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Waking from a surreal nap and stepping through a golden portal into an apocalyptic battlefield filled with angry aliens and superheroes? Par for the day, really—a day that started in Wakanda with angry aliens, a giant forcefield, and at least one talking raccoon with a machine gun.
Once the battle was over, though, the adrenaline began to recede, to be replaced by the jittery exhaustion he remembered from long ago—not from his missions as the Soldier, but from the battlefields and strike missions of the Second World War. Bone-deep fatigue punctuated by episodes of shell-shocked terror. As much as he treasured many of the pre-Soldier memories that he had gotten back during his time in Wakanda, those were not so welcome.
He saw what he was feeling mirrored in Steve’s face.
“Bucky.” A filthy, injured Steve stumbled to him from his place at Stark’s side.
He stepped forward to grab and hug Steve, not too surprised when his friend collapsed in his arms, sobbing. He was more surprised when he made out the words between the sobs. “You died...five years...You were dust in my hands, Buck.”
“What are you talking about, Steve? I’m not dead.”
Steve lifted his head and took a deep, stuttering breath. “Thanos won the first time, Buck. We...have a lot of catch up on. But oh God, I’m so glad to see you.”
* * *
When Natasha didn’t come back, Steve explained what had happened before he broke down again.
This time, Bucky joined him.
* * *
After that final battle, none of the Avengers and Avengers-adjacent people talked much. Didn’t talk much about the “the blip,” as the younger generation would come to call it—a blip for the dusted, but with horrifying consequences for so many left behind. And they didn’t talk much about the restoration. The newly-returned were mostly quiet in the face of the people and the world to which they returned, the world that they hadn’t realized they’d left in the first place. What could you say to someone who saw you turn to a storm of dust before their eyes, or who had searched for you? To someone who had wondered for days, weeks, years whether you had actually survived the snap? Those left behind had five years of trauma that was relieved by the return of loved ones, but not erased.
And not everyone returned, of course—especially in their group. The chasm between the returned and the left behind amongst the Avengers crew was especially difficult to bridge. Both groups struggled with a kind of survivor’s guilt, their feelings of helplessness at what they couldn’t prevent amplified by the uselessness of their so-called superpowers. The joy at the return of the “dusted” was deeply felt, but so too were the tragic losses: so many of Thor’s people, Tony, Vision. And Natasha.
Natasha’s death sat like ice between Bucky and Steve. Steve had barely grieved it by the time Bucky had returned, had briefly hoped that Bruce’s or Tony’s snap would bring her back, and fell into fresh despair when she didn’t. As team leader, he held himself responsible for her death, even more than Clint did, for sending her into the unknown of Vormir to collect the Soul Stone. Bucky couldn’t convince him that it wasn’t his fault any more than Steve could convince Bucky he wasn’t responsible for the deaths he had caused as the Winter Soldier.
Bucky tried. But he was too numb to try very hard.
They’d always been out of sync, he and Natasha. Now that the storm had passed, he’d hoped... But they had never been that lucky. It had taken him a long time to remember that.
He sometimes wished he didn’t.
* * *
He had trained the young women of the Red Room to aim well and steady, to kill cleanly and quietly, to make the dead disappear, to cover their tracks. Natalia was his best student. He would come, train them, then disappear for a year or two.
When he’d return, he’d learn the Widows’ names anew.
Like the others, Natalia would stand, stony-faced, as they would introduce the Amerikanskii Soldat to them as if for the first time. Later, he would notice Natalia’s eyes shining, the quiver at the edge of her mouth.
“Natashenka?” he whispered to her in the swirling snow, the last of those times, after she dragged a body to the edge of the woods, erasing her tracks for practice under his guidance. He felt an ache in his head and in his chest that he struggled to understand. Images, flickers, like but not exactly like those of the blue-eyed, rail-thin, blond-haired boy with a split lip. Natalia, his Natashenka, was like that: a flickering memory of bright hair, warmth. Not the red of blood in snow, but the red of a set of smiling lips. A soft song in Russian. Metel’.
“Ia znaiu tebia,” he whispered. I know you.
“Da,” she said. That was all.
It wasn’t until Wakanda, until Shuri untangled the trigger words Hydra had snarled into his brain and he retreated to heal, that he remembered it all. Their stolen moments, time after time. They had been clever—they were spies, after all, and well-trained. But Madame B. could tell when he warmed. When his eyes were no longer dead, even as he continued to hold himself stoic and aloof. Too human, too warm, too alive, and he would be sent back to cryo. And when he would return, he would learn his Natashenka again, begin to remember what it was like to feel. A tune in his head, words skittering at the edge of his consciousness. Krasota tvoia s uma menia svela. Metel’.
But finally, Natasha couldn’t bear the responsibility, the pain. She knew that he was sent back in part because of her. And she knew that if Madame B. ever figured it out, they would likely never see each other again. So she ended it, that last time. She buried the body with him in the blizzard, and with it, the song and the warmth.
They saw each other again, of course. Once, from a distance, long enough for him to put a sabot slug through his target and her torso. He remembers now, with the focus of a sniper, the emotions that played on her face as he watched through the scope. She saw him. Recognized the arm. Then fear, anger, pain, and something else. Hope? It jarred him enough, allowed enough feeling to warm his chest, that he aimed to avoid her small bowel and hip, leaving her in pain but alive.
He’d see it again and again. The red-haired spy. Fear. Anger. Pain. Hope. On the bridge. After Zemo in Berlin. “You could at least recognize me,” she said then, voice as cold and flat as his eyes.
* * *
It wasn’t until Wakanda that the hope won out.
Steve would visit him sometimes in his hut, try (and usually fail) to help with the goats, unwind with him, share the best of the memories that he was slowly getting back. The memories they shared dulled the edges of those they didn’t share. Sometimes Sam would join them for an afternoon, joke about finally having someone else who understood how he suffered with a self-sacrificing idiot like Steve as a friend. But Sam and Natasha would mostly stay in Birnin Zana, and Nat didn’t come to the country. Not at first.
But one day, as Steve was off wrestling his namesake nanny goat, Punk, into being milked, and Sam was away enjoying the pleasures of the city, she came. He was in his garden, weeding his yams, humming, when he heard her deliberate rustle in the grass behind him.
He turned. He could see the hesitance in her eyes belied by her trademark smirk.
“Hey, Soldier. How’s your convalescent leave going?”
He smiled, unrolled his body from his crouch, and put a voice to the tune.
Za metelitsei moi milen'kii idet;
Ty postoi, postoi, krasavitsa moia,
Dozvol' nagliadet'sia, radost', na tebia.
My darling is following the snowstorm;
Wait, wait, my beauty,
Let me look at you, my joy.
Nat’s face had crumpled, then. “Krasota tvoia s uma menia svela, moi krasivyi zimnii soldat,” she whispered, stepping into his arms. Your beauty drove me crazy, my beautiful winter soldier.
Hope won out, then. Far from the snow, they took refuge together. Until a new kind of blizzard came for them.
* * *
Stark’s funeral was a quiet affair. Bucky hung back with Sam and Wanda. Generous and quietly welcoming as Pepper was, the Accords and the Raft were near in mind for the newly-returned, and while they had certainly forgiven and been forgiven, they were awkward in the face of Pepper’s grief.
After the funeral, Bucky overheard Banner confirm to Steve what they’d both assumed: that he’d tried to bring Natasha back.
And now Steve was going to take back the stones. Alone.
Inseparable since the battle, he and Steve still hadn’t talked much. Bucky could feel the burden of Steve’s grief, his exhaustion. That skinny, stubborn blue-eyed boy had grown to bear the weight of the world, and for years he’d had to do so without Bucky at his back. He bore Bucky’s own tragedy as his own, and now Natasha’s as well.
He could tell that something was up the night before by the set of Steve’s jaw.
“Steve,” he said, putting down his book to catch his best friend’s attention. “You’ve been staring out that window for an hour. What’s going on in that cement block you call a skull?”
When Steve gave a small half-smile and turned away from the window, not rising to the bait and still distracted, he decided to push past the silence. It had been comfortable enough, but tomorrow Steve was leaving, and things had the potential to go horribly wrong—especially if Steve was thinking about doing anything foolish or selfless or, most likely, both. Bucky knew that all too well from experience.
“Steve. You’re not planning on doing anything stupid when you go on your little time trip, are you?” When Steve didn’t reply, Bucky moved to crouch in front of Steve’s chair.
“Don’t mess around, buddy. Just do what you need to, and then live your damned life.” He paused, making sure Steve was looking him in the eye. “You’ve already lost too much, Steve. Believe me. I speak from experience...live your life. Enjoy it while you have it.” His throat caught on the last words, the sorrow welling up and gripping him again.
Steve didn’t look away. Then he smiled—a real, full, beaming smile, the first Bucky had seen on his face since Steve was chasing wayward goats in Wakanda.
“You’re right, Buck. Thank you.”
Bucky nodded, rose, and left for his room before the tears tipped over his lashes.
* * *
“Don't do anything stupid 'til I get back.”
“How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you.” It came out more seriously than Bucky intended. He pulled Steve into a hug, just a little firmer than usual.
“Gonna miss you, buddy,” he choked out.
“It’s gonna be okay, Buck,” Steve replied with a smile.
He watched Steve prepare himself for his journey. He could feel the anxiety radiating from Sam.
“How long is this gonna take?”
“For him? As long as he needs. For us? Five seconds,” replied Bruce. “Ready, Cap? All right. We'll meet you back here, okay?”
“You bet.”
“Going quantum in three, two, one....“
Bucky watched Steve disappear, his heart pounding.
“And returning in five, four, three, two, one....”
Steve failed to reappear. Bruce began to look concerned.
“Where is he?” snapped Sam.
“I don't know. He blew right by his time stamp. He should be here.”
Bucky could feel it then. Something imminent. The squabbling of Banner and Sam faded as he turned to see the silhouette of someone sitting by the lake.
“Sam....” he said, quietly.
They both approached the figure together.
* * *
After an overwhelmed Sam Wilson wandered off to show Bruce his new shield, Bucky joined his friend on the bench.
“You were right, Buck. So was Tony. So I did it. I lived my life.”
Bucky chuckled. “Apparently so, old man. I’m glad, Steve. You deserved it. You always did.”
“You did too, Buck.”
Bucky smiled half-heartedly and began to rise. He wished his friend well, truly. He was so, so happy for the life he'd finally gotten to live. But he wasn’t ready to revisit his own losses, brought into cold relief by the light of his friend’s happiness. He felt selfish, but he had to go.
Before he could protest, though, Steve grasped his wrist, keeping him firmly in place as he continued gazing calmly at the lake. “I had a plan. I went there, you know. To Vormir.”
Bucky could feel his throat tensing. He really needed to leave. He didn’t want to hear, didn’t want to picture Natasha’s broken body again.
“Red Skull was there, Buck. Can you believe it? Of all things. He was the keeper of the stone. And in exchange for the stone, I asked for a trade.”
Bucky stilled.
“It wasn’t so easy. You’d think, maybe, a life for a stone, so a stone for a life? Seemed fair. But he still wanted something from me. So I gave it to him.”
“What did you give him, Steve?” Bucky gripped the edge of the bench with his free hand, knuckles white. What the hell had he done this time?
Steve turned to him, smiling serenely. “The serum. I gave him the rest of the serum, Buck. I traded forever for a regular lifetime. And I lived it. With Peg.” He looked back off to the lake, seemingly lost in his memories for a moment, then dropped another bomb. “We found you, too, me and Peg. Freed you in that timeline. You were happy. Lived a good life. It’s a long story for another time.”
Bucky felt nauseous, trembling at the thought of a life without the kind of losses he’d experienced. It was too much to process. “Steve....thank you for that, but....”
“No, Buck. That’s not the important part. You don’t understand.” He turned back, his grip on Bucky’s wrist tightening. “It worked. At Vormir.”
He let go of Bucky suddenly and looked at his watch. “Bruce!” he yelled, startling Banner from his conversation with Sam. “I think you had better get back to the machine, buddy.”
Bruce rushed back to the controls. “We have activity!” he shouted.
And on the platform, Natasha appeared.
Dozvol' nagliadet'sia, radost', na tebia. Let me look at you, my joy.
“Natashenka,” Bucky cried, jumping to his feet and running toward her.
She stepped off the platform and into his arms.
“Moi krasivyi zimnii soldat,” she whispered into his tears. “Metel' zakonchilsia.”
My beautiful winter soldier. The storm is over.