In All Our Years Series - 4 In 1 | Captain!Bucky, WinterSoldier!Steve | Stucky

2010

| 2018 |

Once upon a time, Steve had asked a boy with eyes more blue than the cleanest ocean where they were going. He hadn't expected an answer. They had one more day left before he would be alone, before the boy - who had suddenly become a man in a fitted military uniform, was Sergeant Barnes instead of the Bucky he had always known and loved - would join the mass graveyard Europe had become. But Bucky shoved a newspaper into his chest, holding onto the pretty olive green sweater Bethany had accidentally forgotten after that last double date barely two weeks before America joined the war, his bubbe's star of David on a chain around his neck, and answered; "The future."

Well, here he was. But it wasn't what either of them had thought.

The future had not been kind to Bucky Barnes. The world hadn't wanted him, but kept his wrists tied. They took his selflessness for granted. He was a limp marionette, all but for the incessant tugs on his strings. Those insistent pleas were what made him spring to life.

Did those strings disconnect when his hands turned to dust?

Steve sure hoped so.

He wasn't sure what to think of a future without him. This new life that he had made as he reclaimed his name, it was covered in everything Bucky; his family, his friends, his soft smiles, his deep kisses. Everywhere he looked, he saw pieces of him. He saw the locker labeled BARNES in the quinjet, right beside the one that said ROMANOFF. He saw Natasha as she sat beside him on an uncomfortable bench, hands clasped so tightly her fingers turned purple, staring off into an unknown distance. He saw the few personal belongings all of the criminal Avengers had gotten over two years, Bucky's old leather jacket and the closed mancala board that he and Sam would open and play whenever they were stuck in a safehouse or there was downtime.

The quinjet made a smooth descent onto the helipad at the Avengers Compound - a place that had been Steve's home for a good year, until the Accords had uprooted them. Leaving Wakanda with the last of the Avengers was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do. But when he took Nat to the little cottage, there were only two goats in sight, sprinting around in kicked-up ashes, bleating for an answer.

There wasn't one. So Steve pet their soft little heads, put them in the care of a neighbor, and packed a bag.

Pepper Potts was waiting for them, hands clasped firmly in front of her stomach, her inner dilemma clear as day. She scanned who was present, who was missing - and her eyes took on a glassy look. She demanded, "What happened?" her voice a scratching hiss from the tightness in her throat. "Where is everyone?"

"Gone," Rhodes said, flatly. He was out of his suit, had been for over an hour. At getting on the jet, he had begun to feel trapped, and had to get out of it. Steve didn't really blame him, going so far as to agree with him, but had just tugged at the collar of the tough gear Shuri had gifted him last year, when he began fighting with the secret, outlawed Avengers.

"We need to find Tony and the other people he was on that ship with. The kid was with him -"

Steve's head whipped up. "Peter?"

Pepper and Rhodes turned their heads toward him. Pepper's face took on an even darker look. With a slow, denying shake of her head, she said, "Don't tell me he's gone."

So he didn't. He didn't tell her of the confusion in Bucky's eyes, the devastatingly desperate way he had looked at him and then at the clear Wakandan sky.

He could practically see her heart break when he didn't reply. She took a tentative step toward him, and came even closer when he didn't move away. She raised a gentle hand and rested her palm on his shoulder. "You two stayed in Wakanda, didn't you?"