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This Is My Last Breath

Chapter 29: Двадцать Восемь (Twenty-eight)

Notes:

My dear friends. To all of you who've hung on this long, I wish I had better words than thank you. You've supported this story since the beginning, and you'll never know how truly grateful I am to have had such an amazing team helping me create my first real masterpiece. Because, y'know, 75k chapter here and. Yeah, TIMLB is my masterpiece, and I never could've done it without you.

Anyways. On to the boys.

Warnings: Derealization, panic attacks, physical violence, discussions of eating disorders (specifically, not eating for an extended period of time), suicidal ideation, death, military funerals, identity crises (i know), memory loss

I PROMISE THERES A GOOD ENDING OKAY JUST PLEASE HANG IN THERE

Also, quoting from the first season of Agent Carter TV show, the Civil War trailers, and Captain America: White

References to these poems, novels, and posts:
xx
xx
(and from this incredible poet)
xx
xx
(shoutout to Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway for quotes)

Before you read: the wrist drawing.

Songs:
Carry On - Fun
Collar Full - P!atD
Art of War - We the Kings
Incomplete - James Bay

If you haven't seen the TIMLB Art Masterpost, you can find all the chapter headings (and songs and everything else) there.

 

P.S. there may or may not be a link you REALLY WANNA CLICK in the final ☆ star

*cough cough epilogue cough*
 

And please, I'd love to know what you think. Writing this sure has taken something outta me, if it's done anything for you, I'd be honored to hear.

Thank you. For every comment, kudos, bookmark. Every word you've read and said. Thank you.

Keep dancing, friends.

(And the crooked smiles fade.)

xx

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

.::.

"A tragedy need not have blood and death; it's enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness. That is the pleasure of tragedy."
-- Jean Racine

 

“Buck. Do you remember me?”

Hope. Broken hope, instead of devastation, the hope of two displaced soldiers finally fighting the same war.

A breakdown in a classroom in Queens and he finally saw all those long bloody battles piled up but it was 1945 and 2016 and that was the year it ended.

Breathe disaster ever after and this time, this time.

They might win.

“Wait for me, wait for me,” Bucky murmured, snatching the journal off its shelf and tossing it across the room to his bag. Journal, notebook of poems, Steve’s drawing off the wall, and he was off, storming down the stairs, door blasting open and sharp breath of cold air filling lungs, prismacolor world lit up and the sun just starting to set in the sky, lighting the way like the stupid-obvious North Star it’d always been.

“I’m comin’ Stevie,” he swore, broken over the months he hadn’t spoken it, the months long as those frozen winters behind glass. “I’m comin’ home.”

 

The sky tipped sideways and the ice creeping up his knees was settling in his chest, cementing his heart against the inside of his lungs; only thing that’d explain the vacuumed cavern that wasn’t letting him breathe, red shiny pieces crumbling chipped and sharded into his stomach.

“-u okay? Excuse me, sir?” Someone’s hand was on his shoulder, voices washing over a wave of paused business shoes, college sneakers.

Someone could get shot in New York City and no one noticed but this was Queens, college town. Books, backpacks, concerned teenage voices.

Kids his age.

Clutching books instead of broken hearts. He was clutching both. Why was he carrying...

It took awhile to feel his arms, unfolding, pages falling open.

“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”

Farewell to Arms.

Bucky.

“Woah, bro, slow down there--”

“Sir, do you need help--”

“Move, move, you all need to move,” Steve gasped, shoving upright, tripping over the fallen Chemistry book, broken icy cobblestone.

No, not cobblestone, pavement.

Someone's shoulder, more shouts and his head was spinning but his legs were working now, enough to get him across, enough to get him out.

Enemy fire. From the only gun he'd trusted to watch his six.

The crowd gave up on him at some point because the next thing he knew it was strangers he was knocking shoulders with, blank faces passing in disorienting flashes and he was stumbling, wasn’t breathing right, a couple of seconds with a palm against a brick wall 'cept he couldn’t steady himself when his body was crumbling apart from the insideout.

Cars speeding past, metal screeching and horns blaring, axles shifting with this terrible highpitched whine he could feel behind his eyes, piercing into every sulcus of his brain, radiating in the ridges of his pallet, drilling into the roof of his mouth.

The edges of the world were too sharp, lights flashing fake colors over and no matter how far he stumbled forward there were still lights, noise, people, knives building up in his stomach.

He'd stopped feeling his body a few weeks ago and now shoving back into it was like twisting into something too sharp weak and small for him, broken ribbed and twisting twig arms all over again, shattering splitting spine with every jarring step and he hadn't felt this weak -- hadn't felt at all, for so long and now all he could do was feel and his body kept trying to drag him screaming to the pavement.

The clouds were covering the sky now, dark and gray and blanketing out all that arching brightness that'd flashed for just a brief moment.

Cold electrifying his skin in sparks, white dots colliding through the air and it took him a minute to figure out it was raining.

No, not raining. Snowing?

It looked like rain, pouring rain and it was cold, wet but when he held out his arms, looked at the ground there were tiny white dots, frozen raindrops mixed with snow and he didn't know if he was walking or dreaming anymore.

Staring at his feet meant they kept going, one in front of the other, but his balance was thrown and it took everything he had not to tip, weak bones in limp arms, heavy legs, empty cave torso and his head was pounding so hard he could barely hear how loud his heart was.

But he heard the shout.

He heard the shout and something inside, something deeper than the broken red glass tumbling between ribs and puncturing lungs, deeper than the lightheaded sensitivity crumpling organs --

Something underneath it all snapped, clicked, a sudden rush to his head and it was lifting, shoulders rolling, chin tipping up, the tiniest glimmer of a twenty-something, younger old old version of someone he knew,

Kicking and clawing and fighting deep inside, beneath the hunger, before even Bu--

There was a shout and he was so dizzy he couldn't see straight but he found himself in the alley anyways, breath heaving in too tight chest, dripping lungs, the pulse in his veins thudding as it registered,

gun, mugger, bully.

His knees were smarting from the fall, fingers were shaking with the cold, chest too tight, the most familiar voice in the world echoing in his head and he could swear, the one thing that hadn’t changed in this city were the alleys. The alleys, and the soul buried deep underneath the trumpets, snaredrums, patriotic backmarch,

“Hey!” The mugger startled at the sound of his voice and Steve couldn’t look all that intimidating with one hand on his burning abdomen and his knees all scuffed up but that’d never stopped him before, throat protesting the same as back then but he lifted his voice, called out with the only real sense he had left. “Pick on someone your own size!”

It’d never been that easy for him in the thirties and apparently it wasn’t that easy now either. He wasn’t Bucky, after all.  

The gun swung his way and thankfully he had some speed left, or else that would’a been a nasty ending to a pretty fucking surreal afternoon.

His heart was pounding too hard to hear, think, but somehow his elbow collided with something hard and the next thing he knew the mugger’s gun was in his hands instead. The man with the wallet had enough initiative to take off, but the mugger looked pissed as Steve’d ever seen a bully.

One gloved hand over a jacket pocket, either had a knife and was counting on Steve’s beading hairline to get his gun back, or maybe pissed and desperate enough to attack either way.

It took all the focus and strength he had to aim the muzzle at the mugger, tip his head with that silent warning, don’t even try it. Only he was breathing heavy, shirt sticking to his skin beneath his brown leather jacket, tight enough it could be that old old uniform, the first one, from the tour. Tights and flimsy plastic shields.

Or maybe trashcan lid shields.

It wasn’t enough, because the next thing he knew the mugger had a knife, advancing slow on Steve with this unafraid glint in his eye. Did he not see the goddamn gun--

The gun in his hands, that were shaking. Shaking a lot. It took a couple seconds to register, blinking dumbly at the wobbling end of the black muzzle only duh, he couldn’t shoot a bus at 20ft with his hands shaking like that.

His knees were shaking too.

Little and weak and broken and freezing and. Alone. No one to clean him up this time, no one to scold or patch him up.

Shaking.

He dropped the gun, safety flicked on, kicking it aside in one quick motion and pulling his arm back in the other.

Then his fist was cracking over the mugger’s cheekbone and things were shaking a hellofalot less.

Actually, wasn’t shaking at all. There was blood dripping slowly onto the ground and his chest was heaving but his heart was beating.

His broken heart was beating.

Who knew it could do that anymore?

“Sometimes I think you like gettin’ punched,” Bucky’s voice echoed somewhere behind him, scolding and affectionate and teasing all rolled into one and he was too caught up to dodge the first lunge properly.

The knife missed his arm by a centimeter, but the kick landed square on his shin, ripping black and blue up his leg like a dozen boots in the past.

See, he’d’ve been prepared if he’d known it was coming. But the mugger shouldn’t’ve gotten up that fast. Or at all.

Spent years now, knocking out enemy soldiers with one punch. When was the last time he’d hit someone? When was the last time his arms weren’t made of rubber? There was nothing solid in the punch because there were no bones left in his body, no mass left in his muscle. Emaciated as a perfect-celled supersoldier could be.

So he hadn’t anticipated the fight back. But he could win this.

Arm lifting, fingers curling, only before he could follow through there was a solid knock to his jaw and the whine in his pallet shot straight through his brain, peripherals blinking stars as he stumbled backwards, legs tangling him off balance,

the way they had when they were young and scrappy. But he’d gotten up then, sure as hell was getting up now.

Staggering up straight, another swinging limb that once held so much power only he didn’t have any of the force, control behind it when his head was still spinning and he was gasping for air and if he hadn’t spent years fighting this way, disoriented and broken, he’d be down for the count already.

’Least he still didn’t know when to stay down.

“I can do this all day.”

Flash of silver and he ducked, aiming a jab for the mugger’s ribs.  Funny, how much he could be throbbing and still dealing out blows that couldn’t possibly ache as much as he did.

A fist swung back, fast and dirty, landing right in his concave stomach. The sudden rush of bile to his throat made a hand clap over his mouth involuntarily, only then the mugger was reaching for the gun on the ground and Steve didn’t have time to be sick, snapping his knee into the man’s chest.

The quiet groan of pain wasn’t from behind the bandana-mask, couldn’t be when he could feel the bruise radiating up his thigh, skin and bones so raw they could split.

All he needed was one more well-placed punch and the fight’d be over, just had to time it right--

Arrogance may not be a uniquely American trait, but I must say, you do it better than anyone.

Storming in here like he could make a difference, change a damn thing in this state.

Last time he’d been this unprepared, unacquainted with his own lying body he’d snuck onto that Hydra shipping truck in ‘43, landing with a sloppy roll and one of the showgirl helmets lopsided on his head, two Hydra goons staring him down with guns as his little smile of victory sunk into reality and he managed a familiar,

“Fellas.”

Only he wasn’t vaulting up tanks, ducking behind crates, knocking on doors and knocking out guards, sneaking around an enemy base on his own thirty miles behind enemy lines.

He was in goddamned Queens in some alley and he couldn’t get some waste-a-breath mugger to stay down. Fucked up as it was, this was the most he’d felt like himself in months.

Fuck, he missed his shield.

Comfortable weight across his forearms traded for dragging bones, broken joints. Protection for vulnerability and he was nothing but slashed open from the inside out since Buck sank that first knife into his chest, hilt slamming a bruise over the deep cut that barely missed his heart.

Barely, right.

His fist connected with bone, still strong enough those ribs would be black and blue but they wouldn’t be cracked, not when everything inside was shattered twice over.

A whooshing sound and the stars in his peripherals collided into blues, air knocked free with the burst of pain from a hip, sliced insides exposed to the freezing air, what little strength he’d been gripping desperately shooting straight out like a well spout, red and fight spilling over his shirt, pooling down his side--

“But. There are limits to what even you can do, Captain.”

There’d been a few times in his life, when the bully’d landed the punch and it him right at the same time, wow, I can’t afford to lose that blood.

This was one’a those times.

Strong bodies didn’t like getting cut open with pocket knives, weak and stumbling bodies that hadn’t fed on anything but their own cells for weeks really didn’t like to be cut open either.

All those things that you never ever told me, all the smiles that are ever gonna haunt me, and it wasn’t the scuff of Bucky’s shoes on the pavement to come save him, it was the graveling echo of Buck’s laugh, grinding dark into the base of his spine, dirt and poison rubbed into the wound between his frozen fingertips clutching uselessly at the tear in his skin.

If he fell, he might never get up.

The bricks were shifting, grinding and spitting dust, concrete breaking under his soul, soles, and the world wasn’t gonna hold him up anymore.

Bare cold wrapped impossibly tight managed to kick, black muzzle skirting across icy cobblestone, over mangled tree roots, the patch of acorns his frozen fingers closed around slowly, picking up the seed of the earth and holding it up to block out the sun, brown and innocent, flash of metal--

Fingers hurled the acorn across the ocean, mountains, train tracks, plinking off dogtags with an indignant sound and a smile that ripped faces and split at the seams, bleeding red down bitten lips between squelching fingers.

His jaw lit up, blossom shooting behind his teeth, through his sinuses and filling the holes in his brain, draining down spinal fluid as the world spun into Brooklyn and back to Queens, that pointing finger we want you staring promises into his dutiful soul as the muffled sound behind the bandana cursed at the skull beneath his peeling skin.

Bucky.

The world didn’t stop spinning, his head wouldn’t stop spinning, and there was no telling what he’d hit if he kept swinging now but he couldn’t ever stop, not with the glitter of metal chasing every edge of his vision, metal so cold he reached dying, wrinkling, skeleton hands for the shifting bite of plates--

and the world burst red in front of his eyes. Somewhere in a concave chest his heart stopped because everything was red and he had the brief moment to think,

a stopped heart couldn’t be that much more painful than a shattered one.

Had stopped fists ever hurt less than shattered ones?

I’m just a kid from Brooklyn.

 

The winter stole his lungs and he tried not to think about how ironic it was that he couldn’t breathe running through this cold, wind and air somewhere behind him and there was this wall, freezing wall keeping him from going faster and his chest was seizing painfully but he wasn’t gonna slow down, slipping on ice and skidding past intersections but he couldn’t stop now, couldn’t ever ever stop again.

An open heart is an open wound to you, and in the wind of a heavy choice, a quiet voice.

Passed a dozen places from the past nearly-four months, college friend apartments and class buildings and that coffee shop and the club Clint had seen him in--

Jesus Christ, this was a fucking mess. A fucking mess.

The spot he and Natalie--

Romanoff.

...bitch. No, no, he didn’t have time to think right now, let alone rage about the fucking Russian spy who’d posed as his best friend for three months. Who he'd genuinely come to love and care for.

Who’d convinced him he had to leave. That leaving Steve was the only way to save him.

He’d never had a chance at saving Steve, never from the time they were six and Bucky couldn’t get to alleyways fast enough to stop bloody noses, the hell made him think he had a shot at that now?

After everything, after the fucking century of his life, you’d think he’d’ve figured out the only chance he’d ever had was at Steve’s side.

Steve was his only chance.

And it's nice to know when I was left for dead -- I was found and now I don't roam these streets. I am not the ghost you are to me.

Who was the ghost slipping through fingers now?

His only chance.

Steve, Steve, he could keep repeating that over and over and it wasn’t losing any beauty, swell in his chest, could say it a thousand times and it’d be just as precious but he needed to find him, to take those beautiful shoulders in his palms and look those drowning blues right in the eye and tell him over and over and over,

Steve. My darling Steve, I remember you, I remember you forever, I remember every single blessed moment and every single broken bone and I’m so so so sorry--

He didn’t have the words for how sorry he was. How could he ever possibly tell Steve how sorr--

And I know, the scariest part is letting go.

He’d find a way. He’d spend the next century if he had it, he’d spend every single day proving to Steve that he was never fucking leaving again.

One more block. One more block, running so fast his short hair was catching in the wind and spiking into this crazy tousled mess, skidding around the corner to a stumbling halt as the pieces settled down in soft curling pieces over his forehead, brushing the senses of the last time it was this short and disheveled, staring down past his worn shoes and slit feet to the fire underneath that thin metal beam.

Only now it was ice, of course, instead of flames and fuck, there--

The corner, they’d crashed into each other, fate throwing them back together in the simplest most life-altering experience of his existence, and Bucky wasn’t leaving without Steve this time either, heart pounding as he stared across the distance between them and willed the gods to let Steve jump that gap.

Only the distance between them was a lot bigger this time. Because he skid around the bend and stared at the corner they’d collided like comets, stars and it was empty.

Steve wasn’t there, his books weren’t there, the light rain-snow earlier had dislodged their footprints and there wasn’t the slightest shred of evidence it was real, that it’d happened at all, but this time he didn’t doubt for a single fucking second what was real.

They’d collided, and the stardust had stained the very air itself and he could stand here all day staring at the lack of Steve or he could figure out where the fuck he went.

It was New York, this was his city, their city, and he was goddamn finding Steve Rogers, pulling him outta one more fight.

 

Red, flash of red and glint of metal and his brain was registering danger the same time it shouted get back up. Took him three more seconds to figure out he wasn't knocked down, that his swinging arm wasn't gushing blood and the knife wasn't embedded in his skin and the flash of red wasn't blood or stars.

A snap, crack, voice sharp enough to slice through the thickest fog, familiar and so distant, months since he'd heard and never that harsh.

Scuttling feet and he was alone, alone again except the flash of red spun back to him, bouncing over black leather shoulders and he managed a cognizant - Found her, Barton before the world tipped and dragged him down with it.

Red hair flew close and it was a different red than the last time he'd seen her but he couldn't even remember when that was, how many months ago Natasha’d given up on him and stopped coming by.

And there was the ground-- or. Not.

Two small hands on his chest, arm, holding him upright only the gravity in his bones was too heavy, world pulling him too hard in too many directions and he crumbled against the tiny body, concerned voices, worry, drifting over the echoing heartbeat thudding in his ears.

“Rogers! Rogers, are you okay?”

Was he okay.

He'd gotten in a fight. Wasn't too bad a fight even.

Only his chest was caving in.

Who the hell is--

Black leather over thin thin arms and he grabbed ahold like that could keep him from sinking, fingers wrapping all the way round the branch and some distant part of his brain screamed that he was going to snap the tree right in half and the rest was struggling to keep breathing, gasps between a single word, over and over, mumbling scraping audible for just a moment, mantra,

“B-bucky, Bucky--”

“I know. I know.” And there went the wobbling strength in his knees. Couldn't feel ‘em, couldn't feel anything ‘cept these rolling ball weights attached to hips with chains, rattling and tugging to fall--

Brick, guiding hands and his shoulders hit brick and that, wall, wall he could do, he could collapse against all that red without crushing more bones.

Like his hand, those carpal bones that’d snapped under metal and it'd been a different life but that, that was closer to yesterday than any drifting day he'd had since.

Metal; metal glinting wrists, fingers, he'd known it was Bucky the moment he'd looked up but that, that was undeniable proof he wasn't hallucinating, wasn't projecting a broken soul into some beautiful stranger--

Had been a stranger. Seen Steve as a stranger. Who the hell is--

“Rogers, we need to focus on you right now.” Two stars on his chest, holding him steady and that wasn't right, one of the stars carved too deep and ripped red right outta him. “Are you oka--”

“Me? No. No, Bucky, you have to find hi--”

A punch to the gut, the kicking steel-toed from beatings past, wind-knocking clench of his stomach he used to be used to. Hit him outta nowhere, no boots to be found, and he doubled over just the same, face twisting in open-mouthed raw silent pain.

“Steve? Steve, hey, hey, look at me.” Turbulence on the shaking plane and he was deteriorating, sharp curl inside his chest twenty-thousand pound bag of sand crushing his ribs, caving his organs into shriveled wilting--

“C’mon, where are those pretty blues? Steve? Steve! There, there they are. Keep those eyes up, okay?” Couldn't decide if the red mouth was pressed in worry or anger, stark clear or swaying, blurring out with the second crashing wave over his head, torso.

A hand on his neck, pulse thudding against white porcelain.

Had he cleaned the dishes in the sink? Ma always got so frustrated when he left the nice china to dry on floursack towels.

Steve, listen, I need you to tell me what's wrong.”

His throat was closing slowly, the way walls in old horror films did, drawing closer and closer to the screaming bloody victim only he wouldn't be able to scream once the dry tubing in his throat won.

Air wasn't getting through right and his head was spinning, rush of too much oxygen or not enough and the wind from the peeled back train was whipping too hard to breathe right but he still managed one word, reaching and crying out over the distance,

“Bu-ucky--”

“Not with your heart, with your body, Steve. You're white as a sheet. I'd say like a ghost, but considering Barnes…”

The words kept going but his head cut off there, Barnes Barnes Barnes echoing off walls he'd slammed redheads into with a do better and no idea what to do with since, Bucky, back from the dead.

Find’ou what the ghost wants. Had to. The ghost, the ghost was.

Back from the dead.

Buck was back from the dead again, he was here, Steve’d just seen him, it was Bucky.

“Natasha. Natasha, he's still alive.” The alley swung bright enough he managed to flail for her arm, grabbing it wildly and blinking rapidly at green to keep them in focus, enough to make sure she heard, the whole world heard; he was alive. Bucky was alive. Here, he was here, in New York and Steve’s gut was right, again, knew Bucky hadn't left him, couldn't ever leave him like that--

“Natasha you gotta find him. He's here, he's here, in Queens.” Tightening fingers, sucked in breath through swollen throat, rattling painfully between ribs, abdomen contracting with this awful creak.

“I know. Fuck, Rogers, the serum never should've let you get this bad.” There was something off in her voice but he was focusing too hard on inhaling, simple inhaling, fill the shattered cavity only that made it hurt more, even more--

“Your heart’s beating too fast, hands all clammy; are your legs even holding you up? S’not possible for you to get sick, how are you sick?”

Sick. Sick, he just wanted to curl on the ground, blankets of skystars and warm arms wrapping around frail, betraying body, sniper round the corner to pull him out one more time.

It was just too hard, too much to hold upright and focus and think and keep everything rational. Caved. Eyes falling shut, throat bobbing torn, mouth twisted in pain.

Couldn't tell if the harsh canvas on the back of his eyelids was black or white, him or nothing, everywhere and nowhere and tip tip tip…

Sound, then motion, and the sharp burst of pain. Head to the side, handprint smarting on his cheek, fingers grabbing his chin, fixing his head up and he blinked open groggily and that wasn't worry on Romanoff’s pretty face anymore, that was panic.

Panic. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted to curl up and make his damn torso stop feeling so hollow, picture perfect porcelain hollowed out and filling slowly with salty tears to drown one final time.

“Did you take something?” she demanded and Steve distantly noted that no, it was Bucky who took his heart outta his chest and ran away with it, leaving Steve with a battered copy of a chemistry textbook somewhere in the alley and Farewell to Arms--

That was ironic, that book Bucky loved so much, all those WWI quotes and horror and he'd already said farewell to one’a his arms!

Live die they were soldiers and they were never allowed to fall and they were never gonna put down their arms, the only weapons that kept their hearts from bleeding in the alley streets only he was bleeding, sucked dry anyway.

“The serum should've metabolized--”

Metabolized. Green eyes went wide and so did the edges of his vision, the joints in his hips, calcium all cataclysm and the wall wasn't gonna hold him up much longer when the waves inside his chest were making him sink down down further down.

The hands propping him up didn't seem to know he was falling in slow motion, running down his chest over the bump of burning dogtags and their seer against his skin until probing fingers reached the first layer of stomach muscle and red gasped quietly, a little sound to take what was left of the feasible oxygen.

Fingers tracing rib bones only it wasn't right, prodding curling against his belly button, flashing green staring at his wincing reactions to the touch, the concave pushed even further towards witherment.

“When's the last time you ate?”

Ate. Food, greasy complicated too warm food or clean easy too sweet food that was Bucky’s anyways, he wasn't the one with the propensity towards apples and he couldn't pop a slice in his mouth anymore, couldn't put much of anything in his mouth anymore that wasn't drizzling water. Poisonous water, maybe, one day and what would he’ve done to stop his sweetest downfall as the stars came fallin’ on their heads?

“Hmm? It doesn't. It doesn't matter.” Apples.

Natasha asked him, at the very beginning, why he'd wound up at Steve’s side and that small, shadowed smirk from a younger boy who used to throw his arm around shoulders, curling up those pretty lips in that sweet promise just for Steve.

Hydra didn't have apples.

He blinked. Steve blinked and he had no idea what he was doing in this goddamned alley.

The echo of shouts, did he think Bucky’s shadow would simply follow him here?

Come and save me. Standing at the edge with his eyes wide open and the echo was the only voice screaming back at him.

It was his job now.

His job to find his best friend at the top of his lungs. Triple-click heels and reach one more red-leather glove hand for that metal glint in the distance.

All I know is the sun won't do enough to prove my love to you. In my heart, you'll always know,

There is a place only you can go.

Brick dust scratched at brittle fingertips as he pushed off, single shaky step forward.

“M’best friend. Y’can’t save evryb’dy but y’don’t give up, don’t give up, I gotta go find my b--”

“Steve!” Two solid bars on his arms, leather straps he'd never really known, intensity burning the fire they’d set so long ago. Comets. “Steve. He doesn't wanna be found.”

Careful but sure. Sure’s’if she were Bucky Barnes himself. James Buchanan Barnes. His beautiful James Buchanan Barnes.

He always came back. Always came back.

Doesn't wanna be found.

“You don't know that.” He looked down at her curiously, skeptically, still and steady for a single brief moment, the shock of clarity in the eye of the hurricane because he was gonna find the star on his horizon and follow it home, he was gonna pull Buck off that table one more time, didn't care how long it took.

If he had to wait for those memories to grow stronger and stronger every day for the rest of his life, he was saving Buck off that table.

Never, never once did Buck not want to be found. Natasha couldn't possibly know, couldn't possibly understand--

“I do.”

Steady. Steady, and quiet, and it was a confession, the same kind he'd whispered to his mom’s grave, I love him I love him and I don't know what to do without him.

It was a confession but he was already retorting, already arguing again before the seriousness, the sorrow in those eyes sunk in.

“You don't kn--”

He cut himself off. Stared, at Natasha, and the panic pity desperation sorrow guilt all finally...clicked into place.

Everything Clint had said. Natasha’d been gone, extended periods of time, on a case that somehow had nothing to do with being a Russian assassin.

Just a spy.

Even before, before Bucky killed--

Before all of that, she'd been elusive, claimed to be looking for Buck when she hadn't been, hadn't been at all.

Because she'd already found him, hadn't she?

There hadn't been an ounce of surprise on her face when he'd ranted that Bucky was here, in Queens. Hadn't been surprised they'd bumped into each other, none of it. She was here, somehow, showed up right on time and she’d.

She’d known.

For how long?

Look, I didn't want you doing anything you weren't comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything.

Nobody spills the secrets, because nobody knows them all.

For how long...? Always? Since the very beginning?

“You...you knew.”

He'd been in misery.

She'd watched him deteriorate from afar and done absolutely nothing to intervene.

Worse, worse, she'd watched Bucky deteriorate and done absolutely nothing.

If they'd been anywhere else, kitchen counter, living room, quinjet, he’d’ve thrown something.

He'd've thrown something to keep himself from throwing Natasha across the room only they were in some backalley in New York and there was nothing to throw.

Nothing to spin and punch in anger but that brick wall. The same brick wall that sounded like the only solid, steady, real, reliable, honest thing in his entire life and he just couldn't bring himself to hit the damn wall.

Instead he stared. He stared at Natasha as she looked up at him in this strange horror of apology and heartbreak.

He still remembered that car ride, after they'd kissed for cover, her smile as she tipped her head and looked at him from shotgun,

Nobody special though?

Kinda hard to find somebody with shared life experience.

How could.

How could she do this to him? To them?

Bucky trusted her.

He'd opened up that steel heart and trusted her against his better instinct and she'd. She'd watched them tear each other apart. Tear themselves apartment.

How could she possibly have let this happen? How could she have been silent? Said absolutely nothing, not a single word of genuine comfort?

He couldn't see how pale and sick he was in the reflection of those eyes, couldn't see the shaking fingers or the shallow breaths or the way everything was swaying at the edges, couldn't see anything but the look on Bucky’s face. So much more open, vulnerable than the first time he'd said who the hell is--

He'd looked so young.

His hair was short.

Jeez, he hadn't registered that ‘til now. Bucky'd cut his hair. Looked just like that beautiful young army sniper all over again, but somehow…dark, with those scars underneath layers, metal glinting to reflect a brilliant smile, soft brown hair swooped up just as debonair as it used to be.

Huh. Bucky’d cut his hair.

Forearms shooting up in defense only it saved him more than her, spinning dizziness hitting like a freight train, again, no cold wind and careful Commandos to drag him back to reality.

At least the collapse was in the general forward direction, at least when his knees gave out Natasha’s arms went up and his big betraying hands landed hard on her forearms, keeping himself upright and he was in his second apartment’s kitchen, propping himself up on the counter with white knuckles as Sam told him it isn't your fault and he was gripping so tight his fingers warped for just a moment and then

crack, the counter breaking, shattering pieces to rain down all over the floor and Natasha’s arms were that counter now, bones to snap like twigs, shattering calcium dust into thin blooded Russian veins.

Every other time, he'd shattered counters, doors, walls, and he was gripping with every ounce of the raging inferno of emotions he had then, knuckles white and fingers squeezing into broken fists only.

Only now the counter wasn't even caving a little.

Probably wasn't even bruising.

This, him, at his strongest, was barely able to keep upright and all the strength that'd held him upright for the past five months was slipping away its last pieces now.

“You knew,” he breathed, broken somewhere in the middle over a sob that'd never leave his throat.

Never leave his spinning head. The dizziness wasn’t just nauseating, disorienting, it was dragging him down down down and everything was fading and the counter of arms shifted, hands reaching for shoulders only he kept going down down down and.

He didn't know how he was supposed to forgive her for that.

But Bucky was alive. He was here, here, all she had to do was go get him, go call him, lead Buck right back to him, let those strong strong arms lift him off the cold icy ground and carry him outta the storm until they were never cold anymore.

Cold. Cold, and everything went dark.

 

“Romanoff? You gotta lotta nerve callin’--”

“Tony, shut up for a second. I need your help. It's Steve.”

A moment of silence and Natasha held her breath, eyes closed, fingers over Rogers’ barely-beating pulse. She'd given up trying to wake him back up on her own, on handling this all on her own.

She'd been juggling every member of this broken family for months and she was worn so thin, too thin, she couldn't do it alone anymore.

“Where are you?”

“We’re in an alley in Queens, couple blocks from the college. He's still breathing, but there's no color in his face and his pulse is erratic as hell.” The corners of her version were watering and she quickly wiped under her eyes, placing a hand on Steve’s chest. Still beating.

“Wilson’s already on his way. What happened? Why are you…”

Why was she the one who found him.

Why did she even care, he probably wanted to know, but Tony didn't know, didn't understand, it had to be that way and. Later, they could do all that later.

“He's. I don't know, I don't understand how the serum let this happen.” A shallow breath, hand propping Steve’s head off the freezing ground tightening. Was this her fault?

“Natasha. Just keep him stable until we get there. We’ll be there.”

Stark hung up before she could explain. And for the first time in a long long while, she let out the breath she'd been holding.

Relieved. She was actually relieved help was on the way. Couldn't do it alone anymore.

Couldn't do it at all. But God, Bucky needed her. Steve needed her. Clint and Tony and Bruce and Pepper all needed her, and she’d done everything she could to at least keep them safe, if she couldn't do anything else, but Bucky’d been off on his own all this time and she couldn't leave him, she had to be there. She’d known something like this was bound to happen sooner or later, everything’d built up too high and the ice was going to crack, better she had a hand in it when it did, better it happened now instead of on a mission overseas, better it happened in the tower when everyone was here and still alive and there was still hope.

She just.

Hadn't expected it to be that catastrophic.

When she'd told Bucky the only way save Steve was to leave him, she knew he'd go one of two ways. Either he'd hear her and that fear inside himself he wasn't facing and he'd fucking attack that fear, he'd do everything in his power to prove her wrong and land him back at Steve’s side.

Or he'd listen. And give up.

She hadn't expected the latter. She really hadn't.

She'd expected him to react the way Steve would've, honestly...but he didn't.

He wasn't Steve. He wasn't anything like Steve.

His plan, though, to leave Steve and save him? It was perfect, executed brilliantly. Freed them both, as fucking painful as it was to watch Steve miserable and Jimmy an empty void, it was what Barnes chose and it protected their family.

She'd never respect him enough for that.

Only, there was one flaw she hadn't counted on and the entire thing was shredded now.

Agent Peggy Carter was dead and Tony Stark had almost died and Clint had almost been blown to pieces and now Barton was back to not trusting her, had skipped town entirely because he'd found her, with Bucky, and he couldn't face Steve after that but at least he'd understood that Steve could never know.

Only now Steve did.

He never would've. Never should've.

But apparently the universe had different ideas.

Of the millions of people you could bump into on the street in New York City.

It was them. Barnes and Rogers, because the stars brought them together once and she wasn't superstitious and she didn't believe in fate but the odds were impossible and yet, here they were.

Here they were.

There was no going back now.

 

The bell crashed more than rang, and half the customers in the shop snapped up in curiosity at the disheveled, outta-breath man who’d just barreled through the doorway.

“Hi, sorry, my name’s Bucky, and I’m looking for a...a friend’a mine, he might’ve stopped by earlier today, tall, blonde, all buffed up, real blue eyes, sweet as hell, you’d’ve remembered him--”

“Sorry, son. Haven’t seen him.”

 

They were just closing up after the afternoon crowd when the kid burst through the swinging door, dark hair curling over his forehead and parted pink lips matching the cold-burn on his sharp cheekbones, glinting arm catching everyone’s attention and just-as-flashy crystal eyes setting all the waitresses into some kinda awed frenzy as he put one hand on the counter, leaned over with this desperate tone,

“Hi, did anyone happen to see a collision outside your windows a few hours ago? There was a blonde, tall, I ran into him and--”

The manager rolled out from the back room, taking one look at the wide-eyed waitresses and snapping at the incomer who was clearly not there as a customer. He’d be surprised if the kid had more than twenty-five cents on him.

“You have any idea how many people come by here? I don’t even have time to look out those windows, let alone track down some guy for you, okay?”

 

“You mean that guy that collapsed? Blonde, good-lookin’, just tumbled down on the pavement?” The clerk paused, glancing between the sudden whirr of the weird prosthetic and the somehow bright-hopeful and dark-devastated look on the beauty’s face at her words. “Yeah, some people tried to help him out and he just took off.”

A panicked rushed huff and she could swear the guy’s heart was gonna burst outta his chest, the way it was straining beneath that tight black shirt, breathy words all but tumbling out,

“You know which direction?”

“I don’t, sorry. Rush came in.”

 

Distraught, distraught was really the only word for the look on the young’un’s face. Funny, something familiar about that look, about the whole way the youngster carried himself. Reminded him of his past, back in the years when this store was sellin’ things for a penny instead’a two bucks.

Or maybe it was all those old movies. He had that aura, that classic Hollywood look, not Brad Pitt, more Marlon Brando.

“Really wish I could help. But no, didn’t see anybody. I can ask around if you want--”

“That’d be great, yeah, thanks. And if you hear anything, or remember anything, you can call me at this number, okay? I uh. I just. I really need to find him.”

He took the card the kid held out, glancing down at the name. J.B. Rogers. Even sounded like a movie star.

“Wish y’luck, kid.”

“Thanks.” A tight smile that crinkled the cleft in his chin, lines next to his eyes that were deeper than they should’a been on a kid that young. Maybe he wasn’t so young after all.

Really did wish luck to that one. Might be a bit hard’a hearing now, but he heard the muttered, desolate words on his way out,

“God knows I’m gonna need it.”

 

“Did you happen to see--”

“This is New York, kid. Try the goddamned police station. File a missing person’s report. But if you’re not gonna buy something, there’s a line--”

 

What am I fighting for if it ain’t you?

It was stupid, but the remaining straggling members of the NY Hydra division knew he was here, and so did Natasha Romanoff, and Steve, in a way, so he’d like to have a weapon, that wasn’t totally irrational, was it?

Stealing was not a walk in the park, and he’d been outta training for anything that wasn’t goddamned college yoga since October, but he managed to pull off rounding up two knives and a gun. Everything else he’d have to depend on the arm, which wasn’t a big deal but.

Jesus, his arm. The arm that early this morning, hadn’t even been a weapon.

But now the sun was going down and Steve’d disappeared and no one had any idea where he went, spanned a ten block radius and there was nothing, no sign of anything that could point to Steve and there weren’t alotta options left.

Maybe the stupid part was that he’d really thought he could just bump into Rogers again, find him that easy. Like he’d be out wandering the streets calling Bucky’s name when they’d been right there, face to face and Bucky hadn’t had any idea who he was.

Just the sun. Always the goddamned sun.

Was it awful, how quickly he’d accustomed to having Rogers as a last name? How easy it was to respond to that when his friends called aloud?

How easy it was to have friends?

Bucky sucked in a freezing breath, willing the snow right down to his bones, a price he’d pay if it’d clean him free.

The metal fingers worked on autopilot, slipping the apartment key from his pocket, wiggling open the lock and pushing the door open, standing there at the threshold.

It was surreal, being back here, at Jimmy’s apartment. His, technically.

It’d been so easy. Even with the confusion, the total lack of answers, it was so much easier than any other life he’d lived.

There’d been a day, a day nearly a year ago, Stark tower bedroom, staring into blue eyes as Steve pinned him down to the bed and confessed, for the second time,

James Buchanan Barnes. I...love you.

And Bucky’d teared right up. Only hours after he’d ripped open his soul to tell Steve that he was the one who’d begged Hydra to wipe his memories because he couldn’t handle losing Steve and it was so fresh, big looming cloud right there to take the new sunshine rays I love you head on and he’d. He’d told Steve--

N-now that you know what happened last time? Don't you see why I can't let that happen again?

Blinked watery eyes open and Steve was propped on one elbow, gazing down at him with that serious, caring expression, hand shifting into Bucky's hair as he listened quietly. Now Bucky was the one pleading, running his hand up down Steve's arm, trying to get him to understand.

"I turned into a deadly assassin because I lost you. Can you imagine if I actually had you - like that, completely - and I lost you? I can't picture anything worse than the monster I became as the Winter Soldier, but I promise, somehow, it would be."

I promise, somehow, it would be.

Picture-poster walls and perky handwriting scrawled on the whiteboard and a simple meal in the little fridge he’d made last night while bopping around the kitchen, college textbooks scattered instead of AK’s, knives and.

And empty, empty, all that empty happiness staring him in the face, no reflection in shivering ice as he pressed a metal hand to the cryofreeze window, just swooping blue curtains over the empty view out a sweet little apartment window.

He couldn’t take this, not one bit of it. He wanted Steve. He just wanted Steve.

He was back here, when he should be out there, looking for Steve.

But if he wasn’t on the streets, it was pretty clear there was one place Steve was, and it wasn’t somewhere Bucky could go.

Not the place itself, anyways. But the people with him.

No point in doing anything tonight, Steve was already with Them, had to be, and he had to have a battle plan and that was easier to do with a pen in hand.

Anything you say can and will be held against you, so only say my name.

He didn’t wanna keep doing this. Just wanted back in those arms.

He was so goddamn. tired.

Just wanted this to be over now. Please, take it from him, please. Let the night slip into his soul and drag him back into starshine windows.

Sometimes the day just. Ends.

Ends, like someone’s life at the end of a bloody blade.

It took everything not to cry out as he dug the heels of his hands against his eyes, forcing the flashes to leave him be.

If you love me, don’t let go.

Promise, it’d be worse.

How could he--

Couldn’t think about that. He’d torture himself.

But how was he ever supposed to get back to Steve if he couldn’t face the fact that he’d slit the throat of one of their family members?

And. Y’know.

Killed the second most important person in both their lives.

No, no, he could maybe maybe make himself face what he did to Tony - he’d have to if he ever found the guts to go to the fucking tower and find Steve - but he did not once ever ever for the rest of his life have to think about the look on Peggy Carter’s fac--

Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck, why hadn’t he left New York?!?

Steve never would’a found him and neither would Natasha, pretending to be his friend.

He didn’t have friends.

Just family left, and he’d betrayed them all and he couldn’t keep doing this.

How could Tony ever forgive him? How could he even ask Tony to forgive him?

Let alone what Steve thought--

No, he wasn’t gonna psych himself out. There was nothing now that could convince him to pull a stunt like that again.

Not with the memory of Steve’s shattered desperation all over his face when he said who the hell is Bucky for the second goddamn devastating time.

He couldn’t do that to Steve again. He’d never seen that twisted beautiful face in that much pain in all their years combined.

And that was a lot of years.

The wood was starting to creak from how much he was pacing but he couldn’t stand still, not when everything was hanging in this awful rock-and-a-hard-place balance. The hell was he supposed to do?

United we stand. Divided we fall.

He’d wiped his memories, gone blank, and still, Steve’d been there.

In every choice he’d made everyday.

Engraved in his soul.

The adoption papers for the golden retriever were still on the kitchen counter.

Leftovers of Steve’s favorite dinner meal still in the fridge.

Red blankets over his blue and white comforter. Yoga mat for sun salutations. Decor carefully placed to accent the frame on the wall, the colored sketch he’d stolen from Steve’s notebook.

The goddamned sonnet he’d spent a week on.

Bucky sucked in stale air, sinking carefully on the edge of the bed he’d slept in for months that felt nothing like his right now.

It was right there, in his notebook, all the proof he’d ever need.

Memory erasing wasn’t enough, not to get rid of Steve. He’d have to erase his entire brain. Everything. Even Hydra hadn’t dared do that.

And look. Look what happened when they didn’t.

He didn’t need memories to remember Steve Rogers.

.::. Sonnet 14 .::.

O’er glowing sun who whispers to the moon
Racing fast through fogging red mist slips night
The summer shines a light and darkness swoons
Ghosts of warming hands - no one hears him cry

It's stepping concrete streets turned cobblestone
Years past echo beneath, barely unseen
Once was a promise through all black masks shone
Now the moon lies night, wonder what it'd been

Broken bones this patriot bright and fierce
Who'd give that darkened soul a gold embrace
T’is only dreams relive those fallen years
And slumber, crystal shards recall the face

But what of false consciousness does portray
If the sun is gone in the light of day?

JBR
January ‘16

Who was he kidding. He could no more leave Steve than he could carve out his own soul. To go back to that tower, to the people he’d betrayed…he’d have to. He’d do anything to go home, but Steve was the only home he had now and if he had to go through the one he’d broken to get there he’d do it.

Nothing could change the hell he’d put his team through, the family he’d sliced up and destroyed, and he’d give anything to be able to fix it but it was simply too late.

He didn’t have a place there anymore, which meant the one thing Bucky’d never wanted Steve to have to do.

He’d have to choose, between them.

The Avengers or Bucky. Because they couldn’t go back to how they were before. He’d never asked Steve to do anything like that before.

Bucky’d never even asked Steve to chose between him and the war. He’d already known the answer.

But this time? This time, there was no I know what you’re gonna say, Buck. This time he was blind, reaching out for Steve behind black plastic and begging whatever stars would listen that it wasn’t too late.

Like fireworks we pull apart the darkness; brilliance turns to ash.

The moment the sun rose, he’d be on the tower’s doorstep.

One more battle to ride, and this time he wasn’t leaving without Steve. No, not without you, never again without you.

Because now, now he knew life without Steve and he knew, it wasn’t living at all.

Worse, Bucky saw the look on his face and he knew for Steve, it was worse than not living. For Steve, it was death.

What am I trying for, what am I crying for, what am I dying for if it ain’t you?

The sun rose over the horizon and it was his best shot of finding Steve.

Sergeant Bucky Barnes still just looking for the best shot and the crosshairs were on the only place he’d never meant to target, the only place that’d given him an unquestionable home, the only place he wanted to be at, safe, more than anything and the only place he’d irreversibly, permanently ruined. The only place he was never welcome again.

And here goes.

 

“It could be worse.”
"There is nothing worse than war," Passini said respectfully.
“Defeat is worse."
“I do not believe it," Passini said still respectfully. "What is defeat? You go home.”

 

The tall glass rose in the distance, a peak amongst many only no one missed the enormous A at the top, the jutting quinjet platform.

Bucky squinted up through the glinting sunlight, metal shading his eyes as he rounded one block closer. He’d sat up on that quinjet platform, stood at the edge of it staring down and wondering how bad the fall would be.

Didn’t feel all that much better looking up at the fall now.

Don’t you wonder when the light begins to fade?

Only one more stretch of sidewalk, and he’d be at the lobby doors. A burst of cold wind made him pause, turning to catch his breath, tug his coat collar up higher.

It’d been so long.

A deep inhale and Bucky lifted his head, squaring his shoulders at the building that stood for all of it. Left, right, left, this soldier was going to march right through those doors.

He hadn’t been this nervous scouting a single Hydra base during the war, a single target with Hydra’s weapons in hand.

Because that wasn’t him anymore, neither of those were. And this life? Wasn’t his anymore either.

If he had time, he’d mourn the loss of every life he’d lost, but the last one might be the only chance he got to finally get it right, and that started here. Back from the dead.

Bucky Barnes ran a hand over his pomade, gathered every ounce of courage he had left, and pushed a metal palm against the doors.

 

His hands were over his face when his pocket started vibrating and the only thing he could think was Jesus Christ, not now.

He’d never been so kvetched with technology as he was in the flash second of the vibration, fingers twitching to hurl his damn cell across the plaster-white hallway.

They’d spent more time in the past year in these damn places than he’d spent in his entire life. Which said a lot, considering all the trouble he’d gotten into as a kid and oh yeah, their line of work.

But it wasn’t the Avengers that landed ‘em in here. Actually, counting every reason they’d crashed some sterile ward since SHIELD went down? All pointed to the same bloody (literally) reason.

Sanitarium might as well be an asylum at this rate.

Certainly felt like he was going mad, staring at the vibrating phone in his palm. Couldn’t everything just stop, for one second? Life just needed to stop happening.

First Natasha disappeared, then Clint, then Sam came to him with a plan for crisis intervention with Rogers only nothing was working and even Bruce didn’t have any brilliant ideas and his nightmares weren’t getting any better and Pepper had started sleeping in a different room on weeknights because she needed the quality sleep to run the company he couldn’t even bring himself to think about right now because all those inventions, innovations he was always making weren’t getting anywhere because he couldn’t goddamn think when he couldn’t even fucking close his eyes without seeing that fucking mask and there wasn’t a single person left on the team who was remotely okay and then he gets a call in the middle of the fucking day from Natasha Romanoff panicking about how Rogers is fucking passed out in some alley and now Clint had appeared outta nowhere too and everyone was here and fretting around like fucking crazy and Tony couldn’t breathe, he really couldn’t breathe and he’d had to leave the goddamned hospital room before he had a panic attack but here he was having a panic attack in the hallway anyways and then his phone fucking vibrates and he can’t handle one single more thing on top of this shit right now.

Not one.

It physically hurt inside but he jammed the reject call button.

There was literally nothing Maria had to say right now that could possibly trump his ex-best friend in the hospital after fading off the goddamned planet for the past three months and Tony couldn’t remember the last time he’d even spoke to Rogers, let alone had those blank eyes return the gaze instead of staring out the goddamned glass windows for hours at end.

What was he supposed to do? He’d tried every goddamned thing he could think of and no invention was scraping his way outta this mess and he still! couldn’t breathe.

One step at a time, just one damn thing at a time--

Bzzz The phone went off again and he didn’t give himself time to curse because he was about to smash the damn thing if he didn’t pick the fuck up.

“What can you possibly need,” he snapped, technology whirring against his ear and he’d get Hill flowers or something to apologize next week but he couldn’t handle this right now.

“Sir, we have a situation.”

That serious, professional voice and what kinda fucking situation could be more relevant than Rogers in the hospital?

“Maria, handle it. In case you haven’t heard, I’ve kinda got stuff on my plate right now.” A nurse passing by gave him a mild glare for practically shouting in the receiver but he didn’t give a damn, he didn’t give a single damn. Nothing she said could possibly b--

“It’s Sergeant Barnes.”

His head snapped up, eyes wide in an unbelievable mix of total fear and bitch did you just--

shocked as he’d be if Bucky’d lifted a gun straight to his face and pulled the trigger, no hesitation - never expected Bucky to actually fire.

Or slit his throat with that Hydra pocket knife.

Still had the scar.

“He’s in the lobby of the tower. Security stopped him, but he doesn’t look like he’s leaving anytime soon.”

His home. His worst nightmare was at his home. What if he’d been there? What if he’d been in the lobby per chance?

How the hell was he back? It’d been months. He’d just been starting to think--

What, he’d finally be safe? Who was he?

“Sir? What action to you request?”

What action. Running all the way to the Eastern Hemisphere wasn’t really an option, so.

The funny thing was, he’d liked Barnes. A lot, he’d really felt for the kid. Some…connection between them, at least mutual respect for another scientific genius. Ever since that first day he’d snuck into Steve’s old apartment and cheap-talk bargained Bucky to come back to the tower with him to work on the arm.

It felt like another lifetime. Another man.

The kid he’d teased about their loud sex life, the friend he’d thrown popcorn at on movie nights, how could that possibly be the monster that’d shown him the first real terror he’d felt in ages?

But it was. And the monster was back. What action did he request?

Yeah, he wasn’t going back to the tower now. And god knows Barnes had no qualms about beating the fuck outta his tower when he was living there, so it wasn’t like barring him from the doors was gonna do a damn thing.

Only thing that probably would? Fuck, he didn’t wanna pin this on her. She’d dealt with his shit too long, she didn’t deserve to confront the fucking Winter Soldier on top of it all.

Barnes wouldn’t hurt her. He had to believe that. Had to have faith that while Bucky could bleed Tony out on some dirty warehouse floor, he wouldn’t lay a hand on Tony’s girl.

A panicked inhale and he couldn’t stay silent for the rest of forever, as tempting as that was. Maybe I ought to cut out your tongue. Do the world a real favor.

“Send down Pepper,” he breathed, eyes squeezed shut and fingers curled, digging into skin that couldn’t drag him outta this nightmare now.

 

~*~Forever younger growing older just the same. ~*~

 

Walking into the flames to call out Steve’s name.

Charred wood, metal with scorch marks and bullet ricochets, crumbling down around with that awful burning smell--

Clean glass, reflections and white smooth plastic, echoing scrubbed tiles all too-clean office building.

Pushing through fallen beams, shielding from another popping explosion, hands caked in dirt and blood dripping down his collar, voice hoarse as he called through a scratchy throat, bouncing haunted off dark corners,

Rogers!

Bumped shoulder against a glaring business man, a throng of clicking heels and solid briefcases, fake potted plants and speakers drilled into the ceiling, caught whisper on cracking lips echoing through light corridors,

“Rogers?”

Silent, silent war boots came to a quiet skidding stop, panicked rushing feet stammering into stillness as if his heart could ever do the same.

And a soldier stared at the reflecting glass mirage before him as it all came rushing back.

The Winter Soldier stood in front of a glasspanel Bucky Barnes exhibit and everything’d changed. Now, Bucky Barnes stood in front of one more panel, blank glass, crystal clear reflecting glass and there was nothing in there but him, no rhetoric etched in white, no black and white flashing video of smiling boys in uniform.

This time the museum was the Stark Tower, the endless glass lobby of the Stark Tower, Avengers Tower, the only home in this century he’d ever known happiness in.

Only it wasn’t the man Steve’d danced with on the roof staring back at him, it wasn’t the sharp-mouthed, crooked-smile ghost that Steve ran fingers through long silky hair, it wasn’t the metallic-armed soldier carefully, slowly building a home, building friends, building family.

The 1945 war hero was staring back at him.

Brown leather jacket, short hair pushed into a subconscious sidesweep that’d dislodged those few, curving pieces in the brisk walk over, the exact same man that’d stared back at him from the mirror behind the bar as Steve’d leaned over and asked,

“You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”

Side glance, glass tipped to smiling lips, Steve’s soft, bashful smile in return, blue eyes cutting down as crystal sparkled, so sincere he scared himself.

Only, only piece left that didn’t match was those crystal eyes. Those weren’t Sergeant James Barnes’ sparkling, haunted crystal eyes, those weren’t Jimmy’s laughing innocent ones, the Winter Soldier’s cold terrifying ones.

He wasn’t Bucky Barnes and he wasn’t the Winter Soldier, he was somewhere in between and he’d never be able to shake either, he’d never...

The crowd was still passing by behind him, various employees and guests passing by, swishing suits and clicking heels, and one of them’d just come back from the river. The docks, the crisp smell of the docks washed over his head like a tidal wave and he was standing by the water laughing, tossing a rock at the crystal river to see if he could skip it more than Steve’s, ripple less tears from crystal sockets--

Chest expanding, a deep breath in and his eyes slipped shut, closing against the ocean, settling perfectly still in that quiet quiet absence of a whirr, and there. Just like the rain, he was always falling, two solid feet flying towards too-solid ground.

He was the closest place he had to home and he was terrified.

The hole inside his chest ached, rimmed with metal like everything else and he wanted to stay, he wanted to race up those stairs and go crashing through the door that’d open to that room where it’d happened, glass open over the city, right up top looking down at the broken rollercoaster, Brooklyn Bridge sloping in the distance.

He just wanted to come home, to Nat’s rolling eyes and Sam’s orange juice and Bruce’s brief smiles and Tony’s raised-eyebrow comments--

Tony.

The shut eyes squeezed tight, fists curling up and head ducking, crumbling instinctively against the horror that’d crawled up his spine and latched thick black claws into his shoulders, whispering low freezing ice into his ear.

What he’d done to Tony.

”The only reason you're not dead is because you have a key to Rogers' apartment. Why are you here?"

”To see you," the man answered simply, then his half-assed surrender hands dropped lazily to his sides and he strode into Steve's kitchen.

That's the nice thing about Tony. The rest of them? They only see the tragedy. He thinks...he thinks we're human.

"Spill." Tony swung his leg over the chair, straddling it as he blocked Bucky into the corner of the communal floor he'd escaped to.

"What, blood? I'm pretty good at that." Bucky raised a cocky, triumphant eyebrow and Tony could swear it was like looking straight in a mirror.

He stroked his beard thoughtfully, giving Barnes an unimpressed eyebrow-raise of his own.

"You and Steve. It's a fucking rollercoaster. He wants to help you and you want..." Tony trailed off, waving his hand in the air to indicate Barnes to fill in the rest.

Instead he scowled, leaning back and crossing shiny arms over his chest. "I don't need anyone. Or anything. I'm perfectly fucking functional on my own."

"You even listen to the boyfriends playlist I made you? Everybody needs somebody."

"Everybody wants somebody. And even if I did want Steve..." Bucky trailed off, staring down at his metal hand and twitching his fingers, sending a whirring ripple down his arm. Tony knew that look. Again, mirror.

"Let me guess. He's an American beauty and you're an American psycho?"

Bucky's head snapped up, staring at Tony with wide eyes.

"Yes, exactly," Bucky breathed, eyes glittering with relief that someone had finally said it aloud.

So when were you planning on telling everyone you guys are makeout buddies now?

"Do you think...there's a chance that I'm the best thing for him?"

"You heard the song," Tony replied quietly, swirling his glass around in his drink and right, Bucky wasn't the only emotionally destroyed person around here, he forgot that sometimes.

“...chased that feeling, of an 18yr old who didn't know what loss was," Tony broke into a reluctant smile, rolling his eyes as he took the next line and Barnes whooped. "--now I'm a straanger."

"Avengers Movie Night is still Friday and if you two aren't there, I know where you sleep. Actually, I setup where you sleep, I'd be careful if I were you--"

"We'll be there, Tony," Steve assured, knocking his shoulder against Stark's.

“Bucky--” Tony started and that was as far as he got.

“You're the last person to ever call me that,” Barnes said thoughtfully, metal hand latching onto the rafter tight enough to make it groan, creak and compress. “Congratulations. I aught to cut out your tongue.”

C’mon, Stark, you ever shut that big mouth’a yours? Steve is trying to drive.

“I'm nothing--” A pause, crushing silence filled with quiet choking sounds,.

“...but a ghost story,” Bucky finished and Tony gagged, blood splattering, dark eyes rolling back in his head.

This used to be his home.

Jesus fuck, his home. What was he supposed to do? Tony could never take him back in. He could never dream of asking him to. How could they throw popcorn at each other on movie night, work side by side in the lab on that flying car--

He didn’t belong here anymore. He didn’t belong in this tower, he could never come back to this life.

Everything Steve’d built, everything he’d built, gone. He’d ruined his place in Steve’s family, in Steve’s life, the hell made him think he could come beg for forgiveness?

But he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t walk outta here without Steve, he could not keep on surviving without at least trying to explain to Rogers, he couldn’t--

Never giving up on Steve again. Too late for everyone else in this building, but he wasn’t leaving Steve ever again. He’d fucking done that once. He’d thought maybe, without him, Steve might have a shot at happiness. Maybe the same way Steve’d thought when he’d shouted at him across that exploding fire, twisting metal, Just go, get outta here.

The surprise on Steve’s face, when he’d found out Bucky wasn’t leaving without him, it didn’t last long. Shoulda known.

And hell, Bucky shoulda known too. It went both ways, this thing. No not without you -- for him too. For him too.

He wasn’t leaving, not this time. Steve needed him, and he’d do whatever it goddamned took to pull him outta that alley.

Crystal eyes slowly blinked open, glass reflection staring back at him. Comets, and there was that fire. The tiniest spark yet. Hydra hadn’t burned it all outta him with that acorn drawing, even he hadn’t been able to burn it outta himself no matter how hard he tried.

Always kept burning for Steve.

One more bloody inhale and dancing heel spin. Cracked lips couldn’t unspill blood but parted anyways, one more broken confession to the snowy blue sky.

“I need to see Tony Stark.”

 

“And Tony expects me to be civil to him?”

“He was a member of the team--”

“Maria, he almost killed him. He tried, to kill Tony, he slit his throat and left him to bleed out in some-- some dirty warehouse, with nightmares to haunt him for the rest of his life!”

Maria pursed her lips, looking down and tucking a stray strand of brown hair behind her ear, giving Pepper a moment to fume before offering a sympathetic head tilt to the door.

“I can go talk to him.”

Pepper inhaled sharply and looked up at the ceiling, counting down from ten and reminding herself to be patient. If it were reversed, if it were Tony in that lobby, what would Steve do?

The air deflated her chest with a sigh, looking down and smoothing a hand over the pleats of her skirt. “Thank you, Maria, but I should handle this.”

Glancing back up, Maria still looked hesitant to let her go, worry etched in with familiar caution. Pepper offered a smile, mouth turned up resigned at the corners. “It’s what Tony and Steve would want.”

She nodded gratefully for the support as she started for the door, heels clicking sharply to match the grim expression. Maria reached out as she passed, a gentle comforting hand on her arm and Pepper paused, taking a moment to put her hand over Maria’s, trusting her to take care of them all if anything went wrong.

Then the powerwalk was off for the elevator, red ponytail swishing behind her and Maria turned her comm back on, headed for her desk and wondering distantly if this week could possibly get any more dramatic.

 

The heels came first. Same sound as the heels Peggy wore, clicking through that bar. Same sound as the heels Natasha wore, clicking to tell him he had to leave Steve. For good.

It’d almost conditioned him now, the sound of clicking heels and a new era of his life coinciding. Behind him, he could see that red hair in the reflection of the glass, standing waiting, and this could be the last breath he took before the end of his world again.

1) You love him.  2) You can’t love him.

3) He doesn’t love you?

“Sergeant Barnes?”

The expectant voice cut through the fog, his name echoing off glass and white corners, the title he wasn’t sure he deserved anymore.

One trained heel spun around, same way he did everytime a uniform addressed him like that, hand stiffening by his side and barely kept from lifting in salute.

And there was the face of the first family member he’d seen since this nightmare.

Ginger hair pulled back in an elegant ponytail, crisp white suit, perfect lipstick, perfect eyeliner, red heels planted on white tile, head cocked just a touch as she looked at him, stood there and simply looked at him, once-caring expression turned the blank expectance of the woman that ran a multinational billionaire cooperation, not the softie-aunt who’d lent him hairties and bright smiles.

“Ms. Potts,” Bucky breathed, broken sounds and a hell of a lot less breathless than he felt. He had to look like a ghost, turning to familiar green eyes with the face of the Sergeant who’d died, the cracked voice of the monster she’d beat at chess in her living room.

Or their old living room, the same name breathed panicked outta Steve’s swollen mouth, the lips that’d just been locked on Bucky’s moments before she’d walked in on them making out on the table and.

A different lifetime.

Something flashed behind green, the quickest of microexpressions before the statue shifted, head tipping to swish the sleek ponytail to the side as two deceptively thin arms crossed over her chest.

“What are you doing here?” Lips pursing as she looked at him, serious across all this white distance between them and he’d never felt so underdressed in his life. Here Pepper was, professional and cold and he was fumbling through memories and thoughts of family lost.

What was he doing here? What was he doing here?

“I need to see Steve.”

He’d been saying it aloud for the past day, battering shopkeepers and pedestrians in search of what intelligence he could gather but somehow this was the first time he’d spoken Steve’s name in months. It was the first time he’d said it to someone who knew exactly who he was talking about.

Who knew the blue eyes and callused hands and quick sarcasm, the man who ran through Brooklyn streets barefoot and told the story with red highlighting his cheeks over the shy, secretly proud twinge of a smile--

Pepper didn’t say a single thing. She just stood there, waiting, looking at him.

Distant. He’d never wanted to be on this side of her, the one that saw him as an intrusion, or worse, a dull threat that forced her into that powerful independent businesswoman stance, something to be intimidated by and intimidate right back.

A standoff in Stark’s lobby was the last thing he wanted today, but. It could be worse, Tony could’ve come swinging in here in full titanium-alloy suit--

Tony.

Metal fingers twisted subconsciously in the weathered seam of brown leather, wishing these army hands could ever get clean.

She couldn’t just keep him out. This was Steve. He was every exception in the world and his soul was crushed but talking to the cold CEO Pepper Potts was the only to way to get Steve back.

Are you aware the shape I’m in?

“I need to see Steve,” again, slow, careful, as unthreatening as possible but he couldn’t help the fists his fingers curled, couldn’t help the single step forward in desperation. “Pepper, where is he?”

Red heels took one solid step backwards and Bucky’s chest shattered but he couldn’t focus on that, he had to get Steve back, that was all that mattered.

“Please, I have to see him.” Still thinks I don’t remember him. “I-I. Listen, Pepper, you don’t get what I did--”

“I know full well what you did.” Head tipped and gaze flashing, a sharpness he’d never had directed at him before.  “I’m the one that Tony wakes up with his nightmares.”

Green narrowing colder and Bucky’s chest didn’t crack that time, all the air seized inside his chest as his lungs froze twice as icy as that look.

All the color drained from his face, pressing pale lips together as wide eyes cut away from hers, to the ground, his hands, back up again and his fingertips were shaking now, so long as he kept his knees steady that was all that mattered.

Tony’s knees collapsing, dull thud in the splashing puddle of blood and there was so much blood, everywhere, staining the brick and Tony’s choking throat and his crushing hands--

“I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry.” The whisper ripped from somewhere deep, deep enough that he could be choking on blood now as metal worried through his hair, cold ripple down his spine doing nothing to keep the red from flashing and his knees were shaking now too. “Jesus, Tony, I--”

Lungs cut up, oxygen depletion making him gasp, flush of bright up his spine into his brain and he couldn’t take it, couldn’t think about Tony right now he’d lose his fucking mind.

Blue. Blue, not red, there was sunshine somewhere underneath all that blood and he’d done time, he’d pay for that for the rest of his goddamned life but he couldn’t leave Steve bleeding out on his knees on that street corner in Queens either.

He needed to find him, now.

“But Steve, Steve, he was never supposed to know, he was s’pposed to think I was gone but I fucked up, I fucked up and he knows and I dunno why I didn’t just go for g-good, I should’a left New York, fuck, left the goddamned country but I didn’t and Steve, he saw me and it all came back and I can’t. and I can’t--”

Breathe, he couldn’t breathe.

He’d put his hands on his knees, fill his lungs up from the escalating rant into hysteria only if he did, there’d be no blue sleeve to reach out and catch this time, no shut the fuck up Steve I can’t breathe because there was no Steve, there was no Steve and he couldn’t keep letting Steve bleed out from this Stevie still thought Bucky didn’t remember him, again, and that was the only thing Steve’d ever wanted from him and the only thing Bucky’d ever really promised and he’d forgotten, no, worse, he’d lost Steve and then left him on his knees on the sidewalk and he couldn’t keep this diplomatic bullshit up anymore, he’d blow up the fucking tower if he had to.

“I have to see him,” Bucky gasped, shoulders heaving, human hand pinching the corners of his eyes, trying to get his lungs back, lips parted as he looked back up at Potts and forced himself to tone down the intensity in his eyes, didn’t want crystal murder here, but he wasn’t asking questions anymore, it was a demand as he barely managed words through ragged inhales, “Right n-now. Pepper, where is he.”

“He’s not here.” Sharp gaze studying him, arms crossing tighter over her chest as she shifted her weight, watched him with openly cautious eyes, stark disapproval he’d only seen reserved for the cataclysmic events that ended in some sort’a explosion. It was remarkable, how steady her voice was as she leveled those pursed red lips and green eyes at him, eyebrows raised deadly serious. “And if you’re going to be a threat to anyone in this building, you need to leave.”

“Miss Potts, please--” Another ragged gasp and he shut his eyes, forcing inhales through his nose so he could maybe get a fucking handle on himself. A few moments to gather himself and he was never gonna get Rogers back like this, he had to communicate, make her understand that she had to Take Him To Steve.

“James Buchanan.”

Stern, the way she scolded him sometimes around the tower and it was the least cold thing she’d said to him or maybe it was the most but either way it was familiar, in so many ways, Sarah used to call him that too and she had to understand.

“I need to…I need to see him.” Slowly blinked both eyes back open, sniffing once and wiping a hand haphazardly across gathering eyelashes. Watering crystal as hands dropped back to his sides, shoulders deflating and chest ready to cave in with just one more swing.

Pepper eyed him, gaze flicking over the single raintrack slipping down his cheek before he had time to wipe it away.

The anger shifted, some complex emotion stuffed with exasperation and betrayal she’d only reserved for Tony’s stupidest stunts, the ones that got people or himself almost killed and Bucky tried not to run forward and melt in familiar arms as Pepper carefully, cautiously took a few steps closer.

“How could you do this?” A shocked hush, arms falling out of their crossed anger, one manicured hand lifting to indicate the elevator behind her, the places that lead, the tower, all the memories he had to leave behind. “He trusted you.”

He didn’t need the betrayed bite in Pepper’s voice to hear what she didn’t say, and he doesn’t trust anyone, didn’t need the watering green eyes to tell him it wasn’t just Tony she was talking about.

There was nothing he could say, forgiveness he could ask for, but he lifted his eyes to try anyways. Sharp click with one more step forward and was close enough to nearly be looking up at him now, almost level on the pointed heels. Level like they were equals, like Bucky somehow even deserved this conversation.

He trusted you.

“Both of them did,” Pepper amended, sharp shake of her head as lips pursed again, tight with pain. “Everyone did. We were your family.”

Family.

“It was the only way.” The broken words didn’t do anything to alleviate the hurt and Bucky just wanted to plead that these weren’t the only green eyes that’d questioned and prodded him and Tony’d trusted him but he’d trusted Natasha and he still had no idea what she’d been trying to do.

Was this a test? If it was, he’d failed miserably. At least she’d still been there for the aftermath--

But she’d said. And he’d believed her.  

“It was the only way,” Bucky whispered again, fingers uncurling to reach for her wrist, to show her how much he hadn’t meant to hurt them, to plead, to beg, something, anything--

And she flinched. She flinched like he was gonna strike her and he recoiled so fast he could feel the tears bubbling in his throat, making it hard to breathe again. “I’m so. So s-sorry.”

Wide green eyes stared at him and he could hear how much faster her heart was pounding now but it was nothing compared to the drums in his throat, in his head. Throats, slit, spilling droplets of blood over metal--

Pepper straightened, taking a step backwards and ducking her head to catch, force his gaze on hers as she held him there, paralyzed, and slowly, quietly, laid down the words to carve the tombstone he couldn’t face.

“Tony Stark was a prisoner of war held in captivity for three months. I know that’s a little less than four-thousandths of the seventy years you spent as a P.O.W, but you were the closest person to understanding him. You were more than family - you were his friend. A fellow scientist, a scholar,” waving hands as the facade crumbled, everything crystal fogging up around them, “--you worked alongside each other in his labs, you respected and valued each other in a way I don’t think many people ever could. He opened up his heart to you.”

Flash, lightning in the rain cold as the crystallizing reflection staring back at him.

“...and you tried to tear it out with your metal fist.”

Iron meets steel and metal screeched to crumple, knife sinking its final blow. He wasn’t gonna cry. He wasn’t. It wouldn’t help a damn thing. He’d spent half his life keeping his tears on the inside, fuck his eyes for watering now.

“In time, you know...there’s a chance he’d forgive you. You destroyed him, but he loves you, and he’d forgive you. But James? I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to. To get that call--” Pepper’s voice broke, a single crack betraying the pure facade. “...that call that he’s in the hospital? That he’s dying? That you were the one who’d--”

A rushed breath, hushed and horrified now and he could see it, could see the memory in her face, and it was the first time he wished he could look up under that veil of snakehair, hide behind anything that wasn’t ruffled pomade curling pieces nowhere long enough to hide the mirror in his eyes.

“And you just come waltzing back in here. Expecting us to hand Steve right over. Do you have any idea what it’s been like, to live with Steve after what you did?”

“He did live here?” Could barely manage the whisper. Pepper shook her head sharply once, burning etches into his soul.

“If you can call it living.”

Fuck. How was he supposed to--

Pepper just looked at him, anger and exasperation just sorrowful disappointment now. Course she was disappointed. Couldn’t forgive him. Like he honestly deserved forgiveness? Hadn’t deserved it the first time around, killing Tony’s parents, but Tony’d brushed it aside, said he understood POW’s, took Bucky into his home, into his heart.

And Bucky’d turned around to pull the trigger in his face.

Steve didn’t deserve this. None of them deserved the burden of Bucky Barnes. But he couldn’t keep hurting Steve either, he at least had to explain.

Steve’d stayed in New York. In the Stark Tower, somehow, stayed and waited for Bucky to come back to him. If you can call it living.

He didn’t know how he was supposed to keep looking Pepper in the eye.

“He’s not here now. He hasn’t been here in days.”

Days. Jesus, days ago Steve had been here, in the home they used to share. And now he was gone. For days, gone. But at least he hadn’t left the city, the state, the world.

There was a part of him that almost didn’t believe her, she’d lie to him as easy as Natasha had, he knew that much. But about this--

He’d know. Wouldn’t he? He’d be able to tell if he was in the same building as the love of his goddamned life. Fuck, what a damned life it was.

He’d tried. He’d keep trying. At least now the Avengers would know he was alive, still out there. Not that they’d ever thought differently. If they’d thought about him at all. He’d done nothing but fuck up every one’a their lives--

He really couldn’t be here any longer.

Bucky sucked in a breath lined with blades, nodding as quickly as he could, looking away from that hurt beautiful face. One more hand wiping over his eyes, clearing away all that water before it froze in the bitter wind outside.

He’d come in here worried Pepper’d tell him Steve didn’t love him anymore. It’d been worse than that though, in a way.

1) You love him.  2) You can’t love him.

3) We can’t love you.

The tiles creaked their goodbye as he turned on one heel, a single hesitant step but Pepper wasn’t stopping him, she wanted him to walk right out that door.

This was it. This could be the very last time he set foot in the Stark tower.

The pang that hit him in his chest at that thought, it wasn’t fair. Didn’t deserve to miss this place. But dear god, would he.

And there goes, one more goodbye.

Heaviest glass door he’d ever pried open. But somehow, couldn’t make himself step over the threshold. Bucky paused at the door, staring at the concrete just past the metal line, the line he might never get to cross back over.

”We looked for you, after.” Following slowly, solemnly behind small legs as they trampled up those wooden, rickety steps. Course Steve just wanted to be alone. That’s why he hadn’t pushed it.

Pause at the door.

“Thanks, Buck. But I can get by on my own.” Sorrow found him in those soft blue eyes, those sad blue eyes, and Bucky’s hair was slicked back, crisp suit, the church boy look that made his cheekbones, jawline feel too sharp in comparison to Steve’s soft features.

“Thing is,” Bucky paused, air sharp and drifting wind brushing past them in the quiet sanctuary of Steve’s ma’s porch and this was the moment everything changed, the moment Steve really got it. Finally let go. Leaned on Bucky’s shoulder the way he’d been insisting he could for so many years.

Bucky was so ready for his turn.

So ready to stand in that threshold and look up to see those blue eyes in his place, soft blonde hair over the quiet smile as Steve looked at him with all that sunshine warmth, key extended in artist fingers,

“Thing is. You don’t have to.”

The Winter Soldier could get by on his own, that was the whole point, the efficiency, the safety, the fear, that one day he wouldn’t be able to get by on his own with Steve when all along, it was so much simpler than that. Thing is, he didn’t have to.

Bucky was so ready to let go.

Come home.

And Steve wasn’t here.

He was waiting here in this doorway, but Steve wasn’t. Just the expectant, waiting, disappointed, sorry gaze of Pepper Potts, one hand holding the door open and the other practically waving him through.

Waiting for him to go.

“If he shows up,” Bucky managed, pushing the fallen strands off his forehead the way Steve used to with those unruly bangs, metal fingers holding out the slip of paper from his pocket, scrawled phone number from a fading pen.

She took the folded paper, not bothering to look down as she waited for him to go. He could see the security guard outta the corner of his eye, and he’d bet anything they were gonna lock the doors the moment he stepped outside. He had it coming. Had so much worse coming.

I don’t do that anymore.

“I’ll let you know if he’s moved here,” Pepper consoled finally, small pushing hand between his shoulderblades instead of a Skorpion, then he was on the concrete and the wind and cold enveloped his bones, wrapped him up in the only blanket he got to keep.

The door shut silently behind him, clicking into place and Bucky lifted his head, squinted out over the bustling street below. At least she’d said she’d let him know if Steve was mov--

Moved. Wait, what the fuck? Moved? Moved??

The heel in his shoe almost gave out as he spun back around again, opaque terrified version of Bucky Barnes blinking back at him in the reflecting glass, eyes wide as the green behind the reverberating barrier.

Moved?

Pepper seemed to be expecting it as he rattled the door handle, expression wild as he stared past the mirror, begging her to let him back in, tell him what the fuck was happening, give him something. Please, just one moment of mercy, what did she mean, moved.

Green held his. Then red swished, scattering across his vision and leaving him blinking in despair as clicking heels faded, too quiet to hear over the horns and traffic on the street, pedestrian rumble outside that sealed tower. Spun on one heel and gone, leaving him there with nothing but the bitter cold mirror of a man who’d never come home.

She knew where Steve was. And she hadn’t told him.

He wasn’t gonna break any more Stark glass. Not now, not ever again. Howard was probably sighing in relief in his grave and Bucky couldn’t let himself think about how he’d turned from the man who’d invented beside the Stark’s to the man who’d crashed through their technology with peeling metal and bitter cold wind.

Steve was gone. He was back to square one. Steve was gone.

But Pepper knew where he was. Which meant Bucky could damn well find out. Round two, here he came. Round twohundred, but he’d win.

So Steve’d evaded him, again, but Bucky wasn’t gonna let that blonde sunshine run forever.

I swear I'll always beat you, golden da-ays

~*~*~

It took some severe caffeine-induced self reflection and life intervention to get a damn grip on himself, but he finally managed to inhale enough shitty coffee and Manhattan cafe air to think somewhat in a rational direction.

Steve was being held somewhere. Because Pepper said if he’s moved, meaning it wasn’t his choice.

So that left three major possibilities - jail, a hospital, or an insane asylum.

Bucky inhaled more gold-flecked chocolate oxygen and tried not to choke on the cloying familiarity of the coffee shop. Coffee shops were about the only thing in this city that hadn’t turned 360 on its ass with the new generation.

Jail, hospital, or an insane asylum. Which of those was the least awful at this point?

Jail. He’d start with jail, because the other two...he couldn’t think about the other two. Bail Steve outta jail, he could do. He could definitely do. Punk kid never could keep his nose outta trouble, he’d been bailing Steve outta fights for half his life, one more was fine with him.

God knows what Steve Rogers had to do to land behind bars, but Bucky’d seen the look on his face when they last saw each other and at this point, it really wasn’t that much of a stretch. Like. At all.

He’d been pretty upset.

All Bucky had to do now was get his head on straight, march his way to the closest police station, and give the apology of his life through iron bars.

Okay. One more swig of caffeine his cells would metabolize before the bell over the door announced his exit and off he goes.

 

Of all things in the twenty-first century that hadn’t changed, he was most grateful for the good ol’fashioned debonair smile. Couldn’t dance his way outta things the way he used to, but Bucky Barnes’ Charm still went a long way in the frigid city.

Threw out one hip as he leaned on the edge of the front desk and flashed his best, most beautiful 30’s boy smile at the pretty fella working secretary.

Quickest strategy, and it worked a hellofalot better on people that attractive, used-to-being-hit-on meant less suspicious of ulterior motives, which he totally did not have.

“Excuse me sir, I was wonderin’ if you could help me out? I’m lookin’ for a friend, might’a been picked up some time yesterday?”

The desk officer glanced up sympathetically, slowly morphing into a smile as he picked up on Bucky’s body language. Well, if it were the thirties, he’d be hauled into one’a those cells himself. Hadn’t anticipated the cop stuck at the front desk to be a fella, but lucky for him the twenty-first century not only employed both sexes, but also tolerated flirting his way past both.

“Um...I don’t know if I can...do you have any I.D. on you, sir?”

Shit.

Lean a little deeper, smile a little wider. Take it slow, let the words catch up, bashful averting eyes and patting down pockets--

“Mm...oh no. Aw, man, must’ve left my wallet in the taxi--”

Another sympathetic sound and the officer glanced over his shoulder, back at Bucky’s carefully distraught face, offered a shy smile up at him.

“Tell you what, I’ll just glance in the system, see if there’s anything. It’s a shame about your wallet…”

Victory, phew, resume flirty smile and..the guy told him they didn’t have anything in their precinct. Well fuck.

“...any chance you still have your phone? I could always call you, if something came up?”

Bucky shifted his weight, trying not to look suddenly uncomfortable. It was just, all this flirting, the way that guy was looking at him--

It was the wrong color blue. Same way Steve’s uniform, all those years ago, had been the wrong color blue. Shoulda asked him, he had the damn color etched into the veins of his wrists.

Should be that blue lookin’ up at him like that. Should be Steve’s soft blonde hair, bashful ducking smile, runnin’ his fingers along the edge of that pretty jaw. One eyebrow cocked up, head tilted to the side with that half-smile as he lured his beautiful boy with some line straight outta the forties, tapping teasingly on that big white star in the middle of Steve’s chest, over that too big golden heart--

Fuck, he wanted to flirt with Steve. Wanted to see that hungry light beneath sweeping eyelashes, touch his fingertips lightly to the pounding pulse on Steve’s neck, red flushing down from his cheeks to his chest in that precious fullbody blush.

Tip forward, lean up on his toes as he let his lips ghost over the shell of Steve’s ear, whisper something low and obvious, free hand running metal shivers down Steve’s arm to entwine with graphite-smeared artist fingers--

At some point he must’ve seriously lost his step, because suddenly the officer was standing, looking at him concernedly as his fingertips brushed the edge of Bucky’s hand, taking his outstretched phone.

“You alright, sir?”

“Hmm? Yeah, just. Worried about my fel-- my friend.” He smiled tightly and it really wasn’t any use, he’d dropped the ball already, haunted frown drained all the innocence right outta his flirting act and that meant, fuck, he’d need a new strategy at the next station and.

The officer handed back his phone with one eyebrow up and he really was a good-looking fella but he wasn’t Bucky’s good-lookin’ fella.

One more shattered bright gaze and Bucky brought up his right hand, tapping it once on the man’s chest with the most charming smile he could manage and he was out the door before the officer could realize he’d gotten his badge lifted.

“And you couldn’t submit a formal request?”

“See, the thing is ma’am, I was on my way into station when my partner called and I was close enough to the neighborhood figured it’d be easier if I just dropped in and asked, avoid a couple days worth of unnecessary paperwork and bureaucratic hassle, jurisdiction disputes, all that red tape and whatnot--”

“Yeah, yeah, okay kid. What’d you say the perp looked like?”

He cringed at the word perp but hey, if Steve was in jail, the punk had’t’ve done somethin’ or another. And right now finding him mattered more than any of that, so.

“Blonde, 6’2, buff as hell, ridiculous shoulder to waist ratio?”

The female officer typed something in the computer, signaling for him to scoop his stolen badge back off the counter while she searched. Took everything in him not to dive over the desk, type goddamned faster. It was just, Steve could be in this building, sitting dejectedly on some bench while he waited for Tony to come pick him up--

Would he call Tony? To bail him out? Or would he call Sam? Or Natasha?

Would she pick up? Was she even on the team anymore? How the hell had she managed to avoid all Avengerly duties for the three months she’d been going to college with him?

“Alright Officer Jones, it looks like we’ve got one guy who might fit your profile. Irish fella?”

Bucky’s heart stopped in his chest. Sarah’s bedtime stories about the boat over from her motherland, the little Irish phrases they’d picked up as kids, the songs in Gaelic she used to sing, the Stiofan! when they were in big trouble.

“Yeah, yeah, that might be him,” he breathed, leaning over the desk a bit, fingers curling tight in his driving gloves. “You gotta picture?”

She straightened up and swiveled the screen his direction, electronic file pulled up. Blonde, buff, even had the blue eyes. Known affiliations: Irish Mafia. It wasn’t Steve.

It wasn’t Steve.

Somehow managed not to crumple. “Damn. Ain’t him...thanks though, for pullin’ that up.”

The smile was weak, knees weaker as he pushed himself off the counter, straightened out his jacket and wished distantly he could take the damn gloves off.

“Sure, kid. Wish you luck findin’ him.”

A quick nod and through another set of glass doors, imprint of leather fingertips for just a moment before they faded in the cold, bustling sidewalk opening up around him again, fingerplates twitching underneath the all-black cover.

He’d spent months not even thinking about the arm, but now he was slipping back into the habit of covering it up in public and fuck, he’d like to be comfortable around himself again but now wasn’t the time to dwell on that, not til he had Steve. Not til he knew if there was anything he was living for anyways.

Four precincts down, two dozen more to go. Great. This was going so wonderfully, just. Great.

“We can’t just give you that information.”

“Look, here’s my badge--”

“I see that, and you can get your superior to call if it’s really that important. Come back tomorrow kid, we’re pretty damn busy in here, ‘case you hadn’t noticed.”

At least he held in the aggrieved groan until he was on the sidewalk again.  

That was his third come back tomorrow. It’d already been a day and a half. Almost two, with the way the sun was hugging the horizon.

But he wasn’t gonna quit, couldn’t quit now. He’d check every goddamned station in this city through midnight, if he had to.

Which. Four hours later, looked like he might have to.

It’d be easier, to just hack the police system, right? But that meant time and money and equipment and he still didn’t have a damn thing to his name that wasn’t on college-kid budget and it wasn’t like the computers at the University library were gonna do a damn thing. Besides, odds are he’d run into somebody he knew--

Another two stations and he’d call it a night. Get some food in his system, maybe get his hands to stop shaking, think out a goddamn battle plan.

What you were then, I am today.
Invisible. I’m turning into you. This is some horrible dream.

What would he say when he found Steve in the first place? What could he possibly say?

It didn’t cross his mind until he was walking halfway down the temporary cell block for the 13th precinct, uniform leading him towards another buff blonde that’d been scooped up and didn’t have a photo on file yet, he’d just take Bucky into the back to look--

And it wasn’t, again, but he’d nearly had a heartattack in the hallway, feet faltering and nearly tripping over himself as he stopped, suddenly realized,

he had no idea what he was gonna say. If it’d been Steve, he’d’ve been fucked. It wasn’t, and now he was staring at the East River from one of a million lone park benches, skyline glittering at him from under the reflection of the Williamsburg Bridge.

He hadn’t found Steve today. And he had no idea what to say to him if he found him tomorrow.

What could he possibly say? I’m sorry?

That didn’t exactly cover I left you in the rain, slit the throat of your friend/estranged nephew, then proceeded to commit first degree murder on the only other love interest you’ve ever had in your life who was also your best friend and sole confidant in this century before I came along and fucked up your entire world.

Yeah, no, I’m sorry didn’t cut.

But it was a start. It was a goddamn start, and he had to believe in the smallest chance of a future. Had to believe that somehow, through everything he’d done, he hadn’t broken the final straw and Steve didn’t want him gone for the rest of their lives. Had to believe that yes, they’d fucked up, he’d fucked up, he’d done the worst imaginable and then he’d topped it off with doing the one thing he’d promised Steve over and over again he’d never do again, erased Steve from his memories and ruined them both but it wasn’t over.

Couldn’t go back to that blank empty life he’d wiped for himself. It wasn’t living. He’d thought, with a fresh start, he’d be okay, they’d both be better off but they weren’t. And he had to keep believing this was where he was s’posed to be, chasing after that lil’ guy from Brooklyn. Had to keep believing he and Steve belonged together. That nothing could take him away from his best friend, that they’d always come back to each other. Steve’d forgiven him the Winter Soldier, could only hope for one more, just one more chance at the love of a lifetime, at life, the life they both deserved.

They were still the only thing for each other.

He had to believe that.

Or it was all for nothing.

Three words that became hard to say--

He finally wound up in Queens. The dawn had barely broken over the horizon, sunrise lighting up red orange fire in the sky.

Sunrise.

Once, a long time ago, on some night shift in the middle of summer - August, 1944, if he remembered correctly - Steve’d told him,

“See you at sunrise, Barnes.” It was the simplest of goodbyes, nothing that should’ve stuck out, struck his chest like an odd tuning fork, resonating in his fingertips and collarbones, starting back down the hill to camp and just repeating it, the simple words, over and over.

Should’ve been nothing. And he’d spent hours lying awake, wondering if that sunrise would ever come.

Because it was more than a sunrise, it was that sunrise, and somehow he’d always known that this time, when the light flooded the sky, this wasn’t the one that counted. Wasn’t the sunrise Steve was talking about. For some reason, it wasn’t that sunrise, and he just. Kept waiting. Through all these years, always just been…

…waiting for the sunrise he’d promised to meet Steve.

And every morning the sun came over the horizon, even the ones with summer wrapped in his arms, tangled in his bed with warm limbs and hands tucked under his sweet cheeks, blue eyes blinking sleepy content at his own, gold on Bucky’s pillow, even those mornings of soft, barely-there kisses and warm hands sliding content over smooth skin, even those weren’t that sunrise.

But today, the end of February, 2016, Bucky Barnes paused at the edge of Central Park to watch the sun break the horizon, rise over the fading darkness, burning up blue sky with all that warm, soft fire and today, today felt like maybe. It could be.

See you at sunrise, Rogers. I’m coming home.

Your dreams to catch the world, the cage.

So he finally ended up in Queens. Wouldda started there, but he’d told himself there was no way Steve would’ve got into trouble mere minutes after they’d parted ways on that icy street corner. Besides, he’d been in downtown Manhattan, made no sense to go all the way out to Queens and work backward, might as well start with the closest precinct to the coffee epiphanies.

’Cept there was nothing in Manhattan. And he wasn’t gonna pretend anymore, that he hadn’t effected Steve enough not to get him thrown in jail within minutes of saying, one more time, Who the hell is Bucky?

Queens, instead of Brooklyn, fingers carding through his hair and surprising himself with how short it was for the hundredth time since he’d woken back up. See you at sunrise.

“Nope. No descriptions like that.”

“Nothing?”

“Sorry. No blonde guys through here in the past couple days.”

Bucky drew his bottom lip into his mouth, nodding slowly. What had he been expecting? Only he’d just. Been so sure this’d be the place. The morning he gotta see Steve again, it was supposed to be this sunrise.

“Well uh. Thanks anyways.” Funny, how quiet destruction could find a soul. How quick a hopeful smile turned into a plastered one.

How all the spinning heels felt like endings of chapters he never gotta finish reading.

But. But there was something else he could try--

If Steve got in some kinda fight, ended up in a jail-cell, that wasn’t gonna be one-way, right? Maybe he couldn’t find Steve for whatever reason, but he could try’n find whoever Steve’d got in a fight with?

If it was a fight. Probably been a fight, knowing Steve. Everything was a goddamned fight.

What you were then, I am today.

The desk clerk looked surprised that he turned back around, but no less kind as he drummed his fingers on the desk again.

“Hey, could you do me one more favor? Would you mind checking the database, see if anybody was dispatched to that street day before yesterday?”

“Just...any units at all?”

“Yeah, the whole gamut. If you can.”

“Hmm. Maybe, I can try.” The clerk tapped away, staring intently at the screen and Bucky curled his fingers up, tucking fists in his jacket pockets and rocking forward on his heels.

“Sorry this is...computer’s bein’ bitchy.” A furrowed line of stress and the clerk’s fingers typed faster, clearly getting more annoyed and distressed and that just. He wasn’t gonna drag anybody else into this, he’d had plenty his share of dishing out pain, even something as simple as putting somebody out. There were other precincts, couldn’t all be having computer trouble.

“Hey, listen, thanks for trying, but it’s fine. Kind’a long shot anyway, y’know?” Bucky gave the best grateful smile he could with all that sadness dragging down corners and the clerk glanced up apologetically, giving a little wave as he started to back for the door again.

Definitely a long shot. Steve was gone, from everywhere he was trying to look and. It’d been so long, two days now and he still couldn’t find him and that meant he was gonna have to start doing illegal things to find him, dangerous things and he didn’t wanna be that person, not anymore, that was the whole goddamned point--

He might not have a choice.

But wasn’t that what it was all about? Wasn’t the entire fight about having a choice? Wasn’t that why they went to war - for freedom, for the bloody red, white hands, blue veins that pulsed for each other with the freedom to make that choice?

How else was he supposed to find Steve?

Maybe the universe just didn’t want ‘em to be together. Maybe he was supposed to suffer alone in agony for his crimes, the rest of existence.

“Wait!” He was already pushing open another glass door when the clerk shouted out from behind him, glass slamming right back shut as he took one careful, disbelieving step towards the anticipation lighting up, scrolling screen.

That dashed spark of hope, again, little flame ready to be extinguished the moment the snow set in again.

“There’s a report here...okay, it actually may not be what you’re looking for. But according to the emergency responder logs -- two days ago there was an ambulance call to that area, couple streets down from the one you asked about. I know an ambulance isn’t a police dispatch b--”

Fuck.

An ambulance. An ambulance.

If Steve’s moved here. No wonder Bucky couldn’t find him in any of the jails. He wasn’t behind bars. Just white sheets and heart monitors.

An ambulance.

Steve, picked up in an ambulance. That meant hurt. Hurt, bad enough to go to a hospital, that wasn’t fuckin’ easy for a supersoldier--

“Do you have what hospital?” The question betrayed all the cracking pieces of his soul, breathless and terrified and euphorius, wide as his tired eyes and rushing quick as the thudding pulse under thin skin.

“No, sorry. It’s not our division.” Worried gazes and Bucky couldn’t see anything but flashing red, blue, red, blue. Sirens, flash of white streaking past.

An ambulance. Of course it’d crossed his mind but he couldn’t take that seriously, it was Steve, he didn’t do hospitals when he was breakable, there was no way he’d end up in one now, even if he was broken enough to need one which he really never was--

“Thanks,” Bucky managed, and he was somehow on the sidewalk again, drifting snow landing on his nose and blurring up his eyelashes.

A hospital.

Here comes the snow, but a hospital? Steve wouldn’t still be there, if he’d been taken to one. The serum would’ve healed any injuries by now, right?

He could hack into the medical system database, but it’d take time, equipment -- he didn’t have time. He’d had nothing but for the majority of his life, years upon years upon ice, seventy of it and now he’d wasted seventy hours searching businesses and working up the urge to go to Stark Tower to be turned down by Potts then interrogating police stations and.

And he’d wasted so much time. Same way he’d been wasting time, all along, he couldda been kissin’ on Steve since they were teens and he’d done nothing but waste, but this time might mean gone forever.

Odds were Steve wasn’t in the hospital anymore, he healed so damn fast, even after the helicarrier so he was either out, or about to be out, and.

He was never gonna find him like this.

Fuck. Fuck. The slippery ice of one more street corner and someone knocked his shoulder, spun him out sideways, and another shoulder, Times Square was spinning and the world was all wrong, but he couldn’t stop staring at his hands and picturing those white walls.

See if it was jail he’d just keep looking but it wasn’t, Steve hadn’t been arrested. He was hurt.

He had to find Steve now. No more guesswork, no more slipping under the radar, Steve was hurt, bad enough they’d called in sirens, flashing white over what, dripping blood, pretty blue eyes sealed shut, four EMT’s hauling that precious body up onto a stretcher, laid out like a coffin with no one to ride in the back and hold Steve’s hand--

A hospital, and not even Stark’s, Pepper said she’d let him know if Steve was moved there and. And that was yesterday, he could’ve gotten outta the hospital by now, could be off in the wind or could be barely alive, could be dying and Bucky wasn’t by his side.

There wasn’t time to search hospitals, to run across the city and ask every front desk clerk in the world. He didn’t have time, because Steve could be dying and he was standing in the middle of some New York sidewalk instead of holding those precious artist hands.

Where could he go? There had to be a way, to find him. Pepper wasn’t gonna break, she would’ve told him then if she ever would. Who else would know? Tony, but Bucky couldn’t--

Clint? Would Clint know? Clint fucking Barton would tell him.

Fumbling through pockets for his phone, jamming in the memorized number and shoving through the morning rush hour crowd, corner of his mind wishing for the curtain of unruly to hide behind - no one looked at him terrified, waters didn’t part when he was a ruffled soldier from Brooklyn.

Managed to squeeze past enough bodies to duck into an alley, actually hear the ringing against his ear just in time for the dial tone to end abruptly.

“We’re sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you—“

No. No no no.

Sam? Would Sam tell him? Clint was forgiving, Clint understood, but Sam loved Steve almost as much as Bucky did and he might not--

He had to try. Steve was in the goddamned hospital, he had to try.

“You’ve reached Sam Wilson. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Bucky hung up before the beep, metal fingers twitching sporadically in leather as he fought the urge to crush the phone. Throwing it against a brick wall wasn’t gonna do anybody good, he had to come up with a plan and Pepper could always still call him--

She wasn’t gonna call him. Steve could be moved to Stark Tower yesterday and she wasn’t gonna call him.

If the Avengers had to choose between protecting Steve and protecting him, Bucky was glad Steve’d picked such good friends.

No way in hell they were giving him anything.

He couldn’t--

He had to. It was the only thing left. Only thing left.

Two leather gloves shoved through his hair and Bucky sucked in a deep breath, storms hovering on the edge of the air, the tip of his tongue. There was only one place left to go.

Welcome to Brooklyn.

 

~*~*~

 

I cut the ties and jumped the tracks, for never to return

You’d think all those hours he’d spent running around DC getting lapped by Steve Rogers woulda gave him more leg strength than this.

He blamed the wings. Spent so much time training in the new model Stark built he’d been skipping quads day here and there. Okay, maybe a bit more than here’n’there. But the Stark Tower had elevators, and with his running buddy outta commission for the last, what, six months, he hadn’t gotten in all the working out he shoulda.

Not like that mattered right now. He’d give up running for the rest of his life if it meant he got his running buddy back.

Either way, by the time he hit the tenth floor of Rogers and Barnes’ apartment building, his legs were about to give out on him. To be fair he’d booked it the entire way here from Steve’s hospital room, add on the stairs on top of that?

So yeah, he was huffin’ and puffin’ by the time he wrestled the key into Steve’s apartment door and shoved it open, practically collapsing against the door as it shut behind him.

Every military bone in his body was rolling its eyes. His superiors would be nothin’ but scolding voices of disapproval. And Riley would be laughin’ his head off at Sam right now.

”You need a medic?” that teasing smile he hadn’t heard in so long, back when everything was beautiful and easy and the biggest worry he had was if Stark was gonna steal his orange juice.

Man, what he’d give to see Steve Rogers smile like that again.

Well, s’why he was here, right? He’d been playing Troubleman at Steve’s bedside for the past day and half, Tony’d insisted he got outta the hospital for a bit, go grab some of Rogers things from his apartment. And he was insisting on another iPod too, which yeah, Sam supposed he could bring back but really, Marvin Gaye was the best bedside music Steve was gonna get.

And maybe it had something to do with the fact that the last time Sam’d camped out at Steve’s bedside playing it, he’d actually woken back up.

Just wanted Rogers to wake back up.

Sam shook his head and pushed off the wall, groaning at sore legs as he headed for the kitchen. Water first, then he’d grab some things Steve might need and run back to the hospital - maybe pick up food on the way. God knows that hospital stuff was awful and considering he was the first one to leave the place since they’d all gotten the call, everyone’d probably appreciate some takeout soup from that place around the corner.

He didn’t like not bein’ there, but. If he could bring anything back that might pull Rogers into recovery, it was worth a shot.

Hmm. What would Steve want the most--

And, ironically, that’s the exact moment he heard the sound. And froze.

It had to be an intentional sound though, because even with his water glass on the table and the place graveyard quiet, he wouldn’t’ve have heard it without the explicit permission of those silent feet.

The only silent feet he knew that could sneak up on a vet that way. Only silent sniper who could make the hairs stand up on the back of his neck before he even saw him.

Because you didn’t need to see the Winter Soldier to be terrified of him. Fury stood in front of a solid wall in a dark apartment off the grid and that hadn’t stopped three deadly shots blasting through the sheetrock.

What exactly was the protocol here? What, was he supposed to just turn around, lift his hands and offer a hey Barnes?

It’d been a long long time since he’d seen Bucky.

It hadn’t felt real, for the longest time. Clint’s explosion, Tony’s throat, Agent Carter’s murder. Steve’s entire shutdown. Like he knew it happened, knew it was that last straw, but he still couldn’t quite picture it. The fellow soldier he’d handed engraved dogtags to, that was the guy who’d terrorized their lives?

Sam spent his days at the VA, he’d seen and heard some awful shit. He’d had to fight Barnes, before he got his memories back, he knew exactly how hardcore and scary the guy could be. He’d ripped off Sam’s wings and kicked him into oblivion, after all.

But he still couldn’t picture it. Bucky wouldn’t do that. Bucky Barnes wouldn’t hurt any of them, he loved Steve too much.

Only he did. He did a hell of a lot more than hurt, and here he was, somewhere behind Sam, probably with a gun aimed at his head and a dozen knives tucked between metal fingers.

Hey Barnes wasn’t gonna cut it.

So he didn’t say anything at all. For all the experience he had with veteran trauma, he had no idea where to begin with Bucky and at this point, the only option he really had was to keep his mouth shut and turn around slowly, hope Barnes didn’t shoot him in the process.

Sam blinked, eyes adjusting to the shadows and going wide the minute they did.

That wasn’t the Winter Soldier pointing guns at him.

Wasn’t the Winter Soldier at all. That was a kid. A young army Sergeant with big scared eyes and a sharp clean jawline with that same dimple Barnes had, hair smoothed into the same vintage wave it had in all the textbooks, clean and tidy. Didn’t look a day over twenty-five. Didn’t look the slightest bit dangerous, not from the tremor in plush lips to the shaking fingers carefully open at his sides.

No weapon in sight.

“Bucky?” Sam said anyways. The whole keeping quiet thing was for the enemy he was expecting to see when he turned around, not. Not this.

“Where is he?”

Once, last year, when Bucky’d finally told Steve he’d been drafted? They’d fought after, the two of ‘em had broken into a screaming match that turned into a shoving match and there’d been so much angry muscle and fiery eyes and sharp snapping as they pushed each other to breaking points and broke and Sam’d witnessed the whole thing, sat frozen on the bed at the edge of the room.

After, Bucky’d broken down, looking ready to curl in a ball and cry and Steve’d looked at him with that stern, serious look and opened up his huge, bodycrushing arms and offered a gruff “c’mere,” pulled his shouting-match equal into his chest, let Bucky just fall apart in his arms as he held one hand tight in Barnes’ long hair, rocking them gently from side to side.

“You two okay?” Sam’d finally asked, and Bucky’d choked on a laugh, lifting his streaked face from Steve’s shoulder and looking positively destroyed as he shot Sam a weak, embarrassed look “oh my god, we forgot about Sam,” and muffled an apology with his chin on Steve’s collarbone.

He’d been so strung out, bent twisted raw, pure emotion carved up like a cadaver, peeled open for Steve’s eyes only but Sam’d been there, even if they’d forgotten, and Sam’d seen, all that pain Bucky was so good at tucking away.

That level of vulnerability, of hurt and weakness--

It was the exact look on his face now, black sharp lines dramatic across the exhausted face in the shadows.

Where was Steve. God, he had no idea where Barnes’ been in the past three months or what he’d been up to, but he could tell in this exact moment right here, he wasn’t in any less pain than Steve was. It’d ruined them both, one glance at the shattered eyes and it was obvious.

Bucky’s betrayal cut everyone in this family so deep the blood was still running, but nobody was suffering like those two. Barnes and Rogers, never catching a goddamned break.

But what good would it be, to take Bucky to Steve now, when they were both already destroyed? What happened when he just. Left again.

They hadn’t been okay before, no way enough’d changed since then for them to work now, was there?

“Man, I don't think that's a good idea.” Sam was careful as he could be, non-threatening, simple advice. Barnes used to come to him for advice.

Hell, they’d camped out in Stark’s basement in a pop-up tent once, it wasn’t like Bucky didn’t trust him.

"You win your war?"

"Not over yet." Sam shifted his head, tucking his arm under his temple. "You win yours?"

"You read the textbooks," Bucky shrugged, sleeping bag whispering around him.

"Not the one I was talking about."

The tent fell silent.

Only they weren’t in the safety of a tiny gold bubble, wrapped in green and black snivel gear with a lantern flickering quietly between them. There was nothing golden about this bubble, not since the sun set and forgot how to glow, forgot how to open those blue eyes. All that soft blonde against white hospital sheets...

If it was fucking him up, how was Barnes supposed to see Steve like that? How the hell was he gonna react? What if he went mad, what if Barnes couldn’t take it and he Winter Soldiered out on them--

“Where is he?” Bucky asked again, taking one step closer, outta the shadows. Sam swallowed, scanning over the shaking fingers and mouth pulled down in sorrow, perfect pomade making him look more like a ghost than anything.

Let’s find out what the ghost wants.

When Tony’d suggested bringing back something Steve’d want, Sam was pretty sure this wasn’t what he had in mind. But. Odds are, Bucky was. Or maybe not. There was no way to know.

Either way. It wasn’t up to him. Steve should be the one to decide if he wanted to see Bucky again, and since he was currently indisposed at the moment he couldn’t make that decision and Sam couldn’t even guess what he’d want based off the past few months. There was just as much of a chance that Steve wanted to see Bucky again as there was that he wanted to kill him for real this time.

“Listen, Barnes. I wanna help you man, I do. But tellin’ you where he is...” The shoulder he lifted implied everything Bucky needed to hear, it’s something I can’t do.

Sarge himself had asked him once, if I go off the rails, you’ve got Steve, right? You keep Steve safe.

That’s all he was doin’. Bucky had to understand that.

Well.

Based on the gun suddenly propped in Barnes’ hands, he was gonna say understand wasn’t exactly the word to choose.

“You’re one of my best friends, Sam,” Bucky started slowly, one step closer, wide shoulders rippling, wave echoing down his arm, metal plates shifting on the loose trigger finger.

He should be scared. And yeah, his heart was pounding, he knew exactly how dangerous Barnes could be. But there were no demon horns or wicked eyes, blood dripping between slates of metal. That wasn’t a monster standing in fronta him. All Sam saw was a desperate kid.

A really heartbroken, desperate kid.

“Bucky--”

Sam didn’t know he was the first person to call him that since he’d slit Tony’s throat. He did, however, see the flash behind crystal eyes. The recognition, the shift and suddenly that desperate kid was a hellofalot more desperate, arms lifting to aim the gun half-heartedly, silent steps stalking to the side, predator after prey and Sam held still, kept his hands up, watched Barnes carefully as he cocked his head, lips rolling in and back out before the pretty face lifted an eyebrow and tipped the muzzle at Sam’s pounding heart.

“I love you man, and I owe you the fucking world for taking care of Steve when I couldn’t.” Pistol propped easy in his palm, wavering just a tad as crystal eyes studied him over the top of the sight.

“You’ve been better to me than anyone could’ve ever asked for.” Sam was holding his breath, waiting for the shoe to drop as Bucky studied him, inhaled deep and settled into those broad shoulders, and there, something clicked and the gun was pointed between his eyes and that was a whole other world from a chest shot; if he pulled that trigger there was no chance of surviving, and from the look on Barnes’ face? He knew that.

“I’ll be grateful for that for the rest of my life.” Blink and there goes the shoe, right out the goddamned window, metal whirring and soft crystal settling on his with every ounce of seriousness. “But I will kill you. Where is he?”

Odds are, it wasn’t a bluff.

But Sam couldn’t help but think, this was Bucky, he wouldn’t pull the trigger, not now, not after everything.

Sam took a single step forward, mouth open to tell him to put the gun down, let them talk this out--

And Bucky cocked the gun. All the hesitation and softness vanished, like it’d never been there in the first place and the man staring him down wasn’t the Bucky that’d never shoot him. Hardened cold and terrifying in a split second, blinking at the whiplash, at how innocent that pretty face still looked as he angled a bullet between Sam’s eyes and dropped the first real-sounding threat to echo in the empty graveyard apartment.

“Don't make me ask again.”

 

~*~*~

 

Two white doors.

Two white doors burst open, highway road to nowhere and a white, blank long corridor. Dashed yellow lines disappearing under black sprinting boots, wind whipping through short dark hair, the ghost of artist hands over strong thighs as the snow tumbled through cold air too slow to catch falling dark skies.

 

“Maybe...you'll fall in love with me all over again."

"Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?"

"Yes. I want to ruin you."

"Good," I said. "That's what I want too.”

 

It was Steve Rogers, sideways showgirl helmet running down musty green corridors to the open door spilling light at the end of the hallway and Bucky Barnes running down one more hospital corridor past all that white white blank and there was a ticking clock with an explosion somewhere in the distance and a boy locked down in a torture room by leather straps and a boy lying still in a hospital bed with white sheets and all he had to do was burst inside, all he had to do was skid around the corner and inhale

a prayer, a dying breath, the first gasp of air in a century

and free him. Free him.

I thought you were dead.

I thought you were smaller.

Time was frozen. Time, this time, instead of two boys from Brooklyn. Bucky’s heart, pounding in his wrists, in his fragile chest as warm human fingers closed around the metal handle.

And he opened the door.

 

In the end, I'd do it all again. I think you're my best friend...don't you know that the kids aren't al-

He didn’t know, until after, long after, why the nurses rushed to the window when he stepped inside. It wasn’t the intruder, they knew he was coming.

They all did - Sam’d called, convinced Natasha to round up everyone, get them outta there. Just outta sight round the corner past Steve’s room; it’d be no use trying to stop Barnes from getting there now. The team of them could try to take him on, but there was no way there wouldn’t be casualties. So Natasha stood guard down the hall Avengers tucked behind her and Sam took the back staircase up, let Barnes go on his own.

The nurses were warned too but they all came rushing to the window, peering through blinds worriedly. ‘Cause, see, they knew Barnes was coming, but that didn’t explain the sudden jump in their coma patient’s heartrate when the door opened.

Only, it really did.

“Steve?”

 

The thing about memory loss, it’s not just images, flashbacks, people that are gone. It’s everything, it’s you. A person’s soul is composed entirely of memories.

What are you, if not a compilation of every moment you’ve ever lived? So, by extension, without memories, can you be anyone but no one?

There is nothing worse than being nothing, except perhaps having nothing, and that’s exactly what he had for so long.

Seventy years, and another three months now.

Except, one thing. One exception.

Even when he’d had nothing, he’d had…

Sunlight. Blue skies and bright smiles and the Brooklyn Bridge and red stars and warm empty spaces between his fingers and 40’s music and dancing and the red white and blue striping his shadow, empty space in his heart and crystals in his eyes.

Only now, he had everything and nothing all over again but still, the only thing that’d ever mattered, the only steady thing in his entire life, catching and falling over and over across the starlit sky, there it came. The sunrise.

“Steve?”

It’s me. It’s Steve. Warm hands, golden blue, wide spreading smile as Bucky jostled and blinked up at the angel leaning over the torture table.

White table, blinking long long lashes, blue eyes opening into the new world, a new century, thawed and defrosted and cold empty alone in that too white room, baseball on the radio and Bucky’s name on the back of his tongue, wake up into the new era one more time.

But.

Blue eyes didn’t open.

The windows could be real or fake or something in between, like him, but there was no sunlight in this room and the gold was too pale to give off anything but this eerie, floating clarity--

Once, a soldier murmured that name on his lips, opened into dingy dirty drag me home.

Except now, standing in the doorway, the soldier couldn’t move, staring at white skin on white sheets, pale, closed lips, soft blonde hair over shut, hidden blues. Not a single muscle moved. Just a distant heart monitor, beep, beep, beep no sign of life in the entire blank universe, stepping outside into the warmth to find the sky white, drawn on paper and folded in boxes in sketchbooks all along, surprise, nothing but a pencil-sketch falling apart in red flecks of eraser on white.

Why. Why wouldn’t Steve open his eyes?

“Stevie?” whisper.

Bucky was here, Bucky’d come for him, and he’d known Steve would be in the hospital but there wasn’t a single scratch on his face, there wasn’t a single wrapped limb or visible injury he was just lying there, an angel on a casket and it didn’t make any sense, why...why wouldn’t he open his eyes?

Blue skies turned white and the years between them crushed oxygen like crumpling paper and he was curling mismatched hands around the edge of that white bed.

He couldn’t bring himself to touch the fragile white skin, was too terrified to find it frozen, cryodamned, too terrified to feel it fall apart under blue-bruising metal, crumble into snow-powder dust and slip away on the ghost of his last breath.

Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.

How can I?

Took everything with him. Everything those rough artist hands could give him.

Why wouldn’t Steve open his eyes?

He heard her before he saw her. Again, leaning back in tandem as the bar fell into a silent hush, bodies apart for months and still moving in perfect sync in the swarm of gold.

Only Steve couldn’t spin around with him this time. So Bucky didn’t bother.

“What’d he do?”

Sounded as rough and raw as he felt and he wondered if Nat’s face was twisted in sympathy or cruelty. Or maybe that perfect, careful blank he’d gotten to know so well.

Three and a half months, she’d let him call her his best friend for three and a half months and he couldn’t even bring himself to be mad.

It’d been three and a half months, that they’d been apart during the war too, during their tours.

Steve’s USO tour had been a bit different than Bucky’s European tour. Surprisingly probably had more ammo on Steve’s end, but there were a lot more bombs on Bucky’s.

He still didn’t know why Natasha’d bothered. Why she’d tried to trigger back his memories, all those little hints. Or maybe she’d just checked all those times - Buchanan, 40’s, dancing - to make sure he really was gone.

He hadn’t been. Had she known? How much had she known?

She better know now, what was wrong with Steve. Eerily silent behind him, but clearly, it had to be something. Steve was in a goddamn--

Sympathy, cause I don’t wanna get over you.

The hospital bed wasn’t as surprising as he wished it were. Steve Rogers had a pretty reckless habit of doing stupid things that landed him hooked up to a heart monitor, as much as it scared him, he wasn’t blind enough not to see that coming. Just assumed he did something stupid. But what stupid didn’t end up bloody knuckles, red staining blank bandages, blank sheets?

Quiet shuffle, creaking leather as Natasha crossed her arms over her chest, shifted her weight. Watched his spine a moment longer, studying, maybe wondering why he hadn’t taken Steve’s hand yet.

Why hadn’t they ever grabbed each other’s hands when it counted? What was one more time.

Finally she cleared her throat, voice nearly swallowed up in the distant white harsh empty.

“He's been in and outta Stark’s hospital for months.”

It took a moment to sink in.

What?”

Bucky spun around like it was the 1943 World Fair and Steve’d disappeared again, only the dread in his stomach sunk a hell of a lot deeper and there was nothing now to hold back the terror on his face.

Steve hated hospitals. Why could he possibly be in and outta one? Fighting? Why? Why the fuck was he in the hospital now?

Natasha studied him openly, arms crossed over her chest, exact same hairstyle as the last time he’d seen her. Which had been in class, hadn’t it? He didn’t much like his head being fucked with. And from the look on her face she was still deciding whether or not she was gonna fuck with him some more.

But if anyone was gonna tell it to him straight, it’d be her. She owed him too much now.

One more comet to face off with and he’d be damned if he was the one pushed outta the sky now.

“He...” a deep breath and Natasha looked away, red hair swinging and if it was bad enough she couldn’t bear looking at him or Steve-- “...hasn't really eaten since Christmas.”

The bomb dropped out of the sky.

“...what?” He couldn’t feel his hands. Couldn’t see anything but the numbers running through his head, jaw dropping as the words tumbled out before he could process those either, “Eight weeks??”

He hadn’t...eight weeks.

It was his fault. Of course it was his fault. But why, why that, why not eating, of all things?

Why the only thing that could break down those perfect cells? How could he do this to Bucky--

Bucky hadn’t been there. He hadn’t been there to stop him.

He’d always been there to stop him. Since the first day Sarah got sick. Bucky’d been so heartbroken, watching Steve give his portion of the soup to Sarah and insist there was more downstairs for him when they both knew there wasn’t, that tiny frail sick body getting sicker and Bucky’d intervened real quick, started skipping on his meals to make sure Steve was getting something on those tiny bones.

There’d never been enough food for them, and it didn’t help that all those bullies’ kicks against his stomach had Steve hurling in alleys more often than not and maybe it all started all the way back then but where was Bucky to make sure Steve stayed fed now?

It was his fault. It was his fault, not just cause he’d been gone but cause he’d been down this road, it’d been him first, the one barely stomaching apples then pretending he could do more and hurling his way through road trips and after.

Until Steve caught him. Until Steve tricked him, walked in on him on his knees hurling up breakfast he couldn’t take, and the fucking fight that ensued--

Almost broke those pretty little artist wrists. Only it wasn’t him that almost did, Steve almost did and that was so much worse, Bucky’d pinned him to the couch and yelled and there’d been so much fight in those fucking blue eyes.

"Have you gone out of your fucking mind?" Bucky demanded, leaning down closer. Steve tried to pry his hands free from the metal fingers, but there was no give. He struggled a little more, trying to wiggle away as he glared and finally opened his mouth, shooting off his own fiery, pissed response.

"No, but you have! You hid an eating disorder from me for months, you bastard!"

Bucky leaned even closer, hissing directly in Steve's face. "It's not an eating disorder."

Eight weeks.

Steve hadn’t eaten in eight weeks.

This was all his fault.

And all he could do was push back the tears, water down cheeks and breaks in his heart, fight off the cracks for one moment longer as he found himself standing over the frail, sick body of his best friend, one more time and nothing in the world could stop him now from taking Steve’s hand.

His fingers were cold. His fingers were so cold.

Bucky squeezed their weaved hands carefully, choking back another rough tug in his throat, gaze darting over every flicker of Steve’s face, waiting for the moment he caught on, woke up,

felt Bucky’s touch returned to him. Only it wasn’t flickering, not at all, not even a twitch--

“They’ve been keeping him on IV’s. It’s not the first time, but it’s never been this bad.”

This bad. Jesus Christ.

“Steve, baby,” Bucky whispered, dragging his thumb over the cool, eerily smooth skin, waiting for the muscles to twitch to life, groggily flicker and blink up at him. But there was nothing. There was still nothing.

He almost couldn’t bring himself to say it. Maybe he was just being impatient, maybe Steve hadn’t gotten sleep in a long time and he was super out of it, maybe he was sleeping off the effects of being under and.

The words slipped outta his mouth anyways, more terrified than horrified and heart clenching tight in his chest with both.

“Why isn’t he waking up?”

Eternity flew right under his feet, raggedy creaking wood as he knelt by Steve’s bedside, fingers wrapped around that fragile hand as he gasped, broken and desperate, tears choking his tongue as that word kept running through his head, pneumonia, pneumonia, he has pneumonia, the crippling pain as he pressed his forehead to Steve’s cold skin and it really sunk in, truly sunk in that Steve might die tonight. That Bucky might lose him.

A shuddering breath and Bucky shook his head, shoving the memory aside, forcing his head back into this hospital room, this Steve’s cold hand--

That he was squeezing, fuck, again. He forgot how strong the nonmetallic was too, instantly releasing the bruising grip on unresponsive fingers. Fuck, Steve’d hissed in pain last time, why wasn’t he doing a goddamn thing? When was he gonna wake up, when--

“He’s…” Natasha paused, voice dropping almost fearful, hesitance coloring the stale air until finally, the words leaked, pooling red instead. “...in a medically-induced coma.”

And there went all of the oxygen in his lungs.

“A medically induced coma? He--”

The world tipped sideways, gravity suddenly reclaiming his body and rushing everything to his head all at once, Steve’d been in the hospital for weeks, hadn’t eaten anything this year, it’d gotten so bad they put him in a medically induced coma and Bucky hadn’t been there, he hadn’t been there. It hadn’t been him, squeezing Steve’s hand on the way to the hospital, him, scolding Steve to eat something, him, moving heaven and earth to keep his boy safe.

The metal arm still had some instinct left, darting out to grab the rail of the hospital bed before he collapsed, catching just as he tipped for the ground, hardened thigh muscle giving out on him and it was all his fault.

Fuck. Fuck, even the metal plates were trembling now, he had to stop shaking, had to talk himself through this because Steve sure as hell wasn’t gonna drag him outta a panic attack now, not when Bucky was the one who--

Inhale, fuck, all he had to do was inhale, he couldn’t breathe but he had to pull it together for Steve because he needed him and there was no way in hell Bucky’d fail him now. It’s real, you did this to him with your absence but he’s here now, you’re here now, get a fucking grip and breathe. Breathe, he’s not dead, it could be so much worse, he could be dead.

Medically induced coma, c’mon Barnes, what would Steve say? Be smart for once in your life, the way Rogers always goddamn insisted you were. Okay, you can do this. Deep breath, straighten up, focus back in on the sharp lines of that beautiful face--

No, okay, maybe focus on the coma, these people don’t know Steve the way you do, you gotta take care of him, what do you know about this? You know everything about Steve, so just start from the beginning. No food, what were the consequences for no food--

“What are they doing for bone tenacity?” The sudden bark caught her off guard and Natasha furrowed her eyebrows, glancing between the comatose sunshine and the barely-contained fireball starting to leak sparks at his side.

“...bone tenacity?”

And somewhere, a switch flipped.

“Goddamnit, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Bucky cursed rapidly under his breath, practically flinging himself round the corner of Steve’s bedside, quickly scanning the clear bag hooked up to muscled arms, spinning uselessly as he looked for a medical chart, finally catching sight of a small stack of papers on the bedside table.

“Fuck, if he’s been on IV’s or nothing for that long without chewing anything his teeth will start to break down.” He didn’t even look up at her to speak, rambling off with the same frantic energy as his hands flipping through the stack of papers that were apparently deemed useless, tossed back on the table without a second glance, flying back to Steve’s bedside, checking the tape and needle against his skin, “They’re made of a different kind’a bone, teeth weaken if they don’t have something to bite down on.”

The whirlwind kept going, spinning again and leaning over to jam a metal thumb into the nurse call button, right back at Steve’s side, running a finger up the length of the IV line, checking the pressure all the way up to the bag, “Hydra had me on IV’s for years, so they took care of that with mouth guards but Steve sure as hell ain’t gettin’ one’a those--”

Natasha blinked, quickly swiveling to the side as a triage of nurses burst into the room, door slamming loudly and the worry-terror on their faces even louder.

Bucky didn’t so much as look up, still, thumbs feeling carefully along Steve’s slack jaw, making a pained sound at something and finally, finally, glancing up. Only for a single moment, gesturing wildly at one nurse,

“Do you have him on calcium?” Wide eyes in reply and Bucky waved an arm impatiently, setting right back into whirlwind mode again as he caught sight of a clipboard.

“Somebody go grab calcium, he’s gonna lose bone strength--”

Blur, metal flashing and if his dark hair was still long she could just see the messy bun he’d toss it up in, ponytail in his mouth as he kept ordering everyone around only it wasn’t long anymore and she wasn’t used to seeing this Bucky, this side of Barnes, being the one taking care of Rogers.

Although, she supposed, their whole lives it’d been this way. Short-haired, bright-eyed, young beautiful Bucky Barnes was the one who grew up fussing around his boy this way.

“--shoulders should be elevated, someone get me another pillow--”

She slowly backed for the door, keeping one eye on the crowd that’d gathered outside the glass and the other on Barnes, the perfect storm, stars swept up in a hurricane tide with only sunshine lifted above from drowning.

“--he’s got an allergy to--”

“...it’s not on his medical charts, are you sure that wasn’t before the seru--”

“Listen, I am not willing to take the chance, find a substitute or take him off it but you’re not putting him that in him for another goddamn second…”

Demand after barking order and not a single one of them was harsh, not really, couldn’t be with that much worry and love in the killer’s hands fabricating such chaos so gently, crystal swimming with softness every time they flickered back to the sleeping angel on white sheets.

They watched, Natasha, Sam, and the doctors, standing outside the hospital room window with arms crossed and hearts broken in their chests.

But nobody near so broken as the shaking savior who’d finally, finally, rounded that corner.

Hey, pick on somebody your own size.

One by one the nurses all filed out of the too-white room, leaving behind the water he’d asked for, the pens and paper, the full file of Steve’s medical chart that he was gonna annotate with accurate information goddamnit and Bucky was shaking, his hands were shaking and his knees were shaking and his head was spinning, legs seconds from giving out beneath him.

There was the tired that came with late college nights and early morning coffee classes, then there was the deep-seated overwhelming exhaustion that weighed down fragile bones - it was the second of the two that dragged him down, collapsing in the chair at Steve’s bedside with the last gasped breath whooshing outta his lungs.

My head is on fire but my legs are fine.
After all, they are mine.

Mine. They were, these were his exhausted legs, his thrumming heart, his deep ache. He’d been so afraid of himself, for so long. They hadn’t been his for so long but look at him now, look at them both. Here they were.

One arm reaching out blindly, taking Steve’s hand without thinking about it, fingers weaving together automatically and the other running down his face, fingertips over his forehead, closed eyes and heaving chest slowly settling down into something quiet, distant, one breath in and another out.

Three words that became hard to say.

Hadn’t been this worn in years, hadn’t been this rough in tangled worry. Hope.

Fuck, Steve sure knew how to do a number on him. If there was one thing the kid was good at.

Bucky sighed, blinking back open to the pure surreal white, gaze cutting over to watch that beautiful sleeping body beside him, all peaceful and extinguished; a soft, sad smile tugging one corner of his mouth.

Don’t look down.

Steve’s skin was smooth, absent all the white scars and bumps it should’ve had and Bucky shook his head, rubbed his real, flesh-and-bone thumb affectionately over clean, pretty knuckles that weren’t foolin’ anybody.

“You always were so much trouble,” Bucky told him and the quiet white room beeped a hollow echo over fading, distant promises.

How exactly, had it taken him this long? To come full circle, to sit by Steve’s bedside the way he had that very first promise, that very first night he’d thought they’d be torn apart for good.

And after everything they’d been through since, since that first broken til death, they’d still ended up here. Hands entwined.

Was this a second chance?

Or a hundredth, but.

The last time he’d been here, he hadn’t even been able to say it back. I had you, til death. And everytime since, every I love you Steve had whispered, dropped in his ear, he hadn’t been able to say it back.

And jesus christ, here he was, getting to live the moment all over again, and this time, he’d be damned to let it slip by him again.

It being the love of a lifetime. With Steve.

The love of his life.

A sharp inhale that practically echoed, stealing all the available oxygen left in this godforsaken crystal white room as fingers detangled from chilled ones, two palms smoothing over short hair, ruffling it up like that boy in the black and white videos of the war, leaning over a map as Steve pointed, straight home. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck--

Bucky forced his head back up, inhale, hold, exhale, look around the room and exhale again, just keep breathing, fuck. Fuck, what was he doing, he couldn’t, how could they--

Maybe he should’ve gotten flowers. There was an empty vase on the bedside table. Vases were for flowers.

Steve brought him flowers once.

Stood in that stairwell doorway, looking up under long lashes as Bucky swung open the door and stared, colorful bouquet in the extended hand, blonde swooping up over those mischievous sparkling blues--

“Hey Stevie, guess what?” Bucky interrupted, snapping his gaze off the stupid empty vase, over to the comatose features, smooth brow. God, his eyelashes were still long as fuck. Dark sweeps over high cheekbones. How many times had he shattered--

“D’y’know I’m a poet now?” No, course he didn’t know, Bucky fucking split. Into millions of pieces. Y’know. “Well, I am a poet, and I was just thinkin’, I could read you the Sonnet. Got it right here, in my jacket pocket. Same pocket I used to carry around that damn pencil sketch from the woods, December ‘43? ‘Cept this one didn’t get burned to ashes. Well, not yet.” A raised eyebrow, single pause and he reached inside his jacket, fumbling to unfold the paper. “Can you believe it? I wrote you a bloody sonnet, Steve.”

He’d written a sonnet. He’d had his head wiped and he’d written a goddamn sonnet. And it really shouldn’t be funny, at all, but it was because see, the thing was he’d told Steve. The very same day Steve brought him those fucking flowers.

He’d told Steve.

Nearly a year ago now, wasn’t it? Blondie punk over there brought him a goddamn bouquet and Bucky’d had to sit him down, on that couch, back in Stark Tower. Nearly a year ago.

"You think this is sweet, don't you?"

Steve looked up, glancing from Bucky to the bouquet and Bucky shook his head, swooping a hand as he clarified. "Not the flowers. I'm talking about the whole thing."

That got an even more confused glance so Bucky shifted, turning his torso and sitting up straighter, body language as accusatory as his tone.

"You think this is some sorta...romantic Shakespearean play." Soft lips parted to protest but Bucky shut him up with a hand because he wasn't done. He wasn't anywhere near done. "Best friends their whole lives, one almost dies and the other can't live without him and tries to die too."

Blue eyes narrowed but Bucky ignored them, waving a hand and continuing in his mock storytime voice. "Then they both get a 'second chance' so they play it right, fall for each other. Get to be together after decades of pining and unrequited feelings..."

With hands as gentle as his words had been harsh, Bucky took Steve's face in his palms, running thumbs over the chiseled jaw and forcing Steve to look him in the eyes, serious and close.

"Stevie," Bucky chided softly. "This ain't some sonnet."

Blue eyes searched his, wavering between confusion, offense, and fear and this was so much more complex than Steve was pretending.

"Bucky, what're you saying?" He managed, hesitant and small and it wasn't like that.

Steve was painting their picture in pastel colors - but it'd never be them without harsh blacks and reds and grays. Bucky was only trying to change his color palette. Look at this thing without rose-colored glasses.

Don't forget what this thing was really about.

"We're not a love story, Steve." Bucky smoothed his hands down Steve's neck and shoulders, gripping his arms and holding them both stock still. "We're a war story."

A war story.

Nearly a year ago. They’re the same thing, Steve’d told him, love stories and war stories.

Stevie, this ain’t some sonnet but here, lemme read you mine. Sonnet 14.

A fucking war story.

Fuck.

He made so many promises. They made so many promises. And here they were.

Here. They were.

That sonnet...that wasn’t the poem he needed to read. That poem, Steve already knew. He couldn’t be sure of a lot of things, but he knew everything in those jilted fourteen lines, Steve already knew. Ain’t some sonnet, right, Bucky’d just proved himself so right with that one. How many things had he said, believed, and been so so wrong about?

Steve already knew. Of course. The ache in his chest had a twin and that twin was golden blue and he could feel it, in the chilled fingers between his again, in the steady heartbeat blinking behind them on the monitors he didn’t need, could feel that heartbeat just as sure as he could feel his own.

That poem, Steve already knew.

It was this one that he didn’t.

Inhale, slow. Exhale. Manic tears swallowed down in place of that deep ache, deeper than his body had the space for, shredding his words back down quiet, soft. Gentle, careful, the way he spoke on that sensitive side, one ear couldn’t hear so well n’the other could be too loud and--

“Got a poem to read you, Stevie. It’s not mine, but...I was actually in poetry class when I remembered that-- when I remembered everything. Thanks to caesuras, right? Anyways. Um. There's this poem I read, little while back and for some reason I really latched onto it before...before I came back and remembered um. Why…”

That breath wasn’t slow or stable and the hitch in his throat was gonna make him cry, he couldn’t cry cause if he started now he was never gonna stop and he had to be strong for his Steve.

“God, Steve. I’m so. I’m s-so sorry I let go again--”

Raggedy inhale, pause, and his thumb was rubbing the back of Steve’s hand so hard he could feel the tendons shift beneath smooth skin.

Exhale.

By God. He’d spent lifetimes staring at Steve’s face, memorizing every single little angle of it, but it still shocked him, stunned him with a bright flash, old 40’s photographs in blinding white for a single moment and the rest fading into something beautiful, eternal.

Forever younger, growing older just the same.

That was such an incredibly beautiful boy. The crease at the corners of closed eyes, sloping lashes, high cheekbones. The solid, unmistakable curve of his nose, gentle slope of smooth, relaxed forehead into dark roots, fading slowly golden blonde, nearly white at the tips.

I won’t let it fade away.

The first time they slept together, moonlight black and white room with Steve in full color, that golden hair had lit up palladium. Pink bow lips parted, peaceful in the deep and disastrously complete, the stark smooth beauty as they reached for each other with bare fingertips on bare skin.

Golden days.

The corners of blue eyes crinkling up, the sharp line of that angled jaw, strong neck sloping up into the soft exposed spot behind round ears--

Where he used to press kiss after kiss until Steve was smiling, giggling, laughing underneath him, strong naked broad shoulders shaking, tightening lines in muscle wrapping around Bucky’s sides, wide smiling mouth against Bucky’s collarbone.

Warm, real fingers squeezed Steve’s hand tighter on impulse, memory racing. Laced together, the way they’d been since they were kids, two tiny kids holding hands as they jumped off the shallow pier in July--

And this romantic story, you never could control me.

Holding the hand that’d been through so much - he hadn’t been there to hold Steve’s hand for his last coma. For the ice.

Frozen and thawed and woke up alone in cold white when Bucky should’ve been there, and he never wanted to miss a single goddamned moment of that beautiful life again.

That soft smile, those precious faces as eyebrows shot up and his head tipped, beautiful twinkle as the morning sun caught its rise in blue blinking awake, big hands curled up against his face, all that harshness only softened edges, polished a pounding golden heart and sunkissed skin and the dark furrow between eyebrows that’d take on the fucking world, beautiful hands curling into fists and uncurling to carefully brace a thin pencil perfectly against white blank pages, beautiful mind lighting up the room the moment the ruffled sweet angel strode inside--

“You are so mesmerizing,” Bucky told him, soft as he could, near mush to slip under white-gold spun sugar, the silence fallen where there was once such sparkling crystal loud pulling him in with thin red thread wrapped round caving wrists and a metal heart -- trying not to choke, “God, Stevie, you’re my fuckin’ everything--”

Inhale.

Bucky blinked, tendons in his hand releasing silently, no whirr as he snapped outta the daze, ran his thumb over soft skin again and slid back into reality. Fuck, how easy he still got lost in that boy.

“Sorry. Got distracted, I uh.” Take one breath and take another. He’d been telling Steve something. Telling his best friend something, what was that again?

Up close at his bedside, crumpled paper in his lap. The poem, right. He’d been telling Steve. Should tell Steve. Because Buck was pretty sure, this part, Stevie didn’t know.

“I’ve...got a poem to read you. Not my sonnet, though. It’s not mine at all, but. I kept it, because when I first read it I couldn’t stop reading it and now…”

Now. Hospital, after all those broken knuckle fights, ‘course they’d ended up here.

“Now, after everything that’s happened…”

Everything that’d happened.

It’d be enough, that Bucky’d fought a World War for Steve, wasted away inside from the love he’d been so afraid of. The love that abandoned him in the bottom of a snowy ravine, the love he depended on too much, the love he let break him. The love that twined so richly with fear he couldn’t tell them apart anymore.

Until a day on a bridge the world flipped upside down and a dead soldier gasped his first breath, promise of a lifetime placed in metallic murderous hands and a soul offered on the line he was so close to crushing, the whirlwind of past trust and broken looks pulling them together, nightmare synonymous to memory, the hands that reached for him when he screamed until screaming meant broken hands instead.

Too much light flooding through the darkness until they both went blind and combusted, until the bomb went off and they didn’t make it out of the building in time, countdown to one and the shared soul, double rings exploded into a thousand pieces and--

...he’d thrown his off the Brooklyn Bridge.

One more promise to break on the shore of icy waves, freezing metal sinking until the drowning buried them alive.

And they’d ruined each other.

...where was Steve’s ring?

It wasn't on his hand. He'd...he'd gotten rid of it too. Bucky didn't know what he'd been expecting, but. It wasn't that.

Did he think Steve would just hold on?

Actually. Yeah, yeah, some part of him had.

You told me once dear, you really loved me
And no one else could come between us
But now you've left me…

A hitch in his breath and Bucky squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, made himself get a fucking grip.

And you have shattered all my dreams.

They’d broken so many things with twin fists but the worst fight, the worst war was this one, he’d take a thousand bloody noses over the cold, limp fingers entwined with his.

A lifetime trying to drag Steve outta the fight and he’d been the most disastrous fight of all.

He’d been so worried, about finding out what to say to Steve. Running the streets of New York racing thoughts instead of panting sass, on your left speeding past Sam and if Bucky couldn’t repent to the family Steve’d made, how could he possibly find the words for Rogers?

How--

How to ask for forgiveness, for the things he’d done. The lives he’d taken. Especially mine.

And now...it didn’t matter.

He could say anything, everything, nothing.

Steve wouldn’t hear a word anyways.

Look what he’d done. Look what Bucky’d done.

The world kept turning and they were so far high in the clouds, stars, sky - he was so scared to look down, ever close drew the ground--

They had to touch down.

Couldn’t keep catching each other, forever. They’d tried, so many times, and they’d slipped through red leather gloves and bare hands and metal fingers and nothing could save them, red skin or silver between.

No more.

No more.

I’ve got a poem to read you. Not my sonnet, though. It’s not mine at all, but I kept it, because when I first read it I couldn’t stop reading it and now.

Now, after everything that’s happened.

“Hell. Now I don’t wanna think about it ever again. Stevie, fuck, I--”

Shaky inhale.

“Okay. Um. tell you what, I’ll read it to you and that’ll be the last time. Which is fitting for the poem and all.” Bucky forced himself to pause, blinking rapidly to clear the fogging water because he wasn’t gonna cry and he wasn’t gonna let go of Steve’s hand and he wasn’t gonna think about how this was it, the last moment he might get to have because the moment he stepped out that door--

Bucky cleared his throat, crystal cutting away from that pale soft face. “‘Cause it's about you and me, Stevie. You and me.”

One hand fumbling to smooth out the crumpled paper in his lap, water pooling in corners of the aching heart inside a chest turned sanctuary to empty cage.

“It's uh...by Elizabeth Hewer. She's pretty new, 2013, but she's amazing. Okay...” Metal thumb wiping a streak under watering lashes, anything to keep the rain from staining frozen skin. “Okay.”

Inhale, black and white, the letters Steve sent in the war and the sketchbook dreams they’d set fire to like Fourth of July. Welcome to the world, beautiful boy, and watch it burn.

Bucky breathed one more time and read Steve the poem always waiting behind the icy smoke.

“‘In one timeline we kiss, but the stars don't come down. In another, you set a world on fire for me. But...I perish in the flames. Another, and we're strangers on a b-busy street, brushing by close enough to- to send each other reeling off-balance but not. S-stopping.’”

Stars and flames and strangers on a busy street brushing shoulders and dropping books and picking up bruises but Bucky’s voice was shaking and there was water staining the crumpled paper and he had three more lines left and somehow that carried war let the storyteller sing one last verse.

“‘One universe has us right.’” Shaking, both hands were shaking and Steve’s bed was rattling quietly like the cough sweet lungs never choked on anymore. Just Bucky’s lungs left to choke now.

“‘One universe has us right, of all the m-millions stacked on. Millions. So it's...not this one. I. I can live with that.’”

I can live with that.

The inhale wasn’t an inhale at all. Last breath caught, wet tears in bruised throats instead of slipping hands and choked on the miserable thawed snow gathering on eyelashes as shaking shaking cut lungs into pieces he’d never pick up now.

My hands they shake, my head it spins.
Brooklyn Brooklyn, take me in.

Dim lights, too far from the bridge in the wicked cold, damp downfall of the thirties, a tiny frail angel tucked under thin sheets, pneumonia bouncing echoes around the room as a young twenty-something dock boy squeezed the bruised hand of his fragile best friend and shook, shook, hurricane.

"You with me?" Steve's voice asked quietly into the darkness. It was a simple question, just to check if he was awake or not. But it made Bucky wanna cry and scream and run and take Steve somewhere where this wasn't their life, where he didn't get triple whammied with bruises, lingering weakness, and freezing cold wetness at the same time. Because fuck, Steve may not be with him much longer.

What he’d give, for bruises and weakness and cold rain. For pneumonia. To hold that hand again, feel that fear again, over this one.

Bucky lifted his head, a rush of cold air hitting his cheeks, streaking cold. So he'd been crying, then. He had no idea for how long. Maybe since the nurse had told him. Pneumonia. Maybe since right now.

Maybe since the moment he’d met the angel that’d pull him outta the darkness, only to be dragged down in hell by a blood-stained metallic smile.

The tears weren’t gonna stop.

Not this time.

The crumpled poem in his lap was nearly soaked through with salt and melted ice and the metal hand curled, crushed words in the whirring fist, tossed aside--

--white baseball, faded muddy red stitches that spun in the air as small hands lifted over his head, grin bright as the summer sun and that game they’d been to just last week--

Shoulders curled and the sound was awful and sharp as it broke between the silent shakes, empty ribcage rattling and parted lips breaking breaking breaking.

Fingers curled so tight in comatose ones they might break if it were metal instead.

The snap, echoing in the studio, Steve’s hand crushing, the sharp cry as black paint dripped and black masks drained free.

Another hospital bed. Another frozen body, another sick white rebirth and The Phoenix could cry all the vintage misery red and gold had to sing, the ashes burned too bright to ever come back from this one.

Well I never really thought that you'd come tonight, while the crown hangs heavy on either side.

Give me one last kiss while we’re far too young to die.

“I was c-counting on growing old with you. Didn't matter how, didn't matter when, I just knew that when I was sixty you better be on the rocking chair beside me. I...I never imagined we'd lose each other th-this young.

Endless romantic stories, you never could control me.

“B-barely thirty, still don't have a single...crinkled line on your face.” His voice cracked too high, so young, thumb reaching for the closed skies, the shocking soft tenacity to the corner of pretty eyes that one day might crinkle up in crow’s feet and he wouldn’t be there, he’d never know, for all the times this thumb slid over damp corners and wiped away precious tears, for every year he’d-- from those blurry engrained days he was so tiny and young, youthful wide eyes looking up at him with that gap tooth smile behind trembling lips.

Trembling lips.

Give me one last kiss cause I'm far too young to die

“I can't believe...I can't believe I never get to see what you look like as an old man. I know you'll live a long long time, Stevie. I just...I can't bear the thought that outta your whole life. You knew me for less than half of it. For...maybe a third. Maybe you'll live to be ninety, for real, and I'll only have been there for. For the first third. That scares me so bad, Stevie. My god that scares me. You gonna forget me? You gonna forget me the way I've made myself...oh God, Steve. I can’t...you know I’m never. I’m never gonna forget you again. Never really did, never really could. You’re in more than my head, sweetheart, and nothing could ever burn you outta my veins. I’m so-- I’m s-so sorry.

“You brought me back. So many times. Over and over, you saved me from tables and my own head and you brought me back and every time I try to forget you the s-sun’s always around. The next corner Steve I’m so sorry I c-c-can’t-- Wh. What’m I s’pos’d to do? I. We. We were supposed to have forever.”

Far too young to die

“But. Stevie. Only one third...one third of your long beautiful life, I can’t. I can’t be that small, not with you, please, dear god. Please. Steve, not with you. Not with you.”

Shake shake shake and he was never gonna breathe without breaking again.

Not without you.

“Let me s-stay.” Whisper, he couldn’t speak without sobbing, and the whisper wouldn’t do a damn thing but nothing did a damn thing. Who are you? Nothing. “Please, p-lease, let me st-stay.”

Soft blonde halo brushed off too-warm skin, cold lips pressed to the worry crease between dark eyebrows, silent feet careful as they stepped backwards over creaking floorboards their landlord was less likely to fix than America was to join that European war and Steve was so sick he’d only make the fever heat worse--

“Buck?” Quiet small voice croaked hoarse and he froze, baited breath over whirring wheezing lungs. “Stay with me ‘til I fall asleep?”

Stay with me until I fall asleep.

Seventy-seven years later he was still tangled with bruised artist fingers.

Seventy-seven years later,

Bucky Barnes held Steve Rogers’ hand at his snow white bedside and cried. and cried. and cried.

 

The glass was thick enough to block out individual words. But from this side the sound was practically audible anyway, the shaking hunched shoulders and broken sobs over squeezing hands screamed loud enough.

Loud enough for Clint to have twin tear tracks running down his face.

Loud enough for Sam to excuse himself from the scene, try to regroup in the bathroom, dark hands shaking under the faucet and pararescue wings exploding back at him in the mirror.

Loud enough for Natasha to step away from the glass, watch Clint and Tony instead.

Tony, who wasn’t saying a single word.

It was so loud Clint eventually excused himself too. Natasha watched him go, turn the corner of the hallway, and Stark still hadn’t moved.

She stepped up to the window beside him, both of them looking blankly inside.

She didn’t stand at Tony’s side very often. They were nearly the same height. She’d never noticed. She knew the specs of his file, knew scientifically they were close, but she’d never just. Stood next to him to really notice.

And it was silent, for a long time, silent through all that loud and after everything maybe she should’ve learned to keep her mouth shut, but this was the only family she’d ever had and she couldn’t idly watch it tear itself apart.

They were all already too torn.

“Do you remember…” It was the first thing that’d been spoken in this hallway since Barnes’ rushed into that room and it was ironic, wasn’t it, considering the state Bucky’d been in the last time she’d seen him, how much memory’d haunted all of them.

Tony too, she knew about those nightmares. The panic attacks, when someone so much as said New York.

Tony too. That was the point. All of them.

“...when you promised to catch Pepper’s hand?”

If he hadn’t been paying attention before, he sure as hell was now. Tony’s sharp eyes shot to her like knives, arms crossed tight over his chest and Natasha didn’t look at him, staring straight ahead until he eventually did too, silent and stiff as the memory flashed through that tortured genius mind.

“She trusted you to save her, to catch her hand, and you couldn’t. She fell.”

That time, it wasn’t sharp shock and offense as his gaze snapped over, as the smart mouth dropped open to say something, to bark whatever veiled hurt he’d concocted now only she wasn’t going to give him the chance to shove her aside.

“And she was gone, you honestly thought she was gone, for good. You watched her fall to her death. Do you remember that agony? That despair, that rip inside your soul?”

Shocked into silence now, into trembling silence and it didn’t look like a panic attack coming on but she could feel the edge of that cliff in his memory, that weakness he pretended so ardently not to have. Softening in dark eyes every time they turned to Pepper Potts’ patient smile.

“As you clutched that metal beam, fire burning all around you, and watched the love of your life fall into the flames?” Natasha paused, settling over the shuddering assassin curled over that pretty, vintage soldier they’d all let slip through the cracks.

“Now make it snow and ice. Off the side of a train. And instead of saving your ass a minute and a half later, try a year and a half. That's how it was for Rogers, only worse, because when he woke up in this century there was no chance of getting Bucky back. Seventy years too late to even find a body.

“But...there, there they are, standing right in front of you like every dream you ever wished came true all at once and the love of your life is miraculously alive. Somehow, they froze their way into the twenty-first century with you and it shouldn't be possible but there they are-- Your best friend. Your lover. Your only hope.”

And I have to protect the one thing I can’t live without. That’s you.

Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.

Natasha paused, sinking silence. Pure silence, and she turned her head, gaze finally flicking to meet the stricken, too-shiny brown, laying the only kind’a punch no armored suit could block.

“...now make her forget every memory she ever had of you.”

Tony stared at her like she’d just blown up his house - no, worse, she’d actually seen that face - and really, she had no idea how that’d never occurred to him. How similar he was to the supersoldier he’d idolized so much as a kid. To the kid he’d come to befriend.

How well they could understand each other, if they took a single moment to try.

Natasha turned back to the window, scanning the silent white hospital room one more time. Barnes was nearly as still as his counterpart now, slumped and positively drained in that chair, hand gripping Steve’s hand so tightly she could see the white knuckles from here, exhaustion settling in bones that’d never been so broken.

And wasn’t it ironic, that she almost forgot to call him Barnes in her head. She’d just gotten so used to calling him Rogers. Tear-stained, short-haired soldier pretty boy Rogers, only he was brunnette instead of blonde and his arm flashed instead of bulged. Tony didn’t see them, not the way she did, but he was still staring blankly in that stricken horror and the thing was, that was barely the half of it.

Shifting heels, a click as she stepped to the side, turned to go. She’d seen enough. And Tony was still looking at her like she was a ghost, only today, for once, it wasn’t her.

“That's just Steven’s story.” Three steps, three loud clicks brushed past stubborn shoulders and Natasha paused, letting the silence echo for a single moment before red hair flipped, stopping and looking at Stark one last time; wasn’t all they had left just one last time?

”Now try to picture Bucky’s.”

 

If you’re a lover, you should know. The lonely moments just get lonelier, the longer you’re alone.

Not counting all the ranting from his childhood, he’d known Steve Rogers a few years now. In all that time, Tony’d seen him in alotta different lights. At the beginning, so stiff and high-strung. Chalked it up to an ego-complex, but the months went on and the way Rogers ran the team, gave orders, disappeared--

It took a while to recognize, but it took one to know one and duh, Cap was pretty damn depressed after defrosting. Then DC rolled around. He thought he knew Rogers, exactly how messed up he was, how easy things rolled off broad shoulders. Before Barnes.

But then he’d seen him smile. And laugh. The first time he’d seen Rogers laugh had been in a Smithsonian exhibit (yes he’d seen the goddamn exhibit) and the second time he’d seen Rogers laugh had been because of Bucky Barnes and everything’d kinda hit him then. Everything’d changed.

And it’d been...surreal. They’d. They’d been a family. Then Barnes left, and everything broke. It broke hard, because there’d been so much to lose.

He’d let his heart soften. More than just for Rogers, for Barnes.

He’d thought he’d understood. Then Romanoff dropped that in his lap and now he was staring at another smoking bomb he didn’t know how to engineer his way outta.

Tony thought he was the soft heart, electric soul. But here was Bucky Barnes.

Terror was still thrumming in his chest like another arc reactor, even if the broken American Psycho straight outta WWII and Brooklyn alleyways collapsed in that stiff hospital chair looked more haunted than Aliens in New York and it couldn’t be that kid, that kid that’d been so close to stealing his life, one more person he’d finally trusted so deeply turning their back on him and it was still that shiny arm in all his nightmares, but. Natasha’d painted quite the picture and he saw it now, saw him now. Here was Bucky Barnes.

They had more in common than anyone else he’d ever met.

And that was exactly why Tony’s broken pitying heart couldn’t ever forgive him.

 

Eventually, the rain stopped. The roof fell in and the wind knocked bones in knots until the storm couldn’t rage anymore, until every ounce of life was drained dry and Bucky crumpled quietly at Steve’s bedside, fingers loose and eyes closed, occasional hitch in slowing slowing breath, empty ribs rattling around under battered skin.

Battered skin too tight over his cheekbones, temples, dried salty tears making everything cold, corners of eyes hard.

Head tipped down against his chest and there should be long hair hanging in blurred-edge vision but there wasn’t, not anymore, not when all those dark snakes were tamed into that sideswoop, few dislodged strands curling over his forehead and he could be sitting beside Steve on a barstool smiling about keeping the outfit, glancing between Peggy Carter in her bright red dress and Steve Rogers with his soft shy smile, eyes cutting to the ground as it sunk in, as it all sunk in.

They traveled so far.

You carry people, Buck. You carry me.

Carry on.

The room tipped as he pushed up from the chair, white horizon fading for a moment before it snapped back into a line he knew, feet solid on this too-clean floor too many stories too high up. The world faded at the edges as his fingers slipped free from Steve’s, but they were sharing the same oxygen and that meant he could move, all nearly-ninety-nine years weighing down every stumbling step to the side table, scrape of a sliding clipboard as he fumbled for the Sharpie he’d ordered a nurse to bring earlier.

Cap between his teeth, twist and pull and the smell filled the air sharp and poignant, black ink tip holding all that dark paint.

The last time he’d smelled Sharpie, Steve’d been drawing a ring around his right-hand finger.

A line, with a dash, a never-ending line like the one he’d drawn around Bucky’s wrist in the hot-tub, with a marker in bed, with his fingers and his lips and his heart, over and over, line line line dash.

Where we begin and where we end, but the line never ends.

He’d proposed with a fucking Sharpie, drawing that goddamned never-ending line into his skin and Bucky was shaking too much to do this.

Bottom lip trembling, shaky halting inhale but he had to get it together, there weren’t any tears left in his body to cry and his stomach was already cramped from the shaking and his hands were clammy and the custom ring Steve’d made for him with the promise of being married and together for eternity was lying at the bottom of the river under the Brooklyn Bridge.

The skin on the inside of Steve’s wrist was so smooth, blue veins shifting easily under the gentle stroke of Bucky’s thumb. Pretty little artist wrists.

It was the worst kind of emptiness, the silence where there should’ve been snark, the stillness where fists should’ve been curled, the blank where there should’ve been golden soft sweet smiles. Steve wasn’t fighting him back this time. Might never fight back again.

His hands were shaking.

He couldn’t very well draw when his hands were shaking, he knew that much.

But the good news was, of all the training he’d had in his life, the first he’d learned was stillness, the quiet frozen behind a sniper scope and artist hands couldn’t stitch up his bulletwound in that forest so long ago because he shook too bad but when it came down to it, Bucky knew frozen long before he knew cold.

A deep breath, just breathe, and the trembling fingers curled, uncurled. Shifted, and he was steady.

One more inhale and he lifted Steve’s wrist, black tip setting carefully to clean pure skin, and drew.

--------- | • • • -----

The first time Steve’d drawn it with water. Over and over around his wrist, stopping at the same place every time to draw that little dash.

The sharpie slid down in the dash first, black mark over thin pale skin. Then it was the careful line, the line to trace all the way around that beautiful wrist.

Except. Except this time it wasn’t to the end.

So careful, tracing straight with perfect pressure, turning Steve’s hand just a little, moving around to accommodate the angle better, didn’t wanna twist even if Steve couldn’t feel right now.

Bucky could feel him, the pulse in his wrist, soft thudding so slow and peaceful, the heartbeat in a chest he’d spent his life matching black marching boots to.

He didn’t connect the line to the dash on the other side. How could he? They hadn’t made it.

They’d never make it.

The end of the line together, that. It was outta reach now. Out of reach the same way he’d been, gripping the metal bar on the peeled train wall just an inch too far.

No, the line didn’t connect. The black dragging ink wrapped around the edge of a wrist bone and all he had to do was keep going to drag that line to the dash but instead the sharpie lifted. Touch down, touch, touch.

Three words, a dot for every word, three words that stood between two soldiers in love and the end of the line.

Our last breath.

You, me, death, and our last breath.

Bucky capped the sharpie.

Picked up a pen and paper instead. Might as well explain it now.

’Cause he wasn’t gonna be here to explain it when Steve finally woke.

“Alright, pal, here’s how it goes. The dot closest to the line, that’s you. And it’s breath too, because you...you were my breath. My air, the thing that kept me alive even when I didn’t want it.”

Another steady sniper inhale, couldn’t start shaking now. Couldn’t start crying again. Steve’d see it, in his handwriting, in the dots his tears would mark all over the page.

No, he had to focus on those three black dots on the inside of Steve’s wrist.

“‘Sides, breathing’s kinda been a hassle for you, ‘specially when you were young. So that dot’s you, and breath. The next one, the middle dot, next to you, that’s me.”

Rolled his lips in and glanced up from the paper he was sketching on, taking in the pretty angles of that face one last time.

See?

“It’s me, and it’s last too. Last is for me because I loved you first and guess what pal, even if this is it, I loved you last too. You better go to your damn grave believin’ that.”

Pencil over white, clipboard so oddly hard and foreign in his lap. They should be drawing under trees in the forest, not here, not in this.

One more dot.

“The third dot, that’s death. ‘Cause hey, guess you’re not the only one with a twisted sense of romance, right? And it’s our too. Our is for death since that’s the only thing that’s ever stood between us and the end of the line and baby, we could never run from that if we tried. Til death, remember?”

Exhale, pencil scratching one more arrow, make sure Steve understood. Always understood.

“...til our last breath.”

The clipboard was louder than his feet as he sat it back down on the side table. Sharpie too. They’d communicated with enough pencil sketches in their lives he could only hope Steve would forgive him for leaving with something that goddamned simple.

The whole thing was pretty simple, really. It was too bad by the time he’d figured it out, he’d been too late.

As the world’s leading authority on waiting too long? Don’t.

When the moon found the sun, he looked like he was barely hanging on. But her eyes saved his life, in the middle of summer.

He...was never gonna have a summer again.

It was like watching the stars blink out from the sky as it slowly sunk in, that the world was done spinning, that this was just.

It.

That it was over.

Endless summer somehow became endless winter and now there was...nothing. No seasons with no players left on the board, no soldiers left to push from trench to ocean to plane to train.

Nowhere to fall because there was nowhere to go, no sky to fall from.

There was nothing left for him. For them.

You, me, death, and our last breath.

Goodbye, summer --

all was golden when the day met the night.

Until golden days became nothing more than memories.

And memories weren’t something he had a good track record with anyways.

Resignation.

Recalcitrant. Rejoiced, repentant. Reticent, reverent, righteous.

Railroaded.

That’s not alphabetical, Steve’s voice teased and Bucky glared affectionately across the pillow between them.

I had to put that one last. It’s a primary emotion, after all. It needs its own effect, don’t you think?

26 letters, Stevie.

"What was next on the list after amazement?" Steve whispered and Bucky couldn't fight the smile because what a fucking idiot.

"Anchored. Anxious. Awestruck."

"Do you really have a whole list?"

"26 letters, Stevie."

"Buck...what about the eight I told you earlier?" He rolled his lips in, suddenly nervous again, and Bucky's heart was pounding fast enough Steve had to hear it.

He swallowed and searched between the two blues. He wasn't sure he was ready for this. How was he supposed to face--

Bucky sucked in a breath, running a tired hand down his face and forcing the memory aside before he got so swept up he never escaped the black and white movie reel.

It was all he ever wanted, for the longest time, to smile like that black and white movie reel.

What an exhibit they were.

He blinked down at the closed eyes, white hospital gown over the broad chest. Jesus. If you wanna fight a war, you gotta wear a uniform, right?

He’d never learned how to face those eight letters.

Not those.

If only he could lie with Steve. Lie beside him, wrap his arms around under those muscled arms, around that sloped, thin waist, hold his best friend to his chest the way all those heartbroken hospital couples did in the movies.

Only Steve wouldn’t slowly awake, long shadowed eyelashes fluttering. Fingers wouldn’t twitch, suddenly curl around his own. Those callused fingers were frozen. Frozen like the last coma he’d been in.

That ocean must’a been so goddamned cold.

Believe it or not, it's kinda hard to find someone with shared life experience.

Weren’t they all so goddamned cold.

But the skin stretched over high cheekbones, the skin Bucky’d bruised and broken orange a lifetime and a half ago, it still ran warm under his fingertips. Still made from fucking sunshine.

He’d never believed in bittersweet, never understood sweet sadness, not until this moment, right here. Fingers brushing down the precious angle of Steve’s jaw, that beautiful face peaceful and quiet beneath him. Could almost be sleeping. How many mornings had he woken early, just to watch Steve sleeping?

Not enough.

Dear lord, he hadn’t had enough. Just one more, one more of everything, please.

One more smile. One more laugh. One more happy shouted, “Buck!

One more dance. One more night under the stars. One more song. Please, just one more song.

Thumb in the middle of that strong chin, where Steve kissed him when he was laughing, the crease they didn’t share. If only there were more. Nearly every mark he had matched a parallel - how was he supposed to look at his hands if they only scuffed the same way Steve’s did?

You’n’me raised in the same part of town, got these scars on the same ground. Remember--

Remember.

For all the memories he’d won and lost, for all the lives he’d lived, the hills they’d ran up, the skies they’d chased, it was never the shooting stars or the comets that burned red first.

“It took me too long to realize, Stevie.”

The bullet lied deeper than knives could carve. Inhale. Maybe never breathe again.

“Took me too long to see, neither of us were the monster,” Bucky told him, and Steve’d spent a lifetime trying not to bleed on anyone and it wasn’t their fault they’d both been stained so red and blue.

“The only villain in our story was time.”

A sketchpad, only moment Steve was ever peaceful. Bucky pressed his forehead to the smooth, worry-free one beneath the blonde halo, crystal slipping shut slowly and this, this was the only peace he’d ever know.

All the times they’d touched like this. Foreheads pressed together, lips parted, eyes shut, hands clutching necks, jaws, spines.

After Sarah died, that first night down on the floor, couch cushions pulled close. When Falsworth stitched him up in the forest outside the city he’d been shot in the thigh. The first time they’d kissed. The day on the beach, hey sugar you rationed? Dancing on the empty floor, just minutes before Steve led him into that black and white bedroom. Nearly every time Steve rocked slow inside his body, smooth and slick warmth drizzling up his spine. That afternoon Steve’d shouted fine, he had PTSD, crumpled right into Bucky’s arms.

I didn’t win the war til you got there. I didn’t win the war at all.

It took nothing, to tip down. Noses brushing, lips centimeters apart.

He hadn’t kissed Steve since the morning they broke up, in the pouring rain. Goodbye, to the sunshine.

Goodbye, sweet sunshine. My only sunshine.

Bucky pressed his mouth to Steve’s. Soft pink lips carefully compressed under his own, so gentle and breakable like this. The world had done nothing but try to rip Steve Rogers apart and he’d done nothing but grown softer, tried harder to save it.

This job...we try to save as many people as we can.

Sometimes that doesn’t mean everybody.

Break.

That’s what you don’t understand. This isn’t about me.

“I’m so sorry, Stevie,” Bucky whispered, suddenly the tall one again as he straightened, suddenly the one looking down again as he forced himself to blink back open, lips parting around a quiet breath. One hand sliding through silky blonde hair.

Right. 'Cause you got nothing to prove.

The exact same way Bucky had nothing to lose.

The first time, he screamed I loved him first. I love him. I love him, I’m in love with him, dear god. How could I let this happen?

I highly doubt it was under your control, Peggy Carter reasoned. That’s what she’d told him.

And just like with everything else, she’d been right.

Control. And it was in that moment, then, that Bucky first realized he’d lost control.

And that's all the Winter Soldier had ever been about. About keeping control. Efficiency was only ever created to control. And if he loved Steve? He gave that up. He gave up control.

He's my world, and he can't ever know. God save me,

I loved him first.

Even if it cost us our souls. Even if it cost you control.

It’d surprised him, how comforting Peggy was, reaching over in the middle of his breakdown to squeeze his hand.

But if Steve were awake, he wouldn’t be surprised at all, the way Bucky squeezed his hand. This was all he’d ever known. This was all they’d ever known.

Even when I had nothing.

Steve shouted it. In the middle of a fight, no less, and that wasn’t surprising either. What was surprising, was how quiet and simple it came out of his mouth now, how small it was, how little it changed anything, but he said it anyways because Steve Rogers deserved to hear it, once, in his life, even if it was like this.

“I loved you first, darling,” Bucky told him.

That day with the painting he’d parroted what he said to Peggy but this time, this time he was saying it right to that beautiful young face and hopefully, somewhere underneath all the ice, his best friend heard it. His best friend heard what Bucky’d been saying to him every day in a thousand ways since they were seven, in the way he’d been wanting to hear it all along.

Let's fade away together, one dream at a time.

His hands were cold. The moment they left Steve’s skin they were cold, but they’d have to be this way. Forever. He’d have to learn.

One step backwards. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Soldier lift, pivot. Pivot on a heel because that was the only way he was ever leaving this place. As Sergeant James Barnes, of the 107th. Shipping out for England first thing tomorrow.

He got his orders.

“Hey Steve?” For the life of him he couldn’t make himself turn the doorknob. Couldn’t decide which hand would open the door that made him leave the love of his life for the rest of his life.

But he’d already said it, and if Steve really could hear him he might as well tell him the rest.

“If...this is my last breath?” Staring at the metal handle and Bucky inhaled, tainted oxygen, final drops of sunlight fading over the horizon. “--then I leave with no regrets.”

He had to lift his head. Crystal was watering again, somehow, and who was he kidding, this was still Steve.

Bucky turned back around, the corners of his mouth turning up affectionately as the rest of him melted into nothing at all.

“This life is over but.” Shrug, scarred shoulder lifted to his ears, hair too short to brush against mottled layers now.

Steve was so quiet. Laying there so clean, quiet, surrounded by pure white like the angel Bucky’d painted onto poured canvas. It was one hell of a way to remember him. Remember him, he would.

Exhale.

“I had you. Til death.”

Til then.

Til death.

Bucky Barnes always thought death for him would be some bullet to the head, bomb beneath his feet. But that'd just be mercy now – real death was losing Steve.

So. At least he had Steve til death.

 

~*~*~

 

There were only a few things he could do.

What he should do, he should just end this fucking tragedy Romeo & Juliet style, eat that bullet he’d never had the chance to.

But see, he couldn’t off himself. The only time he’d ever been blessed enough to allow himself trying was when he thought Steve didn’t love him. He couldn’t deny that now no matter how hard he fucking tried.

He could get wiped again, he supposed. This time for good. No journal, no fake memories. Blank slate. Tabula rasa. Everything just...gone.

Hydra had always asked him who he was without Steve, and he had answered nothing. It was only fitting, right?

To be nothing?

No. Unfortunately, couldn’t do that either. Too big of a risk.

Not to him, to Steve. He’d broken Steve, last time. And the time before that, right yeah, can’t forget about all those times you fucking wiped your brain so you didn’t have to deal with the pain, leaving the love of your life to suffer all of it double for you both!

He’d been a coward for so long. He’d been scared for so long.

No loose ends this time, he couldn’t risk the repeat of Steve finding him. He couldn’t. There had to be some other way, he had to come up with some other plan.

But see, that plan had one major flaw in it.

Steve was the one who came up with the brilliant plans.

Which Bucky would rather be caught dead than saying out loud, because Steve’s plans were brilliant but they were dangerous, almost always had the chance of him ending up splattered on the pavement somewhere--

Wait.

Stupid reckless, that...wouldn’t be his fault. It was a risk they were willing to take anytime they stepped into the field and Steve wouldn’t hate him for that, Steve would understand, that was the goddamned rule he lived by in life, right? He’d let Bucky fight at his side in reckless battles a thousand times, it was the only on the battlefield that the threat of death was so imminent they just had to fuckin’ embrace it and jump.

That was it. Fuckin’ embrace it and jump.

He’d lost all his other brothers in the war, Steve had, and he was okay. He missed them, sure, but soldiers died in the field, that’s just what happened. Taps at the funeral and a folded flag and it’d suck, it’d be awful, but with metal tags around your neck you were always prepared for that kind’a end.

Well, Steve had his dogtags currently, but it was the thought that counted.

If he’d’ve thought of it earlier, he’d’ve stolen his toetag back off the chain, left Steve with just the one. Split em, the way they should’ve in the war. Well. It was a little late now.

Bucky took a deep breath, pushed open the hospital’s front doors and stepped into the glaring sun.

 

~*~*~

 

White. A sense of encompassing, piercingly-bright white. Steve blinked, stared up at the ceiling, and could only process the too-clean color above him.

There were sounds too, drifting through the room. Recognizable, only this time they weren’t voices over a speaker; monitor sounds, metallic and modern.

He was clean, cold, surrounded by too much white, a strange chemical smell, and an empty hospital room.

Back to reality-adjacent.

Steve looked around, bed in a blank room, twenty-first century blank. No radiator by the window, no half-paneled walls, just fancy beeping machines and a discarded chair and a sidetable with a clipboard on it, a piece of paper he couldn’t read from here.

A recovery room. Which meant...he was alive, then.

And so was Bucky.

It didn’t take a radio and a ballgame this time, didn’t take sitting up and soaking in, it socked him less than ten seconds from fluttering eyelashes parting, smack across the face and punch to the chest, heart aching.

It hit him outta nowhere and suddenly Steve was very much not alright. His breathing picked up and the room was crushing him, one question rushing through: Where was Bucky?

And just like last time, the door opened at that exact moment. Except that ex-SHIELD agent wasn’t bothering to pose as a slightly-out-of-time nurse.

No, he was the only one out of time here.

Running and running lights flashing Times Square spinning snow falling warm leather glove tugging his along through streets and cobblestone echoed empty under dull gold and everyone was there and he hadn’t seen anyone in months, years, an entire lifetime--

The voice broke through like shattering glass, flash of red as Bucky dropped the crystal on the kitchen floor and Steve yelled that he couldn’t blame everything on Zola and Natasha Romanoff was pinned up against the wall with scared wide eyes and bubblegum in her mouth and she was.

Standing at his bedside, looking at him with arms crossed over her chest, same sounds floating over him only this time they sunk in.

“Barnes just left.”

Steve stared down at his hands.

The faintest tremor, that strange steady almost-calm right before he exploded and punched out a glass screen for absolutely no goddamn reason other than pure, bubbling rage. Reignedin rage.

Words didn’t shake him hard as look on that face. Bucky finding him, Steve just missing him, that merry-go-round he knew better than anything else - he wouldn’t’ve come if he didn’t remember Steve again and even that wasn’t surprising, he’d always known Bucky always would, he doesn’t remember you; he will.

Bucky’d been here, came back for him and that meant it was Steve’s turn to go track him down again and here they go, one more time, one more round, he’d do this dance for the rest of his life, long as it took, he’d waltz through endless snow until his feet caved underneath him, it didn’t surprise him anymore, didn’t make his chest seize.

She did.

She used to be his best friend. Sitting on the floor of his old apartment, some girly chick-flick on TV while Natasha chewed her popcorn too loud and threw every fourth piece at his face, falling over on her side from laughing so hard as Steve teared up at the final chase-down-in-the-airport I-love-you-confession.

The undercover missions and training together, a thousand ways to launch her spinning off his shield and a dozen jabs another date she tried setting up over coms. Same way Bucky used to.

The :) SHIELD extractions at the curb, the easy silence when he needed it and the understanding glances when the rest of the team were rolling their eyes. That first long car ride, DC to New Jersey with her feet on the dash in those strange civilian clothes she’d picked out for him, a smile as she looked over at him from the passenger seat and teased him, teased him the way Bucky used to too.

She’d been his best friend. In every way, she’d been his best friend. She’d been there for him when he’d been so alone, and she’d changed his life. She’d pulled him outta the aftermath of New York and dragged him to DC with her and went apartment shopping for him and taught him all the ways of the internet and jumped right into his war when he was an international fugitive, no questions asked, stood there at his side as the world shifted, bleeding out in a van reminded him none of that’s your fault Steve, and went through god knows what to pull those strings, find Bucky’s file for him and.

What felt like years ago now, she’d sat on Sam’s bed in front of him, shock and gratitude on her face in the quiet gravity as she told Steve he saved her life. And asked him if she’d trust him to do the same.

I would now.

And he had, trusted her to do the same.

I’m always honest.

She’d been through so much, they’d all been through so much, but he did trust her to save his life.

And she hadn’t.

Steve stared down at his hands, slowly turning them over against the white sheets.

There was something on his wrist.

Barnes just left.

“How long?” Steve asked, gaze flicking up to the silent figure barely inside the doorway.

How long what? How long since Bucky’d been gone? How long had he been in a coma?

How long had she known where Bucky was and lied to Steve’s face?

How long was she gonna let him waste away before she finally told him?

Would she ever have told him?

“You’ve been out seventy-nine hours.” She was studying him, calculating, and the first time they’d met he’d known instantly. May be a clutz in the presence of beautiful women, but he was still a soldier - recognized the face of another fighter.

Maybe that’s why he’d been so blindsided when it was her, when she was the one to betray him.

Seventy-nine hours. That was nowhere near seventy years.

When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won.

They didn’t say what we lost.

He hadn’t been able to bring the world back then. Couldn’t bring his world back now.

The only thing left to fix was already gone. This time, he didn’t miss a date. Didn’t have a single person left waiting behind for him. But he still had a boy to catch.

And Natasha’d proven already, she wasn’t gonna be the one to help him do that.

The machines started beeping in protest as he yanked out the needle in his arm, threw back the sheets. Swung his legs over the side of the bed, one hand steadying on the sidetable and the other on the bed, pushing shakily to his feet.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Nat started, like she genuinely cared about him or something, sounded so damn sincere he almost stopped and applauded whatever role she’d flipped on this time.

“Yeah, well, excuse me if I don’t really trust your ideas anymore,” Steve muttered under his breath, trying out standing on his own. Shit, not quite there yet.

Natasha was halfway across the room but she heard him anyways, freezing in place and normally that’d be great but his balance wasn’t super hot and the hospital gown certainly wasn’t either. He plopped back on his ass, glancing around for his clothes.

“Can you grab those?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, already untying the back of the dressing gown, glancing away from the hurt flickering behind green eyes.

While Natasha took her damn sweet time he scooped up the paper on the sidetable, inhaling slow and carefully controlled as he recognized Bucky’s handwriting. Course it was. The hell was Buck up to now?

The clothes fell in a pile beside him and he was pretty sure they’d been folded a moment before. Funny, Romanoff had never struck him as the childish type.

Another closer inspection of the drawn line on his wrist, the explanation on the paper and Steve held his breath for a few seconds, getting a grip on himself before the crackling and crumbling took over.

The floodgates were terrifyingly flimsy but he had to fucking keep it together ‘cause the moment that dam broke they’d never let him outta this goddamn hospital. How was he s’posed to go bitch slap his best friend across his stupid pretty face if they didn’t let him outta here?

“Rogers--”

“Romanoff,” he replied stubbornly, pulling the hospital gown off over his head so he didn’t have to look at whatever disappointed combo of emotions she was giving him now.

She waited by the window while he got dressed and Steve wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, wasn’t like he was gonna apologize for snapping. She sure as hell didn’t sound like she was gonna apologize for putting him through hell either.

But it was fine, the world was spinning a fraction less than the last time he’d been conscious, he’d manage. Had all his nutrient levels back to normal, but the whole coma thing kinda fucked him over regardless. He had to stop doing that, waking up all alone in what felt like another century. Again.

Soon as he found Bucky, the horizons would settle out straight again. The colors would turn back to normal and he’d stop stepping over crumbled, burned out building pieces in the goddamn tile.

He was gonna get his best friend back. He was gonna go fight for him.

Again.

But honestly, after all the shit he’d gone through pulling Bucky back into his life over and over, that first time storming an enemy base all by himself - not a lot was really gonna top that. He’d been emotional, untrained, never landed a solid punch a day in his life, didn’t understand his own body, and decided to walk across Europe if he had to, on the slight chance his best friend from back home might’ve survived a firefight that killed almost his entire regiment and captured the rest of the unit to work as slaves in weapons factories.

So yeah, whatever was standing between him and Buck now? He wasn’t all that worried about it.

He’d go through whatever he had to, and he’d get Bucky back to his side. Again.

“Steve, I know how much Bucky means to you.” It was so quiet, honest and low and that was probably the first time he’d ever heard her admit that. She did know. She knew him so well, so how could she-- “But running isn’t gonna help anybody. Stay outta this one, please.”

Would Peggy? If the situation were weirdly twisted somehow, and it was Peggy who was supposed to keep Bucky’s fucking existence from Steve, would she do it? Peggy Carter always did the right thing, always knew exactly what right, moral was and if she’d been faced with the same decision as Natasha, would she’ve made the same choice?

Did he hate Natasha for this because in some twisted way he expected it from her, with her past and all the lies she’d told, while if Peggy did the same thing, he’d simply understand she was trying to protect him?

Was that what Natasha was doing? Protecting him? Protecting Bucky? When Peggy’d kept the secret about Bucky being in love with him, it’d been for that reason but it wasn’t like Peg knew about the Winter Soldier and just wouldn’t tell him.

Would she?

His lungs weren’t filling up the way they were supposed to and his heart stuttered for a brief moment, the sudden fear that he was back in his old body again only he’d just wrestled into the Captain America blue plants and those fit him fine, he was fine, he just had to.

Fuck. Breathe.

The shoes felt a little loose as he forced himself to stand, took a moment to inhale, exhale, one hand propped on the back of the bedside chair. Bucky’d been here, and he couldn’t think about that, couldn’t wonder what he’d said, if he’d cried, he couldn’t do a damn thing from in here.

A heavy thumb pressed to the sharpie on the inside of his wrist, proof, this was real and Bucky was waiting for him, in whatever leather bounds Steve had to untangle this time, bombs he had to dodge and shield he had to drop, he was fine. He was ready.

Shove all that other shit down, pull on the invisible blue helmet and step back into whatever shoes were on solid enough ground to handle this and if right now that was Captain America instead of Steve Rogers, so be it.

“Steve.”

“Natasha, I can’t just stay cooped up in here, you know that.” He finally forced his head up, bones clicking painfully as he rolled his shoulders back, fist releasing from the chair to turn to the hurt eyes, crossed arms over black leather.

“I’m the only one that can fix this. It’ll get worse, the longer I’m not out there.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is that simple. This team is short a Captain, and the only one you’ve got around happens to be an expert. We’ve taken on armies of aliens, we can pull one soldier back from the dead.”

She didn’t budge, looking at him with tight worry and that fight she only ever had for them, the team, nothing like the fire she carried in all those enemy wars.

There was...a chance. That she really had been trying to protect him. Them.

“I can do this,” Steve told her, calm, lying straight through the red white and blue and something in that hard beautiful outer shell cracked, bleeding through and all he could see was the soft torn insides behind the unfolding arms, slightly shaking head.

Natasha was so smart, how could she possibly think keeping Bucky from him would help either of them? It had to be some other reason. Peggy wouldn’t’ve, she’d never hurt him like that.

“I don’t like it.” A sharp sigh and Romanoff pursed her lips, gaze flicking reluctantly for the door. “But if you’re going after him, we might as well come with you.”

Some other day, he might’ve clapped her on the arm, smiled and held the door open for her 1940’s style, but today he just nodded, because the masks could cover a lot but he didn’t even wanna try pretending he wasn’t upset with her right now.

Well, actually.

Upset’s not exactly the word he would use.

 

I know I’m bad news, I saved it all for you.

Keep your chin up, Steven. Shoulders back, head on straight. So long as you’re upright, you’re not losing.

It could’ve been a bad alleyfight, way he was coaching. But Natasha was studying him so closely and he didn’t have the helmet or a uniform to hide behind, had to force himself in a straight line, keep on walking no matter how many footprints it felt like he was walking in right now.

Forward, keep going forward and she’d have no idea he couldn’t place a damn thing. He’d been nonexistent for days and now he was back in the world and twisting the doorknob opened the door but wasn’t it already open and hadn’t he just opened it two minutes ago--

Stop. Stop trying, stop thinking about it. It’d only make it worse. So what if cause and effect didn’t exist, so what if he knew objectively it was 2016 and he just couldn’t shake the feeling he’d never left the twentieth century. He could handle it, everything falling down inside him, it was only the outside that mattered. He could fake the outsides. Always had.

Thing was, he knew a lot about comas now. While the last one’d been a lot longer, all the disorientation and disassociating wasn’t just bout waking up in a different century. Then, they’d all expected him to be confused, treading through two lives and stumbling into personal hell.

What he hadn’t known was that happened to all coma patients, no matter how long out - seventy years or seven days.

After, he’d done some research, thanks to the internet. Apparently a coma as short as three days could fuck up your brain’s entire timeline and memories for like. A week.

Like having all the events of your life thrown into a giant messy pile and being asked to sort it without any reference points.

But he couldn’t afford to space right now. Couldn’t afford to let himself focus on the fact that every nurse in scrubs he passed was his next-door neighbor or his mom while he’d simultaneously never seen any of the faces in this dystopian-white building before.

If circumstances were different maybe he could have a second to adjust, but there wasn’t a second left on the melting clock he had left to spare.

Last time, the only life on the wire was his own. But now it was everyone's.

He had to find Bucky.

So here he goes, shoving a world and a half of hospital memories echoing tiles awful smells down the back of his throat to make room for the sounds he was gonna have to make, the words that’d have to be damn near perfect to convince the Avengers he had to assemble when he got outta this place.

Or, y’know, they could all just be. Waiting in the lobby too, that was fine.

Fuck, did he ever catch a goddamned break?

The halting stutter in his step, there was no way everyone in this room didn’t see it and there were too many pairs of eyes staring at him to count and Steve could keep walking straight to the desk but the chance of him walking out those front doors without a fight would be pretty slim if he did.

‘cept who the hell was he s’posed to face right now?

“Uh. Thanks for being here,” Steve started slowly, awkward, shoving both hands in pockets and before he could attempt something better Tony was stepping out from beside Sharon, dark eyes flashing under the harsh fluorescent lights, voice cutting even harsher in its cloying lightness, in the awful casual, offside-comment tone,

He was here.” Took everything he had not to bristle, not to curl his fists as Tony lifted one arm across his chest, the other elbow propped on his wrist, waving one arm in the air, dripping pure sarcastic scorn, “Your buddy, your pal.”

Signature smart mouth tipping up in a sneer and Steve wasn’t breathing calmly enough to take this.

“Your Bucky.” It bit like an accusation, all Steve’s fault, like Steve’s Bucky was about the worst goddamned thing that’d ever happened to this town. Even Nat was frozen at his side-- no, beside him, not at his side. Right now, nobody in this room was at his side.

“Y’know, it’s remarkable, how many of us he’s landed in here and he still comes gallivanting in like the goddamn hero--”

“Okay. That’s enough.” Steve cut in a little sharp, shooting Tony the same disapproving look from the beginning. Of all the things to come full circle in his life the misunderstanding fight between him and Stark wasn’t one he’d ever wanted back. But stalking pissily past that indignant genius face to politely, quietly ask the desk nurse for his release forms, leave Tony stewing was more than a little satisfying.

Steve got it, Tony was mad. Scared, even. Bucky’d done a lot of damage to them all, and Tony’d had it bad. Really bad. But that didn’t mean he had to be a fucking dick. Literally minutes after Steve got outta a coma. Damn, it never stopped, did it?

This wasn’t what he wanted, fuck this wasn’t what he wanted. But Steve Rogers was too shattered and shaky right now to take Tony’s ridicule and he’d been Captain America around his team for so long, that’s what they thought was normal anyways, right? Call him Cap and shove him into the streets with a red white and blue target strapped to his back and watch him fight with boots too heavy to dance.

The boombox Tony’d given him, to dance, up on the rooftop of the home he’d opened to two troubled souls that Bucky’d shattered with his metal fist and the pencil in his hand was creaking from being squeezed too tight, on the verge of snapping and he nearly dropped it loosening his fingers so fast.

“How can you just...forgive him. Go after him.”

God, no. Bring back the bitter fighting and the scornful sarcasm. He couldn’t take Tony like that, not all edgy and hurt. That’s not what Steve wanted either.

Go after him. Running through German cobblestone streets, black shadows slipping into an alley and Sam’s voice shouting behind him, wait up, heart pounding and--

When the city goes silent
The ringing in my ears gets violent

Deep breath, angels choking on halos and he’d never wanted this, he’d signed his name on the dotted line to take out bullies, not all these thudding lives that kept getting cut up darker red and black in collateral damage.

How many paid the price before you did?

Steve sat down the pencil.

“I’m sorry, Tony.” The lobby was so quiet, settling over in freezing waves, shards of glass embedded in forearms and hands and Steve pushed off the counter, spun around to face those heated eyes, furrowed hurt lines as Tony stared accusingly back at him. “But I don’t have a choice. I know bad guys, I’ve fought enough evil in this world to know. Bucky’s not that.”

“What about Peggy?” Natasha interrupted and Steve was so. freaking close to losing it.

Hands curled in fists around the nurses’ counter how many counters had he broken in fights he had to get a fucking grip on something that wasn’t about to shatter the second he snapped.

Wasn’t gonna fucking snap.

What about Peggy.

Well fuck Natasha Romanoff, that’s what.

He’d spent months asking himself the same goddamned question.

Pretty green eyes he’d once trusted, cared about, were looking at him with that wide-eyed open honesty a thousand screams in the silence, if you can’t forgive me, how could you possibly forgive him that?

Peggy was the only reason he’d been able to save Bucky’s life.

Not just ‘cause she’d been the one to tell him - your audience contained what was left of the 107th.

Because she’d been the one to believe in him. The first person since Bucky Barnes to believe in him and Buck didn’t count when they were kids, same way your ma had to love ya, there was an obligation Bucky had to him for being his best friend since all eternity to believe in him but.

Peggy was the first person to see both sides of him, all wrapped up in days of basic and USO tours and still seen past the tights and the too-big helmet crooked on his head and still believed in him. She thought he was made for more than this. Before Buck even knew.

He’d’ve never saved Bucky if it weren’t for her.

That was just the first thing she’d done to save their tangled lives.

She was a war hero as much as he was, only no one made statues for her, no one saw all the power she had, all the asses she kicked and days she made with a beautiful bright smile. She believed in him, in the good of the world, and she deserved so much more than losing all that in twisted, grayed memories.

She’d hated that place. She’d never said it but she’d never had to. He didn’t know her long enough to understand everything in that complex beautiful mind, but he knew her enough to know she hated being stuck in prolonged limbo, kept alive by beeping machines and frail bones, nothing left to live for and nothing left to give the world.

Stuck in sanitarium, walls not so different than the ones boxing him in, that’d boxed Bucky in in whatever basement table Hydra’d kept him strapped to with not enough people at her bedside to make up for the hours she spent wasting away, losing the brilliant, sparkling mind.

Peggy hated not being able to remember.

Same way Bucky had. And he’d saved her from that. Saved himself too, because apparently, according to the feisty brunettes he couldn’t keep away from, there was no fate worse than losing the memory of summer sun shining.

“I can’t hate him for killing Peggy...sometimes I wish I could. But if you're looking for blind anger, I’m sure Buck hates himself enough for that, he doesn’t need it from me too.”

.....only person I know tough as Sarah Rogers is Peggy Carter."

"You knew Peggy?" Tony interjected curiously, leaning forward on the bar as Bucky blinked wide and pretty. Perfect time to hop back in the conversation.

"Barely, they only met once," Steve answered, at the exact same time that Bucky started, "Really damn well, she's the one who--"

Buck froze, suddenly snapping his mouth shut as widened eyes flicked to Steve, looking unmistakably guilty.

Steve crossed his arms over his chest and stuck his tongue in his cheek. He’d had no idea.

Well. Considering that he’d trusted her enough to tell her he loved Steve in the middle of a World War when he could’ve lost his position as the Commandos’ sniper - scratch that, as a fighter at all - his army pension, his dignity, and his best friend?

Really damn well made a lotta sense, now.

And as hard as it’d been for Steve, to lose Peggy like that? How much fucking harder had it been for Buck?

To pull the trigger on a life that sacrificed so much for yours?

It hurt like hell, but it was her time. Hell, it was all their time, a long time ago. Steve was still kinda amazed that Bucky hadn’t lured him there and double-homi-suicided them all in one final dramatic scene.

You were always so dramatic. Affectionate smile, easy understanding. You saved the world.

I have lived a life. My only regret is that you didn’t get to live yours.

“All Peg ever wanted for me was to be happy...and after everything it’s taken to get there...she’d understand.”

She’d probably smile red and pretty, shake her head of bouncing brown curls, knowing she was still the one to drag them back together after all these years, all these decades they should’ve learned and never had. Still the one to take Bucky’s secrets and hold them so tight they both fumbled through the next trial, next battle, quiet steady sure waiting just behind his shoulder with the offer of the best civilian pilot around and a plan to bring the love of his life back from the dead.

There is not a man or woman, no matter how fit he or she may be, who is capable of carrying the entire world on their shoulders.

She was Bucky’s way out. And maybe, in some weird twisted way, she’d saved Buck. He’d killed her instead of himself and that was no kind of trade, but that’s exactly the kind of trade she’d make.

“Even after she died, Peggy was still saving my life...” Steve stared down and he wasn’t seeing this hospital, not this room, just hers. The old beige curtains, bedside tables littered with photographs. Bottles of numbing pills. The glass of water, when the cough came--

For as long as I can remember, I just wanted to do what was right.

I guess I'm not quite sure what that is anymore.

One more time, Peg, help him bring back Bucky one more time. All this time and it was still her, who could do this. If Bucky hated himself for killing Peggy, thought that was the worst thing he’d ever done?

Imagine, what it’d prove, to show Bucky that...Steve forgave him.

“I’m forgiving him Peggy. And once Bucky understands that, that I forgive'm his greatest sin? He’ll understand.” He’ll understand. There was nothing, nothing that’d make him anything less than the love of Steve’s life. He’ll finally fucking understand, “...I'm never fucking giving up,” Steve muttered under his breath and the tiles slowly faded back into focus, two feet blocking his vision.

Fuck.

He blinked twice, looked up.

No warm brown eyes, cold green ones.

The first thing he’d thought about Natasha Romanoff was that she reminded him of Peggy, a little, maybe the leather jacket or the short curly hair or the smile to match the guns on her belt or maybe because it was the first beautiful girl he’d been able to talk to since Peg without tripping over himself.

“Steve. You can’t trust him.”

She was nothing like Peggy fucking Carter.

“No, Natasha. I can’t trust you.”

Kinda hard to trust someone when you don’t know who that someone really is.

Who do you want me to be?

What the fuck kind of friend let him agonize over Bucky being gone when he wasn’t, when he was right there all along, waiting for him and Peggy would never.

“I know exactly who you are now.” Innocent car rides and undercover kisses turned daggers. “You’re the best friend I depended on, that didn’t tell me the love of my life was alive.”

Natasha’s eyes were red hot as her hair, mouth popping open around a retort he’d never hear, but later, so much later he couldn’t help but look back and wonder if maybe, she’d been about to say,

no, he wasn’t.

Not without you.

And, ironically, with or without him now.

Natasha opened her mouth and she never got to say whatever it was she was planning, because Bruce was staring and Pepper had a hand over her mouth and Clint was waving a hand at them to cut it out a second, leaning over the counter to ask the chagrined desk nurse to turn up the TV.

And that’s when he heard it.

They all did.

The corner TV in the the lobby was announcing some tragedy and because they were all still superheroes to some twisted level underneath the bullshit convoluted mess this’d become, everyone turned, eyes on the screen.

“--and this is Gav, reporting live with the ABC7 Eyewitness New York. Breaking news, it appears a commuter train crossing from Manhattan to Midtown earlier today nearly hit a pedestrian that’d wandered onto the tracks, reportedly listening to her music in headphones, when an unidentified man at the station leapt in front of the train, shoved her out of the way and was unfortunately struck himself; saving her life and tragically ending his.

“The train station footage of the tracks caught the rescuer just at the corner of the screen, see there, as the girl doesn’t look up, taking that first near-fatal step onto the tracks. And here, right as the train cuts into the frame, there comes our figure in black. Running in, bolting so fast for that girl-- Is that something shiny in his hand? And there he goes, he must’ve been an incredible athlete, there is a marathon somewhere missing him right now. Wow, what a shove, she just goes tumbling and there’s the moment, that pause of hesitation while he’s still on the tracks and the train is just so close, there’s nothing either of them could do. ABC7 Eyewitness News and we’re cutting to the survivor now…

“...I j-just wasn’t thinking, it was a platform and the trains always stop, I thought the trains always stopped but it just kept going, pulled through and I didn’t even see it until it was too close, until it was too late and suddenly I was rolling in the dirt on the other side of the tracks and I c-can’t believe…”

“Eyewitness reports are saying the man seemingly lept out of nowhere, apparently moving so quickly the conductor didn’t realize he was on the tracks until the man paused in the face of that looming headlight and froze. What a time to hesitate, but one could imagine how overwhelming it’d be. Deafening screech, pulled those brakes hard as he could but the man was just too close, there was nothing that could’ve stopped that train. Oh, and here’s Kris now, coming in with the official report--

“Looks likes there’s no injuries for any passengers on board, only the scrapes of the surviving girl, who’s family is riding with her to the hospital now. While train collisions most certainly aren’t always lucky enough to end with a casualty count of just one, the people of New York can be comforted today, that sometimes even in death, there’s a bright light somewhere. Official reports state that New York’s finest are still trying to identify the fallen hero…”

Identify the fallen hero.

Steve stood in the middle of the lobby and stared at the TV in the corner as the news station ran the footage again, grainy video of a girl on the tracks, incoming train speeding into the frame, fast as the one he’d jumped on top of. Should’ve jumped out of when Bucky did.

The last thing Bucky’d said to him, left on his wrist, was I had you, til death.

Til death.

And now there was one more train.

Colliding with the man on the tracks.

Bucky.

That was...Bucky.

The floor dropped out from under his feet.

And he was falling, helicarrier exploding debris around him, falling and falling and crashing as the plane hit ice and the train peeled back, reaching up and screaming and there was no one, no one reaching out with red gloves to catch those freezing hands, silence, pure silence instead of the scream, shout,

Bucky! No!

There was no one there to shout it. Just the scream as the train collided with that sickening clunk--

Too fast to even see the body crumple, fly. It didn’t matter, he was on those tracks the same time the train was and nobody, not even them could survive that.

Only.

He...had that exact same feeling. The same tug in his gut, slowly still-spinning world. Nothing...nothing changed.

Bucky couldn’t be dead.

It was that simple. He didn’t feel it, the same way he hadn’t felt it at Azzano, or after the fall. He’d still had that pulse, that sure pulse in his veins that told him Bucky was alive.

And...he still had it now. The world. Hadn’t. Stopped.

So Bucky couldn’t be dead.

Please tell me he's alive, sir.

He was standing in a tent, dripping rain, heart pounding in his throat and hair sticking to his forehead, gravitational shadow standing behind his shoulder, Peggy’s solid presence and rank he didn’t have, showgirl storming an army tent with his heart shredded in fear, hovering despair.

B-A-R...

I can spell. I've signed more of these condolence letters today than I would care to count. But…

He knew it in his soul, same way he’d known it the moment those words sunk in.

The name does sound familiar. I'm sorry.

Steve hadn’t been able to see, anything, for god knows how long. Couldn’t be true. Not Bucky. Not his best friend from back home, the one he’d shipped off for the 107th without him.

Bucky wasn’t gonna die over here. He’d promised he’d come home. They hadn’t--

Steve hadn’t--

Bucky promised he’d come home.

Peggy grabbed his shoulder. “Steve.”

What do you plan to do, walk to Austria? If that’s what it takes.

“You told me you thought I was meant for more than this. Did you mean that?”

It was raining and the soft brown curls were damp enough to flatten, sticking to her skin and she was so beautiful standing here soaking wet and still shining the sharpest diamond, pair of stolen polish dimes, pretty accent so sincere he didn’t doubt, couldn’t doubt, for a single moment as she looked at him and swore,

“Every word.”

Now was the part he threw a backpack in the jeep, turned to her and pleaded, for him, for Bucky, for all those soldiers they weren’t gonna save that Steve couldn’t leave behind, please, couldn’t she understand,

Then you gotta let me go.

The rumbling engine of a civilian plane drowned, drowned out by a scream.

"STOP, let go," Bucky squirmed, tremble as he yanked his shoulder but Steve just shoved him harder against the wall. "Let me go!" Hysteric that time, bloody hand knocking at Steve's arm, tightened grip and Bucky made a pained sound, tipping off into rambling, shaking head.

"Let me go. Let me go!!" His voice shot shrill, heart pounding so fast Steve could feel it in the rotting air between them and crystal was rimmed red and wet, like the kitchen floor, hovering tears on eyelashes as Bucky twisted, voice cracking over a sob, "Why can't you ever let me go??"

Steve froze.

He froze, mouth open around the pleading response, staring at Peggy with the rain pouring down only it wasn’t, the tumbling drops were hardening, gathering up crystals and freezing, on eyelashes turning away, in mid-air, ice sculpture to box them in and the words were on his tongue, burning fire on the tip of his tongue,

Then you gotta let me go.

The world was shifting.

No, no, the world wasn’t allowed to shift, wasn’t allowed to flash black and white oversaturated, hospital lights and fire, spinning so fast he was tipping and ramming to a complete halt, no no no--

Bucky wouldn’t. The ground under his feet was caving mud, ready to swallow him up and the pavement burned bare feet as he ran, ran, cold metal against his toes as they shoved him in a box made of jagged ice and he was falling, fuck--

One last jolt forward, fingers reaching as he dove across icy rain and muddy boots, red red closing around the only extended hand he could see and Peggy held on tight, pistol calluses on hands that looked so soft and fragile, hands he’d never held in war, flashing war around them as she flushed up at him with you’re late, machine gun in those hands as he looked down at her and echoed back.

The echo didn’t stop carrying. Didn’t stop, you’re late, you’re late, you’re late, and she was holding tight to his hand but he--

He couldn’t hold back tight enough. Her hand was shrinking, weaker. Red lips turning down at the corners, eyes creasing tired, tired and sad and the fingertips laced over his knuckles were shriveling, chestnut freezing around her face, silver ice to dead gray, pale white snow and he couldn’t move, couldn’t move in waves of glacial water, glass crystal cutting open his palms, riding up his arms and he couldn’t stop it, he couldn’t stop it as Peggy shriveled and crackled, fading, fading as his fingers fumbled to catch hers and she was crumbling, crumbling into ash, rusting Phoenix ash dissipating, dust the wind swept into a morbid pencil-shaded swirl and she was gone, flew from his fingertips just like that and Steve still couldn’t scream.

The wind kept blowing, hard enough to threaten knocking him over and Steve was so cold, these clothes didn’t fit him right, hanging loose and billowing but for the tie around his neck, so tight he was choking and he was so cold, spinning around on one worn-through heel--

Gravestones.

Black, black dresses and hats and shoes and black notebook clenched in his fist as he stared at Mom’s coffin, hovering over the ground. Sarah’s funeral. How was it? It was alright. She’s buried next to Dad.

Paper crumpled, loud, and Steve looked down aghast at the sketchbook in his hand. His hand was too big. It was too big, too strong, and the birthday gift he’d gotten from Buck last year was crushed. The leaves under his feet were crushed. Brittle, crinkling under shoes that were too big on feet even bigger, gleaming fancy with that smell from the shoe-shiners down the street in Midtown.

His whole body was too big. Pumped back full of serum and this wasn’t his suit, he’d never worn this suit, black and sleek, didn’t fit broad shoulders emaciated stomach right with all its crisp lines, and maybe it should’ve been familiar to not fit right in a suit because he hadn’t for the first twenty years of his life but this was a whole different kind’a wrong. Nothing like the ratty suits he used to bundle in - dark and brooding, sharp jacket, black vest, black tie, buttoned up white shirt -- only that didn’t belong, it was the white button up he’d worn to dance with Bucky that night they’d made love the first time and.

Steve looked up.

This wasn’t Sarah’s funeral.

It was Bucky’s.

He’d looked so good, that day, stepping up behind Steve on the porch, just take out the trash, shine my shoes, looked like a damn church boy and if Steve didn’t feel guilty as hell for flushing at that because he knew exactly the kinda things that came outta Buck’s mouth and how could he even be thinking about that at all on a day like this, on a day they put his mom in the ground then Bucky’s hand was on his shoulder and Steve looked up at him with big affectionate eyes and he could melt, he could melt because Buck was gonna be at his side for the rest of forever.

At his side, now.

Only it was a coffin at his side, and Steve was staring down at that young face, the one from that day, and Bucky’d been dead the moment he doomed himself to Steve but he couldn’t be dead, he couldn’t be dead, the world was shifting and dropping under his feet but he couldn’t be dead.

Shaky, numb hands dug split knuckles into the corners of his eyes. Fuck, get it together. Get a grip, Rogers.

He opened his eyes.

Short hair, that was the first thing he registered as he recognized crystal eyes, staring at him blank under pale skin on a street corner in Queens, overwhelmed and confused and not the slightest bit of recognition as Steve reached for him, cried out, Bucky?

It was that face staring back at him from the coffin now.

The cool grass beneath his feet tipped and any second now, his knees were going to give out and at least they’d bury him here, in the open dirt grave they were about to lower his boy into, at least they were together in death and--

“Captain?”

Steve spun around. There were so many faces, voices, so much black he couldn’t tell who was who and who’d spoken and why there were so many people at a funeral for some backalley dock boy from Brooklyn, but someone was wearing a military cap and there were outstretched hands, carrying an American flag.

Not the kind from his uniform. The kind Bucky painted over a casket and handed to him on pure, clean canvas. Red white and blue, America.

“It’s time to fold the flag,” Howard Stark told him softly, quick engineer hands already poised on the other side.

Your best buddies were the ones that folded your flag, everyone knew that. And the Commandos weren’t here, the Commandos had left him a long goddamn time ago or he’d left them, back of a golden bar as he whisked a beautiful boy off to dance but they weren’t here and that hit just as hard now as the files deceased did, deceased deceased deceased but Bucky’d stuck to Howard like over-eager glue, from the minute he’d been asked to test out weapons efficiency and they’d worked together in his shop, had tossed around ideas and made plans for the future, a drink together in Brooklyn after the war.

Howard, who’d Bucky sent flying off a cliff in a car that most definitely couldn’t fly.

Did he know, that shiny red from the beginning, Bucky’d taken that car and finally designed it so it could? Did Howard know?

“Cap,” Howard called softly and Steve’s hands shot to two corners of the flag, fast as soldier’s hands snapped to foreheads to salute only his fingers were curling in the smooth material, the most careful cautious fists he’d ever made but he couldn’t stop, brandishing the only weapon that’d ever saved him only it hadn’t been enough to save--

Breath caught on the sharp inhale and he forced his chin up, snapping his eyes back forward and Howard was.

Tony. Howard was Tony and Tony’s throat was painted with a mottled white scar and he was looking at Steve with raised eyebrows, impatient, waiting for him to lift hands, fold, fold.

To stand here and mechanically fold Bucky’s flag as Howard and Tony flickered and someone was weeping, some girl from some double date that Bucky’d left at the dance hall, dragging Steve off with that angry line in his forehead, dimple in his chin furrowing as he growled something about not being able to stand how disrespectful and.

Fold.

The flag on his chest, it was nothing like the flag in his hands and Bucky turned to him, asked if he was gonna keep the uniform. That sly, tipped eyebrow flirting tone and Steve hadn’t thought about it, then, but now Bucky had a flag and it didn’t matter, if he’d been flirting or not.

How many of his soldiers had died this way? How many came home to waste away, was Dernier’s girl so happy to have him home she finally said yes to that proposal or did she split after the first nightmare he broke something? Had Dugan’s mom made everybody that Thanksgiving dinner he’d promised? Did Monty ever get the homemade soup in front of a fire he’d wished for back when Steve didn’t have anything left to live for?

Fold. Straighten.

One more step.

Barnes was the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country. The others just gave their existence, nothing more. Just their hope and their dreams and their normalcy and their queasiness to blood and their pure white innocence, drifting down snow and dark eyelashes as someone pelted one more snowball.

Fold.

It was so heavy.

Why was it so heavy?

It was just a flag, but he could feel every stitch against the raw skin on his palms, like sackcloth weighing down his wrists, almost like it was filled with something and all that pride, that was supposed to be stuffing Steve’s chest right now? Where was that? Shoved in this damn flag instead?

Fold. One step closer to Tony’s waiting hands. Snapping bite, we’re not soldiers and Howard’s wide eyes, staring after Peggy Carter too, whatever you want, pal. Glowing gold, blue arc reactor in his chest and the patience that only the war man knew, younger than he’d ever known Tony, what father, son was his brother and the flag was. So. Fucking. Heavy.

One more fold. Lift the edge of the triangle and he was in uniform, Class C’s, the uniform he’d only gotten to wear at base, gold and official and Steve wasn’t sure he’d be able to face standing here, holding up the edge as Howard tucked in the final piece, and salute.

How was he supposed to salute.

Bucky’d promised.

The day he’d shipped out, standing there in his Class A’s, saluting Steve goodbye, he’d promised. He’d promised he’d come home.

Gold gloves, gloves rolling the edge of the triangle tighter, tucking it clean and precise the way they’d tucked their beds he didn’t get to share anymore.

Folded. Steve took a step backwards, a single marching step backwards and dear god, fuck, he didn’t wanna do this.

There were tears in his eyes, tears shaking his chest under the shining pins, gold tie, brown uniform, hair slicked perfectly, carefully to the side and the only stars he had left were on the goddamned flag Stark was holding but he’d taken so much from Bucky Barnes, he wasn’t taking this.

Steve lifted his arm slowly, angled the tips of his fingers to his forehead, and saluted Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th and the flag they were to bury him with.

He’d never gotten married.

For all the girls that’d thrown themselves in his lap, all the chances he’d always had, Bucky’d never gotten married.

He didn’t have a spouse, they gave the flag to your spouse, but Bucky never married and they’d put in the ground, bury it beside his cold body--

“Captain Rogers?”

It took him a second, to blink fast enough to see past the watery lashes, gasp in a shaky, hitching breath, and register the man in uniform beside him.

Pararescue NCO Sam Wilson, two white gloves cradling the vibrant red, stark blue. White stars arching across the top, Bucky’s burial flag only it wasn’t laying on his casket, Sam was-- Sam was holding it out to Bucky’s...spouse.

To Bucky’s best friend.

“As a representative of the United States Military, it is my high privilege to present to you…” Oh. “…distinguished service rendered to our country, and to our flag by your loved one.”

To Steve.

His loved one.

On March 2, 1945, Steve Rogers stood in front of a foggy mirror propped haphazardly in the back of an army tent, staring at the shadow of a man about to embark on the last mission of his life.

And he could remember, thinking then, about the future he’d have. If he survived that last mission, going after Schmidt. Under the arch of a canvas sky he’d stared, the empty void where crystal used to shine over his shoulder in the mirror, and just. Thought about how he much he hadn’t said.

He’d spent most his life so far gone, under and he’d thought maybe he’d break the surface when they pumped his cells perfect. But he’d gotten the serum, and his feelings for Buck didn’t budge an inch.

And nothing changed. Why would it? Steve spent his entire life in love with Bucky Barnes, so what? He loved Bucky and the sky was blue and snow was cold as hell. There was nothing to think about, nothing to confess.

Until now that Bucky was dead. And Steve couldn't help but wonder if maybe he should've confessed.

It was too late now, though. Steve could whisper I love you to Bucky's grave when they won this war.

The empty grave. He’d wondered, all the way back then, in that empty dismal tent in 1945, if they'd hand Steve the folded flag.

Of course they had.

Of course they had.

If he survived this. If he made it out alive on the other side. Part of him didn't think he would. Part of him didn't think he'd last past this next battle. Part of him didn't want to.

That was the worst part of him and Steve stared with dead eyes in a foggy mirror and wondered when he'd turned into the coward that couldn't keep breathing without Bucky at his side.

There was no mirror, now, to tell him he was wasting away in this cemetery with Bucky’s coffin and a burial flag on Steve’s upturned palms, the red gloves that’d failed to catch precious cold hands curling around the edges, terrified of clutching it close, more terrified to drop it.

And he’d been right. All the way back then, he’d been right.

Whisper I love you to Bucky’s grave, only.

They never won the war.

 

The embroidered stars left imprints on his forehead, cheekbones, but better there than the empty empty hole in his chest.

He couldn’t stop crying.

He couldn’t stop crying, curled in the middle of the floor of their apartment in Brooklyn, the place he’d taken Bucky down and kissed his stomach between murmured I love you’s, watching the beautiful face sink further further down into hopelessness, the fragile, terrified, desperate affection as Bucky wrapped his fingers around the back of Steve’s head and begged so quietly,

Say it again.

Steve’s knees were aching, stomach ripped up from all the shuddering but he couldn’t stop crying, triangle burial flag pressed to his face, curled in the middle of that floor and shaking so hard through the loud sobbing sounds he couldn’t hear the soft murmur as Bucky called to him--

 

Spattering. Gunshots, seven rifleman, three volley salute and Steve didn’t startle at the overlaying blasts when he’d been hearing nothing but gunfire since he lifted his head off that numb white hospital pillow.

And again, gunshots painted into the sky and he could smell the smoke and powder, the way Bucky smelled at the end of the missions and.

Again, crackling fireworks lighting up the sky as Bucky took his hand, pulled him to his feet, and ran. Color exploding above them, ground shaking beneath their feet and the cold was pulling water from his eyes, the crystal was pulling tears down his cheeks and all he could smell was the burning heat, hellfire flames as Sam slipped the last hot brass into his hand.

It was the last time he’d touch something metal that belonged to Bucky and Steve couldn’t breathe, he wasn’t sure how long before weak legs gave out on him with no one to scoop him up this time.

And for just the smallest, tiniest moment, he couldn’t help but think. It couldn’t be worse than this, there was nothing worse than this.

Then the trumpet started

A single note, again, and five steps higher.
Day is done.

Something seized in his chest, some awful mix of panic and terror as he realized, one more time, he didn’t reach far enough. Bucky was lying in the bottom of that ravine and he was about to crash a plane and damn his best friend to hell for eternity and there was nothing he could to do to stop it.

Steady pitch, half-octave, octave.
Gone the sun.

Ringing loud and clear over empty fields and it wasn’t panic seizing his chest, it was grief, the kind of grief so heavy it’d drag him down, crumple him on his knees if he weren’t in his Class C’s.

One five eight, one five eight, one five eight.
From the lakes, from the hills, from the skies.

Couldn’t they just go back, go back to when it was one two three and the only thing seizing his chest was butterflies and affection and blushing smiles as Bucky swept them across the floor, waltz, one five eight.

Half-octave, octave, and one higher.
All is well.

Sheer beautiful, loudest thing he’d ever heard and he’d never wanted this, knew he’d never survive lowering Bucky’s body into the ground, never survive standing stock still, silent at his best pal’s funeral while a soldier played Taps and--

Octave, half, down.
Safely rest.

He could...never go home. He could never go home.

A single note, again, and five steps higher.
Falls the night.

Falls the night.

Один, Один, Пять.

And the sun can no longer rise.

 

“That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

 

No matter what uniform the soldiers were wearing, be it gold or black or red white blue, there was a part of his subconscious that never stopped being that kid in basic, the kid that tried so hard to become one, to understand how to fight a war in perfect lines with a helmet strap chafing his chin.

And that soldier was still in him, somewhere, because the thread in his spine shot stiff bite to the next knob of Steve's spine, every bone thoracic to lumbar and down down - like he could thread Steve's spine outta his body with his teeth, rip his skeleton apart through his skin, chin flicked up before he registered the shout across the white-cross field,

“Atten-tion!”

Bucky’d drawn these straps.

On that painting hanging in their apartment, straps wrapped under the casket, the one Steve was currently gripping tighter than he’d ever dared grip the body in that box. One bare hand curled around the wood of the casket and it was the same one, the exact same one from that painting and he’d never noticed that until right now and he’d been so wrong, so wrong because Steve hadn’t saved him, Buck wasn’t curled crying helpless on the casket lid, he was inside, he was g-gone--

The casket was closed. Stood at the head of it, in the fucking place of honor, and eagle eye view had Buck where he always was, covering Steve’s right. The two of them, one more time, lined up together above another gaping hole in the ground.

The casket was closed, wood panel between him and looking at that pretty face one last time and in 1945 he’d told himself it’d be an empty casket and.

It could be. Nothing imprinting the red satin cushion down.

The body, the body could be anyone’s. Everyone’s, he stood here with a strap in his hand to lower a casket into the ground and it could be Peggy trapped behind the mahogany prison.

It was Carter’s funeral, and Dugan’s, Jones, Falsworth, Morita, Dernier’s. It was Riley’s, and Clint’s, Sam’s, Natasha’s.

Steve’s.

The pallbearers were supposed to prompt the family to leave their personal items on the casket they were burying with the body, but he was the only family Buck had.

And there was only one piece he had left to give.

Only piece left of Buck in this world and if he was losing everything, might as well bury that with the rest of his heart in this grave.

They clanked, as he lifted them from around his neck.

He almost expected the signature click of Bucky’s metal fingers against the tags, corner tipped up on one half’a his mouth as he mouthed the name, closed steel around the ballchain and pulled, dragged Steve down into a smiling kiss, dogtags heating up between their bare bodies.

There was no one left to smile absently as Steve cooked shirtless in the kitchen, burning a brand into the center of his chest, no one to teasingly complain about bruising under his chin from getting smacked with the things on repeat, no one to trace the name, numbers into his shoulderblades when he thought Steve was asleep.

JAMES B BARNES.

Never belonged to him anyways.

Of all the punches, split knuckles, scarred from broken crystal, battered, shattered, bruised and used, it’d never been harder in his life to uncurl a fist.

Had to let go some damn time, but he just couldn’t bring himself to open up his fingers, to let the metal just drop to the top of that beautiful wooden casket.

The edges of the tags were rounded, enough so they didn’t slash open skin but they were cutting into his palms anyways.

His hands were shaking. His head was spinning, and the dogtag chain was rattling.

Rattling, like lungs used to. Like bullets used to. In the barrel of your best man’s gun.

One more time.

Just open your eyes, Stevie, c’mon.

The metal was slicing hard enough to hurt, to hurt a lot and he just kept pressing harder. But they weren’t caving, weren’t crushing, not even with the serum strength.

Y’gotta get up, pal, you’re scarin’ me.

Buck? A-ah, Buck, it. It hurts.

I know, I know. I’m gonna take care of you, sunshine. Just open those pretty eyes for me--

Long lashes fluttered,

once more,

and Steve opened his eyes.

 

The grave was glowing golden. The inside of a bar, flickering walls of a canvas army tent and harsh white fluorescent and the casket was lowering and the scuffed wood dancefloor was freezing over and all he could feel was the bite of metal in his hand.

The TV was rattling about upcoming elections, now.

There’d been a story, about a train.

The metal against his skin was starting to cut circulation to his fingertips but the woods were flickering out, fading into background with Arlington, a canvas tent in the rain.

It hurt, freezing metal digging into bruises already formed; he was squeezing harder than the cells in his hand could rapidly heal. Two rectangles and the silver ring he’d slipped on the chain with them when he couldn’t bear to stare at it anymore. Fiancé.

And he stood there, in the middle of a hospital lobby, clutching the dogtags around his neck so tightly he could feel the numbers, letters engrave into his skin.

Sergeant James Barnes, 325570…

Maybe he was mumbling it or maybe that was Bucky, a thousand years ago, but it’d been burned into twin skeleton flesh and the pain was so fucking sharp it kept snapping him back to the white, stinging slash so bad his eyes would water if he had any tears left in this godforsaken body.

I’m turning into you. Th-this is some horrible dream.

As soon as Bucky saw Steve dripping blood, abandoned post and barreled down the hill cursing every expletive he could think of, mixed in with a lot of you can't do that to me Rogers's.

Steve had been amused, actually. He'd shot this look at Gabe and they were both snorting at Bucky, red in the face from yelling. All Bucky could think about was Steve coming back with a bulletwound, or not coming back at all, and then what would Bucky be fall apart Hydra find him drag him to that table no one’d come screaming no one’d hear strapped down heavy leather scent of blood--

He'd promised to say when everything was too much - world spinning and suddenly lack of ability to breathe, he'd say this was probably that too much. Braced hands on knees staring at the ground while Steve and the Commandos jostling above him nothing sinking in, couldn't anchor, all he could see were fluorescent lights and the glint on the edge of a scalpel, TV screen, and he couldn't move, he was pinned down and in the serumcoffin all over again and his screams were making ripping up his throat until he coughed blood--

Bucky reached out a single, panicked hand for Steve.

Except. He wasn’t there.

Who was Steve supposed to reach for, Bucky wasn’t there.

Bucky wasn’t here and Steve couldn’t separate the white clean from the dirty forest, who was s’posed to put an arm round his waist, let his fingers curl into a strong arm, suck in shaky breaths until the world straightened out again?

Kept chanting this mantra in his head - he'd gotten out, he'd gotten out, he wasn't hallucinating this whole time – couldn’t make himself believe it. Brain kept swirling, stuck between deciding whether the table or the trees were the hallucination. If he could convince himself that this -- the forest, Steve -- was real, he'd be okay.

There was no forest, the only thing the pain kept shaking him back to was the hospital and Steve didn’t want that to be the reality.

That couldn’t be the truth.

He’d never been so elated and devastated to be in a hospital in his life. Because he wasn’t at that fucking funeral. That fucking funeral wasn’t real.

But. The hospital couldn’t be either. No, no.

That hospital lobby couldn’t be what he shook himself back to, let it be something else, let the forest and the raging war fires take him now--

It’d be so much easier to pretend it was all a dream.

But there was the truth, the truth in the zinging metal his hand couldn’t stop clutching so tight. The pain couldn’t lie, couldn’t, only truth he could hold onto.

The only truth he knew. Bucky was alive. Coma or nightmare, hospital or table or funeral, reality or 1944, Bucky was still alive.

That was all he knew.

Maybe he couldn’t hold onto anything but the bite in his palm that kept bringing him back to the hospital lobby and the deep soul ache but no matter where in the timeline they threw him he still knew. Bucky was alive.

Soldiers fight for their country. They fight for themselves. They fight for each other. And sometimes they die for these things, too. The ones who don’t carry the memory of the ones who did for the rest of their days. Steve Rogers is no different.

The funeral wasn’t real. The embroidered stars in that burial flag pressed to his face as he sobbed, that wasn’t real, right? Right? He wasn’t...he wasn’t flashing back now, trying to escape the cold wind, standing with shaking legs as they called three volley, Taps echoing in the background wasn’t real, he wasn’t shaking the hospital to make himself never hear it, never watch that train hit--

Bucky was alive. He was alive. Bu-cky was alive.

And he had no idea what was real.

Bucky--

“Steve?” Tony’s hand clapped carefully on his shoulder, flash and he was wearing too much blue as Tony fucking Stark put his grimy little hand on Steve's stiff uniformed shoulder, cajoling again, why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?

You know damn well why! Back off.

The storm rumbled overhead and Steve blinked at the hospital wall, white, metal holding his hand. Crushing bones, was gonna make him bleed, but it was here, he was here on solid ground.

It took a second to tell himself this was his body, he had control of -- late July all over again -- and finally managed to turn his head, blinking wide dry eyes at the man with his hand on Steve’s shoulder.

Howard’s face, a single moment and then it was definitely Tony, older, more pain boiled up behind those dark eyes and he was looking at Steve like he was about to either crumple or explode and Steve could see now, the nurses gathered in the hallway behind them and none of them were his mom, or his neighbor, and.

They probably all thought he was a fucking psychopath.

The world was the one turning on its fucking side, not him, everything was wrong and he knew all the faces staring at him in their big circle and they were strangers on a cobblestone street, a week older than the last time he’d seen worry lines next to Stark’s eyes and in the wrong century all over again and.

Bucky wasn’t here.

The train.

Steve smacked Tony’s hand off his shoulder hard enough to echo, the same motion he’d used the first time and the walls were shaking with the rain and he had to snap out of it right the fuck now.

Bucky wasn’t here, he needed Steve, he needed Steve had to keep it together.

Was that how Barnes made it through all those firefights back in the war?

Steve took a single step backwards, rotating with his back to the wall, and let his fists curl.

That was real.

The tighter they curled the more real he felt, and his epidemic fists were dragging his feet to the ground, hard tile, too white too clean tile with scuffing shoe marks from the running shoes he had laced to his feet, 2016 and his fists kept curling tighter.

"You don't have to bury it."

He peeked a glance at his best friend, wondered how much had changed since they'd laid on a beach together like this. "I know I've given you shit your whole life, but. You're a fighter. A soldier. You don't have to be sorry for that and you don't have to have some...happy ending that doesn't include that. If you're home fighting, then fight."

"That's not a life."

Not a life. Not alive.

They were surrounding him. The way storm chasers surrounded a tornado in their tumbling Jeeps, riding after the wild storm -- the whistling storm, down streets, at the beginning of the song.

They were gonna block him in here, weren’t they?

How wild were his eyes, as he darted between their shifting stances, carefully lowering weight stable, bracing to take him down--

Those men on the elevator, sweating, he’d known, floors before the doors shut and they turned around with cuffs, electricity shooting like the fence Bucky’d ripped off his boots so long ago.

He was shaking.

He needed to get outta here. Now, he had to find Bucky. Before it was too late again.

Not a life, the only life worth living was if Buck was there - Bucky who’s life hadn’t ended.

Not on the first train and definitely not on that one.

“Get out of my way.” Steve warned slowly, dark and careful. They were the ones shaking, breaking promises to rain down like papers ripped from sketchpads thrown off that big ugly building in New York. “I don’t wanna have to go through you.”

Sam took three careful steps forward, hands up and Steve couldn’t help but see that same guy from morning laps, shaking smile carved into the VA face, calming down somebody in hysterical tears while Steve stood stiffly in the doorway with a rolled up lunch bag from that street down the place and he wasn’t fucking crying hysterically, Sam.

“Steve, think about this.” Quiet, placating, and Steve was about to break another counter just to get him to stop looking at him like that. “This isn’t what Bucky would’ve wanted.”

Would’ve wanted.

“He’s not dead.” Sharp. Sharp as the blades Bucky threw at walls when he screamed and the scream in his chest was bouncing around inside all that starlit empty but he wouldn’t cave, wouldn’t let ‘em win, he could take this pain, he could do this all day--

“Please.” Even from his peripherals, he could see the melting mask on her face. “You’ll only make it worse.”

Nat was so hurt. Never let ‘em see her like that, everyone else, all pained and vulnerable, only Clint’d ever seen that before the day she’d confessed so quietly, I thought I knew whose lies I was telling. But I guess I can't tell the difference anymore.

“He stayed on the tracks. Rogers, he could’ve jumped outta the way and he didn’t. Bucky wasn’t coming back from--”

Steve whirled around so fast he left skid marks on tile.

“Fuck you! Fuck you, we were. We could’ve fixed it, this is your fault, you let this happen. You let him--”

Inhale.

The escalating shouts weren’t gonna get him to Buck any faster. Had to be smart, c’mon Rogers think with your head instead of your fists for once.

Fuck though, he was angry.

Fuck, how could she say something like that? After all the shit she’d already put him through? Put Bucky--

Shit. Settle down, you were smart enough to interrupt yourself now gather all that righteous indignation and control it. Control. That’s all that mattered, right? Control? Efficiency?

Exhale. That fucking control.

“He’s not dead.” Steve rolled his broad, threaded shoulders, twitching muscles in arms settling at his sides, the words echoing in every empty space, bullethole Bucky’d left with the cloud of black smoke. “I’m not gonna leave behind him this time.”

Zola must’ve--

Finger point, at all those skeptic faces and he wasn’t on a stage in tights but he damn well could’ve, I Want You, except he hadn’t been able to carry the Cap smile in years, not since. “I’m gonna find him.”

The Avengers assembled and it wasn’t on his command, Sam stepping passively closer, Clint shifting in front of the door, Pepper in front of the hallway. Bruce by the nurses’ station, Natasha’s hand sliding to hover over the gun on her hip, and Tony Stark didn’t budge an inch, staring at Steve like he was seeing his dad’s collection room instead of the man that’d lead his team.

He’s my family, Steve told Tony, and those big brilliant brown eyes had watered right up, shock and pure serious as he’d said back, clear as day. So was I.

When it rains, it pours. Shoulders squaring, and his eyes weren’t darting around the room anymore, shifting, assessing, running routes and battleplans and this was a hell of a lot harder without a team to back him up.

Without anyone on his six. Even when he’d had nothing, there’d been someone on his six.

The boys, Peggy, the Avengers, Natasha, Sam. Buck. His family.

Steve sucked in a breath, lowered his weight, clenched fists vibrating at his sides. Dropped his voice an octave, low scary, black mask, and lit the spark to burn the building down.

“I’m not lookin’ for a fight. But anybody gets in my way…”

Tony Stark yelled that they weren’t soldiers but with that burning flame in sharp eyes, he sure damn looked like he was tryin’ to start a war.

“That’s it, huh? You just...become as bad as him, then?” Tony bit back and the fight music started, deep bass and gradual crescendo somewhere in the distance, genius engineer flashing heat brighter than the suit he’d’ve been smart to wear, watching dark clouds gather in devil rafters for the second time and hell if he was gonna go gentle into that fucking goodnight again.

“You both need to be put in check, whatever that takes.” Rogers bristled and Tony took one menacing step closer.

So he didn’t fight with knives pressed to throats the way Barnes did or shiny star metal the way Rogers did, but his dad never gifted him with shields guns uniforms homemade crutches for detrimental bulletwounds. He’d learned that pretty damn young, the greatest weapon he had wasn’t something from H. Stark. No, this mind was all his, and so were these fucking words.

“Y’know, the Captain America my dad was so proud of? That red white’n’blue soldier, his best fucking creation?” Rogers was vibrating, more ready to leap than he’d ever seen in his life and that was saying a fucking lot. Threatening them, Steve was threatening them, and for about the thousandth time Tony reminded himself to put Time Machine on the To Build list so he could go back and slap his dad across the fucking face for creating the formula that landed them all in this fucking shitstorm.

“...if that war hero was here, he’d punch you in your perfect teeth.”

Steam’d be rolling outta Rogers ears right now, if this were a comic.

Those perfect teeth were grit hard enough his jaw was aching, throbbing more than the beating in that parking lot off Duffield. I can do this all day. No point to inhale exhale anymore, not when his blood was boiling so hot it sucked the oxygen from his lungs.

Fists curling, uncurling, every knuckle clicking in morbid claws and clenched back again. Control.

The tempting leap forward, blast of shattering glass as the screen with Zola’s rotten robotized face split into a million fragments.

Natasha had been there. She'd seen him, the first time he'd lost his temper since the serum. That wild swing at Project Insight's televised face, glass suddenly shattering, spiraling out with a crash. The surprise and sudden flash of fear on her face.

She knew exactly what he was capable of. He wondered, if she knew how hard it was for him not to snap a fist at her pretty televised face right now.

See, she'd made sure his death amounted to the same as his life. He was nothing but a zero sum.

His life here, with them, with the Avengers. A zero sum, this wasn't freedom, this was fear.

Last time, he'd stood down, almost a moment too long. But this time? He wasn't shutting up, turning docile away. This time, he had it.

They almost have what they want.

Absolute control.

And fuck, he was powerful. Standing here with his chest heaving, surrounded by Earth’s Mightiest Heroes all ready to drag him kicking and screaming into another hospital bed, in a padded room, leather straps over his wrists.

Yanking them off Bucky’s. Mumbling that damn serial number he’d never studied enough to know it meant drafted, the damn serial number burning black into his chest, reflecting fluorescent and he wasn’t going to lose the only thing he’d spent his life fighting so fucking hard for.

Whatever the cost. The price of freedom is high, it always has been

And it's a price I'm willing to pay.

Steve Rogers lifted his head, met all those defiant, guarded eyes he’d spent so long softening, gathering into the family none of them’d ever had, and gave his team one last order.

“Stand down. This is your final warning.”

 

The living legend, who kinda lives up to the legend. Sure, he’d been bitter towards the Great Captain at first, anybody’d be. But how quick had he figured out that Steve was exactly what their team needed? That, for the first time in his life, he could be the smartest guy in the room without being the only guy in the room?

Lab's all set up, boss. Actually, he's the boss. I just pay for everything and design everything and make everyone look cooler.

The soldier they’d all followed into battle. Kid they’d appointed as head of the Avengers, friend he’d come to respect, even if Steve totally miraculously called him out everytime he cheated at Risk.

Steven Grant Rogers, who he’d sacrificed everything for. Capsicle Stevie Rogers who he’d had to watch freeze and deteriorate in front of his eyes, barely months after he’d finally seen him alive for the first time, smiling and laughing and happy for the first time only to get it all wrenched mercilessly away.

Captain Steve Rogers, who just barked the last order he’d ever give his team.

Stand down.

He wondered if Steve knew how he’d idolized him as a kid. Tony hoped he did, so Steve could see he was just another person to fucking let him down.

Romanoff broke the silence, new darker red curling away from her face gentle pretty and normal he could hardly reconcile her with the badass that destroyed them at pool and shrugged mischievously when Sam demanded to know where his orange juice was hiding.

How new was that hair? When was the last time he’d seen her? When did she start dressing like a civilian?

Had any of them made it out the otherside of this alive?

 

Natasha stood with those pleading eyes, the face of an ex-best friend who used to pick him up curbside and now crushed him heartside under those deadly sharp heels.

“You know what’s about to happen. Do you really wanna punch your way outta this?”

Steve glared the coldest he could, jaw set and clicking, blue eyes flashing as his body trembled to keep still, chest puffed up with the star-shaped heart carved right outta where he used to be so proud.

Proud of what? Fighting for a country that didn’t stand for any of the things it used to?

Maybe never did. How much of war was propaganda? He’d always assumed it stopped the minute he stripped the blue tights off but.

Didn’t matter now. There were no posters in this war, no speeches left when they all knew what he had to say, and what he was gonna say it with.

Did he really wanna punch his way outta this one. One of those moments that struck a chord somewhere deep, the realization of how much gravity was weighing down Atlas’ shoulders.

He could step into that machine - either die or maybe save mankind.

He could stand staring in this tent - either climb back on that stage or maybe save the love of his life.

He could knock on that door - tell Natasha there was nothing they could do or maybe their little team of three could suitup and the rest of the team would join them just in time to save New York from an army of aliens.

He could get outta here now before the helicarrier exploded - use all the gifts he’d been given to stop evil again or maybe he could climb down through the metallic rubble and breaking glass and save the trapped, forgotten soldier stuck under that metal beam, the exact same kind he’d walked so carefully across no not without you, metal beam he hadn’t been able to hold onto the side of the train, always snapping, only.

That one wasn’t a maybe. Steve was gonna save him this time.

He could try and convince them, write one more speech and risk them taking him down, letting Bucky get left behind again or. Steve would have to cross a line.

A line he could never come back from.

If he went through with this, if he fought the team to get to Bucky, especially after knives bombs and betrayal, they weren’t gonna forgive him for that. If he crossed this line, there was no coming back to the tower, no coming back to the Avengers.

There was no coming back, period.

And it dawned on Tony Stark the moment Steve took that breath, rolled his neck, and lifted two fists slowly, ready boxer backalley-style, in front of the pounding chest.

That was it.

“You really would.” Almost to himself, realization hit the way it always did and normally only Jarvis overheard but now they all could, Steve’s sharp glare and raised fists so loud Tony sounded like a damn afterthought, sidenote as it hit, started to sink in. “You’d kill us, to get to him, wouldn’t you?”

Steve’s chin lowered, eyes on fire, and he didn’t need the black mask, blank devil-glass covering his eyes to be the most terrifying thing Tony’d ever seen.

And how had he never seen it? All this time, years with Rogers that’d been lurking inside how had he never seen it?

I don’t trust a guy without a dark side. Call me old-fashioned.

Well, let’s just say you haven’t seen it him yet.

Whatever it takes, that didn’t include them. That didn’t include him, Steve would watch Tony burn, would shoot him outta the sky if it meant protecting Bucky. He’d...he’d start a fucking civil war to run with the ghost who had his heart, wouldn’t he?

“I was wrong about you,” Tony told him, torn and roughened, smoke over gravel, ripping guilt doing a damn fine job hiding behind those pretty blue eyes. Or maybe there really was nothing human left in there anymore, at all. The Savior, the Good One, the Moral. The Right. Fire-born phoenix with eager curling hands -- everything he knew was wrong.

There was nothing perfect in those deadly cells.

“The whole world was wrong about you.”

 

For as long as I can remember, I just wanted to do what was right.

“Shh. Listen to me, sweetheart. It’s okay. You were following orders, just like the rest of us, right?” Shadows shifting, war fog fading into deep clarity, dark settled blanket.

Buck, they were just kids, like us, how could I--”

“Wasn’t up to you.” Balanced pressure, palms pushing down between shoulderblades, slow. Kind. “Much as you wouldda liked to, you weren’t making the executive decision, okay?”

A warm hand skirted up, ran over his jaw and Steve turned wet cheeks further into the pillow, fists clenching Buck’s sleepwarm tshirt, corner of his mouth trembling as broken cut into a whisper.

“What if they were wrong?” Horror seeping between cracks beneath the door, spiderwebbing window, “If I wasn’t good, if I killed like that ‘c-cause bad becomes. E-evil--”

“Y’gotta be kiddin’ me, pal. You? Evil? C’mon,” chiding strength settling low around his waist, mouth dropping heated to mumble against skin. “...y’know that’s nightmare talkin’. Or Fury, or anybody else who don’t understand what we had to do.”

“Feels like. Ev’ryone.”

“It’s not. Steve, it’s not.” Deep sigh and a metal arm wrapped over his shoulders, “C’mere.”

Dragging him closer across the whisper of the sheets and Steve pressed his cold nose to Bucky’s neck, fingers drawing letters over his spine.

“You have any idea how many people you’ve inspired, Rogers? What you’ve given this country, this world. More than your life, you gave ‘em a symbol. Somethin good, somethin gold they can strive to be. You fought noble as any soldier you brought home. How many families exist now ‘cause you saved their great grand-dad in 1944? You always did the right thing, Steve. And the world ain’t gonna ever forget that.”

If you're lost and alone--

I wanna come home to you now.

Maybe once, he’d fit here, on the outskirt edges of personal lives, deep in the heart of battlefields, but.

They’d seen him as gone for a long time. And maybe he had been.

The serum’d made him afraid of how easily he could hurt, but then he’d gotten a team so strong, matched every punch. They had his back. He was one of them, in some twisted way.

Built his first family since the Commandos and. It’d be dead if he did this.

I don’t wanna look down.

Steve steadied himself, gaze shifting between each shell-shocked member, redgoldgreenpurpleblack rainbow, colorful friends he’d trained, fought with in Stark’s gym, Beyoncé blasting over loudspeakers and laughter between shield tosses - knew every battlemove, memorized every one of their fighting styles.

Except Tony, he’d never fought Tony without the suit.

Steve calculated his last Avengers battle plan and he was so fucking sorry.

If he could say goodbye aloud, by god he would. If he could say I love you, to every one of them, then maybe his throat wouldn’t be trying to strangle him with latent tears.

Tears bottled for years he’d never gotten to cry, all the forgotten goodbyes.

If he wasn’t pinned, had any other choice, he’d take it in a heartbeat. The choice was between fighting the people he loved, isolating himself for the rest of his life or. Letting Bucky die.

There was no place he could go.

Pain is alive in a broken heart, the past never does go away
We’re born to love and we're born to pay the price for our mistakes

A half circle, empty space for two missing members. Dernier sniffed as they lifted glasses, only the dim lighting kept them from seeing tears in the others' eyes.

Same practiced sync clinked glasses together, five-way toast to the realest heros they'd ever known.

"To the Captain," Falsworth said. Rogers - the one who deserved to see the end of this war more than anyone here. They all tipped back their glasses, burn of whiskey down throats.

Til then.

This was it then. No going back for Bucky and no going back for him either. Sorrow washed over clenched fists, battling against the anger bubbling in his gut - how could they do this to him, force--

Please don’t make me do this.

There goes his family.

Blood thrumming, heart racing, tears stuck in his throat, crescendo, crescendo and-- pause.

He’d never gotten to apologize to Sam, for showing up at his door that day, dragging him into this world and abandoning him to the horror without ever covering his six.

Fuck. Sam, he was sorry.

And Natasha?

...this was gonna hurt.

Один, два and bare fingers closed round the edge of a clipboard, industrial metal scraping protest as it slid off the counter. Whistled in the air, fast and sharp, burst of papers scattering – smoke bomb built just for the artist jumping into one more battlefield.

Paper bursting; Romanoff was the highest threat, cold and fast enough to shoot, which was why the clipboard was frisbeeing across the room shield-style to crack a bone in her wrist.

Snap.

All hell broke loose.

Natasha’s gun clattered to the floor and Clint darted to her as fast as he was counting on.

Papers floating slowmotion barrel to the side, surprised yelp as a heavy shoulder whipped Tony’s unprotected ones and knocked Stark tumbling off balance, bought the three seconds he needed before he was spinning behind the coffee table and kicking it up -- no trashcan lid, car door, red white and blue star here -- blocking the possible wave of fire if Nat got ahold of a left-hand gun anyways, or if Sam actually risked shooting at him.

He didn’t, but that didn’t stop him from kicking the table right into Steve’s chest.

Didn't do more than startle him but that's all he needed before there was an elbow against wood and a fist across his face. Sharp, succinct, same surprising skill Sam’d fought with barehanded on the bridge and it hurt like hell, but fuck if he hadn’t spent a lifetime taking worse.

Sam wanted him down, not hurt, and that meant Steve was gonna win. Because if there was one thing he was good at, it was not staying down.

Jaw smarting, another quick apology sent up and the table was flipping across the room, slamming for Natasha and Clint – odds are they’d see it coming - and he really didn’t wanna punch Sam, shot for kicking out the back of a running knee instead, sharp roll and he was sweeping out Tony’s feet too.

Pepper’d ran to the side, orders into a phone and the nurse at the desk was calling hospital security and there was another punch landing on his cheekbone and Steve kicked to the side, ducking to narrowly avoid the clipboard spiraling back at his head.

All that counted was getting away and he’d do anything it fucking took to not hurt anyone even if it was a little late for that but that wasn't gonna be his downfall.

He hadn't fought solo in a long time. Never, against people trained like this. He'd gotten used to fighting with Buck at his side, offense sniper pointed over his shoulder while Steve held the shield to protect them both.

His right hand wasn’t here, and his left was never as good as Buck’s.

That was the only excuse he had for how they managed to pin him down.

Really couldn't say how it happened, he didn't see it coming and maybe they'd paid more attention in training than he thought, knew his fighting style too but either way the next spin aiming a low punch to Tony’s gut was suddenly hitting air.

And something hard and heavy was tackling his side, something else hooked around his ankle and pulled, one arm yanked behind his back, faceful of tile and suddenly he was

in 1945, dimlit tent as he screamed, memories ripping him apart and Bucky’s shout, flailing reaching hand on repeat, Bucky’d promised he’d never leave him--

"YOU LYING BASTARD!!" Steve screamed, uncurling just in time for Dugan and Jones to grab his shoulders, shove him onto the closest medical cot. Commandos held down his screaming body, struggling fighting but five men managed to keep him secure enough he couldn’t get up, couldn’t swing back,

Down down down.

If he'd broken free and ran after Bucky then, found him in the ravine then, they'd’ve never been here. Never would’ve lost everything.

Couldn’t let his team hold him down now.

Hip twist and one heavy boot shot sideways, deflating Clint’s chest with a gasp, tipping Sam’s hold offbalance and freeing his left arm enough to reel back, clock Tony across that sharp mouth that’d teased him and given him a home when the world turned its back.

A fistful of Sam’s shirt, the shirt he’d cried into so many times and he was tossing his closest friend as hard as he could, thud as he collided with Natasha and Steve rolled, popping to his feet to shove through Clint again, breaking free from the throb and nearly tripping over Tony, then he was running, running running.

Footsteps barreling after him. Dear, please god, don’t be Sam.

He couldn’t hit Sam, the only goddamn friend who’d never turned their back, always fought by his side, stood up the moment Steve asked him to, only one question-- what do we do?

We fight. Only this time it didn’t get to be together.

So instead, he ran.

The hallways were slick and pulsing white, too many lights too many straight lines, sliding round the first corner and nearly taking out a wall with him. Couldn’t afford to crash into glasswindow bridalshops now, couldn’t afford to bounce off flimsy walls without the shield to make the dent.

But he couldn’t slow down, either. Bruised shoulders and cracked glass, skidding, slowing for turns and taking off again; this place was a fucking maze, there was no way outta here, was there?

Loud bang and fuck, that smarted without the shield or armor but the metal door crashed open anyways, nearly flying off its hinges as shaking hands grabbed the stair railing, held on for dear life and hauled himself up four steps at a time.

One misplaced step, slipping over a landing fuck he couldn’t trip now soar crash into the wall, two hands on the ground and he was doing fucking everything he could but this century wasn’t meant for him and there was nowhere he could run to--

Get up, Steven. You always gotta get up.

Rough groan and he was pushing up, footsteps getting closer sounded like Sam’s, Nat was shouting something and he had to run, had to keep going. Heaving breath, no air left in his lungs as he sprang off, stumbling into another hallway, faster, faster, dodging two nurses with carts and more shouts, skidding corner and there was nowhere to go--

Elevator ding, three doctors exiting Natasha and Sam catching up, fast apologies as he shoved through, jamming the door button closed, sliding shut just as they came round the corner and fuck, he needed to catch his breath. Slumped against the wall, eyes closed head tipped up clear airways and he didn’t have asthma, he didn’t, it was the stupid fucking coma and he could do this.

Last elevator he’d been in, he’d jumped outta; crashing glass, even he knew it was a bad idea, taser in his ribs electricity running through his veins from that electric fence and Bucky’s smoking, charred hands--

No, Stark had an elevator, he and Bucky’d kissed in that goddamn elevator, fell against each other with smiles on their lips--

Ding.

He shoulda known his team was smart enough to guess the floor he chose, shoulda known Clint and Natasha’d be there when the doors opened, 10ft away running but at least it was the second floor, at least the window he’d have to jump out of would barely be a fall but too high for them to jump after, right?

Steve curled his head under one arm and threw himself at the glass. Running rooftops, his old apartment in DC, chasing after the metal arm sniper, chasing crashing through that window, landing in a roll and throwing the shield, both arms up to placate, careful step closer to the seething, masked assassin with one gun trained on Maria and one on him, hissed don’t look for me and Bucky was crashing through the glass--

The ground still hit like a train.

Fuck. Wasn’t thinking about that.

2016, he was in 2016, get up up and keep running--

Where was his bike when he needed it? Steve shook his head, trying to make the horizon stop fucking tilting and all he had to do was make those legs move faster, faster, unfamiliar surprise as he found exactly how fast he could go, running over cobblestone with barefeet, jumping on top of a 1930s taxi, arms shooting over his head as he dove after a submarine, little kid’s words echoing in his head - go get him! I can swim.

Well, it was too bad Steve crashed a plane and found out he couldn’t.

But he could run. Pick up, keep going, time to be amazed at that newfound strength later, just go go go.

Run.

 

“Did you have something against running away?” Peggy asked him, raising one stunning eyebrow and looking over from her half of the backseat, so close and pretty and she smelled like spring, like flowers in spring and Steve was about to change his life forever, no coming back; took a deep breath and told her.

“You start running, they'll never let you stop.”

You start running,

They’ll never let you stop.

 

~*~*~

 

Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?

Worst thing about ghosts was how damn quick they disappeared. Into thin air, a swirl of white smoke.

At least he didn’t have it as bad as his dad. Howard lost him over the arctic, lost an entire plane with bombs on board. Spent months, years searching. Never could find him.

Tony just lost a person, just Steve with no plane - and hopefully no bombs - attached. In a city they both knew, it couldn’t be that hard to find him, right?

Only, it really was.

And it was all his fault. All of this, this was his fault.

Yeah, he’d been pissed, yeah, Steve let him down so hard he got blinded and snapped right back, pushed him over the edge and that was his fault, he shouldn’t’ve blown up when Rogers needed him, moment of truth and Tony lit a hotter fire instead of calming the flames and.

It wasn’t worth it.

He had a responsibility for Cap. Not cause of Project Rebirth, cause he was family.

What has he done?

“Well, Dad, you proud now?” Tony mumbled, dragging one more input scan report from a bot camera over the map of NYC that was currently projected across the entire room.

Maybe he understood now, why Howard was so goddamned obsessed. You don’t lose somebody like Steve Rogers and just get over that you can’t find him. You fucking search, til the day you die. Hopefully not by the hand of his war-boyfriend this time.

Take us to the next grid point.

But there's no trace of wreckage. And the energy signal trace stops here.

Howard shook his head, staring at the ocean water they’d lost Steve to, and gave the order he’d give for years. Just keep looking.

His dad never found him, not in his lifetime. But Tony could do this. He could figure out how to bring Rogers back. To save the world, his world, one more time. To prove Howard wrong, one more time.

Or maybe prove him right. My greatest creation is you.

Tony pushed off the counter Barnes used to sit on stealing his blueberries, wheely chair gliding across polished floor and swept up a blue-tinged report, rotating it in the air, checking sidestreets spanning out from the hospital.

He’d never thought Rogers would run. The right thing to do was chase him, right? Not like it mattered, Tony could no more give up looking than he could give up inventing. Not for Steve.

“C’mon, Dad,” he murmured, pushing the road back in place, scanning a finger over a possible route, pulling up traffic cams, looking for something, anything. “How’d you let him go?”

If only Peg were still alive. If he could go visit Aunt Peggy who ruffled his hair and called him Anthony.

If only she could tell him what she told his dad -- the only way he’d survived, only way he started inventing good again.

“Howard, turn the plane around. Come back, and we’ll talk about it.” British accent heavier with all the tears gathering on eyelashes. How many planes would she try’n talk down, how many of them put that on her, all the crying she never deserved?

“I can’t do that. I’m done talking.” For the first time in his life, done talking, and Tony didn’t even know what speechless felt like.

“Howard, Howard. Steve is gone. He died, over a year ago.”

“I can fix this. Peg, all I’ve done my whole life was create destruction. Project Rebirth…he was the one thing I’ve done that brought good into this world.”

“Howard, Tony, I know you loved him. I loved him too. But this won’t bring him back. Howard, you are the one person on this earth who believes in me, I cannot lose you. Steve is gone, we have to move on, all of us. As impossible as that may sound, we have to let him go.”

“...Peg?” Deep breath, pause, crackling over the line. Steve? “He was good before I got ahold of him, huh?”

Yes, h-he was. He was.”

Come home.

Blue, empty streets blinking back at him. He was.

There was no one to turn his plane around, no one to drag him out before...

He couldn’t just. Drop this.

Steve couldn’t be that hard to find. The guy thought a damn baseball cap and sunglasses was incognito. Where would he go? First place he’d go?

Maybe the train station, where Barnes had--

The other half of the Rogers duo he’d come to accept as family. And yeah, he was pissed the guy had triggered all Winter Soldier and tried to kill him, but. He’d never kick him out for good. How could he? Bruce had done the same, and Tony’d begged him to move into the tower.

So one of them went green and the other slit throats, he had so many fuckin’ nightmares anyways, it wasn’t like one more made that much of a difference.

But jeez, he’d been so mad, so hurt for so long. After Bucky’d done that, betrayed all that trust he’d bestowed--

Betrayed Steve, too, every single member of their family and just fucking disappeared. Yeah, he was mad.

And it hurt like fucking hell to stand there in a hospital lobby, watch that corner TV play some video on loop, unable to tear his eyes away from the screen until the tears built up enough he consciously had to wipe his eyes, sniffle, look away from What Couldn’t Be Happening.

And that’s when he saw Rogers.

Frozen dead to the world, eyes entirely glazed over - found on ice all over again.

But see, Tony couldn’t cry. Not over Bucky, not over the asshole that had the audacity to do this to them all, how could he just leave them, destroy everything they’d taken so long to built, one more person to fucking let him down.

Couldn’t let himself cry over that, cause the moment he let all that hurt in it’d rip him to shreds. So he got pissed. He got so fucking mad because that’s the only way he knew how to deal, fuck Bucky Barnes for ever bringing them down this fucking spiral with him. He had to. He had to. He’d been hurt too many times. And he had to protect Rogers, now. So he’d turned to him, put a hand on his shoulder. Steve.

And then, just one more fucking betrayal.

He didn’t have Peg to talk him back into his senses. None of them had Peggy Carter to talk them back to their senses.

The difference she’d’ve made, if she’d been young enough to be here, scold them all into some sort’a sense.

There was nobody here with enough strength to pick up everyone else’s broken pieces.

How many paid the price before you did?

But...he wasn’t alone.

Pepper was right there, as always, perched on the edge of his desk. Beautiful, understanding, looking at him soft, softer than he deserved.

And there was the rest of the team, waiting patiently around the room in chairs, on tables, quietly stitching themselves back together while Tony stared at the blue map.

They weren’t letting go this easy.

“I'm gonna calculate out whatever goddamn equation I have to. I’m gonna find out where he’d go. I’ll search every street in Manhattan, Brooklyn, New York. Whole U.S.A. if I have to.”

Tony Stark spun around, blue streets winding silently behind him, and told his team.

“I’m gonna bring him home.”

Quiet eyes, quiet mouths, nodding silent confirmation they had now - the solid platform he’d somehow built when he’d taken out those floors of the tower and turned them into Avengers Headquarters. A floor for them all, and a tower to call home, and somehow?

A single echo across tile floors as Sam Wilson took the step closer, one big fightin’ hand clasping Tony’s shoulder.

“When do we start?”

 

We're insane but not alone
You hold on and let go

 

In a cemetery what felt like years ago, she’d heard Sam Wilson say that same thing to Steve. The thread she’d warned him not to pull; look at them all unravel.

And try to tie themselves together again. She watched the suddenly unexpectedly hopeful team, Sam’s finger pointing over Tony’s shoulder, Pepper offering suggestions, Maria’s skype flashing in a corner as she gave input too, reports and ideas piling.

Stared blankly at the enthusiasm and wondered how they could all shove the guilt aside long enough to stand on two feet.

Then again, nobody was as guilty in this as she was.

She was friends, with Bucky. Tentatively before all the shit had gone down, but during those months he’d been J.B. Rogers? He’d been the only thing in her life. They'd been such good friends and it was supposed to be fake, but it'd felt as real as any role she’d ever slipped into and that's all she was, all she had. And she’d honestly, truthfully, come to love him.

She was friends with Bucky, now he was dead. And if she’d never told him to--

The only thing she’d ever wanted was to spare all their broken hearts. Now she couldn’t feel the cold excuse she had for one, let alone the pieces it scattered.

How stupid was she? How could she let herself get attached to someone like that? She knew him. She’d been him. Right to the Russian-killer roots and that deep affectionate draw to the man she had to protect. All he’d ever wanted was to touch the sunlight and she’d been so afraid for what that’d do to all of them, she’d been so afraid he wouldn’t survive it--

She was right.

And she wasn't ready to let go of Bucky Barnes.

She wasn’t ready for the end of teasing over movie night, wrestling in the gym, nights out dancing and philosophy discussions at 2am. The one that could’ve potentially, after all this, been one of the greatest friendships she’d ever have.

But he was dead. Gone, forever.

At this rate, Steve Rogers might be too.

Let Stark search what he will. Tony wouldn’t find him. Howard couldn’t. Losing Steve Rogers, the new Stark legacy. The only thing Tony could hope for now was a son, someone to keep looking after he lost his mind trying. Maybe he’d have smooth red hair like Pepper, Tony’s big brown eyes.

But the only Stark who’d find Steve would be the one to find his bones.

She didn’t know when she put her head in her hands, but there was a strong, familiar hand closing around one of them and Natasha lifted, blinking wearily at Clint’s patient, hurting expression.

God, he didn’t deserve this either. She wasn’t the only one here who’d lost two of her best friends today.

So she let Clint take her hand, weave their fingers together.

Wondered if he was thinking about that day too. The day she and Steve’d wandered down to the shooting range during Barnes&Barton training hour, peering at them from behind the glass and raising eyebrows at each other cause damn, that was a fine view.

But of course Bucky and Clint caught on, turned around and made faces, waving hands to signal them inside. Twin shit-eating grins as they opened up the booth right next to theirs.

“How bout a little friendly competition?”

And it really wasn’t fair, Steve and Natasha with their pistols up against the two best shots in the world. But Steve didn’t back down from a challenge and Natasha rolled her eyes as she followed him - always would - right into battle. She did tweak Bucky’s ponytail on her way past him though, smiling deviously at the fake glare that twitched into a smile as the bow lifted to his shoulder.

It was only fair that Bucky be on arrows and Clint be on rifle, but. Steve and Natasha got their asses kicked anyways. Not without laughing so hard her sides had stitches for days.

What she’d give, to have those stitches instead of straining ones barely holding together now, fraying and fraying.

But it was gone. They were gone, and everything Tony Stark could do in the world wouldn’t bring either of them back.

She wondered distantly, how long ago she’d lost one of the greatest things that'd ever happened to her. How long ago she’d lost Steve Rogers.

Or maybe.

She'd never had him.

Maybe none of them ever had.

They’d let go, with time. They’d never get over it, she’d never get over it, but they couldn’t keep searching forever and she knew Rogers well enough now, if he ran? If that little guy from Brooklyn had finally wisened up enough to run away from a fight, he’d never stop running.

If he didn’t wanna be found? He was gone. Avengers count: 5.

What she’d give to start over. Go back to the beginning, when the scariest thing they had to face was a sky full of aliens.

Take me back to the start.

After their first battle as a team - edge of victory pulsing through veins only thing keeping them awake - they’d done the simplest, most mundane thing.

Just...gone out to eat. Like regular people did. Piled the whole colorful Avengers team into this dingy, rundown restaurant that served calories and shawarma.

Restaurant after restaurant since. It’d become a tradition, the only one they had: after big battles everybody patched up wounds and lumbered into some hole-in-the-wall with more grease on the menu than food.

Squeezing all of them - suits included - into the biggest corner booth they could find, dragging over chairs and apologizing to the entire wait staff between orders.

But god, the pretty laughter, all those smiling, rowdy boys. Bruce snorting as Tony clapped a hand on his shoulder, beaming wide enough to split the cut on his nose back open if he wasn’t careful. Thor’s booming echoing off peeling walls as that white-blonde head tipped back and laughed and laughed and laughed. Clint’s cheeks stuffed with half the food off Bruce’s plate, flicking a straw at Natasha’s cheek, affectionate glare and ripped the corner off Tony’s napkin to wad into a spitball she aimed perfectly into Rogers’ ruffled blonde hair, making him hey! in indignation then Bucky was leaning over Steve’s shoulder to flick Natasha’s forehead and she was laughing, they were all laughing and.

 

"Well," Dugan finally said, standing up from the booth. "It's been an honor, boys."

He shook each of their hands. Dernier handed him his bowler hat from the seat and Dugan nodded, fitting it firmly over his head. And then he was gone.

They all left, then. One by one. Handshakes to go around.

And then the sun broke over the sky, lighting up the world in bright color again, and it was over.

 

~*~*~

 

Don't do anything stupid til I get back.
How can I, you're taking all the stupid with you.

The stupidest thing he could do would be to go to his and Buck’s apartment.

Which is why that’s exactly what he did.

If Buck was part of the search party, he’d suggest it. Tony and Sam would shoot it down, he’s not stupid enough to do something that obvious and Buck would snort, raising one eyebrow. Oh, he’s stupid enough.

Only Buck wasn’t there to suggest it so the Avengers wouldn’t try it first, which meant he had time. Buck sure as hell wasn’t leading ‘em to Steve anytime soon.

And the Avengers weren’t leading him to Buck either, so.

Here he was.

No one to see him dip into the alley, circle round to the back to squint up at the roof, taking a deep breath and a running start before coiling and springing up, nearly losing the baseball cap as he caught the second-story fire escape with on fingertips.

A bit of maneuvering and he had two solid feet on rickety metal, slow and quiet as he creaked up the remaining chutes and ladders, climbing patient as he could all the way to the tenth floor.

Something caught his attention, around floor seven. Flash of movement, something black above but when he looked up there was nothing, just darkness and night and he couldn’t let himself lose his goddamn mind now.

All the way up one step at a time until finally, Де́сять.

One two wrench and the window was popping up, locks snapping as he slid the glass on its frame, to listen for movement, then he was ducking his head and crawling through the window.

Into their old apartment, Brooklyn 1.0 tiny and beaten bloody raw, didn’t wanna face the wrath of his mum or Buck before he could clean up a little, it wouldn’t look nearly so bad without the caked blood on his face.

Only somehow, Bucky always heard him anyways. Roll inside, tumble to the ground and look up from the broom-swept floor to see a very unimpressed friend looking down at him from his spot leaning casually in the doorway, making Steve look like an absolute fool.

Duck, roll, tumble and he couldn’t help but look up, hope pounding in his split chest, eyes straining in the darkness for that figure leaning against the wall with impatient arms crossed over his chest.

But there wasn’t a best friend waiting for him this time. Empty, just like him.

Crawling inside with blood dripping inside his skull instead of out. Still beaten bloody raw. Still never giving up.

Not til he found Buck this time.

But he didn’t, in the living room where they’d kissed on the floor and slept tangled in limbs on the couch and laughed breathlessly against the wall as Steve moved inside that beautiful boy--

Delirious.

Didn’t find him in the studio, in the laundry room. Didn’t find him curled in the bathtub, smiling over his shoulder as he flipped pancakes in the kitchen.

Not in the hallways, on the fire escape, in the closets, under the sink.

Didn’t find him in the empty, empty bedroom.

Steve stood in the doorway of the dark bedroom and stared dejectedly at nothing as walls boxed him in like the painting on the wall.

He didn't know if Buck could remember as far back as their sunburnt summer, or the conversation they'd had about it in the middle of some Commandos battle in early '45, but Steve drew Bucky with angel wings long before Buck returned the favor.

Gave him a life he never chose. Where it stops, nobody knows.

Fuck, he had no idea where to go from here. He’d been so sure--

Steve’s shoulders sunk a little lower, two feet stepping slowly, tiredly into the bedroom where everything came together and everything fell apart.

Moonlight filtering through the windows, slowly, and he’d missed exactly when the sun sank under the horizon but it was long gone now, drowned off to some other side of the world and all he had was the silver to keep him company, the silver and the empty house that refused to collapse on top of him but couldn’t release its fucking claws either.

Funny, after all this time, it looked the exact same.

Same dresser, same door he’d slammed Buck into, same window he’d almost lost Buck outta, same bed they’d rolled together, same beautiful painting hanging over the center of two empty pillows.

That painting. He breathed in slowly, forcing his lungs to expand, contract, take one breath as his fingertips trailed down, tracing patterns over the empty bedspread.

The painting was crooked. You’d think, having two artists in the house, they’d be able to keep a damn painting straight on the wall. Showed how much they knew.

Steve climbed up on the bed, sighing softly as he reached out carefully, fingers hesitating just before they hit canvas.

Not straight. He almost smiled at the memory. You're not straight, Steve’d mumbled back and Bucky’d rolled his eyes, starting for the door but he’d never made it. Shoved into white wood, chased down after Steve’d scrambled to him wildly, demanded from those beautiful crystals the truth, the honest truth, you love me.

Get a grip. Swallowing thick around the lump in his throat he couldn’t cry now, he had to find his best friend.

Steve’s chest expanded on a shuddery breath, reaching fingertips those last few centimeters, canvas rough as he tipped the heavy thing back straight.

It slid in place easily, just off a peg so simple back to perfect, couldn’t they all.

He rocked back on his ankles, still looking up at those beautiful brush strokes, vibrant colors, and he almost missed it. Wouldn’t’ve caught it at all, if he hadn’t brought a hand up to his face to wipe watery eyes before the dam broke.

Saw it the moment his hand came into his field of vision. Fingertips dotted with that much red didn’t just slide by.

Blink and Steve cocked his head, brought a hand up closer in the fading light, eyebrows furrowing as he registered the blood on his hands.

Fuck, he was hallucinating again.

Touching a goddamn painting made him bleed and somewhere in his twisted mind that was s’posed to make sense?

What the fuck. Another inhale, sharp and quick and.

...what the fuck.

Copper didn’t hit him. Linseed did.

Again, to repeat himself, what the fuck. Linseed was what they made oil paints with. Why did his fingers smell like paint? Was that...red paint?

So the painting wasn’t bleeding, that at least made sense, but wet paint honestly wasn’t a lot closer to rational than blood at this point.

Steve pushed up on his knees, peering around the side of the painting and yeah, there was red paint, wet red paint on the side of the canvas.

Okay, that. Wasn’t possible. Paint did this fancy thing called drying and the last time he’d seen this painting, there hadn’t been a touch of stray red on the sides. What the literal fuck.

Well, he wasn’t gonna find out by staring at it. He shuffled his weight, both hands coming up to carefully lift the painting up, smush his blonde head against the wall to peer behind, eyes taking a second to adjust to the darkness.

And that’s when he almost fell off the bed.

Room sideways tipping off the mattress and fuck, fuck, no way. He was definitely hallucinating now but he had to see that again.

Scrambled back up, grip slipping but he got up anyways, almost fast as he’d scrambled to pin Bucky’s confession, only this time the confession wasn’t offered up with blood, it was carved in it, on the back of his goddamn painting.

And okay, it wasn’t blood, it was red paint but it might as well be blood for all Steve’s was draining outta his face right now.

Because he’d taken the painting down and now he was sitting in the middle of their bed staring at it because.

It was there.

He hadn’t hallucinated. It was there.

In big, red, arching painted letters. Red as the paint carved into his soul, as the star etched silently into his arm. A message, on the back of canvas.

Everyone knew not to touch it. It was on impulse Steve’d noticed, taken it down. But there was a message. The back of the canvas sure as hell wasn’t empty anymore. It had nine words. Written carefully, letters arching and rounding prettily. Unmistakable.

Only, it had to be a mistake. Because the canvas said I love you.

The canvas said...I love you.

And worse, right under it, right underneath the three words he’d never heard aloud, it…

It said. To the end of the line.

I love you, to the end of the line.

Bucky’s handwriting, sloping across the back of the canvas, taking up the entire space behind Steve’s wings, Bucky’s curled naked spine, the American flag stretched tight over the coffin on the other side, the coffin he’d seen with his own two eyes for the most horrifying flash of the future he’d experienced in his entire existence.

That couldn’t be the future.

No, the future was changed now.

Bucky’d painted the words I love you. And then right under them, he’d painted...to the end of the line. And Steve Rogers sat cross-legged on a bed with a four foot painting upside-down in his lap and realized for the first time in his life in the stupidest lightbulb moment, it wasn’t an extension, neither of them were. It was. A reiteration.

Bucky'd been saying I love you...all along.

His timeline, fucked up brain snapped in place like a string. Serum finally kicked in, common sense finally kicked in, adrenaline, whatever it was.

What it was, all the memories came rushing back, in perfect order.

From the first time they met in an alley to the last time he’d seen that beautiful body, seconds before the train barreled him outta sight on that tiny TV.

“You think...now we’re older, we can. Keep on bein’ best friends?” I love you.

“Ah, c’mon, y’know she don’t mean nothin’. You’re still the best thing I got, Stevie.” I love you.

“The thing is, you don’t have to.” I love you.

“Don't do anything stupid until I get back.” I love you.

“That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I’m following him.” I love you.

“I can’t lose you asshole, the fuck you think’d happen to me then?” I love you.

"You ain't getting rid a' me that easy, Rogers. I'm sticking ‘round 'til the stars fall from the sky." I love you.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.” I love you.

“Your job description doesn't have anything to do with protecting my ass, sorry.” “But my life description does.” I love you.

"Yes, Steve, 'course I would. I'd take on anybody who fights you, idiot. Why do you think I'm out here?" I love you.

The look in his eyes, as that metal fist lowered on the helicarrier. And every time he’d lowered that metal fist since. I love you.

To the end of the line. I love you.

Silence. I love you.

Silence.

It was perfectly entirely silent. In the bedroom where he’d undone it all, the answer from the day he was born staring him in the face.

And suddenly he was left in the stark moonlit black and white, alone. No memories to sweep parallel gold green crystal gray blue. No memories to overlap and save him - it was all there, every bit, and the pieces of the puzzle he’d been tripping over his entire life finally resembled something real.

Something he’d taken a fucking lifetime to see. But that’s all they were, pieces in the past. Living in his head, and there was a lot more to him than his head. There was this moment, right now. That was all he really had. The moonlight, the darkness, the soft cushion of the bed, hard corners of canvas making dull marks against his inner knees.

Just the empty apartment. Him. And the painting.

The paint was wet.

.
.
.

The paint was too thin to still be wet.

No wait, seriously. That was physically impossible. The paint was too thin to be wet, it’d dry by now, it couldn't be dripping on his fingertips, couldn’t be lifting and staining, there was barely a single layer here, it’d dry, faster than --

He may not know a lot but one thing he did know was art and this was painted less than fifteen minutes ago.

It was in Bucky’s handwriting.

Jesus Christ. He'd just been here.

He'd just. been. here.

He'd known Bucky was alive but fuck, he’d never been so dizzy with relief in his life. Actually scratch that, he’d never been so dizzy in life period, punches concussions and tank explosions included.

Bucky was alive.

One more time, he'd been right; fuck he'd been right. Buck hadn't died, had somehow gotten outta the way in time, maybe staged the whole thing but it didn't matter how, all that mattered was that he wasn't crazy, he'd felt it and he'd been right, all the proof was right in his hands and Bucky was still breathing.

Bucky was alive and knew him and loved him and painted it on this very canvas less than fifteen minutes ago.

Bucky was here.

But…but he wasn't, still.

Shouldn't he be--

He'd come in here, in this room, knowing Steve’d show. Left this for him and...left. Kept going.

He'd left him behind.

Steve blinked, staring at the red sloping words, the bloody paint seered into his soul. Reached out two tentative fingers, carefully brushing the slope of an “e.”

Red came away on his fingers. The sound he’d heard, black shape he’d seen earlier. Bucky’d seen Steve coming for his message, and. Left him behind.

Alone.

Oh.

Steve’s fingers curled away from the canvas, bloody red smearing his palm as they kept curling, loose empty fist. There was...nothing left to fight, now.

Careful hands laid the painting gently on the cold dark earth blank, slick bedspread.

Creaked as he slowly inched off, two feet landing on soft carpet stretched over wooden boards he could almost feel through plush threads.

It took a lot more strength than he had to walk across the room, stoop to balance on sturdy heels as numb hands flicked on the stereo, but he did it anyways. Never used this stereo, but his portable boombox was broken.

The iPod was still hooked up to the aux cord. Should be doing this on a turntable. Thumbing through records, lifting a needle, waiting as the first few chords cracked out, black disk spinning spinning.

They’d never gotten a turntable. Wouldn’t that be easier, dramatic crackling voices instead of a thumb scrolling down a detached highlighted screen. Didn’t take long to find the song. It’d taken a long long time to get here, but there was the song a touch away and he pressed the little rectangle that’d take him from here.

A single pause and the first chord began, straight into crackling voices without one intro melody to soothe the blow and Steve’s lungs filled up so fast he worried for a moment he might burst.

But he didn’t, cause the song kept playing. The voices kept singing. And he kept breathing.

Til then til then, my darling please wait for me. Til then til then, no matter when it will be.

Well. About as much as one could breathe when every inhale hitched over stuttering tears he wasn’t gonna let himself cry.

One day, I know we’ll be back again, please wait...til then.

I know we’ll be back again. Bucky’d been so sure, that they’d come back. Next November, Thanksgiving in Brooklyn with the Commandos, right?

And they had come back. They’d finally come back to Brooklyn and the stars they’d sang to flickered on, fading as they slipped through bloody fingers and silently watched as two boys lost every damn thing they fought for in that war.

Our dreams will live, though we are apart.

The canvas was starting to dry. Just the ends were wet enough to drag trails of red on his fingertips, sliding over all the white, muddying tiny flecks. Steve just watched, traced fingers over the familiar strokes of Bucky’s caring hands.

Minutes. He’d missed him by minutes. Seconds, maybe.

It’d been inches, last time, inches further and red fingertips could close around those bare, freezing hands.

Apart.

Our love, I know will live in our hearts.

The song was recorded off a record player, crackled a little, fog layering in the background behind combined voices.

Soldiers’ faces in torn reminiscence, distance of two separated hearts. Steve glanced at Bucky, wondering who he was thinking of to have the same painting cross his features.

Til then, when all the world will be free. Please wait for me.

When all the world will be free.

Bucky drove and Steve pretended to sketch the road car clouds, anything but the perfect swoop of Buck's hair back into its ponytail. Bucky hummed under his breath and Steve watched the wide open road stretch in front of them, epitome of the American Dream and the Western Frontier and wondered if anyone in that war knew this was what they'd been fighting for.

Although there are oceans we must cross and mountains that we must climb,

"I hate mountains," Bucky bitched, trudging up the snowy ground. "They're obtrusive and pointless and take days to climb."

"It's more like an hour," Dugan supplied, climbing up a few feet behind. Bucky made a face and kept stomping.

"Is it snowing even more?" Jones complained, looking up at the clouds above them. Bucky glanced to Steve, styled blond hair dusted with white, sparkling flakes. He looked kinda like an angel.

"Yep," bitter, pretending it was the snow he was pissed at and not his own stupid head.

"But at least it's--" Falsworth started.

"S'il vous plaît, ne parle pas," Dernier groaned.

"--insulating," Falsworth finished.

Less than two steps later, a distinctive smacking sound and a shout made everybody turn around. Falsworth was glaring at Morita, who'd pegged him in the back with a snowball.

Bucky snorted and turned back to hiking up the mountain. Having a snowball fight sounded like wicked fun right now, but it was a time sensitive mission and they couldn't stop or delay.

"Hey Steve, we almost there yet?" Bucky asked, shoulders so close to brushing.

Steve glanced over at him, blonde ruffling in the wind. "You haven't gotten an ounce more patient with time, have you?"

"And you haven't gotten an ounce less stubborn. So here we are, stubborn and impatient climbing a mountain in the hellish snow.”

"Think we'll make it to the top in time?" one of the boys called behind them.

“We’ll make it,” Steve promised.

"Especially if you all pick up your feet instead of throwing snowballs," Bucky pointed out, his legs starting to strain a little from keeping pace with Steve.

Something cold and heavy thudded between his shoulderblades, explosion of snow. There was an instantaneous splattering of laughter as Bucky spun around to glare indignantly at whichever Commando had thrown the snowball. Thing was, they were all laughing - even Steve - so he had no way of telling who’d thrown it. Not like it mattered, anyone of them would’ve.

"I'm getting you all back after this train thing," Bucky swore, fake-glaring over the mountain between them.

I know every gain must have a loss. So pray, that our loss, is nothing but time.

They never had that snowball fight.

But boy, did Bucky have his revenge.

Til then, til then, let’s dream of what there will be.

A dream, a hope, the soft-palette painted future, the edge of the sunstreaked horizon.

Bucky hummed in the dark, waiting for Steve to come and storm the damn place already. He was gonna, he could feel it in his bones.

Bucky hummed Til Then and propped his chin on his only arm, smiling cause the Commandos would throw a damn party when he got back. It'd be great.

Maybe he'd even convince Steve to get drunk. Last time he'd spent the night in Bucky's lap, clinging to him like a koala bear and it had probably been the cutest thing he’d ever seen. He could just picture the serum version of Steve doing the same, tripping to land his huge body drunkenly in Bucky's lap.

The Commandos would howl with laughter and Bucky would smile, pinch a red cheek as Steve pouted, curled down to wrap himself around Bucky's shoulders. The boy’d break into aw's and Bucky would roll his eyes but rub his hands down Steve's back, call him a dame and tell him he still can't hold his liquor, his Irish roots would be ashamed of him.

Bucky was never ashamed of Steve, though. Steve was a goddamn angel. He was Bucky's goddamn angel.

When Steve finally came for him, when he pulled open that door and gathered Bucky into his arms from this hellish Hydra hole, Bucky was going to tell him he loved him.

It’d be the first thing he'd say.

Til then, we’ll call on each memory.

The back of Bucky's hand brushed up against Steve's. He pressed back automatically, rush of warmth sparking up through chilled skin, muscles flickering as Bucky's fingers curled. If they were to overlap their hands, they'd be weaving their fingers together.

Neither of them moved.

Til then, when I will hold you again. Please wait, til then.

"I walked through hell for you," he started, eyes shining down, a hundred stories of army fields and bloody battles. Peggy'd told him, on that day, something Steve'd said when he found out Bucky was a prisoner of war. I'll walk there if I have to.

Steve'd walked through hell for him and maybe Peggy was right, maybe that was all that counted in the end.

Artist fingers found his, taking both Bucky's hands and entwining them onto the sheets. How many times had they entwined fingers? How many times?

"...It'd be an honor to burn hand in hand."

Bucky blinked up at him and Steve lowered his arms in a pushup to kiss him one more time. Bucky closed his eyes and his lips slid against Steve's, then oxygen filtered through parted wet lips and the air without Steve was cold as it'd been that day, wind and snow.

Hand in hand.

Until I hold you again.

Steve spread his red-smeared fingers over the back of that canvas, energy tingling in all that empty space between them, where letters were poking through.

End, line.

Just empty space between his fingers now. Empty space where metal slipped, where the same warm hand from the forties curled against white pillows, digging deep into his skin as Buck’s head tipped back, lips parted around the soft breath of ecstasy.

Empty.

There are oceans we must cross, and mountains that we must climb.

Waves crashing over toy soldiers, standing chest to chest, arms around each other and ocean lapping at their waists. Steve pinned Bucky's hair back with two palms, saving him from the salty wind, hands not shaking anymore.

"You alright?" Bucky puckered his lips to kiss Steve's cheek gently. The ocean reflected, then eyelids closed and another deep, controlled breath.

"Thanks to you," Steve murmured, lifting his arms to rest on Bucky's shoulders, caging their faces in close and personal. A soft press of lips, a breathy sound, and they were both pressing in deeper, tilting heads.

Water and chunks of ice flooded into his throat and Steve choked on reflex, lungs seizing heart pounding throat convulsing. Burned worse than fire, than the cold tingling fingers hands feet. Lungs filled as eyes spilled over with tears of pain the cold water sucked away. No one to see you cry in the ocean--

Gentle rocking, rustling wind, breaking waves.

Staring up at the treacherous sky
maybe I am worth the fight
tears gathering in his throat instead of his eyes.

Oceans they should’ve crossed. Oceans they should’ve ran, jumped, flew free, gotten away. Into the dark.

If you’ll be my boat, I’ll be your sea.
I live to make you free.

He’d been torn and didn’t listen to the right voice.

Part of him wanted to pack up with Buck and leave this place, never come back in their lives. Forget the bloody fists, forget everything but some beautiful green hillside in Ireland and waking up next to Bucky's sweet face.

Part of him couldn't imagine hanging up the suit, ever. What the fuck would he do? What good were these hands if they weren't killing to save a life, what good were these legs if they weren't standing between his country and chaos?

He should’ve gone.

Should’ve followed Buck right into the dark.

I know every--

"--gain must have a loss," they sang and Steve's eyes cut to Bucky, the peaceful expression as wind battered loose strands on his forehead. He'd never considered himself all that lucky, but he had so much when he had Bucky.

Steve couldn't lose him, couldn't imagine what it’d be like to live with that. To live without Bucky. Steve’d go headfirst into this war, give it his all, just so long as it didn’t take him.

"So pray that our loss... is nothing but time."

A long, long time. Seventy years. Longer, on both ends, all that useless fighting, waiting, pining.

I-It’s been...so long. So long.

The only villain in our story was time.

Til then, let’s dream of what there will be.

It could’ve been...they could’ve had anything. In some other universe; not the one they kissed and the stars didn’t come down. Steve couldn’t imagine a universe like that.

And he didn’t wanna try imagining the one where he lit the world on fire for Bucky to lose him to the flames.

But maybe that’s exactly what Steve’d done. He’d always thought the best yet to come, but maybe they’d been doomed the moment the moon stitched his heart into the bloody hands of the burning sun.

He’d just never could’ve imagined this as their future.

Never could’ve imagined.

Til then, we’ll call on each memory.

Only, Bucky couldn’t.

Not when he didn’t have them. And he’d lost them now, how many times? To the open arms of the sea.

Wait for me, wait for me,

Disappearing into the dark over and over and the punches to Steve’s gut hurt less from metal than that.

Always thought Bucky didn't love him enough to remember him. Now he knew, Bucky loved him too much.

Couldn't decide which ripped his heart deeper.

Til then, when I will hold you again.

When he held Bucky again. Would he ever hold Bucky again?

How long, how many more years until the spaces between his fingers filled, until he breathed in real oxygen, until familiar muscles wrapped around his spine and Steve pulled that precious boy into his arms again?

Maybe...he’d never get to touch Bucky again. Maybe everything he dreamed was something he’d never have. Floating away on some starry sky, lost fire smoke drifting to some beautiful new place.

"Please wait," The backs of their hands pressing closer, Steve's thumb running over the side of Bucky's.

The harsh, cold wind whipping around them as their heads turned, eyes met. The last streak of pink in the sky slipping to black. Stars twinkling through, a beautiful icy blue silver moon the color of Bucky's eyes washing light all over them. Something deep in those eyes Steve’d never had permission to see before, didn't have the slightest clue to what it was.

I love you.

"Till then." The last notes slipped away in the wind, a whisper in a lover's ear. Steve leaned over, soft smile on his face as he knocked his shoulder into Buck's.

Bucky rocked, rocked, and disappeared into the wind, smothered flames in cold dissipating phoenix ashes, scattering on the wing of the last, fading words.

The turntable should scratch, needle readjust, pick up and start new only this generation didn't do that, didn't wait, didn’t stop.

He didn't register the next song playing, wasn't hearing much of anything right now. Wasn't seeing anything but the ashes settling in his palm, blowing away free.

Bucky’d never be free like that. Bucky’d never get to die and scatter on the breeze, lower a cold body in a frozen box one more time, no glass window to press, nothing but dark mahogany to stare up at Steve from the bottom of that open grave.

Arlington National Cemetery didn't fill in graves until after nightfall. No handful of dirt thrown on top, no soil to be seen, all cleared away before the ceremony.

And all those military funerals left the distraught spouse next to the grave for one last conversation before they left.

Before he left Bucky behind, one more time. Six feet under.

Steve’s knees were shaky, legs straining to lower him carefully to the perfect grass. It was chilly, damp against his uniform. The other soldiers had marched out, already dispatched and it was just him and Buck now, isolated to the back of the bar, the two of them surrounded by a thousand white stones and a burial flag folded in its careful triangle.

How was Steve supposed to say goodbye?

Deep anguish had his throat by its clawed hands, ripped out medicated heart and the serum couldn't save him now.

Two fingers running over the cold blades, green slipping between his fingers like those days in Central Park. All those days in Central Park.

A shuddering gasp and he finally broke, “Buck.

Bucky Barnes, his right hand sniper, his eternal best friend, the Sergeant he trusted with his life and the Winter Soldier who’d frozen by his side into the next century, the shadow under his feet, the stars in his eyes, and the love of his life.

Bucky'd said he couldn't believe in love when he'd been so in love it’d ruined him.

They’d had it. They’d had it all. It was so brief, so short, in all the years they’d been alive there’d only been months, a few in Brooklyn, a few in the war, a few with everything they’d ever dreamed in this century.

There’d been fewer nights in peace than there’d been years in pieces.

For so long, they’d been kept apart for so long and for what?

Too scared to face the overwhelming, crashing waves of it?

Too blinded by each other, too much light shed on shadows that’d been building darker since the beginning of days?

Too broken from the past?

Or maybe…they just weren’t destined to be together, not in this life. Maybe not even in the next.

“B-bound to be together,” Steve whispered to the grave, fingers reaching for smooth wood too far down beneath his feet. So far away, never touch that beautiful skin again.

There wasn’t even a quote on the headstone to run fingertips over, embed in his skin. Just that simple white stone: Buck’s rank division World War II day he was born and day he died, but that day couldn’t be right, he’d died so many fucking times.

It wasn’t enough, didn’t say enough for everything he’d done and sacrificed, single white arch for a red-star soldier. If he’d died back in the 40s when he really was just a war hero, if Steve’d attended that funeral, where’d they bury him?

Maybe in Brooklyn. Next to Sarah and his dad. All Steve’s family in one place.

That’d be his new drawing spot, spine curled up against Buck’s headstone, flowers for Sarah two graves over, oak tree casting shadows over his drawing pad as he sketched one more crooked soldier hat over shining crystal eyes.

Run graphite-stained fingertips over the etched words in old Brooklyn stone. That tavern song, spelled out like one’a those poems Bucky’d always accused him’a writing.

Oh! dig my grave both wide and deep
Put tombstones at my head and feet
And on my breast carve a turtle dove
To signify I died of love

That first night in the tavern, Peggy’s shiningdime eyes, red dress, that’s what the boys’d been playing. The song in the background on piano with lifted drunken voices and how’d he never thought about that before?

He left me for a damsel dark
Each Friday night they used to spark
And now my love, once true to me
Takes that dark damsel on his knee

Why that song, that moment, the only moment he’d ever been with them both? Bucky’s sarcasm she’d dodged so easy and Steve’d never thought about it, why Buck’d glared at her so, in that tavern so long ago.

What if that’d been the night he’d first thought Steve was leaving him? My love, once true to me--

Fare thee well, for I must leave
Do not let the parting grieve
Remember that the best of friends must part
Adieu adieu kind friends adieu

Best of friends weren’t supposed to part. Bucky’d promised. He’d never leave Steve. He promised, he promised.

I can no longer stay with you
I'll hang my harp on a weeping willow tree
And may the world go well with thee

That’d been what all the other soldiers sang that night and he couldn’t, he couldn’t say adieu. Not then, not the first night he’d had his best friend back. But...what if Buck had?

Was that the night he realized he was in love with Steve? He’d said once, that Peggy’d known before he did. And if all, I loved him first, all of it was about Peggy, it must’ve been that night. Farewell, do not let the parting grieve, and remember the best of friends must let go.

He’d never told Steve that. And now, he never would.

Pieces of stone crumbling under the edges of red-stained fingertips and Steve could crumple against this headstone or the white one in Arlington but nothing he did was gonna bring Buck back.

To signify I died of love.

He loved Steve, burned so bright and fast and hard, and Steve’d wondered if he did, if he loved him and lord.

He had. He had. He still did.

He'd spent his entire life fighting for a hundred different causes, wars, battles. But the one that mattered the most, it'd been about nothing at all. Bucky loved him. He loved Bucky. They'd always both known, even if they couldn't admit it to themselves.

Well. Now Bucky’d admitted it and Steve’d finally heard him. Here, at the grave, heard him one day too late.

The Commandos weren't here to pour bourbon on his grave. He sure as hell doubted the Avengers were going to.

No home to come back to.

Steve’s turn to admit. This entire time, every battle war wound scream punch struggle to keep afloat...had been for nothing.

They'd fought for nothing. And somehow somewhere, they lost the line.

Gravestones, gravel, grass disappeared. Dark, empty bedroom, iPod singing soft in the distance, burial flag turned bloody canvas. He’d never get the honor, closure of going to Bucky’s funeral. Buck wouldn’t let him go that easy.

A long time ago he'd stormed a base in Azzano alone, absolutely sure Buck was alive. And now, he could still feel that, Bucky’s breathing soul tethered however far. Just couldn't feel his own anymore.

If Bucky died, honestly died, then maybe, eventually, he could move on. He’d mourn cry haunt his grave and miss him every day, but. He could recover, maybe, from losing the soldier he loved. He’d spent half his life preparing for it, a couple months nearly believing it. Bucky’d been gone, but Steve still had him, still had his ghost and his memory.

But Bucky wasn’t dead. And if he hadn’t offed himself when he’d taken Peggy’s life, he wasn’t gonna. So Bucky was alive, and loved Steve, and chose not to be here.

He couldn’t ever move on.

Still givin’ him hell, all these years later.

Fine. Steve Rogers was a soldier, and he was fighting til the end. Live and die for the Art of War and he would never fall. Neither would Bucky Barnes, ever again.

We’ve waited so damn long, we’re sick and tired.

Inhale.

Steve scooped up the painting carefully, turning it to carry secure against his chest as he pattered outta the bedroom, past the kitchen the bathroom into the living room, absentmindedly pulling the couch cushions to the floor, kicking them together with the side of his foot and sinking down to prop on both.

We are the beginning of the end.

You’d think, after the number of times he’d looked at this damn thing he’d’ve memorized it by now. But no, always found new things everytime he studied it. But right now, he wasn’t being an artist or a critic, ran fingers over the light spilling in bright blue windows to see the world, for one moment, the way Bucky did.

‘Cause see, Steve was gonna find him.

I won't leave any doubt or stone unturned.

He wasn’t gonna go out and search the planet, that’d get him caught and found embarrassingly fast. You can’t run away and chase at the same time, he’d learned that much by now.

Didn’t wanna know what’d happen if the Avengers ever found him. Didn’t wanna know if they were even looking. If they knew what was good for them, they’d let him go. Once his fists were raised, that was the finish line. Should’ve learned that much by now too.

Baby tonight I'll be...the liberty.

Night closed in, darkness slowly settling over his bones, growing shadows across all those sharp colors and he sat there on the couch cushions and thought.

If he was gonna find Bucky, he’d have to before he started running. Didn’t have long before Buck could be anywhere. But he’d been here and that meant he wasn’t far. Just had to figure out where.

Problem was, Brooklyn was the center of their lives for most of their lives and he could be...so many places. So many memories to sift through and it had to be the right one.

This was his last chance. He had to stop, think, form a battleplan and do this right. No more youth running into alleys with fists raised, no more swinging round corners with nothing but a shield. Settle down, ‘cause he had something to prove this time. And he was damn well proving it.

Show me your love your love

Canvas slowly rotated, lingering moonlight cutting cold silver through windows, glass doors to the fire escape.

Steve sat on the couch cushions on the floor and ran his fingers over the words on the back of the painting until the paint was long past dry.

Bucky’d written I love you on the back of a painting that’d already said it in every brushstroke. He’d just never seen it.

Once, Bucky'd screamed at him, you didn't let me down, you let me fall.

"Jesus, Steve, I had to. It was the only way to get you to shut up. You know I didn't--"

"No, Bucky. Don't insult me like that. I know you. And I know you meant it."

Inhale. Quiet. "Not in the way you think."

You didn't let me down, Steve, you let me fall.

He wasn't talking about the train, was he?

Steve watched the sharpie mark on his wrist flex, shape with him as he traced every red letter, over over again.

I love you. To the end of the line.

He'd never heard the words like that, but wasn’t every other time enough? Wasn’t every memory of Bucky’s affectionate smile and whispered confessions in the dark enough?

Wasn’t everything Bucky’d given him enough? Without this, even without this, wasn’t it enough?

Show me your love.

It’d always been enough.

’Course it had. How stupid had he been, how long did it take to realize, he didn’t need these three words when he’d had a lifetime of hearing them everyday in 9500 ways.

Bucky Barnes loved him. Bucky Barnes loved him.

Of course he did. ‘course, he always had.

...before the world catches up.

All he had to do now was catch him.

Cause there's always time for second guesses, I don't wanna know...

Was everything fixed? No. Was there a fucking lot they had to talk about? Hell yes.

But here they were.

’course.

The couch cushions slid as he pushed off, cradling the painting again as he started back across the dark apartment, moving as easy in the shadows as his ghost had.

Nothing was fading, now. Crystal, crystal through all the dark as he didn’t turn on a single light, propped one knee up on the bed, reached over, and calmly hung Buck’s painting back in place.

He’d needed this, he’d needed Bucky’s confession, for so long. He’d been so sure what they had couldn’t possibly be enough.

But that was the thing.

On the best days, Bucky made him feel like he was worth the air in his lungs. On the worst days, he was the only thing Steve kept breathing for. And maybe he left him behind in the end, but he never once left him alone.

“You didn’t really need me,” Steve whispered to the beautiful dark. “But thank you for letting me need you.”

 

If you’re gonna be the death of me, that’s how I wanna go.

Eventually, barefeet found their way to the cold metal grates of the fire escape. Breathed in the open air, New York skyline blinking over the water in the distance.

They used to sit out on fire escapes when they were kids. Watching the stars.

Imagining what life’d be like past the black sky, world of their own with no more cold.

No more bloody knuckles.

No more reasons to have them.

We got it all worked out, so little time.

"This doesn't change anything," Bucky told him, softly. He blinked, repeated it in his head, then it kicked in.

"What the hell?" Steve threw his hands up and stared at the sky because of fucking course that was his luck. They were never going to catch a fucking break, were they?

He had to take a few breaths - probably needed them for going so long without oxygen anyways - to calm himself down before he turned back to Bucky, one hand on his hip and the other waving in the air.

"I just kissed you--"

"I noticed," Bucky interjected with a sideways smile.

"--and doesn't that change everything?" Steve continued, ignoring the sassy comment.

Bucky shrugged.

"I mean, I'm definitely not going to hit you if you do it again." The twinkle in his eyes made Steve's chest clench and that wasn't fair, they were trying to have a debate here. “But it's not some magical band-aid to fix me, Steve."

"I don't want some...magical band-aid." Steve stepped forward, not missing the way Bucky eyed him warily as he took the metal hand with both his own. "I just want you to talk to me. To take comfort in…this."

Kissing Bucky had changed everything.

But those three words...I love you.

They didn’t.

He’d thought they would, Steve’d thought they’d mean everything. Thought it’d make that last piece of the puzzle slip into place, thought he’d finally understand, finally know.

But seeing them written for him, in Bucky’s handwriting...nothing changed. That was the part that shocked him, how…unsurprising they were.

Because...they weren’t some amazing revelation, confession he’d never known. Bucky told him he loved him but see, that’s just it. Steve already knew. Steve’d always known. He’d just been too stubborn to admit it, too insecure to fess up that yeah, after everything, he could. Maybe. Have it all.

So those final red words painted on the white spine of the angel didn’t change anything.

But time? Time had.

Memories that I'd block out if you were mine

Bucky’d forgot him twice, and came back to him both times. That screamed louder than the red bitemarks littered down his own white spine.

It hurt. He loved him so much it hurt and it wasn’t that Buck never said it.

you've got a pocket full of reasons why you're here tonight

It was everything else. Suicide lies pain masks, it was all so much and Bucky’d hid behind those three words like that was the problem, so long as he couldn’t say I love you they didn’t have to face everything else they’d never talked about and now that those three words were slid aside, there was this giant rearing red black dripping, terrifying face of everything they’d never solved.

tonight may be the death of me

And there was…the solution. The simple, easy, obvious solution. It wasn’t gold like the sun and it wasn’t white like the snow, it was red & navyblue like them. Black & blue, like them.

But it was simple. They’d faced war and brainwashing and memory loss and terror and identity crisis and in the end, it was so fucking simple.

Spent his entire life pushing and pushing and fighting, above beyond and impossible, always proving something, reaching one star higher, pushing for one step more.

He just had to. Breathe.

Stop, breathe, and realize. Forget the stars. Forget the stars. Peel away the five point carved into his chest and he was just flesh, blood and bone. Warm skin, feet on the ground. He'd been reaching up for so long he'd...forgotten to look down.

To realize he already had everything he needed. Spent a lifetime carrying the world on his shoulders while he stood on Bucky's and Buck pushed him higher, held him up on mountains and. It was time he hopped down. Everyone he knew had wings, but.

Not them.

Two people, flesh and blood human. Two boys from Brooklyn who spent so long staring at the stars they missed the most beautiful light of all, standing there beside them.

Maybe he really did have nothing to prove. Not to Buck, not anymore.

All he’d ever had to do, all along, was ask Bucky to stay.

Show me your love, your love, before the world catches up

Maybe Bucky wasn’t a hero. And maybe Steve wasn’t his tragedy. But they were almost bloody and battered enough to taste freedom on each other’s lips.

And god, what Steve would give to have Bucky here with him one more time.

If you're gonna be the death of me, that's how I wanna go.

Today was the day he finally figured it out. Soldiers fight so they can come home to their loved ones.

The war was over.

There was only one place left to go.

It’d only taken him, y’know, the better part of two lives to figure out how fucking simple it all was. Talk, don’t leave, fight to stay, don’t fight to take. You don’t get to have all of him. But you get to be there, beside him, if you play it right. You get to have his arms around you and his smile at midnight and his bitchy groans when you wake him up at dawn.

God, that was so much more than enough.

So here, today, marks the day that Steve Rogers finally got his shit together and realized y’know what, the only place he’d ever called home had never been far at all.

Only took him 71 years. Today was what, Februrary...17th. Three days after Valentine’s Day. Eleven days before the day Buck fell from the train in 45.

...which also meant it was the anniversary of the day they went dancing.

Which could arguably be a great day for an anniversary in general but no, he and Bucky’d had that conversation once.

They’d been sitting on Stark’s barstools, on that floor with the landing platform, big arching crystal windows, two glasses of Sam’s stolen orange juice sitting on the bar while they bitched at each other and argued.

“No! No, you don’t getta pick some random day!”

“Buck--”

“It’s at least gotta be somewhat romantic, Stevie. Anniversaries last forever--”

“Buck!”

“--and I for one, refuse to have some anniversary in the middle of April with no significance whatsoever--”

“Buck, Bucky, Bucky. There’s no way we’re gonna be able to chose one day. There’s the day we met, the day we became friends--”

“Arguably the same day.”

“Ehh, debatable, I’d say it was a week later--”

“Do you even know that date?”

“Of course I do! But does it count as an anniversary?”

“It could be the day we finally went on our first date.”

“The hell was our first date? Soup at my mom’s house? Coney Island? The WWII museum?”

“Okay, okay, fine. What about the date you finally got over your stubborn ass and kissed me?”

“Bucky, I will push you off that barstool.”

“I’ll push you right back and Stark will walk in and rip into us about wrestling on the communal floor again, how bout that, Rogers?”

“Wait, what about the day I asked you to go steady with me?”

“Way too much bad shit went down that day too. Ooo, we should do the date you saved me from the dead.”

That lilting tease in Bucky’s voice and Steve couldn’t help but smile coyly, lean over to invade Bucky’s warm personal space and catch those bright eyes before dragging his gaze purposefully down to Bucky’s mouth. “Which time?”

Metal fingers curled quick in blonde hair and Steve was laughing before their lips smushed the sound, smiling into Bucky’s mouth as they tipped between barstools and soft pink was not-so-soft in its point-proving.

Their lips dragged on the pull away and Steve could feel it in his gut, heart stuttering in his chest as his breath caught on the edge of Bucky’s mouth, little pop as they separated slow, lips stuck a second long.

Bucky took a moment to recalibrate, dark eyelashes fanning as he finally opened silver-green-blue and blinked slow at him, noses brushing from how close they were, voice dropping low and velvety between them, “Or maybe the date you first rocked my world…”

“I’ve been rocking your world for years,” Steve teased, outta breath and too smiley to have any kick but it sure lit off something in those comet fire eyes.

Bucky surged against him, kissing him so hard and fast Steve couldn’t even gasp, tight all over until he sunk into the rough fingers holding him close and melted, giving in to the crashing wave of arousal, shuddering in Bucky’s hands as he closed his fists in the soft plain black tshirt he really really wanted off now.

“I’m k-kinda likin’ the anniversary,” Bucky gasped, Steve’s eyes still closed as the breathy words washed over the damp traces Buck’d left on his mouth, please fuck, let Bucky kiss him again, “...for the first time we banged.”

Mmm, fuck. Steve groaned low and tipped his head slowly, mouthing his way up Bucky’s jaw, eyes still cemented shut, just breathing in that warmth, memorizing all these lines and angles with a dragging lip, sucking up all the whining sounds outta that pretty throat.

“Or maybe it should be today,” voice an octave lower as Steve mouthed Bucky’s neck and curled his fingers tighter at the little shiver running down that pretty spine, “...’cause I'm about to give you the most mind-blowing experience you've ever had.”

A shot of cold between them as Bucky tipped his head back in a bright laugh, Steve’s eyes popping open, just as bright as he took in that bursting smile, the flush high on that pretty face as he tangled their fingers together and dragged Bucky off the barstool.

And then they were laughing, and gasping, so turned on and happy as the world spun perfect, running for the elevator with their hands entwined and their mouths catching again the moment they could breathe, Bucky’s laughter echoing behind them as twin metal doors slid shut.

It’d been seven, eight, nine months since they’d been that happy.

They might...never be that happy again.

If Bucky kept running.

If Steve couldn’t find him.

If either one of them got caught, got dragged off to some Stark care facility, he might never get to see his best friend laugh again--

The hollow pit in his stomach could knock him flat, gasp rattling empty chest raggedy lungs, blood-stained palm over bloody lips as his fingers curled, digging into his jaw like that might ground him, like pain might possibly still ground him.

All he knew was pain, only it was internal and he didn't know how to stitch that kind himself.

The Stars still danced behind his eyelids when he closed them shut this tight, soft breeze chilling the corners as water-tight started to crack.

All those walls were starting to crack.

Head spinning like Coney Island Cyclone with no anchor point, no warm hand on his spine, no laughter and giggling sincere apologies as he hurled out his insides in the grass this time.

Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in.

Crumble crumble and look at him, this broken young soldier who'd seen too much, been through too much, fought so hard with so many masks that he couldn't just peel off like the Winter Soldier did, he didn't get to do that, didn't get to do anything but break inside and try not to bleed all over everyone he knew--

But he bled all over ‘em anyways.

Time he stitched up those old war wounds. Stopped dragging families down with him.

'Cause here we are
We are shining stars
We are invincible
We are who we are

Shaking hands ran leather-red tips over the mark on his wrist. Traced, all the way round, black solid all the way to that dash, the three dots. Thud of a solid steady pulse under the thumb pressed to those dots, invincible, and everything was still

gold.

Golden flames for golden days, two stupid boys in war, best friends sharing a secret language, private eyebrow raise, smile across the distance between them and Bucky shook his head with that exasperated affection and Steve had the world.

Standing on the edge of a burning cliff and they weren’t so far now, fingers laced, the only arm Buck had. A deep breath, twin blues caught on each other as they looked, one more time, before one more something stupid.

“Meet you at the bottom,” Bucky whispered and Steve squeezed, glancing down to the fingers between his, last bit of fuel he needed. And there was that damn sharpie’d line, drawn round both their wrists. The promise, the only one they’d end up keeping, wasn't it?

Locked wrists.

Leather-locked wrists and what would it be, if Bucky left him for good, if he let go off the cliff this time.

What was the worst place he could go and still leave Steve with these hollowed out rib bones?

If Steve was too late. Maybe Steve was already too late.

Where would that tortured hero go? Would he lose it, one more time, the only piece of Steve he could bring himself to erase? Would he kiss those memories goodbye one final time?

Come ‘round with no line drawn round his wrist, who’d be there to trigger it all back next time?

Buck had chosen - twice - to destroy himself to get rid of Steve. What if that's what he chose now?

What if for him, the only way out was erasing, pink flecks dotting a smudged white paper that'd been so complex and beautiful only moments before. What if that's why Bucky left him behind in this apartment in the dark with couch cushions on the floor and his sentence painted red as their shared veins? To erase himself, one more time?

Where was he now, some rickety chair in an abandoned warehouse, devil machines blinking barrier as he held his breath and held back tears and stared up at the sky and tried to picture stars.

A sharp gasp and Steve’s hand shot over his mouth, eyes squeezing shut to the image of stars dancing on some dirty ceiling as the body he used to dance with carved itself out into nothing but a shell.

Maybe he'd get rid of it all this time. Wipe everything, no name, no life, no schoolbooks clutched in strong arms. Just blank. Nothing.

The way Hydra always told him he was. Nothing.

We've only ever been reunited in death. We've only ever been together in death.

Asthma attacks and pneumonia to torture tables to war to bullets in the leg. Fury's death Hydra’s death Steve's death. The Winter Soldier only came back on the verge of death or covered in it.

That's all they’d ever been. So I’ll meet you there one more time, my love.

In a chair seven blocks away, Steve could feel him, could feel the invisible gravity as the sleeping sun shone echo on the moon and was he screaming,

Screaming when no one could hear him.

Just like on those tables he’d been left to rot. During those nightmares he’d woken soaked in sweat and alone. Just like when Steve left him.

Screaming for Steve and Steve couldn’t hear him, couldn’t do anything but feel that goddamn fucking ache in his soul and what that beautiful mind had to be thinking, as the machine closed round his split, throbbing head.

This is it. My last breath.

Surrender...

No. No, he wouldn’t, not Buck. He’d go in there thinking he could but he’d remember, the very last moment, that final inhale, he’d remember that flash of shining light, the one in his own chest, and he wouldn’t leave him, he wouldn’t.

He'd promised Steve they’d have each other ‘til death.

Bucky couldn’t go through with this. Steve was his entire world, he'd take all the pain of everything for every day of his life, 70 years of condensed horror and the two wildfire burning since, take the worst of anything he'd ever felt, he'd take that on the 1% chance he got to see Steve’s beautiful smile one more time--

He couldn’t do this.

The metal arm flashing, angry whirr as he struck out, aiming for the closest scientist only no one was there, it was just Bucky this time.

Bucky, struggling to get out only the machine wouldn’t let him, they had him now and he was screaming, screaming into loneliness as the quiet buzz powered up, electricity crackling and it was gonna take him, Steve was running so goddamn fast to catch up, to stop it, Bucky was there and Steve was gonna get to him in time,

stared at the door and imagined Steve coming for him, barreling to his rescue, sweeping in here with that shield and the Commandos flanking him, barking orders and rushing to Bucky’s side, so young and water-run and beautiful--

Flash. Flash, black, and the dream was gone, something was gone he’d just been thinking of something, remembering something he didn’t know what, just that he was missing it, that there was a void now and no, no, they didn’t get to take Steve from him, not like this.

Steve. Steve, no, he’d never know, Steve no no no no,

Bucky thrashed and the lightning shot straight to his brain.

Hands curling burnt and charred around electric fence wire and then nothing, blank, fishing for something and he could remember the smell, the burning flesh but when, what’d happened, more black--

The outline of Steve’s shoulders, spine in the dark, shadowed in the middle of the night, rose softly, slowly, settled back down again, quiet quiet breaths and Bucky was holding his, watching, barely able to believe Steve could trust him like this, lay in his bed like this and fall asleep without a lick of clothing to cover that beautiful body, sheets tangled haphazardly around his legs and not covering a damn thing, long smooth curvy lines down that mesmerizing spine he was too terrified to reach out and tou--

Ripped away, empty, black but hadn’t there just been shapes, there’d just been something, flash,

He was losing it. Losing it all and Bucky was screaming screaming couldn’t stop screaming and Steve had to be just outside the door, could swear those were bootfalls coming to save him one more time, please god be Steve, Steve, and he didn’t realize the screams were sliced into words until the echo came back to him, love you I love you I love you I love you--

and they're all disappearing, every drop of sunshine and light and punched shoulder and sidesmile, draining the lifeblood right outta him down to the last memory he ever got, the last memory he always had.

Just Steve, small and sweet and feisty again, curled at the dinner table in their first apartment; pencil in hand as he scratched over faded paper. The sunlight was filtering through the windows, playing solar systems in the soft blond hair that kept falling over his forehead. One peaceful hand lifted, subconsciously brushing the bangs off glowing skin just for them to fall back down again, not a single noise to echo against thin walls but the simple scritch scratch of that pencil over paper, gray turning white into an entire world.

Bucky’s entire world.

The last flash of lightning came and he closed his eyes, soaked in the sunshine for just one more moment, just ten more seconds, please.

He wasn’t done here, didn’t wanna go--

It crackled and Bucky couldn’t risk it, they always pulled him out so soon he never got to see what Steve was drawing.

(It was him. It was always him.)

All he could do left was whisper into the darkness before it took him, forever, and maybe Steve’d at least get the chance to hear these, as he busted down that door ‘cause Bucky still knew, still knew he was coming.

And so he whispered.

“I’m not leavin’ you, pal. To the end of the--”

Then it was blank.

 

It shook him, the smell of New York’s rough streets, salt off the docks to focus on, fists curled so tight ‘round the fire escape ledge there were imprints of his hands and every breath could be his last.

The sound of metal creaking, the whisper breeze dancing through the light streaks in his hair.

Steve would be just as empty as that shell. Left to walk, talk, physical puppet they’d strung up on stage and nailed to the walls of museums.

Stripped of everything inside, stuffed to the brim with nothing at all as the memories left him, the only thing he had left left him. Even when he had nothing.

Buck’d left him, like that, twice now. It’d be a fucking miracle if Buck chose the end of a bullet instead of that damn machine. At least then he wouldn’t be taunted everyday of his life by the living ghost of the man he’d loved to the fucking ends of the earth and back.

I walked through hell for you. It’d be an honor to burn hand in hand.

It’d be his fucking honor to burn hand in hand.

Steve didn’t wanna start crying again, he didn’t, but there were already tears on his cheeks and at least none of it was real, just exulansis.

Every word in his story, every word he’d imagined and drew and felt inside, every word they’d spoken and screamed and never said, exulansis for it all and honestly, maybe Arlington was as real as that Fourth of July in Brooklyn that Steve’d wondered what it’d be like if Bucky kissed him.

But it didn’t matter, right?

Because Buck’d left that poem behind, in the hospital. The one he’d read, by Steve’s bedside, hadn’t heard but he knew. If there was anything he knew, it was the fucking mouth on that punk.

One universe has us right, of all the millions stacked on millions. So it's not this one. I can live with that.

But Steve couldn't live with that.

Had Bucky read that to him with a straight face? Without crying?

It was alright, though. He hadn't been alive for a long time anyways.

More poems, found the other one in the gun drawer. Only Buck wrote that one, which was worse, but his handwriting was off and the only goddamn time he could’ve been writing poetry was over these past months that’d he’d left, that he wasn’t Bucky at all but the damn Sonnet 14 was still about them.

Steve didn’t read that with a straight face. Or without crying.

He’d spent years, without crying.

Look at him now. Goddamn Bucky Barnes, look at him now.

There had to be some switch inside, something crossed in his wiring, wrong, but he didn’t know how to live when Buck just left him behind like this.

Or maybe Bucky was right, maybe neither of them’d ever been alive. They loved, but they weren't living creatures.

A love without life. A love entangled with the opposite of life. What was it that Buck always said?

Death, love entangled. Love stories were war stories, right?

Who was the weak one now?

He didn’t have the strength to get up. To pick himself off the metal rungs of the fire escape floor hanging over the city, over that beautiful river as the dark blue sky shone lighter, the color of Buck’s winter peacoat now, not the black it’d been for hours, years.

But Steve didn’t have the strength to get up. Not even with the serum running through his veins, couldn’t do it, he couldn’t lift the bones that dragged on dirty cobblestone in back alleys. Where’s the sniper to come round the corner, pick him outta the dirt? He couldn’t keep doin' it on his own.

"A weak man knows the value of strength. and compassion.”

Compassion.

He’d been chosen, for Project Rebirth, because he was a good man. Because he knew compassion. Passion, fingertips on burnt fingertips.

And on the outside, he was weak no more. But Steve still knew the value of strength. Still, beneath all that, all the red white’n’blue bullshit and the fighting and the Captains and the shield and the running, knew compassion.

And compassion wasn’t to hate Bucky for a single goddamn thing he’d done. Steve didn’t know, had never been through that, but if it’d happened to him? Who’s to say he wouldn’t’ve turned out worse?

Compassion was forgiveness. More than forgiveness. The strength to take them both forward, to carry Bucky when he couldn’t fight any longer.

A weak man knew the value of strength.

You carry me.

And oddly enough, through all this, through everything Bucky’d done, everything he’d done, the world on fire as they rose one more time from ashes and flames?

Steve was a weak man again. And in his heart, where he was weak, he knew exactly what he had to do.

He knew Bucky Barnes, I know what you’re gonna say, Buck. And that’s all that mattered.

That’s all that mattered.

 

 

He knew exactly where Bucky was.

 

~*~*~*~

 

James B. Barnes.
32557038 T42 43 A

Steve ran his thumb over the embedded letters, the name hanging ‘round his neck, dangling, clanking against the engagement ring. Barnes always had complained about Steve stealing his stuff. He should probably give these back then, shouldn't he?

Two solid hands, planted on metal, and Steve Rogers pushed himself to his feet, one more time. Made himself stand, one more time. All he had to do was get up. And, y’know, sometimes storm enemy bases on his own just to get his best friend back, but.

All he had to do was get up, and stand. Stand by his side.

What do you plan to do, walk to Austria?

If that's what it takes.

One foot in front of the other and Steve started down the rickety metal stairs. I always fall from your window to the pitch black streets, careful – see, careful, you’re welcome asshole - jump down and the soles of his running shoes were on solid ground, pitch black Brooklyn streets, for maybe the last time.

And Steve started home.

Bucky was alive. Bucky’d been alive, all this time. All this time. All. This. Time.

The team should be coming with him, it was the final battle after all. But the Avengers were gonna think he was crazy, for the rest of his life. He could show ‘em the damn painting, they wouldn’t believe him. Because Steve knew Bucky was alive and they’d never get that. They’d throw him in some padded room, get him help. But he couldn’t be Captain America, not for them. Their team captain was gone. It’d crushed him, it’d all crushed him and none of them would believe that. Not Nat, not Tony, not Clint, not Sam.

No one’d ever believed him about Bucky being alive, but this was different. This time, he couldn’t let the plane crash. It’d happened too many times, this feeling of Bucky being alive, to ever stop believing in it now.

Jane’s carousel was sitting dismal and dark, no lights to glitter off the water, spinning and flashing gold for the briefest memory and then it was cold and empty again, a hollow piece of what used to be Brooklyn. They used to be Brooklyn.

Steve shook his head and tipped his head back at the open, glittering New York sky. Goodbye, New York, Bucky’d made him the mad one again.

If you’re gonna be the death of me, that’s how I wanna go.

Just one more inhale. Brooklyn air, one more time, and Steve took the first step on the stairs older than he was. The stairs that hadn’t changed a bit.

He could swear the cobwebs were already forming, this darkness falling behind him but he wouldn’t be the fool this time, he wasn’t turning around. Wasn’t looking back.

Wasn’t much a home without those cobblestone streets and smiles round the corner.

This wasn’t the home he got to keep. This wasn’t where he got to stay. But that was alright, he’d leave it all.

On this bridge, one. last. time.

And off, in the distance, over all the sloping lines and beautiful arching brick, the water underneath was glittering and the horizon, on the horizon, the sky was just beginning to glow.

It was sunrise.

Of course, it was sunrise.

 

The thing about the Brooklyn Bridge was the foot traffic really wasn’t as busy as you’d think, even now. It was a long bridge and taxis were fairly cheap. Not to mention that it was dawn, in February, cold breeze ruffling his hair -- if he didn’t have the wicked metabolism and body mass that came with the serum, he’d be freezing his ass off. So, for once, there was no one in sight.

Well, no one but the figure in the distance, that dark silhouette he’d recognize anywhere.

Steve stopped in the middle of the footpath and breathed in.

There he was. Bucky Barnes, propped up on the ledge overlooking East, feet dangling over the edge, over the rippling water below.

They used to sit on the ledge as kids. Not as often as Steve would’ve liked, but Bucky was the more cautious of the two, kept soccer-moming Steve’s chest every three seconds, chewing his lowerlip in worry, so goddamn careful to make sure Steve didn’t fall.

The sky looked like it might snow, any second, the slow soft, peaceful kind. It didn’t, but he could feel it, in the air. That edge, that warning edge as distant clouds threatened low and passive, hovering, only this time not even the heavens were putting them through hell.

Steve took three steps closer, and that’s when he heard it. See, he’d known, in his heart, that it was Bucky sitting there on the ledge. But knowing it and hearing it, for yourself, for real, in that beautiful singing voice Buck’d always had, those was two entirely different things and Steve’s heart stopped in his shaking chest.

He’d recognize that voice anywhere.

He’d recognize that song anywhere.

And what a fucking best friend he had, sitting there with his back to Steve, all quiet and peaceful as he sang to the glow breaking the line where the ocean met sky, and Steve fell in love with him all over again.

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me hap-py, when skies are gray.” Soft and beautiful, floating on the wind and Steve’s feet were working again, somehow, silent as Buck’s as he walked slowly, so agonizingly slowly, closer. Closer.

This was the place, this was the sound. You can hear it on the air, feel it in the breeze, it’s comin’ for us both, before we try to leave.

“You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.”

Oh, but he did.

Oh, but he did.

He shouldn’t have made it this far. This shouldn’t have worked.

But there he was.

Here they were.

Two ordinary people, too stubborn to let the world pull them apart.

On our darkest day, when we’re miles away,

I leave with no regret.

Fall.

The fall.

He was about to drop.

Steve could feel it in his bones.

The same way he’d felt it on that train, couldn’t believe it then, could barely believe it now. They were so close, so close he could run forward and pull that beautiful body into his arms and Steve couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, drowning in the gold of that beautiful song,

“Please don’t take...my sunshine...away.”

Sun will come. We will find our way home.

And Bucky fell.

The sun broke the horizon, and Bucky dropped off the side of the bridge.

Steve dove.

The first flash of bright in the distance, the tiniest sliver of light more blinding than the round glow at noon. It almost blinded him. It almost blinded him, and he almost missed. Almost.

Steve dove, and his fingers locked around that falling hand.

The yank almost tugged him right off the edge too but he dug in his heels, fought gravity with every ounce he had, pulled back just enough, timed it just perfectly, this time, and.

Steve caught Bucky.

 

The first thing that crossed his mind, the suddenly light, summer mind, maybe should’ve been something beautiful and peaceful and romantic but the first thing, the only thing he could goddamn think, hanging on for dear life to that hand, that precious hand, body bent in half over the rail ledge, was: Jesus Christ, Bucky was heavy.

That brilliant head snapped up, fingers curling automatically around Steve’s wrist, crystal eyes wide as the wind rustled through the short dark pomade, little strands curling around the edges of his forehead, the way they had the day Steve’d saved him, the first time.

(It’s me.) Because all they’d had was each other, then. Me, the one for you. Me, when you heard it, it’s me, there was only person that could be and for Bucky, it’d always been Steve. Different body, different country, torture chamber hallucinations and all they’d ever had was each other so all Steve’d had to say was, It’s me.

(Steve.) There’d been such broken relief in those eyes as he’d blinked up from the table, registering with that flash of light that’d scare away shadows down all the rail-lines and dark forest nights, soft, feeble pink mouth offering that prayer, dying breath and the first gasp of air in a century, Steve.

This century, all that terrified confusion bubbling behind mumbled words, clutching hands, dirty blood caking the side of his face, all that was gone.

This century, Bucky looked up at him and it was a Bucky he’d never seen before, and the only one he’d ever known. Innocence, comet fire all gone now, those sharp crystals were just as haunted as the soul that lay behind them - and in the facets, in the wide open sincerity, pure clean, there was nothing but white, silver. All those shadows almost killed his light. But there he was, there Bucky was, still holding on.

 

Literally, right now.

What a dramatic fucking asshole. The drop wouldn’t kill him. The ice below would be cold, maybe slash open a leg at the worst, but that drop wouldn’t kill him. It was pretty far down, but this was an assassin that’d survived a hell of a lot worse in Russia. So, dramatic asshole. He was just giving Steve one more chance to catch him.

How many sunrises was he prepared to jump off this bridge until Steve finally figured it out and showed up to catch him?

He had no idea, but Steve had a feeling it might be all of them.

Bucky was looking up at him and Steve’s heart was beating so damn fast, chest heaving, breathing so damn fast, looking back down at Bucky, at his best friend on the whole planet, right here, alive, and their hands were locked.

“Hey, Buck.” Steve said, with tender eyes and shaking knees as the river rushed below them.

“Stevie,” Bucky replied happily, lit up fond as hell, pure joy, sweet affection dancing through the shining eyes, mouth curling up on one side before it broke out wide, sincere smile taking over that whole beautiful young face.

The fist around Buck’s tightened a little, fingers curling against that warm, callused skin.

“About time I caught you, huh?” A little outta breath, a little shaky, and Bucky softened, just smiling up at him, all peaceful and sweet, slight twinge of Brooklyn as the pretty lips parted.

“I always knew you would.”

If it was possible, for someone’s heart to simultaneously stop and pound so fast and loud he might pass out all at the same time, Steve’s chest was doing exactly that.

Fuck, he was gonna cry. He was gonna cry and the tears were gonna land on Buck’s stupid face and he’d never live that the fuck down, he had to get his shit together right the fuck now.

And he should probably, y’know, pull Bucky back onto the bridge sometime soon, no point in catching him if he just left him to dangle there.

Steve blew out an unsteady breath through pursed lips, steeling himself before he engaged those ridiculous triceps, moved to hoist Bucky up--

When it suddenly struck him.

“Wait, hold on,” Steve muttered, squeezing Buck’s hand a little tighter with his right, freeing up his left and glancing down as he patted through the brown leather jacket pockets, searching--

Hold on?” Bucky sounded more incredulous than Steve’d ever heard him and that was saying a goddamn lot.

But he could wait a damn minute-- there, there it was. He dug the Sharpie one-handed outta his pocket, biting the cap off with his teeth, popping the marker part free with this weirdly loud sound.

“What’re y--”

He spit out the cap over Bucky’s head, furrowing eyebrows looking up at him like he was crazy, that look on his face that said Steve Rogers, littering, how dare he? and it took a lot of internal strength right now not to roll his eyes at that sassy expression.

But Bucky thankfully shut up, the moment the tip of the marker brushed the inside of his wrist. He drew the three dots first, center out, the reverse of the way Bucky drew it. Complementary, like two strands of DNA, winding round on that twisted ladder they’d slid down to so so many pitch black waves.

Starting from the beginning, that’s how he drew it. Frankly, Bucky was left-handed now and Steve was still right-handed and of course they saw it as fucking opposites. Either way, he was matching Steve now, line wrapping over that dangling wrist, had to be pretty careful to keep a solid grip on Bucky’s arm while he angled the marker around that clean skin, pulled Buck right through the flames with him.

“It was never death standing in the way of you and me, stupid.” Bucky huffed in indignation and Steve kept right on going, right on tracing that dark line as he talked over that sassy look. “That last breath’s what’s always kept us together.”

Wasn’t looking at Buck, too busy being careful drawing that line straight, but he could guess the expression on his face, the three ways this could possibly go.

That brief dangerous moment as the silence closed in --

The last time, I’m sticking round til the stars fall from the sky, it’d come down to this: They could finally close that gap between their mouths, lean forward and seal the final nail of Bucky's coffin because once he kissed Steve he was never going back, not ever.

Or Steve could start crying. He'd done that before, and it always tore Bucky up. He used to pull Steve into his chest and squeeze him tight, but that might be harder with Steve big now. He may have to figure it out though, because Steve's eyes were wet enough to maybe start watering over.

Or there was option number three.

Silence and a promise laying between them, raw emotions and wounds opened up and exposed in the slowly blooming sunrise, wind whipping between them as Steve held Bucky’s hand tight, alive again. Bucky blinked a few times, looking at Steve as he opened his mouth, words spillin’ out sweet as honey.

“...jeez, Stevie, I didn’t know you were a poet.”

 

Bucky grabbed his pillow before he could think, smacking it down over Steve's head. Steve laughed in surprise and fell backwards, flailing to try to catch the pillow before Bucky could hit him with it again. He got a grip on it and flung it across the room, leaving Bucky ammo-less.

The silence fell again for just a moment, then Steve was looking at him with big doe eyes and Bucky glared, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Shut up," Bucky pouted.

Steve laughed again, tossing his head back as the sound echoed in the tent. Bucky managed to sit and pout for at least ten seconds, then his mouth was cracking a smile at the corner too. How could he not, when Steve was so loud and perfect and beautiful, arms clutched over his stomach as he gasped from laughing too hard, giggles still slipping past the gasps.

"I hate you," Bucky tacked on, the smile on his mouth counteracting his declaration so strongly that Steve knew he meant the opposite.

"I know," Steve said breathlessly, finally sitting up straight again and meeting Bucky's gaze. The smile on Steve's face kept wavering at the corners like he wanted to smile even wider.

If Bucky could have any picture of Steve in the world, it'd be of this moment. Of the look on Steve's face right now because it was more beautiful and shiny and happy than Bucky'd ever seen him. And Bucky’d been the cause of it. Somehow, Bucky was the one to make that smile.

He didn't need a photograph, then. He'd just spend the rest of his life trying to get that same smile outta Steve. That was all he'd ever need.

 

The fond exasperation Steve was aiming at him now, that single raised dark eyebrow under the soft blonde halo - which really did look like a halo right now, first glimpses of sunrise lighting him up gold, ‘specially from this perspective, hanging from those solid artist hands with his head tipped back, wind feeling weirdly detached as it ruffled the hair he still wasn’t used to having nice, short, cleaned up -- anyways, that fond exasperation was just about the furthest fucking thing from Steve’s smile in that memory, but Bucky’d never wanted a photograph of that beautiful face more.

Maybe he’d paint it, or something. And, and, he got to spend the rest of his life getting that same smile outta Steve, and this same fond exasperation. Because what were best friends for if you couldn’t get both?

“Really? Really?” Steve was complaining, shaking his head down at Bucky and Bucky was pretty sure he was gonna break his own damn face from smiling this much. “You’re gonna give me that shit when you left a fucking sonnet in the gun drawer?”

That’s right. He couldn’t really tease Steve about being a poet anymore when Bucky was, y’know, actually one. However, he was also still Steve’s best pal and there was more in that complaint than a poem.

“Why were you in the gun drawer? You weren’t gonna…”

His heart was pounding too fast in his chest, about to damn explode because he knew it’d been bad, knew he’d wrecked Steve nine ways to Sunday and if he’d crashed a plane into the arctic on purpose without all this shit on top of it, sue him, Bucky couldn’t help but be a little worried.

But Steve didn’t even look up from the careful line he was drawing to circle around the far bone in Bucky’s wrist. “The only bullet I was planning was one in your dumbass head.”

Fuck. Of course. The relief rushed through him in an electric wave, every bit of tensed up muscle relaxing all at once.

It was all a lot, and he was still kinda torn between crying or cheering, so he went for the next best of both, which was fucking teasing Rogers right back.

“The person that you take the bullet for is behind the trig-ger--” Bucky sang, maybe a tad obnoxiously, that last Fall Out Boy tag and that, that made those pretty eyes snap up from his drawing, all on fire as Steve stared him down and threatened, perfectly dead serious,

“I will drop you.”

He couldn’t help it.

Bucky started laughing. Metal arm curling over his stomach, dangling legs kicking as it wracked up through his chest, tipping his head back against the gradual warmth of the sunrise, laughing and laughing because this, Steve had just threatened to drop him, so beautiful and strong and confident and this, this wasn’t gonna terrify either of them ever again.

“Hey, hey! Stop fidgeting.” It took him a couple of seconds to wrangle the laughter into giggles, fucking giggling as he hung here off the side of a bridge and let Steve fucking Rogers draw things on him with Sharpie.

“You messed it up!” Steve whined, right back to the tiny complainy version of himself, a flash of the little Steve he’d fallen in love with hidden right behind the layers of the big Steve he’d fallen in love with again.

Bucky held his breath, lips rolled in amusement as he watched Steve chew the side of his mouth, creased line between his eyebrows as he thought it over, paused, and finally lifted the sharpie again, tracing double spikes, “Fuck it, I’m turning this into a heartbeat.”

“You can’t just improvise!”

“Bucky. That’s all I’ve been doing my entire life.”

That was….devastatingly true.

He tipped his head back in an aggrieved sigh, the same one he gave after all those stupid reckless battleplans, and okay yeah, a heartbeat in the middle of the line on the back of his wrist definitely wasn’t a big deal, if anything it was a little fitting, but still.

“What else am I s’posed to do? The line’s not straight!” Steve defended, all raised fists and fireball and of all things to never change about that punk, it had to be that. And okay, he’d never admit it aloud, but. Buck was...really glad it was that.

“You’re not straight,” he shot back, lame and childish as their comebacks had always been only that one, he really liked using that one.

Mainly for the mixed-emotion glare he got back, the deep respect for pulling a pun that good tumbled in with the annoyance of being pulled one over, only Steve wasn’t so grumbly this time, sighing high and histrionic as he pursed his lips, all woe is me and pure, no-chaser Steve Rogers dramatics.

Clearly. M’over here professing my undying love off the edge of a bridge,” Bucky’s heart skipped a beat and Steve just kept right on going, the kid he knew, the kid he loved, the rascal of a jerk barreling right on like he hadn’t stolen all the breath outta Bucky’s lungs,

“...to somebody who not only has a dick, but also most definitely is one.”

“I love you,” Bucky told him.

Steve froze, mouth still open over whatever next part of the aggrieved ramble he had planned, eyes still on the sun breaking over the horizon for a moment before something clicked and those beautiful blues snapped down to him.

Bucky exhaled and smiled up at that pretty face. That same smile Steve could decipher just perfectly, the smile that said, c’mon Rogers, you knew all along.

Steve, Steve fucking sniffled. Teared right up like the softie he’d spent all those years pretending he wasn’t and maybe Bucky was being a dick but he couldn’t help it, Steve was being all--

All that and Bucky just. Had to roll his eyes. Affectionately, mind you, but yeah, he fucking rolled his eyes because duh, duh Steve. Which one of them was the stupid one, again?

Well, Steve sure was the nice one because he didn’t chuck the sharpie at Bucky’s head for it, sucked in a deep breath and marked the final dash on the inside of his wrist then tossed it aside like a kind, considerate human being, and Bucky’s head was safe. For now.

He'd’ve thrown it at Steve’s dumb head, personally.

Then that pretty blonde head was shaking, once, like Bucky was just the epitome of a clenched fist and exasperated sound at the sky but hey, something worked, because those hard artist hands were finally - finally - hoisting him up the side of the bridge.

Sharp inhale and blues rolled right back at him, shaky corners of his Captain’s mouth all wobbly and.

Jesus fuck, he wasn’t sure he’d make it back onto that bridge at all, his heart just might about give out in his chest first.

But Steve was pulling him up, over the ledge, feet away from solid ground - well, bridge, that wasn’t exactly solid or ground, but it’d been here longer than both of them so y’know what, good enough for him - and Bucky’d spent way too much time with Steve Rogers in his lifetime because he couldn’t figure out how to shut his damn mouth.

“This poor river,” Bucky murmured, looking down at it sadly as Steve’s hands jumped, searing summer into his biceps, his shoulder, helping him climb over like he’d climbed over that metal bar, not without you. “...it’s got your blood, my tears, a sharpie, my ring--”

Steve had a grip on both his arms, looking down between them to make sure he made it over the edge okay but when Bucky said that that wide gaze snapped right back up and Steve’s hard-angled beautiful-line jaw popped right open.

“You asshole, you dropped your ring off the bridge? How the hell am I supposed to make you a new. one. now?” Strained as he hauled Bucky off the ledge, didn’t even stumble under the extra weight, placed him down heavy and solid, two feet on the bridge, huff of an exhale and Bucky was standing again.

Bucky was on his feet again. Steve’d caught him.

Bucky always knew he would.

It took a couple seconds, deep breath before his fingers uncurled, releasing their grip on Steve’s shoulders, all that brick swimming away as he finally dared to lift his gaze to the one that’d been watching, sketching, memorizing him for decades.

Fuck.

He was so fucking sorry.

He’d take it, any damnation Steve thought he deserved, but those blue eyes were looking at him so sincere, simple, like he was just Bucky Barnes from Brooklyn again. Bathed in gold, sunshine had just barely made its way over the line of the horizon now.

And Steve Rogers -- from Brooklyn -- pulled Bucky close, hand clapping his arm, soldier, brother-in-arms style. Radiating down metal plates with this impossible vibration and Bucky was warm all over, could barely breathe, Steve was so damn close.

Then he was dragging him in, for real, chests colliding hard and after everything, solid palm against Steve’s shoulder, the brutally short, rough, passionate hug he’d spent a lifetime wishing could be something more, this was all he ever wanted.

Bucky tucked his chin over Steve’s shoulder, didn’t dare close his eyes, squeezing as damn tight as he could with only one arm, the way they’d hugged so long ago and somehow, they’d made it back here. Standing there, and they’d made it back here.

One more clap and Bucky was leaning back, holding Steve at arm’s length, giving him the good lookover the kid hadn’t had in a damn decade. No visible bruising, no visible cuts or wounds or marks or anything, and that meant Bucky had his work cut out for him, he’d spend the rest of forever, however long it took, stitchin’ up all those battlewounds on the inside.

One’a which was about to leak over right about now. Stevie’s sweet face was twisted up, just a little, nose scrunched as the corners of his eyes gathered up with water, blue shinier than that spit-slicked shield in the war.

Bucky’d heard what he’d said. He’d always heard Steve, always listened to every damn word outta that radical, crazy mouth, and how’m I spos’d to make you a new ring now told him everything he needed to know.

So it was official, then.

They didn’t have Tony Stark anymore. Which he’d guess extended to the rest of the colorful winged team who’d flown through the clouds over their sparkling city.

The look on Steve’s face said enough. Behind those hands that refused to bleed on anybody else, that same broken, hollow as the moment Sarah Rogers disappeared from their lives.

Their family was gone. Fuck.

Fuck, Steve’d left it all behind for him, how was he supposed--

Stevie looked like he was damn near ready to cry, he’d be followin’ right behind if he thought about it too, about everything they’d fucking lost, but they’d be okay. Eventually, they’d be okay. Bucky’d show him. It was over, but they’d keep going, they’d keep breathing, because that’s what you did when you woke up and all your boys were gone, that’s what you did when the band of misfits you’d joined wanted you dead or locked up.

When all the golden days were gone.

But this, Steve’s hands grounding him to the earth and Bucky’s gaze holding the wild fists at bay, this was all they needed. They’d always miss them, forever, but. This was a hell of a lot happier ending than he’d ever thought he’d get.

The price of freedom was high. It always had been.

Bucky’d fought for a lot of things in his longass lifetime; he’d like to cash in that card now. He’d like to be free.

They would be enough.

“Hey now,” Bucky softened, running a hand up Steve’s shoulder, all those strong muscles under his palms he never thought he’d get to touch again, blue eyes steady on him - don’t you dare look back. keep your eyes on me - as he cupped a palm against his vulnerable, thudding neck. “I do happen to know a pretty good engineer who trained in two of the best Stark labs in both centuries.”

I thought you were dead.

Never again.

It took a few seconds before the wobbly mouth curved into a bit of a smile, just a little one, but Bucky was as in love with that one as he’d ever been, that tiny admission like it’d simply destroy that stubborn heart to smile any wider.

“Both centuries, huh?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said slowly, watching the light grow behind the morning sky, the stars blinking out, one by one. “Dumb kid, fell so hard in love with his best friend it almost tore him apart.”

Fingertips sunk into his sides and Steve was about to cry underneath those desperate, barely-believing tipped up corners and they weren’t gonna have any of that.

“Both centuries…” Bucky echoed, biting the inside of his cheek, nodding to himself. Of course. “...a damn lifetime ago. Figured it out some crazy night in a bar, this badass lady walked in wearing this killer red dress--”

Steve broke into a smile, a real, watery smile and Bucky could fall at his feet, could kiss the soles of those shoes and the shoes of that soul. He’d been right. He’d guessed, y’know, that if Steve came to catch him off the side of a bridge, givin’ him shit the way he had for the first twenty-five years of his punk life, he’d figured. But he’d mentioned Peg, he’d brought up that hell he’d put them all through, that awful thing he’d done, and Steve was looking at him with those kind eyes, the understanding furrow between his pretty eyebrows and Bucky was right. He was forgiven.

He didn’t deserve this. God, he didn’t deserve this, but he’d told Peg once, if anybody deserved to love Steve, it was them. The only ones who ever saw him, so. No, he took that back.

They deserved this. They deserved this.

Spend forever proving it.

“But hey. He always knew, deep down...” Bucky ran his thumb over that fightin’ jaw, for once clean of muddled bruises, red purple blue but that was fine, there was enough red and blue between them now to last a fucking life time. He’d always known, fuck, he’d always known.

“...from the first time he saw that punk kid lower his fists for one. damn. millisecond.” His fingers paused, looking right into Steve’s blue eyes and told him, “…even if it was just to pick up a sketchbook.”

Bucky was always stealing glances of Steve drawing. Calm and almost mindless as he swept pencil over the page, white turning gray with the guidance of careful hands. Bucky liked watching Steve draw almost more than he liked the drawings themselves. It was just the only time he got to see Steve peaceful.

 

This could count for peaceful, maybe, if Bucky wasn’t making Steve tear up. To be fair, Bucky’d never told him any of that before. And now, Steve was gonna have to spend the rest of his life hearing every little piece, probably a dozen times over, at least, see, what exactly did he think was signing up for?

Bucky remembered it all, every single moment, and jesus fuck nothing in the world could make him forget it again. He’d trace over every time he’d looked across the dark sky, dark room, seen Steve’s beautiful shining face and fallen in love with him, he’d tell Steve about every single fucking one until he got sick of hearing it, until they made a hundred thousand more.

Blessed be the boys time couldn’t capture.

“You think they’re gonna be alright?” Steve whispered, two fists curling in the bottom hem of Bucky’s shirt, back to the very beginning and they were still so young, had the rest of their goddamn lives ahead of them. Just two kids from Brooklyn.

Don’t you know, that the kids aren’t all-

And in the end.

Bucky wrapped both his mismatched arms around Steve’s strong shoulders, folded that soldier into his chest, eyes slipping closed as he tipped his head against Steve’s temple and told him the only fight he knew left.

“I think they’re gonna be just fine, pal.”

 

 

I’m yours.

 

Didn’t mean he stopped being his own, too. Didn’t mean he let go of everything he’d ever known, every reservation he’d ever had, but if he’d never been captured by Hydra he would’ve loved Steve all his life.

And, in the reality of things, he had just released that terrified tight grip and jumped off a bridge to prove to them both, so. In a way, you could say he’d let go. But in a way, he’d just decided to hold on forever too. To carry on. Together, hand in hand.

But fuck, you wanna talk reality, real reality, he was never gonna be able to stop touching Steve fucking Rogers. Fuck, he’d missed this, the summer pressed up against his skin, both palms on Steve’s neck and the world dangling in his fingertips.

I and love and you.

Steve’s fingertips raked down his shoulderblades and Bucky reached up a metal hand, brushed aside that swoop of misplaced bangs that’d fallen from the high side-swoop, all polished and whatnot and when the hell, between now and the hospital, had Steve had time to do his goddamn hair?

It wasn’t fair, that boy was fine as hell and it wasn’t the least bit fair. Bucky had to work a half hour on his hair to get it right sometimes, and that was before it was long.

Which it wasn’t now, wasn’t anymore, but maybe, down the road, he might grow it out again. The short was great, he knew he looked hot as hell, but there was something about having those artist hands tightening in the long dark strands--

Mm, yeah. Yeah, he was pretty sure he was gonna grow it out again. On his terms, this time, and he’d actually - miracle of all miracles - fucking wash it more than twice a century. Or better, he’d get Steve to wash it. One more excuse to get that beautiful body naked and wet--

“What’re you smiling about?” Steve asked him, long fingers scratching in the short hair at the base of his neck. Bucky cocked his head, one side tipping up higher than the other as he studied the patient, curious expression on that face that’d get them into trouble a dozen more times this week alone.

“You,” Bucky answered simply, and Steve’s arms dropped, circling low around his waist, pulling him in close and proper now and Bucky couldn’t help the smiling crinkles next to his eyes, bottom lip snagging between his teeth as those glittering blues filled him up to the goddamn top.

He’d said it. Didn’t matter that Steve hadn’t even needed him to say it aloud, not in that many words, because he already had. So, so many times. To the end of the line, right?

I got nothing, but I love you, and that’s enough. They both knew now.

(...and Steve was pretty sure neither of them were ever gonna forget again.)

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are grey. And now you know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take, my sunshine, away.

Bucky cupped Steve’s face, looked him over one more time, for good measure. They’d been in a lot of fights, he had to be sure. But there was nothing to clean up this time, they’d both seen the very worst of battles. And they were still here. That was all that goddamn mattered.

Steve’s eyes slipped closed as Bucky went up on his tiptoes, leaned forward.

Tipped that fiery head down and closed crystal eyes of his own, crossing the years between them, the distance that’d separated them too long, leaned forward, delicate, tender, and kissed Steve’s forehead.

The knit between his eyebrows, lingering residual mourn as the metal slipped up to cradle the back of his head and Stevie’s closed eyes softened. His lips pressed to smooth skin, holding tight, and the curled fingers in his skin let go.

Peace. True peace, that smooth, gentle only white blank pages and a pencil could ever bring.

Breathe.

He could give him this. Bucky’d been so sure, for so long, he didn’t have enough to give, but he could give Steve this.

It’d be his honor.

The wind rustled him cold as he pulled away, freezing a streak before he realized the single tear that’d slipped down his cheek. The corner of Steve’s mouth turned up and he reached up one big artist hand, thumb swiping over his skin, and wiped the tear away.

Here they were. Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were best friends since childhood. Inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield.

Time to kiss this battlefield goodbye.

And run into the sunset together. Well, actually, sunrise, as cliché as Bucky spent his life trying to be, just to annoy Rogers, you couldn’t have it all.

Only, maybe, with Steve looking at him like that?

Maybe you really could.

This time when Steve's hands landed Bucky's jaw, there was no mask in the way. Just Bucky's soft skin under his palms and Steve's heart pounding loud enough that Bucky could hear it, could feel it.

Beat in time with his.

So I’ll blame it on my optimistic heart.

Steve tightened his hold, short dark strands brushing the curl of his fingers, his stomach twisting in knots as the wind whipped around them, Bucky's crystal eyes staring at him, staring into him, and it was jump now or never, a lifetime of waiting, and with fists raised and blood pumping Steve leaned forward, destroying the space that had been between them for decades too long.

He tilted Bucky's face up and pressed their lips together, eyes slipping closed as their mouths connected and the world stopped turning.

Steve Rogers kissed just like he fought, with every ounce of that beautiful heart and soul and Bucky was hopeless to do anything but cave under the pressure of those lips - barely parted, a touch of lingering wetness against his mouth and the jolt of it spiraled through his body, rippling down his spine because god, this was Steve in his hands, Steve's face tipped down to meet his, their - their - lips pressing together. Agape.

In the middle of this carnage, this wreckage of memories and haunted New York streets, somewhere in the goddamn twenty-first century; he never thought he'd live to see this day but fuck, wasn't it fitting.

Fit just like Steve's mouth to his, crushed close and solid and so warm and--

Metal fingers tangled up in the front of the brown leather jacket, fabric catching and threatening to tear as the arm that'd done nothing but crush things permitted its favorite mission and hauled Steve closer, their bodies crashing together this time.

He took it all back.

Everything he ever said about being too scared for this, he took it back. He was terrified, still positively terrified, but he’d spend every day of the rest of his life making up for it with this, the only thing he was sure in, the only thing he’d ever had faith in, ever fought for, and that was Captain Steven Grant Rogers.

Bucky arched up against his mouth, kissing back messy, hungry, and neither of them could breathe, he needed more than just his hands on Steve's face, he needed him so close he could never get away again. Crushed their mouths harder, Steve’s arms lifting to wrap even tighter around the muscles threaded over his spine, leather creaking as he squeezed their chests flush, twin hearts skipping.

Metal and real fingers shoved into that blonde halo, forget the Heavens, forget Hell, just dragging Steve down further, closer, and Bucky tilted sideways to adjust the angle, lips interlocked and pressing, hard enough to bruise, hard enough that Steve could taste the desperation, the fear he wasn’t afraid to show anymore. Fuck the masks, let Steve see this, the truth, the broken, terrified way Bucky was clinging to him like he'd disappear the moment their lips parted.

Let him see it so he could prove it, every single day, he was never leaving Buck behind again.

Cause you’ve got nothing to prove-- damn right I do. On va voir.

A stuttering wave of emotion, promises, only they weren’t making a single damn one this time but to always come back to each other and that was the one thing they’d never really had a problem with.

If seventy years and assassin horror stories couldn’t keep them apart, they’d make it through whatever war story was waiting now.

(They were all love stories anyways.)

The waves crashed on the shore, sunlight rushed through all the darkest corners of the shadows, threatening to knock him right off his feet.

Steve just bundled him close and kissed him deep, let them both drown in the sparking heat of their chests, carry on; all senses on fire to melt, melt years of freezing ice cold. Maybe this was how they were supposed to heal, in the warmth of their hearts combined, in the comfort of each other's bodies. Real, alive, here.

Real, alive, here.

Jesus Christ, it was hard to remember they hadn’t been doing this his entire life.

They’d taken each other apart and picked up the pieces, put themselves back together again and fought for, with, against each other but for the first time in a long long time, tomorrow sounded like the dream he never could’ve had yesterday.

Bucky’s lips parted on a gasp, breathing the oxygen straight outta Steve’s lungs as their overlapping lips slid so so slowly apart, barely apart at all as he exhaled, filled those precious lungs up again. He’d trade every yesterday for the chance to spark that fire back to the warmest it could be. He’d trade everything for the chance to bring Steve back to life again.

For the chance for him to come alive again, under the summer sun.

Your love is anemic, and I can’t believe that you couldn’t see it coming for me.

This was it, the grand finale to their war, their last battleground.

They drew apart, darkness blinking to soft red, gold as the sunrise lifted higher, higher, in the big bright blue sky.

Bucky's hand on his chest was solid and unbreakable, smile widening the longer Steve stared, breathless, those crystal eyes dancing with laughter at the eternity etched in his one-sided smile and he was so goddamned beautiful, stunning, breathtaking. It was a goddamn miracle Steve’d survived this long, that every risky stupid thing he’d ever done had ended just right enough for him to end up here and.

War was kind of like hell. But for this soldier?

It was worth it.

It was worth it.

Their foreheads pressed together and Steve breathed him in, breathed in the air ghosting over his wet mouth, over his stitched-up serum heart and god, there weren't words in any language he knew to describe this.

Well, Bucky’d been right about one thing.

 

They finally won the war.

And they finally came home.

 

“Where are we going?” Steve asked and Bucky smiled.

One hand carded through Steve’s hair and Bucky pulled his best friend into his side, throwing an arm around Steve’s neck.

Leaned over to kiss him on the temple, then twin footfalls started across the Brooklyn bridge, sunrise arching ever higher in the distance, in the New York distant stardust, to remember them by. Goodbye, goodbye.

“The future.”

 

So I cut the ties and I jumped the tracks. For never to return.

Gold flickered in the distance, and one by one, the stars blinked out in the blue blue sky.

Summer slid free from the night and Steve paused, in the middle of the bridge, and held out his hand.

Bucky took it.

 

Follow me into the dark and I will lead you into the light.

Fingers laced, Bucky’s right, Steve’s left, mismatched sharpie marks overlapping, twin dashes on never-ending lines, to the end. The human hands that’d held on, burnt, lost, clutched, thrown, punched, and caught.

Hand in hand, they were never letting go.

He meant it, this time.

 

There’s no place like home.

 

There's a quote, something about living on the edge of death. Steve doesn't think that's true about them. They don't live on the edge of anything. They can't afford it.

No, instead they live deep in the throes. They live in the very core of it all. They live in the constant ever-wakeful presence of the feared shadowy darkness.

They live in death.

Till then, I had you.

Til Death.

He'd get to take his last breath against Bucky’s lips.

 

.

.

.

And what a sweet last breath it was.

Notes:

Final Playlist, This is My Last Breath.

Til Death - Barcelona
The Kids Aren't Alright - Fall Out Boy
No Place Like Home - Mariana's Trench
I and Love and You - The Avett Brothers
Better - Tyler Ward
Strong Hand - Chvrches
Boats and Birds - Gregory and the Hawk
You Are My Sunshine - Elizabeth Mitchell
Till Then - The Mills Brothers

xx