Chapter Text
“Are you sure about this thing, Stark?” Steve asked as he eyed the machine nervously.
“As sure as I am of anything involving ripping the time-space continuum apart, sure,” Tony replied flippantly. He glanced up at Steve as he fiddled with the machine and seemed to calm for a moment when he saw the real apprehension in Steve’s expression. He stood up so fast that his spine was probably the straightest thing in the room and he met Steve’s eyes. “It’ll either take you to him, or it won’t do anything at all. No harm done.”
Steve nodded, taking a deep breath and crouching down on the metal plate Tony insisted would send him anywhere in the world. He didn’t know where Bucky was, or even how Bucky was, and he didn’t know what he’d be appearing in the middle of. It was best to be ready for a fight. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
“Okay. Mind on the prize, Cap. Here we go.”
Steve squeezed his eyes closed and thought about Bucky, thought about his smile, the way his eyes danced when he was singing around a campfire, the look of utter focus on his face when he stared down the scope of a rifle. That blue coat. He nodded without opening his eyes.
And the world around him screamed.
When silence settled over him once more, he glanced up, eyes darting around. The machine had done something, because the furniture in the Tower was in disarray and it seemed that the whole team had ducked for cover. Tony had even called his Iron Man suit. Some of it, anyway. Yeah, the machine had done something, alright, it looked like it had blown up while covering Steve in enough glitter for a week’s supply at that strip joint Tony had taken Steve to last year.
Steve grunted and stood, his shoulders slumping. There was more sparkly whatever it was on his chest and he brushed it away. “Dammit, Tony!” he snarled, glancing at Tony and gritting his teeth. “I’m still in the Tower, I told you this wouldn’t work.”
Tony popped the Iron Man faceplate up and blinked at Steve. “Uh.”
His goatee looked different. And his shirt? Steve scowled and pointed at him. “Did you change?”
Tony huffed indignantly. “Did you?”
==
Steve could now call himself a universal traveler, for what that was worth. He could tell the Steve of this universe wasn’t entirely pleased with his presence, but it wasn’t like Steve could just pack his bags and go on home. The machine had been a one-way trip, because they’d assumed Steve would get home by, you know, an airplane or something. But no, Delta couldn’t take his experimental ass home, so Other Steve was just grinning and bearing it right along with Steve.
And Bucky . . .
Steve had taken to calling this universe’s Bucky just ‘Buck’, because it was easier than letting this man become conflated with Original Recipe Bucky in his head. It would have been far too easy, to think of them as one and the same. And Steve’s feelings did not deserve that much torture.
Because Not His Bucky was sweet, and kind, and he showed the same protectiveness and care for Steve that Steve had grown up alongside and Steve missed his friend so damn much. This alternate world had been . . . well, it had been a bit of a Godsend. The Bucky of this world was what Steve imagined his old friend could have been, if Fate hadn’t had other plans. The Bucky of this world was something Steve prayed his own Bucky could become, if Steve could find him. Just the fact that he’d managed to avoid all of the Avengers’ efforts to find him told Steve that Bucky was absolutely sound of mind. It was just a matter of tracking his evasive ass down.
He couldn’t do that until they figured out how to send him home, though, so Steve’s eyes followed this world’s Bucky whether he meant for them to or not. Over the course of his visit, Steve found the words, “Do you remember?” on his tongue so many times as he stared at the man’s eyes.
But Buck didn’t remember, couldn’t, because he’d never been there. And Steve’s heart ached for home.
As the days drew on with no way home, though, Buck’s arm thrown around Steve’s shoulders to squeeze him as they laughed, and the pure understanding and empathy in the man’s familiar eyes began to have a placebo effect. The ache that had settled in Steve’s heart the moment he’d watched Bucky fall into a snow-filled abyss began to fade.
Something grew in its place, something it took Steve a few days to realize was hope.
When the time finally came for Steve to head back to his universe, Steve thanked both Buck and Other Steve for that; for giving him hope again. He would find his Bucky, and he would tell him that he loved him, no matter what. He had that promise to keep.
He also had the image of Bucky on his back with his legs wrapped around Other Steve’s hips to take home, so there was that.
He said his goodbyes, Polaroids of his time there in his utility belt more precious than gold as he rubbed his fingers on the button Other Stark had told him to press when he was ready.
But all he could see was the endless void of deep space, fucking thanks for that Other Tony fucking Stark. Steve was close to panicking as his mind focused on deep space and nothing but deep space. He knew exactly what it looked like; he had seen Johann Schmidt get sucked into it, after all.
He couldn’t even see Bucky’s beautiful eyes or his brilliant smile in his mind, panic swirling and sabotaging him.
Buck stalked up to him with a determined scowl, like he was about to lay Steve out for being stupid. It was frighteningly similar to the look Bucky had given Steve when he’d told him about the Vita-Rays and Erskine’s serum. Steve had honestly thought Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th was going to knock his superhuman head right off his superhuman block that night.
“Steve,” Buck said, waiting until Steve’s panicked thoughts faded enough to meet those gorgeous Arctic-blue eyes. Then Buck took his face in both hands and kissed him.
Their first kiss had been nothing but Steve’s mind swirling in a diatribe of Not Right Not Right Not Yours, and Steve being terrified that the Other Steve and possibly Buck too would slug him for letting it happen. This kiss, though, was something warm and sweet as honey, and Steve sank into it like a single mom with a bubble bath, a glass of wine, and a locked door.
Buck kept kissing him until the others were wolf-whistling at them, until Steve couldn’t think of anything but the way Buck felt in his arms, the way he tasted on Steve’s tongue. And good God, the man could kiss. Then Buck yanked away from him with a gasp, taking his hands off Steve’s face and meeting his eyes determinedly. Steve inhaled shakily as he stared, and Buck mimicked it, tongue darting over his lower lip like he was relishing the taste of that kiss.
Steve tried to speak, but nothing came. There was nothing he could say.
Buck gave him a soft, sad smile. It was the same smile Steve’s Bucky would give him, back when he was holding vigil over Steve’s death bed, or when they were heading out on a mission they both knew could be their last. It was a smile that had always said goodbye.
Buck’s voice was gruff when he said, “Push the button, asshole.”
Steve stared at him, frozen in this instant in time, praying that this wouldn’t be the last time he’d be able to feel this. His Bucky was out there. And he was going to find him. He raised the remote. “Thank you, Buck,” he whispered, and pressed the button.
The world screamed around him again.
==
Steve opened his eyes and looked around, halfway expecting to still be in the Tower and having accomplished nothing but knocking Buck’s fine ass to the ground again.
He was in an apartment that didn’t look much different from the old tenement buildings in his youth. There was a table shoved crookedly against the wall, a mattress on the floor, and not much else. Oh God, if he was time-traveling now Steve might just have to eat a bullet.
Oh, but there was something more important than furniture in the apartment. Bucky had been knocked clear across the room by the portal, and he was sitting with his legs splayed, back against the wall. Much like the alternate version had been when Steve first saw him, except this one had a knife held out in front of him instead of a spoon still dripping milk.
“Bucky?” Steve whispered.
Bucky rested his head against the wall, still breathing hard. He had a Sig Sauer in one hand and that Gerber Mark II in the other. Steve’s belly flipped with nostalgic joy when he saw the knife. He also had to give Bucky credit for having the wherewithal to arm himself while being flung across a room by a magically appearing hole in space that apparently offended the ears in much the same way as someone trying to suck popcorn out from between their teeth. Props.
“Jesus,” Bucky grunted. “My hallucinations never used to fight back.”
“I’m real.”
“Sounds like something a hallucination would say,” Bucky argued, but his voice was merely wry and gruff, not suspicious.
Steve opened his mouth, then snapped it back shut, squinting. “What would a hallucination not say? Pretend I said that instead.”
Bucky looked closer at him, the knife still holding him at bay. “You’re real?”
“I’m real,” Steve assured him in a broken whisper. He looked Bucky over like a starving man watching a steak on a grill. God, he looked so good! And he was really here, in front of Steve. “You’re real.”
Bucky rolled his eyes heavenward. “The fuck did you get yourself into now, asshole?”
Steve laughed and hung his head. “You have no idea.”
“What is that thing? And why is it so violent?” Bucky grumbled, scrunching up his nose. “And why does it make that sound?”
Steve raised his head, peering at Bucky with nothing but hope in his grin. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Bucky raised his hand to poke at his ear and then the back of his head, his fingers coming away with a dab of blood. “Well congratulations. You fucking found me. Jesus Christ.”
Steve lurched to his feet and took an impulsive step forward when he saw the blood. The Sig Sauer was trained on his forehead before he could blink. He raised both hands. “I’m not here to hurt you, Bucky. I’m here to bring you home. I’m here to help.”
Bucky’s tongue darted out over his bottom lip, something Steve knew he only did when he was nervous.
Steve crouched down again, slowly, so he was on the same level as Bucky. “You remember me?” he asked desperately.
Bucky looked down at the portal remote Steve still held, then narrowed his eyes when he met Steve’s. “You let some yahoo experiment on you again, didn’t you? Some mad scientist said, ‘hold my beer,’ and you pushed the button, right?”
Steve opened his mouth to protest. He was pretty sure Tony hadn’t been drinking that day . . .
“Can’t leave you alone for a second.”
Steve began to grin. “I missed you,” he whispered. “God, Bucky. I missed you.”
Bucky stared at him, expressionless, for long seconds. Then a smile flicked at the corner of his mouth. “I missed you too, Stevie,” he murmured. Then he pointed the blade of the knife at Steve, waving it at Steve’s face and then somewhere over his shoulder. “As soon as I stop seeing two of you, I might even be glad to see one of you.”
Steve began to laugh, ducking his head in relief.
==
Bucky was so much better than Steve could have ever hoped. He’d been prepared for the worst, for the vacant expression he’d fought on the streets of DC, for the anger from the helicarrier, for the insistence that Steve was a mission and nothing more. He certainly hadn’t dared to hope that Bucky had spent the last year remembering himself, including the wry part of himself that Steve had loved so dearly. That was exactly what he found, though.
Steve had to keep asking questions, sharing stories from their youth, listening to Bucky bitch at him for not taking better care of himself. It was the only way to be sure Steve was back in his home universe. That’s what he told himself, anyway. It wasn’t because the sound of Bucky’s voice was like music. But if Bucky complained one more time about his perfectly set up apartment that had been ready for literally every kind of attack that Steve had blown all to hell with the one thing Bucky hadn’t been prepared for, Steve might have to hurt him.
“I have to call my team. I’ve been gone for too long, they’ll think the worst.”
“Sounds like they know you pretty well,” Bucky drawled as he drove a junker car through the streets of Bucharest.
Steve had intended to drive, but Bucky also apparently remembered that Steve had learned to drive in Nazi Germany and had absolutely refused to get in the car until he had the keys in his metal hand.
“Do you have a phone?” Steve asked him.
“Do I look stupid to you?”
Steve squinted at him. “This is a trick question, isn’t it?”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “Who the fuck do you think I’m calling? Psychic hotline?”
“Oh,” Steve said thoughtfully, frowning at the dashboard. “Psychic hotline probably would have been easier than machine that rips into reality.”
“Jesus, Steve.”
“We need to find a phone.”
“Seventy-one years later, and Captain America is still high maintenance,” Bucky grumbled under his breath. “Who made that doohickey you flash around with?”
“Tony Stark. He’s Iron Man. Howard’s son.”
“I know who Tony Stark is,” Bucky assured him. “Trust me. You do not want to show up at his door with me in tow, Steve.”
“Why not? He’s been helping me to find you, my whole team –”
“Steve,” Bucky said through gritted teeth. He was staring at the road and gripping the steering wheel. “Howard and his wife were killed by Hydra.”
Steve cleared his throat, ducking his head. “I know.”
“Do you?” Bucky asked pointedly.
Steve sighed. “I couldn’t be sure it was you.”
“Don’t lie to me, Stevie, you got too many tells.”
Steve peered at him, taking in his profile like a man dying of thirst.
“Does Stark know?” Bucky asked.
“No,” Steve whispered.
Bucky nodded, his jaw tightening. “Then I’ll give you a phone. And that’s the first thing you’re telling him.”
“Oh, so now you have a phone?”
“Don’t you sass me, Rogers,” Bucky growled as he pulled to the side of the road and started digging in his pack.
==
The call didn’t go particularly well. But it could have been a lot worse. While Steve had been missing, the Avengers had been scouring the globe for both him and Bucky. Their working theory, after believing Steve had been poofed into stardust or something because apparently the machine spat that weird disappearing glitter from both ends, was that Steve had found Bucky and Bucky had either killed him or they’d run off together.
Steve didn’t even blame them for any of the three theories. But while Tony had been searching, he’d also found a lot of the files regarding the Winter Soldier, and he claimed to have spent several sleepless nights avoiding nightmares because of them.
So yeah, Tony wasn’t thrilled that the man who’d murdered his parents was winging his way to the Tower on one of his private jets, but he also knew that the man who’d killed his parents hadn’t been Bucky Barnes.
Steve couldn’t help thinking back to that other universe, where Bucky and Tony had gleefully played with things that exploded in the workshop well into the night. He was pretty sure that wouldn’t be happening in his world.
==
Steve had been wrong. He’d been so wrong. After a week or so of icy silences and Bucky slinking out of a room just seconds before Tony entered it, the Avengers were awoken in the middle of the night by an explosion that rocked the upper levels of Avengers Tower.
Steve was still in his boxers when he pushed through the debris of the workshop with the shield on his arm. The rest of the team wasn’t much more prepared for battle, if that was what this was. It was the first time he’d ever seen Natasha’s hair look out of control, and that included alien attacks and riding shotgun when the Hulk hopped onto the floating island of Sokovia.
“Tony?” Steve called into the destroyed workshop.
He received a groan in response. A metal sheet shifted in the middle of the room and Bucky pushed onto his hands and knees, the sheet sliding aside with his movements.
“Jesus!” Steve cried, and he began picking his way through the destruction. “Buck, what the hell?”
“That one’s on me,” a pile of trash muttered from under Bucky.
As Steve got closer, he saw that the pile of trash was Tony, which seemed a little too appropriate, maybe? Bucky had actually been on top of Tony, apparently shielding him from the blast with his body, and with the metal sheet protecting them both from flying shrapnel.
“Told you not to poke it,” Bucky groaned to Tony.
Tony nodded, closing his eyes. “But I poked it anyway, yeah. Thanks, dad.”
“You’re going to bed without dessert,” Bucky moaned as he rolled off Tony and flopped to his back, blinking at the ceiling.
To Steve’s shock, Tony began to chuckle as the two of them sprawled, side by side.
“What the hell happened?” Natasha demanded from the safety of the hallway, which had been saved by the wall of ballistic glass around the workshop.
“We poked it,” Tony and Bucky answered in unison. Bucky added something muttered in Russian. Steve was pretty sure it was Russian. Bucky spoke at least eight languages that he’d told them about, though, so it could have been anything.
Tony sat up, his T-shirt steaming a little and his hair sticking straight up. “Barnes had a theory about Steve’s portal. We were tweaking it.”
Steve glanced around the destroyed workshop. “This was tweaking?”
“Minor tweaking,” Bucky answered.
Tony groaned and listed sideways, his head winding up resting on Bucky’s stomach. Bucky, the man who shied away even from Steve’s hand, didn’t even flinch.
Steve gaped at them. He glanced back at the rest of the team, but most of them had already performed Olympic-level eye rolls and left. Sam still stood there, arms crossed, shaking his head like a disappointed father.
Sam would have made a great father; he was disappointed all the time.
Steve gingerly helped Tony to his feet, then offered his hand down to Bucky. Tony was picking his way toward the door, and Bucky shook his head when he got to his feet, blinking hard as he held to Steve’s shoulder. Steve couldn’t help it, his belly fluttered with butterflies when Bucky’s hands touched his bare skin. His mind flashed back to a memory of Buck on his back, holding Other Steve to him, and he remembered the way those lips had felt on his. He was suddenly very aware of his boxers.
“Okay?” Steve asked as a distraction until he could settle the fuck down.
“Bet that fucked up my hair, huh?” Bucky asked with a little smirk.
Steve ran his fingers through the worst of it. It was sort of beyond help. “Uh. Yes.”
Bucky grunted and started making his way to the door, Steve right behind him. Bucky patted Tony on the shoulder before staggering toward the elevator.
“Same time tomorrow night, Pinky?” Tony asked with a grin.
Bucky barked a laugh, like he got the reference Steve knew he himself was missing. “Yeah.”
In the elevator, Bucky rolled his head from side to side, wincing as his neck cracked.
Steve stared at him.
“What?” Bucky asked, voice gruff. He ran both hands through his hair, but it didn’t do anything to fix the fact that he looked like he’d just been blown up.
“When did you and Tony Stark become buddies?” Steve asked.
Bucky shrugged. “I overheard him muttering to himself about the portal math. I . . . spoke before I could stop myself. Next thing I knew it was three hours later and we were down here fiddling.”
“That’s just how you and Howard became friends,” Steve murmured.
Bucky gave him a tight smile. “Apparently, science bridges a lot of gaps.”
“Oh, God,” Sam muttered from behind them.
Steve found himself grinning, though. Bucky eyed him suspiciously. Steve just continued beaming at him, and Bucky rolled his eyes.
“One of the books they wrote about the Commandos had a section on you,” Steve told him. “It talked about your ability as a sniper. About the shots you made, the math you had to’ve done in your head before each one. The strategic placement of your hides. After it came out, it kind of became a popular theory that you were probably the brains of the operation.”
“I was the brains of the operation,” Bucky muttered grumpily.
“That explains so much,” Sam whispered. He had to know they could both hear him. He never cared.
Steve was still grinning. “I know. I’m just glad other people know it, too.”
Bucky very carefully did not look at Steve as the elevator came to a stop. “Have you seen the comics?” Bucky asked, no inflection in his voice.
Steve glanced at him sideways, very careful to bite down on his smile. Sam made a strangled noise behind them. Steve had to be careful when he spoke, so his voice didn’t shake, “From the 40’s?”
Bucky’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Sam was smart enough to stay silent.
“With the . . .” Steve cleared his throat.
“You’re the one who wore tights and I end up goddamn jailbait,” Bucky grumbled, stepping out of the elevator as Steve stifled a snicker. “And a fucking twink on top of that!”
“Wait,” Steve called after him. “What’s a twink?”
Bucky didn’t even turn around. “Jesus, Steve.”
Sam patted Steve on the shoulder. “Don’t Google it, man.”
==
Steve had thought that one of his fondest wishes was for Bucky and his Avengers teammates to get along. He’d been wrong. He’d been so wrong. It had only been two weeks.
First of all; Bucky Barnes and Clint Barton should never have been introduced to each other in any universe, for God’s sake. Steve . . . didn’t want to talk about it. And secondly! Bucky and Natasha should never be allowed in the same universe. They were a holy Russian terror. Thirdly? Steve was beginning to fear that Bucky and Tony not only getting along, but actually collaborating, was a very bad thing. A Very Bad Thing.
You see, Bucky Barnes had never been a stupid man. Far from it. History had not treated his legacy well, in Steve’s opinion, first casting him as the plucky teen sidekick who often gave the story of Captain America its sentimental twist – and in Steve’s personal opinion maybe a hint of pedophilia? – and then seeing him through several renditions of tragic hero, tragic villain, tragic sidekick, and then back to tragic hero. Basically, history remembered Bucky as tragic, which . . . but it didn’t particularly remember him as being smart.
But Bucky had graduated top of his class. He’d dragged Steve to every goddamn science expo in God’s creation right up until the day he’d shipped out, and then spent almost as much time with Howard Stark creating new and frightening ways to kill Nazis as Howard had. How he’d been cast as the everyman soldier on the ground Steve would honestly never know, even though he had been an excellent sergeant.
Now Steve’s metaphorical headache was repeating itself, except Bucky had seventy-plus years of Hydra scientist rambling he’d absorbed like a sponge, and he had Tony fucking Stark. Steve sort of missed the other world’s Bucky, who had just been a magnet for trouble, rather than the goddamn source.
“Why the long face?” Sam asked as he sat down opposite where Steve had been moping at the kitchen table.
Steve glared at him. Sam held up both hands, laughing silently as he called a truce.
“I was just . . . thinking.”
“Well, that explains why you look like you’re in pain,” Sam muttered as he slapped a file down on the table.
Steve made a face that was childish enough he hoped Sam didn’t see it. “Ha.”
“You and Barnes have it out or something?” Sam asked, all careless like he was just tossing the comment out there. Sam never worked that way though, he chose his observations carefully and used them like Bucky’s Mark II.
“No. Why?”
“He’s been in Stark’s mad science lair a lot lately,” Sam said with a shrug. “Thought maybe it was a thing.”
“It’s not a thing.”
Sam cocked an eyebrow at him.
“It’s not a thing,” Steve insisted.
“Alright.”
There was a muffled boom from a few floors up and Steve sighed. Sam narrowed his eyes at him. “Okay, it might be a thing,” Steve groaned as he pushed to his feet.
Sam followed him to the elevator and they made their way to the workshop. Tony and Bucky were on the other side of the glass, scowling at something on a table.
Steve knocked on the glass and they both looked up. “Is it safe to come in?” Steve called.
Tony waved them in, and FRIDAY opened the doors for them.
Steve stepped warily into the space, Sam holding back suspiciously like the intelligent, normal person he was. It smelled like . . . Sulphur maybe? Something burning. “What was the sound?” Steve asked.
“We may have fixed the portal thing,” Tony said excitedly.
“Or developed time-travel,” Bucky added as he stared at the thing on the table. “We’re not sure.”
“The only way to be sure is to test it!” Tony said heatedly, as if it had been an ongoing argument.
“I ain’t pressing that button, Stark,” Bucky growled.
“You’re enhanced! It probably won’t kill you!”
“I have been very well-trained to avoid things that probably won’t kill me.”
Steve could feel a headache encroaching, which he knew was all stress, because he didn’t get headaches otherwise.
“Look, poking into alternate universes is dangerous enough, but messing around with time,” Bucky started, shaking his head.
“Then we develop a . . .” Tony pointed at Steve, eyes widening with the light of an idea. “A shield! Something to make sure you’re not seen and can’t interfere, just observe.”
“You want to send me through time in a stealth bubble.”
“This is how literally every apocalyptic movie I’ve ever seen starts,” Sam offered from behind Steve.
Bucky was staring down at the thing on the table, which Steve realized was just a piece of wood.
“Come on!” Tony cried, waving his hands at all of them indiscriminately. “Don’t you want to see events from the past happening right in front of you?”
“No,” Steve and Bucky both answered. Bucky cast Steve a stray glance and grinned at him. Then he winked.
Steve’s stomach decidedly did not tumble end over end.
“What’s the . . . thing?” Sam asked with a jut of his chin at the piece of wood.
“It’s a stick,” Bucky answered, staring at Sam like he was an idiot.
To Sam’s credit, he barely rolled his eyes. Steve half expected him to pick the stick up and try to convince Bucky to go fetch it.
“I reached through the portal and grabbed it,” Tony told them, eyes gleaming.
“From where?” Steve asked hesitantly.
“We don’t know!” Tony answered gleefully.
Bucky gave a long-suffering sigh. “Some guy probably used this stick to save himself from a dinosaur and now all of history is fucked.”
Tony whirled on him like he was about to argue, so Steve stepped forward and held up both hands. “Can we not fuck up the time-space continuum again this year? Please?”
“I second that,” Bucky said, pointing at Steve. “He’s lucky he was sent to a universe where the people there helped him, where they could help him –”
“Exactly! They solved the problem of being able to return by making the device mobile!” Tony cried.
“Where they helped him,” Bucky said again through gritted teeth, and all three of them took a tiny step away from his angry expression. “And didn’t just kill him. That luck won’t hold, Tony. You can’t play with this shit. And you can’t fuck around with time!”
“If you could go back and change what happened to you, wouldn’t you?” Tony asked him quietly.
Bucky licked his bottom lip furtively, frowning down at the stick. He stared at it for a long, tense moment that Steve could feel digging icy fingers into his heart. “No,” he finally said after his silence. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Tony’s shoulders slumped and he rested both elbows on the table.
“You’re familiar with the theory of Ephochal time, right?” Bucky said to Tony gently. “Existing reality grows out of the past?”
“Yes,” Tony said dejectedly.
“You change one thing, and either time will correct itself accordingly, like a stream flowing around a pebble. Or it will cascade, and everything we know now will change,” Bucky murmured to him. Steve stared at him in shock. How the fuck? “Either way, Stark, going back and saving your parents? It won’t work.”
Tony lowered his head as Steve blinked at them both. That was quite the leap in their conversation, but Bucky obviously knew Tony just as well, if not better, than Steve ever had to so swiftly decipher what Tony’s goal here really was. Steve had still been stuck on how Bucky thought the fucking stick could kill a dinosaur.
When Steve turned his attention fully on Bucky, Bucky was grimacing at him. They both shrugged as if they’d been having a telepathic conversation on what they could say to make it better and both come up with squat. Sam grunted at them in disgust. He hated it when Steve and Bucky had silent conversations, and Steve wasn’t all too sure why.
“Christ, okay,” Tony grunted finally. “You’re right, for all we fucking know, if we go back and save your dumb ass, the Nazis win or some bullshit.”
Bucky kept quiet, watching Tony carefully. Steve finally decided for a nice ‘there, there’ pat on Tony’s shoulder, which Tony didn’t even seem to notice.
“Okay, let’s get this cleaned up,” Tony muttered to Bucky.
Sam grabbed at Steve’s belt, giving him a gentle tug to tell him to leave with him and let Tony and Bucky have a moment, but Steve wasn’t sure this was a situation he wanted to leave without a responsible adult . . . Sam couldn’t leave, he was the only one they knew.
Tony and Bucky both reached for the tabletop to tidy the bits away, and then all Steve could see was a flash of blinding white, and he heard the now familiar sound of the universe screaming around him.
==
Tony’s feet hit the ground hard, and his knees buckled. He fell to all fours, coughing and gagging. Fingers were digging into his shoulder, gripping him, shaking him.
“Jesus!” Sam cried from somewhere to his right. He coughed and sputtered, wheezing just like Tony was. “The fuck did you do?”
“Oh, God,” Steve muttered. “Not this shit again.”
Tony glanced up, squinting through the dust that was settling. Bucky was on his hands and knees in front of him, the tips of their fingers still touching. And Steve was standing next to Tony, glancing around, his fingers still gripping Tony’s shoulder like a goddamn eagle’s talons. Fucking patriotic asshole.
“What the fuck?” Tony managed to ask.
“We went through the portal,” Steve growled. “Who pressed the button!”
“We didn’t,” Bucky groaned, his head hanging. “We didn’t touch anything but the fucking table.”
“I’m gonna be sick,” Sam wheezed. Tony didn’t glance over, but Sam was definitely gagging.
“What the fuck,” Tony said again, still gasping for air. “Is that what it’s supposed to feel like? Jesus, that was the exact opposite of fun.”
“Pretty much, yeah,” Steve answered.
“Are we in another universe?” Sam asked in a high-pitched panic. “Did I just throw up in another universe?”
Tony glanced around them, and Bucky and Steve were both eyeing the area. They were in Tony’s workshop.
“FRIDAY?” Tony asked hopefully.
“Welcome back, Boss,” FRIDAY answered. “All your life signs are reading normal.”
“Well, at least there’s that,” Bucky muttered.
“What do you mean, back?” Tony asked.
“You’ve been gone for five minutes,” FRIDAY informed them, delivered way too calmly to be telling four humans they just dissolved into nothingness for 300 whole seconds.
“What,” Bucky grunted.
“Where did we go?” Steve asked, sounding more appropriately panicked.
“Are we in the right world?” Sam shouted at FRIDAY.
“Yes, sir. You are home.”
Tony glanced around, suddenly realizing that they might be there, but the table was gone. He blinked at the floor where it had been bolted down. “Huh. Wait, did Sam just yark in my workshop?”
“It would appear so, Boss.”
“Did we just send a table into another universe?” Bucky asked softly.
Tony grimaced. “At least we still have the stick?”
“That doesn’t feel like a fair trade.”
Steve had both hands on top of his head. He was the only one who’d made it to his feet yet. “Well,” he said, glancing around at all the dust around them. “At least a table would be easier to kill a dinosaur with.”
“What?” Sam shouted at Steve.
Bucky ran one finger through the dust around them, bringing it close to his face to peer at it. “Oh shit,” he muttered. He glanced up at Tony. “It’s silver.”
Tony barely sideswiped a comment about Bucky’s metal fingers and mimicked him instead, squinting at the silver dust on the tip of his finger. “Oh, my God. Is this the table? FRIDAY analyze?”
“It does appear to mostly consist of aluminum, sir.”
“We . . . what, dissolved a table?” Bucky asked.
“Not the appropriate terminology,” Tony answered distractedly.
“Fuck your terminology.”
Tony was scanning all the dust, eyes darting. “FRIDAY, what happened?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know, sir.”
“What do you know?” Steve demanded.
“You all appear to be in good health.”
Steve peered up at the ceiling, eyes narrowing.
Tony cocked his head at him. “You know, you do that since you came back from that other place. Look up when you talk to her.”
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Steve muttered. “What just happened?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
Bucky was still on his knees, peering around at the dust around him. “All the components we had out are gone.”
Tony waved at the dust. “I’m sure they’re still here in some form,” he said wryly.
“You know what?” Sam shouted. “Fuck this! Fuck that stuff. Fuck all y’all! I’m going to go throw up in my room!”
They all watched him stomp out, then Steve turned to peer down at them both. “Do I even have to say this?”
“You’re going to tell us both to go get some sleep and that we have to have adult supervision from now on?” Bucky guessed.
Steve made a face at him, then nodded.
Bucky lowered his head, looking around at the dust critically.
Tony nodded, peering up at Steve. “That’s fair.”
==
Steve was listlessly poking at his breakfast when Bucky slid into the seat two chairs away. Steve glanced up, and Bucky was looking at him carefully. “Morning,” Steve offered.
“Morning. You okay?” Bucky asked.
Steve shrugged, offering a tense smile.
Bucky sighed, crossing his arms on the table in front of him and lowering his head. “Now a good time to talk?”
Steve winced. Bucky never used to be careful around him like this. “Sure.”
“You seem like you’re pining,” Bucky said without preamble.
Steve stared at him, his stomach suddenly churning the toast he’d just eaten. “What?”
“Ever since we’ve gotten here. You seem like you’re . . . sad. Missing something. Someone, maybe?” Bucky winced at him. “I was designated against my will as the one who had to bring it up, since everyone seemed to think you’d get better after I came in.”
“The team thinks I’m sad?” Steve asked, aghast.
“The theory is that there was someone in that other universe you went to. Someone you’re missing.” Bucky chewed on his bottom lip, his eyes on Steve’s plate instead of Steve. He glanced up at Steve quickly, then away again. When he continued, his words were fast and shaky, like he was trying to get it out as quickly as possible. “We don’t want to lose you. I don’t. But Tony and I thought maybe, if we could stabilize the portal, make it so you can go back safely and easily, you could . . . you could go be with them sometimes and be happy but still be here.”
Steve’s mouth dropped open and he didn’t even try to prevent it. “That’s why you’ve been messing with that thing?”
Bucky shrugged and winced again, looking toward the elevators like he wanted to bolt. He stayed, though, lowering his head again. He was chewing on his lip again. “Only thing I ever wanted was for you to be happy, Steve. Were we right?” he asked without looking back at Steve.
Steve caught his breath, leaning forward to get a better look at his face. Were they right? Was Steve pining? “Yeah,” he answered breathlessly. “Yeah, you were.”
Bucky swallowed hard, nodding his head jerkily. “Was it the other me?” Steve blinked at him, and when he didn’t answer, Bucky glanced at him, narrowing his eyes. “I see the way you look at me sometimes. Like you’re missing someone who’s not actually me.”
Steve was already shaking his head as Bucky spoke, and he lurched out of his chair to scramble into the one next to Bucky. Bucky leaned away from the table and from him, watching him warily.
“I am. I guess. The other you was an incredible guy, I really liked him. But you’re right, he wasn’t you.”
Bucky frowned at him, obviously confused.
Steve huffed and looked down just to give himself a moment. “I made him a promise, before I left. He made me promise I’d tell you how I felt about you when I found you,” he admitted, voice choked. “He always said when, never if. He had so much faith in me; he was just like you, Bucky, God! But the moment I got back, I . . .”
“Wait, what?” Bucky grunted.
Steve glanced up carefully. “It’s not him I’m pining over,” Steve admitted. “It’s you, Bucky.”
Bucky blinked at him, lips parting in shock.
Steve gritted his teeth and looked away, taking a deep breath. “I’ve loved you forever.” He made himself look back at Bucky’s shocked face. “And I’m not talking the kind of love that gets a manly slap on the shoulder before we go on a mission.”
Bucky scowled. “I don’t do that.”
“You always do that.”
“Well, so do you!”
“I do it because you do it!”
“I only ever did it because you did it!” Bucky closed his eyes and held up a hand almost before his last word was out. “Wait. Get back on track, Rogers.”
Steve cleared his throat. “I’m just . . . I told him I’d tell you. And now I’m telling you.”
“Why was it so important to him?” Bucky whispered.
“In that other place, the other us? They were together. Their whole world knew it, too. And they were so fucking happy. And he knew from one look at me when he asked about you that I felt the same way about you. He cared. He wanted me to be . . .”
Bucky was still staring at him, scowling. “How long have you felt this way?”
“Since as long as I can remember.”
That seemed to make Bucky scowl harder. “Not just after the serum?”
Steve shook his head, and Bucky looked back down at the table, staring hard at his hand still propped there. Steve watched him and waited, his heart hammering harder and harder as more time passed.
Bucky finally ran his tongue over his lower lip, which he’d always done when he was about to make a leap. Or walk into a hail of bullets. “I was always too much of a coward to tell you this. But since you’re being brave and all. I spent a lot of my time with men, back before the War. I was afraid of what you’d think, so I kept it quiet. And I always thought of you as a brother,” he admitted, and Steve’s heart absolutely sank just as fast as his hopeful expression.
Bucky took another glance at him and seemed to read from Steve’s face how poorly Steve’s internal gears were reacting to this news. He reached out, but stopped himself from touching Steve. His hand flopped onto his knee since he was still leaning away from Steve.
“I had never let myself look at you any other way, Steve, I didn’t want to risk our friendship,” Bucky explained quickly. “But then you showed up in that factory and pulled me off that table. I started looking at you different without even realizing it, until it was too late. I always wondered if it was just the new version of you, or if it was the serum they put in me. And no matter which reason I settled on, it would have been so unfair to you to tell you.”
Steve let out a puff of air like he’d been jabbed in the stomach. “Bucky, what . . .”
“For a year and a half during the War, I kept trying to convince myself it was just . . . I don’t know.” He stared at Steve, frowning worriedly. “You were still the Steve I’d known. But it was more. The way I felt about you, it was more. The way I wanted to rip things apart when I saw you looking at Carter. But I didn't want to test how indebted you might have felt to our friendship by telling you.”
Steve couldn’t even manage to swallow, his mouth was so dry. “Do you still feel that way?”
“Maybe,” Bucky whispered.
Steve couldn’t help the relieved smile that he gave Bucky, and Bucky offered a rather timid one in return.
“I know one thing for sure; thinking you were all tore up over someone else was playing hell on me. But . . . can you give me some time to ruminate?” Bucky requested. He waved at his head. “I got a lot that’s still . . . swimming.”
“We got all the time in the world, Buck,” Steve answered, feeling lighter than he had in . . . hell, in years. “I’d like to say all that swimming you’re doing is one reason I was keeping quiet, but I know it’s just that I was scared.”
Bucky shook his head, smiling at Steve softly. “You’re braver than I was ever gonna be.”
Steve reached out slowly, so Bucky would know it was coming, and he placed his hand on Bucky’s bicep. It was the metal one, and Steve didn’t care. Bucky looked down at Steve’s hand, probably to hide behind that hair. Steve was pretty sure Bucky hadn’t cut it for that exact purpose. Bucky raised his hand, brushing his fingertips over Steve’s knuckles.
“So,” he said, taking a deep breath and shaking his shoulders out like he was trying to leech off tension. Steve removed his hand. Bucky would tolerate all kinds of touching, but Steve knew it made him antsy. “Does that mean we don’t need to fix the portal? It wasn’t this alternate world you were pining for after all?”
Steve smiled gently, realizing that the idea of the portal never being stable made him rather melancholy. “I’d still like to be able to go back, at least once more. I also promised them I’d try to let them know how things worked out. They knew I was looking for you. They . . . well, they were worried about you just like I was.”
Bucky nodded. “Okay then.”
Steve bit his lip, watching Bucky carefully.
Bucky narrowed his eyes. “What?”
Steve scrunched up his nose, trying to decide how much more he needed to disclose. Bucky looked suspicious as fuck now, and Steve knew he’d have to give Bucky at least one answer.
But then Bucky rolled his eyes, sighing heavily. “Did you bone one of them?”
Steve nearly clutched his imaginary pearls, eyes widening. “No!”
“But you wanted to.”
Steve hummed dubiously. “No?”
“Oh, my God, Steve, please tell me it was alternate me and not alternate you.”
“What? No! Wait . . .”
Bucky raised both eyebrows expectantly.
Steve realized his face was heating in a blush, and he looked around the room for something to focus on that wasn’t the memory of barging in on Other Steve fucking Buck in the foyer. He pursed his lips. “I kind of . . . saw some things that might have been interesting,” he finally hedged. “And I got one purely accidental kiss.”
“Twin dilemma,” Bucky said with an understanding nod.
Steve barked a laugh. “Yeah. And when I was coming home, I was sort of panicked about the possibility of winding up being portaled off to deep space, so Buck – the other you, I mean – he kissed me.”
“He kissed you to keep you from panicking?” Bucky asked, tone dry as Death Valley.
“It worked,” Steve told him defensively. “Got me right to you.”
Bucky pursed his lips, nodding as he stared at Steve thoughtfully. “He a good kisser?”
Steve was now blushing furiously, and none of the common room furniture was going to be able to help him focus on anything but that memory. “Yeah.”
Bucky’s answering grin was possibly one of the most terrifying things Steve had ever witnessed, and Steve had seen some Shit, okay. “Better hope I don’t meet this guy, then,” Bucky decided, patting Steve on the cheek as he stood. “Good talk.”
“Wait, what?” Steve blurted as he stared after Bucky’s retreat.
“I’m supposed to meet Clint for a workout in five minutes,” Bucky said over his shoulder.
“Bucky, please don’t go through the portal and kill yourself, okay?” Steve called after him.
“Sure, Stevie.”
“Buck!”
Bucky snickered, giving Steve a careless wave without turning around, heading for the elevator. Steve rolled his eyes and deflated, leaning hard on the back of his chair as he began to process the whole conversation. He’d just told Bucky how he felt about him, after all this. And not only had Bucky admitted that he was queer after all, but it was also possible Bucky had once and might still feel the same about Steve.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered to himself. He pressed his hand to his heart. “Yeah, okay. Still going.”
==
Steve was jarred from a dream he couldn’t remember by a knock on his door in the middle of the night. He woke fully alert and rolled out of bed into a semi-crouch, but as soon as he realized there was no threat, his brain went back to sleep, leaving him standing in his boxers with slumped shoulders and rubbing at his eyes. He trudged to the door and swung it open to see Tony shuffling guiltily in the hallway.
“Tony? Are you okay?”
“I need your help,” Tony said, sounding almost apologetic.
Steve squinted at him muzzily. He couldn’t remember the last time Tony had sounded apologetic about anything, especially not before anything was even on fire or trying to destroy the planet. “Am I going to regret this?” Steve asked.
Tony merely nodded, lips pressed into a thin line.
“I’ll put on some clothes.”
“Grab some shoes too,” Tony called into Steve’s apartment. “And . . . maybe the shield? Yeah, definitely the shield. Shield before shoes.”
Steve groaned as he headed back to his bedroom.
==
“I’ve been working on the portal,” Tony was saying as they rode up to the floor below the penthouse where his workshop was. He was speaking almost as much with his hands as he was with his mouth and Steve was valiantly restraining his urge to flinch away from every flail. “The reports say that when you faced the Red Skull on the Valkyrie before you took your little nap, you saw him handle the Tesseract, and then it dropped through the hull of the plane.”
Steve nodded, still trying to get his brain to go back on high alert rather than sleep mode, because this sounded like a high alert conversation. “It opened up something, I saw . . . deep space,” Steve muttered with a shiver. “Schmidt just dissolved into the stars. Then . . .”
Tony was nodding, staring at Steve with wide eyes. “I think whatever he activated in the Tesseract to make it do that, hit you as well,” Tony said with a point of one finger into Steve’s chest.
“No, I wasn’t hit. I never came in contact with the cube.”
“Not physically, no. I’m talking molecular level, here, a burst.”
“What like . . . the cube hit me with its WiFi?”
“Yes, Steve, exactly like WiFi,” Tony deadpanned, but he was apparently too caught up in his excitement to poke more fun at Steve or realize that Steve was being sarcastic to start with. He just kept plowing forward in his mildly alarming interpretive dance. “We can’t get the portal to do anything but open a window big enough to stick a hand through for a few seconds. I lost two remote gauntlets to the damn thing in the last week.”
“Wait, you’re leaving severed robot hands all over the multiverse?” Steve squeaked.
Tony waved him away with a scoff. “There’s no tech in these, it’s fine. I’ve been trying to figure out how the portal worked for you, but not for us.”
“Okay?”
“I think you’re the factor we’re missing.”
Steve shook his head.
“You got it to work twice. And the thing with the table the other night, I’ve been reviewing the video. You were touching me. And Wilson was touching you. And Barnes and I accidentally brushed fingers like eighth graders on a date. All four of us were connected by touch in the very moment we disappeared. Whatever that was, I think you powered it.”
“How?” Steve asked, both bewildered and kind of concerned that he may have been the one who dissolved that table with the wrong terminology.
“My working theory is that the Tesseract left what is essentially radiation on or in you that’s still there, somehow. Steve, I think you are the battery that’s powering the portal.”
Steve scowled at their reflections in the elevator doors. When they dinged and slid open, he was staring at a very different scowl. Bucky stood with his arms crossed, the most impressive frown on his face that Steve had ever witnessed, and Steve still had very clear recall of the man trying to gut him like a fish on the street.
“Buck?” Steve said as Tony made a groaning sound in the back of his throat.
“You’re not doing this,” Bucky growled at Tony.
“I’m not sending him anywhere, I just want to test the theory! Open a portal and compare its stability!”
Bucky gritted his teeth.
“Buck,” Steve said again. “I want to see if he’s right.”
Bucky looked at Steve almost pitifully, his shoulders slumping as the intimidating scowl morphed into the persuasive pout that had given Mary Margaret O’Reilly’s virginity the wrong directions to Chastityville in 1937. “Please don’t do this, Stevie. We have no idea what kind of effect this has on you.”
“Just one time,” Steve bargained.
“The Tesseract,” Bucky said, his voice hoarse and breaking so much he couldn’t even finish what he’d been saying. Steve knew how much time Bucky had spent held captive after the Battle of Azzano, assembling Hydra’s Tesseract-powered weapons.
“I know,” Steve whispered, he stepped forward and grabbed Bucky’s shoulder, squeezing him.
Bucky scowled down at his hand, then looked at Steve from under his fully returned ‘I’ll gut you’ eyebrows. “Did you just give me a manly slap on the shoulder before a mission?” he asked flatly.
Steve winced. “Wow, I guess that was me who started that, huh?”
Bucky rolled his eyes. He jerked his head toward the workshop and stepped aside, letting them exit the elevator. “We do this, I’ve got my hand on you the entire time. You get yanked through, I’m coming with you.”
Steve gave a curt nod. “Always.”
“Leave the shield on,” Bucky ordered.
Steve nodded, reaching over his shoulder to tap the shield. “You know I can take care of myself even unarmed, right?”
Bucky frowned at him like Steve hadn’t understood. “The table, it got reduced to its base elements. You understand? When Hydra was creating those weapons, they had a conductor for the power of the cube. They contained the power, channeled it. You understand what I’m saying?”
Steve nodded again even though he wasn’t quite sure he did.
“Tony and I think the shield acts as a conductor. Without it,” Bucky winced, not finishing his warning.
Steve blanched and blinked at him. “Oh. Right. Yeah.”
“Leave the shield on.”
When the universe started screaming at him a few minutes later, Steve wasn’t sure why he hadn’t just let Bucky herd them both back to bed.
Maybe Steve needed adult supervision, too.