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ronearoundblindly · 30 days

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Time and Tines (2/3)

Reasons (see previous or series)

Steve Rogers x Villain!Reader

Summary: With the Winter Soldier on your side, Steve races against time to figure out why...and how to stop you.

Warnings for basically DARKFIC: talk of unspecified terminal illness, medical malpractice, gaslighting, revenge, gun violence, not overly graphic death but still death (not of Reader, Steve, or Bucky), and decidedly too-little editing. MINORS DNI. There's plenty for you to read on my Light Masterlist, but this isn't for you! WC 5242 (which is, yeah, way longer than it was supposed to be)

Steve will do anything to avoid a fire fight with the Winter Soldier. There are too many people involved now, and he has to approach this situation delicately from all angles.

Steve just does not understand yet.

After hours waiting with agents in the dark of Doctor Avani’s house, convinced you’ve ordered Bucky to come right over and kill the man with brute force, nothing happened. There was no sign of anyone. Steve has to try something else.

A small army protects Salvatore while he searches your apartment. If the key to activating his friend is here, he needs to find it, destroy that information, and get a handle on why this is happening.

“This can’t be right,” Steve mutters, pushing past Agent Palmer (who drove) for a better look. “It’s too clean.”

Your one-bedroom would pass a white-glove test.

There’s so little…everything. It’s a far cry from the chaos Steve woke to find in the police station. His head throbs at the memory. He forgot what it was like to have his bell good’n’rung.

“Supe says she’s been selling off furniture,” Palmer calls from the doorway, “but he thought it was replaced. Boxes kept coming.”

Steve inventories a mattress with no frame, half a dozen hanging garments, no shoes. What were you buying? Where did it all go?

The desktop is bare. You’ve taken any laptop with you, it seems. That’s a small comfort. You clearly planned contingencies for your attack andor escape; it’s fitting you had the foresight to hide your research on the Winter Soldier.

Steve is still scared, however, because he sat with Bucky many times, listening to horrible tales of being trapped in his own mind, powerless, isolated in the midst of everyone, unable to control thoughts much less actions.

This one’s gonna take a few more beers for the friends to contend with, but with any luck and quick work, they’ll get through without bloodshed. He and Bucky will decompress somewhere peaceful. It’ll be okay.

He hopes.

Steve scans the lone bookshelf. The most curious edition is a history book about WWII, a few flagged pages open to reveal passages about Bucky’s service record, an underline beneath the location where the sergeant fell from the train, and a mail receipt for an address on Forsythe Avenue keeping your page. That’s all.

It’s not even a unique read. The book isn’t any more specific than an average school text. No other notes are made in the margins, so Steve turns the book upside-down and shakes, hoping for something to fall out. He rips the other books from the shelf and shuffles their pages until a picture comes loose—a polaroid of three women.

You’re on the right, fuller faced but it’s you. On the back is scrawled “the girls” with hearts on either side.

The book is handwritten, no label on the cover or spine, only an embossed mandala design. Steve’s stomach drops, but he opens to the front flap.

Property of Faith Williams

He swallows roughly and closes it, unable to step over that line of privacy. At the moment, he needs evidence of where you could have taken Bucky, and slow-reading someone else’s diary won’t give him that.

Forsythe Avenue might, but that’s just one tiny piece of the puzzle.

Steve checks a different unlabeled book, but it, too, doesn’t have your name inside, just a ‘Z’ fancifully drawn amidst doodles.

Damnit. This is no help.

“Palmer, you finding anything?”

“No, Cap. Bills all paid. Nothing under the mattress. No mention of Barnes on any papers in the drawers. Not even a Cyrillic symbol.”

No trace, just like how you two disappeared from surveillance.

Steve shuts his eyes, head still throbbing from how hard the Soldier landed a blow to knock him out.

The agent wanders through the tiny kitchen. “Fridge is empty. Doesn’t look like she intended to come back here…if…actually, it looks like she barely ate. No condiments, no spices, nothing.”

“How long has she rented here?”

“Over two years.”

Shit. This is a dead end.

“Keep looking,” Steve orders, but he takes the two journals and heads for the car, pulling up your thin file again. You don’t hold any clearances or a government footprint. You were let go of from your last job with a severance package. Nothing overly generous. No medical leave mentioned. Benefits, including health insurance, would be intact. Based on your appearance earlier versus you in the photo, Steve chews on a few wisps of theories, but it’s not solid proof. Without more, Steve has no leads.

“Friday, any connection to properties on Forsythe?”

He adjusts to get comfortable in the back seat of the SUV alone, firing up a view screen.

There’s a low, sad sound that means the AI found nothing in your records.

"For her or him?"

Womp womp, it comes again.

Steve lets out a tense breath, “Where are we with bank statements?”

“Authorizations just came back,” F.R.I.D.A.Y chirps.

“What about medical records?”

“That one’s a lot harder, Captain Rogers. We have to—“

“Just analyze the financials first,” Steve sighs. His head throbs again, and he knows he needs sleep. There’s no time though. If he could just get answers…

Protections exist, of course, for good reason, but Steve feels the frustration of any detective. He’s trying to find a bad guy, and by 'bad guy,' he means you, not the man you’ve taken, not the man you are certainly going to order to kill for you.

Steve rests his head on the chilly glass and pinches his eyes shut. He’ll take a minute, review the money trail, and then interview the doctor. It seems a miracle that man was able to go home to his wife and sleep, even with security inside the room, down every hall, surrounding the house…Steve wouldn’t do it; he can’t even keep his eyes closed long enough for the dry sting to subside.

How could he be so stupid?

You weren’t staring at him from across the room; you were watching your mark, waiting for an opening. Sadly, it occurs to Steve that if he’d just let you inject Avani, Bucky would be fine, here by his side, and safe.

You are the threat, not his friend, but that’s a hard distinction. If anyone else sees James Barnes—who is the stealth assassin Winter Soldier, as far as they know—they’ll shoot. No questions. Steve has to find him first. He has to get to you first.

Bucky is compromised, but Steve won’t let it come to that. Buck shouldn't do anything he doesn't want to do just because some enemy hijacked his mind and body.

“Feel better?” You twirl in the chair as soon as the motel bathroom door opens, steam billowing out.

Winter’s face is shadowed, pointed to the floor.

“Or…at least, okay? Here—“ you offer the seat next to you at the tiny table “—sit. Eat. Let me—I’ve got bandages for your knuckles.”

“Heals,” he grunts, sitting easily but with stiff posture, “fast.”

You let out a heavy breath, muttering, “makes one of us.”

The soldier reaches out for the file in front of you, but your hand pins it down.

“Uh-uh. Food first, and palm up here, please.” You wait for him to flip open the takeout container then blot antiseptic on the split skin. “Does that hurt?”

He shakes his head, focused on the meal before him.

Several months ago, an article was published about Bucky Barnes’ affinity for this one particular deli in Brooklyn, a third-generation shop. It listed his usual order.

You’ve made sure the bread isn’t soggy. You kept the spicy mustard on the side.

He makes a strange face, looking around for your portion.

“Not hungry,” you assure him, “I’m rarely hungry.” You secure the bandage like boxing wraps and spin the file around.

“Eat your food—” The command is soft, encouraging. “—while I tell you the story of how we ended up here.”

Buried in the file you’ve put in front of the Soldier is several lifetimes of horror. Maybe not everyone agrees with you, maybe not everyone cares, but that bastard Avani has to atone. For the next hour, you explain what’s expected of him, glancing every so often at the fancier hotel entrance across the street from your motel room.

It’s too early; you’d be very impressed if the Captain had followed those bread crumbs yet.

You planned so carefully for every obstacle. You anticipated so many setbacks. Men like Avani go down like great stone pyramids, not houses of cards, because their lives are built with safeties. For him to fall, a thousand others have to be damaged, and each one of them will put up a fight to remain untarnished. That approach—the truth, and nothing but the truth—has gotten you nowhere. Diaries aren’t enough proof. The placebo effect is not a crime. Two women are worth far less than a functional, marketable drug.

Plus, they’re two dead women. The pyramid is now their tomb. Nothing ever changes.

No.

You alone cannot topple a pyramid. You’re too far gone. You’re just one person. For justice, you have to go straight to the top, to the man himself. One on one.

Well, one on one-plus-one. Your addition is the sharp-shooter who can get you the top, the target, Doctor Avani.

Winter’s mission is very simple, but he’s thorough, asking all the right questions, thinking of all the right options. You knew he would be perfect.

“Now,” you clap at the end of your story, rubbing boney hands together, “a rundown of my meds. Sound good?” You grab a zippered case from the foot of the motel bed. “Nothing complicated, but here—“ nudging out a syringe and one glass vial “—this is the emergency one. Use 10 milliliters of this if I pass out. Got it?”

The Soldier takes an enormous mouthful of his sandwich and nods, eyes flickering back to that single bed.

You smile sadly. “I…rarely sleep. I’m keeping watch for now. You’re safe. You’ll need the rest.”

He chews and adds more mustard before his last bite.

“Okay? Good.” Your smile fades, fatigue and restlessness swirling in your empty gut as you remove another medication. “Next is this one. Every four hours, twent—wait, no, I’m up to thirty CCs now…”

“Sir,” Steve grits out with far less patience than he intended, pinching the bridge of his nose as if it will stop the throbbing inside his head, “you realize I am trying to save your life?”

Dr. Avani purses his lips in annoyance. “And you realize I am required to keep my patients’ confidence, right?”

Yes, Steve thinks, he’s said that several times.

“Are they current or former patients?” Steve tries to clarify.

So far, Salvatore slipped up only once. When Steve showed him the photo from your apartment, the doctor muttered something about ‘Faith’ and ‘Ziva’ knowing each other, looking confused, then immediately shut down.

Steve has to switch tactics. He doesn’t have time for this.

“Ok. We found over a dozen hotel reservations made with your assailant’s credit card, so look at this list—” Steve taps the smart screen to lay out a map with the names highlighted “—and see if anything stands out.”

“What have this crazy woman’s travel plans to do with me?” Avani bites out, rattling the tea his wife hands him.

A tremor. Not unlike how your hands shook at the table last night. Steve wonders if yours was because you are ill or because you were lying to him.

“Darling, your blood pressure…”

Steve sighs sympathetically to Mrs. Avani. “Thank you, ma’am,” he whispers, taking the next cup and saucer and clearing his throat. “Doc, please. I’m just hoping you can narrow this down for me. We still have no motive.”

“Insanity. Jealousy, maybe!”

“Jealous of what? Do you know what she might want?”

No answer, but Avani chews his cheek, eyes wide, while staring northwest on the map of hotels. Steve files that away in his mind.

The doctor returns to sipping his tea. “Do you know what they call people obsessed with finding patterns in chaos?”

His wife drops the plate of biscuits unceremoniously down on the side table between the men’s chairs.

“Salvatore,” she snips with the same frustrated fatigue wrapped around Steve’s neck like an albatross, “behave.”

“No. None of these are familiar,” the doctor grunts.

Steve can’t accuse the man of lying unless he wants to risk an all-out breakdown in communication during this active threat, but he’s running out of options. He needs real information.

Usually Steve would have more respect for a man staying within the parameters of his vocation, but this is a unique and complicated situation. This is Bucky on the line. Steve’s had enough of secrets and red tape.

“Any idea why she’d mail something to Forsyth Avenue? Do you know anyone there?”

“Forsyth Avenue? No, I’ve never been in that area before, as far as I know.” Though Avani wrings his hands together, no indicates that’s a lie.

Wonderful. Steve’s never been this unsuccessful at gathering intel, and Avani’s status as the newly-appointed Avengers’ lead physician makes it tricky to push harder.

So Steve recommends Avani and his wife consider staying in a more secure location before he sets off to personally check the hotels in the northwest quadrant of the map.

He takes Agent Palmer, riding in the SUV while the two diaries sit in his lap, knowing now—as sure as he can be—that ‘Z’ is for Ziva, and she knew you and Faith Williams. Those are ‘the girls’ in the photo.

Without Ziva’s last name, he can’t do a general search, but there is a death certificate on file for Faith.

Three women. One confirmed dead. At least two ‘former’ patients of the doctor. All visibly ill in either the picture or in person. One mourning the loss of person(s) and out to kill the doctor.

The pit in his stomach grows. Something very bad is happening, yet while Steve has anything else to go on, he will not be reading another’s diary.

He can only hope that your medical records are finally available once the hotel searches are complete.

There’s even a possibility he’ll find Bucky at one of these. Maybe he won’t have to concern himself with the rest at all. Maybe he won’t have to think so hard about your motives for activating a Soviet sleeper agent.

Steve does think, however. He thinks hard enough to spiral as each reception desk is questioned, as all security footage is combed, as every building is cleared. He has to make some assumptions to make the pieces fit.

You believe Avani is responsible for your friends’ deaths—both of them, since when Steve interrogated you, you accepted his condolences—and believe their cause of death was whatever treatment Avani administered.

It’s sad, of course, but it happens everyday. Experimental treatments are just that. If you’re concerned about gross negligence, the doctor could easily be reported to the Medical Board. Considering the amount of research, forethought, and planning required, the Winter Soldier is one of the slowest possible solutions to your problem.

But…Bucky was just your contingency plan. You had an opportunity to kill Avani yourself, yet you still set other options in motion. You used a weapon theoretically deadly to only the doctor

Steve still can’t understand, and it’s driving him nuts.

Finally, after the hotel reservations prove fruitless, Steve sees no other choice. He has to read the diaries.

He combs through the pages, growing nauseous as darker and darker layers of the situation reveal themselves, disturbed by everydetail except updates from the units on Forsyth Avenue or those stationed at the doctor’s house. Nothing is unfolding save the landscape in Steve’s mind.

He asks F.R.I.D.A.Y about the disease Faith and Ziva mention. He asks about the public records of the drug trial Avani lead and its results published just six months ago, after the last entries of the diaries. He notices the treatment was a huge success…for those not in the control group. Finally, he can’t continue.

His head pounds while his stomach churns.

In the early afternoon, Steve lays down to rest his eyes and reevaluate, but he’s met with only a blank canvas and drifts to sleep instead.

He’s woken by a shrill ring of his phone.

“Yeah, Palmer, what’s—what? What do you mean he’s gone?” Steve jumps up, straps on his shield, and races to his bike. “The hell were you thinking letting him make a house call today? Where did agents—“

Steve’s foot slips right off bike for an instant.

“Avani led the driver to some suburban neighborhood. Forsythia Commons.”

It dawns of him just as the garage door squeals open.

Steve never showed Palmer the receipt. No one else saw the numbers to the address. Steve’s rattled brain finished the label with a street name he knew.

He was wrong.

Including battles in Germany way back in the day, he has rarely driven so recklessly, but Steve is nearly a half-hour behind now. He has to catch up.

Palmer tells him Avani went into the residence alone—for patient confidentiality—and after a while, agents couldn’t get an answer at the door. Upon forced entry, they found the woman who lived there bound to a chair with tape over her mouth and the doctor nowhere in sight.

Steve gets lucky.

On his way to exit the freeway, he notices a hole in the noise barrier wall past a slope of grass. He pulls over and asks Palmer what the backyard of the residence leads to, but Steve can hear the reverb of agent comms before anyone is visible through the brush.

“Friday, I need traffic camera footage from my location from thirty-five minutes ago. Were there any vehicles stopped on the side of the road?”

“Yes, Captain Rogers. A standard maintenance truck with the department’s logo shows up and leaves seven minutes later, based on ten second intervals.”

“The license plate, can you read it?”

“Quality insufficient.”

“The highway department, do they have any registered cars out here today?”

A long pause follows.

“Friday?” Steve barks.

“Negative, Captain. Inspection is slotted for the end of next week, not today.”

“Alright, follow that truck on the cameras. Tell me exactly where they went.”

He doesn’t bother to tell Palmer where he’s going because Steve doesn’t want them to know really. He needs a head start to find Bucky—to make sure it’s Bucky who is found and rescued, not the Soldier who is cornered and subdued.

The trail ends at a dilapidated office park near the river miles outside of the city. With his own, short fingernail, Steve peels away the Highway Department magnet slapped onto the white truck parked by one building.

Nobody else is in sight, and the truck cab is empty.

Across the nearest door is sun-shriveled lettering. “-alv—re Ava—, M.D” marks the third name in a list.

Steve doesn’t hesitate. He can’t. He walks right in, eyes adjusting to a cave-like darkness without electricity.

The voices are faint behind another set of double doors, but he hears them.

“I don’t owe you anything, bitch. I hope you die like they did.”

There’s a sharp slapping noise and someone spits loudly.

“Admit it. Admit what you did and you won’t die today.”

You don’t beg him to talk. You don’t plead with him. You sound weak but sure.

“Rot in hell,” Avani annunciates, and Steve flings himself through the doors, knowing what comes after such a taunt.

You give him every opportunity to come clean. He could save himself, but Avani refuses while the camera records behind you. He calls you names. He calls your friends worthless. He says they were ’whores,’ but you will still send him back to the correct authorities if he tells the truth.

He doesn’t, he won’t, and you’re honestly pleased this is how it ends.

You don’t have a choice really; you must honor Faith and Ziva somehow.

Instead of the truth, Avani curses you, though not much could be worse than your current fate, even with Winter standing a few feet away, his gun drawn.

You have readied the syringe in your unstable hand and lift it to the doctor’s throat when—crash—Captain America bursts in and scans the whole room.

“Don’t do it,” he tries plainly. “You don’t have to kill him.”

You’re impressed. That’s faster than you expected, but Steve is looking at his friend to stop, not you.

“Shoot him, you idiot,” the doctor snarls.

As if Winter thinks the order somehow applied to him, he turns toward an open palm and a raised shield.

“SHOOT HIM!”

Winter doesn’t move the gun away from you and Avani.

Steve steps closer. “Bucky,” he starts slowly, “I’m not going to do that. I’m not here to hurt you. No one has to die.”

You need to buy more time.

“Soldat, show him.”

Only then does Winter lower his pistol and reach into a pocket at his chest, revealing the tuning fork that controls his own mind. Doing this will forfeit your exit strategy, but you’ll accomplish you mission. Winter’s mission is now secondary.

Steve’s eyes flicker from the fork to you.

After a tense breath, you give the command, confident the soldier will obey, locking your focus on Steve.

“Fetch.”

Winter sprints to the other end of the room and explodes through a wall and then a window to the lawn banking the river.

Cap makes a choice, his sad blue eyes full of pity, and it’s then you realize he knows.

He read the diaries. He understands what Avani did.

Steve bolts after the Soldier.

The doctor shrieks for his Avenger to come back, to protect him from his earned fate, but the hollow thuds of a vibranium arm and a vibranium shield colliding hum through the hole in the building.

The sound of fighting continues as you return the syringe to Avani’s neck.

Enough. Enough excuses. Enough lies. Enough time has been wasted on this man already. Enough is enough.

The end is more peaceful than he deserves. It’s quick and not nearly as painful as it should be. There’s no time left for suffering.

Salvatore convulses after collapsing on the stained industrial carpet, foam gently dripping from his mouth, a symptom of his condition when mixed with a common resuscitative cocktail, one you have to take frequently, one that spiked Steve Rogers’ adrenaline and nothing more. It kills Avani. His heart nearly explodes in his chest.

If there was ever a human that medicine should fail…

You only know he’s susceptible because Ziva knew. Heart conditions and caring for them are the sort of thing one knows about a person they love.

Avani promised to marry her, to leave his wife, to be with her after the drug trial succeeded. He promised she’d live, but he told Ziva she was taking the real medicine, ensured she took the placebo, and then gaslit her until the day she died.

Ziva spent the rest of her life loving a man who would make her happy and healthy, but instead, Avani made her life as short as possible.

He was not even that kind to Faith.

In her own words, Faith wrote how dying scared her, how she begged the doctor for the actual medication, how she offered anything to get it. Avani accepted. Faith did whatever that bastard wanted for months, all the while told she was healing.

Relief never came.

Faith was bedridden when a package arrived for her—a diary willed to her by a friend she’d lost touch with once you three weren’t gathering in the same hospital suite for the old treatments. That’s when she put it together, but Ziva had passed two months prior. Faith lasted only four more days, just long enough to bequeath the two journals to you.

The victory doesn’t feel as euphoric as you expected. You thought somehow you’d know that Ziva and Faith were proud and at peace, but you’re just empty and tired.

You stare down at Adani’s body, unfazed, when the tuning fork slams against a dangling metal doorframe and Cap shuffles through the rubble.

He’s scraped and beaten which isn’t what you ever wanted, just a necessary evil to fight evil. He watches as Barnes walks in from the grass.

“It’s me, punk. You can put that thing down.”

Bucky doesn’t wait for Steve, snatching the prongs right from his hands and tucking it back in his jacket.

There’s a moment where they almost hug before Steve remembers the doctor and rushes to the man at your feet.

“Call for help! I'm starting CPR.”

Barnes simply holds your gaze.

More sad blue eyes. It brings you hope that he will complete his mission.

You step away from the others to make for a cleaner shot, nodding that it’s okay, breathing a rough but weak “please” for emphasis.

“Buck?” Steve looks up as Bucky points his gun at you again. “What are you doing? STOP. It’s over!”

“His mission was never to kill Avani,” you hiss, unable to take your eyes off the perfectly-centered muzzle directly in front of you. “He’s here to kill me.”

“The hell—“ Steve climbs to his feet “—why would you shoot her?”

“I’m not going to jail!”

“You know what they’ll do to her, Steve.”

Both men take one step closer.

“There has to be another way.”

“I did this because it’s the only—“

“—can understand doctors who taking advantage and manipulating their patients better than anyone—“

“Put the gun down!”

“Pull the trigger! It'll be—“

“—told me he could do better than me,” Bucky barks. “Doc said, to my face, that he could make a better me. He wanted to make soldiers, Steve. More soldiers. Avani didn’t give a shit about what was right.”

You jump in. “If you found the diaries, you know what he was capable of.”

“That’s not how this works. We don’t condemn a man from—“

This time you step toward Barnes. “Just do it. Shoot me now.”

Steve lunges to take your wrist in his hand, your limb comically thin and delicate beneath all his enhancements.

“She doesn’t deserve to rot while they sweep this under the rug,” Bucky adds, voice low and serious.

“This is for the best.” You look at Steve now, and something heartbreaking swims in those morose pools, something unspeakable.

His head shakes, dirty, sweaty hair falling in his face. “What if there’s another way?”

“I don’t want to be saved, Cap. Let me go.”

You offer one final, soft smile, and Steve moves just as Bucky pulls the trigger.

Steve completes his testimony before the panel opposite him. None of the questions are a surprise.

They’ve painted you as completely insane, demented, psychotic, and he can’t argue. What would he tell them? Yeah, but she had kind eyes, so, you know, remember her fondly? No, he can only remain quiet until he has something pertinent to add which is very little. Bucky had far more to offer, and he already spoke.

When Steve steps out of the counsel chambers, Maria Hill is waiting for him.

“Shame she ordered the Soldier to dispose of her body. Took the coward’s way out.”

“You make her sound like a rabid animal that had to be put down,” Steve grit out.

“No, you’re right,” Hill admits, “but it was lucky she left the sound thing for—”

“Tuning fork,” he snaps, “which I destroyed. No one should have that. No one should even know about it.”

Buck does his best to calm Steve down with a heavy hand on his shoulder. “S’okay, pal. The interrogation footage has been wiped and unless someone with perfect pitch was walking by observation--”

“You know that’s not reassuring, right?”

The two huge men look at each other.

Steve finally mutters, “what about Avani’s widow?”

“All the blackmail sent to his mistress in Forsythia Commons was removed before Gloria even knew Sal was kidnapped, and I think it’s fair to say that lady is so grateful her name wasn’t dragged through the press that she won’t be bothering the wife. Good thing the doctor put her car and house in her name, or legally, this would get ugly.”

“Yes. We’re very lucky he was such a skilled adulterer,” Steve quips dryly. He regrets handing over the diaries for evidence. They weren’t mentioned once in any of the hearings.

Bucky flashes Steve a warning glare that reads, don’t start.

Hill obliviously flips through the folder in her hands, nodding. “All in all, this report amounts to an incredibly long lead-in of ‘use that PTO, boys!’ You earned it.”

“Understatement of the century…and I would know.” Bucky is a much better liar than Steve.

Thank god, they are fleeing to the middle of nowhere indefinitely.

Hill heads back to her office. “We’ll be here when you get back. Keep in touch.”

“No,” Steve counters. “I don’t think I will.”

Bucky and Steve leave in an old truck the next morning. They can’t seem rushed or impatient to get to their destination.

Casually accumulating supplies, Steve loads their bags in the flat bed with space for all repair materials they are likely to need. The cabin needs some work; the guys need to get their hands dirty and live simply for a while.

The team is happy for Steve; it’s been so long since anyone saw him moving forward in life, and, of course, he and Bucky deserve some peace and quiet.

No one else has any idea how hard-won this vacation is.

The drive takes all day because they can’t be in a hurry.

Steve takes pictures at every scenic outlook. Bucky climbs up onto some rock ledges to take selfies which Steve is not into. This earns him being featured as a blurry grump in the background of all of them, purposefully.

Eventually, the GPS-free truck pulls up to the place, a large A-frame style cabin that should be plenty big for two super soldiers.

Parked on the gravel path, Steve is careful not to ding the other car when he swings open his door. As Bucky heaves two duffels from the trunk, he calls out, “got the meds, too” and heads inside. Steve gathers up the remaining bags and trudges over, smelling something hearty and delicious cooking, listening to the tinkling, copper-coin wind chime hanging somewhere above him.

He doesn’t stop looking at his feet until they hit the top of the porch, spotting two smaller bare feet on the welcome mat.

There you are, holding the door open, layered in warm knits, more tired before but better than expected.

“Hey,” Steve breathes finally.

“Hey,” you say, your mouth twisted to hide an excited smile.

“Yes, hello,” Bucky grumbles from the living room. “Now shut the damn door. I’m hungry.”

Steve steps inside.