Chapters: 3/3 Fandom: Captain America (Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Wanda Maximoff, Bruce Banner, Rachel Summers, Frigga, Shuri, T'Challa (Marvel) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Endgame Fixit of sorts, Reverse Time Heist, Religious Cults, Bucky Barnes' Feelings of Inadequacy, Found Family, The Snap Taken More Seriously Than in Canon Summary:
Bucky can't explain to anyone how strange it is to wake up in Wakanda with five years gone in a blink, in a second. The last thing he remembers was trying to get to Steve, and then General Okoye is telling them—because it's not just Bucky, it's so many people—that five years have passed and the rest of the world went on without them.
He should be used to it, he supposes, but he had really thought that he was done sliding through time, finished missing years. He had promised himself—had promised Steve—after that last time in Wakanda to get rid of the trigger words that it would be the last time, that he wouldn't leave like that again. He had thought it was a promise he could keep.
~o~
In which Steve and Bucky return the Infinity Stones, and return to a world drastically changed from the one Bucky left five years ago, and Bucky has to struggle with the knowledge that his best friend held Mjölnir, and at least briefly had the power of a god. So where does that leave an ex-brainwashed assassin?
Snippet:
"I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of," Steve says, "I try to do my best, but it's not always enough."
"Steve," Bucky says, because there's nothing in Steve's ledger that compares to his.
Steve shakes his head and meets Bucky's gaze. "The worst thing I did, during those five years that you were gone… When I thought you were dead, and after we couldn't get the stones from Thanos, after we killed him—I gave up."
Bucky looks at him, stunned, and can't help squeezing his hands hard in between his own. "You didn't—"
"I did," Steve says. His eyes are steady and clear, but sad. "Natasha never did—she just kept going, trying to be Nick Fury in a world without him. Even the garden—she was always planning for the future, and I was barely making it from day to day."
"I didn't know," Bucky says, feeling helpless. He hates the thought of Steve, lost and almost alone. He feels the sudden surge of gratitude for Natasha.
"And that's on me," Steve says, "because I didn't tell you, because it seemed like—we're with each other now, so why dwell on it? But you need to know, because every time you had a choice, you chose to keep trying. But me? I gave up."
"And then you came back swinging, as soon as you had a lick of hope." Bucky cups Steve's face in his hand and kisses him. "God, I'm glad you did."
Steve's eyes go soft, and then he's stripping Bucky of his filthy clothes, and pulling him down to the bed.
Bucky gets his hands on Steve in return, and lets himself be drawn down, one imperfect man who loves another.
♥♥♥