"Want to tell me about her?"
"No."
Bucky couldn't miss the slight slump of Sam's shoulders after Steve spoke. He watched as the two men released each other's hands, still staring at each other's faces. Sam paused for a moment before glancing back at Bucky.
"I'm... gonna go put this away," he said awkwardly, gesturing to his new shield before wandering away, back to where Bruce was.
Bucky sat down next to Steve, their legs brushing up against each other, and stared out over the surface of the lake. They were quiet for a long moment before Steve took a deep breath.
"It was amazing, Bucky," he said quietly. "Peggy was so surprised when I showed up, not dead and from the future." He smiled a little. "You should've seen the look on her face. She nearly cried. We got married a year later. Moved in together, in a little white house in a quiet street. Nice neighbors."
Bucky couldn't help but smile as well. Even though he had just seen Steve a minute before, he suddenly felt as if he hadn't in a long time.
"Of course, there was one thing I was missing in my life."
Bucky frowned. "What's that?"
"You," Steve said, turning towards Bucky. "I could never find another person who was as close to me as you were. You were my best friend, Bucky, and nobody was going to replace you. I wish you could've been with me, throughout my life. At my wedding, my son's birth."
"I wish I was there, too," Bucky whispered out, and he meant it.
They sat in an old, comfortable silence, just staring out across the surface of the lake, watching the waves lap lazily agains the shore. Bucky shifted on the bench. There was something he wanted to tell Steve, something he had to. He just didn't know how to say it.
"You know..." he started slowly. "All those cold nights in Brooklyn way back when, when we had to sleep in the same bed for warmth and you had a sickness and were sleeping restlessly, I would watch you sleep, wishing that we could be something more than friends. All the damn time. And I would hate myself because that's not what was supposed to happen, that's not what I was supposed to be thinking about. But..." he shrugged, not looking at Steve, but he could tell that Steve was staring at him. And whether Steve knew about his feelings or not, Bucky didn't know, but it didn't matter to him. "And then two nights ago, well, for me, for you it was like sixty years or something, when you told me about going back to see Peggy, I was happy for you. Really happy, Steve. And that's when I realized, I was finally over you. And it was good. It felt good, to let go of something that was haunting me for the past seventy years."
Steve didn't say anything, but put his hand over Bucky's knee. Bucky covered his friend's old, withered hand with his own. It felt strange, foreign, but it still felt like Steve.
"I spent a lot of time telling people that they need to move on in order to grow. But it turns out, I don't need to tell you. You figured it out by yourself," Steve replied, giving Bucky a genuine smile. Bucky returned it. "And this is the twenty-first century. You don't need to worry about whether you're right or wrong anymore. You should go on a date, Buck. Go on a date, meet some guy you like, and fall in love."
"Easier said than done," Bucky chuckled.
"And there's one more thing I need you to do for me," Steve continued, frowning a little.
"One last mission, Captain?" Bucky said.
"I had a son with Peggy. His name was James, after you. And then he had a daughter. When my granddaughter was a teenager, she and my son got kidnapped by some terrorist group who glorified Hyrda. They killed James, but I don't know what they did with Hayley, my granddaughter. I need you and Sam to find her."
Steve slipped a small photograph into Bucky's hand. Bucky glanced down at it. It was an old photo, maybe from the nineties, of a teenage girl with long, blonde braids, smiling up at the camera. She had the same smile that Steve did, Bucky thought.
"I don't know if she's alive or dead, but I need you to find her. She's special. She's going to be the one of the two last people on Earth with even just a drop of the serum in her blood soon. You two need to stick together."
"What about you?" Bucky asked, although he wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer.
"I'm not going to stay around for much longer, Buck," Steve replied. "I'm like one hundred and seventy. I have arthritis. I get heart problems every now and then. Sometimes it's hard to take a shit."
"Oh god, I did not need to know that."
"Point is, I'm going to be gone. Like really gone. And you and Sam are going to have to take over for me. And with Hayley, if you can find her."
Bucky stared down at the photo, quiet.
"I'm gonna miss you, punk," he muttered out eventually.
"You too, jerk," Steve replied and suddenly his arms were wrapping around Bucky, holding him tight for one last hug.
"Now leave an old man to stare off into the distance in peace," Steve said once he and Bucky let go. "And anyway, I think you have to tell Sam something."
Bucky stood up, taking one last look at Steve Rogers. "Bye, Stevie."
"Goodbye, Buck."
Bucky walked over to where Sam was talking quietly with Bruce, who was flicking a few switches, probably shutting off the time machine.
"What did he say?" Sam asked, nodding over to where Steve sat with his back to them.
"He gave us one last mission. You up for it?"
"Hell yeah."