible is fine. Just let him know I have it, so he can stop freaking out. Would love to return it, but I’m pretty sure it would just come hurtling back.”

Giving up his admittedly exaggerated tirade, Sam laughed.

“Honestly man, I think Steve will just be happy to know it- and you, especially- are safe. I think he’ll feel better knowing that the shield is looking out for you, even if he isn’t there.”

“Yeah.” Bucky said quietly, smiling down at his hands. “That sounds like Steve.”

Sam took a chance. “Do you think you’d be up for seeing him soon?”

Bucky looked up again, his gaze growing a bit unfocused.

“Not yet. I need to clear up some more of the mess in my head before I can face him.”

He centered himself, smiling a little at Sam.

“But soon. I won’t- couldn’t, probably- stay away from him forever. I just need to know, with absolute certainty, that it’s me he’s meeting first.”

Somewhere between the ugly laugh at his bedazzled notebook and the genuine care he’d shown for Steve, Sam had made a decision.

Bucky Barnes was quite obviously not dead. He’d said more to Sam, shown far more expressions than the last time he’d popped in. It was obvious he was well on the road to determining who he was, and the man Sam was meeting now was actually pretty cool.

In fact, Sam might just appoint himself Captain of the SS Get These Nanogenarians Some Mental Health.

Which is why, instead of responding to that with an outright declaration that he seemed good enough to go unfuck his boyfriend’s isolation complex himself, Sam grinned.

“You want some coffee?”

A million micro-expressions ran along Bucky’s face. Surprise, confusion, wariness, curiosity. Without the icy death stare activated at all times, he was actually quite expressive. For a spy type, anyways. He certainly wasn’t an open book, not the way Steve was, but Natasha would never allow even this much be seen.

Eventually, he seemed to settle on cautiously optimistic acquiescence.

“Coffee sounds good.”

“Want some fruit too?” Sam offered, walking over to the kettle. “I think I have some bananas.”

“No.” Barnes wrinkled his nose. “The bananas in this century taste weird.”

“I think the bananas just taste like bananas.”

“No, they definitely used to be different.”

Sam shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Sam flicked on the lights, keeping up a gently bickering rapport with Bucky behind him while he waited for the water to boil and suppressed some yawns.

The last month had been hectic. Coming back from his little trip with Steve, moving from DC to New York, getting clearance to fly again, transferring his job at the VA, trying to help track down the shield that wasn’t officially missing, explaining to his sister why he was on the news, explaining to his mom why he was on the news and a camera had caught him swearing mid-flight. He had no regrets, but there had been a lot of significant life changes in not a hell of a lot of time. Here’s to hoping he would have an extremely uneventful week.

When he turned back around holding two steaming mugs of caffeine, Bucky squinted at him, and Sam realizing he was taking in his dark circles for the first time.

“Are you alright?” Barnes asked with a frown, accepting his mug but still staring suspiciously at Sam.

Sam groaned. “Not you too. I think Steve has asked me that question fifty times in the last week.”

The corner of Barnes’ mouth slid up in a grin. 

“He’s always been better looking after others than himself.”

“Yeah.” Sam rolled his eyes. They made eye contact, a shared cross of commiseration and respect over loving and caring for a 200 pound golden retriever of a supersoldier passing between them.

Bucky didn’t seem half bad, all things considered. Sam wouldn’t mind being his friend.

“Your creamer tastes like shit.”

“Alright fuck you man, honestly-”

__________________________________

The next time Bucky turned on the television to see Steve appearing on some news outlet, he looked better. Still drained, but the spark was back in his eye.

He also found some social media footage of the Falcon nagging Captain America, barely audible in a blurry video of them being spotted in some coffee shop. 

Steve’s smile in those seemed genuine. Bucky was overwhelmed with crushing relief followed by a jagged pang at not being there to cause it.

He kept turning over Sam’s question in his head. Do you think you’d be up for seeing him soon?

God. He fucking wished he could be.

There was still a very real possibility that he could slip under again, have HYDRA activate something in his brain and shut off his ability to be a human.

But truthfully? If Bucky was to be perfectly honest with himself, the deeper issue with approaching Steve at this stage for him was a bit less tactically based.

Bucky knew, with a bone deep certainty he wished he didn’t have, that Steve would never give up on him. Even if Bucky himself would never be able to get past what the Winter Soldier had done, Steve would bulldoze through it with the stubborn determination he loved and hated him for in equal measure.

Knowing that just reinforced his commitment to avoid any potential scenario where Bucky put him in a position to be forced to do so.

If Bucky somehow lost his control, or the government got wind of his story and was convinced that he would, Steve would be put in a position of fighting the world for Bucky. 

Or worse, fighting Bucky himself for the world.

The first one would probably get his reckless ass killed, but the second would destroy him.

So he went back to traipsing across the globe, knocking down HYDRA cells, self-reflecting, and gleaning more and more memories by the day the more he interacted with the shield. Routine, standard, cathartic. Right up until the base in Sokovia.

They’d had kids in there. Two twins, what looked to be some wayward runaways, and one very annoyed little girl who looked deeply unimpressed with her circumstances.

Naturally, he’d gotten them all out, rushing quickly through his void-space with five little hands clutching him tightly. 

(There had been more, one of the twins whispered, scarlet tendrils coating her choked words. They hadn’t made it out.)

When he’d stepped out of the nothingness, into a copse of nearby trees safely away from the blast radius, he’d popped into existence right in front of a man in an odd black suit carrying a helmet with what looked to be cat ears, seeming gearing up to run towards the chaos on the base. The man was flanked on either side by two intimidating looking women dressed in red and brandishing spears.

For a second, the two parties just stared at each other in shock. Bucky, cradling children ranging from toddler to elementary schooler in his arms while the teenagers gripped his sleeves tightly, not darling to let go. This mysterious figure, surrounded by warriors, obviously all well trained.

Appraising.

The standoff was ruined when one of the children in Bucky’s arms, the haughty little girl no more than ten, screamed something in a language he could not place.

(Odd. There were not a lot of languages he could not understand, or at minimum identify.)

She began wriggling in his hold, and he quickly set her down before she could injure herself or the other children. The second she touched the ground, she leapt at one of the women flanking the cat man, who quickly dropped her spear and moved to grab her.

Bucky lurched forward instinctively, positioning himself to shield her, but it quickly became obvious he had no need to worry. The girl was sobbing, yes, babbling away in that language he could not place, but the woman cradled her with a gentleness and desperation that spoke of familiarity, and the girl wrapped her arms around her neck with the tightness that spoke of trust.

Blinking in surprise, he dropped his defensive stance and took in the other two, still holding the other two kids close and angling himself between them and the teens. There were still four other children that needed to find home.

The man’s gaze slid to the shield at his back that had become visible as he moved to defend the little girl. Without looking, Bucky could tell it was losing its black camouflage and runes pulsing in content at a mission well done. It had always hated hiding, only adopting the disguise when necessary and dropping at as soon as it deemed them safe. For whatever reason, the essence of Steve’s connection magic, that could read a signature so well, had determined this group trustworthy enough to show its true face.

(He suspected it may have something to do with the admittedly very touching display with the child and what had to have been her mother, as well as the fond and relieved glances the other two flicked to them. The deep purple diamond lights emanating from the man, lurking just below the surface of reality, whirled around the group protectively.)

Understanding flashed in the man’s eyes as he took in the tell-tale red, white, and blue pattern. Slowly, he flexed his hands, and the sharp looking claws protruding from his gloves retracted. He raised his arms patiently, regal aura never dispersing, and gave a nod to the woman beside him to stand down.

In perfect, accented English, he introduced himself as T’Chaka. Gave his thanks for rescuing one of his own. Offered Bucky a favour.

He’d taken the number offered but disappeared quickly after, mind not moving past the safety of the other kids.

His call with Tony afterwards, sitting in a ski lodge he had commandeered surrounded by small children, was cursory and to the point. Within the hour, a plane arrived with the children’s near hysterical moms and one deeply relieved grandpa on board.

Bucky had never been more grateful to Steve for making friends with a competent billionaire. He didn’t even have to research the families himself. 

(He did notice that on the call, the twins flinched at the mention of ‘Stark’. He elected to omit them from his summary to Tony.)

The twins kept fairly quiet throughout the whole process once the initial shock of everything wore off, even after Bucky switched to Sokovian. 

Bucky kept an eye on them, noticed some interesting signs. Unlike the others, the twins didn’t move like those who had been forced into their situation. Too awkward on the outside, too torn between relief and terror. They had walked into the viper’s pit willingly.

They were just kids. Plus, as the subject of a few involuntary science experiments himself, Bucky was fairly certain they had not been fully briefed on what they would be subjected to before consenting.

He recalled a discussion he’d had recently on brainwashing. This seemed to be a less literal form of control, but he knew better than anyone that ideology could be just as potent.

He managed some short conversations in Sokovian, enough to confirm this hypothesis, but he knew that the connection, the environment these kids needed was not something he could provide.

Decision made, he texted Natasha as soon as the other children were taken care of and in the air. 

“Who are you messaging?” the girl asked, suspicious. She must be the smart one.

“A friend.” Bucky replied simply.

“Going to lock us up?” the boy asked, tilting his chin proudly. “Is that why you didn’t sell us off to Stark?”

The girl watched, wary.

The shield, which had been very patient and quiet up till then, entertaining the other kids with its blinking lights till the plane arrived, buzzed sadly.

“Look,” Bucky said, sighing. “I know a thing or two about how HYDRA operates. I know you probably lost people, felt grief that made it harder to resist the promises they were feeding you. I know how badly these kinds of experiments can fuck with your brain, your sense of autonomy.”

Here, he grimaces. Both for the veracity of that understatement of the fucking century (and the last century too, while they were at it) and for this next part, which he was still struggling to accept himself.

“But none of those things make you evil. Getting through them makes you a survivor.”

Bucky felt like a giant hypocrite, but the kids were still looking at him, a little less wary. He’d take that as a win.

“Also,” he added, tone a bit more casual, “It was pretty obvious you two have a problem with Stark. Figured it was in everyone’s best interest if we just sidestepped that interaction.”

The boy seemed to relax. The girl still looked hesitant.

“Who are these friends of yours, then?” She asked, suspicion still laced in her tone. “If not associates of Stark?”

Bucky winked at her, channeling the energy of a man from eighty years ago who could put a room at ease with a grin. She looked like she could use the reassurance.

“Didn’t say they weren’t. But these ones know how to keep secrets, and they're not afraid to tell him to mind his damn business if he does find out.”

The boy snorted, then immediately looked guilty about finding that humorous. The girl shot him a sharp look.

“Plus,” Bucky added, tone a bit softer. “They can relate to your situation, one of them probably more than anyone still alive could. She can help you more than I can.”

Finally, the girl’s posture seemed to loosen slightly. Still guarded, but a little less likely to bite a helping hand.

That was fine. Understandable, honestly. Bucky was still going to take the win.

When the second jet landed, Natasha and Clint strolled out. Their demeanour was deceptively casual, in the manner that only someone who had been trained to detect those movements would notice.

Strangely, the twins seemed to catch on. Even more strangely, they clung to Bucky in the presence of these credibly dangerous strangers.

Fine. He could be the shield here. Seemed like they needed it.

Angling his body between them and the twins, he nodded to Clint and Natasha.

Natasha gave a sharp nod back, Clint opted for a cheery wave. The twins did not look impressed. 

Wonderful. Everything was going great.

Somehow, everyone managed to get inside the safehouse without lasers flying.

Bucky watched out of the corner of his eye as Natasha gently pulled Wanda aside to the other room, relaxing minutely when Wanda nodded at him in tense reassurance.

It was good that she seemed trusting enough of Natasha to have this discussion. Or at least, trusting enough of his confidence in Natasha.

Natasha was probably the best person alive to speak to when it came to things like manipulative, global-domination oriented organizations recruiting her for and trying to control her innate extreme magical power, enhancing it for their own gain even at the risk of her own safety. It was a topic Bucky knew she was a little familiar with.

It meant that Bucky, staying in his prime spot on the safehouse living room’s most door-oriented lounge chair, got a prime seat for watching Clint and Pietro fall into a tired uncle/hyperactive snarky teenager dynamic within thirty seconds flat.

It was obvious that Pietro had warmed to him fast, the walls from before almost nowhere to be seen after mere moments. He seemed comfortable with Clint in a way that eased something in Bucky’s chest.

By the time Natasha and Wanda emerged again, faces covered in tear tracks neither would ever verbally admit to, Pietro and Clint had regressed into arguing about pancake recipes. Of course, the two slide quite seamlessly into this dynamic.

Wanda immediately became Clint’s favourite child by agreeing with his controversial takes on maple syrup. Natasha seemed to enjoy her role as the chaotic aunt in this debacle, egging on the carnage.

The whole scene was loud, vibrant. A trust forming like pieces slotting so naturally into place.

Bucky just leaned against the wall, observing it all. It reminded him of home, almost. What home used to be. Who home used to be. Probably still was.

In the cover of the chaos, Natasha sidled up to Bucky.

“So. You called us this time, Mister Lone Wolf. That mean you’re ready to come back to loverboy?” she asked privately, voice low.

And that was the thing.

He had missed this, more than he’d realized till it was right in front of him like this, but he still ached. Still felt an absence in his bones, in a way time or distance had never been able to dull.

Bucky glanced, briefly, at the shield.

It was orbiting around the room, cheerful, but circling the twins protectively in loose loops. Still focused on others, still comforting by loving the world fiercely. It forged ahead, did what it wanted, but always in pursuit of making a better tomorrow, and always returned home to him.

God, he loved him.

He’d loved him since Steve was coughing up half his body weight and still had the energy to raise a defiant eyebrow at whoever pissed him off that day. Probably a fist too. 

He’d loved him when he watched him soak in the wisdom that came with being a child of immigrants, something Bucky knew well, and then use his position as Captain America, or even just as skinny little blond haired blue eyed Steve from down the block, to make the world do something about it.

He’d loved him when he’d cried, when he’d laughed, when he’d scowled, when he’d get lost in thought and his brow furrowed in that cute way that hadn’t stopped being a habit of his since grade school.

Loved him from the moment those red sparks, red threads, first reached out though his quiet space between and decided Bucky was going to be his friend. If this whole debacle had taught him anything, it’s that he never wanted to lose those ties again.

Fuck, he wanted to see Steve. Fuck the optics, fuck his guilt complex, fuck everything. He wanted his family back.

But.

But.

Or maybe-

Yes. That could work.

“Soon.” He said, a smile barely tugging at his lips. “There’s one last thing I need to do first.”

“You better get on that, then.” Natasha said dryly. “He really misses you, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. I miss him too.”

Natasha turned to face him fully. “Just so we’re clear, ‘soon’ better mean soon. If you keep him and his sad puppy eyes waiting forever I might have to go drag your sorry ass back myself.”

Bucky snorted.

“Understood.” He said, with a mock-salute.

Bucky stayed for a few more hours, restocking supplies and watching the kids get more and more comfortable with Natasha and Clint’s presence.

Eventually, when it was obvious the twins would be okay, he caught both of their eyes and gestured towards himself and the door. Pietro gave him a thumbs up and a wink. Wanda’s grin got wider, and she made a shooing gesture with a reassuring nod.

(He wondered about how much that girl’s Sense told her. That grin was far too knowing.)

A quick whistle called the shield to his side, zipping cheerfully to glue itself to his forearm.

With one last nod in their direction, Bucky slipped out into the quiet night, hand already raising to dial his newest contact. He had a favour to call in.

__________________________________

Steve was nearly ready to smash his head into the monitor in front of him. The monitor, blinking slowly after running for 30 straight hours without Steve remembering to plug it in, looked ready to let him.

All in all, it had been a very exciting week. 

Natasha and Clint had managed to produce two random children from nowhere. Steve had managed to get them to warm up to him quickly, but they seemed very world wary overall. 

Plus, they kept giving each other knowing glances, like they were in on something he wasn’t and were being a little smug about it, whenever they looked at him. He didn’t really know how he felt about that.

The twins had been given their own floor of the tower, though they stayed off base for the most part. They occasionally came in to train, work on controlling their extraordinary abilities with Clint, Natasha, or himself. 

It appeared that for whatever reason, they were being religiously kept away from Tony, who seems to have been given the short summary of whatever the reason for this was and was doing his best to adhere to this wish with an uncharacteristic, almost guilt-ridden seriousness.

Steve decided that until someone requested otherwise, this was neither his circus nor his monkeys, in his own uncharacteristic showing of minding his own damn business.

(It was a skill he was working on with his therapist. She called it not putting the responsibility of their entire world’s well being on your shoulders, but Steve thought his expression was more succinct.)

Besides, he had his own puzzles to figure out. He had nearly finished compiling all the information on the remaining HYDRA strongholds into an attackable dossier, but now there were whispers of some shadowy armed high-tech gangs, which were apparently a thing, making noise in New York City.

Ugh. Sometimes, Steve truly and honestly wondered how this had reality had managed to connive its way into becoming his life.

__________________________________

After making the call to the number T’Chaka had provided, the process was fairly seamless. Bucky had met with a representative in Nigeria, explained his situation, asked for help so he could know with certainty he would not hurt another. The boy- T’Challa, and wasn’t it telling that the king had sent his son to gauge his character- gave him a contemplative, respecting look, and told him proudly that Wakanda would help.

He’d noticed their extremely advanced equipment, magic-tech fusions beyond anything he’d ever seen, in the initial encounter. Bucky wanted to be absolutely certain his brain was clear, and if there was any place that had the skill to give him that guarantee, the equipment to untangle the web of eighty years of messy damage, it had seemed to be this one. It was nice to be proven right.

The secrecy was nice too. He’d imagined that a nation trying very hard to hide all trace of its existence to the outside world would not publicize that they had helped the Winter Soldier, and he was correct. King T’Chaka in particular had been very clear on this front, and expected the same consideration from him in turn.

He’d agreed easily, of course. Bucky Barnes wasn’t in the business of selling out an ally. Especially one that Steve’s shield had approved of.

Once the team of doctors, scientists, mages, and one princess who seemed to be all of the above had told him with complete confidence that there was nothing else lurking within his arm, that their equipment and mage-neurologists had flushed the last of the triggers out of his mind, he felt- clean. Like he had a new lease on life.

He supposed that’s exactly what he had been given.

Shuri had been clear. There was no likelihood of HYDRA being able to hijack his mind- through methods magical or mechanical- again, even put in extra new wards to prevent it.

(Her eyes had gotten that same gleam as Tony Stark’s when they laid on his arm. He told her she could do whatever she wanted, as long as she got rid of the ugly red star and didn’t put in anything that could visibly give Wakandan influence away.

The maniacal grin she’d taken on after almost made him regret it, but her squeal of excitement was worth whatever she was about to do. 

Luckily, she’d stayed true to her word, mostly. The old star was gone, but a new one- with a deeply familiar looking pattern- had been scaled up and added over its place.

He could tell by the mischievous way her eyes had shifted to the shield, which was humming happily and bonking his newly improved arm in approval, that the resemblance was not a coincidence.

That was the only visible difference, but the arm felt better, afterwards, both in usability and the confidence that if there was ever an attempt to possess him again the technology inside would prevent Bucky from losing control.)

She had warned him that this fix would not solve everything, that there was still healing to be done, but that this would have to be his own process. It would take time. His body, his mind were safe from outside interference, but picking up the pieces of it all would be up to him.

Bucky knew. With this last hesitation removed, no endangerment of Steve’s safety through connection to him, he figured it was high past time he got a move on with that.

Now, without the fear to block it, the itch in his bones and magic to return home, along with the shield’s insistent grumbling to tug him stateside, was getting stronger.

And so, Bucky had thanked everyone profusely, pledged his secrecy and assistance to the royal family that had done such an invaluable service to him if ever needed.

Then, with an impatience he hadn’t expected threatening to bubble over in his veins, he slipped quickly into his realm, aligning his magic towards U.S. soil for the first time in months.

Steve always returned home to him, whether it was sickness or a call from the world that sent him away. It was about damn time Bucky returned the favour, wasn’t it?

__________________________________

Honestly, Steve had had worse Tuesday nights.

The robot guy cackling evilly while Steve chased him through this abandoned warehouse complex in NYC might not even make the top ten.

Still, getting caught up in the blast from across the street while simply trying to enjoy his caramel latte was a massive pain in the ass.

He hadn’t even been in uniform. Neither had Clint or Natasha. Tony had called the suit to him, but it would still be a minute, and they had gotten separated fairly quickly into this debacle, each getting isolated by a different wave of robots courtesy of NYC’s newest pain in the ass. Tech gang linchpin. Whatever.

All Steve could think of as he ran was thank God Wanda and Pietro weren’t here today. He would have moved to protect them in a heartbeat, but having them far, far away from this chaos was the best scenario. And thank God that they’d started carrying their comm sets everywhere.

The comms were screaming with the sounds of explosions and his teammates shouting from other areas around the complex.

From the sounds of it, someone had managed to reach Clint and provide some well-needed backup, so Steve turned to help Tony. Without his suit monitor, he was flying blind, so he just ran through the halls, following the sounds of loud cursing, repulsor blasts, and metallic clangs, and hoping for the best.

Unfortunately, the ceiling above chose that moment to cave in on him. Steve barely had a faint whistle noise of warning before he was knocked over in an explosion of debris. At least one thick piece of concrete smacked directly into his skull, leaving him dizzy in the way experience told him would definitely cause problems later. 

These problems were all compounded by the full strike team that appeared through the darkened hall just then. The lead operative was rapidly reloading his rocket launcher that Steve presumed he could blame for the giant pile of rubble he was now trapped under.

Shit.

For the first time since it had sped off to Bucky, Steve really wished he had his shield.

Right now, trapped under the debris, he had no way of stopping the rocket launcher currently aimed at his head.

So honestly, he was quite grateful when the burst of pure navy blue power appeared out of nowhere to knock that guy out.

The goons behind him fell quickly after, a bright red streak shooting from body to body, leaving unconscious forms in its wake.

Steve's eyes followed its return arc, already knowing what he’d see. 

Naturally, the shield slid back into place perfectly onto Bucky’s arm. Like an eager pet pleased to have helped its favourite human.

(And Steve too. Maybe. He knew where he stood in the ranking.)

Bucky, who’d quite literally popped in from nowhere to save his ass, again.

It was like for a second, Steve had been shoved right back to the 1930s. Even the whole vindictive avenging angel expression Bucky was sporting as he stared down the villain of the week was nostalgic.

Eventually seeing that what’s-his-face wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon, his eyes slid to Steve. Bucky looked like he was trying real hard to look stern, but the way his mouth quirked up still gave him away.

“Quit losing track of your shit, Rogers.”

“I love you so much.” Steve said, apropos of nothing and completely unintentionally. There was a strong possibility that the hit to the head from earlier had done more damage than he’d thought.

Somehow, Bucky just laughed. An ugly, snorting sound that he had missed so damn much.

“I know, punk. I love you too.”

Faintly, Steve could feel something in his magic slotting into place, and then it was like the floodgates opened.

Suddenly, it was 1938 again, and Steve could feel everything pulsing beat of that Brooklyn bridge cable tying him to Bucky. His feelings, his care, his wellbeing, his love. It felt like coming home, like being wrapped in a swath of navy blue starbursts that exploded with a gentle warmth, red sparks arcing through the space between them in one beautiful, individually indistinguishable blend.

“Your hair is pretty.” Steve said dumbly, because it was and also he was too out of it to form any other complete thought.

Bucky rolled his eyes, but the gentle love Steve could feel pulsing through their newly-reopened connection gave him away.

“I forgot how stupid you get when you have brain damage. It’s more stupid than usual, and that’s saying something.”

Bucky stepped towards him slowly. Steve opened his mouth to deliver a witty retort, probably something along the lines of no you, when a glint of navy blue-lined white caught his eye.

He stared at Bucky’s metal arm, fascinated, thoroughly distracted, and filled with wonder as he approached. There was a very familiar design on the shoulder, one he could see on the back of his eyelids when he called for a weapon on a battlefield, knowing it would have his back and those of his loved ones. 

“You have the- my star. Shield’s star. Arm.”

“Yeah.” He said softly, kneeling at Steve’s side now. “That alright, sweetheart?”

Steve might start sobbing. Actually, he may already be sobbing. It was hard to tell, everything was spinning. He clutched at Bucky’s hand anyways.

“I love you so much.”

The words came out a bizarre mix of broken, grateful, and hysterically giggly.

Bucky gave him a deadpan stare. “Yeah, you definitely have a concussion.”

Steve, very suddenly convinced that Bucky was not getting it, tugged on their connection’s threads, pushing his sense of lovereliefconcern in Bucky’s direction. He watched his eyes widen slightly, like his body was remembering how to receive the magical part of their notorious non-verbal communication.

(It came in handy in a fight. Their magics complemented each other well, providing a silent understanding that let them read the other’s move before they acted, red and blue magical energy crackling around one another seamlessly. Still, even before then, before he could fully see the threads and long before any battlefields, Steve and Bucky had been able to have conversations with a glance. 

Now, he could still read him like a book, but refamiliarizing themselves with the magical channel of communication might take them both some time. It wasn’t something Steve had fully been able to establish with any other teammate, beyond basic warnings. It would seem they were both out of practice.)

Steve saw Bucky’s eyes melt, giving him a soft grin that made his heart stutter.

“I’m alright, promise, punk. Got my head cleared and everything. We’ll talk later, when you’re not all loopy.”

Steve patted his cheek. It was a very nice cheek. Faint flecks of scar tissue, light stubble. Cheekbones. Mmm.

“If you disappear on me before that while I’m knocked out, I’ll haunt you.” Steve informed him.

Bucky rolled his eyes, sliding his arms under Steve’s legs and hoisting him up.

“C’mon sweetheart, you’re going to medical.”

“Haunt you, Barnes.” He mumbled into Bucky’s shoulder. His hair was long now. Steve liked it. It was soft.

“Promise, Stevie.” He heard Bucky say softly, walking quickly away from the rubble with Steve in his arms. “I’ll be around.”

Steve hummed, pleased.

He could feel their magics intertwining the way that had always felt so natural, swirling around the both of them protectively. Somewhere on the edge of his rapidly greying senses, he could faintly feel the shield circling them like a guard dog keeping watch.

Reassured by the familiar comforts of their combined energies and Bucky’s warm, steadying breaths below his chest, Steve let himself give into whatever concussion he sustained and slipped into unconsciousness.

__________________________________

Coffee.

Water. Food. Probably some pain meds too, his shoulder was killing him.

But first priority was coffee.

Those were about all the thoughts Clint Barton was capable of as he went through his normal post-battle morning routine- shower, brush teeth, evaluate depth of injury, and generally shuffle around his Tower apartment like a fatigued zombie.

Eventually, he managed to make it out of his section of the Tower, yawning. Through some vague, incomprehensible gesturing, JARVIS seemed to get the memo and the elevator started moving smoothly down to the common floor.

More specifically the common floor kitchen. The kitchen with the good espresso machine, not the shitty Keurig his personal quarters were stocked with. Clint was 97% certain Pepper's team had put it there and not in any of their individual rooms in order to bribe them all into social interaction. 

(Except for Bruce, who solely drank tea like a psychopath. And to be honest, Tony would probably drink motor oil if he was deep enough in the zone to not notice, but he was a nosy bitch who would meander down to the common floor coincidentally to get coffee if he felt there were enough people there to pay attention to him.)

“Hey.” Clint nodded very casually to the Winter Soldier standing at their kitchen island making pancakes, acknowledging another soul cursed to be awake at this terrible hour of nine in the morning. He flicked on the espresso machine as he passed him, pulling out a mug and chugging some of Natasha’s cold brew from the fridge while he waited for the machine to finish because he had a death wish.

Bucky nodded back, apparently deep in the zone in his own task.

Clint could relate, considering he had been so laser focused on getting caffeine into his bloodstream he had apparently missed consciously registering an entire super soldier. 

He almost spat out his/Natasha’s cold brew when he made the connection, just barely managing to catch himself in time to play it chill.

So chill. The absolute peak of chill.

Maybe not that chill, if the faintly amused expression Bucky was sending him was any indication.

Rats. There went his reputation to Bucky Barnes as Clint Barton, Competent Archer and All Around Cool Composed Guy. He had been doing so well, too.

Definitely better than his previous track record with semi-brainwashed pseudo-Russian spies, at least. Natasha had known him about an hour before she told him his goatee was embarrassing and looked like the guy from American cartoons with the bow and green spandex. 

(The goatee was gone now, but the hit to his ego would take more than an electric razor to fix.)

Bucky looked like he was laughing at him. Steve’s shield, perched on one of the kitchen island bar stools and runes pulsing in time with Barnes’ silent chuckles, looked like it was too.

“Don’t you start.” Clint grumbled, pointing at the shield with the hand holding his now blissfully full coffee mug.

It kept pulsing. It looked like he was rudely outnumbered. Whatever. Unlike the rest of the idiots in this team, he knew a losing battle when he saw one.

“I will forgive you for scaring the shit out of me if you give me one of those pancakes.” Clint said imperiously, finishing the process of adorning his coffee with his standard ungodly amount of creamer and sitting down at the counter bar stool with a huff. “If you throw in some syrup, I won’t even ask how the fuck you got in here, that’s how nice I am.”

Bucky shrugged, sliding him a plate with three whole pancakes and setting the syrup down next to it. Clint cheered.

“You’re my new favourite super soldier. Sucks to be Steve.”

“I mean, I did take out a few guys coming up behind you last night, but if the pancakes are what the qualifications are I’ll keep that in mind.” Bucky said dryly.

Clint hummed as he ate. The pancakes tasted as good as they looked. He really hoped Bucky decided to stay, it would be nice to have at least one Avenger who could cook.

(Tony and Thor were out immediately and also banned from the stove. There was a reason Clint ate so much takeout and it wasn’t religious devotion to DoorDash. Bruce was competent but not caring enough to make more than some basic meals. The extent of Steve’s cooking prowess was about two recipes he had learned from his mom, army meal kits, and some truly interesting Depression-era struggle meals that could provide calories and not much else.

One would think Natasha, at least, would be able to make pasta without somehow burning it, considering she’d been working independently for a while and had survival skills that would easily win her ten different outdoor game shows. One would be surprised.)

“Yeah, thanks for that too. How the fuck did you find us, though?” Clint asked. They’d been near the Tower, but not near enough for anyone close to it to sense them.

Bucky shrugged. “I’m always able to find Steve.”

Clint squinted at him.

“I swear to god, you two have some sort of radar for each other. Like a mind meld or some shit.”

Bucky rolled his eyes.

“It’s not a mind meld, it’s-”

Bucky froze mid-sentence, head tilting like a curious cat, before a slow grin took over his features.

“Steve’s awake.” Bucky announced.

Clint slammed his hands on the table.

“Bullshit. Protocol says JARVIS, aka the supercomputer with metaphorical eyes on our vitals at all times, has to tell us that the second it happens so we can go yell at him to stay in bed, and JARVIS hasn’t said it yet, so-”

“JARVIS, could you ask the med staff to check on him?” Bucky spoke, staring Clint down with a raised eyebrow as if daring him to call his bluff.

After a momentary pause, JARVIS’ annoyingly composed British voice rang down from above, like a descending angel come to make Clint lose an argument.

“Captain Rogers is awake and cooperating with medical staff. At this juncture, all appears to be healing well.”

Then, with a dash of what Clint would almost call bafflement if he didn’t know any better tinging that robotic voice, JARVIS added, “Apologies for the late notice, sirs. It appears that Sergeant Barnes became aware of this change before my sensors.”

Bucky shot him a smug grin.

Clint threw his hands up in the air.

“Seriously, how the fuck did you know that-”

__________________________________

When Steve woke up next, blinking slowly, his head was pounding. 

It took a moment for him to fully come into himself, likely a holdover effect from the brain damage he had almost certainly sustained.

He was in the med bay of Avengers Tower. That much was obvious from the very-high tech monitors beeping at him and the unfortunately very familiar sight of the patterned ceiling, complete with low-level lights Tony had spent a week perfecting so they wouldn’t irritate his enhanced senses but enabled the medical staff to see.

That made sense. Less explicable, he appeared to be wrapped in an obscene number of blankets.

Events of last night rapidly coming back to him as he achieved fully consciousness, Steve reached inside of his magic and tugged on the cord of his connection to Bucky lightly, mostly to reassure himself it was still there. Almost instantly, he felt Bucky’s amused response, flooding his system with that soft, fizzy feeling Steve had missed so much. He’d been waiting for that, then.

“Captain Rogers,” a calm, accented voice rang from the ceiling, “I have been informed of your awakening. The medical staff shall be with you shortly to assess your condition.”

Steve wasn’t sure how JARVIS had sensed that, considering he had just barely opened his eyes and the absolutely ridiculous amount of blankets around him should have been muffling any readings of his vitals, but he had long learned to stop underestimating Tony’s brainchildren.

Letting out a brief groan, he sat up slightly, bracing himself for company.

Steve let the staff fuss over him, popping out of the fuzzy pile of warmth he had found himself in to acquiesce to scans, blood draws, and more tests to ensure his healing factor was indeed repairing the way it should. When he was cleared, he managed to thank all of the very excitable, very polite doctors running around him, and slipped out before they could come up with any more tests.

He needed to check on his team. That attack had been without warning, and he knew Clint at least had been around for the initial blast.

Odds were, knowing him, that he’d be in the dining area after his own medical release, seeing as Steve hadn’t seen him in that ward when he’d stepped out. Steve set off for that floor, letting his mind wander once he stepped into the elevator, to Bucky.

Their connection was still active, more so than it had been in almost a century. Steve could sense he was close, but assumed he obviously wanted to continue keeping his distance. Steve hadn’t expected him to be there when he woke up, and he would respect that. He would be damned if he joined the list of people that had tried to interfere with Bucky Barnes’ autonomy.

Steve expected, from what he remembered before he passed out, that Bucky would probably keep an eye on him from afar. He seemed connected enough to his past memories that Bucky’s old ‘make sure Steve hasn’t died in an alley somewhere’ instinct was coming through, so he’d see this incident through, but he had been clear about his discomfort with seeing him in person.

Still, it was fairly clear he had been the one to drag Steve into the hospital wing. Even if any of his teammates had been within range to do so, Steve could still tell from the blankets, the hallway, even the barest hint in the elevator itself. The faintest trace of his magical signature lingered, in between the pulse of Tony’s runes that covered every inch of the Tower, not forcefully put there but very purposefully not blocked.

It wouldn’t be discernable to anyone else, even Clint, most likely, but Bucky had to have known that between Steve’s enhanced senses and the strength of his connection to Bucky there was no way he’d miss it. Steve knew how easily Bucky could wrap his void-space around himself, mask any trace of his presence. Even after what had to have been decades of reliance on being a ghost, he allowed this evidence of his being to be perceived, by Steve and- without any multi-billion dollar equipment, knowing exactly what to look for, and rabid intent- Steve alone.

He’d always done things like this, left traces as a comfort when he needed to leave Steve alone during a particularly bad flare up. Knew it reassured the instinctual, connection-seeking aspects of his magic during his convalescence, to know the person on the other end of the bond was safe, present in some manner if not the physical.

So yes. Bucky being nearby but out of sight was expected.

He had not expected, when the elevator doors opened with a soft ding on the common dining floor, to see him in the kitchen, flour on his cheek, hair tied back with a fluffy pink headband Steve was 80% sure Tony had bought Natasha as a gag gift, mid-argument with Clint Barton as his metal arm waved a spatula.

The first thing he noticed, when his still-mending brain caught up to his eyes, was the star pattern on Bucky’s arm. It glinted with the kitchen light as he waved his arms emphatically, and apparently was not a figment of his concussion-addled imagination from last night. And neither was Bucky.

(He'd been mostly certain of that last part, but it was always nice to have proof. It wouldn't have been the first time a head injury played tricks on his heart.)

“Listen, brown sugar is underrated as fuck.” Clint was saying.

“But strawberry is the classic.” Bucky said exasperatedly, with the voice of a man who knew he was right and needed everyone else to get with the program. “It is impossible to beat.”

Clint huffed, spinning around to face Steve as he still stood dumbly in the elevator doorway.

“Steve, back me up here.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Steve said honestly. 

He couldn’t stop staring at Bucky, who seemingly was doing the same to him- eyes sweeping him quickly up and down, scanning for injuries, a mix of concern and something soft on his features. He seemed pleased with whatever he saw, and the concern faded, leaving something almost achingly gentle in its wake.

“Pop tarts.” Clint announced, with the solemnity of a priest giving a sermon and zero attention paid whatsoever to whatever spell Steve and Bucky had fallen under.

“Pop tarts?”

“Pop tarts.”

“Okay,” Steve said slowly, making his way towards the island. Bucky was still staring at him with that soft look, pushing a plate at him the second he sat down. Pancakes that smelled exactly like special occasion, sleepy Sunday mornings in their old apartment, when they could celebrate Steve surviving his most recent brush with the death lurking in his lungs or Bucky’s new job without putting up the facades they wore outside. Strawberries and everything, the way he always loved when they could afford them. “And- why are we talking about pop tarts?”

“I really don’t know man, we were talking about you two’s freaky mind meld and then we somehow got to pop tart flavours. Shit just happens.”

“It’s not a mind meld.” Steve said automatically, still trying to make sense of his current life circumstances.

Bucky broke his stare with Steve to give Clint that shit-eating grin, the one that said he had just won some form of intense debate.

Clint made some form of dying noise.

“I can’t deal with this anymore.” The elevator dinged open once again. “Natasha. Natasha save me from these ninety year old assholes.”

“Aww, don’t let the senior citizens bully you.” Natasha patted his cheek, strolling past them to get to the fridge.

Bucky looked at Steve. “Should we be offended?”

Steve sighed, deciding he was going to be so normal about this. “No, you get used to it.”

“You fucker.” Natasha’s voice floated through from behind the fridge door.

Clint’s head shot up, looking very guiltily like he was trying not to look guilty.

“You drank my cold brew. You don’t even like cold brew.”

Clint’s jaw dropped in mock outrage, and he launched into a monologue defending himself from crimes he definitely committed, Natasha interjecting every so often to remind him of this, that Steve tuned out immediately, having probably heard this argument verbatim before.

Amidst the chaos, Steve turned to Bucky once more. He seemed at ease, in this dynamic, in this space. It was a relief.

Gently, he tapped into the bond from his end, wanting to assess how Bucky was feeling- both physically and mentally.

He was relieved to see that his body was in good shape- no stab wounds he was concealing, no head pain, no trauma.

(Well. No physical trauma. Steve wasn’t stupid.)

Bucky met his eye, his eyebrow raising slightly in response to Steve’s intense stare. Seemingly understanding what his furrowed brow was trying to accomplish, Steve felt him let his walls drop. And like a pop, Steve’s Sense clicked into connection with his emotions.

Love. Concern. Care. Apprehension. Contentment. And the slightest whispers of fear, which Steve decided simply would not do.

Extremely deliberately this time, he sent up his Calling Card. The one only Bucky would be able to feel.

C’mere. You’re safe. You’re wanted here, by the whole team. Stay with us, with me. Let us help each other. Let us heal together.

Natasha and Clint didn’t pause their discussion, unaffected, but Bucky’s pupils suddenly looked blown.

Slowly, smoothly, he stepped closer. And closer and closer and closer.

Bucky was at his side now, a breath away. He moved his hand to fill the space between them. Steve followed, closing the gap.

Their fingers tangled together. Bucky gave him a soft smile, words already long past necessary between the two of them. He leaned his head on Steve’s shoulder with a soft sigh, Steve wrapped his arms around him loosely.

And to the dulcet background noises of Natasha calling Clint a whore for the fifth time in as many minutes, Steve felt himself settling into his bones for the first time since Bucky fell off that godforsaken train.

__________________________________

Steve, quite honestly, seemed deeply shocked at how quickly Bucky had integrated into the team. Natasha wasn’t.

He’d slid into place like clockwork, guarding backs left and right and joining the noble crusade of heckling Clint Barton as needed to maintain universal balance. 

Nine months of laughing at Bucky and Clint in their pajamas, yelling at Dog Cops reruns on the TV. Watching him chat with Tony and Bruce, when the latter was taking a break from his nomadic wanderlust/avoiding the government, seeing the three of them dissolve into nerd speak, eyes shining. Sparring with him, the two of them grinning as they trained with an increasingly out-of-breath Sam. 

(Bucky’s first time meeting Thor had been hysterical. Natasha desperately wishes she had that recorded.)

It had also been nine months of seeing him move seamlessly to block a knife headed for her, shoot down a drone headed for Tony, knock out the sniper aiming at Clint. Her favourite, though, was watching him with Steve.

It was like they didn’t even need to communicate whatsoever in order to anticipate the other’s next move, just covered their blind spots like it was second nature.  It was incredible. The fluidity, the bone-deep knowledge and trust that the other would be right where they needed them. They didn’t move as one being, still clearly individual forces, but the blend of their powers was unlike anything Natasha had seen before.

It had been even more fun to see that nature extended off the battlefield as well. 

Throwing popcorn at each other during movie night then eating it all because they refused to waste the food. The obnoxiously sappy looks. How they held each other, exchanging quiet words or comforting silence as needed, after one of them had a particularly intensive therapy session. 

They were good for each other. Helping the other stay balanced, or at the very least preserve the pieces to put back together later.

Once, she watched Bucky yell at Steve so beautifully, thick Brooklyn accent coming out in spades, Steve actually went to medical for his internal bleeding without argument. It was magical. Sam took notes.

All in all, being an Avenger wasn’t so bad at the moment. That being said, there were still moments like this, where she and Steve were staring at the tracker on Steve’s once-again missing shield over lunch with respective expressions of concealed bewilderment and deep disappointment.

Natasha broke the silence first. She was working on doing that more often.

“Right. So, why, exactly, is the shield in Bermuda?”

Steve sighed. “I have a theory.”

Natasha watched his eyebrows knot together slightly, concentrating. At this point, she knew what his face looked like when he was tugging on that connection. That’s why she wasn’t surprised when, within the next breath, Bucky casually popped into existence right by his side.

Sure enough, the shield appeared right behind him, bobbing around like it was entirely unrepentant.

“Stop taking my main weapon on unsanctioned field trips.” Steve announced.

Bucky laughed, stealing Steve’s coffee cup and taking the last sip.

“In my defense, the shield followed me, I didn’t grab it. You’re just mad you’re famous and not legally dead so you couldn’t come along.”

Steve pouted at him, but Bucky just grinned and met his pursed lips with an affectionate peck. This appeared to be the right response, considering all signs of dissatisfaction were now replaced with a light pink blush.

It was, frankly, adorable, but Natasha still complained on principle.

“Gross. Take it to Bermuda.”

Bucky gave her a devilish smirk.

“Excellent plan.”

He grabbed Steve’s hand. Steve protested.

“Wait, I need to finish my sandw-”

Pop.

And they were gone, leaving Natasha in blissful, non-PDA inflicting silence.

Natasha rolled her eyes, entirely aware that if someone saw her face that gesture would have been interpreted as fond. Good thing the room was empty.

It was pretty obvious the two of them were still healing. They all were. Probably would be for the rest of their lives.

But still, there was a tangled web of cables intertwined between them all. She didn’t have Steve’s ability to see it, to interact with it, but Natasha could still feel it in Clint’s laugh, Sam’s devastating eyebrow raise, Tony’s manic grin, Steve’s pep talks, Bucky’s expressive eyes. It was strong. It was theirs.

And this fabric they’d built together, forged on old threads tied with new connections, was pretty damn great.