Author's Note: Hello everyone! Hope this update finds you all well. College is starting to catch up with me...this is the time when professors start giving tests and papers (fun...).

Well, I did it! This is the story that I've been dying to tell ever since CA:TWS came out, and it's finally finished! *Throws confetti of triumph in the air* I really feel like I got to expand my storytelling skills on this tale, as well as push boundaries of chapter length and do actual research. Consequently, it's been an interesting ride.

For everyone who's been riding along with me, thank you so, so much. Your feedback has given me the pushes I needed to keep writing and give my best.

Enjoy this last little epilogue. As far as describing an attack plan goes...I am not a member of the military or a strategist. I just made up the best plan I could think of using my limited knowledge (and what I learned watching war movies, action movies, and Hogan's Heroes...).

Epilogue

Thousands of feet above the ground, in airspace somewhere over Eastern Europe, Steve wasn't quite sure how he was managing to get text messages. Tony could probably explain, but he was busy flying the Quinjet they were traveling on.

(Also, Steve didn't feel like listening to a long-winded speech about the superiority of Stark Tech).

Besides, the important thing wasn't so much how he was getting text messages, but that he was.

It was nearly one in the afternoon, currently, but it was seven a.m. in New York; which meant that Christy was most likely eating breakfast. Or, more accurately, texting him while Sam tried to shanghai her into eating breakfast.

I got an A on my math test yesterday Daddy. And Sam got me ice cream. But I miss you…

Steve smiled down at his phone, a little sadly. Over two years had gone by and being away from his kid still wasn't any easier.

Good job, baby. I miss you too. Be home before you know it, he texted back.

Bucky leaned over from where he was sitting. "Talking to the kid?"

"Yeah…" Steve trailed off as he showed Bucky the phone.

Bucky frowned for a moment; he could sense Steve's mood. But now was not the time for Captain America to get nostalgic for home. That could come later. He clapped Steve on the shoulder.

"C'mon. We'll be back soon. She's fine. She got ice cream!"

Steve smiled a bit. "Yeah, I guess so."

"We're twenty minutes out!" Tony called from the pilot's seat.

Thor, Natasha, Clint, and Bruce all started to stretch and get prepared for landing.

"Alright, so everyone, tell me the plan again." Steve said, using his best 'team leader' voice.

"Tony lands the plane in the woods." Clint started, sounding like a bored child giving an answer in school.

Natasha gave his head a light smack. "We split into groups and sneak up on the base from the sides and the back. Hopefully that should give us the element of surprise."

Tony smirked. "I use my handy-dandy remote to disable any alarms on the base. According to our tip, this is a small group of radicals and they don't have a very good alarm system…or good weapons…or good anything."

"Once the alarms are disabled, our, ah, resident stealth masters…" Here Bruce gave a sweeping hand gesture towards Clint, Natasha, Steve, and Bucky, "will sneak in, plant the explosives, grab anything official-looking, and sneak out. Once the place blows sky-high, we set up a perimeter and block off any escape attempts."

"Sounds rather mundane…" Thor muttered.

Bucky snorted. "Any of those maniacs left alive is definitely not mundane. There's a reason their motto is 'cut off one head, two more shall take its place.'"

"How did they even kill the hydra anyway?" Clint asked.

Nearly everyone stared at him as though he had lost his mind.

"Don't look at me like that! Wasn't there a myth where some guy had to kill a hydra?"

"Hercules…" Bruce said slowly, thinking. "And he…he burned the neck, after he cut off each head. He cauterized its wounds, essentially, to prevent new growth."

Tony began to take the plane lower, in preparation for landing.

"Well…" Steve said, a deadly grin on his face. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to do some…cauterizing."

Roughly two hours later, they had mostly wrapped things up. Everything had gone more-or-less according to plan.

Bucky's favorite part (yes, he was allowed to have a favorite part of dangerous missions, dang it!) was the shocked looks on people's faces when at last they'd recognized him. Most, he'd simply cold-clocked and tied up, enjoying a private snicker to himself.

But one encounter had definitely stuck out.

He grabbed several files as he was setting up explosives. A young man walked into the room. His eyes instantly went wide.

Bucky flew over, restrained him against the wall. "Get over there." he hissed in Russian, gesturing to a corner with his pistol.

The man nervously complied. Bucky finished setting explosives.

"Were…were you the Winter Soldier?" the man whispered, staring wide-eyed at his metal arm.

Bucky smirked a bit. "You used past tense. Very good. You just might live." At the man's very confused look, he added, "I was the Winter Soldier, the Fist of HYDRA. Not anymore."

"A g-ghost s-story…th-they s-said…"

"The ghost is back from the dead." Bucky frowned at the man, the boy, really. He couldn't have been older than twenty-two or three. "What are you doing here, anyway; with them?"

The man looked down. "They said they'd save the world." He sounded hollow, worn, like that was the phrase he'd been using far too often to comfort himself lately.

Bucky snorted. "More like destroy it. That's all they do. Destroy." He flicked his gun toward the door.

Nobody had ever said they couldn't take prisoners…and besides, he was just a kid. A kid who'd been tricked and royally screwed over.

"C'mon. You're coming with me."

Gulping with trepidation, the man walked out of the room.

"What's your name, kid?" he asked, trying out English.

The man looked back, shocked. "N-Nikolai." he mumbled. "My name Nikolai."

Bucky nodded. Names were important, after all.

They'd taken a few other prisoners, who would be dropped off at the SHIELD base in New York. Currently, they were all restrained in a large, basement-like room on the 'jet.

But right now, they were headed home.

Home…

They were all clustered around in the cockpit and seating area, laughing like fools and being generally loud.

The sounds jogged his memory, tugged him back to the Commando days. Back then, he would have been in the thick of the celebrations.

Now, he sat quietly, drinking everything in.

Steve flopped down next to him. "Ready to be back?"

Bucky nodded. "Yeah…"

"Heard you dragged back a prisoner, all by yourself."

Bucky's lips curled up. "Just a kid who got sucked int'a madness. Hopin' Coulson can straighten him out. Or Tasha."

Steve sighed. "Yeah…that would be nice." he looked Bucky over. "You doin' alright?"

Bucky snorted. "M'fine, punk. Just glad you didn't take any stupid risks. Glad to have put another dent in HYDRA."

"It's been a long war, huh?" Steve said quietly. "Woulda thought we'd be done."

"We'll never be done." Bucky muttered. At Steve's incredulous glare, he clarified. "If it wasn't HYDRA, it'd be someone else. People always try to rule the world. Every age, every generation…it's all the same."

They were quiet for a moment, Bucky's words hanging in the air.

"Well…" Steve finally said. "if I have to keep fighting in a whole other century…I'm real glad it could be with you."

And that, that was the thing. The thing that Bucky had been puzzling over for some time.

If he had died, truly died, Steve would've been left alone in a new century. If Steve had died when he'd crashed the plane, the world would have found new heroes, maybe even created the Avengers. But they would have been missing a part, an important part.

On a smaller, but no less valuable level, a little girl would have never been found.

Nothing had gone right for the two of them. There could be no argument that what they had experienced was 'good'.

And yet…

And yet.

Because evil men had taken him, frozen him, he was now here, able to be with Steve once more. Because of the ice, Steve was able to be the hero, the good man, the father that this new century needed.

Everything that tried to be bad came out good…

He smiled slightly, remembering a line from those books Steve had pressed him into reading.

"I thought you were dead! But then, I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?"

"It's kinda funny, all this…" Steve whispered. "We were never supposed to be here. Just a couple'a boys from Brooklyn. Who woulda guessed?"

"Yeah…" Bucky said, once again throwing his arm around Steve's shoulders. "It's a miracle. The kind you read about in books and think would never happen in a million years."

"A miracle…" Steve repeated back.

Yes, it truly was.

It wasn't every day, after all, that a man practically came back from the dead.

Hundreds of miles away, in a HYDRA base in Sokovia, a certain individual would proclaim this the "Age of Miracles".

In defining miracle, however, he was not exactly thinking along the same lines as Steve and Bucky. His 'miracles' were more 'manipulations'.

But that is a story best left for another day.

They made it back to the Tower. It was late, everyone was jet lagged.

"She's already asleep…" Sam warned, as Steve poked his head into Christy's room.

A small blonde head rose up unsteadily. "Dad?"

Steve smiled. "Hey, baby."

"Daddy!" In the space of five seconds, Christy had tumbled out of bed and practically climbed up Steve's chest.

"Whoa, whoa!" Steve grabbed Christy and held her on his shoulder.

"I love you, Daddy…" she whispered. Steve smiled.

"Love you, too…"

"So much for asleep…" Bucky muttered. Sam gave him a mild glare.

"Did you have fun with Sam?" Steve asked.

"Uh-huh. But I missed you. And I missed Uncle Bucky."

Bucky couldn't stop the smile that spread across his face. Steve set Christy down and the girl immediately made a beeline for him.

"I love you, Uncle Bucky!"

The smile got wider.

Love.

It was still a slightly foreign concept, although he was understanding it better every day. Maybe even better than before he fell.

Love wasn't sappy stuff. Love wasn't always nice or pretty.

Love was the arms that held you while you screamed and thrashed and cried out at enemies that weren't there.

Love was the look that said, "You're okay with me," when you felt like a failure.

Love was stronger than ice, stronger than brainwashing, stronger than nightmares, stronger than pain.

Love was 'til the end of the line; even if the end of the line was dark, desolate, and downright scary on occasion.

He bent down his head as Christy snuggled into his chest.

"I…I love you, too…" he whispered.

This was home. This was where he belonged.

He could get used to belonging. He was part of a team once again. And if he was still a little bit broken, well…

Nobody ever said he had to fix himself.

And thus ends this tale. YAY FOR BUCKY!

The quote is from The Lord of the Rings, Return of the King. It's one of my favorites.

Okay! So. The real question is, where am I going from here? Well...

I'm definitely taking a break for the next week and a half. After that is my fall break, so expect something new posted then.

Next story will be a series of one-shots set before, during, and after Age of Ultron, entitled The War Outside Our Door Keeps Raging On. This will probably be my only story for awhile, as it's easier to write one-shots than a full-length story.

If you have one-shot ideas, TELL ME! Send me a PM or a review.

Probably around Thanksgiving or Christmas, I'll start my next full-length story, entitled A World of Hope, in which the Avengers (plus Christy, plus Clint's family) go to Disney World. And, as lighthearted as it will be, I promise to not skimp on story caliber.

So, that's the plan. Be on the lookout for new postings. Thanks once again to everyone who stuck with this tale...til the end of the line.

(And, one last time). Reviews are wonderful things...

UPDATE: "THE WAR OUTSIDE OUR DOOR KEEPS RAGIN' ON" is POSTED! GO TO MY PROFILE AND CHECK IT OUT! THANKS!