Joana

Seeing him standing there in front of her was like seeing him for the first time.

He was standing there in his white scrubs, smiling like a normal person. He was talking to Steve and Wanda as if he had been awake for weeks. If he had been awake for weeks, someone would have called her to tell her.

She stood in the doorway, mouth agape, unsure of how to move forward. It wasn't until Steve spotted her and turned Bucky's attention in her direction that she was finally able to move.

"Joana?"

The way Bucky said her name told Joana all she needed to know.

Bucky was back. This wasn't the Winter Soldier or whoever it was that was somewhere between the Winter Soldier and James Barnes that Joana had lived with in Romania. This was Bucky, her Bucky.

Bucky stepped away from Steve and took one step toward her. His one step was all it took to break the wall in front of Joana. She bolted toward him. As soon as she started running, so did he until they collided into each other. Joana was crying as soon as he had her in his arms.

But, for once in a really long time, the tears were of joy and not of grief.

"Joana," he whispered in her ear. "Oh, Joana."

Every pain, every ounce of hurt that had ever passed through Joana, every bitterness she ever held on to vanished the moment she touched Bucky. Everything she had endured for the last 70 years was to have this moment, this one moment with Bucky, and it was worth it. He was alive, he was safe, he was hers. Nothing else mattered except that she had Bucky back.

Joana held as tightly to him as she could. She inhaled his scent and stuffed her hands with the fabric of his shirt. He pulled her face away from his chest so he could look her in the eyes. She was surprised to see that there were tears in his own eyes. It made her feel slightly better about crying.

"I love you," he told her. "I haven't gotten to tell you in 70 years, but I love you. I never stopped loving you."

Joana smiled and let out a watery laugh.

"I love you, too," she told him, voice breaking. She buried her face in his chest again and he ran his fingers through his hair.

"I'm sorry to break up the reunion," Shuri said from behind Joana, "But I need to run a few more tests."

Joana nodded and stepped away from Bucky, but she didn't let go of his hand. How could she?

She looked over at Natalia, who had a glimmer of tears in her green eyes. Steve was beaming. Even Wanda Maximoff seemed to be crying. Sam was smiling, but only at Joana. Joana knew that he and Bucky didn't get off on the right foot, but she also knew that Sam was happy for her, which was enough.

As Shuri ran a few final tests on Bucky, Joana built up the courage to let go of his hand so she could talk to Steve.

"How did she do it?" Joana asked him, voice low.

"A lot of it was Wanda, actually," Steve said, glancing over at the girl. Wanda was watching Bucky careful, her hands just barely glowing red. "She used her powers to pull the Winter Soldier out of his head. He still has all of his memories, but the trigger words no longer work."

Before Joana knew what she was doing, she had approached the Sokovian girl and embraced her. Joana wasn't really used to hugging someone who wasn't Bucky, but she managed it. Wanda felt tense beneath her at first, but she finally relaxed into the hug and even put one arm around Joana's back.

"Thank you," Joana murmured in her ear. "Thank you for giving him back to me."

After talking with Steve and Wanda, Joana ventured over to Natalia. Standing beside her as they watched Bucky, it suddenly occurred to Joana that even if Bucky had all his memories back, that didn't mean that he was still hers. Natalia was the last person that he loved. For all Joana knew, he may still love her more.

"What do we do now?" Joana asked, wringing her hands. Natalia smiled and glanced over at Joana.

"Joana, I loved James a long time ago. A long, long time ago. I only recently remembered him. I don't love him like I used to anymore. I care for him deeply, sure, but I don't love him." She looked back at Bucky. "And he doesn't love me."

Joana couldn't help the overwhelming feeling of joy that erupted in her heart at the sound of Natalia's words.

"How do you know?" Joana asked.

"When he saw me, he was excited, happy. He said he missed me. His reaction to me could never be compared to the way he looked when he saw you. You are his world, Joana. Even if my feelings for him were still there, I could never get in between you two. You both have fought for years to get back to each other. Three government agencies, a rogue king, and memory loss couldn't stand between you two. How could I?"

Joana put an arm around Natalia's neck.

"I am glad to have you back, Natalia," Joana said, closing her eyes.

"I am glad to have the chance to fight by your side again, Joana."

Joana tucked the ring into her shirt as soon as Bucky asked to take a walk with her.

She didn't know if he remembered giving it to her sister all those years ago, or if he thought she had it now. She wasn't sure what to do with it now that he was awake. He wanted to marry her then, but there was no saying he still wanted to marry her now. After all the things she had done...

"Steve told me you found your family," Bucky said, breaking their momentary silence. Joana nodded with a smile.

"Yes. Winnie's husband and her kids, but also Jackson's side of the family."

"So, Winnie's dead?"

Joana nodded.

"I'm sorry, Jo."

Joana shook her head.

"Don't be sorry. She lived an amazing life. She lived a full life." Joana reached up to the chain around her neck. She found herself doing so in the past two weeks whenever she thought of Winnie or Bucky. It was almost like a comfort to Joana, like Winnie was right there with her.

Bucky was silent, chewing on his lip.

"What?" Joana asked, looking at him.

"Nothing. It's nothing."

"I know that look, Bucky. You have something to say. Spit it out," she said with an attempt at a smile.

"There is so much I want to say to you, but at the same time, I don't want to say anything at all."

Joana sighed and lowered her head.

"I can't pretend to know how to fix any of this, Bucky," she said. "Because I'm just as lost as you are."

Bucky heaved.

"There are a lot of really bad things I remember, Joana," he told her, voice thick with emotion. "A lot of really terrible things. Do you want to know what the worst one was?"

Watching me kill Aleksi.

Watching me kill those soldiers to get to you.

Watching me execute Doctor Salazar.

Watching me ruin my humanity.

Watching me shred any moral decency I had.

Watching me fall apart.

"I think that the worst thing I remember is the day you found out you were sterilized. It wasn't when you almost beat Doctor Salazar to death or when you cried in my arms or even when you went to kill Pierce. The worst memory I have is walking into that room to find you with a gun pointed at your head." Joana's heart stopped. She remembered that too. She remembered the helplessness, the desperation, the anger, the sorrow. She remembered how hollow she felt afterward, as if Pierce had scooper out her insides and left her shell to rot. "When they knocked the guns from your hand, you screamed and you fought for those guns in a way I had seen you scream and fight for me. Holding you after that and being too afraid of blowing my cover to comfort you and tell you everything was going to be alright feels like the worst thing I have ever done."

Joana felt a tear slide down her cheek.

"I wish I could explain why I did that to you, Bucky," she said, voice breaking. "But I imagine you already know how it feels. Do you want to know my worst memory?"

Bucky looked at her, expecting an answer.

"When Danika died, and I killed Aleksi, the look on your face at the sight of his blood on my hands."

"Joana-"

"That was the worst of it. That moment when you looked at me and you no longer saw the girl I was before, but the weapon I had become. I think that was the worst thing."

"Hey." Bucky put a hand on her wrist, pulling her toward him. Joana quickly wiped away one stray tear before he pulled her against his chest. She let out a shaky sigh and closed her eyes. "Do you wish we could go back to Romania?"

Joana lifted her head to look at him.

"What do you mean?"

"In Romania, we didn't have to worry about being superheroes or supervillains or anything like that. We were just you and me. Maybe I wasn't the same me as I am now or as I was before, but I was me."

"You remember Romania?"

"I remember everything."

Joana's face heated up.

"I don't regret that night, Jo. The night you and I spent together, that was still me. It wasn't a different version of me or a different form of me, that was still me. You don't need to be ashamed of it," he told her. Joana laced her hands with his.

"I do wish sometimes that we could go back to Romania. Now that you're awake, I don't know how much time they'll give us before Steve sends us on some mission or another."

"Maybe we can retire," Bucky said as they began to walk again, hand-in-hand. "Get some land somewhere here in Wakanda, live out in the farms. Steve would understand."

Joana smiled and rested her head against Bucky's shoulder.

"That would be nice."

"Joana!" Shuri greeted her friend with a grin. "So I was talking to Barnes the other day and I think that it would be a really good idea for him to be away from all this fighting stuff. He mentioned farmland? Well, we have some really good goat fields that need tending. A lot of the shepherds died when Killmonger took over. They all flocked- haha, flocked. Anyway, they all flocked here to help with weapons transport and a lot of them didn't make it. Truth be told, I think you and Barnes would be a good fit out there."

Joana smiled.

"I would sure miss you a lot here, Shuri. And I couldn't ask you or your brother to help us anymore. You've both done so much already."

"Don't worry about, Joana. Honestly, I think you would be more help to us than we would be to you in this case. Anyway, Barnes is already talking to Rogers and Romanoff about it, so I think the decisions already been made."

Joana put her arms around Shuri and squeezed.

"How could I ever thank you for everything you've done?"

"Well," Shuri said with her smile. "You can't, but you can repay me by naming a goat after me?"

"Done. It'll be the cutest, smartest goat we have."

"Are you sure about this, Jo?" Sam asked as he helped Joana pack her few things. Joana nodded.

"We really need this, Sam. Bucky can't be fighting right now and honestly," Joana was embarassed as tears gathered in her eyes. "It's been a long 70 years and I could really use a break."

Sam nodded.

"I understand. But we'll be visiting you all the time. Every trip home we make, we'll all be having a party at your place."

Joana laughed.

"We'll make sure there is plenty of goat cheese to go around."

"When will you and Barnes stop making those stupid goat related jokes?"

"Probably never."

Sam gave Joana a tight hug.

"You know this isn't goodbye, Sam. You are all coming with us to help us name our new goat children."

Sam managed a laugh.

"Well, first we have to get you to the goat children before we start giving them names."

"Jo, you really lucked out here," Steve said, looking out at the green pasture. Joana beamed out at the trees and the sky and the sun and, of course, the many goats. Steve and Natalia stood behind her, watching her closely.

"You two will be alright, right? Out there on your own?" She asked, turning to face them. Natalia smirked and nodded.

"Course we will. I wouldn't let anything happen to this stupid old guy," she said and jabbed her elbow into Steve's side. Steve laughed and pushed Natalia away. He stepped forward and hugged Joana. There seemed to be a lot of hugging these days.

"Come on," Joana said after a moment. "Don't make me cry before you guys leave. You have to help us name the goats first."

There was no easy way to say goodbye to her friends, even if Shuri had given them all devices with which they could not only talk to each other, but actually see each other as they spoke. She called it something, but it was a name that Joana couldn't remember.

Joana stood next to Bucky, his arm around her and little goat Shuri by her side as their ship took off. Steve said that the mission they were going on was short and that they would be back in a day or two, but there was something final about watching their ship disappear behind the clouds.

Joana wasn't on that ship because she was where she needed to be, and that was at Bucky's side.

Once the ship was gone, they both sighed.

"So, what do we do now?" Bucky asked her. Joana shrugged.

"I have no idea how to take care of a farm. It was the one thing HYDRA never taught us, I guess."

"They only told us how to kill things, not cultivate it," Bucky agreed with a sigh. The two of them looked around until their gaze landed back on each other.

"I love you," she said to him. "We'll figure this out. We've been through worse."

Bucky snorted. He looked like he was going to say something when he spotted the chain around her neck. It wasn't until he had the delicate chain between his fingers that she realized he saw it.

"Bucky, that's-"

It was too late. He saw the ring at the end.

"Did you have this the whole time?" He asked her, unable to take his eyes away from it. Joana shook her head, chewing her lip.

"No. Winnie had it. Her husband gave it to me when I found them. She said she had been too afraid to give it to me after you died and then she couldn't because I had been kidnapped. The timing never worked out for this ring, I guess."

Bucky smiled at it.

"I bought this on a whim, you know. I was going to be leaving in a day or two and I walked past a store of some kind. I saw it in the window and I knew I had to buy it. It wasn't the ring that I had to buy, but I knew I had to give it to you before I left. It was supposed to be a promise that I would come home to you, but I chickened out before I could. I gave it to your sister, hoping I could get it back when the war was over. I guess now will have to do."

"What-"

Bucky unclasped the chain around her neck and the ring dropped into his hand.

"Bucky, you don't have to do this," Joana said. "I know you love me, you don't have to-"

"I think I do, Joana." He looked at the ring in his hand, then back at her. "70 years ago, I bought you this ring as a promise that I would always come home to you, yet you were the one who was always there for me. Let me give you this ring now to promise you that I will stay by your side, no matter what happens. Can I do that?"

Joana nodded, water in her eyes.

"Yes, yes I think you can do that."

Bucky smiled. He slipped the small ring onto her finger. It was slightly too big, but Shuri could fix that. As soon as it was on, Joana stood on her toes, taking Bucky's face in her hands, and kissed him. This was nothing like their shared kiss in Romania. This was nothing like what Natalia and James shared in the Red Room. This was nothing like what Joana and Bucky had before the war. This was a new breed of something. This was a new chapter, a new start.

They were finally together, and there was nothing to stop them from being that way.

The device that Joana couldn't remember the name of rang in Joana's pocket. She pulled away from her kiss and picked it up. Natalia looked at them from the other side.

"It worked!" Natalia yelled, supposedly to Sam, Steve, and Wanda. "Hey, guys. We just wanted to make sure this thing worked before we left for our mission. How are the goats?"

"The goats are good," Joana said with a smile cast down to goat Shuri. "We aren't entirely sure what to-"

"We're getting married!" Bucky interrupted. Joana looked at him with her mouth hung open.

"That was fast," Sam said, deadpan, as if he had seen it coming all along.

"Congrats, I think," Natalia said with a hidden smile and an amused glance at Steve. Steve was smiling and Joana wasn't sure, but she could have sworn there was water behind his eyes.

"I guess we'll arrive home just in time for a wedding. We'll tell Shuri, I'm sure she and Okoye will want to be there," Steve said. Joana laughed and shook her head.

"There is a lake here," Bucky said, looking out toward their own private body of water. "Maybe we can do it in front of the lake."

"TMI," said Sam, still deadpan.

"I meant the ceremony, birdbrain," Bucky snapped. Joana laughed.

"We'll figure it out later," she said, putting a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "But we really need to figure out how to work a farm, otherwise we might burn this place down before you guys get back."

"You know, Jo," Sam said, just before Joana ended the call. "I don't think I've ever seen you smile so much."

Joana's cheeks reddened, but her smile stuck.

From the nods around her, there seemed to be a general consensus that Sam was right.

"We'll see you guys when you get back."

With the device now away in her pocket, Bucky put an arm around Joana and pressed a kiss against her temple.

"What shall we do?" He asked her, looking out over their new home.

Joana sighed, breathing in the scent of the fresh air. She closed her eyes for a moment. Goat Shuri chewed on a piece of grass below her.

"We should make sure we named all the goats first, I think."

"Your wish is my command."

***

I don't think y'all understand how this makes my poor little heart feel. these two lovebirds have been trying to get back together for 70 years and I finally let them. I can't believe this is happening. I almost started crying. Jo deserves this, yo. She deserves to live with her boo and some goats on a farm far away from all this death.

Heck.

No tears.

I was considering continuing this story to go through Infinity War and Endgame, but I decided it was best to leave them here. Both Joana and Bucky deserve this happy ending and we can pretend that they get it. 

Thank you all for this journey. I am so, so grateful for all of you, old and new readers, for every read, every vote, and every comment. 

To those of you who have been here since before this nice, lovely chapter was written, I am sorry you had to wait this long. I'm so excited to finally give it to you.

with more tears than I care to admit,

authorsbane