Chapter Text
The cake was enormous.
It had to be, not only to celebrate the occasion, but to feed everybody who'd crammed in for the party.
Bucky had come back to MEDCOM for two weeks of intensive Trigger Reduction, now that the long trigger was on the table; the tech had had the words written down on a card that was found on his body afterward, which meant that the words were bound to get out at some point. Breaking the trigger as soon as possible was imperative, and the MEDCOM team had been successful with the rest, so they were clearly the best qualified, and in the most secure location.
They let Steve stay with him this time, though--in a barracks room with bunk beds.
It had been surprising, after spending all his time in New York being intermittently homesick for MEDCOM, to find out how small and uncomfortable the beds were, and how much he hated being unable to share a mattress with Steve and also able to roll over without someone falling out of bed or sustaining a concussion.
A minor concussion. It was fine. By morning, anyway. No harm done.
Coming back hadn't felt like coming home, not really, not now. It felt like going to visit somewhere familiar--a relative's house or a hotel that held fond memories. By the end of two weeks Bucky was thoroughly ready to actually go home, in every sense.
He'd managed to listen to the long trigger a dozen times without reacting at all that day, which was good, because it seemed like the majority of everyone he'd met in the 21st century had been given a pass to come on base tonight and join the party.
They were back in the little mess where Bucky had been eating his meals the last couple of weeks, and by the time the towering cake was brought in--covered not only with green army men but an assortment of tiny plastic Avengers--everyone had broken into little groups to talk.
Andrews, still wearing those sunglasses of Tony's, was holding court in a corner with Cara on one side and Pepper on the other. Tony and Bruce were deep in conversation with Exley and Lind and Dr. Chestek. Sam and Clint were hanging out with Duncan, Mueller, and Lee, and they'd mostly finished giving Sam shit about being Air Force. Steve and Natasha were watching, with decidedly different kinds of fascination, a conversation between Thor and Fr. Guzman that was, to all appearances, perfectly cordial. Kitty and Harry were talking to Woj and Mrs. Woj.
Bucky himself had gotten pulled to one side by Isla, who had demanded to look at his phone. He hadn't argued; he knew better. He looked away when the cake was wheeled in, and Isla squeaked and then pressed his phone back into his hand.
An app he didn't recognize was open. Twitter. The account was named @SgtJamesBarnes and after his name was a little blue circle with a check mark inside. The picture in the corner was him and Steve, kissing outside his court martial.
Bucky looked at Isla. "You've earned this too," she said cheerfully. "If you don't want to use it we can handle it for you like we do Captain Rogers', but we feel you're slightly less likely to go around picking fights, so if you want to, it's all yours. You could post a selfie, if you want, or just say a few words, maybe about--" Isla gestured toward the cake, by which Bucky figured she meant the whole party and what it was celebrating.
He was finally free of his triggers, finally really free of HYDRA.
"Not a selfie," Bucky said slowly. It shouldn't be a picture just of him--even the picture for the account wasn't him alone. Bucky might want to change it to something more unique than the same picture the entire world had already seen, but he wouldn't argue with the content.
It wasn't just a celebration for him, after all. It wasn't like he'd done any of this alone, like he could possibly have done any of this without his team--both his teams, all mixed up now and gathered together.
"Hey," Bucky called, and though the room was noisy with conversations, every head turned toward him.
Bucky blinked at the sudden focus, but waved his phone. "Isla's gonna take a picture. With the cake. Everybody gather round."
Steve and Natasha moved in perfect unison to plant themselves between Thor and Fr. Guzman; Pepper jumped up to help Tony and Exley direct and arrange the scientists, including Bruce. Clint and Sam, with Duncan and Mueller and Lee, started drifting toward the middle of the room, pushing and shoving and talking trash about who belonged where in the picture.
Bucky looked to Andrews and Cara, and abruptly reconsidered.
He met them before they'd gone far and said quietly, "Is this--should I not do this? I wanted a picture for Twitter, but--"
But that would mean showing faces. It would mean exposing all of them to an enormous amount of attention.
Andrews snorted. "You've got some news to catch up on, Barnes. You been on blackout while you were in here again?"
Bucky shrugged. It hadn't been a blackout, precisely, but... well. He hadn't been watching the news, that was for sure.
Cara reached for Bucky's hand. "Eric and I and a few of the other hostages have been on TV already, talking about what you did in New York."
"And the rest of the guys have been on too. Once they had my name the press tracked down the rest, and the Army cleared 'em to talk about what a great guy you are. No details about treatment, nothing confidential," Andrews added quickly. "Just, you know. Personal human interest blah blah blah."
"Oh," Bucky said, and then he turned to Isla, at his elbow, narrowing his eyes. "Did they say anything I'm gonna have to go on TV and talk about?"
"Not in a bad way," Isla said immediately. She seemed a little relieved to have that cat out of the bag. "Just good things! People might ask, but we'll go over all the footage once you're back home."
"Great," Bucky said, wondering how many more interviews he had ahead of him. He'd been lucky, clearly, to be back here at MEDCOM for a couple of weeks; maybe by the time he got back to New York something more interesting would have happened.
"C'mon, Buck, you're holding up the show!" Bucky turned toward Steve's voice and realized that even Andrews and Cara had taken their places now; everybody was standing there on the other side of the cake table, with Steve in the center, holding out his arm in the space where Bucky would fit.
Isla gave him a nudge, and Bucky moved, ducking under the table and popping up next to Steve. He didn't have to be told to smile, only tried not to laugh as Steve kissed his cheek and everyone else crushed in close around him, a dozen hands on his shoulders at once.
The shutter clicked and clicked and everyone was talking around him, and Bucky couldn't stop smiling. He'd never felt warmer.
He and Steve slipped out of the party before midnight, and Bucky was almost surprised when they just went to a car, an ordinary rental, instead of being smuggled out. The rest of the New York contingent would be taking Tony's private jet home at some point, but Steve had said he had a plan, and Bucky didn't mind how they got home as long as they were going.
He dozed in the quiet of the car--it had been an exhausting two weeks, even before the party--and woke close to three in the morning. He was abruptly and acutely aware that they were driving west, even before his eyes made sense of the desert they were driving through.
"Steve?"
"Go back to sleep," Steve said, reaching over to squeeze his thigh. "I've got this."
He still sounded pleased with himself, and Bucky figured he could sleep next to Steve in the car as well as their bed, so he didn't bother to argue.
He woke again to daylight and a vaguely familiar parking lot. Steve was next to him, drinking coffee from a thermos, and he grinned and offered it to Bucky.
He waited until Bucky had his mouthful before he said, "Happy birthday, Buck."
Bucky just stared at him, counting days, but of course Steve was right. Today was the tenth of March: his ninety-eighth birthday.
Bucky swallowed eventually and said, "So what'd you get me?"
Steve snorted and leaned in for a quick kiss, then said, "Come on and see."
Bucky kept hold of the thermos as he got out of the car. The sky seemed strangely vast above them, and the shapes of the scrub around the gravel lot were prodding at something in his brain.
He put it together a few minutes later, halfway down the path, and grabbed Steve's hand with his free one. Steve held on tight as they kept walking. Of course he remembered this place the same as Bucky did, except that Steve had already been capable of feeling fear the last time they were here.
They walked together all the way to the railing of the lookout, and stared out at the vastness of the Grand Canyon lit in the early morning sun. Bucky couldn't speak, could hardly think, for a long time. He just looked, seeing all the color, all the beauty, that had made no sense to him before.
Finally he croaked out, "Is this--are we just--"
"I brought camping gear," Steve said. "If you want to give things a few more days to settle down back home, we can have a real good look around. Sleep under the stars. Maybe do some other stuff under the stars."
Bucky laughed, weirdly close to a sob, remembering that night in the greenhouse, looking up at the vast sky above him. Out here there would be nothing between them and the stars. It wasn't exactly the tourist season yet; there would be places where he and Steve could be alone with all of this.
"Yeah," Bucky said. "Yeah, that sounds good. We oughta see it right--we came all this way."
"We should take a picture first," Steve said. "Something to remember, huh?"
Bucky didn't think he'd ever forget, but he knew he would want to look at this moment again and again. He stepped in closer to Steve and turned to face the sun.
THE END