Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author Note: Set after 'The Winter Soldier.' Contains polyamory.

THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT

Sometimes Bucky slept and the world became gray around him. Constructed out of clean lines and orders, it was a world that he could easily slip in and out of. It was cold but he plowed on. A rifle was often in his hands, the scope giving him all the vision he needed, his mind silently calculating wind speed and velocity.

He saw memories, hundreds of kills spread out around him. He was detached in this world, seeing only his work. He was surrounded by successful missions. He looked down at his boot buckles, they were flecked with blood.

Everything was.

"James."

There was a hand on his arm. He blinked and then found himself looking up at Natalia, pale and monochrome except for the familiar spread of red hair about her face. He could smell her perfume, its hints of gunpowder and chocolate always changed subtly with her body temperature. She'd told him once that she didn't wear perfume; he hadn't been able to see the lie.

She was frowning though, he'd taught her better than that.

"It's 2015 and you're in Brooklyn."

There was more blood now and the air was still cold. He could feel it seeping in through his gloves. Something was mentally gnawing away at him too, shouldn't his arm be tattooed?

He blinked and Natalia aged, it was almost beautiful to watch, a job well done. But her expression was too open by inches, too truthfully expressive. She wasn't Natalia, only a very good imitation.

His leg struck her expertly, a move designed to crumple her so that he could fold her up beneath him and focus brutally on her neck. But Natalia moved fast and did something to his prosthetic so that he ended up face-down on the bed.

The bed.

"It's 2015, James, and you're in Brooklyn."

Her voice was rougher and a note or two lower. There was a necklace hanging around her neck, a tiny arrow pendant on a fine chain. Her hair was shorter too and it curled intriguingly. The world wasn't gray anymore. Bucky breathed in cool air and noted that he and Natalia weren't alone in bed. Steve was awake but he was pretending to sleep, the slight hitch in his even breathing giving him away, at least to Bucky's ears. Natalia had to know too, though her hold on him was still uncompromising. He hadn't taught her that maneuver.

"James."

Bucky squinted and something loosened in his posture. Natasha held onto him for a moment more, then her fingers were light on his shoulder, tracing a familiar pattern, the rest of her body eased around him fluidly. Bucky breathed out and turned to face Natasha, she stared back. She felt comfortable against him, but she was also still in a good position to put up a successful fight. She'd had to before and she would do again. Bucky knew that she would read the gratefulness in his eyes.

She never called him Yasha when she was trying to bring him out of nightmares. She knew how to handle him, he trusted her, Yasha, James, the men skulking in between, they all trusted her. She knew the differences between them too and knew her place with every one of them; she knew when to push and when to knock him down. Steve was still learning.

Natasha was still learning how to be Natasha, Bucky was enjoying learning with her.

She was still staring at him, her gaze steady and calm, an absolute that he was grateful for. Steve was silent at his back, not touching until Bucky signaled otherwise. Bucky flexed his left hand, the smooth metal responding as cleanly as skin and bone.

His gaze fell back onto Natasha. "I'm in color again."

She nodded, soldier to soldier, the movement crisp but her fingers were warm on his metal arm. Stark – Tony Stark, Stark Junior, it always took Bucky a second to overlay Howard's face with Tony's – Stark had made sure that Bucky had as much sensation as possible in his prosthetic limb. Tony could make metal breathe, it was quite a gift and Bucky was grateful. He'd spent too long not feeling anything or maybe he'd felt too much, pain that had become white noise, a background that the Soldier had needed to function. The more things changed...

Natasha slept in that exact position, half-wrapped around him, for the rest of the night. She was always in color when he looked at her, she was always red. Steve stayed strong and separate at Bucky's back, ready for when Bucky needed him. Bucky's dreams stayed in color too.

Steve touched him a lot during the day. Their shoulders pressed together when they stood side by side, their fingers brushed when Steve passed the mustard that he knew Bucky liked, Steve's gaze always found Bucky's because he almost always knew where Bucky was.

He was still learning how the Winter Soldier worked.

Steve drew pictures of the Bucky he remembered, the Bucky that lived in a museum now, the Bucky that Steve still loved. He was loving a figment of his imagination because that Bucky didn't exist anymore, only as a well-worn national memory. Bucky remembered being him; he remembered more every day, in and out of dreams. But that Bucky was fractured now, spliced with something else, a monster that thrived in government agency nightmares.

And Steve wanted to get to know him.

In his sketchbook weren't just pictures of Bucky, there were pictures of Natasha and of the Winter Soldier too, fully clothed and nude, metal and flesh fused together. Steve didn't ignore the ugly scars or the silver arm, there they were, as detailed as any other part of Bucky. He touched Bucky's left arm and didn't react like it shocked him anymore. When they lay in bed together, he reacted in the same heated way to both Bucky's hands. He didn't ask for stories of what the Soldier had done but Bucky told them anyway, details spilling out when he gained a flash of something – I nearly killed her, I killed his parents, that company has a new CEO because of me. Steve always listened and even when there was pained devastation in his eyes, he never stopped touching Bucky.

Bucky didn't understand him at all.

Sometimes the way Steve looked at him turned up in Bucky's nightmares, but he never told Steve that. Natasha knew and tugged on his hair, her perfume filling his nostrils. It wasn't as heavy on the gunpowder anymore. He still liked it, it minutely reshaped his expression. Natasha saw and tugged harder.

When Bucky felt more like the Soldier, there were places he could hide, places he could escape the crowded streets of people and Stark's sharp technological eyes. Steve often turned up and sat down beside him. Sometimes he talked, sometimes he got frustrated. He almost always sat down and nudged Bucky's shoulder, a gesture that didn't ask questions or make demands. Something always loosened in Bucky when he felt that nudge, something small but significant. The Soldier had never uncoiled like that before.

SHIELD didn't exist anymore; it had gotten eaten from the inside out. Bucky had been part of that plague, or the Soldier had, or both. Sometimes slipping back into the Soldier felt more natural, more comfortable and safe, than Bucky, he'd been the Soldier for so long that it wasn't just his skin and hair, it had become his bones and cartilage as well. There were pieces of Bucky embedded there too, pieces that Bucky remembered but didn't truly fathom or feel. Steve was still trying to understand the Soldier but Bucky was still struggling to comprehend the man whose name he'd hijacked, the man that Steve had known and still missed.

Bucky hated being a ghost, an inadequately pale imitation, and he hated what he'd done as the Soldier. There wasn't an inch of him that wasn't consumed by guilt. Natasha carried that burden too but her eyes were clear.

"We're still here," she reminded Bucky more than once, her lips close to his, she tasted of Paris and beignets and something that Bucky wanted to pursue. "That's why we win, because we're still here and because we're capable of regret."

Steve didn't stop drawing him. Bucky watched. He didn't understand but he couldn't look away.

Steve tried to explain, why he wanted to get to know and understand the Winter Soldier, the parts that Bucky was ashamed of.

"I was little Stevie once, then I was Captain America, but I've always been Steve Rogers."

Bucky's face wrinkled in disbelief, because he remembered little Stevie, he remembered sharing a bed with him for warmth and then sharing a foxhole with Captain America. Sometimes he had to stop and remember who he was talking to when he looked at Steve, because this Steve wasn't going to get sick with chest-rattling coughs or have trouble with neighborhood bullies. It wasn't the same thing, at all.

He said as much to Steve. Steve's expression was complicated but he stayed right where he was "Maybe it isn't."

And he didn't stop listening to Bucky, to the Soldier, he didn't stop wanting to know. He still kissed Bucky and held him, he still enjoyed being held down in return. He never blocked Bucky's access to exits or even mentioned the amount of weaponry that Bucky kept both on his person at all times and stowed at the house. Bucky still didn't understand but he didn't stop feeling strangely calmed around Steve either, calmed, grateful, guilty and raw. Some things training didn't cover. Natasha smiled wryly.

The first time that Bucky met Clint, the archer was breaking into their house. He was cursing almost audibly, like he wanted to be hurt. Then he dropped in through the spare bedroom window, on the second floor. Bucky had woken up at the first hint of noise. Natasha shifted but something kept her calm and she simply turned over, an obvious indication that Bucky had nothing to worry about. Steve did the same.

Bucky still got up and slid into the spare room, a handgun raised and a knife hidden under the sweatshirt that he'd pulled on. There was a figure sat on the bed – male, late thirties, all in black, hearing aids, wedding ring, bow and arrows laid out on the bed next to him, knives strapped to his right leg. At Bucky's footsteps, the figure stilled.

"Bucky Barnes?"

He sounded steady but with a hint of wariness and a lot of tiredness. There was something very familiar about him, then he shifted more fully into the moonlight and Bucky was faced with Clint Barton, SHIELD agent, expert marksman, circus trained, known associate of the Black Widow. The Winter Soldier had been trained to deal with agents as highly skilled as Clint Barton but Barton had been notable because of his unorthodox leanings and the close partnership that he'd managed to forge with Natasha. He'd persuaded the Black Widow to join SHIELD. Clint Barton had always been marked as one of the most dangerous men the Winter Soldier might have had to face.

Now Barton was sat in a spare room in Brooklyn, seemingly unconcerned that a gun was being pointed at him. Bucky didn't drop the weapon.

Barton looked as tired as he sounded. "I'm talking to Bucky, right? Not the Soldier? Tasha usually sends out an alert when that happens."

He must have seen something in Bucky's face that reassured him (impossible) because he stretched out on the bed, arranging his bow and arrows within reach. If he'd brought a bag with him, it was already tucked away out of sight. He did something to his hearing aids and spoke through a yawn.

"You mind? Tasha and Steve don't. Husband's away, I sleep better around people."

And with that, he went to sleep, as quickly as anyone used to snatching sleep whenever they could. Bucky hadn't even lowered his gun. He stared down at Barton perplexed and watched his chest rise and fall for a moment. He'd studied Barton before, back when he'd been a potential target, and Bucky knew that if he reached for Barton's bow, the archer was bound to snatch the weapon away before Bucky could get to it.

Bucky shook his head. He'd heard stories from Natasha and Steve and from Tony, he knew that Barton liked to appear as if from nowhere to freak Tony out, that even now he preferred his bow to any automatic weapon, that he could tumble like a gymnast and comfortably hang by his ankles to take a shot if need be, that he was the first person Natasha ever fully trusted.

Bucky let him sleep and went back to Steve and Natasha, both of whom moved to cradle him between them, giving him contact with them both. It didn't make his skin crawl and the dreams stayed away for now.

In the morning, Barton was sat on the countertop drinking coffee when Bucky entered the kitchen. Barton raised his mug in greeting.

"Thanks for letting me live through the night."

Bucky raised his eyebrows and watched as Barton joked with Steve and moved smoothly around Natasha as though it was the easiest thing in the world to know a KGB assassin that well. Natasha seemed more content; maybe more relaxed with Barton there too. She didn't even complain when Barton stole a forkful of her cheese omelet. Her revenge was probably being planned though from the way her eyebrows moved.

Bucky didn't understand all of Barton's jokes or the inside references that the three of them made but he liked how Steve smiled around the archer and how Barton affected Natasha. He also noticed how keenly Barton was gazing at him, unabashed in his screening. No doubt Natasha had done the same when first introduced to Barton's husband.

Barton told them about his latest mission – meeting up with Fury in Shanghai and rooting out nests of Hydra agents and reconnecting with SHIELD operatives who could still be trusted. Stark had been useful in discerning that apparently.

Steve asked when Barton's husband was returning. Barton's expression got pinched and Natasha's face darkened too without explanation while Steve's mouth thinned. Bucky didn't ask.

Barton left with a salute to Steve and a nod to Bucky. He visited a lot after that, Bucky always woke up whenever Barton dropped in during the night but like Natasha and Steve, he eventually learned to go back to sleep.

Sometimes, the Soldier completely re-emerged and took over. A couple of times it was because someone connected to Hydra got close enough to speak a trigger-phrase directly to Bucky. Then Bucky was wiped away like summer rain and the Winter Soldier stood entirely in his place, focused only on receiving orders and completing missions.

Once, it happened in the middle of a fight at a secluded Hydra safehouse and he caught sight of Steve and immediately swung for him. Steve didn't miss a step and fought hard, spouting the same kind of persuasions as before which the Soldier ignored this time, intent only on ending Captain America.

Thankfully the combination of Steve's shield and Natasha's fist knocked the Soldier out and when he became conscious again, they'd already persuaded a captured Hydra agent to give up something that would work as a release phrase. Natasha claimed that concussive recalibration worked wonders on those under the influence; Steve touched her waist with a small smile.

Once medics cleared him, Bucky hid himself away on a rooftop that he was sure neither of his bedmates knew about. To their credit, they left him alone even though they could have asked Stark for help in locating him. Bucky huddled down, beset by thousands of memories of similar sniper perches.

He'd almost killed Steve, again. He would have killed Natasha too. And yet Steve wanted to know more about the Winter Soldier and Natasha was almost at ease with him.

Eventually he went back to the house – to pick up his stuff maybe, a roadtrip would be a good idea or maybe someone on the side of the angels had a mission for him. Sam would tell him he was running away, Sam was right way too often. At the house, Bucky found more than just his own bag packed. Steve and Natasha both waited for him with duffels at their feet. Steve folded his arms, stretching the material of his shirt in very distracting ways, everything revealed in his eyes. There was a pair of purple-rimmed sunglasses resting on top of Natasha's head, they definitely didn't belong to her, and she was wearing her arrow pendant necklace and the Captain America jacket that always amused her and Bucky but not Steve.

Bucky's world spun again. He stared, he still didn't understand.

We win, because we're capable of regret.

We're still here.

I'm in color again.

He didn't understand, he didn't.

Something cranked inside of him.

Natasha met Bucky's gaze expectantly, her cellphone pointedly in her hand.

"Where do we start?"

-the end