"Bucky rides shotgun," Steve says when he ushers everyone to the SUV, and James is the only one to question it.

"Why?" As the Soldier, he tended to be kept at the back unless they needed him to fire from within the vehicle, but now he has no preference as to where he sits. James is simply, typically curious. It's a trait he's always possessed except for the times it was burned from his mind; Bucky Barnes was curious is one of the entries on his list of pleasant things about his former self.

Former self. It's a fitting descriptor, but it still feels foreign on his tongue. The Bucky Barnes from the twentieth century isn't quite him, but in many ways they're almost exactly the same.

"Because you get carsick," Steve says, taking his place in the driver's seat. He begins adjusting the mirrors. "Or you did in your parents' car, all the time. The ride's less rough in the front."

James thinks cars move more smoothly now than they did seventy years ago. He also thinks without remembering that Steve must have been as skilled then at comforting the sick as he is now. He takes the passenger seat and from behind, Tony presses an object into his hand.

It's an iPod. James turns to face him. Tony and Sam are in the middle row of seats and Clint and Natasha have the back.

"My ride, my playlist," Tony explains. "Hook it up, would you?"

James isn't sure why he knows how to connect the iPod to the stereo, but he does. Perhaps Rumlow or another agent had done it in front of him or prompted him to do so. In James's room is a first draft of a letter to Rumlow. He explained in it that he could not convince any of the Avengers to offer amnesty, but that he would be willing to serve as a character witness. Only then Steve had said James wasn't allowed to do that, so now he has to re-write the letter.

It may be Tony's playlist but James thinks it's comprised of all their tastes: there is AC/DC but there is also Ace of Base, as well as songs in Russian that he guesses are meant for either him or Natasha. There is someone named Bruce Springsteen that makes Steve smile. James doesn't know who the Marvin Gaye songs are for.

He thinks he's beginning to see the appeal of AC/DC. It may be due to a wider exposure to music since last he heard them, or it may simply be the result of being a captive audience. But it's not just an explosion of sound now; there's an underlying structure and James can guess at its appeal. "That was good," James says once "You Shook Me All Night Long" ends, turning in his seat to face to Tony.

"Well, what do you know," is Tony's reply. "You're not totally hopeless after all."

James turns back. The current song is some form of rock music that he's not sure he was exposed to back at the tower. He can hear the anger dripping from the vocals; he doesn't catch all of the words, but "anarchy" is frequently repeated. "This is better," he decides, and from behind him Tony laughs.

"I called it. I so called it. Told you you'd like the Sex Pistols."

James shrugs, settling back as the music washes over him.

Agent Carter is in an assisted living facility. Steve goes into her room before anyone else, carrying the flowers he'd retrieved after James said flowers were essential for dancing.

"You took your dates dancing without flowers all the time," Steve had said yesterday.

"They weren't my best girls," James had answered.

Steve's said that Agent Carter has good days and bad days, and if this is a bad day then they'll have to try again some other time. James isn't sure what constitutes a bad day but Steve knows, so he goes in first.

James waits on a bench in the hallway. He wonders if he has good days and bad days and if the day Sam and Tony let Steve first see him in the tower was a good one. He thinks that lately, most days have been good.

Steve steps into the doorway and nods, which signals Tony and Clint to head back to the SUV for the record player. The record player was James's idea; they could have used an iPod or a computer, but he said it was the principle of the thing. He isn't sure what exactly that principle is, but it's important. Steve and Peggy are going to get their dance and a smile starts on his face that fades just as quickly when Steve beckons him toward the room.

"She wants to see you, Buck. She thought you were dead."

"Me?" What had Bucky Barnes mattered to Agent Carter? He'd seen the way she looked at Steve.

"C'mon, don't keep a lady waiting."

His stomach sinks. The most James remembers of Agent Carter is a single encounter and a flood of negative emotions. What if he treats her poorly? He doesn't want to, but it wouldn't be the first time he's been casually cruel.

But Steve's hand is on his shoulder, steering James into the room. There are flowers everywhere and James wonders how many of the arrangements are from Steve's prior visits. Agent Carter is sitting in the bed. She is much older than she was in his memories. She is still very beautiful. She stares at James at first with shock, and then with something else he's not sure of. She looks still surprised, but also as though she may laugh.

"Sergeant Barnes." Agent Carter's voice is just as he remembers, smooth and low and beautiful.

"Ma'am."

"What on God's earth have you done to your hair?"

A smile does flicker on his face. If his arm weren't concealed by his sleeve and glove, he wonders what she would make of it. There is a chair by the bed and Steve guides him to it. "I was reclaiming myself," James says.

Agent Carter shakes her head. "You're revoltingly young, the pair of you," she says, her voice a mix of exasperation and amusement that brings to mind the grandmother James has just remembered he once had. This time his smile stays.

"How are you, Barnes?"

"You can call me Bucky, ma'am." He's not quite Bucky—though the thought is no longer repulsive—but that was his preferred name in her day and she is old and possibly sick and he thinks Bucky Barnes was respectful toward his elders.

"And you can call me Peggy." She coughs and waves Steve away when he offers her a glass of water. "I feel I've told you that before, years ago."

"I—the fall made me…not well." That and everything after. He stares at the floor. Peggy Carter had helped to found SHIELD and he had been a part of HYDRA, rotting her dream from within. "I don't always remember things. I'm sorry."

There is something new and surprisingly soft in her face when James raises his head. He doesn't believe he ever thought her cold—professional, but not cold—but he cannot remember the gentleness he sees in her eyes. "That's all right, Bucky. You needn't apologize for that."

"Thank you, ma—Peggy."

"But you're still able to watch out for Steve, are you not? Heaven knows he needs someone with sense to keep him in line."

"Never had much of that myself," James says, and everyone is smiling.

Sam talks the staff into clearing out a lounge while Tony and Clint set up the record player. Natasha picked out a dress—where she found Peggy's measurements is a mystery, as Steve says he didn't supply them—and James and Steve leave the room so that she and the nurses can help Peggy into it.

"If you step on her feet," James says, "I'll have to slap you on her behalf."

"I'm not completely hopeless, Buck."

"You sure about that?"

When Peggy enters, aided by Natasha on one side and a nurse on the other, she is not wearing a red dress. It is a deep, rich green. She has the sweater she wore in the bed over top of it, and thick sleeves around her legs that James somehow knows are to prevent blood clots. But she pauses in the doorway and she is still so beautiful and for a moment, it's as if no time has passed since that day in the London bar.

The record plays a song James had selected, one from after his fall. "It's Been a Long, Long Time" is the title. Steve had flinched a little when James picked it out, but he didn't protest.

Peggy ends up leading, which James imagines is just what would have happened had they danced when the both of them were young. Neither is especially graceful, but Steve and Peggy both look happier than James can ever remember seeing anyone.

He thinks of lying broken in the snow, of struggling to remember what it means to be human. He thinks that maybe it was all worth it to see the two of them now.

When the dance ends Peggy is obviously fatigued, but she is almost glowing. She kisses Steve on the cheek and his eyes look wet when he leads her back to her room, but he is still smiling as well.

"You did good, Bucky," Sam says. The others all murmur agreement. For a second he resolves to write this down on the list when they return home, but those entries are for the Bucky Barnes from the twentieth century. Perhaps he can start another list, one consisting of things he likes about himself now. James wonders if that's egotistical, but he hasn't had an identity for seventy years and maybe it's okay to be a little self-centered. He had been in the forties, and Steve had said that wasn't bad.

James is starting the record up again when Steve returns. "I organized this shindig," he explains. "I think that deserves a dance, don't you?"

"With me?" Steve grins. "I thought you said I was hopeless."

"Natasha already turned me down."

She nods. "I make it a point never to dance if refusing means I get to watch Captain America do it."

"Besides." James reaches out, grabbing hold of Steve's hand. It's kind of funny: he had missed Steve from the fight on the bridge up to their reunion at the tower, but it's only now that they're always around each other that James realizes just how much he still misses him. It's not a sad feeling, but a desire to make up for lost time. There's a lot to make up for. "I'll take pity on you and let you lead."

Steve is, after all, the leader. Even when Bucky's broken mind had relied on hallucinations for stability, they had taken Steve's form. It's strange to think that was himself all along, the part of him that was too stubborn to bleed out in the snow. He hadn't held out forever, but neither had he faded away. His resilience was always with him, just waiting for the right push to resurface. That's one for the list: Bucky Barnes was stronger than he thinks.

But Steve is shaking his head and placing his left hand on Bucky's corresponding shoulder, the dame's position. "Nah, I think it's time that you led, isn't it?"

So he does.

A/N: "You Shook Me All Night Long" is considered a gateway AC/DC song—it's one that you play to people unfamiliar with the band, because it tends to be well-received and well-known.

The Sex Pistols song that Bucky liked is "Anarchy in the U.K."

Steve flinched at Bucky's suggestion of "It's Been a Long, Long Time," because that was the record playing in his apartment when the Winter Soldier shot Nick Fury. The version of the song that Steve had was the Harry James and Kitty Kallen rendition from 1945.

Thank you so much to everyone who's read this fic, whether you reviewed or favorited or just enjoyed the ride. I can't put into words how much your excitement and enjoyment for this fic has meant to me. I've said it before, but initially, I never intended this story to even cover the events of the film or go for longer than perhaps ten chapters. The final product is entirely thanks to the people who enjoyed this story enough to inspire me to keep on going for as long as I did. You're the greatest and I hope that the ending satisfies you. I have another (shorter, unrelated, more lighthearted) Captain America fic planned that I hope to start publishing this week; it will be under the title "Not That There's Anything Wrong with That." If you need something to tide you over in the meantime, I do have a number of stories on Archive of Our Own (linked in my profile) that do not appear on this website. However, definitely check over the content warnings before you read those; there's a reason I haven't posted them here.

Thank you all again. You guys mean the world to me.