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Not a Perfect Soldier

Chapter 18: Epilogue: May 2014

Notes:

Thank you so much, everyone, for coming with me on this journey. Your comments and kudos have kept me going! Special thanks to EmilliaGryphon and siyuttov for betaing. And to every person who has commented-- thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You have no idea how much your words meant to me.
This is the end of the fic, but I may post some snippets from this universe at some point.
<3

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

We'll have tiny boxes for memories
Open them up and we'll set them free
There'll be bad days and some hard times
But I'll keep your secrets, if you keep mine

[…]
Keep your memories, but don't live the past
I'm looking forward to the best days we will have

You are the memory that won't ever lapse
When twenty-five years have suddenly passed
Wherever you take me, it's clear I will go
Your love's the one love that I need to know

--“Boxes”, the Goo Goo Dolls

 

“Last box!” Tony announces, clumping into the house in his Iron Man suit. “Where do you want it?”

Steve puts down the armchair he’s carrying and weaves his way through the other boxes to peer at the label. “Kitchen. Thanks, Tony.”

“No, problem, Cap.” He moves toward the kitchen, still talking. “I’ve actually never helped anyone move in bef—” There’s a crash, Tony’s strangled, “BARTON!”, and Clint’s mournful, “Aww, kettle.”

“Are you breaking my stuff, Barton?” Steve asks, opening a box of books.

“No!” says Clint, a little too quickly. Then, “I don’t think so,” followed, even less convincingly, by, “It was Tony’s fault!”

“It certainly was not,” Tony retorts. “Look, it’s fine, the base is supposed to detach, it’s an electric kettle, Clint.”

Steve lets their bickering fade into the background, focusing instead on placing the books on the bookshelf in his and Bucky’s new living room. He still can hardly believe this house—a Queen Anne farmhouse a little way south of New Paltz—is theirs, his and Bucky’s. They closed on it back in January, with a loan from Tony to supplement Steve’s Avengers pay. They’d paid him back as soon as they received the first installment of their army backpay in February, and the house and ten-acre property are fully theirs, free and clear.

The house had needed a lot of work, and they spent most of the spring refurbishing it, with Tony and Jim Rhodes volunteering to redo the wiring, and other Avengers popping in and out to help with whatever unskilled labor was necessary. Sarah, who is an interior designer, helped them pick out color schemes and find furniture and decorations, and several of Bucky’s grandnieces and nephews had spent a weekend helping to paint all the interior walls.

They moved in the furniture this morning, and now all that’s left is unpacking their belongings from the Tower and putting them in place. With the furniture in, a rug laid down, and books on the bookshelf, it’s starting to look like a home, even with the boxes still scattered across the floor.

Bucky, Natasha, and Thor come down the stairs just as Steve is sliding the last book into place.

“We’ve put away everything upstairs,” announces Natasha. “Except for your art stuff, Steve—”

“And we haven’t put the pictures on the wall yet, since we said we’d do that together,” Bucky finishes.

“That was quick,” says Steve, impressed.

Thor grins. “We’re superheroes, what do you expect?”

“Good point,” says Steve, smiling back. “Bucky, you want to help me hang the Brooklyn painting?”

“Sure.”

The “Brooklyn painting” is a large watercolor Steve found while exploring galleries with Pepper; it depicts an underpass in Brighton Beach in the heavy rain, and he’s inordinately fond of it. He carefully removes it from its cardboard wrappings, and Bucky takes one corner of it. Together, they hang it from the waiting hooks above the mantlepiece, shifting it around while Natasha calls out directions.

“Bucky, bring your corner up a little—not that high—down a little—there!”

Steve carefully lets go, stepping back to survey it properly. “What d’you think, Buck?”

“It looks good.” Bucky bumps his shoulder against Steve’s, reassuring. “It fits.”

“It’s beautiful,” says Thor, looking at it admiringly. “It captures the essence of rain, does it not?”

“That’s what I said!” Steve says. “And the texture—look, you can see where the paint has been layered to give that streaky effect—”

Bucky gives him an indulgent look, and kisses him on the temple. “And yet you still claim not to be an art critic.”

Buck,” Steve complains, blushing. “One year of art school seventy years ago doesn’t make me an expert.”

“You could go back to school,” says Natasha, watching him closely. “New Paltz has a giant art program; you could commute. You’ve certainly got enough money for it.”

Steve opens his mouth, then closes it. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought of it, more than once; the possibility of picking up where he left off, of relearning how to be an artist. It was Bucky who insisted that the room upstairs should be his studio, and who had encouraged him to buy art supplies once their backpay had taken care of all their financial concerns for the foreseeable future. Somehow, he hasn’t had the courage to go beyond idly dreaming—to really commit to his art, to making it a passion again.

“Indeed, it would be wonderful to see you pursue your artistic endeavors more fully,” Thor says. “I have greatly enjoyed seeing your sketches, and would like to see more.”

Steve glances at Bucky, whose eyes are soft and fond.

“You know I’d be onboard if you wanted to get a proper education, Stevie. I always did think it was a crying shame you had to drop out in the first place.”

Now that the idea has been spoken out loud, it feels far more tangible; what had seemed an impossible fantasy in his head seems suddenly achievable, now that the others are treating it as such. The rush of excitement is almost scary, bringing up the old feeling that if he wants something this much, there must be something wrong with it—or that it will somehow fall apart. It’s something he’s working on in therapy, but it’s slow going.

“Maybe,” he says, thinking of the box of mostly untouched supplies upstairs. “I’ll think about it.”

“You should,” says Natasha. “No pressure, of course.”

“Of course.”

But it would be really cool to see your name in a gallery someday, just saying.”

“That might be getting a little ahead—"

They’re interrupted by the shrill of Steve’s phone. He fumbles it out of his pocket, sees their lawyer’s number on the display, and his good mood evaporates. He tries to keep the trepidation out of his voice as he answers. “Marta, hi.”

“Is James with you?” she asks briskly, eschewing a greeting.

Steve puts the phone on speaker. “Yeah, he’s here. Is something wrong?”

“We won,” she says without preamble. “Ross and six of his immediate subordinates are getting life sentences, and another fifteen are getting twenty-five years.” Her voice is filled with vicious satisfaction. “They’re not going to be bothering you anymore.”

Steve releases a shuddering sigh, and reaches blindly for Bucky, pulling him close. “It’s… it’s over, then?”

“It’s over,” she confirms. “And Steve, you’re receiving 500,000 dollars in damages.”

“I… what? But—”

“James is receiving 800,000, as he was a captive for much longer.”

Bucky stares at the phone, mouth open in shock. “But that’s… that’s over a million dollars.”

“Yes. 1,300,000, to be exact,” she says, sounding amused.

How?”

“I told you we were trying to get compensation for what they put you through,” she reminds them.

“Yeah,” says Steve, trying to wrap his mind around it, “But that’s so much.”

“The Army is responsible for what can’t be covered by Ross and his associates’ personal funds,” she says. “Since they were complicit.”

“Christ.”

“Exactly. I’ll be emailing you the full details, but I wanted to give you the good news first.”

“Thank you,” says Steve, dazed. “I… wow.”

“Any questions for me right now?”

“No, I… don’t think so.”

“Then I’ll let you go. Have a good day. And congratulations!”

“Thanks,” he repeats, and hangs up. He turns to look at Bucky, knowing he must look like he just got hit over the head with his own shield. “We won,” he says, disbelieving.

“We won,” Bucky repeats. He makes a strangled noise, half laughter, half something else, and suddenly throws his arms around Steve’s neck, kissing him hard. “We won!”

Steve kisses him back, half lifting him off his feet, and swings him around. “We won!”

“Congratulations!” Thor booms, and Steve finds himself enveloped in a hug. “This is a great victory, indeed!”

“Thanks,” Steve gasps out, lungs crushed by Thor’s enthusiasm.

“What’s congratulations?” Tony demands from somewhere behind them, and Thor releases him to embrace Bucky in turn.

“We won our case,” Steve responds, and anything else he might have said is drowned out by the others’ cheering.

He’s hugged by Natasha and Clint, and high-fived by Bruce; Tony and Pepper both kiss him on the cheek, which is a thing they’ve been doing for the past couple of months, and which Steve is almost used to; then Clint, who hadn’t actually heard what Steve said, demands to know what’s going on, Steve and Bucky rush to explain, and the group devolves into triumphant chaos the moment they’re done.

Tony had already brought champagne to celebrate the move-in, and they crack it open now, toasting each other in tea mugs and juice glasses, since they don’t have champagne flutes and their wine glasses are still buried in a box somewhere in the kitchen. Steve feels as light and fizzy as the champagne, a weight he hadn’t even realized he was still carrying lifted off his shoulders.

It’s over, he thinks. The war, the torture, the fighting—all of it. We’re done.

 

Later, after the others have left, Steve and Bucky sit on the steps of the slightly-dilapidated porch, listening to the frogs chorus in the pond across the yard. Moonlight turns the grass into a pool of gleaming points and sharp shadows, striped by the longer shadows of the big maple trees that stand sentinel around the house.

Steve leans against Bucky, reaching up to pull Bucky’s arm around his shoulders. It’s his left arm, the new one designed by the Wakandans, and it’s not only lighter and more sensitive than the old one, it’s also more beautiful—sleek black vibranium, with gold detailing tracing abstract patterns over the metal. When Bucky had first tried it out, he had cried in relief; he hadn’t even realized how much pain he was in on a daily basis, until it suddenly ceased.

“You doing okay, there, Stevie?” Bucky asks softly.

Steve makes a contented sound. “Just can’t believe we get to be this happy.”

“Guess it’s hard to believe in happy endings,” Bucky murmurs, “when you weren’t supposed to make it to thirty in the first place.”

“Still haven’t made it to thirty,” Steve points out, just to be contrary. “I skipped right over it, and then went backwards.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t see you dyin’ of pneumonia in the next cold snap,” says Bucky. He kisses Steve’s hair, then tilts Steve’s head up to kiss his lips. “We ain’t near the end of the line, yet, sweetheart. Not by a long way.”

“Not by a long way,” Steve repeats, and wraps his arms around Bucky’s neck, deepening the kiss.

It’s not what he would have pictured for himself, if he’d dared to imagine a happy ending, but that’s okay; this isn’t an ending, anyway. His past will always follow him like a shadow, the good and bad, the love and grief and broken edges, but he’s learning not to dwell on it. The possibilities and unknowns of the future beckon, a winding road of dappled light and shadow; he knows it won’t always be perfect, but he has no fear of it, not with Bucky by his side. And as for the present…

Well, he thinks, as Bucky pulls him onto his lap, his mouth grazing Steve’s throat, the present is looking pretty good, too.

 

Notes:

Disclaimer: I have no idea how legal stuff works for things like this. At all. (All I know is legal battles tend to take a ridiculously long time.)

The "Brooklyn painting" is Brighton Beach Cyclist by Susan Weintraub.