Author's Note: Well, I've been bit hard by the Marvel bug of late, what with Civil War coming out next month, and I just HAD to write a Stucky fic. Nevermind that I have a million other things to be doing 8'D

First: This fic has a playlist on 8tracks! The name is the same as the fic's, and my username is JolieMariella, so give it a listen! ;D

Second: Despite being mostly fluff, this fic is already rather long, haha, 26k and counting from publishing, though I am close to finishing. So, look forward to it!

Third: Please make sure to leave a comment if you enjoyed! They really do help me keep up the drive to write! Knowing that other people are out there enjoying something I've put hours and hours of my life into is kind of a big deal and lets me know I'm not just typing into the void here, hah.

Fourth: Thanks so much to my sister and Beta, nighttimelights (nighttimesounds on tumblr). Goodness knows she's got more than enough on her plate, but she still helps me out, and I super appreciate that.

The Times They Are A Changin'

Chapter One: It began with a wedding

The spring day was bright and clear as Steve strode down a busy street in the heart of New York City. It was still early enough in the season that he kept his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, though not quite cold enough to merit gloves or a hat warmer than his favorite blue baseball cap.

He stopped at a small coffee shop and stepped inside. The girl behind the register smiled at him, and he responded in kind.

"What can I get for you today?" She asked brightly as she pushed a lock of long, dark hair back out of her face.

Steve glanced up at the menu board mounted behind the counter for a moment, seeming to mull over his options before eventually saying, "I'll take a sixteen ounce latte with an extra shot, and-" he paused, frowning absently before looking back down at the girl and asking, "What kind of drip coffee do you have?"

"Oh loads; exotic brews are our speciality!" The barista said so perkily that the man wondered if maybe she hadn't been drinking a few too many cups of coffee herself. Still, he supposed it came with the territory.

Before he could make any sort of reply, the young woman began listing off a rather impressive array of options.

"We have Rwanda rushashi, Bolivia caranavi, Columbia huila, Mexico chiapas, french roast, trieste caffe-"

Steve held up a hand to stop her before the girl ran out of fingers to count the types out on.

"Uh, how about you pick?" He suggested with a chuckle "So long as it's a dark coffee, it'll be fine."

The barista blinked at him in surprise, then broke out into a broad smile. "Sure! What size would you like on that one?"

"Better make it a twenty ounce," Steve mused as he thought of the drink's intended recipient, a small smile playing across his features.

"Right, so that's a medium latte with an extra shot, and a large trieste caffe drip coffee," the woman repeated as her fingers danced across the keys of the register and rang up the total. Steve paid in cash, then stepped along the bar to wait for his order, hands clasped loosely behind his back.

His drinks appeared in short order, but when he went to grab them, he felt a little seed of dread take root and blossom in his gut. He recognized the look the girl behind the bar was giving him, and it rarely portended anything good.

"Hey, you look kinda familiar," she began, compelling Steve to drag the bill of his cap down to block her view of his face.

"Yeah, I get that a lot. Just have one of those faces, I guess," He said briskly with a noncommittal smile and shoved a few dollars into the tip jar on the counter before grabbing his drinks. "Thanks," he called back to the baffled woman as he nabbed a few sugar packets and a stir stick, then hurried out the door into the brisk spring air.

Steve's long stride carried him quickly across the street and down several city blocks before he turned and ventured into the depths of Central Park. This time of year, the trees were covered in the soft, green haze of new growth, and a few early blooming flowers were already starting to crop up around the path he walked down.

On a bench in the distance sat a familiar figure, just where Steve had left him several minutes earlier, and the first Avenger found himself picking up his pace a little as the end of his quest came into view.

Bucky Barnes sat on the bench, apparently watching the large group of people gathering in the grassy clearing across the way. Chairs had been set up in neat, orderly lines, and at their head was a white picket arch that several women were arranging flowers and garlands on. They appeared to be at the end of their task, though, and already others were gathering and beginning to take their seats.

A less experienced man might have thought that he'd gotten the drop on the former Winter Soldier, but Steve knew better. Even from this angle he could tell that his friend was on edge; what was more, he knew there was someone coming up behind him. He didn't move or tense in any fashion to give this away, but still, Cap knew. He also recognized the moment Bucky registered that it was a friend approaching, as something about the air around him changed and relaxed subtly.

Though he couldn't see his friend's face, Steve knew that he had entered what Natasha started calling Bucky's 'Winter Soldier screen-saver mode'. He hadn't found the joke particularly funny, but he had to admit that it was an apt description of the stoic silences his friend often lapsed into, particularly when no one else was around.

It had taken him nearly two years to track his oldest friend down after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., even with Sam's help. The Winter Soldier had lead them on a merry chase across the world before they'd cornered him, and capturing him had proved even more difficult.

Still, they'd succeeded and brought Bucky back to the new Avenger's compound in the wake of Ultron's defeat. Though they hadn't realized it at the time, that was when the hard part began.

The rehabilitation of the Winter Soldier back into the man known as Bucky Barnes was a slow, agonizing process for everyone involved. Slowly but surely, though, the friend Steve had thought he'd lost that day in the alps over seventy years ago was coming back to him.

Bucky still had his moments when he would look around and obviously have no idea where he was, or what he was doing, but they were becoming more and more infrequent with time, as was his propensity for reacting with violence when he 'blanked', as the team had come to call it. He had gotten to the point that he would come on short missions with them, though never 'officially', as an Avenger. Bucky's existence among them was a closely guarded secret, even from Tony.

Steve still wasn't entirely sure why he hadn't told Stark about Bucky. It was a gut feeling he was working off of, and those feelings had never lead him astray in the past. Something was coming. It felt like a war; sometimes Steve felt as though he could smell it on the breeze. That old familiar scent of gunpowder and smoke, of blood and fear.

For now, though, his focus was all on his oldest friend. Rehabilitation had progressed from getting Bucky to a point that he could get through a day without relapsing and trying to kill everyone in his general vicinity, to introducing him to the twenty-first century via carefully planned outings to experience the strange new world he had awoken in.

It was fun and oddly therapeutic for Steve to walk someone else down the same confusing road he'd had to tread himself just a few years previous. Pop culture, technology, recent history...it was a lot to take in, and Cap was dead set on making it at least a little easier for Bucky to adjust than it had been for him.

"Here," Steve said, lightly tapping his friend's shoulder with the bottom of the paper cup of coffee he'd brought for the man.

Bucky looked around at the cup, and then up at Steve himself, a rare smile flashing across his features as the heady scent of fresh brewed coffee caught his nose.

"Thanks," he said and reached up with a hand to accept the beverage, then asked, "Did you remember the-" several packets of sugar and a stir stick immediately followed the cup, and a small, amused snort escaped Bucky as he accepted them.

"Just who do you think you're talking to?" Steve teased him as he took a seat on the bench next to his friend, a boyish grin on his face. He took a sip of his latte as Bucky popped the lid off his drink, then proceeded to empty all four sugar packets into the cup and stir it all together. The resulting garbage was wadded up and tossed with effortless precision into a nearby bin before the lid was returned to its place, and the coffee tested.

A grateful sigh escaped the former soldier after his first sip, making Steve smile again.

"That good?" He asked between sips of his own drink, pulling his eyes from the unfolding wedding ceremony. People still appeared to be finding their seats while a dj, stationed off to one side, played some filler music to signal those who hadn't noticed that the event was about to begin.

"Not bad," Bucky said with a nod, pushing absently at a stray strand of hair that had escaped the half ponytail he'd dragged it into that morning at Natasha's suggestion.

Sam had made distressed, disapproving sounds at the 'demi-manbun' the spy inflicted on their teammate, but Romanov had told him to stuff it, and she wasn't the type one argued with on a whim. Even Bucky had picked up that lesson quick once he was recovered enough to keep his days straight.

"What is it?" The dark haired man asked as he glanced down at the cup, as though he might find the answer printed on the lid.

Steve frowned a little as he tried to recall the list of gibberish the barista had parroted at him while placing his order.

"A...trieste caffe?" He replied after a moment, face screwed up in his uncertainty. His memory was generally impeccable, but he actually doubted whether or not he remembered correctly for a change.

Bucky arched a brow at him "Did you just make that up?" He asked and took another sip.

"No!" Steve objected "I'm pretty sure that's what she said it was called."

"Wow, and here I thought that super soldier serum was supposed to enhance your brain as well as your muscles," the other man drawled.

"Hey, come on," Steve grumbled, shoving Bucky lightly with one arm "At least I know how to work the tv remote," he shot back.

The dark haired man turned sharply to look at him, eyes narrowed as he took in his friend's teasing grin. "I can too work the remote, punk!"

"Sure, Buck, whatever you say," Steve said, turning his gaze back to the wedding as he tried and failed to suppress his smile.

Bucky grumbled resentfully under his breath, though he lacked the high ground to actually argue the point.

An unusual side effect of Winter Soldier's Hydra brainwashing was that certain skills had been programmed into his subconscious, even as memories and conscious thoughts had been thoroughly repressed. Such skills included working with modern technology, and even Hydra's own hyper-advanced tech, piloting any number of aircraft, and who knew what else. The odd part, though, was that Bucky could only occasionally remember any of these skills. They had found, through trial and error, that the less he thought about it, the more easily a task came to him.

Hence how he could competently fly an apache helicopter one day, and be completely baffled by a tv remote the next. He was quickly learning the basics, though, and Steve wouldn't be able to tease him on the matter much longer.

"The city's change a lot," Bucky observed out of the blue. His attention on the distant patch of skyline visible over the surrounding trees.

"Well, it has been seventy years, Buck," Steve mused, cup of coffee cradled gently in his large hands to warm them against the chill air.

"Yeah," his friend admitted and took a drink of his obtusely named beverage. "Still smells the same as ever, though," he added after a moment. "Like piss and cars and old hot dogs."

Steve threw his head back and laughed, his reaction bringing a smile to Bucky's face once more.

Wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, the man admitted, "Yeah, well, I guess some things never change. The world has to have some constants."

"New York City's unique odor being one of them," Bucky added with a snort.

The music at the little wedding gathering suddenly changed, and though it wasn't the traditional march playing, people were beginning to walk down the aisle, arm in arm.

"Looks like it's finally starting," Steve remarked aloud, and Bucky grunted in reply. Though his friend feigned disinterest, he could see that he was watching all the same. So, rather than suggest that they move on like he had initially planned, Cap settled back against the bench and watched as well.

The groom stood nervously next to the officiant, hands folded before him as he waited for the last of the wedding party to take their places to either side of him. Then, the last couple stepped up to the head of the aisle, pausing for dramatic effect as everyone turned to look at them, smiles on faces, and cameras flashing. The man was dressed in a white tuxedo, and his partner, an older woman nearing fifty, wore a pale pink dress with her fair hair piled ornately atop her head.

"She's a bit old for him, don't you think?" Bucky remarked as he looked between the woman and the groom, who certainly appeared to be half her age.

Steve glanced at his friend, amusement and surprise flitting across his features. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again before finally making up his mind and saying, "Pretty sure she's not the bride."

"Then who is?" Bucky asked, shooting him a skeptical look "Don't tell me they changed up weddings while I was out, too."

"Well," Steve began, a smile pulling at his lips "maybe just a little."

Bucky turned back to the ceremony as his friend nodded in that direction, annoyed by the man's vagary. It was quickly forgotten, though, when the woman in the pink dress stepped to one side, and rather than her partner handing her over to the groom, she took his hand and proffered it to the man in the black tuxedo.

Steve watched as Bucky's expression twisted from annoyance, into confusion, then rapidly ran the gambit from horror to fear and paranoia.

"But they can't-" he began, twisting at the waist to look around, though his companion was unsure what it was he expected to find, other than himself. He had gone pale, and might have jumped up if Steve hadn't placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. Bucky snapped around to look at him, and his friend was taken aback by the array of emotion he saw in the other man's eyes. It was the most worked up he had seen him get in months.

"Deep breath, Buck," Steve said soothingly, suddenly regretting that he hadn't given his friend more of a heads up when he had realized just what sort of wedding they were about to witness.

"But they're-" the former soldier began as his eyes went back to the ceremony, heavy brow furrowed. "But it's-" he tried again, but the world 'illegal' died before it made it past his lips. It occurred to him then that his friend would hardly be sitting by so casually if the union unfolding before them were still illegal. In fact, he doubted the wedding would be occurring in the middle of central park at all, were that still the case.

"It's love, pure and simple," Steve said when Bucky had shut his mouth with an audible snap "The world can never have enough of that, I think."

The smile on Steve's face was warm, and just a little bit wistful, lighting up his blue eyes as he watched the happy couple stand hand-in-hand at the altar. He'd always had a way of saying stuff like that, and it drove Bucky up the wall. It was so damn sappy, but the man was just so earnest about it that you couldn't do anything but agree whole-heartedly. Times like these always left him torn between wanting to punch his friend, and an overwhelming desire to…

The soldier shook himself mentally and turned his attention back to Steve, who was still smiling beneficently at the scene playing out before them.

Though they couldn't hear from where they sat, the wedding officiant seemed to be speaking with great passion to the people gathered before him, and smiling widely at the couple themselves. He went on this way for several minutes as the pair watched, the one relaxed, and the other still on edge, as though he expected the police to show up at any moment. Then, the grooms turned to one another, smiling and perhaps a little tearful (it was difficult to tell at that distance), and kissed. The gesture was sweet, and chaste at first, until the man in the white tux threw his arms around his new husband's neck and dragged him in for something more intimate.

Bucky turned away from the display, attention locked on his coffee to mask the sudden turbulence of emotion that rose within him. He finished his drink off and tossed the cup into the garbage, then pushed himself to his feet and started walking back the way they had come.

Steve didn't seem overly surprised by his actions, and simply followed suit, matching his stride as he allowed his friend a chance to process what they had just seen. He did, however, glance back over his shoulder before they went around a bend in the path, and witnessed the happy couple walking back down the aisle arm-in-arm.

Still smiling to himself, Steve hummed the tune the couple had played in place of their wedding march. The song was unfamiliar to him, but he quite liked it; he would have to try and find out what it was later.

When they came to the edge of the park, Bucky automatically turned left to head back to where they had left the car, but his friend paused.

"Hey, I know we went and saw my old place last time we were down here," he began, bringing Bucky up short. "You want to go find yours?" Cap suggested brightly, clearly entertained by the idea.

Bucky hesitated, and the other man allowed him his moment to mull the decision over. He realized it was a lot to ask of him, so he didn't push it one way or the other.

"Alright, sure," the former soldier said eventually. "I'm curious," he admitted when Steve lit up at his acquiescence, "if that old hole in the wall you used to live in is a million dollar apartment these days, imagine what mine turned into."

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Please do drop a comment, I absolutely love them!