Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was peaceful here, calm, despite all of the murmured chaos and hurried feet that carried to him on the cool breeze.  The clear blue sky allowed dappled sunlight to dance across the forest floor, as the limbs of the canopy above swayed in synchronicity with the wind, always dancing, but never touching.

“Hey, Buck.”

He’d heard Steve approaching, of course.  Steve had never quite mastered the fluidity of movement and silent footfalls that Bucky had had ingrained in him through brute force.  That was probably a good thing, really.

“Hey, Steve.”

Bucky flashed him a small smile, but he knew Steve could see that it hadn’t quite reached his eyes.  Steve had always been able to read him like a book.

“I’m fine, really,” Bucky assured him, clapping him on the shoulder and looking up to the sky again.  But the peaceful moment had passed, like all of the fleeting moments of respite he had ever managed to seize.

“Buck, c’mon.  Talk to me.”  

Bucky considered this for a moment.  All of the words that he wanted to say, words that he had bitten from his tongue for years, feelings he had ruthlessly trampled into the darkest, furthest recesses of his psyche, swirled like an EF5 tornado through his mind.  Instead, he fell back onto his tried and true method of deflecting.  Old habits die hard.

“You’re going back soon?”

“Yeah, in about twenty minutes.  Bruce is just getting things set up.”  Steve turned and looked back through the trees to where Bruce was working away at his computer.  When he looked back, he could see the way tension pinched at the corners of Bucky’s eyes and mouth, the way his jaw flexed.  “But I’ll be back before you even know I’m gone, pal.”

“You should stay,” It had escaped from between Bucky's lips before he even knew that he was forming the words.  He had spent the last few hours trying to dissect the exact way to approach this, to gently manipulate Steve into acceptance.

“I swear, Buck, I’ll only be gone a minute.  I’ll be right back.” Steve smiled at him, all earnest and heartfelt.  God, he loved that smile.  But he had to do this.  Steve would never come to this decision on his own.  He took a long, slightly shaky breath and clenched his jaw, trying to find the resolve.

“No, Steve.  You should go back, and you should stay there.”

Steve’s brow furrowed in confusion, with a look of hurt blooming like a bruise behind his eyes.  Hurting Steve made Bucky’s gut roil and his heart ache with each thumping beat against his ribs, but once he had said the words aloud, he knew that it was the right thing to do.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you…” He paused, running a hand through his hair, trying and failing to find the words.  He pushed on, “You spent the first twenty-five years of your life never knowing if you’d see your next birthday.  More time in the hospital than out of it.”  He couldn't meet Steve’s eyes, couldn’t risk him reading his face and seeing the way that his heart was shattering.  “And after the serum, you were thrown straight into the middle of a war.  Then you woke up from the ice and everyone you loved was gone, and you just…threw yourself into one fight after another.  When are you gonna actually live , Steve?”

Steve looked at him like he’d just been slapped.  Bucky could feel his resolve waning.  This was killing him; he wanted him to stay.  With him.  But Steve deserved so much more.

“You’re not making any sense, man.  What are you trying to say?”

“You know what I’m saying.  I’m saying go and live a life.  Take your girl out for that dance you promised her.  Settle down, have the family you always wanted.  Live .”  Bucky’s voice almost cracked in the last word, his breaths harsh and short in his chest, but his resolve solidified.

“Bucky, no.  Don’t…Don’t say that shit.  I’m not gonna leave you!”  Steve looked horrified, angry, almost.  Stupid punk didn’t know it was for his own good.

“Steve, please.  You’ve given up everything for me.  You gave up the shield.  You broke the law, several of them in fact. You ruined your reputation.  You fought with Tony,” there went his voice again, cracking on the name, “You broke up your family, the Avengers, for me.  I owe you, for all of it.  For saving me, for not giving up on me, I wouldn’t…” A stone had become firmly lodged in his throat, and his eyes were burning.  He cleared his throat.  “I wouldn’t be here without you.  But I’m not your responsibility anymore.  You got me here, I can take it the rest of the way.  I need to do this myself now.”

“So, what?  You can’t do that if I’m here?  Buck, c’mon.”

Steve had grabbed him now, by his elbow.  The warm press of Steve’s hand to his arm threw a shiver up Bucky’s spine.  He wanted nothing more than to turn to Steve, pull him in, and never let go.  But he owed him this.  This was something he could do, to start repaying that infinite debt.

“I want you to have a life.  You deserve to have a life, not be stuck here taking care of a former brainwashed assassin and trying to save a world that doesn’t even know who you really are anymore.  I’ve got this from here.  I’ll be okay.  And the rest of them - what’s left of the Avengers, and the Wakandans - they’ll keep the world safe for you.”

Steve eyebrows were drawn down in consternation, but Bucky could see that the idea was starting to appeal to him.  He just had to tip him over the line.

“Please, Steve.  You can go and live a whole life, marry Peggy, have a couple kids, get a dog.  You’ve done enough for this world, for me , now it’s your turn.”

Steve was looking at him, the indecision between loyalty to his best friend and the desire for a real life - away from fighting, away from the constant pressure that came with the name and the shield, away from the chaos that had reigned over their lives for the better part of a century - he could see that Steve was struggling to deny the appeal of it.  Bucky saw the cracks and went for the kill.  

“And like you said, you’ll be back in a minute.  Just…a little older, and hopefully wiser.  And I’ll come visit you in the nursing home.” 

Bucky smiled at him, hoping that it was convincing enough to reach his eyes this time.  

“I can’t just leave you here on your own...” Hesitation showed in Steve’s eyes and the fine lines of concern that radiated across his temples and brow.   “Come back with me?” The look on Steve’s face was all naivety and childlike hopefulness, and it almost broke through Bucky’s defences, until reality brought him crashing back down to earth.

“With a metal arm?”  Bucky gave him a rueful smile. “I don’t belong there anymore,” he shook his head,  “And I’d only weigh you down.  If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me, it’s all I’ve ever wanted for you - a chance to be happy.  I’ll be okay, I promise.”

Steve could always read him, and the look he gave Bucky now, of resignation, defeat, let him know that Steve had seen the steadfast determination in his eyes.  Bucky wasn’t going to go, but he was going to insist that Steve did.  Everyone had always thought that Steve was the stubborn one, and he was to a degree, but he had nothing on Bucky Barnes once he’d set his mind on something.  He was an immovable object to Steve’s unstoppable force.

“If…if something happens and I don’t make it back, will you promise me that you won’t shut yourself away?  That you’ll reach out to people, let people in.  Let Sam help you, please, he’s a good man, I trust him.”

“Of course.”  Bucky replied, turning his face upwards to look at the canopy again, so that Steve couldn’t read the lie.

“Will you take the shield for me, when I get back?”

Bucky was blindsided by the question; he hadn’t even considered the shield.  The mantle of Captain America.  They belonged to Steve, and it had never occurred to him that they could be transferable.  But he quickly shook his head.

“Nah, man.  I’m just…I can’t take on that kind of responsibility, y’know.  I’m sorry, I just…”

“Of course, shit, I’m sorry I asked.  You don’t need that over your head.  Not right now.”

“How about you hold onto it, and I think by the time you get back, you’ll know who to give it to.  I know you’ll find the right person, make the right choice.”

Steve looked at him, the unshed tears in his eyes mirroring Bucky’s own.  

“I’m gonna miss you, buddy.”

“Me too, Stevie.”

“No way, pal, you'll see me in a minute,” He said it with such confidence and assuredness that Bucky almost, almost believed it.  But he knew deep down that even if Steve returned, things would never, could never, be the same.  There would be decades and a whole lifetime of experiences that would separate them forever.  

Steve wrapped a hand around the back of Bucky’s neck and drew him into a fierce hug.  He felt Steve’s heart beat against his own, in sync, just like their breathing.  He wanted nothing more than to stay in that moment forever, and gripped onto him just a fraction tighter, before Steve eventually pulled back, and Bucky let him slip through his vibranium fingers.  

Watching Steve walk back through the clearing to the lake, Bucky felt as though his heart had stopped beating.  Broken, irreparable.  There was no air in his lungs, and no blood pumping through his veins.  He was nothing more than a million shattered pieces assembled into the vague shape of a man.  But somehow, he was still painfully alive.  

Chapter Text

Bucky moved quickly through the hospital, the maze of floors and hallways now a practiced blueprint in his mind. He slipped silently past rooms filled with the muffled sounds of pain and the sterile scent that was associated in his mind with white coats, blinding agony, and an emptiness inside his mind. Despite the way that the atmosphere grated on his already frayed nerves, he had visited at least once a day for the past two weeks, since Steve had been admitted after collapsing on Bucky’s hotel room floor a few days after his return.  Seeing Steve looking so frail, his grey-tinted skin, purple lips and glassy eyes had taken Bucky right back to the winter of thirty-seven, when they’d called in the priest to perform last rites, certain that the pneumonia would take him that night.  He couldn’t remember having felt this scared since that day.  Steve’s team of doctors were among the best in their fields, and with Bruce’s help on the serum-related aspects of his physiology, they were working tirelessly to bring him back from the brink.  Steve had told them that he had felt the serum waning in recent years, his aging process had sped up a little, still not quite as much as a regular person, but his strength, stamina, and healing had all declined too.  Steve’s heart had worked overtime, pumping blood around a super-sized, super-strength body for so many decades, over the course of a rather eventful life.  It was now struggling to heal itself, even with the remaining serum.    

Filled with desperation at the prospect of losing Steve for good, Bucky had nervously approached Bruce to ask about the possibility of using Bruce’s time machine.  The one that had moved time through the person, instead of moving the person through time.  He had heard about their initial attempts, how they had de-aged and re-aged Scott Lang.  But Bruce had, very gently, shot him down.  He had explained that they had no studies on the long-term effects of the process, they were still monitoring Scott for any changes, and that it might put too much strain on Steve’s heart.  Bucky had quietly thanked him, then taken the stairs to the basement, where he had punched a hole through the reinforced concrete wall.  

His vibranium fist struck the wall again and again, although he was careful to pull his punches, until his eyes were burning from the clouds of concrete dust (at least that’s what he told himself), and shards of concrete flicked back at him, causing small lacerations to his face and neck that would heal within minutes.  He lost all sense of time as his body fell into the rhythm of punching the wall until eventually his breath was tearing from his lungs in hot, wet, ragged gasps.  Finally, after his fist had broken through the rebar and three feet of concrete, he sagged forward, resting his forehead against the rough surface, extricating his arm from the jagged hole he had made in the wall.  Bucky’s knees gave way beneath him, and he crumpled to the floor amongst the debris.  All of his grief, helplessness, and rage welled up from the depths of his soul and spilled out in heaving, anguished sobs.

The injustice of having Steve ripped from his grasp once again burned like a wildfire within him.  His time with Hydra, and then the blip had stolen the better part of a century from them, they kept finding each other, only to lose one another again and again.  He had told Steve to leave, begged him to leave, and have a life with Peggy, so that he would have a chance to get over him.  His logic was that if Steve came back old, or didn’t come back at all, Bucky could finally move on, knowing that he’d at least lived a happy life.  But that hadn’t been the case at all.  Steve had come back an old man, and Bucky had been hit with such a torrent of grief that it had just about killed him all over again.  And now, he might lose him for good.  It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fucking fair.  But he should know better than to expect fairness from this life.

Bucky scrubbed a hand over his face, smearing the tears, dried blood, and concrete dust together.  He pushed himself gingerly up off the cold floor, and slipped quietly into the nearest bathroom to splash cool water over his face.  Looking at his reflection, he was relieved to find that the small cuts had already healed, although his tears were still evident in his bloodshot, swollen eyes.  But it would have to do for now.  He wrote a check to the hospital for damages on his way back to Steve’s room, where he took up residence in the chair by his bedside and waited for him to awaken.  

“Hey,”  Steve’s voice was dry and husky from disuse.

Bucky was startled out of his concentration on the emails in front of him.  Sam had been contacting him about the state of his legal troubles; he was working with SI’s lawyers to arrange pardons for everyone involved in the fight against Thanos.  Something Bucky wasn’t keen on thinking about just yet.  He had other priorities right now.  The looming spectre of having to revisit his crimes as the Winter Soldier filled him with dread and a gnawing anxiety that he could never seem to shake.

“Hey pal, how are you feeling?” Bucky’s face softened as he smiled at Steve and reached out to place his hand carefully over Steve’s, avoiding the tubes and wires protruding from his pale, fragile skin.

“I feel great, better than ever.”

“You’re a stubborn ass.” Bucky shook his head at him and rolled his eyes fondly.  Steve looked at him for a moment too long, his face serious.

“I’m sorry, Buck.”

“Hey, I’m just joking, man.  Well, you are a stubborn ass, but I’m not mad about it.”

“I don’t mean that.”  Steve let out a deep breath, as though bracing himself, “I’m sorry for ever leaving you.  I shouldn’t have done it. I should have -”

“Steve, no.”  Bucky shook his head, a lump suddenly caught in his throat, and his eyes felt prickly and hot again, damn that concrete dust.  “Don’t…I told you to go.  I’m glad you went, and that you had a life with Peggy.”  He couldn’t do this right now, maybe ever.  But Steve persisted, for him, this was long overdue.

“I loved Peggy, don’t get me wrong, Buck.  I loved her, and we had a wonderful life together.  But the whole time, I was consumed by the guilt of having left you when you needed me the most.”

“I’m okay Steve, really.  And you’re still…here.”  Bucky shrugged, uncomfortable with this discussion.  It wasn’t exactly a lie or a truth.  Steve was still here, but there were now sixty-seven years and an entire lifetime between them.  It wasn’t the same, and it never could be again.  He was having a hard time meeting Steve’s eyes, so he stared at his feet instead, like a coward. 

“I tried, y’know.  I tried to get to you, to find you, to get you out of there.” Bucky’s head snapped up to look at him.

“What?  What do you…What are you talking about, Steve?”

“I tracked down every Hydra base I could possibly find.  And I did it.  I found you, several times.  But every time I got close to getting you out of there, these people would show up.  They’d step through some portal with their weapons that could disintegrate a person with a touch.  Called themselves the Time Variance Authority.  They told me that I was supposed to come back in time, wouldn’t tell me why, but that I couldn’t change anything about the anchoring events of the timeline without ripping apart the very fabric of space and time.  Apparently, your time with Hydra was an anchoring event; they had used you to shape so much of history.”  Steve spoke with such bitterness and regret, spitting the words out as unshed tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.

“But they could see that I wasn’t gonna stop, I’m a stubborn ass after all,” Steve’s huff of laughter was empty and cold, “So, they took me with them.  They showed me how they could erase an entire branch of the timeline.  Billions of people, just…gone, with the push of a button.”  There was a faraway look in Steve’s eyes, heavy with sorrow and helplessness.  Bucky thought that it must have killed Steve to see so many innocent lives snuffed out in a moment and not be able to do a thing to stop it, and not for the first time.  

“They threatened that if I didn’t stop, if I didn’t leave you, that they’d erase our entire timeline and everyone in it.  I was so damn close,” His voice broke, and he took several wavering breaths to steady himself so that he could speak again, silent tears now tracing the lines of his face.  The machines at his bedside emitted rhythmic beeping tones, each one a reminder of Steve’s tenuous grasp on life. 

“You were only a room or two away from me.  I could hear you, I could feel you.  But I couldn’t get to you.  And I had to…”  Steve stopped, biting back fresh tears, and cleared his throat. “I had to choose.  I had to choose between you and the whole damn world.  I still should have chosen you, let the world burn.  At least for a moment, before we were wiped from existence, you would have known that I came for you.”  A desperate sob escaped Steve’s throat.  Bucky squeezed his frail hand lightly. 

“You made the right choice, Steve.  You didn’t let me down.  I’m still here, I came through it, and now we’re here together.”

“Fuck, Bucky, I’m just so sorry.  I’m so sorry,”  Bucky held Steve for a long time, but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say to ease Steve’s pain.  There were no words for something like this.

Chapter Text

One year later.

“He’s doing well today, Mr Barnes.  He’ll be glad to see you.”

Bucky liked this nurse; she wore fuzzy cardigans in garish colours, glasses that were always on the precipice of escaping from the end of her plump nose, and had a warm smile that crinkled at the corners of her eyes.  She offered him one of those smiles as she buzzed him in through the doors to the residents’ quarters.  Bucky gave her his thanks, and made his way down the hallway with a little wave to Mrs Goldberg on the way past her room.  He didn’t have time to stop and chat with her today, a small pang of guilt settling in his chest.  She didn’t get many visitors, and she always gave him a handful of sweets and pinched his cheeks when he stopped by.  He would never admit it to another living soul, but he looked forward to those pinches.  It was as though she saw him as something innocent, something worthy of affection.  Of course, then he felt guilty for deceiving her, but he just couldn’t help but be selfish and kept going back to visit her.  He stopped outside Steve’s room, taking a few long breaths to brace himself before knocking gently on the door.

“Come on in, Buck!”  Of course Steve knew it was him before he even knocked; he’d probably heard him standing outside the door breathing like an idiot.  Steve’s heart might not be what it used to be, but his hearing was still intact, his mind still as sharp as the blade of Bucky’s favourite Gerber Mark II combat knife.

“Hey Steve, how are you feeling?”

“Don’t do that.  I’m fine!”  At the reproachful look from Bucky, Steve doubled down.  He had always been a terrible patient, much to the chagrin of his nurse mother.  “I’m fine.  Healthy as a horse, just need a new heart, is all.”  The mischievous grin that Bucky knew so intimately well looked a little different on the heavily lined face in front of him.  More tired.  A little less genuine, as though the indomitable spirit of Steve Rogers had finally been subdued.  Bucky hated it.  He deflected with his own disingenuous smile.

“Well, I did always say you were all heart and no brains.  So I’m not surprised your heart gave out first.  Brain’s still intact though…maybe you should use it more often?”

Steve chuckled as he shuffled across the room to wrap Bucky in a bear hug, slapping his back a little too hard, just to prove a point.  

“So, what do you need, pal?”  Steve asked as he returned to his chair and lowered himself stiffly into it.

Bucky took the chair opposite him.  The room was spacious, and comfortable, with a separate bedroom and bathroom and open plan kitchenette, laid out in soft fabrics, neutral tones and a certain “Steve” touch that was displayed in the stacks of books scattered about on end tables and mantles, pops of colour from fluffy cushions and blankets, folded newspapers with half completed crosswords, and framed photos and drawings of Sarah, Peggy, Bucky and the Howlies.  Bucky had tried to convince Steve to come home with him; they’d get a house in Brooklyn, have nurses and security.  But Steve had insisted that he didn’t want to be a burden to him, and that he’d enjoy the company of having other people around while Bucky was busy with his court cases and focusing on rebuilding his life.  Knowing that he wouldn’t get Steve to change his mind, he had spent weeks researching the perfect place for Steve to retire to.  When he’d visited this one and seen the view out over the picturesque grounds, with tall elms and willows lining the lake, he knew that this one was the one for Steve.  He’d even set up Steve’s easel and art supplies by the large picture window before he’d been transferred from the hospital.  He was pleased to see that Steve was halfway through a watercolour landscape, the blues and greens of the lake contrasted against a brilliant pink and gold sunset.

“What makes you think I need something?”  Bucky tore his eyes away from the framed sketches of him and Steve when they were kids, the bright eyes and youthful smiles that had been beaten out of them over the years a brutal reminder of how naive they both had once been.  Oblivious to the atrocities that men could inflict upon one another.

“You never visit on a Tuesday.  And you’re sitting there looking like you’ve got ants in your pants and the weight of the world on your shoulders.  I can still read you like a book, Bucky.”

Bucky just nodded, chewing his bottom lip.  He’d fought Sam and Bruce on this, hard.  But had finally had to concede the point that, without the rest of the team, they really did need Steve on this one.  The Avengers were scattered to the wind these days, the ones that had survived.  Bucky sighed, feeling the familiar stab of remorse about the fall of the Avengers.  It seems like all he did these days was find things to make himself feel guilty for.  Sam had spent a couple of months encouraging him to go and see a shrink, until Bucky had stopped answering his calls and texts, and Sam had relented and backed off.  He appreciated that Sam cared, or at least pretended to out of some sense of loyalty to Steve or something.  But Bucky was pretty damn certain that there was no shrink out there who would have relevant experience in dealing with his particular set of issues.  He took a deep, steadying breath before forcing himself to reply.

“We need you, Stevie.  I’m sorry.  I wanted to keep you out of this.  But there’s something big that might be about to go down, and we need your help.”  Bucky locked eyes with him from across the room.  Steve sat up straighter in his chair, and with the window silhouetting him, he almost looked like the Steve that Bucky remembered.

“What are we fighting?”

“We don’t know yet.  Shuri let us know this morning, she detected some anomalies in the fabric of our timeline; something is brewing over Upstate New York, not too far from the compound.  We have a day…maybe.  Maybe a little less.   We don’t want to have to call in the big guns just yet, not until we know what we’re dealing with.  But me and Sam are going to check it out, Bruce has to keep monitoring the anomaly, and we need someone on the comms, someone to run tactical ops for us.  There’s no one else we’d trust more’n you.”

Steve just nodded, running his fingertips up and down the seam on the arm of his chair, eyes unfocused as he stared at his lap.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t -” Bucky started.

“No!  No, I want to do it.  It’s just, it’s been a long time.  Y’know?”

“Yeah, I know.  But it’s like riding a bicycle, right?  You don’t forget that stuff.”

“I never actually learned how to ride a bicycle.” Steve laughed, and Bucky joined him, shaking his head.

The light in Steve’s eyes dimmed as his laugh faded, his fingers still nervously fidgeting with the fabric under them.  

“I wish I could have loved you in the way you deserved, Buck.” His voice was so quiet that it hovered at the edge of silence.

Bucky froze, unsure whether he had heard him correctly.  His feelings for Steve had never been outwardly spoken of between them.  Bucky knew that Steve was aware, but it was an unspoken secret that only the two of them had shared.  Suddenly, his ribs felt like they were too tight, a vice around his pounding heart.  The cool breeze that flowed in from the balcony was frigid against his flushed skin.

“Why are you saying this now, Steve?” Bucky couldn’t stop the tremble in his voice.  This unrequited and undeclared love had spanned a century; it had consumed Bucky’s heart, mind, and soul from the age of twelve. Leaving no room for anyone but Steven Grant Rogers.  

“I think we both know the answer to that.”

“No.” Bucky shook his head in denial.  “You’re coming back home from this.  Bruce will monitor your heart, and we’ve got the med team on standby.  We’ll have you home in a few days.”  Bucky tried to smile reassuringly, but it died on his lips.  

“I’m not gonna let you down again.  I’m gonna do whatever it takes to make things right.  To the end of the line, right Buck?”

Bucky tried to tell himself that he wasn’t going to let Steve do anything stupid or reckless.  But since when had he ever been able to stop Steve from doing anything?  He felt the resignation settle into his bones, weary and familiar.

“Yeah, Steve, the end of the line.”

Bucky moved across the room and clapped Steve on the shoulder as he stood, but with an overwhelming sense of foreboding roiling in his gut.

“Alright, let’s get me out of here then.  Are we sneaking past Nurse Ratched out there?”  Steve asked with a devilish gleam in his eye.  They had been working their way through the “must-watch” list that Sam had given them, and had both been equally impressed and horrified by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Bucky shook his head as he grinned at him.  It was the same old Steve, the kid who always managed to talk Bucky into breaking him out of the hospital ward and taking him up to the roof, until the nurses inevitably found them and chased Bucky out.  Sarah, though she had always admonished him in front of her colleagues, had always given him a discreet smile and wink, knowing how much it meant to Steve to get a little taste of normalcy, some fresh air and sunshine on his pallid skin.

“Nah, man.  I’ve cleared it with the doctors already; you’re free to go.  And Nurse Johnson is a delightful lady, stop giving her such a hard time!”  

Chapter Text

“Shut it down, Sam, before any more of these fuckers make it through!” 

“I’m trying!”

They had only just made it to the coordinates Shuri had sent them about half an hour before the portal had opened with a boom of displaced air and a blinding blue light.  They had been caught mostly unprepared, as soldiers in tactical gear with the Hydra symbol emblazoned in crimson on the chest had started dropping from the portal into the trees below.  Sam had taken off immediately, returning fire as he left Bucky behind on the ground.  Bucky had rushed toward the site where the soldiers had landed and had narrowly avoided getting hit by the blue beams shooting from their weapons.  Damnit, these were the same weapons they’d used at Azzano.  He found cover behind a rocky outcrop of boulders and took two operatives out with the custom sniper rifle he’d had strapped to his back.

“Trying ain't gonna cut it.  Hurry up, man," Bucky snapped as he returned his rifle to free his hands.

“You wanna come up here and do it??”

Bucky swore under his breath, but didn’t respond.  It wasn’t worth the fight when he had a more imminent threat to his life to deal with.  At least eight soldiers had dropped through the portal above them so far.  Bucky could see what looked like a large laboratory on the other side, with a machine sending a glowing blue light to the edge of the opening.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”  Sam’s voice grumbled through his earpiece.  Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Quit your yapping and get on with it, Sam.”  This guy would be the end of him.  Hopefully not literally. 

“You two cut it out!” Steve’s weary voice came through the line; he had monitors set up with live feed from Sam and Bucky’s body cams.  “From the looks of it and the energy readings I’m getting, they’re using the power of a tesseract.  Those weapons looked pretty familiar, huh Buck?  The stone can’t be taken out by a direct hit, but we can destroy their lab and equipment.  That should shut it down, or at least buy us some time.  Sam, keep cover at the opening, stop anything else getting through.  Buck, you work your way towards him and get Bruce’s new explosives to him.” 

“On it.” Sam chirped into his ear as he barrel rolled to avoid fire and turned back toward the portal.

“On my way,” Bucky confirmed.

Bucky swore he heard Steve muttering something about “Goddamn children” under his breath.  He looked up in time to see Sam silhouetted against the portal as he opened covering fire, just missing the soldier who was just about to launch themselves into their world.   

Bucky drew a Gerber Yari II Tanto knife from his thigh and flicked it at a Hydra goon that was coming at him from the left.  His cover blown and chat time over, he pulled out his handgun and rolled out from his position.  With swift precision, he fired off three shots in quick succession, each one finding its target, dead centre of the forehead.  Before the bodies had even dropped to the ground, he spun and caught the wrist of the man behind him, easily snapping his arm in two.  Catching the man’s gun as it fell from his now limp hand, he deftly moved it up to his temple, pulling the trigger before he had even had a chance to unleash the scream welling in his throat.

Two more assailants dropped on him from above, their weight substantial, causing Bucky to lose his footing.  As he crashed face-first into the forest floor, he heard the crunch of his body cam being crushed under him, then grunted as one man’s knee hit his back and pushed the air from his lungs.  Using every ounce of force he could muster, he launched himself upright, catching the two men off guard and sending them crashing to the ground.  Gun still in hand like it had been fixed with glue, he quickly got off two shots, killing the men before they could regain their footing.  Bucky swivelled, senses attuned to the most minor of noises, scents, or movements.  

If this Strike team were anything like his ones had been, he would guess somewhere between ten to twelve Hydra operatives had come through in the first wave.  That meant there were at least two, maybe four more in the woods with him.  He took a moment to retreat and breathe, looking up to the portal as Sam was successfully holding off any more Hydra operatives coming through.  He might be the most annoying son of a bitch Bucky had ever met, what with the constant yapping, terrible jokes, and therapy speak, but Bucky had to give him his due - he was a damn good soldier.

Bucky saw a flash of blue light streak toward Sam from somewhere in the treetops.  Shit.

“Sam, on your six, sniper in the treetops. I’m on it.”  

Sam ducked and weaved expertly, attempting to avoid fire from the ground while he continued his assault at the portal’s edge.  

“Bucky!  What’s taking you, man?”  Sam called through breathlessly as he narrowly avoided another blue streak.

“Gimme a sec, will ya?” Bucky growled back.

Sam rolled again, but this time he felt the rush of displaced air on his face as the blue light streaked past.  

“What do these things do if they hit you?”

“Disintegrate.”

“What!?  Come again!?”  Sam shrieked into his earpiece as he dove to avoid fire again.

There was no answer from Bucky this time, and Sam was just starting to worry (not that he’d admit it) when he heard a shriek from below and looked down to see a limp body drop from the rustling boughs of a tree.

“Disintegrate.  Don’t get hit.”

“Jesus H Christ on a cracker.  What on God’s green earth did I sign up for with these damn super soldiers?”  Sam lamented.

“Sam, catch!”  Bucky called casually through his earpiece as he launched two of Bruce's new explosives up to him.

Sam broke away from his attack on the portal for a second to swoop down and snatch the unassuming silver balls from the air, before arming them and tossing them into the room on the other side of the portal.  Sam was silhouetted against the orange & red of the explosion, diving fast to avoid any blowback.  There was a pulse of wind that sent debris crashing towards Bucky, branches and stones smashing against his face and body, as he tried to shelter his uncovered head behind his vibranium arm.  The blue glow of the tesseract expanded, filling the portal and blasting outwards in a rush toward the ground, instantly turning the trees and whatever else had been directly in the blast zone into black ashes that dispersed on the wind.  An eerie quiet fell over the woods.  

“Sam!”  Bucky hesitated, waiting for his reply.  He waited, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, an eternity.  His heart thumped a rapid, staccato rhythm against his ribs; breath trapped in his lungs. “Sam!  Answer me!”

“Sam?  C’mon, buddy, answer us.”  Steve’s voice, laden with barely concealed panic, crackled through the line.

Bucky exhaled sharply and swore under his breath.  

“Steve, have you got a visual from Sam’s body cam?”

“No, it went dead after the second explosion.  He was heading down and then, nothing…”

“Shit.  Steve, the blast…it disintegrated everything it touched. There’s nothing left.  Sam might’ve…Sam could have-”

“No.  We don’t know that.  This is now a rescue mission; it is NOT a recovery.  Buck, there could still be more operatives out there.  We need to eliminate them before they can get to Sam.  If he’s injured…”

“Alright, Steve.  I’m on it.  I’ll bring him back.”

Bucky took one more deep breath, spine pressed rigidly against the tree behind him like it was the only thing holding him up.  He should have listened to his gut about this mission.  He knew, before he had even asked Steve to come on board, that something would go wrong.  But there was no time for self-recrimination now.  With any luck, he’d have time for that later.

Pushing himself away from the trunk, he leaned forward and looked down, manoeuvring himself into a position where he could drop to the ground without hitting any branches, then stepped off.  He hit the ground just as the sound of footsteps shuffled toward him from the right.  He came out of a roll and smoothly to his feet, gun already in hand, and raised it to take aim at the soldier limping his way out of the trees.  The young man’s look of shock was written onto his pallid face.  Bucky instantly took note of the way he was clutching his side, the blood spilling from his guts nothing more than a shiny wet stain against the black of his tactical uniform.  

“Please!  I surrender, I surrender!  I’m hurt.  I’m unarmed."

The soldier tossed his handgun away and held up the one hand that wasn’t pressed into his wound.  Bucky assessed the situation; a chunk of splintered wood was protruding from the soldier's upper right quadrant.  It must have been shot towards him by the first blast.  Given the location of the wound and the amount of blood visible on and around the soldier, he had no more than thirty minutes to live.  He’d definitely had at least one major organ perforated, given the faint scent of sulfur, Bucky was guessing the liver.  They were too far into the woods to make it to help in time.  

“Okay, but I want answers.” 

Bucky didn’t lower his gun, senses dialled to eleven just in case this was an ambush.  The soldier dropped to the ground, weeping quietly, red-painted hands still clutching uselessly at his side.

“Thank you, thank you.” The soldier, no, he was only a kid really now that Bucky got a closer look, snivelled quietly.

“How many of you were there?”

“I don’t know, maybe a dozen?  There were twelve in my unit, b-but I’m not sure how many of us got through before the blast.”

Okay, so there were potentially two more operatives out there.  If he was telling the truth.  The kid was spilling his guts, figuratively and literally, and it seemed a little too easy.  He was either a brilliant actor or a total fool.

“Why are you here?”    

“My uncle, he was one of the head -”

Bucky rolled his eyes and sighed audibly before cutting the idiot off.  “Not why you’re here, dumbass, why has Hydra decided to jump timelines into our world?”

“Oh God, he’s gonna kill me!” The kid’s face crumpled.

Bucky didn’t point out that he was already dead; he just didn’t know it yet.  He was now standing only five feet from the kid.  He could smell the sweat on him, the acrid tinge of fear hitting him even from this distance, mixed with the coppery tang of blood.  

“Who is?”

“The Asset” Bucky wasn’t sure if it was the look of terror in the kid’s eyes that accompanied the name or not, but he felt a chill run up his spine.  Fuck.  The deep red stain was spreading by the second, and he was now shaking violently, the blood loss causing his body temperature to drop rapidly.  His eyes were unfocused and becoming more glassy by the second.  Bucky needed more time, more information, more…something, anything to prepare him for what he was about to face.  He was still an excellent fighter, but there was almost no one who could have taken him down when he was the Soldier.

“Why are you here?  What’s your mission?”

Bucky barked the question at him again, desperate to get answers before it was too late. The kid flinched as his glazed eyes stared down the steady barrel of Bucky’s gun.

“Our world…it’s…we had to…why is it so cold here?”

Shit.  He wasn’t going to get any answers from this kid now; delirium was setting in.  Taking his chances, he crouched down next to the young man and brushed his hair away from his sweaty, grimy face.  Despite the fact that he was an enemy operative who would no doubt have tried to kill him if he were uninjured, he was still only a teenager, skin smooth like it had never even seen a razor.

“Look, kid, I’m gonna level with you.  You’re dying, and we’re too far from help to save you.  I can either end it for you now, or you can lie here and bleed out.  Your choice.”

Bucky watched as the soldier’s eyes grew wide with fear, then slowly closed in resignation, tears and snot mixing with the grime on his face.  He sucked in a shuddering breath, and Bucky could hear the start of agonal breathing forming in his chest.  

“D…Do it.  Please?  It doesn’t…hurt anymore, b-but I’m so cold.”

“Okay.”  Bucky’s mouth was no more than a grim line as he helped the young soldier to lie down on his back, face up to the canopy of the trees - a million shades of green dancing across a flawless blue sky.  “It’s a nice view, huh?”

“Ye-”

The bullet made a neat little hole right in the centre of his forehead.  Bucky sighed, pushing himself back upright and scanning his surroundings to see if the gunshot had alerted anyone to his presence.  At times like this, he was actually thankful for the decades he spent as the Winter Soldier, as he could simply turn off any emotion like flipping a switch.  He’d process this later, he lied to himself.  He needed to be focused right now on finding Sam, before the Asset did.  

Bucky slipped away from the body, just in case anyone had heard and was heading his way.  Once he was a sufficient distance away, he found a covered position and called through to Steve.

“Steve, we’ve got a problem.”

“Buck, tell me what’s happening?”

“Got some intel, they have The Asset.”

“Shit.  Hold on, don’t do anything, just…just take cover somewhere and I’ll send in Bruce.”

Bruce, quiet on the comms until now, chimed in "I'm on my way."

“We don’t have time.  Sam’s still out there, if the Asset gets to him first…”

"I'm coming anyway, already heading to the Quinjet as we speak.  Do what you can to buy me some time."

“I’ll see if I can get anyone else in.  Keep the line open, keep searching for Sam.  We'll get back-up to you ASAP.  And Bucky, be careful.  Please.”

“I will.”

Bucky broke his cover and moved silently through the forest, heading North-East toward the last place he had seen Sam before he sank below the trees.  He approached the edge of the blast zone a few short and uneventful, yet tense, minutes later, keeping well back into the treeline as he scoped out the damage.  A vast hollow, scorched and ashen, stretched the length of a football field.  Bucky didn't want to think about whether Sam was part of those ashes.  Heading East now, Bucky focused his hearing to attune to any sounds of life within the surrounding woods.  He noted the thrumming heartbeats of a few small animals, tiny feet scurrying in the underbrush, rustling of wings from above, but no sounds that could indicate an injured Sam.  

Further along on his left, he heard the unmistakable sound of a booted foot cracking a dry twig as it bore down. Within an instant, he had pivoted to face the sound, just in time to hear a distinct neck-cracking noise, followed by the limp body of a Hydra soldier thumping heavily to the ground.  What the fuck was going on?  He steeled himself as the Asset stepped out into the open, gun raised.

“Steve?”

Chapter Text

“Steve?”

The way Bucky had called his name as if it were a question, wrought with confusion and shock, jolted all of Steve’s senses into full alertness.  He sat up straighter, about to respond, but was stopped dead in his tracks.

“Who the hell is Steve?” 

The breath trapped in Steve’s lungs burned as the blood in his veins turned to ice. The impossibility of hearing his own younger voice left Steve reeling, paralyzed by the helplessness of the distance between him and Bucky and the fragile, useless body he was trapped in. 

“I’m not gonna fight you.”  Bucky’s voice was placating and gentle, though Steve could hear the hint of fear that infiltrated his steady tone.  “We’re friends.  You know me.”

“No, I don’t.  You’re one of them .  You’re my mission.”  

Muffled sounds of fighting broke out at the other end, as all Steve could do was sit uselessly and listen.  Low thumps of flesh hitting flesh.  Metal scraping against vibranium.  Heavy footfalls.  A grunt of pain from Bucky.  Steve released the trapped breath in his lungs as he screamed at Bucky to fight back, goddamnit!

With a sizzling sound, the line went dead.  The unbearable silence assaulted Steve’s senses, and his nerve endings sang with the terror of not knowing Bucky’s fate.  Had he fought back?  Was he dead already?  Panicked, Steve’s hands shook as he opened the communication line to Bruce’s Quinjet.  Breath now coming in shallow gasps as his frail heart hammered painfully against his sternum.  

“Steve, ten minutes to landing.  Send me Bucky’s updated coordinates.”

“Bruce, he has Bucky!”

“What, who?  Slow down.”

“The Asset, it wasn’t the Winter Soldier, it’s me .  I’m the Asset.  He refused to fight, and then the line went dead.”

“Okay…okay.  How far away is our back-up?”

“They’re at least an hour out.  It’ll be too late.”

“He’s a survivor, Steve.  Even if he doesn’t want to fight you… him , he’ll find a way to survive it.  He’ll buy time, and we’ll get to him.”

“Guys…what’s going on?  What’d I miss?”  Sam’s voice came through, tired and weak, but alive.  Steve almost breathed a sigh of relief, but not quite.

“Sam, thank God you’re alive!  Are you hurt?”

“Pretty sure I have a concussion, a few scratches, but otherwise fine.  My wings are busted, though, so I’m on foot.  What’s going on?  Where’s Bucky?”  Steve was touched by the sincere concern in Sam’s voice.  

“This Hydra has an alternate version of me.  Bucky refused to fight him, and then the line went dead.  Bruce is still ten minutes out at least.  You’re our only hope of getting to him before it’s too late, we need you to find him, Sam.  I’m sending you his last coordinates.”

“I’ll find him, Steve, I promise.”

“Thanks, Sam. Be careful.”

“Always.”

Steve let his head fall into his hands and forced himself to slow his breaths, in an effort to slow his racing heart.  Now was not the time to go into cardiac arrest.  He hadn’t felt this helpless, this useless, this scared, since Bucky had fallen in the Alps.  He tried in vain to squash that memory back down into the dark room in his psyche that he usually kept it locked in.  There had to be something he could do.  There had to be.  At that moment, one of the doctors whom Bruce had on standby entered the ops room Steve was stationed in, and cleared her throat gently to announce her presence.

“What do you need?” he didn’t raise his head, pressing his palms firmly into his closed eyes to block out the image of Bucky’s terrified face falling away from him.

“Your heart rate is dangerously high, sir.”

“I’m fine.  I don’t have time for this.”  Steve snapped, then instantly felt the contrition creep up his spine.  He sat up with a heavy sigh and looked at her, offering an apologetic smile.  “Sorry, I just…sorry.”

“It’s fine, sir.  Can I administer your medications?”

“Sure.”  Steve nodded, and the young doctor - well, he supposed she was actually somewhere in her thirties, but everyone looked young to him now - approached and handed him some pills.  Steve dutifully swallowed them and gave her a reassuring smile before dismissing her.  Her steady, confident stride only sharpened his awareness of his own aged body’s limitations.

The quantum tunnel time-machine.  He sat up straighter and ran a withered hand through his silver hair, heart hammering once again.  He had seen how Bruce had operated it, and with his eidetic memory still intact, there was nothing stopping him from using it on himself.  There were risks of course, but if he could just dial back the years on his body and get to Bucky, then he could deal with the consequences later.  Decision made, Steve grabbed a StarkPad from the desk and set it up to vibrate at a regular sinus rhythm, then carefully peeled off his heart monitor in between beats and applied it to the tablet.  That should keep the doctors at bay long enough for him to do what he needed to do and be on his way to Bucky.  He pushed away from the desk and forced himself to move at a brisk pace that was now so unfamiliar to him.

***

“We’re friends.  You know me.”  

Bucky hoped that he had a counterpart in this Steve’s life, otherwise this plan was going to be a colossal, perhaps fatal, failure.  But he owed it to Steve, both the one in front of him and his Steve, to at least try.  Icy blue eyes stared back at him from a blank face.  A face which should be so familiar to him, but lacked the warmth, the spark of optimism and defiance that made Steve’s face…well, Steve’s.  

An assessing look flitted across that face, followed by confusion.  The slightly off-kilter familiarity of the situation had Bucky spooked, almost like deja vu.  It was like he was replaying a memory from someone else’s point of view.  In the moment of hesitation from the man in front of him, he allowed himself a split second of hope, that maybe he would be recognised, maybe he could break through Hydra’s conditioning and save this Steve.  And himself.

“No. I don’t.  You’re one of them.  You’re my mission.”  Steve’s eyes darkened, even as his face remained an impassive mask.  It was unnerving to say the least.

Bucky didn’t get a chance to ask who “them” was.  Steve lunged; shield in one hand, knife in the other.  Bucky spun, vibranium closing around Steve’s wrist with a sharp crack of bones.  The knife clattered to the rocky ground.  Steve grunted, teeth bared, twisting lithely away, fluidly raising the shield once more as he spun.  The shield struck Bucky’s temple.  Disoriented, ears ringing, he staggered.  Steve slammed it toward his head again.  Shock flitted across Steve’s face as the shield reverberated with the impact against vibranium.  

Mustering his strength, Bucky shoved, forcing the shield back and sending Steve reeling.  He pitched a Widow’s Bite.  The shield caught it, and it snapped back toward him.  He dodged.  Not quick enough.  It grazed his ear with a sharp electrical sting.  A sizzling sound came from his earpiece, and it died with a sparking hiss.  He swiped the device from his ear.  

Steve was already charging.  They hit the ground, hard.  Breath was driven from his lungs as a huge shoulder punched into his solar plexus.  

Steve straddled Bucky's chest.  Knees pinning down his arms.  Blows rained down until spots formed in Bucky’s vision.  The world spun, swooping and diving around him.  He attempted to heave in more breaths.  Steve’s weight compressed his ribs painfully.  He couldn’t draw in more than small gulps of air.  

Bucky writhed in an effort to dislodge Steve from his position - but the weight bearing down, the blows to his unprotected head, the lack of oxygen - it was too much.  Thick blood pooled in his throat.  He choked. Blood spluttered out, coating his lips and running down his cheeks.  Suffocating.  His head rocked to the side once more as Steve continued his assault.  Black spots danced across his vision and began to meld together, blotting out the sky above them.  A dark tunnel that was closing in rapidly.  He couldn’t breathe.  He couldn’t see.  Couldn’t fight.  One final strike to his temple, and -           

***

“Sam, I’m on the ground.  Have you located Bucky?”  

Silence.

Bruce waited a few moments more, then repeated his call, voice steady despite the rising tide of concern roiling in his core.  He took a few deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth; there was no need for alarm.  Yet.  If Sam had been making his way to Bucky, then heading to Bucky’s last known coordinates would be his best bet of finding them.  The Quinjet that had brought them here was nearby, but its emptiness only echoed his own voice back to him.  

Bruce’s heart sank as he reached the coordinates and found the clearing silent and empty.  There were signs of a fight.  Bucky’s damaged earpiece lay in the dirt, emitting soft crackling noises, and a few feet away, a used Widow’s Bite was discarded.  Bruce’s stomach clenched and chest tightened; a pool of slightly congealed blood was soaking into the churned earth.  He forced another slow breath through his nose; panic was something he couldn’t afford right now.  A set of heavy boot prints led away from the scene, but became lost in the soft foliage of the forest floor only a few feet into the treeline. 

A prototype device that could read the unique energy signatures of his friends hung from his belt, and he yanked it out now.  If Sam or Bucky were alive and within range, the device would pick up their signal.   He moved quickly to the center of the clearing. There was no time to waste.  With every silent moment that passed as he rotated, scanning the woods, Bruce felt bands of anxiety cinch tighter around his chest.  He couldn’t lose anyone else.  

The device chirped suddenly.  Bruce flinched, on edge.  There - a hundred yards to the East.  Sam’s energy signature was picked up by the device.  The signal was weak, but it was there.  He shoved the device back into his belt and forced his way through the trees and brush, branches clawing at his face and crashing to the ground in his wake.  

“Sam!”  Bruce came to a sliding stop on his knees by Sam’s side. He was bruised and battered, swelling to one side of his face, but alive.  He gently tapped Sam’s face and called his name again, unspooling a shaky sigh of relief as Sam groaned and his eyes fluttered open.

“Bruce…never been so glad to see your giant green face, man.”  Sam’s speech was lightly slurred - a cause for concern, but not an immediate priority.

“What happened?  Where’s Bucky?”

Sam moaned again as he attempted to sit up, his eyes unfocused.  He winced slightly as he gingerly touched the side of his swollen face.

“Was too late.  Hydra-Steve had him.  He was unconscious…at least I hope.  Tried to stop him, ‘n’ he launched me through the air one handed.  No wings, busted head, I didn’t stand a chance.  ’m sorry.”  Sam’s face was twisted with pain and bitterness, his disappointment in himself palpable.

“We’ll get him back.  Can you walk?”

“Yeah.  They’re heading south-east, t’ward the landing site.” 

Sam grunted loudly and swayed a little once Bruce set him on his feet, leaning into the hand that Bruce kept on his shoulder until the spinning stopped.  

“The Quinjets,” Bruce muttered. “We need to get to him before he gets off the ground.”

Sam followed Bruce on unsteady feet as he crashed a path forward.  Branches cracked and splintered under Bruce’s weight as he drove them closer to Bucky, closer to Hydra’s Steve, and whatever awaited them when they found them.  

Chapter Text

Pain.

That was the first thing that registered.

Ringing.  Getting closer, louder.  Throbbing. Splitting his skull apart. 

His wrists.  Overhead.  Shackled. 

Light.  Bright behind his eyelids.  Too Bright.

Too much.  Too loud.  Nerves frayed and singing.

Awareness was bleeding in through the cracks like light through curtains.  His brain sparking as neurons and synapses misfired, and grey matter was stitched back together.

His breath rattled, but it went in and back out.  He was alive.  Injured.  Restrained.  

Steve.  

Not his Steve.  Young Steve.  Hydra Steve.  They had fought.  Rather, Hydra-Steve had fought; he had defended.  Or tried to.  Another shuddering breath, diaphragm hitching uncomfortably.  

He was hanging by his wrists, toes barely touching the ground. Another jagged inhale.   

Awareness crashed in all at once, curtains ripped aside.  Consciousness blinding like a floodlight.  

The ringing reached a crescendo, then quickly faded as the sounds of his environment began to infiltrate his fugue of pain and confusion.  Sounds of scuffing feet and a murmur, a voice.  Steve’s voice.  Not Steve.  

Pain throbbed with each heartbeat, radiating from his wrist, head, ribs.  Blinking, one eye still swelled mostly shut, he could feel the maxillary bone knitting back together beneath the swollen skin.  The light pierced a hole through his retinas and directly into his brain like a laser.  Gradually dimming to a blurry room, concrete, steel, no windows, one door. The place had an air of disuse.  An air of Hydra.  As his jumbled mind began to make sense of his surroundings, he started to recognise the familiarity of the old Hydra base.  He had been brought here after he had killed Howard and… 

“Rumlow.  Rollins.  Come in.”  Steve’s voice.  (Not Steve).  Distant.  

Another breath, deeper this time.  He felt his cracked ribs grind against one another.  Carefully, stiffly, he tilted his head back to assess his restraints.  Some kind of alloy, not vibranium, but laced with the glowing energy of the Tesseract.  The chain linking the cuffs was looped through a forged steel eye-bolt mounted into the concrete ceiling.  The chain was able to be detached and reattached with a locking mechanism on the cuff itself.  If he could snap the chain or pull hard enough on the bolt, he should be able to get himself free.  

Bucky pulled sharply downward against the shackles with both arms, and a pulse of crackling energy surged through his body, electrifying every nerve.  Darkness called to him, the bliss of unconsciousness.  No.  No, he couldn’t surrender to it.  He needed intel; he had to be alert.     

“Pierce.  Come in.”  

He didn’t know how long Steve had been trying to reach his team, but based on his current state of healing, he had been out for maybe an hour.  His slow, clunky brain was starting to focus and sharpen now.  The pain wracking his body falling to the background as he assessed his situation.

He was alive; that meant Steve needed him.  Not as a hostage.  No, he had no use for hostages.  What had he said before their fight?  “You’re one of them.  You’re my mission”.  Them?  Enhanced humans?  Super soldiers?  

The heavy steel door to his left shoved open violently, gouging an arc in the concrete floor as its hinges shrieked and sagged with the force.  The juxtaposition of unfamiliar icy blue eyes set into a familiar face left him off-kilter.  Steve stalked into the room, knife drawn.  Bucky felt the cloak of the Winter Soldier start to drape across his body, self-preservation dragging him out like a protective older brother.  He let himself slide into the Soldier’s embrace, a fleeting moment of peace before the nothingness.  A curious look flitted through Steve’s eyes, recognition perhaps, but quickly hardened into an impassive mask.  

“Where are they?”  Steve’s voice was hushed.  Cold.  Like the whisper of silk against steel.

Bucky maintained his silence, watching, assessing.

Steve brandished the glinting silver knife in his right hand.  A tug at the corner of his mouth, almost a smile.  Bucky continued to reside inside the Soldier’s fortress, breathing steadily, eyes vacant.  The knife plunged into his right bicep with a flick of Steve’s wrist.  Bucky exhaled sharply, but made no other sound.  The Soldier had been trained too well for that.

Steve tilted his head, allowing a brief flicker of curiosity to cross his features.  He ripped the blade free.  Bucky breathed again, eyes still staring vacantly ahead.  

“Where are they?”  Louder, this time.  More forceful.

Bucky thought rapidly.  Steve’s mission was to find someone, maybe multiple someones.  Just as Steve was about to plunge the knife again, he spoke.

“You know me.  Look at my face, and tell me you don’t know me.”

Steve froze mid-swing, but didn’t retract the blade.  A flicker of hope lit in his chest, a dim candle burning in a hopelessly dark chasm.  But maybe, just maybe, he could save this Steve, like his Steve had saved him.  Bucky watched intently as Steve’s chest rose and fell rapidly, his eyes flickering back and forth, as if trying to retrieve something from the void where his memories used to live.  Steve shook his head violently.

The knife sank into Bucky’s left thigh.  Slowly, this time. The flesh burned as it was torn apart.  Bucky clenched his jaw and breathed through his nose.  The sound of his own teeth grinding, filling his head. 

“Where. Are. They?”

Bucky pushed past the searing pain and tried to reach Steve again.

“We were friends.  Brothers.  We fought together, before Hydra.  You know me.”

“No, I don’t!”  The denial was sharp and forceful, but there was a crack of desperation behind it.

Steve’s hand, still clenched around the hilt of the knife, began to gradually twist, tearing flesh and muscles, severing nerves and ligaments.  But still careful, controlled, precise, avoiding the femoral artery.  Steve didn’t want him dead, not yet.  Bucky forced himself to inhale, exhale, pressing his lips into a thin line that would not let any sound escape.

“WHERE ARE THEY?”

He needed to give him something.

“Who?”  Bucky was relieved to hear his voice come out steady, despite the way his heart thrashed like a bird trapped in the cage of his ribs.

“Your world’s heroes.”

“You’ll have to be more specific, Steve.”

The knife twisted again and Bucky’s vision whited out for a millisecond.

“I don’t know who you mean; you need to give me names.”  Bucky forced the words to come out smoothly, unaffected.

Steve’s eyes narrowed, suspicious that someone who was seemingly unaffected by torture would be so willing to give in to his demands.  He lazily dragged the knife out and took a step back.  Bucky felt a gush of warm, sticky blood run down his thigh.  There was a wet smack as his blood dripped from the knife to mix with the dust on the concrete floor.

“Tony Stark.  Natasha Romanov.  Thor.  Hulk.  King T’Challa.  The enhanced beings of this world.  Tell me where they are.”

Bucky felt the familiar pang of guilt and grief at hearing their names.  Pain started to seep in again, overwhelming him.  At the edges of his vision, a dark tunnel pulsed in time with his heart.

“Dead.  You’re too late.  They’re dead.”

A silver flash.  A punching feeling in his gut, just above his left hip.  The burning, searing pain set in a moment later.  The knife gouged into soft tissues, but narrowly avoided major organs.  Bucky let out a shaky breath this time.  The protective cloak of the soldier had slipped.  He gritted his teeth, forced his breaths to steady, and allowed his mind to go blank.  The pain ebbed away into a dull background static.

“I don’t believe you.”  It was a frustrated growl.  

Steve’s armour was chipping away.  The frustration, confusion, and lack of direction from his handlers were starting to override his calculated programming.  Perhaps even the familiarity of Bucky’s face was starting to pierce that veil.

“How long have you been off the ice? A little too long, I bet.  Your programming is slipping.”

Steve’s fist connected with his face, rocking Bucky back on the tips of his toes, as his arms were wrenched painfully by the restraints above, and another blistering surge wracked his suspended form.  The maxillary bone that had been nearly mended was fractured once more, and his eye began to swell shut again.  He gasped painfully as he tried to regain his footing.

“Tell me where they are, or I go back for your friend.  The fragile one.  The one with the wings.”  Steve’s face was twisted in a snarl.

Sam.  Shit.  Did that mean Sam was alive?  It could be a bluff.  But Bucky didn’t want to take that chance.

“It's the truth.  Your intel is out of date.  The Avengers don't exist anymore”

Steve yanked the knife from Bucky’s gut and stalked from the room.  He could hear him calling his team again, this time with an edge of desperation to his voice.  

Bucky sagged in his restraints, feeling the hot blood as it soaked through his undershirt, making the fabric stick to his skin.  A warm trickle ran down the contour of his hip and started to soak through the waistband of his heavy tactical pants.  

Damnnit, too much blood, too fast.  He forced his heart rate down with measured breaths to slow the tide of blood that was pulsing from his wounds.  Steve was hesitating; his conditioning was beginning to crack.  Bucky remembered all too well how fragile, how unstable, his mind had been in the aftermath of the Triskelion.  He just needed a final push to tip Steve over the edge.  

****

“Bucky!”

Steve’s voice cut through the still air of the room. Bucky’s head snapped up in shock.  Steve had remembered him!  

Confusion, shock, and incomprehension swirled together as Bucky tried to take in the sight in front of him.  The uniform - still black, but with a missing star in place of a Hydra symbol.  The round vibranium shield in place of a metal-alloy heraldic shield.  Steve’s youthful face, broad shoulders, muscular body, and bright, warm blue eyes.  It wasn’t possible.  He was hallucinating.

“Buck, are you okay?”

He was struck dumb, his mind refusing to believe that this was real.  He closed his eyes tightly, willing away the vision.  He couldn’t afford to have false hope right now; he needed to focus.

“Bucky! Answer me, pal.”  His mouth opened, on the precipice of telling the hallucination that he wasn’t real, when Steve's warm, gentle, solid hands touched his face.  His eyes sprang open in disbelief to meet his Steve’s eyes.

“I…I thought you were older.”

Steve chuckled lightly as he inspected Bucky’s face for the source of the blood that had painted his face a deep crimson.  Bucky flinched as Steve’s light touches brushed against his still-healing eye socket.

“I thought you were a better fighter.”  Steve gently admonished.

“How…?”

“Later, Buck.  I need you free before he comes back.  I can’t take him on my own.”

With that, Steve raised his vibranium shield over his head and made to strike the cuff on Bucky’s vibranium wrist.

“WAIT!”

The shield froze, mid-air.

“What is it?”

“The cuffs. Tesseract energy.  One strike and we’re both dust.  You gotta break the eye-bolt without hitting the chain.”    

“Shit.  Okay…okay.”  Steve ran a frantic hand through his golden hair, pushing it back from his face as he adjusted his plans, eyeing the bolt intently.  “Hold still.”

Bucky froze in place as Steve swung the shield above his head.  A resounding CRACK rang through the room and bounced in echoes off the concrete walls.  He swung again.  CRACK.  This time, Bucky crumpled as the bolt gave way, saved from collapsing to the floor by Steve’s strong arm catching his waist and propping him back on his feet.  Bucky grunted in pain, ribs no longer grinding against one another, but still sending shooting pains through his chest.  

His hands were still connected by the foot of chain between them, and he was lightheaded from blood loss, but he’d fought under worse circumstances.  Steve pressed a gun into his hands.  

“Why didn't you use this on him before you came in?”  Bucky asked, confusion furrowing his brow.  Steve hesitated, opened his mouth to say something, and then snapped it shut again.

“Steve, what’s going on?”

“I…I don’t want to kill him, Buck.  And I don’t think you do either.  We can help him.  Maybe we can save him.”  

Bucky nodded.  “I think he’s already starting to break through the programming; he’s unstable and erratic.  We’ll incapacitate him and get him back to the compound.”

Heavy footsteps thundered to them in echoes down the hallway, distant, but growing closer, hurried.  They both spun toward the door. Steve raised his shield and tightened his grip.  Bucky steadied his shaking hand and aimed the gun at the open doorway.  For one impossible heartbeat, it was just like old times; standing side by side, about to enter into battle.  But this time, they would be facing the very worst of themselves.

Chapter Text

Hydra-Steve’s frame filled the doorway, shield raised, bloody knife still clutched in his other hand. Bucky shot at the top of the doorway, a distraction, as chips of concrete and dust rained down.

Steve lunged from his side, shield raised, striking Hydra-Steve’s shield and forcing him back. But he was quick, more practiced, stronger. He feinted to the left, then spun and slipped past him to the right, sending Steve reeling into the hallway. Hydra-Steve flicked his knife at Bucky as he entered the room.

Bucky deflected it with his vibranium arm, the chain between his wrists clinking as a reminder of his restraint, the tight cuffs compressing the bones in his wrist painfully, cutting into the skin. 

Careful to move both arms in sync so the chain wouldn’t cause another surge of energy, he quickly aimed his gun at Hydra-Steve’s legs and fired. Hydra-Steve spun, narrowly avoiding the bullet as it sank into the concrete behind him.

Steve, having recovered his footing now, launched his shield at Hydra-Steve from behind, catching him in the shoulder. He stumbled, almost dropping his own shield as he spun to face Steve. Bucky fluidly tossed Steve his gun, then dove and rolled across the floor to retrieve Steve’s shield. 

White-hot pain flared in his still-healing ribs as he hit the concrete, every breath a stabbing reminder of his impaired state. Steve fired at Hydra-Steve’s legs again, this time grazing his calf.

Bucky scooped up the shield and sprang back to his feet, brought the shield down to strike, but Hydra-Steve deflected it with his own. 

Steve couldn’t get a clear shot, not with Bucky so close, so he lunged at Hydra-Steve’s legs, sending him sprawling to the floor. On his way down, Hydra-Steve grabbed at the chain between Bucky’s wrists and yanked, sending blistering electricity coursing through him.

Bucky’s vision exploded in a white flash, every nerve singing and muscle screaming as if liquid fire raced through his veins. For just a millisecond, he wasn’t in this room anymore.  He was back in the chair, back under Hydra’s control. A broken, choked sound escaped him as he fought to cling to reality. He barely registered his head striking the concrete floor.  His already damaged brain struggling to repair the fresh injury.

Steve grappled with his counterpart, deflecting kicks as he tried to make his way toward his head. He pistol-whipped Hydra-Steve’s kneecap, hearing a loud crunch as the patella cracked. In the moment of distraction, Steve pulled himself further up, aiming the butt of his gun at the other man’s head.  He felt a sudden punching feeling in his side, followed by a searing, tearing pain.  It stopped him short.  Hydra-Steve pulled the knife, dripping with blood from Steve’s side, and shoved him away to free himself.

Bucky, ears still ringing, breath raw in his throat, forced himself to his feet just as Hydra-Steve got upright again. They stared at each other across the room, both heaving jagged breaths.

His eyes flicked to Steve, hands clutched at his side, trying to rise back to his feet and stumbling.  A cold knot tightened in Bucky’s gut. Steve had survived worse, he reasoned.  But the affirmation was shaky, and doubt crept in at the corners.  His eyes flicked back to the super soldier in front of him.

“I don’t want to hurt you. We can work together.” Bucky tried.  His voice was gravel crunching over the words. 

“No. You’re no use to me now.”

Hydra-Steve lunged, but Bucky met him with equal force, using the shield to deflect the blade still dripping in his hand, sending it clattering across the floor. The clang echoed through the room.  Bucky struck again, connecting with his head once more and sending him reeling back into the wall.

A shot rang out.

Steve had found the gun, and this time his bullet lodged in Hydra-Steve’s thigh. Bucky slammed the shield toward his head. Hydra-Steve blocked, tried to spin, but stumbled on his injured leg and faltered.

Bucky struck again, the vibranium shield connecting this time, sending Hydra-Steve sprawling to the floor. He lunged after him, attempting another strike, but he rolled clear, snatching his knife and flinging it at Steve, who had found his feet and was approaching from the left.

The blade lodged in Steve’s abdomen. Steve’s face a white mask of shock as he collapsed to his knees.  Fear and guilt flooded through Bucky.  Steve was here because of him, was injured because of him.  But he pushed those thoughts aside as Hydra-Steve rolled to his feet.

Bucky brought the shield down on his head as he rose, sending him face-first to the floor. He wasted no time, straddling him and striking again from behind, not stopping until Hydra-Steve’s body finally went slack.

Bucky’s breath came in ragged gasps. His chest felt like it might cave in from the effort, blood roaring in his ears louder than the echoes of the fight.  He grunted with the effort as he rolled Hydra-Steve over, the adrenaline that had fueled him through the fight finally crashing and making his body feel shaky and weak all of a sudden.  He patted down Hydra-Steve’s uniform until his fingers found a small, hard object in a hidden pocket.  Fumbling the key free, he unlocked the cuffs and yanked them off his wrists, then cuffed Hydra-Steve’s hands behind his back.

“We did it, Stevie. We got him.” Bucky turned with a smile, only for his brow to furrow when he saw the shiny, red stains spreading across Steve’s uniform. “Hey, you okay?”

Steve gave a fragile smile. “Yeah, just a couple scratches. We need to get him back to the compound before he wakes up. Bruce and Sam should be on their way here, but the quicker we get out of here, the better.”  Bucky didn’t quite believe him; something wasn’t sitting right.  But that could wait.  Right now, he needed to get them all out of here.

Bucky hauled Hydra-Steve up in a fireman’s carry, leading the way from the dank, cold room into the hallway. His steps were heavy, not just from the bulk of Hydra-Steve’s unconscious body, but from the weight of the fight and earlier assault.  Behind him, Steve’s footsteps shuffled faintly.

As they neared the exit, Bucky heard Steve falter, then his voice, ragged and low.

“I’m sorry, Buck.”

The thud of his body hitting the ground followed.

“Steve!” Bucky spun, his heart dropping into his gut as he saw his best friend crumpled on the floor, a trail of blood in his wake. He dropped Hydra-Steve’s body without care, running back to his friend, and fell to his knees beside him.

“I’m sorry,” Steve repeated.

“What? No, Steve, it’s okay. You’ve had worse, we just gotta get you to the QuinJet and we’ll get you fixed up.”

Bucky’s heart was in his throat; something was very wrong.  Steve had borne much worse injuries, but his ashen face and shaking hands told a dire story.

“No, Buck. I’m not gonna make it that far. The machine reversed my age, but it couldn’t restore my serum. I’m not as strong as I used to be. I can’t heal fast enough to save myself this time.”

The grave look in Steve’s eyes choked the breath from Bucky’s lungs.

No. No, it couldn’t happen like this. Not here. Not now. He refused to believe it.

“Come on,” Bucky urged, slipping his arms under Steve’s shoulders and legs. “Forget Hydra, forget their Steve. I’m getting you out of here. We can make it. We can.”

Why did his voice sound so shaky, so wet? He swiped at his eyes with a trembling hand.

“Come ON!”

“Bucky… Buck, please.”

Steve’s hand came up to Bucky’s cheek. He leaned into it, tears running freely now, soaking into Steve’s calloused skin.

“This is it, pal. This is the end of the line for me. But it’s not for you. For him. I need you to get him out of here, get him contained, help him. Save him.”

“No. Not without you,” he pleaded as tears, tinged pink with blood, dripped from his chin onto Steve’s chest.

He tried again to lift Steve, but Steve’s hand left his face and pushed him back, firm despite the shaking. Bucky fell back, and Steve sagged across his lap.

“This is my fault. You shouldn’t have come here.”

“No. It is not your fault, and I don’t want you to ever think that.  I came here because I owed it to you. I should have saved you all those years ago. I should have stayed.”

Steve’s voice broke as he continued. “I came because I love you, Buck. And because you’re worth it. You have so much good left to do in this world.”

Steve’s eyes were wet too now, pools of shimmering blue in his pallid face, even as he smiled up at him. His hand shook against Bucky’s chest, then fell, limp, into his lap.

“Steve, I… I can’t do this. I can’t do it without you.”

Steve’s eyes were unfocused, staring into a distance that didn’t exist.

“Yes, you can. You have to. He needs you.”

His voice, the voice Bucky loved, that had made him laugh, cry, fight, endure, was barely more than a whispering breeze through faraway leaves.

“Steve?”

A rattling breath rose from Steve’s chest, slipped past blue lips. And that indomitable spark faded gently from his eyes, finally subdued.

Bucky froze, numbness creeping across his body and his mind.

No. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.

Steve's chest was too still.

He wasn’t gone. He couldn’t be. Steve always came back. Always.

Steve’s blood had soaked through his clothes, making them stick uncomfortably against his skin, cooling rapidly in the frigid air.

Bucky raised a shaking hand to Steve’s face, then recoiled at the lifeless chill.

He didn’t know how long he sat there.  Minutes. Hours.  An eternity. 

Bucky knew that he was destined for hell, after everything he’d done.  So it made sense to him that he would spend an eternity locked in his very worst nightmare, holding onto the lifeless body of the only person in this world whom he had ever truly loved.  The only person left in this world who knew him, knew what he’d done, and who loved him regardless.

A shuffle stirred down the hallway. Hydra-Steve.

Bucky didn’t care.

Even when the shuffling turned into unsteady footsteps.  He still couldn’t look away from Steve.  His own tears carved flesh-coloured tracks through the crimson blood that painted his face.

It would be fitting, he thought, if his personal hell were ended by a man who wore his best friend’s face.  He prayed that after hell would come nothingness, an eternal black void.  Although, he wasn’t sure if he deserved such mercy.

A crack rang out and echoed against the harsh concrete walls. Hydra-Steve crumpled.  Confusion swirled in at the edges of Bucky’s awareness, still too lost in the embrace of Steve’s cold, lax body and lifeless eyes.    

“Bucky?”

He finally tore his gaze away from Steve at Sam's familiar voice.

“What’s -, who’s -, oh God!” The confusion on Sam’s face was replaced with shock as realisation dawned.

“Steve.”

Bruce’s voice hitched on the name.

Bucky clutched Steve tighter, as if his grip alone could drag him past the veil and into Death's embrace alongside him.

Chapter Text

“Bucky?  C’mon, man.  I’m sorry, but we gotta move.”

Bucky didn’t respond.  He couldn’t.  The Soldier had taken over all functions of the mind and body.  No matter how much physical or mental agony he may experience, he would never allow a single sound to pass his lips or fleeting expression to cross his face.  It had been ingrained in him through seven decades of punishment and torture.  He was mute, his face a blank slate in contrast to Sam’s pleading voice, hitching breath, and watery eyes.

Sam reached for Steve, still splayed limply across Bucky’s lap.  Bucky’s hand shot out and snatched Sam’s hand from the air, too hard, but he didn’t care.  No-one was going to take Steve from him.

“Sorry.  I’m sorry.”  Sam gritted out.

It took a few moments for Bucky to reluctantly release his grip, untrusting, staying on guard in case he tried again.  Sam held his hands up placatingly and backed up a few steps.  Bucky breathed again.  It hurt.

“Bucky, we need to go home, man.” Bucky didn’t have a home.  Not anymore.  “We don’t know for sure if anyone else got through, and if they can track us here.  It’s not safe.”

Let them come.  He’d slaughter every last one of them.

Sam sighed heavily, then crouched down in front of him and tried to catch his eye.  Bucky stared through him, unseeing.

“If someone comes after us.  They’ll take Steve.”

Bucky’s eyes snapped into focus, and his brow furrowed.  The first sign of emotion that Sam had seen from him since they had arrived.

“C’mon, Buck.  Let’s take Steve home.  Can you carry him?”

He got a short, sharp nod in return.  Bucky rose unsteadily to his feet, Steve clasped firmly in his arms.

Sam tapped his earpiece, “We’re on our way, Bruce.”

It was only then that Bucky noticed that Bruce and Hydra-Steve were gone.  He must have dissociated.  As awareness started to seep back in and drag him, unwillingly, into reality, he stumbled, clutching Steve tighter to him and readjusting his hold.  

“You okay?”

He didn’t answer, he couldn’t.  Just kept putting one foot in front of the other as his ribs burned and the blood loss and brain damage made him slow and foggy.

Sam opened the exit door to the blinding white light of day.  It assaulted Bucky’s eyes and seared into his brain.  He squeezed his eyes shut and felt liquid spill from his lashes and down his cheeks.  He hesitated at the threshold.  

Once they left this dank, unholy place, it would be real.  

This was the last place that he would ever be with Steve.

“Bucky?” Sam turned back to look at him, curiosity flickered through the grief etched on his face.  He took a few paces back toward him, almost reaching out, but hesitating.

“I know, man.  It’s gonna be real out here.  This is the hardest step you’re ever gonna have to take, but you have to take it.  There’s nothing left in there for you.”

“There’s nothing out there for me.”  Bucky’s voice was wet and hollow, but at least he had spoken, Sam reasoned.

“Let’s take him home, Buck.”

Bucky’s breath shuddered out of him as he forced himself to step across the threshold.  Each step was a battle, fought and won, until Bucky realised that he was climbing the ramp into the QuinJet.

Sam guided him to a waiting stretcher.  Bucky knelt and gently released Steve, every inch of distance feeling like something within him was being torn asunder.  He swallowed past the stone lodged in his throat and swiped at his eyes, as Sam strapped Steve in.  

Sam paused for a moment before leaving him, and laid a hand on Bucky’s flesh shoulder.

“It’s not your fault, Buck.”

Bucky ignored him, taking Steve’s cold hand in both of his own, as if trying to warm it.

Sam moved into the cockpit, where Bruce was completing the pre-flight check.  They assumed their voices were too quiet for Bucky to catch, but his enhanced hearing rendered the effort meaningless.

“How long will Captain Hydra over there be out?”  

It was then that Bucky noticed Hydra-Steve, still unconscious, cuffed and bound tightly with vibranium infused ropes, lying prone on the opposite side of the cabin.  Defenceless.  

He could close the space and slit his throat before Sam or Bruce even noticed him move.

“Well, those sedatives were made for me, so I’d say at least five or six hours.”

He could smother him, cover his nose and mouth, and suffocate the son of a bitch.

“What do we do with him when we get back to the compound?”

 He could smash his skull in with one punch from his vibranium fist.

“Tony built a containment chamber for me, just in case.  It’ll hold him until we figure out what to do with him.”

He could slide his knife between the asshole's ribs and into his heart, nice and slow.

“If I know Steve, he’d want us to help him.”

Steve’s dying words hit Bucky like a gut punch.

“Save him.”  

Bucky looked down at Steve’s face, his Steve.  

Save him.  

He didn’t know if he could do it.  Steve had always been a much better person than him.  Bucky had always been the one to do the dirty work, the sniper, the killer, the one who did the things that Captain America couldn’t be associated with.  But more than that, he hadn’t wanted Steve to be tainted. Steve was good.  He was unfailingly kind and dangerously optimistic.  

Stupidly optimistic.  

So stupid, he had refused to fight the Winter Soldier, prepared to die just to try to break through to the man underneath the conditioning.  Bucky had naively thought he could be like him; that if he refused to fight this bastardised version of Steve, maybe it would be some kind of twisted penance.  That saving Hydra-Steve would somehow show his Steve that he had been worth saving.

“We have to try.  To save him.”

Bruce and Sam both turned back to look at him, surprise flickering across their faces at the sudden declaration.

“Okay,” Bruce nodded, offering him a gentle smile. “Then that’s what we’ll do,”  

Bucky looked at the stranger wearing Steve’s face.  He hated him like he had never hated anyone before.  He wanted him dead.  Wanted him to pay for what he’d done.  

Save him.  

He would try to save him, whatever it took.  It’s what Steve wanted.

****

Bucky had sat, immobile and unresponsive, for the remainder of the flight, barely noticing as they landed at the compound.  They operated with skeleton staff these days, so there was no one there to greet them, for which Bucky was grateful. He didn’t want anyone there to try to interfere, or to witness his failure.  It was his responsibility to get Steve home safely.  And he had failed.  He released the straps on the stretcher, but his breath became trapped in his lungs, and his heart fought like a wild animal to claw free from his chest.  

This was it.  Once he took Steve in there, he would have to let him go.  Forever.  

Sam moved quietly to his side.

“You don’t have to leave him, once we’re inside.  You can stay with him for as long as you need.”

Bucky nodded dumbly as fresh tears escaped unwillingly and slid down his cheeks.  He forced himself to exhale.  Steve’s body felt lighter than before as he lifted him once again into his arms.  

Their sombre procession reached the lower level, where they took Steve into the infirmary and Bucky placed him tenderly on the waiting bed. He knew there was a small morgue on site, and was relieved that neither Sam nor Burce made mention of it.  Steve would need to be moved there soon, but not yet.  Not yet.

He was grateful for the privacy when they left, taking Steve’s killer with them, still sedated and strapped to a stretcher as they headed to the containment chamber further down the hall.

Bucky was startled from his bedside vigil only a moment later by the sound of shouting and crashing.  He sprinted from the room, turning so sharply around the corner that he almost slid into the opposite wall.  Hydra-Steve was somehow on his feet, still cuffed and bound, and spitting mad.  Sam was on the floor holding his bloody nose.  

Bruce’s giant green hands reached out and grabbed the super-soldier from behind.  He yanked him off his feet like a tantrumming toddler, still screaming incomprehensible obscenities, and threw him into the chamber.  Hydra-Steve skidded across the floor on his side, scrambling to his knees as soon as he stopped, trying in vain to attack again.  Bruce launched another sedative-laden widow’s bite at him, and he crumpled, face down, almost instantly.

Bruce hit the button to shut the door, but as he turned to assist Sam, he was knocked back out of surprise as Bucky launched at him.

“Where the fuck were you!?  How could you let him come alone??”

The blows from Bucky’s vibranium fist glanced off Bruce without causing any damage, which only incensed Bucky further.  The blood roaring in his ears drowned out all other sound.  He couldn’t hear Sam calling his name, calling for calm.  An incandescent rage tore through, like a river bursting its banks, surging and swelling with every breath.

“If you were there, he’d still be alive!  You could have stopped him!  YOU SHOULD HAVE STOPPED HIM!”  Bucky’s voice was broken, ragged, and wet with tears.

Sam came at him from behind.  Bucky spun and pushed him into the wall.  The drywall at his back splintered, and Sam fell to the floor gasping for breath.  Too much, too hard, Bucky’s mind screamed at him, but he ignored it.  

Huge arms encircled him from behind.  He kicked back with his heavy combat boots, tried to strike with his elbows, threw his head back, but only thumped into Bruce’s wide chest.  He snarled, clawed, thrashed like a feral cat, to no avail.

“Let me go, Bruce, or I’ll fucking kill you!”

Bruce’s grip was unrelenting.  He was held captive, pinned.  Someone was screaming, an animalistic wailing of grief, rage, and terror.  Bucky realised it was him. But he couldn’t stop.  Now that he had started, he was certain that he would continue to scream until there was nothing left of him.  He would be consumed by it.  

The familiar pinch of a needle pierced the skin on his neck.  Sam’s doing.  Blissful nothingness enveloped him.

****

The room was dark when he awoke.  If he could still get drunk, he would swear he had the worst hangover of his life.  Groggy, head pounding, he took stock of his surroundings.  This was his room.  Well, not his room, but the room he used when he was at the compound.  Why was he at the compound?

Steve.

Reality crashed into him like a freight train.  The grief so all-consuming that he closed his eyes and wished for the sweet, merciful release of death.  Any torture the devil could dream up for him would pale in comparison to this.  His heart thumped painfully, each beat a torment, an unwanted proof of life.

He needed to see Steve.  Would he still be in the infirmary?  He sat up and switched on the bedside lamp.  

There was a note on the side table, Sam’s handwriting.

“Bucky,

Sorry we had to sedate you.  We didn’t want you to hurt yourself.  Steve is still in medical.  Bruce and I are taking turns to sit with him.  We knew you wouldn’t want him to be alone.  Come down whenever you’re ready.

Sam.”

The infirmary was dimly lit at this time of night, but Bucky could see Sam’s silhouette in the chair next to Steve’s bed.  He hesitated at the doorway.  Steve looked so peaceful, like he was just sleeping.  His heart clenched, wishing with every fibre of his being that it were true.

“Hey, Buck.”  Sam’s voice was subdued.  

It didn’t sound like him.  Sam had been Steve’s friend, too.  It shouldn’t feel like a revelation, but he’d been so lost in his own grief that he had forgotten there were other people who loved Steve.

Bucky moved into the room, noticing how frigid the air was, and sat in the chair opposite Sam.  Steve lay motionless between them.  It took Bucky several minutes to find his voice.

“I’m sorry.  For before.”

“It’s okay.  How are you doing, man?”

Bucky huffed, a humourless sound for a stupid question.  He didn’t answer.

“Is Bruce okay?  I shouldn’t have said what I did.  It wasn’t his fault.”

“He’s okay, he understands.  It wasn’t your fault either, y'know.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Bucky didn’t hide the annoyance in his tone.

“Because it’s true.  I know you. I know you take on the burden and guilt of things that you couldn’t control.”

Bucky’s laugh was bitter. “Control? I had him right there. And I couldn’t save him.”

“Don’t.  Don’t do that.”

“It should have been me.  I dragged him into this.”  Bucky jabbed a vibranium finger into his own chest, hard.  His jaw clenched.

“Steve made his own choices.  You of all people know that.”  Sam's voice was measured and even.  

“Fuck you, Sam.” Bucky spat.

Sam just nodded.  The silence stretched on, tense and heavy with unsaid words.  Sam broke the silence.

“I lost my best friend. Riley.  Watched him get shot of the sky right in front of me.”

Bucky shook his head, hands clenched between his knees.

“You tryna tell me that you know how I feel?”

Sam stared at him across Steve’s motionless body, assessing, but didn’t respond.

“Cause you don’t.  When Riley died, you still had a family to go home to.  Friends.  Without Steve, I got nothing.”

“You’re not alone in this, Buck.  Whether you want it or not, I’m your friend.  So is Bruce.”

Bucky scoffed and sat back in his chair, lips pressed into a thin line as he shook his head again.

“You think we’re here out of some sort of loyalty to Steve?”  The hint of anger in Sam’s voice surprised him.  “You know, when Steve first wanted to come after you, I told him that you weren’t the kind of man you saved, you were the kind you stopped.”

Bucky’s eyes flicked up to him, dark, angry, but with a hint of curiosity that he couldn't muster the energy to hide.

“But Steve, damn that man was a good judge of character.  Good instincts, never steered him wrong.” Sam leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees.  “I was wrong about you.  Over the last year, I’ve come to understand what he saw in you.  You’re a good man, and you were a good friend to him.”

Bucky looked away, the discomfort too much to bear.  He deflected.  Done with that particular thread of conversation.

“How did he find me today?”  

Was it still today?  It felt surreal to think that this morning he was setting out on a simple recon mission with Sam, and now he was sitting in a room with Steve’s...body.  His whole world had been upended and rearranged in the space of a day.

“He was already in the air on the way to us when we called through to let him know that Cap Hydra had you.”  He noticed that Sam couldn’t say his name, couldn’t call him Steve.  

“Steve tracked the jet. Fucker had disabled our jet, so we were too far behind.”  The bitterness in Sam’s eyes was evident.

“How did you find us at the base?  That place is a maze.”  

He needed to know how things had gone so wrong.  Nothing was going to bring Steve back, but he couldn’t live with this gnawing pit of guilt.  Maybe if things had been done differently, Steve wouldn’t be...  But he knew deep down that if he had just fought back in the first place, none of this would have happened.  It was on him.  No matter what Sam said.

“Bruce had some kind of new gadget.  It tracks energy signatures or something.”  Sam sat back, contemplating, a small crease in his brow.  “It was weird, though.  It picked up Steve’s signature, even though it shouldn’t have, because he was already…gone for a while before we found you.  But I dunno, you’d need to ask Bruce about that.”

Bucky nodded.  Out of questions.

“Can I have a moment, alone?”

“Sure.  We’ll be down the hall if you need anything.”

Sam clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, and Bucky didn’t shy away from the contact.  Once he was out of the room, Bucky sagged in his chair.  He knew what Sam meant by “down the hall.”  The chamber.  Hydra-Steve.  He knew he would have to face that sooner or later.  But it would have to be later.  He didn’t have anything left to give for tonight.  He took Steve’s cold hand in his once more, staring vacantly at the wall opposite until his eyes closed of their own accord.  He drifted into a restless sleep, filled with nightmares of blood, terror, and unrelenting grief. 

Chapter Text

It had been three days.  Sleep had evaded him (or he had evaded it), for the most part.  What little rest he had been able to grasp onto had been brief, uncomfortable, and filled with dreams that he couldn’t remember except for a permeating anguish that remained in echoes in his mind and heart upon waking.  

He knew they’d have to move him soon.  

Sam and Bruce had tactfully avoided the subject, just turned down the thermostat and checked in on Bucky every once in a while, exchanging hushed words of concern in the hall when they thought he was sleeping.

Every time he even started to consider moving Steve to the morgue, his heart clenched painfully, as if someone held it in a giant fist and was squeezing it until it burst through their fingers.  The morgue was no place for Steve.

On the fourth day, Sam had disturbed his vigil by dragging the spare chair across the room and sitting knee to knee with Bucky, forcing him to make eye contact.  He pushed a small parcel into Bucky’s unwilling hands.  Bucky didn’t even look at it.

“Eat, Buck.  I know it’s been days.  You can’t run on empty.”

Bucky stared at Sam as if he were speaking a foreign language.  Sam took the parcel back and unwrapped it, then handed the half sandwich back to Bucky.

Bucky looked down at the sandwich in his hand.  His stomach flipped and rolled.  Was that hunger, or repulsion?  

“Eat,”  Sam prompted.

Bucky raised the food to his mouth, too tired to argue.  He expected the bite to turn to ashes in his mouth.  To his surprise, his taste buds exploded and his stomach growled.  Hunger.  The whole thing was consumed before it had even made its way to his stomach.

“We need to make some choices, Buck.  You can make them with us, or we can make them.  But they need to be made.”

Bucky nodded.  Still mute.  The shrink he’d been ordered to see as part of his pardon had called it “selective mutism”.  Part c-PTSD, part Hydra conditioning.  Sometimes the words just wouldn't come out.  Though when he was in her office, it was mostly his choice not to speak.  She was abrasive and pushy.  He didn't trust her.  

“When Steve was in the hospital last year, he gave me directives for if he passed.”

Bucky’s eyes shot up to Sam’s, angry, accusatory.  Hurt.

“He wanted to protect you.  Didn’t want to put you through that unless it was necessary.” 

Bucky looked away and sighed heavily.  Brows still drawn and mouth downturned.  He was the world’s deadliest fucking assassin, not some fragile damsel in distress that needed protecting.  Fuck Sam.  Fuck Steve.

“Steve wanted to be cremated, with the ashes split in three.  Some to be buried with Sarah, some with Peggy, and the rest to you.”

He wished he could voluntarily dissociate.  Why did it only ever happen when he didn’t want it?

“He didn’t want a gravestone or marker.  And he didn’t want it to be announced.  He wanted privacy and peace in death, not for it to be turned into some sort of spectacle, or turned into tabloid fodder or political manipulations.  Just us, and him.”

Sam was trying to catch his eyes again.  Looking for some acknowledgement of acquiescence.  

If it was what Steve wanted, then he couldn’t argue.  He nodded, short, sharp, and emotionless.

“Okay.  Now this is where I need you to be here with me, Bucky.  I need you to make this decision.  We have two options.  We can take Steve to the funeral home tomorrow.  Or we can move him to the morgue.”

Bucky shook his head vehemently, jaw clenched.

“You can choose, or Bruce and I will choose.  But one of the two has to happen tomorrow.  I’m really sorry, man.  I wish we didn’t have to do this.”  Sam choked on the last word, his voice cracking.

Bucky hadn’t cried since that first day.  Or spoken.  But his eyes burned and stung with unshed tears now, and his throat was raw.  He realised how selfish he was being.  Sam was grieving, too.

He tapped one finger on the arm of his chair.

“First option?”

He nodded.

“Okay.  We’ll make the arrangements.”

****

They held a small memorial.  It passed by in a blur for Bucky.  There were some familiar and some unfamiliar faces.  He couldn’t remember any of their names.  Sam and Bruce spoke.  He was sure they said nice words, but he didn’t retain any of them.  Sam asked if Bucky wanted to say something.  He knew he should.  But he couldn’t.  The words just wouldn’t come out.  So he hid in a corner, head down, until everyone left.  He had let Steve down.  

Honoring Steve’s wishes, they had only told a few select people.  It was quiet, unassuming.  An unfit ending for a person who had meant so much to so many people.  Even if it is what Steve wanted, it just didn’t feel right.  

As Bucky returned to his room, he heard Sam’s footfalls a few yards behind him.  Wordlessly, Sam pressed a small blue urn into his hands.  Bucky stared at it, unseeing, not wanting to comprehend.  Sam squeezed his shoulder before turning and walking away.

The days and nights passed in an amorphous blur of numbness and rage.

****

He awoke with a gasp.

Had he been asleep?  He didn’t remember. 

Steve’s glassy eyes staring vacantly up at him.

He curled in on himself, as though in physical pain.  Had it been a dream, or was it a flashback?

Steve’s blood, cooling on his skin.  

Did it even matter?  He was fucked up either way.  

Maybe he should take Sam up on the offer of sedatives.  He’d ask tomorrow.  

It was too late now.

It felt like someone was sitting on his chest.  Every breath a struggle.

Steve’s cold hand, still slightly tacky with blood, held limp in his own.

The room spun.

He gasped for air.

Panic attack.  That’s what Sam had called it.  He had them after Zola.  The first time.  Didn’t know what they were called then.  Just embarrassing.

He threw his feet over the side of the bed and tucked his head between his knees.  Eyes scrunched tight as he forced breaths in and out.

His heart was pounding against his ribs.

Breathe.

Breathe!

His hands felt numb.

Breathe.

One agonisingly long millisecond after another passed, and his heart began to slow.  Breaths began to steady.

The room stopped spinning.

And then, the rage came.

What little time Bucky spent sleeping, or not conscious, was quickly followed by an all-consuming, incandescent fury.  

Forty-three ways to kill him.  Planned.  Meticulous, sharp.  Waiting for him to execute.  

Tempting him.

He had hoped that by honouring Steve’s wishes and agreeing to help that asshole, the anger that he had initially felt would be quelled.  It had not.

Steve had saved Bucky, and look where that got him.  Dead.  Sure, it wasn’t at Bucky’s hand directly.  But it may as well have been.  Sam had been right.  Steve should have stopped him.

So, was honouring Steve’s wishes really the right thing to do?

What if this guy couldn’t be saved?  What if he just continued to hurt people, and Bucky was the reason why?

He was pacing now, hands running frantically through his too-long hair.

That fucker downstairs didn’t deserve a life after what he did to Steve.  And he might hurt someone else.

He snapped back to awareness as he was stepping out of the elevator. Had he dissociated again?  These time slips were getting concerning.  He really needed to sleep.  Tomorrow.  He’d ask for sedatives.

The containment chamber was dimly lit at this time of night.  Bucky’s breath fogged against the cold glass of the window in expanding and contracting circles.  The room contained nothing but a foam mattress, a pillow, and a blanket.  And the man who murdered his best friend.

His breath was stolen for a moment as he looked at Steve’s face.  The cheekbones, jaw, and long lashes of the face he had known since it had belonged to a little golden-haired boy in Brooklyn.  He had to remind himself that this wasn’t his Steve.

The figure on the bed was loose with slumber.  Steady, deep breaths rising and falling were the only movement in the room.  Envy snuck its way in next to the homicidal rage that was brimming within him.

It would be so easy.  He was sedated.  Slow.  Defenceless.  He probably wouldn’t even wake up.

Three silent steps, and he was pressing his right hand down on the scanner to access the antechamber.  Left hand hovering over the combat knife tucked into his waistband.

It flashed red.

“ACCESS DENIED”

He frowned, pulling his hand back just as the door to the observation room opened.  Sam rubbed the sleep from his eyes and leaned against the door frame.

“Why don’t I have access?”  

Bucky’s voice was hoarse with disuse.  His white-hot anger overcoming the previous days’ mutism.  Sam’s eyebrows rose at the verbalisation, followed by a pointed “You can’t be serious?” look.  

Sam sighed, one hand still hooked behind his neck.

“Because you’re angry.  Grieving.  Unstable.  We don’t want you to do something you’ll regret.”  

Bucky’s eyes, sharp and glacial, turned on Sam sending a chill down his spine.

“I wouldn’t regret it.”  

Bucky could tell that Sam was regulating his breathing.  There had been a light hitch.  His voice remained calm, placating, patronising.

“Yes, you would.  Steve wanted you to help him.”  

Bucky’s jaw flexed as he ground his teeth together, biting back what he really wanted to say.  Too exhausted to verbalise the thoughts that intruded on every waking moment.

“Steve’s not here anymore.  Because of him.”  

Sam’s breathing picked up, and a measure of harshness crept into his tone.

“I know that.  You think I’m not angry, too?  But this guy.” He pointed at the sleeping man.  “Once upon a time, he was Steve.”  

Bucky bristled, stepping closer to Sam and looking down at him.

“He’s not Steve.”    It was a hiss. 

Sam’s poker face was great; he’d give him that.  He looked unbothered by the super-soldier nose to nose with him, brimming with anger.

“No.  He’s you.” 

That actually knocked him back a step, as though he’d been struck.  

The helicarrier.  Steve’s bloodied, battered face. "You're my mission".  His mind was so confused, memories of that face flashing in front of him, laughing, smiling, an arm around his shoulders. “You’re my friend…”

“What?”  

Sam crossed his arms, tone still measured, but a little kinder.

“He’s you.  Before Steve broke through that thick skull of yours and undid the programming.”  

Bucky was silent for a moment.  Tired.  Contemplating.

“Well, maybe you were right, Sam.” 

“About what?”   His brow furrowed.

“Maybe I should have been stopped.”  

Sam’s arms dropped to his sides, and he moved to catch Bucky’s eyes.

“You deserved to be saved, Bucky.  You still do.  And he does too.  None of this was his fault, just like it wasn’t yours.”  

Bucky had heard that a million times.  He knew logically that it was true, but that didn’t mean he believed it for himself.   

Resignation, or maybe realisation, set in.  Killing him wouldn’t bring Steve back.  It wouldn’t fix anything. 

His rigid posture sagged, fury bleeding out of him with every laboured breath until all that was left of him was a shell holding up his exhausted mind.  

What the fuck was wrong with him?  Was he just so attuned to killing that it became his first option instead of last resort?  Fuck.   He really was fucking crazy.

“C’mon man.”  Sam reached out and squeezed his shoulder gently.  “You’re sleep-deprived and not thinking straight.  Go to bed.  We’ll talk more in the morning.”  

Bucky heard Sam’s words, but they were lost in the jumble of self-recrimination, guilt, and worry for his own sanity.  He needed to sleep.  He needed to eat.  

He needed help.

“Do you want me to call Dr Raynor?”

Had he said that out loud?  Bucky shook his head.

“I really think it would h-”

“Not Raynor.” It was a whisper.

Sam’s mouth snapped shut.

“Okay, not Raynor.  That’s cool.  I’ll make some calls first thing in the morning, pull some strings.  We'll figure it out.”

Bucky nodded, barely perceptible, and with one last glance at the Steve in the chamber, he let Sam lead him back to his room.