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America's Icus: A Short Story

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Bucky is there when Steve wakes up, sitting in an uncomfortable hospital visitor's chair with his arms crossed and an unamused line for a mouth.

"So," Bucky says, "are you just trying to become a hospital connoisseur at this point? An ongoing tour of America's ICUs? Is that what's going on?"

Steve starts to sit up and immediately finds out that that's a terrible idea, and instead lays himself back down, biting his tongue to keep from groaning. He knows what that look on Bucky's face means. Hell, he knows what all of that body language means – it means that Steve is in for another lecture about taking care of himself, probably accompanied by a heaping helping of sarcasm, which has already made its first appearance.

"Good morning, Buck," Steve …show more content…

"If I can survive more than most people, then that's how much harder I have to push myself to do what's necessary, because it has to get done and at least I stand a chance of surviving it. You get that, right?"

Steve catches the glance that Bucky casts at his own left arm. "Doesn't mean I have to like it," Bucky says.

"How'd you get in here, anyway?" Steve says. "Three in the morning doesn't sound like typical visiting hours."

"Their security is crap, but the nurses are nice," Bucky says. "I charmed 'em."

Steve's mother was a nurse, which means that he is well aware of the wrath of nurses who find meddling visitors in their way. "You hide in the bathroom every time they come by, don't you."

"What can I say? I'm a survivor."

They discharge Steve the next morning (or rather, when it's actually morning, and early enough that Bucky's eyes look just as dead and hooded as they did when Steve first met him as the Winter Soldier, this time without even the application of anti-glare makeup), but because he's within forty-eight hours of a head trauma they won't let him go without someone taking responsibility for him. Bucky signs him out and then spends the entire cab ride from Westchester back to Avengers Tower setting what he calls "the ground rules for me owning your ass until the doctors declare you …show more content…

"How would you know? You've got head trauma. Maybe it's messing with your memory."

Steve makes a face. "Is that really funny?"

"I'm allowed to joke about it," Bucky says. "And I'm the one who signed you out, which means I'm responsible for you, God help us all. That means what I say, goes."

"Bucky," Steve says.

"Steve," Bucky shoots back in exactly the same note of exasperation.

Neither of them, though, are expecting the floor that they share in Avengers Tower to already be occupied when they get there.

"Oh, hey, guys," says the brunette, who seems vaguely familiar in a way that Steve can't quite place. She's sitting at the kitchen island in one of the bar stools, her eyes glued to her phone and her feet pushing against the legs to sway the rest of her back and forth on the rotating stool seat. "Tony hired me to babysit for a while. What up."

"I – what?" Steve says, putting a hand on Bucky's right arm; after a moment, it relaxes, and Bucky's hand moves away from the sidearm strapped to his

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