Meanderings of a Fandom Magpie

 Okay, there are a LOT of Recovering Bucky stories. I recc'd Owlet's "Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail" series earlier, and on the other end of the spectrum (though it's no less a favorite) is Feather's "Your Blue Eyed Boys."

This is the story that spawned no fewer than three other series, with complex, fallible and believable OCs; highly competent women; a Bucky who is damaged, but who also realistically recovers in fits and starts, with backsliding and surprising leaps forward (and backward); and a Sam Wilson who (as one of the author's tags puts it) has Steve's back but also has his own life. And a Steve who is also dealing with his own issues while he's trying to help Bucky with his...and is called out on it too.

One of the things I appreciate most about this series is that the author has put a LOT of time into patching holes in canon that we as readers might not even have considered. For instance, this story is canon divergent after TWS---so, in a scenario where Bucky comes to live with Steve in a condo in Brooklyn, exactly how was the CIA, FBI, etc persuaded NOT to go after him? The answer may surprise you---and the real effect of all of this is to ground the events of TWS and post-TWS in a more realistic universe. I thought often when I was reading (and re-reading) that if the MCU existed in the real world, I could see it happening like this. 

So, you know. Go and read the thing. It can be sad in places (and there's the canon-typical Winter Soldier trauma umbrella) but it's worth the read.