Author Note: This chapter brought to you by "not all who wander are lost" by marlinowl (on AO3, different fandom, some similar themes?), about 150 more plays of "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab For Cutie, as well as "Kody" by Matchbox Twenty, and "Cat and Mouse" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.

I've also discovered the fantastic Steve/Bucky fics of Odsbodkins on Archive of Our Own, which have very much defined my vision of the boys pre-serum, so you should go read them. All of them. Right now. Well, after you finish reading this. Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed and favorited this work so far, I'm very pleased that you're enjoying my little story!

After the nightmare, the act of simply existing was no longer enough to satisfy him. Bucky noticed it the first time while he was sitting at the kitchen table, after they had finished their meal, and saw his fingers tapping against the table. The movement was not random, not a muscle spasm, and he frowned in confusion at his own dancing fingers as if they had personally offended him.

"Got a song stuck in your head?" Steve remarked with a faint grin.

"A song?" Bucky said, perplexed. The smile melted from Steve's face, as it so often did whenever Bucky asked what to him seemed a simple question. It was beginning to bother him more and more when those smiles vanished.

"A song. You know, like music? Geez, you're probably going stir-crazy in here with nothing to do." Steve rose from the table and immediately set to work, explaining to Bucky the television, something called "Netflix" and giving him a flat device, which supposedly held thousands of books. There was also another small box with a headset attached, which Steve said had hours' worth of music stored on it.

Steve seemed to have some expectation that these things would fill his days. And Bucky tried, for Steve more than for himself. If he failed it was not due to a lack of interest or patience, but rather of works of fiction could not hold his attention, he could not grasp the purpose of focusing on the lives of others, especially lives that had never existed and never would.

Nonfiction was worse. Anything from the last century—news, biographies, history books—awoke in him that sick, twisting feeling of vertigo. This is wrong, his mind would whisper at an account of the fall of the USSR. He had nearly broken a window when he'd chucked a paper copy of New York in the 1930s across the room. Steve had offered to find something more to his taste, but at the wild look in Bucky's eyes had stopped. The reading device and the TV were available to him, but their screens remained dark.

Music, though, music was another matter. Steve had been hesitant at first, but finally pointed Bucky to playlists on the device labeled "1930s" and "1940s". There were others collections too: modern music, classical, something called "disco" that he recognized from Steve's list. But the moment he heard the first strains of jazz—the word arrived fully formed in his brain, without Steve's prompting—Bucky sagged into the couch. His head fell back, and the feeling of the earbuds faded to nothing as he was lost in a wash of sound and sensation.

Shadows danced behind the darkness of his eyelids. He saw the flash of stockinged feet, the whirl of skirts and the cut of suits, untucked shirts and glinting belts. He did not need to be told this was a memory, but it was a pointless one, an amalgam of a thousand nights overlaying one another. All he knew was that he had once danced to jazz, and what use was a memory like that?

"It is useful. You loved to dance," Steve said, and Bucky only realized then that at some point he'd begun to murmur aloud, and been unable to hear himself through the blare of the headphones. Bucky's eyes fluttered open.

Steve was standing in front of him, in the middle of the living room. He was dressed in a simple t-shirt and jeans, much like Bucky himself, who had dressed from Steve's wardrobe.

Steve offered his hand. Palm up, as if expecting Bucky to take it. The music player was in Bucky's right hand and so he had no choice but to reach with the metal one, feeling nothing when Steve's hand closed around his. He rose to his feet as the jazz wailed and skittered through the headphones, taking some portion of his mind elsewhere, high above and floating on tones of angels, turning his muscles to liquid.

The music changed. Grew mournful and slow. Bucky saw from the way Steve tilted his head to the side that he could hear it too; with the serum-augmented senses it may well have been loud enough for both of them. His other hand found Steve's waist without prompting, still holding the music player pressed between them, and Steve's arm wrapped around his shoulder. Steve looked down, unable to meet his eye, and a faint blush was staining his cheeks. "Should have known you'd take the lead," Steve said.

"Well, you were always smaller," Bucky replied without felt the hairline jolt go through Steve, felt him shrug it off.

"Right, and you had to practice somehow. Not that the practice helped me much, no dame as tall as you was going to want to dance with me," said Steve.

"I never said that."

"Nah, I just knew it from experience," said Steve.

"You're not small anymore," said Bucky.

"So maybe one of these days you'll let me lead?" said Steve.

"Don't push it." said Bucky.

"Aw, Buck…"

Bucky froze, and Steve nearly pulled him off balance as he continued to sway. The entire conversation flashed before him. Where had any of that come from, and why had it seemed so natural? Who the hell was this man, who had danced in a frigid little apartment in Brooklyn when Steve was small and frail? Who had laughed as they tripped over one another's feet, fighting for who would take the lead?

Who the hell was Bucky?

Steve caught him as he tried to pull away, fingers pressed around his wrist. Bucky's long hair whipped across his face as he turned back.

"Wait," Steve begged. He eased his grip on Bucky's wrist, but did not fully release it. "The next song's a waltz. But if you don't like that, we could always jitterbug."

Bucky stared, the wildness fading from his eyes to be replaced by confusion, and something rose in him, light and bubbling.

He barked a startled laugh.

Bucky turned back, putting his hand once more at Steve's waist. The words came naturally this time, and he didn't try to stop them. "Sounds good. Felt like I was at a funeral there. You got any ragtime?"

"Isn't that a bit old-fashioned, even for you?" said Steve.

"You're just saying that because you don't know the steps."

"Don't …? Oh, we'll see about that. You know, I've been waiting a long time for the chance to spin you around," said Steve.

"I ain't giving up the lead without a fight," said Bucky.

"You're on."

Two weeks later, Steve delivered the news.

"I've been called in for an assignment," he said, not quite meeting Bucky's eye.

Bucky had been sitting on the couch in the living room, looking out the window with distant eyes as he listened to the songs that played on the radio. Newer music, not the kind he had known as Bucky Barnes. As the Winter Soldier, he had only heard such music as a background buzz, the ambient noise of the lives of others. To listen to it now, even with its strange tones and harsh harmonics, was like following a rope that wound its way out of a cave. He didn't know where it would take him, only that the darkness and cold were receding, and he felt closer to the world outside than at any time he could remember since the fall. Bucky realized his mind had been wandering, unwilling to lock on to the meaning of Steve's words.

Called in. Leaving. Sent on a mission, for who knew how long. He felt that blankness return, the shielding nothingness that had prevented the Winter Soldier from thinking beyond the reality before him. He nodded.

"I don't have to take it. The others can manage on their own."

"But not as well," Bucky said in a monotone.

Steve swallowed and nodded. "It's pretty serious. I wouldn't even consider it otherwise."

Bucky would have been curious at that. Bucky would have wanted to know more about this mission, about what kind of threat could seem overwhelming to even Steve's teammates. He didn't feel like Bucky right now. The numbness was rising up around him, the music breaking down in his ears into a discordant collection of sounds.

"Will you still be here if I go?" said Steve.

Bucky looked up. Steve's jaw was tight with apprehension, his face a picture of misery.

"Do you want me to?" said Bucky.

"Yeah," said Steve. "Yeah, of course I do. But I know I can't force you. If you're not comfortable—"

"I'll wait."

Steve drew up short. The tension in his shoulders eased, but he still looked uncertain. "Really?"

Bucky hesitated. He was still in enemy territory, and it wouldn't be easy to explain what the Winter Soldier was doing in Captain America's apartment without Steve there. Any number of disasters could occur.

But Bucky couldn't keep Steve there, and it's not like he wanted to go. The apartment was simple, white walls and wood floors with only some basic amenities. Luxurious compared to what the Winter Soldier was used to. It had lost the edge of strangeness, become home, and he found that he didn't want to leave, even if the Winter Soldier chafed at the risk.

"Yeah, if you want me to. I figure I owe you," Bucky said. The other boy from Brooklyn knew Steve had done a lot for him already, not just the cooking, or holding his hand after that first nightmare. He might have been a bit embarrassed at being tended like this, like a child, but it was so far away from anything the Winter Soldier had known that those pockets of memory that made up Bucky couldn't summon the impetus to care. He had been used to being tended as the Winter Soldier, cleaned and stored like the weapon he was. To be cared for as a human being, without expectation… he wasn't even sure he could process it, so he simply accepted it.

The relieved grin that broke over Steve's face might have been worth it on its own.

Steve arranged for food to be delivered to the doorstep, not jut groceries but frozen meals too. It was all pre-paid, so during his absence Bucky wouldn't have to interact with anyone he didn't want to, only pick up the food from the front door once the deliverer had left.

He also left Bucky a mobile phone, a glittering device with a transparent screen, the numbers skittered across the surface in little flecks of light. High-tech, even for this time. There was a button on it that Steve explained would go straight to the earpiece embedded in his helmet, bypassing all signals and safeguards. The line was only meant for their teammates and closest contacts, which was why Steve said it went to Bucky without question. If anything happened, if he felt threatened, or if he just wanted to leave, Steve asked only that Bucky call him first.

Then he was gone.

The silence and boredom weren't a problem. The Winter Soldier had once hidden under the snow for two days without moving, just to take a shot. But by the second day alone, Bucky began to feel restless. The apartment was small, suffocating, without Steve to make him forget its isolation. And he had the nagging sense that something pursued him. Not an enemy, though he thought of trapping the windows and doors just in case, to warn him if anyone tried to enter.

Rather, it felt like an approaching storm, the air pressing down on him with palpable weight, and there was a distant rushing in his ear like an approaching torrent. The unease followed him from room to room, which may be why he finally sat down on the couch and turned on the TV.

His keepers had ordered him not to watch television, though his undercover missions afforded him the opportunity. But Bucky at least recognized the device, even if he and Steve had never had the money to own one. He had some vague memory that the news should be on one of the two channels, and his instincts proved accurate, not that it would have been hard to find what he was looking for.

The Avengers were plastered across every channel. Downtown San Francisco was in shambles, as the team fought a pair called "Quicksilver" and "Scarlet Witch". He saw a silver form racing over the bay, so fast it could skate across the surface of the water. A red haze exploded, dropping a truck from the sky, the source a petite brunette that the camera could only glimpse from afar.

That's when he saw them. Steve outfitted for war: helmet, shield, and body armor with a white star emblazoned on his chest, the uniform Bucky and the Winter Soldier knew well. It was the man beside him that arrested his attention. Like Bucky, his arm was sheathed in metal, as was the rest of him. Iron Man had been in Captain America's dossier, a potential threat and ally that he would have to be prepared to face.

He knew Iron Man, had seen him before, but never so long after being wiped, not since the memories had begun their steady drip back into his brain, and he realized he knew that face. Bucky and the Winter Soldier both knew it.

Tony Stark looked just like his father.

The memory clamped around him like a steel trap, and refused to let go. Bucky seized on the couch, his breath freezing in his throat as metal fingers clenched around the cushion. His eyes were open, wide and staring, but the images played before his waking eyes in a merciless torrent.

His hiding spot was miles from the road that led to the Stark mansion. A long shot, even for him. He would have to take more than the wind into account; he would have to take the curvature of the earth itself. But this target was important. This one had changed the world, and the world would change again at his passing.

He had not asked why the wife needed to die as well.

It was far, though, too far for him to make out the face of his target through the scope, save as a speck in the distance. They took this route every Sunday, her hair bound in a handkerchief, sunglasses flashing. He always drove. Their son was at home, the order had been clear that he was not to be harmed. Another would take the heir in hand– Obadiah Stane—the one who had given them access andthe information needed to set up this hit, or so the Winter Soldier had overheard. He had not sought the information, or cared. It had been spoken openly in his presence, as if he were no more than a gun hanging on the wall.

There was a spot on the road, a narrowing of the pass where the coastal highway twisted like a snake around the edge of a cliff. The truck was coming from the other direction. It would arrive at the predetermined location in forty-five seconds. The driver did not know of the assignment, he was only making a delivery.

The Winter Soldier lined up the shot, aiming close to the ground. In the wreckage, there'd be no way to tell what had punctured the tire and made Stark lose control of the car. He was an excellent driver, better than most professional racers, and a flat tire would not be enough to send him careening over the edge of the cliff on its own. The projected loss of control would be brief, and expertly handled. That was where the truck came in, going too fast for so narrow a road. The driver was running behind schedule, held up by last minute changes in the delivery location, rushing. He was not used to navigating such treacherous lanes, and his cargo shifted and buckled with each turn, unbalancing the vehicle.

The Winter Soldier inhaled, and with the next exhale, squeezed the trigger. The car swerved as the truck came around the narrow turn. He did not hear her scream, or see Stark spin the wheel. He did not stay to ensure the work was done. If he had missed, they would arrange another attempt, at another time and place.

The Winter Soldier never missed. He did not feel remorse, his hands never shook. So he did not understand why he felt cold and sick that day as he packed up and left the site. Why he could so easily imagine Stark's face when it had been so far away on the other side of the scope. Why he could not decide whether it made it better or worse that he had not watched their final moments.

Bucky snapped back to the present bathed in a cold sweat, his fingers buried in his scalp and his head shaking back and forth. The TV prattled on in the background.

Howard.

The Winter Soldier knew him. Bucky knew him too, but from the mess hall, from the back rooms of the barracks, laughing and talking and sharing a beer. Always a bit odd, a bit too mad scientist for Bucky to connect with, but Steve had liked him, which meant Bucky at least had to try. And he'd found he did, in his own way. It was useful to have a guy like Howard along. He'd been one of them. Bucky would have laid down his life to protect him as much as any of them, only a little slower than he would have for Steve.

The car would have swerved straight into the oncoming truck.

Nausea swept him, like being dumped into ice water, like falling from an unimaginable height, and Bucky was up off the couch. He'd only just reached the bathroom when the bile rose, and he vomited until his skin was clammy and he shivered from the force of it. The visions did not die with the nausea and he felt, like a crack in a door, that more lay beyond. Hundreds of kills, and all those ghosts waiting, as silent and judging as the faces of the saints in a church. Waiting for their turn to remind him of their final moments.

His hands shook as he reached for the phone in his pocket. The battle was probably still raging. Bucky knew he should resist the temptation. Couldn't. The Winter Soldier didn't know how. But he was neither of them, and he was both, something newborn and frightened. And even if he didn't come—Bucky's thoughts rose in him—even if Steve didn't come, Bucky needed to confess, needed to say something to appease those specters waiting on the other side of the door in his mind

He may not answer, he thought, and Bucky's chest tightened with fear even as the part that didn't want to reach Steve the phone was ringing and he scrubbed the back of his hand over his mouth as he put the device to his ear.

"Bucky, what…? What is it, are you ok?" Steve answered. There was chatter in the background, but Steve's voice was clear and steady, his breathing only slightly labored.

Bucky hesitated, the words rising up inside him like a cry. He wanted to apologize and hang up; he wanted to play it off as if nothing had happened, a wrong number. Those happened, right?

"I killed Howard," he said.

Silence on the other end of the line.

"Please come home," he begged. He imagined Steve faltering, doubt entering his eyes. It was one thing to save a lost friend, but a murderer? Bucky hadn't fought back, hadn't resisted for even a second when ordered to kill a comrade in arms, the father of one of Steve's teammates. There had not been time. Half a second would have meant a failed mission, and the Winter Soldier didn't fail.

He thought he would be sick again.

"I'm on my way. Give me six hours. Please don't leave," Steve said. The chatter on the other side grew louder; there was a distant explosion.

The line went dead.

The phone slipped from Bucky's hand, clattering to the floor, and he leaned against the wall. Then his head slippedback, pressing against the tiles as his throat worked as the first tears blinded him.

Steve arrived six hours later, true to his word. Bucky heard the car pull away, and Steve's steps as he pounded up the staircase. The door bounced off the wall when Steve slammed it open. Bucky hadn't moved, hadn't dared, not knowing when he would be sick again.

Steve hadn't even taken the time to change, but he shucked the armor as soon as he was inside, tossing the helmet onto the couch, dropping the gloves on the floor outside the bathroom. That's when he caught sight of Bucky, still sitting on the floor, and was at his side in an instant. Steve's bare hands rose to cup Bucky's face.

"Bucky? Hey, are you alright?" Steve said, his blue eyes searching. Bucky's gaze drifted down, noted the stains and already-healing cuts on Steve's hands. He still smelled of smoke and sweat. His face was smudged with dirt, his hair standing up straight and wild from the helmet.

"Were they still fighting when you left?" Bucky said, his voice slurring. He saw the flinch that confirmed it, but then Steve shrugged.

"We had 'em on the ropes," Steve said and Bucky knew he was lying.

"You shouldn't have come all the way out here," Bucky said.

"Is this your way of telling me you feel better now?" Steve said.

Bucky thought about it. Found he didn't have the energy to lie, and shook his head.

"Then don't worry about it. This is more important," said Steve. He was leaning in, inches away from Bucky's face. The tiles of the bathroom floor were cold beneath Bucky's legs, but he had stopped noticing the discomfort hours before. The house felt full again, warmer with Steve there, and that was the problem.

"I'm just causing you trouble," Bucky said, and it was Bucky, through-and-through. The Winter Soldier didn't worry about excess damage, not unless it disrupted the mission.

"It's the kind of trouble I can handle. Anyway, you would have done the same for me," said Steve.

"That was a long time ago. I—I don't know if I'm that person anymore," Bucky looked at Steve with child-like panic in his eyes. "That's why I'm here, isn't it? You want him back. But I don't know if I can, Steve, I don't—"

His words choked off and he looked away. Steve's hand fell from his cheek, and Bucky closed his eyes, thinking that touch was gone for good. Then he felt Steve's fingers trail lower and to come to rest, wrapped around his good hand.

"Bucky, hey, look at me," Steve said. "It's alright. You don't have to be."

"How can it possibly be alright?" Bucky gasped, keeping his eyes closed, his throat so tight he could barely breathe. "He was your friend, that's why you're doing all of this."

"I'm doing this for you, whoever that turns out to be. You don't have to be him for my sake. You don't need to get your memories back on anyone's clock but your own." Steve said.

"And what if Bucky's don't come back?" Bucky said. "Or what if the other memories do and they just…drown him out? I was the Winter Soldier longer than I was him. And they're waiting for me, Steve, they're waiting to jump me and there's more of 'em. A lot more."

Steve hesitated, then settled back and reached out his arm. "Come here."

Bucky stiffened, feeling a reflexive rush of shame at his own outburst, at the tears burning his eyes. "I'm not some kid you need to hold," he protested.

"Well, do it for me then, 'cause there's something I never got to tell you, and it scares the hell out of me," said Steve, his arm still outstretched.

Bucky gave him an incredulous look. "You? Too scared to tell me something?"

"Hey, it took me a year to work up the courage to kiss you and I was blind drunk at the time. Since alcohol doesn't really work anymore, I guess I just need to soldier it up and take a hug instead."

Bucky snorted in disbelief, but some of the shaky, haunted feeling was leaving him and he shrugged, scooting over so he leaned his back against Steve's chest, and predictably Steve wrapped his arms around him and put his chin on Bucky's shoulder.

"Right, so, after I took the serum I was always worried you wouldn't want anything to do with me anymore. If you just stuck around to look out for me, or worse. If you'd leave because I wasn't me anymore," Steve said.

"That's the single dumbest—" Bucky snapped, then paused, his voice softening but still outraged. "There's no way that was gonna happen. The serum didn't change you, Steve, you came out the same guy you went in. They didn't mess with your head like they did to me."

"Then what do you think they did?" Steve said, his eyes solemn.

"Nothin'. Sure you got stronger, and you don't get sick anymore, but you were always a hero. That's what they call it, right? When you're too stupid to back down from a fight?"

Steve snorted a laugh, but sobered, and shook his head. "But the serum did change me. I wasn't the little guy anymore. I have to remind myself what it feels like to be helpless, to be weak, in case I turn into a bully. It changed my head too: I learn faster, pick up things more easily. And I started to ask myself: what if I'm not him anymore? Because that Steve Rogers couldn't do those things, and you gotta ask yourself how that changes you. If he had died with the experiment. And no one would now if he was dead, none of them knew me the way you did. So I was scared that when I saw you, you'd know that Steve Rogers was dead. I mean, what even are we, if not what we do?"

"We're memories," Bucky said, and he leaned his head back against Steve's shoulder, looking up. "Even if you're not that Steve anymore, but you've still got his memories. You still know what it was like to be the little guy. Without my memories, what have I got, Steve?" he said looking over, even though he hadn't managed to push all of the tears back and his vision wavered. "What have I got?"

Steve pressed his cheek against Bucky's, tightening his arms around him. "You've got me, for as long as you want me around."

"Yeah? And what do you get out of it?" Bucky said.

"You. Whoever you are, and that's all I need," Steve said. "And it's ok if that's different. We're both different. Now it's just my turn to be there for you."

Bucky started up, straightening in Steve's arms. "I don't want it if I'm just gonna be your damn charity case!"

"So was I your charity case when you stuck around?" Steve said.

Bucky turned back to glare at Steve. "If you keep saying dumb shit like that I swear I'm gonna punch you."

"Then just trust me on this, ok? I want to be here. There isn't anywhere else in the world I'd rather be," said Steve.

"I don't even know who you're staying for," Bucky said bitterly.

"We can both figure it out," Steve said, settling back against Bucky as if he really would hold him as long as it took.

A chill ran through Bucky.

"What about Howard?" Bucky said. Steve tensed, and Bucky could almost feel how the heat went out of the room. "I killed him in cold blood. Lined up the shot and pulled the trigger. He'd still be alive, if not for me."

"Probably not to today, not with the way Howard lived," Steve joked, but his voice was hollow.

"Yeah, and his wife?" This time Bucky felt Steve flinch. "There's more than them, Steve. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. The Winter Soldier killed them and he's me, there's no way around it."

"Did you want to kill them?" Steve said. His voice was calm, and measured but there was a fragility to it, a brittleness. "Did you get a choice? Pick the targets yourself, volunteer for assignments? Were you following orders, or did you just do it for fun?"

"What? No!" Bucky said. He didn't know much about the assignments, they were all still blurred together in his head, but he knew that at least. "I got the file, they shipped me out to the spot. I took the shot. Sometimes I had to go undercover for a couple days first. I didn't—it's not like I got anything out of it. They just froze me up again after and…and wiped me, if I started thinking too much. If I started thinking at all."

Steve hesitated, looking lost and terribly young. "So you didn't know what you were doing, who he was?"

Bucky looked down. Know what he was doing? He hadn't even known who he was, but he had known about the target, and how to take him down. He was a weapon, no different than his gun, to be aimed and fired at the chosen target. "Maybe. I don't know. But I should have fought it."

"Could you?" Steve said.

Bucky kept his eyes lowered and after a moment shook his head. "I—I don't think so. I don't know. I never tried until you. I knew him and I didn't even try."

Steve's arms shifted around him and for a single, heart-stopping moment, Bucky thought Steve would pull away. Then he felt the press of Steve's face against his neck. "I don't know, Buck. I don't know everything that happened to you, how much of you there was, how much was them, and how much… A lot could have happened in seventy years, and I can't guess what that was, I just have to wait for you to tell me. But there is one thing I need to know."

"Yeah?" Bucky said his voice tight, almost hoarse with apprehension.

"If you had known who you were then, and who he was… if you knew as much then as you do now, would you still have done it?" said Steve.

"No," Bucky said, and relief washed him that he knew at least that much was true. And then, like all thoughts of the gray numbness of the Winter Soldier's memories, dread came close behind. "But I don't know if I can say that about all of them, I just don't know yet. I only know that for Howard and Maria… I would have stopped it if I could."

Steve relaxed against him, and when he spoke his voice was worn and exhausted, "I guess that's got to be enough for now."

He remembered the other kills too, with time. They struck at random moments: when he was listening to music, or when he stood at the microwave, waiting for his meal to warm.

Eventually he started helping Steve with the cooking, but found the Winter Soldier's skill with a knife didn't translate at all to the task. Fortunately, Bucky did remember how cut vegetables without hacking them to pieces, until the sound of the blade striking the cutting board came too close to the sound of knife on bone. He would drop the blade and back away as the memories rose up around him. Screams in waterlogged cells beneath Berlin, of abandoned apartments in Leningrad and a figure bound to a chair. His fingers would grip the kitchen table behind him, fighting for breath.

Bucky came back. Bit by bit, but never quite as he had been. He was a boy from Brooklyn, a soldier in the Howling Commandos, but he was an assassin too, a tool that had spent the better half of a century on missions or on ice. And that didn't go away. It only drew him out, drew him further, and the growing was painful.

Steve waited for him; waited for the dust to settle, taking only those missions that could bring him home quickly, in case one of those memories hit too hard, leaving Bucky lying dazed, panting and unable to move until they loosened their grip.

Sometimes, on the bad days, they did nothing but sit together in bed while Bucky shivered, eyes screwed shut against the memory of blood. Steve would wrap his arms around Bucky and wait for him to come back, exhausted and worn, holding him until dawn.

Sometimes, on the good days, they danced.

"I want to go back to the museum."

Steve looked up in surprise. Bucky stood in the doorway to the kitchen, wearing a jacket and baseball cap in addition to his usual t-shirt and jeans. He had trouble meeting Steve's eyes.

Steve regarded him for a long moment. Then he put down the rag he'd been using to wipe the counter, and after a moment's thought he said, "Ok. It's gonna take a few hours, but we should be able to get there before close."

Bucky had braced himself with his question, but started, and eased at Steve's answer. "You're not worried about me going outside?"

Steve shrugged. "Not unless you are? You've already been there once. Or I can call in a favor and we can go after hours, if it's the other people you're worried about."

"No. It's not them, it's…" Bucky said. How could he explain? It would be the first time he'd be out of the house since he arrived, the first time interacting with people who weren't Steve since he went rogue. What if a memory struck while they were out there? What if he hurt someone? Wouldn't Steve's team be worried about the Winter Soldier out and walking around civilians? He'd never even asked if they knew he was here, or if they had allowed it because they saw him as Steve's prisoner.

And just like that, Steve was standing in front of him, his hands lightly placed on Bucky's shoulders. "Buck, you're a U.S. veteran, a former P.O.W, and living under my supervision as far as anyone who matters worth a damn is concerned. The only reason anyone needs to know where you go or what you do is if you want them to. So if you want to go to the Smithsonian, we can head there anytime you like. Heck, they'd have to give you the military discount."

"I killed people for HYDRA," Bucky protested, his voice hollow. What little humor had twitched the edges of Steve's lips vanished.

"There's a lot of folks who can say that these days. Doesn't seem fair to be picking favorites," Steve said. "But if you want my opinion, from where I'm standing? They just had to trick us. With you they had to wipe every single memory you had before you would take their orders. And that's got to count for something."

Bucky knew there was more to it than that. Knew the kill count, the years it had taken him to throw off the conditioning –the times where the mission hadn't called for a quick death and he hadn't given one – also had to count for something. And there'd be a reckoning for it, someday. But for now Steve was looking at him like he could do no wrong. The same way Bucky had always looked at him all those times before and he thought, just for a little while, he'd like to believe it.

"Hell, as long as I'm not getting special treatment, I guess I can live with it," Bucky said. "Come on, are we gonna go or are you gonna spend the rest of the day cleaning the kitchen?"

Steve's mouth opened, and he seemed to catch himself, and rolled his eyes. "Jerk."

"Punk." Bucky laughed as he turned and walked out of the kitchen, with Steve following behind. But he stopped at the front door, hand hovering over the knob.

They hadn't had a name for it then. Girls were for stepping out with, for dancing, for holding hands with when you walked through the park. But there were exceptions, Bucky remembered that much. How when spring came, and their frigid apartment in Brooklyn became their sweltering apartment, he and Steve would take the afternoon to go for a walk in the park. Just two guys out for a stroll, nothing to see here. So it was always before they left that Bucky would lean down, tipping Steve's chin up for a kiss that was sometimes hard and passionate and needy, and sometimes soft . Only the second one if he really needed to get out of the apartment. Kiss too fiercely, and Steve would be kissing back and in a couple seconds they were frantically unbuttoning each other's shirts and before they knew it half the day was already gone…

Bucky spared a moment to be bitter that these memories were the faint ones, teasing at the edge of his consciousness, sliding back into place so quietly he didn't realize they were there until they ghosted across his mind with a memory of breath on his lips and a gentle touch on his skin. Bitter that it was the Winter Soldier's memories, drenched in blood, that hit him like a train, took his breath away, and trapped him in his own mind until they faded and released him.

Steve was grabbing his baseball cap from the closet by the door when Bucky turned and caught him. He didn't have to reach down anymore, which was a lot easier on his neck. He traced a finger under Steve's chin, drew him close, and just like that, seventy years were no more than a day. A foot of height and Steve still moved the same way, still leaned into the kiss the same way, and Bucky made it a gentle one, because he really did want to get to the museum before it closed.

Steve was grinning when they pulled apart, and it was soft and bright like a goddamn sunrise, like the light that flooded the room when he pulled open the door and kissed Bucky one more time on the front stoop, for all the world to see.

Author Note: If you get the chance, come check me out on Tumblr where I'm also Avelera, you'll find a scrapbook of all the images and posts that helped inspire this work.

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