Homecoming

“Steve?”

The word still hangs on the tip of his tongue as all power leaves him and he goes down, his eyes and consciousness failing him. The last thing he sees is Steve in the middle of turning in his direction, the concerned knit of his brow only noticeable to Bucky at this distance because he’s spent years, decades, growing, living, being with this man.

In his last second, watching his own being disintegrate into ash and dust and get swept away with the wind, he thinks, 

it was all for nothing, after all.

Day One

He wakes up quite startled, ready to keep the fight going. He doesn’t know what just happened, but before he went under they were fighting Thanos with all they had. He pushes himself off the ground and pulls his legs under himself into a big crouch, pulling his knife from its thigh holster because he can’t find his gun anywhere close.

He looks around, trying to locate the enemy, but as soon as his eyes leave the ground he hesitates. He gives it a few more seconds, always expecting an ambush and not letting his sight stray, but eventually his shoulders relax, he straightens up from his crouch and looks farther out. 

He’s not where he was before. No lush green forest around them, no soil under his feet. Around him are a few dry wood trees, bushes, all grey and yellow. Underneath him is summer singed grass, coarse and cropped short. 

This is not where they were before. He got sent somewhere entirely else.

He needs to get back to the fight. Steve needs him. The world needs them.

He starts marching forward, knife still in hand just in case. Who knows if he’s alone. Fucking aliens.

He reaches the edge of the brush, bending down again to be hidden while he surveys the surroundings. It’s quiet and wide. To one side there’s a lake a few hundred meters away with birds in the water and in the air, the only occasional sound being their distant cries. In front of him, also a few hundred meters away, stands a house. It looks serene, not a soul in sight. It reminds him of the houses his mother and sisters always dreamed of having back in the days. After the depression. To the other side of the house, about half the distance between him and the house, is a small playground. Nothing big, just a set of swings, a slide, a seesaw and a sandbox. 

When he walks past the playground, he sees abandoned sand toys in the box.

He stays cautious all the way up to the house. It might be abandoned, it might be not. He checks the perimeter first, walking around in a big circle so no one can surprise him. At the back of the house is an open garage with two partitions. Inside in the dark stands a newer car, he can’t recognise it but it looks about as old as the present time. So he’s still in his time, just somewhere else. Outside of the garage, just driven out far enough for the sun to hit it, is an old army truck. Willy MB. So this is the house of either an old military fan, or a vet.

He gets more cautious.

He walks back around the other side. There’s a small shed on the side of the house there, and a wooden hatch, most likely leading into the basement. He stays away from there for now. Arriving back at the front of the house, he decides what the next step of plans should be. He needs to get back to the fight, but he has no idea where he is. If this house isn’t abandoned, maybe he can get the vet to help him, he’ll understand. And if it is abandoned he might be able to find the car keys and a pointer on where he is so he can get back.

He steps up the patio and calls out, warily. “Anybody home?”

The house stays quiet at first. He calls out once more. “Hello? I need help.”

There’s a crash inside and a shrill scream. He rushes back down the patio, crouching down around the corner of the stairs, behind the railing. He waits, hand tightening around the handle of his knife.

There’s another crash, someone calling out “Maggie, no!” and then the front door gets thrown open violently. It’s a child. He can’t react fast enough before she’s seen him in hiding, but before she can sprint forwards at him there’s a hand on her upper arm holding her tight. 

“Daddy, no! Let me go!”

He looks up at the man. The man is staring right back at him. He has another child on his hip, a little younger than the girl in his grasp, and a stained white shirt on. 

It’s Steve.

“Daddy, papa’s home!”

Bucky gets up from his hiding spot, stepping the few paces back into the pathway up to the patio. Steve watches him move with soft, concerned eyes. The girl, Maggie, Steve had called her, stops thrashing against his hold and relaxes, also watching him attentively.

Bucky is confused.

This isn’t his time after all.

“Put the knife away, Buck, please.”

It feels like a punch to the gut when this time’s Steve talks to him. It makes his heart ache in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time.

He puts the knife away immediately.

“Maggie, take your brother and go inside, please. Your papa’s just come home from a hard mission. He’ll come greet you when he’s arrived properly, okay?”

This Steve bends down and passes the child on his arm over to Maggie. She holds onto him tightly, the boy clinging to her front, her arms crossed under his bum. “A’ight, Daddy.”

Steve doesn’t move until the screen door and front door are closed behind the children. Then, he slowly steps forward, taking one step down the patio and sitting down on it. He pulls his knees up on the steps, putting his elbows on them and folding his hands together in front of his mouth. His eyes still look at him over them, so soft and yet so hard.

“Hey, pal. You’re not my Bucky,” he states with a sobering strength in his voice. He lets his folded hands fall between his knees.

Bucky frowns. “No.” He wants to add more to that, to say something, but he doesn’t know what.

Steve’s gaze strays from his face, giving him a once-over. Bucky feels weirdly naked. His left arm resets.

“How’d you get here?”

He doesn’t know how to answer that. The last thing he remembers is the fight and then getting lightheaded. The last thing he saw was Steve. He thought he died.

“I - don’t know. A few minutes ago I was fighting with you, and now I’m here.”

This Steve pulls up an eyebrow. “With me or against me?”

“With you, against Thanos.”

Steve’s mouth opens in a silent ah, then he leans his head back and strokes his hair out and over his head with both hands.

“You’re from 2018. Buck, this is 2028.”

Bucky feels his body lock up. He’s ten years in the future. He wants to ask how this is possible, any of this, but his mind blanks.

He can only stare at Steve. He doesn’t look a day older than the Steve he just left behind in his own time.

“This all already happened. We lost, then we won. Half of humanity vanished, and came back five years later. And after that everything went back to normal.”

Bucky would like to be able to say he understands, but his mind doesn’t cooperate. His mind is hung up on the fact that it is 2028 and Steve has two kids. Two kids that call him Daddy and that call Bucky –

“Those kids, you called me – they called me – do we have kids?”

Steve lets out a short laugh, putting a hand over his mouth and pulling it down over his stubble. He gets up from the stairs with a groan, hands pushing him up from the thighs, and yeah, okay, you might not see that he’s ten years older by his looks but you can clearly see it in his movements.

Steve steps down the stairs, up in front of him. Bucky’s arm flexes, ready to pull his knife back out. Just in case.

Steve smiles, as if he can’t believe him. “I just told you we saved the whole universe and that’s what you take from it?”

Bucky mulls it over, brain finally kicking back into gear, pouts his lips and nods shortly. He shrugs. “I mean, that is a big thing to skip over, y’know.”

Steve laughs softly once more, lifting a hand to gingerly cup the side of Bucky’s face. He had almost flinched and reached for his knife, but only one man would be stupid and suicidal enough to come this close to him in a situation like this. This isn’t a trick the aliens are playing on him, this is real.

“God, I missed you, Buck. So much.”

Steve’s thumb brushes over his upper lip where his beard ends, and Bucky feels like he just got shot in the stomach. All of this - the situation, the family, the happy ending, the love this Steve obviously has for him - he can see it in his eyes and feel it in his touch - it reawakens a part of his soul Bucky had locked away safely back in 1942 or so, to never be surfaced again. He threw away the key together with the power HYDRA had over him, but without knowing it, Steve’s always had a skeleton key. Because, of course he has.

Bucky inhales shakily, breathing out against Steve’s wrist. Then, he takes it in his hand, lets himself have one weak moment and kisses Steve’s palm before pulling his wrist away from his face. 

Steve looks at him with so much hope and sadness. He has to ask.

“What happened to this time’s Bucky?”

Steve searches for something in his face, his eyes darting around wildly, before he looks down to where their hands are still locked between them.

“He hasn’t come home from his last mission, six months ago.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that. He asked, he got his answer, but he hadn’t thought about what to do with the information. He somehow feels secondhand guilt.

“I’m sorry.”

Steve smiles and shakes his head, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t be. You’re not him.”

A heavy silence overcomes them, while they just stand there, still connected where Bucky holds onto this Steve’s wrist.

Bucky hasn’t felt this helpless ever since he remembered himself in 2014 and had to fuck off to Romania to sort himself out. In this timeline it has been fourteen years since then. And somehow, even after everything, this version of himself found back to Steve - found happiness - just to go missing and leave Steve alone with their children.

Yeah, he feels guilty and helpless.

Because he can’t change anything about it. He isn’t this timeline’s Bucky.

“I haven’t seen your hair this long since The Last Fight,” Steve comments after a few more seconds of silence, probably to distract from the gloomy atmosphere they found themselves in, and lifts his free hand to pinch a strand of Bucky’s hair between his fingers. Bucky snorts, trying to forget what he just thought about, and smiles. He also finally, finally, gets himself to let go of Steve’s wrist.

“What, I went back to short hair after all the shit we went through? Never thought I would. Not going to lie, this length kinda grew on me.”

Steve chuckles, leaving his hair alone again but not pulling his hand back. Instead, he rests his forearm on Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky feels Steve’s fingers carding through the hair at the back of his head, his fingertips ever so gently grazing the skin there now and then.

Bucky tries not to show how he breaks out in goosebumps.

“Not going to lie, me too.”

They look at each other once more, and Bucky feels like falling. This isn’t his Steve, this won’t ever be his Steve. He is in the future and he needs to get back into his own time. This timeline’s Bucky is still out there somewhere.

But for now, he’s here. And for now, he has to play the role. Because there’s children involved and they won’t understand.

And that doesn’t sound as uncomfortable as he imagined it to.

“Hey, I’m sorry to ask this of you, but,” Steve hesitates, his eyes darting between Bucky’s eyes while he wets his lips. Bucky tries his damndest to not follow the movement. “Can I kiss you? Just once. I’m sorry if that’s too much, but I just, I –“

Bucky snorts once more, pulling this Steve closer by his waist. It will probably be the death of him in the long run, but it’s the least he can do for someone who’s been missing his loved one for six months. (His waist feels warm and right between his hands.)

“What kinda question even is that? ‘Course you can, Rogers.”

Steve smiles, and this time it reaches his eyes. There’s even a little mirth in them, if Bucky guesses correctly. (He always does.)

Steve closes the hug over Bucky‘s shoulders with his other arm and leans in like it’s second nature. He’s still smiling as their noses touch, but before he commits fully, he whispers, “It’s Barnes, not Rogers,” and then they’re kissing.

Bucky is still processing that apparently, in this timeline, he and Steve are married, while they make their way over to the front door and Steve gives him a short rundown on their kids. Maggie, the older one, just turned five years old, and Beck, the younger one, is almost three. They’re not their biological children, but kind of are at the same time, but Steve says ‘I’ll explain that later’.

As soon as they open the door, Maggie is in front of them. She’s jittery where she stands, flailing her hands and rolling on the balls of her feet. She’s staring at Bucky like she’s ready to pounce.

“Papa, pozhaluysta?”

Bucky freezes where he stands for a second, his body locking up once more when his daughter speaks russian to him. He tries not to think of his past.

He sees Steve look over to him sheepishly in his peripheral, he did not tell him about that.

The words feel like they’re stuck in his throat and ripping apart his ribs to get out at the same time. 

“Konechno, idi syuda, dorogusha.”

Bucky crouches down the same second Maggie jumps forward. She lands heavily in his arms, her small hands hugging tight around his neck. He holds her under her bum as he straightens back up, wiggling her around for fun and making her giggle with it. She presses her face into his shoulder and rubs it around like a little puppy.

“Ya skuchal po tebe.”

Bucky fears bad memories flooding back up, but they don’t come. Shuri did a good job. He needs to thank her again next time he sees her.

If he ever sees her again.

He puts his face against Maggie’s hair to distract himself, breathing in the scent of - of his daughter. She smells like he remembers his sisters smelled like when they were younger, and a little like Steve. She smells like home.

“I missed you too, Magpie.”

The nickname comes naturally. He feels like he’s called her that before.

Steve brings him upstairs and leads him into his bedroom, where he searches through the closet and dresser for a change of clothes for him. 

“I might have to give you some of my clothes, ever since we retired you cut down on the muscle weight, serum waning or somethin’ like that” Steve mumbles more to himself than to Bucky while he’s still half with his head in the closet, “But you – not so much.”

Belatedly, he realises this isn’t just Steve’s bedroom or Steve’s closet and dresser. Bucky looks around more intensely then, trying to find traces of himself in the room. Or rather, this timeline’s version of himself.

One side of the bed is neatly made. The blanket from the other side is flipped across it, but you can still see that the side has been unused. There’s a thin, coarse duvet and a flat pillow. On the nightstand is a photo he can’t make out from where he stands, but over the frame hangs a thin silver chain that leads down to some pendants lying in front of it. He doesn’t need to be close to recognise they’re his dog tags.

“We retired?”, he mumbles absentmindedly, going over to the dresser and looking at the pictures standing on there instead.

There’s one with the children when they were younger, Maggie on his hip and Beck sleeping in Steve’s arms, and Bucky still looks pretty much like he does right now. There’s another one with them and Clint with his family, probably a family meet up, but Bucky’s hair is short in that one, pretty much buzzcutted. Another one from some kind of party, it’s only Steve, him, Sam and, surprisingly, T’Challa. He wants to know the story of this one. But his hair is a little longer in that one again, a decent length between short like in the second photo and long like he has it now. He does seem slimmer in that photo, noticeable from the way Steve has his arm slung around his waist.

It’s weird. Looking at photos of his future – of their future. Watching himself grow, change, settle into himself. It’s weird, but–

It also feels good. Makes him feel something akin to homesickness, just warmer.

“Oh, yeah. After The Last Fight, when everything went back to normal, my last mission was to bring the Infinity Stones back to their times and places. You saw me off, and I told you to not do anything stupid until I got back,” Steve huffs in amusement, “and you said-“

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you?” Bucky grins, and Steve turns around from the closet to look at him like he can’t believe he just did that, his mouth open in an amused ah. Bucky throws his head back in a silent chuckle.

“Yeah. When I was back you were still standing in the same spot, I’d only been gone for five seconds your time, but I,” Steve halts, lost in thought for a second while he smoothes out some folds in the clothes lying across his arm, “The last one I brought back was the Space Stone, the Tesseract. We’d taken it from S.H.I.E.L.D in the Seventies, in Camp Lehigh. It was easy enough to bring it back, but I actually had some leeway before Banner brought me back. Don’t ask me how I got there, as you know I took all the stupid with me, but I somehow landed in front of some old HYDRA files.”

Steve pauses once again, stepping closer and lying the clothes over Bucky’s forearm softly, while watching his expression anxiously. Bucky frowns, first at the clothes, then up at Steve. “Don’t tell me –“

“They weren’t about you.”

Steve turns to the dresser Bucky was still standing in front of, leaning over to take the framed photo from the far left, the one with them and the children.

“They were about the kids. Projekt Evangelion they’d called it. They were supposed to be your successors, genetically engineered super soldiers, modified and trained from childhood on.”

Bucky feels sick to his stomach. His mind blanks at the imagination of having children go through what he went through. Much less their children.

Oh, God.

“The files only stated a few successful assets. S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s notes on the files said they hadn’t found a clue about the whereabouts of those assets yet. And I just - I couldn’t let that go. I needed to know if Projekt Evangelion was still a cold case in present time. So I took the files back with me.”

Bucky needs to go sit down. He moves over to the bed and sits down on his side, now crumpled where it formerly hadn’t been used in months. He watches the plates and joints of his metal arm move and reset every time he bends his fingers or turns his hand. It’s kind of therapeutic. He concentrates on the sensations and visuals until the bed dips and creaks next to him.

Steve still has the photo in his hands.

“It was, in fact, still a cold case. No one had found an abandoned HYDRA base since we were in Syberia, and the decades before that they’d searched on and off, to no avail. But you, God, you –“ 

Steve stops and looks up, a small smile and smitten expression on his face as he reminisces, and Bucky can’t stop watching him. This is so foreign, seeing Steve Rogers - Steve Barnes in this reality - be openly in love with him. It makes him fall hard, harder than he ever expected after he crossed out any chances of a happy ending with this man when he got drafted for war and accepted that he probably would never see Steve again. Fate had other plans for them, but his feelings still stayed squashed down in the back of his chain locked heart.

“You were willing to do anything for this mission. The government was pissed that we were involving ourselves once more but they let us do this one last operation under one condition: We retire afterwards, no matter if we were successful or not.”

Bucky sinks into himself. He gets it now. He can guess how the story ends, but he wants Steve to finish it anyway. It’s nice to be able to just listen to him for once. Not just short clipped explanations or called out orders. Not Captain America. Just Steve, wallowing in reminiscences because he can. No one’s hot on their heels, no one could call in at any second to need them on the field. They have all the time in the world.

They have all the time in the world.

“Of course, we did it. We were talking about retiring anyway, after Thanos and all that. So that was just a false pretence. But you sat down with Shuri, and the Wakandan’s helped you get into your memories without completely traumatising you yet again,” Bucky snorts and Steve looks back at him for a short moment, before holding out the picture frame to him. Bucky takes it gingerly. 

“We searched through all HYDRA bases we could find in your memories. We found leads. We found the base where they had cryo’d Projekt Evangelion. There were only three pods. A two year old, a newborn, a fetus.”

Bucky studies the photo in his hands a little closer. The background looks sterile, uncomfortable. White and grey. Still, they all look happy as can be. He wants to know.

“The government and what remained of S.H.I.E.L.D. took the kids from us the second we landed back on US grounds. We fought long and hard to get them back. The media was all over it. We got married so we had ground to work with in a custody battle, should it come that far - No, no, don’t look at me like that, we had planned to get married anyway. We just preponed it for the kids. But eventually, an old friend called us up, dropped us a few hints about what the lab work had found out about the kids’ DNA, that they were identical to ours the same way a child’s DNA is identical to a parent’s DNA.”

Bucky looks up at Steve, utterly speechless. He looks back to the photo in his hands, and now that he knows, he sees the similarities. Maggie's brown, floppy hair, her smile that made her cheeks fold into pronounced smile lines. Beck’s wispy blond hair and blue puppy eyes. They’re so very small in this picture, but even in Bucky’s memory from just earlier he can see it now. He feels snubbed.

“And that was honestly all it took. Humanitarians were all over the government after they found out they had kept our biological children from us for, uh, about a year in total at that point. They had them cryo’d most of that time, too, because they were still, you know, supposed to be dangerous super soldier babies.”

Bucky snorts, thinks of Beck and the toys he had thrown around when Steve had sat him into his playpen earlier to get Bucky some fresh clothes. Thinks of Maggie, who had to flail her hands around when she got too excited and rubbed her face into her dad’s shoulder for comfort. Yeah. Totally dangerous.

“The photo was taken about half an hour after we were allowed to pick up the kids from the lab. Clint was with us for moral support and also took the photo. It was the most nerve wracking event in my whole entire life.”

Bucky huffs a laugh and looks back up at Steve, studying his scrunched up eyes and his toothy smile as he stares at the picture in Bucky’s hands.

“That’s some big words for someone who went through a world war and at least half a dozen life changing battles.”

Steve’s gaze shifts from the picture up to Bucky’s face, and the gentle way he looks at him knocks the breath out of Bucky’s lungs. It shocks him to his core again and again, how much love this timeline’s Steve has for him. If only this was his future, and not just a similar, yet distinctly different timeline.

If only.

“That’s also some big words for someone I haven’t seen cry since we were kids and who did just that as soon as we were in the car on our way home that day.”

After a shower, a new set of clothes (Steve’s clothes, because this Bucky’s clothes did, in fact, not fit him) and dinner, he and Steve bring the kids to bed. Maggie insists Bucky bring her to bed and read to her, which he does willingly after only a second of hesitation and Steve’s supportive hand on his shoulder. Maggie holds out her favorite book to him and climbs into bed as soon as he takes it from her. Маша и Медведь, he reads the title as he sits down on the edge of her bed. He’d never read the title, but somehow it feels familiar.

He wonders why he decided to raise Maggie with russian. 

“Ma ostanovilis on page twenty, uh, eight, I think, posledniy raz.”

Bucky lifts an eyebrow at the girl, then squints his eyes. She watches him as she cuddles up under her blanket, pulling it up under her nose and giggling at him when he doesn’t stop scrutinizing her.

“It’s been a long time since last time. Why don’t we start over?”

Maggie seems to mull it over, then nods - her nose the only thing bobbing up and down with the movement under the blanket. Bucky huffs in amusement before opening the book and starting on the story.

It comes easier to him than he thought it would. He doesn’t feel uncomfortable reading russian aloud, even if he does still feel a little apprehensive about speaking it to his daughter on a daily basis. The longer he keeps on reading, the more his mind relaxes, his associations shifting from metal and pain to family and warmth. He stops at the end of chapter one, and looks up to see Maggie’s eyelids sag with drowsiness.

“Idti spat, dorogusha,” he whispers and closes the book quietly, but Maggie whines.

“Lie down with me first, papa.”

Bucky smiles, already weak for this little five year old as if he’d raised her the past three years himself, (oh how he wishes he did), and puts the book on the nightstand before climbing in with her, over the blanket so he doesn’t disturb her as soon as she falls asleep.

“Only because this is a special occasion, you little punk, alright?”

Maggie giggles, and turns onto her side into his chest. Bucky puts his arm over her, smoothing his left hand across her back, up and down in slow strokes.

“Konechno, papa.”

Bucky relaxes then, staying quiet as he caresses her to sleep, and puts his face on top of her head, breathing in deeply and closing his eyes. He grants himself the short reprieve, processing everything that happened today and the situation he found himself in. He’s married to Steve fucking Rogers, they have retired and have a family. He has a five year old daughter and a three year old son, and he’s already feeling like he could love them as his own, if he just let himself. It would be so easy, to just stay here and live his life with a family that isn’t his own, but that’s the biggest problem. He’s playing a role here, and he doesn’t know when the point is reached that the lines will blur.

Maybe it already is.

He joins Steve in the kitchen half an hour later, after he accidentally slipped into a short nap himself while making sure Maggie was deep asleep. There are two steaming cups on the dining table, but Steve is standing at the kitchen counter, cleaning the dishes from dinner earlier. Bucky rubs at his eyes as he leans into the door frame, watching him - his husband - make diligent work of the children’s plastic plates and cutlery. Steve’s arms and back muscles ripple and move deliciously through the fitted, skin tight shirt, and for once Bucky doesn’t have to feel bad about enjoying the view.

“Y’know, usually you’d come over here and pester me while I clean,” Steve hums while lifting the dishes over to the drying rack, and for a second Bucky is surprised that Steve knew he was there. He was an infamous assassin after all, but then he remembers that this was Captain America, after all, too. “But it is kinda nice to not have you do that for once.”

Bucky is leaning his hip on the counter next to Steve in about a second. He squints his eyes at the side of Steve’s face, while the other just laughs silently, not looking up from the sink.

“You should know better than to say that in my presence, old man. Never leaving an opportunity for pestering unused.”

Steve snorts, and Bucky hears him pull the plug from the sink before grabbing the dish towel and drying his hands with it, leaning himself against the counter as well. His smile looks pretty smug for someone who just got dunked on. Bucky doesn’t like that smile.

“Is it really an opportunity if I got you where I wanted you?”

He feels betrayed. But he’s also kind of disappointed in himself that he fell for that. He’s known Steve fucking Rogers for a hundred years and he still falls for it. Groaning, he holds his hand out, “Gimme the damn towel then, asshole.” and goes to town on the dripping dishes in the drying rack. Steve steps away with a small laugh, sitting down at the table to finally enjoy his cup of whatever he’d made them for the evening and watching Bucky make quick work of the drying. He hums to himself as he blows and sips on his cup.

“I don’t wanna hear anything about this ever again. I won’t hesitate to tell the kids how you peed your pants once.”

“Oh, getting out the big guns. Mean,” Steve comments noncommittal, drinking noisily.

“Punk.”

“Jerk.”

Bucky throws the towel down on the side of the sink when he’s done, moving over to Steve in quick steps to push his head forward. Steve laughs out loud, holding his cup away so it doesn’t accidentally splash. “Hey, no need to get violent. This is a family friendly house.”

Bucky sits down in the chair next to Steve, pulling his own cup closer. He looks over at his husband with a meaningful stare as he blows on his cup. “Don’t tell me what to do, old man. You’re too fragile to bear the consequences.”

“Oh, so now I’m the old man? Where’s Mister ‘I’m a year older than you’?”

“Not in this timeline, pal.”

Steve halts. “Touché.”

And with that, the fun, relaxed atmosphere dissipates as quickly as it came. They lapse into a comfortable silence then, drinking their teas respectively, lost in thought. Their thighs touch under the table. Bucky realizes there’s Bing Crosby playing from over in the living room.

“So, why did we decide to raise the kids with russian?” Bucky eventually speaks up, voice coming out quieter than he wanted it to. He blows on his cup once more, even though it’s cold enough by now.

Steve sighs, but it’s not a sad one. “It’s the language Maggie spoke when we got to her. She was,” he hesitates, and it’s only by looking up at him, that Bucky sees it’s not because he dreads the memories, but is pleasantly lost in them. “She was a force to reckon with when we defrosted her back in Germany. She was only two years old, but she was like a wild animal. And she only spoke russian and german. You were the one to get through to her by speaking to her, and as soon as you did, she didn’t leave your arm until we arrived back in the US.”

Bucky hums. He understands now, at least in some aspects. In his current state, in his own timeline, he wouldn’t have decided to do that. But he can see an older version of himself making that decision, eventually. Whenever he got comfortable enough with his past. Or, whenever the love of a daughter made him reconcile with himself.

“But you still don’t speak a word russian, do you, pal?”

Steve snorts into his cup. “Hey, I know ‘idi syuda’, and that’s honestly all I need to know for these kids.”

Bucky chuckles, staring at the other man from the side. His laugh trails off into a small smile. “Well, maybe you should know ‘ya tebya lyublyu’ as well.”

Steve puts his cup down, and turns to him, the same stupid, smitten smile on his face that Bucky probably is donning right now, too.

“Oh, I know that one. Well enough.”

Bucky can’t seem to remember to keep the lines from blurring in that moment.