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[bottledblond]

Not every universe in the far and wide cosmos is as lucky (however unlucky itself that seems) to encounter Thanos during a time where people live who can do something about it. Steve Rogers, a particular version of Steve Rogers who had only just suffered through his first night of basic training in New Jersey as part of the Army’s Project Rebirth and thus had not yet become Captain America, bent to untie his shoes and saw his hands begin to disintegrate. He doesn’t panic, panicking is for people who do not live like every breath is their last. Instead, he blinks in surprise as the barracks fill with shouting. He has time to contemplate two things. One, he wishes he’d done more with his life. And two, he hopes Bucky will do all right.

He’s still thinking about that last issue when he exhales his last in a universe where Captain America never existed and finishes it bent over in the ruins of the barracks, roof half open to the sky and walls a burnt and ashy gray.

It takes him an hour to get to the road and by then, his asthma is already getting the best of him. He blacks out for the second time ‘that day’ and wakes up staring at the ceiling of what is obviously a hospital.

It just doesn’t sound or smell like a hospital. Sure. People are running around and yelling, but it smells painfully clean, artificially so, and there are machines he’s never seen before connected by wires to his body. He does the thing people should never do and yanks them loose. The machines squawk strangely and frantically and Steve is almost out of bed when two large men in green pajamas force him back.

Nothing makes sense to him for days. People come to talk to him, to find out who he is and who his family is. Evidently Steve Rogers is a popular name, because they bring in more people to talk to him, to ask him questions about his life, but no one has any answers.

He explodes, as he’s wont to do when frustrated, demands answers, but nothing they say makes sense.

By then, the war is over. Not World War II, which has evidently been over for over half a century, but this new war. And Bucky Barnes had been told of his presence. Steve is in bed, arms crossed, looking dour and getting an infusion of something that honestly is helping him breathe better when Bucky bursts into his now private room. It’s been two months

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[woundedwinter]

He can hear the shift in his breathing and pulse but puts it off as wonder rather than desire.

A startled laugh at the tease, "What? Me? Please, she could do a hell of a lot better than the screwed up ex-assassin she helped."

He looks for a few more pictures of the local wildlife.

"Haven't exactly been dating much," he admits. "I tried but it never felt right."

[bottledblond]

"You're James Barnes." Steve gives Bucky a little smack, though it's careful, though he can see the skin of the bare lower arm and knows he won't hurt himself too bad. The guy still has pretty huge muscles. Not much changed there. "That's pretty much what you're good for. Being charming, fooling all of those poor girls who couldn't see through the charm, and trying to get the ones to step out with you if they did see through you." It doesn't bring Steve any joy to hear that Bucky doesn't feel like a big part of who he had been isn't there anymore. "Maybe it's because you're destined to be with Princess Shuri."

Steve doesn't believe in fate, but he does believe that if you try hard enough, you can get anything.

He got into the Army, didn't he?

Proof enough for him right there.

[woundedwinter]

"We're not like that," he protests. "Shuri is a good friend, but she's more like a little sister."

Bucky shrugs a little as he sets the tablet back on the table. "I'm not like that James anymore, not really. I don't like big crowds of people and loud noises are a problem." He thinks for a minute before coming up with a term Steve would remember instead of PTSD. "Shell shock."

"My therapist tried to get me to go out, get back into the world after what happened. So I tried. I took a nice girl out, even went and had drinks with a guy. But I went home feeling.. I don't know. Like it wasn't right."

Sexuality is so casually discussed now that he doesn't even think about what he'd just said.

[bottledblond]

Drinks with a guy? Like, 'the guys?' That's something they use to do, though it was less 'drinks' and more like 'get into mischief.' Steve doesn't really think anything of it. "That's why you said you were--" Lonely. Alone. "I talked to this guy, Sam, he said he used to help Vets with stuff like that, get them back out into the world, that war can change people. I tried to tell him a few times that I only saw one day of basic so I couldn't really relate but-- Maybe you should talk to him. Or go out for drinks with him. You know, get your feet wet. Make friends, and then see what dating is like."

Steve jumps off of the couch, not a single bone in his body aching, and rushes to his sketchbook.

"He gave me his phone number and showed me how to use the phone."

[woundedwinter]

"Sam. Sam who works with vets," he repeats slowly. "Aw I'm gonna kill him," he mutters. When he sees the number he snorts again. "Wilson. That dick."

He goes for the tablet again, calling up a photo. Sam is all smiles and Bucky has a less than enthused look on his face.

"You mean this asshole?"

[bottledblond]

Blue eyes widen as Steve takes the tablet from Bucky. The language had surprised him, not because of the language itself, but because Bucky a, already knows Sam, and b, surprisingly doesn't seem to like him. "He's a nice guy," Steve says, almost defensive.

And Sam is going to use this a teaching moment for Bucky to answer his damned phone sometimes because he'd been trying to tell him about this for weeks.

"What did he do to you?"

[woundedwinter]

He huffs and shakes his head. "He's all right. But he's also a pain in my ass. I mean he didn't take it personally when I broke his wings or ripped off his steering wheel when I was the Winter Soldier." The man has the patience of a saint.

"I don't know. We just.. it's complicated."

And Sam can keep his teaching moments all to himself. Bucky gets enough of that in therapy.

[bottledblond]

“His wings? People can have wings now?” Sam never told him about that! Oh, he’s so jealous of that. If he had wings he’d go all over the place, see things from up above, get new perspectives. Bucky is going to have to be a little more careful with his explanations or they’re going to confuse things.

Like whatever the Winter Soldier is. At least from context, Steve can make some assumptions. They’re not exactly the best assumptions though, but it’s enough to get him to hold off on that sort of questioning.

He does grab Bucky’s wrist though. The metal one. “It sounds like you were the dick. Can he still fly? Did he get metal wings like your metal arm?”

[woundedwinter]

Bucky knows he needs to explain, to lay out everything that happened to him after the war. His eyes turn down to the hand on his wrist. "I.. what? Oh no, not wings like that."

And he goes back to call up an image of Falcon. "They're metal wings attached to some kind of propulsion that keeps him in the air."

Bucky rubs his eyes with his right hand. "When HYDRA had me, they turned me into something. A weapon to be feared. I was the Winter Soldier. I didn't even know who Bucky Barnes was."

"All I knew was my next mission."

He looks back at Sam's picture. "When I attacked him it was the Winter Solider. Not me."

But Sam had an easy rapport with the last Steve, one that had made him ache with longing because he didn't have that anymore. That Steve? He found a new best friend in Sam and maybe that still stings.

[bottledblond]

“So everyone has code names? That makes it a little easier.” The pressure of Bucky’s wrist let’s up but he doesn’t take his hand away. “This is pretty incredible stuff. What do they call you now?”

Sam is the Falcon. He evidently used to be called Captain America for some odd, patriotic reason no one has explained. Bucky rubs with heroes and geniuses.

He must be called something, right?

[woundedwinter]

"They don't. I didn't want one. I needed to be Bucky again, not another name."

This time he finds pictures of all of the Avengers. The year before Thanos, the year before everything went wrong. "Steve brought everyone to Wakanda for my one hundredth birthday party. I didn't even really want one, but he didn't want me to be alone for it."

"That guy with the dark hair, that was Tony. Ironman. Thor is the big blonde guy, he comes from Asgard and shoots lightning. Bruce is there, standing by Tony." Natasha, Clint, Wanda, all of them. His friends.

"After the fall, we all just.. we scattered."

[bottledblond]

Steve more or less hears what Bucky says. He files it away, the people and faces stuck together, but there’s only two people in the photo he focuses on. One he knows very well. He’s seen him his whole life with that shit eating grin.

And the guy next to him, dark blond hair with a beard and blue eyes, arm around Bucky’s shoulders, is even more obvious.

Steve’s eyes are fixed on that image of a tall, strong, handsome version of himself.

He falls quiet.

[woundedwinter]

"Stevie." His hand closes gently around his wrist to try and draw his attention back to the present. "I know what you're doing and don't."

"Don't compare yourself to that Steve. You're still a good man. Strong. Brave." His thumb traces along his jaw. "Incredible. You've got faith, you've got so much heart."

[bottledblond]

“How can I not?” Steve’s not the type to be insecure but he’s looking into a Could Have Been image of a better him. A guy that saved Bucky, that saved the world, that was lost in time. No wonder they’d been willing to finally just let him go and write him off.

He’s not their hero.

He’s not smiling with his arm around Bucky and around Sam, having a family of sorts.

Steve doesn’t look up, he just looks off until Bucky touches his face. He can feel his skin redden and heat. “Faith doesn’t get you too far pal. We both know that. Heart doesn’t do much better.”

[woundedwinter]

"Hey." His voice is soft, still touching him. "You were picked for Rebirth because of your heart, because of your faith."

"All it did was change the outside of you. It didn't change the inside."

"Faith in me is what helped me break decades of HYDRA conditioning."

[bottledblond]

"None of that was me," Steve says, lifting his hand to Bucky's wrist to encourage him to remove his fingers. There's dangerous feelings in place here and it's only going to be so long until Steve can't blame it on the inadequacy he's feeling. "The guy you relied on, the guy that shared a whole war or two or three with you is somewhere else. He's probably doing a lot of good right now. He's probably saved you already from all of this."

Steve hopefully is able to tug Bucky's hand down and will hold it down if he can on his own knee. The tablet has grown dark from disuse and Steve is glad that the photo is no longer there.

"I don't know you anymore. Not the way he did. I don't know anything about you, Buck. I want to. We still have a history and Brooklyn don't leave your veins, not for anything. But I can't live up to what you lost. I don't want you hating me for it."

[woundedwinter]

Bucky withdraws his hand and lets Steve place it where he needs it to go. It was probably too much and he'd overstepped.

"You know it took the other Steve a long time to realize that I was never really gonna be the Bucky he remembered from home or from the war." He nods and closes up the tablet, setting it aside. Enough memories for tonight.

"So I get it. But listen, you don't have anything to live up to. You don't."

He gives him a gentle chuck to the shoulder. "And I could never hate you pal. Not ever."

[bottledblond]

Steve might smile, weakly, but he doesn’t feel at all like it. His heart isn’t in it and he certainly doesn’t have the faith that Bucky assures him he must.

“I’m not going to be the other me.”

His fingers lightly stroke over Bucky’s knuckles, eyes completely downcast.

“And you’re not going to be the other you. So.” He lifts his eyes and this time, his smile is more real. “So I guess we can work, right?”

[woundedwinter]

Something that feels like relief floods his chest at that smile. "Yeah. Yeah you're damn right we can work."

Bucky pulls a face as he remembers the date. "I'll order in for dinner tonight, see about getting more food delivered. Tomorrow morning I've got mandatory therapy." And his expression should convey just how happy he is about that prospect.

"But after that we can do whatever you want."

[bottledblond]

Delivered? That’s what old women do, bribing neighborhood kids to do the shopping for a penny or a pie or some sweets. Steve scratches his head, but doesn’t ask.

He’s too interested in this therapy of Bucky’s. “For your arm?” There’s no such thing as this kind of psychology when he’s from. Mental health is not something people do.

Sam hadn’t really described how he helps vets, just that he talks to them and gives them what they need.

“Can I come?”

[woundedwinter]

"What? No, no it's not that kind of therapy." He takes a moment because it didn't exist all those years ago. "When I was the Winter Solider, I didn't know who I was. I didn't remember anything. They scrambled my brains with.." he huffs because that isn't important.

"Going to therapy helps me get things back in order. In my head."

[bottledblond]

“So it would be a good idea if I come,” Steve says, fixated for some reason on the thought that, perhaps, he could be part of the solution for Bucky.

The guy he remembers used to focus so much attention on him that Steve had felt smothered at times but he knows from his own life experience that having a project to focus on (like getting into the Army by any means necessary) could be just the thing for Bucky.

“I’ll just sit in the waiting room and read the paper:” His mind will be blown by magazines.

[woundedwinter]

She's gonna have to find out about Steve sooner or later and better that it comes from him. Maybe she'll leave the stupid notebook alone for the session.

Ha. Like that'll happen.

"Okay pal. If you wanna come and wait you can. I usually get lunch after. You can pick where we go."

[bottledblond]

“I literally don’t know what there is,” Steve just wants to point out, pulling back his hands because he’s been holding onto Bucky’s for a long time now. “I’ve never been picky.”

He couldn’t afford to be, of course.

Art supplies left on the table, Steve and Bucky head to Bucky’s therapist with Steve still fixated on all of the things that pass along the way. He can’t help himself. He smiles brightly at the woman at the desk, marvels at how bright and comfortable modern waiting rooms is, and when Bucky is called, he smiles at the dark haired woman at the door that gives him a narrow eyed once over.

She’s going to start with that in Barnes’ session.

[woundedwinter]

It's not one of their better sessions. Bucky is tense and uneasy already because he knows what she's going to say. That he has to tell others about Steve, that he can't consider him a replacement for the one who died.

He's not a replacement. This Steve is different from the one who became Cap, the same way he's different from Sargeant Barnes during the war.

And no way is he bringing Steve in for a session.

Bucky is tense and quiet when they leave. He normally gets sushi after a session but today he wants something different.

"There's a good burger place not far." He could use two burgers and a few beers.