#barnes.

Steve would recognize the signs of deep-rooted stress immediately. As much time as he spent with Sam, Steve knew him better than anyone, and it was Steve he barreled to and wrapped in a crushing embrace.

"I'm sorry," he croaked, arms protectively tight around the other man. "I know you're fine but this... I keep waking up thinking it's our old apartment, and I have to make sure you didn't die overnight because I stopped watching."

It would probably be medically impossible for Steve to get any illness after the serum, but that didn't shake the memories. It didn't erase the endless nights he fought sleep because Steve's immune system was non-existent, and he'd gotten sick despite how careful they tried to be.

It was magic, or something weirder. Barnes wasn’t sure which, but there they were. His own self, barely 26, in science fiction heaven. And tiny, asthmatic Steve, looking at the present day super solider with the worst kind of longing. He’d always wanted to be strong enough to take on bullies, to help work at the docks. To contribute in all the ways his lungs never allowed. 

Barnes hadn’t expected the softness in those blue eyes to carry over to the broken assassin, and he found he had a hard hard time meeting them.

That was, until he heard present day Steve speaking to his smaller self in hushed tones. About how his Bucky was going to die, and it would be his fault.

There was no conscious thought in his head beyond protect, for the younger Steve was the one he’d spent every day of his life looking after. Barnes seized the back of present Steve’s sweatshirt from behind and threw him against the wall in one fluid motion. His flesh hand fisted in Steve’s shirt and pinned him there while the metal hand blindly caught the younger Bucky by the throat and held him at arm’s length when he attempted to intervene.

      “What the HELL do you think you’re DOING!?”

The trapped Bucky was not being strangled, but he could not pry those fingers lose for anything, and he scrabbled against the assassin’s hold as his present self continued to hoarsely scream.