He only had the one backpack. It wasn't full but everything in it was important, he thought. It seemed important, at least, every time he added something to its supplies.

Some things made sense. Granola bars, wads of cash in various currencies, a few fake IDs that would be good enough to get through a border checkpoint. Loose bullets less so—the principle of having them, sure, but they weren't for the same weapon and there wasn't even a gun in the backpack. A small notebook, half-filled, his handwriting undeniably but sometimes neat, sometimes messy, sometimes with pictures taped in. He remembered a bigger version of the same thing, the real book he'd tried to compile to figure things out. This one was for emergencies, for quick reminders. A bookmark with Captain America on it. An empty mint tin. A pocket watch. Three rescue inhalers.

He remembered vaguely the compulsion that drove him to collect inhalers. Memories of the missions were sharper, much as he resented them, but the spaces in between missions—filling the gaps of seventy years—stuck in his mind more like dreams. Just feelings, really, of what he might have done back then. Those were memories he didn't need to save, but clung to anyway. The first inhaler he saw, couldn't be sure of when, but it reminded him of Steve and ducking into alleys to catch their breath and worrying all the time if the smog was bad or the wind blew too hard. The medicine wasn't for him, never was, not even all the way back then. It was for Steve; in the memory he didn't know that specifically, just that someone important needed it.

He took the notebook and thumbed through it. A few pages just of his own name, variations, nicknames, the names he'd never answer to—he dared anyone to call him Jimmy, see how far it'd get them—but the pencil lines were faded and hesitant where he'd written out "Bucky." Something hurt about it, not the name itself but the way he'd recorded it. Like he couldn't trust himself, like it was against some rule to say it. It hurt viscerally but he couldn't pinpoint exactly where. His stomach, maybe, his guts. A regret pain, a guilt, embarrassment even.

There were fresher names at the end of the book. He'd added them sporadically on separate pages, alongside the descriptions that mattered, jotting them down between fleeing from them and fighting them and trying to make friends again. Sam Wilson, undeniably an ally, reluctantly a friend. Everett Ross, jailer and warrant-holder, trustworthy as a person but not a safe name. Wanda Maximoff, Peter Parker, Shuri. He chuckled dryly at Tony Stark—penciled hastily as enemy, crossed out and corrected to potential ally, snidely defined as Steve's former best friend. As if.

So he kept the book. It might still be useful. Everything else wasn't worth unpacking; he'd just give the backpack to Steve to deal with, they'd already arranged for it in case there was anything particularly surprising. But, just in case, he unzipped all the pockets and fiddled through them. Good thing, too, when he found loose scraps of paper and remembered almost stupidly about the letters.

The goddamn letters. More remnants of the moments in between, shit he wrote practically unknowingly and not even his brand-new Wakandan-healed brain could remember exactly what they said. They were pages torn out of all the notebooks. A shame—maybe a blessing—he'd written everything in pencil so the words faded together. Sometimes the sentences wrapped around the margins and onto the back, disheveled and twisted. Seriffs, sometimes, for no apparent reason because he'd never in his life been taught to print. Sometimes just a spray of words in torn corners. He gathered all the sheets he could between one hand, like picking weeds. Some of the edges caught in the zipper and tore, but it didn't reveal any words. He tried to fan them out between his fingers, then, morbidly curious.

Dear Steve,

If you're reading this,

And he stopped there. Dear Steve, Dear Steve, every page had to start with a "Dear Steve" like some sort of ridiculous love letter. If you're reading this, if I knew where to find you, if I knew who you were. A lot of hypotheticals acted out between the lines, but he didn't have the vocabulary to make it the text rather than the subtext. Leave me alone, let me go. I don't remember, I don't know you, I don't know anything. I saw you in a museum; you have to tell me why I was there too.

In the back of his mind he knew these weren't the only letters. He'd been writing to Steve since 1943, except back then they were meant to keep an eye on the lonely little kid he'd left in Brooklyn. Little did he know. It was no wonder Steve never wrote back, but at the time he'd assumed the best—that Steve was ignoring him for sentimental reasons but was finding his way regardless—and it never occurred to him that when everything went to shit he'd find himself already starved of memories and shocked not just by Steve, but by some idyllic version of Steve.

He crumpled up the letters. Who were they for? Like he'd just hand the whole stack to the addressee, as if there'd be nothing to explain. Here, Steve, you barely talk to me and nothing's the same as it was but maybe this'll fix everything. It's about time you knew I loved—

Nah. He carried that secret a hundred years already, what was a hundred more?

He tossed the paper ball into a corner of the room. Behind the door, when it opened, so Steve wouldn't come in and see it. Then he zipped back up all the pockets and carried it by one strap to the door. As expected, even though it was half open, Steve was outside waiting on the wall. He tried to look nonchalant about it, like he'd just been waiting innocently and listening to the sounds of nothing rather than eavesdropping intently. So when Bucky cleared his throat Steve tried to feign surprise.

"Didn't have much to unpack," Bucky explained. He handed the backpack to Steve.

"We can get anything else you need," Steve said. He was gentle about it, about the level of his voice and how he grabbed the other strap of the backpack. "Tony's got some storage we can look at, and there's a monthly supply order everyone can add to."

"No chance of getting out of here?" Bucky suggested. A bit hopeless, admittedly, but looking around at the steely hallway and the skyscraper-style windows there was a little part of him that wanted to see some brick.

Steve shook his head. "Sorry. It's still complicated."

It was only fair, he figured. More than a few high profile murders under his belt, and that wasn't exactly cancelled out by a few scattered years of allying himself to Captain America. He was lucky to get this far, really. House arrest at the Avengers campus—protected mainly by Wakandan diplomatic immunity he didn't actually have—really wasn't that bad.

"Can we eat?" Bucky said, trying to find some humor in it. If nothing else, he was allowed to eat here. The damn place had jet hangars and movie theaters and forested running trails, surely it had just a normal kitchen. Maybe he wasn't funny again but he felt a little more like himself.

"We can." Steve said it quickly, maybe eagerly. Yeah, this was the right choice. Nothing quite brought back the old days like him and Steve, left to their own devices, trying to scrounge a meal out of a few dollars and whatever they had around.

Bucky's room was the end of one sparsely occupied wing. That was on purpose, in case he still couldn't be trusted. The next door was Steve's—perpetually open, he heard from Sam on the way in, though Steve had moved to this wing just days before Bucky. And after that was Sam, who was better friends with Bucky than most and who had some experience in handling traumatized soldiers.

They did stop at Sam's room. Steve asked casually if he wanted lunch, but he waved them on. Just as well; Bucky wasn't much in the mood for socializing when he wasn't even sure what to say to Steve.

Unsurprisingly the kitchen was spotless, as most things in the compound were. He was messier than this place. Things fit on the campus, and things didn't fit for him. Maybe he was de-programmed but he wasn't put together by any means, and the pieces were jagged and splintered, and he didn't have much ambition to force them back together. Well, no, he wanted to. When he looked at Steve he wanted to. Steve was better suited to the campus, but there were flickers of him that still felt wayward.

The one thing surprised in the kitchen was its other occupant. The kid, Peter—halfway to biting into a sandwich—scrambled away from the sink at the sight of them. He brought his plate with him and sputtered some apology, maybe, but Steve said something more casual that seemed to smooth everything over. Bucky wasn't listening. His most pressing worry now was leaving a good impression before things got too far out of hand; if he scared the kid he'd be out immediately. Tony made that clear in less-than-subtle terms. He excised himself from the conversation just by turning his back, but he did feel guilty about it. Not like he had much to say to the kid but it wasn't the most neighborly response for someone trying to justify his place.

He did remember times like these, though. With Steve. Back then things were switched, he'd be the one carrying on some polite conversation and Steve would be doing something else entirely, but he didn't miss it much. The ease of it, maybe, the fact that he was once able to do it. He didn't have anything to say anymore.

"Can I ask a question?" he heard suddenly from the kid, and from Steve's surprise it was angled to Bucky. Not one to be rude he turned back around—halfway, anyway, in keeping with the non-threatening posture.

Peter hesitated, so Bucky nodded. Then the kid asked, "You speak a bunch of languages, right?"

He laughed. He was just as surprised by it as the rest of them, but of all the questions he never saw that one coming. "Yeah, I know a few."

"Awesome." Peter smiled nervously. "Can you help me with my Spanish homework?"

Bucky glanced at Steve, who'd started picking up languages like they were nothing way back in the war, and thought of all the better candidates Peter chose to ask the Winter Soldier. For homework help.

He paused too long in the answer, so Steve started to reply with a quick, "I can—" and then Bucky beat him to it.

"I can do that."

Steve didn't have to look so pleased about it, but seeing him finally smile was a little more reward than seeing Peter's obvious relief. He wasn't so scary after all.

"Thanks," Peter said. Then, sandwich in one hand and plate left abandoned on the counter, the kid sprung away. He did turn around, walking backwards while announcing, "I'll come find you when I start."

And Bucky laughed again, signing off to the kid with one wave. He had guts like a young Steve—the more tenacious Steve, not that the current version wasn't still stubborn as all hell. It was nice, being helpful again.

He turned a good-natured smirk on Steve. It felt deserved.

"What?" Steve said plainly, grinning in his own right.

"Nothing," Bucky said back. "Nothing at all."

Steve sighed. Then he chuckled some, and seemed to think that was the end of the conversation since he opened the fridge.

"That kid wanted my help," Bucky added quickly, smugly. "Reminds me of someone."

Steve peered around a fridge door. "I didn't ask you for help, you'd come over and tell me I was doing it wrong."

"You needed me." It was a warm memory, curling around his mind like steam or stovetop smoke. He'd been a slightly better student—Steve was smarter, but between daydreams and drawings had fenced himself into his teachers' bad sides. It didn't matter when he'd taken on tutoring Steve, since there wasn't ever much to actually teach. He'd answer the occasional question to sound helpful, but mostly tell Steve to keep drawing. Maybe once he'd seen Steve draw him.

Steve was quiet to that, though. There weren't many answers that wouldn't just sound sentimental. If anything had changed about Steve in the last seventy years, it was definitely his sentimentality.

They ended up with Steve cooking, and Bucky trying not to be so impressed. But they ate together in awkward silence in the cafeteria off the kitchen. Small talk seemed too formal but without it what else was there? Bucky didn't have anything to say that wasn't too much, too soon—I used to be the one taking care of you—and Steve probably had too many things to say and no clear plan for saying them. It was uncomfortable because it was unusual.

If he really thought hard about it, it was uncomfortable because he wasn't sure how to ask anything. Some things hadn't changed, and probably wouldn't ever; Steve was determined, dedicated, a bit independent, maybe melancholic. That was familiar, dare he say typical. But so much of him was new—responsibilities, undue humility, doubts and reservations, authority. Yeah, Bucky would have to ask him eventually about cell phones—smartphones?—and there'd be a million little questions and it only made sense to ask Steve for answers. But how was he supposed to ask Steve where to go, how to act, what to do with himself? He'd followed Steve on missions, in battles, and it wasn't a hard thing to do to defer to him. It was rewarding, even, to think of the hand he'd had in Steve being a leader. But all this was different.

Maybe he hadn't actually processed just how much things had changed way back when it all started. After all, he'd left Steve in Brooklyn with only a few meager letters and the next he saw of him, Steve was… this.

"I can leave you alone," Steve interrupted suddenly. His heart actually sank.

"No," was his first thought. "You don't have to."

"I don't want to push you," Steve explained. He was sheepishly gentle about it, which generally meant he didn't really want to do it but was gonna do it anyway. "We all need time to adjust, you included."

"I'm adjusted," he lied. "You don't have to worry about me."

Steve shrugged. "I do anyway."

He thought that was fair, at least.

"You're quiet," Steve said even more softly. He opened his mouth to say more and didn't make a sound. His eyes focused on the middle of the table between them—in the old days Bucky could press and pry and manage to drag answers out of Steve but Steve wasn't really one to volunteer his thoughts. Not in this way, at least. He tried to be stoic and logical, and Bucky could always see right through it enough to know it was a lie. But he wasn't good at imagining what Steve actually wanted to say, and it had only gotten worse over the years.

"You are, too," he retorted. It was ruder than he meant it but Steve would have to give him a little grace on that.

"I don't mean to be." Steve met his eyes then. They'd done this a hundred times since his stint as the Winter Soldier, even since Wakanda, so why did it only now make his heart pound? Steve must've decided better about what he wasn't saying then. "You're you again but I'm still afraid. I already lost you enough."

Bucky tried to count. He lost Steve too, when he shipped out and when he was captured, and then the train and they'd taken his whole mind away. But it wasn't the same. It wasn't even fair to compare, really. At least he got to forget Steve and remember—reclaim his memories in pieces, but live a long time without worrying about him—while Steve seemed perpetually wrenched between his death and his rescue. There wasn't a point in feeling guilty about it but he did anyway. He got to remember absolutely nothing and all the while Steve was mourning in more than one way.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said. With you 'til the end of the line, he considered. But it came off too heavy. "You couldn't leave me alone, it's only fair I return the favor."

Steve smiled just a little. "I don't wanna track you down again."

"I don't wanna leave," he agreed.

He did think, though, that he'd lost Steve in a way that Steve wouldn't know, and maybe it didn't count as a loss because he'd never had Steve that way to begin. He didn't want to leave, that was true; regardless of the stipulations and rules and the complexities of reclaiming his citizenship and amnesty for his crimes, he'd rather be here than anywhere else. But it was bittersweet in all the tiny ways he saw Steve keep moving on.

Despite a few more protests Steve did end up leaving him alone after that. Bucky was set loose on the campus, instructed by Steve to do whatever he wanted so long as it wasn't running away. He appreciated the trust but resented the time alone—even if Steve insisted it was because of his own obligations. He didn't have work like that, or anything structured to do with himself. So he wandered for a while, planning out things he could do in a day to fill the time, remembering more than once that there were some things he couldn't do without a second arm. When he was still bored and Steve was nowhere, he found himself running laps almost mindlessly. The track felt shorter than it used to. Maybe he'd start keeping count, make it into some kind of game. How many did it take to feel tired, then exhausted? How many to break a sweat?

His stride was different, shifted by his off-balance weight. It made sense why they wouldn't let him keep the arm—it was somewhere in the campus, anyway, but he wasn't allowed to have it back until things were "sorted out." It wasn't bad, just unusual. Another thing to get used to. But he wasn't tired when he decided to stop running, just bored with it and hoping to find something else. There was a pool; maybe instead of swimming laps he'd lay back in it. Maybe he'd box, screw the second arm, he'd still knock Steve on his ass with one. Maybe he'd keep wandering, try to learn a little more of the layout or take himself off on one of the trails until he hit the perimeter. He didn't want to test the bounds but he did want to see them, feel for himself how much room he really had.

Or, in light of every better option, maybe he'd just go back to his room. Sam was gone—his last potential distraction—and the wing was empty. He left his door open in case someone needed him, maybe the kid with his homework or Steve with anything else. It really was the bones of a room, one bed with basic sheets and one empty desk, his name on a notecard in Steve's print handwriting. Not like he knew what to do with the space anymore but this was dismal. More of a hotel—or a hospital. He tried to remember the room he grew up in, but that was so far away anymore. He was already forgetting that place before the train and the Winter Soldier. He thought maybe there were trophies, baseballs and bats, boxing gloves, pencil drawings. Maybe newspapers too, and old Dodgers ticket stubs. Like any of that had a place here—a lot of it was his kid stuff, for one, not that he could really remember the room as it'd been before he left for the last time. But mainly a lot of it was memories. And he wasn't too good with memories anymore.

There was a digital clock beside the bed, and checking it only made him want to tear his hair out. How long were the days? What was he supposed to do?

Without thinking too much about it he left for Steve's room. He wouldn't be there, Bucky figured, but maybe Steve had done a little more thinking about what modern grown up rooms looked like. And maybe he had stuff to do in there. He wasn't disappointed immediately; Steve's room was subdued, a bigger bed with blue comforter and white sheets, but he had posters and canvases on his walls. A bookshelf, half filled, still in the process of unpacking. Vinyl records. Throw blankets. His desk was messy, not just cluttered but in actual disarray. Above it he had a cork board with a few notes pinned on it—of course Bucky snuck closer to read them, but one was the WiFi password and the others were just small reminders. One note did say "Bucky comes home" and the date below it was underlined three times. That made him smile.

The mess was mostly unsorted books, loose papers, a couple novelty coffee mugs for good measure. There were notebooks too—not just notebooks but sketchbooks, even though they looked empty and unused. Curiosity made him want to look, but trust was a two way street and if he didn't want Steve poking around his things he better not poke around Steve's. But Steve still drew? He had to. And Bucky had to see it.

He exercised restraint this time. If the books were closed they weren't meant to be seen, open door or not. But the papers strewn everywhere, that was a different story. They couldn't be important if they were left out like this. Mission memos, typed out, some of them addressed to or from Tony but they seemed mostly informal and definitely old. Some of them were recipes—he laughed softly but fondly—and some were just the schematics for furniture. He considered the idea of Steve as a craftsman and it didn't sit right; all he could see was tiny eighteen-year-old Steve who'd be squashed instantly by a rogue couch cushion and certainly wasn't fit to work with anything heavier or sturdier.

Clearly Steve had dumped all his extra stuff on the desk and there wasn't any pattern to it. A few scratched notes he hadn't hung up, alternating between print and cursive. Loose pages torn from lined notebooks. Dear Bucky–

Dear Bucky.

Only that much poked out from beneath the stack. It was under two books, really meant to be hidden out of all the other inconsequential pages. But… it was to him.

He slid it out partway, still reluctant to intrude. At least this may look normal enough Steve wouldn't get suspicious.

Dear Bucky,

You've always been there for me, and it's time I return the favor. I've done a great job lately of tracking you down and getting everyone into trouble, you included, but I'm not very good at following through. I'm avoiding being honest with you.

Wherever this was headed he couldn't find out. He walked right out of the room and back to his own, and not even the sight of Steve would stop him from closing and locking the door. He sat on his own stale new bed and found his own notebook. Flipping through it didn't take his mind off the letter, really, but at least amidst his own notes he could find a like-minded voice. These pages were just as disorganized as Steve's desk but in a pattern matching Bucky's mind instead. His own notes to try and sort everything out, his small recollections of Steve and the new world and his new friends and whatever else he thought at the time was important. His own longing, to be honest. A trajectory whose end he knew without having to read any further.

But he couldn't keep Steve's letter off his mind. He found two pens in the drawer of his desk and wrote fervently in the little notebook,

Dear Steve,

If this were 1943 I'd tell you I was well and the war was going fine. I'd tell you not to worry and ask about you too. If I still had the mind for it I'd ask you if you'd found your place yet. It wouldn't even be a page and I wouldn't expect a letter back.

You're right to avoid being honest with me. I've been avoiding the truth with you since then too. I wrote to you before every mission even though you were right there, telling you everything I couldn't say in front of the guys or Peggy Carter. I thought maybe one of those times I'd actually give it to you. I didn't get the chance then but I don't need to remind you why.

He tossed the notebook aside and retrieved the ball of wadded up letters from its hiding place behind the door.

Dear Steve,

If you're reading this I have enough control right now to remember you. You should know that I've always–

Dear Steve,

You have to let me go. I'm not the same and if you keep trying to find me I'm afraid I'll kill you. I can't control it. You have to let me go even if you finally—

Dear Steve,

I—

Dear Steve,

If I knew where to find you I would make sure to stay far away. I'm dangerous and I can't trust myself. I'm staying away for your sake but it kills me that I'll never get to tell you I—

Dear Steve,

Wakanda is beautiful but not as much as—

Dear Steve, Dear Steve, almost like some ridiculous love letters. Not many things really, truly scared him, but the thought of these getting out was the exception. If he had much sense he wouldn't keep them, but now that he saw them again, crumpled, it didn't feel right to throw them out. So he shoved them in the desk drawer where he'd found the pens and hoped he'd forget.

He bided his time with folding hospital corners on the bed and then tearing off all the sheets and starting again. Some monotonous army task, something he'd done well before any of this started. If he still had shoes worth shining—if he had any clothes at all that weren't donations from whoever around the compound—he'd have more to do. Maybe he shoulda kept the backpack. At least it had something in it. But he was pressing out the wrinkles in the bedspread when he heard a soft knock. Too many raps to be Steve, so he guessed it was Peter Parker.

And it was. At least he still had some intuition.

"Can you still help?" the kid asked, trying and failing to disguise how bad he wanted to see inside the room. He was holding a book and a stapled packet of paper, and a pencil in his other hand.

Fuck it. He'd already agreed, and as far as he could tell he was still pretty adept with languages.

"Yeah," he said. He glanced back at the desk, making sure its drawer was shut tight. Then he focused on Peter. "What do you actually need from me?"

They walked together back to communal space, and Peter explained in no shortage of words how he totally forgot to do the winter break assignment before coming to the compound—and how he wasn't even sure what the instructions were, given they were in Spanish too—so if he could get that far he'd be okay. And he mentioned apps and sites and other translation tools but he wasn't sure he'd get full points if his answers sounded too robotic. In short, Bucky determined, he just wanted an excuse to talk to Avengers.

So he played translator for a little. Mostly he'd read the instructions, and Peter would ask how to say random words and, while writing down his actual answers, keep asking more random words. He reached a bit when he started asking about the practicalities of learning so many languages—did Bucky actually know every word or was he just functionally fluent, did he ever pretend not to speak one, did he forget any over time. It was more of an interrogation, really, and normally Bucky wasn't real good at them but this was different.

Honestly, he kinda liked it. About halfway through the packet it wasn't enough just to throw out a few words, so Peter was handing him the pencil and he'd scratch out sentences in the margins and—more for himself really—talk through how he'd written them. He didn't actually have concrete memories of the things he'd been programmed with; it was more of a block of indeterminate moments, and he was pretty sure they'd never given him a worksheet and a textbook. But some of this was familiar from even before then because Steve, being the golden boy, learned languages before the train and the ice. If Bucky had a mind like that…

"So do you—" Peter said abruptly, interrupting his attempt to remember. The kid hesitated to finish, shrinking for the first time since they'd sat down. "Do you miss it?"

"Miss what?" he clarified. He scanned the margins of the current page, his handwriting between the kid's.

Peter gaped a bit, trying to phrase it. It would've made him nervous except the kid ended up saying, "The old times."

"The old times," he echoed.

"Yeah, like, the forties." Peter shrugged. "The old times."

"I miss some things," he said slowly. He'd tried to find his home once—right after he'd gotten away from Hydra, when he was remembering things in fragments and without specifics, without words to explain them—and the neighborhood wasn't the same. He missed the radio in the living room and the blanket on his childhood bed. The walk to Steve's door, the spare key he hid just in case he ever needed to check up on him. Boxing, back when he was good because he had two good arms. "Steve used to be small. I kinda miss being bigger than him."

Peter laughed.

"But there's a lot I like about now." His attention drifted from the paper in front of him to the nearest window halfway across the room. "A lot of things feel… freer."

The kid probably meant something more like, how cool are the computers now and what his favorite movie was. It was clear from his face—just a little confused, though in fairness that's how the kid looked every time he saw him.

"It's real great everything's in color now," he added casually, smiling when the kid caught on. "The costumes look a lot better in color."

In the end they didn't finish the packet, but it was only because Peter realized Bucky hadn't seen a single movie since 1943. There were apparently more than a few he'd have to check out and it was pretty urgent and Peter was calling in reinforcements and he assured Bucky not to worry, he'd have the whole required list soon. He only protested enough to make the kid determined.

So that was how he found himself alone again. He spent the rest of the evening that way, but he tried to spend it at least somewhat productively. With paper stolen from Steve's room he catalogued what he thought he needed—paper, for one—and determined he could figure out where everything was in the morning. Take himself on a property-wide run, find the storage, maybe sort out where his arm was just for the fun of it. Even if he was an Avenger now, and that was a pretty big if, all he had to do was all he ever had to do anymore: wait for orders.

But he didn't sleep.

In Wakanda he'd found it more restful. It was wholly outside anything he'd ever done, anywhere he'd ever been, not that either of those were big lists. But importantly, it didn't remind him of anything either. They left him mostly alone and the air was lighter there, easier to breathe. When he couldn't sleep he could go outside, stand beneath millions more stars than he could ever remember, and be content with that much. He didn't really sleep much there, either, but it mattered a lot less.

The bed here was wrong. He thought maybe too soft, flimsy, but part of it was the tight folds and how constricted he felt. He tried to pull the sheets free but it didn't help. This room had small windows but they let in too much light and he could see just about everything. Or maybe not light enough; the shadows on the wall seemed too dramatic to come from so little furniture. He was torn between which he'd prefer, light enough to see and be kept awake, or darkness enough to sleep and be vulnerable.

Not sure when, but at some point he thought maybe controlled darkness would be best. There was room enough beneath the bed, if he laid on his back, so he took a pillow and the comforter off the bed. He hung the sheets so they blocked out light and hid beneath the bed. Nobody'd get in without him seeing them first, the sheets rustling at least. And he hated the hard floor and tried to use the comforter to buffer it, but it was a little more familiar. Hiding out was better than lying around waiting for something bad to happen. If he shut his eyes tight enough, he could almost pretend this was more like the war than the Winter Soldier.

The only reason one was marginally better than the other was Steve. Was the team, he tried to tell himself. The group. Someone would be on lookout and they'd tell stories and laugh and drink and the ground was hard but the company more than made up for it.

Here it was cold. Not the biting, snowy winds, not the cold night against his back when his face was turned towards a fire. It didn't sting so much but it did ache, something drastic missing. His arm hurt, he realized. Radiating down to the nonexistent fingertips, and the remnants of bone in his shoulder gnawed at him. It felt raw, like instead of missing an arm he was missing the musculature, and all that was left were ligaments and sinews ratcheted down over his bones. Maybe he'd sleep better if he didn't put images like that in his own head. But while it hurt the rest of him ached. He'd pretend it was a consequence of being a hundred years old, or of wounds outside just the arm. But it hurt the same way looking at his own name hurt; viscerally, embarrassingly, somewhere in his stomach. And all he wanted was to sleep.

At least beneath the bed he couldn't toss and turn. When he thought maybe the room was getting light around him he crawled his way out of the makeshift cave and checked the time, and it was just barely six. He didn't have anywhere to be but there wasn't much point in staying in here.