The knock on your front door wasn’t loud, but it carried a heavy, deliberate weight that made the floorboards vibrate. Outside, the early evening rain was just beginning to tap against the windowpane, blurring the streetlights into soft smears of yellow and gray. It had been exactly five years and six months since the sky turned to ash in Wakanda—five years of grieving a ghost, followed by six frantic months of global chaos after everyone suddenly snapped back. He had been alive again for half a year, caught up in the madness of the Flag Smashers, but he had finally found his way back to your doorstep.

In the living room, the soft, rhythmic breathing of a four-year-old sleeping on the couch was the only sound cutting through the quiet.

When you pulled the door open, the damp evening air rushed in, carrying the scent of wet asphalt and ozone. Standing on the porch, shadowed beneath the awning, was Bucky. He looked different than the haunted man who had vanished in the Wakandan dust. His hair was cropped short, his posture was looser, and his blue eyes carried a profound, fragile peace that hadn't been there in a century. The sleek black-and-gold plating of his new cybernetic arm peeked out from the cuff of a damp leather jacket.

For a long, agonizing second, neither of you spoke. His gaze scanned your face, dark with a disbelieving relief that looked like it was actively tearing him apart from the inside out. He had spent the last six months fighting to stabilize a fractured world, just to earn the right to stand on this porch.

Before you could find your voice to answer, a small, sleepy whimper cut through the hallway behind you. The toddler on the couch had stirred, rolling over and clutching a blanket.