Chapter Text
The Helicarrier had been a marvel in and of itself, but the Triskelion was in a whole other league. It made Fort Leigh look like a run down campsite, with all sorts of high-tech computers and gadgets and all the top embellishments the 21st century had to offer. After everything that had happened in New York he didn’t think he could possibly find anything else that could surprise him.
He was dead wrong.
He'd almost dismissed the silvery capsule as just another relic, another piece of dusty tech hidden away with the rest of the plundered HYDRA weapons, but something drew him to look at it more closely. It hummed softly as the cooling mechanism ticked along, the surface frozen cold and coated in a thick layer of icy frost that he had to work to scrape off. He could just barely make out a glass panel, perhaps a window? The whole device reminded him eerily of Project Rebirth, and after hearing of the many attempts to replicate the serum, he hoped this wasn't what he thought it was.
It wasn't, but it was so much worse. The film of ice crystals sloughed off of the slick window, revealing a sleeping form. Recognition shot through Steve like a bolt of lightning, nausea coiling in his belly and the air knocked clean from his lungs. Bucky. The name died on his lips, his voice suddenly weak and failing as trembling fingers frantically pressed at the control panel along the side of the cryotube.
Someone was going to answer to this, he'd see to it, but right now all his thoughts were focused on getting him out of there. Now. The heavy door hissed loudly with a glut of cold fog as the seal disengaged, a thick, congealed fluid leaking from the bottom, sucking the warmth out of Steve's feet as it poured over his boots. He barely registered it, gaze unwavering from the insulated door, which suddenly popped free and swung wide with a splash of cyrogenic fluid.
Bucky collapsed limply, the air-mask around his face coming lose as Steve caught him, both of them falling to the ground in the melting puddle of gel. He was dead weight, frigid and wet from the strange liquid that had filled the chamber. Some distant part of him realized this had to be how he had felt at the bottom of the ravine, after he'd failed to catch him, cold and soaked through.
"... Buck? Can you- can you hear me?" Steve's voice was barely there, the trembling that had taken hold over his hands now spreading through his body as confusion and shock gave way to horror and joy at the same time. Bucky was here, he was alive, but how? What was the metal device fixed to his shoulder? Why was his hair so long, and how did he get here?
A slow shudder ran through Bucky's body before he coughed weakly, eyes fluttering open slightly before closing again. He only started shivering then, leaning all of his weight against Steve as if he could absorb his warmth. He was silent other than his shaky breathing and the soft whirring of his arm as it adjusted to the abrupt temperature change.
Steve didn't try to prompt any other answers out of him, shock having chased all the words right out of him. His eyes were burning with the threat of tears but he didn't let them fall, focusing instead on right now. Bucky was right here, that was what mattered. He ran his fingers through Buck's hair, still slick from the cryofluid, and just spoke to him. He was scared if he so much as blinked he'd vanished. He didn't dare take the risk, but even now, something like rage budded in his chest. Whoever did this was going to have a long conversation they weren't going to enjoy.