"Steve."

Wanda's voice filters through the white noise that's filled Steve's head since he started in on the punching bag, which – jeez, it's been hours, has to have been. The sweat's soaked clean through his shirt, though his breathing's only a little labored; the tape he'd wrapped around his knuckles is damp, too, but they're speckled with drops of blood, and he knows that undoing them to going to hurt, like ripping off a band aid. Shaking out his throbbing hands, he steps back from the bag and moves to put Wanda in his line of sight.

She's crouched partway down the stairs, peering at him over the railing. Head cocked, dark hair spilling over one shoulder, her keen eyes flicking over him. Assessing. Wanda's quiet by nature, something Pietro had inadvertently confirmed one night when Wanda and Bucky had gone out for supplies and he and Steve were drinking together. Not to get drunk – Steve couldn't because of the serum, and Pietro's metabolism burned through alcohol even quicker than Steve's did – but to distract themselves from the absence of their favorite people.

But, anyway – Wanda's quiet. He wouldn't go so far as to say she's reserved, but she sees more than most, powers or no powers, and she doesn't speak for the sake of hearing own voice. She's thoughtful, considering what's worth sharing or dissecting in a conversation and only jumping in when she sees a point in doing so. It's no wonder she and Bucky get on as well as they do.

"Need something?" Steve asks, raising a hand to rake back his sweaty hair, then thinking better of it. Tape first, he decides, and sets about unwinding the material from his knuckles. He keeps an eye on Wanda but doesn't press her to reply. He's content to wait it out, and, like usual, she doesn't make him wait too long.

"The new woman – Michaela." Wanda is careful with the name, conscious of the way her accent almost shapes it into another word entirely. Peter is easier, closer to Pietro and only a little softened by her natural cadence. "There's something wrong with her. Something upsetting her."

Steve's mouth twitches at the corners, his brows furrowing. "I don't think anyone finds the fugitive life agreeable, Wanda. She's still settling in, still processing. She didn't choose this the same way we all did. I'd say her being upset is pretty understandable."

Wanda flaps a hand, dismissive. "Yes, yes, anyone would be troubled, I know that. But her thoughts and feelings are just under the surface, Steve, and from what I've seen, the fugitive life is not the only thing weighing on her."

Steve blinks. "There's something else?" And then the implications of Wanda's words register, and he frowns at her, shoulders squaring. "Wanda, we've talked about this, you can't poke around in people's heads without their permission."

She rolls her eyes, mumbling something under her breath that Steve elects to ignore, more for his own sanity than hers. Besides, when she talks to herself it's in Sokovian, and despite Steve's inclination towards learning language, that's not one he can make conversation in.

"I wasn't trying to sift through her thoughts," she insists, her tone sharpening. Then she sighs and rolls her head to the side, cupping his chin in both hands. "Her anxiety is a little – overwhelming. It spills out and over everything when she's around, even when you can see she's doing everything she can to hide her nerves. I did it unconsciously, skimming over the, the – god, Pietro would laugh if he heard me phrase it like this, but I mostly just read her aura. I didn't go deep enough that she'd even notice I was there, honestly."

That's something of a relief. After the Ultron fiasco, when Wanda and Pietro joined the team at the compound, most of the Avengers steered clear of them. Natasha and Stark especially. They didn't trust the twins, didn't believe that they were really on their side, and Steve can't really blame them. Wanda tore into their darkest fears and ripped them wide open, exposing wounds they'd all tried to stitch up and forget. She'd made them acknowledge parts of themselves they'd been avoiding for years, and it scared them all shitless. Wanda could do it again with a flick of her fingers and the telltale trail of red, and none of them would see it coming. Apart from Clint, maybe. Point is, it took some time before anyone could look Wanda in the eye, longer still until she could return the gesture.

Clint brought her around eventually, and when Wanda's jagged edges started to soften, Steve took it upon himself to coax her further out of her shell, to give her something to occupy her time that wasn't reprimanding her brother or brooding in her room. Natasha trusted Clint when he said Wanda was a friend, so she didn't take too much convincing before she dropped her guard. Not completely, she never did that unless it was just Clint with her, but she put effort into meeting Wanda halfway, and Steve knew how grateful Wanda was for the chance to prove herself.

Stark – Tony. He wasn't as forgiving.

But Steve trusts her, more than he does almost anyone save Bucky and Natasha. He still likes the reminder that Wanda doesn't intend her abuse her powers.

"Did you find out?" he asks. "What's bothering her," he adds, clarifying when he sees the curious look on her face.

"Mm. She was practically screaming it, it wasn't difficult to put it together. She's worried she's going to get the rest of us caught. Thinks it would be better for all of us – Parker included – if she disappeared." Wanda sighs again. "She's no spy – she's said as much to you, to the rest of us, and she thinks she's a burden on the team, one we didn't ask for."

Steve tosses his balled-up tape into the trashcan he keeps down here for that express purpose, mulling that over. He breathes in, lets it out slow. Alright. This is something he can deal with, an argument he's familiar with, even. Bucky sketched out the same sorta worries a few days after they'd gone on the run, tried to talk Steve into taking the kids and going on without him. But Steve's a stubborn son of a bitch, and he wasn't letting Bucky sacrifice himself for the rest of them. He won that argument through sheer force of will (and a few tears, god knows he's not ashamed of that) and he's confident he can win this one, despite not knowing Michaela nearly as well as he does Bucky.

"I'll talk to her," he says, motioning for Wanda to head back upstairs. "Go distract Pete and Pietro for a while, give me a chance to sort this out without everyone hovering, yeah?"

Wanda smiles, pleased, and smoothly rises from her crouch, tossing him a mock salute as she twists around to traipse her way up the steps. Steve snags a towel from the pile he keeps on the rickety bench in the corner so he can dry off a little as he follows in her footsteps, letting the basement door snick shut behind him. He watches Wanda sidle up to where Pietro and Peter are seated at the tiny kitchen table, ducking in behind her brother and bending to whisper in his ear. He frowns and turns to look at her, waving off Peter's complaints about their interrupted game (Rummy, Steve thinks, looking at the spread of cards in front of them), though it's only a moment of baffled staring before he shrugs and jumps up from his seat. Peter's protests die down when the twins grab onto his hands and haul him out of the kitchen, and it's only a few seconds before Steve hears the front door open and shut.

That leaves Bucky, but Steve doesn't bother thinking up a way to get him out of the house; Bucky made it pretty clear that he had no intention of interacting with Michaela or Peter. Steve would bet it has more to do with Bucky's lack of trust in himself than anything else, but that's a battle for another day. Right now, he's got a more manageable crises to avert.

Michaela and Peter share the bedroom closest to the stairs, right across from Pietro and Wanda. Steve and Bucky trade off every few nights on sleeping on the couch downstairs, both of them (reasonably) paranoid about not having a first line of defense between them and the kids. Or, the kids and Michaela. He and Bucky might be edging closer to a hundred when you add in their years in the ice, but they're barely thirty biologically; feels a little too patronizing to lump Michaela in with the teens when she's only a few years younger than them. Based on life experience, though...

He shakes his head, dismissing the thought. Comparing traumas is a waste of energy, he knew that before Sam brought it up during one of their weekly bitching sessions, as he liked to call them.

Steve hovers outside Michaela's door, debating how to go about this. He's known for his rousing speeches and general earnestness, which he's been told is a fairly lethal combination, but when it comes to comforting someone—well. Bucky knows first-hand how shit he is at talking someone down from the proverbial ledge, no matter how empathetic he is. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Steve bites back another sigh and decides to wing it. He'll get a read on her, see how much she's worked herself up over this, then—

Steve pauses, his hand poised to knock, an inch from the door. He tilts his head, but, no – those are two voices he's hearing from inside the room, not just Michaela's.

Shit, he shouldn't listen in, the door's closed for a reason, but. That's Bucky's voice, low and smooth and gentle, urging Michaela to breathe.

"You're doing fine, sweetheart, that's it. Breathe in, hold it for a bit, then let it out."

There's a ragged exhale, followed by the more of Bucky's quiet encouragement.

"Fuck," Michaela says, soft and hoarse, like the word's been scraped out of her throat, and goddamn, Steve knows the feeling. The visceral feeling of betrayal, knowing your body was dead-set on fucking you over at every turn, knowing you could only ever cope with it, that you didn't have a perfect cure. Well, he got his, eventually, but even the serum didn't fix panic attacks. "Fuck, that's—I'm okay, I'm fine, just. Fuck."

"Not your first rodeo, huh?"

"God, no. I've, uh, I get them a lot. Have since high school, though, you know, they've gotten, uh, gotten way more frequent in the last couple years."

"Yeah, I bet."

There's a moment of silence. Then:

"That wasn't your first rodeo, either."

It's not a question, and Bucky doesn't treat it like one. "I get 'em, too. Not so much these days, which is ironic as hell, I know. But." Steve can imagine him lifting his shoulders in a subtle shrug, eyebrows raised. "'Fore that, though, I used to help Steve through his asthma attacks, ya know?"

"Asthma... shit, yeah, that's fucking terrible. A friend of mine had it when we were kids and the one time he forgot his inhaler, I—might've had my first panic attack, actually. Fuckin' hell, he scared the shit out of me that day. He ended up in the hospital for a few days it was so bad." Another pause. "What? Do I—is there something on my face? Besides the gross tears and snot and all, I mean."

Steve hears Bucky snort, and his own mouth curves into a faint smile at the sound. "No, you're fine."

"Then should I just ignore the weird look you gave me...? You know what? Yeah, I'll ignore it. There was no look."

"Michaela—"
"Nope, no look, moving on. I—Thank you, Sergeant Barnes."

"What're you thankin' me for? All's I did was talk to you, nothing special. And drop the Sergeant Barnes, will you? I haven't been in the military for a long time."

"Okay? Okay, yeah, I can do that. Should I call you James?"

"James? Why—ah. Right. No, don't bother with James, either. I go by Bucky. Steve calls me that enough, I thought you and the kid would've picked up on it already."

"I did! I did, I just... I didn't wanna be disrespectful. You asked me to call you James last time, but we barely know each other. Plus, I have an unfair advantage, you and Rogers are all they taught us about in like, freshman history. I figured I'd, I don't know, give you space. Verbally. Which, now that I've said it out loud, sounds fucking ridiculous—"

Bucky's laughing again, and Steve's chest goes tight with it, hearing him so clearly, unabashedly amused. Playful, even. It's not that Steve's never seen it, never heard it, but it's—precious. So fucking precious. The first time, the tenth, the hundredth – it doesn't matter how many times he's gotten to witness Bucky, smiling and settled in in his own skin, it's always beautiful. And to hear him that comfortable with someone else, with Michaela, it's even better. She got him laughing that time in the café, too, and despite it being at Steve's expense, he's always been grateful to her for it.

"Relax, sweetheart, relax. It's not ridiculous. It's nice, okay? More considerate than I deserve some days."

"...I'm definitely not close enough to you to like, call you out on your bullshit, so I'm gonna table that."

"Uh-huh. You do that."

"Anyway. Just. Thank you, okay? For – for a lot of things. If I start getting into that I'm gonna cry again and god fucking knows I've already embarrassed myself enough for one day."

"Any time, sweetheart. I'd talk to Wanda, though, about the nightmares? She's real gentle, knows how to give you a decent night's sleep without poking around too much."

"I'll, uh. I'll think about that."

Steve realizes abruptly that the conversation's come to an end and he's still right outside the door. Like a creep. Fuck, he really stood hear and eavesdropped on the whole thing. He could stay here, pretend he's only just walked up, have that talk with Michaela, but it sounds like she's gone through the wringer already and he doesn't want to make things worse, especially given Bucky seems to have calmed her down. He can hash things out with her tomorrow, or the next day, or – eventually. Right now, he's more intent on avoiding the creaking steps (third and eighth from the top of the staircase) as he books it back to the living room.

Bucky finds him there a few minutes later, sprawled out on the couch with a book in his lap. He's not even sure what it's about, he just grabbed whatever was closest from the coffee table and flipped to a random page to give the impression he's been at this a while. Bucky casts him a faint grin as he lifts Steve's legs and plops down onto the couch, dropping Steve's feet into his lap.

He can feel Bucky's eyes on him, a bright spot of warmth that lingers on his sweat-damp chest and the too-tight grip he's got on the paperback, but he doesn't look up. Can't, really, which is pretty cowardly of him, but. It's also nothing Bucky hasn't dealt with before.

"We gonna talk about your shitty stealth skills, or are you gonna keep pretending to read Pride & Prejudice? I hope you didn't lose Wanda's page, by the way; she'll kick your ass and I'll let her."

Fuck. Steve fumbles to flip back through the book, huffing out a sigh as he finds the dog-eared page about a third of the way in. He presses it flat, keeping it folded neatly, then shuts the book and tosses it onto the table. Bucky's grinning at him when he looks up, his eyes bright with humor.

"Laugh it up," Steve grumbles, digging his heel into Bucky's thigh. Bucky doesn't flinch, or really react beyond the widening of his smile, and Steve rolls his eyes. "Natasha tried, okay? I've never had a head for spy games, though, and I might've been able to train my body but that's it."

"I'm aware, Steve. But it's funny, you gotta admit that."

"Ha-ha."

Bucky shakes his head, but he doesn't stop smiling. "You gonna ask?"

"About what?"

"You don't have a head for spy games, but you aren't an idiot, Steve. Playing dumb's not a good look for you, either."

Well, that's fair. "You talked with Michaela."

"That's not a question." When Steve just narrows his eyes, Bucky raises his hands in a mock-placating gesture, chuckling. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. Yes, I talked with her."

"Though you were gonna avoid her and Parker like the plague."

"I was planning on it." Bucky's mouth quirks into a frown, then smooths out as he slumps further down into the couch. His hands settled at Steve's ankles, the warm skin and cool metal a curious contrast. "She passed me in the hallway earlier, alright? We brushed arms and – shit, I thought the arm was malfunctioning for a second, thought it was shocking me. But then she started apologizing, and it wasn't even that bad. A little worse than static shock, maybe, but you'd have thought she burned me or something with how bad she startled. I told her it was fine, don't worry about it, but – she started crying, Steve. Sobbing, really."

"Ah," Steve says, biting back a smile. This is far from amusing or even trivial, but it's so Bucky. "You've always had a weakness for crying girls, huh, Buck?"

He flicks Steve an irritable glance, almost pouting, and Steve's smile breaks loose. Bucky pinches at his ankle but it barely registers. "Shut up, god, you're annoying. I don't like anyone crying, you oaf." He pauses, then lets out a dramatic sigh and concedes, "Girls are worse, though, 'specially when they're crying that hard. I had to do something, so I got her back in her room and—let her talk."

He closes his eyes, his head tipped back against the couch. Steve can read the tension in the line of his shoulders, the way he's holding his arms. Some of it might be from the arm, that's almost always giving Bucky trouble. He'll work out the kinks later, after the others have gone to bed.

"It's nothing I couldn't have guessed at, ya know? She's scared, which, she'd be stupid not to be. She's feeling guilty about leaving her lawyer boyfriend in New York, letting him handle to fallout. And—" He draws in a sharp breath, lets it out slowly. "She's worried about getting the rest of us caught. Thinks things would be better if one of us – you, specifically, I'm assuming – cut her loose and left her to fend for herself."

"She's gotta know we're not gonna do that."

"'Course she does, she knows you. You've got a heart of gold in her eyes, Steve, she trusts you to make the right decisions. Or what you think are the right decisions, at least, and she said it pretty plainly that that's all anyone can ask for." Bucky catches the protest forming on Steve's lips and gesture for him to cut it out. "I like her. It's not hero worship far as I can tell, she just genuinely thinks you're a good guy. But, anyway, I don't know. I get how she feels, and I didn't wanna subject her to the Captain America Lecture you'd inevitably put her through, so. I tried talking it through with her."

"And?" Steve nudges at Bucky again, curious now rather than annoyed.

Bucky shrugs. "We'll see if anything really got through to her, I guess."

That's as good as it's going to get, Steve figures. Michaela has to be the one to accept that she's not a burden here, that she's wanted. When Steve told the others they'd have two more people joining them, he'd expected resistance, honestly; it was hard enough keeping the four of them safe and sound and out of the public eye, another two would only complicate things. But apparently Wanda and Pietro were fans of Spider-Man, and Bucky... Bucky knew what it meant to Steve to protect enhanced individuals from the government's wrath. Beyond that, though, he does like Michaela, even if that initial meeting could have been under better circumstances. In the end, it wasn't a hard decision at all.

Swinging his legs around, Steve sits up and tucks Bucky into his side. Bucky goes willingly, dropping his head onto Steve's shoulder. Steve presses a kiss to his forehead, smiling.

"I'm sure things'll work out," he says, threading his fingers with Bucky's metal ones.

"She reminds me of you," Bucky says, and that's—not surprising, exactly, Bucky'd said something similar that first time they met. Steve doesn't necessarily see it, but that's not surprising, either. It is something of a non sequitur, though, and Bucky must realize that because he adds, "What I mean is, she's tough. She'll get past this."

Steve hums his agreement, nosing at Bucky's temple. They'll get up when Wanda and the boys get back (someone has to make dinner and for all their super talents, the kids are likely to burn the place down trying), but they can relax for a while. Enjoy each other's company. They don't have much opportunity for it these days, and if Steve regrets anything, it's losing out on the comfortable space he and Bucky had carved out for themselves back in Brooklyn. But this is good, too, and really, he'll take whatever Bucky's willing to give him, whenever he's willing to give it. They didn't have this before the war, didn't have it during, and Steve sure as hell didn't have anything close to it when he woke up in 2012. They're different people now, with different wants, different needs. Something clicked when Bucky followed him after the helicarriers, and, well. Steve's happy with the change.

"You know what might help?"

Steve blinks, just noticing that Bucky's shifted so that he's looking up at Steve. He shakes his head a little, confused.

"With Michaela."

"Still don't know where you're going with this, pal."

"Y'think Nat could swing bringing that Murdock guy out here for a visit?"

Steve snorts a laugh, clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle the rest of his amusement. "What reason does a pro-bono lawyer from Hell's Kitchen have for coming out to the middle of nowhere Latvia?"

"Fuck if I know. That's why I'm saying Natasha should work on it. She'll think of something convincing."

It's not the worst idea, certainly not even the worst one Steve's been entertaining since Wanda brought this to his attention. Could makes thing more problematic in the long run, the reminder of what Michaela had to leave behind in New York, but—it could give her something to fight for, too. He'll have to talk it over with Natasha during their next video chat; they're do for another in a few days, that'll give him time to discuss it with the others.

"You really are the brains of this operation, Barnes."

"Glad to see my talents are finally being appreciated, Rogers."

"You're a real jackass, you know that?"

"Love you too, Stevie. Love you, too."