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Epilogue

3 Months Later: The Wedding

It's June and it's hot. Hotter than it has been in the past week in Delacroix. Bucky can feel sweat dripping down his back, praying it hasn't shown through the navy button up he's wearing. The pacing he's been doing across Sam and Sarah's living room probably doesn't help.

"Dude, you gotta chill out." Sam says plopping down onto the couch, watching his manic friend wear down the hardwood.

Bucky takes in a deep breath turning towards Sam. "You think I want to be sweatin' right now?" He snipes and Sam rolls his eyes. It's been a week of nerves, last minute arrangements and surprisingly Bucky has been more stressed than Jo which he still doesn't understand. He's turned into a 106-year-old Groomzilla and of course, Bucky blames Sam after he tried picking flowers that didn't match any of the colors they had chosen.

"Why in the hell would we need red flowers, Sam?"

"Uh... Because red is the color of love, that's why."

"No. Absolutely not." Bucky tears the bouquet of red roses from his hand and sets them back down as Jo tries to hide her laughter. "They don't match, and we don't need red."

"Whatever dude."

Sam has teased him to no end about it too, which also hasn't helped. Jo tells him that she loves that he's so involved, which eases him a bit. But now he hasn't seen her in over twenty-four hours, some stupid idea that Sam had that he somehow also convinced Jo of, and it's driving him crazy.

Over the past three months, they've spent everyday together. Easily slipping back into their routine they had before everything happened. After coming home from Wakanda, they quickly moved what little belongings Bucky had, into Jo's apartment. He would meet with Sam for occasional mission briefs but has taken a step back from the action. He mostly consults and is on-call in case things go way south. A decision he made on his own. Jo was all for him staying to help Sam, but Bucky is tired of fighting. He wants to live the life he never got the chance to have.

Jo still has nightmares, and she hasn't quite escaped them yet. There have been more good days than bad, and he often has to remind her when she tends to slip back into that dark space that he's all too familiar with. She still meets with Sam to talk about her PTSD and has gotten better about journaling which Bucky seems to think has helped tremendously.

After about a month of living in Brooklyn again and the nightmares worse in her hometown—too many reminders of Steve—they moved down to Delacroix and are currently staying in Sarah and Sam's boathouse, until they find something of their own.

He hasn't had a nightmare since they started regularly sleeping next to each other, at least not a bad one. They are mostly just flashbacks from before Hydra. Raids that Steve and he went on, memories of time spent with Jo. Bucky knows that it's possible for those nightmares to return, same as with Jo. Until he'll enjoy the ones he's having now.

Sam stands, facing Bucky and resting his hands on his shoulders as Bucky glares back at him. "Why are you so nervous?"