Archive of Our Own ^beta

GHOST [gohst]
noun

1. The soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit that haunts the living.
2. A mere shadow or semblance; a trace.
3. A remote possibility.

In North America, there are six hundred and seventeen HYDRA outposts scattered across the United States and Canada. Some of them are concealed well, hidden behind storefronts or buried under hospitals. Some of them hide in plain sight, integrated into army bases, sequestered off in private rooms in government buildings, behind closed doors on University campuses. Some of them are for tactical meetings. Some are for scientific research. Most are full of weapons.

Just beyond British Colombia’s border with Washington, an underground bunker houses HYDRA’s two favorite weapons.

Rain splatters down on the bunker door, but its inhabitants are too far underground to hear it. The thunder rattles the doors in their frames, though, and that can’t be ignored. The Midnight Patriot sits on his cot, arms on his bent knees, flipping a knife back and forth between his hands. There are no windows. There is only the one door, whose bars are reinforced with vibranium, glinting ominously silver in the moonlight next to the keypad waiting for a HYDRA agent’s handprint to unlock it. He knows he can’t break out. Not that he would even try – he knows what his purpose is, and he has completed it with terrifying capability for sixty-eight years. He’d never break out.

Not while they have the Winter Soldier separated from him, anyway.

Between missions, the Patriot and the Soldier are put on ice in separate tanks. They are kept in different rooms when they are needed awake, hundreds of feet of concrete between them. The only times they are allowed to look at or touch each other is when they are passing weapons back and forth or checking for injuries. The Midnight Patriot has found many excuses to check the Winter Soldier for injuries, just to feel the rabbit-quick pulse beneath his stubbled jaw, the way those shattered-glass eyes sear into his with an unblinking gaze. The heat of his body under its leather uniform sinks into the Patriot’s skin and does not fade.

The Patriot passes his knife from hand to hand and back again, eyes on the door. Technically, he isn’t supposed to have it – he is not to be armed when in isolation, after the time he ambushed three guards coming into his room and sliced their throats in neat arcs before he could be subdued. The way their blood had tasted in his mouth is almost enough to make up for what they did to him afterward.

The knife belongs to a new guard who isn’t as well-versed on the rules of the facility as he ought to be, and the Patriot lifted it from its sheath with practiced ease when no one was looking at his hands. The Patriot knows how to take advantage of every weakness, and the knife isn’t the only one that was given to him today:

HYDRA has grown overconfident and left him out of the ice long enough to remember that the Winter Soldier is his. He knows him, blood calling to blood across the rabbit warren of a base, and the Patriot knows that in the furthest corner, in a cell not unlike his own, the Soldier stands. Pacing. Waiting.

In a gesture that would have desperately frightened his guards if they’d seen it, the Midnight Patriot smiles.

In his dreams, the Patriot sees nothing but blue, glorious blue, no longer shattered at all but warm and alive and so resplendently blue that it drowns out the sky. It fills his vision until it blots out the stars. He sinks his hands into dark hair in the dreams, reaching, always reaching, he has been reaching for that body for as long as he can remember, and he has reason to believe he’s been reaching for even longer than that.

He has known for a very long time that his memory is not something he can rely on. He puts his faith in dreams instead. Heartbreaking dreams, yes, the kind that could rend him in two if he isn’t careful, the kind that are so familiar they make his teeth ache, the kind that are sharp and good and blue, God, he has never known anything so blue.

HYDRA’s first mistake: the Midnight Patriot has acquired a weapon against protocol.

HYDRA’s second mistake: they have calibrated his brain badly this time around, and he has remembered the Winter Soldier much more than he ought to be allowed.

HYDRA’s third mistake: the new guard is on rotation again in the dead of night, when the Patriot has trained them to think he is at his most docile.

When the new guard unlocks the slot in the door to slide the Patriot’s routine 11:00 pm meal through to him, the Patriot is waiting for him. He grabs the guard’s hand in an iron grip, sending the plastic food tray to the ground with a clatter, and shakes the knife out of his sleeve so he can take it in hand in one smooth motion. Cutting all the way through the guard’s wrist takes longer than he’d like. Bone is difficult to saw through with a large blade, and even as motivated as the Patriot is, it still takes him three tries with the tiny pocket knife, and the wailing coming from the guard’s mouth is sure to raise the alarms immediately.

Oh, well. Might be closer to a fair fight this way.

The Patriot puts the guard’s severed hand to the keypad and watches it light up green. He steps through the opened door and finds the guard already on the ground, screaming his head off, clutching his bloody stump to his chest. The Patriot relieves him of his gun and taser, annoyed that the operative is too low-level to have been given a proper rifle. He hangs onto the guard’s hand for later.

“Where is he?” the Patriot asks.

The guard pants fast and quick like a rabbit, looking up with glassy, teary eyes. “Who?” he asks, voice wavering through the bluff.

“One more try,” the Patriot says mildly as he cocks the gun. Distantly, he can hear the sounds of many boots hitting the concrete. “Tell me where he is.”

The HYDRA agent nods him down the hall with a jerk of his head.  “Cell block F,” he coughs up. “Room 98.”

The Patriot puts him out of his misery with one neat bullet between his eyes for his cooperation.

He doesn’t have much time. This is the closest he’s gotten in who knows how long, and he is determined not to waste the opportunity by fucking around, so he bolts down the hall on his bare feet and obeys the vague instinct to turn left, right, left again, gun clutched in his hand. He’s careful not to use up what little ammo he has on the guards that get in his way – he tases them when he can, grappling them to the floor and snapping their necks when necessary.

They trained him for this. It’s their own fault, really.

Cell block F is all the way across the base. The Patriot comes at it sideways instead of cutting through the middle, knowing he can’t take on all the agents in this base at once. He sticks to the narrow hallways closest to the outer wall, forcing them to come at him two, three at a time, where he can take them down without slowing much. He’s shot in the shoulder when he can’t turn fast enough, right between clavicle and pectoral. He grunts at the impact but isn’t thrown off his rhythm. The shot that clips the side of his head is more troublesome, if only because blood gushes down his brow and into his eyes, obscuring his vision.

The agent who fired the shot by his head will be reprimanded later, he knows. You don’t take headshots at government property.

There are a pair of heavy doors in front of him with a large F above them. He skids to a halt, digging handholds into the metal with his bare fingers and wrenching them open as quickly as he can. His enormous arms strain with the effort. The metal creaks and groans before it gives way.

“Asset, stand down!” a brave agent yells behind him through a megaphone.

The Patriot throws himself through the doors and bares his teeth at whoever is behind him as he forces the doors closed again. It’s anyone’s guess if it’s a grimace or a smile. Someone gets a lucky shot through just before the doors completely shut and hits his thigh, but he gives it no mind, because it doesn’t impede him from smashing the console that would unlock the doors and allow them inside.

Room 98 is at the end of the hall. The Patriot sprints as fast as his injured leg allows and takes the severed hand from where he’d tucked it in his belt. This keypad lights up green just like the other when he puts the hand to it, and he catches his breath while watching the matching vibranium door open with a quiet hiss.

The Winter Soldier looks up listlessly at the sound. He’s seated on his cot, mismatched hands laced together in his lap, and something is very wrong with him.

“Do you know me?” the Patriot asks.

The Soldier blinks slowly. Nods.

“Take this,” the Patriot says, holding the gun out to him. “Quickly, now.”

The Soldier rises from his cot in a daze, limp-wristed as he takes the gun. His eyes are blank and he will not meet the Patriot’s gaze.

“What did they do to you,” the Patriot murmurs, taking the Soldier’s face between his hands, inspecting his head for evidence. Burn marks at both temples confirm what he suspected. “Tell me you know me.” He slides fingers into the Soldier’s hair, pulling to make him look up. “Say it. Say who I am.”

The Winter Soldier’s reply is sluggish, voice rough from disuse, but he sounds mostly like himself when he says, “The Midnight Patriot. My CO.”

“Try again.” The Patriot rubs his thumb over the Soldier’s jaw.

The Winter Soldier’s eyes are very lost, searching the Patriot’s for something, anything, casting about for the right answer. The Patriot can hear a heavy rhythmic thudding that means HYDRA is trying to break through the cell block doors with a battering ram. They don’t have much time, but he needs the Soldier with him if they’re going to escape this time, really with him, not just pretending.

“You’re mine,” the Patriot says roughly, not trying to hide his desperation, and pulls hard on his fistful of the Soldier’s hair. “You know me.”

The pain seems to shock the Soldier back into his body. He blinks again, film clearing from his eyes, and now he smiles, grinning like the sun cutting through cloud cover.

“Sunshine,” he breathes, putting a palm to the Patriot’s chest. His fingertips stroke over the Patriot’s blood-wet sternum.

“Damn right,” the Patriot tells him, and means it. His hands are tender as he brushes the hair back from the Soldier’s eyes. “Damn right I am. Come on.”

The first thing they do is escape cell block F. The circuitous route the Patriot took means that there hasn’t been time for HYDRA agents to amass on the other side of the door, and he smashes the console once they’re through to further impede the progress of the ones holding the battering ram.

He and the Soldier don’t need to speak as they bolt for the armory. They dress each other in their uniforms piece by piece, tac pants and bulletproof vests, knives and guns and several clips of ammo each, as well as three packs of C4. The Soldier puts the Patriot’s helmet in place after the Patriot has finished tying his dirty-blond hair back, clicking the buckle. The Patriot secures the Soldier’s mask with steady hands.

“Say what you always say,” the Soldier says right before they leave. His voice comes out raspy through his mask, eyes blue and sharp above it.

The Patriot looks at him. He puts his hand to the curve of the Soldier’s neck, squeezing gently. “You’re mine,” he says. “And I’m yours. They will have to kill me to kill you.”

“Say the last bit,” the Soldier insists. His eyes crinkle at the corners, giving away his smile.

The Patriot is helpless to the way his lips quirk upward in reply. “It’s you and me until the bitter fuckin’ end of the line,” he recites dutifully. “You and me. That’s all there is.”

“Now we can leave,” the Soldier says, satisfied.

The Patriot leads him to the closest patch of concrete in the outer wall and leaves the Soldier to carefully set the charges in a circle. The Patriot covers him, rifle trained on the double doors where HYDRA agents are threatening to spill out with every thud of the battering ram.

“Do it now,” the Patriot barks out, eyeing the growing dent in the metal doors.

“Shit,” the Soldier spits, taking a step back, and covers his ears when he hits the button.

The explosion nearly knocks the Patriot off his feet. There’s a louder clamor behind the doors, HYDRA agents scrambling.

“Move, move –” the Patriot snaps, pushing the Soldier toward the new hole in the wall.

“We won’t fucking fit,” the Soldier snaps back. The hole is just barely big enough for him to wriggle through, and he only does so when the Patriot gives him an insistent shove. The Patriot follows suit, but he only makes it halfway through before his shoulders get stuck and HYDRA bursts through the doors at the same time. He can taste the cold air outside, cold and wet, sharp on his tongue. The storm above them rages.

“Go!” he shouts out over the rumble of thunder, looking up sharply at the Soldier. “Go, there’s time, I’ll distract them –”

“Not without you,” the Soldier hollers back, eyes wild. Lightning strikes somewhere behind him, lighting him up silver-white. He clasps the Patriot’s arm that made it through the hole, his grip slippery from the rain, and yanks as hard as he can.

The Patriot screams when his shoulder is dislocated from its socket. He kicks blindly to dislodge the HYDRA agent’s hand that’s wrapped around his ankle and claws out of the hole, gasping for breath when he hits the wet grass. The rain soaks him instantly. The Soldier hauls him to his feet and throws the Patriot’s good arm over his shoulders, taking the weight of his body as they stumble toward the vehicles.

Alarms shriek behind them as they clamber onto a motorcycle. Both of the Soldier’s arms work, so he’s the one who drives, trusting the Patriot to cling behind him. The Patriot does. His fingers clench tight around fistfuls of the Soldier’s uniform.

“Hang on,” the Soldier says when he manages to start the engine. The Patriot presses his face between the Soldier’s shoulder blades in answer.

The furious rain will wash away their tracks and make them difficult to follow. The Winter Soldier and the Midnight Patriot escape into the storm, hearts hammering in unison, the Patriot’s lips brushing the wet nape of the Soldier’s neck as he breathes. His arm throbs dully. His bullet wounds sting and bleed.

But the rain might wash that away as well if he’s lucky.

They drive all night, stopping only briefly to pop the Patriot’s shoulder back into place. The dull ache of it blooms into agony for half a second, him biting down hard on a mouthful of the Soldier’s leather uniform, but it feels better almost immediately afterward. They bandage his bullet wounds perfunctorily, then they set out again. They can’t afford to linger.

The Soldier takes off his mask and shoves it into their weapons bag when it becomes obvious that it’s time to start blending in instead of breaking out. He leaves the Patriot bloodstained and wounded on the back of the motorcycle when they stop for gas at dawn, kissing his forehead briefly before he walks into the 24-hour gas station to hold up the store and acquire money, two garish green hoodies, and a handful of power bars to sustain them. The Patriot doesn’t ask how he manages to do it without being caught on cameras. His head’s too foggy to care if they get spotted at this point.

They have, at most, a three-hour lead, assuming their captors get confused about which way they left. HYDRA will not want to give them up easily or at all. They’re too valuable.

But the Soldier comes out of the store barefaced and smiling with his wet hair clinging to his throat, and the Patriot cannot bring himself to be afraid. Even if they’re recaptured, he’s allowed in this moment to look at the Soldier all he likes, and he will look his fill while he can. He will gorge himself on this man’s beautiful face and try his very best to commit it to memory in a way that sticks. He knows HYDRA will rip his memory right back out of his head the moment they get sent back to base, but they haven’t managed yet to find a way to take it from him permanently.

The Soldier haunts him. The Patriot doesn’t know his name, but he dreams of him nearly every night.

“Here,” the Soldier says, handing him a power bar. “If your blood sugar crashes, you’ll keel over.”

The Patriot rips open the foil packaging and eats it in two bites, suddenly ravenous for the meal he spilled on his cell floor hours ago. He has to eat at regular intervals, more than a normal man would, to keep his powerful body moving. He doesn’t think HYDRA did this to him, although he’s sure they’d have liked to take credit. They’re just too afraid of his body and what it can do to be responsible.

The Soldier gets on the bike again once the tank is full. “Where do we go?” he asks, raking his hair out of his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” the Patriot answers. “Just gotta go.”

The Soldier waits a beat, then nods. He starts the engine.

They drive through the whole day, too. They’re wearing the green hoodies, and it does a lot to make them look less like they’re about to shoot up a place, although the outline of their bulletproof vests can be seen through the fabric if squinted at. They only get looked at a little funny when they walk into a roadside diner, holing up in a corner and eating enough for four men in one sitting. The food is all very hot and very good, warming the Patriot up from the inside out, filling him in a way he hasn’t been filled since he can remember.

The waitress, a middle-aged woman with a name tag spelling out ‘Anna’, refills his coffee cup. “You okay, hon?” she asks, glancing down at his leg. The Patriot looks down too and sees the patch of blood leaking through his pants. He stiffens. His hand twitches toward the knife in his boot.

“Took a spill on the road,” the Soldier answers easily. His foot presses hard onto the Patriot’s under the table to keep him silent. “Looks a lot worse than it is. I wanted him to get it checked out, but the bastard’s too stubborn.” He shoots the Patriot a fondly exasperated smile before he turns his charm back on Anna again. “You know the type.”

Anna’s suspicion visibly eases a little. “It’s perfectly manly to get stitches,” she tells the Patriot. “It might not heal right if you don’t.”

The Patriot plays along and ducks his head, laughing ruefully. “You sound like my ma.”

“She must be a sensible woman,” Anna says. “You boys stay safe out there, alright, that storm ain’t messing around.”

“Will do, ma’am,” the Soldier replies. “May we have the check?”

“How did you do that?” the Patriot asks later, once they’re headed back to the bike. His dangerous hands are tucked into his big hoodie pocket.

The Soldier waves him off. “People are easy,” he says, dismissive. “We gotta stop for the night. She reminded me that you still have bullets in you.”

The Patriot silently thinks to himself that people are the most difficult thing of all, but the Soldier is already seated on the bike, and there’s no time to think about it. He gets on the back once more. Wraps his arms tight around the Soldier’s waist. They take off into the darkness.

The Patriot presses his cheek to the Soldier’s shoulder and watches the trees lining the road whip past in blurs of green and black. His night vision is good – better than most – but the forest is too dense to see through, making every shadow a potential enemy. He tries to put it out of his head. Every time he inhales he can feel the bullet in his shoulder, biting into the muscle, blood bubbling up to the surface. He’ll heal fast as soon as they get it out of him, but for now, he keeps bleeding through the scab that tries to form.

It’s a symptom of not being able to stay still more than two seconds. He suspects he’s always been this way.

How long he sits there, watching the trees through glazed-over eyes, he’s not sure. He gets distracted by listening to the Winter Soldier breathe. It’s a nice sound, slow and easy, and it’s more steadying than anything the Patriot has gotten to have in a very long time. He puts his hand inside the Soldier’s hoodie pocket to lie it flat over his stomach. The muscle jumps under his touch, the Soldier’s back stiffening in surprise, so the Patriot rubs his cheek against the Soldier’s shoulder blade until he relaxes again.

He holds him until they pull up in front of a roadside motel with a flickering neon light. He doesn’t let go until he has to.

“This isn’t a place where they’ll ask questions,” the Soldier decides, pulling neatly into a parking space. “Stay here. Be quiet.”

The Patriot nods. He unzips the duffle bag full of cash and weapons and hands the Soldier a wad of twenties, which the Soldier shoves into his back pocket. He hesitates, metal fingertips coming up briefly to touch one of the Patriot’s cheekbones, and then he’s off to go deal with the front desk and retrieve a room key, hair bouncing as he jogs the last couple steps.

The Patriot, for his part, tries not to fall off the motorcycle. He could swear he didn’t feel this bad half an hour ago, but days of driving over bumpy road make his shoulder and thigh protest, spitting up more blood every time he moves too much. He grows pale and then paler, holding onto the bag with both hands.

The Soldier jogs right back to him soon with a tin box under his arm. “Guy at the desk gave me his first aid kit,” he explains, and looks the Patriot over with a critical eye. “I’m starting to think stopping for food was a bad idea. Come on.”

He helps the Patriot off the back of the bike and shoulders the duffle bag, half-carrying the Patriot to their room. It isn’t a long walk, but the Patriot grunts when he’s finally deposited on the bed, squeezing his eyes shut and panting.

“Gonna have to help me out, sunshine,” the Soldier says softly, tugging the green sweatshirt over the Patriot’s head first, followed by his bulletproof vest and his shirt, shushing him gently when the Patriot gasps in pain. His tac pants are next – the Soldier takes the time to do it properly, unbuckling each of the Patriot’s weapons from his belt and setting them on the bedspread next to him before he undoes the belt itself. Easing the trousers down the Patriot’s aching legs is not a pleasant task. Peeling the fabric away from the site of the wound is not pleasant either, and worse when the Soldier has to unwrap his makeshift dressings from earlier, fingers very careful as he separates gauze from skin.

“This is gonna make a mess if we do it here,” the Soldier decides, and helps the Patriot stand again so they can move to the bathroom. The sheets are still somehow fairly clean, only a little red-smudged, and the Patriot sits on the rim of the bathtub heavily.

“How bad?” he rasps.

“Not great,” the Soldier answers. “But you’ve seen worse.” He ties his hair back before he uncaps a bottle of gas station vodka with his teeth and pours it over a wide swath of the Patriot’s thigh. The Patriot looks up at the ceiling, breathes shallowly, and does not make a sound. He can take it. He can.

Neither of them mentions the fact that the times he’d seen worse, he’d had a whole team of HYDRA doctors to put him back to rights afterward.

“One more, honey,” the Soldier murmurs, putting a washcloth beneath the Patriot’s shoulder to catch the runoff when he pours more vodka down the other bullet wound. The Patriot can’t help his whimper this time, a high, thin noise escaping the cage of his teeth.

“Bullets,” he hisses through a clenched jaw.

“On it,” the Soldier says. He’s tense, but his hands are steady as he picks up a pair of tweezers and puts his other hand on the Patriot’s chest to soothe him. “Stay as still as you can.”

“Just do it,” the Patriot bites out.

The Soldier performs the surgery as best he can. They are both trained in field medicine, and he works efficiently, as quickly as he is able. They weren’t trained for this, though. The bullet in his shoulder doesn’t want to come up, the Soldier has to lever it out of the flesh, slippery blood welling up and falling down the Patriot’s chest until the Soldier’s hand emerges from the wound.

The bullet glints like a star between the tines of the tweezers.

“Be more careful,” the Soldier says, turning the bullet back and forth under the light so it glitters. “Only one of us needs a metal arm, and it isn’t you.”

The Patriot looks down at him – at the Soldier, covered in his blood – red splattered all the way up his arm and chest, flecks of it on his throat, on his worried face – and he feels something enormous roar up inside him. More blood gushes from his shoulder. He just nods.

The Soldier stitches him up with dental floss and a needle that he sterilizes by holding it over a tiny lighter flame until he’s satisfied. The hot metal bites into the Patriot’s skin with every stitch pulled tight, and he has to rest his head on the cool tiles next to him, a headache throbbing behind his half-open eyes. He inhales. Exhales. At least there’s no exit wound to deal with.

Getting the second bullet out goes faster. The Patriot drinks a little of the vodka, even though it does fuck-all for him, because the pleasant burn at the base of his throat keeps his mind off what’s happening to his leg. He takes swigs from the bottle. The Soldier digs the bullet out of his thigh. The metal clinks against the porcelain when he drops it into the sink.

“Almost through,” the Soldier promises, rubbing a hand up and down the Patriot’s uninjured leg. Where this gentle voice of his is coming from, the Patriot has no idea, but it makes his stomach hurt to hear it. He’s never heard the Winter Soldier so kind. He wants to hear it all the time, he wants the Soldier to call him nothing but honey and sunshine and every other soft golden thing that the Patriot has never been in his life.

The Soldier pulls the last stitch through and knots it. Then he stands up to start the shower.

“Wash off the blood,” he says, cupping the Patriot’s jaw tenderly. “I’m getting civilian clothes, I’ll be back soon. I’m leaving a gun on the sink.”

The idea of the Soldier being more than ten feet away from him at any one given moment makes the Patriot tense up so hard he won’t be surprised if he pops a stitch. “Splitting up is a terrible idea,” he says flatly.

“If I nudge you, you’ll fall over,” the Soldier counters mildly, tapping the Patriot’s cheek with his thumb. “Get in the shower.”

The Patriot sort of thought he was the one giving the orders, but he’s too tired to argue. He gets in the shower.

Once he’s clean, the Patriot dries himself as best he can and picks up the gun the Soldier left him. It feels good in his hand, heavy and cold, and it grows warm the longer he holds it. He paces back out to the bedroom, where he puts on his underwear – the only clothing that isn’t damaged or bloody – and waits for the Winter Soldier to return.

The Patriot is not good at waiting. The Soldier has already been gone nearly twenty minutes, by his count, and he knows what can happen in twenty minutes. If HYDRA has somehow managed to track them this far…

But he has to trust that the Soldier can get out of trouble by himself. He’s a capable warrior, more adept at subterfuge and shadows than the Patriot is, and he will not be taken in easily if he is even found at all. He knows the Patriot is here, waiting for him. This will be enough to bring him back.

This certainty doesn’t stop the Patriot from pacing around the room like a caged animal until he hears the key in the lock, raising his gun on instinct until he sees the glint of a metal hand curling around the door frame.

“Got clothes,” the Soldier says, locking the door behind himself. “And dinner.”

He’s dressed like a civilian, jeans and a long-sleeved henley layered over an undershirt and the kevlar vest that the Patriot knows is beneath. There’s a ball cap on his head with a logo that the Patriot does not recognize, but he narrows his eyes at it for a moment anyway, wondering why it bothers him.

“No more splitting up,” he says, catching the bundle of clothing that the Soldier tosses him. Shirt, jeans, denim jacket with flannel lining.

The Soldier eyes him, one eyebrow raised. “I can handle myself.”

“I know.” The Patriot rubs the fabric of the new t-shirt in his hands between finger and thumb. It makes a quiet whisper as cotton rubs against cotton. “Not so sure I can, though.”

The Soldier goes from tensing for a fight to soft and open in a second, and he crosses the room to the Patriot, catching him up in his arms. The Patriot drops his clothes to hug him back.

“Say what you always say,” the Soldier murmurs.

The Patriot makes a choking sound and does.

They eat their dinner and then sleep like the dead for several hours, back to back in a bed that was not built for two men of their size to share. They share it anyway. The Patriot feels him moving as he breathes, and this quiet reassurance is enough to help him drift off.

They discussed taking watches as they readied for bed, but they’re both such light sleepers that they’d wake at the slightest sound that something may be awry, anyway. They’re both exhausted. They sleep. Their bodies aren’t used to being awake for this long at once, and the Patriot can really feel it, just how long they’ve been moving for.

He hurts from healing. He closes his eyes.

Two hands cradle Steve’s face between their palms. They’re good hands, strong hands, callused by hard labor and always a little dirty beneath the fingernails. Steve doesn’t mind, though, he wants to feel them on his face, on his body, even though his body is small and sharp and bad to look at, bad to feel. The hands drag down Steve’s collar bones and undo the top button of his shirt, then the next, and the next.

“You gonna give it to me, Rogers?” a voice whispers in his ear, low and filthy-hot, and Steve pushes until he’s pressing Bucky back into the wall behind him, using surprise as his leverage to slide a leg between Bucky’s thighs. He can smell the whiskey on Bucky’s breath as he leans in close.

“The gals can’t do this for you, can they?” he says, tearing Bucky’s lipstick-smudged collar open to bare his pretty throat. “You gotta come to me.” He presses his knee up.

“Oh,” Bucky breathes, eyes wide as saucers, and Steve smiles.

“Yeah, oh,” he says, and kisses his neck, biting down. This is the only time in his life where he ever feels powerful. Bucky is as taut as a bowstring against him, back arching, legs falling open. Steve palms between them and squeezes a little. Bucky whines, so Steve slides his other hand down the back of Bucky’s pants, into his shorts.

“Steve,” Bucky gasps. “Steve, God, Steve –”

The Midnight Patriot’s eyes snap open. The Winter Soldier is draped over him, their limbs tangled up together, face mashed into the Patriot’s shoulder. The Patriot’s stitches itch horribly. Should probably take those out, he thinks, considering how fast he heals under the right circumstances, but that would require waking the Soldier. He looks so peaceful with his eyes closed and mouth slack.

There’s something on the tip of the Patriot’s tongue, some scrap of a dream that’s lodged in his throat. The longer he squints at the ceiling, trying to grasp at it, the more distant it becomes. It’s important, so important that it burns at the base of his skull. It slip-slides through his fingers like a fistful of shoelaces.

The Soldier shifts against him, making soft sounds. The Patriot cups over the back of his head, stroking fingers through his hair, and smiles a little when the Soldier cracks an eye to look up at him.

“Morning,” the Patriot tells him. He tugs on a lock of the Soldier’s hair.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” the Soldier replies, voice gravelly from having just been asleep. He glances at the Patriot’s bandages. “Gotta take your stitches out, huh.”

Morning light drips through the crack in the blinds, sending yellow splattering onto the carpet. It’s the first time the Patriot has woken up in a non-sterile environment in longer than he can say, let alone warm and free and cared for. It feels so good to be warm, the heat of the Soldier’s body soaking into his own, weighing him down until it feels like he’s sinking into the mattress, into the floor itself.

“Sunshine?” the Soldier says again, brow creasing with worry. He sits up a little.

“Yeah,” the Patriot says, clearing his throat. “Yeah, we gotta take the stitches out. They itch like crazy.”

“I’ll get the scissors.” The Soldier ruffles the Patriot’s hair with his metal hand and rises from the bed. The slope of his back in the buttery light makes something hot stir in the pit of the Patriot’s stomach, reminiscent of that unknowable memory tugging at the back of his mind. The shift of pale skin that melts into scar tissue at his shoulder blade is a stark contrast, pink biting into white. The Patriot watches him go with an expression on his face that he does not have a word for.

The Soldier returns with tiny scissors and unwraps the bandages, peels back the gauze, revealing the shiny new scar tissue. “Think we avoided infection,” he muses, thumbing over the topmost stitch.

The Patriot grimaces. “That’s ‘cause you poured all that vodka on it.”

“Dunno why you’re complaining if it worked,” the Soldier shoots back, amused, and carefully starts to snip the threads of the stitches. The sensation of the floss getting pulled out of his skin is an awful, sick tug, but the Patriot grits his teeth and bears it. The Soldier’s touch is kind and firm at the same time. It’s over fairly quickly.

“Am I battle ready?” the Patriot asks while the Soldier works on his leg.

“No,” the Soldier answers, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear so it won’t fall into his eyes. “But you should be by tomorrow or the next day.”

The Patriot files that under suggestions instead of orders. Neither of them is a doctor, after all, and he isn’t particularly afraid of tearing his wounds open again when he knows they’ll just heal right back anyway. His body doesn’t matter all that much. He was built to survive everything, and he’s more than willing to test how far that goes.

The Soldier puts fresh bandages over the healing scars so they won’t rub against the Patriot’s clothing and become irritated during the day. He presses them down flat with finality, his touch lingering. That little crease between his eyebrows is back. The Patriot reaches up and strokes it smooth with the pad of his thumb.

“I’m fine,” the Patriot says. “Don’t look like that.”

The Soldier just narrows his eyes, unimpressed.

“You know how much punishment I can take. I’m fine,” the Patriot repeats firmly. “Now get dressed. We need to get moving.”

The Winter Soldier seems, for a moment, like he’s going to argue that. But in the end he just gets up to retrieve his clothes, and he lobs the Patriot’s at him with his usual accuracy a second later. The Patriot splutters around his sudden mouthful of jeans.

Being on the road again feels better this time. The Patriot’s wounds are actually healing right, HYDRA hasn’t caught up with them yet, and the sun beams down like the hand of God, warming him through his jacket. He takes a turn driving, because he’s restless for control, and this time he gets the Soldier’s arms around him, hands interlaced over the Patriot’s stomach. It feels damn good. Sometimes the Soldier’s thumb moves, stroking absentminded circles into the Patriot’s hip, and it makes the Patriot’s hands tighten around the motorcycle grips.

With the wind in his hair, the Soldier at his back, the sunshine glittering on everything, it’s the closest to freedom that the Midnight Patriot has ever felt. Or at least the closest it’s been since the nebulous Before that tugs at the back of his mind.

The Before is difficult to look at dead-on. He has to come at it sideways in his own head to get a proper look at it, to feel that familiar clench in his gut. All he knows about the Before is that he was a different man then, a younger man, possibly even a happy one. He was softer than he is now, easy to bruise, easy to laugh, to love – though the Patriot knows that he was fighting hard, even then –

– and the Soldier was there, hair short and smile sweet, following behind. Perhaps this is the one thing that hasn’t changed from Before to now. The Patriot knows there is no other ghost he would choose or desire.

His eyes skim over the side of the road as they drive, wondering why his back suddenly tenses. He pulls over on autopilot, slowing to a stop, hair rising on the back of his neck, and he doesn’t know why. There is nothing here that should startle or dismay him. Just trees, just road, a sign advertising gasoline at the next rest stop.

“What do you see?” the Soldier murmurs in his ear from behind him.

“I don’t know,” the Patriot replies. He looks at the turn-off point. “I – have we been here before?”

The Soldier makes a thoughtful noise. “Don’t remember.”

The Patriot doesn’t remember either. But the feeling doesn’t ease. “I want to check it out,” he says.

“Dangerous?” the Soldier asks.

The Patriot shrugs. It’s them. “Can’t be as dangerous as we are.”

He can feel the Soldier’s smile against the back of his neck, and he takes that as permission to gun the engine again and send them down the road, taking the highway exit, leaning into the alarm that rings dully in the back of his mind. The Soldier’s grip on his body is firm. The Patriot can feel his energy humming at his back, buzzing, familiar and electric. He lets the Soldier’s anticipation crackle down his spine as well, feeding into his own heavy expectation for violence.

Wind roars in his ears. It isn’t just the wind from their motorcycle ride, though, it’s a decades-old storm that rages just outside the Patriot’s mind. He can hear the rush of it whenever he gets close to a memory, just a footstep nearer to the Before, Alpine wind that shrieks like train wheels on icy tracks.

“Oh,” the Soldier says, like it was punched out of him.

“Yeah,” the Patriot says, rolling the bike to a stop again. “Oh.”

In front of them, a HYDRA base looms like a tooth sticking out of the ground. It’s disguised behind the face of a shopfront, but the Patriot knows instinctively that it is HYDRA buried beneath. He always knows what’s HYDRA and what isn’t; it’s programmed into his brain to know it on sight, no matter how well-hidden it is. Someday HYDRA may regret giving him this advantage. His heart is beating so hard that he can hear it in his ears.

“We need to go,” the Soldier breathes. “Right now. Patriot. Go.”

The Patriot knows this is true. But he doesn’t turn on the engine.

“They don’t know we’re here,” he says slowly, mind working over the conclusion he thinks he’s reaching. “We could surprise them. They wouldn’t know what hit them.”

The Soldier’s face is horrified. “You are not combat ready.”

“I could be.” The Patriot looks at him, eyes lit from the inside, on fire. “You know I could be.”

“What will this get us?” the Soldier asks, making a fist around the Patriot’s jacket collar to make him focus on him and nothing else. The Soldier’s desperation sparks fast and hot between them. “This is reckless. You wanna get caught again?”

“They won’t know what hits them,” the Patriot repeats with more emphasis, putting his hand over the Soldier’s, squeezing. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t let his gaze flicker even briefly from the Soldier’s eyes. “Do you trust me?”

The Soldier makes a dissatisfied sound at the low blow. “Patriot…”

“Trust me,” the Patriot tells him, voice softening. He touches the Soldier’s face, cups his cheek. “What have you got to fear? Aren’t they scared of us? What could kill you and me, huh, what on earth could do it?”

The Soldier leans into his touch, lips just barely parted. “We need to leave,” he says, but his resolve is cracking, the Patriot can hear it.

“Come with me,” he says. He rubs over the Soldier’s cheekbone. “You and me. Let’s fuck them up.”

“Give ‘em hell,” the Soldier murmurs. “Make ‘em sorry.”

“Show ‘em what we are,” the Patriot says. “Show ‘em what they made us into.”

“Are we good men?” the Soldier asks. His eyes are raw and his jaw is set.

The Patriot hesitates. Good hasn’t mattered in a very long time, not in years, not in decades, and the Patriot wouldn’t even know how to begin measuring it. They have killed many people. Most of the people they’ve killed did not deserve the murder. The Patriot knows, too, that even now he would kill a thousand more if it means keeping the Soldier by his side, breathing. A good man would probably not think like this.

“No,” the Patriot answers. “But we were once, I think.”

The Soldier exhales audibly. Then he reaches behind himself for the bag that’s full of their weapons, heavy with the weight of what they are capable of.

They deck themselves out in their usual fashion, knives and guns and as much ammo as they can attach to their belts. The Soldier puts on his mask, the Patriot his helmet, and they tighten the straps for each other, their touch as grounding as anything is with decades of ritual behind it. They don’t say much. There isn’t much to be said, they’ve been wrecking whatever shit they’ve been pointed at for as long as HYDRA’s had them; they know how to do this, they know how to be this. On a Sunday afternoon, there will be no one here in this building that does not need to be killed.

The Midnight Patriot kicks the door open, the Winter Soldier at his back, and they do what they’ve always done.

The Soldier’s metal fist, wet and shiny and red.

The Patriot’s teeth, bared in a snarl.

Surprise is on their side. It’s an advantage that the Patriot presses, moving quickly through the base, not pausing for a second after they start moving, even though an alarm erupts around them the second the lock is snapped. He makes quick work of the trap door that leads to the real belly of the base, ripping it off its hinges and descending the ladder with the Soldier aiming his sniper rifle over his shoulder. He hears two shots, then the thud of a body landing behind himself. He doesn’t slow. He does glance up, though, and the Soldier nods down at him, barely perceptible.

The Patriot knows now why this place is familiar to him. The stark contrast of the ordinary shop up top and the sterile white halls beneath the ladder puts a bad taste in his mouth, remembering the various medical facilities in which he and the Soldier have been held over the years. He’ll be glad to be rid of it, to make this memory nothing more than a memory.

They dispose of the five guards they see immediately with ease. The Soldier shoots them with neat, clean shots. The Patriot beats them to the ground with his fists. It feels good every time his hand connects, good the way it’s good when the Soldier smiles at him, good the way it was good to break out of their cells and slaughter whoever got in their path. Love and revenge are the same kind of rebellion. The same kind of sweet.

There are three rooms in this facility, aside from store rooms full of medical supplies. This is a medbay for the most part, used for stopping between missions to get checked out and prodded and healed until the Patriot and the Soldier are ready for battle again, or at least ready to get sent back to base and reset. There’s no need for anything but an examining room with an ensuite operating chamber, a set of holding cells, twin cryo tanks for emergencies.

The Patriot and the Soldier dispose of the doctors in the examining room first. There’s a shirtless HYDRA patient sitting on the table, receiving an injection, and the both of them look up startled when the Patriot and the Soldier bust in. The Patriot lets the Soldier take the lead on this one, because the Soldier lets out a guttural cry when he leaps into action, and the Patriot has always loved to watch him when he’s like this. There is something feral that lives inside both their skins, but the Patriot loves the animal inside the Soldier, he adores every vicious inch.

“You’re out of line!” the doctor tries, raising a trembling hand between himself and the Soldier, as if that will protect him, when he’s the one standing in a HYDRA medbay in a lab coat. “Oh, God, желаниe –”

The Soldier shoots him before he can get past the first word, but the Patriot has already felt the old wrenching pain throb at the base of his skull, sinking teeth into the bone. “Fuck,” he grunts, knees buckling.

“Piece of shit motherfucker,” the Soldier spits through his mask, then shakes his head hard to clear it and lunges at the half-naked agent and the doctor’s assistant that are trying to flee the room while the Soldier is distracted.

More guards pour in after a minute of the alarm blaring. The Patriot kills them with quick hands, favoring his left hook and the knife in his right hand. They hit the ground with heavy sounds, and the Patriot turns his head to spit blood, grinning when the Soldier looks at him. This is easy. It is so absurdly easy.

This is also a very small base, so it doesn’t take much to hunt down the few operatives that are left. Sixteen guards and three doctors lie on the floor of the examining room, bleeding onto the tiles. The Patriot tastes bile as he looks at the red circling toward the drain in the center of the room, reminding him of the times he’s lain on that examination bed.

He wipes blood off his boot on one of the bodies’ uniforms. The red-brown stain feels right.

Then he chases after the Soldier.

There’s more C4 in one of the closets, and the Patriot helps the Soldier set the charges all around the base, all the way up to the fake storefront top. He does not touch him when the Soldier hits the ignition button, he covers his ears with his hands – he’s never touched him on the battlefield, not really, he’s never been allowed.

The HYDRA base explodes into flame and smoke and rubble, the Soldier stone-faced as the fire licks up the sides of the building. The Patriot can’t look away from him. Red and orange light flicker over his face, over his mask, and his mask has never once looked like a muzzle to the Patriot until this moment, but now he finds that it makes him sick to look at it. He steps in front of the Soldier, reaches for him, unclasps the mask and pulls it off his face. The Soldier doesn’t move. He watches the Patriot, faintly perplexed.

“Don’t wear this anymore,” the Patriot says, voice rough.

“Why not?” the Soldier asks. His voice is just as shot as the Patriot’s is, from screaming during the fight.

The Patriot’s lips twitch toward a smile. “Covers up your pretty face.”

The Soldier raises an eyebrow but doesn’t question it, his own smile slow and wry. “Think I’m pretty, huh?”

The Patriot tosses the mask onto the concrete with a hard plastic sound. “Don’t fish for compliments.”

The Soldier ducks his head, maybe uncomfortable with being so exposed while still decked out in his gear. But that’s alright. The Patriot can still see a hint of his smile through the curtain of dark hair, small and sweet and good. They lean against the bike for a bit and watch the fire, watch the rising sparks.

“This was a bad idea,” the Soldier says after a long time. He sounds very tired. “You know that, right?”

HYDRA will know who burned their base down. Any work they’ve done at disappearing so far is ruined, and they will have to run twice as hard going forward, now that HYDRA knows what they’re after, what they can do. Surprise will not last them much longer and they cannot count on it to keep them alive.

But there are three HYDRA scientists dead that were not dead previously, as well as twenty guards or so. The Patriot cannot find it in himself to be sorry about this.

“Probably,” he admits. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “But I had to.”

“We had to.” The Soldier kicks his boot with the toe of his own. “I wanted to do it too.”

The Patriot reaches out, touches the back of the Soldier’s neck, under his hair. The Soldier barely seems to breathe under the Patriot’s hand, head bowed, warmed by the fire. “Let’s go,” the Patriot says. “We should leave. I shouldn’t have brought us here.”

“I think we should stop fucking around,” the Soldier replies, startling the Patriot. His blue eyes flicker red in the firelight. “You want to keep doing this.”

The Patriot looks down at his feet. There is still a rust-colored smudge on the toe of his boot. “If you’re willing.”

The Soldier takes the Patriot’s hand off his neck and laces their fingers together, holds their linked hands against his chest. “Okay, then,” he says.

Okay, then.

They leave the Soldier’s mask at the site of the pyre. If it burns or not, they don’t stick around long enough to find out.

They stop at a CVS on the way, where they purchase razors, hair dye, toothbrushes and deodorant and other human necessities. They’ve only been asked to play-act as normal people a handful of times, and the supplies were provided to them then – the Patriot tries not to get overwhelmed by choices, but the colorful aisles make his head spin.

The Soldier is much more pragmatic, grabbing things off the shelves and tossing them into his red handbasket with laser-focus. Old Spice deodorant. Colgate toothpaste that promises to whiten teeth better than their competitors. A box of black hair dye that he weighs in a hand, raising his eyebrows at the Patriot until the Patriot shrugs his assent. Into the handbasket it goes. The Soldier pauses longer over a tin of pomade, brows furrowed, fingertips resting gently on the top.

“What is it?” the Patriot asks.

The Soldier glances around briefly to make sure they aren’t being observed, then unscrews the lid and takes a sniff. The expression on his face is indecipherable. Longing, maybe. But sharper.

“I used to wear something like this,” he says. He holds the tin out to the Patriot, who dutifully bends his head to smell it.

The sense memory hits him like a gut punch. The pretty dark-haired man combing brylcreem into his hair, humming to himself under his breath when he meets the Patriot’s eyes in the slightly fogged bathroom mirror, smiling –

The Soldier screws the lid back on. Then he tosses the tin into the basket.

“Won’t work with your long hair,” the Patriot tells him.

The Soldier casts around, then grabs a pair of scissors. “It was time for a change anyway,” he says decisively. “Go find some more snacks.”

They pay up at the front, and then they step outside with their bags to switch license plates with the other motorcycle parked nearby. It’s getting late and there aren’t many people about; they hide behind a large van as they make the switch, the Patriot’s broad shoulders shielding the Soldier from the watchful eye of a security camera.

“You wanna drive?” the Patriot asks, offering the Soldier the keys.

“I wanna hold you,” the Soldier answers matter-of-factly, tossing his little screwdriver back into his bag. “You drive.”

The Patriot doesn’t really know what to do with that, so he ducks his head, half a nod and half an attempt to hide whatever is on his face. He gets on the bike. The Soldier gets on behind him, arms sliding comfortably around his waist, and the Patriot murmurs, “I like it when you hold tight,” right before he nudges up the kickstand and guns the engine.

Nervous about being followed, they drive through the night, zig-zagging their trail from highway to surface streets and back again, trying not to be easy to track. The Soldier’s breath on the back of the Patriot’s neck makes the hair raise on the backs of his arms, hyperconscious of every exhalation. The Soldier’s breath is warm and gentle. It is nothing like the rush of wind that deafens them.

They stop for gas and eat the rest of the power bars from earlier, chewing methodically and waiting for the tank to fill. The Soldier fiddles with something in his pocket. The muffled clinks of the Soldier’s fingertips against whatever it is makes the Patriot think it’s probably a knife. He wonders absently if it should bother him, that the hands that hold him so carefully are most comfortable when holding weapons; but the Patriot is also very used to wielding weapons of many kinds, and it’s comforting that the Soldier can match him knife for knife, gun for gun. He’s the one man on earth who can keep up with the Midnight Patriot.

The Soldier can flip his knife all he wants. The Patriot is the one that gets to wrap his arms around him when he puts the weapons down.

The Soldier huffs a laugh, paging through a newspaper he grabbed earlier, and the Patriot tries to lean around him to get a look at what’s so funny. All he sees is a photograph of a bunch of people in colorful outfits, posing in front of a burned-down building. A man in red and gold plate armor makes finger guns at the camera.

“Who’re those clowns?” the Patriot asks, popping the last bite of power bar into his mouth.

The Soldier taps his thumb on the headline, which reads The Avengers Once Again Step In To Rescue Burning Apartment Complex With No Casualties. “Costumed heroes, apparently,” he answers derisively. “How are you feeling, anyway? Wounds still healing?” He takes his and the Patriot’s power bar wrappers and tosses them into the trash can.

The Patriot shrugs out of his jacket halfway, peeling up his t-shirt sleeve to look at his shoulder. The angry red scar from that morning is now much paler, pink and healing.

“Told you I was battle ready,” he says, smiling enough to show teeth.

The Soldier socks him in the arm and smiles blandly when the Patriot winces. “Nice try. Back on the bike, sunshine, find us a place to rest for a couple hours.”

The Patriot huffs a laugh and gets on the bike again. He can follow orders under the right circumstances, he guesses, with the Soldier looking at him like that, all fond and exasperated and lovely. “Come on, then,” the Patriot says, nodding him onto the back, and the Soldier’s arms come up to circle around his waist without a moment’s hesitation. The Patriot is still smiling as he turns them back to the road.

The Soldier gets first shower this time. He disappears into the bathroom with the scissors and a very determined expression, so the Patriot steers clear and lets him at it without trying to interrupt. He takes the opportunity to stow weapons in easily accessible locations around the room, in the bedside drawer, under the curtain, behind the television, just in case the worst happens and they’ll need to fight in a hurry. After their impromptu raid and raze mission, he and the Soldier are both feeling jumpy, and he can only assume that better-paranoid-than-dead is the approach they’re taking now.

He still isn’t sorry they did it. He hopes the Soldier doesn’t expect him to be.

He kicks off his boots and jeans when he’s through hiding the weapons, jacket following it, and his bulletproof vest not long after. He lies back on the bed in his t-shirt and underwear, gazing up blankly at the ceiling. He thinks about the Soldier. In the past, his head was the one place HYDRA couldn’t prevent him from disappearing to, and turning thoughts of the Soldier around in his mind over and over is the only way he was able to hang onto what little he remembered of him.

Thinking about him now feels different. Far less frantic, and honey-sweet with possibility. He doesn’t have to worry about losing his memories overnight and doesn’t have to worry about the Soldier forgetting him, either – they know each other, now, and the Patriot intends to know him as long as he draws breath.

Wanting the Soldier is not new. The Patriot can’t remember a time before he wanted him, before he wanted to know him the way his blood does. He wants to get his hands on him, touch and feel and mark until the Patriot has covered HYDRA’s touch completely with his own, mapping the Soldier’s skin with his palms. Painting him in adoration. They are neither of them unmarred, but the Patriot loves him all the same. He does not know how not to love him. There is nothing the Soldier could do that would make him stop.

What does the Patriot know about him? Perhaps not much, honestly, when tallied up in a list. He knows that the Soldier was his friend before HYDRA, before war, before everything. The Patriot would get sick and the Soldier would care for him, clean his bloody face when necessary, hold him in the cold dead of night when the dark would swallow up all the questions they should’ve been asking. The Soldier was at his back from the beginning, that is where he belongs, aiming his gun over the Patriot’s shoulder, tucking his face into the vulnerable space between the Patriot’s shoulder blades.

What does the Patriot know about the Soldier? He would have been dead a very long time ago without him. More than that, HYDRA has tried to make the pair of them less than human since they were captured, and without the Soldier, the Patriot thinks they would have succeeded. At least with him.

The Patriot worries the inside of his cheek as he mulls this over, but then the bathroom door opens and a stranger walks out, grinding his train of thought to a halt.

The Patriot looks at him, eyes wide, eyebrows creeping toward his hairline. The Soldier’s hair is cut, gone from shoulder-length to trimmed all the way above the ear. It’s a kind of rough job, not exactly professional, but he’s combed pomade through it to slick it back and that evens out most of the choppiness. He’s also clean-shaven for the first time in a very long time. The Patriot’s mouth has fallen open.

“The back was tricky,” the Soldier says, shifting a little where he’s standing. He sounds slightly defensive. Self-conscious. “Might have you even it out if it’s terrible.”

“Come here,” the Patriot says, pushing himself up to sitting on the edge of the bed so he can get a better look at him.

The Soldier steps forward until he’s standing in front of him, dressed in his briefs and an undershirt that clings damply to his chest. The plates of his metal arm whirr when the Patriot touches the side of his face, running fingers through his hair. The pomade has made it slightly tacky to the touch. The Patriot sinks his whole hand in the brown locks, then the other, holding the Soldier’s face between his palms.

The Soldier looks at him. His eyes are dark and hot. The Patriot pulls a little, leaning up as he does so he can rub his cheek against the Soldier’s smooth jaw. He wants to put his mouth to the juncture where jaw meets skull, so he does, tongue darting out to taste.

“Shit,” the Soldier breathes. The plates of his arm shift again with a quiet metallic shiver. The Patriot sets teeth against his throat, and the Soldier inhales sharply.

“Yeah,” the Patriot murmurs. “That’s about right.” Then he kisses him.

The Soldier’s lips are wind-chapped and firm and he kisses back immediately, like a coiled spring just waiting to be kissed so he could respond. The Patriot pulls on his fistful of hair and swallows the Soldier’s groan, taking the opportunity to lick into his mouth, to stroke their tongues together. The Soldier’s kisses get hard and biting, desperation a sharp tang, so the Patriot pulls back enough to look him in the eye. The Soldier tries to lean in again, chasing his lips, but the Patriot tugs on his hair again. Slows him down.

“Do you want this?” he asks.

“We used to,” the Soldier rasps. “Didn’t we.”

“I think so,” the Patriot says. “But do you want it now?”

The Soldier nods, wild-eyed. That’s good enough for the Patriot. He makes a fist around the Soldier’s tank top, pulling him into the space between his legs until he can get his hands on his hips. Squeezing. Feeling the muscle, the bone, perfect handholds.

“God,” the Soldier pants, resting his forehead against the Patriot’s. He sounds half-wrecked. “Do you know I don’t feel human unless you’re touching me?”

The Patriot makes a noise like a wounded animal. “Soldier,” he whispers.

“Don’t call me that here,” the Soldier says, nudging the Patriot’s nose with his own. “Call me anything, just not that.”

The Patriot isn’t good at that, at talking sweetly, and the Soldier must know this. But he’ll do his best to try, and the Soldier must know this as well. “Come here, sweetheart,” he says, tipping the Soldier’s face up with a knuckle under his chin, and gets to look at the Soldier’s blinding smile right before they kiss again and fall back onto the bed in a tangle of limbs.

The Patriot rolls them so he’s on top, catching the Soldier’s wrists in his hands and pressing them into the mattress on either side of the Soldier’s head. The Soldier’s breathing picks up, rabbit-quick, and the Patriot pauses briefly, raising his eyebrows until he gets a sharp nod from the Soldier. Okay, then.

He kisses the Soldier’s neck, trailing his open mouth from his shoulder to his jaw and back again. He lathes tongue over the scars where metal meets flesh. The Soldier’s stomach goes tense against his own. He can’t reach all the scars – the tank top is in the way – but he doesn’t want to get up long enough to take their clothes off. He can’t remember the last time it felt so good to have a body, to be a body. To be alive enough to care that he has one.

The Soldier worms a thigh between the Patriot’s legs and pushes up. That feels so fantastic that the Patriot moans aloud, hips rolling down to meet him. The Soldier’s grin is almost feral. He shifts his wrists, testing the Patriot’s hold with glinting eyes, so the Patriot doubles down. Grips him more firmly. Watches color rise on the Soldier’s cheeks when he realizes how much effort it would take to break the Patriot’s hold.

“That gets you hot, huh,” the Patriot teases.

“Shut up,” the Soldier says, and rocks up again, grinding against the Patriot’s thigh.

The Patriot pushes the Soldier’s hands above his head, crossing them at the wrist, and leans down until their bodies are flush together. They can rub against each other easier this way, and he gets the Soldier’s hot breath in his ear as they figure out a rhythm. There is not a part of the Patriot’s body that is not touching the Soldier. He leans on him, presses down on him, blankets him with his body. He can feel the Soldier’s cock, hard through his underwear, pushing into the crease of his hip.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he pants. “That’s it, come on –”

The Soldier whimpers, either from the pet name or from the fact that he seems to have found the perfect angle to get the best friction, thrusts becoming more erratic.

“Kiss me,” he begs.

The Patriot kisses him hard. He squeezes the Soldier’s wrists, feeling the way the metal of the left one has warmed up under his attention, rocking down with his hips every time the Soldier pushes up. He feels hot all over, fizzy beneath the skin. Buzzing with new awareness. The Soldier fucks into his mouth with his tongue, bites the Patriot’s lower lip, hooks his free leg around the Patriot to keep their hips pressed firmly together.

The Patriot hasn’t even jerked off in so long. He has to break the kiss to whine, low in the back of his throat, feeling his stomach get tight and his arms start to tremble with the effort of keeping his body up.

“Sunshine,” the Soldier moans, hips jerking beneath him. “My sunshine...”

The Patriot can’t take it. He thrusts once, twice, almost sobbing as he comes. He buries his face in the crook of the Soldier’s neck, whole body alight with pleasure that sparks down his spine. His grip on the Soldier’s wrists slackens. The Soldier breaks free to wrap his arms around him, smoothing down his back with a reassuring touch, fingertips very gentle as they stroke back up the Patriot’s spine. The Patriot grunts when the Soldier drags blunt fingernails down his back instead, petting down with both hands until he can get two good handfuls of the Patriot’s ass. The Soldier is still hard against the thigh between his legs. The Patriot pushes back encouragingly against the hands on his ass as he reaches between them with a clumsy grip.

“Ah, fuck,” the Soldier hisses, bucking up against the hand the Patriot slips into his underwear.

“I’ve got you,” the Patriot says, rough and honest and a little strained. “I’m here.”

“Say it,” the Soldier pleads. “Please. Say what you always say –”

“You’re mine,” the Patriot promises. He strokes the Soldier faster, more urgently. “You’re all fucking mine, is that what you wanna hear?”

The Soldier makes a high, kind of pathetic noise and comes all over himself.

The Patriot watches his face screw up as he spills over in his hand, and slows his stroking when the Soldier starts twitching in a way that looks overstimulated. The Soldier is dazed. It’s a sweet expression, lips just barely parted, eyes glazed over and so very blue. Looking at him makes that enormous, unnamable thing roar so loud in the Patriot’s ears that it drowns out everything else.

“Need another shower,” the Soldier mumbles, scraping his hair back from where sweat sticks it to his forehead. “You messed me up again.”

“Mm. You look good like this,” the Patriot says, nosing under the Soldier’s jaw. It’s true. He looks damn good laid out on the bed, boneless and red-flushed and satisfied. “Enough room for both of us in the shower?”

The Soldier nods, so the two of them peel apart reluctantly and stumble toward the bathroom together. They abandon their undershirts and underwear on the sink, the latter of which are both fairly wrecked. The Soldier mutters something like, “Glad I bought a six-pack,” as he tosses his unceremoniously into the trash.

“We could wash them,” the Patriot says, turning on the water.

“I’m not carrying around boxers covered in jizz until we find a laundromat,” the Soldier replies flatly, and, well, the Patriot can’t really fault his logic.

It’s a bit cramped when they both step into the bathtub, but that just means they have to put their hands all over each other, and the Patriot certainly isn’t going to complain about that. He soaps the Soldier up, works it into a lather over his chest, then around to his back. The Soldier rests his head on the Patriot’s collar bone and puts his hands on his hips. They trade the bar of soap back and forth, washing each other, and then the shampoo, and then they get distracted making out in the rising steam.

Kissing. God. The Patriot thinks he could kiss for hours if he’s allowed, over and over until his mouth is raw and he’s drunk on it. The hot water hitting his back is working out tension he didn’t know he had as he crowds the Soldier up against the tiled wall, feeling up and down his sides, mouth hot as his tongue tangles lazily with the Soldier’s. His palms catch and skid on freshly scrubbed skin.

“You wanna come again?” he asks, lips still brushing the Soldier’s.

“Oh, God,” the Soldier says.

That sounds an awful lot like a yes. The Patriot sinks to his knees with a wicked, wet-faced grin.

They pass out for a couple hours after they dry off, clambering into bed and tugging the sheets up half-heartedly. The Patriot’s got a whole leg uncovered, but it’s difficult to muster up the energy to care about anything besides the fact that he and the Soldier are still touching. He spoons right up behind the him and nuzzles into the nape of his neck, arm around his waist, listening to the Soldier’s deep sigh. He smiles a little into his hair when the Soldier wriggles back enough to push them together flush.

It’s impossible to sleep poorly with the Winter Soldier tucked up under his arm. The Midnight Patriot drifts off with a lighter chest than he’d even known he could have.

The Midnight Patriot snaps awake at three in the morning, whole body stiffening before he realizes why. He leans over the side of the bed to wrap a hand around his gun.

The Winter Soldier’s eyes are open now, meeting the Patriot’s. He raises his eyebrows. The Patriot just barely shakes his head.

He rises from the bed silently, cautious of the mattress creaking, and pads to the window, where he peeks through the crack in the blinds to look for whatever woke him. He sees an unfamiliar license plate on a nondescript car and feels the hair on the back of his neck raise. He’s seen this car before – same lot he and the Soldier swiped their motorcycle from, that night in the rain, and that means that he has to go to work.

How many? the Soldier signs to him.

The Patriot glances at the car again. He tucks his gun in the back of his sweatpants and signs back, between one and four.

The Soldier nods. He reaches for his knife. The Patriot puts a knee on the mattress again, then bends down and kisses the Soldier’s shoulder, his neck, his mouth. “We’ll be alright,” he says quietly.

“Get into position,” the Soldier tells him. He’s smiling as he flicks his knife open.

With only four HYDRA agents at most, this isn’t a team sent to take them back in. This is a scouting mission. Reconnaissance. The Patriot can’t guarantee they didn’t see anything, or he’d let them go – but he can’t allow whatever intelligence they’ve gathered make it back to HYDRA HQ, he and the Soldier need to hang onto what little element of surprise they still have for as long as they can clutch at it.

The Patriot is just glad he put on some clothes before he passed the hell out after their shower. Killing HYDRA agents while naked isn’t high on his to-do list.

He peers out the peephole and sees three men in suits just outside on the pavement, one on his cell phone. The other two are speaking softly, heads bent together. The suits are far too nice for this kind of motel, they aren’t even trying hard to be subtle, and the Patriot catches himself clenching and unclenching his jaw at the sight of them. They aren’t agents he knows, at least. They would probably already be dead if they were.

He takes a deep breath, glancing at the Soldier, who signs don’t make a mess.

I can be discreet, the Patriot signs back, and grins.

He turns back to the peephole and waits until the agent on his phone hangs up. Then he slides the safety off his gun and waits a second – waits two – listens to his heartbeat in his ears – then opens the door. The Soldier is right behind him.

The first two go down easy. They clearly aren’t expecting the attack, not completely, and the Patriot takes advantage of this surprise by slamming one into the ground and putting his knee to his throat. The Soldier has stabbed another in the neck, which prevents him from making sound, and has the last one pinned to the wall by the throat. The agent with the cut throat falls to his knees on the concrete, hand clawing frantically at his neck, eyes bulging out of his head. Blood spills through his fingers.

“You want to keep either of them alive?” the Soldier asks. His agent thrashes against the Soldier’s metal hand that keeps him shoved up against the wall.

The Patriot considers it. Interrogating these men will most likely result in a cyanide tooth capsule being swallowed instead of them giving up any real information, and honestly, he’s tired. He was enjoying his evening until now, and he doesn’t really want to deal with these men any longer than he has to.

“Not particularly,” he says, and shoves his knee into his agent’s throat until his neck snaps. He would’ve used his gun, it’s right there in his hand, but he doesn’t want to attract any more attention with the sound than he has to. The bloodstained concrete will do enough talking as it is.

Once the Soldier is through dealing with his agent, they carry the bodies to the car they arrived in. The Soldier fishes the keys out of one of their pockets and pops the trunk open, where the Patriot helps him stack them up and slam the trunk closed again.

“Come on,” the Soldier says. “We have things to do before we leave again.”

“Like a third shower?” the Patriot suggests, looking down at the blood on his pants. His smile is rueful, and he definitely deserves it when the Soldier smacks his arm.

They need to leave, but since it’s three thirty in the morning, they have some time to do it. They start by dying the Patriot’s hair black. The Soldier flashes a cheesy grin at him when he points out that the shade he bought is labelled witching hour, to which the Patriot has to roll his eyes so hard they nearly fall out of his head.

The chemical smell has filled the whole bathroom by the time that the Soldier is through mixing the dye. The instructions are helpfully written in three languages, all of which the Soldier and the Patriot can speak, but the diagrams are confusing as hell and take three passes to properly understand. The Soldier grimly snaps on the provided latex gloves and gets to work.

The Patriot isn’t thrilled about getting his hair pulled for twenty minutes, but being seated on the closed toilet lid puts him right at eye level with the Soldier’s waistline, which improves his mood. Thinking about how he could be grabbing his ass right now if he had a mind to keeps him from concentrating on the sticky-itchy feeling of the dye sitting on his scalp and the Soldier’s fingertips teasing the locks apart. The Patriot’s hair isn’t quite as long as the Soldier’s was before he cut it, but it’s significant. There’s a lot to get through.

Then he has to sit still with it in his hair for half an hour before he can rinse it out – terrible – so the Soldier distracts him by talking strategy.

“We need more intel to be effective moving forward,” he says, peeling off the gloves with a wrinkled nose. Neither of them much cares for sterile latex, after everything. “We can’t rely on gut instincts.”

“You want to run a recon mission,” the Patriot realizes, and rubs his jaw thoughtfully. “What base do you have in mind?”

The Soldier slides him a sidelong glance. “There’s a computer lab in New Jersey,” he says. It takes him a second, but the Patriot can hear what he’s saying – what he isn’t saying – and it makes the backs of his arms break out into goosebumps.

“That’s a far cry from the guy who didn’t want to fight,” he says, glad he manages to keep his voice even.

“Oh, I wanted to fight,” the Soldier says with a very thin smile. “I didn’t want to get caught.”

The Patriot scritches over his jaw again. The computer lab in Jersey is dangerous in a way that they maybe can’t compete with. But if they need to do recon, then a particular computer that’s rotting in Jersey, half dead, frozen like they are, will be their best bet for good information. Assuming they can strong-arm him into cooperating.

“He scares the shit out of me,” he admits, glancing up at the Soldier.

The Soldier’s got an awful look on his face, and he’s focusing on cleaning up the dyeing supplies so he doesn’t have to meet the Patriot’s gaze. “If you think I like it any better, I don’t know what to tell you,” he says. He curls and uncurls his metal fingers, click-clacking on the porcelain sink. “But I want to know who we are. Who we were. Don’t you?”

The Patriot bites his tongue until he knows that he won’t say something that will make the Soldier crack tile in his grip.

“You know that I do,” he says after a long moment. “We’ll go to Zola.”

The Soldier looks somewhere between grateful and nauseous. “Let’s get that shit out of your hair.”

The Patriot is more than willing to kneel, bending over the bathtub, so the Soldier can rinse out the dye. His eyes are half open as he watches the black circle down the drain. Feeling the Soldier’s hands in his hair as black sloughs off him is good, though, it’s right, feels like more than just dye is being washed from him. If anyone can scrub off the way he’s marked, it’s the Soldier. Cold seeps into the Patriot’s pants at the knee from the bathroom tiles.

The Soldier’s hand is on the back of his neck, holding him beneath the water. The Patriot holds his breath and stays where he’s put until the Soldier taps the side of his throat, getting him to pull back.

“Ha,” the Soldier says, grinning once the Patriot has straightened up again. “You look like me.”

“Bullshit,” the Patriot says. He towels his hair, hating the chemical smell that’s clinging to him now. When he lets the towel fall around his neck and looks in the mirror, though, he has to do a double-take.

“Told you.” The Soldier’s arms are crossed over his chest. “It’s weird.”

“Really weird,” the Patriot agrees. He combs down the parts that stick up with his fingertips. Black strands cling to his throat, to the side of his face, damp and limp. He looks even more haunted than usual, if it’s possible. “Think it’ll confuse security cams?”

“Darlin’, you’re confusing me,” the Soldier points out, sliding his arms around the Patriot’s waist so he can put his chin on his shoulder.

The Midnight Patriot can’t look away from the mirror. If nothing else, he finally looks like his name.

“You think we’re being followed?” the Soldier asks as he fastens their bag to the back of the bike. The Patriot is still shocked by his short hair, the way it makes his face even sharper than it was previously, cheekbones and jawline hollow enough to show how poorly he’s been looked after all these years. It makes the Patriot want to do all sorts of nonsensical things, like pick him up and refuse to put him back down again, like hand-feed him until some color rises to those pale cheeks.

He supposes he knows some easier ways to get the Soldier to blush, now. But the urge doesn’t fade.

“After last night? Probably,” the Patriot sighs. “Don’t suppose we’re good enough at running to avoid it.”

The Soldier flashes him a smile and clicks the last buckle. “Wishful thinking.”

The Patriot isn’t one hundred percent sure. HYDRA trained them to disappear, and they’ve disappeared, alright, trail of bodies behind them notwithstanding. Unlike most ghosts, they’ve decided to haunt the entire highway beneath their feet, creeping eastward. Jersey in their rifle scopes. Squinting in the sun. The bodies of the agents they had to kill the night before lay where they left them, in the trunk of their car, waiting to be discovered. Dead eyes open.

“I’d like to see ‘em try to take us, anyway,” he says, only half-faking the bravado, and puts his hand to the center of the Soldier’s back.

“I wouldn’t,” the Soldier replies dryly, but tips his head up when the Patriot draws him in anyway, pressing up into the kiss. It’s a nice kiss. Sweet. Devastating. The Soldier makes a soft, pleased sound and slips his metal hand inside the Patriot’s jacket. The Patriot’s back just barely arches into it.

“You’re very distracting,” the Soldier tells him, kissing the corner of the Patriot’s mouth, then behind his ear. “I’m beginning to think it’s on purpose.”

“Whatever gave you that impression?” the Patriot teases, then gives the Soldier a little nudge toward the bike. “C’mon. I wanna hit Jersey tonight if we can.”

They’ve already been headed mostly in the right direction in their haste to put the Pacific coast to their backs, and it shouldn’t take more than twelve hours or so to cross the stateline. Faster if they don’t stop. One look at the Soldier and the Patriot knows they won’t stop, that they have to get this done before either of them changes their mind, before HYDRA catches up to them and works its evil.

They hop on the bike, as is the ritual they’ve made over the past week. The Soldier drives. It’s his idea, after all, and the Patriot wants to wrap his arms around him and prove somehow that – he doesn’t know. That he’s following him as much as the Soldier is chasing his back, maybe.

That he belongs to him as much as the other way around.

“You know how this is going to end,” the Soldier says.

The Patriot looks at him. The chain-link fence in front of them is bent in some places, torn through in others. He can’t look too much at the camp inside, not yet, because the way his toes curl and uncurl in his boots tells him that it will make him feel something he’s not ready to feel.

“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

There’s no way that they get out of this alive. The Patriot made his peace with this as soon as he left his cell, back in the beginning, back when he thought he would have to die without ever knowing what the Soldier’s lips taste like, when the Soldier’s gun in his hand on a mission was been the closest he could ever be to him. Even if they turned tail and ran now, ran as fast as they could go and disappeared like smoke, HYDRA would not ever let up. He and the Soldier would always be looking over their shoulders, and someday they would not be able to run fast enough. Or they’d grow tired. Or they’d forget, for a moment, to be careful enough, and that would be the end. At least this way they’re taking some of HYDRA out with them when they go.

The Soldier kicks a rock with the toe of his boot. “You got enough ammo?”

The Patriot dutifully takes out his gun and checks. He’s peeking up through his eyelashes when he says, “Yeah, I got enough,” and puts it back into its holster. Then, a beat later, “You could go, you know.”

The Soldier kicks him, this time, in the ankle. “I don’t wanna hear this speech,” he says flatly. “Save it.”

“I mean it,” the Patriot repeats. “If you split, they’ll still be tracking me. You have a better shot at losing our tails with me making noise over here.”

The Soldier shoves him up against the fence. The Patriot doesn’t see it coming, so he stumbles, gasping aloud when he’s slammed back against one of the poles. The Soldier lays his metal arm over the Patriot’s neck, pressing enough that the Patriot knows he means business. He can feel the shift of metal plates against his throat when he swallows, and the Soldier’s eyes are boring into his own, his expression is so fierce.

“I love you,” the Soldier spits. The Patriot makes a harsh sound in the back of his throat – neither of them has said it out loud yet. “I love you, asshole,” the Soldier continues. He presses his arm a little firmer, and the Patriot gasps again, hands coming up to clutch at his metal forearm. “I don’t want to run. I don’t want to be where you aren’t. Don’t you get it?”

The Patriot nods jerkily. He can breathe just fine, but the threat of what the Soldier could do if he was pissed off in a different way is firm against the soft skin beneath his jaw.

“I don’t think you do,” the Soldier growls. There’s a strange lilt to his voice that has never been there before. Some hint of an ancient, dead accent that creeps into his words. “Quit tryin’ to make my decisions for me. You think I'm not competent?”

“Of course you’re competent,” the Patriot tries. The chain links dig into his back.

“I love you,” the Soldier says again. He takes his arm off the Patriot’s neck and steps right up into his space instead, leaning their foreheads together while he cups the Patriot’s face between his hands. Both hands are trembling, even the metal one, as they hold him. “You know what that means?”

“Tell me,” the Patriot rasps.

“I’d die for you.” The Soldier rubs his thumbs over the Patriot’s cheekbones. “I would, sunshine, I’d do it. I want to. I wanna die with your blood in my mouth.”

The Patriot makes an awful sound. Guttural. Unrepeatable. His tongue feels thick in his mouth. He grasps at the Soldier, unable to word just how badly that upsets him. Loving shouldn’t have to just be about dying, about killing, although this is all they know how to do; he wishes he could give the Soldier something different, something better. He would if he could. But he can’t.

“I love you too,” is all he says, and manages not to choke on it.

“Should fucking hope so,” the Soldier replies. He kisses him briefly, then steps back. “Don’t tell me to leave again. I’ll push you harder if you do.”

The Patriot can’t muster up more than an eye roll. “I’ll brace myself better next time.”

The Soldier shakes his head slightly, sighing, and reaches for his knife. He slides it into its sheath and looks at the Patriot. “Go on, then.”

The Patriot turns to the fence and takes a deep breath, refocusing. He wraps fingers around the edges of one of the wider holes and rips it wider, big enough that he and the Soldier can clamber through easily enough. He steps through, then holds it open for the Soldier, who follows him with the shuttered expression they both always wear right before a battle.

Then they begin their trek into the campground, and the Patriot’s premonition is proved right. A shiver splinters down his spine as he stalks down the beaten-dirt path. A faint impression of a whistle blows in his ear, the sound of marching feet, a vague wave of vertigo that says he’s too tall, and army green as far as the eye can see –

He turns to the Soldier to ask if he’s feeling the same, but the Soldier’s eyes are on the munitions building, jaw set. The Patriot can ask him about gentler things later. For now, Zola.

The walk into the building side by side, footsteps more apprehensive by the second. The Soldier’s face is stoic, but not stoic enough to hide his fear, not completely. Is this what he always looks like on missions, beneath that awful mask? He looks young, especially with his clean-shaven face, young and scared and dangerous. No wonder HYDRA had tried so hard to cover him up.

They reach the elevator with no difficulty. The Patriot pulls the secret cabinet door open, ignoring the photographs on the shelf – there’s a kind-eyed woman whose gaze he does not want to meet, and a mustached man whose bland smile sets the Patriot’s teeth on edge. Their eyes follow him in their picture frames as he pushes the shelf aside to reveal the elevator doors.

“Ready?” the Soldier asks him.

“No,” the Patriot replies. “But we’re never gonna be.”

They walk down the hall to the elevator without further pause. The keypad presents a small problem, since neither of them has a code or a fingerprint that will get them inside. But then the Soldier gets a funny look on his face and taps out 325570 on the pad, fingers moving like an unfurling spider as the numbers light up onscreen, and the doors swish open with a low chirp.

“How the hell did you guess that?” the Patriot asks, mystified.

“Intuition,” the Soldier answers cryptically. “Come on. Basement floor, d’you think?”

The Patriot does think, so he follows the Soldier into the elevator and hits the dusty B button with the heel of his hand. The doors make a sound as soft as the plates of the Soldier’s arm as they close again. There’s a dull rumble before they begin their descent, and the Patriot readjusts his grip on his gun, squeezing just to feel the weight of his cold metal handful. Then the doors open.

The Soldier’s breathing is audible.

The Patriot walks into the room like a sleepwalker, senses somehow dazed and heightened simultaneously. He can taste the stale recycled air at the same time as his footfalls cease to feel like they are properly making contact with the floor, the enormous computer bank laid out in front of him like a graveyard, a city of machine shells. His hand moves to turn on the largest terminal independent of his brain, as if on autopilot.

INITIATE SYSTEM? the computer prompts him. The Patriot types in YES.

The monitor flickers to life, sickly green. Dead eyes stare out at the Patriot, at the Soldier who is standing right behind him.

“Kep-tain Ro-gers,” the recorded voice crackles, the sound of it jerky as it comes online, and if the Patriot didn’t know better, he’d say it sounds pleased. “Ser-geant Barnes too. Well, well.”

“Who?” the Patriot demands.

“You haven’t remembered yet?” Zola says. “It is of no consequence, I suppose. A name is worth very little.”

Captain Rogers. The Patriot looks at the Soldier, unable to completely bite back his horrified expression. The Soldier shakes his head slightly, eyes equally panicked, and the Patriot does his best to shut it down on his own face. He does not want the computers to see his distress.

“You have information on us,” the Soldier says. “Our files. You’re gonna give ‘em to us now.”

“Or what, Sergeant Barnes?” Zola asks, amused.

“Or I’ll blow up your whole fucking brain,” the Soldier snarls, and the Patriot can’t remember the last time he heard him so furious, so angry and so scared at the same time. “You know I’ll do it.”

“I know that you would not be here if you had another option,” Zola counters smoothly. “You two are des-per-ate men.”

The old speakers fracture Zola’s words sometimes as he talks, and it’s an unnerving sound, like clockwork that is slightly out of sync as it ticks. The Patriot wants to punch the screen. He wants to fire his gun until the clip is empty. He wants a number of things that he should not be thinking of right now, like the Soldier’s mouth working around the name Rogers, like the Soldier whispering that name in his ear like they are young men again.

He can’t think about this now. He can’t. He can’t.

But he does.

“Do you have our files, or don’t you?” the Soldier snaps.

“I am afraid I do not,” Zola replies. “I am not all-knowing, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Stop saying that!”

“You’d prefer Winter Sol-dier?”

“Shut up!”

The Soldier punches the largest computer monitor with his metal fist. It shatters, glass splintering in circles around the indentation of his knuckles. The Patriot leaps toward him, wrapping fingers around his bicep to pull him back.

“Hey,” he murmurs, squeezing hard. “Not yet. Come on. Dial it back.”

The Soldier is shaking with rage. “He keeps calling me –”

“I know, sweetheart.” The Patriot squeezes again, rubbing thumb over the crease of his elbow. “I know.”

“Ve-ry touch-ing,” Zola comments, face appearing in one of the smaller monitors. The Patriot notices that he’s chosen a screen that is out of reach of swinging fists and wonders, absently, if computers can feel pain. He hopes he can. He wants an excuse to smash another monitor. “I did not know wea-pons could fall in love.”

“These ones can.” The Patriot keeps his hold on the Soldier’s arm, refuses to be frightened into distance. “If you don’t have our files, who does?”

“You obviously know something about us,” the Soldier adds through gritted teeth.

There’s a thoughtful mechanical drone from several of the mainframes as Zola thinks this over. “I do not know as much as I ought to,” he says at last, and the Patriot narrows his eyes at him, wondering if this is another trick. “Of your o-ri-gin, I can only guess. You are HYDRA’s favorite sol-diers, are you not? You have worked for them for decades, what are you after?”

“And you’re HYDRA’s favorite databank,” the Patriot says. “Why don’t you know who we are?”

Zola’s dead green eyes roll to the left, directing the Patriot’s gaze to several mainframe shells that have been emptied out, disconnected wires and peeled-back metal showing where HYDRA has plucked part of his brain right out of his head. “We are not entirely dissimilar, Kep-tain Rogers.”

“Rogers,” the Patriot mutters. “Barnes. Where do those names come from?”

Zola regards him. “They are merely ghosts.”

Ghosts. Christ, maybe. The Patriot steps down from the platform he’s standing on and wades into the sea of computer terminals, making his way toward the empty ones. The Soldier stays where he is, hands on his gun. The Patriot doesn’t blame him. He feels better with Zola’s face on the business end of a machine gun, anyway, especially as he pokes at the hollowed-out computer shells.

“What do you actually know?” he asks, feeling up the empty sides. Disconnected plugs hang limply through a couple holes.

Zola’s face flickers above the nearest intact monitor, gazing down at him. “You were HYDRA’s greatest success and greatest fail-ure. Two soldiers captured and twisted up. But you were never complete.”

“How?” the Soldier barks from on top of the platform.

“You care for each oth-er,” Zola says. “We could not cure that.”

The Patriot holds loaded eye contact with the Soldier for a long moment. Damn right, he thinks, and bites his tongue. “What else?”

“That is all.” Zola’s eyes flick back and forth between the Soldier and the Patriot. “I am afraid I do not re-tain any detailed account of you.”

The Patriot really wants to punch something now. He abandons the terminal he’s fiddling with and steps back up onto the platform with the Soldier, squaring his shoulders. “You know where the information is being held,” he says. It isn’t a question. “Tell us.”

“And you will not blow me up, in exchange?” Zola’s expression remains impassive. The Patriot nods. “It is far too late for that, Mid-night Patriot. They will be coming for me soon.”

“HYDRA? Why?”

“Obsolescence.” Horrifyingly, Zola smiles, his flicker of a mouth opening wide enough to show a glitching approximation of teeth. “Do you plan to dig HYDRA up, Ro-gers? Tear it out by the roots?”

The Patriot swallows hard. “Yes.”

“There is a base in New York that may be of interest,” Zola starts, and the Patriot hears the tell-tale wind shriek in his ears, making his fists open and close around nothing.

“Do you trust him?” the Soldier asks.

“I don’t trust anyone but you,” the Patriot answers.

There is enough C4 left that they could blow up Zola, but with the intel he gave them on the base they’re headed toward, perhaps they ought to save it. They sit on the steps outside the munitions building and lean on each other, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. Dawn is just beginning to bite into the sky, sinking sunbeam teeth into the treeline.

“I think I am Barnes,” the Soldier admits softly.

The Patriot looks down at his boots in the dirt. He’s pretty sure he’s Rogers. It’s a hell of a thing to think about. “Then you be Barnes,” he says, and nudges the Soldier’s knee with his own. “You be Barnes, and I’ll be Rogers.”

The Soldier looks at him. Puts his metal hand on The Patriot’s knee, fingertips just above the inseam of his tac pants. “Alright,” he says.

The Midnight Patriot and the Winter Soldier get up and walk to their bike again, mounting it as they have since they stole it.

Rogers and Barnes take off with New York on their minds.

The base in New York is upstate, far out of reach of the city. The rolling hills and tall trees are beautiful as they whiz by, made prettier by the first blush of autumn that is beginning to scorch the leaves orange, red, yellow. Rogers’ hands are on Barnes’ hips, rumble of the motorcycle engine loud and strong, and he thinks about what they’re going to do, what they could possibly uncover. They’ve already remembered more, lived more than Rogers thought he was aiming for when they broke out. All he’d wanted was to see the Winter Soldier clean and happy in the daylight – now he’s got Barnes’ smile in his head, Barnes’ waist beneath his hands, a chance to unbury their past from its icy crevasse. He doesn’t know how to be thankful enough for what he’s got.

“Pull over,” he says into Barnes’ ear when a rest stop sign comes into view. Barnes flicks his blinker on and takes the exit, trusting Rogers to lead him right.

Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes, huh. Rogers is grateful that there was a time before HYDRA when he was the one giving Barnes his orders; it makes him feel less guilty about liking it so much now.

“We probably don’t have that much time,” Barnes says, scraping windswept hair out of his eyes as he looks at the sign informing them of the cheap motel down the road from the typical fast food selections. He eyes it dubiously. “Once they figure out we’ve seen Zola –”

“We’d be paying by the hour this time,” Rogers tells him, and smiles a little when Barnes whirls around in his seat to stare at him.

“Jesus, Rogers,” Barnes says. “Is this really the time?”

Rogers touches Barnes’ hip. Slides his hand up his side, under his jacket and shirt, skating fingertips up his ribs. He can feel healing scrapes and the divut of an old scar, the topographical map of Barnes’ body, the body that Rogers knows almost better than his own. He’s spent so much time learning it, mapping it by brief glances on the battlefield between bouts of captivity and the rare moments he was allowed to touch him. Memorizing him on the road, now that he’s allowed to look and feel his fill, has made him drunk on it, dazzled. It’s ignited something loud and obsessive in his chest. This is Barnes’ body. This is Rogers’ home.

“I want to,” Rogers says, tongue darting out to wet his lips. “I don’t wanna risk not getting to again.”

Barnes gets an awful look on his face, understanding. He twists around enough to kiss him, scratch of stubble against Rogers’ lower lip when he presses their cheeks together after.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Me too.”

It starts to drizzle when they pull up to the motel. They go to the front desk together, Rogers’ arm around Barnes’ waist, and the receptionist casts them several sidelong glances as she takes their money and slides them a key card over the counter. Rogers just puts his hand in Barnes’ back pocket and smiles blandly, damp hair in his eyes.

Barnes says nothing about the hand on his ass as they walk to their room, he says nothing about anything at all, just hangs onto the room key in a white-knuckled grip and leans into Rogers’ side. He radiates heat. Rogers rubs his thumb over one of Barnes’ belt loops and waits for him to get the door open.

He’s on him the second the door slams shut behind them, shoving Barnes up against the wall just to hear him choke on a groan. Barnes gets a good handful of black hair and hangs on for dear life, giving Rogers rough, biting kisses, gasping when Rogers hooks hands around the backs of his thighs and hefts him up. He wraps his legs tight around Rogers’ waist, calves crossed at the small of Rogers’ back. Rogers presses him into the wall and gives it to him with tongue, licks into his mouth, sucks on his lower lip. It feels so good to use his strength for something so indulgent.

“Gonna take me to bed, Rogers?” Barnes pants against his lips, low and suggestive, and it sounds so right that Rogers just makes a pained noise and nods instead of answering.

Carrying the Winter Soldier to bed is like something out of a dream. Rogers lays Barnes out on the mattress with his legs dangling over the edge and falls to his knees with a muted thud on the carpet, reaching for Barnes’ boots so he can unlace them as quickly as he can manage. He eases them off his feet, first left foot, then the right, setting each boot aside with gentle care. He kisses Barnes’ shin. Then the inside of his knee.

“You look good down there,” Barnes tells him, pushing up onto his elbows to watch. Rogers leans up enough to kiss his thigh, holding his gaze as he bites down through his pants. Barnes breathes out harshly through his nose and cups Rogers’ jaw in a hand, thumb stroking over it. “Fuck.”

“There’s an idea,” Rogers says, his smile a flash of teeth, and undoes Barnes’ fly. He tugs Barnes’ pants and underwear down together, and Barnes falls onto his back again, hands covering his face. Rogers tugs both pant legs down and off and tosses them aside. He slides his big hands up Barnes’ legs, past his knees and powerful thighs, finally getting a good look at the cock that rests, flushed and half hard, against his stomach.

“Gonna look all day?” Barnes asks, uncovering his very pink face to raise his eyebrows at him.

“Got a lot to look at,” Rogers says, and stands up to strip out of his own shirt, letting it fall to the floor. Boots next, kicked off to who knows where, and he works on his belt while Barnes sits up and shoulders out of his jacket and shirt as well.

There’s no way to escape the frantic edge to what they’re doing. It’s difficult not to feel like they’re racing against the clock every time their eyes meet, desperate and burning. Rogers sits on the bed, his back up against the headboard. Barnes slides into his lap so easy, easy, curling his metal hand around one side of Rogers’ neck while he kisses the other. Rogers moans and tips his head back to give Barnes better access. Barnes scrapes teeth over the soft skin just beneath his ear, spreading his legs a little further to push their stomachs together, their hips, their cocks. Rogers’ hands jump to Barnes’ thighs and squeeze.

“How do you want it?” Barnes asks, licking up Rogers’ throat, whole body tense and taut on top of him. His hips give a slow, appreciative roll, Rogers’ dick rubbing right up against his ass, which gives Rogers a pretty good idea of what he’s after.

“Options are kinda limited,” Rogers grunts, his grip on Barnes’ hips hovering on the edge of too-tight. He can’t help it. Couldn’t let go if he tried. “Since we don’t have lube, or –”

He stops talking, because Barnes looks very shifty all of a sudden.

“Well,” Barnes says. He licks his lips.

“Oh my god,” Rogers says. “When did you even...?”

“Remember when I told you to go find more snacks in CVS?” Barnes asks, leaning over the side of the bed to grab their bag, rifling through one of the side pockets until he comes up with a couple packets of lube. He hands one to Rogers and tosses the other to the side for later.

“Thinking ahead, huh.” Rogers looks at the packet. Thinks about Barnes planning on doing this with him that long ago, before they’d even kissed. “Barnes...”

Barnes shuts him up with a kiss. “Stop thinking,” he murmurs. “Don’t think about anything. Just you ‘n me, sunshine. You ‘n me.”

Rogers tears the packet open. “You ‘n me,” he agrees roughly, and gets his fingers slick.

Barnes puts his forehead down on Rogers’ shoulder as Rogers begins to finger him open. He breathes raggedly, hot breaths that puff against Rogers’ collarbone, and just barely trembles against him. Rogers can feel the tremor in Barnes’ back, so he puts his free hand between his shoulder blades, rubbing a little. Trying to soothe him. His brain will short out if he thinks hard about the tight clench around his finger, so he does as Barnes told him. He doesn’t think about anything. He just touches him as gently as he can, gets a second finger inside him, curls them when Barnes starts to rock against him, panting.

Rogers’ cock throbs with interest when Barnes leans up enough fuck himself back on his hand. There’s a pretty flush starting to bloom down his throat, so Rogers sits up to kiss it, then his cheek, then his lips – he swallows Barnes’ moan when he starts moving his hand a little faster, trying to get the angle right. He gets a little lube in his other hand so he can jerk Barnes off while he fingers him, long wet strokes that make Barnes’ legs shake with every pull.

“Is this it?” Rogers licks at Barnes’ jaw, mouthing at the rasp of stubble there. “Is this what you wanted, sweetheart?”

Barnes nods, eyes glazed over with it, lips wet and half parted and bitten-red. He’s so gorgeous, raw and wanting, and Rogers knows that he would do an awful lot to keep him looking like this, to keep him feeling good enough to chase the shadows out of his head. Maybe he rushes the third finger, but Barnes doesn’t complain, just makes a sound like he’s been punched and bites Rogers’ shoulder, Rogers’ fingers sliding in and out of him with obscene wet sounds.

“Come on,” Barnes pants. “Come on, Rogers.”

Rogers has to take his hands back to get the other lube packet open, and Barnes tips over to lie down on the bed next to him, metal hand glinting as he strokes himself slowly. That’s a hell of a thing to watch, and Rogers gets distracted by the twist and flash of that metal wrist until he catches Barnes looking at him, eyes half-lidded and so intent they could light him on fire where he sits.

Come on, Rogers, he tells himself, and fumbles the lube until he can get his cock slick.

Barnes rolls over onto his stomach, pushing up onto knees and elbows, head hanging down between his arms. Rogers gets behind him and kisses all the way up his spine, licking at the notches, making Barnes arch into his mouth. He takes his dick in hand – he’s so hard he can feel his heart beating in his grip – and guides it between Barnes’ legs. He gasps when he presses in.

They’re quiet for a long moment, catching their breath. Rogers’ hips are moving, tiny helpless hitches that feel like swallowing sparks, pleasure beading up with the pearls of sweat that trickle down his back. Barnes is blushing all the way red now. His face is mashed into the pillow. Rogers pets up and down his side, bent over at the waist with one hand on the mattress for balance, chest flush with Barnes’ back.

Barnes murmurs, “This has gotta be some kind of disregard for government property,” and Rogers shouldn’t laugh at that, he really shouldn’t, but he does, burying it in Barnes’ flesh shoulder.

“You aren’t funny,” he says, and bites the nape of Barnes’ neck on principle.

Barnes’ chuckle is muffled by the pillow. “You gonna screw me or complain about my jokes?”

“I can do both,” Rogers says, and pulls out in a slow drag that makes Barnes’ breath catch, pushing back in with equal patience so Barnes can feel every inch.

Things get hazy after that. Rogers fucks him slowly until he can’t hold back any longer and really gives it to him, lips hovering over the back of his neck, one arm around Barnes’ waist to hold him where he wants him as his hips snap to meet the backs of his thighs. Barnes makes gorgeous sounds, rough from the back of his throat, grasping at the sheets for something to hang onto.

And maybe it is misuse of government property. Rogers is stealing something he was never meant to have, nudged up inside the Winter Soldier, the inside of him blood-hot as his hips keep thrusting and Barnes keeps moaning brokenly. He can feel his orgasm, skidding closer by the second, and he isn’t meant to have that either, but he will take it without shame. No more shame. No retreat, no regrets, his body is more than a weapon, and this is how he’ll prove it.

Barnes cries out when Rogers thrusts in especially hard, and Rogers’ mind goes completely blank, brain dissolving into nothing but the connection of their bodies and how it feels to pound into Barnes, over and over, hips and thighs and fists and teeth and Barnes, God, Barnes –

Rogers whimpers as he comes. It’s a raw sound, wrenched out of him. Barnes squirms beneath him, close to coming too, so Rogers reaches around to slide two fingers into Barnes’ mouth as he jerks him off with his other hand. Barnes whines around his fingers when he topples over the edge, whole body gone tense, all wet tongue and taut muscle before he melts into liquid and falls onto the mattress with a grunt.

Rogers follows him, blanketing him with his body. Wipes his hand on the sheets. Kisses Barnes’ cheek, murmuring words in his ear that he’ll say to no one else, not for as long as he’ll live.

The base Zola pointed them towards is enormous. It’s as big as the one they broke out of, if not larger, and it is not at all abandoned like they were hoping. They gear up; what else can they do? They’ve been watching the guards’ circulation for hours now, and there’s a gap between rotations that Rogers thinks he and Barnes can exploit if they’re quiet enough. Barnes is better at stealth missions, usually. He melts into shadows like he’s one of them, like he’s made of smoke, and Rogers is the blunt instrument they send in afterwards.

But he thinks he can probably manage it, just this once. Not that they have much of a choice.

They slip down the hill, taking advantage of the evening’s misty drizzle to give them a little extra cover as they pick their way through the yard toward the fence. Barnes waves his left hand in front of the fence, waiting for the vibranium to react – but it doesn’t, so it probably isn’t electrically charged. He and Rogers can vault it without worrying about walking away with scorched eyebrows or charred skin.

They land on soft earth with muted footsteps and bent knees, weight evenly distributed on the balls of their feet. They use their training to make as little noise as they can, even with their large augmented bodies. Rogers takes out his gun. Barnes has been shifting his knife’s grip in his hand since they left their hiding spot at the top of the hill.

There are two guard towers that stare down with unblinking eyes, so Rogers and Barnes cling to the side of the furthest one, waiting for the guard up top to turn away before they dart toward the actual building of the base. They duck behind a corner very quickly when a HYDRA agent comes into view on foot, Rogers with an arm over Barnes’ chest to keep him pressed to the wall, crowded up in the shadows and breathing very little. They creep around the corner silently when the agent passes them, ghosting around the edge and trading places with the green-uniformed man who’s so focused on struggling with his cigarette lighter that he does not see them. Fucking amateur. There was a time not too long ago when Rogers would’ve gladly put a bullet in his head just for being so stupid, but he has more pressing things on his mind now, and Barnes takes priority, anyway.

They key in the same code they used for Zola’s base, 325570, and share a loaded glance when the door beeps quietly and swings open inward. They pad inside, Rogers first, then Barnes, weapons at the ready and eyes scanning the corridor for more guards.

The hallway is pointedly empty. Suspiciously empty. Rogers raises his eyebrows at Barnes, unnerved, and Barnes shrugs back with an unhappy tilt of his mouth. There’s only one direction to go, so they walk down the hallway on uneasy feet, waiting for something to happen. The quiet is awful, thick as a blanket of fog, and what Rogers wouldn’t give to have some goddamn HYDRA agents to be punching now instead of all this sneaking around.

Barnes would tell him there’s something wrong with him, if Rogers lamented this out loud. He’s probably right.

The door at the end of the hallway opens when Rogers pushes it with two fingers, swinging wide with a soft creak of the hinges. The lights are on inside, another computer bank, although much more modern than Zola and also far less expansive. There are filing cabinets lining the walls on both sides, a small vase with wilting flowers on the computer desk, untidy papers at the workstation. It’s much more obvious, here, that this is a spot that belongs to someone. Someone spends their time here, sorting through files and typing up reports. Someone else bought them flowers.

“Rogers,” Barnes murmurs.

Rogers realizes that he’s gripping the door frame hard enough to make finger-shaped indentations. “Right,” he says, and enters the room properly. They should get out fast, after they get the information. There’s no reason to linger.

The computer boots up with a helpful chirp. Rogers drums his fingers against the mousepad while Barnes starts digging through file cabinets, unearthing honest-to-god manilla folders that he can only give bemused glances at as he sets them aside.

The computer’s background is a picture of the ocean taken from on top of a large rock overlooking the water. It’s very blue.

Then it turns green.

Zola’s hideous face grins, wide and horrible and unbelievably smug. Ghosts, he mouths, and Rogers reels back, stumbling a step backwards. Then everything goes to hell.

Guards pour into the room, as if out of nowhere. There are so many of them, all armed, all terrified, and Rogers has never felt more stupid in his life. He grabs Barnes. Shoves him behind himself, steps in front of his body as he yanks a block of cabinets between them and the guards to provide limited cover. There’s a door behind them, and he thinks – if he can just get Barnes through it –

“Stand down,” an agent barks. “Midnight Patriot, lower your weapon!”

“Go,” Rogers says. He feels Barnes stiffen behind him. “Go. I’ll cover you.”

“Rogers –”

“Bucky.” Rogers turns his head to look at him. He doesn’t know where that name comes from, but it fills his whole mouth. “Bucky. Please.”

Barnes touches Rogers’ hip. His eyes are shattered. Rogers aims his gun better, readjusts his grip, and fires two rounds into the guard standing directly beside the agent that’s calling the shots. The man he hits makes a choking sound and slumps to the floor, clutching his bleeding chest.

“I’ll come back for you,” Barnes promises. Rogers can hear the waver in his voice, can tell that he means it. “I’m coming for you.”

Rogers shoves him toward the door. “Go!”

Barnes goes. He draws back and disappears through the door like a shadow, like a dream.

Rogers takes out as many as he can, jumping up to fire his gun before ducking back behind the cabinet. He counts two, three, five men that fall because of him, but then he’s being swarmed before he can reload – and in the end, he is only a man. A strong man, enhanced beyond all reckoning, veins pumped full of poison until he is double what he was. But he is still just a man.

It takes fifteen men to hold him down. He’s screaming the whole time, thrashing back and forth, body twisting in every way that it can. He bites off an agent’s finger, teeth cutting through leather glove and flesh and bone. He kicks hard enough to break someone’s shin before his leg is restrained. He gets punched in the face once, twice, three times; his nose breaks on the third with an audible crunch, blood pouring out onto his lips, onto the ground. He tries to scratch someone’s eye out with fingers curled into claws, but his arm is wrestled to the ground and then he’s flipped over onto his stomach, grunting when a foot stomps down on the center of his back. His wrists are cuffed together. He tries to pull, but they’re made of vibranium, and that is one of the few things he cannot break.

“Stupid fuck,” someone pants above him. “We’ll catch your boyfriend soon enough.”

Rogers breathes hard against the floor. He tastes blood, feels it dripping down his face in streaks. Barnes can disappear like nothing else, and Bucky – God. Bucky. He squeezes his eyes closed. He hopes Bucky doesn’t come back for him. He would forgive him for breaking his promise, just this once.

He’s hauled up to standing and made to walk back down the hallway again, taking a sharp right turn toward a familiar cell block layout. They push him into a cell not unlike every other cell he’s been held in, little cot at one end, basin of water at the other, no windows and only the one door. Sterile lights glare down at him like the eye of God.

“Sleep tight, Patriot,” an agent says nastily and kicks the cell door.

“My name is Rogers,” he rasps.

The agent scoffs and walks away.

Rogers sits on the cot. He has blood on his face, on his hands. He has no idea how far Bucky got, and will not know until HYDRA recaptures him. He hopes Bucky makes it all the way to Mexico, or any other warm place, where he can put his feet in the water and feel the sun on him. Bucky ought to be warm. He wants him to be warm.

Rogers puts his face in his hands and breathes raggedly.

They don’t take him in to be reset until morning, or at least until what Rogers assumes is morning. It’s difficult to track the passage of time in such a closed environment, which he supposes is mostly the point, made worse by the fact that he does not sleep. He can’t sleep. He sits on the cot and can’t do anything but think about Bucky, while he still can. Maybe he can hang onto it if he tries hard enough this time.

Bucky, taking apart his gun with nothing but his metal hand, reassembling it just as easily.

Bucky, stuffing his face with diner hash-browns, making the world’s most satisfied expression.

Bucky, legs around Rogers’ waist, hands in Rogers’ hair, drawing him in, in, in.

Bucky. Just Bucky. His beautiful face in the sunlight, in the moonlight, under the orange streetlights that line the highway. He tries to think about him under any circumstance except the last one, with that heartbroken expression when Rogers told him to leave, with those wide eyes and dawning horror. Rogers knows he only has limited time before HYDRA comes to collect him, so –

Bucky’s brow creasing as he studies a map.

Bucky’s vain little predilection to poke at his hair when he catches a glimpse of his reflection.

Bucky’s tuneless hum as he brushes his teeth, his ugly snort of a laugh, the face he makes when he comes.

HYDRA agents arrive to collect Rogers after a long while, once they’re ready for him. Rogers doesn’t really see them. They have to come into his cell and pick him up, drag him out, pushing him down the hall toward a staircase into the basement. Rogers allows himself to be tugged listlessly forward, there’s no use fighting it. He’s not here, anyway, he’s deep in his head, remembering Bucky. His Bucky. His sweetheart.

Two agents push him down and strap him into the chair, the metal chair that eats memories. Rogers rebels one last time and forces them to pry his jaw open for the mouth guard. They force it in, make him clamp down on it, hold him still while the metal plates lower from the ceiling and fit themselves to his head. They back off just in time to flip the switch.

Rogers thinks about Bucky, slamming him into the fence and yelling in his face that he loves him.

Bucky, tweezing the bullets out of Rogers’ flesh, digging them out and holding them up to the light.

Bucky, hair in disarray when he wakes, and looking up at him with –

narrowed eyes, grey and –

blue, so blue, so –

Bucky –

The Midnight Patriot is escorted back to his cell, but he doesn’t really need to be watched. He walks where he’s pointed. He glances at the smear of blood on the sheets of his cot but doesn’t question it, just sits where he’s directed, then lays down. He knows he’ll be needed soon because he hasn’t been put back on ice. HYDRA will give him his mission, and then he’ll complete it.

The Midnight Patriot looks up blankly at the ceiling and does not think of anything at all.

“Good morning, Patriot,” one of the Midnight Patriot’s many doctors says to him when he’s pulled into medical the next day. “Do you know where you are?”

“Holding base, sir,” the Midnight Patriot responds.

The doctor glances down at his clipboard. “And what are you doing here, exactly?”

“Awaiting orders,” the Patriot answers. “Sir.”

“Very good. Who do you answer to?”

“HYDRA, sir.”

“Do you serve HYDRA and its aims in its entirety?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What is the last thing you remember?”

The Midnight Patriot’s eyes snap to the doctor’s gaze uneasily. He doesn’t know what the last thing he remembers is – his memory is not to be trusted. This is always the first thing he remembers upon being defrosted.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. A pause. Then – “There was a man.”

The doctor’s brow arches. “A man?”

Yes. That’s right. There was a man. The Patriot’s heart begins to speed up, and he thinks – dark brown hair, flash of metal –

“There was a man with me,” he repeats, eyes unfocused where they land on the tiled floor. “A soldier. I knew him.”

“There was no soldier,” the doctor says firmly. The Patriot does not look up. Brown hair fills his vision. “Get back to your station. You will be called when your mission is ready for you.”

The Midnight Patriot rises from the examination bed and holds out his wrists to be re-cuffed. His guards cuff him and lead him back to his cell, where the Patriot is left to rot once more. He does what he always does, paces back and forth like a caged animal, does push-ups and sit-ups to keep his body occupied while his mind works. He knows that there was a soldier. He knew him.

But his own mind is a maze of false starts and trap doors, and he knows this too. What he needs is a mission. He knows what to do with a mission.

He lies down on his cot to sleep when he tires himself out and closes his eyes. Once they give him a mission, everything will become clear.

In his dreams, he is held by a man in a soldier’s uniform who murmurs into his ear, promising him many things. His body is capable and strong as he presses into him and his voice is honey over granite, vodka and gravel and sweet mollassass. The Patriot believes every word he says, arching into his touch, calling out for him when he wakes. He cuts his tongue on a name that is sharp as ice shards against his soft palate.

They don’t give him a mission.

They poke and prod him for hours, testing his reflexes, his stamina, his muscles. The Patriot performs all the tests with his usual blank expression and eats what they give him, runs where they tell him, punch who they put in front of him. He doesn’t ask why and they don’t offer the information, and the Patriot continues to wait for his orders. He’s a good soldier, after all, the best they’ve got –

– except he isn’t, is he. Something eats at his mind.

He’s escorted to the shooting range and is made to test weapons, seeing if he’s still competent at everything. He fires handgun, rifle, shotgun, then throws knives of gradually increasing size at the wooden targets. He hits all his marks. He’s tested for hours, though, made to do it over and over again, wheeling out new targets that are pushed further and then further back from him. He takes the guns he’s handed. He’s very good at using them.

They lead him down to the medbay again once they’re finally finished and run several scans on his body. Two doctors bend their heads together and mutter over the results, poking at the translucent readouts, fingertips hovering over a circled area on his shoulder, on his thigh. The Patriot touches his shoulder, rubs his thumb over the space between collar bone and pectoral. There is a faint, faint impression of a phantom ache when he presses against it.

“Is my functionality satisfactory?” he asks, careful to have both hands in his lap again when he draws attention to himself.

“You were not asked to speak,” one of the doctors says absently without looking up from the Patriot’s chart. “Major Fredericks, if you’d be so kind.”

An agent, presumably Fredericks, shackles the Patriot’s wrists together and prods him up off the bed with the end of a stun baton that’s turned off. The Patriot rises with unease prickling down the back of his neck, wondering what’s wrong with him. That ghost pain sticks around, sharpening after he’s alone again, locked back up in his cell with nothing but himself and his racing mind to reckon with. He pulls his uniform collar down far enough to reveal his shoulder and twists his head to look down at the fading silvery trace of a scar. He doesn’t remember getting that scar. He doesn’t remember what caused it, but he has a vague recollection of pulling a bullet out of his flesh, metal and blood and someone’s hands on his body.

He hopes this scar sticks around longer than others he’s had. He heals too fast, but this scar is important, telling him a story that he has to unearth from deep in his head.

He lies down on his cot with his hand on his chest and settles in for a long night of dreams that will be slippery as oil to grasp at in the morning.

His sleep is interrupted by an explosion.

He snaps awake immediately, shoving out of his cot and rushing to the door to try and see outside through the little barred window at the top. There’s some concrete rubble spilled onto the floor that he can see if he cranes his head, voices overlapping as they yell at each other. One voice in particular sounds frustrated, and the Patriot draws back, hands balling up into fists at his sides.

“Look, okay, I got us right into the middle of the cells, I don’t know what you’re complaining about! Here –”

A face appears in the Patriot’s cell door window, red and gold metal. A robot? But then the mask flips up and there’s a man inside, and the Patriot drops into a more defensive stance, one leg swinging behind and arms drawing tight to his sides.

“Black hair, looks like he’s about to murder me, sounds like your guy,” the fake robot announces, and then he’s quickly shoved to the side, another face appearing in the window.

“Thank god,” the new face says with more relief than the Patriot has ever heard in his life. His eyes bore into the Patriot’s, and he doesn’t relax his stance any, but his heart starts to beat hard in his chest despite himself.

“JARVIS, get this cell open,” the fake robot demands. There’s a quiet as you wish sir, a mechanical whirr, and the door opens with a hiss. The Patriot does not blink. He barely breathes. His eyes are locked on the man who walks inside, decked out in a kevlar vest just like the Patriot’s and a smile that could not have been more sad if it tried.

“Hey, you,” he says gently. “Do you know who I am?”

The Patriot shakes his head jerkily.

“Figures,” the man says, sounding unsurprised. “They won’t want you to remember me. You’re going to have to try very hard.”

The Patriot’s lips just barely part. “The soldier,” he whispers. “They told me there wasn’t a soldier.”

The soldier takes another step forward. “They lied,” he says. “You know they always lie.”

“Shut up.” The Patriot takes a step back, then another, backing up against the wall. The soldier from his dreams follows him, not letting him get more than a foot away. “You broke in. You have to go before the guards find you.”

“His friends are keeping the guards occupied,” the soldier tells him, jerking his thumb backwards in the direction of the fake robot, whose mask is in place again. “Why are you so worried about the guards if you don’t know me?”

The Patriot raises a hand between them in a keep back motion, but the soldier keeps walking forward until his chest is flat against the Patriot’s palm, which splays his fingers above his beating heart. The Patriot can’t feel his heartbeat through the kevlar, but he can imagine it just fine, how it would feel to have a heart beating loud and strong and familiar beneath his hand. He swallows hard around a suddenly thick tongue.

“You know me, sunshine,” the soldier says. He puts his metal hand over the Patriot’s, keeping it pressed to his chest. “You’re mine.”

There’s an ugly flash of some hot, forbidden thing deep inside the Patriot. He lashes out, smacks the soldier’s hand off his own, lunges to knock him over backwards. The soldier goes down without a fight and grunts when he hits the floor. His head knocks into cold concrete with a crack and a gasp and his blue eyes go slightly unfocused, so the Patriot takes the opportunity to pin his arms above his head so he can’t do anything drastic like touch him with them again.

“Uh –” the tin man in the doorway starts, sounding concerned.

“It’s fine,” the soldier pants. His eyes are wide, wrists crossed over each other under the cage of the Patriot’s hand, breathing hard. His fingers twitch, but he doesn’t try to break free. He doesn’t look away from him for even a second. “Do you remember this?” He arches his back a little, pushing a leg up between the Patriot’s thighs.

The Patriot recoils. His grip loosens as he blanches, and the soldier uses his surprise as leverage to switch their positions and slam the Patriot down flat onto his back.

“You’re mine,” he insists. His eyes are wet, eyelashes dark and sticking together. “Your name is Steve Rogers and you’re all I’ve got.”

He bends down and kisses the Patriot, sinking a hand into his hair to hold him still while he does it. He licks at the seam of his lips, bites his lower one, crooks a finger at the corner of the Patriot’s mouth until he opens it and the soldier can slip his tongue inside. The Patriot makes a raw animal sound and lets the soldier kiss him.

“Keep it PG, guys, c’mon,” the tin man says a little desperately.

They don’t listen. The Patriot has started to kiss back, body moving on autopilot, hands finding hips to hang onto and gripping them hard. The man on top of him finally leans back, perched on top of the Patriot’s thighs, and –

“Bucky,” Rogers says.

Bucky smiles down at him, brilliant, resplendent. He is so beautiful. “I told you I’d come back for you,” he says. “I told you I’d get you out.”

“Not that this isn’t very moving,” the tin man interrupts. “But can we please leave? My team is freaking out in my ear right now and I really don’t think this is the best place for kissing, anyway, wouldn’t you rather make out on my plane instead?”

Rogers looks up at Bucky in awe. “What did you call me?”

“Steve,” Bucky says, touching Rogers’ face. “Your name is Steve.”

“I’m Steve,” Steve repeats dumbly.

“You’re Steve, he’s Bucky, that’s fantastic, can we go?” the tin man says, less desperate this time, more exasperated.

“Who’re you?” Steve asks. He turns to Bucky. “Who the hell did you get for backup?”

“That’s Tony.” Bucky stands up off of Steve’s lap and holds a hand out to pull him to his feet. “I, uh. Went to the Avengers.”

Steve wracks his brain for a moment to decide where he’s heard that name before. Then it dawns on him. “You mean the dumbasses with the costumes?”

“Gee, thanks,” Tony says. “Not like we’re risking our lives to break you out of Nazi jail, or anything.”

“They aren’t that bad.” Bucky shrugs. “They hate HYDRA.”

Steve eyes Tony’s suit. He guesses he can work with that. “You said you had a plane?”

“Finally.” Tony’s mask snaps shut with a satisfying click as he waves his arm expansively toward the hole that he and Bucky blasted in the wall. “After you, terrifying super soldiers.”

Steve shoots him a grin full of teeth and walks through the door. He’s holding Bucky’s hand when they step into the light.

Steve lays his head in Bucky’s lap on the plane, breathing shallowly as his memories swim up through the fog. Bucky runs fingers through his hair over and over, petting it back off his forehead, smiling at him every time Steve meets his eyes. His face is more beautiful than anything else in the world. His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, has Steve ever noticed that before? How can he notice anything but that?

Tony says that his teammates will meet them back at base. He also says that Steve and Bucky are safe here in the belly of his plane, properly safe this time, and Steve is honestly inclined to believe him; Tony is loud and flashy and he talks a mile a minute, but his eyes are tired and kind and he knows when to shut up. The cockpit is silent as Bucky pets Steve’s head gently.

Steve tucks his face into the hollow of Bucky’s hip when his eyes sting, when his breaths start to hitch. Bucky just bends over him, gathers him in and covers him, pressing his face into Steve’s hair as he rubs a hand up and down his spine.

“Is no one going to acknowledge the fact that he’s Steve Rogers?” Tony asks, casting his eyes back and forth across the table.

Steve and Bucky sit on one side of the large conference table, close enough that their knees touch beneath it. At the other end is Tony, a tired scientist named Bruce, a man larger and blonder than Steve has ever been who goes by Thor, and a much peppier scientist named Janet who came with her lab assistant Hank. They’re a formidable group, all standing together, smudged with dirt and blood from their fight in the HYDRA base to rescue Steve. Even their loud colors can’t make them seem anything less than what they are.

“Does that name mean something to you?” Steve asks with mild interest.

Tony shares loaded eye contact with Janet. “You were a war hero,” he says, shrugging. “My dad knew you. Talked about you all the time, so.”

“Everybody knows you,” Janet says, swatting Tony’s shoulder lightly. “Is what Tony’s trying to say. Everyone thought you both died in 1945.”

Bucky’s hand finds his under the table. Steve laces their fingers together and squeezes. “Well, we’re not dead,” Bucky says. “And we’d like to continue to prove that.”

“By killing HYDRA.” Steve smiles thinly. “If that wasn’t clear.”

“That was pretty clear,” Tony says.

“You guys seem pretty, um, competent,” Bruce interjects. “From what we’ve seen. Are you the ones that have been torching bases recently?”

Steve shrugs. “One or two.”

“And the car full of HYDRA agent bodies,” Janet says. “That was you too?”

Bucky smiles.

“Right,” Tony says, and claps his hands together. “So, HYDRA’s been on our radar for a while. We’ve got a friend who was sorta like you, and she –”

“– Really would rather we didn’t spill her dirty laundry everywhere, Tony,” Janet interrupts. “Really.”

Bucky strokes his thumb over the crest of Steve’s wrist while they listen to the Avengers bicker. It’s strangely comforting background noise. He really doesn’t know what to do with the whole ‘war hero’ thing, all he knows from the Before is that he was with Bucky, and even that feels vague and far away. Maybe someday he’ll recall it – Tony’s father, the war, whatever warm soft thing came before it – but for now, he has Bucky’s fingertips tapping against the heel of his hand. This is enough to think about for one afternoon.

“We want to take down HYDRA,” Steve announches. He puts his hand down on the table, watching every Avenger turn to look at him. “We will take down HYDRA,” he corrects himself firmly. “Brick by brick, if we have to.”

“We won’t succeed if you don’t help us,” Bucky adds. “But we’ll try it anyway if you say no.”

“Christ, that’s dramatic,” Tony says. “Did you not hear the part where we told you we want to take down HYDRA too? Jan, I said that part already, didn’t I?”

Janet sighs. “It was implied.”

“There you go, then.” Tony folds his arms behind his head, feet coming up to cross at the ankle over his portion of the table. “God, this is like one of Howard’s wet dreams. Gonna take down a Nazi war criminal organization with Captain fucking America himself.”

“Please,” Steve says. He glances at Bucky, eyes warm and alive as he says, “Call me Steve.”