Work Text:
"Your Honor," the Soldier's voice is hesitant and anxious. "The Commander and Agent Rollins kept me safe. They followed orders because if they didn't, Hydra would have killed them."
Steve wants to kill them. Bucky, his Bucky, is a victim of their own twisted mind games but Bucky refuses to see it that way. He truly considers them to be his allies, the closest thing to a 'friend' that a machine could have.
"Please don't punish them," Bucky pleads.
Steve wants to say it's coercion — that somehow Rumlow has manipulated him to say all this. He sees the shift in the jury, a softening in their eyes that didn't belong there. Bucky was a victim but Rollins and Rumlow were still just as guilty as the rest of them.
"Please." the Soldier's ragged whisper carries. It must be the Soldier because this can't be his Bucky; he would never protect Hydra scum.
The tension is so thick Steve could choke on it. It's like asthma, an cold grip curling around his lungs, refusing to allow them to inflate.
"Thank you," the lawyer says and his Bucky (or maybe the Soldier) shuffles to the spot beside Steve. Eyes follow him, fascination and pity overlapping into something unique to the situation.
While the jury deliberates they go to the nearby cafe. Steve suggests going home, uncertainty of his ability to handle this situation well. Bucky looks at him with such wide-eyed terror Steve flinches as though he's just struck him.
"Please don't make me." Bucky says because he still doesn't understand he can say 'no'.
For a horrible moment Steve considers taking advantage of it and bringing them back to the Tower. But then he is no better than the ones who did this to him.
"Of course I won't make you." His stomach is in knots, he can't eat and his Bucky can't eat solid foods. He still hasn't touched his protein shake.
How will his Bucky react if they find them guilty?
How will Steve react if they don't?
It takes three hours for them to deliberate and Steve has to keep careful control of himself. He wants to hit something to help release the nervous energy twisting around his body. Bucky, usually careful about his own emotions has been outwardly on edge all day unable to hide the subtle flinches whenever Steve reaches toward him without announcing it first.
The judge takes the envelope and reads it for a painful fourteen seconds.
"The jury find Brock Rumlow and Jack Rollins not guilty."
Steve feels like Bucky is falling off the train all over again.
He chances a look toward his Bucky. For the first time since Steve got him home he is smiling.
Steve wishes he was still in the ice.
The man smiling is not his best friend; it's Brock's Winter. He is losing him all over again.