Frayed Lines

In which Steve isn't alone.

His blue eyes opened to look at a dully lit
ceiling. Unaware of his surroundings, he blinked once or twice and got up to call Stark when he noticed the people surrounding his bed, looking at him in shock.

"Steve?" A soft British voice that made his stomach roll called from his right.

"Peggy?" A small smile she rarely graced anyone crept across her face. His eyes welled up a bit, but he wouldn't let anyone see the hell he'd been through the past few years. All he could do was wrap his arms tightly around her and breath in her sweet smell.

"You've been asleep for a few months, Cap." He froze at Tony's voice. How the hell is Tony here? He turned to see the man he expected least.

"Howard..." A smirk and a tight hug brought him to reality. Was the whole 21st century just a cruel nightmare?

"We've found something special for you." Dernier's lightly accented voice welcomed him from the doorway after he went around the room, hugging and getting more happy by the second. "Come." His voice cracked revealing a different accent, one all too familiar but not associated with the forties. Steve paid no attention to it though, pushing the weird incident to the back of his mind. There's no way he can be here.

A few twists and turns of the corridor put them right outside another door.

"It took us a while to find him," Dugan started. "So you better thank us, Spangles." He winced at another name Tony called him. As did the rest of the Avengers.

He slowly creaked open the door to reveal something he'd never thought he would see. Memories swirled in his head, distilling his thoughts.

"Stevie." A cracked voice brought him back into reality, or whatever this was. He looked closely at every feature of Bucky, the warmth of his blue eyes, the two lean arms, and the small, ever-present smirk he had plastered on his face. Steve slowly, warily walked up and combed through Bucky's hair with his fingers.

"Hey Buck." A warm smile was all he needed to know that something wasn't right. He should, even though God forbid it, be broken somewhat. This is the Bucky he remembered before the war. Even in the pub he was acting off.

"I can't remember a thing." Bucky hastily explains, seeing the lost look on Steve's face. "It turns out when you fall off the Alps and survive, you lose some memories." The explanation worked, reassuring Steve.

"I was alone." A cracked voice whispered in the room, too late Steve noticed it was him. Bucky looked straight into his eyes.

"I know," He held onto Steve's arm like a support. "But I'm here. We all are. When you fell in the ice, they searched endlessly for you. I wish I could we joined but I was kinda stuck in a coma here." A sheepish grin came across his face at the memory. "You ain't gonna be alone Stevie. For as long as I live, I'll make you remember that. By living with you and annoying you till the end of our days."

This was Bucky. This was home. And for the first time in 70 or some odd years, Steve felt happy. He wasn't alone.

------------------------------------------------------

"What the hell is he talking about?" Sam was the first one to break the stunned silence. Steve, their beloved soldier, was acting weird. And talking about shit that no one knew about. Loki's soldier? Apparently Bucky wasn't the first to think about this, as Tony's eyes widened.

"Oh. That little shit-eating bastard." Anger, something rarely present in Tony Starks voice, filled the room as he sighed in frustration. "How the hell we didn't see this earlier, I don't know." Everyone looked at the rambling man in confusion as he gave Jarvis a few commands and cleared the tables in order to lay his tools on them. Bucky cleared his throat and Tony turned to look at him, thoughts running in his head.

"Tony." Bucky said. "Usually we can't understand you, but what the fuck are you talking about?" Tony rolled his eyes and huffed in response to Bucky's apparently stupid question. Then he realized that everyone besides him were confused.

"How the hell did you not notice something was up with Steve?" Tony gestures towards his broken window and Dum-E, who was cleaning the shards up. More confused glances surrounded him. "Jesus Christ. Loki got him, you dumb asses. The soldier he was talking about was himself. And now, we gotta get to Steve before he gets back to Loki." The slow, exasperated drawl of his tone made the problem evident to everyone.

"Suit up?" Sam offered. Natasha winced as she left to go get her Widows Bites and uniform.

"I think we oughta leave that phrase to the Captain." She patted his chest before going down the hallway.

Bucky sighed as he sat down on the counter, watching all the rest leave to go get ready to possibly have to fight against Steve. How could my Stevie be...bad? His thoughts entangled in everything Steve, he didn't notice that everyone had gathered once more and were looking as if they were waiting for someone's command.

"Ready James?" Natasha's voice brought him back into reality. She seemed to be needing to do that a lot lately.

"Ready as I'll ever be." It turned out that they didn't need to go as far as they thought to get Steve. The tracker pointed them to a small clearing in the woods. He was laying on the ground, with some sort of hammer thing on his chest. He struggled to get it off but failed in doing so. Guess that hammer is too heavy for anyone? Then who the hell put it on him? Steve looked up sullenly at the group, then looking beyond them into the shadows.

"I could use some help here?" He offered, not knowing they were onto him.

"I think we can let you lay there for a while, Capsicle." Tony smirked as he looked behind them at the shadows. "Come on out, Point Break." A large, well muscled man stepped out, blonde hair flowing down to his shoulders.

"Son of Stark." The man greeted warmly, a foreign accent making Bucky think of where he could be from. "I found the Captain fleeing from something when I saw Loki's Magic had befouled him. So I thought best to bring him to you as soon as he stopped squirming." The man chuckled and wrapped Tony in a tight hug.

"Alright Thor. Easy on the armor." Thor. Bucky's mouth hung open in shock.

"Again, anyone wanna give a helping hand to someone possibly suffocating?" A small voice came from their right as they all finished greeting the Norse god. "In case you haven't noticed, there's a huge ass hammer on me."

Right. Time to kick Steve's ass.