Work Text:
When you wake up, there are bells ringing. It’s a high, clear sound. Piercing. Like a flash of gold in the dark. The clean burn of vodka. The arc of a knife through the air. A peal of laughter. Russia in the winter. Lightning between your temples. It’s— it’s—
It’s Brooklyn, it’s Sunday morning, your hand is in your mother’s and your feet are skipping over the cobblestones. You tug at the collar of your shirt as the old church comes into view, fingers slick against the sweat collecting on your skin, and your mother pulls your hand away with a string of tsks. There’s a voice calling out from somewhere up in front of you, saying hurry up, we’re going to be late, Bucky, c’mon, but when you look up—when you look up—
It’s Coney Island, it’s summer, there’s a girl whose hair is sunflower yellow and wavy from the saltwater clutching your arm and screaming into your ear as the world drops out from underneath you. You ride the roller coaster five more times before the sun dips below the horizon and she turns to you and says, you know, I know a place where— she says, you know, I’ve always wanted to— she says, I’ve heard what they say about you, Barnes, and— she says— you know—you know—
It’s Christmas Eve and he’s sick again, sick and bruised up all along the right side of his face because even the baby Jesus himself wouldn’t be able to keep this goddamn idiot out of a fight. This is it, you think, and so help me God, and if the asthma doesn’t do it I’ll do it myself,and then he’s doubled over in a coughing fit, the back of his wrist pressed up to his mouth, and you’re placing your palm against the curve of his back, tenderness lancing through your chest, and you feel something like—something like—
It’s Italy, it’s wartime, and the bells should be endless, should be ringing for every soldier shipped out to this godforsaken continent because not a damn one of you is going to make it back alive. You’re marching and you’re digging and you’re – you’re watching men die, mostly: men dying loudly, ripped apart by a hurricane of shrapnel and dirt and noise, and men dying quietly, their last breaths drowned out by the planes overhead. You’re marching and you’re digging and you’re watching men die and when your time comes, there’s a face in the darkness that shines like gold and you say Steve—Steve—you say—
It’s cold, and you should be dead.
It’s cold.
It’s cold, and when you try to move, you—
It’s cold, and your arm—
It’s cold, and the pain—you’ve never—and your arm—the sparks—and when you try to move—behind your eyelids, underneath your skin, between your fingers, the tender skin of the arches of your feet—and when you try to move, you—you—
It’s cold, and you promised, once, that you’d—
It’s cold, and you— and you— and— and—
It’s Berlin, and—
It’s Prague, it’s the height of the Cold War, and the city is rebuilding. Spires all around and an old clock tower ringing in the distance and you’ve been here, you know you have, you’ve seen the red-topped buildings, felt the clay beneath the fingertips of your right hand, cool even in the summertime, but when you close your eyes and reach back for the memory you can’t—you can’t—
It’s Kiev, it’s the height of the Cold War, and your mind is clear. There is a man lying at your feet in a pool of his own blood. A girl is screaming, and then she’s not, and the pink splatter of her brain matter against the floral print wallpaper is horrific and beautiful at once, a monstrous sort of Rorschach test; your eyes trace over the shapes and you think of—you think of—
It’s Vientiane, and your mind is clear. Your mind is clear, and your hands are steady in front of you: one gloved, one glinting. It’s loud in the streets and your clothes are damp from the mugginess and there’s a westerly breeze, about 17 miles per hour, but your mind is clear. You make the shot. It’s easy. You collect your things. You flit from rooftop to rooftop to rooftop until you reach your extraction point. There’s screaming, but your mind is—your mind is—
It’s London, and your mind is clear. You watch from above as your target walks into a bar. The bar is called The Seventh Tavern; the exterior is brick — generously decorated; the windows are single-paned — generously unsecure. You are hundreds of feet away, but if you focus you can hear the music playing inside: some old pop song, each syllable punctuated with a drumbeat: I-would-walk-five-hun-dred-miles. It’s a terrible song, and then you can picture it: some moron walking up to the jukebox tucked into the back left corner of the bar, pressing a quarter into the slot with the pad of his thumb, keying in his selection, and then your mind is screaming, aflame, what who where, and your handler is there, your handler says soldat, SOLDAT—and your arm is on his—there is a crack of bone and you are running—your handler is behind you—your handler says, милость—and then your handler says—
It’s cold, and your head—
It’s cold, and the pain—you’ve never—and your head—the sparks—and when you try to move—behind your eyelids, underneath your skin, between your fingers, the tender skin of the arches of your feet—and when you try to move, you—you—
It’s Frankfurt, and your mind is clear. It’s Baku, it’s Odessa, it’s London, it’s Kiev, it’s Dallas, it’s Istanbul, it’s Tallinn, it’s Caracas, it’s Grozny, it’s Beijing, it’s Johannesburg, and it’s all the same, everywhere, even when everything is different.
It’s Washington, D.C., and there is a man falling. He will bleed out in six hours if he does not receive medical attention, although he’ll be dead by drowning long before that: He has always had terrible lungs. You know this with a certainty that scares you, a certainty that lives within the marrow of your bones, you know this because—because—
It’s Washington, D.C., and the air is filled with smoke.
It’s Budapest, and there is a man in your apartment and there are men on the roof and men coming up the stairs and he says — why? — and you think — you would have bled out in six hours without medical attention – you have always had terrible lungs — I once imagined you in a bar in London — I once imagined that you could pull me out of the darkness — I once imagined that you were one coughing fit away from an early grave — I once imagined that I could keep you safe — and then the door comes down and you run, you run and you think—I don’t know—I don’t know—I don’t—
It’s dark, and your mind is clear. You snap the restraints holding back your arms. You break the glass. You await your orders, and then you—and then—
It’s Wakanda. When you wake up, there are bells ringing.