Work Text:
We are two people out of time
Don’t worry I’ll be fine
I’m with you till the end of the line
***
Life is hard. It’s hard growing up. It’s hard watching the world revolve without you, it’s hard looking in the mirror, and not knowing when everything changed, it’s even harder looking and not recognizing the person staring back at you. Waking up is hard, finding reasons to stay is hard, and watching the people you loved slowly wash away is hard too. But there is one thing that tops all of that, and that is watching your best friend from seventy years ago, the same friend that offered you a place to stay after your mother passed, the friend who believed that you could run an army even when you were just a feeble boy, that friend that followed you into the war without a second thought, and that same friend who fell off a train to his death so many years ago. Finding out that the friend that was more like a brother to you has been alive all these years, hurts worse than coming to terms with his death because now you know that the soldier you once fought with is alive, but you’re not sure if James Buchanan Barnes is already dead, and the fact that he might be alive scares you the most.
You’ve been alone in this new world for so long, and to think that there might be somebody else out there who feels the same way gives you hope, you just wish – no – you regretfully wish that it wasn’t Bucky who was out there feeling the way you have felt. You can deal with all the pain in the world, you can take punch after punch for someone else, but you don’t think you can watch your once best friend try to find himself, when you don’t even know where to look.
***
For years you were only a black and white shrine
It’s hard to move on when you don’t have a sign
I’m still with you till the end of the line
***
You’ve felt pain before. You know what it feels like to have the blood stop running through your veins, and to have your heart slowly freeze in place mid beat, but you can’t handle watching that happen to someone you love, or loved. All these past tense words that you once buried in the back of your mind are now confusing you with whether they should be past, present, or future tense, and that’s only making you feel guiltier beyond compare.
Sometimes you wish that you could go back to before the serum, to when you were that 95 pound kid from Brooklyn who got more asthma attacks then paychecks. Everything was so black and white back then, when you knew who and what you were fighting for, but now you don’t have a clue. You think back to the time when SHIELD became HYDRA, and everything seems to blur together in some messed up collage, and you want to burn that picture down so badly, but your name is in the center of it, and that makes you all the more mad.
You know with great power comes great responsibility, but responsibility is just a sugar coated word to cover up all the pain, regret, sorrow, guilt, secrets, and scars that you don’t want to remember. You have the serum to protect your body, but nothing to protect your soul, and you often find yourself contemplating which one is more important, and sometimes it’s hard to choose. You don’t know when your life stopped being about freedom, and more about fear, but fear is the only thing you can feel at the moment. Fear that you’ll never get your best friend back, and fear that he is already gone.
***
You are the darkness in the shine
You are the thorns on a vine
But I’m still with you till the end of the line
***
“You’re my friend!” you scream just hoping, no praying that the man you grew up with is somewhere inside of the man beating you senseless.
“You’re my mission,” he says back with haunted eyes, and you almost want him to finish it right then and there, not because the end is inevitable, but because you couldn’t protect this from happening to your friend, you didn’t even know that you’ve been working for the people that did this to him, and in that moment you feel like you deserve to die.
That same scene plays in your head over and over again, it’s the same one that wakes you up gasping for air in some grimy hotel in Costa Rica. This time Natasha is hovering above you, her normally stoic face, fueled with worry, and you think that either she is going soft, or you look as much like shit as you feel.
“Move over,” she demands.
“Wh-what?” you ask feeling yourself begin to blush.
“Shut up, and move,” she says, and you can’t help but obey, as she climbs into bed next to you.
Your body is tense, as is hers, and there is an awkward silence until her breathing evens outs. You think she is asleep, but then you hear her whisper “It’s okay to not be okay,” as she turns to face you.
“Do you think we’ll ever find him?” you ask back in a whisper, not wanting to wake a sleeping Sam up, in the next room.
You can sense hesitation as she tries to come up with the right words to say. She swallows and says “No, but I think in time, when he’s ready, he’ll find us.”
It’s dark, and the air is thick, but you think you can hear some sort of foreign honesty in her voice, and see a glint of hope in her eyes too.
***
Freedom once seemed so divine
Secrets can fill you up so full like wine
I’m still with you till the end of the line
***
You don’t like this feeling of helplessness. This new patience that Natasha has convinced you to try, makes you restless, and feel small and unimportant. It kills you to know that your best friend is so close, but so far at the same time. He’s always one step ahead of you, and no matter how hard you try you can’t catch up. Every time you look at a picture of him, whether it be from a security camera, or an old photograph you feel pain that cannot be descried. You know that pain exists only to remind people they’re living, but it makes you wish that you were dead.
Natasha’s words echo in your head.
It’s okay to not be okay
You’ll never figure out how she always knows just what to say. She pretends to be some emotionless, but you think that’s just because in order to relieve people from their pain, you must put up walls to stop yours from boiling through. Natasha Romanoff is everything you are not. She is sneaky, deadly, poisonous, dark, brilliant, and beautiful all at the same time. She breathes secrets, and lives off of shadows, but somehow she serves as the light in your life. She is everything you’re not, but you both could never be more alike. Deep down you’re both just trying to figure out what the right thing is, you both have lost and broken pieces inside, and you are both forgotten people, except you’re trying to be remembered, while she is just working to disappear.
She is a spy and you are a soldier, and you know that she will never be one hundred percent comfortable around you, she’ll probably never be comfortable around anyone, but each time she fights besides you, each time she makes a witty joke about your age, or tries to set you up on date after date, you are reminded of her trust in you, and you know that trust is not something that is easy at being earned so for now, that is enough. You asked her to be a friend, but sometimes deep down you wish you asked for more.
***
You are a word that cannot be defined
You supported me, you were my spine
So I’ll stay with you till the end of the line
***
Bucky was your brother, and he always will be no matter what. It took you a little while to realize that things will be okay because even though you might never get your friend back, and the man that you have been searching for all these months may not have Bucky inside of him anymore, and even though that man was a weapon, he was a tool, and he still is a soldier, now he is trying to do good, and he is choosing redemption, which is all you can really ask for. So even if Bucky is shattered into a million pieces inside of the Winter Soldier, you did get one piece of him back. You got the piece of Bucky to never back down from a challenge, so you will never back down from him either.
Life is hard for everyone, good or bad, but it’s your choice what to do next. Maybe you are in the wrong business, and maybe you’re fighting for a lost cause, but the least you can do is not give up, because Bucky never gave up on you.
Natasha once told you to give things time, so that’s exactly what you’ll do.
***
Searching for you is a job from which I’ll never resign
There is still gold buried deep inside of you like a mine
So no matter what, I’ll always be with you till the end of the line
***