Bucky grabbed his few bags and piled them in the passenger row of Sam's truck, then made sure everything else in the back was secure. He tightened the strap around his motorcyle. If it got scratched duringn the move, he'd get mad.  

   His nerves felt like live wires. You touch them, you get zapped. That's why a small part of him felt sorry for Sam. He didn't deserve to deal with a guy like Bucky, regardless of whether he said it out loud, which he'd never do. 

   Some things, he couldn't change, he just couldn't. And he recongnized that. But that didn't make it any easier. In fact, it made everything harder, realizing the truth. 

   He ignored the slight stremble in his hands as he gave his bike a fond pat. "Sam! It's all here."

   "Alright, let's go, then." Sam replied, climbing into the driver's seat. "Come on, old man."

   The drive was a short one, and when they got close to the area he grew up in, nastolgia rose so strongly that Bucky was afraid he'd vomit. Kids used to run around on every corner of the city, but now, fewer young people mingled. Older, most likely homeless, people roamed the streets now. Or crouched in corners looking like zombies.

   Whenever he could, Bucky would take trips into the city to talk to some of these people. He learned which ones you could talk to and which ones you stayed away from because they wouldn't be moved and wouldn't give a shit if you were nice to them.

   Taking care of something or someone had always been a pastime of Bucky Barnes'. And now that he was here in the 21st century, he needed being charitable in order to feel satistfied, even if it was only for a moment.

   "So, this the house you grew up in?" Sam asked, sounding distant. Bucky realized he'd zoned out, and sighed, refocusing on Sam. 

   "Yeah," his voice sounded gravelly. "My mom wanted me to have it. She said it in her will."

   "Has anyone else lived in it since...?"

   "Ben let Becca take it to raise her kids, my nephew and neice. After that, no one really touched it."

   "Hmm,"

   "This is where you turn, if I remember right."

   "Yeah, we're not trusting your memory. No offense."

   Bucky sighed, again. "None taken." But it was the street. Murky images, smells, feels from walking home and turning at this intersection flashed through his mind.  "It is the street, though."

   "Relax, I was just messing with you," Sam told him, turning the truck into the Bucky's old neighborhood. 

   "Well, don't." Bucky said firmly, a warning in his tone. The last thing he wanted right now was Sam being stupid in his face. That would piss him off so badly he would start seeing red, he knew.

   He was going back to the place he was raised in. Sam was his first choice for helping him, even if he hated it when Sam asked questions. Anxiety whirled in his head, making him feel high on Red Bull. He hated anxiety, but was all too familiar with it by now, after years of grappling with it.

   Letting Sam help was a risk, but let's be honest, would Sam take no for an answer when he found out that he was moving? No. So Bucky didn't have a choice, really.

   The street was bright and sunny and each house was vintage-looking and homey. Kids sat on their porches, or were shooting hoops on the road with one of those portable hoop stands. The young people stopped to stare curiously at the truck with wide eyes.

  He widened his eyes back at a group of pre-teens who froze on the spot, their expressions caught between bewilderment and excitement and fear.

   They knew who Bucky was. He hoped no one would knock on his door on the weekends asking if he could sign a trading card. Believe it or not, it happened once downtown, but only kids are brave enough to ask for something like that from him.

   Everyone else? He just made them nervous. 

   Minus Sam and a couple special people. 

   His heart jumped and jodged itself in his throat, feeling like someone was pole vaulting in his stomach. He saw himself as a child, walking Ben home with Ollie. Calling Ben a little punk. 

   Steve, small and fiery, passing a baseball to Bucky, who caught it and threw hard, then ran for it, racing Oliver for the ball. Bucky won with his longer legs, and they all paused to catch their breaths, joyful grins mingling with the sweat on their faces.

   His mum used to make fresh lemonade and set it out for him and his friends, then tell him to return it to the ice box to chill if there was any left. 'I will, mum, don't worry about it,'

   'Who says I'm worried, James?' his mum would reply with a beautiful smile as she strolled back inside, the door swinging closed behind her with a hingy creak.

   'Hurry up and drink yours, Buchanan,' Oliver would rush him to finish up so they could go back down the road to the stretch of grass they used to use as a baseball field.

   "Bucky." 

   He took in a sharp breath, realizing he'd clenched his fists. Bucky faced the voice and saw Sam's concerned face. "What?" was all he could think to say, his blood pumping loudly and his hands shaking.

   "We're here," his friend nodded behind Bucky, who turned to see his old, dark house, partially sucluded by dying trees. At least the small lawn looked nice. He could recall so much of his childhood in that moment that it overwhelmed his mind.

   He took a deep breath, remembering that he was in the present. He was here, this was real. The memories, no matter how many of them were only remembered right then, only existed in his mind. Not in his whole life.

   "Oh," Bucky's fingers touched the glass of the window as he leaned toward it. It was just like in the picture, with the swing out front, even. He was recalling memories he had no hope of recalling a year ago. With some of them, he just lived with the loss of not knowing what he looked like when he was younger, or what his father looked like before he died.

   "It hasn't changed much," Bucky choked out, feeling his face burn up at the show of emotion.

   Sam's hand rested on his shoulder, comfortingly. But Sam couldn't comfort this pain, this helplessness... could he?

   The family he had for so many years was now gone. The people who raised him and loved him for who he was before all the crap that screwed up his life. 

    Bucky avoided his eyes. "Let's get the stuff out of the back."

   "Good idea," Sam went the the back and unloaded Bucky's sparse luggage, while Bucky grabbed the motorcyle and set it down behind the truck, then unstrapped the few pieces of furniture he brought from his old place that James Dirk had told him the house didn't have.

   Bucky put them by the door, almost letting them fall form his hands at the sight of his childhood setting. The sofa was different, but the capeting wasn't, and the room smelt mostly the same as it did eighty years back. 

   Everything was slightly different, but the same, and Bucky felt tears come to his eyes. He never though he'd get back here, to a place so full of love and support. 

   He squeezed the tears out and wiped them away with the back of his hand, and heard Sam's footsteps coming up behind him on the porch.

   "You alright, man?"

   Bucky lowered his chin, not bothering to lie this time. "No."

   "I'm sorry," Sam said, and he obviously didn't know what else to say.

   Bucky nodded, his throat burning like lava as he walked around the place. It smelled of home- no, this was home. He was home.

   He caught sight of the old desk he always wrote his letters and made his calls at, and a broken sob ripped from his mouth. Bucky was finally home.

   Home felt so good, so good. Bucky sank to his knees on the carpet, letting Sam see how much he was carrying for once. Becca used to go up to him and ask who he was writing to. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and a thought in the back of his mind told him it was Sam...

   She didn't want him to go fight in the war, a girl who had strong opinions and that pretty, wicked grin of hers at the age of thirteen. He'd held her tightly, so tightly, and lowered her back to the ground and told her he'd come back. 

   Becca cried when he left, and now he was here in the home where she raised her kids, where her kids raised theirs, crying because she was right in every way. And now he'd never have a family or raise kids of his own.

   He let Sam support him as he sank to the floor, head bowed and covered in shadow, with tears causing little reflections across it. Bucky held onto Sam's arm tight; he was the closest thing Bucky had to a sibling, or family now. He'd never have the Barneses people back. 

   As he started up at the desk, he realized there was a picure of him and his sister on the top of it. Him in uniform and her in her Sunday best, arms around each other. Becca didn't wear a fake smile, or a smile at all. 

   Sam noticed it, too, and got up from his sitting position and lifted the picture to see it closer. He lowered the frame and looked down at Bucky, who wrapped his arms around himself and shivered even though it wasn't cold in the well-insulated house. 

   "You did your job well, at least." Sam told him, sitting back down beside Bucky.

   Bucky leaned closer subconsciously, his touch-starved body waiting for Sam to put a hand on his shoulder like he usually did. But instead, he wrapped his arms around Bucky, who buried his face in his shoulder, desperately in need of comfort and support. EVen in a hug, he couldn't stop the sobs from coming.

   When Sam pulled away, Bucky didn't feel any better, but he didn't feel alone. Which was a start, right? 

   "I don't want to do my job well. Hell, I'd have done a shit job if it meant I could stay and be there for my family. They went through so much without me." He murmured, his voice breaking.

   "I know, Buck. But if you did that, Steve wouldn't have had his best friend beside him like he did."

   Bucky grunted. "Keyword is 'did', Sam. Look at... what h- happened. He took off and... came back on the verge of death." He'd never complained out loud about Steve leaving him so he could live happily ever after with Peggy, much less to Sam, who adored Steve almost as much as Bucky did. But he couldn't ignore the fact that it hurt when Steve left. It was always just the general feeling of delf-hatred that followed.

   It hurt a lot.

   "You're gonna be alright, you know that?"

   "Do I?" Bucky asked, humouring him. There was nothing funny about this. "I keep telling myself that,"

   "You need a stable life, Bucky. Friends you can rely on."

   "Check,"

   "Some sort of family,"

   "Definitely not,"

   "Work on it. Just try, okay? I'm not leaving until you say it, until you acknowledge that I said this to you." Sam put a firm hand on his shoulder, leaning closer. 

   "You're in my face, Sam."

   Sam took a deep breath. "And you need some sense of stability in your life. A steady job-"

   "Got that, more or less,"

   "Good. Do you need me, Buck?" Sam asked, with real genuinity in his eyes. He really did care, do matter how much of a dipshit he was.

   Bucky considered going his usual route: distract and avoid, but thought better of it. Sam was paying extra attention to him now that he was openly hurting. 

   He closed his eyes for a second, and knew Sam wanted an answer. "Maybe just a little longer."

   "Sounds good." Sam said, a warm arm around Bucky's shoulder. 

   Letting tears continue to fall, Bucky leaned into his friend and tried to tell himself that things would be alright.