Steve noticed Bucky's room was exactly like his but it had a few extra pieces of equipment, he guessed for emergencies. James lay in bed, his face, stitched, bruised and purpled in the low ambient light. His hair was washed and neatly combed down to his shoulders. An easy rise and fall of his chest was reassuring to Steve as he approached. The left side of the mattress eerily empty under his sheet, pulled to Bucky's chest, except for the lines snaking their way out to monitors and his own IV pole.

A tightness gripped Rogers' chest as he moved to the right side of the bed, not wanting to be vividly reminded of the sacrifice Barnes had made to keep him safe from Tony.

He sighed, which made his broken ribs hurt but that felt better than what his heart was feeling. Waves of emotions raced forward in a swirl, competing for his limited energy at that late hour; joy, worry, excitement and fear. Reaching out, he put a hand on Barnes's shoulder to assure himself that Bucky was really there, in the flesh, damaged but alive.

Bucky didn't move at Steve's touch but he was warm. Finding a chair, Rogers pulled it up alongside Bucky's bed and sank gratefully down into it, not realizing how sore he still was from his own battle wounds.

Steve began to smile slightly in happiness that finally Fate had smiled upon him. He would not fail Bucky again. He would not let one more piece of his life escape tragically. He was finally in control of his destiny on his terms and Barnes would be part of that once more. He had a new life back from all the suffering, agony and fighting. The taunting voice of Ultron would be silenced. Steve Rogers did not need war to define him any longer.

Before that resolve could congeal into a solid rock that Steve could anchor on, the cold hand of fear crept up and began to choke him. Doubt slithered forth, wrapping wet, sticky tentacles over his resolve and optimism. What if Stark found them again? What was Ross going to do if they were arrested? How would the Accords treat them? Traitors, villains, war criminals; they would be separated again, if not in jail then in death. Rogers felt truly Bucky rather die than go to prison for crimes he was not responsible for.

Natasha's voice echoed, "You really want to punch your way out of this one Rogers?"

No, he thought, it doesn't matter how we stay together, just that we stay together, Natasha.

A conflict of emotions slammed into him taking his breath away; regret, fear, sadness and deep cut of loss.

All I got. He's all I got. I can't fail him. I can't falter.

The warm air currents swelled up from the heated ground carrying the smell of rubbish and workman sweat. Summer time in the city was sometimes a dismal thing; every tenement with a window had them wide open to perhaps catch a faint breeze. Washing swayed lazily in the air, crisscrossing the alleyways like ships at sea.

A thin blonde boy sat on the fire escape, dangling knobby knees over the edge. His sock poked out through a hole in his leather shoes tied with piecework knotted laces. He folded his arms over the railing, cushioning his cheek on his forearms as he looked at his best friend sitting next to him.

The friend was dark where the blonde was light, heavier too. Only a little over a year older, their size would make them look like five years were between them. Bucky also pillowed his arms on the rail, his muscular legs hanging over but his gaze outward over the neighborhood washing.

It was the summer of 1928.

"Stevie… remember that time the pigeons flew over everyone's wash." the eleven-year-old dark haired boy said with a gap toothed grin. "Momma was cursing for a week. Said we'd eat pigeon every day for a week because of those darn birds."

The blonde boy smiled slightly, sapphire eyes serious. He remembered. There were purple bird shat stains on his hand-me-down shirts for weeks.

When the comment didn't elicit a laugh, Bucky looked at Steve, his youthful face pinched in concern, "Hey. What's wrong?"

Steve tried to sigh, but it came out as rattling cough. Summertime was almost as bad as winter for him with his asthma. When he caught his breath, he replied quietly, "Nuthin' I guess. I was just thinking."

"Thinking about what?" Bucky pressed watching Steve's coloring pink uo again from grey.

"Things. Things I heard." Steve replied and adjusted his seat, "Like I was out at market the other day and heard the grocer says it was harder to get food in because it's all drying up out in the country—ya know the farms. Some terrible drought, like nothin' nobody's seen before. They were talking about dust so thick it was like a blizzard. And you can't breathe." Steve's blue eyes were huge in his thin face, slightly terrified at the prospect of losing his breath to some force other than asthma. "And… and what if it comes here? What if we can't eat because there's no food!"

"Sounds like just stories." Bucky reassured, a smile coming easily to his lips, "Momma said food is cheap in the market." Just as he said it, Bucky regretted it because he knew how hard Mrs. Rogers worked just to feed her and her son.

Steve ignored the statement's implications and just looked out at the slowly waving washing, "But really what scared me was what I heard the other day when I was selling papers. Some top hats were talking about the banks. Said somethin' about stocks and banks running." Steve looked at Bucky, "How does a bank run? It's a building."

Barnes laughed at the absurdity of a bank running and replied, giggling, "I dunno silly. Can you imagine a whole building getting up and running!"

Steve giggled a little too.

"Maybe you should ask your mom." Barnes stated, "She's a smart lady." he added politely.

"Yeah. She is." Steve perked up in pride, but then his expression hollowed, "But I wish my dad was around."

Barnes remained quiet, listening to his friend. It wasn't often he talked about his dad. Steve had barely known him at all, mostly from the few photos they had of him in is WW1 brown uniform. Rogers bragged sometimes the stories his mom would tell him about his father, how dashing he was and a good man and soldier. Sara Rogers only told the good side of Joseph Rogers. It was the only side she wanted her son to know.

"You ever think…" Rogers trailed off, wiping his nose and staring down at the hole in his shoe.

"Think what?" Bucky queried following his gaze.

"That it will happen again?" Steve's voice was small.

"What will happen again? Bucky wondered.

"A war."

Bucky's mom was close to Mrs. Rogers and he had overheard the women chatting a few months ago after a hard shift for Sara Rogers. Sara was confiding in Mrs. Barnes that if her husband hadn't been drafted into that damn war and gotten himself so shell shocked, he'd not started drinking, which eventually did him in. Bucky understood enough that Mr. Rogers obviously didn't want to remember anything he saw over there.

A long pause filled the space between them. Suddenly, being eleven felt like one hundred years as the boys quietly pondered things adults worried about, not children.

"I dunno." Bucky answered truthfully. The boy's stomach felt like a cold pit. Barnes was smart as a whip, even though he frequently denied it. He also read extensively when he had the chance. His paper boy corner was closer to City Hall and he had heard all the politicians chatter. There was talk of Germany again in the news, albeit a small mention. Some man named Adolph Hitler was making waves in the Weimar government. A few of the city aldermen were carrying a book… "Mein" something. Bucky didn't like the sound of it. Would his own dad be called back into action? Would he lose his dad too?

Frowning hard, gazing back at the laundry, Bucky found himself digging his nails into the railing as he imagined his dad gone, just him, his mom and his sisters trying to eke out a life in Brooklyn. Just like Steve.

Rogers swung his legs harder on the fire escape, obviously agitated. A glare beetled his brow as he turned his face quickly toward Barnes, "Bucky. Make me a promise."

"Sure, Stevie. Anything." Barnes equally intense in his reply as if these were the last words they'd ever speak to each other.

"If, when we're grown… like 15 or something like that… and there's another war, we'll go into it together." A fierce fire glowed in Steve's eyes. "And we'll stay together. No matter what."

Bucky swallowed hard, pondering that future. He didn't want to fight, but if his dad could he certainly would too. And Steve, his best buddy, unquestionably couldn't go out there alone. "Sure. Sure pal."

"Ok. Shake." Steve thrust out a callused hand to seal the deal.

Bucky matched his palm to Steve's. They shook once and let go looking back at the laundry. They remained silent until they were called in by their mothers, not really sure what both of them had just signed up for.

"Steve." a whisper came to him. It sounded like a million miles away like the radio had when S.H.I.E.L.D. woke him up from his freeze. "You're snoring."

"Five more minutes." he grumbled in response.

He heard a soft laugh, just barely audible. A sound of lightly flapping laundry echoed from the past

Who was laughing at him?

Where was he?

Then the memory hit him like the double barrels of a shotgun.

Cerulean eyes snapped open as he jerked awake followed by a groan of agony as his neck that was bent at a strange angle in the chair whipped to upright. There was more light laughter, more like staccato breathing than true laughing.

Rogers's vision swam with pain as he adjusted his awkwardly leaning neck and sat up as best he could. Bucky was looking at him from his pillow, the bruises and stitches making him look like a pale excuse for a zombie. Steve smiled despite his soreness because he could see the mirth in Barnes's eyes.

The memory of the dream he had asserted itself turning Steve's thoughts and expression dark, "Buck. I'm here. I'll always be here."

Barnes frowned slightly at Roger's gravity and replied faintly, "I know."

"No. I mean it." Steve took Bucky's hand and gave it a squeeze, "You deserve more than I've given you. We shook on it when we were kids back in Brooklyn. Never to leave each other. It's about time I lived up to that promise. You are worth it. You're my friend."

Bucky gave a half smile, "I remember." He took a breath, "It's ok. I wasn't a poster child for living up to promises either."

"But if I had just-" Steve began, his expression saddening.

"Stop."

"But if I had just caught you-"

"Stop."

"Bucky."

"Stop, Steve." Bucky finally growled making him close his eyes and swallow to catch his breath as his own injuries proclaimed themselves.

Rogers sat still, holding his hand, staring down at the floor between his feet.

"I don't want to argue about this right now." Bucky sighed.

"Fine."

"Go get some sleep, jerk."

"I've been asleep too long already, Bucky." Steve countered.

"Isn't that a cute metaphor that is so cliché." Barnes whispered cutting his eyes at Steve.

"Yeah. I guess."

"We're safe. Go to bed." Bucky muttered finally and closed his eyes, just like he'd do in the army after bedding down for the night.

Steve blinked and released Barnes' hand, gazing at his friend. You're all I got, Buck, he thought. I'm never giving you up again.

Bucky's mind raced in panic as he heard Rogers stand up with a groan and shuffle back to his own bedroom. Trying to breathe normally, hoping his vitals didn't give away his distress, he lay still pretending to sleep. The shoulder stump began to throb as the circuitry looked for the arm that was not there anymore, reporting a malfunction back to his brain as burning pain. Wincing slightly, Bucky was sure that Hydra programmed it that way to inflict more agony on him. Shifting in bed didn't help and it felt weird to be lighter on one side than the other so he settled in and tried to accept his new normal.

Bucky focused on anything to try and drift back to real sleep instead of artificial cryostasis. Rest was elusive and knowing what he planned to do to Steve once he was healed up well enough weighed heavily upon him. He could still feel the presence of Hydra in his skull even though it'd been two years since he dragged Steve out of the Potomac and read his history in the halls of the Smithsonian.

Every day since then, he'd get up from his tiny sleeping bag bed, look across the studio apartment into his microscopic kitchen, where the window was papered over in old newsprint and feel the slithering tentacles of Hydra. The boogie man was just there on the periphery of his vision, waiting for their moment to strike and recall him. A Grim Reaper stood just out of sight wearing Arnim Zola's face. Barnes shivered.

"Sir, the Asset has not returned." the technician reported unemotionally to Zola through his secret phone line at his home just outside of Manhattan. Zola had been assigned to S.H.I.E.L.D. just after he signed an affidavit that he would renounce all Hydra activity in exchange for his life.

Peggy Carter had recommended adamantly against it, seeing his direct role in harnessing the tesseract's energy for the Red Skull was unpardonable. She also blamed him directly for the death of Captain America. In the end, President Truman saw more potential in Zola's help against the rising Communist government in Russia than any atrocities he had committed during the war. He was released and under Peggy's watch. Director Carter certainly put a crimp in his style, but he was clever enough to work around it.

"I see. Keep me posted." Arnim replied curtly and replaced the phone on the cradle. Laying back on his pillow, he stared at the ceiling, troubled. The Asset sometimes had lapses. Dr. Fenhoff, a crack Russian psychologist that Zola was imprisoned with briefly, have given him some ideas to control those lapses in programming but Zola had not implemented them yet.

Zola wondered if the job was done. The Russians had sent him a message only days earlier asking to activate the Asset to kill Howard Stark. Stark was working obsessively once again on a super soldier serum, determined to clear his conscience of Steve Rogers's death after he couldn't find Rogers' body in the Arctic ice after he located the tesseract. The Russians were not fond of who Captain America had been and did not want America do have more of their own.

Arnim had agreed to it as a simple hit, more out of thanks to Dr. Fenhoff, but the window of opportunity was small. Stark was going to be home for a short time this week between his jet-setting lifestyle. The lab was in the basement of his home, where he'd be indubitably be found. Occasionally, Peggy had dinner with him, when he wasn't entertaining any lady friends. Zola smiled a bit. It'd be nice if the Asset removed both his boss and Stark.

Drifting off to sleep, Zola closed his eyes and concluded it could wait till morning and that he should not worry where his precious Asset was or what he was doing. His Fist of Hydra would come home. He always did.

The estate was huge, but the Winter Soldier moved effectively through the expansive grounds to the house. The shadows were his allies filling many corners with darkness and creeping up walls in the near moonless night. A few lights were on inside. He avoided those windows and found the door by the butler's entrance that would be unlocked.

Like a ghost, he breezed into the home and closed the door.

Jarvis was making a cup of tea in the small servants' kitchen when he caught a movement of air in the room. Pausing his stirring, he looked over his shoulder but saw nothing. Knowing the house was old, he thought nothing of it. Carter had tried to teach him some spying techniques, but those were from years ago and he was sorely out of practice.

Edwin smiled lightly at those days as he dipped his tea bag up and down absently in the steaming water. The two of them, Carter and Jarvis, had really been something, had they not? Turning his full attention to his tea, he was glad just a few hours ago, Howard had run out of the house jabbering some science-y gibberish. That meant there were no turn down tasks to undertake this evening and he was free to enjoy his radio programs and the company of his lovely wife. No more need to seek adventure for this butler!

The Asset crept down to the lower level, expertly picking the lock on the door to the lab below. Taking his muzzled pistol in his right hand, he gripped the handle of the door in his left and turned the lock. It gave easily. Leaping gracefully into the room, weapon drawn to where a Howard Stark would have been standing, empty space greeted him.

Eyes flashed into every corner looking for a hiding person. Scanning the room, every nerve taut and alert, he moved carefully around inventions both working and obviously scrap. Taking care not to trip on spare parts and pieces, it was clear to the Asset that his target was not present.

Feeling the homing beacon command to come home when the target was not near, he began to move back towards the door, leaving no trace of his presence. Passing Howard's desk, his eyes caught sight of a familiar face. The Winter Soldier paused, momentarily pulling against his programming like a dog on a leash smelling something interesting.

Picking up the frame, he looked at the black and white image. In the center stood Peggy Carter in her army uniform, chestnut curls pinned back, lipstick expertly applied. She looked familiar to him but he could not pinpoint why. Clearly she was in the army, he recognized the American uniform. World War two… but the memory tore apart like delicate tissue. To her right was Howard Stark in a shirt and suspenders, a 'know-it-all' grin on his face. The Asset felt his mission prick him with the command "kill him" only to be shut down with "not here". The two commands oscillated on and off until a piercing headache made the Asset grit his teeth and screw closed his eyes to stop looking at the photo. Once the visual stimulation stopped, the warring orders ceased their battle in his brain for dominance.

He was about to put the picture down without looking at it again, lest the pain begin again, but there were three people. Who was the third man?

Determined to not look at Howard again, the Asset blocked that portion of the photo from view and then opened his eyes. Peggy Carter stood in the middle of the picture and on her left was a tall, handsome man in his army uniform, holding a silver, unpainted shield. It had a star within concentric circles. They were smiling at the camera.

Squinting slightly, the Asset concentrated on the man's face.

32557038… Sargent James Barnes. 32557038….

STOP.

Longing… Rusted… Furnace…

STOP.

A pair of younger voices reached out from the abyss of his past.

"It's ok. She's next to dad." Said a scrawny man, climbing stairs, hands jammed in his pockets, looking despondent.

"I was going to ask." The dark hair man was concerned, clearly worried about the shorter one.

"I know what you're going to say Buck, it's just…" stated the blonde man, pain written plainly over his face but a burning determination to make it on his own was in his eyes.

"We can put the couch cushions on the floor like when we were kids. It'll be fun. All you got to do is shine my shoes… maybe take out the trash. C'mon." The dark haired man cajoled.

"Thank you Buck, but I can get by on my own." The sorrow poured off the blonde like water rushing downhill.

"Thing is you don't have to. I'm with you till the end of the line, pal." A warm friendly hand reached out and grasped the smaller man's shoulder. The seriousness in his tone was so genuine, it hurt.

The Asset began to tremble violently. With shaking fingers, he replaced the photo and tore his eyes from the picture of the tall man. His insides began to feel like liquid, the way they always did right before he was frozen again. It felt like falling… off a… train.

Running up the stairs, he ripped open the door and launched himself out of the house like a bullet. Jarvis didn't hear a thing, considering he was listening to his favorite police radio show, the sounds blended in. Anna commented on the dialogue occasionally making Jarvis laugh.

Still sprinting, the Asset tore at branches, foot prints left gouges in the mulch of landscaped beds and finally he tripped on a root crashing face down into the loam.

His breath came in pants, as if he was a wounded animal inhaling the moist odor of earth and growing things. The world was spinning like the roller coaster at… Coney Island boardwalk. Coney Island? Was he ever there? There was no mission there. Sea spray and fish flooded forth with the call of gulls and a calliope playing circus tunes.

Brooklyn. New York. Steve…. Steve… Steve…Rogers? A memory seized him like the chair did when they wiped his mind. Suddenly he was frozen still as if watching a movie of his own life.

Steve came in from a painting job and saw the beige form on the kitchen table on top of the newspaper in their small apartment not far from their Dumbo neighborhood. Sara Rogers had been gone for nearly four years. He had taken the insignificant amount of money left to him and enrolled in art school. Rogers got odd jobs as a sign painter around town and portrait artist, but business was starting to slow down and the school was emptying because of the draft and the call to war.

Fingering the form, the neat script of the army clerk wrote the newly enlisted soldiers name: James Buchanan Barnes. It listed his vitals, his parents and other information. Below in a large box was stamped a large 1A, clearing him for active duty. Steve gave a dejected smile that he was listed as a next of kin on Bucky's form. Part of him wanted to rip it to shreds.

With a sigh and a gritting his teeth in frustration, he stared hard at the piece of paper willing it to burst in to flame or the name on it to change to his. He'd tried to join. Three times.

Bucky entered the kitchen from the two bedrooms just adjacent in the small tenement. He had just gotten back from the recruitment office a few moments earlier. "Hey Steve."

"You did it." Rogers said flatly, still staring fiercely at the paper, his blond hair dangling in front of his eyes, smeared with a bit of white paint.

"We talked about this Steve." Bucky sighed and moved around the kitchen to make them dinner.

"Yeah." Rogers admitted. It had been a long and drawn out conversation almost ending in blows.

"Well, we agreed. I might as well enlist because they were going to come for me anyway. And it's the right thing to do." Barnes commented absently over his shoulder as he peeled potatoes, glad Rogers couldn't see the tremor in his hands or the worry creasing his brow. Bucky really didn't want to fight about this again.

"Yeah." Steve said again with a hard edge to his voice, now repulsed by the form sitting just inches from his hand.

Bucky put the potato and the knife down into the basin. Gripping the edge of the sink in both hands, his shoulders slumped as he hung his head in annoyance. He turned to face his best friend, fear and anger in his eyes, "What do you want from me, Steve?"

Steve looked up resentfully from the table, locking eyes with Barnes, hands balled into fists, "I want to go too."

Barnes exhaled the breath he was holding, "Steve. You can't. You know why."

"Right. I'm not good enough." Steve gritted out, fire burning in his eyes, "It's not fair."

"War isn't fair, Steve. The army picks men based on their ability to fight and to keep their friends alive." Bucky pleaded and the last word hung for a moment as the mortality of the situation settled in between them. Upstairs the Calvin's argued, their voices clear as bells through the thin walls and floor. The baby down the hall wailed and some kids ran down the long hallway just outside their door their feet like a herd of buffalo in western movies. "And the army and I are doing the best thing for you." He omitted the painfully heavy sentiment about keeping Steve alive to himself.

"I don't need Uncle Sam and you telling me what is best for me." Steve spit out, trying to block the picture of a dead or maimed Bucky on the battlefield out of his head. If he kept his anger focused on his indignation, he didn't have to think the consequences of war applied to Bucky.

"It doesn't matter. It's done." Barnes butted up against Steve's stubbornness with irritation of his own. He loved Steve like a brother, but sometimes he just didn't know when to quit.

"So you're going to go off and get killed. And I can't come because some white coat thinks I'm not good enough to defend Old Glory. Great. Fine." Steve seethed, sparks flying from his eyes, blotches of paint on his cheeks intensifying the effect.

Bucky's mouth opened with a smart reply and a hand came up with an accusatory finger, but instead he let his temper drain and closed his mouth. A sadness filled his eyes seeing his best friend so angry and hurt at a choice what wasn't Barnes' to make. The army would come for Bucky; this was supposed to make it less painful for both of them than the letter in the mail that Rogers would never get. Turning back to the sink, he began to peel potatoes again for dinner. Barnes heard the apartment door slam shut.

He knew Steve would be back. He always returned home, especially for dinner when Bucky was fixing his mashed potatoes. Rogers loved those.

The Asset saw flashes of the angry blonde boy in his mind. Steven Grant Rogers. He collapsed, unconscious into the turf of the Stark estate, concealed by landscaping. It would be three days before Hydra had to retrieve their Asset. He was found sitting propped up against a headstone in Arlington Cemetery staring at the memorial to Captain America.

The dark room was warm and comfortable. Slowly, Bucky was getting used to the flashbacks, but Barnes has made up his mind to go back into the freeze until they could fix him. That truth burned in Barnes's eyes as unshed tears. He was going to break Steve's heart and that was the worst crime he'd ever commit.

A/N- Yes, I researched all the history. And I'm linking the last episode of Agent Carter into this, as well as flash backs we get from Civil War because I think Peggy needs more screen/fic time. Chapter 2 dialogue quoted directly from Captain America: Winter Soldier. Thanks for the readership!