Bucky explained during his next call. “You brought most of those in with you and you didn’t sweep the place after you went out,” he said. His voice was both baffled and slightly critical. “I took three out of your jacket and one out of the clock radio.”

“I’m sorry, Buck,” Steve said. The words felt next to meaningless by now. He wasn’t even sure exactly what he was apologising for this time. Not checking his hotel room for bugs?

“Do better,” Bucky said, and there was as much fear and uncertainty in that order as there was anything else.

“Yes, Bucky,” Steve agreed. Evidence suggested Bucky wanted him alive. The least Steve could do was take care of himself a little better.

Later that week, when Bucky climbed heavily onto his bed smelling like leather, blood, sweat, and acrid smoke, Steve kept his eyes closed and simply inhaled.

“You’re awake,” said Bucky. He sounded like the asset.

“Pr’tty sure I’m dreamin’,” Steve mumbled, lips barely moving.

“So goddamn fucking stupid,” hissed Bucky, more like himself, except he was the asset was Bucky too and Steve was too bone-deep run-down to puzzle on it right then. “I could do anything to you right now. Anything.”

The bed was shaking a little. At first, Steve thought it was Bucky moving around, but it was too subtle and regular for that.

Bucky was shaking. Enough to affect the whole bed.

Steve opened his eyes and turned to look. “Buck?”

The Winter Soldier was curled up on the other side of the bed. He was wearing a full set of his old HYDRA gear, fully armed, black smeared around his wild blue eyes. There was dry blood misted and splattered all over him. “I don’t. I don’t. I. Another handler.”

But Bucky Barnes was curled in on himself, shaking and hugging his knees as close to his chest as what he was wearing would allow and that was all Steve could see. “Please, Stevie. I don’t wanna.”

Bucky flinched when Steve sat up. “You don’t gotta do anything you don’t want, Buck. I swear-”

“Almost took me back,” Bucky interrupted and Steve had to crush the impulse to grab hold of the shivering supersoldier. “Tried to gimme another handler. I don’t. I didn’ wan’it. Swear, Stevie. I’m still yours.”

“Bucky-”

“An’ an’, you said. You said. No one else is my handler now. No one gets t’ tell me who I am. I’m yours.”

Horrified, Steve wasn’t sure what part to try to tackle first since he couldn’t simply tackle Bucky himself. “You-”

“Steve. Please, Steve. Tell me. Tell me I remember right. I’m yours, Steve. Promised.”

“You’re my friend,” Steve said, inadequately. He reached out carefully, laying his arm out just short of Bucky’s knee. From the looks of it, those knees had been kneeling in blood at some point recently.

Bucky swallowed hard and shook his head. “I’m not.”

Before Steve’s pounding heart could plummet too far, Bucky continued: “Only. Not only. You don’t love me-”

Steve’s damned soul, if he still had one, lurched.

“-like that,” Bucky finished on a terrified whisper. He stared directly into Steve’s face, searching.

Breathe, Steve reminded himself. This wasn’t Bucky trying to seduce him because it was all he remembered or suggesting Steve make use of either of the asset’s functions. This was pure panic and demands for honest answers. He owed Bucky whatever he wanted and what he wanted right now was the awful truth.

“You remember right, Buck,” he said softly.

“Yeah?” Bucky’s breathed, terrified and hopeful, eyes locked on Steve.

“We’re more than friends,” Steve confirmed.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Bucky exhaled.

He surged across the bed, pressed Steve down into the mattress, and pressed their lips firmly together at an awkward angle that Steve was sure had to hurt both their noses.

Bucky.

Steve heard himself make a... noise and tried to bring his hands up to do… something.

Before Steve could fully process the kiss, Bucky rolled off him, evading the reflexive grasp quick as he’d ever moved, and was out the hotel window Steve hadn’t even known could open.

There were fewer crushed cameras and microphones left for him this time.

The Avengers weren’t out of the fight against HYDRA, even if Steve was taking a break. They weren’t looking for Bucky specifically, but Steve knew, before Tony told him, that there hadn’t been any evidence of the Winter Soldier more than a few states from where Steve remained in DC.

Natasha visited once, watching Steve closely as she investigated his hotel.

Steve didn’t so much as try to pretend Bucky hadn’t been there. He couldn’t. Not with Natasha.

How does he keep doing this? Is he drugging me? Is he just that quiet? I’m a supersoldier too, damnit. How do you keep doing this, Buck?

He might as well be a kid waiting up for Santa with all the luck he was having waiting up for Bucky. Natasha wasn’t going to be happy, but she wouldn’t be surprised either, given who they were talking about.

Steve didn’t bother sweeping the rooms he stayed in for more immediately deadly threats like bombs or assassins other than the Winter Soldier. Steve had no secrets other than those pertaining to Bucky and Bucky did a better job of it anyway.

Like Natasha could.

“Found it,” she announced, and withdrew a tiny white plastic ball from under the bed.

She brandished it at Steve. Steve had no idea what he might be looking at except that it didn’t look like any of the tiny cameras he’d seen before.

“Motion detector. Like a tiny pedometer.”

“That’s how he knows when I’m asleep?”

Natasha stared at him until it dawned on him what he’d admitted.

“Knows?”

“I’m not dead,” Steve pointed out.

Natasha appeared to be considering changing that.

It might not be what anyone else considered a reasonable answer, but it was true and that meant something. It meant a whole damn lot.

“Steve,” said Bucky.

“I love you,” Steve said immediately. It was the only greeting he wanted to give. His apologies were pointless and maybe what Bucky really wanted out of these calls was for Steve to say no and order him back. Steve wouldn’t do that. It might be his wishful thinking.

“How do I stop?” Bucky asked and for an awful wonderful moment Steve thought he was asking how to stop loving Steve. “I don’t… I’m a Winter Soldier. I only know two things. You stopped. How do I stop?”

God, I wish I knew.

Steve didn’t honestly know if he had stopped fighting.

“You know more than that now,” he said.

“Remembering and knowing aren’t the same thing, Steve,” Bucky argued. “How?”

There was probably something wrong with how much Steve liked it when Bucky argued with him, but that wasn’t something he could fully blame on HYDRA.

At least he’s admitting to memories and not lessons.

“I… ah.” Steve cleared his throat, struggling for the words, which was ironic given what he had to say. “It’s hard, Buck. It ain’t like it use’ta be. These days, it’s all about talking. That’s what’s... Normal now.”

The silence on the other end of the line grew long enough to worry him. If he hadn’t been able to pick up Bucky’s breathing, he’d have worried more.

“You…” Bucky’s voice trailed off like he’d spun his volume dial down. “You… Steve. You talk?”

“I didn’t say I was any good at it,” he retorted in instinctive response to Bucky’s disbelief.

There was a startled bark of laughter from the other end and then the dial tone.

Steve imagined the laugh had shocked Bucky as badly as it had him.

“What’s a man-purse?” Bucky asked, waking Steve from one of his last nights in DC.

Steve’s excuse for staying would expire at the end of the week. He would have to go back to New York and who knew if Bucky would follow. He’d escaped the tower once, but that didn’t mean they would be able to continue as they had been.

“A what?” he repeated blankly, turning his head. Bucky didn’t appear to be wearing a purse of any description. The blood-soaked combat gear had thankfully been replaced by a civilian jacket and jeans. The ball cap that completed the ensemble was currently on his bedside table upside down like a cup. It was holding Bucky’s latest sampling of modern surveillance equipment. He didn’t think that was what Bucky meant by man-purse. “No idea, sorry.”

“I met someone,” said Bucky.

Don’t panic. He doesn’t mean it like that and even if he does, it’s okay. Whatever Bucky wants. It’s okay. Don’t panic.

But it would break his heart and, god, Steve hated himself. “Yeah?”

“For talking. Like you said?”

Relief crashed over him. Steve was a fucking monster for worrying. “That’s great, Buck.”

“People talk. He helps people talk.”

Had Bucky somehow acquired a therapist in the five days since his last call?

“Does it help?”

Steve should call his own.

“Listening helps,” said Bucky. “And being listened to.”

“I’m glad,” said Steve. He meant that.

Bucky didn’t call.

Bucky didn’t visit.

Bucky didn’t call.

“Captain Rogers,” said JARVIS.

“Yes, JARVIS?” Steve said, hope rising. It had been two weeks since he’d last heard or seen Bucky. Any longer and Steve was going to have start paying Tony for all the punching bags he was going through.

“You have a-”

Bucky! “Put him through, please,” he said.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” JARVIS said.

“Why not?” asked Steve. He knew he sounded desperate. “It is him, right?”

“Because you do not have a call, Captain Rogers. You have a visitor.”

Tony Stark had definitely created that robot, AI, whatever JARVIS was.

Steve didn’t even care.

“My other friend says fake it ‘till you make it is a legit coping strategy,” was the first thing Bucky told him.

Steve hesitated just out of hugging range. “Bucky,” he said, trying not to choke up.

Bucky smiled at him. The expression didn’t look any more fragile than Steve remembered from the war. “C’mere, punk.”

It had been so damn long since Steve had been the one to touch.

“I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let HYDRA screw up my chance to have what I’ve wanted since we were teenagers,” said Bucky into his shoulder. “Fuck HYDRA. They can’t have us. Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers ‘till the end of the line, right, pal?”

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve said. “Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers ‘till the end of the line.”