A/N: This chapter is not Infinity War- or Civil War-compliant. You can assume Steve, Tony and Bucky worked things out regarding the death of Tony's parents, the Accords never existed (or have been repealed), and the Avengers are one dysfunctional but relatively cohesive unit.

Hope you enjoy!

2008

The Soldier was sitting on a black leather couch, his non-metal arm draped over the shoulder of The Mission's daughter, a beautiful blonde 21-year old named Sophia. The Mission was Charles Healey, CEO of AccuTech, a company in rumors to be absorbed by Stark Industries later that year. The Soldier knew from the Briefing that Healey would be signing the contract within the week.

The Soldier's objective was to get close to Sophia and, by association, The Mission, and convince The Mission to feed Hydra SI secrets post-absorption. He had been told to threaten the daughter or the wife, whatever it took to get The Mission onboard. Until The Handlers were happy, The Soldier would remain The Mission's daugther's boyfriend, at which point he would break up with her in a way that would have her hating him, but so that she wouldn't ever pretend he was coming back.

It was a change from his usual missions, or so he'd heard one of The Handlers say. He remembered enough to know that this preparation had been rather unusual: all instruction about courting women for a relationship instead of weapons training and tactical planning. In off hours, he worked his way through a packet of what The Mission's daughter liked in order to win her over and keep her happy until The Handlers had everything they wanted from The Mission.

It had taken a "chance" meeting in a bar and four dances before he got her number, then another three weeks of casual dates before she'd finally invited him over to her parents' house to watch a movie. Before he had left, The Soldier had then been given an updated briefing about the progression of movies over the last decade and how people could rent them from stores on discs, not tapes, to watch at home instead of just in the theater.

As The Soldier's luck would have it, The Mission was upstairs in his office that night. He just needed an excuse to slip away from Sophia to talk with him.

It was difficult to do so though, with Sophia curled up under his flesh arm, her long hair strewn from his chest to his hips. Almost without his conscious thought, he began rubbing circles on her shoulder, causing her to sigh happily. She looked up at him and he felt something strange beneath his ribs: a spreading warmth usually only associated with severe blood loss.

While panicking internally, he kept a composed exterior and smiled back at Sophia. He tightened his grip on her slightly, showing whoever had attacked him that he had leverage, while calmly lifting his left hand to his chest, feeling for a puddle of blood. When his glove came away clean, he spared his jacket a look and, oddly enough, didn't see any red blossoming over the left breast pocket.

Suddenly, her hand was on the side of his face.

"Is everything okay, Bryan?" she asked, her eyebrows pinched with concern.

He nodded and forced himself to relax. "Just…happy." The word slipped out of his mouth before he could censor it. He was confused by it for, while he knew what the word conceptually meant, it had never been a word The Soldier typically associated with himself. It didn't even seem applicable to The Soldier now, given he still wasn't sure he wasn't injured in some capacity; however, it was the perfect word to describe Bryan's current situation.

It must have been the right thing for him to say, for Sophia's eyes lit up and she tilted up her head to kiss the underside of his jaw. "Me too."

The warmth spread to the other side of his chest, which let The Soldier know for certain it wasn't an injury—if it was blood loss, the warmth would have sunk toward his back or his legs, the low points of gravity. This horizontal movement was something else. Now that he knew it wasn't life-threatening, The Soldier found that he didn't mind it as much.

He turned his head back to the movie, a musical named Mamma Mia. He hadn't seen much of it up to this point since he'd been busy identifying potential weapons and their implied uses, as well as planning a variety of exit strategies for each possible outcome from his confrontation with The Mission.

Onscreen, the blond girl ran into a shirtless man (her fiancé, The Briefing supplied) and The Soldier could only stare in confusion as the man burst into song.

The Soldier knew him.

Suddenly the movie paused and Sophia was bolt upright on the couch, staring wide-eyed at him. "You know Dominic Cooper?"

Apparently The Soldier had said that out loud. The name sounded wrong though…

"Howard," he corrected with a quick shake of his head.

"I don't think so," Sophia said as she reached for the DVD case. "No, it is Dominic Cooper. Look." She held the case out to him, index finger pointing to the part of the description that read "fiancé Sky played by Cooper".

That wasn't right. The man's name was Howard. Of that, The Soldier was sure.

Without warning, pain lanced through his brain and The Soldier doubled over, hands clutching at his temples. There was a memory attached to it...that man standing in front of a series of benches, holding a gun.

"It jammed on you again?" Howard asked, staring down the barrel.

"Yeah," The Soldier heard someone say. The voice had a thick Brooklyn accent. Him? No one else was in the room. "Dum-Dum's lucky Steve was around or else he'd have a few more holes in him."

Howard clucked at the gun then laid it down on the table. "I'll see what I can do."

Then the scene shifted.

Howard was flying a plane. "I'll get you as close as I can to the drop zone. With the weather like it is, should be within a thousand-foot radius."

There was a flash of red, white and blue before

Howard sitting next to him at a long table, head thrown back in laughter along with everyone else at the table. The Soldier felt very satisfied.

Howard standing over him, holding out his hand. "You're supposed to duck…"

Howard's face tight in concentration, almost sad.

Howard.

The Soldier heard the doors bang open, which only increased the agony in his brain. Sophia screamed and he barely managed to throw himself in front of her.

Hands were on him, pulling him away; he could barely think his head hurt so bad. Sophia was screaming his name—his cover's name—and he managed to fight a little, tearing out of the hands holding him, breaking someone's nose. Then someone said The Word and he dropped bonelessly to the floor.

As darkness closed over his vision, The Handler looked down at him and sneered. "You failed," was the last thing The Soldier heard before his world faded to black.

2018

Bucky walked into the common room of the Compound to see Wanda curled up on the couch under a mountain of blankets, watching a movie. Her eyes were rimmed in red and she was practically mainlining a double-pack of M&Ms.

"Is everything okay?" he asked as his instinct to protect revved up.

She startled as she realized someone else was in the room then nodded when she realized who it was. It was then that Bucky saw the hot pack pressed to her abdomen and knew what was going on.

"Rough day?" he asked, taking a seat on the far end of the couch, just out of reach in case she wasn't ready for any (platonic) physical contact. As much as the media tried to romantically pair Wanda with any and all of the Avengers, they all knew she only had eyes for Vision. Besides, she reminded Bucky too much of his sisters (at least the fragments he remembered of them) for anything romantic to ever transpire between them.

Wanda nodded again and downed another handful of candy. Then, she tilted her head so she was looking up at him. "Can you…"

It was Bucky's turn to nod. Smiling gratefully, she scooted upward until her head rested against his thigh. Bucky took that as his cue to begin running the fingers of his flesh hand through her hair while she snuffled pathetically and ate another handful of candy.

"Where's Viz?"

"On a business trip with Tony. They won't be back for a few days."

With that answered, Bucky turned his attention to the television where three ladies were dancing about a room and singing. "What are we watching?"

"Mamma Mia."

Bucky tensed as he was struck with an odd sense of déjà vu, that quickly escalated in its demand for attention.

Wanda must have picked up on this for she rolled her head right to look up at him. "We can watch something else. It was just what was next in my Netfilms queue."

Bucky shoved away the feeling, determined not to ruin what must have already been quite the day for Wanda. "No, it's okay," he replied as he forced a smile on his face. "Keep watching."

She stared at him for a moment longer then nodded. She returned her attention to the screen where a slightly-disheveled woman, flanked by two girls in white, walked up to a worn building and sank into a bench affixed to the wall. A third girl, obviously meant to be a bride, stared in wide-eyed disbelief at the older woman and began to quietly expressing her anger. The scene shifted to inside a church—

Bucky recognized the profile of the man sitting in the first row. Worse, he was hit with a slew of memories about recognizing the face before and what had happened to him afterwards.

They were not happy memories.

Wanda was shouting so was the blond girl—Sophia. The voices were mixed together, almost in a twisted harmony.

Suddenly, someone came sprinting in and The Soldier held Sophia closer, to protect her.

"Bucky!"

His gaze snapped around to see the blond-haired handler was standing in front of him but arm's length away, not touching. In fact, he looked concerned. Handlers never looked concerned. Handlers always grabbed, shoved, kicked, hurt.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of red hair. Sophia had been blonde. Bryan preferred blondes.

Sophia turned to look at him but the face was wrong, round where Sophia's had been narrow, natural where Sophia's had always been picture perfect.

"Bucky!"

That was his name…and he recognized the voice saying it. He focused on that and used it as the anchor to drag him back to reality.

"You back with us?" Steve asked from a good distance away, his eyes wide with concern.

As he fully came back to himself, Bucky slowly nodded. He then realized he was holding someone close to him and released his grip. Wanda, his brain supplied as he noted that she was looking at him with an expression to match Steve's.

"What happened?" Steve asked, his voice low and strained.

"Flashback," Bucky ground out. "And no, I don't want to talk about it."

At that exact moment, Thor stepped into the wide walkway to the rest of the Complex, Mjölnir held loosely in his hand. "I heard our friend was in distress."

"Not that kind of distress," Steve said when Bucky didn't immediately volunteer an answer.

Thor nodded and lowered Mjölnir to the floor. "Are you alright, Bucky?"

This time, Barnes made himself nod. "I am. I just need to write it down." He got up from the couch and hurried toward his room where he scribbled down what he remembered before it slipped away again.

He wasn't surprised or upset that no one had followed him; he knew they respected him enough to give him his space. The team had always been good about that though, even before Sam had made them all read literature about stress, coping and flashbacks. Even Steve abided by the unspoken rule, though Bucky knew it was physically paining his friend to stay in the common room.

Bucky quickly scribbled down the details of his flashback, both so he could shove it back in the hellish spot it'd come from, but also so as to not worry his friends any more than he already had. When he was done, he slid the notebook in the bottom drawer of his desk, which he locked before replacing the hair balancing on the edge of the drawer. Then, he went into the Jack-and-Jill bathroom and splashed some water on his face until his heart stopped racing. With some semblance of normalcy restored, he lifted his chin and walked back into the main room.

Thor was sitting on the far end of the couch next to Wanda, who was scrolling through something on her StarkPhone.

"And you're sure that wasn't Erik Selvig?" the god queried.

Wanda looked up from her StarkPhone and shook her head. "No Thor," she said patiently, giving Bucky the impression they'd had this conversation already. "His name is Stellan Skarsgård. He's been acting since 1972." She held out her phone and Thor quickly scanned the screen for himself.

Bucky looked away from them to find Steve sitting on the close end of the couch, very pointedly not watching him reenter the room.

"I'm okay, punk," the former Soldier said as he walked over and lightly whacked Steve's extended elbow with his metal hand.

Steve glanced over at Bucky and nodded, though it was obvious from his expression that he wasn't entirely convinced. After a second, he looked back at the screen where the credits to Mamma Mia were still rolling.

Bucky exhaled loudly then took a seat on the couch next to Steve. "You gonna ignore me now?" he asked as he landed a well-placed elbow in Steve's side.

Steve gasped and shifted so he was facing Bucky. "You said you didn't want to talk about it," he scowled, rubbing unhappily at his aching ribs. "This is me not asking you about it."

"By pointedly ignoring me?"

"Until I come up with something not related to this to talk to you about, yes."

"A+ for effort, F for execution."

Bucky didn't know what to say next so when Steve didn't offer a snappy comeback, he turned to look at Wanda who was very poorly hiding the fact that she was eavesdropping. "I'm okay kid," he promised.

"You said that," she replied, once again wearing an expression that mirrored Steve's.

"The guy just…" Barnes turned back to Steve and shrugged. "He reminds me of Howard. Caught me off-guard, brought back some memories."

"The fiancé?"

Bucky nodded. Steve pulled out his phone and ran a quick search. "Sure does," he agreed after a moment. Almost immediately, his expression soured. "I wonder if—"

"Dominic Cooper is not biologically related to Tony Stark," FRIDAY interrupted before Steve could finish his thought. "My predecessor was tasked with running a DNA match back in July of 2007. The results were negative."

"Well that answers that," Bucky stated as he leaned back into the couch.

"You're being awfully calm about this," Steve said, somewhat hesitantly.

Steve's caution was usually appreciated since he knew how to straddle the line between concern and overprotective without crossing it. But today, for some reason, his tone triggered an unpleasant reaction in Bucky.

"I've made a lot of progress," the former Soldier snapped. In the seconds that followed, a blank mask dropped over Steve's expression, which caused Bucky to relent. Slightly. "It's something that happened to me, not something I did," he explained, not wanting to go into any more detail—he'd spiraled enough for today, thank you very much. "So it's a little easier to deal with." After a beat, he added, "If it makes you feel better, the people who did it are dead."

"Not really…but it'll have to do for now." Steve smiled weakly at Bucky then pulled him into a lopsided hug. Without hesitation, Bucky returned the gesture.

After a long moment, Bucky pulled away. "So what are watching next?" he asked, turning to face Wanda and Thor.

The god scrolled through the phone for another moment then held it out to Wanda. "What about that one?"

"Pirates of the Caribbean? It's an adventure, treasure-hunting-type of movie. You'd like it." She glanced down the couch at the two supersoldiers. "Is that okay?"

"No Dominic Cooper, right?" Steve asked from behind Bucky.

Wanda took her phone back from Thor and checked. "No. Steve, you haven't seen it?"

"I have. I just wanted to make sure." Then he looked up at the ceiling. "Queue it up, please, FRIDAY?"

"As you wish, Captain."

The TV screen flickered to life again and the hollow opening notes of the soundtrack burst through the speakers.

As the boat cut through the fog onscreen, Bucky glanced over at Steve, who was valiantly trying to look like he hadn't just witnessed his friend lose himself to a flashback. "I'll be okay punk, I promise," Bucky said softly, knocking his knee against Steve's.

"You'd better be, jerk." Steve shifted so his shoulder was touching Bucky's then dropped his head against the back of the couch.

Bucky focused on the warmth emanating from the place where his shoulder touched Steve's and felt himself take his first unimpeded breath since he'd bolted out of here half an hour ago. As the dregs of the flashback began to clear, he relaxed into the couch, ready to enjoy this Wanda-approved, Dominic Cooper-free, swashbuckling adventure.