Work Text:
When he opened the door to a long haired young man with haunted eyes Steve is ashamed to admit it took him a moment to recognize his former best friend.
“I need help Steve. Please.” Buck said, a strange desperate expression on his face.
Steve had nodded, and against his better judgement, opened the door.
----------------------------
Bucky was just a faded memory. Something might catch Steve's eye in passing and he would think of the way Bucky'd smiled on that last day at the World Expo, or the how he'd always complain about having to see a movie with Katharine Hepburn instead of Bette Davis (he did not approve of Steve's crush on that 'horsefaced dame' as he called her). But, then Peggy would say something or some politician would do something and he'd clear his head of the bittersweet past. The past was past, long ago and far away.
That heartbreak, that pain, he's put that away. He put that away years ago. He built something from it. In the end it wasn't enlistment that got him over there but a press pass and a hell of a lot of determination. He'd made a name for himself, earned a reputation, “That pipsqueak in the press corps with nerves of steel.”
On his search to discover what had happened to Jame Buchanan Barnes, he'd met Peggy Carter.
Actually they'd met before, on the day Captain America was unveiled and there was a shooting in the street. He'd run up to her and demanded to know what was going on. She'd remembered him when he met her again in Europe. Actually "met" is a strong word, he'd snuck into her hotel and demanded answers on the mysterious Hydra. Instead they went dancing in a bombed out bar in London- he'd stepped on her feet but she hadn't minded
They were an odd couple, the spy and the journalist. But they were both fighting against the current, both stubborn dreamers who made their dreams real. Steve won a Pulitzer, Peggy founded an Agency no one had ever heard of. Their lives were full of battles fought and won.
Steve fought the good fight. He fought for 70 years and he was still fighting now. Hell, he sometimes still got asked to give the odd speech even now at ninety-six. And he wrote letters everyday to congressmen, senators, mayors and representatives urging them to make the right choices.
And now a face from his past- One of the people who made him who he is, someone who should be long long long dead, is sitting in his living room. Steve sighs and checks his oxygen tank's levels. What has he gotten himself into?
---------------------------------------
Bucky didn't know what to do with Steve. Steve had gotten old. He should have realized of course that this would be the case, but the passage of time was something that the Soldier had only ever noticed in an offhand way as people's clothes and hair changed and the equipment got a bit better each time.
But, Steve....Steve had always been little and always been frail (it was a goddamn miracle the man was still alive) but now he was even more shrunken, and absolutely tiny. His face was as deeply wrinkled as a walnut, he had enormous spectacles perched on his thin face and he had a tank of oxygen that he wheeled around with him even as he navigated his own apartment.
Bucky didn't know what he'd been thinking, bringing trouble to his old friend's doorstep. Steve had gotten along just fine without him. Hell, the 100 lb weakling had gone toe to toe with giants in his day. Steve had managed to change the world without a sniper rifle.
He stares at the pictures in the living room wall, sitting on the couch as Steve potters around in his kitchen making coffee. He knows that the person next to Steve in each of them is important. The slightly paunchy black man is...who is he? The Soldier is pretty sure he shot him. There's another one, Steve, a few decades older, with a man with hair that Bucky knows is quite out of date with a wide smile and a look of hope. The Soldier may have shot him too, probably not though. Despite Hydra's pretentions of being a weed at the heart of SHIELD they'd rarely risked playing around in that intelligence agency's backyard until recently.
He looks at what's hanging above the fireplace and then gets up to take a closer look.
Steve comes in with the coffee on a little wheeled tray.
“Are these...?”
“Yes. I had the important ones framed. Made me feel like I was on the right track.”
“You had the death threats framed.”
“Yup, and the cease and desist letters.” And that's the same smile, though the dimples are hidden by his wrinkles, the eyes are just as blue and just as wicked. “Peggy says the FBI and CIA both wanted to have me killed at one point.”
Bucky smiles a little. “Ya dumb punk. You never could run away from a fight.”
Steve shrugs. “After you...after I got the letter 'bout you...” he shakes his head. “I just kept thinking of the last thing you ever said to me. How there were a lot of important jobs that needed doing, and I thought: someone needs to go after these bullies. If you can't beat 'em-”
“-Show'em up.” Bucky finishes. It's advice Steve always used to ignore, but it's how Bucky had always preferred to win his battles. Humiliation hurt worse than a punch in the face for most people.
Bucky frowns and leans in closer to one of the pictures. “I know him...”
“hmmm?” Steve asks and then adjusts his frankly enormous spectacles and peers around Bucky.
“Oh Senator McCarthey. I kept that up out of spite. He was absolutely against giving an interview, but it's amazing what happens when your wife has a higher security clearance than the vice-president and the best man at your wedding was Howard Stark.”
Steve chuckles and then wheezes and has to sit down and turn up the dial on his oxygen tank.
Bucky nods. “He was one of my handlers for a while. I only met him once though.”
Steve freezes, his cup halfway to his lips.
He opens and closes his mouth.
“He wha-?”
“He was Hydra.”
“Senator McCarthey was-”
“Hydra.”
“The Hydra that tried to bomb the United States in 1945 even as the German army was being steadily defeated? That Hydra?”
“That Hydra. They've...evolved since then.”
Steve stares at him for a moment and then turns his oxygen up even higher.
“Bucky, you're going to have to explain a few things to me.”
Bucky nods, sits down carefully, and stares at the time ravaged face of the only friend he has left. “It's hard to know where to start....”
-------------------------
Later that afternoon Steve goes into his bedroom closes the door and takes a few deep breaths. He's known, deep down, that SHIELD was rotten for a long time. It was something he and Peggy had talked about before things started really going downhill fast for her.
That sort of power with that little oversight was a recipe for corruption and...well the sorts of things that had happened to Bucky.
Bucky doesn't seem to have any real sense of what to do now. Steve's seen the footage of the Helicariers, Captain America's last heroic battle that ended with his death. He's seen the black masked death machine at work.
But it's Bucky. and he's hurt and scared and alone in a strange century he doesn't understand.
Steve has three choices. He can turn Bucky away, Bucky would leave, he's sure and never bother him again if he asked. He can call the SHIELD agents who he knows still keep an eye on him and Peggy. Or, he could let Bucky stay.
He walks back into the living room where his friend is sitting wringing his hands and looking like he might burst into tears at any moment.
“Hey Buck, I don't suppose you'd want to stay with me for a while? I could use some help around here. The kids don't make it into the city to help as often as they'd like-”
He's not even finished his sentence and Bucky his nodding his head as though any minute Steve will change his mind and throw him out onto the streets.
“Great I'll show you the guest room, it's not much but...”
And just like that Steve is living with his childhood best friend again.
It's strange to have Bucky back after so long. It's strange to have another body in the apartment at all actually. Peggy's been in and out of hospital for years now. Cancer, and then Alzeihmer's and neither of them were ever home as much as they'd hoped.
So, Steve doesn't know what to do with this strange young man who has the face of someone that's been dead the better part of century, but, he knows he'd going to do right by him.
--------------------------
It's been almost a year and a half since Captain America brought down the Helicariers and was killed in the process. There has been no sign of the Winter Soldier since he'd been spotted in East Berlin a couple of months after the incident.
Until now.
Someone had caught a mention of a man with a bionic arm in Brooklyn in the chatter.
So, Natasha Romanov is going door to door in a block of older apartment buildings that are slightly run down asking as subtly as possible whether anyone has seen any one-armed brainwashed Hydra assasins hanging around.
It's stupid. The Winter Soldier has been a ghost for 50 years. He's not about to get caught now.
“Approaching the next building. You read me?” She says into her coms.
“Affirmative Nat. I've got you covered. Work up the left side. I'll switch positions to cover you for the other side on the way down.”
Well, at least it gives her and Clint a chance to work together again. Even if it is just knocking on doors, anything involving the Winter Soldier is too risky to send in anything but the best.
It's the fourth building today. An old one dating back to the 30's that hasn't been cleaned up that much yet.
It holds more than a few surprises.
It's on the second floor, twelve minutes into a round about conversation with an elderly polish woman about demographic changes in the neighbourhood that she finally gets some results.
The picture is grainy and only catches the Winter Soldier in profile but it's the best they have.
The woman smiles. “That looks like that young man from the 6th floor. Are you with the military? It's about time someone helped that poor boy.” She says earnestly.
“I'm sorry? He looks like who?”
“The young man from the 6th floor. He's a nice boy, very good manners. He takes real good care of his grandfather. Not like my rotten good for nothing whelps. I can't remember his name but he carried me up the stairs once when the elevator was broken.” She smiles sweetly at Natasha.
“Does he have a robotic arm?”
“He has a prosthetic. He's a vet, but it doesn't work very well. Seems to cause him some pain, poor boy. But he didn't complain.”
“Thank you ma'am. Could you point me to his apartment?”
“I don't go above my own floor dear. All that walking. But he said he was living on the top floor. Floor 6- there's only a couple apartments up there.”
There is in fact only one.
Natasha radios Clint to move to be in prime position to cover her in the apartment. Then she knocks on the door.
A weak voice from inside yells “Coming!” but it's several minutes before the door opens to reveal a tiny withered old man in huge glasses, toting an oxygen tank.
“Hello, my dear.” he wheezes. “What can I do for you?”
“I have a survey I'm conducting on how the gentrification of Brooklyn in the last two decades has changed things for long time residents. ”
The man nods. “Well, I'm afraid I don't get out much any more. Just to the hospital twice a week to see my sweetheart. I have my groceries delivered now. The walk is too much for me. Don't know that I'll have much to say.”
“It's just a few questions it won't take long.”
The little old man grins. “Oh sweetheart, if you think an old fossil like me wouldn't love to have a talk with a bright young thing like you than you're sorely mistaken. I just don't want to waste your time. I know how hard knocking on doors all day can be. But, if you insist... come in, come in.”
He slowly shuffles back to open the door wider. “You just go straight on through to the sitting room and I'll get you something to drink. Tea? Coffee? I have both.”
“Tea would be lovely, thank you.”
The sitting room is stuffy and a little shabby. Not run down just a nice room that's gotten worn around the edges. For an apartment of a man with such severe mobility issues it is surprisingly clean. There's a wall covered with images of a couple both alone and together, standing next to the prominent figures of the last century. There also seem to be quite a few framed letters.
There's a shuffle as the man returns with a little wheeled tray holding two cups of tea and a plate with a few of those prepackaged tea bicuits arranged on a paper doily.
He passes her a cup and then very carefully, lowers himself into the chair across from her.
Once safely in the chair he takes the plate of biscuits and offers them to her. She takes one and bites down. It's stale, but she smiles anyway and rests it on her saucer.
He grins and then and only then picks up his own cup and saucer.
“I hope you don't find it too formal, my dear. It's just my wife is a real lady and she'd never have allowed me to let my standards slip.”
“It looks like you and her had quite the life, Mr...?”
“Oh, Rogers. Steve Rogers.”
“Steve Rogers? I think I'ver heard of you.”
“Really? I'm surprised, most people haven't. I've happily faded away into obscurity, my glory days long gone.” He gestures at the wall of photographs, most of which are several decades old and often feature men and women long dead.
“I heard you speak last year on the legalization of gay marriage.” Natasha replies.
“Yes, I was honoured to be asked of course but, really there are many activists far more qualified to talk on that issue who would have been a better choice.”
“I don't know, I think you did an excellent job.”
Steve waves his spoon in dismissal. “Yes, now, I think you had some questions?”
“Yes, sir, now...” she goes through her whole speech, talking about the new elements that Brooklyn is attracting, asks Steve what he's noticed as the borough has gentrified, and then mentions the other less desirable elements that have been washing up.
That's when she shows him the picture. It's a ridiculous roundabout and time consuming way of canvasing but if the Winter Soldier is in this neighbourhood, and there's strong reason to believe he is, they don't want to tip him off.
Steve takes the picture, adjusts his huge glasses and peers at it in confusion. He glances up at her sharply and she knows this is not a dottery old man whose mind is starting to go.
He carefully puts the picture down. “Now, missy. Why are you pretending that the whole reason you're talking to me isn't this man?” He slides the picture back across the table towards her.
She picks it up and tucks it away. She doesn't let her face betray anything. “Be that as it may, have you seen him?”
Steve twists his mouth. Sighs. “ I told you, I don't get out much these days.”
“Anything you can tell me could help.” She insists.
He grimaces and stares pointedly at a book on one of his shelves.
“He looks a bit like someone I once knew...grab that red album on the third shelf there, would you?” He says, pointing to the book in question.
She stands up and hands it to him. He opens it. It's a photo album full of slightly faded sepia toned images. He pulls one out and hands it to her.
“Your boy looks a bit like my old friend. Funny thing is, Bucky's been dead for 71 years.”
She stares at him. He shrugs.
“Your neighbour said there was a young man who lived on this floor who matched the description.” She states.
Steve laughs. “She probably means Jimmy. He's a Support worker, comes by four times a week and helps me clean, cooks, picks up my presciptions. Honestly, she probably thinks all men with long dark hair look the same.”
“She said he had a prosthetic.”
“And she probably also mentioned that the damn thing's more trouble than it's worth. Nothing at all like what that man who killed Captain America had.”
Natasha stares at him open mouthed.
He takes a sip of his tea. “Please, I'm old, I'm not stupid. You tell Director Fury not to have his Agents come sniffing around here again, or I might get annoyed and start calling in old favours, and I'm ancient in case you hadn't noticed. I'm owed a hell of a lot of favours. I'm going to have to ask you to leave now, forgive me if I don't get up to show you out.”
Natasha nods and gathers up the papers including the old snapshot of Bucky, was it? And heads out the door.
“We've been made Clint. I think we should set up a perimeter in the neighbourhood. Nobody moves but we know about it. You and I head back to base and regroup.” she says into her com.
She pulls out the snapshot and stares at it. It's a typical snapshot from the war. Bucky is one hell of a good looking young man, smiling, and softly lit, he must have turned all the girls' heads, “Bucky, in his new sergeant's stripes” is written on the back, and then obviously later on someone had added “James Buchanan Barnes, 1917-1943”. Natasha shakes her head and wonders what exactly Steve was thinking giving her this.
--------------------------
Steve waits until he's sure the young lady is at least down the hall and gingerly gets up and heads to his bedroom. He opens the closet. Bucky is sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up in front of him and a strange vacant look in his eyes.
“I should go.” he murmurs.
Steve sighs. “You can't. They'll be watching this place pretty closely.”
“You're in danger. That woman...she's...I shouldn't have come here at all...”
Steve frowns and leans against the wall. “Maybe not. But, you're here now. And, it's my turn to fight the bullies off for ya. Okay, punk?”
Bucky stares up at him. “But they're bigger than you are. And...you got old.”
Steve laughs. “Don't you worry about a thing, Buck. I've got some big friends of my own to call.”
-------------------------------
Natasha is surprised when she gets a call from Director Fury halfway back to base.
“What's this I hear about you harassing a national treasure?” he barks.
“Um, pardon, sir?”
“Steve Rogers. I just got a call from him asking why I was sending assassins round his place.”
“I assure you I was not breaking protocol.”
“Oh, I believe you. Rogers has always been a pain in my ass.”
“Do you think he knows something?”
“Hard to know. But, he hasn't called me in years. Something's up. He tell you anything useful?”
“He said the picture I showed him looked a lot like his long dead friend. I'd think he was confused but, the man seems pretty sharp.”
“That he is. Miss Romanov. Rogers used to give J. Edgar Hoover nightmares I think. There was just nothing that could stop that man once he got going.”
“Well, he gave me a picture. I'm going to run it through facial recognition, probably just the old man messing with me but I want to be sure.”
“Do whatever you think it best Romanov, but stay the hell away from Rogers if you can help it. I do not need an exposé of SHIELD's Hydra problem on the internet or a call from the Secretary of Defense asking why I'm bothering his Godfather. Oh, and don't mention that you met him to Coulson, he'll want all his books signed. ”
Natasha nods and hangs up.
Clint smiles wryly at her. “Don't you love being an international woman of mystery and intrigue?”
She flicks him in the forehead for that but he just grins. She pulls out the snapshot Steve had given her and stares at the name. It can't hurt to run it through the databases right? Maybe he was involved in something Steve never knew about...
-------------------------------
Steve has shepherded Bucky into the kitchen because the living room had too many windows and the office where he worked on his writing was too cluttered and depressing to bring another person into.
So, they are sitting at the kitchen table staring at one another.
Looking at the 70 years he's missed Bucky wouldn't have had a clue where to begin if it weren't for the the veritable shrine to the Rogers clan that covered most of the wall.
“So, you had kids?” he asks
“Yes, two girls, Martha and Phillipa, and a boy, Howard James. He inherited my bad lungs though.” Steve takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. “When he was born the doctors said he wouldn't live through the night, but he lasted 3 months the tough little thing. Martha had some of my bad health as well, thank god for Phillipa, that girl is and always has been healthy as an ox.”
“So, you've been happy?”
Steve shrugs. “I've done my best with the world. Tried not to let it beat me down.”
“What did you do? After the war I mean?”
“Well, I was only involved in the war as a journalist, so I kept at that. I wrote some book. I was also involved politically for a time but..” Steve shook his head. “There's just no winning there.”
“I bet you liked Kennedy?” Bucky says, parroting the name of the only non-Hydra politician he could think of.
“Kennedy was a prize ass and played as dirty as the rest of them, but his politics were okay.”
Bucky gapes at Steve, who seems wholely unconcerned. “What? I'm not afraid to speak ill of the dead.” He pauses and then looks consideringly at Bucky. “You didn't kill him too, did you?”
Bucky frowns. “I don't think so. I wouldn't have made such a botch of it if nothing else.”
Steve sighs and looks up at the pictures on the wall. “You look about the same age as my oldest grandson. Jake. He's a smart one, joined the army. Motor mouth on him like you wouldn't believe.”
He points to a picture on the wall. A tall, muscular young man in dress uniform is grinning like a moron when most young men would try and be solemn for their official portrait.
“How many grand children have you got?” Bucky asks.
“Four: Susan and Johnny, are Martha's and then Phillipa's got Jake and Maria, plus two great-grandchildren. Probably more given Johnny's tendency to make wild choices. He's probably got at least one illegitimate love child.”
He points them out. Johnny looks like a younger, skinnier version of his cousin though there's something reckless in his smile that Jake seems to lack. Susan is olived skinned with honey blonde hair and so drop dead gorgeous Bucky finds himself entertaining impure thoughts about Steve's grand-daughter.
Maria is a dirty blonde with crooked teeth and kind eyes. Despite the superficial resemblance with his grandsons it's Maria who calls to mind the Steve Bucky used to know.
“They do okay?” Bucky wonders aloud.
Steve shrugs. “Jake's in Special Forces, I keep waiting for the news he's dead and I think he might be in love with someone in his unit.”
Bucky raises his eyebrows at that, and Steve smiles and shakes his head.
“I know! That boy couldn't do things the easy way if he tried. I mean he couldn't find some nice boy who doesn't make a living running through the jungle shooting at people? But, no! Anyway, Johnny's a pilot in NASA, but he's a reckless kid, gonna get into serious trouble one of these days. The girls are solid though. Maria's little girl Beth is a dream and I like Susan's fellow, he's a scientist.”
Bucky nods and smiles. “The boys are just too much like you to live a quiet life I guess.”
Steve smiles softly. “Yeah, they can't walk away from a fight either.”
Bucky looks up at the grinning fellow in the dress uniform, again.
“Hey, remember the queers?” he blurts out before he has time to think.
Steve gives him a deadpan look “You're going to need to be more specific.”
“The ones from the old neighbourhood. That fella that liked you so much...what was his name?”
“Her name was Cherry, and she didn't like me. She just thought I needed looking after.”
“Yeah, I remember I couldn't find you one night, I looked all over the neighbourhood and where were you?”
Steve blushes red. “Being patched up by a drag queen in a gay bar.”
Bucky grins.
“You know, Jake was all worried about coming out to me? Maria had to sit him down and say: Jake ain't you ever looked at Grandad's old pictures? Dude's been hanging with the gays his whole life.” Steve says with a laugh.
Buck's smile goes a bit watery. Steve looks at him sharply. “It's a shame though. I understand you can't find a handsome lonely seaman in Brooklyn these days.” He adds.
Bucky blushes bright red and stares at his plate. “Shuddup. You're just jealous everybody wanted a piece of this handsome devil, and you could never get a date..”
Steve smiles softly. “It doesn't matter, my girl found me.”
There's a picture of Steve and Peggy on the wall too, wrinkled as prunes and surrounded by their family.
Bucky smiles at his best friend. “You did good Steve.”
Steve shrugs. “Once we've got these bullies beat, you'll do okay for yourself too. Don't you worry.”
Bucky looks around the slightly shabby apartment full of the remains of a life well lived and remembers something he's always known: Steve was always the best thing in Brooklyn