You'd been more than welcome in each others room for a while now and just now you started looking into drawers and boxes. He didn't hide anything from you, you knew that. It was more the idea of wanting to understand his mind better, how he organized things, what he owned in the depths of his boxes.
After being on that little adventure for a while you had dug up a box that was under stacks of journals. It had the Smithsonian sun logo on it, so you assumed it's stuff they gave back to him.
You carefully opened it uncovering tons of little things that described Bucky.
His dog tags were stuck to the inside of the cover, a stack of old laminated newspaper cutouts was stacked into the box and you skipped through the headlines of the early to mid fourties. He looked so different back then, so soft and innocent and without eyes that told a story of trauma.
He was just a young man, drafted, smile still reaching the eyes with an excited expression. Not that he didn't smile similar nowadays but something was just different about him now.
Under that was a folder with documents the army issued. Everything from him needing to go to war, over the missions of the Howling Commandos, to his MIA/KIA reports and letters to his family. Your body mixed the odd sadness with gratitude that he was here. He lived, you just wished his mother would've died knowing that.
There was some war photography including him, letters his friends had written to or about him. Letters his sisters had written, one of them was still alive and he went to see her every week. But she was close to 100 now and she didn't get to grow up with this wonderful man as a brother.
And lastly there were pictures from his earlier life. Family pictures and baby pictures. His father must've been good with cameras, cause you knew they were a hassle back then. He looked back then how he felt to you now. Soft, boyish, innocent but mischievous, adorable, vulnerable.
He'd been watching you for half of this in his door frame with a smile on his face, now coming to you to sit down behind you.
"Your baby pictures are cute." you smiled at them.
"Should've seen the ones of my sisters. They were even cuter." he smiled grabbing one of him and his baby sister.
"If you could travel through time. Would you do it?" you looked up at him.
He shook his head with a smile, "Sure, it would be nice to know what would've been different or see the people one last time. But I believe everything happened for a reason, a profound one that I don't understand, but for a reason. Life is basically just accepting that you can't change what's in the past."
His hand went to your back, "And I also have Steve and you. I think I've had a lot of luck with this."
You nodded and started putting everything back into the box.
"What's your favorite picture?" he asked.
You grabbed the one of him in his uniform before being shipped off.
"I look so different in that." he grinned at it.
"You look innocent. Happy. You smile reaches your eyes." he looked up at you in surprise.
"Do you think I should cut my hair short?"
"Maybe in a year or two. I like your long hair." you smiled while grabbing into it.
"Sugar?"
"Hm?"
"I love you to the moon and back." he watched you scrunch your nose out of happiness.
"I love you too, soldier boy." you gave him a small kiss.
He was home. He finally felt like he was at home again.
