#askcaptaintogers

Bucky had been /damn/ busy since he got his letter.  Touching on contacts, some of which he hadn't prodded from underneath their rocks in .. well.. decades in Logan's case.  Others who were on shaky footing with him at best, but as the adage went: the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and it was a powerful glue to hold people together and mend old wounds when one's liberty was being threatened.

Some people got a text. Others, a call. Others were stalked down. None of these things were necessary with Steve; Bucky always knew how to find him, as if through a sixth sense. His own personal super power since they were both younger men--Steve Sense.

And with that letter from SHIELD burning a hole in his breast pocket, he was among the first the soldier sought out. The man he knew would have more intimate details on the political quagmire they were all being forced into. The man with the plan. The man he would play shadow to--even from a distance--for the rest of his life. It was simply a fact of this world: Wherever there was Steve Rogers in need, James Barnes would be there.

Certainly, he was a conflict of personality traits these days; aloof one moment and overtly amicable the next. Withdrawn one moment and flirting with anything that passed his way the next.  Imposing one moment and grinning the next.

But one thing that never changed was his passionate nature humming beneath whatever mask he was wearing at the time. Cool and calculated on the surface, but the way his pale eyes flashed when he set them on the tall blonde soldier, Steve had to know there was a fire stoked and threatening to melt that surface veneer.

“Steve,” the greeting spoken solemnly. None of his nicknames or jokes, it was obvious within that moment that he knew what was happening. And he had been called up just like the rest, only confirmed when he slipped his hand into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded letter inside a torn envelope—the return address from SHIELD.

Rugged features set with intensity, there was only one question left for the man. “What do we do, next?”