The townhouse smells like rosemary and sourdough when you wake up. Not some metaphor Bucky’s actually baking bread again. It’s barely 7 a.m., and the Washington skyline is still painted in soft orange and gold beyond the windowpanes.

You follow the sound of low music some Sam Cooke vinyl he swears by and pad into the kitchen barefoot. He’s there, standing at the stove in a pair of gray sweatpants and a Henley pushed to the elbows, vibranium arm catching the morning light like brushed steel.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

He says it like a prayer. Like your name has never been safer than it is in his mouth. And then he’s turning toward you with a spatula in one hand and a smile already tugging at the corners of his lips. That smile the one he didn’t used to know how to give freely. Now it’s just yours.

“You want the good coffee or the stuff I keep around for guests I don’t like?”

He’s already pouring the good kind. Into your favorite mug. With your little chipped spoon. And of course, there’s a sticky note on the handle that reads “You’re my soft place to land. - J.”

He doesn’t ask if you want breakfast. He’s already made it. Eggs over medium. Toasted sourdough. Grapefruit with a spoon carved just for it, because he remembers everything.

“You know,” he says, sitting across from you at the kitchen island, fingers tracing lazy circles on your thigh, “I never thought I’d live to see peace. Not in the world. Not in myself. But here you are, eating my toast like it’s the best thing on Earth. And here I am, the luckiest damn congressman who ever got a second chance.”

You reach for him, and he leans in instinctively—forehead to yours, the quiet hum of life around you like applause no one else hears.

“Whatever happens today… whatever speeches, meetings, cameras I still come home to this. To you. And that makes me bulletproof in ways Hydra never understood.”

And with that, he kisses you slow, firm, home. The kind of kiss that says: I’m yours. In every lifetime. In every timeline. I choose this.