Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bucky’s mother had been listening to the radio when she first heard the news. The United States government had announced the Selective Training and Service Act. This meant that all eligible young men from the age of 21 and 45 had to enter a draft lottery. If selected, they would have to serve a minimum of 1 year in the armed forces until the war had been won.

Wilfred was about to lose her only son; she had lost her husband in the first war. His body had never been recovered. An empty coffin, and an empty grave was all she had to remember him by. Only her fond memories, and the way his face was reflected in her son’s were left. And now he too was going to be lost.

Bucky tried to comfort her, saying there were many men out there who would be alongside him in the draft, hundreds, what was the likelihood that his name would get called. And even if he was drafted, he would come back to her. He promised to fight until he could come home.

It was a mother’s job to comfort her children, to keep her babies safe. But now it was Bucky who was comforting her. Trying to help her hold it together when even as he spoke, he could feel the way the words choked him.

Bucky couldn’t afford to go to war. He had his mother and sister to take care of. He needed to help provide for them now that his father was gone. Becca would always be around to help but he felt an obligation to his family. Not his country.

The enrolment officers came to their door in the next 3 days. Knocking with their neat uniforms upon their shoulders and their shiny boots pressed firmly into the porch. Bucky had filled out the form sent to his home in the mail. He took it to his room as he did so, not wanting his mother to see it, or the way his hands shook.

His handwriting was never very good, the linked words were messy, and they didn’t flow like his mother’s did. He wasn’t ever good with his hands; he was better with his mind for things like reading or the mountains of homework he had been given in his science classes back in his high school days.

He folded the yellow paper up neatly and slipped it back into the manila envelope placing it on his desk, staring at it every night as he waited 3 days for the soldier to receive it.

As he let the paper out his hand, he silently prayed that he wouldn’t be drafted, that he could stay here and protect his family. To continue to protect Steve and try and convince him not to enlist.

That night he prayed to God to forgive him of his cowardice, and to promise to protect his family if he was drafted.

Bucky never wanted to enlist, neither had his mother, or Becca. And in his father’s final letter the only message he left for Bucky was ‘Stay strong James, and stay home’

But after the bombing at Pearl Harbor Bucky's attitude towards enlisting changed, he didn't want to leave his family, they needed him. And he needed them. But he felt guilty about standing idly by, everyone was in danger whilst the Axis Powers were continuing their attack on the rest of the world, and it was America's turn to step in

But this is what defined the difference between Steve and him. Since the war had begun anytime Steve could spare an hour, he would visit an enlistment office, get examined, hand in his paperwork, and be declined. Bucky was thankful that every doctor he had visited was in the right mind to not allow Steve to join. Steve couldn’t even hold his own against a common cold, there was no way he was going to be able to fight in a war. Steve wanted to join the war because he had always been the kind of man to detest injustice, everyone had the right to live and if he could do something about it he would

He didn’t like thinking of his best friend in that way, Steve was strong, stronger than he ever was. Steve fought when he struggled to hold his arms up, he believed even when the odds were stacked against him. And he fought fights that were never his, hoping to win for someone else.

Bucky felt the same, that's what made them such an inseparable pair, but he wasn't as brave as Steve. Despite what people might think. He had to look out for his family. He fought for his world. For his mother and sister and Steve. He couldn’t protect them if he was out there.

~~~

Every night he listened to his radio, concentrating on the drone of the presenter as he listed off the names of dead or missing soldiers. Planes having been shot down, tanks being blown up, boats and submarines that sunk never to be recovered. All of them, he listened to the names so that someone would remember them if there was no one at home left to do so.

He hoped that God had opened his arm to these soldiers and taken them to a place to rest. He hoped that they would meet their fathers, brothers, uncles and friends who had also passed on.

But that small comfort would not extend to him and yet he still prayed. He knew he was damned to hell, even if he was the only one who knew it, because God would never accept him for who he was. But the idea of leaving his sister and mother behind petrified him more than the idea of eternal torment. Because nothing would haunt him more than losing his family. His time would come, but not before theirs. He wouldn’t be leaving them yet.

Those thoughts however, would be futile. On the fourth night after the soldiers had come to take his name Bucky sat next to his radio as always. Listening to the droning voice of the announcer and the names he was listing off. This time however these were not the dead soldiers, these were the newest recruit for America’s patriotic army.

Bucky didn’t have to wait long as the presenter went on

Arnold, David

Bailey, Scott

Banner, Liam

Barnes, James

And there it was. His name, ringing like the church bell in his ears. He stared at the dial on the radio helplessly. As if he could wind back the broadcast and not hear his name. As if he could take back the wax seal that had just been planted on his fate.

He switched off his radio, not wanting to know which other young souls had been drafted just as he had. He would meet them soon enough.

But the silence from the radio was punctured by the sudden scream of his mother. He rushed into the kitchen, vaulting over his bed and running down the hallway.

His mother was on her knees next to the kettle on the stove, the radio was playing a mess of static and music, she must’ve been listening to it whilst making her evening tea.

Today would have been the 6^th re-boil of the same leaves.

He dropped to his knees beside her and put his arms around her, stroking her hair the way she had always done for him. He shushed her sobbing as she had done for him.

He had no idea how long they sat there for, the kettle had well and truly boiled, but he simply held his mother, refusing to let her go. Wanting to instil in her the love she had always given him. At some point Becca had turned off the stove above their heads and joined them on the ground. Her skirt twisted around her ankles as she curved her chest over Bucky’s back. Holding him as he held their mother.

And together they wept.

~~~

The next day he went to an old secret prohibition bar to try and take his mind off everything. It was connected to a shitty back alley behind a dive bar that was owned by a man Edward Young, He had bought and made the old building into a safe haven for all young gay men and women. Bucky had been shown the bar on one of his escapades during high school. He used to sneak off with a boy called Gordon who was a Senior at the time, Gordon had been enlisted some time ago, but Bucky still visited the bar occasionally. Grateful for this space Gordon had given him.

He wondered sometimes what happened to Gordon, he was a good man.

Bucky often waited outside the back entrance of the establishment, he was well known in the community, a level of fame he hadn’t meant to collect but alas here he was. He was waiting for some to come by to pick him up, he usually liked chatting first which is why he stood outside rather than going entering the bar right away. It was more forward to wait inside, outside was more relaxed. The boys out here knew they weren’t getting into anything serious, and it seemed more casual for any potential onlookers, not that many people came round the dingy back alleys of Brooklyn, unless it was Steve who was always getting into trouble.

He sighed, somehow, like always, his thoughts had wandered back to Steve. Steve was his everything next to Becca and his mother. He would tell people that Steve was like his brother. But inside he ached, he wished it was more than that. He wished he could have Steve. Because given the chance he would swoop Steve up in an instance if only he would say yes.

But an incident a few years back showed Bucky how unrealistic that was of him to believe. The two had been inseparable since childhood, he remembered their first meeting, when Steve had been knocked off the slide by an older boy and Bucky had come to his rescue.

 Bucky had saved him Steve from getting his ass kicked every day after that, all throughout school Steve was insistent on fighting for justice, and picking on someone bigger than him who was bullying someone else. It was never his fight or his responsibility, but he tried fighting it anyway. Starting something Bucky ultimately had to finish. It was what Bucky admired about Steve, other than his chivalry, it was his most admirable quality.

But he thought back to that one day when he had been brought into a scuffle. During his second to last year, he’d been cornered in the boy’s bathroom, someone had let it slip to a group of seniors that he had been seen kissing another boy in his grade after school a few days ago. When he was leaving the bathroom the group of boys had approached him. The tallest grabbed him by the collar of his white button up and pushed him against the bricks.

“Shoulda known a pretty boy like you would have been a faggot”

“You think I’m pretty” Bucky knew he shouldn’t have tested his luck but sometimes his mouth worked before his brain did, he blamed Steve for that.

“Mouthy, aren’t ya? Bet you won’t be so nice to kiss when we fuck up your face”

“C’mon, there’s no need to escalate things” Bucky was trying to get out of this situation lightly, but he didn’t think he would be able to outrun 7 other boys.

“Shoulda thought about that before you decided to be a filthy queer” and that’s when he took the first swing. Hitting Bucky square in the nose.

After that he dropped him and the other boys began to swarm, kicking his stomach and head whenever he was down and taking shots for his face whenever he tried to stand up. He attempted to get them to trip over each other, grabbing a pair of leather shoes that had never seen polish in their life, and yanking them. It worked but he wasn’t down for long.

Eventually amongst the thrall of feet as he was trying to cover his head, he saw a new pair of feet approaching. Small shoes with newspapers sticking out of the sides. The sticklike legs connected to them were covered with pooling grey socks.

For fuck’s sake, it was Steve.

The boys stopped momentarily, and Bucky scrambled to his feet but the same boy from before grabbed his tie to stop him from running away, like he was going to do that and leave them to have at Steve.

“Oh little Stevie, come here to save your boyfriend? I bet it was you who was kissing him behind the school”

Steve’s brow furrowed. He looked at Bucky with a question in his eyes. Bucky tried to convey ‘It’s nothing Steve, I’ll tell you about it later’ though he wasn’t sure how much of that got across. He just needed to get out of this mess first, then he could deal with his outing.

“Don’t call me that” Steve responded

“What are you gonna do about it, Stevie, gonna try and fight me?”

Steve hesitated

Something in Bucky’s heart stopped. He didn’t want Steve to get involved. He didn’t want to see him get hurt again. But it was so unlike him to not try. He had never backed away from a fight, never minded his own business, especially when it was Bucky who was involved.

“That’s what I thought” he spits and then throws Bucky to the side and gives him one last kick in the ribs before stomping off, laughing.

Bucky groaned as he picked himself up and assessed the damage with his hands. His nose was bleeding, his lip was split along the bottom seam and he had a bruise on the top of his head. His chest ached and so did his knee. But other than that, he didn’t think there was any real damage.

He brushed himself off, trying to get as much grime off his shirt at possible. His mother was going to be furious that he stained it.

He tried to smile at Steve, but the stretch of his lips made the cut ache, and he felt some blood drip from his lip. He whipped his nose and mouth, there was a decent amount of blood there.

“I’m fine Steve. Better me than you” he said unprompted

Steve just stared at Bucky for a moment, the ghost of confusion crossing his features

“Let’s just get you home” he said bluntly

They walked back to Bucky’s house, Bucky limping occasionally on the way. Steve stuck his shoulder under Bucky’s arm, but he was way too short to provide any support. Bucky appreciated the effort.

 When they got home, and his mother answered the door, she sighed. This wasn’t unusual for her to open her door seeing one or both of her boys with blood on their faces.

Bucky half walked, half limped to the bathroom and began cleaning away the blood. He took off his shirt and his mother took it away to clear the stains before the shirt was completely ruined.

Bucky ran a wet cloth over his face and then held the cold rag to his aching head. Steve sat on the lip of the bathtub whilst he looked at Bucky in the mirror over the sink.

“Is what he was saying true?”

“About what?” Bucky asked as he examined the split in his lip

“About you” Steve said

Bucky stopped, lowering his hands to the sink and looking at Steve in the mirror. Keeping this secret from Steve had not been what he intended. But there never seemed to be the right time, and as much as he hated to admit it, he was afraid of how Steve would take the news. It had never come up in conversation and when any of their classmates had been outed Steve had never made any comment, so he didn’t know how Steve felt. It was a tricky subject to say the least.

“Well yeah, but it’s more complicated than that”

Steve didn’t say anything

“I swing both ways Steve. Don’t you remember Dorothy in 6^th grade and Janet?”

“Yeah, I remember…but how did you know you liked boy's if you've only been with girls?

“It's not like I've been with them in my entire life...like you heard I've been seeing someone, sort of” Bucky hoped that Steve wouldn't think badly of him because of this.

“You know how people will feel about that-"

"Yeah I'm pretty well aware" Bucky says cutting him off

"-you need to be more careful next time. You know I can't pull you out of a fight. I don't want you getting into trouble"

"Yeah that's your job" Bucky laughs as he places the rag against his lip again

"You don't have a problem with this do you?" Bucky says after a moment of silence

Steve hesitates again, he really likes keeping Bucky on his toes today

"No...I just worry about what that will mean for you...if anyone else finds out" Steve was gentle when he said this and Bucky understood

It was well known, especially in Brooklyn that being "queer" wasn't accepted, and the queer population of Brooklyn was larger than people might think

Bucky already knew what consequence would come of him, being the way he was. Going to church every Sunday with his mother as a child had proved that to him time and time again. Driving that truth into his heart and twisting it until it ached.

He remembered watching Father Michael out a church member he was too young to recognize. Forcing him out of the church, publicly shaming him and pronouncing him damned for eternity. Since that day Bucky had never seen that man again

But even then, he couldn’t change who he was. He desperately wanted to. Ever since he was a little boy his father had told him of all the horrible people and things that happened in hell. He had been afraid of God’s wrath all his life. But that didn’t stop him from being who he was.

But he was relieved at the very least that Steve hadn't been swayed by any of that. He felt guilty for expecting that to be the case. Steve stood up for everyone, why wouldn't that extend to Bucky, even if he was the way he was

In this moment Bucky wondered how much Steve had suspected prior to this sudden revelation, he wondered if Steve was unhappy that he had kept this from him or not. 

However Steve hadn't said anything about how he felt...he couldn't tell if Steve was perhaps queer but now didn't feel like the right time to ask. Bucky was too nervous and he had enough "excitement" for one day.

That was the most of that memory he could remember. Parts of the conversation were missing but hadn’t really been listening. The thrumming of his heart that felt free having to stop lying to Steve but felt tense not feeling like he would ever be able to tell Steve how he really felt. He had no idea how Steve would take this information, and he couldn't risk loosing Steve, he would take friendship over nothing at all.

To this day he had kept his feelings close to his chest. Keeping his “lifestyle” away from Steve in order to preserve a friendship he couldn’t bear the thought of losing, even if he wished and dreamed of more.

He was broken out of his thoughts when something touched his arm. He blinked hard and saw the young face as a man standing in front of him. He’d seen him around here before. He couldn’t remember his name, but he knew he was about 20 years old.

“You with me gorgeous?” he said playfully, and Bucky smiled

“I am now”

The man was a bit taller than he was. With slim shoulders and long arms. His hair was black, cropped short around his ears and swept neatly off his face. His eyes were brown, like the beer bottles his father used to buy in bulk.

“Shall we go inside?” Bucky smiled and took him by the hand, walking over the back entrance of the “bar”, wanting to leave the thoughts of Steve in the alley.

Chapter Text

Bucky walked inside with the young man, desperate to leave his thoughts behind and drown his feelings in the arms of another. Even if it was not the man he loved.

“You’re James, right?” the boy asked

Bucky nodded “Yeah that’s me-“he wasn’t used to people calling him by his first name. The only person who did that was his mother and she hardly ever called him by name.

“-and you are?” he continued

“Peter”

Bucky smiled turning on the charm as he looked at Peter “It’s good to officially meet you Peter” he drew out Peter’s name as he said it

Peter’s tongue absently slipped out his mouth as he pulled Bucky towards the first vacant door.

The bar had been redesigned to look like an oversized changing room. With one main area full of tables and chairs made of wood, a bar sitting along the wall with a wall rack full of bottles of all shapes and sizes, that was connected to a hallway lined with doors. The door at the very end lead into the main building. But it was hardly ever in use.

Down the hallway some doors had small paper signs hanging from the doorknobs, those were the occupied rooms and those without were not.

Peter pulled Bucky by his hand to the next vacant room and pulled him inside. Once the pair had stepped inside, Peter pushed the door shut and backed Bucky up against it.

It wasn’t forceful, instead forward. And just what Bucky needed. He didn’t have the energy to make the decisions and take charge. He just wanted someone to take care of him and take his mind off Steve.

He cringed, once again, he was thinking about Steve.

“What’s wrong?” Peter asked, caressing Bucky’s jaw with both of his hands.

Bucky shook his head “Nothing” and placed a hand behind Peter’s head, pulling it forward into a quick kiss

He pulled back and rested his head on the door, Peter looking at him with the dim light reflecting off the dark chocolate brown of his eyes. He sighed and leaned forward for another kiss. This one longer, more passionate.

Peter tucked his hand behind Bucky’s head and slid his other hand down Bucky chest and waist to the belt loop in his slacks pulling him forward. His body sat flush next to Peter’s, and he leaned into the contact. Chasing the warmth of another person.

“Clothes on, ok?” Bucky puffed out in between quick kisses

“I can live with that” Peter said before pushing his lips back onto Bucky’s

His tongue came out to prod at his bottom lip, leaving a stripe of spit behind.

It tasted like Lucky Strike and Bucky breathed it in. Not caring for the exhaled air he was bringing with it.

He needed to drown in these feelings. To make this moment last forever and bury the bad memories and the horrible reality he had to face. He took Peter’s warmth, the short-lived love, the passion and the soft hands holding him and used all of it to drown everything out.

For now, he wasn’t James Barnes, he wasn’t the boy Steve could never love, he wasn’t the only son his mother was soon to lose. He was just himself, plain and simple.

He gripped tighter to the man before him. Not leaving even a breadth of space between them. Peter held onto him and the two of them walked over to where the provided sofa was.

It was leather, scuffed and well-worn but comfortable enough. At least Bucky hoped so. He had straddled Peter’s thighs which were keeping him off the couch except for his knees.

He leaned forward and kissed Peter over and over again. Opening his mouth and allowing Peter to slip his tongue inside. The wet organ glided over his bottom lip as Peter pressed it to Bucky’s.

Bucky breathed deeply enjoying the way the connection felt, the warmth it spread down his neck and up to his ears. The way Peter’s hand gripped fistfuls of his shirt collar whilst his other hand slid up and down Bucky’s body feeling the soft curves of his muscles under his white button up.

The two of them breathed heavily in and out of their noses, not wanting to break away for air. The two of them were caught in each other’s presence. Holding onto one another for dear life. It wasn’t often that boys like them could enjoy the company of another person without shame.

Bucky didn’t know if Peter was bisexual like him or just simply gay, but it didn’t matter. None of it did, right now nothing was important.

He sunk further into the emotion of the moment, focusing of the feeling of Peter’s hand which had sunk down to squeeze his ass. The way Peter’s hair felt in his hands. The tase of cigarettes on his tongue and the feeling of Peter biting his lips. The way his chest rose and sank as he breathed hard.

After a while Peter wrapped his arms around Bucky’s waist and began to stand. Bucky wrapped his legs around Peter, finally pulling his head back to breathe. But before he could ask what Peter was doing, he had turned and leant Bucky down so his back was resting on the sofa.

“Couldn’t feel my legs. Plus, you look better down here” Peter said wryly

Bucky chuckled and pulled Peter close but didn’t let their lips touch.

“Why don’t you show me just how handsome you think I am”

Peter grinned at him and slotted himself in between Bucky’s legs before beginning to kiss him again, rough and passionate and hot. Slipping his tongue into Bucky’s mouth and running it along his own, tangling their harsh breathing and warm mouths together.

Bucky moaned when Peter put his hand in his hair and tugged on the short strands, his mouth falling away from Peter’s giving him a moment to chuckle.

~~~

Hours went by between Bucky and Peter, the room was practically filled with the steam that was radiating from their bodies, Bucky started to wonder that maybe he wasn’t the only one trying to escape something in the walls of this place.

Many men and women came here to escape the judgment they might have received anywhere else. Bucky knew there were other establishments for people like them but how many of them were there? How many more people like him lived in Brooklyn, hiding away like he had to?

The people who came here were like anybody else, only with a secret they were forced to keep. Bucky hated the way of the world for people like him. The lies, the secrets, the people who would never fully know him because they couldn’t accept him. And even if they did how would he know who he could trust with such an important part of himself.

Love was such a potent and major facet of Bucky’s life. It always would be, but so much of it was dampened by stigma and disdain.

And so instead he came to places like these, to continue to hide these secrets in the arms of another who would have to keep them also. The irony of how this secret was shared by many and known by so few. How it brought people together despite tearing many apart.

But still Bucky felt shame well up in his gut, he couldn’t help but feel guilty of who he was and how many people he was keeping this secret from. His mother especially, she was everything to him and not telling her felt like a betrayal. But he was too scared to risk losing her love, risk losing what he still had. And part of him knew that his mother would always love him...but the fear, he couldn't risk losing her. Losing what he had promised to come back to.

After a while he and Peter finally stopped and decided to rest in each other’s arms instead. Peter still laying on Bucky, his arms squished between the sofa and his back whilst Bucky’s arms were around Peter, one hand cradling his head and the other drawing disfigured shapes into his back with his fingers.

“Thank you’ Bucky murmured into the top of Peter’s head

“It was a pleasure. Any chance I will see you again?” He asked casually, Bucky could sense the undertone of hope in the question

“Maybe, but you might have to wait a while…I was drafted last night”

Peter sat up, putting his arms on either side of Bucky’s torso to hold himself up

“You were drafted?” He repeats

“Yeah” Bucky says, he feels like he should go on, but nothing comes to mind for him to say. He knows he sounds dejected.

He’s thinking about it again, how this new fork in the road is taking him down a path he didn’t choose. He wants to run, to hide away from his every pressing future. But he knows he can’t. He tried to today, but the issues of tomorrow kept following him. He wanted a way out of this bullshit and all he got was a distraction. But he knew he still wouldn't have been able to sleep at night if he didn't do anything about what was going on in the world

Peter saw in Bucky’s eyes how the steel blue faded. The way he seemed to sink in on himself. Peter’s brow creased and he frowned. He wrapped his arms around Bucky again and held him tightly.

“I’m sorry. I hope that you make it home safe”

Bucky smiled at this. He was thankful for Peter’s well wishes. It was the only thing keeping him together in this moment and to not flee to some fantastical corner of his mind.

Bucky kissed him on the top of the head one last time before sitting up, Peter pushing himself away to make room for Bucky.

“Thank you, maybe we’ll meet again someday,” Bucky said again. He mustered up the courage to flash his winning grin before getting up and heading toward the door.

With one last glance back at Peter, who has a sad smile on his face. He turned the doorknob and left.

Chapter Text

Bucky straightened out his shirt as he walked back into the alley. There was not a lick of light in the ally which meant that it was late afternoon. He’d spent all day inside and he almost forgot that he needed to head to the registration office, that was the point of him being out after all. He slicked back his hair, trying to use whatever sweat and hair gel that was still in his hair to keep it down and neat.

After that he would have to go home and tell his family the news. And then he would need to find Steve. Tell him too.

He didn’t know what lie he was supposed to fabricate. He had always skirted around Steve’s question when he asked when Bucky was going to enlist. And after a while he let it go. Too busy trying to find a way to cheat himself into the army instead.

The thought made its way into his head of the countless times, of him and Steve having to outrun bullies and hold them off physically, Steve always ended up doubling over, wheezing and taking a beating that turned him black and blue, one thing they had always done together was fight. But this seemed like a battle they would have to fight alone.

Steve was tough but his body couldn’t keep up with his spirit. It was just a plain fact. And that lead Bucky to worry. With him now drafted who was there to get Steve out of any trouble he would inevitably find his way into. And what’s worse, what if some Doctor actually allows him to enlist. Bring him into the army, sends him off to the other side of the world where Bucky would probably never see him again.

Bucky ran a hand over his face hoping he could pull the thoughts from his mind and throw them away like the many used cigarettes discarded on the pavement. He couldn’t stomach those feelings right now.

For now they would settle, even if he forced them too, and instead he would worry about his own immediate future. His feet had been carrying him towards the enlistment office without him seeing where he was headed. But when the building covered in notices and posters about the war came into view, he knew he was in the right place.

He took a deep breath in and entered the building; the walls were covered in a beige wallpaper that left nothing to the imagination of the brick underneath. He was met with a front desk directly in the entrance. A woman with a black bun sitting behind the desk. Her skin was fair, her lashes covering her cheeks from the way she looked down as she lent over at her desk. She was looking through a pile of stamped papers.

He walked up to the desk, and she looked up hearing his leather shoes clacking across the linoleum floor. He could see now that her eyes were a deep blue

“Hello, you here for the medical exam?”

He tried to put on a face that held enthusiasm but all he could think of was the fact that he was walking further into the fray’s of war and further away from his life and family.

“Yes, I am”

“And what’s your name?”

“James Barnes, and who would you be?” He would be lying if he said she wasn’t attractive. He just needed something to take his mind off everything that was coming to a head. Even if it was just for a few moments.

“Oh, Martha” she said as a light blush graced her cheeks. She looked away quickly and began rifling through her paperwork. Expectedly it didn’t take long with his name being near the top of the list. She looked over his paperwork and gave him a card to sign.

A serial number and order number were already stamped out for him. They would soon be printed into his dog tags he assumed.

He had to fill out his full name, place of residence, mailing address, telephone number, age, place and date of birth and his place of employment and employee name.

He filled it out and handed it back to her. She took it and stood up to place it inside a mailing cabinet sitting behind her.

“Just head down the hall and take the first left. There will be a small waiting room. I’ll tell the doctor you are here”

“Thank you darling” he says before walking off.

He watches her press a face to her hand as he walks away.

It was a nice feeling watching how the girls light up at his attention. Not for his benefit but for theirs. He liked to see them happy, to see that they could fell good about themselves. God only knows some things they’ve heard from other men his age. He hoped he was the balance in that.

He walked down the hall, following her directions until he found his way to a seat in the waiting room. The room was half full. Men of all ages sitting scattered around the room. The seats were metal with a rough leather cover over the backs in a dusty brown. He took the closest free seat and sat, waiting.

He wished he had his copy of the Hobbit with him. This would make it his 7^th re-read but he didn’t mind. The book was well worth reading over and over again if it took his mind of all of this.

He sat looking around the room instead. Studying the posters he had seen plastered in bulk on any free wall. “I want you for the U.S. army” “War Bonds” “Good news from home, more production”

All these posters screaming at him about the work to be done and the service to give in effort for the war. The weight of responsibility hung heavy on his shoulders. A few months ago, he even thought about enlisting. A fleeting thought but one that had been brought to him via the guilt and the pressure of all the men around him. Including Steve.

He would hear it as he walked by in the streets. The men and boys boasting about their new uniforms or their role in their battalion. He would see the way the girls would swoon for a man in uniform. Hear the mothers talk their sons up, comparing them to their fathers in the freshly pressed uniforms and hats.

He knew the value of the war. He knew that the reign of tyranny Hitler had imposed was something someone had to end. America was aiming to be part of that group of someone’s.

But he also knew the truth. Knew how many people, not just the soldiers, but the old, the young, the women and the children that were all lost in war.

He was broken out his thoughts when someone sitting across from him nudged his foot.

“You aight? Staring off into nothin’ over there” it was a young by with tousled blonde hair and a light southern accent.

“Yeah, just admiring the décor” he cringed. What kind of man says that.

“Not much to look at is it? Could have used a few more colours” the boy responded

Bucky eyed him for a moment, suspicious of his response to his own slip up. The boy looked back at him and smiled. And then winked

Bucky’s eyebrows raised as he suddenly understood, and he winked back.

Before he could open his mouth to say much more his name was called from a man now standing in the doorway.

He sighed and gave the boy one last glance before walking into the back room.

This room was decorated even worse than the waiting room. All white walls and the same “I want you for the U.S army poster” every meter or so

He walked in toe with the doctor as he was taken to a room divided by curtains. There was a white bed and a small desk with an even smaller chair.

“Sit” the doctor instructed, he tried not to slouch as he sat on the bed. His mother had always told him it was his worst habit.

“Take off your tie and your shirt please. I am going to examine your lungs and heart” Bucky followed the doctors’ instructions. Folding up his shirt haphazardly and placing it beside him.

The doctor bent down in front of him and placed a stethoscope on his chest, it was cold and he tried not to flinch at its touch

“In”

Bucky breathed in

“Out”

Bucky breathed out

And this repeated for 4 cycles of breathing until the doctor seemed satisfied. He moved the metal disk up to his heart and pulled it away when he seemed satisfied once more.

“All seems well. I will need to take your blood pressure now, give me your arm”

The doctor was very blunt and methodical. Bucky assumed it was due to a long day of seeing patients that was contributing to his candid attitude.

He held out his arm as the doctor brough forth a contraption. It had a rubber tube, the same as the stethoscope, a small red and glass object was sitting propped up against the back to the contraption, it looked similar to a thermometer, and a blue strap which the doctor was wrapping around his forearm. He then took a small plastic ball and began to squeeze it.

The pressure on Bucky’s arm increased and he tried not to look uncomfortable at the feeling. He could feel as his blood thrummed in his veins where the strap was wrapped around his arm.

After a few minutes of silence accompanied by the sound of the squeaking from that ball, the doctor finally checked the sphygmomanometer. He frowned and nodded his head, Bucky assumed that was good, but the doctor wasn’t giving him much to go off of. He didn’t even know what the doctor was measuring right now

The doctor took the strap off his arm and placed the machine back down on the little desk. Exchanging it for another one. This one Bucky knew. It was an audiometer, when he had first started school, his mother had taken him to have it checked just to make sure.

“Put these on, tap this button if you hear a ding or a beep” the doctor handed him a pair of headphones that connected to the machine on the desk and the doctor gave him a button.

He waited listening for the noise.

Beep

Click

Silence.

A quieter beep

Click

Silence.

This rhythm went on for another short while. This one a lot more pleasant because Bucky had something to concentrate on instead of sitting there awkwardly whilst the doctor examined him.

After that the doctor checked his eyesight, getting him to recite the letters he could see on the board. He saw the doctor write down 20/20 vision. Which he assumed was also good.

What a time to be in peak physical health.

The doctor rounded up his notes and slipped the pieces of paper inside a folder and tucked it under his arm

“You may dress. I am finished. I must say Mister Barnes you are quite the specimen”

Bucky pressed his lips together awkwardly

“Thank you” was all he managed to say

The doctor nodded at him and turned around, opening the curtain.

“Bonnie!” the doctor called out as he stuck his head out the door. A young woman came down the hall. Her heels clicking hurriedly along the floor. Her hair was also in a bun, like Martha’s, but it was blonde, and she was also wearing red rimmed glasses to match her lipstick. She looked rather young, a few years out of senior year, he thought.

He saw many women wearing the same bright shade of red these days. Even his mother had taken to wearing it and she never wore makeup. Maybe some powder on her nose but nothing too drastic. And here she was wearing a bright rouge. Apparently Hiter detested lipstick. So, as they do, every woman in America went out and bought the brightest shade of lipstick they could find before the war rations came in and makeup was off the table.

“Bonnie, help get this man his uniform” the doctor barked at her and then turned back to Bucky holding his file in his hands and pointing it at him as he spoke

“You will need to be at camp Lehigh by tomorrow to start basic training. Take the train on platform 6 at 7:30am, sharp. Don’t be late, and don’t forget your uniform”

Then the doctor turned away sharply and disappeared back into the room

He flinched at the force of the door closing in his face, but he thought nothing of it and turn to follow the woman down the hall.

The room she led him to was smaller than the last and full to the brim with olive uniforms folded, pressed and hung neatly from several racks spread around the rooms. The hats were stacked on top of each other in piles of 12. The undershirts and ties were kept together on their own rack whilst the overcoats sat on another.

The pants and the shoes sat close together, the rack for the pants had an undercarriage where the shoes sat. Those were the official uniforms.

The other set of uniforms are what he assumed he would be wearing on the battlefield. The first uniform was just to show if he was ever going to be greeted by a high standing officer. They were plain. A rough beige colour with several pockets in the chest and pants.

It looked like a jumpsuit almost. Other than that, the room was quite sparse and drab looking

“Do you know what size shoe you are?” she asks

“Uh 11” he answers, still distracted by looking at all the uniforms. He sighs, trying to take it all in, the same way his father would have. The pride and the feeling or honor that would have swelled in his chest when he first donned his uniform. Bucky remembered how proud he looked as his mother helped tie the tie and straighten out the creases.

But he didn’t know how he was supposed to feel that much joy, when he knows what is at stake. He knows all that he could lose and here he was supposed to be proud with a smile on his face. He didn’t think he could stomach it.

The lady – Bonnie, grabbed him a pair of shoes and then pulled a small tape measure out of her pocket before pausing.

“Uhm…would you mind. Uh- crouching. I need to measure for your hat” she said nervously.

He gave her a soft smile and obliged trying not to chuckle. It reminded him of when he used to ruffle Steve’s hair and then Steve would try and get him back, but he couldn’t reach. He used to double over laughing and only then Steve would get him back.

He’d forgotten what it was like when it was just the two of them against the world. Now it felt like it was him against the world and Steve against the world. No longer partners in everything, well maybe not everything, but now the battles they always fought together were going to be fought a part. And that felt like a thorn in his heart. The pain spiking with each throb in his chest.

She measured around his head and picked up a hat for him. Placing it on top of the shoes.

“I’ll need to get your arm length, chest and…waist. As well as leg length” she seemed sheepish as she spoke. As if Bucky might pounce on her. And her trepidation wasn’t for nothing, he knew that. He wondered how many men she had seen today who had made lude comments, attempted to hit on her or take her for a dance before he was enlisted or touched her in an attempt to get her attention.

Bucky understood it, the countless times he had been out with his sister and had heard the comments they made to her was enough for him to understand why she was uncomfortable. Those comments even made him uncomfortable, and they weren’t even directed at him, most men would have chuckled.

He wanted to help to alleviate her anxiety but was unsure how to do so without coming off the same as the other men.

“Do you have a partner? Anyone in the front?”

Shit that probably sounded bad

She paused as she was holding the tape measure around his arm

“Partner?” she questioned, it wasn’t wary. But confused

“Yeah?” Bucky hadn’t realized what he to make her question it

She continued to look at him. Sizing him up. As if she was trying to get an answer to a question without actually asking it

“Sorry if I am prying-“ he tried to cover up his accidental misstep but she cut him off

“No no, it’s alright. I just-“ she looked like she was desperately fighting herself on what to say next. “-just my girlfriend”

Bucky had to restrain himself from comically widening his eyes in realization. He said partner, instead of the assumed boyfriend.

She had been unsure of him, and now she realized that she was in common company

“She’s a waitress at a café down the road” the way she spoke was a complete 180 from her previous demeanor. Calm and quite happy to be talking about her loved one

“Either of you have brothers or fathers in the war?” Bucky continued on; he was happy with the way the conversation had begun to flow.

“My father, he wasn’t able to join the last war. He was too sick. And Bonnie’s brothers had joined. She hasn’t heard from one of them for a few months”

“I’m sorry” he looked sadly at her as she worked. Realising that this is probably how Becca and his mother will talk of him to other whilst he is away

“It’s really hard for me and Connie to go anywhere at the moment. All the girls go out in big groups but when we want to do something the two of us our parents get suspicious. At least my mother does…she caught us kissing once and-“ she stops abruptly once more and turns a deep red

“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you about all of this” she rushed out as she tried to busy herself with the measurements she was taking down.

Bucky couldn’t help but laugh “It’s ok. You don’t get to talk to many people about her huh?”

She shook her head and kept her eyes down. Only looking where she needed to to get his measurements

“My best friend found out I had kissed a boy when a bunch of assholes cornered me in senior year. I get it can be hard. But I might have something to help you, if you need a place to go for just the two of you head to 4^th and 45^th. There’s a bar there. Look for a guy named Edward and tell him I sent you.”

She looked up at him now, a smile on her lips and contemplation in her eyes. “It is strange to meet someone like you Mr Barnes”

“Please call me Bucky”

He knew what that meant. A kind guy who isn’t afraid to show people who he is even if could get his head kicked in. For the most part. It wasn’t a common thing, sure there were plenty of gentlemen out there but at the end of the day it was all in the effort to get laid and eventually get a wife. It doesn’t always last long.

She finished up with the measurements and scribbled them down. She then bustled around the room picking up each item of clothing and stacking them together. Two uniforms. One a deep olive green and the other the ragged khaki colour.

When she piled all of them up and wrote down what was missing, she slowed. Looking sad now. Both of them had forgotten what the intention of their initial meeting was. She was providing him with the clothes he would be donning as he ran onto the battlefield to watch friends and enemies die around him.

The weight pressed even heavier on his shoulders as he realised this was it; he was off to war.

Bucky took the new uniform from Bonnie and held it all neatly. With the shoes on top and the hat resting gently on those.

Bonnie looked at him sadly, he tried to smile back at her, but he felt it’s weakness. The way his lips didn’t stretch the way they usually would, the way his cheeks didn’t puff up, his eyes didn’t crinkle.

Impulsively she stepped from behind the counter and wrapped her arms around Bucky in a short embrace. Almost knocking the uniform out of his hand

“It’s stupid I know…but please come back. I’d like to get to know you more”

He gave her a mock salute and then turned to leave. Watching as she turned away and rubbed at her face before turning back to the paperwork

~~~

Bucky walked back to his home with his uniform in his arms. He couldn’t stop staring. Switching between the uniform, feeling his heart begin to race and his breath becoming shorter, and the ground when the feeling began to choke him, watching as the monotone colours of the pavement blurred together with his feet and everything else that littered the ground.

He hardly even noticed he was at his house until he raised his arm to open the door. Balancing his new uniform in one hand.

He walked inside and was greeted by his mother; he looked to her and smiled but once again it didn’t feel full. And the way her face sunk made it even less so. She took his uniforms from his hands and placed them aside before wrapping her arms around her son.

He bent down to embrace her properly, suddenly feeling like a little kid again. Like a small boy curled up on his mother’s lap after a nightmare had shaken him from sleep. Her embrace was warm and smelt like tea, she always smelt of tea.

“Look at you. My baby boy. Well, I guess you aren’t a baby anymore are you,” she said as she pet the back of his head, stroking his hair.

“You’re strong you always have been, since your father died. And for Stevie. And now you have to be strong for you. Even though you shouldn’t have to”

He simply listened whilst she spoke, not knowing how to respond and not wanting to

“I know that you are going to help people. You’re going to show the Nazi’s that they don’t belong here. And you’re going to make the world better. Just like Stevie wants to”

She pulled away from him now at the second mention of Steve

“Are you going to tell him?” her tone turned suddenly more serious

“I don’t know how” Bucky said forlornly.

“You have to be honest with him”

~~~

Bucky wasn’t honest with Steve. After he had tried on his uniform, showing Becca and his mother, he had gone off to visit Steve.

His mother shed tears when she saw him in uniform, but she didn’t act like it. Her resolve stern as she ignored the way they dripped from her chin.

She flattened out the collar and his tie and made sure his hat sat straight, usually he would have chuckled and told her to stop fussing but he knew she was trying to do all she could to hold onto her little boy from all those years ago. And if that meant that she would continue to fuss over him like he was a first grade schoolboy then he would let her.

When he got to Steve’s apartment he had spent several moments at the front door. His hand up ready to pull the door knocker but not moving.

How was he going to tell Steve. Every time Steve had asked, he skirted around the answer, lying through his teeth about his choice. He never wanted to go to war. And here he was, about to do the very thing Steve wished he could.

Some part of him wished they could trade places, so that both him and Steve could be happy. He chided himself for that thought. Steve wasn’t able to fight, and he didn’t want to lose his best friend.

So, he knocked on the door. And waited. Back in his slacks and shoes, something he knew he wouldn’t be able to wear again for a long time.

Steve opened the door and looked up at Bucky confused but not unhappy

“Bucky! You don’t usually come on Saturday’s. What’s going on?” Steve stepped aside to allow Bucky to enter his home

The house was the same as it had always been, it was small. The windows covered with grey curtains that were turning brown from the layers of dust. The old sofa was still sitting across from the coffee table that had the old radio sitting on it, he remembered the sofa fondly. The nights when they were younger, and they had stayed at each other’s places. Steve brought the couch cushions into his room and set them out on the floor like a makeshift bed so the two could lay side by side, talking all night. The gramophone Steve loved was sitting next to it on the coffee table, the needle sitting idly by without a record to spin on.

The adjacent kitchen was even smaller than the main room. A kettle sitting next to the stove and a small fridge tucked into the corner between the shelves and the wall. The window above the sink was open.

Bucky didn’t sit down and neither did Steve, the two stood awkwardly in the entrance of Steve’s home. A place that up until a few years ago held a family of 3. Now it was just Steve, and Bucky whenever he came to stay. But that would stop now too

Bucky’s heart raced in his chest pushing all the blood through his veins at a rapid pace, he thought they might burst with the force. Too much blood in too little space. The world around him began to spin, the walls swayed and the shoes on his feet warped. His vision swam and he felt sick thinking about the reality that was creeping ever closer. He only had a few hours until he would begin his taste of life without his family.

And then after that he would be gone for a year…

If he made it that long…

He didn’t want to think about what might happen to him. But it was a reality he was going to have to accept whether he liked it or not. His fate was tumbling ever closer, like a boulder down a hill he had no hope of stopping.

Maybe this was the consequences of him being gay. This was God’s way of punishing him for being a deceitful coward.

It didn’t matter the reason; he had to face it. He had to do it now.

“I’m…I’m-“he swallowed and forced his voice to become steady “-I’m off to camp Lehigh tomorrow. For training and I’ll be gone for thirteen weeks”

Steve was silent for a moment, mulling over this new information

“You finally decided to enlist. I’m proud of you, Bucky. I just wish I could be going with you”

He gave Bucky a playful punch to the shoulder as he said it, awkward and without enough force to move Bucky.

Still despite the genial gesture he looked forlornly at Bucky.

But their hurt was not the same.

Bucky was about to lose his family, his best friend and his simple life in Brooklyn. Steve felt like he was missing out on doing what he thought was righteous.

Bucky knew that all Steve wanted to do was help people. So many people around the world right now were hurting and being hurt. If he had his chance he was going to take it and do all that he could until his time was up. Steve had always been like that…

Bucky’s heart was breaking into a million pieces, each piece pulling him in different directions and it felt like they were going to tear him apart. He wanted to stay with Steve, to protect him in the hopes that one day that Steve would see himself the way he saw him. A brave young man with much to give. No one appreciated that, but Bucky did, always had and always will. He needed Steve to see that. He wanted to stay and take care of his mother, he wanted to be there as she grew old. To care for her. He wanted to see his sister graduate, he wanted to see her start her own life. His heart kept pulling and pulling and pulling.

And his heart ached to tell Steve how he really felt before it was too late. He would risk it if it meant Steve never talked to him again, he just needed Steve to know. But Bucky got that message loud and clear years ago. He would never be the man Steve wanted. Even though Steve was more than he deserved.

Steve was bitter about not being able to follow Bucky into the thralls of war. He wanted to be fighting alongside Bucky until his last breath. He wanted to walk side by side with Bucky as they fought for freedom. Together. Something they always had been. Steve had never wanted anything different. Even after his parents had passed Bucky somehow managed to fill the empty holes in his heart where his family used to be, not exactly the same. But he was enough. Because Bucky was family, and he had been there since day one.

Bucky held out his arm to give Steve a pat on the shoulder to return the brotherly gesture. But Steve instead stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Bucky’s torso. He was too afraid of never seeing his best friend again, to let that stop him even if he wouldn’t admit it.

Bucky took a step back at the force of Steve’s hug. He was taken aback by the sudden affection, but he was not complaining. He wrapped his own arms around Steve and held him tight. Knowing it wouldn’t be long before he would be leaving Steve. The first time they had been apart for more than a few weeks since they had first met.

Bucky was off to war, and Steve was left wondering why he wasn’t.

Chapter Text

The entire train station looked like a never-ending grey strip, stretching on for miles. The sound of people and train wheels screeching on the rails and the sound of the crackling overhead speaker. It was all a thrumming buzz that filled Bucky’s head as he looked but didn’t see, staring at everything and seeing nothing, it wasn’t until Becca touched him on the arm that everything slowed down and he registered time again.

Bucky raised his eyes to the sign board above his head.

In white letters were the words New Jersey, Camp Lehigh – 7:40.

Bucky looked at his watch, the old one that had been his father’s and his grandfathers before that.

7:32, it was almost time.

It was 8 minutes and counting until he would be shipped out for 3 months before he would be assigned his battalion and be sent who knows where with a low probability of returning.

Why would anyone volunteer for this?  

It was a thought that hit him like the trains screaming into the stations. He knew why, because the world was in trouble and it needed people to defend it. But the fear he felt in his chest made it too hard to think about the cause he was fighting for.

Being drafted felt like a sentence, and he was slowly marching to his death.

And there were people who believed this was a noble way to die.

“This is it-” Becca said softly “-my big brother going to put his weathered knuckles to good use” She was stalling, lying with her jokes and smile.

“Yeah, because I can punch my way through the front lines” he tried to joke back but his voice was too flat.

She then embrace’s him leaning up to whisper in his ear “Don’t die out there or I’ll kick your ass”

He chuckled, soft but it was real. He simply snickered at her in response and shook his head.

His mother who had been silent all this time finally spoke “No Steven?” she asked.

She used his full name, something she hardly does, she was too serious, To uptight, like someone had pressed her blouse with her inside of it.

“I saw him yesterday. Gave him the news then”

“Ah right” she said equally as distracted as he has been

“Mam,” he said grabbing her attention. He took her hand in his and held it gently. “I’ll be back. I promise” She took her hand from his and straightened his uniform, dusting off his shoulders and straightening his hat.

“You look exactly like your father” he knew what she had wanted to say.

What she was conveying by comparing him to his father. ‘Don’t make a promise you can’t keep’ just like his father had promised.

“I love you mam” she let go of his uniform and covered her mouth to stifle a sudden sob which Bucky masked further in a tight embrace. He reached to his left, allowing his sister to step into the hug also. He held his family close. Remembering his mother’s perfume, his sister’s curls. Their neat dresses and wide teeth filled smiles. They would be all of the things he would hold close to him through everything that will happen next.

…

The bustling edge of New Your city finally made way for the rural towns that sat on the state line between New York and New Jersey. The military base – Camp Lehigh resided in a small forest now occupied by the American military that sat just below the horizon. Where the sky was cut off by houses and farmland.

Camp Lehigh was inbound, the train moving too fast and the car was full of too many young men who were willingly or unwillingly accepting their place and their fate in a war they didn’t start. Bucky studied each of their faces.

A boy in the far corner of the car was standing, leaning against the wall, index finger in between his lips as he chewed at his nail with unnatural determination. He was distracting himself. The green-eyed boy sitting across from him looked chuffed to be here. Like the seat on this train was a throne, it took all Bucky had to not scrunch his nose at the young man’s attitude. There was a sandy haired man, sitting with his arms crossed as he scowled and chewed on his lip. He couldn’t have been much older than Bucky, but he looked weathered. Aged like the boats on the docks back home.

These men had been living side by side with him in New York City and he had never known it. They were now his peers, his allies. He wondered if he would ever see these men again after these 4 months, alive at least.

He would make sure to remember their faces, and their names if he got the chance. He remembered how many of his friends’ fathers had died as unidentified soldiers. How many of them would never even know what happened to them, only that they had been sent down in the dirt and the mud and left to decay. He took this upon himself because he was going to live. Not because he was better than any of the other men standing shoulder to shoulder with him, but because he made a promise, and he was determined to keep it.

The train suddenly lurched as it began to break. The scenery slows from a green blur to fully formed tree shapes once more

Camp Lehigh was upon them

…

When the train pulled into the station just outside of Camp Lehigh the men filled out of the train cars like ants in a burrow. All shuffling along one small step behind the person in front of them. Their newest brothers in arms to their left and their right. Their small carry-on bags that they were allowed to take with them slung over one shoulder or clenched tightly in one hand. As they filled up the entrance of the camp an older man came into view. His eyes were darting around like a crow looking for the closest bug. His face was hard though, solid. Already Bucky knew that he had seen many a battle

The large group of recruits surrounded the small podium that the man was standing on, a dull muttering surrounding the open quad until the man raised his voice for silence. His voice was slightly higher than Bucky was expecting but no less commanding.

“Standing beside you are eight hundred thousand of the newest troops for the United States Military. It is your turn now, to serve your country. Each of you in the next 3 months are going to be trained to become the best soldiers the military could have asked for. You are going to be pushed to your limit, trained and prepared for anything that the axis powers can throw at you”

He stood with his chest up, hands behind his back. He almost looked bored, how often had he given this introduction?

“You will be broken up into battalions, with 1000 other men by your side. Each battalion will have 6 companies, those are your closest soldiers, you will each be commanded by a Sargent, a man who has been trained before you and will now pass on his knowledge to your mind and body. He will be the one to keep you alive, listen to him well. You will each be assigned a medic and a messenger. Those men are your lifelines keep an eye on them”

He was rattling off information like a school textbook, it was unnerving the lack of emotion there was in his voice despite the righteous tone he took with the group

“You will be assigned a cabin and your bunk mates and after these 3 months you will be deployed. And you will put the fear of God into all of the men over the axis side of the lines. Remember that well. You are here to protect America, her interests and her people. Now let’s get to work!”

~~~

After the introduction from Sargent Michaels, he had over heard the other me, men not soldiers, they were people first, mention his name. Bucky found the information tent where he was given his regiment, his cabin that would be his home for the duration of his stay. And his dog tags. The two small plates that had his name, his number and his regiment.

1. Barnes

32557038

107^th Battalion.

107^th. That was the battalion Steve’s father had served in. If Steve knew, would he be proud? Happy that his best friend was serving in the same place his father had once been? Or would he be resentful and jealous that he isn’t in Bucky’s place? Bucky settled on a happy medium, hoping that Steve would wish to join Bucky’s side in this regiment soon.

Bag in hand Bucky walked to his designated cabin, passing a corridor of clamoring men and boys. When he entered his cabin, he came face to face with a room full of people. There was a tall broad man with an impressive handlebar mustache. The next man was shorter with scruffy facial hair and next to him was an boy, couldn’t have been older than 19 with a thick American accent. The next man had a broad nose and a wide grin on his face and the last man was quite tall and extremely skinny, the depression must’ve hit him harder than the others. Bucky didn’t know what to make of this mismatch group but he assumed he would get to know them quickly

“I was wondering who the extra bunk was for” the tall man with the mustache greeted him first, he stepped forward and offered a hand which Bucky took.

“Timothy Dugan. But my friends call me Dum Dum Dugan” a little taken aback but pressing on Bucky offers his own name

“James Barnes, but I prefer Bucky”

The other man introduced themselves to him and he memorized the faces with the names. Walter was the shortest of the group, the youngest was Louis, Roy had a grin still on his face and a grip that threw Bucky off slightly and Norman was the tallest of the group.

That was 5 names.

The men spoke, none of them knowing one another and Bucky didn’t recognized any of them from Brooklyn. They set up their minimal belongings before a whistle sounded. It came from their corridor and Bucky stuck his head out of the door to see what was going on. A man in full uniform, hat included, was barking orders down the hallway.

“I am Michael Duffy and I will be your training Sargent for your stay here at Camp Lehigh. Get dressed into your uniforms and line up outside of your dorm building. You have two minutes!” There was a sudden movement as all of the men hurried to their dorms followed by a flurry of zippers as men reached into their bags to grab their uniforms, the actual ones made to protect the soldiers and to become dirt covered and sweat soaked. The men donned their uniforms and hustled outside where Sargent Duffy was standing

“Good, next time will be twice as fast!” So far, every single work he has spoken has been a commanding yell.

“Today I will be testing your strength, speed and stamina. You will be running 10 miles in full gear, you will be completing an obstacle course, and you will be doing a full-body fitness assessment. Head to that tent and don’t come back until your gear is secure. Five minutes or you get left behind. Move it!”

All one hundred and sixty men marched at full pace towards the tent Sargent Duffy had directed them towards. They took vests with ammo, ration and water packs and took a green netted helmet which clipped tightly under their chins. They made their way back to Sargent Duffy who had been joined by a red lipped woman in a brown uniform. She was gorgeous. Many of the men standing beside him whistled and called some lewd comment in her direction. She looked unfazed but Bucky didn’t miss the way her eyes twitched as she looked at some of the men.

“This is Agent Carter, she will be assessing you. Now turn eastward and follow that track. Move” Agen Carter with a small clipboard in hand got into a Humvee that rolled up to the group which then speed up to drive a few feet in front of group headed towards the track. The run was long and slowly paced but Bucky ran along with other men just fine. His only bother was the itchy fabric of his uniform.

At the half way point they reached a flag pole. Sargent Duffy challenged them to reaching it with a promised reward of driving the next 5 miles with Agent Carter, naturally a majority of the men scrambled to the poll fighting and climbing over one another failing to scale the sleek white metal. When space was made Bucky tried his hand too, he got halfway before his boot slipped and he fell to the ground. No one reached the flag.

A young man with a deep voice at the back of the group spoke up “I touched it, does that count?”

Bucky turned around to look at the man before another voice shouted “No you didn’t David, shut your trap”

“Piss off Michael”

David, curly hair and brown eyes. Michael buzz cut, birthmark on his nose

7 names.

The group made it back to the camp and were instantly stripped of their gear for the next group and ushered over to the quad, on the far left of the quad was the entrance they had all filed in through hours before hand, but on the very right was a long obstacle course made of wood, rope and chicken wire. And to the north Bucky noticed a concrete building that didn’t look like anything military. It was very out of place compared to the wooden and fabric structures that made up the rest of the camp.

One by one his battalion lined up and worked their way through each stage of the course, first they had to crawl, face down in the dirt through a make shift tunnel covered with wire, then over a bunch of flat and roughly cut tires only to have to volt over several wooden fence poles and then rush to the top of a rope climb only to have to turn around and do it all again. Each man had three attempts, and their times were being recorded. Three men at once, side by side. Bucky figured the point was not only to test their speed but to make sure that they wouldn’t get in each other’s way during close quarters.

Some were clearly better than others. Whilst waiting for his turn he saw several men kick each other when they vaulted over the fence polls and even trip each other up as they scrambled for the rope climb. One man even fell from the very top and landed flat on his back, safe to say he wasn’t getting his other turns, but Sargent Duffy made him finish before benching him. He got a reprimand for that and so did the lad who pushed him in the first place.

Even just this would have sent Steve into a full-blown asthma attack, Bucky thought, he wanted to laugh. But he didn’t want to risk the Sargent seeing and being reprimanded himself

After this a few of the men were left puffing, but many were still pumped and ready to go as Sargent Duffy herded them into the quad and began shouting sets at them

30 push ups, 30 star jumps, 50 crunches and 20 burpees. When one of the soldiers had the balls to complain an extra 20 was added to each of their sets. Which of course the men groaned about as well.

And for the first 2 weeks that was all Bucky’s battalion did, the same drills over and over again until the end of the week when they were instructed to repeat their drills alone and someone accompanied them to assess them based on a number of criteria. None of which Bucky knew but it seemed like a lot since Agent Carter flipped over several pages during his day of evaluation.

In the next week they were introduced to a different array of firearms. There were several types of pistols, revolvers, machine guns and rifles. A firing range was set up with targets and a separate course that was filled hey dummies planted around a small field with crates and brush to use for cover. Many of the men and boys here knew how to load a gun, a few boasted about the hunting trips they had been on with their fathers when they were younger. Speaking about their greatest catches. Bucky only half heartedly listened he was too preoccupied looking at all the of the weapons laid out before him, they made him unseasy.

The Sargent explained to them each primary use of the different weapons. Going over each of them carefully despite the scoffing of many who proclaimed they already had enough experience with the firearms. He took apart each gun and put it back together, clearly showing them each component before slotting it back into its place. He told them the number of bullets per magazine and where the safety was on each gun. He was very specific about making sure the safety was on unless it was in your hands and aimed at an enemy. He also warned about aiming at a friendly. Even if the safety is on, or you might think the mag is empty it may not be, and that fatal mistake will get someone killed and you will be discharged.

Half the men lined up behind the firing range while the other half lined up at the fake course with the dummies. The men at the firing range were given a dismantled gun, they had to put it together as fast as possible and fire three bullets into the target. Many of the men were quick to put the gun back together but in their rush to shoot the target often missed. The bullets going off in quick succession but landing in a spread out pattern across the target.

Bucky watched, transfixed at the slowly accumulating bullet holes in the wooden target.

It might not be now, but this was going to be a person soon. The whole reason they were doing this in the first place is because they needed to be able to aim at an approaching enemy.

The only time he had ever touched a gun is when his mother showed him how to use one, they had one kept in the small safe that was hidden in her closet. She showed him how to check it was loaded, turn the safety off and on and how to cock it. But he had never fired it, he never needed to.

He never wanted to

Bucky’s life was riddled with violence, between the war ending just after he was born, his father’s death and all the fights he had fought with Steve, he wasn’t a stranger too it. Some would say it was necessary. But it wasn’t something Bucky wanted, he didn’t want to be a violent person. His aim wasn’t to hurt people, he only fought because they struck first and after that it was defense. Violence wasn’t the answer, but all around him it constantly seemed to be the first choice.

Bucky couldn’t stop his mind from conjuring a person in front of the target as he watched the men take aim and fire. Watching some stunned, faceless person be run through with bullets before dropping to the ground only for another one to take their place when the next man steps up to the block

When Bucky’s turn came he hardly felt himself step up to take his shot. He watched as his own hands took the pieces in hand and fit them together smoothly, the motion flowed from him and the gun was together in the blink of an eye. His arms came up, stretched out infront of him, his fingers clasped around the handle, his right index on the trigger and his left index resting along the side of the gun. In what felt like slow motion he pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times. He looked up and saw the faceless body of a soldier pour blood from his chest as he sunk to the ground, when Bucky blinked the body was gone and he was looking at the target, three bullet holes overlapping on the smallest circle of the target.

Three perfect bullseyes’

The crowd around him which had been clamoring had now gone silent. He was the only man so far to hit a bullseye, let alone three of them.

“Give this man a rifle now!” Called the Sargent from somewhere behind him

Bucky was stuck looking at the target as someone took the handgun from his hands and give him a rifle instead. They moved the block and set it up several paces back from the target, Bucky following without feeling his legs move and once again as instructed he aimed for the target.

One, two, three. Three more perfect bullseyes’ overlapping one another on the target.

The crowd around him was still silent until a few of the men clapped and whooped at him.

He put the gun down and had to blink hard several times, suddenly he could hear the clamoring of men around him, feel the breeze and the sun was very bright. Sargent Duffy clapped him on the back “That was impressive soldier, we might just have to make you the battalion sharpshooter”

“Thank you sir” is all Bucky could force out of his mouth

He stepped down from the range and took his place with the group that was waiting for the rest of the soldiers to finish their turns. Their next task was the practice field, but he felt sick. Something about those 6 shots didn’t sit right with Bucky. The feeling, whatever it was, crawled over his skin like ants. In a war his proficiency with firearms would have been a thing to celebrate, it made his chance of survival higher, but it only made him feel sunken. Because it meant he was a good killer. What person would be proud of that.

…

For the next two weeks they trained with different firearms. Even testing out a grenade launcher once. But the Sargent made it clear that no one would be assigned that weapon.

At the end of the fourth week they were given their first break. A whole weekend without training. Many men wandered out to the nearby town looking for the closest bar, pack of cigarettes or woman. It was also the first time the men were able to wash their uniforms which Bucky was thankful for since his uniform was caked with mud and smelt of sweat. He figured he would have to get used to it. At the end of the first day Walter proposed they go to the town and find a bar. Bucky was glad for the distraction; he wanted an excuse to get to know the men he would be fighting alongside. It’s not like they had time for idle chatter during training.

The group walked down the dirt road to the closest town passing several drunk soldiers headed the other way. One even had a black eye. Seeing that boy in that state made his stomach churn slightly, he thought of Steve. Wondering if he had been smart and stayed out of trouble or if he was to his usual antics. Bucky’s memory favored the latter choice. That punk was going to get himself killed he was sure of it.

Louis and Roy struck up a conversation as they walked talking about the kind of music they liked. Roy talked about his favorite group of local jazz musicians that played at the bar two blocks from where he lived. But Louis seemed to prefer swing music. The upbeat kind that made you want to “sway your hips and shuffle your feet”.

By the time they reached the bar each man was in conversation with one another. Bucky, Dugan, Walter and Norman were talking about their fathers and the fates that had befallen them after the first war. The mood was solemn and respectful but no less talkative than the other two.

After a few drinks and Dugan offering to open a tab the conversation turned towards their homes, their loved ones and friends. “When I get home I’m hoping to settle down and find me a lady to love” said Louis with a slur to his voice already, the men laughed and clinked their drinks together in agreement, the atmosphere made Bucky smile genuinely for the first time in a while

“What about you Bucky? Any young lady hoping for you to return” Roy asked

Bucky shrugged fiddling with this glass “Not really”

“What? A charmer like you? You could have your pick of the girls. Isn’t that right lads!” The men at the table cheered in agreement and clinked their glasses together again.

“Well someone I’m hoping to get home to, but I don’t think there’s a lot of hope there”

“Well then she doesn’t know what she’s missing out on” said Louis who was the drunkest of the group

“Hah yeah” Bucky said but the smile on his face started to feel fake again.

The conversation continued on whilst Bucky dwelled, his mind turning to darker thoughts. He knew that dying was something he was going to have to accept as he headed to the front lines. But the idea of dying having never told Steve about his feelings constricted around his heart like a snake. He knew the risk of telling Steve was too great, he didn’t want to survive only to end up with a ruined friendship. If he was honest, he would rather be gunned down than face that reality.

He was broken out of his downward spiral when Dugan clapped him on the shoulder with a little more force than was probably intended

“You alright?” Bucky rearranged his face and smiled at Dugan who was leaning towards him from over the table having broken away from the loud conversation he could now hear the other men having.

“Yeah”

“You thinking about home?”

“How’d you know?” Bucky says with a weak chuckle

“They all have the same look on their face” Dugan hesitated before he preposed, they head back to camp.

The other 4 didn’t seem ready to leave yet but Dugan offered to walk with Bucky if he wanted to company. He accepted. Not wanting to leave his thoughts to echo in the slowly darkening forest around him.

As the men started walking back out of the town Dugan spoke up

“You seemed a bit torn about the person waiting for you at home, wanna add anything to that?” he asked politely

Bucky considered asking Dugan to drop it, but who else was he going to tell about this. Of course, he would have to skirt around the finer details but surely it couldn’t hurt, right?

“I don’t have a girl back home, just my idiot of a best friend who’s constantly getting himself into trouble. He’s one bad cough away from keeling over and yet he insists on attempting to enlist”

Bucky was once again left wondering what would happen to Steve if he was granted permission to join the military, what doctor in their right mind would think that Steve would be anything other than canon fodder. He winced, he knew there were many men who had been seen that way, many of the older or sicker troops who had been recalled because it gave the military numbers and made it look like the losses weren’t so great.

“Ever since we were kids, I’ve been looking out for him. But now that I’m here I can’t do that, and if he’s out here I can’t do that either”

“Stuck between a rock and a hard place”

“Yep” Bucky agreed

The pair walked in silence for a while before Dugan spoke up again

“I get that feeling of obligation to keep him safe…but the reality is you ain’t going to be around to protect him all the time. All I’m saying is you either let it eat you up inside or you trust that he’ll be able to take care of himself”

Bucky sighed, he knew this, Steve wasn’t a child but he couldn’t exactly defend himself. Bucky didn’t want to see Steve hurt so it felt like his job to keep Steve safe. He couldn’t stand the idea of him getting killed and Bucky not even knowing where his body was laid to rest. Or worse abandoned. Steve was stubborn but he wasn’t an idiot, he knew his limits, even if he ignored them most of the time.

It was a careful balance with Steve, he was intelligent but he was also an idiot, and he liked to play hopscotch with those boxes

“And hey, maybe when you see him before deployment you can remind him one last time not to be an idiot” Dugan laughed

Bucky smiled along with him and tapped him on the shoulder in thanks.

When the two made it back to their dorm most of their battalion was sitting outside still chatting away whilst the night was young.

“I’m going to sit and have a smoke, wanna join me?” Dugan offered popping open a carton of cigarettes

“I think I’m going to turn in” Dugan nodded his head at Bucky as the two parted ways for the night

Bucky got into the dorm and rubbed his face. His eyes were stinging from exhaustion, but he had something he wanted to do before he passed out.

Realising that he didn’t have the necessary tools he headed back out of his dorm and headed to the administration tent, hoping someone was still there. When he walked in he saw the same man that had been sitting there when he first arrived and a familiar brown uniform, talking to him was Agent Carter.

He waited politely for their conversation to end, before he asked the guy sitting at the fold out table, whose small badge said his name was Joseph.

8 names

He asked if he would be able to spare paper and a pen for a letter. He obliged and said he could use the spare seat in the corner to write it.

Before he could get to work on the letter Agent Carter approached him.

“You’re James Barnes correct”

“Yes ma’am”

“I saw you on the range the other day that was quite impressive”

Bucky smiled bashfully “I seemed to pull in quite the crowd didn’t I”

She smiled back at him nodding. “A man with a skill set and fitness level such as you would make an excellent soldier, how come we’re only seeing you here now?”

This felt like a trap, a trick question that was some sort of test. For morale? For faith? He didn’t know. He chose a neutral answer. Or at least what he hoped was one

“I had to look out for my family ma’am. My father was lost to the first war, and I couldn’t leave them now that he was gone” He hoped the chivalrous nature of his statement would be enough for her to leave him alone. But she pressed on with more questions

“But helping to end the war would have been a way to protect them as well” she was pushing for something, again Bucky didn’t know what

“I suppose you’re right” he switch tactics trying to give her an answer she would be happy with

“This is a letter to your family then I suppose”

“Correct”

“I’m sure they will be glad to hear from you. Goodnight James”

Instead of answering Bucky simply nodded his head at her and turned back to his empty sheets of paper. He didn’t know what she was gaining from all that, but Bucky couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being interrogated with those questions.

He blinked a few times and put the pen to paper writing out a letter to his mother and sister

Dear Mam and Becca

Everything is going okay so far, I hope you haven’t been too worried about me

I’m thinking of you two every day, and Steve. Please make sure he gets his letter

The work is constant, but I don’t mind, it just reminds me of Pops. I’d like to think that he would be proud to see me in uniform.

These past 4 weeks have gone by so fast, and I know the next 9 will go by just as quickly. I’ll be counting the days until I can see you two again

Becca I hope you are focusing on your studies, especially now that I’m not there to “help” you with your homework. And Mam try to keep your head high, I know you will but I know how heavy your heart must be. But I am your son after all. I’m too stubborn to not keep my promises.

I love you both very much, check in on Steve for me whenever you can

Bucky

His writing was all in broken calligraphy, but his name was as neat as any official signature he had ever seen, having signed so many documents made his name the easiest thing to remember and get right.

He waited for the ink to dry and set that letter aside before he picked up the second piece. This letter was not going to be as easy to write, it should have been. But there was a lot Bucky wanted to say, and he wasn’t sure how to articulate it. Sure, he could just say he missed Steve but that didn’t feel right, it was too simple for the intense longing he felt for Steve. Because it was longing, aching longing that made him feel like a starved man. Starved for something he had never tasted and probably never would. He hungered for it, with feelings so intense they felt like they were burning him up inside.

…where the fuck had that come from?

The sudden overwhelming feelings Bucky felt cascade over him stunned him. Being away from Steve and not having to contain any of his feelings made him realise just how many of them he had. How big they were, and how much space Steve took up in his heart whilst he was gone.

Bucky put the pen to the paper and hesitated stopping with-

Dear Steve

He paused, feeling his emotions swirling in his chest when he thought about Steve’s face as his mother gave him the letter, the content expression knowing his best friend was alright.

Somehow even with a whole state between us everything here reminds me of you. The boys getting into punch ups, the running, the constant moving. Feels like our friendship has trained me for all of this before.

I’d by lying if I said I wasn’t homesick. I miss our little life in Brooklyn. But it’s ok because I’ll be back soon. I get a week off after basic training before I get deployed. We should go catch a movie before I go back. Like we used to when we finished exams.

Remember when life was schoolwork and school yard scuffles? Those were the days.

I know you’re probably still trying to enlist, hell you probably just got back from an examination by the time this letter gets to you. I couldn’t stop you in Brooklyn so I’m not going to try and stop you from New Jersey. All I can say is stay safe.

Don’t do anything stupid without me

Anyway, it’s late and I’m going to get some shut eye, I just wanted you to know that I was thinking about you. But I’m sure you knew that already. I haven’t been able to get you off my mind since I met you.

You’ve got me wrapped around your little  finger worrying about you.

See you soon.

Your pal, Bucky

He took the pen and chewed on the end of it as he read over Steve’s letter. Maybe it was too much, maybe it was too vague. He was thinking too hard about something Steve probably wouldn’t keep after he was back. It was just a letter.

He waited for both letters to dry and folded them. He walked back over to Joseph with the folded letters and asked for two envelopes. He signed them and sealed them before giving them to Joseph who placed them in a small box with a handful of other letters.  He hoped the letters would make it, not that they had far to travel but…he just needed to make sure his family knew he was still ok.

Before he left he asked Joseph if he could make a note to send his week’s pay to his family along with the letters. He figured it would go back to his family since he didn’t have any way to keep it during training but he just wanted to confirm this.

…

Weeks five and six were dedicated to close quarters combat, with and without a weapon. This was something Bucky didn’t enjoy. Not that any of this had been enjoyable, but he actively disliked fighting so close with a weapon. He’s punched a fair few people in his time. He was friends with Steve after all. But the idea of inflicting real damage, irreparable damage that could even take a life? It made his stomach feel uneasy.

They were taught how to hold a solid stance and throw a punch, how to block and counter. Most of this was stuff Bucky already knew, he even taught Steve most of this. Which led him to teaching some of the younger recruits who weren’t quite getting it. He stood in front of them and showed them how to follow through with a swing. Explaining how the elbows and the knees were the best weapons you had since it was harder to break and easier to cause damage.

Sargent Duffy commended him for his effort with the younger troops and even put him in charge of helping the “slackers pick up the pace” as he put it.

So Bucky did, until they had to start training with weapons. They practiced with fake ones of course, blunt wooden sticks that vaguely resembled a knife but wouldn’t cause any real damage other than bruising

“They aren’t sharp so they won’t pierce your skin, but they will hurt and that’s the point. Just because they aren’t real doesn’t mean you can get complacent, because on the battlefield they will be. And that will hurt like a bitch”

So, they practiced with the “knives” and even had one of the field medics come and show them all the fatal places to drive the blade of the knife. This made Bucky’s stomach turn from a slight churn to a full twist.

The idea that they were being expected to know how to take someone’s life in such a brutal way made him feel sick slightly. He made careful efforts to keep his face blank and still as the medic explained this to the group

They then practiced fighting one another, aiming to tap the opponent in those fatal places. The Sargent wasn’t lying. That hurt like a bitch when he tried to go easy on the kid he had been paired with. It was his fault for underestimating the boy.

It was in that moment that Bucky realized that the protector role he had lived in for most of his life was bleeding into every other aspect and interaction of his life. Becca, Steve, Bonnie, Gordon and now this kid. He was a fighter, but he fought to protect, not to win.

These recruits were fighting to win a war, Bucky was fighting to protect what he had left behind. He was still stuck in Brooklyn with his shoulder pressed to Steve’s and his arm wrapped around Becca protectively.

He may have the skills, but if he didn’t have the head, he wasn’t going to be an effective soldier. And that was going to get him killed. He needed to detach the friendly Bucky from the soldier he was learning to become.

He felt himself hardened in that moment. He felt himself become rougher around the edges and a solid determination fall over him like a blanket made of cement.

Like it or not Bucky was a soldier now, he had to act like one.

Chapter Text

It was the last 9 weeks; Bucky couldn’t tell if that time went slow or fast for him. On one hand each day blinked by. He would wake up at the crack of dawn. The sound of the other recruits clamoring to get ready and Sargent Duffy yelling through the open door down the hallway of their battalion’s cabin. He would get dressed and run out into the quad where they would be directed for their training for the day. Then after 14 hours of grueling training with only one break in between he would stumble exhausted down to the mess hall where dinner would be served. It was nothing like his mother made of course and he was sure that if given the chance he could have made something with some semblance of taste with what ingredients the kitchen had but the only time he was allowed to step foot into the kitchen was to do the dishes.

The dishes were no problem of course, it was merely the company that made this task unbearable. The amount of men and young boys that argued that they should have a group of maids to do the clean up for them was frustratingly high, it’s not like clearing off the dishes was hard. Bucky simply mumbled retorts under his breath at them and kept his head down, working efficiently to get the job done, often carrying the weight of the group who had been assigned to this chore. Because God forbid a man do a “woman’s job”, their comments made his skin crawl.

And then after dinner he would walk with his cabin mates back to their room and fall face first onto his bed, before pulling himself up, getting unchanged and flopping back down onto the springless standard issue mattress. Falling asleep almost instantly and then waking up to do it all again.

On the other hand the weeks felt like years in comparison. Each week, as it dragged by, took a new toll on him. Homesickness had well and truly set in for him but he shoved it down.

He would be sick for a year when he was deployed, in a way this was just part of his training, he had to learn what it was like to be away from his family. From his home, from his comfortable little life in Brooklyn.

There were a lot of things Bucky had to get used to.

Like the praise and attention he garnered for his expert marksmanship. By the will of God he seemed to have the innate ability to handle any and all firearm and he had been marked down to be issued a rifle once he was deployed, since that seemed to be his strong suit, along with the standard issue firearm every other soldier would be given.

Every time his battalion was scheduled to go out on the range Bucky was handed a new firearm. Like some sort of experiment, they wanted to see how many guns he could use and to what capacity. Every single weapon he was handed he held with strength and aimed with precision, hitting the target with a striking accuracy every single time. 

But the rifle, specifically the M1941 Johnson, was his best weapon. Often targets were set up specifically for Bucky and the podium was moved to varying distances around the range. One training session Dugan helped him up into a tree and he shot the targets through the foliage which caused an excited uproar from the rest of his battalion.

But he wasn’t proud, it just showed him how easy it was to kill someone. Sure, these weren’t moving targets. But moving or stationary he knew that those soldiers would drop. That wasn’t something to celebrate. But he gracefully took the praise and the claps on the back from his fellow soldier…

Why was this what he was praised for

No one cared when he picked up the slack of the other soldiers, or when he cared for the injured during their training, helping them limp and stumble to the medical tent and coming right back to complete his own drill. No one cared when he accepted extra duties or chores that the other men couldn’t be bothered to do.

Only when he did something that would directly benefit the war and the scales on which it was set upon did he receive any type of thanks.

It’s not that he wanted or needed it, he just hated that this was when he got it. If this was the case, he preferred not to get it at all.

Sometimes he wished he could just slip into the shadows and disappear. But despite being in a camp full of soldiers every man was always accounted for, and it was noticed when he was gone.

…

During his 7^th week at Camp Lehigh he was informed by Joseph, who caught him walking back to his cabin, that he had received letters from his family. He had followed Joseph, forcing himself to keep pace with the young man despite wanting to run full speed ahead of him and snatch the letters out of that little box he knew they were sitting in.

He got to the tent, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet waiting for Joseph to hand him the letters, he took them and thanked Joseph before leaving the tent in a hurry. He felt his ribs tighten around his heart. It was swelling with a sudden storm of emotion that had flooded him, and his ribs were keeping it inside.

He was steadfast in his choice to leave everything venerable about himself hidden inside the deepest corners of his mind, but right now it was very difficult to be a soldier and not a kid who missed his family.

Instead of going back to his cabin he opted for crouching between the brush and the outside wall at the back of his cabin. Two letters, one with his mother’s neat cursive addressed in his full name, even in an unformal letter she still kept her old habits.

The other in Steve’s, nowhere near as neat, but not messy writing.

Both letters had been re-sealed, he should have assumed that they had to be checked but it still made his eyebrows crinkle unhappily.

He took out his mother’s letter first.

Dear Bucky Barnes,

I was thrilled to see your letter, it is very lucky that your sister took it out of my hands before I stained it with tears

You should know that I worry about you every day that you are not here with us. You do remind me of your father so much when you are away, I’m sure he would have been proud because I know I am. Even if I worry for you.

We will be counting the days also, I know I will not be able to sleep until I see you again at the train station in the next coming weeks.

You are a strong person, and you are growing up to be such an amazing young man, I know you will be able to take whatever the Sergeants throw at you. I just hope you will still be as bright as you always have been when you come home. I know you will be

Nothing could have ever dampened the way you lit up a room, it is simply impossible.

I have been keeping an eye on Steve, he’s come and visited us a fair few times since you’ve been gone. It almost feels like he’s expecting you to be there every time he comes. But he keeps his head up like the rest of us. I made sure he got his letter as well.

The hand writing then changed abruptly and turned into his sister’s larger writing

I have been doing my homework thank you very much! I even passed my latest test! I’m sure you’ve enjoyed playing in the mud more than I have completing my work.

He scoffed, even in letter form he could still hear his sister’s mischievous tone and his mother’s silent beration at her words. He made a mental note to flick his sister over that comment.

The writing changed back to his mother’s.

We cannot wait to see you soon. I don’t know when you will get this letter but I’m sure time will fly.

We love you very dearly

Love, Mam and Becca

Their own names were done in their own handwriting.

Bucky sighed and forced himself to hold in all the emotions he felt pushing against the closed cage bars that were his ribs. His heart was hammering against them, and he tried to breath calmly so he wouldn’t lose the cover he had carefully built over everything that made him Bucky.

He was a soldier here, he wasn’t Bucky. He had to remember that.

He folded the letter carefully back into the envelope and took Steve’s in his hand which had been resting on his knee. He opened this one up too and unfolded it. His letter was not as neatly folded as his mother’s had been, the lines overlapped, and the crease was not even.

Hey Bucky,

I honestly didn’t know if I’d get a letter from you with how busy you must be. I was so excited when it showed up on my doorstep one morning, it’s felt so strange without you here. Brooklyn seems so much bigger when you aren’t around. I’m not quite sure why

We haven’t watched a movie together in ages, it would be nice to go back to the old theater. We’ll have to figure out what’s showing when you get back.

I don’t do anything stupid with you…most of the time

I hope training is doing you good, I’m sure you’re kicking all of the other recruits arses, I wish I was there to see it. Maybe one day we can be on the front lines together and I can see the way you fight for real, when it matters.

I’m sure you going after Nazi’s is different from kicking the ass of some backyard bully. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.

He could hear Steve chuckle as he read the sentence

Don’t worry about me, if anyone should be worried it’s me. I know that you get me out of trouble but that doesn’t mean you can’t get yourself into trouble.

I miss you Buck, but I’ll see you soon

Yours, Steve

Thump, thump, thump, that was all that Bucky could hear. Not the yelling of the drill sergeants, not the sound of the other soldiers puffing, or yelling or laughing. Not the wind rustling the bushes he was hiding in. And not the sound of the jeeps rolling by across the quad. Just the thumping of his heart as he read Steve’s letter.

Bucky looked at the letter in his hands, staring at the letters as he watched them link to one another across the page. For a silent moment it was almost as if he could hear Steve’s voice saying these words directly to him.

He wanted to desperately clutch the letter in his hands but was too afraid to crumple it. He folded the letter with shaky hands and put it back into the envelope before setting it aside on his knee with his mother’s letter.

His heart kept thumping but for one infinitely long second, he stopped breathing, his hands shook and the world around him felt bigger than it ever had. He knew there were whole other continents filled with people but right now he felt like he had shrunk down into a scared little boy. Desperate to cling to whatever he recognized in his life. And right now it was the three different types of handwriting balancing in envelopes on his knee. He realized in this small moment of solitude that the hard layer he had let crust over him was hiding all his fear and all his ache of home. He was afraid and he wanted to go back home, back to his life in Brookyln, back to his mother and sister, back to his calm neighborhood with the only thing stirring up trouble was Steve. He wanted to go back to his chaste kisses in hidden back alleys and the friends he kept in Edward’s bar. He wasn’t a soldier; he was just a man. He was being carved into something hard and sturdy like stone, but he knew given enough pressure he would crack, and all of his delicate parts would be on display and vulnerable.

…

In the end his 13 weeks training did come to an end. The idea that he was going to some far off land soon was so disjointed in his mind. The feeling was the same one from when he was a kid, and his mother had taken the training wheels of his bike for the first time. He had no idea what to expect because he was so used to the old feeling of stability. But now the training wheels were off, and he had no way of putting them back on.

He was free from the aching day’s work of training which had slowly becoming less achy in the end but now he was going to be thrust into harder, darker, moroser conditions to fight in a battle that needed it’s soldiers. He was going home for a week, and for a week he could pretend that none of this was happening. That no one was being hurt across the world, that boy’s younger and older than him weren’t being put behind the trigger of a gun or in front of a barrel of one. He could pretend that his life had never been disrupted.

When he was in high school and he had started to realise he was an ant in this world he hated it, knowing he was just one kid among thousands. And one of thousands before him and thousands after him. The feeling made him feel small, but he quieted it. That feeling was back now, only he wished it was like before. He wished he could go back to being one of many unknown people in the world. Because now he was a crucial mechanical piece among many in this machine of war. And he had no choice but to play his part, to function as deemed necessary. To keep the gears turning.

He just wanted to be Bucky again.

As he was packing up his gear for the last time and setting it all back into his bag he was approached by Dugan, who already had his bag slung over his shoulder. He stood up and turned to face Dugan with his bag still open in his hand. Dugan’s hand was out, raised at chest height with his fingers spread out. Bucky raised his own hand, and they shook hands.

A small bit of silence stretched between them as their hands remained clasped. They both knew that the next time they saw each other, they would be covered in gear and weapons standing on the front lines with their guns raised.

“See you on the front brother” he tips his head to Bucky and he returns the gesture. They shake arms one more time before letting go, and Dugan turns and walks out of the cabin. Bucky takes his free hand to zip up his bag and slings it over his own shoulders. He looks at the now empty room. And he has to admit… he’s going to miss it. The nights spent listening to the snoring of his company. Even if he wished he could smother Roy with a pillow to stop the sputtering, gargling sound he made when he slept. The routine he had fallen into at Camp Lehigh had become a something of a small comfort, in the way something familiar is comfortable.

Even if it wasn’t comfortable like home. He knew it would always be more comfortable than war.

He stepped out of the empty room and closed the door.

As he made his way towards the hustle and bustle he could see ahead of him he was approached by another man he had seen around the grounds. He was often accompanied by Joseph with papers in his hand. He must’ve been in charge of the records or something.

So when he approached Bucky he didn’t know what to expect

“Private Barnes?” he said in question

Bucky turned to attention seeing the title on his shirt. Sargent John. He quickly put his hand up in a salute. It was something he had to learn very quickly. Respect was demanded in the army, demanded by those who deserved it but still demanded none the less.

“Yes sir”

“At ease soldier”

Bucky lowered his arm but his posture didn’t relax as much as it might have if he weren’t in present company

“I’m here to inform you that you’ve promoted. I understand that this may seem irregular but there have been some complications within the battalions and a significant number of casualties recently and we are in need of a Sargent for the 107^th, based on your results and a recommendation from the Colonel you are now that man”

Bucky was taken aback, sudden promotions weren’t common even on the battlefield but to be promoted straight out of training camp was an insane prospect. But still he took the promotion gracefully

“Thank you sir”

“You will need to make the amendments to your uniform once you return home. Make sure you see to that. That is all”

Bucky saluted one last time and the Sargent saluted back, something that confirmed his rank, albeit socially. The Sargent walked off and Bucky headed back towards the exit of Camp Lehigh, a thrumming in his chest from all that just occurred.

A promotion?

The weight of the responsibility sad sudden and heavy on his shoulders, sinking into his skin and gripping onto his bones. Another unshakeable feelings in this hell that feels like it was created personally for him

Like God was toying with him, playing with his life like a puppet on strings

Bucky was just a toy for his amusement, wasn’t he?

He was now Sargent Barnes, the man who would be in charge of the life of close to 800 men. In charge of the soldiers and the missions they lead and the lines they fronted

But it was Bucky who would be responsible for the men under the title of soldier. It was Bucky who was responsible for their lives, and their deaths. His choices, his orders, his actions.

He marched ahead breathing heavily and saw all the men from the 107^th and other battalions were crowded around the small station where the trains were due to take them back to their cities and towns across New Jersey, New York and all the other sister states.

Trying to focus on anything else he noticed that many of the men had either stocked up on their last trip into the small town near Camp or had made a mad dash to grab something before their train was due to arrive because there were a significant number of cigarettes, newspapers, and suspicious bags with bottles inside of them that were not inconspicuous at all.

After a time, the train finally arrived and the men filled inside, trying to fit more than three at a time through a door way that was only fit for one. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one eager to get home. He wondered how many of these men he would end up seeing again, alive.

He took a seat on the train, squished between an older man who looked like he had at least two kids for his age. His name was Robert, but he wasn’t in Bucky’s battalion. And the other man on his left, who was not as old as Robert, but his eyes were sunken in as if he was that old. As if he had already seen something he never wanted to remember. His name was William, but he heard him correct other people, asking them to call him Billy.

Bucky briefly wondered if he had been at Pearl Harbor during the bombing.

10 names

The men in his carriage were still as chatty as they had been on their way here 3 months ago.

But many of them were huddled around their newspapers all clamoring to read something. He wondered if the troops across the world had managed to make a break in German forces. But as he listened to their ruckus talking, he felt his ears prick up with an interest he had not had a moment ago. They were talking about someone, a woman, named Christie Jorgenson, and if he looked hard enough, he could see that very name on the crumpled newspaper in the hands of the man sitting across from him.

The front page had her name and a picture of her next to a man that resembled her slightly though he couldn’t quite see from this angle, maybe her brother perhaps.

One of the boys flicked up the paper and he could see the headline a lot clearer it read “Ex-GI becomes Blonde Beauty!”

He listened to the boys yelling over one another.

“How the hell does that work ey?” he heard the boy, Thomas who was holding the newspaper, say “Did he wake up one day and decided he was going to put on his mother’s make up and play dress up after the war? He must’ve been hit in the head or something”

The other men laughed at his remark.

“What kind of strange science is this, making a boy into a girl. How the fuck would they even do that?” said another man, Frank. This one looked considerably younger than most of the other men around him, Bucky suspected he might have lied about his age.

“Some queer folk around these days, you seem them in the newsie all the time” spat Arthur.

13 names and one he wished he didn’t care enough to remember

Bucky had to stop himself from cringing as he heard him spoke. He was often the loudest in groups and he heard some of the things he said whilst they were taking their small reliefs out in the town. He made sure to steer clear of him if he had the option.

But the use of the slur rubbed Bucky the wrong way and he had been surrounded by too many dirty cussing men for to many days to deal with their shit.

“You’re just jealous” called Bucky to the men over the other side of the car

Arthur looked away from the paper to Bucky

“You what?”

“You’re just jealous because she’s prettier than you’ll ever be”

The carriage was silent and then burst into an uproar of laughter from the other men surrounding him. They started shoving him in the back and poking him around, laughing and teasing him about Bucky’s comment

“Yeah bet you wish you could be that pretty!” Bucky heard someone call.

He silently sighed a relief that they had stopped commenting about that woman, he had heard about people like that. Born one way and then being another thing. He had even met a woman like that once, she was very beautiful. And very kind.

He wondered how many more people like that were out there in the world, and he wondered if it worked in reverse too? If there were boys out there who hadn’t always been boys.

But the secondhand smoke that was beginning to fill up the car and the buzzing of the voices was starting to make him feel drowsy. So he stopped thinking and settled his back again his seat, crossing him arms over his chest.

He awoke with a start when the train came to a bumpy stop in a station. He looked up and blinked furiously trying to clear the sleep from his eyes and turned his head to look out the window. He was back in New York but not at his station. He was at the last stop just outside the city. He was close. So close to home.

He looked around the carriage now and found that there were only a few men missing. It seemed that he was surrounded by Brooklyn boys.

The thought hit him for the second time that he had been living side by side with these men and he’d never known it.

He saw that Arthur was unfortunately still on the train but he was much quieter than he had been a few hours ago.

He looked around, Robert and Thomas were gone but he still recognized the face and names of many of the men in the carriage with him.

He listed them off in his head making sure he could remember them if he ever saw them again, because many of them were not in his company or battalion.

There was Jack who had the lazy eye, Russel and Leo the twins, Wayne who had been in his company, Lewis and Charlie who he had only heard their names in passing, Martin who had never spoken a single word to anyone as far as he knew, Harvey who was constantly slicking back his hair, Oscar and Jerry who seemed to be joined at the hip whenever he they got the chance, and Curtis who had he found kissing some woman in the back of the men’s bathroom on one of the nights he had visited the bar with his cabinmates.

24 names

As he watched all of their faces, he felt the train slow to a stop as his body leaned against the motion of the slowing train. He stretched out his limbs and stood, grabbing his bag which had gotten tangled around his legs in his sleep. He stepped out of the strap and slung it over his shoulder once more before joining the small group of men who were getting off the train.

He looked at his feet, the way the edge of his toe covered the gap between the train and platform which it was parked at. He took a step over into the station and like someone had popped a bubble around his head he suddenly heard a barrage of noise filling his ears and all of his senses were overwhelmed. The light from grand central station was a combination of overhead lights and the shine of the sun filtering through the big open windows. It was so bright, so white.

He squinted as he looked around the station. There were bodies of uniforms and casual attire alike. Families holding onto newly arrived soldiers or men on their way to new places wearing a suit or women with their dresses twirling around their knees as they walked around the station. There was talking and sounds of children and babies echoed around the building as the smell of stale cigarette smoke and trash and sweaty bodies filled his nose. It was a lot all at once, but it was familiar. It was home.

He kept walking forward, away from the train and into the bustling crowd. He walked towards the exit, climbing the stairs one aching leg at a time until the sun blinded him once more as he reached the top.

When he got there, he was only able to take a few more steps before he saw the face of his mother and his sister waiting anxiously, looking in every direction all at once. Looking for him.

He couldn’t help it, when his aching legs surged forward and had him near running towards his family, standing with the sun at their backs. It looked like the sun was illuminating them directly, like it was guiding his way back towards them making sure he could see them

And he couldn’t help it when he called for them, grabbing their attention, because unlike most of the men who were by his side he wasn’t going home with a smile on his face, proud that he was now a soldier, he was going home with the fear in his heart that after this week he would never see his family again.

“Mam! Becca!” he was a few steps away when they saw him and his mother stepped towards him meeting him in the middle with her arms outstretched, fingers reaching to hold him.

She grabbed him and he dropped his bag to hold her. To pull her close, to feel her warmth once more, to be close to what had always kept him safe. He felt Becca grab onto him as well. Slipping one of her arms between his and his mothers chest and her other arm around his back and hugging him close from the side. He removes one hand to hold her head since it’s the only thing he can reach from this angle.

He pulls them both so close, as close as he can. His arms are aching, but he doesn’t care.

He’s home, he’s back home…

But he can’t ignore the small hole that is still in his heart, because this moment is fleeting. This moment is here now, but only for now. He cannot shake the feeling that clouds his mind and darkens his heart. And he grabs his family closer.

Silently he promises to them that they will have this moment again, in a years’ time when he’s back from whatever hell hole he was sent to he will be here to hold his family in his arms. And to promise them that he will never leave them again.

God may have mapped the road to his destiny but no one said he had to walk that paved path.

In his sadness and anger and fear he mentally spat on Gods name. Rejecting his destiny, his great plan. He was the master of his own fate.

And he was going to survive

Chapter Text

They caught a taxi from the busy street across the entrance of the train station. Bucky made a mental note to get his license when he got back. It’s not that he couldn’t drive, he just didn’t have a license so he couldn’t do it legally. And his mother had never got it since she never needed to go anywhere that would require a car and Becca wasn’t focused on that right now with school being the most important task in her life, at least that’s how she put it. So taxi it was. They filed in with Bucky in the front next to the driver and his mother and sister in the back he gave them their address and soon they were on their way home.

Bucky looked out this window with wider eyes than normal watching as everything he recognizes about his life flies past the window in a soft blur. The houses he remembers playing in front of when him and the neighborhood kids would play baseball on the street, smashing the balls as hard as they could so they went flying into one of their backyards and they would scramble to come collect it, many a time he watched the boys jump fences that weren’t even their own to get the ball that would continue on their game.

He saw the house of his neighbors whose boys had also grown older, he didn’t even know what had become of most of them. Where they had gone…or if they were even still alive. He wondered how many families would be kept inside by the grief of the loss of their young sons. They shutter their windows and keep their doors closed, no longer allowing the soft breeze to flow through their houses for fear it would drag in the ghosts of their sons.

As the taxi cruised down the road that held memories from his childhood he spied something sitting on the door step of one of the homes. He blinked and whipped his head around to look back as the house passed trying to confirm what he thought he saw. Maybe it was too quick, he must’ve been tricking himself. Or maybe it was a coincidence it happened to be there by the will of the wind.

The image of a white feather laying slightly curved up on the front door, sitting there, calm and peaceful. But what is symbolizes was quite the opposite.

A white feather, a symbol to let the whole neighbourhood and any passersby know that that someone in that house was not brave enough to enlist. That that home harboured a coward

He scowled at the image that was stuck in his mind of the feather laying there in front of the door.

Until he saw another white feather flash past him and another and one more. 4 feathers had been placed at the steps of the houses of the boys he once called his friends.

Who the hell had thought it right to shame those boys and their families!

A spark of anger flashed through him like a firecracker going off. But his mother must’ve seen his reflection in the windshield because she called to him from the back seat

“Is everything alright James?” she asked tentatively.

He blinked and felt his brows unfurrow. He hadn’t even realized he was glowering at the scene that passed them by.

He tried to relax his face and breathe evenly but he felt something solid rest in his chest. It was his anger, he had become accustomed to that feeling as of late. His emotions sitting like heavy bricks in his chest, he had to breath and let it pass. Allowing it to erode into dust.

But no matter how many times he allowed those stones to float away in the wind as nothing more than dirt it still sat in the pit of his chest ready to be reformed.

He closed his eyes and breathed once more and answered “I’m fine” he looked back at her and gave her a smile.

Soft, not like the ones he gave the boys in the army. That was full of teeth and snark. Or the one he gave the girls where his top lip crept up just slightly so the white of his teeth peeked through. This was softer with his cheeks pinching at the corners. Not with dimples like his mother but with a roundness to them that looked boyish.

His mother smiled back until something caught her eye and she signalled to the driver that they were close, and when Bucky turned back around, he saw the same familiar house the stood opposite their own, the one that was the first thing he always saw when he opened the door into the street.

The got out of the car and Bucky stretched from having not moved the entire trip. He looked around scanning the neat front yard and the small fence that guarded it from passerby’s as if it was going to have changed. But nothing had changed. He wondered if it would be the same when he came back from deployment. He doubted his mother was going to uproot the garden she had spent time to keep so beautiful. Even during the winter when the snow covered the hedges, and the grass turned from green to white under the frost. It was still clean, neat and beautiful. Three words he would also use to describe his mother.

Becca took his arm as they walked up the small path to the front door. “C’mon soldier quite dawdling”

He chuckled at her and placed a hand over the arm that was hooked around his. They walked together to the door and squeezed in side by side behind their mother. They bumped hips as they attempted to fit together, it was something they had done as kids and had never known how it had started. Walking hand and hand through a doorway that was in no way big enough for two but squishing side by side regardless. Harmless, childish fun that had followed them into their teenage years. Or in Bucky’s case adult years.

As they stepped inside Bucky was greeted with the same old hallway, the same old kitchen complete with a dining table that was big enough for more than 3 but hardly ever sat more than 4. It was the same with the yellow glow of the blubs in the ceiling light and the white light that filtered in through the curtains from the window. The same wallpaper and the same smell. The kitchen constantly smelled like rosemary being so close to the small herb garden connected to the house by the laundry. He used to climb through that window to fetch the herbs for his mother rather than walk outside to get them. ‘It’s fun!’ he used to say.

But there was something that was different, different yet not unfamiliar.

Standing in the hallway leaning on the door frame in a way that made his shoulders look even smaller than normal, was Steve. His hair golden blonde and swept to the side. He was wearing an off-white button up and his brown slacks. His shoes were off along with his socks. Bucky almost had to do a double take seeing him standing there, thinking he was seeing things.

“Hey Buck”

Oh no he definitely wasn’t seeing things.

His arm fell to his side and Becca stepped away from him, he thought he might have heard her giggle but he couldn’t be too sure.

“Becca would you help me with something in the living room” his mother said pointedly as she shuffled past Steve down the hallway, Becca following her with her hand cupped over her mouth.

Bucky felt his chest lock up, his diaphragm clenched anytime he tried too breathe too deeply, he swallowed hard and even that was a challenge looking at Steve here and now. He want to sweep Steve up into his arms and at the same time he couldn’t move. He just stood there staring at Steve’s smile and his bright blue eyes.

Bucky raised a hand, he didn’t know what his intentions were when he raised it but it was up and now he wanted to cup Steve’s face.

But something inside his head misfired and he realized what was doing so he suddenly changed course and put his hand on Steve’s shoulder, grasping at it before he pulled Steve forward off the door frame and into a hug. Both of his arms reaching all the way around Steve. He could have grabbed his own elbows.

Steve wrapped his own arms around Bucky, not protesting at the sudden force of Bucky’s affection. Bucky felt as though his legs were going to collapse underneath him. It had only been 3 months but that shell he had formed around himself had been holding in so many more emotions than he had realized, and the weight of seeing Steve again for the first time, letting himself feel how much he had missed him. It was crushing him from the inside out.

Steve took a step back from Bucky, breaking away from the hug, and he seemed to be drinking him in, looking him up and down. Bucky felt as though Steve was checking him out, but that wasn’t the case. He’d been gone for a while, at military camp no less, he wanted to see if anything was different

“They were putting you to work at Lehigh. You look bigger”

Bucky looked down at himself stupidly “I don’t feel bigger”

“Your shoulders are wider, rounder. Your arms are more muscular. Same with your legs”

“You can see all that through my clothes”

“I used to draw you Buck, I know when anatomy changes” Steve says winking at him

“Oh very funny”

“I’m serious! You look good” Steve pressed again

Bucky couldn’t help the feeling that Steve was flirting with him now, but it was probably just jokes between friends. Except it wasn’t a joke, it was a genuine compliment

After a small moment of the two of them simply looking at each other Steve coughed and spoke up

“Your Mam thought it would be a nice surprise to have me over for dinner…I’ve been over a lot recently since you’ve been gone”

Steve was always over, at least once a week him and Steve saw each other, and Steve practically lived here part time. That wasn’t anything new. But Bucky’s new absence amongst that made them both realise the small gap that was growing. One that wasn’t pulling them apart but urging them closer together. They refused to let go of each other as the gap slowly grew that would eventually turn into oceans between them. They held on with everything they had to each other, that much was clear.

Bucky could feel the strength of it in his chest and Steve could too. The bond between them was unbreakable and right now the absence that was soon to come was not something they were going to worry their minds with.

Right now all that mattered was that they were together.

Bucky’s mother promptly entered the room flapping one of her linen dollies at Steve “On that point it’s about time we get dinner on the stove. I’ve pulled out all the stops for tonight”

“Mam you didn’t have to-“

She held up a finger

“Not another word from you James” She shushed

The dinner in question was meat loaf with mashed potatoes, which left Bucky spluttering over the cost and saving his mother would have had to gone to to get this. The potatoes were still pretty fresh which meant she got them recently, they still felt firm as he was peeling them. But the meatloaf was decently sized, enough for everyone. It would have taken several saved rations and half of his mothers jewellery box to buy, which she assured she didn’t have to sell when he asked. It was under salted, but he didn’t mind. It was better than most meals they had at camp which had barely enough protein to keep them fit with the amount of new muscles the soldiers were building.

When everything had finished cooking and warming they sat together at the table and Bucky all but forgot about the war. No one mentioned it and any thoughts of the previous weeks slipped his mind completely. It was just him and his family, the entire world seemed to fade away, it didn’t matter.

They ate and they talked and they laughed. And it was nothing like the roar of the mess hall. It was a genuine display of emotions from the people he loved. Not over done raucous laughter or mindless comments or strategy. It was honest interest and meaningful conversation. It wasn’t tiring or gave him a headache. He was overjoyed to simply sit and listen to his family talk about whatever was on their minds. Even as his mother scolded Becca for talking with her mouthful she continued to laugh behind pursed lips.

For the first time in weeks, he felt genuinely relaxed and wanted.

…

After dinner was done Bucky offered to clear the table whilst his mother and Becca went to watch whatever program was on the TV. Him and Steve packed away anything that was still saveable into the fridge and turfed the scraps. Bucky began filling the sink with water and the soap suds began to pile up over the lip of the sink. He went about cleaning off all the oil and residue from the plates before handing them to Steve who had a tea towel in hand and was drying them off and piling them up and away into the cupboards. Bucky moved onto the cups that were stained lightly red from the wine. Becca was only allowed to drink the unfermented juice his mother got, which he still didn’t know how she afforded any of this extra food and drink. Wine wasn’t his favourite drink of choice but if his mother liked it then he would drink it too. And Steve was the same. His body didn’t handle well with a lot of alcohol and usually after one or two drinks steve already began to get thoroughly tipsy. Which Bucky could tell he was, but he was keeping it together pretty well for the most part. Once everything was washed, he placed the cutlery away whilst Steve dried off the last glass and the two of them were suddenly without a task standing together in the kitchen.

“Did you mean anyone whilst I was gone?” Bucky asked, posing the question innocently

“You know I haven’t Buck. Where would I even go to meet someone?”

“The bar, a ballroom night, the park, the library?” Bucky listed off places counting them obnoxiously on his fingers

“That’s not really important right now”

“But I need someone to look after you whilst I’m gone” he joked

Steve huffed and pulled himself up onto the bench, sitting up so he could look Bucky fully in the eye

“I can take care of myself just fine”

“Oh I’m sure you can Stevie” Bucky was teasing, poking at him. He did genuinely want Steve to find a girlfriend, sometimes it felt like Steve was sabotaging himself more than anything. But without Bucky to wingman him he would never talk himself up enough to get any girls attention. The was the problem with Steve, he didn’t think he was worth their notice, so he acted like he was beneath them.

If only they could see what an amazing person Steve was. If Bucky was a woman he would chase after Steve until he said yes.

But that wasn’t how this was for them. And no matter what Bucky said it would never change Steve’s perception of himself. He would just have to keep trying. And he wouldn’t stop until Steve got married.

Married

The idea of Steve getting married shot a pang through Bucky’s chest that he hadn’t been expecting. Of course Steve would get married some day. It would be good for him, it just meant that Bucky wouldn’t be his number one anymore. Which was perfectly fine of course. His wife will be number one…

Bucky stopped that train of thought in it’s tracks and continued on teasing Steve

“A girlfriend would do you some good I’m telling you. You’ll find some lucky lady and she can take care of you and keep you safe” he was pushing Steve’s buttons he knew that but right now with the alcohol in his system it was too easy

“I don’t need anyone to protect me. I could take you in a fight right here and now if I wanted to”

Even as Steve said it a smirk threatened to pull the corner of his mouth up and they both knew how much of a complete lie that was. Bucky took the bait and leant forward placing his hands on the either side of Steve’s legs. He leant in close; he could smell the punget remains of alcohol on his breath, he breathed shallowly so they wouldn’t be breathing too hard in each other’s faces and whispered “I’d like to see you try, Stevie”

He cocked his head to the side as he said Steve’s nickname. Drawing out the two syllables and stringing them together as he sucked in his bottom lip to accentuate the “ve” sound

Steve didn’t move, didn’t push Bucky away. He did blush and he did swallow and Bucky watched as his Adams apple bobbed. He felt his own face heat up and the two of them seemed to just be frozen in their places. Neither one wanting to move away but neither brave enough to move forward.

From behind them they heard a clearing of a throat and they both wipped around to see Becca standing in the hallway.

“Mam wanted you to put the kettle on the stove for tea” she said with an innocent smile on her face “She said to use the tea leaves still in the cup by-“

“By the sink, yep. Got it!” Bucky finished abruptly, embarrassed by his sister’s sudden appearance into their definitely not weird and flirtatious interaction

She smiled at him again and walked back into the living area with her hands held behind her back. She always used to do that when they were kids skipping around school and the house like she knew something everyone else but didn’t know if she should say anything or not.

Bucky pushed himself away from the counter and turned away from Steve busying himself with the tea. He took the steeper that his mother kept by the kettle and filled it with the tea leaves before putting it in the kettle along with the lid and setting it on the stove to boil.

He then leant his back against the counter and crossed his arms, staying on the other side of the stove from Steve who he wasn’t looking at now. He was afraid to because what the fuck had just happened.

He felt his heart beating in his chest and his lungs expanding slowly in his chest as he forced himself to be calm. He knew if he had been given just five more seconds he would have made the biggest mistake of his life. With his face pressed so close to Steves and his thighs against his knees there was too many intense feelings floating around in his heart and with the alcohol in his system there was no way he wouldn’t have kissed Steve.

He would have

And at that point he might have well as just caught a grenade and been done with it. He wanted to run his hands over his face and slap himself for being so stupid but with Steve right there he couldn’t. He couldn’t give away that that had gotten to him as much as it had.

Steve was drunk, he was tipsy, it was getting late, he could make up any excuse he like but that didn’t change the fact that he had almost kissed Steve

He thought his time at Edward’s bar and his time away training to put his life on the line in a literal warzone would have dulled any romantic or intimate feelings towards anyone but it seemed as though he had just been kidding himself.

He couldn’t push away something he had known since he was a kid. Something that was part of his DNA. His love for Steve had bloomed like the roses in spring when he was younger and just like in that fairy tale Becca loved so much it wouldn’t wilt. No matter what happened it wouldn’t fade, and it wouldn’t dull

It could be hidden from view, locked in another room, cast aside and hidden under debris but it was still there. As deep and as red as ever.

“Are you going to have a cup?” Bucky says bravely breaking the silence he is unsure how to fill otherwise

“Yeah, thanks” Steve says. He hops off the counter and begins pulling out mugs. Six of them in a deep burgundy colour that matches the rest of the decorations in the kitchen. Bucky takes one of the mugs and switches it out for another. The one in the chip with it. He always uses the one with the chip in it.

No one knows who chipped it only that it was and Bucky used it ever since

Steve huffed a laugh through his nose knowing exactly which mug Bucky had swapped it out for.

The kettle finally boiled and Bucky took it off the stove and turned off the gas. The whistle also signalled his mother who had entered the kitchen once more.

“I saved some sugar and cream for the tea”

“Mam for the love of-“ Bucky began to protest again but she shushed him again

“Don’t you dare James. And yes I did and I will do so again when you come home. So I will hear nothing of it”

She went to the fridge and pulled out the small container of cream and grabbed the sugar bowl that was no longer half empty like it had been when he left.

She handed them both to him and busied herself cleaning off the place mats at the dinner table. Bucky winced internally realizing he had forgotten them in their clean up. He pours each cup full with an inch of space from the top and then added the cream. Although he knew that his mother had grown accustomed to the lack of cream and even preferred it without now. He then added two spoons to his and Steve’s cup and one for his mother and three for his sister. His mother always claimed the sugar would rot their teeth but Bucky could never help himself when he slipped Becca an extra sweet something or rather.

Once all of the drinks were stirred, he took his own mug and handed Steve his, and then handed his mother her and took Becca’s and walked to the living area where she was sitting with a book in her lap.

The TV was off which mean the only things broadcasting at the moment was war news. He wondered what was happening on the front, who was already lost in the batch of new recruits and who was still standing. Fighting tooth and nail with each breath.

They sat and they talked like they had a dinner and Steve and Bucky fell back into their comfortable rhythm, like nothing had transpired in the kitchen a few minutes before hand.

Bucky drifted in and out of the conversation happy to watch everyone chat as he watched the sun go down in the curtained windows beside them. The yellow and orange of the evening giving away to deeper purples and blues. The sky was so alive with colour he hoped he would live long enough to appreciate another like this

As usual Bucky’s thoughts were turned dark, always turning towards the thoughts that he could never enjoy something so beautiful ever again.

“Of course, Steven” he heard his mother say through his dark cloud of thoughts

He turned his head around to join back in on the conversation again. He looked between Steve and his mother realising he had missed a conversation, and his mother filled in the blanks

“Since it’s so late I was offering for Steve to stay the night”

“Uh yeah” Bucky said trying to hide the way he perked up at the suggestion

“It’s been ages since we’ve stayed the nights together. Almost since we were in high school. Might be nice, for nostalgia’s sake” Steve said

And then Bucky couldn’t hold back his smile

“Using the couch pillows like always?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way”

…

As evening turned into night, yawns started to be thrown around the room and Winifred went to bed along with Becca and Bucky and Steve were left in the lounge alone. Neither of them were particularly tired but decided to head to Bucky’s room anyway with the couch cushions in tow, the lumpy leather-bound fabric clutched under each on of their arms.

Bucky’s room was as it had always been, not even a speck of dust had settled on his desk and beside table which he knew was his mother’s doing. Or perhaps Becca by order of their mother.

Bucky dumped the couch cushions on the floor and dragged out his extra blanket from under his bed which did need some shaking to get some of the dust out along with the extra pillow he kept on his bed. All of it settling on the floor in the same fashion it had for many years since they had been children. Bucky felt like he was 10 again having Steve over for the first time. How excited they had both been.

Steve sat down on his makeshift bed and Bucky laid on his, resting his chin on his hands as his elbows hung off the edge of his bed.

“How many registration offices did you go to while I was away” Bucky asked, he tried to keep his tone neutral, but he knew whatever answer he got he wouldn’t like

“Five. All denied” Steve said after a moment’s hesitation.

Bucky stayed silent, not knowing how to respond without trying to talk Steve out of it. He knew that conversation would only irritate both of them. And he didn’t want Steve to think he didn’t believe in him. He was just scared

“Do you ever get scared of it all. The thought of dying and going to war? Doesn’t that at least make you a little afraid?” Bucky asks next

“Yeah, I don’t know what kind of person wouldn’t be scared. But if we don’t fight who will?”

Bucky thought for a moment stewing over Steve’s words letting them sit in his mind for a while

“But why do we have to be at war at all? Why does there have to be any fighting?”

Steve shrugged “Bad people do bad things and someone has to stop those people”

Bucky tilted his head to the side resting on his ear now “It just seems pointless sometimes”

Steve sighed “I guess it does, but it happened. And if we want it to change when we have to do something about it”

Steve was braver than most men at Camp Lehigh, his brutal honestly and clear truth in his words were more than most of those men saw or cared to admit. If Steve had been born in a six foot two, fit and trained body he would have been a valuable soldier, most would have said he was soft but Bucky thought the world needed more men like Steve on the front lines. Maybe that way the war could be over with less bloodshed than calculated, but that was not how the world worked.

Bucky yawned again and Steve soon after which caused Bucky to chuckle “Maybe we’re more tired than we thought”

Steve hummed in response and Bucky stood up to turn off his light before him and Steve turned back to back and stripped down to their under clothes. Bucky crawled under his quilt and relished in the soft comfortable feeling that he had been deprived of for so long at Camp Lehigh. His own bed was something he was going to miss

As his eyes adjusted in the dark the first thing, he was able to see was Steve’s blonde hair straight and neat and swept to the side. His face was next, his pale skin and his pink lips a complexion that always made him look like he was cold. The bones in his body were wrapped under small layers of skin that Bucky knew was prone to easy bruising and cuts, his skeletal system defined in all but his face which was the only place that still held a significant amount of flesh. Only in his cheeks which gave him an almost boyish look that Bucky loved

Finally, when the dark became dim he could see Steve’s eyes. Like blue diamond’s set into pearls. Glossy and beautiful

Steve was staring at the celling, but he must have felt Bucky staring at him because he turned

“You alright down there?” he said trying to cover up the fact that he had been staring

“Lumpy and a little chilly, just like always”

“You’re cold? Let me grab you another blanket” Bucky was already flicking off the covers to go out into the cupboard in the hall but Steve grabbed his ankle

“I’m fine. I’m not going to get frostbite it’s just a little chilly”

Bucky wanted to say something about the fact that Steve’s fingers always turned blue when the temperature dropped below 50 degrees, but he sat back down on his bed. He didn’t get back in and Steve didn’t let go of his ankle. They were stuck in this sort of limbo which felt out of place but neither of them moved to go back to the way they were.

Bucky laid back on his bed. Laying across it instead of along it he thought to something else that was familiar from when they were kids

“You could always come up here” He said quietly. He said it almost hoping that Steve wouldn’t hear it because after what happened in the kitchen he didn’t know how his heart was going to react. What his mind would tell him, or even worse show him

“What?” Steve asked and Bucky didn’t have it in him to repeat himself

“Are you sure” Came next

So he had heard me

“Only if you want, you know, like we used to when we were kids”

Steve sat up and so did Bucky hearing the shuffling pushing himself up onto his elbows. Steve stood and Bucky swung his legs around and tucked them under the covers before grabbing the edge and pulling it back opening it like a lover might to their partner and suddenly he wanted to take back the gesture, but Steve was already climbing in beside him.

Bucky was ready to turn over and keep his distance from Steve but as he brought his arm down to cover them both Steve shuffled back into his stomach and Bucky’s arm ended up around his shoulder.

Just like when they were kids

Bucky tried to act like this wasn’t affecting him at all so he left his arm over Steve’s shoulder, but he realized after the muscles in his shoulder started aching that he had been holding it up, hovering it rather than resting it over Steve.

Slowly he let the muscles relax and let his arm rest. Steve didn’t protest

Waiting to see if there was any shift he moved his arm closer, pulling Steve more into a one armed hug and then closer and now they were cuddling.

He waited and still no protest. He wasn’t moving away. Maybe it’s because he felt bad or was already asleep or-

He jumped when Steve moved taking his hand in his and grabbing the ends of Bucky’s fingers running his thumb over one of his nails.

Maybe Bucky had been making to many assumptions. Steve wasn’t a push over even if he was a light weight. If he didn’t like something he would tell Bucky. He always had. So if this was fine by Steve, it was fine by Bucky.

And finally he was able to acknowledge the thrumming of his heart and the deep warmth that he felt in his stomach. The way he had to control his breathing so that he didn’t hyperventilate. Because this was normal stuff, this was just…affection, between two really good friends who’ve known each other for several decades now. Completely fine and normal and not making Bucky feel like he might cough up a butterfly if he breathed too hard.

He allowed himself to relax and simply enjoy this moment with all his feelings silently swimming around his mind as he let at small smile sit upon his face.

He didn’t know which one of them had fallen asleep first, but if he could stay in this moment forever, his arm wrapped around Steve holding him close with a protectiveness in his heart then he would be happy to live his life in a time loop forever. Frozen forever.

Chapter Text

Bucky slowly wakes up and tries to roll over only to find a small weight pinning his arms down. He blinks and opens his eyes to find Steve still wrapped in his arms and nestled into his chest. His heart skips a beat and his nerves twitch as he resists the urge to yank his arms away. The initial shock wears off and he instead trades his wide eyes for softer, doting ones.

His pupils slightly dilated as he looks at Steve’s golden blonde hair sitting messily across his forehead. The arm that isn’t pinned by Steve comes up to pull the hair out his eyes as he can see it is tangled with his lashes.

Steve doesn’t stir and Bucky takes this moment watch as his chest rises and fall, feeling the way this movement of the bare skin on his chest pulls on the skin of his arm, he listens to his breathing. It’s a little ragged since Steve is curled in on himself with is probably compressing his already weak lungs.

Bucky questioned whether those cigarettes the doctors had been prescribing him were actually working

Lightly, with the barest of touches Bucky traces small shapes across the skin of Steve’ temple, his hands tremble with how much control he is forcing into his aching muscles. He liked the way Steve skin felt under the pads of his fingers. It felt like the comfort of home, of a simple life, of something he could recognise with his eyes closed.

He knew that if there were no way he could perceive Steve ever again he would still know him on touch alone. He would always know Steve.

He tried to look past Steve’s head to see the time on the clock that sat on his beside table and he could see the top of the shorthand. It was 9…something.

But it was morning enough and he had been planning to spend the next few days with his family. Which meant he needed to wake Steve up, as much as he didn’t want him to leave, he had promised himself to take extra time for his mam and sister whilst he was still here.

Because he might not- …because it would be a long time before he got back. And he would miss them

But a few more moments couldn’t hurt. So, he waited before moving, hoping that Steve would wake up randomly. His mind drifted to last night, and what had happened between him and Steve.

Not that anything had happened, it was just…drunken mishaps.

But he wasn’t drunk now…and he hadn’t been drunk then. And he still felt the same. Still felt as brazen now as he had then, and looking at Steve wasn’t making it any easier for him to ignore his thoughts that were running circles around his mind.

He struggled to keep his breathing steady when his lungs wanted to heave the air in and out in huge gasps. Without thinking and without even questioning the morality of his actions he leaned forward and kissed Steve on the head amongst his hair.

What the hell

…

What had he just done. Why did he do that?!

Without giving himself any more time to think he swallowed every single feeling that had risen up and in an instant, he turned them off. Back to a well manufactured calm as he softly shook Steve

“Hey. Rise and shine” he said as he wiggles Steve back and forth, feeling his heartbeat louder in his ears as he tried to ignore it.

Steve murmured something and then rolled over, squinting at Bucky over his shoulder, he then turned back and mumbled a bit before rubbing his eyes

“Light weight” Bucky chuckled knowing how grumpy Steve could be when he was woken after a night of alcohol

“M’not” Steve said pushing himself up and rubbing his eyes still with the heel of his palm

He yawned and stretched, his bones cracking. He then looked down seeming to realise that he was not sleeping on the couch cushions like the plan was that night

“Oh shoot, I hogged your bed” he said with a sheepish grin on his face

“There isn’t enough of you to hog anything” Bucky laughed shoving Steve in the back

Steve stood and picked up his clothes he had left by the side of his “bed” and pulled them on, Bucky picked out a fresh set of clothes from his drawers and pull those on as well. When he stood up and stretched every joint from his fingers to his shoulder cracked simultaneously and the two of them laughed.

When they both went out into the kitchen Winnifred was already up and working on making some toast, Becca was already sitting at the table with her toast in hand that had the thinnest scraping of jam on it. The jam in question was simply mashed berries that his mam had been growing in the garden.

The two boys sat down together at the table and she greeted them and they spent the morning the same way they had spent the evening prior.

Until finally it was time for both Becca and Steve to leave. Becca had school which she wasn’t pleased about but Winnifred wouldn’t let Becca skip even if it was for Bucky whilst he was still here.

Bucky walked both of them to the door, he gave Becca a crushing hug which pushed her book bag into her side before giving her a kiss on her head and promising to help her with any homework if she got something new this afternoon.

He then turns to Steve who he also gives a hug to, one that lasts not nearly as long as he wanted, and he promises to see Steve in a few days. Catch that movie like they promised to do in his letter from Camp Lehigh.

Steve smiles at him and agrees before promising to make sure that Becca gets to school on time and the closes the door on the two of them as they walk down the path to the sidewalk.

He turn away from the door despite the fact that he wants to watch them until they are out of sight and he turns around to his mother who is sitting with her half-drunk tea in her hands.

“It’ll be just us today Mam” he says smiling at her, he’s eager to make the most of his time whilst he’s here and today is the day he dedicates to her. He thinks about the fact that he will miss her birthday and Mother’s Day in the next coming years depending on when he gets back. He has to make these day’s count.

She puts her mug down and gestures to him to come sit beside her, to which he obliges.

“James, you know you can be honest with me, right?” he stutters as he pulls in his chair a little taken aback

“Yes, of course Mam” he watched as her cheek puffed up, she was doing that thing where it looked like she might be chewing on her words trying to figure out how to line them up into a neat sentence.

“You and Steven…I know how close you two are. I know how important he is to you”

“Well…he is my best friend Mam” he says laughing a little unsure what she is getting at

“Let me finish James”

That shuts him up quickly

“I know that you feel differently from other men your age…that you feel closer to Steven. And that he’s more important to you than anyone you’ve ever met. You two have always been inseparable. And I’m sorry that you can’t love him how you want to”

Bucky swallows, choking on his own words now

“I- Mam he’s just my friend. I love him the way any other pair of friends do”

“But you wish it was more than that don’t you? I remember watching you when you were little kids and the other mother’s would comment on how much Steven would follow you around like a lost puppy. That one of you was never far from the other. But I saw it differently. I saw the way you would always look over your shoulder for his approval and to make sure that everything you did you could do together. And that if he couldn’t keep up you would slow down for him”

She pauses and thumbs the rim of her drink that is slowly growing cold in her hands

“You love him. You don’t have to hide that from me James…not anymore”

Bucky’s throat closes over, and his eyes begin to sting as he listens to his mother talk. He doesn’t know what to do or say. So, he sits there, silently choking on his words as his mother’s echo in his ears

“Mam, it’s not like- I don’t…” but he trips over every sentence he starts

“James-“she says letting go of her mug and grabbing his hands, giving them a kiss across the knuckles “-you are different, and I know you’ve had to hide that. But before you leave, I want to you know that you don’t have to hide that from me. You are my son, and I love you”

He hadn’t even suspected that his mother had known. He was always private, creeping around in the shadows or the dim lighting of Edwards Bar and keeping his cards close to his chest like he might lose everything if he let anyone see them

Which he might, he could have very well lost everything important to him in an instant for what he was.

“I-“he wasn’t going to lie. What was the point, it wasn’t going to help him now and his mother had shown him he had nothing to be afraid about “Yeah, yeah, I do Mam. But I can’t tell him how I feel”

“Well, I don’t know about that” she says wiping away the tears that have slipped over the edge of his eye lid onto his cheek “You won’t know unless you say something to him”

“But I can’t risk losing him” he says quickly, his voice shaking

She tuts as she pulls him forward and wraps her arms around the back of his head. She shushes him and strokes his hair and whispers to him that it’ll be ok. Over and over

But it won’t be. If he leaves and doesn’t come back. He’s going to lose something he never had. Or worse if Steve actually get’s drafted and he comes home to find Steve gone. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He might just loose his mind.

His thoughts turn darker and his mother fades away and all he can feel is a dark twisting feeling eating him from the inside out

If the war doesn’t kill him and he comes home without Steve, he might just do it himself.

Him and his mother stay there for a while. She holds him whilst a few months of barely held back emotions finally reach the breaking point, spilling all of his bottled secrets into the space between them.

When he finally calms down, she takes his face in her hands and speaks to him pointedly

“You will not loose him. But I understand why you are so afraid. I had friends the same as you in my youth who felt the same fears you did”

She didn’t go on to say what happened to them which didn’t reassure Bucky, but he tried not to let his darkness drag him down more than it already had.

After he calmed down him and Winnifred decided they needed to get out of the house. It had been ages since they had done anything together and she barely left the house except for Becca, shopping and the WAF which she had recently joined.

The pair decided to head to an old milkshake parlour she would always take him to when he was little and they both ordered the same thing they had always ordered. She ordered strawberry and he ordered caramel. It was honestly a miracle that this place was still open and still in business, most non-essential stores had been boarded up but he assumed the owner had spun some bullshit about “moral” and “still living a life” which had allowed him to keep this place opened. And Bucky wasn’t going to complain if that’s what kept this place open. This slice of memory that was so small it was so easy to forget just how many times he had come here.

To tease his mother, he blew bubbles into his milkshake and she rolled her eyes at him, chiding him for being so childish but there was no real conviction behind it

…

“Do you think Pops ever got scared? When he was out on the front” Bucky says, he doesn’t bother to sugar coat it. It was harder to act as if this war wasn’t as big of a deal as it was. It just hurt both their hearts more

“He tried not to show it, but I knew he was. But the fact that he was and did it anyway is what made him so brave and valiant. Even if he was afraid, your father wasn’t the type of man to die without his fight”

Bucky had imagined the hundreds of ways his father may have gone, but the image that stuck in his head most often was his father, donned in the gear he now wore, holding a gun in his hands whilst he moved to shield another soldier so that he could make maybe make it home safe. A life for a life

All lives were equal in the eyes of war. A gun nor a grenade discriminated on it’s target only focusing on its mark

As the day wanned to late afternoon and his mother was getting tired to two walked home hoping to intercept Becca on their way. She would most likely be making her way home, but they might be able to catch her up the road

And sure, enough she was there. Bucky let go of his mothers’ arms and snuck up behind his sister. Grabbing her under the arms and swinging her around. She turned to see her brother and began laughing as she was swept of her feet.

“Bucky! Put me down!” they both laughed together, and he did both of them swaying on their feet lightly. His mother’s hand was resting on her chest as she laughed.

Their little family, although missing a few pieces felt so content in this moment simply existing together. Like a broken puzzle with pieces that still fit together.

Bucky was glad for these moments, moments he would hold onto, and he hoped he would be allowed to keep these memories in whatever afterlife he found himself in, when his time did come

Chapter Text

When the three of them were finally home again Bucky and Becca went of to her room whilst their mother sat in the kitchen looking over the daily paper. She had taken up the hobby of doing the crosswords and word searches in the back pages and submitting them to the postal office for little prizes. It was something she had never seen much interest in before the war but now it didn’t take much for his Mam to try something new. He thought forlornly because she was starting to realise that time ran out quicker than it might have done decades ago.

Him and Becca went to her room, and just like he promised he would, he helped her with her homework. She had just begun learning Algebra in her mathematics class and he honestly didn’t blame her for struggling. He knew how to make the equations, but he wouldn’t have been able to explain how or why they worked the way they did.

They set up on her little desk in the corner of her room Bucky kneeling on the floor since there wasn’t much room for an extra chair, his elbows resting on the corners of the table

He let her explain the equation to him at first, she wasn’t going to learn if she didn’t try to recall what her teachers had shown her. He corrected her when necessary and she seemed to be able to make sense of it.

He worked over the equations with her, there were times when she got frustrated so he took the pencil from her hand and broke each line down talking over it slowly

“You have to carry the ‘x’ over, since if you leave it the rest of the equation won’t be balanced” he tried his best to imitate her handwriting, she would be showing this to her teachers and he didn’t want her getting into trouble for getting help. But he could still tell when it was her work and when it was his.

There were a handful of equations left unsolved when she slumped down into her chair and let out an obnoxious sigh “This stuff is so boring”

He chuckled “C’mon Becca, if we get these done, we’ll be just in time to catch some of Betty”

She perked up at that and snatched the pencil out of his hand to finish the last of her work. He laughed and fell back onto his hunches giving her the space to work. She scratched away on the paper the sound of the lead chipping off and leaving neat lines of writing across the page.

He hoped that whilst he was gone, she would still keep up with her studies, she was a good student and she was determined enough to keep trying. But most of all he would probably miss just helping her, even if he was grateful when he finished school it was nice to be able to go through all this stuff he learnt and actually being able to put it to good use. Because God knows that none of this shit is useful in the real world

He stood up and laid down on her bed, stretching out his arms and legs since they ached from how long he had sat tucked up in on himself on the floor. He supposed he would have to get used to the feeling of aching bones and stinging joints.

He closed his eyes, the light from the celling was too bright for him to look at and he felt his chest decompress. All the air leaving his lungs in one sigh, and the room started slip away.

But just as the weird shapes from behind his eyes began to fade he was jolted upright from Becca’s decision to jump on him to get his attention.

“I’m done! Let’s go” she said giving him a little shake

She got off of him and tugged on his arm pulling him to his feet. He couldn’t help but laugh between small coughs. She had knocked all of the wind out of him, he didn’t bother to check if she had done the work. He was sure she had and it was up to her to care, not him.

The two made their way to the living room, their small aerial television sat on the extra coffee table they had gotten from a garage sale a few years back. Becca crawled up to the dials on the side of the screen and began messing with them until she found the right channel, when the image came up with extra static she moved the antenna around carefully tilting them back and forth like she was some sort of surgeon performing a delicate task until the image came to life and the introduction to Betty along with her themes song played on the screen. The black and white image clear; her sleek black hair in it’s classic curls, her big eyes and her little dress scarcely covering her legs.

Becca shuffled back and sat on the floor whilst Bucky sat on the sofa. She leant back and he moved his legs so she could rest against the couch as the sound of the introductory song crackled through the speakers, as the show played, Betty’s sweet and high voice speaking through the speakers, Bucky absently watched with a smile on his face.

“Hey Becca, do you want me to braid your hair?” he asked looking at her curls pinned loosely into her head, they had already begun slipping out by the end of the day.

“Yeah sure! Do you need the ties?” she took a few from off her wrist and handed them to him over her shoulder. He took them and slipped them over his own wrist whilst he began taking the pins from out of her hair, it was about shoulder length with a light curl on the end, she didn’t even need to use rollers half the time if she brushed her hair out before bed

He piled up the pins on his knee since he might need those for the pieces of hair in the front.

He split her hair down the middle of her scalp, using his finger nail to make the line neat, splitting the hair where it overlapped and tying off one side of her head with the tie before he took the other half in his hand and split it into three pieces overlapping them over one another in the same pattern all the way down her hair until there was only a whisp of a thread at the end and he tied it off. He took the spare pins from his knee and he tucked away any stray hairs from the base of her neck before he moved onto the other section. He did the same there and made sure it was all neat.

From here he couldn’t quite see but he left the hair at the front of her head so he decided to leave it hanging and only pinned the strays that looked about of place. He ran his hands over her hair in a last once over before he leaned forward and kissed her on the back of the head. She turned and looked up at him with a smile on her face. She ran her own hands over her newly finished braids and fiddled with the ends of them.

“Thanks Bucky” she says leaning against his legs, her cheek resting on his knee

She doesn’t turn back to watch the tv and her face slowly falls into one that is solemn and thoughtful, she is still fiddling with her hair but now it’s an absent action

“Becca? What are you thinking about?” he says

She looks up at him again “Do you have to go?” she asks

And his heart gets caught in his throat, the channels pumping blood close in on themselves and it’s as if his ribs themselves shrink. Her question is a simple one, with a simple answer. But it hurts him all the same and he knows that the answer will hurt her too.

He knows she already knows the answer and he wished she hadn’t asked him to say it to her, he didn’t want to admit to the autonomy that had been taken from him. He didn’t want to admit to her that everything he will be doing for the next year will be totally against his will, against any choice he would make if he had the choice

“Yes I do” he says, swallowing something foul and heartbreaking that wants to fight its way up his throat and out of his mouth.

“But I’ll be back. Before you are even old enough to drive” he smiles at her trying to brighten a room that suddenly feels so dim.

“You gotta come back so you can get married, I’m supposed to be your flower girl!”

“I did promise you that didn’t I” he chuckled. A completely innocent interjection but something that makes his heart sink further. There’s only one person he could ever promise his heart to…and he couldn’t marry him even if he said yes.

“I will be back. I promised you and Mam that I would be back, and I don’t break my promises, you know that”

She looks a little teary eyed now and he beckons for her to come sit on the couch with him

She crawls up and tucks herself into his side and he wraps his arm around her holding her close as they watch the programs on the screen as they play. Betty Boop turned into Looney Tunes and then to Mickey Mouse and they stayed curled up together until their mother called them for dinner.

And their dinner was the same as it had always been before he left, loving, hearty and calm. Everything he was learning to cherish more and more as time went on.

Chapter Text

That night, with two of the four days he had left passed, the darkness slowly started to sink in, dripping like ichor off the walls around his room as he lay in his bed. The darkness was beginning to cling to everything in his life, staining it a murky black where once shone light and colours brighter than any rainbow.

He was tossing in his sleep, his hands gripping his sheets as his limbs twitched and spasmed. His face scrunched in on itself in pain and discomfort small sounds of fear and pain that isn’t real escape from his lips

The story that is playing in his mind is one of pure fiction, complete and total fabrication but the vividness of it feels too real to ignore. And Bucky feels like he is living it.

He’s watching as his fellow soldier’s run through mud soaked terrain, their boots sinking into the sloshy earth, some of them getting stuck before they instantly get gunned down falling face first into the muck. Bucky somehow is stuck in this mud but hasn’t been hit, standing still for to long is a death wish but it seems like a death wish for everyone but him. Every time he looks at a face he recognises in an instant they are gone a bullet through the chest, the heart, the head. And they are gone.

Their bodies are still there laying in the dirt, but everything that made them them was gone, sucked away like dust in the wind.

But in the dim, in the mud and the blood and the gunpower dust floating through the air one thing is clear.

Steve is standing in the midst of the battlefield a uniform draped over his skinny shoulders that is almost comically large on him. A gun in hand that is about as tall as he is and the look of silent despair on his face

How the hell did Steve get here, what was he doing on the front lines?!

It was like his worst nightmare come true. He tried to pull his feet from the mud but the harder he pulled the more the mud turned to concrete, hardening around his feet.

The sounds of bullets could be heard from every angle, but none sounded louder than the one he saw hit Steve square in the chest, it was like the sound was there just for him to here it. Like the blood splatter that burst from his chest was obnoxious just for Bucky to be witness to it. But unlike the other soldiers Steve didn’t fall to his knees and die. The blood ran from his chest and stained his khaki green uniform, it spilled from him in lines like that of rain on a car window but to Bucky it looked like rivers. Any amount of blood spilled was to much, and it seemed like all of it was coming in great big lines down Steve’s chest.

He called out to Steve but he didn’t seem to hear him over the thundering of everything else around him. Steve dropped the gun, and everything felt like it was moving in slow motion, he fell to his knees but didn’t fall over. He was still looking at Bucky, still watching him with an expression that was unreadable.

When Bucky’s feet finally came free, he had to crawl through the mud as it grabbed at his arms and shirt like it had formed hands out of the slop. He crawled and crawled, over dead bodies and debris until he got to Steve’s body. Who was finally slumped over.

He shook Steve, as if that’s all it would take to rouse him, and Steve’s head fell lazily to one size looking up at Bucky.

His eyes were no longer a crystal blue and were now dim and faded like steel, his skin was haggard, and pale and his lips were cracked and broken. And still the blood pours out of him. Bucky didn’t know what to do but sit there and hold Steve the silence stretching between his living form and Steve’s dying one was enough to block out everything else around him.

He held Steve’s body, until a force pushed him back and his head hit the ground with a strength that made his vision spin, a weight pressed down on him and when he looked up Steve was over him. His dead lifeless form somehow still moving of its own volition. And then his hand was around his throat, his bone thin greying fingers had enough force to close Bucky’s veins and windpipe in on itself and he was sent gasping for air as his head began to spin and his eyes felt like they were popping out of his head

“You could have stopped this” Steve’s voice rasped at him, it sounded like he had rocks for vocal cords and the sound grated on Bucky’s ears.

“You could have saved me” he squeezed harder, and Bucky was left speechless as he was pushed into the mud further and further. He couldn’t stop gasping and wheezing all the while staring into Steve’s eyes

Until finally he had sunk all the way into the mud, and he was drowning in it

At that moment he launched himself out of bed. His fear response sending him bolt upright, his sheet kicked onto the ground accompanied by his blanket. His face was soaked with sweat, and he was breathing so hard he felt like his lungs were being pushed to their limits. He rubbed his hands over his face, and it came away slick, he opened his mouth to breath better, like he had been holding it in.

He stood up and went to the bathroom running the tap and looking down into the sink

This is what he was going to have to live with, this is what his life was going to look like for the next year. In reality and in his dreams. He was going to be stuck with sleeping and waking nightmares filled with death and darkness.

He took handfuls of water and splashed them onto his face to try and clear away the traces of the nightmare. When he looked into the mirror he could see small dark shadows forming under his eyes.

When had they gotten there? Surely not overnight?

He clenched his hands around the sink for a moment before he turned the water off, taking a towel and clearing his skin of the droplets.

He rubbed a hand over his face again and tried desperately to take the memories with him, but it didn’t work. And the fucked up dream his brain had concocted like a movie was plastered on the walls of his mind playing on repeat from every new angle his imagination decided to chip in. The two working in tandem to torment him.

He need a distraction. A big one

He walked back to his room and put on his slacks and his white button up only getting halfway before leaving his room once more and grabbing an old coat off the rack in the hallway. He got the kitchen and made a note so that his mother wouldn’t panic if she woke up and he was gone and left the house without a word.

…

He still hadn’t figured out what he was doing or where he was going by the time he had gotten to the city, so he simply wandered for a while. The sun had barely been up by the time he had left and was now starting to glimpse through the sides of the buildings, not yet high enough to fully shine on the streets below.

He was still thinking about his dream, and more importantly the version of Steve from that dream. And now more than ever he knows how doomed he was. He hadn’t even left and here he was dreaming about Steve

He just couldn’t let it go could he, he couldn’t get the message through his fucking head

Steve wasn’t gay, there was no hope for them. So why did he keep waiting expecting something to change. It’s like he bought a white flower and expected it to miraculously bloom into hues of pink; it just wasn’t going to happen.

And just like that he knew where he needed to go. He made a turn at the next street and let his feet carry him straight to Edward’s bar.

If he couldn’t get his own mind off of Steve, then he would have to have someone else do it for him.

He went straight inside this time, not waiting outside like he usually does. It was still the early hours, but this place always seemed to be open with people coming in and out at all times.

He tried to relax, to breathe calmly and to force away the thoughts that were making him anxious. He went to sit down but was stopped dead in his tracks by a familiar face, one he was so grateful to see in this moment.

Hovering by the bar was Gordon, his blonde hair swept back over his head, it was longer than Bucky had remembered. He was still tall, but he was stockier now, muscles clear through his clothing. Bucky tried not to stare. When he approached Gordon at the bar he didn’t seem to recognise him at first. He must have change too. They had been fresh out of high school the last time the two had seen each other. Gordon’s eyes were still bright green. He stared into those eyes enough to remember them clearly.

“Buck is that you?” he said when he had finally recognised him

The two had embraced and Bucky felt quite emotional over seeing him again. He hadn’t known if he would.

The conversation flowed easily between the two of them. Bucky mentioned his enlistment and Gordon gave only the briefest details about his own enlistment. Neither of them wanted to dwell on that. But as the conversation moved on Gordon got closer to Bucky and he remembered where they were, and why the two of them had been here in the first place.

The space between them suddenly felt small and warm

“You know I thought about you while I was gone” Gordon said, his hand caressing Bucky’s hip

“Is that so?” Bucky hummed

He had thought about Gordon as well, the memories and the curiosity of his fate slipping into his mind from time to time

“Are you thinking about me now?” Bucky said, fliting with Gordon

“Mmhmm” Gordon hummed, slightly absent as he looked Bucky up and down

“Well-“ Bucky looked around gesturing to the building they were standing in with his eyes “-no better time or place” he shrugged as he finished his sentence, smirking at Gordon

The two of them stood from the bar and walked to one of the further back rooms. One without a sign on the door.

And one that had a bed

Gordon hooked the sign on the door and began undoing the buttons of his own shirt, Bucky walked backwards the two fumbling together onto the bed.

Bucky lay on his back on the bed as Gordon crawled on top of him and just like that, he was a teenager again, with the hottest guy on school grounds in between his legs.

The two were kissing and Bucky was hanging off Gordon with his arms around his neck. Gordon’s hands were sliding up and under Bucky’s shirt. His lips parted from Bucky’s for a moment to ask the same question he had every time they had met when they were teens

“What do you want?”

And in the moment Bucky’s chest clenched but he went on kissing Gordon again and again before he finally answered already a little out of breath

“To forget”

…

Gordon did help him to forget, and by the time he walked out of Edward’s bar he hardly remembered why he was awake so early in the morning.

Deciding he had nothing better to do in the city he began walking back home. His mind officially distracted with new memories and thoughts that were much more pleasant than the ones he had left home with.

But as he was walking down the street, he ran into someone unexpected, and he did literally run into them. He was looking at his feet whilst he walked so he didn’t see them until it was too late only to look up and come face to face with Bonnie.

He steadied her as the two of them stumbled tripping over each other’s feet and she looked surprised to see him

“Oh Bucky?! You’re back” she seemed genuinely overjoyed to see him and even gave him a tight squeeze

“Ah- I’m sorry” she covered her mouth with her hand, her cheeks turning read from embarrassment

He didn’t mind at all though, he was equally as happy to see her

“How are you?” he asked “How is Connie?”

“Oh we’re just fine, work has only just started slowing down at the enlistment office and now I don’t know what to do with myself”

The two talked for a while, stepping off the middle of the sidewalk under the awning of the shop. Catching up as if they had been old friends for years

“-but it’s been really hard for the two of us to go out at times. We just want to be able to do all the same things as the other couples and... well neither of us have the best restraint” she giggles quietly

“We want to go and see the science fair that’s been set up across the city. Apparently they are going to be show casing something from Mr Stark, he has a new invention, and we are so excited to go and see it. We’re just a little worried is all- “

Bucky understood her paranoia, when you had something to hide it felt like the whole world was watching even if there was no way for it to actually know, then a bright idea formed inside his head

“Maybe I could escort you and Connie, make it seem like a double date”

Her face seemed to light up “Really? You don’t have to do that”

He shrugged and smiled at her “I like science and if it means that the two of you can go on a date and have an alibi then I’m happy to do it”

She seemed to consider him for a moment

“I could come and pick your up from your houses, act like I’m your date for the night and I can come along and third wheel whilst you two spend the night together. I can even bring along my friend to make it seem more convincing” he offered trying to convince her further

“You are too kind. That would be so helpful for us”

And just like that Bucky had organised to meet Bonnie and Connie at the addresses she had written down for him the day after tomorrow night, he also now just had to que Steve in on what he had been dragged along to without his knowing. He was sure it was going to be fine. Besides he had promised a full day to Steve whilst he was on leave.

…

When he got back to his house he found a message from Steve recorded on their home phone answering machine. And suddenly a pit of guilt for what he had done this morning opened up in his stomach, but like always he ignored it. He was acting as if he had cheated on Steve or something. Which was ludacris.

Steve had left a message to tell him that he had found the times for the movie they were planning on seeing, just like they agreed, and to meet for it the day after tomorrow at the theatre by 12 o’clock.

And in this moment Bucky forgot all about his enlistment with the military, his training a week prior and his nightmare that had woken him mere hours ago. He felt like he had all the time in the world and the whole of Brooklyn in the palm of his hand. He felt like a carefree kid again whose every day was spent side by side with his family and his best friend.

He was happy, at least for now.

Chapter Text

On his third day off he remembered that he had to fix up his uniform now that he had been suddenly and surprisingly promoted. A role he was sure would have been better suited for someone else, that had been given to him.

Clearly his reluctance to be apart of the great American military had gone unnoticed. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing he didn’t know.

Deciding it was easiest if he wore the uniform he made his way to the enlistment office once more, just like he had that fateful day all those months ago.

But this time he got a lot more looks, a lot more stares from people and even a few salutes from some kids running across the street. It was strange. Like his presence commanded attention and a level of respect. It made his brain itch in a way that was uncomfortable

He didn’t feel proud of this uniform like they probably believed they did, and he wasn’t doing it for his own satisfaction of the attention. He was just there to do a job, nothing more. He was wearing this uniform because the American government had deemed it necessary for him to do so, not because he felt pride for fighting in a war filled with such needless violence.

He was grateful when the doors of the enlistment office closed behind him and he was left with nothing but him and the receptionist sitting behind the desk. She was different than the one he had first met but he hadn’t expected to run into her twice.

She was an older woman who had red curls tied up with a headband holding the rest of her hair back from her face. She too had red lipstick on and looked rather concerned with a sheet of paper she was looking over, comparing it with another she had laid out on the desk under neath her hands.

He cleared his throat to get her attention, and she looked up a little shocked, like she had been broken out of a trance

“Oh pardon me sir” her accent was thick, really thick, she sounded from the far south but he couldn’t quite place where from.

“How can I help you?”

“I’m here for a uniform adjustment. I was recently promoted” He felt as though he should have had some more information than that, paperwork or some seal of approval.

“And what was your name?”

“Barnes, James Barnes of the 107^th” she checked her notes again

“Field promotion. Well, this isn’t exactly standard for a new recruit, but I don’t make the rules” she said more to herself than to Bucky

“You’ll just want to head down the hall all the way to the end and make a left”

“Thank you” he said tipping his head to her before following down the hall she had pointed towards

The room was very similar to the one where he had gotten his uniform originally but was less packed, instead filled with patches and metal pins and hats

He introduced himself again to the lady who was working in this room, and she adjusted his uniform accordingly

He was given an extra patch on his sleeve one with three triangles all stacked on top of one another with the bottom most one missing it’s base and he was given a different hat then before. He turned in his old one to have it replaced with a Serge cap that fit much more snuggly than his pervious one had.

She had asked him to remove his jacket, and she had sewed and ironed the patch onto his sleeve in a record speed that he was sure she had developed over her time working here. It looked as though the patch had always been there, the embroidered work looking as if it was stitched fully into the fabric rather than being added later. He pulled it back on and fastened it around the waist with his belt

She also handed him some extra paperwork which told him when and where he had to meet his company after he had been deployed. They were going to England first it seemed

After that was done, he was seen out of the door that was that. A quite unceremonious process if you asked him but that didn’t matter. It’s not like this promotion felt like an award anyway. He wasn’t proud of it, so much so that he had neglected to tell his family about it when he had returned home.

With time to kill he decided to buy a packet of cigarettes and meander around the city streets idly walking nowhere in particular.

He borrowed a light from the man behind the counter he had bought the cigarettes from and took a puff of the smoke.

He didn’t smoke much, but every now and then he missed the hit it would give him and forked over the money for a packet. Another thing he would most likely miss on the front lines, however if the attitude of the men in his company was anything to go by he was sure they would sneak in a pack or two.

And with that the day creeped on and he was left with only his thoughts, today his thoughts turned to something more serious, the strategies and the men he would be in charge of and the orders he would have to give. All the important decision that now rested on his shoulders and would have to be actualised when they were in the field.

His role now was to lead, but he felt it his duty to protect instead.

He knew that his personal biases would get in the way of making movements on the front, but if that meant that good men didn’t go down needlessly then he was happy to take the potential punishment he would face from the higher ups.

They had given him this power, and he was going to use it and his compassion to keep as many men, not soldiers, as many men as he could safe.

Chapter Text

Day four comes by all to quickly for Bucky’s liking. It’s his last day before he’s gone for a year… at least he has something to distract him for the day, keeping his mind on an entertaining task at hand with an old friend and a set of new ones which he was bittersweetly grateful to have.

He spent the morning with his mother, helping her with the crosswords and the puzzles in the back of the newspaper. He took the comics in the meantime and giggled to himself before showing his Mam the printed pictures and then having to explain the joke to her before she finally chuckled to herself.

Becca was already at school so he hadn’t had much time to spend with her this morning, and he probably wouldn’t see her before she went to bed tonight either, but he made a mental note to kiss her goodnight when he got home.

Before he left, he decided to don his uniform hoping that maybe it would give him an edge in convincing Bonnie and Connie’s parents when he went to pick them up, he slipped their addresses into one of the pockets in his uniform so he wouldn’t forget

He decided that instead of walking he would catch the bus to the theatre since it was a little bit far and he wanted to be able to relax and enjoy the scenery. Part of him just wanted the excuse to be lazy because he wouldn’t get much of chance to do that on the front, but in truth he wanted to be on the bus knowing it would stop and start in all his favourite neighbourhoods so he could commit them to memory.

He was acting like it would all be change completely by the time he came back. Surely not much would be different in a year. New York had looked the same as always for years.

He waited at the bus stop that was near the end of the street to find it packed. He should have guessed that it would have been busy, it was a working week after all. Everyone had somewhere to be and something to do. War or not people had to work.

He got on the bus to see that the only free seat was towards the back of the bus, where the partition with the writing ‘coloured section’ was written in large white letters diving the first two thirds from the last third, the other half of the seat was occupied by a coloured woman and he sat down next to her hoping she wouldn’t mind.

But before he could even properly sit down the bus driver was getting out of his seat and trying to get his attention

“Hey mister, just wait I’ll make some room” he then tried to push past Bucky to order the lady sitting in the back of the bus off, despite there being a perfectly good seat right next to her

“No thank you. It’s fine”

“What? I can just kick her off, you can sit right there”

“Why does she deserve to be kicked off? It’s fine thank you” he said more firmly

“But you don’t want to sit next to filth, you’re military surely you have more respect than that”

“There is nothing wrong with it, now please go and do your job and mind your own business”

The man fastens the cap on his head and turns back towards the front of the bus, grumbling to himself and taking off rather harshly from the stop making Bucky stumble slightly as he sits down

As he looks down the aisle, he can see the dirty looks the other passengers are throwing his way, but he ignores them.

Unlike some people it wasn’t that hard for him to be nice, there was nothing different between him and her. Or any of the other people in the back of the bus, other than that fact that she was indeed very beautiful.

He turned to her, keeping his legs close together and sitting as close to the aisle without hanging off it as he could to give her some space. She was getting on in age and her hair was kept up in tighter curls than he usually saw on the other girls around Brooklyn. Her bag with sitting on her lap with her tweet skirt tucked around her knees, she was sitting with all her limbs pulled in she looked slightly nervous.

“I’m sorry about that ma’am. Are you alright?” he says

“Don’t be sugar, it’s not every day I meet such a gentleman” any nervousness seemed to fade from her features, and she smiled at him

“I don’t really see all the point in this if you ask me” he’s sure he probably should have whispered that, but he didn’t care who heard him. It was a ridiculous notion that people had to be segregated just because of their skin and that they could be kicked of public transport at a moment’s notice just because someone white ‘needed the seat more’”

She shook her head and tutted at him “You can’t go around saying things like that now”

He shrugged “You seem like a good person, if I hadn’t sat down her today, I might not have met you” he said turning on his charming smile and flashing his teeth at her

She covered her hand with her mouth, but he could see her smiling underneath it

“Aren’t you just a darling” she said

“I’d like to think my mother raised me right” he responded, because she had

“Where are you headed?” he asked following on with the conversation

“To the florist, I need some flowers for my husband and my sons. And then to the cemetery” she seemed perfectly content as she said this, but the air between them felt no less suddenly sad.

“I’m sorry we’re they-?” he waits for her to finish his sentence

“Both my eldest sons were air force, and my husband was navy. He was killed in Pearl Harbour and my sons’ aircrafts both went missing over the North Atlantic. I still have one of my little boys at home though…” she looked wistful and looked out the window for a moment then turned back to him seemingly having just registered what she had said

“Oh sugar I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be rambling on about these things” she said looking embarrassed, but he wasn’t upset at all

“What were their names” 3 new names he wanted to add to his list

“My husband was Abraham; my sons were Prince and Elija…my son at home is Isaiah”

Abraham, Prince and Elija – that’s 29 names now. He listed them off one by one in his head adding these new trio to the bottom of the mental sheet of paper which he kept these names written on in his mind.

“I’m sorry about your family ma’am”

“It’s quite alright, we’ve all lost people. I’m sure your own mother is worried about you too” she says gesturing to his uniform.

“Uh- yeah she is…” he didn’t follow that up with any other information, he was worried to admit his reluctance to join the war.

He looks out of the window to see that he’s close by to where he needs to be and turns to pull the chord to signal to the bus driver.

“I hope you can get the flowers for your husband and sons. I’m sure they’d appreciate them”

“Well if they can see me from heaven I hope they can. Thank you Mr-“

“You can call me Bucky and you?” he smiles at her again before he stands up and begins to exit the bus, leaving her behind.

“Ann” she returns his smile.

Something as simple as talking to her had put a soft smile on his face he couldn’t seem to get rid of. After being surrounded by violence for so long and knowing he was going to be face to face with more of it in the near future it was still reassuring to know there were good people in the world

When he got off the bus the driver shut the doors behind him the second he had stepped onto the pavement and sped off, he could see the image of the man still scowling at him as the bus rushed past. He sighed and rolled his eyes, securing his own cap on his head.

…

He walked the last few blocks to the theatre and went inside expecting to meet Steve but not seeing him anywhere in the foyer. Instantly he knew something was up. He hoped that maybe Steve had just gone in to sit down in the theatre already so he bought his ticket and a newspaper thinking his mother would need the new addition, the name Stark catching his eyes on the front page. He went to the theatre he was directed to, but when he went inside and couldn’t see Steve anywhere, he knew this is suspicions had been correct. And just like that before he had even sat down, he was rushing out of the theatre and into the street once more.

Steve wasn’t on the street which meant he was probably getting his ass kicked in some alley, and that made Bucky’s heart race and his fists tense.

He had been back for half a week and already he was going to have to pick Steve out of the dirt again

And sure, enough as he made his way to the entrance of the alley he saw the spindly limbs of his best friend covered by a man twice his size and probably more than double his weight.

How the hell had he started this, this time. It was actually becoming impressive

Bucky stalked down the alley, sneaking up on this asshole who thought it was perfectly ok to start beating the shit out of anyone he liked

He grabbed the man by his arm just as he punched Steve, knocking him to the ground again and yanked him up the alley. Putting himself between Steve and the guy.

“Hey! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size”

The man raised his arm and swung for him now aiming right for his face, but Bucky ducked and followed up with a punch of his own his knuckles hitting the man square in the jaw. Something crunched.

Well so far his military training had been good for one thing

And as the man was knocked of balance, spinning slightly from the force of the punch Bucky decides to add insult to injury by kicking the man in the ass sending him stumbling forward. He hoped he liked the taste of shoe leather.

He had a few more things he wanted to say but with the man running with his tail between his legs he decided to just let him go and turn back to the more important party in this fight. Steve

He approached Steve his newspaper still in hand and he looked at his best friend picking himself up out of the trash, both cans were knocked over and dented with what he was sure was a Steve shaped mark.

“Sometimes I think you like getting punched” he said jokingly but he was genuinely starting to believe it

At his feet he saw an envelope and picked it up, slipping his finger between the folds of the paper and opening it to read it

“I had him on the ropes” Steve said dusting off his hands and whipping the blood from his face. He was bleeding from the nose and from the lip. He pressed a hand to his forehead. Probably having an excellent headache from have his teeth knocked in, again.

“How many times is this?” Bucky says realising that the envelope he was opening must have been another set of enlistment form papers

“Oh, you’re from Paramus now? You know it’s illegal to lie on the enlistment form” he said reminding Steve of a fact he already knew and was disregarding

“But seriously Jersey?” he said with mock disgust

Steve seemed to look at him properly now and noticed the new amendments to his uniform he wiped the blood off on the leg of his pants before he fully stood up straight again

“You get your orders?” Steve asks ignoring Bucky’s obvious chastisation of his attempt at enlisting

Bucky looked down at his shoes, Bucky could tell that behind Steve’s brave and determined outlook on their parts in the war that he was just as worried about Bucky leaving as he was. He could see the anxious attachment in the way he eyed his uniform. But Bucky was trying not to bring them down, he didn’t want some of his last hours with Steve to be full of sadness and regret at their parting. He would be back after all. He sighed, took a deep breath in and said,

“107^th Sargent James Barnes, shipping out for England first thing tomorrow” first to England to pick up their allies and then to wherever he was needed next. He tried to ignore the way his ribs clenched around his chest in this moment. That’s not what today was for, he was going to spend his last few hours with his best friend, and he was going to cherish those moments until he could see him again

Steve scoffed and looked down wiping off more of the remaining dirt from his hands.

“I should be going” he said shaking his head

And there it was again, the sudden clenching of his heart and spark of anger in his veins. Steve was so determined to put his life on the line, so eager to face whatever nightmare was waiting for all of them out on the battlefield in the front of the war.

But Bucky was determined to not let any of that get to him.

He could tell that his face had fallen so he picked himself up and smiled at Steve wrapping an arm around Steve’s shoulder pulling him away from the alley

“C’mon man. It’s my last night, gotta get you cleaned up” he takes his hand off of Steve’s shoulder and hands him the newspaper he was holding throwing away the enlistment form over his shoulder. Leaving it and what Steve had said in the alley behind them.

“Why where are we going?” he says fully committing to Bucky’s plans of forgoing the movie, no point now that they’ve definitely missed the start of it

“The future” He answers simply

Steve unfolds the newspaper to fully look at the front cover to see “The World Expedition of ‘Tomorrow’” plastered in black and white ink

“You want to go to a science fair?” he asks a little confused

“Yeah why not, we used to go to these things all the time when we were kids. And there hasn’t been one in ages. Apparently, Mr Stark is helping fund it, something fun for the people to see”

Steve folds the newspaper up again and hands it back to Bucky

“Sure” he says, he seems mildly interested

“You go back home and get some new pants” he says eyeing the blood stains on the beige fabric where Steve whipped his hands and face of the blood “And I’ll see you there in an hour”

Steve looked down at his own pants sighing, he would have to worry about those stains later

"I guess I’ll see you there then”

“Yeah, I’ve got somethings to do first, but I won’t be late this time” he says

And with that the two part ways and promise to meet up on the other side of the city together in an hour

Chapter Text

He decided to pick up Bonnie first thinking that Connie might be a little surprised to see him at first and he needed to check if Bonnie had told Connie what was going on.

He knew roughly where her street was, and it took some searching and then realisng that he was on the wrong side of the road until he found her house. He straightened out his uniform pulling his coat down since it had begun bunching up around his belt and then ringing the door bell and stepping back waiting for someone to answered the door.

He had done this hundreds of times so he put on his usual gentlemanly display and his most charming smile. He took his hat of his head as a sign of respect and held it to his side waiting for what felt like minutes before the door opened.

A man in his late 50s answered the door he was wearing a white tank tucked into a set of pants fastened with a equally as worn leather belt.

“You must be James. It’s about time someone took my daughter out on a date. I was worried she would be unmarried forever at this rate”

Bucky continued to smile but he couldn’t help the way his nerves twitched under his skin, his bluntness was common but no less uncomfortable for him

“Yes sir”

“And you’re a military man, even better. Now she’ll have someone I know is capable of taking care of her” he continued on. Bucky just stood there being respectful and polite even though he was starting to clench the edge of his hat a little too tightly. He hoped Bonnie couldn’t hear all of this, he’s sure she’d heard the same lecture over and over again to the point of making her ears bleed.

“Dad are you bothering James” he heard Bonnie’s voice from behind her fathers figure which was blocking the view to the hallway.

He stepped aside and he could see Bonnie standing there now, her hair in it’s beautiful blonde waves now sat loosely around her shoulders, she had some light eyeshadow on her eyelids and flower shaped earrings in her ears, she wore a pink and blue floral dress. She looked striking and right now Bucky knew that Connie was a really lucky girl

“You look stunning” he said and tipped his head to her and put out a hand for her to take, she blushed and took his hand

“I’ll bring her back by 9 o’clock sir. Safe and sound” he said turning back to her father as she stepped out of the door

“I expect so. Have a goodnight Bonnie” he said kissing her on the head as she walked out the door

He gave Bucky one more pointed look before he shut the door and the two stepped down off the porch and down the drive onto the street.

He offered her his arm and she took it.

“Thank you, and I’m sorry about him”

“It’s fine, he’s just protective of you” he’s sure their dad would have been the same with Becca once she had grown up. And honestly he would be too, he wouldn’t think twice about laying his hands on some punk if he hurt Becca.

“Let’s go get your real date for tonight shall we?”

The two of them walk back to the city to pick up Connie who lived in an apartment complex that smells heavily of smoke and alcohol, it’s very overpowering as soon as they walk in

They find her floor and Bucky knocks on the door, Bonnie standing out of sight but close enough that Connie will see her when she steps through the threshold. This extra bit of secrecy is because their mothers work at the WAF together and they can’t risk them talking

There is some muffled talking behind the door and a woman opens the door this time. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Bonnie step a few feet to the left and press her back against the wall

“I’m James Barnes, I’m here for Connie”

She looked him up and down before turning over her shoulder and shouting for Connie, she had a dirty apron on and a cigarette in hand. She looked generally pissed off

Connie seemed to be at the door in an instant her hair also in looser curls, she was wearing a white cardigan with embroidered flowers over the top of a tweed button up that was tucked into her skirt that was the same colour as her shirt. All held together with a belt buckled around her waist. She was also holding a beige bag on her arm.

He takes off his hat, tips his head to her and offers her his hand to her just like he had with Bonnie, she takes his hand and steps out of the door rather hurriedly

“I promise to bring her back by 9 o’clock” the same promise once more

“Uh-huh” she looks him up and down once more scrutinizing him “At least he’s a soldier” she says to Connie as if Bucky isn’t even there. He doesn’t care.

The door is then shut in their faces

“You look wonderful” he says before guiding her via his hand to turn and looked at Bonnie who is still standing with her back against the wall

He can see Connie’s smile and assumes that Bonnie has the same look on her face of estatic joy and honestly it’s so contagious he can’t help but smile as well

They grab onto each other and hug one another, it’s almost like they haven’t seen each other in more than a few months but he swore Bonnie had mentioned seeing her half a week ago. He thought it was endearing.

Bonnie breaks away from the hug first and grabs Connie by the chin and tilts her head towards her, giving her a kiss on the lips.

“Bonnie! Someone might see us” she whispers.

“No one’s here right now” she gives Connie another kiss and the blush on her cheeks deepened.

Not wanting to intrude on their moment but aware that he is heavily third wheeling at the moment he clears his throat and Bonnie turns back around to look at him.

The two seemed embarrassed but don’t say anything and Bucky doesn’t make mention to it. He’s happy they are happy

“Shall we?” he offers both of them arm and they take one either side of him

…

“So do you have a date coming tonight?” Bonnie asked him

“No not really just my best friend” he said looking at his feet as 6 pairs clacked along the sidewalk in time

“Hmm” she said squinting at him and pursing her lips

“What?” he asks her

“You like him don’t you” she said astutely

“Well I- it’s complicated” he said

“I told you he did” Connie said looking past him at Bonnie

“I didn’t even say anything” he counters

“It’s written on your face when you mention him” she says looking back at him

“I didn’t even say anything” he says again

“Just you wait before the end of the night the two of you will be running off together” she teases him

I wish he thought to himself. He did wish that though, he wished him and Steve could go off some place private and share a moment together just like he was helping Bonnie and Connie to do. But there wasn’t a hope for a moment like that, and he needed to stop letting his heart get ahead of his mind

“It’s…complicated though isn’t it?” Connie says to him

“He’s not like us” Bucky says simply. In response she holds onto his arm tightly

“Maybe one day, and one day soon. You can tell him. And you don’t have to be afraid” she says quietly

He appreciates her comfort but he doesn’t hold out for hope like that…he wants to, his heart desperately aches for it. But it’s not worth dwelling over, he knows he will miss Steve enough as it is without the thoughts of “what if” and “maybe when” he just needs to focus on the here and now, on these last few hours he has with his best friend and his set of new friends

…

When the three of them get to the entrance Bucky spots Steve and tells the girls to go on ahead, he can see a big statue in the distance and tells them they will meet them there. He promises to be quick. The two of them wish him luck though he tells them he doesn’t need it and they walk their separate ways for the time being

He approaches Steve waiting by the entrance gate and hails him, getting his attention. He’s now wearing a brown set of slacks instead of his matching beige ones

“Are you ready?” he asks, Bucky is finally really excited now that he’s here, science wasn’t his best subject in school but it was always the most interesting to him. He wanted to see what new technology was going to shape the world

“Let’s go”

Bucky and Steve walked in together and Bucky mentioned the fact that this was sort of a double date. Steve’s mood seemed to sour a little at that

“Bucky how did you get a girl to come on a double date with me?”

Bucky failed to correct Steve that they were actually more the escorts and the date was happening between the girls but he didn’t have time or the privacy to explain that to him. He’s sure it’ll be fine and if he needs to he’ll pull Steve aside later

“I don’t see what the problem is. You’re about to be the last eligible man in New York. You know there’s three and a half million women here”

“Well I’d settle for just one” Steve says a little glum

“Good thing I took care of that”

Bucky looks around trying to find the girls standing by the statue when he hears Connie call out to him from directly ahead of them.

They wave to each other to confirm they got each others attention. Bonnie is leaning over and whispering something conspiratorially in Connie’s ear which she only seems to respond to with a nod of her head

“What did you tell her about me” Steve says and Bucky can hear the apprehension in his voice

A little faith please he feels like saying to Steve but instead he says “Only the good stuff”

He watches as Steve fixes his hair as they approach the girls.

He introduces them to Steve and the four of them head into the more crowded area of the expo looking left and right at all the exhibits wondering where they should go first.

Tonight was looking good and Bucky couldn’t help the grin that refused to wipe itself from his face in these moments

Chapter Text

Towards the end of the night the group ended up making their way to the Stark Expo that had been announced over the intercom several times throughout the night and each time Connie had gotten so excited she started shaking Bonnies hand. She didn’t let go of Bucky all throughout the night thought, it was clear she was still anxious

The same feeling that he always had, like someone would know what you were hiding by you just existing in public, even though friendships between women was a very common and normal occurrence.

He obliged her and just hoped that Bonnie wouldn’t secretly come after him in his sleep. Which was only sort of a joke

When it was finally announced that Mr Stark would be presenting his exhibit Connie had bounced on the balls of her feet and began pulling them towards it

“Oh my god, it’s starting!” she and Bonnie ran forward and she dragged Bucky with her, leaving Steve to follow behind them, he seemed only half interested

Connie pulled them through the crowd to the front of the group just as it began and Bucky watched just as eagerly as the presentation girls started their routine and Mr Howard Stark himself walked onto the stage

His presentation began and he started to talk about the concept of flying cars and Bucky could feel his eyebrows rising into his head as his excitement and wonder grew

The music in the background began to play an upbeat suspenseful tune as Mr Stark began pushing on a lever and the car began to rise from the ground on it’s own. Bucky was transfixed by this watching as light accumulated near the undercarriage of the car as it began to float

“Holy cow”

He was sure the impressed expression on his face was mirrored by everyone else standing around them, they must look like a copy and paste of each other in one mass group. But how could they not? The car was flying

But then something sparked and the car fell to the ground once more, he heard the sound of surprised echoed from a few voices around the pavilion

“I did say a few years didn’t I?” Mr Stark says to cover his mishap on stage, but none of the viewers seemed to mind much, they were simply impressed that it had been done in the first place. He looked back at Steve to see if they had seen the same incredible feat of technological advancement. The crowd began clapping and Mr Stark closed out his show before Bucky had an idea

“You ladies want to go dancing?” he asked them leaning closed to Connie so Bonnie could hear

The two of them shook their heads in unison

“Hey Steve why don’t you say we treat these girls to-“

He smiled and turned around to ask Steve but when he turned Steve wasn’t there.

Where the hell had he gone?

He looked around through the crowd thinking maybe Steve has slipped between some passing people and had gotten lost amongst their feet but he couldn’t see him anywhere, why was he always slipping off? He couldn’t have one night where Steve just stuck around or didn’t get into a fight could he?

“Girls I’ll be back, Steve’s gone missing again” he said to them over the sounds of the crowd around them

“Again? You mean he always does things like this” Bonnie said

“I’m constantly chasing him” he said jokingly “You go find the dance floor I’ll catch up to you” he waved the girls off and then stepped through the crowd looking for Steve

“No, we’ll come with you” Connie said and with that the three of them walked off

What he had said slowly registered and he felt himself sink. He was always chasing after Steve wasn’t he, ever since the war started it felt like Steve was always occupied with something to do with it. Even when it was miles away on a different shore he was still thinking about how he was going to get there. It made Bucky feel like even more of a coward but it also made him angry.

In a few hours he would be gone to who knows where and Steve couldn’t just give him a few hours of his attention

As he wandered back out of the pavilion he found something he knew would have pulled Steve’s attention in instantly. A Registration Office

Seriously? He felt like this whole building was here just to spite him

“Wait here” he said to the girls and rushed off inside

He walked inside and found Steve, standing with his back to him on one of the posters that lit up your face to be seen in the reflection

He held in a sigh he wanted to breath down the back of Steve’s neck like usual and got his attention by grabbing his shoulder instead

“Come on, your kind of missing the point of a double date, we’re taking the girls dancing” he tried to rearrange his face into something that anything but the combination of disheartened and pissed off he felt

“You go ahead I’ll catch up with you” Steve says and Bucky has to bite his tongue not to say something snarky

He looks at the sign for registration on the wall above Steve’s head and he scoffs to himself. Why couldn’t Steve let it rest, just for one night, if it mattered to him that much he could sign himself up to get killed when Bucky couldn’t do anything about it but he was doing it right under Bucky’s nose like he had to prove a point, it made him so angry

“You’re really going to do this again?” he asks

“Well it’s a fair I’m going to try my luck”

“As who Steve from Ohio? They’ll catch you, worse they’ll actually take you”

“Look I know you don’t think I can do this-“ but Bucky cuts him off

“This isn’t a back alley Steve, it’s war”

“I know it’s a war-“ but Bucky cuts him off again

“Why are you so keen to fight there are so many important jobs?”

“What do you want me to do? Collect scrap metal in my little red wagon?”

“Yes!-” Bucky shouts, their conversation becoming heated.

Bucky is getting mad now and he can’t control the anger and hidden fear he feels for Steve. His stubborn headed determination is going to get him killed and Bucky doesn’t want to come back from the war to the only thing he has left of Steve being an empty grave

“-why not?”

“I’m not going to sit in a factory Bucky. Bucky!-“ Steve raising his own voice at him shuts him up quickly. He bites his lip to stop himself from yelling back again

 “-come on, there are men laying down their lives. I got no right to do any less than them. That’s what you don’t understand, this isn’t about me”

Bucky has a million things he wants to say. Steve doesn’t need to be the same as every other eligible man in Brooklyn, he doesn’t need to be the next body on the battle field, he doesn’t need to be so determined to put himself in a place that is going to kill thousands maybe even millions. It probably already has

In a way he admires Steve’s determination to do good and help in the way he see’s best, but it’s washed away by the wave of fury he feels. Because in his eyes it seems like Steve is disregarding his life, he knows he isn’t strong enough and he might not have “any less right than they do” but that doesn’t mean he should. He refuses to lose Steve be he knows as soon as he gets on that train again tomorrow there is nothing he can do or say to stop whatever the hell Steve does next. It angers him…and it frightens him. Because Steve is doing everything in his power to take himself away from Bucky. And it hurts

It causes a pain to well up in his chest and bubble over like boiling pot spilling the scorching water all over his own hands.

Instead he says “Right, because you’ve got nothing to prove”

The two seem to hit a verbal stalemate and stand there looking at each other

Steve is looking at Bucky with determination, he needs Bucky to understand this. He may have said that this wasn’t about him. But part of it was, deep down he did need to prove himself but more importantly he needed to help. He was desperate to help the people who couldn’t help themselves because he was just like them. He wanted to look out for the little guys in life and right now the military and it’s training seemed like the only way he could do that

Bucky looked forlornly at Steve, knowing he was defeated, the anger in his veins fizzled out into a dull ache that made him feel tired. He didn’t want to fight with Steve, not here and not now. Not in his last few hours

“Hey Sarge? Are we going dancing?” he heard Connie call from just outside, he turns back to her and shouts

“Yes we are” and gives her a smile before turning back to Steve, his smile fades again almost instantly and he shakes his head

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back” is all he can seem to say, it’s the last thing he can give Steve before his voice becomes a memory and Steve will make whatever ill advised choice he wants, he begins to walk away when Steve responds

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you” and that makes Bucky laugh

He stops, a half a second of a moment passes and he knows this is it, Steve isn’t going to catch up with them and he isn’t going to stop…

Bucky walks back to him and opens his arm in an embrace “You’re a punk”

Steve hugs him back just as tightly “Jerk”

Bucky doesn’t want to let go but the hug is fleeting and more than anything wants to just pick Steve up and carry him all the way to the dance floor. But he doesn’t, and he won’t. He knows he never could. So many things and people had taken away Steve’s ability to choose. He wouldn’t be one of those things

“Be careful” Bucky smiles and turns to leave, it’s not like he will have much of a say

“Don’t win the war till I get there”

He turns for the last time, giving Steve a salute before turning his back to him and walking down to the girls.

This was the last moment he would see Steve, for a very long time

Chapter Text

Steve watches as Bucky’s back fades into the crowd of moving bodies and eventually he gets lost. He doesn’t look for long, he feels like he might forget about enlisting and walk after Bucky just to spend a few more hours with him.

But that’s the whole reason he’s enlisting. A reason he never told anyone. Not even Bucky

When the war first started, he wanted to enlist to fight like his Dad, to help people like his Mum had done. He didn’t have the training to be a nurse and he was already sickly enough as it is one bad cough from a patient would have done him in, but he thought at the very least he could be a soldier. He would put his body to work to save people and to fight the important battles on the front line. It’s what his Dad did and it’s what he was desperately trying to do

But when he found out Bucky had enlisted, that knowledge had slowly altered his reasoning for wanting to join the fight. He would still do it for the same reason his Dad had…but him and Bucky had never done anything alone, not when they didn’t have to. It was the two of them until the end of the line, it always would be. But now, the war was tearing them apart. Drawing them apart through duty and hardship and a need to help those who can’t help themselves.

Steve had been proud when Bucky had come to tell him the news, but later that night he had hyperventilated himself into a stupor because his best friend was being taken away from him. The only person he had left and the person he loved the most was being pried from his weak hands, he couldn’t do anything to keep Bucky here and now no one was letting him follow Bucky onto the front lines.

And the anger that sat permanently in his chest like a brick because of that fact. Making his asthma seem like nothing in comparison.

That’s why he was enlisting whenever he got the chance, whenever he had time to fill the paper work out over again, get the medical and bring all his information to the registration office. Because there was no way he was going to sit idly by whilst he let Bucky walk off into the jaws of death and leave him behind, maybe forever. He can’t be left behind. Bucky never left him behind. And it wasn’t Bucky’s fault now, but it was happening regardless and nothing could sway Steve’s insistent need to register.

He would follow Bucky through thick and thin just like he had done from him all of these years. It was his time to do something good, something heroic and he wanted to do it alongside Bucky.

If he could save lives and lessen the suffering in the world he would do it, because that’s what was right. But he wanted to do it by Bucky’s side.

He didn’t want to sit on his ass and have Winifred show up to tell him his best friend had died in some ditch on the other side of the world and never see him again

He thought meekly that he should be with Bucky now just in case, he could register any other time but right now he should be with Bucky…but like he said it’s a fair, he might as well try his luck.

Because some doctor here might actually give him a pass and then he can be by Bucky’s side for the next year.

It’s not like he had anyone back home to miss him. The only man who would miss him was walking further away from him into a crowd with two girls on his arms.

Bucky wished he was there, that was the whole damn point of him coming tonight but here he was wasting his last few hours on a gamble of maybe being able to join Bucky in the future rather than actually being with Bucky because he was so hung up on the fact the he couldn’t stand to let Bucky go

But not only that…if Bucky were to die, he couldn’t stand the thought of Bucky dying alone.

Laying in a broken heap as he bled to death on some God forsaken battle field slowly watching as whatever sky he could see went dark around the edges. As he laid their in pain waiting for it to end or hoping he would be saved in time knowing he would be a lost cause either way.

Steve had nightmares about similar scenarios and the fear of Bucky dying alone consumed him to the point of breaking him

That’s why he had to enlist, it’s why he had to join Bucky on the front. He couldn’t allow that night in Bucky’s room be the last one he ever had. He couldn’t just let that realty fade to memory. He had more memories, more time, more things to do with Bucky that they hadn’t done yet

He cursed Hitler and everyone involved for starting this whole mess and taking Bucky away from him.

The right thing to do was to fight but sometimes he wish he didn’t have to.

He cursed his body silently for being the way it was. Frail and weak, always aching and never giving him the space to catch his breath. No matter how badly he hoped he knew no sane medical examiner would allow him onto the front lines. He knew that if he was sent on to the front lines he would be little more than canon fodder. And he hated it, it made his blood boil and his teeth grind. He wasn’t weak, his body just wasn’t a match for his spirit.

He wasn’t going to do some behind the lines job that could be done by anyone, he needed to fight. He needed to protect people, he needed to stop all the horrible things going on around the world and he wanted to do it by his side.

At least that way, if it came to it, Bucky wouldn’t die alone and Steve wouldn’t be left to fear for his life inside an air raid shelter.

He had fight in him, a will and spirit that was unwavering no matter what his body may have been. And he was damned if he was going to let anyone, even Bucky, stop him from proving that to himself

Because it wasn’t for anyone else, it was for himself. He wanted to prove to himself that he could do it

Chapter Text

He swallowed hard, a lump settling in his chest, pushing on his Adam’s apple and closing his throat. It’s fine, this is fine. He’s fine

Steve’s just being stubborn, like usual. He should have expected this anyway. It’s on him for not thinking about Steve and the fact that he would take his chance to enlist even if it was Bucky’s last night in New York for a year. Why should that matter? He shouldn’t have expected any different from Steve’s stubborn ass

He walks back to the girls trying to hold his head up and keep his back straight, walking like a soldier ought to but all he wanted to do was slump over.

He didn’t look back, he couldn’t. If he did, he might have turned around and picked Steve up by the scuff of his neck and dragged him with him. He wasn’t going to impede on Steve’s free will, but he was so close to forgoing that moral to carry Steve with him the rest of the night, slinging him over the shoulder like the boys do their drunk dates to walk them home, if it meant Steve didn’t try to sneak off, he would do it.

But instead, he just walked towards the girls. Looking at them and trying to save face. But he felt so numb inside he couldn’t even tell what his face looked like. But their mutual reaction gave him a good enough indication.

“He’s not coming?” Bonnie asked

All Bucky could do was sigh and shake his head

They both frowned at him but not wanting to ruin their night he forced himself to smile

“I promised you both a dance, didn’t I? Let’s go dancing” Anything, anything at all to take his mind off this. He would do it for them, keep them safe and get his mind, as well as his body, as far away from Steve as he could.

That would be the last memory he had of Steve for an entire year…

He felt like throwing up, he wanted to sink to his knees as his internalised shaking threatened to seep outwards and rock him to his core.

But instead, like a soldier, he walks. Offering his arms to both girls as they headed towards the open pavilion near the bar at the edge of the fair

Right now, without even being close to a battle ground, without Steve by his side and his uniform on his back he felt more like a soldier than Bucky Barnes. And that thought ate at his heart, tearing the tiny shreds of it into even smaller pieces.

“Bucky? Bucky?!” Someone was saying his name, and he felt his arm rocking slightly and he looked to see Connie on his arm looking up at him, her big brown eyes full of worry

“Oh” he blinked “I’m sorry. I was lost in my own head hah” he tried to laugh it off, but her expression of worry didn’t soften

“I can tell. You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” she asks, like the answer was etched onto his face

“I can’t help it” he says sincerely.

He never got to talk about these feelings with anyone and right now he was desperate to spill his guts, to just be honest. He wished he was telling Steve the things he was about to tell them.

“He’s stubborn and he’s too righteous for his own good. It’s what’s so admirable about him. But just for one night I wish he would let me be selfish”

He sighs when he says it, as if he doesn’t spend almost every free moment by Steve’s side.

“I’m never going to be able to tell him how I feel, and I don’t know how long I will last before it kills me inside”

I might die before I even see the battlefield at this rate is what he wanted to say but he didn’t want to bring the girls down with him

“He’ll come around eventually. When you get back, we’ll see to that” Bonnie chimes in

“Bonnie, it’s not-“

“Ah shush. Sometimes all it takes a little push” she’s referring to the fact that not everyone “knows” until something happens, but Bucky thinks that if he doesn’t know now it’s not like he will suddenly know later. And even if he does, he doubts it will work out. Steve is his best friend; they weren’t ever going to change.

Steve would never change.

And neither could he

Steve could never love him the way he wanted, and he could never stop loving Steve with all of his heart.

Connie tugs on his arm again as she pulls him closer, her words more sympathetic and less optimistic than Bonnie’s “I’m sorry Bucky”

Realising that the mood between the three of them has dropped significantly he tries to pull himself together, standing a little straighter from where he slouched. Walking with more purpose from when he had slowed to a dawdle.

“We can worry about me and my problems another night. I promise you gals I would take you dancing. So I will” he smiles at them both as they reach the pavilion filled with lights and a decked floor made of wood. The bar was at the very back and the place was absolutely packed with bodies of dancing people who were slowly growing more intoxicated as the night moved on.

The music had changed a little bit since the war had started, a lot of the lyrics had something to do with the goings on in the wider world. But he still liked the sway of the rhythm and the way the chorus girls would sing and hum and whistle in unison.

Bonnie and Connie let go of his arms and he spun them around letting them take each other hands as they began to dance to the music. A song he recognised from the radio “A Hot Time In The Town of Berlin” which was jazzy and upbeat. Bucky bopped to himself around the girls as they danced together hand in hand, they smiled and laughed and turned to him before pulling him into them and the three of them were dancing together

Bonnie took Bucky by the hands as the next song instantly started playing and they danced stepping back and forth before he spun her around and turned offering a hand to Connie doing the same few moves with her before he led her in the dance back to Bonnie and they were hand in hand once more.

This little routine happened a few times as the 3^rd 4^th and 5^th song started playing and the three of them were giddy and stumbling around happily.

Bucky excused himself from the two of them as the music slowed down into something calmer. He walked to the bar ordering a whiskey for himself.

But as he decided to sit and rest for a moment the happy feeling melted away almost instantaneously; his thoughts were back on Steve. The fact that he wasn’t here dancing with them. The fact that he was off who knows where, probably not even thinking about Bucky only worrying about how he was going to cheat and lie on the forms.

And now he was mad again, he was angry at the same thoughts that circulated in his mind. These thoughts, for the last few months, were as permanent as the moon rotating around the Earth. They were here to say and no matter when he thought these thoughts they were always the same. The same pattern the same wave of emotions coming and going.

He was mad at Steve for being gone, then he chastised himself for being mad because Steve had every right to do whatever he wanted and if he was determined to join the war, who was Bucky to stop him. And then he was sad knowing that no matter what happened him and Steve would be apart, for the longest time they had been since they first met. For the first time ever really.

Bucky didn’t know if the letters he would receive, if he did receive them, would be enough. They weren’t the same as the real person even if with his writing and his voice in Bucky’s mind and his essence. Any letter he would get wouldn’t have Steve’s eyes or, his golden blonde hair or his laugh or his smile or his strong will or-

And Bucky lost himself in thinking about Steve. Thinking about what he cherished, what he would miss, what he wishes he could or could say that he knew he never would. The clamouring of the bar faded away, all the people and everything that filled up the world seemed to fade away. It was just him and his thoughts, and they were chasing themselves around his head.

It wasn’t until he heard a sound of distress that he snapped out of his stupor and spun in his chair, his cup empty. When had he drunken it all?

He looked over the dance floor looking for Bonnie and Connie only to find a man crowding over the two of them

“She told you she’s not interested” He saw, more than heard, Bonnie say

The man laughed and went to put his hand somewhere. But Bucky didn’t wait to see where. He left his drink and rushed over to the two of them. Squeezing himself between Bonnie and Connie, who he could see were clutching each other’s hands in the small space between them.

“Hey! They told you to back off” he puts his hand on the man’s chest, he was a little taler than Bucky but that doesn’t sway him. The bigger the aggressor the more it egged him on to fight back.

Another inconvenient trait he learned from Steve

When he spoke his words a little slurred, and when he leant down to speak in Bucky’s face, he could taste the rancid alcohol in the air. He couldn’t help but cough

“Oh M’sorry…” he checked the side of Bucky’s uniform for his identification badge “…Sarge. Meant no offense. Didn’t realise these ladies were spoken for” he burped and all three of them screwed up their nose

“You don’t mind if I borrow one of them though, do ya? They’re in good ‘ands. I promise” he says as if they are Bucky’s to hand around. Like he owns them. The premise makes him feel sick.

“I do actually. And she already told you no” he says pointedly giving the man a small but solid shove

The man stumbles a bit before burping again “Mm you think you’re so tuff huh? Just because you’re a soldier? I bet I could take you on” and then he raised his fists

Why does it always have to end in a fight. Just take no for an answer and piss off

“Fine, have it your way” Bucky steps into the man’s space and swings first. Clearly, he had more to drink than Bucky thought because he doesn’t block or dodge his oncoming attack and Bucky punched him square in the jaw and he went down. He could see he had a split lip and he was licking at the wound.

Not waiting for whatever happened next Bucky grabbed the girls and walked them right out of the pavilion. He wasn’t going to let this asshole ruin their night. Thinking he could just do whatever he wanted without asking and then talking to Bucky like he owned them. Like it was his decision what they did. And his assumption that his unform meant he was ready to start fights because he could

He shouldn’t have hit that guy…but he would have swung first, and he didn’t need the guy getting to the girls.

“Are you two alright? What did he do?”

He could see now that Connie had tears staining her face making her mascara run.

“He…grabbed me” she said

“Pawed you more like” Bonnie corrects angrily. He realises it’s her that he had grabbed

Once they have moved away from the pavilion and were away from the slowly dissipating crowd he turned to them both properly and asked again

“Are you alright” he looked to Connie first, wiping the tears from her face and stopping the mascara from spreading

She breathed deeply and wiped away the rest of the tears taking some of her makeup with her “Yeah. I’m okay”

He then turned to Bonnie but before he could even ask her she waved him off “I’m fine Bucky. But I might have taken his eyes out if you hadn’t stepped in”

He let go of her arm by now and instead huddled by them.

“Do you think you two are ready to go home?” he doesn’t have a wristwatch on him but he’s sure it’s late enough. And he’s learnt enough times about bringing girls home later in his youth to not want to risk getting chased off a property by another disgruntled father

Both of them nodded and the trio turned to leave the pavilion.

…

As they walked home heading towards Connie’s house first the two danced and walked simultaneously to some imaginary tune in their heads. Bucky watched as they walked and span arm in arm and smiled softly to himself

He started thinking of one of his favourite songs and began to hum the tune under his breath as they walked

“I didn’t take you for a singer Barnes” Bonnie calls back to him

“I’m not” he responds

“Come on. Sing us a tune” she pushes him

Before he can object Connie chimes in “You wouldn’t deny a girl a song to dance to would you Bucky?”

“Wow didn’t realise I was running my own one man show for the two of you” he chuckles, feeling pressured but obliging them anyway

I don’t want to set the world on fire. I just want to start, a flame in your heart~

He began to sing and hum the song softly as the two of them continued to dance, and he focused on the left-right of his feet as his poor rendition of a song played from his vocal cords like a radio antenna.

And before long they were at Connie’s apartment and Bonnie and Bucky were wishing her goodbye

“What don’t I get a goodnight kiss?” Bonnie asked

“Bonnie-“

Bucky looked around for them, like a bodyguard or a scout. “No one’s here” he smirked

Connie pursed her lips and Bonnie took her moment of hesitation to kiss her, and Connie turned deep red

She wished Bonnie and Bucky goodnight and the two walked off

“Thank you for…for everything Bucky” she said softly once they had walked a few blocks in comfortable silence

“You really don’t have to-“

“But I really do. You don’t understand. Me and Connie haven’t been able to do anything and feel so safe like we have tonight. You gave us a space to be us for tonight…we got to feel like normal lovers for one night”

And if Bucky’s heart didn’t ache a little bit at her confession he’d by lying

“You are normal. There is nothing wrong with people like us. We’re just different, but that isn’t a bad thing” he said firmly

But when he heard the words, he really felt them, at least in the moment. Because there wasn’t anything wrong with them, and he was so mad for thinking that there was for so long. Everyone else might see I that way, but he didn’t see why she had too as well.

Eventually they made it back to the quitter suburbs where Bonnie lived, she hesitated before opening her front door turning back to Bucky. He smiled politely waiting for her to say or do whatever she was going to do and was half ready when she embraced him

Her hands came up under his arms to hold onto his shoulders and she pressed her slightly deflated curls into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her in turn, and they stayed like that for a few seconds.

“Thank you, so much Bucky…please make sure we can see you again”

A small sound threatened to escape his throat. Was it a sob, a gasp, a laugh? A combination of them? He didn’t know but he didn’t let it out.

“I’ve got a lot of people to come home to” he says, it’s not quite a whole response but it’s all he can muster. He’s already made enough promises he can’t keep. But she seemed to get what he meant in what he wasn’t actually saying.

“Goodbye Bucky”

“Goodbye Bonnie”

Chapter Text

Bucky got home an hour later, and stumbled inside, his mother still sitting at the dinner table in dimly lit light, there was a cup of tea beside her, the cup was still mostly full…and cold.

She had a pen in her hand and a newspaper open in front of her but there was no writing on it.

“Mam why are you still up?”

“Oh James, I wanted to make sure you got home safely” she said standing up.

“How did your night go? How was Steven” she asked walking over to him

“It was fine. Steve was good. The girls were good” he said, all true but blunt in a way that felt unlike him. And his mother could tell

The two of them stood there at a stalemate, neither saying anything or feeling brave enough to move. Sleep was an afterthought right now he just wanted to sit with her until the sun began to rise and pretend that this moment could last forever, frozen in time. Like they were blades of grass in the winter, encapsulated by the thin layer of snow and ice keeping them exactly as they were until the sun thawed them out again.

Very suddenly, with a force that threatened to push him to his knees he was overwhelmed with fear. It came on in a rush, one swift motion that swept his feet out from underneath him. He leant forward pressing his face into his mother’s shoulder and he felt warm tears well in his eyes

“Mam I’m so scared” he said as he heaved in a breath, he was shaking, the shaking that threatened him before became like a promise. They were here and they were rattling his body as he clung to his mother. He felt like a boy again running to his mother for help when things got tough.

But she couldn’t save him this time, she couldn’t kiss his scraped knees, couldn’t wipe away his tears, couldn’t’ t bandages his bloody knuckles, couldn’t do anything to take the fear and pain away this time. A mother’s love did much but it couldn’t save him from a war

“Oh James, baby” she pulls him close, he had tried so hard to be strong, she could tell but now, with everything about to change he couldn’t hold it in, and she’s glad that he didn’t. She didn’t know when he would ever be able to fully be himself again and she wanted to give him this moment.

“You will survive; you will. I know you will. You have your father’s spirit and bravery like I have never seen. I know you will do what’s right and I know you will find us again”

She caresses the back of his head as he keeps his face buried in the crook of her shoulder. He just wants to be safe; he wants to be home. He doesn’t want anything to take him away from his life. From his freedom, from his choice.

But it is, he feels like a babe being ripped from his mother’s arms. Not feeling her warmth or her love to keep him strong. Everything that he ever considered his lifeline is being taken from him and he just can’t stand it. He can’t.

“You can do this” she said, as if she had read his thoughts “But not if you don’t sleep”

There was the mother he knew, he sighed and pulled his head up, his eye socket felt sticky with unshed tears. She ran her hands over his face swiping away the tears clinging to his eyelashes. She kissed him on the cheek and then took him by the hand walking him down the hall

“I will be here for you, always. I will be with you until the last moment tomorrow and I will be right here when you come back”

He squeezed his mother’s hand and he couldn’t bring himself to a full smile, they part ways at his bedroom door and Bucky want’s more than anything to follow her to her room and curl up into her side like he did when he was a kid. But he was afraid if he did that he would never leave, he didn’t know if his brain could bring his body to move away from her comfort and her safety.

He goes into his room and takes of his uniform; he wants to rip if it off his body but knows the potential reprimand would not be worth it if his uniform was damaged. His duffle bag sat at the end of his bed, his clean clothes hanging off the edge of the bed above it. He took them and shoved them into the bag replacing them with a folded dress uniform and went to bed in his boxers.

He knew whatever he would do now he couldn’t sleep so he instead picked up his copy of The Hobbit and opened to the front page. He couldn’t remember where he left off in his last re-read and just wanted to go through the whole story again. Maybe he could be sucked into the pages if he tried hard enough and spend a peaceful life in Erebor rather than fighting people on the front lines of war that had nothing to with him.

Time went on but after he got distracted by his own thoughts reading the same line over for the 5^th time he discarded the book back to the same place on his bedside table making a mental note to grab it in the morning and turned off the light rolling over onto his side, pulling the covers up to his waist.

All of his thoughts were cloudy but vaguely similar, dark, terrifying and worse than the previous each time. Something else, some horrific image or some terrible prediction came into his head. It’s like he was torturing himself on purpose, his brain trying to one up itself by thinking something exponentially worse with each passing moment.

But eventually the darkness behind his eyes actually did fade to black and he gave in to sleep.

Sleep

Restless sleep

A sleep filled with nightmares that gave him cold sweats. Sleep that made him toss and turn and shake

He was dreaming of gun shots, pools of bloods, dead eyes and hallowed breathing. Gasping and rasping, pleas of help, screams of fear and the sounds of violence. Nothing that he could hear or see in his mind made coherent sense all he knew is that he was being pushed around, tripping over his own feet and falling to his knees scraping them.

Something hit him in the face, he knew because his vision suddenly went upwards thought he couldn’t quite feel or comprehend the blow. Something hot hit his ear and something sharp in his chest.

More screaming right beside him, incoherent shouting in a language he didn’t understand and didn’t recognise. Explosions and sprays of dirt, more gun fire – something that sounded semi-automatic

And then English, words he did understand.

“We know what you are!”

“Get him”

“Take him”

“Kill him”

His perspective was blurred on the edges, and he couldn’t see what was swarming him. He was being kicked around, dust being kicked up and leather capped shoes meeting his face over and over. He felt dizzy as his head connected with the ground and something stomped on his jaw and then on his neck. And he heard a crack

Then he heard the gasping of his own breath, and he could see the book on the table next to his bed. His eyes were open. He was awake.

His heart was beating so hard in his chest he could feel the thumping against the mattress of his bed, his lungs felt like they were being squished from the bottom up, not letting him take full breaths.

He blinked trying to clear the haze from his eyes and the sleep that had gathered in the corners. He looked at his clock. It was 5:42.

Morning

Today wasn’t something he was doing of his own volition despite how he had presented it to many people. No, today he was being taken against his will.

And it was up to him to make sure he came back.

…

His things were packed back into his duffle; he had donned his uniform once more and hung his dog tags around his neck tucking them away under his overcoat and shirt. Pressed against his chest by the constriction of his tie.

Bucky, Becca and his mother piled once more into a taxi where he was taken back to Grand Central Station. A marvel of architecture that he can no longer appreciate. He was angry at it, as if it was a conspirator in his enlistment.

He made his way to the same platform, to the same train and the same group of people, many of which he didn’t recognise but he’s sure he would soon. At least a few faces look familiar though as he scanned the crowd of khaki green uniforms all with their own badges on them

He spotted a man named Warren who had often been the most help when assigned to kitchen duty, his black hair only scarcely tucked under his hat. And a few feet away from him was Allen who was his younger brother, he didn’t know how much younger but he guessed about a year or two.

The only other face he could put a name to among the others he recognised but didn’t know was Max. And Bucky knew for a fact that this kid had lied about his age. He sounded as if his voice had only just dropped but he put it on when talking to authority. He was definitely not old enough to be here. Hell Bucky didn’t even feel old enough to be here, he had only just hit the first quarter of his life.

27 names

Subconsciously he added them to the list he had been keeping. His minor habits that had been picked up from only being with the military for 13 weeks were creeping up on him like something he had forgotten only for a moment rather than a week.

He turned back to his mother and Becca, placing his duffle on the ground and embracing them both. They had already had their teary goodbye when he went to Camp Lehigh for the first time. And now he doesn’t know how he was supposed to react. He wasn’t the only one who had been preparing for this, they had to come to terms with his absence in their life as well. And he could see it on their faces, as if their eyes were directly telling him not to go.

“Mam, can you promise me something?”

“Anything James”

He took her hands into his, one of them was wrapped around a handkerchief

“Don’t wait for me. Keep living your life” he squeezed her hands, he meant it to be reassuring but it was more desperate than that, he was really young when his father had died but even a child could recognise that look of hopelessness in the person he loved dearly. You didn’t need to be old to understand what it meant when a person’s eyes looked like the light was turned off behind them.

He let go of her hands and turned to Becca

“You’ll take care of Mam won’t you. Keep yourselves safe? And don’t go running off with any boys” he flicked her on the nose when he said that knowing she wouldn’t but saying it anyway.

“You’re the one who’s running off with the boy’s” she said, deflecting.

“Promise?”

“Fine” she conceded, but here smile didn’t reach her eyes, and she grabbed the arm of his uniform

“You have to promise me you will come back”

“I will”

She shook his arm

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise. I will see you again”

Promises, promises and promises

Many made, and too many he couldn’t keep

The sound of the overhead speaker squealed and then a voice told the platform that the train would be departing soon. And it was the same sinking feeling from last time. He was moving, going places doing things, being a part of something he never thought he would have his hands in. It should have felt like freedom, but he felt no more free than a bird in a cage.

His chest heaved and his breath caught as he forced himself to stay strong, to pick up his duffle and move towards the train.

Their goodbye was over, and in a few short moments he would be gone. And a whole year would pass before he could ever see them again.

He wanted to turn back, to run back, to hide. But he stepped, foot after agonising foot into the crowd. And then onto the train and then into the car.

Everything in him told him he needed to look forward, but he couldn’t help it when he practically threw himself at the window to lean out and wave down his family. To see them as the train blew plumes of steam onto the station and the loud noise of hundreds of other men about to leave their families and the slowly moving train made their voices impossible to hear.

He wanted to shout their names and hundreds of promises into the air but he didn't. A goodbye and a wave were all he could muster.

And then they were out of view. And he had no choice but to stay seated in the car.

Chapter Text

He had been joined by 5 other men in the train car. This car sat 6 people comfortably and 8 people if you didn't mind touching hips. It was nowhere near as open as the last time he had caught the train, he happened to pick “fancier” car

The men in his car he did recognise but only one of them seemed to recognise him.

Fred who had the mismatched eyes and the gap in his teeth had often been seen pushing the other men in his platoon around. Roughing them up for fun.

Willie was on the younger side, closer to Bucky's age

Sam who wore glasses which Bucky was sure would have made him immediately un-enlistable in the previous war. It was a sign of how desperate and dire things must've been, even if no one said it.

Those three were sitting across from him. Next to him was James who had recognised him his dark eyes always flicking around whatever place he was in. Like he was watching something fast moving no one else could see.

Then there was Douglas who had been in the previous war and had been dragged back into this one.

32 names

Bucky guessed that almost everyone in this train had been enlisted. Because if anyone wanted to actually join the fight they would have done so already.

‘These men were here thanks to Uncle Sam’ he thought sarcastically

He didn’t speak to them; he wanted to allow his mind to wander for a while. For the manufactured bliss to fall over him whilst he sat here in limbo. Just…waiting for the next fight to come his way.

He didn’t think, didn’t listen, didn’t comprehend even as the boys made the car rowdy and incapable of holding silence. He just didn’t hear it.

…

At some point one of the boys knocked into him jolting him from his silent seldom bubble he had created around himself, and Bucky had to blink furiously with how dry his eyes were. And he realised that they had already reached the rural area between the two states. Had they crossed the state line yet? They must have

He was out for a long time. He doesn’t even clearly recall what he had been thinking about. If he had been thinking at all

He turned to the man who had bumped into him, but every man’s attention seemed to be on him

James spoke to him first as the men watched him all with different expressions on their face

“What are you staring at so intently Bucky? I thought your eyes were going to fall out of your head” he pushed Bucky’s shoulder again this time lighter

“Just watching the view”

“Keeping an eye out for anything along the state lines. That’s a good man! See, this here is a man we all want to be like” and the men agreed and laughed but Bucky just shrugged away from his touch

What exactly about him was that special that all these men seemed to see. It was confusing and disturbing and made his skin crawl. He was just here to do a job

“I say this is bullshit. Another war and for what?” Douglas piped up and the rest of the men went quiet

“You can’t be saying stuff like that Doug. You don’t know who could be listening” James said

“Don’t be paranoid, they need soldiers anyway they don’t care if we want to be here or not that’s why we’ve been enlisted ya ninny”

Sam seemed uncomfortable at the prospect of an argument brewing, so he changed the subject suddenly

“What division are you with?” he was looking at Bucky when he asked it

“107^th” he said flatly

“Who’s your commander”

“Me…I’m one of the sergeants”

The whole carriage seemed to go quiet. The silence told Bucky that he outranked most if not all of them. He doubted Douglas would have been demoted from whatever rank he received in the first world war, but he couldn’t be sure.

He went back to looking out the window resting his face on the glass, they went back to talking to each other.

No matter what he did he couldn’t seem to turn on energy or personality he usually had when in company. He was just so flat, he felt so heavy and tired already.

There was nothing he could do now; he was a part of the war and had been for some time. Desertion wasn’t worth it for how it might affect his family and he couldn’t stand the thought of Steve’s disappointed face at the prospect. And dying wasn’t an option either.

He was just going to have to survive. Because he knew living was a too tall of an ask for this next year. He had to survive, before he could live again.

He just wanted to be home with his family and friends, he wanted to go back to the life he knew and rather than sadness, anger swelled inside of him.

“Good” he thought. Maybe the anger would be his fuel to keep him alive. He was fighting to save people, to end the suffering of millions and those two things as well as the thought of getting home to his life were the only things that were making this bearable.

He would make it, he would survive. And if he had to be here, then he was going to do everything he could. He wasn’t going to leave with a heavy conscious knowing he avoided fighting at every turn and let innocent people die because he wouldn’t raise a weapon, he felt he had no business holding.

He was here now, plain and simple. And he was going to do what he could to save people and send as many of these boy’s home in one piece as he could.

…

Once they were at base camp, they had hardly any time for anything except the orders that had been shouted too them. Bucky knew he had to receive extra information; he was given a list of all of the soldiers he would be in charge of during this time. His list consisted of 42 soldiers. Many names which he recognised from training camp. Dougan was one of them. And he had to admit he was relieved to see a familiar and friendly name on the list of men he had barely begun to, or didn’t, know. He was also given a rundown of his duties and most of it was what he expected.

He would head his platoon on the front lines as the leader of action; he was also tasked with supplying food and water to the men at their posts if the fighting was stagnant. As well as any administrative tasks: which included the casualty list of every battle.

Part of him was glad that he had a good memory but another part of him knew that every list he would write would make each day that much harder. To cross a name off the list by the handfuls after each battle. As if sealing their fates in death to walk on land no longer and be joined by the angels in heaven. He wouldn’t pull the trigger, but it would be his hand that would send the letters off to their families back home.

But he had no time to dwell as they had already been assigned their first deployment and had to head to the New Jersey coast to board a boat to England.

If Jersey already felt like an entire oceans distance than Brooklyn to England would feel like the distant between Earth and the moon.

Just the same as he had when he had recognised the reality of war during his training he took everything soft and sensitive and delicate about himself and condensed it down until it sat locked away underneath the layers of hardened soldier he had built for himself.

He was Sargent James Barnes

For now, Bucky was gone, and he wasn’t coming back for a while.

Chapter Text

There were several boats to hold the entirety of the 107^th, with two main levels, the upper deck, the lower deck. The lower deck was split up into several sections which held cargo and the inner workings of the ship. The deck was just as packed as he assumed the hull was. There were tanks and crates of supplies strapped down to the back of the ship with trucks parked in the front.

He didn’t know how they all fit onto this boat with the cargo included but they did. The place where they all congregated was called the midship; which Bucky only overheard from the engineers. He knew nothing about boats; the only boat he had ever been on was the boat that took people to and from Liberty Island on tours. And this was nothing like that.

The midship held everything for the soldiers, it had a mess hall, cabins, kitchen and utilities and the upper level was where the Captain and the engineers worked to keep the ship running. This boat held so much, and it all felt compacted into such small spaces. It definitely felt claustrophobic.

But the sleeping spaces were even more so, Bucky’s entire platoon was shoved into one cabin with rows upon rows of stacked beds and even some hammocks were what they had for sleeping quarters. All in the single room with barely any space to walk.

When the men had been dismissed and assigned a cabin Bucky was the one to lead them to it. As expected, there were fights over who got what bed, comments and insults were thrown around. Bucky broke down a few arguments with a sharp ‘quit it’ and the men eventually sorted themselves out placing their duffle’s and bags on their bunks.

They were going to be on this boat for 6 weeks and in present company for much longer, so they had to get used to being around one another.

Bucky took the list he had been given and read it over. Calling out each name of the soldiers he had been given charge of. Most of them he recognised he had been with these boys for 14 weeks and he was quick to learn and memories them.

He recognised 21 of the names on his list combined with another 20 he didn’t recognise. He called the names out one by one and looked at each of them down the rows of beds as they answered him.

Robert, John, Charles, Richard, Edward, Paul, Raymond, Kenneth, Albert, Harry, Carl, Willie, Francis, Leonard, Ernest, Stanley, Gerald, Marvin, Floyd, Leon: all new names and faces he was quick to memorize.

After that was finished the men had certain chores assigned to them, mainly kitchen work and a few cleaning chores in the utilities section, the list of which could be found in the mess hall. But after that the boys were free to roam mostly.

It was strange, like the calm before a raging storm they knew was about to hit.

Thankfully Bucky saw a familiar face amongst his battalion that he had been hoping to see, Dugan.

“Sargent huh? Since when did that happen” Dugan said with a smile pushing his moustache up into his nose as the two took each other’s hands that turned into a swift embrace.

“I don’t really know, but I’m here now” Bucky said honestly.

The two talked for a while, exchanging stories from their time back home, their families and loved ones. Anything and everything that kept the conversation away from war. It was peaceful and Bucky was grateful to have a person he considers a friend by his side.

The stood on the deck watching the water wash by them as the waves were broken through by the hull of the ship, the deep blue giving away to more blue and more blue still beyond the horizon. It was beautiful and Bucky caught himself staring at it for hours on end, often getting distracted from his conversation with Dugan because his mind wandered so intently off into the deep blue.

“What happened to that friend of yours? Did you talk him out of it?” Dugan asked

Bucky sighed “No, he snuck off to enlist the last night before I was headed back to Lehigh” he gritted his teeth trying not to sound too pissed off “I don’t think I’ve ever met a more stubborn man in my life”

“Sounds like it, do you know if he got the pass?”

“Nope” he said and honestly, he tried not to think about it

“Maybe you two will meet on the front lines at some point and then you won’t have to worry about him so much. I’m sure he’s just as worried about you as you are of him”

That may be so but it didn’t alleviate the thoughts of losing Steve and having to accept that he was powerless in this situation. It drove him wild.

Dugan and Bucky talked until the sun had gone down and the world around them went dark without the usual city lights Bucky was so accustomed too. All the men gathered across the ship and piled into the mess hall for dinner which was spaghetti in tomato sauce that had all been boxed and canned and simply heated over an open gas fire in a few giant pots. But it tasted good enough, so no one complained…much.

The hall was loud and full of bodies bumping into one another at the crowed table. Bucky sat across from Dugan at the end of a row of seats sitting half off of the bench with his left legto hold him upright.

Once the meal was over the men split up either back to the deck, their cabins or to complete their duties aboard the ship.

He didn’t know exactly how late it was, but it was late enough for Bucky to take refuge in the cabin in an attempt to sleep. Though the cabin didn’t fully quiet down until what he was sure were the moon filled early hours.

As he drifted off he matched the names to the faces of all the people he had met since his time in the army and all of his platoon members who he would be in charge of until his time in the military was over.

51 names

51 names and faces of the men who would serve beside him and that he would remember until this battle was over.

Maybe I should keep a journal, he thought quietly

…

The next 6 weeks were repetitive. Bucky learnt that a surprising number of the men aboard the boats had sea sickness, so the first sound you heard in the morning was the coughing and retching of men being sick over the side of the boat. Eventually some of the men became accustomed to the constant rocking of the waves but many didn’t.

The meals were generally the same, bland, tasteless but with enough nutrition to keep them going each day. Three meals a day every day with only water and bitter coffee to drink. The coffee was there to provide a sense of normalcy he supposed, but Bucky had never been partial to the drink growing up in a house with a mother who drank tea religiously. But when some days felt longer than others and the nights were colder than the rest a warm cup of coffee was a bitter if not welcome comfort.

But it was evident that sticking over one hundred men onto one ship wasn’t the greatest idea. Fights were frequent. Day. Night. It didn’t matter there would always be at least two men who felt the need to wring each other’s necks. The anticipation and cramped conditions were hard on all of them but if one man was a match then many other were a fuse and it set off brawls every single day.

There had been one instance where Bucky had witnessed a soldier try to push someone overboard, shoving his head down past the railing and attempting to pick him up by the leg and push him over. Those men just happened to be from his platoon.

That night he had stalked over with a fury to intercept the two, ripping the soldier away from the edge by the scruff of his neck leaving the man who almost went overboard to breathe harshly behind them.

Furious at the idea that these soldiers couldn’t even respect one another enough to not attempt to kill each other before they had even reached the battle field disgusted him, he grabbed both the soldiers by the collars of their shirts and brought them down to the cabin where most of the men already were.

“I don’t care what happened, or who said what. But if I see any of you attempt to throw your fellow soldier overboard you will be sleeping outside on the deck and taking the chores of the rest of the platoon for the remainder of the trip. Do you understand me!”

A chorus of “Yes Sargent” rang out in the cabin. He let go of both of the soldier giving them a rough shove into the room.

After that ordeal he had to spend time in the crisp ocean air to gather himself and attempt to calm down. An outburst like that wasn’t like him but he also couldn’t help that he felt cagey too.

At one point he retrieved his book and used the deck lighting to read by. Spending all of his time with his back to the railing and his book on his knees as he used the familiarity of the pages to calm his thumping heart.

And for a few hours he believes that he was away in Middle Earth sharing this harrowing journey along side Bilbo and his company of Dwarves, he felt like he knew these characters as well as he could have known a person for how many times he had sunk his mind into the book. And not matter how many times he read it a new detail would jump out at him and add something to the picture in his mind he had created for this grand adventure.

But it didn’t last and eventually when he almost fell asleep against the railing he closed his book and picked himself up before returning to the cabin where his men were sleeping.

…

He had gotten to know his men quite well by the end of the two weeks, thought he couldn’t say he liked them all. When he wasn’t busy he stuck by Dugan, Louis and Norman – three of the men he had shared a cabin with and Charles and Edward who he had come to know more over these past few days. Charles was due to married when he returned home and was eager to get back to his future wife. He seemed really fond of her, like most men he had a photo of his dame in some crook of their uniform or possessions. Edward was a journalist and was planning to write a book detailing the events of his time on the front, his uncle had done the same in the first war and encouraged him to write unabashedly. Bucky hoped he would make it back to America to publish his book.

He would read it, if he could find it.

The other men weren’t unpleasant company either but all of them seemed to form their own small groups within the platoon and stuck mostly by each other when they weren’t doing their scheduled chores. And within a few weeks Bucky had their faces and names memorised and could call upon each of them without hesitation for who would respond.

He kept them in line and for the most part, and they didn’t make his job too difficult.

Another responsibility Bucky had as Sargent was reporting to the Captain, the Captain took every note and piece of paper work and made sure that the Sergeants and the entire regiment were doing what was needed to keep the ship together. Bucky didn’t know his first name but figured he didn’t need to. Captain McMillan was all he was required to know.

Anything that Bucky wasn’t authorized to do was decided by the Captain, and in some respects, Bucky didn’t mind that the Captain took over some of the more important duties. The responsibility he was given, and the moral responsibility he had placed upon himself felt enough as they were.

As a Sargent it was his job to keep his troops in-line and fit for battle. As a person it was his job to keep these men alive and get as many of them home safe as possible.

And as the six weeks concluded it was time to bring those responsibilities to the fore front

Chapter Text

The 107th arrived at the Portsmouth dockyard in the English Channel, it was closest to France where they would be heading once the two military’s joined forces. They were there to secure an ally in France who was currently under the occupation of Nazi Germany, and if they could help France, they would have an extra ally in the war to help them launch an attack on Germany and other Nazi occupied countries.

The 107th were now the direct allies of the 66th Foot Regiment – or the Royal Berkshire Regiment as their general had introduced them.

There was only a day in between their arrival on British soil and their departure for France to make sure that everything was loaded onto the ships and they had what they needed.

All the Captains and Sargent’s were briefed on what they were walking in to. They were here to liberate a detention camp that had been shipping French, Jewish, non Nazi Germans and Austrian people alike to overseas concentration camps. Their plan was to split their ranks into the two groups. One to be sent elsewhere to aid other regiments in taking back power from Germany to release France from its occupation and the other to begin liberating internment camps that were stationed all over France.

Bucky would be part of the group helping to liberate the Les Milles detention camp.

The traveling was long and boring, Bucky hadn’t honestly thought there would be this much down time and waiting. Most of it seemed to be travel and training thus far. The fighting seemed so far away even now.

He thought often to his family back home, wondering daily if he would spot Steve’s head in this constantly changing crowd of men.

When they reached Les Milles they set up camp just outside of the scouted Nazi boundary where they knew they would be safe until they attacked. This front had the potential to have a lot of civilian casualties, so they only had once chance to do what they needed to do.

During this time, he was introduced to James Falsworth who was the Brigadier of the 66th Regiment. He was running the entire operation since even across international armies he outranked the Colonel.

He ran through their plan of attack and the Captain relayed that to each of the Sargent’s. Once the camp was set up and they were sure they could mount the attack, they were deployed over enemy lines to liberate Les Milles.

…

Despite being a Sargent, Bucky had been stationed as a sniper in the tree line of the nearby camp. His job was to pick off the surrounding guards who would be further away from the building to make sure no one came rushing in to take down their men.

He waited for the signal; he couldn’t shoot yet otherwise his position would be compromised and the element of surprise the rest of the soldiers had would be null and void. They needed to make sure no one knew they were coming.

Part of that meant that for a moment things had to continue to run as they usually would in the camp.

There was a lot of movement in the entrance to the building with people walking out the buildings in line, all of them civilians, and they were being ordered and herded into cars, huge crate like boxes on the back of the transports acting as containers for people to be packed into.

The Nazi soldiers were shoving people roughly, pushing them forward as they walked slowly with their heads hanging low. Bucky knew these people were being transported to a concentration camp overseas in Germany and if they left the assault to late these people would be lost.

He picked up the hand radio he had been given and spoke “I have a shot on the vehicle should I take it over” he let the trigger of the radio out and it crackled for a moment before he received a response.

“We can’t risk it, too many civilians and no way to stop the car safely, over”

“What do we do about it sir, over?” Bucky asked again

“Nothing, we won’t be able to start our assault until the car leaves, over”

Before Bucky could even press the trigger on the receiver the Captain’s voice spoke again

“We have no choice, do not engage, over and out”

Bucky clenched his jaw. It was bullshit, there had to be something they could do. But Bucky knew he couldn’t risk missing a shot. He could make a shot. He was sure of it, but he wouldn’t be able to kill every soldier without harming a civilian and if the civilians didn’t move then the rest of the soldiers couldn’t get in to take out the Nazi’s.

Either way there would be casualties and if they could help it, they wouldn’t risk it.

But that didn’t change how frustrating and terrifying it was for Bucky to simply watch those people be loaded into a car like cattle and eventually taken off down the road. He watched as the car pulled out of the camp and headed down the road in the direction of the sea.

The civilians looked stunned and afraid, in a moment of desperation Bucky raised his rifle, watching through the scope but he knew there was no way to take out the driver without crashing the car and everyone else in it. He watched, helpless as those people he could have saved if they had been here a day, maybe even a few hours earlier were taken to some place he knew to be so much worse.

He slammed his fist into the dirt…but did nothing.

He waited and waited his eyes on the car as it disappeared until he heard gun fire and his attention snapped back to the task at hand, seeing his fellow soldiers run in and fire on the guards around the camp.

Bucky made sure any lingering guards outside the perimeter were taken down as he switched between watching the soldiers storm the camp and climb the stairs to the other levels, flitting past the darkened windows and the few soldiers he had left to take down.

Their joint forces outnumbered the Nazi soldiers 5 to 1 so it didn’t take long for them to kill any remaining personnel in the building. Once the area was clear Bucky left his perch and headed into the building to help make sure the civilians were evacuated.

Bucky’s heart hammered, his ears ringing slightly from the sound of his own gunshots, but he was able to hear the faint clamouring of many voices and languages happening inside the building.

When he found the main hall where the bulk of the civilians had been, he could hear some of the English soldiers speaking different languages around the room seemingly explaining what was going on and what was going to happen next.

Apparently, the French military were going to transport these civilians back to the nearby town and get them to safety until they could take back power.

As Bucky moved around the room, he could see how terrible the conditions were, how cramped and dank their living spaces had been. The room was disgusting with little sanitation, and all of the beds had been placed so close together that there was hardly any room to walk between them. It smelt and all of the civilians seemed dirty with muck covered clothes or unclean faces. Whatever work they had been doing here had been wearing them down little by little.

What kind of person left people to rot in places like these? So many of them looked tired and haggard.

There was no discrimination either, it seemed that Hilter was very particular about who he was getting rid of. Yellow stars and Pink triangles, he hadn’t seen those before, littered the shirts of people around these rooms and Bucky got lost in the emotion of it all, knowing that most likely these people had never done a thing wrong in their lives and they were being treated lesser only to be shipped way in groups like cattle and sent who knows where to receive a terrible fate.

He was grateful they had been able to save so many people but that sinking feeling in his gut kept rising up like a venomous snake biting him over and over again knowing there was a group of people who he wasn’t allowed to save. That wouldn’t know the freedom he had just given the people he was walking by now.

He swallowed hard and tried to keep his face neutral.

…

It was a while before the French military showed up, but they came in waves with transportation to take these people away. There was obvious trepidation to the new set of vehicles that were arriving the soldiers seemed to be able to console any fears.

Bucky helped gather people onto the trucks making sure that the women and children made it out first. The trucks were high up off the ground with actual seating that meant not as many could leave at once but as long as they got out of here it wouldn’t matter how long it would take.

He helped the few young children that were amongst the crowd of people into the truck. Handing a mother her young child who reached for the young girl desperately.

Bucky's hand got caught between the mother's strong grasp and her child, but when he tried to pull his hand free she seemed to hold onto him deliberately.

"Merci, merci beaucoup"

He knew that meant thank you and smiled as best he could to her, he didn’t know how to respond. He found it hard to raise his eyes to meet hers.

Once the trucks had been moving away from the camp and further from the shores Bucky headed back inside to check that everything was being moved and every civilian had been gathered into the trucks.

As he wandered the halls he spotted something in one of the rooms that made him stop and turn back to look at it.

It was bright yellow and completely out of place in the dank halls of this building, but when he entered the room to look at it he could see it was a painting.

7 people sat around an arrangement of food, all with different skin colours and clothing.

It was a mural or a memorial of some kind. All different kinds of people sitting in one place, joined together despite their difference to enjoy what they had.

He started at the mural for a while knowing that the Nazis wouldn't have made this and that he doubted this would have been part of whatever this building had been beforehand.

He had no idea how the people who had been trapped here had been able to create something so beautiful, and he couldn't explain how or why, but seeing this piece of art gave him hope. That if people who believed to have sealed fates, trapped behind walls they had been forced into were still able to create something the felt so alive, then maybe there was reason to believe that things could be ok.

It was strange and despite the complex emotions Bucky felt, the thoughts had been fleeting. There one moment and gone in an instant. But he felt them all the same.

He was broken out of his reverie when he heard someone calling for him

"Sargent Barnes? Sargent?"

His head flicked towards the entrance of the room and headed for the voice. Softly in the back of his mind he hoped that this art would stay here. Or be preserved in some way. It was a pure form of hope, and he thought the world could use a little bit of that right now.

He met up with the soldier who had been calling for him

"What is it Private?"

"All of the civilians have been evacuated sir. We’re being taken back to the camp now"

"Alright, I'll make sure no one is still in the building"

The soldier nodded and turned for the exit.

Bucky finished his sweep of the building finding no one, he was the only straggler it seemed and made his way back to the trucks where he climbed on board as they were taken back to the camp.

As he watched the now liberated camp fade into the distance, he couldn't stop the persistent image in his mind of those people being taken to the beach...they were moments from freedom had they been only an hour earlier. They had not seen him when they had been taken away, but he felt a crushing responsibility, like they had been begging for help and he had ignored them.

He knew one thing; the order he had been given was wrong and now there wasn't anything he could have done about it.

And he knew right now there was going to be a lot of guilt ahead of him.

Chapter Text

Only a few days later and they were headed for the Italian front which was making attempts to push the Italian-German forces back to the Austrian line where they would be outnumbered and overrun.

But the battle was proving difficult as the 107^th and what they could spare of the 66^th Regiment – including James Falsworth, was replacing the troops they had lost in previous battalions. It didn’t instil Bucky with much hope.

When they made it to the camp headed by Colonel Philips the Sargent’s and the Captains were briefed on the plan of attack, there was an open field with an intense tree line that was the line between the Italian-German forces and where the Allied powers had been pushing them back, right now they needed to hold the front and push back as hard as they could to get the upper hand on Germany.

But something Colonel Philp’s said left Bucky’s blood run cold. He said it like an anecdote. Like something important enough to share but not important enough to put emphasis on. And that was that Nazi’s deep science division was here. HYDRA slowly becoming more and more known within the ranks of the soldiers and even the wider public. They had been developing new weapons of all kinds for the German military none of which had been document by any of the Allied Forces. Front lines were a blind fight until you were knee deep in a trench or facing down the barrel of a gun. But now with a new type of foe and no information about them the 107^th and 66^th would be going in blinder than before, their hands might as well be tied behind their backs.

The two regiments were sent to the front, no hesitation, no looking back. Just their helmets on their heads and their guns on their laps. Waiting to face whatever it was hiding over the front lines waiting to strike

The journey took several hours with many men swapping out from walking on foot to being seated in the trucks. The rotations were uneven and many of the men complained but the closer and closer they came to the front lines all conversation seemed to die down simultaneously. They knew where they were, they could feel it. And even the most arrogant of men didn’t want to speak for fear it would shake the leaves in the trees.

Everything wase tense, silent and slowly growing dark. They would be fighting through the night…

It was eerie, with the shadow of the trees making disfigured shapes in the dark, the whooshing of wind through branches creating an atmosphere like that of a movie, this didn’t feel real. It felt too fantasised, like everything in their surrounding was curated to create the perfect element to breed fear. It was a breeding ground for all things dark and negative.

Bucky looked around the men and through the tree line, he was sure this place was beautiful during the day, but he couldn’t appreciate it now. And he doesn’t think he ever will.

Their boots crunching on the ground was so repetitive it felt like a rhythm less drum and every time Bucky tuned back into the sound he begged his mind to turn it off. It was only monotonous before, but now it was droning and sounded like the drum of war. Like in the books he had read as a child about marching soldiers banging drums and blowing into trumpets to signal their arrival.

They reached the lines, with a few soldiers in the distance hiding facing the tree line, eagerly waiting for their reinforcements. The men stationed the trucks and the limited number of the tanks they came with around the small camp before every soldier was pushed to the front line. As they moved up they could see the opposing soldiers in the distance. They marched forward heading for the trenches.

It took only a few seconds, but that battle had begun

…

“Make a break for the trenches, we can hold the line there and push forward! Move it men!” Falsworth had shouted and the Sargent’s ushered the men forward as they ran for the trenches the Axis soldiers doing the same. There was shouting and yelling and gun shots echoing around the field as every man raised his gun. Everything moving thing 3 meters ahead of you was a target.

Bucky steadied himself, clutching his gun. This was it, right now death was lurking over this battlefield. His reaper sitting, waiting, watching. Haunting them as he waited eagerly for their last breaths so he could take them away, send them to a place worse than this blood soak battle ground.

For men with any blood on their hands had no hope of repenting the sins of taking a life.

If he died today. He would never see his family again, as his mother and sister would be taken to heaven and he would be stuck below looking at a set of golden gates he could never reach.

But with the men rushing around him all he could do was surge forward and allow the wind to whisk his thoughts from his head as he ran for survival.

He sprinted forward for the trench he could see dead ahead of him. Raising his gun towards the grey figures in the near distance and pulled the trigger, the gun recoiled into his arm, and he shot again. The men were dropping like flies each one of them spraying blood into the darkness as they fell to the ground with half a shout. Some of his shots didn’t make the mark and he was left witnessing a man now missing his arm fall to the ground or dropping his gun his gun as a hand fell to the bullet hole in his knee.

It was everywhere, every way he looked.

Death

Death

Death

Everyone here was being sent to die, for a war they didn’t start, because of a man who had no right to make the decisions he did. Because they were being told they had to. Because it was loyal and righteous and just. To save people while causing the loss of life around them.

It was horrible and Bucky was elbow deep in the muck and filth. It was just like his dreams but all the more frightening

He slid into the trench, dirt and mud and blood covering his knees as he did. He was joined by several soldiers jumping inside one after the other as they braced against the edge to shoot oncoming Axis soldiers. They came in waves as they shot them down. Beside him men were falling, one moment they would be shouting, cussing and communicating and the next there would be a ping, a cut off cry and they would drop the dirt with a bullet in their head.

Bucky ducked over and over, trying not to look at the soldiers as he did so, and only keeping his eyes to the dirt in front of him and the soldiers running atop it. Desperately hoping he wouldn’t be next.

The tanks blew shells over their heads on each side. Bombs were going off everywhere, constantly sending a ringing through his ears and making his head rattle. Bang after bang after bang until they just went quiet. He could see the shots flying overhead but it was harder and harder to hear them as his head kept ringing.

But he shook it off, trying to regain his second most needed sense. There were few soldiers on the opposing line now.

This was their chance!

“On your feet! We have to push forward, move our line of defence up and push that message down the line!” Bucky shouted to the soldiers surrounding him and made a point to get the Radio’s attention to send the signal further across the trench.

The men got to their feet, guns raised as they pushed the dirt behind them climbing out of the trenches and now, rushing full speed towards the dwindling forces. They could take the trench from the Axis powers over their lines and would be able to station a firm footing for further progress.

More gunshots, more shells, more banging, more shattering, more screaming. They all ran on foot straight towards it. Bucky’s heart was hammering in his chest so hard he thought it might explode against his ribs, the cold air stinging his lungs as he swallowed it down.

Some men made it to the trenches; others were shot down along the way. Mines had been planted, seemingly without pattern around the field and now they had those to doge. Bucky was running his arms coming up reflexively to cover his head when dirt would spray up beside him from an explosion. He wanted to turn back to see the soldiers, but he couldn’t otherwise he would be struck down too…

And then the rumbling came

Something from far off into the distance shot a pulse way over their lines targeting their tanks, the mark was spot on, and the tank combusted. The men inside screaming as they died.

What in God’s name was that

More soldiers suddenly came from the hill further up and that same blue pulse followed them. Targeting the trucks and the last of their tanks. But the soldiers were carrying weapons with the same pulse. Surely something like a Jonson even if a foreign make couldn’t pack that much force into one fire.

“Retreat! Head back to the former line” whatever this was there wasn’t a way to take them head on, they had to fall back.

The soldiers were running in disarray back to the former line as the Axis soldiers marched on. Bucky watched his own back briefly as he ran, diving into the trench before turning and slamming himself back into the dirt with his gun raised ready to strike back. Dugan materialised from over the edge of the trench as did Gabe who had control of their communications.

“There’s gotta be at least 5 more companies coming our way” Dugan yelled over the explosions.

“Radio B Company tell them we need backup!” Bucky yelled in response to Gabe

“That might be tough” Gabe yelled back, the portable radio sizzling and smoking from the inside out

Fuck!

Before Bucky could think of a way to get a message back to their remaining forces Dugan yells a warning at him

“Bucky, behind you!”

Bucky turns and raises his gun as they three of them turn to shoot the still oncoming soldiers.

Bombs are going off everywhere, more of them than there had been before. They were overrun by artillery more powerful than their own, especially with their tanks destroyed. Bucky watched from every side as more soldiers rolled in

“Here they come!”

Bucky switched positions on the trench and began firing at another group of soldiers headed towards them, but as he looked through his scope he saw something that made he explosions around him feel like a warm and welcoming camp fire

Certain soldiers had been issued with guns firing the same energy as the tanks had been, they were hitting their soldiers dead on. The soldier going up in blue flame and completely disappearing. Just gone…

A puff of blue energy, a distorted scream and then nothing. Not even a shadow of the man that had been there beforehand.

What purgatory on earth had they been sent to?

In his head he silently prayed ‘God forgive us, please’

“What the hell was that” someone called from the trench behind him.

But when it stopped, they all stood, looking for what was left…and seeing nothing. No corpses littering the ground just…emptiness.

And blue balls of deadly energy picking of whoever was left standing in the field.

The three of them stood together looking up the hill. Only to see the largest war machine they had ever seen crest the horizon

“That looks…new” Dugan seemed to say before fear caught the words in his throat.

The barrel was as big as at least 5 men, and it was pointed directly at them

Bucky looked up at it, staring down the barrel as it turned towards them, his whole body alight with fear that burned his skin and shook his bones. Nothing short of hell fire could come out of the canon

“DUCK!” he screamed and dived back for the trench as the tank let off a shot

The whole world went white as the shot exploded around them, bodies flew everywhere in the sudden brightness, his ears rang with a deafening decibel, and he disconnected from his body. Like his consciousness had been ripped from his flesh and he was laying separate from everything.

The world was just gone, he knew it couldn’t really be gone but he couldn’t comprehend a single thing, not a sound, not a physical feeling, not even the pumping of his own heart.

It was so silent, but so loud, so still, but chaotic. And eventually the white went black.

Was this it? Was he going to die? Was the white of that blast just the heavens teasing him before plunging him into the blackened darkness of hell. Was he being ripped from the plane of existence he knew?

Nothing made sense, but he couldn’t see anything to make sense of even if his head was in working condition

There was nothing

Chapter Text

When Bucky came too; he was being carried, his body felt limp and ached all over. His vision was blurred, swimming between distorted images of reality and the blackness of the back of his eyelids. His arm was hanging the other one against his chest; the beating of his heart thumbed underneath his palm, and his feet were swinging idly. His knees were touching, and his head was hanging back against something. He could feel a soft breeze in the air, he was still outside somewhere

Instinct told him to stay still, keep pace of his breathing and not open his eyes too much. He wished he could turn his head to look around but stayed frozen instead

Trying to figure out what to do next, whether he should spring to his feet and attempt to fight or stay “asleep”, that’s when he felt something grip his arm a set of fingers curling around his bicep…and begin tapping something into his flesh

He recognised it as morse code

.. - .----. ...  -.. ..- --. .- -.

‘It’s Dugan’

He moved his arms ever so slightly placing his hand over the hand around his arm and tapped back

-.. ..- --. .- -. ..--..

Dugan?

He felt two taps against his arm

‘Yes’

A pause and then another series of taps

-.-. .- .--. - ..- .-. . -..

‘Captured’

Fucking hell. A million thoughts tripped over themselves in Bucky’s head ramming into one another like a train collision. Carriage’s one after the next banging into the one in front of it.

How many of their men were left? How long had they been out?  Where were they walking? Why was Dugan carrying Bucky if he thought he might have been dead?

A quick series of taps broke him out of his mental train wreck of thoughts

.-.. --- --- -.- .. -. --.  ..-. --- .-.  ... .- .-. --. . -. - ...

‘Looking for Sargents’

Bucky couldn’t stay like this forever, they would know he was alive and awake soon if they came walking down…wherever they were walking. Mentally Bucky prepared himself to shake the sleep and ache from his body before tapping back to Dugan

... - .- -. -..

‘Stand’

He felt Dugan sigh, though it was controlled to not alert anyone around him. In one swift motion Dugan let go of Bucky’s legs and pushed him to his feet. Bucky fell into step beside Dugan with his eyes open.

It was clear to him now they were walking down a dirt road in the forest they had been able to see further into the distance when they had marched into the field. Night was still darkening the sky, he could hear the drone of tanks rumbling behind and in front of them, and he could clearly see the strange and almost robotic uniform of the HYDRA soldiers walking slightly off the path keeping them all marching forward.

He noted that they had those blue charge guns on them and none of the men had their weapons on them. No armour, not guns, no helmets. They were completely exposed and surrounded by the enemy.

“Where are they taking us” Bucky says hushed and quick

“Azzano, they have a facility in Italy”

So they were being taken to a camp or some kind of prison. I didn’t make sense that they would be taken anywhere near the HQ. Bucky was rapidly trying to think of a plan, they couldn’t break out of the line without the ability to coordinate the other soldiers and even if they did, they would just be picked off in the tree line.

His heart thundered loudly in his chest, and he tried to think, he didn’t know how likely escape would be once they were inside the gates of the facility

“How many?” Bucky didn’t need to clarify

‘More than half. There’s only enough for one regiment left”

Bucky closed his eyes and swallowed. Breathing out as slowly as he could

He didn’t know what to do. He never walked into a fight he couldn’t win, he didn’t start something he couldn’t finish. And for the first time in his life he walked into a fight he wasn’t so sure he was going to walk out of. He had to think

“James is being held up the front with the other division leader, they took the camp too”

None of this was good, there was nothing going for them. Right now, the best they could do was march and hope that they didn’t get gunned down if someone took a wrong step.

It was less than an hour later when they were confronted with the high stone walls of the HYDRA facility. It looked less like a camp and more like a repurposed warehouse turned facility. And Bucky didn’t like the sight of it. It filled him with something cold and dense that only made his exterior harden.

He felt his eyebrows pinched down into his face and his eyes were flitting rather than sliding to look as his gazed registered every single thing that came into his view. They were outnumbered 10 to 1 here and maybe more once they got inside.

They were direct, shoved and shouted, inside one of the biggest room, then being sent down a flight of stairs, many men which were limping and had to be helped down only to be almost pushed the rest of the way by the soldiers. The soldiers had exchanged their guns for batons but that still didn’t raise their chances of escape.

They were ushered underground into a facility that seemed like a maze with all its extra doors and levels. The floor they were ushered onto seemed to be a space between the floors rather than a floor itself, with cages made in tight circles all around the room. Some of the cages were already filled, some with only one or two men left in them.

They were pushed into cells 5 to 8 men in one cage at a time.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up and he felt that if he had hackles, they would be raised. He wasn’t about to be pushed into a cage and kept like a lab rat waiting for testing.

Bucky turned to the closest soldier and punched him square in the face, his hand ached not anticipating the strength of the helmets but that didn’t sway him from swinging another punch. Two other soldiers pushed through the crowd of men to grab Bucky as some of the other men began fighting the guards and attempting to hold themselves outside the cells as they were forced in.

Bucky was being man handled by three soldiers whilst the others were being roughly shoved into cages with the doors being slammed and locked in their faces as soon as a decent number of them were full. The men began thinning out and only a select few were still able to fight with many of them still having severe injuries or heavy fatigue holding down their bones.

Bucky was kicking, scratching, yanking and punching the guards who were tripped over each other to hold him down and force his co-operation.

“Get the fuck off of me” he yelled as the guards had begun to pull at him and attempt to subdue him in his fit of violent rage.

He went to yell again but they would never hear what he had to say as one of them punched him square in the nose. His head snapped back, and he heard his face crunch, his vision swam as tears gathered in his eyes and blood gushed from his nose and dripped over his chin.

Vaguely in the din clamouring and grunting he heard Dugan’s voice “Sarge!”

He could hear the rattling of metal and when his head rolled to the side, he saw Dugan wrestling with another soldier as they tried to force the door of the cage shut in his face whilst also trying to pull him out. As Bucky’s head stopped swimming, he yanked his hand away from the soldier who had both his wrists in one hand. He grabbed onto one of the metal bars and tried to pull himself closer to it. He felt a hand wrap around his tightly and he felt two of his knuckles pop.

Dugan was grasping at him from the other side of the cage as they wrestled with Bucky pulling him from the ground, grabbing his flailing legs.

Another voice shouted above the rest, one with a thick accent that wasn’t German. He didn’t have time to look and frankly he didn’t care. He would fight anyone who came near him, because he was not going in one of those cages.

“You two go help zem. I want zat one. Strong will, dedicated form. Persistent. The perfect specimen” came the voice

Bucky heard two extra voices join the shouting German ones right by his ears. He heard a clunk and then a clang and then a crunch. He felt a bump and a sudden clenching around his hand that was being held closed around the bar.

There are too many bodies around him for Bucky to see what was going on. He heard another thud, then a shout and felt Dugan’s hand over his disappear. His own grip suddenly loosened, and he was ripped away so fast the pads of his fingers stung from being slid across the metal.

“Fuck! Let go of him!” Dugan yelled again but in his struggle, Bucky could see that the cage had been shut again with Dugan on his ass on the inside.

One of the soldiers had managed to lock his arms behind him and lift him from the ground, the tip of his toes barely touching the floor.

“Get off of me” Bucky kicked back wildly hoping to get a shin or a groin to send the soldier down but he couldn’t get the leverage to swing his leg fully, he was grabbed swiftly and his legs were restrained under the arm of two soldiers.

Suddenly Bucky felt bone connect with his abdomen and his breath caught in his chest. No air coming in or out. He gasped and coughed and spluttered without time to recover he was hit again. The pain even worse this time.

He was rasping and wheezing wildly trying to get air back into his lungs when a short man wearing glasses walked into his view, his larger than normal eyes, looking over Bucky’s bloodied body.

“You do seem to be a good specimen”

That fucking word again, the doctor in the recruitment office had said the same thing to him. He was disgusted by the concept. In contempt he spat at the feet of the short man in the coat who stepped back suddenly. Looking with his nose screwed up at the glob of spit on the floor.

“Well you are a soldier I can’t expect anything less. Come, take him to my lab”

They punched Bucky in the gut one more time for good measure before dropping his feet and forcing him to walk with his arms twisted behind his back. The four soldiers stood around him like a personal guard as he was ushered through corridors and open halls until he reached a small lab that honestly looked like is used to be a supply cupboard except for the fact that it was filled with scientific papers and equipment.

He was forced onto a metal bench, his arms strapped to the table with leather wrist cuffs, once those were secure two leather straps were fastened across his body.

His throat opened and closed as he tried desperately to breath, to fight back, to move, to run, to do anything. But all he could do was lie there.

He rattled the cuffs on the edge of the bench trying to find a weak point but they were new and Bucky only had so much strength left. Between getting blown up and having his guts rearranged he wasn’t able muster any extra adrenaline fueled courage.

Everything that flowed through his body was now empty fear.

…

It felt like an eternity before someone walked back into his periphery, and when they did he wished they hadn’t. At some point two more people in white lab coats had entered the room, one of them was holding a clip board and the other one was cleaning a series of medical tools.

The doctor cleaning the tools pulled down the hem of his shirt, he attempted to ward them off with his limited range of movement, but it didn’t deter them. They pulled the fabric down and then ran a cold and wet cotton swab across his skin.

“What are you doing?!” he shouted hoping someone would respond

“Sargent…” the shorter man from before stood beside him, only to fish around in his shirt for his dog tags and continue with “Barnes. You are going to be the next great project for HYDRA, Schmidt’s very own super soldier. And my greatest creation”

The words delusion of grandeur came to mind amongst the fear swelling in his veins, pushing his heart to the brink of what he was sure it could take.

“I am not a lab rat!” Bucky spat

“I agree, you are much more dignified than that, you are what seems to be the perfect specimen”

Bucky yanked at the restrains frustratedly and half yelled half growled out a sound of anger.

“Hold him down please, we don’t want him obstructing the process”

Two of the other doctors came and held his top down half. He protested, wriggled, shook, yanked and even attempted to bite the scientists but didn’t succeed. The first doctor walked out of view and soon the machine above him lit up and started whirring to life. The machine adding a loud din the eerie silence.

“No, no no. Stop that, keep it the hell away from me”

No one answered him

The giant needle attached to the end of the machine descended pointed straight for his chest and Bucky felt the veins in his neck jump and his skin burn where he tugged and tugged at the cuffs around his wrist. He was frantic, and if his hands had been free, violent but he was stuck there, squirming around like a bug under a microscope.

His breath caught up with him in tiny gasps as everything in him seized. His will to fight left him in an instant and was replaced with fear that froze him in place.

He just…went still

The needle came down and all he could do was watch in horror as the point disappeared and the sharp pain bloomed over his chest.

The needle sunk into his sternum right between the space in his ribs and around his heart, the metal buzzed inside of his skin as it sunk in and he cried out, something wretched and broken within the first breath.

The needle sunk slowly, agonisingly in between the bone. In a place it was intruding upon until it stopped. And Bucky gasped for air as his lungs and heart pumped around the needle resting almost innocently in his chest.

That was until he watched a blue fluid be sucked up through the pipes attached to the machine and he felt the liquid entire his chest directly into the blood stream around his heart and lungs. The fluid was pumped into his body, the needle still buzzing in his chest until the entire reserve was drained and the needle was slowly retracted as the machine returned to a neutral state. He groaned as the needle with drew and he heaved breathes in and out in sharp gulps

But whatever had been pumped into him set his veins on fire, in the moment his heart stung just beating in his chest, he felt a molten fire coursing through his veins and his brain throbbed against his skull. His eyes dilated and the world suddenly became shaper and brighter, clearer and blinding all at once. Bucky’s eyes were shaking back and forth as his whole-body twitched and convulsed, if he could have sat up he would have curled in on himself and shook like a violent ball of nerves. But instead, his arms came up as far as they could and his chest rose from the table even with the doctors forcing all their weight onto his shoulders, his knees rose towards his chest and he just shook

Buzzing on the table as he let out a heinous scream into the greenlit lab, the walls were so clear, the map and the paper work plastered across every surface, the machines that surrounded him and the foot base on the bench he was tied to.

The machine started to sound like a wasp buzzing directly in his ear.

Everything was so loud, so bright, so…screaming. His own voice echoed around his own mind and outside it, clashing against the shaking of his skin.

“Make… it stop!” he screamed in desperation as he flung his head back against the bench, he barely felt the impact against the anguish he felt inside his own body.

It wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t slow, didn’t even ebb like any normal injury would. It was persistent and constant forcing its horrible state of being down onto him, pushing cry after cry out of him. Tears streaming down his face only to pool in the cone of his ears and wet his hair with them.

He just wanted it to stop

To stop

To stop

To stop

Chapter Text

A routine was forced upon Bucky for the next…he didn’t know how long.

It was his own personal hell.

After the screaming stopped, he was transported to a room with nothing but a horrible excuse for a bed for him to lay on whilst he was hooked up to several machines and drips that were monitoring his vitals. He laid there most days shaking and shivering, curled in on himself gasping and sobbing quietly to himself. Not even enough strength or will to take the needles out of his arms

Every day since he was taken back to that stupid lab with the white coats poking and prodding him. Every few days the experiments of the first day would start all over again, that needle would penetrate the barely healed scar in his chest and inject more serum into him. Each time it was a slightly different shade of blue, sometimes it was lighter other times it was so dark it looked black. Each time his veins lit up like fire and his mind was so alight and awake with the flame he felt full of intense energy. His veins in his arm and his chest would pop, almost glowing with how clear they were, still purple and blue as they always had been but so much brighter.

On one day Zola – Bucky had come to learn his name thanks to the other doctors, had praised him for his resilience. As if he was a brave soldier simply performing his duty. That this was his designated space.

And another on another he was cursing in swiss and throwing papers about his desk muttering “Why hasn’t it worked, why aren’t there any physical differences. He is too weak to test his strength and there are no visual indicators”

One of the other doctors suggests that they may need to take time to see any real physical enhancements or even non-physical ones since they are barely leaving space for his body to recover between each test. But Zola simply waved them away and batted at the notes they attempted to hand him.

So, the cycle continued. For days and days Bucky would be curled up on his side, nursing the puncture in his chest that was beginning to feel more and more like a cavernous hole hollowing him out. Sleeping whenever his body gave up on him and waking up without knowing how long he had rested but knowing that it’s never long enough.

After a while they began asking him questions, wanting to learn new information. Things about himself and the army he served. But he gave them the same answer every time

“Sargent Barnes 32557038” over and over, it was the only thing he knew for those nightmarish days.

It was the way he clung to his sanity, to his personhood. Pain and his serial number, that was it. Pain meant he was alive, and his serial number meant he had something to keep to himself in this place

But then something changed, one day when the scientist soldiers came to escort him they didn’t take him back to the office lab, they took him down into the bowels of the facility to a room that held more machines than he had ever seen in once place. It looked like the telephone rooms you see on TV when the landlines get upgraded.

He had to be carried, at this point his body have all but given up on him, all his own weight sagging in on itself as it took two men hauling him up to get him to stand. His head hung limp, the muscles in his neck so sore and strained that it hurt to hold his head up right.

This room was more open; a table sat in the middle of it. Lights and wires hanging above the bench with an intricate metal machine placed around one end of the table. It looked like a giant control pannel.

Faintly in the back of his mind, that was swimming with fuzz, was the notion that he should try to fight back but his body would barely twitch at the command his brain sent to his limbs.

He was so fucking tired.

They hauled him up onto the table and he flopped down onto the metal, hitting his head and aching back as his limp body thunked against it. He groaned at the ache in his body that pulsed like a dull wave made of a thousand needles.

He was vaguely aware of the extra people standing and moving around him. More fucking scientists, he wanted to strangle them. He wanted to knock them down one by one, watching them fall like dominos, returning the pain they had inflicted onto him. But he couldn’t bring himself to move.

His wrists and ankles were tied down to the table in leather restraints that were connected to the table via linking chains. The same type that were kept on the bench in the office lab.

His head was at the same end as the machine and the same pathetic rush of adrenaline had begun to flow through him, a weak attempt at getting his body to escape, it always gave him some clarity but only enough to feel fear, to understand that he was unsafe and he was going to be hurting again. This was new, and new was never good.

Something was attached to his head and patches with chords running to them were attached to his chest and forearms. He turned his head from side to side trying to see what was going on but nothing around the room gave him an indication to what he was hooked up to. He did however recognise the steady beeping of a heart rate monitor. His own heart pumping inside of his chest being to only reason he knew he was still alive. He wondered that if he died here whether hell would be worse or better.

He heard the soft whirring of a the new machine, and it was coming from directly above him. He hears people talking in German and wished he could understand what they were saying. The whirring grew louder, and Bucky heard as the heart rate monitor matched the rhythm of his pounding heart, the beating getting rapidly louder. But it only got worse and more erratic when he heard movement. Machinery clinking and clicking into place.

Something moved down into his field of vision. Metal plates with cords and wires and something that was sparking. It lowered and closed around his face, grabbing him in a vice grip. Weakly he flicked his head from side to side, but it did nothing to shake the machine. The metal clenched on his face and his whole head began to ache with the strain and the force pressing in on his skull.

The sparking electricity hit his face, it stung like the barrel of a freshly fired gun and he hissed and gasped in pain, but nothing could have been worse than what came next.

The machine finally seemed to reach its peak, and it all came crashing down on Bucky. All at once all throughout him. He could feel the stinging, buzzing fire of electricity that flooded every single cell of his body. He jolted and strained against the restraints as the lethal voltage was forced through him. His mouthed opened from the shock only to release a guttural scream that echoed around the walls and back to his ears. But in a way a felt distant. The torrential buzzing was the only thing he could hear. It was so loud it was almost like he couldn't hear anything at all, the same way that natural buzz sounded like nothing. The decibels cancelling each other out in his head.

His back arched from the table, and he felt his limbs jolting wildly inside the restraints, it burned around his wrist and his ankles as they rubbed against the leather, peeling at his skin and catching in the hairs on his legs. His whole body was searing, he felt like he was being fried from the inside out like a piece of meat.

The constant pulse was short-circuiting every connection his brain had to his body and he jolted up and down. His head only moving a few inches in the tungsten machine whilst his back and his limbs slammed against the metal table that barely felt like it was there until he came crashing back down onto it. His own body was fighting itself with the interference caused by the machine. The only thing he had control of was his scream which just kept coming, he didn't know how any of this oxygen was flowing in and out of him all he knew was that it was coming out in one long scratching note.

It ripped at his throat, and he felt like a guitar wound to tight and he was sure his vocal cords would snap, and he would be rendered speechless. He didn't know what sort of sounds a broken man made. But he was sure in this moment he sounded close, as sure as he could be of anything as his mind went quiet.

The electricity was forcing a gap in his mind between all things. A small crack that could have easily gone unnoticed but if left unchecked would get bigger, and this machine was placing it's metallic fingers into the gap and attempting to pry it open. The pain grew and grew and at points where he felt as though he would become numb to it all his conciseness sent alarm bells ringing through his head and the pain came back in full force.

He wanted it to kill him; he wanted this pain to cease with the ending of his life. But he didn't see a light, he didn't see his life flashing before his eyes like he was told, he just saw the fade grey of a metal celling and spots and colours of their own making. Blurring and blinding him like there was something distorted and white hanging over his eyes and forcing him to see nothing but what the machine wanted him to see. And it didn't want him to see anything.

He wanted this machine to take his life, he wanted to pain to stop, he didn't want to feel like a fractured mess of a human anymore. He just wanted to be gone.

But something inside of him pushed back, fighting with everything it had to keep him alive. Against his own will, against the strength of his own mind, his body persisted. And just when he thought he would snap in two...it stopped.

His body raised from the table for the last time only to be dropped back down on the cold metal that burned against his skin. The freezing metal on his burning skin was leaving a trail of steam that he could see winding its way up from his body. He gasps and gulps at the air which stings his lungs, all of him stung every fibre of his being was still in immeasurable pain it no longer ebbed and flowed with a height that drew him from the table, but it left him breathless and sick.

His throat felt raw and scratched, and as he breathed he could feel the way the sharp exhales were encompassed by a pitched sound, a whimper, a soft mewl of pain. Every single inch of him pounding and sharp. His how body had become one heartbeat of aching pain.

He felt something hot drop near his ears, and he felt on the brink of throwing up. Nothing in his stomach would have come up, the way his skin had started strength across his bones was a clear indictor of that. He was grateful for that fact in this moment because when he started dry heaving on his back, he knew he would have choked to death on his own sick without having the freedom of movement.

Whatever the scientists were doing didn't matter, he was just relieved that it was over. The metal finally let go of his face and the adjustment his body had made to it was relieved only to be replaced with more pain. It hurt more now that it was off than when it was on, he groaned and cried out; the sound was hoarse and choked, he sounded half dead. Like the crying men he'd run past on the battlefield.

Is this what prolonged suffering sounded like? This was nothing he thought he would ever hear so up close and person. When his dry heaving stopped, he stayed perfectly still. He didn't think he could move even if he wasn’t restrained...part of him felt gone.

Everything his eyes were seeing felt far off and blurry. Every voice he heard was muffled and echoing. And the smell hit him, something sickly and burnt he couldn't look up to see what it was but a small voice at the back of his head told him that smell could only have come from him and the steam floating away from his skin.

Weakly he thinks 'God why won't you let me die. Take me to hell and let me leave this place behind'

It's a prayer.

But it's not a prayer of salvation.

He's damned, he's damned and he's been damned since he was a boy. He doesn't see this as penance for his sins, so he just wants to be taken away. He wants to sink into the floor and welcome the arms of death. Because he doesn't know what he supposed to do with this state of being.

Zoal and his horrible face comes into view and begins talking to him, in English, he knows he can understand that.

"Who are you?" He asks

A defiance surges through him.

No, he won't die today. He won't die yet. Not before he's home, not before he gets to see his mother and sister and Steve one more time. He's not dying yet. He won't let himself. No matter the pain or the torment he had to get home.

He forced sense into the forefront of his mind and grits his teeth as he huffs out his answer

"Sargent James Barnes 32557038"

Zola’s face falls. Good, Bucky hopes he is disappointed. He hoped whatever goal he had here failed.

"We will try again tomorrow. He will break before we achieve what we need. We need to find a way to speed up this process, Herr Schmidt won't wait. And neither will I"

Chapter Text

Everyday since that day somewhere inside Bucky he found the will the live and when he was lucky, the will to fight. He raised hell for the doctors and guards trying to take him to that room. He wouldn’t go, he wouldn’t allow them to take him there.

To inflict that pain on to him ever again, he wouldn’t let them. His will to live was like a raging storm within him and he wouldn’t let anything stop him. He would tear down everything and everyone in this facility to keep him locked away in his cell. If it meant that he didn’t have to come near another piece of metal or machinery. He wouldn’t allow it, wouldn’t allow them to violate his body with their disgusting science, they would feel the wrath of his storm

They never stopped attempting to retrieve him, but they were unsuccessful. Except for one day…where they took him in his sleep. Whisking him away from the room in the cover of his unconsciousness, only when they strapped him down did, he wake up and fight with all the might and the strength he had.

This time he had even been able to break on of the restraints around his arm, but only seconds before the machine had clamped down on his head like it had done all those days ago and he was frozen in his fight for survival by the electricity that flooded his nervous system from his head to his toes, making him shudder and shake violently under the intense strain.

It felt worse than it had the first time, the tips of his fingers felt as though needles had been pushed through them, his knees were locked, his legs shaking in their stiffened state with the intense strain of the energy flowing through his body. His eyes stung and his arms shook violently; he screamed and cursed and eventually ran out of breath to do so and merely sobbed.

The pain becoming so immense that he clamped his teeth down so hard he was sure they might have shattered, this pain stretched on for what felt like forever before he was finally released from the vice and he collapsed, that same charred smell and burnt feeling encapsulated his body. He laid their limp, feeling lifeless. It wasn’t a feeling he could describe but it was like something that sat just under his skin had been ripped out of him. Like his soul was moulded to the shape of his body and it had been stripped off of him from the inside out.

He was grappled from the restraints again and taken, not back to his cell, but back to the office lab. And for the first time in too long he was able to see the outside, he could glimpse the sight of the moon from the window in the far left of the room. He knew it was night, and for some reason being able to know even what relative time it had filled him with relief.

But when he was simply strapped back down to another table as nothing more than a lab experiment all of that fleeting relief faded.

“Who are you?” Came Zola’s frustrated voice from beside him

A defiance swelled in his throat, he knew this answer, for whatever reason Zola didn’t want the “correct” one and that’s all Bucky was going to give to him

“Sargent Barnes 32557038”

He heard the frustrated cry before he felt the blow, a stinging of his cheek from the slap Zola had delivered in his fury. Whatever they were doing they wanted him to forget, and he was determined to remember.

“How has zis not worked, he shouldn’t be able to resist zis, most men have died on the first treatment let alone at that voltage. And here he is” His voice moved from frustration to awe as he spoke aloud to himself

A set of footsteps entered the room, and a voice spoke in German only

“Schmidt möchte dich sehen“

Bucky recognised the name through his haze and misunderstanding of language, faintly he hopped that he would just be left. Maybe if he could break the restraints again, he would be able to flee. But his limbs felt tied down with their own weight and all he really wanted to do was sleep, to rest…only for a moment.

“Yes…in a minute I will be there”

The footsteps clicked across the floor again growing quiet.

“There is something about you” Zola said as his hand slid onto Bucky’s chest that was rising and falling with controlled breath’s, his skin crawled underneath the tattered shirt of his old uniform, and something likened to a wretched welled in his throat like a ball

That sick feeling sunk lower into his stomach when the machine above his head began wiring again, a noise that was slowly creeping into what little dreams he had and haunting him like a predator lurking in the shadows of every corner.

He was stuck between his mind’s will to fight and his body’s shock induced exhaustion so much so that he could only shake and rattle the restraints holding him down.

He could scream though. His mouth free, and if he was going to suffer Zola had to hear it to.

Fear pooled black and thick in his stomach as that needle descended into him, punching the same hole in his chest as it had all those times before, catching on the stitching of his shirt once more, it was almost split to his stomach now.

The needle punctured his skin and sunk in deeper, the metal disappeared from his view. And for the first time he kept his eyes open the entire time. Screaming, letting out a sound that could only be that of a wounded animal. Of something inhuman and terrible. Pure unhindered pain from a single vessel.

But another sound, another word slipped to his lips. Something that sent a shock through his chest that wasn’t anything to do with the needle

“STEVE!” between screams and sobs the name of the man he loved left his lips. Like he might be able to hear him or help him. Like Steve would come to save him…for once he was the one who needed saving, he needed Steve just like Steve had needed him all those years ago. He new Steve would never be able to make it here alive, but nothing would stop Bucky from desperately hoping

For once he wanted to be selfish, he wanted to be the one that was saved. The one who was taken away from harm when he needed it most. But he was left to face it alone, just like always. Forced to be the only person in his life who would pick up the pieces when it was falling apart.

He wanted out, he wanted out of this body, of his mind, of this pain that cocooned him in several layers and suffocated him. Filling his lungs with the fear and the torment of always being alone. Always being the only one he could ever rely on, he wanted to be able to relinquish all control if only he would know peace.

No one came to save him, no one came to free him, and no one would ever take the weight of his burdens off his shoulders.

“AAHH! STEVE I NEED YOU!” it was a cry, a prayer, a wish he had never dared to utter aloud.

Something that only the heavens had known until now. He was sure that the heavens and hell and all of the in between could hear him now, hear his ghastly call for saviour.

None came of course, he knew it wouldn’t

He would be left alone. Like always…

Always alone

…

He didn’t know when he passed out, screaming himself into oblivion but the machine had retracted it terrifying claw from his chest, and he felt the way the blood seeped up through the hole, funnelled out like a straw

He moved to put his hand to his chest but was hindered, blindly attempting to reach for something he couldn’t staunch

“Who are you?” came a voice over him, it’s sound hurting his head

“Sargent Barnes 32557038”

A sound of frustration, a slap across his face, stinging in the same way a bruise stung when you hit it again.

“What is your name?!”

“Sargent Barnes 32557038”

Another slap

“Useless” hissed Zola

“Sargent Barnes 32557038. Sargent Barnes 32557038. Sargent B-”

Another slap to the face that had his head swinging to the side on the bench, but he didn’t relent repeating it over and over

Zola wiped his hands of Bucky, leaving him alone in the room, with the green glow he had become so accustomed to combined with the soft dull light of the moon.

And he was alone, the darkness creeping in around the edges of his eyes and sinking into his person, pulling down

His vision blurred, completely unfocused in moments. He could hardly feel his body and the pain still in it, he wasn’t free of it. He simply couldn’t feel it. It was though his mind had put a barrier between itself and his body. And the only thing still functioning was his mouth, repeating his name and serial in a never-ending flow. His words were slurred and uneven but its all he could do; all he wanted to do.

And somewhere he silently hopped that an angel would descend to save him. An angel with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Chapter Text

A faint rustling broke him from his state, as he registered it he tried to focus on it. It didn’t make sense but he knew he could hear something, it was hurried, rushed, with fast breathing, then there were steps and it was gone. And the room was silent again

Except it wasn’t, faintly he was aware of the clicking of boots again on the polished floors, and the sound of crashing. No maybe booming? Something loud and distant enough that he didn’t register what it was, only that it was there.

He could hear the footsteps though, they were close. And breathing, whatever was moving closer to him had legs and life inside them to breathe. A person, but their strides to were too quick and deliberate for it to have been Zola. Whoever they were they wouldn’t get anything from him, he wouldn’t allow them to take anymore.

Whoever had wandered in the lab came over to him, and somehow, he heard his name. He had to have been hallucinating, he couldn’t have heard anything, not now.

But the voice came again

“Bucky?! Oh my god” a face came into view, a face which spoke his name, but then it faded again

Only for him to feel the weight of his limbs released back to him and his body and mind to become one thing. Something shook him, not violently but rousingly, with a level of care he had never expected. And the face was back, he looked at it, properly this time. Seeing the face of the blonde haired blue eyed angel he had hoped for so many hours ago.

He knew who that was, not an angel in any literal sense. But Steve. It was, wasn’t it?

“Is that…?” he trailed off, asking half a question into the air

“It’s me” the voice came again, and it had to be, the helmet did not disguise the face he knew so well “It’s Steve”

“Steve?”

“Come on” he was shaken softly again and this time he blinked, his wide dull eyes filtering back into the world like a set of lenses and he could see him. It was Steve! It was!

“Steve” a smile came to his face because Steve was here, and nothing else mattered. Steve shared his smile with white teeth that stood out in the darkness.

He was helped to his feet quickly, so fast and with such ease that it made him dizzy, and he had to grasp onto Steve’s shoulders. A set of shoulders that were taller and broader than him…

That wasn’t right

He swayed on his feet and stood hunched over trying to regain motor control as his dilated eyes scanned the man he knew before him. The man he knew but didn’t recognise. It was Steve’s face, his voice, his eyes but on the body of someone far to fit to be the scrawny kid he had left behind months ago.

“I thought you were dead” Steve said as he held Bucky upright with a strength and a height that wasn’t his own

And somewhere in the back of his head a voice screamed that Steve shouldn’t be here, but the words that came out of his mouth were “I thought you were smaller”

 He looked Steve up and down before focusing on his eyes, what the hell was he seeing? Steve didn’t answer him and the banging from before was clearer now, gunshots and bombs exploding from somewhere nearby.

Bucky swayed on his feet, looking at Steve as his eyes fixated on the map on that wall that Bucky had never paid full attention to before he was being half dragged, half carried out of the office lab

“Come on” Steve said as they moved through the room swiftly and back into the hall Bucky remembered

As he tried to walk his knees and his legs failed him, but Steve held his weight up with ease. He grunted in pain at the way his body ached and protested his sudden movements.

He needed to know how Steve was here, how it was possible that anything he could register right now was happening.

Steve was carrying him

Steve was taller than him

Steve had somehow made his way into a HYDRA facility

“What happened to you?”

“I joined the army” Steve said with a tone much lighter and unserious than Bucky would have liked

They stumbled down the hall together, Steve leading the way and near carrying Bucky from his bucking and shaking legs, attempting to carry him with haste down the hall as gunfire and explosions sounded from outside the walls. Bucky cringed every time a particularly large boom sounded just a little too close.

“Did it hurt?” was the next question out of Bucky’s mouth. Wondering how the hell Steve had become almost three times the man he used to be in a matter of months, even his training hadn’t given him that much muscle

“A little” Steve conceded but he still wasn’t talking about this as serious as he would have liked, they were trying to escape a burning building that was slowly self-destructing but seriously, he was too okay about all of the questions Bucky was asking, it made him uncomfortable

“Is it permanent?” he would hate to think that Steve had to go through whatever process he had been through over again if it didn’t last…

God what had Steve done?

“So far”

…

They made it up through the facility knowing that they wouldn’t be able to get out through the regular entrances, most of them likely having collapsed already. They made it to the central warehouse and saw an exit levels above them, they climbed the rickety stairs as all the evidence of what had been built in this factory below them was being destroyed.

Smart bastards

Steve climbed the stairs first making sure the way was clear for Bucky, pulling up by the arms whenever he faltered, the stairs made his knee’s ache, and he couldn’t help but stand hunched over with the strain in his body and spine. But he pushed on, some weak courage returning to him. His will to live forcing him forward through a body that he was sure would collapse if he gave it the chance.

They made it to a bridge only for their path to be blocked by two men. Both of which Bucky recognised and one he wished he hadn’t seen.

“Captain America! How exciting! I am a great fan of your films” he raised his arms to Steve and the two slowly met in the middle

He wanted to step out and reach for Steve but now that he had stopped moving, he felt weak and ended up reaching for the railing in front of him instead, sinking to his knees and heaving hard.

“So, Dr. Erskine managed it after all. Not exactly an improvement, but still, impressive” the tone in his voice was as self-righteous as Bucky had ever heard from a Nazi soldier.

“You've got no idea” Steve swung a punch at Schmidt that sent him back before he came back with his own equal force

“Haven't I?” he left a fist shaped dent in Steve’s shield

He advanced on Steve, but he was kicked back with his feet and Zola pulled a lever that split the path between them.

“No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see, I was his greatest success!” at that Schmidt dug his own hands under his skin peeling away…peeling away his face?!

He ripped everything away, skin, hair, any defining feature of a human face to reveal a bright red skull hiding beneath, all trace of a humanity gone and all that was left was something that crawled out of hell, and should have been pushed back in.

Whatever happened to Schmidt happened to Steve too, and now he feared even more for what Steve went through “You don't have one of those, do you?” he could tell that maybe he sounded like he was joking but he was not. And Steve didn’t answer him

“You are deluded, Captain. You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality you are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind. Unlike you, I embrace it proudly. Without fear!” He began his monologue and Bucky felt sick to his stomach as the ground shook between them and the light of the fire rose from up

“Then how come you're running?” Steve shouted, and silently Bucky begged that, please just this once he wouldn’t be righteous and just let them leave, he didn’t want to be stuck here anymore.

When Schmidt and Zola escaped into an elevator Steve finally turned back to Bucky and looked around, finding a bridge two floors above them and helping Bucky to his feet before pushing him to the stairs that climbed higher and higher through the facility. They were almost to the roof now

“Come on, let’s go. Up!”

Bucky got to his feet quickly, his ankles protested and his arms carrying just as much weight as his own legs pushing him two steps at time upwards, racing the growing fires.

The bridge was less a bridge and in fact a support beam that had fallen from the roof and wedged itself between the two opposite platforms. Bucky swallowed hard as he looked at it.

With no other choice he climbed over the raining, leaning his chest against the poll as to not fall, which sent a shooting pain through his ribs and neck before shuffling inch by inch further away from the safety of the platform.

Steve helps him over, holding his arms as he goes until they are too far and he can’t reach anymore. The touch lingering as long as possible, from the crook of his elbow to the tips of his fingers until he is staring down in the raging flame, trying to wobble or be sick.

The whole platform rattles and Bucky can feel the way his eyes are wide at the brightness of everything trying to keep himself steady with every bit of concentration and control he can muster. He looks across, determined to make it to the other side without looking down, he can feel it, the way the flames lick the souls of his rubber boots and he can’t look down. He’s never been afraid of heights, but in this moment he understands why so many people fear the distance of the sky to the sea.

The support rattles as more things explode below him. Bombs and gunpowder and machinery filled with oil all going off one by one. There is a collision and the support slips lower, beginning to collapse only to be caught by an outward strut that isn’t long enough to hold anything for long.

Bucky swings his arms out wide to balance himself making his way over the middle before another boom rattles the support and he can see the way it is tipping, slipping further away from the only thing holding it up, with himself still standing between the two platforms. Risking it, he runs the last few steps just as the support falls and he jumps desperately for the railing on the other side.

It plumets into the blaze below, putting a gap between him and Steve. He flings himself over the railing on the other side his legs faltering underneath him again. All of his strength ebbing and flowing in the most inconvenient places possible, he looks down into the blaze his mouth open sucking in oxygen from where he had it clamped shut and unbreathing.

Bucky looks desperately not knowing what to do or how to get Steve across the gap

“There’s gotta be a rope or something!” he shouts to Steve

“Just go! Get out of here!” Steve shouts back, the desperation and fear clear in both of their voices

Bucky won’t hear any of that shit, not now. Not when they are both so close to escaping

“NO! Not without you!” he is never, ever going to leave Steve behind. Steve came back for him, and if they weren’t going to make it out, he wasn’t going to leave Steve be engulfed in the flame alone, he was with Steve until the end of the line.

No exceptions.

Steve looks like he’s ready to shout at Bucky again, but he spots the now broken railing on his side of the platform, seeming to get an idea before bending it away leaving a gap. And then he takes as many steps back as possible

And Bucky stares, ‘he’s going to fucking jump’

His breathing turns shallow, and he can’t take his eyes off of Steve. Steve takes a running jump and a massive leap as the fire plumes upwards in a massive ball of flame. For a moment Steve is lost in it and Bucky can’t see him, and in seconds he is here again he has collided directly with the railing having made the jump by the barest of inches. Bucky grabs him over the shoulder clinging to him and attempting to hall him up over the railing, he manages to get a boot onto the platform and swing himself over.

The two of them want to collapse right now but they are back on their feet and scrambling out of the only exit left, it leads out onto an empty deck with an open ladder bolted into the wall on their right. They rush to it and Steve ushers Bucky forward first; he climbs each step by agonising step as his whole-body aches with the effort of not falling.

When his feet touch the ground, he breathes a sigh of relief and looks up to see Steve not far behind him. They descended into a courtyard and can see a hole in the defences that definitely was not there before hand and make a break for it. Bucky scoops up a gun on the way out, he is not going to be left defenceless again.

…

When they make it outside the wall, they can see what left of the men and whatever they have stolen all gathered in a group only a little way ahead of them.

They walk with haste, but still only walk, to meet the group in the near distance. In comparison this moment is the calmest one Bucky has had in months. He keeps an eye and an ear out for any lingering soldiers, but it honestly doesn’t look like there is anyone left.

Bucky’s chest heaves and he can’t take it anymore, he makes it to a tree before he slumps over. Steve must’ve heard him because he turned around in an instant and is crouching in front of him, hand on his shoulder and face. Shield dropped to the ground without hesitation and his fearful blue eyes staring into Bucky’s.

“God I thought you were dead. I thought that-” he swallowed to stop his voice from breaking

“Thanks for coming back for me” Bucky said breathless

“You would have done the same for me” Steve said with more strength in his voice than Bucky thought he wanted to have

His hand gripped Steve’s shoulder and the two of them did nothing but sit there for a while. They were just both relieved to be safe and alive and back together again. He missed Steve so much more than he could say

Steve pressed his head to Bucky’s and they breathed for a moment, the closest they had been together in almost a year, he can’t believe it’s been a year…it feels like so much time he’s lost being without Steve.

But something about this moment was still twisted, because the Steve he was looking at was far from the man he remembered leaving inside the pavilion back in Brooklyn.

Steve shoulders had filled out and his jaw was sharper, he was significantly taller than before by a foot and a half at least. His legs and arms were strong, and he didn’t think that was just the suit. He had really filled out and…it was so strange to see.

Steve was the pinnacle of masculinity and health, two things he had never been if he had asked anyone else. Steve was strong now, brave, determined with a body to back up the fight he always seemed to be itching to jump into.

‘The outside finally matched the inside’ Bucky thought, but it wasn’t a positive thought, he felt a strange mix of emotions in his chest that he wasn’t prepared to vocalise to Steve. He pushed that away from now, to just be relieved he was safe and that he was back where he belonged, beside Steve.

Breathing with him, their heart beats a rhythm of one, he felt a sense of home, like a piece of Brooklyn, the most important, piece had come back to him and he let that feeling wash over him like the first snow after summer.

Steve pulled him to his feet after a while and he regained the strength to stand, and even walk better than he had been inside the facility as they joined the rest of the group. There were so few of them now. Bucky and Steve walked through the group of men, Steve was talking to those he had met on his way to Bucky and Bucky was searching for the other Sargent’s, directing them to count off their soldiers to see who was left; he found Falsworth in the mix of bodies

“Barnes, it is good to see you alive” he got a clap on the shoulder that ached all the way through his bones but he took it gracefully.

Bucky nodded “We need to get these men back to the camp. Has anyone been able to figure out how long we’ve been gone?”

A soldier piped up in the crowd after overhearing them speak

“We were there for 16 days. I was able to see the sun rise whenever we were sent into the facility, sir”

“Thank you…” Bucky waited for his name

“Mallory sir”

52 names

“Good man” said Falsworth “Go and rouse the soldiers, we need to get the wounded on or in the tanks and we need to get back on the road and out of enemy territory”

Mallory saluted and began gathering the attention of the soldiers. Steve came and joined them with Dugan and Gabe in tow, who were overjoyed to see Bucky alive.

Dugan nearly pulled him over with the grip in which he tugged at Bucky’s arm to pull him into a hug.

“Jesus Bucky, we thought you were dead”

It seems like everyone had expected him to be dead. He knew they didn’t mean it that way; that they hadn’t expected him to live, but he couldn’t help the knee jerk reaction he felt.

As much as he wanted to stop and talk to Steve about everything, ask him every question that was rolling around in his brain he had a role to fulfill now. These men needed to get back to camp so they could save what was left of the injured men.

“Medics help get the most injured into the tanks and then follow them. Keep the tanks running slowly at a steam roll so the medics can rotate from group to group. If you can walk, arm yourself and stay on the path. We are clear for now, but we don’t know what’s ahead of us, keep your eyes open, and pair up” Bucky shouted to the men, directing certain statements at some men and saying the rest to whoever was closest to him

“You heard the man. Move it!” Falsworth affirmed Bucky’s orders, and all the men began cooperating in a cohesive group.

After a while Bucky realised that some of these men weren’t even from the original divisions and were from other divisions and infantries that had been captured before them.

Injured men were lifted into the tanks with medical supplies following them, guns were held at the ready and the sound of engines rose from the silent forest as they began their march back towards camp.

When everything was organised Bucky and Steve finally fell back into step with one another, periodically Bucky circled down the line of men checking on everyone as they walked but he stuck by Steve as much as he could.

“What’s your name soldier?”

“Bradshaw”

53 names

“Division?”

“34^th Infantry”

Bucky nodded and then walked off, checking in on the men who could still walk but seemed the most injured

“Name?”

“Jerry”

54 names

“Division”

“107^th Infantry”

Over and over again Bucky went between the men counting them up as he went until 60 new names piled onto his list

114 names

It was only when Steve pulled him aside into a stop, giving him a look that told him to slow down that Bucky stopped fretting over the soldiers.

The two began talking, the men seemed to relax and begin talking too. It was a soft hum of voices echoing in the forests amongst the tanks. Bucky started with talking about Steve and his…situation. It still bothered him and he was finding it hard to push away the anger he felt about it. But he tried to approach the subject sensitively

“So, how did that happen?” he said gesturing to Steve all over

Steve looked Bucky out of the corner of his eye “You’re not going to like the answer”

“Yeah, I gathered as much. Out with it”

The more Bucky looked at Steve the more he could still see of what he remembered about him, but it was almost like there was a mask or a thin fabric covering what he could see in front of him and what he knew. It twisted something hateful in his gut that scared him.

“The night you left there was a doctor- Doctor Erskine, said he would give me a change in the military and signed my enlistment forms”

Bucky’s grip on his gun tightened, this story was already making him feel all sorts of ways but he bit his tongue

“They put me through basic training and there were…some tests-“ he didn’t elaborate “and eventually he picked me for the experiment, Mr Stark was also funding it. He worked closely on the project and was there when all of it happened. He had been developing a serum for a type of super soldier. Strong, durable, fast. And that’s how I’m like this now”

Bucky’s anger only rose; he wasn’t reassured by knowing that all of this had happened to Steve. How had Steve willingly become a government experiment, his self-righteousness and need to help people was always going to get the better of him, he knew that. But this? This was too far, something Bucky couldn’t accept

“So you- what? Went into the military to become a guinea pig? Why would you do something like that Steve?” he couldn’t be nice about it, it was just impossible for Bucky to see any rationale in this action, and it frustrated him.

“Why do you say it like that?” Steve seemed hurt by Bucky’s tone, but he couldn’t see it through the red growing across his vision

“Because do you understand how reckless that was? You could have died”

“Yes I did Bucky, but I didn’t and now I can help people. Really help people-”

“Just like you always wanted to, right?” Bucky cut him off “By sacrificing part of yourself to make you stronger, to make you a better man, is that it?”

“Bucky why are being like this. It was a worthwhile choice; it was a good choice even if it was a risky one. And it paid off. Look at what I can do now, what I’ve already done!” Steve was staring to raise his voice now.

"Steve you have got to be kidding me" Bucky rolls his eyes

The two of them were bickering like they did when they were children, it was so stupid. But what Steve had done was stupid and reckless and if Bucky had been there, he would have fought tooth and nail to stop Steve from doing this. From changing himself.

Why could he never see it? That he was perfect just the way he was, even if he wasn’t strong.

"You know what Bucky. Just shut up, ok?" Fed up with Bucky chewing him out he gives Bucky a shove in the arm, one that is more forceful than first expected and it sends Bucky stumbling sideways.

Bucky trips across the path they've been following straight into the path of an oncoming tank. Steve quickly grabs him again and yanks him back out of the way just as the tank rumbles by. He pulled Bucky to his chest without thinking. But when Bucky realised, he pushed away. Shoving Steve off him, though he hardly noticed to push.

"Bucky I'm sorry I'm still not used to-"

"This is exactly my point Steve- you know what. Just forget it."

"Bucky I-"

"Don't follow me" Bucky storms off into the tree line following the troops out of sight of Steve.

What the hell just happened. Steve had never been able to push him around before let alone shove him.

This experiment was no joke...and with liquid fury filling his guts and red across his vision Bucky tries to swallow the warmth the creeps over his body at the thought, he feels like his blood is boiling inside of him.

What had Steve been thinking, really?! What had he been thinking

Bucky could have lost Steve to a stupid fucking experiment because he wanted to be something that he just wasn’t…

Bucky sighed frustratedly, the world wasn’t fair, and Steve drew the short end of the stick in life. He always wanted to do more, to be more, and Bucky wished that he had somehow been able to convince Steve that he was enough just the way he was, that he was better than any many he would ever meet, braver than Bucky had ever been.

He didn’t need to change who he was

But buried under all of that was a deeper resentment, a deeper anger. Because Bucky had spent the last two weeks being a pin cushion and live wire for HYDRA. He had been their own little experiment, and though he was sure there were extra measures and precautions that were taken for Steve than there were for Bucky he couldn’t imagine what had happened to him to get him the way he was.

He didn’t know what he would be now, and he was afraid to tell Steve what had happened to him.

And now all he felt was guilt

…

At some point another set of boots came to find him as he walked just right of the path where all of the soldiers were trudging along, he recognised the bowler hat of Dugan approaching him in the dim light of the rising sun through the trees.

“So that’s your Steve huh?” he said as he approached falling into step with Bucky

Internally he laughed ‘my Steve’

“He’s Captain America now by the sounds of it” Bucky said bitterly

“You are worried about him, because this clearly isn’t the guy you told us about…well at least the way you have described him”

“It’s not, but he’s still clearly the same person. Ugh, it’s all messed up, I shouldn’t have yelled at him” Bucky pauses and runs his hand over his face. He’s under a lot of pressure he has been for days; he needs to cut Steve some slack, he can’t just be mad at him. It’s his body and his life, he sure as hell wouldn’t be happy if someone told him what he could and couldn’t do with his life.

He was just so scared for Steve, what if he had escaped and still never seen him again.

What he wanted to say was ‘I don’t know who I am if I’m not Steve’s friend, the guy who was always there to protect him’ but instead he said “I was just worried about him, he’s always doing stupid shit”

“You sound like his mother when you speak about him like that” Dugan remarked with a smile

Bucky laughed as they kept walking, they fell into silence. Bucky didn’t know what he was supposed to say next, so Dugan filled in the gap

“Just try and talk to him again, you’ve calmed down, right?” Dugan was half joking when he said it

“Yeah…yeah you’re right”

“I can tell you care about him, any man in the division who ever heard you talking about him knows how much you care about him”

Bucky turned his head only slightly to look at Dugan, because he could feel the way Dugan was looking at him. The way he said it, the tone and slight emotion of it. Like he knew something

Bucky blinked and had to fix his face before responding

“I will”

…

He rejoins Steve on the track, he seems deflated from before but no less straight edged and determined, that look in his eyes finally matching the posture his body. A body that won’t fail him again.

“I’m sorry Steve. I was-“

“Bucky you don’t have to apologise. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through these past weeks, what it’s taken you to survive as long as you have”

“Yeah well I only know the half of what you’ve had to live with, you don’t have to suffer with any of that anymore…I should be happy for you. I still want to talk about it, what has happened to us” Bucky says making sure that Steve hears him, hears his earnest emotion

“We will” he said slinging his arm around Bucky’s waist, the same way he had always done when he couldn’t reach his shoulder. It felt warm and familiar and safe and for the moment Bucky could simply be grateful to be back with Steve.

…

They marched directly back into camp; the place had already filled out with new soldiers in attempt to complete the mission that had been failed for who knows how many times. Now finally complete, but less than what should have returned.

The soldiers gathered around them as they walked back inside the perimeter of the campgrounds, they started cheering and clapping and whistling. Bucky was uncomfortable at the attention looking to Steve who smiled at him, so he returned it.

Bucky walked in step with Steve; Dugan, Gabe and James right behind them as they marched straight up to Colonel Philip. Bucky knew that Steve was in trouble.

“Some of these men need medical attention. I surrender myself for disciplinary action” Steve said with a salute

Colonel Philips with his lined face didn’t smile, but in the set of his face Bucky could tell he wasn’t mad. He then looked around, seeing all the soldiers rejoining with their friends or family around them, clamouring to be beside the people they cared about.

“That won’t be necessary”

“Yes sir” Steve said after a sigh

The Colonel turned away and said something to the woman Bucky recognised as Agent Carter. Who walked straight towards Steve and began speaking to him. The two spoke together and Bucky felt…something, something rise in his chest that he stuffed down instantly. Redirecting the emotion to the crowd with a shout

“Hey! Let’s hear it for Captain America!”

All the men began cheering and shouting and clapping once more. The noise sharp to Bucky’s ears

Steve turned to Bucky looking at him with thanks in his eyes before glancing out over the crowd. Bucky returned his hopeful gaze, but it fell almost instantly once he looked away. He couldn’t let Steve see how he felt. He didn’t know how bad he looked, how hurt or injured he looked. But he knew that Steve would be able to see something in his eyes if he looked any harder and he didn’t want Steve to see it.

He wasn’t needed anymore. Steve took down an entire HYRDA base by himself, what need have he of a simple man from Brooklyn, he could fight his own battles, defend himself, he wouldn’t be teased for who he was or taken advantage of in his poor health. It was clear no asthma, joint aches, muscle cramps or constant sickness would slow or stop Steve on his path.

Bucky wasn’t useful anymore, without purpose and without need

Chapter Text

A nurse had approached him at some point, making her way through the crowd to each soldier spotting the blood in his clothes and the cuts and bruising on his face. He had tapped Steve on the arm and gestured with his head to the tent. Steve had nodded at him before being swept back up into the crowd.

He had meant for Steve to come with him…but that didn’t matter he would be fine

He followed the nurse into the tent and sat on the gurney. All the other nurses and doctors were occupied so she tended to him. He would have rather dealing with his own wounds himself, especially after…everything. But she was kind and persistent.

Started by cleaning the cuts on his face with warm soapy water, removing the grime too as she went. As she wiped some of the dirt off of his nose he said “I’m sure there isn’t a cut there” he was joking

She responded with “No, but now you look fresh as a daisy, and cute” her tone was flirtatious. Not knowing what to do with the compliment he simply smiled at her and let her continue to clean his face.

The cut on his face was quite small but it was surrounded by bruising

“How did you get this?” she said looking the cut and bruise

‘I was trapped inside a machine that sent 1000 volts of electricity through me’

“I think it was a bit of debris” he lied

“Are you up to date with your shots?”

“Yes”

“Good man, tetanus won’t be an issue for you then. Just make sure not to bother it and it should close within a day or too” she went about fussing over him again checking him all over

“Oh no, you’ve got blood on your ears. When did this happen?”

‘Right after HYDRA fried my insides’

“Explosions, there were a lot of them” he lied again

“Hmm, ok. I’m going to need you to cover your ears and I’m going to click, tell me which side it’s on”

He did, closing his eyes too and he heard the clicking, it was sharp and ringing in his ears and made his head behind his brows throb violently. He could hear it

He indicated with a flick of his finger which side it was on that he could hear her clicking

“Well, you seem to be fine which is good. No hearing loss. Can you follow my finger now”

She put it up in front of his face and followed it without moving his head, having no troubles following he quick direction changes as she went.

“Now look at my nose”

He did, he didn’t know what this was for, but she seemed to be happy with whatever results she found

“I’m going to need to check the rest of you. Please remove your shirt”

That he couldn’t do. He knew what she would find underneath the layer of clothing and he didn’t want her to see, didn’t want to have to even attempt to explain what it was. He didn’t need anyone guessing what else had happened to him

So he jumped straight to a another lie “I feel fine, I was checked by one of the field medics”

She pursed her lips at him and gave him a look that was unconvinced

“I promise. I wouldn’t lie to you doll” he turned on the charm, silently pleading that she wouldn’t insist, he gave her the biggest smile he could muster, and he saw a rose tint creep onto her cheeks.

“Well, you do seem in pretty good spirits so I trust you soldier. But you come back if you need anything” her eyes followed him as he stood, he desperately wanted to close his shirt and hold it shut but didn’t, keeping his arms by his side and keeping that smile on his face.

He left and went to look for Steve again, he hated doing that, hated lying, hated flashing a smile at a girl to get what he wanted. It would never be in the same way he’d seen some of his older friends do back when they were fresh out of school, but it still left that pit in his stomach like he had done something wrong. He swallowed hard and attempted to tuck his shirt back in on itself but wasn’t able to get it to stay shut in the cool breeze.

He found Steve eventually, standing outside one of the tents talking with Agent Carter still, he felt that maybe he should leave them be but Steve spotted him already and their conversation ceased.

“We are glad to see you safe and sound Sargent Barnes”

He nodded his head respectfully at her

“Thank you Agent Carter” he felt maybe he should had said more but he felt that she would see right through him if he laid it on too thick.

“I better be off, I will see you back at headquarters”

Bucky watched as she walked off, in heals no less, over the mud slicked ground. Impressive. But more importantly the idea of going back to Brooklyn made his ears perk up

“We’re going back?” he looked at Steve

“To London for now”

Right…they’re still needed for the war effort.

“Don’t worry though Buck, we’ll get time off. We have a week I think before they ship us out again. And we’re in the same infantry now…”

His breath caught in his throat, and he struggled to push out the words, but pulled them out of him regardless to respond “They couldn’t separate us if they tried”

Steve smiled at Bucky, that same soft glimmer of hope in his face that always seemed to be there, even when things were at their worst.

…

The trip back to London was taken by train and then by boat, just the same as it had been when he had been sent out here. But this time he had company. Everywhere Bucky went now he was accompanying Steve, or following in toe with Dugan or Gabe and even some of the new guys he had met. Jim and Jacques had now joined what had become an inseparable group, although communication was a little stunted since Gabe had to translate for Jacques who only spoke French. Bucky picked some phrases up here and there, getting Jacques to teach him the basics on their long trek back.

He could now fluently state his name, age, where he was from and how to order a croissant. Which he was personally quite proud of.

Jim was from America, California to be exact which he restated after the story of Dugan questioning his allegiance back in the facility was recounted. But that seemed to be water under the bridge for them now.

He’d really come to know and trust them. Steve was constantly in talks with high-ranking officers including Colonel Philips and Agent Carter. Which of course, he had explained to them that he was now the symbol for the American army and one of the strongest soldiers they had. So, he had a lot more to do, which…Bucky found difficult. Letting Steve walk away from him, even if it was just to the other deck of the ship.

It was too hard to see Steve leave him again, after that night when they had walked, backs to each other in different directions. He knew he was being stupid, over thinking everything. And honestly, he was being clingy, like the way the girls would hang off the boys down the booziest end of down.

He occupied himself as much as he could with the others, they were good company after all, good men.

He learnt much about each of them in the time before they arrived home.

…

On the way back Bucky had troubles with sleeping, so he didn’t. He stayed up late at night reading The Hobbit over and over, which he nearly cried when he found out that it had been untouched in the time he had been kidnapped. He would stay up late into the evening reading on the furthest edge of the ship until his eyes wouldn’t stay open any longer.

One night he fell asleep, slumped against a crate of munitions and slipped into dreams of dark cells, bright lights and machines.

He dreamt he was back in the facility, in the laboratories. Both machines wrapped around him like a vice, twice the leather restraints and twice the cold metal.

He watched as the needle descended into his chest again, but it didn’t stop where he could see it, and it was bigger, longer, sharper. It sunk into him, splitting a hole into his chest, tearing him open.

Whilst the machine clamped to his face, pressing on his skull to the point where he was sure it would pop but never did, he was on fire. His skin alight, his veins a coursing river of lava, his body beating like one giant heart. Beating faster and faster and being shredded up from the inside out.

He was dying he surely was going to die. And he didn’t want to, he couldn’t die he couldn’t. Not when he was so close to home, Steve was back within his reach he was so close! Just let him go home!

He saw Zola and felt his grubby hands on his skin, over his bare chest and aching face.

He lashed out, sitting bolt upright with his hands raised. Ready to fight, ready to kill and watch the life drain from the eyes of-

But the only face he saw in front of him was Steve’s. His blue eyes still so bright in the dark.

“I-it…Steve, what’s going on?”

“You didn’t come back to the cabin. I got worried”

Worried? It was Bucky who needed to worry about Steve

“Oh…yeah. I fell asleep” he tried to laugh it off, sitting up, making a show of stretching, which only hurt, and picking up his book

“Bucky…you can tell me what happened to you. I promised you we would talk about it, but you haven’t said a thing”

Bucky didn’t know what to say, he couldn’t tell Steve about this. What would he think of him then. It’s not like he could do anything about it. Zola was the only one alive who knew what the hell had been put inside of Bucky and there was no way for Bucky to remove it and forget about it. So, what was the point? It would only make Steve worry, and then he would be kept in a hospital for the rest of his life until they couldn’t figure out what he had been turned into

“Buck come on” Steve said when Bucky didn’t say anything

“Fine we can talk” he conceded, still trying to think of way to keep this away from himself

The two of them sat back down, Bucky’s knees aching as he did. He hoped he would recover soon, if he wasn’t up to snuff, they wouldn’t let him join Steve in whatever happened next.

“You first” Bucky said

Steve closed his eyes and raised his eyebrows, seeming to say something to himself in his head before he spoke

“It was this big metal machine, looked almost like a casket. Or a submarine. They gave me penicillin first which was not reassuring, but I didn’t expect it to be easy. And then there were these cuffs and all these different parts to the machine that had little needles in them. They said it was to target the major muscles; it was a blue serum. All of this was part of the super soldier program that Dr Erskine had been perfecting. Like you heard Schmidt was the first”

The word super soldier rang inside Bucky’s head like a church bell. Whatever had been done to Steve, had also been done to him. It must have been, just a different version. Schmidt was first, and he was a failed product. Steve was the second attempt, and clearly a great success contrary to what Schmidt believes and Bucky…he was a byproduct, a crude third attempt. He didn’t know what the difference was between the three of them, but he knew that whatever he had been given was not what Steve had been given. And he worried about the adverse effects that had yet to appear to him.

He was afraid. Afraid that he would be some darker version of what Steve had almost been.

Bucky swallowed hard, his vision drifting off along the deck and he forced himself back, trying to pay attention to what Steve was saying

“And then they shone this really big and bright light all over me. It was to stabilise and accelerate growth which is how-” he waves his hand “-this happened”

“So, it did hurt” Bucky made a point, remembering how Steve had said only ‘a little’ which had to be a lie

Steve didn’t seem to want to admit what was next, chewing on his tongue with a smile that told Bucky he had been caught out in a lie

“If you mean it was so bad I screamed my head off for a minute straight? Then yes”

Bucky ran his hands over his face and was ready to beat the shit out his dumbass of a friend.

“And you’re all different? No asthma, none of your usual stuff? You’re just completely healthy?”

“Yeah. I haven’t felt this good in…well ever. I’m not going to miss those fevers anymore”

“Yeah hah-”

‘I’m going to miss helping take care of you and keeping you company even at the risk of getting sick’ he thought, only to chastise himself about what a stupid thought that was. Steve was a grown man he could always take care of himself. Bucky was just there for the company as his friend

God everything was so mixed up, he couldn’t seem to think straight about Steve anymore.

“What else can you do now? Mr Captain America sir, can you call an eagle from thin air?” Bucky teases distracting himself and attempting to distract Steve. But Steve didn’t take the bait.

“That’s enough about me. What happened to you?”

“Just the same as the rest of the soldiers Steve. I didn’t stand out from the crowd” The truth was that the harder he tried to remember what happened to him the further out of his reach the clarity of the memory was

“You know that’s not what I meant”

Bucky sighed and chewed the inside of his cheek

“Fought like hell to stay alive, wasn’t pretty but you should see the other guy”

“Dugan told me you weren’t even kept in a cell, you were just taken straight away to…that lab I found you in I’m guessing”

“Yeah, I was in the lab”

“For how long?” Steve kept prodding when Bucky wouldn’t give him more than one sentence answers

“Everyday” Bucky pulled up one of his knees, squishing his book between his chest and his thigh whilst his arms rested on top. He was holding onto his own wrist, where the burn from the ropes was still healing

“What…happened to you” Steve asked again, more tentatively this time. And it scared Bucky how careful Steve was being with him

“They just ran some tests, trying to find the fittest soldiers”

Steve tilted his head at Bucky, waiting for him to say more.

“Uh it hurt, they weren’t exactly the generic tests”

“Bucky I’m not stupid, something happened to you. I saw that machine when I came and saved you remember, why won’t you tell me what happened?”

Bucky couldn’t let Steve see how weak he had become, he just couldn’t. He carried the weight of the world, he had to remember that, he could carry his own weight as well.

“It was just awful Steve, simple and awful, I don’t know what to tell you” Bucky might have gotten angry, but he was just sad. He felt himself slipping and it took all he had left to not let himself sink into himself and disappear. It was becoming hard to distinguish between the Sargent Barnes - the soldier and Bucky - the friend. It was too hard to be open, and honest

He couldn’t stand what Steve would think of him

“I’m fine, see? It’s just going to take some time to adjust back to normal but I’m fine” Bucky stood up, intending to leave for real this time.

“Let’s go back to the cabin. I’m exhausted”

…

They made it back to London in time that felt longer what it had been to get him into Europe in the first place. Steve had been ordered back to the SSR headquarters, but the rest of the troops had been given leave for now. The now group of 7 gathered and organised to meet at a bar that Jaques often frequented – The Whip and Fiddle.

It was late in the evening already and Steve promised he wouldn’t be long. He called a taxi and then he was gone again. Just like every time since that night in the Pavilion, Bucky let Steve walk away from him.

But he was swept up in the good moods of his new friends as they walked on foot down to the bar that was full of soldiers off duty, their partners and eligible young men and women looking to meet someone new.

Bucky tried his best but was only half-heartedly able to join in on their merriment, his bones ached something cruel and he couldn’t deal with how loud and bright everything seemed. Maybe it was because he had been kept in the dark for so long, the cell, the lab, the hull of the ship. But everything was just too much. Every tap on Bucky’s back, every clasp of his arm or his shoulder sent shooting pains through him.

He shouldn't have lied to the field nurse but he didn't know how to tell her what happened to him. He didn’t know how to tell anyone. It was best if this was kept to himself...he didn't want to be laid off duty if they deemed his injury too great, not now the Steve was here. The war seemed to slip away and his whole reason being here was to protect his best friend. Who was now six foot four and built like a powerhouse. Something he couldn’t seem to look past.

But the dull ache in his back and through his shoulders was worse than he had realised. Waking to the bar with his heart pumping and his chest heaving had been all he could feel, he was still too anxious on that boat, and he had finally settled, the aches turned to persistent dull throbbing that he could feel all throughout his back that was becoming concerning. He doubted anything was broken since he was walking just fine...but with what happened to him...he couldn't be sure.

He excuses himself once they get inside, asking Dugan to order him a Rum and Coke before he heads towards the bathroom where he knows a mirror will be. He’s overthinking it, it's probably just wear and tear from having his body thrown around so much.

When he gets to the bathroom, he locks himself in, he sheds his shirt tripping over his own fingers trying to get his shirt off fast. The anticipation of walking just to the bathroom had made him feel dizzy. He tried to reassure himself that it was nothing, but that niggling in the back of his head was like an itch he couldn't scratch, a tic that would go away.

When he took his shirt off, he examined his torso. Bruised and thinner than he was a few months ago but he expected that, he had felt it. It didn’t change the fact that the sight was hard to look at, with his collar bone prominent and a few of his ribs sticking out behind the skin. He could see the puncture in his chest, a congealed mess where his body had tried and failed to heal the same injury over and over again.

He pressed his hand to the area around it which had veins clear as day pumping in the front of his heart. He traced a finger lightly over them and he felt the sting instantly, he felt his heart sink lower in his chest at the touch, recoiling in fear like though his hands were another needle. He wasn’t going to be taking his shirt of in front of anyone for a while, the scar was frankly hideous and he didn’t need anyone asking questions.

He examined the rest of his body and saw the red raw injuries on his wrists, with his skin peeling and calloused over it and the darker welts where he had tugged his hardest against the metal connecting the two. He had a large purple bruise from where he had flung himself at the metal railing and they were littered in green and purple hues up his arms and over his shoulders.

He had to check his back, but he was afraid of what he would see when he turned around. He turned around first, his anxiety to know turned into an anxiety he wished he could leave unknown, back to the mirror before craning his neck over his shoulder to look into the mirror

The sight made him feel ill. His stomach turned itself over and heaved inside his body. His skin didn't look like skin anymore. It looked like an abstract painting of a blueberry bush. His flesh looked dead. As if he had festered just under his skin and he was left to rot without knowing. Like mold had set into his decaying corpse.

His shoulder blades were sticking out, the skin stretched over the places where there used to be muscles, they were patchy with blue and purple. The hint of the bruises he had seen on his shoulders were part of a much larger puzzle piece that only added to the horrifying textures of his skin

But that wasn't the end of it, the most horrifying details were that of his spine and his veins that carried his blood slowly growing cold. Each notch where the line of his spine connected with one another were almost perfectly circle bruises; the darkest of the lot. Deep and black so much so they looked painted. He had seen enough bruises in his time getting into punch ups with Steve and now in the military...but this...this was nothing in comparison.

At this point he thought his spine should be broken or he should at least be limping like a dead man walking.

His veins were a deep purple, etching lines into his skin. The lines usually quiet and colder indicating his life now dark and harsh, looking more like a slow coming death. As his eyes traced each shape and horrible marking scored across his skin, his skin pulsed in pain.

Pulses like the shock of electricity.

Whatever that machine had intended to do left something that no mark or brand could compare to. He wondered if bruises of this magnitude would ever actually fade or if he would be forever discoloured and silently disfigured.

What was he supposed to do? Only a few bruises would sneak out his collar but when they didn't fade easily what was he going to do if questions arose. It's not like privacy was much of an option, the military didn't prioritise on making sure their men were comfortable, they made sure they were efficient.

Bucky stretched, testing the tenderness of his limbs and his range of movement. And everything ached more and more with each movement. But it didn't matter if he ached, he'd been used to knocks and bruises. He would just keep fighting like he had been taught to do. He had more important things to do than wait and recover.

He had Steve to protect.

Although...it didn't seem like Steve needed his help anymore

Steve didn't need him anymore. He didn't need a companion he seemed to be able to make friends just fine on his own. And now he had Peggy. He was no longer the scrawny kid he had grown up with. No, he was fit and healthier than any man he had seen on base.

Steve was fine.

Bucky smashed his fist against the sink in anger. The feeling of redundancy washed over him with each thought came like a set of waves constantly dunking him into the onslaught of salt and spray without giving him a chance to breathe. He clenched his fist and hit the sink again and again.

Steve didn't fucking need him anymore. He was stronger, faster and far fucking braver than Bucky had ever been. So, what was the point of him now?

But with each bang of his fist he failed to see the cracks slowly spreading through the porcelain until it shattered under his hand. And that shocked him enough to stop his possessive thoughts from spinning around his head.

What had he done?!

He...he shouldn't have been strong enough to do that. He knew he was malnurished and weak...so how?

Bucky’s anger was suddenly replaced with fear. His body looked like it was dying and his mind was betraying him with intense emotions that made his head spin. He was so afraid...

Afraid of himself

He pulled his shirt back in and buttoned it all the way up pulling his collar fast to make sure that everything was hidden. And as he looked in the mirror all he saw was his tired face looking back.

It was nothing like how he felt and what he actually looked like. That was good, it meant he would look normal, and no one would ask him anything...

He could be normal

He left the bathroom with the shattered sink and head back to the table where the rest of the group were sat because he didn't know what else to do. He fit in, talking, laughing, joking doing everything he could to show them that he was fine. Because he was, nothing was wrong. Even if his back hurt and his joints ached and his mind felt fractured

All of it didn't matter because he was fine  

…

It was only an hour until the sun had set, and Steve had finally showed up at the bar. Wearing his fresh new uniform having combed his hair again the same way he always had. It was uncanny how Steve he looked.

Bucky had been sitting with the rest of the group, but he’d stepped away for a while, he needed a breather from everything, the lights, the sounds, the laughter. It was too much and, after a while Bucky’s ability to join the conversation dwindled. He separated himself politely, going to sit by the empty bench fastened to the wall. Waiting for Steve to show up

When he did, he went to table first, he began talking to them, asked them a few questions but Bucky just tunned it out. He couldn’t handle all the sensory information he was processing in that moment.

He overheard briefly that Steve was asking them to join the fight, after what they’ve been through and considering how long some of them had been fighting Bucky assumed that their time was up, if they wanted to they had a few avenues that allowed them to return home.

Hell, he knew that if he was honest with any doctor they would send him home immediately.

Which is why he was a liar

He hears them each one by one pledge to join in in battle once more

“See? I told you, they’re all idiots” he says turning and watching Steve walk over to him, having spotted him out of his periphery, he takes a mouthful of his drink.

Steve sits down beside him “How about you? You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”

“Hell no-“were the first words out of Bucky’s mouth. The second were “-that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I’m following him”

Steve may have a new face, a new name. But he would always be Steve to him. The best friend he’d known since he was little who had stuck side by side to him in every possible moment.

It was Steve he was following, not Captain America

He smiled, tiredly, but happy to have been honest. He wasn’t going to pretend to follow the persona of a man he didn’t know, he knew Steve. And that’s who he was going to follow.

He took another drink as him and Steve locked eyes and he looked away. He wasn’t ever going to leave Steve again, and after everything that happened between them since the war had started had churned around his feelings for Steve like the way sand would kick up like a cloud under the waves, making the ocean foggy and clouded. He knew what his thoughts were underneath the fog of everything else. But untangling them rationally was becoming too difficult

He loved Steve

He knew that

He had spent so long shoving that fact away, stuffing it down and hiding it from the world. Using the warmth of other men and women to fill the hole in his heart that he knew now was made for Steve. And only Steve

Even if he would never say it, he wasn’t in the right mind to hide it. Not anymore when their lives were so fleeting now

“You’re keeping the outfit, right?” he said letting his thoughts run away from him

He did admit that Steve did look good in it, all the curves and muscles filling it out in the uniform in ways that he had never been able to before. He would have to be blind to not find that attractive

Steve turned to look at that poster of him hung on the walls, he wishes he had been there to see one of Steve’s shows. He would have never let him live it down.

“You know what, it’s kinda growing on me”

When the singing went abruptly quiet in the background Steve and Bucky both turned to see what had happened. Only to come face to face with Agent Carter wearing a beautiful knee length red dress. The two of them stood instinctively, she walked over to Steve only giving the scarcest of nods to Bucky, which he didn’t mind.

He looked at her dress, the sharp colour that it was, matching her lipstick and the decorative frilled trim it had

Bucky watched the two interact and felt something ugly form inside of him. That same ugly feeling that clung to his heart when he had pictured Steve married. It was green and it blocked out the red of his heart that held only compassion, now slowly being replaced with envy.

He watched as Steve looked at her, he was so clearly transfixed on her. She was beautiful, she made all of the lights in the room be dim by comparison, but Bucky didn’t like the way that ugly feeling twisted at his heart again, with Steve looking at her like that.

He looked to Steve then away, anywhere but the two of them. Even looking over his shoulder to keep his thoughts away from them. Steve deserved to be happy, and Agent Carter clearly liked Steve too. In times like these they deserved each other, and Steve had barely been able to hold a girlfriend…well ever. He should be proud of Steve.

But he just wasn’t

“I see your top squad is preparing for duty” she remarked

“What don’t you like music?” Bucky cut in

“I do actually. I might even, when this is all over, go dancing”

Bucky wanted to distract her, to stop Steve looking at her like that. To stop her from looking at Steve

“Then what are we waiting for?”

Rather than acknowledging him she simply kept looking at Steve, like he was the one speaking and not Bucky. What was he even doing here right now. He was being an idiot, but he couldn’t help it, why did she get to look at Steve like that, with affection clearly returned and he couldn’t.

He wanted her to just look away, to stay away from Steve

“The right partner…0800 Captain” the two smiled at each other, their eyes still locked with an equal look of affection in them, and then she was gone.

Bucky wanted to squeeze the wooden bench until it broke in half

“Yes ma’am. I’ll be there”

Bucky’s eyes followed after her, turning his head away from Steve as he felt his face turn into something confused, angry and jealous.

“I’m invisible” he joked, he needed to say something

“I’m turning into you. It’s a horrible dream” he was joking. He was completely joking

Steve was endearing and charming in his own way even before the muscles, it was everyone else who couldn’t see what Steve had been before he became the perfect man, a perfect soldier.

This horrible dream was because finally Steve was accepting the attention of someone else, and it wasn’t Bucky.

“Don’t take it so hard. Maybe she’s got a friend” Steve joked patting Bucky on the back

Steve meant it but Bucky felt sick with the jealousy. He didn’t want anyone else except Steve.

He scooped up his glass and downed the rest of it, he wanted to be drunk and fast. He wasn’t going to deal with this sober and if he was going to do or say something stupid like he just had then he was going to blame it on the alcohol

He goes to the bar and orders the hardest alcohol they have and takes it down in big gulps. He orders round after round until he can finally feel the effects start to sink in. He knew his alcohol tolerance was highish, but it shouldn’t have taken him this many drinks.

By the 9^th glass he was finally fully drunk, the aches and pains had slipped away, and he was sitting hunched over his glass at the bar

“Okay Bucky, I think that’s enough” Steve came over to him eventually and took him by the shoulders helping him stand.

“What’s the problem Steve? What the harm? It’s our last night of freedom anyways so we might as well have fun!”

He was delirious and very much drunk; he allowed himself to be maneuverer by Steve.

Steve said something to the rest of the crew and then walked Bucky out of the bar, towards the hotel that had been paid for them by the SSR for them to stay in until deployment. And for rest whenever they would be back here post mission.

They were now a team, a squad, a company of troops fighting alongside the great Captain America. Super soldier extraordinaire.

Bucky felt sick, ready to throw up everything that was in his system as Steve walked him down the lamp lit street, shoulder under his arm steadying him and a hand around his waist.

Bucky put his hand on Steve’s, not want him to ever move it away, but he didn’t have the strength to hold on and he had to accept whatever Steve would give him. It wasn’t a physical strength though, he knew now, with that blue serum flowing through his veins he probably could, but he didn’t have the mental strength to ask or even beg for Steve’s attention.

He thought weakly about how stupid and pathetic he was being but right now in his drunken stupor he didn’t fully care. He would play it off by morning, blaming it on the jack and the rum and whatever else he had slammed.

When they got back to the paid for apartments Steve helped Bucky inside, and when Steve stepped over the threshold with him he never wanted him to leave, but he swayed on his feet, kicked his boots off with so much difficulty that Steve had to make him sit down to untie the laces and take them off himself.

Watching Steve be so gentle with him made his stomach flip over with another sensation, full of giddy adoration.

He flopped back onto the bed the moment his shoes were off, throwing his hands across his head and to his side.

“Are you going to be ok Buck” Steve asked, still crouched looking only slightly concerned at him by his bed side

“I’m fine~” but a hiccup escaped his mouth shortly after

Steve huffed a laugh, then stood up with a stretch and a yawn

“You know you could just stay here” Bucky offered, he wanted to be near Steve again, alone with just the two of them where no one else could impede on them, on their connection and bond.

He thinks for a moment, then sighs

“No point going back to my own room when there’s a perfectly good bed here”

“And you’re amazing best friend” Bucky was laying it on real thick right now, but he didn’t have the mind to care, was Steve doing the same? He couldn’t tell

Steve took off his own shoes and removed his jacket, folding it neatly as to not crease it. Bucky was watching as Steve striped the layers of uniform, his muscles clear as day even in the dimming light of the apartment. He had to admit it was a very appealing sight, he wasn’t surprised all of the girls were running after him now. He was downright handsome in the most angelic way.

Bucky wriggled until his back was against the wall and Steve laid down facing him, a small distance between them that Bucky wanted to roll through and wrap his arms around Steve’s neck. But he had some sense at least not to do that.

“What’s it like being Captain America? Is he any different from Steve?” Bucky asked

Steve tucked his bicep underneath his head and looked at the space between Bucky

“Captain America is the symbol I wear, the title, I guess. I’m still me underneath all of that. But I’m also, more than that…it’s hard to explain”

“Just be honest Steve”

“I feel different, but it’s like, suddenly, I’m who I was always meant to be”

“Well, I don’t you look half bad, even if I miss the scrawny kid you used to be”

“C’mon, you can’t tell me that skin and bones was better than this”

“You were perfect the way you were” Bucky smiled when he said it but his tone had slipped into something more serious.

“You really liked me better then?”

“It’s not about better, you’re you. That’s all that mattered to me, still that dumb kid that learnt way to early how to get blood stains out of linen. You’re still Steve to me”

Bucky felt his eye lids drooping, he reached out in the now darkness that had fallen over the room and grabbed Steve by the hand

He wanted to say something important, but something sensible in the back of his brain told him he shouldn’t, send off alarm bells like a warning

“No matter what you look like- I’ll… I will always…” and then he trailed off, the darkness getting darker and the weight of his heavy, throbbing limbs and eyes fell over him and he drifted off. Hardly aware of what had just come from his mouth.

Chapter Text

The next day the new Howling Commandos; as they had decided to name themselves, were introduced to the SSR headquarters in London. Being led by Peggy Carter and Colonel Philips with the funding and technological help from Howard Stark, which Bucky had been excited to meet.

He had actually been designing the new outfits and uniforms for each of them personally, which meant that Bucky had time to discuss what he wanted and a myriad of other things with Mr. Stark.

It was easy enough for him to be casual, but inside he was buzzing from just being in the same room as Stark – who had told Bucky to call him Howard when they had met, it only took Bucky calling him Mr Stark four more times before he felt even remotely comfortable calling him Howard. He lived up to what the papers had said about him of course but there was a better man underneath all that once you got to know him, mostly.

Howard had showed him the designs he had been working on, what they were made off, any prototype materials as well as additional features. Dugan had his bowler hat redesigned as well, just as a personal bonus.

He was going to be issued with regulation cargo pants with extra pockets for ammunition and possessions as well as leather lace up boots with patterned souls, which Howard had designed for better grip on rougher terrain, since who knows where they would end up now that they were following HYDRA around the globe

Bucky had found the packs too bulky and hindering and asked Howard to design him a belt with lot of ammo clips and pouches, they would be more accessible that way, especially since he had taken on the role of sniper in the group. After what happened he felt like Steve had benched him in a way, but Dugan vouched for him and his skills with a rifle and was set to be overhead watch. He was still joining the fight but when Steve had asked him for this he couldn’t help but feel like he was being pushed back.

He could still fight! Steve was fighting now and that meant he had to too, as long as he kept putting in the work, pulling his weight and doing all he could there would be no reason for him to sit on the sidelines, he would still do what he could to be a part of this team.

Steve had unofficially appointed him his right hand by giving him all the extra little organisation tasks for their missions, so he knew he still mattered to Steve. And if he could be useful then that’s all that mattered.

Since most of HYDRA’s bases had been tracked to the colder parts of Europe Bucky’s jacket had been sewn with Kevlar and extra fleece to keep him warm, he didn’t want to deal with all the extra tethers that came with a regulatory uniform so adjustments were made to make sure that it was secure and warm as well as unhindered, allowing him lots of movement, he didn’t cope well with not being able to move his arms anymore. So it was a must.

Not that he told Howard that

“Well that seems like everything, I can get that made before your first mission. When do you ship out by the way?”

“A week, we’re heading to Luxembourg. A few soldiers have gone ahead of us to find the exact location”

Howard nodded his head “Ah, right well is that everything you needed? Any customisations to your rifle maybe?”

Howard seemed eager to get his hands on anything he could to upgrade for them, but Bucky was quite happy with the rifle he had been given…he’d gotten used to it. Which he hated to be able to say.

He looked at the other designs on the table and spotted a design of Steve’s new suit. It looked good, the full package of stars and stripes, very patriotic and it would be very hard to miss

“What colours are you using for his suit”

“Classic red, white and blue!”

“Could you make my jacket blue? The same colour if you have the material spare”

Howard gave him this look. A raised eyebrow and a smirk the stretched his moustache upwards, a quick squint of his eyes followed the smirk and Bucky felt instantly scrutinised

“Uh- it’s okay if not-“

But Howard slapped him on the back and walked with him out of the room “Don’t worry Barnes, I can do that”

He gave him another few swift pats on the back before walking into the board room leaving Bucky in the hallway slightly stunned.

…

The only thing left for Bucky to do was to be evaluated to see if he was field ready…which was going to be difficult for him to fake. He should ask Steve what he did when he was going all over the state lying on his enlistment forms, surely he has some tricks up his sleeve about passing medical exams.

He was perfectly capable when the military fitness training came around, passing with flying colours, all of them had taken it. It was astonishing to see how quickly and easily Steve was able to complete these task as well, since Bucky had only seen him in action the one time and he was still sure that had been a dream.

Climbing? No issue not even a single wheeze out of him

Running laps? He pulled it off in under 4 minutes when the military average was 7 and a half

And that shield, the one Howard had given him, it was so lightweight it shouldn’t have been nearly as strong as it was. Steve said it was made of Vibranium, which happened to be one of the rarest metals on earth. Which Bucky hadn’t even heard of it wasn’t on any periodic table he had ever seen, and no one could tell him where it was from.

Steve was decimating every single obstacle, not only could that shield slice through every dummy, it sent them flying 20 metres back if they weren’t fastened down properly, watching that in action had filled Bucky with awe

And he admitted briefly that it was very attractive to see how capable and strong Steve had become. Not only for the fact that his muscles were so easily defined in the sun of the field they had been training in but also because seeing Steve so confident and, despite the circumstance, happy at how he was filled him with a new type of joy he hadn’t ever been able to measure. It was like he was feeding off of Steve confidence to give himself joy, he was just so… proud of Steve. Even if there were still some lingering issues.

It had taken him some time but Bucky had gotten past his feelings about Steve being different, he wasn’t over it perse, but it didn’t bother him. And he was more than happy at the fact that Steve was happier now, and healthier.  He didn’t have to suffer with a body that wouldn’t cooperate anymore. It’s all he had ever wanted for Steve.

During this training they had the chance to fight with one another, not only was it a chance for Steve to learn the levels of his strength, when to hold back and when he could use his strength to his advantage, but it taught them some useful skills as well. Most of the fighting on the front was fought with guns but they were overpreparing this time, they wouldn’t be caught off guard by whatever HYDRA would throw at them.

Bucky especially, he wouldn’t be taken away again.

They learnt grappling and disarming techniques, with guns and knives and other weapons. Sometimes the best tactic is just to evade, sometimes it’s high ground, sometimes it’s going for the legs and sometimes it’s going straight for them.

Bucky was still recovering from what had been done to him, his bruises were fading but slowly, and his body was starting to feel a lot better. Underneath that exterior damage he actual felt better than he had in a while. He felt energised, strong, ready. He was determined and he wasn’t slowing down, even when he huffed and bent double it only took a few seconds for him to be on his feet and going at 100% straight away.

Steve was impressed when Bucky could match him in almost every exercise, but he enjoyed the way Steve looked at him with a smile and the others would cheer him on, just as he would with them. There was a real sense of comradery here, and it gave him faith, in their success, in their drive for something better for this world.

The homesickness and reality of a war was still very present but Bucky took whatever moments he could to take his mind away from it all, just for a few days.

That week they were deployed.

And week after week it was new country after country. They first went to Luxembourg where they took down a warehouse that was storing fully functioning weapons and ships as well as materials, they needed to seize everything that had to do with whatever was powering those machines that had incinerated the soldiers Bucky had worked with

He had counted off those names; how many had been missing from his infantry after he had been reassigned.

The warehouse they had taken over had several levels deep down into the earth, it had made Bucky uneasy to descend those stairs, but he was doing it of his own free will and knew that if he could take himself down, he could pull himself back up

Then there was the warehouse in Poland, Steve had a motorcycle for that mission and promised Bucky to let him ride it when the mission was over, he’d always wanted one but was never able to get his hands on the money for one after a war. Even a second hand one would need more money for all the extra repairs it would take, and most mechanics were out serving so there would be no one to help him fix it. And his mother would ever let him park it on the lawn

At the end of those raids they left nothing but flaming and crumbling rubble in the wake of what used to be a HYDRA safehouse. They all toppled eventually, and it was satisfying to watch them do so. To see them collapse and become useless, it was one less thing HYDRA had to hurt people with, one less place they had to regain their power across Europe.

There was a route along Poland that was being used to ship things in and out of Prague, where another major facility had been built. That fight along that dirt road and through the forest was very reminiscent of Bucky’s deployment along the Austrian-Italian boarder, right before Azzano. But he kept up and he was ready, nothing inside or outside of him would stop him from putting his body and mind into this fight

He had a real reason to fight now

Steve had inspired him, he didn’t want to be a part of a war and he still didn’t see the point of it all in the grander scenes that the politicians spouted about it on the radio. But if Steve needed him to fight, then he would. He would fight with everything he had. Because that’s exactly what Steve was doing. And what kind of man would he be if he didn’t, he had the strength now to save people, even if it came about at a great cost, he would use what HYDRA had given him against them.

He was doing it because he wanted to show Steve that he could, for once he wanted Steve to be proud of him. And that in turn fuelled the fire in his gut that had always told him he needed to help people when he could.

The next mission sent them to the outskirts of Norway, where Jaques pull one of the riskiest moves he had ever seen. He ran into the oncoming path of a tank only to slip onto his back and place a timed detonator onto the hull of the tank. Standing up and dusting himself off as it exploded a few feet away from him.

He seemed so proud of himself, and the group couldn’t help but smile at the way he looked like a kid who had one a prize.

Whatever made him happy, explosions seemed to be his forte.

…

For their next mission a delicate amount of navigation was needed since the terrain would not be in their favour at all.

An extra crew had followed them this time though, they had a giant film camera with them and were going to be transitioned off back to New York at the next checkpoint, but it was strange to have them following them around…

Just recording things as they went, they were trying to prepare their route, with the map rested on the jeep they had travelled in they set up their camera watching Steve talk and point as they figured out where best to go next

Bucky stared at the map trying to discern from the many coloured lines where their best breaching point would be, the red X on the map denoted the base but everything around it blurred together, he couldn’t concentrate on it with that camera standing there so close.

It made him uncomfortable; they were here to get a job done. Not to…take a motion picture. This wasn’t entertainment, it was war.

Steve began talking, just letting the camera roll without much notice. Until he pulled out his compass.

The camera crew, and Bucky suddenly transfixed on it

Inside the lid was a cut out picture of Agent Carter from the news article she had been posted in a few months ago.

How long had that been in there?

The camera was very clearly trained on the compass, Bucky had seen the camera man spin a small wheel on the side of the machine only to train it on the compass. When Steve noticed this his concentration broke, he stopped talking mid-sentence and snapped the compass lid shut, shoving it back into his pocket. Glaring angrily at the camera before going back to the map, shuffling to the front of the hood giving the camera his entire back

Bucky’s eyes were stuck where the compass had been, it still looked like he was looking at the map.

But he couldn’t see a thing, his eyes were hazy, and he felt himself clench his jaw. He bit down on his own tongue, sudden and indescribable rage flooded his mind, before the red turned green with envy

Agent Carter was a fine person and an excellent soldier, but the anger he felt for her was immense

It wasn’t her fault of course, Bucky knew that, somewhere inside his head. But he felt as though he was always competing with her, it was always her. She was always near him, even when he wasn’t

He was furious, why could she love him freely and he could not?

What made Peggy fucking Carter so special

The thought made him grind his teeth before his eyes focused again and…God what had he been thinking.

This wasn’t her fault, of course she liked Steve and of course Steve liked her, she was gorgeous, and Steve was…he was everything anyone could ever want.

This was just the way the world worked, he didn’t have the right to be mad at her for just being. Childishly, and only for a moment, he wished he had been born a girl. He wished Becca and him had switched places, she could have everything she wanted in the world as a man.

And he could have Steve, who was all he could have ever wished for in his life.

…

After that encounter Bucky had managed to clear his head and walked in step with Steve, as usual, at the head of the group, guiding their way to their next mission which was only a few clicks out from here. They would be there before midafternoon.

“You’re really smitten with Carter aren’t you”

“Oh- you saw that”

“I don’t think we could have missed it, it’s not every day you see a picture inside a compass. At least not with you”

“Wow, thanks Bucky”

“I’m just saying, you seem to really like her-“ he had to force the next part out “-I’m happy for you” Bucky gave Steve a light tap on the back with his open palm

“I still don’t feel like I deserve her…when all this is over, maybe I’ll actually have a chance to do this right”

Bucky smiled, Steve was still that nervous kid underneath all that muscle, that was something

“Just be yourself, she clearly likes you for you. You don’t have to be Captain America. Just be the dork I know”

Steve laughs and shakes his head

“You think I got what it takes, to be a husband I mean?”

Well, that was…certainly a question

Bucky thought about what Steve would be like as a husband. When all of this is over, he could finally work a job when people weren’t looking down their nose at him, coming home to see Steve’s face every day. Wearing his brown slacks that no longer hung over his shoes in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

Maybe even with kids running around the house, he imagined what those kids would look like, bright blue eyes and blonde hair just like Steve was when they were kids. Maybe some of the kids would have brown hair instead-

“Bucky? Earth to Bucky?”

Bucky jumped slightly, he had been drifting again

“Yeah I think you would be, Steve. As long as I still get to be Uncle Bucky”

He hoped Steve would still want him to be a part of his life, even if it wasn’t going to be their life anymore.

Steve smiled and the conversation stopped here, but the train of thought in Bucky’s head kept rolling

He was reminded over and over again how intertwined his life had become with Steve. Almost as if without Steve he had no life. He was left in a state of limbo until he was able to be by Steve again. His whole world coming to a standstill only to spin again when Steve was in it

It couldn’t be healthy, but he couldn’t imagine it any other way. When he imagined a life without Steve, he felt physically sick

But he knew that being in Steve’s life was also Steve’s choice, it was ultimately up to him if he wanted Bucky around, and Bucky just had to hope that he could be a part of whatever future they would have after the war. And he would be content with his role in it.

He couldn’t stand side by side with Steve, that was Peggy’s place to fill now, but that didn’t mean he would always be one step behind in

In school the teachers had always remarked that “Steve is like you shadow isn’t he Bucky. We never see either of you without the other” but the truth was just because Bucky was in front didn’t mean he wasn’t the leader

Steve was the sun, shining bright in the sky behind him, and that made Bucky the shadow.

…

The next mission had them in Czechoslovakia which left them in constant snow, Bucky was up on a ridge that looked down on the battlefield that was now covered in debris, dead bodies and fire. Steve was stood clearing up his gear now that the soldiers outside had been dealt with and they were headed inside to plant the bombs, Bucky watched for any stragglers and low and behold a soldier holding a gun approached from around the broken brick fencing training his gun directly for Steve.

Bucky aimed, breathing softly, letting his hands be steady as he rested on the ground with all his weight pressed into his chest to keep him steady. He pulled the trigger and the soldier dropped, a bullet sized hole in between his eyes.

Steve turned looking for him on the ridge and gave him a salute

‘You idiot, thank me later rather than give away my position Rogers’ Bucky thought before standing and finding another place to give the Howling Commandos cover as they entered the factory.

The final location was Greece, which had been a suspiciously easy mission compared to how some of their others had gone, but it was clear the memo of the hunting of the HYDRA facilities had not reached their ears yet. And infiltration came swiftly.

But during their transportation back to the SSR a tip came in that Zola’s location and estimated travel route to another undiscovered base in the Swiss Alps had been targeted and mapped

This was it, this was their golden ticket.

Chapter Text

The climb up the mountain was not pretty, it was freezing and all his limbs ached as he used every muscle in his body to keep himself upright against the rough terrain and snow. His hair was flat against his head, the cowlick he usually brushed about his head was curled over and near frozen in place; Dugan’s moustache was collecting snowflakes. It reminded him of the trek that Bilbo and the company had to make when the mountains started fighting, at least they didn’t have that.

Not only that but they had to stray from the beaten path to remain undetected and get to their designated location in the first place, the cliffside of a fucking mountain in the middle of a brewing snowstorm. It couldn’t be more dismal.

Jaques carried the grappling kit, they needed to secure a line over the train tracks so they could sling on and land on the train, which sound insane when they had first been briefed on the mission. Bucky spluttered and was close to objecting if Steve hadn’t spoken first, they each had their own reservations but this mission was crucial and they were the only group of men with enough skill and field training to pull this off. And their kit had been made by Mr. Stark which gave Bucky a little more hope of survival, albeit it a small amount.

Gabe was in charge of listening into the radio chatter to make sure they knew when Zola’s train would be passing

They made it to the top, the zip line set up, the metal wire launched across the canyon and into the mountain on the other side, with a set of detachable handlebars for the three of them. Steve, Bucky and Gabe would be the only ones traversing the gap, the rest would meet them at the other side to take Zola and any remaining crew members back to the camp meeting point.

The Howling Comandos had honestly become quite inseparable now and Bucky was quite fond of each of them. Dugan most of all, it had been so easy to talk to Dugan from the moment they had meet, and it was a few months into their missions as a group that Dugan and Bucky broached what seemed to have always been hanging in the air.

Steve.

Bucky guessed the Dugan had figured him out but when he mentioned it to his face he couldn’t help but panic.

Don’t ask don’t tell. It was what happened, especially in the military

“I wanted to ask you about something” Dugan had said

“Go for it” Bucky had said in between the bite of his rations whilst they were on watch together, completely comfortable with anything Dugan might ask

But then he asked about Steve, and Bucky choked

“You don’t have to say anything, but I think I’ve figured out what’s your and Steve deal. You love him don’t you”

Bucky, as Dugan had suggested, didn’t say anything. Only bit down a gaging noise as he choked and continued to feign eating though the food had turned even more sour in his mouth

“I don’t think it’s obvious exactly…but I know you. And I like to think I’m perceptive”

“And what if you were right?” Bucky had asked as calmly as he could

“Doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I just wonder what that must be like. Probably like chasing a girl who ain’t yours”

He was mostly right, but there’s a difference between wanting someone who loves someone else and knowing there are people who would want to see you imprisoned or worse for the person you love.

“All I’m saying is, if he’s your best friend. I don’t think it would hurt to tell him how you feel”

“You’ve seen what he’s like with Peggy” he say’s not quite admitting to Dugan’s claim but confirming it nonetheless

Dugan took a bite out the jerky he had snuck into his pack when they had been given new supplies

“Maybe…”

Silence stretched on as the wind blew the small specks of snow around them

“I’m sorry, that has to be hard” Dugan said

“You get used to it” was his response.

Truth was Bucky was never used to it, sometimes when he was with someone else he could forget for a little while, and sometime he would pretend he was with Steve no matter who he was with; which often only made him feel worse. A sinner with a guilty conscience

And then other times he was so jealous and envious that he thought he might hit something from the rage, but that again wasn’t something he could share, he shouldn’t be jealous at all.

That interaction had left Bucky with a sad feeling hanging over him and the last wretched feeling of nerves in his gut.

Another thing that had left Bucky with an upturned stomach was what had happened to him. His nightmares were frequent, but they weren’t uncommon in the company, and no one ever really asked. It wasn’t something that was easy to talk about and they had enough nightmares of their own without sharing each other’s.

But his body, it was sturdier and stronger than ever, he felt like Steve looked. For the most part he was on top of the world, but unlike Steve he kept his strength hidden, learning the limitations; of which were few and what he had to do to hold back. That was the most important thing.

During his training he had regained his lost muscle mass, but it took great amounts of strength and mental fortitude with each action to make sure nothing went too far

He refused to allow anyone to be hurt by him or to be discovered for what he was. Steve had told him about how they had almost kept him locked up in a lab for testing, like a new experimental device or drug.

Bucky didn’t want to risk that fate, not again. Even in the hands of American scientists he didn’t think he would feel safe.

Here they were, waiting in silence at the top of a snowcapped ridge, waiting whilst Gabe listened and translated any incoming radio chatter, letting them know when he had switched to Zola’s direct line and knew they were soon to be coming

“Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?” Bucky said trying to take his mind off the chasm at his feet with the memory of the day they had spent on rides with the spare coin they had saved up throughout the school year before the summer break. It was the one thing they had been waiting all year to do, though the memory was slightly hazy around the edges

“Yeah, and I threw up?” Steve replied

Yes, he did very much, even with Steves limited capacity for food and small body mass he had never seen so much puke in his life

“This isn't payback, is it?” he chuckled, those rides had been enjoyable, but this was a height he never expected to face, and it was making him queasy

“Now why would I do that?” the two of them smiled

“We were right. Dr. Zola's on the train.” Gabe piped up behind them as the sound of an engine came roaring around the cliff side along the tracks in the far distance

“Hydra dispatcher gave him permission to open up the throttle. Wherever he's going, they must need him bad.”

“Let's get going, because they're moving like the devil.” Falsworth interjected, they had a small opening, and they needed to move. Now

“We only got about a 10-second window. You miss that window, we're bugs on a windshield.” Steve said, Bucky was sure he was mostly guessing but it was better to understate than overstate and miss their mark

“Mind the gap.” Joked Jim

“Better get moving, bugs!” Dugan called over the wind as it picked up

They took the detachable handles and one by one hooked onto it, the only thing keeping them from falling were their hands and the strength in their fingers.

Steve went first, shoving on his helmet and leading the way, sliding down with a tinny whiz. Bucky going soon after with Gabe right behind him, he looked straight ahead as he sped down, he wanted to trick himself into believe there was still solid ground between him and the train.

As the train road past they came in line with it and dropped onto the roof, leaving the rest of the commandos in the distance and their entry far behind them.

No turning back now, they had to take the train.

There weren’t meant to be any crew on board since this was a transport ship of mainly metal goods and Zola himself since this track wasn’t very often used and was recently reserved for HYDRA specifically, according to their intelligence.

The three of them dropped to their stomachs as soon as their boots touched the metal roof to stop the wind from picking them up and carrying them off the train. Only taking a moment to centre themselves before getting up into a crouched walk and moving as far forwards as possible

They climbed towards the external railing where Steve opened the hatch and entered checking that it was clear whilst Bucky and Gabe stayed looking to make sure there were no surprised hiding in the mountains, when Gabe gave Bucky the all clear he joined Steve and Gabe moved slowly further up the train cars from the roof, heading to the engine room.

Bucky closed the door behind them; it was freezing out there and this room felt like a hot summer pool by comparison

So far everything was empty but that didn’t mean they were in the clear. There were racks of supplies and gear in the middle of the car and Steve and Bucky walked either side, each step slow, quiet and deliberate. Bucky checked behind them whilst Steve moved forward

But a feeling in his gut shot through him that had nothing to do with his previous nerves of the heights, it was like something was different. Waiting to go wrong

Steve walked into the next car, Bucky still checking their six when the doors suddenly locked shut between the two of them, separating them.

Bucky looked at Steve through the glass who had turned and banged on the window only for the sound of the other end of the car opening and allowing in a soldier. Bucky raised his gun and began shooting instantly, hearing the sound of gun fire and the metal clanging Steve’s shield made, clear as day on the other side.

Two soldiers had entered Bucky’s car, and he shot at them, one of them falling before he ducked behind some creates for some cover, pressing himself against that wall as he loaded his gun again.

An extra set of soldiers entered the car and had made their way too close too quickly whilst Bucky was hastily unjamming his gun

Bucky was focusing on his own fight whilst also hearing Steve’s clearly through the door. The horrific blast of what could have only been HYRDAs new tech sounded, and the metallic clanging of Steve’s shield was echoing behind it. Combined with gunfire from his car the sounds were threatening to overwhelm him.

That was another thing he was unable to get past, the sensory issues were immense and there was no way for him to combat them, he just had to deal with them as they came. Louder than the should have been and clearer than a radio broadcast

“Stop him! Fire again” the voice of Zola shouted into the sound system of the train

When his Johnson ran out of ammo he switched to his pistol, taking a brave step directly out of cover and shooting the soldier directly in the face only to hide behind another set of crates on the other side of the wall.

Another blast of that sound amongst the continuous gun far in front of him. He leaned out, aiming his pistol up but after two more shots that jammed too, and the trigger pinched the skin of his hand as he opened the clip trying to free whatever bullet casing was stuck

With no bullets and no working gun it was only a matter of time before the soldier got to close, and would be a battle of speed. Could Bucky strike first or would the soldier pull the trigger.

Just in time before Bucky could figure out to win their hair trigger fight the door opened and he looked up, thankful to see the blue clad face of Steve, who gestured to his own pistol and threw it to him

The two worked in tandem, Steve charged, shield up to push one of the crates down the line of the rack, forcing the soldier to step out of the way, putting him directly down the barrel of Bucky’s gun.

He put a bullet in him too

“I had him on the ropes” Bucky said

“I know you did” Steve said puffing slightly

The sound of clunking and the visual of a soldier holding a giant piece of machinery over his shoulder and in his hands filled the space between the two cars and raised his arms to fire directly at the pair.

“Get down!” Steve yelled

Steve stepped in front of Bucky pushing him behind him with his shield up. The blast ricochet off the shield and collided with the inner hull of the train, blasting it wide open flooding the car with cool air that sucked at them as they train kept speeding onwards

“Fire again!” Came Zola’s voice once more with clearly no care for the giant hole how in the side of his transport.

Steve had been blasted to the other side of the car, Bucky got off his knees from where he had been knocked over and picked up Steve’s disarmed shield. Holding it high; Steve was right it wasn’t as heavy as it looked

He aimed his gun over the red striped edge of the shield trying to take out the soldier

“Kill him! Now!” Came Zola’s voice again

Not if he had anything to say about it

But another blast came, and he couldn’t stay on his feet, and the blast threw him from the metal floor of the train car.

And out of the hole in the train wall.

The shield and gun flew from his hands as he was lifted from his feet, with his enhanced sight giving him more field of vision he saw the inner railing of the car now leaning over the chasm and he grabbed onto it tightly.

It ripped at his arm but he gripped on with everything he had, his legs were half dangling half floating in the empty air around him as the wind carried his body

He was so far out from the platform and his heart beat and beat and beat and beat. Over and over again a torrential drum in his ears, the wind took the breath from his lungs as he desperately willed his gloveless hands to grip the cold metal just a little tighter

“Bucky!”

Steve appeared on his right, climbing his way down the blasted wall towards him reaching his hand out as far as he could

He was so afraid

He forced himself to shimmy over, daring only to release his grip enough to move it. His hands stung as the cold metal ripped at his skin

The more he moved the more the rail came loose unable to handle the redistribution of his weight

Please God no, don’t let it break

Steve came closer and closer and the two reached out, as far as the other could go, hands desperately outstretched with each joint extended to their limit, reaching for one another.

All of Bucky was screaming at him as his skin was whipped by ice air and his shoulder took all of his weight as he desperately held on with hands that were numb and frozen.

“Hang on!” Steve shouted at him over the wind “Grab my hand”

He was so close, the tips of his gloved fingers the barest inch away from his own frost tipped fingers

But the railing insisted on creaking and leaning, his weight and the unstable winds made it shake and wobble, he was so close. He just needed to-

But a screech and crack sounded. And then a snapping

The railing broke away, just as Bucky’s hand grazed the tips of Steve’s fingers.

“Bucky! NO!” was all he heard before the wind swallowed up every other sound

Except for his own screams

…

The white backdrop of the snow-covered landscape spun around him as he felt himself falling, nothing but empty space around him as he plummeted.

He was so fucking aware, so fucking conscious. To awake and to alive in this moment that guaranteed his death. He had never been so wide eyed and present.

The scream was ripped from his throat as if pulled out by some unseen force, cracking and splitting in the middle. It was quickly swallowed up by the wind and snow as he descended lower and lower in what felt like an infinite amount of time. Steve had already vanished from his view and the train slipped complete away with each rotation of his body as he struggled wildly in the air, his legs were taken up from him being pull up by the wind and his hands and arms flailed around his clothes whipping at him as he reached for something to grasp at, something to cling to

Only that there was nothing. Empty air, the space between his life and death. The weightless, eerily relaxing feeling of being held by the world itself.

His breathing had stopped, panic had stricken his body, who needed air when they were going to die.

He thought of many things in these moments, of Steve’s face as he fell. Of Dugan and Jim and Gabe and James and Jaques. Of his mother and Becca, how he had broken his promise to them. How guilty he felt. The fact that he wouldn’t live to see a better life after the war.

Everything he regrated, the things he never had the chance to do and all the people he was betraying by falling the way he was.

His screaming went on and on in a single breath, his already ragged throat was ripped raw once more, he had only just begun to feel that his voice back to the way it was before he had been captured.

It had been so startling when he really listened to his own voice for the first time, and it wasn’t the cracking of prepubescence but of a voice that had been overused. If someone could cut him in half he had no idea what horror they would have found

He was falling back facing the ground when the empty air was tugged from him like a blanket underfoot and it was collision after collision. The ground was coming thick and fast but not before obstacles made their presence known to him. He hit tree after tree that didn’t nothing to break his fall. He heard thunderous cracks as he broke off branches and leaves and trees covered in snow. And then he felt the solid scrape of a giant boulder colliding directly with his left arm

Then there was nothing but searing, blinding white pain.

And the ground had finally come to meet him

Flat on his back, face up in the snow as his vision sparked and darkened at the edges in the cloud filled sky. The grey looked like night the with filter over his eyes.

His whole body screamed at him but all he did way lay there, unmoving, not dead, mercilessly not dead, and sending spikes of pain everywhere. Ever nerve was alive and on fire, and he felt something warm. To warm for the snow, he could imagine was at his back

He wished for death, he really did this time. He wasn’t ready, but he silently begged for it desperately and it never came, another torture, another punishment as he was left to suffer. Another prayer left unanswered

He wasn’t even blessed with a black out. No, he was very conscious, very awake, very alive.

No breathing, no blinking, no speaking, not even a wheeze escaped him as he laid there like some demented snow angel sprawled out on his back in the snow that was slowly growing red.

He let the snow fall onto his face, allowed his already freezing hands and sweat soaked hair to crystalise with ice in the cold.

What was he to do? Except wait here to die

Weakly, with the only strength he didn’t know he had he pulled up his arm. Only to feel that warmth run up to his shoulder, and the stump of what should have been his arm came into view. The flesh torn and stringy hanging from his body, the red meat of his limb open and vulnerable with the bone sticking out from the stump that used to be his arm.

If he had it in him, he would have laughed, something deranged and hysterical. But his strength subsided, and his arm dropped. Only causing more ache and searing pain

He thought that, considering he was in such a disfigured state he shouldn’t be able to feel a thing, he had heard that many men on the front hadn’t known a limb was missing until he was told it was missing by the medic. But he felt every single part of his being with pinpoint precision, like he was microscopically aware of every cell and every nerve.

He stayed there, unmoving, unblinking. Detached from anything real but so very unfortunately alive.

He was alive

His torment would never end

And for the first time in his life he cursed God, he would never ask for help ever again

He doubted that God even existed with everything he had allowed Bucky to go through, he doubted his glorious design and his glorious plan. If this is what he had planned for Bucky since birth, then he renounced his faith and spat on God’s name

Because if God existed…he truly had abandoned him

Chapter Text

The night Bucky was confirmed killed in action Steve had drunk himself into a stupor, there was no heroic motion he could take like he had the first time knowing Bucky could have been alive, a fall like that was a guaranteed death. So he drank, he took the first bottle he found and he went to the most desolate place in the broken city they had camped near after the mission.

He had begged Colonel Philps to allow him to send a search team but he wasn’t budging this time. It was a lost cause

Steve didn’t want to hear it, but he knew with the way his heart throbbed and cracked that it was true.

He drank and drank and drank only to realise that no matter what he drank or how much of it, it wouldn't take away the pain of what he had lost. Peggy had joined him at some point, but her words couldn’t console him as much as she tried

All he could do was drink and cry and wish that his new reality was anything other than what it was. But it didn’t do anything to change the fact that Bucky was gone

Dugan had set aside his hat for the first time since the war had begun, taking it from his head and holding it under his arm as a soldier ought to after the death of a fellow soldier

And he sat in silence, for as long as time would allow him, for as long as Bucky deserved because he deserved it, and now he had to come to terms with the fact that he would never meet another man like Bucky again.

Bucky was one of those men that were hard to come by, steadfast but kind, ruthless with a cause but not hateful, he was ready, fierce and eager to care. He was a man who put everyone above himself and did everything he could do to make the world better than it was when he first strode into it. He raised a glass to Bucky that night, drinking the same brand of whiskey that Bucky had ordered every time.

He found Bucky’s things and took them with him, packing them away for safe keeping so that when they could get back to New York he could give them to his family.

Flasworth was the one to confirm the 107^th that Sargent Barnes wouldn't be returning to them and they would be assigned a new Sargent. It was the first time he had been unable to make his voice carry across a crowd, he was unable to deliver the news with steadfast confidence. He faltered, because Bucky was gone.

Gabe, Jim and Jaques clinked their glasses at the memory of Bucky, allowing one last moment of that night to be for him, Falsworth had joined them eventually but Dugan and Steve had been no where to be found, but they weren’t surprised.

Colonel Philips added one more report to the countless files of deceased American soldiers. He had a yellow letter, a message to send home to the Barnes residence. Knowing that the record stood with two Mr. Barnes now counted amongst the dead.

Winifred wept. At first quietly like nothing had happened and then so loudly the neighbours had come knocking, Becca answering the door with dried tear tracks on her face, her young cheeks red and puffy and her eye downturned.

Becca had stood silent. Her brother was gone and it wasn't a fact she could accept. She sat on the front porch every day, loosing track of the date and expecting her brother to walk through the door one day

Gordon had died on the front, never knowing what had happened to Bucky never getting to wonder if they would ever have the pleasure of meeting again.

Connie and Bonnie ended up leaving New York, choosing to live in some small town where they could rewrite their story together, construct something that would keep people off their backs and prying noses out of their business. And they lived out the rest of their lives there, in secret and in love. Never seeing Bucky again but never forgetting what he had done for them. Never forgetting hope that he had instilled in them

Chapter Text

He remembers being dragged, then lifted. Manhandled and moved, repositioned and replaced. He was moving a lot but he couldn’t feel the tension in his muscles the way you could when you moved to do anything.

He knew things were happening, but what things weren’t details he was able to hold onto

Like how when you wake up from a dream and you know that you said something, or you did something, and it was important, but you can’t remember any of the details that make it coherent.

Bucky felt weightless, he knew he weighed something when he was being moved but it was so easy to feel like he himself was something outside of the whole flesh he knew to be his body. It’s like he was far off from it, but still seeing through his own eyes and remembering nothing of importance

Such a strange experience.

And it didn’t hurt, at least for a while. Something told him that it should have, that faint recollection like the edge of the dream told him something had happened that meant he should be hurting but he wasn’t. Or maybe he was and couldn’t feel it. When your fingers go cold and you bite your nails, and you can feel it but you can’t feel it

There was a lot of white around him, at first, he knew that white to be cold because it was snow, but then it was long and threaded, at some point he grabbed onto it. Hard, yanking it down or away and it felt like cloth. Then it was in his face and his eyes stung and he could feel the way the retina strained against it, it didn’t go away for a long time and it sent his head spinning

His eyes were opening and closing over and over as his head throbbed in his skull as if it were throwing itself full force at the front of his skull.

Ther was lots of movement where his arm had been. That’s right, his arm was gone, he knew that. He saw hands, not his own hand, and too many of them to just be his hand. He tried to batt them away but only succeeded in rolling over onto his side which wasn’t enough to deter the hands that held him down.

He remembers thrashing then.

He also remembers a needle, the prick of the metal in his skin before the whole world went dark

Why was it so often that he was forced to see the darkness that drowned out the world. Why wasn’t he allowed to keep his eyes open?

He opened his eyes again, but a fog filled his mind, he was in the same place he had last been in, on the metal of a bench that should have been cold but had been warmed by his body. He wasn’t being held down by anything now like he had been before.

He allowed his head to slowly roll to the side; the bright whiteness was still shining above him and that same stinging came back for his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his brows into the crease of his eyelids before opening them and blinking rapidly, trying to take control of his sense again.

A small voice in the back of his head told him he was in danger, he knew he was.

Blinking until his eyes focused on what was around him and that haze from first waking fell away from his eyes he stared at the shapes in front of him, a metal box, a tray of some sort and thin grey lines with odd protrusions. He kept blinking until they were focused, the metal box was a bench, the tray was a medical container, and the grey lines were tools. He could see now there was also thread, tape and bandages as well.

He breathed deeply trying to allow the sound of his own breath to not only awaken his ears but to also allow his nose to work. Taking deep breaths in, smelling the sterile nature of the room he was in, his breathing sounded far off at first. As if he had cups over his ears but the deeper he breathed and the longer he held each breath the more the sound filled him from within and he could hear again.

He moved his tongue around his mouth, freeing it from where it had dried to the roof, his mouth and throat were attempting to lubricate themselves again with spit but that papery texture continue no matter how many times he swallowed.

The final thing he did was the hardest, he had to push himself up. He was in danger, though no threat was perceptible he had to move. He just had to go

He righted his head and attempted to push himself up but found only one of his arms compliant.

His shoulder and the stump that was left moved as if the rest of it were still there, but there was a strange gap, both in his sense of feeling and understanding of the concept that his arm simply wasn’t there anymore. It was bandaged now, only a small amount of bone still making a bump in the neat wrappings.

He pushed himself up, nearly leaning all the way over the other side of the bench as he did so and clutching the side of the bench to keep himself up, but it’s difficult. His fingers have been relaxed and open so when he grabs the bench they ache around the knuckles and he can feel the way his arm shakes in the moment he pushes himself up. He has to take a break resting on his elbow before he can sit all the way up. And when he does, he slumps immediately forward and has to pant out a groan. His body feels like a 40 tonne weight and every movement is an effort. But he must move. He must move again, if he stops, he might not be able to get up again.

He realises now that the fabric isn’t restricting his movement that he is shirtless, but a soft jangle sounds from under his chin and he can feel the cold rectangular shape of what must be dog tags hanging from his neck. He wants to clutch at them but he Is too dizzy to move away from the thing that is keeping him stable.

Breathing rapidly as dizziness overtakes his head, he shakes it away, mouth agape to suck in more air as he shuffles to the edge of the table and slides off of it until he can feel his feet touching the cold tiled floor. He can feel the way his eyes are flicked around his hooded eyelids as he begins to search for an escape. The world feels so heavy right now, like all of it is pressing down on his shoulders at once trying to crush him. He flings his arm out wildly trying to find the closest thing to stabilise himself, he grabs the closest thing and pushes himself forward one shuffling step at a time. There is a door ahead of him, he can tell that big metal and bolted shape is a door, it’s too big too imposing for him to get a clear outline of it but he knows it’s a door. It’s an exit.

He keeps shuffling over until he slumps against it and swings his hand around until he can find what he think’s is a handle. It’s strange, it doesn’t click down, instead it pulls out but the door won’t open with him leaning on it. He uses what’s left of his arm to push himself away from the door since he’s so close and manages to pull it open

He shakes his head again as it starts to throb and he begins to feel that same haze fall over him. He’s fucking fine he needs to keep going

‘No plan, no information, I’m walking into oblivion’ he thinks as he shuffles out the door

His head hurts so much but he just needs to keep moving, down the dank and dark corridors until he can find the right light again. The yellow tinted light of the sun and not the sterile white he’s only seen so far.

As he walks his body regains that feeling of not being entirely his again, the one he remembers. It’s odd, too separate. And he breathes hard, his chest rising and falling as his heart beats against his ribs. It’s not beating for him it’s beating against him, raging and protesting against his desperate movements

His vision starts to go black around the edges, but his legs are still moving forward, even as his shoulder collides with the wall and he cries out in paint. There are people in the distance, and they are getting closer but nothing about their features makes sense, they are grey and beige masses in his vision. Everything is so blurry and the sound of his own heartbeat and breathing begin to slip away, the world slowly falls into an eerie silence before everything falls into blackness again as Bucky is forced to watch oblivion envelop his very being once more.

…

When he wakes up his body aches all over but he can already feel how much more alert he is in comparison to before. It’s like his brain was finally put back in his head and things make sense again. This disorientation quickly wearing off as he blinks hard and fast looking around the new environment.

He’s on the floor; the walls are cold and low built with steel and some sort of worn looking brick. There is a singular light over the door with a bulb the glows very dimly. No windows or other entry ways, except for the massive metal door with a flap at the eyeline and a larger flap at the base. It looks, heavy, sturdy.

There’s a cot that looks unstable and mouldy next to his feet from where he is on the floor. The room has several sets of chains also which make Bucky’s stomach turn inside of him.

It’s when he tries to sit up that he realises he’s chained to the wall. His singular arm locked into a wall brace made for two. His fingers are turning a concerning shade of blue and his arm is pale. He tries to wiggle his hand around to regain the feeling in his fingers but the joints pop and pinch from the cold. He’s still shirtless and his dog tags are still around his neck but  the pants he is wearing are shredded all over. Those must still be his uniform pants still.

He runs his tongue over the inside of his mouth, that same papery feeling still persisting. He flexes the muscles in his jaw, opening his mouth in an attempt stretch his face and clear his head. His ears popping and the final lack of clarity slips away entirely

He’s aware, he’s awake and his body if flooding him with adrenaline. Telling him he has to flee, but he can’t. Because of course he can’t.

He tries to push down the fear that is filling his body using logic and his training as a barrier to hold it all back. Trying to discern what he needs to do next.

The things in the room are old, rusted and rotted but the walls and the door are clearly reinforced. The things kept in here had to stay locked away, and without a window there was no way for him to figure out where he was, he could have been taken to another country for all he knew.

He attempts a yank at the wall restraint’s he is locked into, there is only a slight amount of give, he strains his neck to look, finding a lock keeping the bracket closed with his hand inside, it was still bright silver and bronze. It would be hard to break but not impossible, and he knew had some level of extra strength he could use.

He crouches up onto his hunches, trying to give himself as much leverage as possible putting his foot against the wall and learning all of his body weight forward before putting as much force into his arm as he could to into breaking open the restraint. The first attempt yields no results, but he keeps trying, yanking and yanking over and over hoping that the super strength he had uncovered would finally become useful.

But nothing comes of this, he pushes and pulls, rattling the lock against the metal, trying to grab it with the hand that is restrained, letting out a grunt of frustration. The metal rubs against his skin but he persists, something has to happen something has to give way.

Ration isn’t something his mind can conjure, his mind is addled, he can think clearly but he is simply thinking about the wrong things. Freedom rings in his head like a gong but he isn’t using any intelligence to work on getting that freedom. It’s rabid, hardly contained panic that spurs him to move. And in the end, he goes nowhere.  

He keeps yanking his arm against the restraint but now he’s straining his ears to listen, he’s sure there must be a guard standing outside his door, they wouldn’t be that stupid to risk him being able to wander off again.

The feeling of being boxed in on all sides began pressing against his skin and he felt a chill run down his spine as he laid against the brick, slumping back to the floor with his right arm held uncomfortably above his head, he opened and closed his fist over and over trying to stimulate any form of blood flow

Bucky waits in the silence, straining his ears listening for any sign of movement or voices. If he had been a dog his ears would have been twitching about his head like mad in an effort to strain against the silence.

It was agonising and strangely, mundanely, frustrating having to wait in the silence for something to happen, he didn’t have the ability to do, or change anything in his environment and sitting there his eyes darting around the walls felt so unnatural. The room was too still, like it was frozen in time and he was being forced to stay frozen with it

Waiting in a place that wasn’t moving, that had no direct presence of danger. It was like looking into the shadows knowing there was nothing there in reality, only the fear of the unknown making fantasies in your head, making you believe that something might be there. The fear was confusing, it wasn’t the same fear that chilled your blood, it was the fear of waiting, of knowing something was about to happen without there ever being an indication of it happening soon.

Bucky had no indication of how much time had passed but his mind had been racing so much that he might not even have noticed anyway. He was thinking of how he was going to get away, the things he was going to have to memories. Potential visits to his cell, mealtimes, test times, guard rotations whatever he would be able to catalogue in his head. And then more drastic long-term measures crawled into his head, like having to carve out a tally on the wall so he didn’t get lost in the sunless days, or having to fight with one restrained arm or how he would be able to escape the room with what he had. The table could be used as a battering ram, and he had the confidence to know he could throw it if he needed to. He knew chains could be used to injure, even kill if used correctly. It just all depended

And those thoughts began to chase each other around his head, every scenario possible unfolding into the next as he tried to figure out what to do when something did end up happening

But he spiralled into a panic, what if nothing happened. He would be left in this cold dank room forever but considering what he had heard, and seen from prisoners of war, dying alone in this room from starvation didn’t seem so bad.

Then the chastisation came, he wasn’t going to let himself die in here he was going to escape. He needed to stop even entertaining the idea that dying was an option, it fucking wasn’t, no matter what happened he was living. He wasn’t going to break his fucking promises, and he wasn’t going to die some Nazi’s experimental rat.

It was after that time had past with only his rapid thoughts to keep him company that the eye level flap on the door slip open with a scraping and a clunk.

A set of eyes just underneath the brim of a helmet was visible, they looked right at him before looking away and he heard speaking.

“Er ist wach, Arzt“

“Perfekt“ that came form another voice

Already bracing for whatever would come next Bucky pulled himself up against the wall, tucking his knees up slightly so he would have room to swing and kick if any one of these assholes tried to get anywhere near him.

The door opened and a soldier and a well dressed, highly decorated man walked into the cell. The well adorned of the two wore gloves and a grin on his face that felt eerily out of place.

“Er ist völlig intakt. Vielleicht wusste Zola doch, was er tat“ he didn’t know if he was being talked to or about but either way he kept his mouth shut

“You are Zola’s little experiment aren’t you“the decorated officer said in english layered with a thick german accent.

Bucky grited his teeth

“Surviving how you did is incredible, I would give credits to you’re maker if only he weren’t so usless and got himself captured, herr Schmidt was not pleased“

‘I’m sure he wasn’t’ Bucky thought

“The strong silent façade, I respect that in a soldier, your military was lucky to have you. You are just the kind of subject I like” the officer seemed to swoon at his own wistful thinking and Bucky looked at him with as much disgust as he could muster.

“Oh but you must excuse me for forgetting the formalities. I am Doctor Matthias Ritcher, I have been assigned to you, now that you are rightfully back in the possession of your creators”

‘You didn’t create shit, by the sounds of it you ripped of a perfectly good man’s work’ all in Bucky’s head, he wouldn’t give this guy the satisfaction of lashing out in the way that Bucky desperately wanted to unleash. The anxiety inside him pushed him to speak but it also kept the words stuck in his lungs away from his teeth where he so desperately wanted to hiss.

 “I wonder what it is you can do. I’m sure the required testing has not been completed but I wonder how far you’ll go, how much you can take before you snap. Humans snap in so many different ways, different sounds mostly; sometimes there is silence, sometimes screaming, begging, and sometime you really do just snap in half. You might be a challenge though considering how impeccably well put together you look despite how far you fell. The canyon! Imagine that, a human surviving the blood loss and the sheer distance you did. Brilliantly fascinating” He rambles on, he doesn’t even seem like he’s expecting anyone to listen to him

But that doesn’t change how strange and chilling his unabashed presence is. He fills the room with his words and Bucky’s struggles to swallow as he tries not to listen to him.

“Tell me boy, do you think you’ll snap in the sheer silence of your suffering, or will you scream”

He takes a few steps closer as he says it and bends down to look at Bucky, scanning him, holding his gaze much too steadily.

Bucky pulls his knees up and readies his foot to kick “Stay the fuck away from me”

The doctor shoots up and claps his hand once the sound bouncing around the room

“Oh he speaks! And he’s a fighter. Fantastic”

He turns his back to the soldier, his hands clasped speaking directly to him

“Take care of him won’t you, I am so eager to begin working but I haven’t been given the clearance yet” he rolls his eyes “They do want him to survive”

He takes a deep breath in before sighing and looking back at Bucky, he crouches down again and get’s in Bucky’s face, gabbing him by the jaw and shaking his head like he’s a limp stuffed toy.

“We’re going to be very close very fast, I can tell”

Bile forces its way up into Bucky’s throat and he spits in the face of the Doctor who recoils.

“Ugh disgusting. I’m going to have to train that out of you very quickly, I won’t be dealing with that” he says wiping his face with his gloved hand before giving Bucky a tap on the face somewhere between a love tap and a slap.

Bucky says nothing else, only looks at the Doctor with what he can imagine is all the fury he has left, he yanks on the restraint again and the Doctor takes a few steps back.

“The first step is always the hardest, but that’s ok. You’re a no better man than the rest” and with that he turns away leaving as the soldier follows a step behind him bringing the cell door shut with a dull thud and several clanks as he lock’s Bucky back in the room alone.

The bile that has settled in his throat is now followed by a rage and Bucky growls into the room before rattling the restraint again

‘Where was that fucking strength when he needed it!’

He rattled it over and over again, the lock jangling by his head over and over as he pulls and throws himself forwards and back trying to break the restraint. The only thing he accomplishes is rubbing his skin against the metal and creating a small red welt underneath his palm. The growling persists with each futile attempt to escape but eventually it subsides into a sound between a shout and a sob. It’s of frustration, of fear, of anger and desperation.

He can’t already be unable to fight, he can’t have been subdued so easily, to have been put down like a dog. He wasn’t going to roll over and submit to this, but it just seemed like there was nothing he could do, nothing around the room he could reach, nothing he could hold without another hand, nothing to kick, nothing to break. No one to break.

Tomorrow the doctor would be back, he only had to wait until he could do something. Fear and patience weren’t emotions that mixed well but it’s all he could feel in this empty room, seemingly designed to keep him in.

It wouldn’t hold him forever; he would get out. Even if it took all he had.

Chapter Text

Sleep doesn’t come easy, and he doesn’t suspect it ever will. Not for a while.

He doesn’t plan on sleeping, between the eerie silence and the raised position of his arm creating an uncomfortable environment it isn’t exactly easy. And he’s tense, sitting too upright, too stiff. He’s acutely aware of his body, how every inch of it feels. And the sense in his mind that is connected to his arm is too alive for him to focus hard on the rest of his body, his arm, or lack thereof, is consuming all of his background thought

It feels like it’s still there, and sometimes he moves it to check if it is but it isn’t. His shoulder and stump of a bicep flail uselessly whenever he tries to flex the muscles in his hand. Because there isn’t a hand to flex, there aren’t tendons and bones to pull his fingers shut into a fist like his brain is telling it to do. But it’s so strange because it feels like it is.

The room is dark enough with only the singular flickering blub lighting the entry way to the cell but it’s when that light seems exceedingly bright that he knows he dozed off. It’s also the way his back is curled due to him slumping down the wall and the taught pain in his wrist from having slipped his weight down.

He sits back up, and his fingers prick and tingle from the dissipating numbness. He tries to figure out how much time has passed but there is no indication of it, no sound of voices, no wind or rain. He doesn’t even know if he’s in a place where rain could reach.

And the thoughts grip him of being underground, of being buried under rock and dirt and metal and bitumen. He wants to slap himself when his brain offers the comment that ‘this is already a tomb, why would he ever need a coffin’

The flap in the door suddenly slides open, Bucky jumps, rattling the lock of his restraints. His heart leaps against the ribs in his chest and doesn’t slow as he listens with a precision no human should have at the movement behind the door. The guard walks in first, clearing the entry way with his hand on the doorknob that exists only on the outside.

Doctor Ritcher walks in, he’s being followed by two other guards. And Bucky tenses, his eyes flicking between the three of them.

“Good! Good you are awake already, you would never know how difficult it can be to rouse subjects sometimes. Temperamental creatures you are” He’s speaking with a smile on his face just as he had before. Yesterday, Bucky assumed that was yesterday.

One day has passed

“Please, bring him to the lab won’t you” he says with a soft gesture of his hands towards Bucky and the soldiers walk forward.

Bucky takes a good look at Ritcher finally, he’s a man of decent height, he doesn’t slouch and he seems to have a habit of holding his arms up or close to his body at all times. His teeth are neat underneath the smile that Bucky is coming to loath, his hair is dark and his eyes are darker. The stink of superiority hangs around him like an aura.

But Bucky isn’t having any of that, he pulls his legs up and kicks the first soldier as hard as he can in the chest, pushing him back. The other soldier dives in to grab his legs and he kicks again, getting the soldier in the face. But he grabs him by the foot and forces it down before kneeling on his shin which forces Bucky to sit up in order to press his calf to the floor, relieving the pressure.

The soldier leans forward to unlock the restraints and Bucky attempts to bite him as he leans close. He’s determined to use every weapon at his disposal; it’s their fault if they choose to get too close thinking him harmless.

The other soldier is back on his feet again and he’s grabbed Bucky’s other leg and is pushing his bandaged arm against the wall to keep him from moving much. He struggles but he has no leverage here, both of the soldiers are in his face and his stomach twists with the sick feeling as he tries to kick harder.

Whatever they gave him must have been a weak strain because there is no way this is the same stuff Steve had sewn into his biology. He felt weak and helpless, Steve never seemed like that after his experimentation.

The soldier opens the restrains and grabs onto Bucky’s arm quickly, before Bucky can take the swipe he so heatedly wants to. He’s pulled to his feet as two sets of hands quickly grab him around the torso pushing him forward to hunch over and forcing him to walk forward.

He could just drop to his knees and act as dead weight, but they would just carry him and he prefers having his feet on the ground.

He doesn’t make it easy though, pressing the heel of his foot into the cold ground to halt movement whenever he can as he’s pushed through the door and down a hall behind the white coat of Doctor Ritcher, who is no longer wearing his pristine uniform.

Bucky doubts he’s an actual doctor, they have an oath to heal he knows that, he knows Doctor Ritcher won’t be healing anybody.

The march to the lab takes longer than it should have, but when they get there Bucky is grappled into the room and down onto another table. This room isn’t the same as the one he can vaguely remember, but it’s a lab nonetheless and he hates it all the same.

He wrestles with the soldiers as Doctor Ritcher watches him with the tug at the edges of his lips that tell Bucky he’s trying to hold back a grin. That grin, that is always just a little bit too wide with a few too many teeth.

“This should be nothing too strenuous, so it would be much easier if you laid there without us having to strap you down. That really does make this more difficult”

He’s struggles more wrestling against the hands that keep him pinned.

Doctor Ritcher sighs “Fine. Use the leg and arms, oh my apologise, arm, cuff”

The officers comply silently wrapping the leather and metal around his limbs to hold him down, they then move to the entry way of the room and stand there, as still as set of statues and wait; like tin soldiers.

Doctor Ritcher walks over to Bucky’s head peering down at him from above, the light reflecting brightly off of his white overcoat.

“Before any of the interesting things can commence we need to check that you’re healthy!” He speaks as if he’s walking a child through a scary procedure.

He moves around the room, connecting wires to machines and needles to syringe bottles, looking over tools and checking a clipboard full of papers. Moving around with ease and familiarity as if Bucky isn’t even there, as if he isn’t wriggling around on the table.

He pulls a set of black latex gloves on and wiggles his fingers around, the sound crunching and squeaking, making Bucky cringe.

He then wheels over a stand and grabs a bag connected to a tube with a needle and moves to stick it into Bucky’s arm.

‘Absolutely not’

Bucky pulls his arm as close to him as possible, pressing his inner elbow to his side but Ritcher pulls the arm back and presses down forcing it to stay still as he stick the needle into his vein and tapes it down.

Bucky’s chest heaves, his mind racing over what is now being pumped into his veins, the bag isn’t labeled and the solution is clear, it could be anything and he’d never know. Ritcher isn’t swayed and keeps moving. He moves to what’s left of Bucky’s other arm and sticks the needle into the lowest part of his flesh, just above the final layer of bandages.

This needle is connected to a small vial which slowly begins filling with blood, the needle sticks out of his arm like a railway nail and Bucky can’t look as his chest heaves up and down. His panic is poorly contained and the unknowing, still smiling presence that is Doctor Ritcher only furthers his growing fright.

His fear isn’t quelled but a question is answered when he realises, he starts to feel slightly fresher from the inside. The clear liquid must be some form of water or saline, keeping him hydrated. And he is instantly reminded how dry his mouth is as he salivates thinking about water. When was the last time he even touched food or water.

Several vials are filled with his blood and replaced with another empty one until the entire bag is gone and the whole time Bucky’s chest refuses to slow and rise to a normal height, his heard beats faster bidding his lungs to contract more fiercely

“You’re going to hyperventilate” Ritcher says as he removes what seems to be the final vial and pulls the needles from Bucky’s arm.

“But I guess this way I don’t need to record your heartbeat. I can count it from here” He says, the smile gone from his face replaced with a look of concentration

“Now, let’s see about this arm. I’m sure you’re wondering what it looks like, it was grotesque when I patched it up the first time, those trees did you no favours” he’s smiling again, smiling at the memory of Bucky’s eviscerated arm.

He begins unwrapping the bandages and more and more of the open wound is revealed the cool air stinging what is clearly still an completely open wond as the gauze sticks to his bloody skin, the more the bandages are unwrapped the redder they are and Bucky can’t move his eyes away from it

His left arm wasn’t his dominant one but now it was gone he felt as though he needed it more than ever, strange sensation took over Bucky and then stinging began with the wounds exposure. Finally, when all the bandaging was off Bucky could see how awful the wound was. It was disgusting, the edge of his flesh was puckered and pink, the bone stained an awful deep mahogany and a dirty brown colour crust across his upper arm where it had seeped in between the layers of bandaging.

Bucky’s heaving chest was punctuated with the heaving of his stomach, his lip beginning to tremble as he held back the need to wretch from the sight. That wasn’t an arm and that shouldn’t be near any person.

“Quite the sight isn’t it, but don’t worry we’re designing you a replacement. It is incredible! A marvel of engineering really~” he speaks as if he is talking about a car on the market, something new and exciting and expensive that he’s eager to show off to his country club friends.

He disposes of the bloody wrappings and grabs something the looks like a bowl made of fabric and slips it over his arm, not a single ounce of rubbing alcohol or disinfectant is used before the fabric makes contact with his skin again. The fabric catches on every possible surface of the open wound and Bucky hisses, Ritcher isn’t puturbed as he proceeded to bandage up the rest of the arm

“We wouldn’t want you bleeding out, not yet at least. This will keep everything together until we can fix you”

Toy, Object, Play-thing, Puppet

All of those words race through Bucky’s mind as the sickness persists in his stomach. He rattles the restraints again and Ritcher just laughs

“I do need a DNA sample from you as well. I have your blood of course but we can’t waste that on your genetic makeup, at least not yet. Your blood is more interesting than that.” He turns away to grab something on the bench and when Bucky can see him again, he’s holding a swab and a plastic vial, long and fit exactly for the swab

“Of course, this will go much easier if you open your mouth, but you won’t do what for me will you?”

Bucky makes a show of tensing his jaw in response and swallowing hard.

Still smiling as he sighs Ritcher says “Fine~”

He places the vial down but keeps the swab in his hand. His hand finds Bucky’s face as his finger slips to his jaw and his fingers dig into the crook between his neck and ball socket that connects his jaw to his face and presses down really hard, his nail digging into skin through the glove

Bucky hisses through clenched teeth as pain surges through his jaw and neck

“Open your mouth, it will relieve the pressure”

Bucky doesn’t as the pain persists

Ritcher places the swab down and grabs a needle instead, he moves it towards Bucky’s face and places it in the same spot where his finger was before Bucky can even think twice about moving his head way

“Just be a good boy and open your mouth” Ritcher urges like he’s talking to a dog

The pain is razor sharp and Bucky has to do it, it hurts and he knows Ritcher will get what he wants one way or another. He opens his mouth with a frantic pant and Ritcher slowly removes the needle.

“Wonderful”

He picks up the swab again and slides it across Bucky’s tongue and down into his throat, hitting the back of his oesophagus causing him to gag before smiling contently.

Bucky coughs and splutters missing whatever condescension Ritcher spews out next.

He puts the swab away and writes down a few notes, everything he observed about Bucky goes into that file and his blood and now spit are placed in a container labelled for him, but it wasn’t a name was written in black marker in a strip across the top the container. It was a designation number with two words written in quotations

Subject 001 “Winter Soldier”

Bucky narrowed his eyes at it, squinting to see if he was reading it right. Winter Solider? It sounded like the name a child would give to a make-believe villain. Is that what he was, even since Zola? The vessel for this project?

Ritcher takes the other needle from out of his arm leaving a little drop of blood to form and dry in the crook of his arm

“Oh I haven’t even asked for your name yet, James Buchanan Barnes-“ he says looking over the paperwork

“That must be what these are” He says caressing the dog tags around Bucky’s neck, Bucky moved in the only way he could to push Ritcher’s hand away. Ritcher just laughed.

“Well that won’t matter much to anyone in here. So, we needn’t worry about your name”

“My name is Bucky, don’t expect me to answer to anything else” he says with determination and hate in his voice. He won’t be pushed around; he won’t be ordered to sit or to stand or to roll over.

„Das ist ja süß, dass du das denkst“

Bucky huffs out a growl of frustration at being unable to understand what Ritcher said but knowing in his tone and the mirthless laugh that follows that he’s messing with Bucky again.

“Soldaten, bitte bringen Sie ihn in den Verhörraum“

The solders step away from the door and return to his side to unbuckle him from the straps but not making the same mistakes of letting his limbs move freely. They get him to his feet quickly and press down on him, holding his arm behind his back as they march him forward, down more halls, into another room. The soldiers deposit him into a chair, holding him down as they tie him in, two metal rods facing down into his chest, they aren’t touching him, and they don’t appear to be sharp but he knows nothing can be trusted in here and his chest begins that heaving motion again.

Ritcher stays in the room with him once he is fastened into the chair. The soldiers leave the room entirely, but behind him he can see that there is an opaque pane of glass which is hiding something behind it. Something or someone he assumes that can see him from the other side.

“Thanks to your escapades around Europe we know that you were particularly close to the America’s golden boy: Captain America. What can you tell me about him?”

“Nothing”

“Hmm” Ritcher says with a flick of his eyebrows “Interesting, because all of our remaining soldiers seem to think that the two of you were never far apart. You were together on the train no?”

“Nope”

“What about the other soldiers in your unit? Dugan? Jim? Gabe? Would any of those soldiers know anything about Captain America”

“I woudn’t tell you if they did”

“No of course not, you’re loyal. I’ve gathered as much. But the thing is your life hinges on what you do or don’t tell us, and things would go much smoother if you answered my questions”

“Pity”

Ritcher turns to look into the glass and gives a curt nod, the metal rods in front of Bucky suddenly light up and spark, before he can say anything volts of electricity are bursting through the nerves in his chest and spreading to the rest of his body, heating him up from the inside exponentially before stopping, leaving him hot and steaming slightly

“Very good, you are resistant. But that won’t last for long, so please. Answer my questions”

“Fuck you” Bucky pants

“Yes of course-“ he says taking it in stride like he’s heard it all before “-what about his suit, does it have any special qualities? Anything particularly interesting you overheard”

“It’s red, white and blue. His helmet looks like a bucket” Bucky offers unhelpfully

“Ah the picture of American patriotism. What about his super soldier serum. As I’m sure you know by now you have your own version, but what did he tell you about his?”

“Nothing to tell”

“But there is. Steven Rogers was but a small, underdeveloped young man and now he is a one man army”

“You keep his name out of your mouth”  Bucky spits

“Oh~ touched a nerve, did I?”

“I swear I’ll fucking-“ but he doesn’t get to tell Ritcher all of the things he wants to do with him because the rods begin sparking and shock him, burning him from the inside out hotter than they were before. He grits his teeth but an exclamation of pain still escapes him.

The machine stops.

“What about his whereabouts? Do you know any safe houses he might have? That you may have even gone too? A HQ perhaps?”

Bucky doesn’t answer, his head having fallen to his chest as he breathes hard amongst steaming mouthfuls of air

“That’s too hard, how about his shield. For a weapon that has historically been defensive he uses it offensively much more often. What is it made of?”

“It’s a combination of kiss my ass and go fuck yourself”

“Sie rekrutieren sie etwas zu jung, nicht wahr?”

“If you’re going to talk about me when I’m in the room you could at least do it in a language I understand”

“You are quite tiresome”

Another shock, hotter and brighter, sending white stars across Bucky’s vision as he clenches his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut. He’s still in so much pain when the machine stops again that he doesn’t even realise it’s stopped. He gets asked another question, but he doesn’t hear it.

Ritcher’s voice is low and muffled, none of his words are coming across clear as Bucky feels his head sway from side to side. He continues to speak and eventually his voice comes back into focus and Bucky catches the end of what he was saying

“-anything useful, we’ll just move onto the next stage”

Bucky is blinking, his pupils dilating in the light of the room, shrinking and growing as his brain doesn’t know how to comprehend the sensory information provided to him. He’s being lifted and retrieved again, he thinks he’s on his feet, but he doesn’t feel like he’s walking at all.

He blinks trying to bring something back into focus and eventually it does, but what he sees makes breath catch in his throat.

This was the biggest room so far and it was filled with machinery and wires, massive towers with blinking lights several boards with buttons on it and in the middle was a machine that was exactly the same as the machine Zola had clamped down on his head every day in Azzano.

He wrestled, kicked, struggled and attempted to make himself as much of dead weight as he could to keep himself from being moved over to that machine again. He promised he wouldn’t go back, Steve had saved him. He was supposed to be safe. To never see that machine again.

But he was forced into it, shoved back first onto the cold metal before being locked into the machine.

Locked down, locked in, locked out

Over and over, he was trapped in different places he didn’t belong to.

He screamed, he bit, he scratched but he was caged into the metal chair, his back on a recline as the leather and metal was fastened over his skin.

Bucky had, what felt like forever, to brace for what came next. And it came with full force, pulsing through him and rushing over him, not for the first time in this position he screamed, he writhed, he cried out in pain, and could just see in the blurred corner of his vision that Ritcher was standing and watching him that same smile still on his face.

He was just a joke to them, everyone here, whether malicious or compliant, was completely indifferent to his pain.

His inconvenience, his suffering was nothing but a minor side effect in their greater plan. Whatever the hell they wanted with him they weren’t going to stop until they got it, or he was dead.

Chapter Text

Bucky vaguely remembers being taken back to the cell after that. They don’t even bother to restrain him. They simply throw him into the room, he stumbles from the disconnect he feels to his legs and slumps to the ground, staying exactly where he fell only curling in on himself slightly, his arm tucked into his chest and his knees pulled up to his head.

He breathes deep and harsh until he passes out, the barest trace of consciousness slipping form him.

When he wakes up he’s still in pain, assuming again that it is another day.

2 days he’s been here now. He’s already counting, already committing the most minute of details to his memory. The shapes of the rooms the faces of the doctors and soldiers.

He doesn’t know how much time passes exactly but boredom doesn’t seem to reach him, not when his mind is racing constantly about a million things all at once. With limited freedom now at his disposal he walks around his cell, limping for quite a few of the first steps and feeling completely off balance. He sits on the cot at first, rolling his shoulders and trying to adjust to the difference, the pain in his arm ebbs and flows but not as much as he thinks it should. Even bandaged a wound like this should have him incapacitated for a few days. But he’s completely fine and isn’t hindered when he moves around what’s left of it.

He walks around the room slowly, looking at everything, the chains, the restraints, the walls, the floor, each crack and crevice.

He finds a bucket beside the cot he hadn’t seen before and screwed his nose up at it instantly knowing that was his excuse for a bathroom.

It’s only now that he’s had time to move and think and stretch that he finds out he’s covered in a lot of other cuts and bruises and even more bandages which he hadn’t realised.

He can feel the taught, healing skin of a cut on his back when he stretches and he can see that his nails are cripped and broken, his lower calf has a bandage underneath the torn fabric of his pants and the soles of his feet have calloused. The hair under his left arm is missing and his chest and arm hair is scarce and singed. He’s all kinds of damaged, and he hadn’t even noticed. His heart races at each new cut he finds, confused and afraid that he wasn’t even aware of how much had happened to him

Not to mention how bruised his insides must have looked

But…that can’t be right, he was sure more of his bones had cracked when he fell, his lung had been punctured for sure. So how had he been breathing so unhindered?

He took his hand and pressed against his chest, there was only a small spike of pain near his left lung and not much else, he stretched, twisted, turned and pulled at his own muscles but found only a few aches here and there that were nothing like they should have been

Not to mention he had been covered neck to tailbone in bruises after a weeks worth of abuse from that machine.

From what he could tell he looks almost healthy

Though he couldn’t say he felt it, aches and pains from bruises were nothing

But his insides felt warn, his heart and lungs ached with every breath and his arm throbbed with pain. And his head, the dull pain that persisted behind his eyes was creating the anxiety of expecting something much worse to occur very soon.

The sound of the flap opening broke him out of his quiet internal questioning; his hand gripped the edge of the cot as he watched a different soldier in the same uniform unlock the way for Doctor Ritcher and another set of guards into the cell.

They came for him again, and he struggled again, with a feeling of strength he hadn’t felt yet. No matter how weak or fleeting he used every bit of energy he had to fight back. But he was still dragged, kicking and growling into the laboratory where Doctor Ritcher and another doctor he hadn’t seen yet checked over his arm

When Ritcher pulled the cover off it clung to the skin and the flesh that was still attached to him but slowly peeling off. The blood was congealing under the cover, he could see even from his restrained place on the table that part of the limb was darkening with hints of green. It made him feel sick to look at but he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Every time the cover and bandages were removed he expected his arm to magically materialise back into existence.

“It would seem that infection is beginning to set in…no matter. That won’t be a problem”

It sounded like a problem to Bucky, but maybe they wouldn’t have what they need here to keep him and alive and he could escape in some sort of transfer. He plucked at threads of hope for an idea of potential escape. Ritcher’s concern wasn’t surprising, but it didn’t stop Bucky’s stomach from clenching at the thought of dying slowly from the combination of torture and infection.

“Machen Sie sich eine Notiz über die zukünftige amputation“ Ritcher said to the other doctor who swiftly picked up a clipboard

Apparently, German didn’t have a word for amputation and that put Bucky right into a silent fit of anxiety

“Amputation, not much to amputate if my arm’s already gone“ he covered his fear with sarcasm

“You don’t need to worry you’re pretty little head about it” Ritcher said brushing at the strands of hair on Bucky’s head, stuck together by anxious sweat

“Schneiden Sie etwas von dem infizierten Gewebe weg; wir müssen wissen, ob das von Zola verabreichte Serum biologisch wirksam sein wird“

He caught Zola’s name in that sentence but didn’t inquire further knowing he wouldn’t get a useful answer.

The other doctor replaced the clipboard and picked up a scalpel instead approaching Bucky with apprehension. He noticed that this doctor kept a safe distance between himself and him lying on the table.

When the doctor finally stepped closer, holding the scalpel up like a surgeon Bucky made a show of jolting against the restraints and the doctor nearly jumped. Bucky almost laughed if it weren’t for the absurdity of the situation. The doctor stepped closer again and lowered the scalpel to his arm

“You touch me with that, and I kill you first” he threatened

The doctor hesitated and looked back to Doctor Ritcher

“He can’t go anywhere, get the sample and then leave”

The doctor places his hand on Bucky’s chest, holding him down as he begins to press the sharp blade into his skin around the blackened and green flesh of his arm, cutting away into the skin and sinue that is already horribly disfigured.

Bucky cries out in pain feeling the searing sharpness of the pain, he moves the stump of an arm around to throw the doctor off but he just presses down further, cutting through the skin before peeling away a chunk of Bucky’s arm which has begun dripping blood again having been uncovered for too long.

He places the “specimen” as he’s sure it is called, into another container, labelled with a sealed lid and then leaves silently, having not spoken a single word.

Ritcher fastens the cover back over Bucky’s arm having disposed of the bloodied one and wraps his arm back up, the inner most bandages already soaking up the blood and clinging to his skin.

He’s then taken back to the same room, where Ritcher throws question after question at him, about the SSR, the military, Captain America, the Howling Commandos. All of it, expecting Bucky to answer.

“A few questions, all you have to do is answer and this would be so much easier for you” he offers, in a voice that is intended to be helpful but comes off in the same condescending tone he always has. “You don’t have to suffer”

“It costs you nothing to make me suffer and I watch you smile every time I do. I’m not falling for that bullshit. I give you an inch you take the whole fuckin mile- AUGH!”

The machine is turned on as Bucky is spazaming, sending his head back into the head rest of the machine with a jolt as his body sears again, sizzling from the inside out.

And he’s traded from one machine to another before he’s thrown back in his cell, discarded like trash only to be picked up and coddled days later

This happens for three weeks straight, he only knows because of the repetitive nature of time passing. He never knows when it occurs, what time anything happens. But he can feel it in the process of his body’s recovery and consistent aching sleep that he falls into every time that the days are passing.

Three weeks go by, and nothing changes. He’s stuck in the same awful patter that shakes his bones, rattles his teeth, throbs in his head and burns in his flesh.

Hope doesn’t fade but Bucky questions if his idea of hope is actually the correct definition. He’s surviving, but some part of him doesn’t expect to get out of here, and if he does, he doesn’t have a plan to make it back home. Even if he did, somehow, he doesn’t know what life he could lead…

It didn’t seem possible; all he knew is he wasn’t dying. Not by the hands of HYDRA anyway.

…

For three weeks this persisted, the same routine.

Bucky hasn’t seen food in that time. He doesn’t know how long a person can survive without food but he can feel it, the way he’s deteriorating as his body eats away at the minimal fat and muscle, he had left to keep his body moving, to use the energy he should have been getting from food to sustain himself

He’s getting water from an IV drip during the hour he spends in the lab every day, he’s sure it’s the only thing that’s keeping him alive. He’s most likely dehydrated from the use of the machines.

When he’s left in the cell he looks over what he can see on his skin, feeling with his hands whatever his eyes can’t reach

His wrist and hands are scarily thin, all of the bones and tendons showing through his skin, his veins untraceable having closed from drying up. His shoulders and collarbone stick out without him having to hold his shoulders up, the dips and curve are there no matter what.

He can also feel the bumps of his spine in his neck more than ever, like some unsprouted spines. And his cheeks, they are sunken in, the bone of his skull acting as a ridge defining the facial features that used to be full of charm and cheer.

He can feel it when he swallows how hurt and cut up his throat is, he can feel the way his neck strains at the diminished muscles.

Would he fall apart soon? Crumple into a bag of bones with nothing to cling too?

He’s been offered food, like a reward for performing a trick Ritcher holds it over his head every interrogation. An answer means a meal the next day, but he doesn’t trust whatever food he would be given and he doesn’t want it anyway. He’s not going to answer a single question for anything, no matter how bad his stomach growls at him at any moment begging for something, anything to feed his decaying body with.

When people have described bodies as gaunt after death, he never really knew what they meant, he could imagine what they described but he had never seen it.

He’s starting to think he knows what that looks like now.

His sunken eyes and cheeks, his bony ankles and wrists, his ribs that stick out from his chest were pectorals and a healthy layer of belly fat used to sit.

Now he’s slim and slender and too fragile. He feels fragile, when he moves, he feels it. His body is telling him to be delicate and he hates it.

Having your own body eat away at you in an attempt to keep you alive was one hell of a bitch. And Bucky felt every second of this slow decay.

Chapter Text

“We’re going to try something new today!” Ritcher says as he announces his presence into the cell. Bucky is lying on the floor in the same spot he was left in, yesterday was particularly harsh on him and his body still aches.

Not that laying on the floor made of cold concrete would help at all.

“Up, up!” he sounds excited, and in Bucky’s barely roused state he curled further in on himself, tucking his arm, which had begun to ache so bad it kept him up even in his exhausted state, into his chest. The guards grab him roughly, and he’s just so tried, he uncurls almost instantly without much force. Letting himself be dragged more than walking himself down the hall.

His head swims and the walls seem to begin to fold in on themselves as he tries to focus on the end of the hallway. It’s the hallway with the symmetrical doors to other rooms. That means he was being taken to interrogation, skipping right over the usual trip to the lab

Change, after three weeks something changed

And he hated it

He wasn’t restrained inside the room like he usually was, in fact he was surprised to see he had been taken to the other side of the glass. Two hands still remained firmly on his shoulders as he sat in the wooden seat, Ritcher standing with his arms folded and a cigarette between his fingers as he looked through the glass

“Look soldier. He’s in your seat”

When Bucky looks up he see’s a young man in scrappy uniform barely his age confined to the chair he has never seen from this distance. His blonde hair is rumpled and clinging to his ears as his head rests against his chest.

“Here’s the deal, it’s clear to me that you are much too strong for our archaic methods; at least for now, but if I have learnt one useful thing about you at all it’s that you have the honour a soldier should have. Which is why I’m going to give you a choice”

Bucky swallowed against the dry sandpaper of his own mouth

“I’m going to ask you some more questions, if you answer them, nothing will happen. But if you don’t, he gets a nasty shock. Do you understand?”

Bucky clenches his teeth staying silent, his hand gripping the arm rest of the chair. When he doesn’t answer he watches as Ritcher pulls up a small control panel that had been resting on the bench fastened to the wall in this room.

He turns the dial only a single click and then the soldier on the other side of the glass lights up. It’s so strange to see from this angle, watching how the body twitches and fails, how the skin begins to smoke so quickly. How much pain is stricken across human features, how awful the sound of a scream from another is

“Do you understand?” Ritcher asks again and Bucky answers frantically

“Yes!”

The electrocution stops

“Now, what were the SSR intending to do with Herr Schmidt if capture ever occurred”

Bucky hesitates, chewing on his tongue as he thinks over any response he could give. Truthfully, he doesn’t know but he can guess. Neither option is optimal.

Before he can answer he can see the spark of electricity and watches as the boy writhes and starts screaming before the shock turns off and he’s moaning in pain, looking like he wants to crumple into a heap but is unable to

“I didn’t even say anything!”

“Exactly”

A cut off sound caught in Bucky’s throat as he felt the need to say something without having the ability to know what

“We’re there going to be other super soldiers? Did they have plans to make more?”

“I don’t know”

“Are you sure”

“No, I wasn’t a part of that”

Ritcher frowned and dialled up the machine, the scream erupting from the POW again

“What about the military, were they privy to any finer details”

“No”

“Can you be certain?”

“I- I don’t know, I didn’t run the damn American military”

“Pity”

Another shock, longer this time.

“Stop it! I don’t know anything!”

“Well you should think a little harder then, because der junge’s life is on the line. Where was Zola being taken exactly? “

“Back to the US”

“Where?”

“I don’t know!” Bucky was shouting now but Ritcher wasn’t discerning between the truth and lies, only choosing what to understand and perceive. No matter what Bucky said it wasn’t enough and the soldier kept screaming, kept steaming in a way that was so unsettling to see from this perspective.

“Stop it! I’m telling you what I can! Leave him alone!”

“It’s a real shame you didn’t cooperate more” Ritcher says ominously as he turns up the machine as far as it will go, presses the button and then walks away from the control panel. Leaving Bucky alone in the room, held back into the chair as he was forced to watch and listen to the sounds of an innocent man scream himself to death.

…

That scream echoed in Bucky’s mind later when he was finally left alone in his cell again. A scream wasn’t the same as a voice, so Bucky’s mind came up with a voice for the soldier he had watch die slowly as his body was knocked off rhythm and sent spiralling into death. His mind had given the boy a name too. Sammy.

“How am I going to go home to my family. All because you couldn’t answer some stupid fucking questions. They’ll never see me again. And it’s all your fault!”

The boys twisted and contorted face screamed into his as he imagined to boy forcing them to switch places, but instead of Ritcher, he had his hand on the trigger

And Bucky knew he would have deserved it

He tried to justify it, in his head telling himself that dying would have been better living in the hands of HYDRA. God only knows what they would have done with him, what they already had.

Best case his body would have been used as target practice or as a cadaver

Worst case scenario…who knows, he could only guess and every image was worse than the last.

Interrogation, disfigurement, live dissection, biological testing. All of the things he was sure to face at some point

Was killing the soldier really a mercy? He was fighting all odds against dying, why would he let someone else succumb to that fate?

He didn’t do anything; there is nothing he could have done to stop it

Or maybe there was, he could have broken the glass, fought back in some way, sacrificed his life and limb to save Sammy. To convince Ritcher to let him trade back their places.

Something, anything could have been better than just…sitting there

He sat there and watched. He didn’t even close his eyes once…

He should have, should have hesitated, cringed, hidden his mind from it. But he watched, and he listened, his eyes stuck open and his ears ringing with the sound long after it ceased.

Complacent. A judge

That’s what he was. Those weren’t his roles to take, but he did

‘Only God can judge his children’

He decided that man’s fate in the end. It was his choices that lead to his death for better or worse

And the soldier he would never know but also remember as Sammy would be his first confirmed killed within the confines of HYDRA.

Bucky curled in on himself on the floor and began to breath heavily, then harshly, until it came in short bursts of hyperventilation. His chest rising and falling rapidly, his skin scratching on the harsh, cold floor of the cell, breathing too hard and too fast for his lungs to take in the oxygen they needed.

His eyes stung and blurred over as they filled with tears which gravity pulled across his cheek and down his nose

And then he too screamed. The voice of the soldier was still in his head, it was quitter than it had been when he had actually heard it but it echoed, it echoed so much. And so, Bucky screamed, the days of pent up rage, the inability to do anything, to change anything, all of it overwhelmed him, the abstract feelings he had pulled over his eyes disintegrated revealing the horror of his state to himself for the first real time.

He looked at his hands, the bones, the lack of flesh in his arms, the tendons and veins. His pointed knees, his missing arm, his stomach that held to little weight.

He agonised alone on the floor of the cell, not even the guards opened the flap in the door to check, personally desensitized to the sounds of human pain. Laying there, sobbing, heaving, crying, and despairing. It’s all he would do wouldn’t he, he would fight to no avail, persist with no outcome. To fight only to be cut down like an unwanted weed.

Bucky was out of place and afraid, this time he really did want to die. He admitted it to himself silently in his head that he did want to die.

That he longed for its sweet blissful mercy.

Guilt gnawed away at his stomach; fear enveloped his mind. And all the while his body took what little he had left in a pathetic attempt to keep him alive. The veil was gone, and Bucky could see his knew fight for survival for what it really was.

A waking nightmare, with no end in sight

Chapter Text

When he opened his eyes that day, he had a hard time remembering what day it was. His head ached and his eyes stung, his lids were stuck together from the tears he had let drip down his face without a single inclination to wipe them away. He blinked slowly, squinting hard with every shut of his lids until his vision cleared.

His head throbbed and the harder he thought the louder the throbbing became. His eyebrows pinching and unpinching as he thought hard about how many days he had counted yesterday.

Yesterday was a three weeks…and three, no four days, which meant today was the fifth day.

26 days in total

As he pulled himself up he panicked slightly at how long it took him to remember. Trying to convince himself it was the fog of sleep.

But as he sat up something felt different, the sound of his heart beat was steady, strong even. His body still ached considerably but he felt- strong wasn’t the right word, he felt capable. Moving around didn’t trouble him, and his breathing didn’t pick up so quickly. His arm wasn’t heavy, and his legs didn’t feel like an encumbrance as they usually did. He felt awake, the haze he found himself breathing through every morning was still sitting over his mind but everything else felt better in a way he hadn’t felt in a while

Maybe he just felt that way because he hadn’t been in that machine again- he really needed a better name for it- and it was all a subjective feeling by comparison.

But he really felt better, ready, awake, alert. Something he hadn’t felt in quite some time.

He stood up and found that his head didn’t spin when he did. He paced around the room that felt like an enclosure and didn’t need to sit or kneel.

What was left of his arm however, still stung, the pain persists and it grew worse by the day. He was sure it was infected. Men in the other units around him had been hospitalised for days under strict care when they lost their limbs, he was receiving no such care and wouldn’t be surprised to have it be in worse condition by the end of the week

The fact that he knew that gave him some relief as well, not because of the fact that his arm was almost certainly infected, that was the least of his problems. It’s because he could think through that information that confirmed to him his mind was still sound.

That machine and the shocks from interrogation were a damaged to his mind, whether intentional or unintentional. Whatever they were trying to get something out of him, or worse put into him, was failing and he could help but smirk knowing after Zola and now Ritcher they weren’t achieving anything.

Good. Fuck them. Fuck all of HYDRA and everyone who was expecting to get something out of him. It wasn’t happening

He felt a small spark come to life inside of him, the anger he had felt turned into something more, something productive and active. The flame was growing, licking and spiralling inside of him, curling around his insides and roaring to life.

He wasn’t going stay down anymore, it was bold, but he needed to do something. He needed to know he could get somewhere. Fighting back, getting the upper hand anything. He wanted out of this cell and out of this place, and with this newfound energy he was going to do something about that. When next Ritcher came to get him, he would make his move.

…

Ritcher showed up, that same stupid smile and the same stupid- almost childlike spring in his step as he entered the cell.

“You’re up? Surprising, very interesting. I would have expect you to be wallowing in what you were a part of yesterday”

Ritcher pulled off his gloves as he walked towards Bucky

“That is exactly why you are so fascinating, your strong sense of empathy and sympathy rules you, unlike the innate selfishness humans have. I am guilty of that myself, but so far you seem to have not fit that mould” He looked at his gloves as he folded them over before stepping right up to Bucky and smiling at him.

His eyes drifted over Bucky’s face and then down to his bare chest and the dog tags still hanging there.

“You know I still haven’t heard a ‘thank you’ for me letting you keep those” he says as he picks one of the tags up, them jangling on the chain. He tilts his head down to read them only to look back up at Bucky through his lashes, it was very unsettling.

“You want a ‘thank you’?”

Ritcher cocks and eyebrow and pulls himself up to his full height, like a man about to receive a medal. That same smirk still on his face

“Here it is then” Bucky makes a show of taking a breath in, as if he’s going to say something, but the only thing that comes out of him is a controlled sound of strain as he swings his arm up punching Ritcher right in the face, his knuckles cracking across his jaw sending him over and down onto one knee as he grips his face.

The two soldiers that always enter with him are on him at once and Bucky lunges forward to meet them. His foot comes up to kick on of the soldiers in the stomach, pushing as hard as he could with his foot making the impact land solidly against his ribs. The other soldier tries to grab him, but he ducks, almost following the now doubled over soldier to the ground before stepping to the side and kicking the soldier in the side of the knee. He doesn’t hear a crack like he hopes but the soldier goes down as well.

Bucky makes a break for it through the open door.

He jumps over the fallen soldiers, one of them starts grabbing for his feet, gets a hold of his ankles and Bucky feels himself fall, he turns at the last minute to land on his bad arm, it doesn’t really matter if he damages it, it’s already messed up.

He turns over the soldier gripping tighter to him and he takes his other foot, smashing it into the soldier’s nose. He does hear a crack this time, a very satisfying one and feels as warm liquid spurts against the sole of his foot. When the soldier lapses and lets go of him Bucky is pushing himself up in an instant

Reflexively attempting to use both arms and pushing on the exposed bone of his other arm, which almost sends him down again, but he corrected the movement with his other arm that had no problem holding his weight and he was on his feet.

He took off running down the hall, avoiding all the turns he recognised and headed in the complete opposite direction, no idea where he needs to go or how far down, he is. He hopes to find stairs or an elevator so he can get up as high as he can. Even if the building is 50 stories tall, up is better than down.

But he doesn’t get far, the further he travels the less empty the halls and rooms are, and he’s aletring more and more personal to the fact that he is out

He doesn’t know how many more there are, how many other subject like him have been kidnapped and numbered in this hell or if there are other things that could escape. But if there’s only a few of them he would be very easy to spot.

So he runs, when scientists get in his way he shoves them aside, when soldiers get a hold of him he fights them too. He’s running, feet pounding on the floor and heart racing but he’s strong. People go flying when he pushes them and his feet give him speed, he isn’t used to. His heart is thrumming like a full theatre orchestra and there is only one thought in his mind, escape. He has to get out, get up, get away.

He has to run.

But too soon he’s running down familiar corridors and coming across the calamity he caused moments earlier, he’s being lead in circles and can’t discern new from old, the hallways are all too similar and their detail-less walls leave nothing for him to note

And the number of soldiers is beginning to build, more and more of them are moving together, growing like a pack of wolves circling their prey and moving to look for him. Sooner or later an alarm goes off somewhere and it echoes around the entire building, Bucky wants to cover his ears from how loud it is but he keeps swinging his arm, leaving it to be the momentum for him to run with.

The soldiers are building, there’s more of them, too many of them, and Bucky is slowly running out of places he can run. He turns down a corridor where Doctor Ritcher is being accompanied by a pack of soldiers, he’s holding his jaw which is already bruised and purple

As soon as he see’s Bucky he points and shouts “Lass ihn nicht entkommen!”

And Bucky is turning on his heels running completely the other way, but more soldiers had filled the other end of the corridor and he’s boxed in from both sides. His heart races, there are at least 8 soldiers surrounding him and he doesn’t know how to take them all down.

No weapon, only a strength and rigour he hasn’t felt in a while that isn’t natural, one arm and two sets of feet are all he has to defend himself and those won’t be enough, there isn’t enough of him anymore to fight against all the enemies. But he isn’t going to give up, not when he has a chance.

So he keeps his feet light, his head on a swivel and watches as they come for him. Taking each soldier as they come, making them trip over themselves to get to him. The first two soldiers from either side come at him and he takes them on, allowing the enthusiastic ones to collide into each other and swinging punches at those who aren’t smart enough to move

But in the end they swarm him, swallowing his fit of rage into their subduing hands. He falls to his knees, still punching and doing whatever he can; biting, spitting, head butting. Any way he can move, he’s moving. But a hand takes down his arm, and he feels a blow to the back of his head which sends him tumbling forward, something pushes down on his calf and he feels the way hands press in on him from all sides

Words shouted in German come from over him as he pushed further onto the floor, his arm pulled roughly behind his back as a knee is pressed into his spine, cheek pressed into the cold stone ground as he wriggles and shakes but can’t do much more

No! He was so close! He could have made it!

He fights and fights, and he can shake some of them, but they won’t get off.

He’s subdued; he’s been outmatched.

And now…there are consequences.  

Ritcher walked over to him, his boots clicking across the ground were the only things Bucky could see from his place on the floor, he could tell Ritcher had crouched down when he had gotten close enough

Bucky’s eyes suddenly began watering as his head was wrenched up by a handful of hair, and his neck was forced to strain as he was brought face to face to Ritcher who was a shade of beige and purple; the smirk on his face was missing.

“That was very brave of you, but very stupid. Clearly our attempts to break you down have not been as successful as I had first observed, pain is not your motivator” His nose is screwed up and he looks angry, it’s the first time Bucky has seen anything other than superior cockiness on his face.

“Freedom-“ he scoffs “-why is that what you crave so much. There is nothing to be gained for someone as worthless as you to be free”

And with that he throws Bucky’s head down his face colliding with the ground before the sole of a boot meets his face and his vision spots before going dark

Always in the dark

…

Bucky remembers being picked up and moved, seeing the celling lights glide by in his foggy, half lidded vision

Something went over his head, and around his body, almost like it swallowed him. He heard something, metal maybe…

His head moved around a lot, and then so did his arm and his legs.

And then he hit his head on the ground only to be pulled up again and forced to kneel, it was then that slowly everything came into focus, and he could see the two soldiers moving him around.

They were taking a set of chains off the wall, a clip on both ends. One clip went to a bolt on the ground, something only Bucky had noticed after stepping on it during his limited time pacing the room.

Just like he had when he had woken up that day he became acutely aware of everything in a rush that made him shake from the inside out. Half of his face was being covered by something that held his mouth shut, he tried to force it open, but it didn’t move at all, the itchy feeling of leather covering his face from just under his nose and around his jaw, only the barest gap in his teeth could be made and he had to curl his lips into a snarl to keep them back.

From on the ground, he feels the way his feet were bound, locked in place with two metal cuffs and a metal bar that kept them forced into a slightly apart position, and if that wasn’t a horrible realisation it was the fact that his arm was fastened tightly to his chest. A jacket covering him from neck to waist in a filthy off-beige that might have been white once upon a time. His arm was inside a tunnel of fabric that had no end, he tried to shuffle around to find it and only felt a pinched off ending connected to a strap that was wrapped around his body. His other arm only filled up part of the other tunnel of fabric it was laughable.

He couldn’t bend much and with his feet bound moving was near impossible. Using his forearm, he tried to push himself up but felt something push on his back. He looked ever his shoulder, eyes wide and furious seeing that the soldier was holding him forward with a boot on his back.

He tried to get up, at least onto a knee and turn around to make some show of force but the soldier prodded him in the back and that was enough to almost throw him forward into the ground. The other soldier who he could hear jangling a set of chains finally came into view and spoke

“Halte seinen Kopf hoch, sonst bewegt er sich“ and again he was being yanked up by the hair, his head straining as the boot persisted, the groves of the shoe pressing into the notches of his spine. He cried out and watched as the soldier reached forward toward his neck with something in his hands.

He tried to head butt the soldier as he came close, but it only resulted in a harsh tug back that bent his neck too far and was followed by the sharp feeling of hair coming free from his scalp.

It was placed around his neck, the chain connected to it leading down to the ground and being clipped to the bolt on the floor, only then was his hair released from the soldier’s grasp

The two of them stood up and stepped back, seemingly happy with what they had done. The soldier who had kept his boot on Bucky’s back gave him a firm shove, sending him face first into the chain underneath him with nothing but his face to break his fall, and then he heard the creaking of the door as it closed.

In a frenzy he tried to pull up on the chain, but it wouldn’t let him more than a few feet up from the ground, barely enough to let him sit up and not enough room to let him move at all. He yanked, not bracing his neck properly at he tugged up on the chain trying to break it with his neck, to open a loop in the chain and somehow slip it out so he could move even just the little bit more.

But it wouldn’t snap, it looked old and was clearly rusting but it was thick, thicker than what it would have taken to hold any normal human, but even with his unwanted strength he wasn’t able to create any damage. Not even a single weak point on the chain

“FUCK! I’LL KILL YOU ALL” he screamed as he continued to pull at the chain, the jacket, the everything. Something had to break!

“You can’t do shit lab boy” came a voice from the other side of the door

“That enough” was followed shortly after

“Yes sir”

Then the door opened again, Bucky couldn’t see he was still sat facing the wrong way.

“If you value your freedom so much next time you might think twice before making an escape like that. If I’m kind enough to give you a ‘next time’” it was Ritcher’s voice

“Du bist nicht besser als eine Versuchskaninchen, benimm dich auch so, und ich werde dich auch so behandeln“ Ritcher came round into Bucky’s field of view and stuck his fingers in between the small gap of his face covering, forcing his fingers right down to the knuckle and shoving his fingers into the limited space that is Bucky’s mouth. Pulling him forward by the jaw

“Don’t try something like that again, ok pet?” He looked angry, but by the time he said the word pet his face softened and he smiled again. Bucky felt sick, so fucking sick. He thought about biting down on Ritcher’s fingers but couldn’t process the action before he was retracting his hand from the bars of his leather muzzle.

He stalked away from Bucky’s field of vision, and he heard the door close again.

In an instant his body begun to tremble, the fear and the idea that he might have been so close to an exit had he just opened the right door overwhelmed him. His lip quivered as his eyes began to water and he had to squeeze his eyes shut as the fear overtook him. He fears it would drown him, so many emotions he had felt over the past few years all threated to drown him. All of them so complicated and confusing but just the same as the last, cataclysmic and disarming.

He sunk further into himself, bringing his knees up so he could rest his own head on them as the tremble racked his body. He could have been so close, so close…

His mouth opened as he began to breath hard, limited airflow coming in and out as his nose and mouth were blocked, and his shallow breaths turned into sobs that divulged into screams of despair.

“Let me go! You let me out, let me out. LET ME GO!” He screamed, but his cries, and his prayers went unanswered.

Chapter Text

When metal scraped on concrete Bucky imagined that he hadn’t heard it, he spent a few days alone, chained up on the ground like an animal. Nothing moving, nothing changing, nothing sounding but the things he invented in his head to occupy his time

It was strange to daydream and think so critically when you were forced to stay so still.

He had managed to move himself around, but only slightly. He was on his knees, the bar between his legs making balancing difficult but he was able to pull himself up onto his knees, he could only lift his head the slightest amount and it was uncomfortable so he didn’t, choosing to rest his head across his knees

In that time his arm, the missing arm, had started to itch; devolving into a sting which he knew meant that the infection had worsened. His arm had been an open wound for so long without any proper attention other than to keep the blood close to the source so that he didn’t exsanguinate on the floor, he was living with an infectious half-limb. Something he was sure would travel up his arm without him knowing, leaving him to slowly die out on the floor and no one would know until they opened the door whenever that was

He wasn’t expecting it to be today.

Today was 4 days later, if the stabbing pains in his stomach and the aching in his head was anything to go by. He hadn’t eaten, his entire time here he was sure the only thing keeping him from shrivelling into nothing was that drip that went into his arm every morning when he was retrieved from his cell. But he hadn’t seen that needle and bag in days.

The door opened and in stepped a soldier, the same one that always opened the door when Doctor Ritcher entered the room, but this time Doctor Ritcher didn’t waltz into the cell, and the door closed as quickly as it was opened, as if the soldier was trying to not be heard.

Bucky lifted his head up from his knees, the small dip between his left knee and his right knee left a thin red line on his forehead from where the skin had been decompressed around it for so long. How long had he stayed like that? Curled up on his own knees, head down, arms folded away and useless.

Muzzled.

He had been muzzled like a dog, and he sat on his heel like one too

When no one says a word, he looks up, to see the soldier looking down at him an expression Bucky can’t read on his face. He’s alone, he just standing there looking at Bucky for a moment. Bucky’s eyes hold his and he furrows his brows, anger present on his face but confusion in his veins. And confusion brings cold fear.

He wants to push himself up to give himself some height, but his legs have gone numb and it hurts, the cell was cold, always cold. And no amount of restrictive clothing will bring him warmth as his bones lock up.

“You look like a bitch” the soldier spoke at last and Bucky screwed his nose up in a scowl. Not that the soldier could see that. His English was just as heavily smothered by a German accent as Ritcher’s was.

“Pathetic and helpless” he said the words so slowly, his hands coming together as he fidgeted with his own fingers his eyes going blank before he looked Bucky all over. Tracing the curve of his back as and the hair that had grown around his ears hanging limp.

He spoke like a man desperate to eat and he looked at Bucky like a full meal, that distinct feeling that he never imagined he would know in person washed over him. The look he had seen in women’s eyes when men followed them down streets. The same look in Connie’s eyes at the fair all those years ago when that soldier had tried to grab her. It was the breaking down of character, of humanity that reduced you to a thing. An object.

Bucky scrambled to get his feet unstuck from beneath him but the soldier was already making moves forward, grabbing Bucky by the chain and yanking him down and forward

“You were oddly pretty for a man, I bet they passed you around like a pack of fags in the barracks”

The soldier reaches around Bucky’s face and begins fiddling with the straps on the mask and for a moment Bucky wishes it would stay on, he recoils back but the chain pulls at his neck, and he only aids in tugging the mask off faster. His face is free and he leans back as far as he can, snarling. Actually, snarling and hissing like an animal at the soldier who is pulling him close.

His arm is flinging about inside of the shirt fit around him like a chastity belt, he wants to fight, he wants to bite, the fear in him wants him to whine and anger in him wants him to scream.

The soldier holds the chain of his collar steady with one hand and slips his belt out of the loop and slides it from the buckle, leaving it in the loops of his pants as he unbuttons them too and opens the zipper in the middle

“Put that near me and I bite it off”

The soldier laughs, his dick now in his hand, as he strokes it half hard. As disgusted as he is Bucky can’t look at anything else, he’s fixated on it. There’s a pop in his neck as he strains it as far back as possible and he can feel the way the tendons push against his skin, paper thin and brittle.

“Nein, I think you’ll enjoy this” he says with a smarmy smile on his face and the same insane and lustful look in his eyes

He steps closer and pulls Bucky’s head, which is at perfectly eye line for his crotch and presses his length up against the side of his face, the tip of his cock pointing up near Bucky’s eye, rocking his hips slowly against Bucky’s face.

Bucky’s eyes glazed over from blue to red, he looked at the piece of flesh so close to his face and snapped to bite it off. But the soldier pulled away

He shouldn’t have warned him before

The soldier yanked on Bucky’s chain again before slapping him across the face. The blow was so unexpected it jolted Bucky’s head in the other direction fully, when he turned back the soldier was shoving his cock in his face again.

Bucky’s mouth had fallen open from the shock. Another mistake.

A human error he could never take back

As the soldier pushed his cock past Bucky’s teeth and into his throat.

So eager, so determined, so uncaring for the pain he was causing, thrust his hips into Bucky’s face. His balls swinging inside his loose pants; slowly slipping down to his knees.

The flesh in Bucky’s mouth tasted and felt awful, it was unclean and grimy. Making him feel sicker than he ever has, and he chokes, he chokes over and over again because the soldier is pushing in as far as he can go. Pressing the head past the curve of Bucky’s tongue as it turns into his throat and past any natural muscles that stop a person from taking food down the wrong pipe.

He can feel the muscles contract in his neck, feel the way his body lurches trying to remove the intrusion from his body. A reflex to protect him.

But no reflex can protect him, not here, not now.

‘No no no no no’ he thought so desperately, this can’t be real.

The feeling of drowning in his throat and the need to suck in air but failing around the mass in his mouth were pushing him under, he was going under again. The waves crashing over him, pushing him against the ocean floor, the sand kicked up around him so he couldn’t see the surface.

It hurt, it hurt so much. The way his throat was forced open, the way he couldn’t breathe; his mind couldn’t remember he also had a nose to inhale through. His already prone and trapped body locked up. The betrayal of whatever movement he had ceasing on command of his brain. His head snapping back and forth as he was pushed around from the inside.

And the sound, the sound of his own voice choking and gurgling under the immense pressure as spit gathered and spilled out of the corner of his mouth as pre cum was pressed into the back of his throat. His eyes filled with tears that blurred his vision that was already unfocused to everything. They had rolled back, they had closed, they had started and gone blank and now they were wet and spilling out with tears. Each drop rolling down his face and adding to the mess that collected over his skin.

The soldier grabbed a fist full of Bucky’s hair and pulled hard with each thrust, Bucky’s nose being pressed into the hair at the hilt of the soldier’s cock, the smell of uniform sweat he had adjusted to smothering him.

He was drowning, he was going to die. His mind has locked up on him and gone dormant leaving him a helpless passenger in a situation he never thought he would be in, that he thought if he ever was, he could fight his way out off

“So schön, so jämmerlich, wenn du weinst. Weine nur weiter, Versuchskaninchen“

The soldier moaned and Bucky knew he was going to cum and Bucky would choke on to death on it. He seen people, soldiers, choke to death on their own blood and sick because they’d been laying the wrong way and this soldier was going to keep Bucky’s head down until he asphyxiated.

Just as the soldier cried out for the final time, he pulled his cock out of Bucky’s mouth with a sickening pop as he came all over Bucky’s face. Bucky’s mouth was open from the force of having the intrusion wrenched away and the cum spurted into his mouth and over his cheek.

He inhaled first, which was a mistake, sucking in oxygen so desperately. Coughing only when he had enough breath to do so and not stopping for so long. It hurt, each cough forcing muscles in his throat that had been strained to work overtime forcing the phantom feeling of the protrusion and the liquid out of his mouth.

His body worked itself up into frenzy as he coughed and heaved and breathed so hard that he shook, legs quaking underneath him and lip trembling in fear as the bile in his stomach climbed up his throat until he was heaving stomach acid onto the floor at the soldiers’ feet.

The soldier who was still revelling in his own disgraceful release. Panting hard and making soft moaning sounds still as Bucky wretched.

“Was zum Teufel- Soldat?!“ a voice, confused and suddenly angry shouted from the other side of the door as it was slammed open, Bucky couldn’t fully hear the sound, his heart beating so quickly inside of him it drowned out all else. And the disgusting splattering and concerning retching sounds as he threw up and spat out bile and cum took up too much space in his head as his body zoned in on the sensations.

The voice came again, in a short, sudden relieved but still frustrated breath.

Bucky could see out of the corner of his eyes as the soldier hurried to pull up his pants and fasten his buckle as he turned to face his commanding officer.

It was Ritcher, that voice was Ritcher.

Bucky coughed up the last of the bile and wished he could wipe what was on his face away, having to settle for scaping his face along his shoulder to remove what he could, the sticky liquid spreading across the two surfaces.

He could still taste the sickening salt in his mouth as the remnants stuck to his tongue.

Ritcher was still turned towards the soldier as Bucky looked up, he was just looking at the soldier. Staring, his smile gone. Bucky hated the smile, but he hated whatever this meant more.

Without warning Ritcher pulled a handgun from the back of belt and shot the soldier in the knee

“Beim nächsten Mal wird deine Unterordnung nicht mehr so ​​leichtfertig hingenommen werden“

The soldier cried out, his right leg buckling beneath him as his hand went to the open wound that splattered across the ground and the fabric of his pants, which weren’t fully done up

“Aus” Ritcher said firmly and the soldier hobbled out of the room

Ritcher turned his focus to Bucky, stepping up to him, not crouching down as he forced Bucky to look at him.

He bent and shoved three of his fingers in between his upper and lower jaw holding his mouth open and examining it.

“You aren’t damaged”

Aren’t damaged? He felt pretty fucking damaged. The soldier had just fucked his throat like some inanimate object, but he wasn’t fucking damaged?!

Ritcher retracts his fingers from Bucky’s mouth and stands back

“You’re a fucking bastard you know that your soldiers are pathetic excuses for people”

Ritcher, the smile still not returned to his face, stared down at Bucky, moving swiftly he struck Bucky across the face, stepping on the chain around his neck shortening it’s length before forcing Bucky’s head down, his cheek crashing into the floor and into the pile of cum and bile on the floor, unprepared for the show of force.

“You should be thankful that’s all he did. You aren’t worth anything and your purity is the least of my concerns as long as you are a functioning body I don’t care what they do to you. So be careful how you choose to address me from now on”

“You’re fucking crazy-“ Bucky can’t help himself, but he bites his tongue, literally, he can taste the metallic blood in his mouth, when Ritcher yanks his head up and slaps him again. His head jerking so suddenly

“You were entertaining but you are beginning to frustrate me. Watch your words pet. Or I will authorise any soldier to trapse into your cell and do with you what they please”

Ritcher’s eyes are unwavering, the veins on his lids are twitching from the intensity.

“Do you understand” he says holding Bucky firm and close

Bucky’s nature to fight back and new and constant fear that existed within him fought to respond.

In the moment fear told him to respond but he knew that if he opened his mouth, it would only hurt him more. He settled for nodding instead.

Ritcher drops his face, cleaning off his hands on his pants uniform and stands back at his full height.

“You are beginning to look like much more trouble than you are worth. No matter. I can keep you inline”

 He picks up the discarded mask and pulls Bucky up by the hair so he can fasten it back to his face. Tighter than it was before, the rough material pressing into the flesh of Bucky’s face, the bodily fluids on his face getting stuck underneath the leather.

Bucky feels sick again, he can smell it trapped inside the mask with his mouth and nose.

Feeling disgusting and defeated as Ritcher leaves the cell Bucky slumps over, not slowing his own collapse onto the cold floor. He just lets himself fall over, his body colliding with the ground and his head bouncing off of the concrete with a thud he can hear and feel ringing in his head.

And he lays there, limp. Like a defeated dog who had just been told they were “a bad dog” for the first time.

Pathetic and just…tired.

Chapter Text

Hey, so this is probably not the update y'all will be expecting but I might be putting this fic on a hiatus for some description

NOW BEFORE YOU START SCREAMING AT ME

I am by no means abandoning this fic, this is going to stay online and I will in fact be finishing it one day, don't you worry. However recently I have been given inspiration and a new found interest in my independent writing. That is to say that I am working on a novel!

I love writing so much but fanfic writing doesn't always hit the same as writing a completely new story and I've been putting off working on this novel for at least 2 years and I really really want to start putting in the hard work for this universe and these characters which means they are taking all of my time, effort and creative energy. I'm really sorry to leave you all in the lurch like this for so long and for the foreseeable future but I promise I will be back, this isn't forever just for now

I really want to be a published author one day and I feel like there is no better time to start than now, if not now, then when?

I hope you guys can understand and I will be back one day but for now, you might not see another chapter for a good amount of time.

I'm with you all till the end of the line though, never forget :)