The only sounds in the room are the beeping noises from the monitor and Steve's steady breathing. His heart rate and pulse are normal, the screen making no indication of any imminent danger. Bucky is in the seat beside him with his feet propped up on the bed, watching Steve's chest rise and fall. He hasn't left his side, not once. He needs to be here. He needs to make sure Steve is still breathing. Cause if he's not breathing, then that means trouble. And trouble means something wrong, and something wrong means—

He jumps at the sudden pressure on his shoulder. He looks up to see the arm belonging to Dr. Banner, who gives him a sympathetic smile. "Come on, you should go back to the tower. You probably haven't bathed in days."

Bucky gives him a blank expression and turns back to face Steve.

"Steve will still be here when he wakes up. He can't exactly go anywhere." There's some slight humor in the scientist's voice, but Bucky doesn't acknowledge the joke. Dr. Banner is still looking at him expectantly. "Bucky," he says gently, "I know you want to be here for Steve which I'm sure he would appreciate if he was conscious, but you really do need to come back to the tower." Bucky doesn't respond. He needs to be here when Steve wakes up. Steve can't wake up alone. Not again. Bucky promised him he would never go through that again. But when he looks back up Bruce is still there.

Eventually he takes Steve's hand and gives it a squeeze before slowly rising from his seat. He lets Bruce guide him out of the room and out of the SHIELD hospital wing. It was okay. Bucky would probably be back tomorrow anyways. He made sure to give his cell phone to the nurse in case anything happened. It was okay. Everything was okay.

At least that's what he tells himself as he clenches his fists the whole time. Bruce doesn't comment on how white his knuckles are.

When Bucky first gets the call, everything stops. Seriously, it just stops.

The clock on the wall stops ticking, the voices on the other line stop talking, and his heart stops beating. Everything. Stops.

It takes him a couple minutes for things to start moving again.

Before he knows it, he's rushing out of the tower and flying down the emergency stairwells. The only words he picked up from the call were Loki, explosion, and Steve got hurt. But it was more than enough to send him bursting through the door to find Steve unconscious and surrounded by the rest of the team, all banged up and bleeding.

And once again, everything stops.

Okay, so Bucky isn't back in the hospital the next day like he thought he would be.

The other Avengers won't let him. They keep blocking every single exit in the tower (even his secret ones!), and if he tries to take one step outside the alarms go blaring. So Bucky has no choice but to stay here. But he makes sure to check his phone repeatedly in case there's any emergency. They can keep him here all they like but there's no way they'll take his phone away. He'll probably kill them all if it comes to that.

He figures he could take them out if he wanted to, but he just doesn't have the strength to do it. He's so tired. All he wants is to curl up on Steve's side like old times and fall asleep to each other's breathing. Except Steve is unconscious at the moment, and all Bucky can do is sit here and wait until he finally wakes up.

Bucky takes a sip of his bourbon and swirls it around. Perks of knowing a rich, playboy philanthropist? Good alcohol.

"I see you're stealing my booze again." Speak of the devil.

Tony comes around the bar and unscrews his own bottle of scotch. Bucky can't help watching him as if he's about to pull out a gun or explosive. Old habits really do die hard.

"I always took you for a scotch kind of guy Barnes. You know, the classy stuff." Tony raises an eyebrow from his glass.

Bucky shrugs and takes a sip. "Scotch, bourbon, it all blurs eventually together." The billionaire laughs and tips his glass to him. "Here, here."

They drink in comfortable silence like that.

When Tony does speak up, Bucky expects some kind of techno-gadget shit to come flying out of his mouth. Instead what he gets is a serious look from the billionaire and a "Cap is Cap," he simply says.

Bucky looks at him confused.

"What I mean is—" Tony swallows down the rest of his drink "—Cap will always be Cap. He'll always be putting himself in the face of danger, he'll always wear that stupid costume of his and he'll always be an old grandpa who can't work a tablet to save his star-spangled ass." Bucky smirks at this. "My point is, he'll still be here and you'll be crying like a love-sick maiden and the world will still turn and the sun will come up and we'll still be kicking Loki's sorry butt." If this is Tony's idea of telling him everything will be fine, Bucky doesn't complain. He appreciates the effort, he really does.

"Here, here." Bucky raises his glass.

Bucky can't help it. He's bored. They still won't let him out of the tower, and he hasn't gotten word on Steve's condition. He's completely left in the dark on this one. He knows they're just trying keep watch over him. He did try to kill the director of SHIELD after all. Even he wouldn't trust himself.

But he's pretty annoyed.

It's really an overstatement to say he's annoyed. He's beyond annoyed. He's angry, furious, and to be honest he kind of wants to put a bullet in every single SHIELD agent's head. See? Can't trust himself.

Which currently leads him to his present situation: he's lying on his back on the rooftop, gun pointed at the sky. Every time he sees a bird he shoots it down with ease and watches as it plummets to the ground. There are at least ten dead birds on the roof, but he stopped keeping count a long time ago. Now he's just aiming at the sky and shooting at random. He hasn't gotten any angry calls from SHIELD yet, so he figures it's okay. They've probably got some hidden security camera somewhere around here anyways.

Another bird passes by. Bang bang.

He's been at this for maybe an hour or two. Lost track of that one as well.

Bang bang bang.

"You're going to run out of bullets soon." He twists his neck around to see a certain redhead standing away from him. She jerks her head to the three empty guns beside him.

"Can't say I came prepared," he says, turning back to face the sky again.

"I'm surprised your eyes haven't burned out too," Natasha huffs as she plops down on the ground next to him. She crosses her ankles and leans back on her hands. "That's a pretty shitty gun by the way." She gives a pointed look at the gun in his hand.

He shoots down another bird. "Has SHIELD complained yet? I've been expecting a call from them."

"Not yet. Give it another day and you'll probably get a lecture from Fury about safety hazards and whatnot."

"Fun," he sighs. There goes another bird.

"There is a thing called a 'shooting range' you know."

"Really? I had no idea," he replies sarcastically.

"Yeah, there are targets and everything. And no shitty guns too," she smirks.

"Fascinating, tell me more why don't you?" He brings his hand with the gun down and feels it smack against the ground. He estimates about six bullets left, so best not to waste them.

"Any word from the hospital, or am I still not privy to that information? You know being an outsider and all? Former assassin? No one really trusts me? Everyone's afraid I'm gonna kill Steve?"

He feels Natasha kick his side. "Don't be an ass."

"Sorry, it's hard not to when no one will let me see my best friend or even tell me if he's still alive. So excuse my ass-ness," he retorts.

"James—"

He promptly cuts her off with the sound of his gun.

Bang bang bang bang bang. Oh, he was wrong. Only five bullets left.

He sits up and throws the empty gun across the roof. It skids to a halt near the ledge.

Bucky stands and dusts off his pants, leaving Natasha by herself.

He never does get that complaint from SHIELD. But he does get a very curt call from Fury about the unusual amount of birds on the roof and if Bucky happened to know anything about it.

"Maybe it's a bird plague or something," Bucky suggests. Fury hung up after that.

He has to abandon his hideout on the roof for now, so he's taking refuge on one of the balconies. He hadn't noticed it before, so he figured it'd be a good brooding spot.

Except for that knock on the glass door behind him. He groans and hears it slide open. Thor walks out with his arms crossed and that gazing-into-the-distance-like-fucking-Hercules look. The guy probably even knows Hercules. The real god, not the Disney sing-along version.

"Brother Barnes, I see you have found my secret spot," Thor's voice booms. Bucky visibly winces, but Thor pays him no mind.

"I uh, didn't know you knew about it." Or that it even belonged to you, he doesn't add. He may be the fearless Winter Soldier but that doesn't mean the Asgardian can't crush him with his pinky finger or something.

"It is a good place for getting away. I do not mind my fellow companions, but sometimes such a place is needed. I am sure you would know of such a thing, yes?" Thor gives him this knowing smile which Bucky can't help feeling a little irritated at.

"Uh, sure?"

Thor nods approvingly and goes back to staring at the skyline. "This city, this New York is quite beautiful is it not?"

"Yeah I guess."

"I am sure Captain Rogers will be thrilled to see such a sight when he wakes from his slumber."

Bucky can't help peering at Thor who's still looking out over the balcony. He doesn't mind Thor. He's pretty cool, and he and Steve can relate to him due to their lack of knowledge about present day technology. He doesn't get to see much of Thor since he's always off on some Asgardian thing, which is a shame because Steve really likes him. And if Steve likes him then of course Bucky likes him too.

"Captain Rogers is very lucky to have a man such as yourself." It's almost cryptic the way he says it. Thor gives one last smile before sauntering back inside.

"So I heard you abandoned my partner with a billion dead birds the other day."

Bucky gives Clint a withering look and gives him the finger.

"Very mature," Clint notes. Bucky sticks out his tongue and flicks water in his face.

They're standing elbow to elbow in greasy plates and lots of dish soap. The others are on Tony's floor playing Call of Duty, which leaves the two of them on dish duty tonight.

"In my defense, she started it."

Clint rolled his eyes as he attacked a rather nasty looking dish, courtesy of Thor.

"I mean I was just making a point, you know?"

"Really? Cause from what I heard, she was trying to talk to you in a very civil manner until you rudely cut her off."

"She made fun of my gun!" Bucky argued.

"Well it was a shitty gun," Clint said as he looked up from his own dirty pile.

"And I wonder where you are getting this information from. Must be a reliable source, huh?" Bucky rubbed forcefully at the plate. Why was he getting so agitated?

"Woah hey! You keep that up you're going to break it."

"Then it's a pretty shitty plate," Bucky spat out with as much venom as possible.

"Hey!" Clint jabbed his shoulder, the soap suds falling on Bucky's shirt. "If you've got something to say, say it. Don't go taking it out on other people." Clint was… angry, which was pretty rare. Clint was always the cool and composed one. It was why he and Natasha fit so well together.

"To be fair, I took it out on the birds not her."

Clint's eyes narrowed but he didn't say anything.

They stared each other down, the plates left abandoned in the sink. Finally Clint sighed and rolled his head onto his shoulder. Bucky leaned against the sink not caring if his shirt was soaking through or not.

"Look we're a team, got it? We work together, we have each other's back. You can't keep picking fights with other people just because you're upset. We all love Steve too, it's not just you."

"I don't love Steve," Bucky deadpanned.

"Right, sure."

"I don't."

"…"

"We're just friends!"

Clint stared at him before shrugging and attacking the next dirty pile of dishes.

He didn't love Steve. Sure he loved him like a brother, but he didn't love him. They were best friends, partners, war buddies. Steve was the one person on this whole damn planet whom he trusted the most. It could only be Steve.

Plus, Steve never made any indication that he loved Bucky. There were no signs, no nothing. Steve was head over heels for a woman he could never have, a woman who would always forget him no matter how hard he tried.

And even if he did love Bucky, even if there was smallest, slightest chance, why him? Bucky wasn't anything special. If anything, Steve was the special one. Steve was the one who deserved the whole world at his feet, not Bucky. Bucky was anything but deserving. He didn't deserve anything. Not one single thing. Not even a penny.

Bucky's still trying to wrap his head around this whole thing. He blames Clint for his lack of concentration during target practice.

And it's totally random too!

He'll think it about during breakfast, during sparring practice, during the shower, during anything! It's all the time, and it's always constant. Again, he blames Clint for this.

HE DOES NOT LOVE STEVE.

Okay, he admits it. Maybe he does kind of sort of love Steve. But in his defense, he only just realized it two seconds ago!

He doesn't know how long it's been going on for, but after some serious self reflection he realizes it might explain his never-ending devotion towards the supersoldier.

And okay, maybe Clint is right. Maybe that's why he's so angry no one will let him see Steve, let alone touch him. It's infuriating, but it's true.

But the fact still remains: Steve doesn't love Bucky like that. He never will. After all, there are really only two loves in Captain America's life: patriotism and Peggy Carter.

The second he hears word that Steve is awake, Bucky just about drops everything he's doing (literally drops everything) and races over to the hospital as fast as he can.

He's gasping for breath by the time he reaches Steve's room, having run up four stairwells. He takes a moment to catch his breath before twisting the doorknob and letting himself in.

Steve is sitting up in bed, the bruises on his face almost healed. They're more yellow now, which is good. He's eating a pudding cup and his brow is furrowed in concentration as he tries to spoon the last of it out. He looks up at the sight of Bucky and smiles so brightly it almost hurts to look.

"Hey," Steve greets quietly.

"Hey yourself." Bucky smiles and carefully sits on the edge of the bed. Steve is here. He's okay. He's talking and smiling and he's eating pudding. Steve is okay.

Bucky rubs his hand along Steve's ankle to make sure he's actually there, that this isn't a dream and he's not just hallucinating everything. He feels Steve wiggle his toes and smiles.

"When did you wake up?"

"About twenty minutes ago." Steve goes back to focusing on his pudding, putting all of his effort into the licking the cup clean.

"You must be starving. Should I get you another one?" Bucky asks.

"Sure, that would be nice. Thanks." Steve smiles up at him.

Bucky cards a hand through his hair and looks up shyly.

"I've… I've really missed you, Steve. I feel like it's been a whole year since I last saw you. You know the others wouldn't let me leave the tower this whole time? Thought I was gonna go stir crazy or something."

Steve laughs. "I'm sure it must have been absolute torture for you."

"It was. Because I didn't get to see you."

Steve gives him this weird look but doesn't say anything. His cheeks are a little pink so Bucky leans in and presses against his forehead. "You're not running a fever are you?" Steve rolls his eyes and removes his hand. "No, Buck, I'm fine. My immune system can actually survive in this century prior to before."

Steve is still holding Bucky's hand. He lightly runs his thumb along Bucky's wrist.

Bucky can feel his pulse speeding up and prays Steve doesn't feel it. The blonde doesn't make any indication of letting go any time soon, so Bucky thinks maybe this is it. Maybe this is his chance. So what if Steve loves Peggy? He won't know until he gives it a try.

Bucky slides farther down the bed and leans in. Steve's breath catches in his throat as Bucky slowly brings his hand up and places it on his cheek. He can feel Steve squirm under the covers.

"I—"

"Hey Capsicle! You're awake!"

Bucky closes his eyes in frustration. Didn't their mothers teach them how to knock?

Steve, unfortunately, leans farther back and Bucky has to relinquish his hand. They both look away and try not to look as if they were caught doing something obscene.

"We bear gifts," Tony says while gesturing to the rather large bouquet of flowers in his hands. Clint sets a fruit basket on the tray table and claps Steve on the shoulder. Natasha walks up and wraps him in a hug.

"We all miss you at the tower," Clint says. Natasha kisses Steve's cheek and sits on the empty space beside him.

"Yes, yes we did," Bucky whispers. He doesn't think anyone heard him but apparently Steve does by the growing blush on his face.

"Woah there Cap, are you getting a fever or something?

Everyone is thrilled when Steve comes home. Bruce gives him an awkward handshake, he receives a bone-crushing hug from Thor, and even Fury can't help smirking at the sight of him.

But Bucky is the happiest of them all. He can't stop staring at Steve. And okay he might be a little jealous of the way everyone is hogging Steve and Bucky barely gets him to himself. Natasha must notice the look on his face because she smirks and elbows his side. Then Bucky remembers his little tantrum the other day and opens his mouth to apologize, but Natasha holds up a hand. She just kisses him on the cheek and whispers, "Good luck" into his ear.

When they do finally have some privacy to themselves Steve falls on his bed and groans into the pillow. Bucky laughs and shakes his head as he removes Steve's shoes.

"Stop touching my damn feet." But he looks up and smiles at Bucky.

Bucky shrugs and tosses them both over his shoulder. Steve gives him a chastising look.

"Wouldn't have to if you'd remove your own damn shoes," Bucky yawns as he falls on top of Steve.

Steve yelps and whacks Bucky on the head.

"Hey! Punk!" Bucky whacks him back. They whack and hit each other back and forth until it becomes an all out-scuffle. It goes on like this until Bucky is straddling Steve's hips and has his wrists pinned above his head. He gives a cheeky grin.

"Not fair," Steve huffs.

"You started it," Bucky grins back.

Steve pouts and turns his head to the side. There's a little red creeping up his neck and slowly consuming his face. Bucky is breathing heavily and can't take his eyes off the sight of a red Steve. He thinks of teasing him, but instead he bends down until their foreheads are almost touching.

"Bucky?" He breathes out.

The brunette leans closer, their noses bumping and the ghost of his breath on Steve's lips.

"B-Bucky.." Steve squirms under him and unconsciously presses himself into Bucky.

"Steve… can I kiss you?" Bucky asks quietly.

Steve's blush darkens and for what feels like an eternity doesn't respond. Then he jerkily nods his head. As Bucky inches forward Steve shuts his eyes tight and quivers a bit. When nothing happens for a while Steve cracks an eye open and Bucky's lips are almost touching his but not quite.

"W-What?"

Bucky gives an airy laugh and pulls back a bit. "Sorry, I—"

Steve grabs Bucky's arm to stop him. "Why are you sorry?"

Bucky has no answer to that. Steve curls his fingers into Bucky's shirt sleeve and tugs.

"Steve—"

"Bucky, please. Just kiss me." Steve may be red from head to toe now but there's definitely a look of determination in his eyes.

It turns out to be a very sweet kiss. There's no tongue or heat or anything. Just Bucky kissing Steve and Steve kissing Bucky and their mouths moving together in unison. Bucky sighs against Steve's lips and pulls back. Steve gives him this look of amazement as if Bucky gave him the best gift ever.

After a while Steve asks, "Can you do that again?"

Bucky stares at him and laughs. He kisses him again, harder and with more force this time. There's a little bit of tongue in this one, and they're panting a little when they break for air.

Bucky licks his lips in an obscene manner which Steve has to look away from.

"If I told you I love you and only just found out, like, three days ago how mad would you be?"

Steve gives him this incredulous look and rolls his eyes. "If I told you I've loved you since I saved you from Zola how mad would you be?"

Turns out Bucky isn't too mad and really, neither is Steve because they're both smiling like idiots and thinking they have a lot to make up for.