Summary: It's been eight months since Bucky left Steve laying on the beach. How will he react when he comes home one night with his door ajar and a familiar face waiting for him in his living room?

Warning: This is a Steve x Bucky fic. Don't like, don't read.

(Author's Note): I wrote this for a friend last year after we went and saw The Winter Soldier. Thanks, Morgan, for encouraging me to write this and thank you being my friend even when it probably would've been easier not to be! I love you, you beautiful ginger creature!

Steve had trouble sleeping after that day. He spent his nights lying in bed staring at his ceiling before inevitably getting up and walking along the pavement below until the sun came up, and on the occasions where he did sleep, he was plagued by nightmares, mostly of Bucky.

The nightmares were, if nothing else, consistent; if they weren't of Bucky's fall, they were of Bucky's retreating back as Steve lay paralyzed on the sand. Steve hated them both equally, each left him forcing his way to consciousness, only to find himself sitting up in his too soft bed with cold sweat and what Steve suspected were tears coating his sunken face.

This night was particularly unpleasant. Steve was freshly awake, chest still heaving and heart still racing from the nightmare he had just fought his way out of. Once his breathing returned to normal, he looked over at the small digital clock on the nightstand and was disappointed to find that it was only half past ten.

Knowing full well that returning to sleep would be either unpleasant or impossible, Steve swung his legs over the side of his bed with a sigh.

A few minutes later, he was stepping off his apartment building elevator and heading out the door to the pavement he had walked nearly every night the past few months.

Without his knowledge, that pavement had become his only friend, his only companion in a world he didn't belong in or understand. Ever since he had woken up to S.H.I.E.L.D. agents hoisting him to his feet on the beach Bucky had left him on, Steve had been slowly closing himself away. Every month that passed, every rumor he followed that left him at a dead-end, every night he spent with only his nightmares for company, Steve unknowingly sunk deeper and deeper into himself.

Now, after nearly eight months of nothing but empty rumors and sleepless nights, Steve had found himself buried in some dark place in his mind, where he closed the door and threw away the key.

That is where Steve lived now, curled in on himself in some dark corner, where no one could reach him.

Almost no one.

Only one person had the spare key, but he was far away, and had made his intentions clear when he had left Steve on the beach that day.

This fact, much to the displeasure of those who had grown to enjoy the company of the soldier, seemed irrefutable and no amount of prying proved to change it. Consequently, as the months drug on and Steve became more detached by the day, they pried less and less.

So, eight months into this progression of seclusion, Steve walked along the relatively barren streets, going nowhere, and trying his hardest to think about nothing.

Steve, though ordinarily rather habitual, had not adopted any set path during his nearly nightly walks, instead electing to wander mindlessly until he felt less suffocated or he found himself in front of his building once more, whichever came first.

This night, Steve returned feeling no better than when he had left nearly two hours before, but, as the unspoken rule demanded, he stopped walking and began making his way back up to his small apartment.

When the elevator deposited Steve back onto his floor, he resented it. He hated that elevator, he hated that floor, he hated the apartment building, and his hated his apartment. He hated living so close to so many people, he hated the sounds of the city that poured incessantly from the streets outside, and he hated how alone he felt.

He was considering breaking his own rules and getting back on the elevator so he could continue walking, which seemed more favorable to the alternative option of lying awake in bed until the sun came up and it was more appropriate to move about.

He was considering it, until he saw that his door was ajar.

His blood ran cold and he tried not to think about the last time someone had broken into that apartment, mostly because he seriously doubted that it would be Fury that he found waiting for him on the other side of the door.

Moving as quietly as possible, he eased his way into the apartment and, once inside, pressed his back against the hallway wall.

As he made his way from room to room, Steve's mind was busy running through possible scenarios: who it could have been, what they wanted, if they were still there, and what would he do if they were.

Eventually, Steve had checked every room in the small apartment, and, finding no one, began to wonder if he had just forgotten to close the door fully behind him when he had left earlier.

"Hey there, Captain."

That voice.

At the sound of that voice, Steve's heart stopped. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. All he could do was slowly, very slowly, turn towards the source of the voice he had been waiting eight months to hear.

There he was, dark hair falling messily into his face, his eyes sunken, his jaw set.

He was not the man Steve had known, not in appearances anyway. The man he had known had always spent inordinate amounts of time every morning slicking his hair back just right and his eyes had always been bright and smiling even when he himself was not. He had always, to Steve at least, seemed to have a supreme sense of self-awareness, like he was always very certain of where and who he was, where he was going, and who he was going to be.

This man, however, this man was lost. This man had no idea who he was or what the future would hold. Hell, he didn't even know what the past had already held for him.

Despite all that, though, despite how different the man before him seemed, Steve could not help but to believe that, inside, he was still the same.

"What are you doing here, Bucky?" Steve asked, unsure whether or not he should prepare himself for a fight or a talk, knowing that either one would probably hurt the same.

"Why do you think?" Bucky answered, sending a chill up Steve's spine.

"Here to finish your mission?" Steve asked, bringing up his arms in preparation of an attack.

Bucky didn't answer for a while, instead choosing to look inquisitively around the room, before eventually returning his gaze back to Steve, "I guess."

Dread crept into Steve's stomach, his mind racing; was this what he had been waiting for during those eight agonizing months? Was this where it ended, with one of them dead on the floor? Had it all been for nothing?

"But," Bucky added, his voice reluctant, "this might not be the mission you're thinking of."

"What other mission could this be?" Steve cursed the break in his voice as he willed himself not to let hope of good news enter his mind.

Again, Bucky was quiet for a while, his mouth visibly working over the words he was trying to say. Confusion replaced dread as Steve watched his old friend's eyes move down to the floor and his weight shift from foot to foot.

"Will you… Could you just… tell me who the hell I am?"

R&R