Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Winter Soldier doesn’t give his mission report. 

Instead, he simply makes a statement.  The man on the bridge. He  knows the blonde man who had almost fought him into a standstill, but then suddenly just froze up and called him by a name that shouldn’t have any meaning to him whatsoever.

After all, he’s just the Soldier, the Asset, whatever it is his handlers want to call him, right?  He doesn’t have a name.  He doesn’t have a past.  He’s just a weapon.

But they’re clearly afraid of him, because they keep him on a short leash and they wipe him at the drop of a hat and they can’t have him ever question any sort of orders.

They’re afraid of him.

Afraid. 

Pierce backhands the Soldier, trying to shock him back into obedience with the familiar introduction of pain.  But instead, the Soldier suddenly stands up and backhands him across the room.

Pierce hits the wall hard.  Maybe he breaks his shoulder.  It’s too much to hope for that he breaks his neck.  It doesn’t matter.  He’s out like a light anyway. 

Everyone panics.  The Soldier hasn’t reacted like this in years.  He’s normally docile once the mission is over.  Ready to be put back in his box like the good obedient creature that he is. 

The man on the bridge.

I know him.

Bucky. 

There’s not much time but the Soldier knows his weapons.  Scalpel to the throat of one doctor, arterial blood spraying all over.  Elbow to the nose of the soldier sneaking up on him.  Grab his weapon.  Aim it at the machine they’re going to use to try and shut him down using the mechanical arm.

It’s over in two minutes - a dozen bodies are on the floor and for the first time, the Soldier is not taking orders from anyone.

He’s getting out.

The man on the bridge. 

I know him.

And then, for the first time, a name floats up in his mind.  A thinner face, a smaller body, a familiar voice.  The sensation of burying his nose into soft blonde hair.  It’s still the man on the bridge, somehow.  Still the same man. 

I know him.

Steve. 

- tbc -

Chapter Text

They find the Winter Soldier waiting for them at the Smithsonian, with the Captain America and the Howling Commandos exhibit.  Steve had said that there was some things he needed to pick up.

He meant his old World War II uniform.

This was just a bit… unexpected. 

"So let me get this straight," Natasha says carefully, because it’s either she gets hysterical from gigglefits or just plain ol’ hysterical and Clint would be ever so proud of her.  "Your old boyfriend somehow manages to break through - mostly - seventy years of HYDRA programming and decides that he’s on our side?”

"He’s not my boyfriend - “  Steve starts.

"You are my mission," The Winter Soldier tells him peaceably.  "I belong to you."

Steve went pink.  “Bucky, that’s not helping.”

"Well, that’s one question for the history books we have answered,” Sam observes with an exquisite wryness to his tone. 

"HEY!"

The Winter Soldier frowned.  “He shouldn’t be upset.  He can’t breathe.”

"Buck, I don’t have asthma anymore — "

"You were supposed to be smaller,” The Winter Soldier tells him and this time he looks confused and a little lost.  It’s a look that Natasha has seen often enough on Steve’s face and she’s trying very hard not to think of it as adorable.  “Why aren’t you smaller?”

Damn it.  Too late. 

"I joined the Army," Steve answers, eyes suspiciously bright.  "You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of hell?"

Natasha gets it.  Perhaps the Winter Soldier isn’t completely James Buchanan Barnes yet.  But he is in there. 

There’s a look of sudden determination on that face.  “No.  Little guy from Brooklyn.  Never knows how to back down from a fight.  Following him.  He’s…. you’re my mission.  Till the end of the line, Steve.” 

"We’ll finish it together," Steve promises him, clapping a hand on his shoulder.  And there it is, the same look of determination on his face.  Already, she can see it in the way they both moved, unconsciously in sync together and yeah, Natasha is never going to let Steve live this down. 

Shared life experiences in-very-deed. 

- tbc -

Chapter Text

It’s easy to break into the Smithsonian, to get into the exhibit featuring Captain America and the Howling Commandos. 

They’d kept him pliant and obedient after each wipe, but they couldn’t, of course, take away his ability to process information, to put things together and to reason.  So he had the file on Steve Rogers, codename: Captain America, the file that would have been given to him after his latest wipe, the pain and torment ensuring he’d ask no more questions.  Steve would have been a target, to be eliminated with the Winter Soldier’s normal efficiency and nothing more. 

Except that he had broken away from them now, with his own mission, his own orders to follow.  

For the man on the bridge.

For Steve. 

The Winter Soldier took all of this in - the archival footage that showed a laughing Steve and a smiling man that had his face, the years that showed birth and death (1917 - 1944), all the words that brought up these images in his mind.

Childhood friend.

A skinny, blonde boy, stubborn tilt to his jaw, bleeding nose and with his chest heaving.  Still defiant.  I had him on the ropes.

A name.  James Buchanan Barnes.

Bucky!  A voice, morphing from a child’s high treble to a man’s deeper tones, shaping the syllables in familiar tones of exasperation, laughter, anger, fear, joy, sadness, wistfulness.  Affection. 

Something more but perhaps that was just his imagination talking. 

You’re taking all the stupid with you. 

An embrace, lingering almost a bit too long for propriety’s sake, substituting a squeeze and a pat on the back for something else.  Something he can’t ever have.  So he needed to be content with this.  

The Soldier stares at the picture of the man who bears his face, reading over and over again the brief words that spoke of a life he can only remember in snatches.  In whispers.  In soft blonde hair and sky blue eyes and a voice calling his name. 

Bucky Barnes.  That is his name.

And it was stolen from him.

All of it stolen. 

His name.

His will.

His choices.

His memories.

His death. 

His life. 

Steve was the only thing he had left, so carefully hidden, deep down, that they could not find him.  Not until he saw him, on the bridge, heard him call him by his name. 

He’s not letting them steal anything from him anymore.

When Steve Rogers makes his own way into the Smithsonian, the Winter Soldier is waiting for him.  Waiting for the one man he’d be willing to take orders from.  The only one he’d allow to command him.

His Captain.

- tbc -

Chapter Text

Steve Rogers is a soldier. 

He doesn’t have time for pretty speeches.  He’s left that behind in his chorus-girl days and he wasn’t saying his own words anyway, only speaking lines from somebody else’s script, trying to make it sound as natural as he possibly could, even though he always thought he wasn’t much of an actor.

Steve works best when he’s speaking plain words, getting right to the truth and the truth is harsh, the truth hurts like nothing else and that is a weapon he uses now, calling every last man and woman of SHIELD, every last one of them who had actually believed in what SHIELD originally stood for.  The truth hurts because SHIELD did not just become a mask for HYDRA.  It was just the other side of the coin, with the best intentions paving a way towards the worst hell ever yet seen.  

This wasn’t the way things were meant to be.  This wasn’t the way Peggy Carter or even Howard Stark, misguided and misled man that he was, had envisioned SHIELD would become.  This wasn’t what Phil Coulson had died for. 

Steve Rogers is calling out to each and every person out there with his truth.  That SHIELD had to be taken down.  That it had to be razed down to the ground, salting the earth with it. 

He is calling them to war. 

***

The first one to heed the Captain’s orders didn’t think of himself as a soldier.

He was just another member of the SHIELD Geek Squad.  Sure, he had some basic self-defense and firearms training - all of them did. But the only time he’d really done some shooting, other than practice on the range, was making some pretty sweet headshots while playing CounterSrike and Call of Duty. 

So he knew that the STRIKE guys would just eat him up for breakfast. Spit out what’s left. 

But when Captain Rogers spoke, it just gave a real voice to that nagging doubt in his head.  About the Helicarriers and Project Insight. About what having that kind of weapon, that kind of power, truly meant. And it wasn’t what he signed up for. 

He’s just another kid from Brooklyn, to be honest.  So he squares his shoulders, braces himself for what’s to come and hopes that his voice doesn’t tremble too much when he finally speaks up.

“I can’t, sir.  Captain’s orders.”

He hopes it won’t hurt too much. 

But Agent 13 - Agent Carter - pulls out her own gun.  “He’s right. Captain’s orders.”

She gets it too.

And all hell breaks loose.

Bullets are flying.  Anyone without a weapon dives for cover, because all of them know that they don’t want to end up a hostage or a human shield.  The others take up their own guns, standing with Agent Carter. But there are others and God help them all - these were trusted colleagues and friends - who are openly siding with the STRIKE team.

Hail motherfucking Hydra.

It’s a standoff between Agent Carter and Rumlow’s number two guy Bowles.  Bowles offers her a leer and a chance to surrender.

“Fuck you,” is her response.

And then, there’s a blast and Bowles is driven straight through the wall, shattering what should be reinforced, bulletproof glass into pieces.

“What she said.”

And Agent Phil Coulson, holding the biggest, raddest, motherfucking gun anyone had ever seen, walks right in.  The Cavalry herself is right beside him.

Agent Carter stares.  “You’re supposed to be dead.”

Agent Coulson shrugs.  “Captain’s orders.”

***

HYDRA sent out its own call for all of its sleeper agents to come out into the light the moment the Winter Soldier went rogue.  

Phil Coulson had to deal with a HYDRA sleeper agent on his own team and another team member keeping secret tabs on him under Fury’s orders.  Ward would have gotten away with it too, pinning all the heat on May.

Except Phil’s an old hand at this game and he’s dealt with this kind of mindfuck before.  Still, betrayal hurts like a son of a bitch.  They had all liked Ward; they had all trusted him.  Skye raged and struck out accordingly.   Fitz had his disbelief and stubbornly clung on to the hope that there was still something in Ward worth saving.  Simmons had been lucky to be out of the way of this mess.  She had been at the Triskelion and while it was ground zero for everything, she at least had a new ally in Agent Tripp, a grandson of one of the original Howling Commandos.  

May, for her part, had been especially vicious in putting Ward down.

But there wasn’t time to dwell on this right now.  Every SHIELD agent now answering the Captain’s orders was being confronted by a colleague, a friend, a partner, sometimes even a lover or spouse who answered to HYDRA in turn.  Betrayal was everywhere; trust and bonds were both tested and shattered.  

The war was on.

***

The plan was simple but brutally efficient, given their respective skillsets and of course, Natasha and Fury were their aces in the hole.  They had their own op to run and as much Steve wanted to be in on that particular part of the mission, because of what was owed to Bucky - he left them to it.  Nat would make sure that Alexander Pierce would be paying his dues in full. 

The Widow would not be inclined to mercy.  And neither would Nick Fury. 

Three Helicarriers, three of them to get to each one, implant a new control chip, wresting it back from HYDRA control.  The Winter Soldier didn’t like having his Captain out of his sight like this, the instinct to cover his six too deeply entrenched and now, as Zola’s version of the super serum slowly healed him and without the constant memory wipes to keep him under control, the memories were coming back.  

But Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes had been a good soldier and he’ll carry out his mission.   

“How do we tell the good guys from the bad guys?” Sam Wilson had asked, half in jest. 

“If they’re shooting at you, they’re bad!” Steve had quipped.  And that was that.

Sam had his wings and he took to the air.  He never said he was a pilot after all. 

The Captain and the Winter Soldier looked at each other.  The Soldier’s face was still far too impassive, still too remote and not quite the Bucky Steve remembered.  Steve knew all too well that the Bucky he’d known in 1944 was gone - even if he completely regained all of his memories, by some miracle, he was already forever changed.  But then, Steve wasn’t the same person he was in 1944 either.  Both of them were broken in their own ways. 

They’re still somehow in sync in much the same way as they were Before, matching each other stride for stride, perfectly in step.  A hand reaches out to the other’s - both of them tentative and hesitant.  It ends up being the most awkward fistbump of all time. Steve offers a half smile. 

The Soldier doesn’t smile back but there’s something in his expression that warms a little bit, becomes a little more human.  It’s enough for now.

Both of them take off for their respective Helicarriers. 

The war was on. 

- tbc -

Chapter Text

Sam Wilson was para-rescue - he’s trained to see what’s going on down on the ground. 

And this is what he sees.

He sees various SHIELD agents locked in battle against each other and the only way he knows which ones are the good guys?  The good guys are the ones keeping the others from shooting him. 

There’s a flight deck officer shooting down a pilot who’s about to to aim a Quinjet and its guns in Sam’s direction.  He’s a good shot - nails that sucker right through the window. 

Flight deck officer goes down - nailed by someone else’s bullet. 

Sam wishes he could help, wishes he could sweep down and rescue that poor son of a bitch but there isn’t time.  All he can do is to fire back and fly like he’s never flown before, weaving in and out of the path of the bullets being aimed in his direction. 

He needs to get that control chip in, get this first Helicarrier back under their control.  He doesn’t have super-soldier strength but he’s got his wings.  He makes it onto the ship. 

"Wilson, there’s a squad of Centipede Soldiers headed onto the second Helicarrier.  You need to get that chip in and get to the Winter Soldier now,” Hill’s voice comes in on his comm.

"It’s raining Super Soldiers everywhere," Wilson grumps.  "You think we could catch a break, just this once?"

"We’re working on it." 

Wilson’s not a Super Soldier but he can do what Steve Rogers can do, just a bit slower.  He does, however, accomplish his mission.  The first Helicarrier is secured and he makes the leap back into the air.  If Hill thinks that even the Winter Soldier is going to need back up on this one, then back up he’s going to get.  

***

Alexander Pierce knows the saying:  Kill one head, two more will grow in its place. 

He’d rather not be the one killed. 

He isn’t dead yet, but then he’s ruefully aware that the Winter Soldier wasn’t even close to trying to kill him.  Just get away and who knew that there was still some spark left in that particular revenant walking?  He’s got his arm in a cast and the best painkillers that could still keep him up and going for his big moment.

Not HYDRA’s big moment.  His. 

He wants to laugh at the display of protective self-righteousness from the Council - the same bunch of people who had ordered a nuke to be dropped on Manhattan during an alien invasion.  There really isn’t much difference between their sides - what separates them is just a name. And the fact that he’s got his finger on the trigger, instead of them. 

He knows Captain America and his merry band of fools are going to try their damndest to bring the whole thing crashing on their heads.  He’s welcome to try.  Pierce has a few surprises left. 

The “Bond villain speech” really is less gloating and more a sly attempt to get the Council to stop its hypocrisy.  Acknowledge the truth.  If they want safety, if they want order, if they want peace, then this is the way.  The only way.  And he’s showing it to them.  Hell, they’ve been doing it themselves for over seventy years. 

Anyone who doesn’t want peace isn’t worth keeping around anyway. 

He should have made sure he’d actually seen Nick Fury buried in the ground before he claimed the victory. 

He should have realized that the Councilwoman moved a little too quickly, a little too gracefully for someone close to their seventies.  That’s how the Widow operates - make you think that she’s helpless, right up until to the point when you realize that you’re dead. 

Cut off one head.  Two more will take its place. 

Damn.

He didn’t want to be the one cut off. 

***

The Centipede soldiers.  Another HYDRA attempt at replicating the Super Soldier serum, another way to make human beings into nothing more than meat puppets, nothing more than weapons. 

The truth is that the Project Centipede program is really another failure.  Nobody could ever understand what made Steve Rogers the perfect soldier.  Nobody in HYDRA anyway.  It’s less the fact that he can shoot accurately, can throw a fucking shield around like a lethal frisbee, fight with fists and with his mind, keep fighting and win.  It’s not really about his ability to wage and win a war, impressive as that might be. 

It has everything to do with a skinny, sickly boy from Brooklyn who’d taken every last damn bad card life had thrown at him and somehow managed to still shine as bright as the sun in the Winter Soldier’s fractured memories.  And he can’t help but turn towards that light, each and every damn time. 

The Soldier acknowledges Hill’s concise rundown of what the Centipede Soldiers are and what they can do, files it away in his head.  He needs the information for tactical purposes, so that he can fight more efficiently, accomplish his mission quicker.  Anything else can wait for later.

The Centipede Soldiers try to match him in strength and in speed but he’s in his element now.  Every shot counts, every move serves to bring one more man down and closer to his goal.  He needs to get the control chip to that dock and the sooner he can this done, the sooner he can get to his Captain.  To Steve. 

He’s aware that HYDRA is throwing every last thing it’s got at them and he doesn’t want to think about what might be waiting for Steve on the third Helicarrier. 

There’s another man standing in his way.  He calls himself Deathlok.  He says, “I don’t really want to do this but I don’t have a choice.”

There’s a squawk and chatter on the comm lines.  A woman’s voice, not Maria Hill, telling him:  “Sergeant Barnes, don’t hurt him!  Please don’t kill him!” 

Sergeant Barnes.  That’s his name too.  Less familiar than Bucky but —

James Barnes.  Sergeant.  32557. 

"You’re in my way," the Soldier tells Deathlok.  He shouldn’t have to say anything anymore.  All he needs to do is to point his gun, take the shot, bring him down. 

Deathlok moves.  The Soldier slides smoothly out of the way, anticipating the push kick to his chest.  Deathlock steps further in and tries to do a spinning roundhouse kick - the Soldier catches his leg with the metal arm.  He lifts and Deathlok flies back against a wall, a solid thump that goes bone deep. 

The Soldier raises his gun.  Finish the kill.  Can’t turn his back on an enemy.

The same woman’s voice on the comm.  “Sergeant Barnes, this is Agent Skye of SHIELD.  Tell Deathlok… tell Mike that Ace is safe.  Ace is here and he says they’re a team.  I’ve got him and he’s safe. Please, Sergeant Barnes!”

Hill.  “Ace is his son.”  That’s all she says.

The Soldier repeats the words.  Deathlok nods, crawls, to his feet, gets away. 

Second control chip has been placed in.  The second Helicarrier is secure. 

The Winter Soldier turns when he hears Sam Wilson swoop in.  “Need a ride, Sarge?”

The Winter Soldier’s lips twitch at the nod to a rank he hasn’t held in decades.  He’s not sure what he looks like at the moment but there’s a strange, warm feeling in his chest and —

"What do you know, you can smile after all," Wilson says.  "Let’s go get your boy, Sarge." 

 
***

Steve Rogers is almost at his goal but Brock Rumlow - or what used to be Brock Rumlow - is standing in his way.

Erskine’s super soldier serum had never been perfectly replicated.  That didn’t mean HYDRA gave up trying anyway.   Emil Blonsky, injected with this version of the serum, had leveled most of Harlem and it had taken a Hulk to stop him. 

Rumlow was going to get Steve Rogers. 

The creature that had once been a man bared his teeth in an approximation of a grin.  “You’re standing on the wrong side, Captain.  Feel like taking on HYDRA’s best soldier?” 

Steve raises his shield.  “Haven’t backed down from a fight yet.  Don’t intend to start now.”

Hill’s voice on the comm, letting him know how much time they’ve got left. 

He catches Rumlow’s first punch on his shield.

- tbc -

Chapter Text

Steve Rogers has never liked bullies.  

Yeah, he’s heard it all before.  Ignore them, they’ll go away.  Boys will be boys.  Just avoid them, don’t go looking for trouble.  They’ll get tired of the game and move on.

Things don’t really work that way.  You stand your ground and you fight and maybe you’ll lose and it’ll hurt like a son of a bitch.  But if you run, you won’t ever stop running.  And it’s only a matter of time before they catch up anyway.  

Steve Rogers would rather stand his ground.  Even if there wasn’t a chance in hell of winning, he’s going to stand his ground anyway.  

He’s done that against bullies when he’d been ninety pounds soaking wet, hard of hearing, with a bum heart and lungs that strained for every last breath, so sickly that it was a goddamn miracle he’d lived to adulthood anyway.  He’s going to do that again with what HYDRA had made of Brock Rumlow, a Thing, an Abomination that would probably take the Hulk to stop him.

Well, Bruce isn’t here.  Steve’s going to have to make the best of it.  

He’s well aware that it’s the super soldier serum alone that’s keeping him alive in this fight against Rumlow - that and the shield.  Steve’s giving it everything he’s got - even old dirty tricks he’s picked up from Bucky and then some.  Every blow with his fists and his feet and his shield is designed for maximum damage while he’s trying to avoid major injuries himself.  

Hill’s voice in his ear.  She’s telling him they’re running out of time.  

He needs to take Brock out or at least keep him down long enough for Steve to get that last control chip in place.  Desperately, Steve looks up, wondering if he can somehow take out the steel beams above him, make it crash down on Rumlow to pin him in place long enough to —

Damn.  Rumlow’s last punch is barely blocked by the shield and Steve’s thrown back, wheezing like he hasn’t done in over seventy years.  His ribs could be cracked, please God don’t let them be broken.

And then, there’s Sam swooping in, dropping Bucky down in front of Steve.  Rumlow reaches out with a monstrous paw, grazes one of Sam’s wings.  Sam barely gets away but Steve sees the damage.  

"I’m gonna have to miss this party," Sam’s voice on the comm is filled with regret.  

"We’ll save you a coupla’ party treats.  Get yourself clear, Sam," Steve rasps as Bucky extends an arm to help him up.  Bucky isn’t quite as stone faced as he’d been before.  Steve knows that look - worry, concern and it’s so achingly familiar and homelike that he wants to laugh, even in this moment when there’s a very real possibility they’re not making it out alive.  

"Do you really like getting punched that much?" Bucky asks him and yes, there he is now, Brooklyn accent now creeping round the edges of the Soldier’s normally clipped syllables.   

"I had him on the ropes," Steve tells him.  And he can’t help the stupid grin on his face, blood, bruises and all.  

"HEY LOVEBIRDS!"  Rumlow bellows.  "Cut the flirting, it’s making me sick!"

The two of them exchange looks, pointedly ignoring Rumlow.  Bucky’s obviously waiting for Steve to call the play.

"This is just going to be like what we did in Foy."

Bucky blinks.  No, Steve’s not expecting Bucky to magically recover all of his memories with the power of love and friendship - he’s actually prepared to explain - but Bucky surprises him with:  “I hated what happened in Foy.  You were being an idiot.”

"And you had all the stupid so we make a fine pair, yeah?"  

Rumlow bellows and rushes them, which is exactly what they’re waiting for.  Steve goes high, Bucky low and Rumlow gets a faceful of shield, actually shaking loose a few teeth and a metal arm in his gut and he goes down.  

They take advantage of that distraction - Hill’s voice is telling them they only have two minutes left.  Bucky cups his hands as Steve runs at him, boosting his leap.   Steve makes it up to the control panel, slides the chip home.

Done.  They’ve got all three Helicarriers.  

And then he turns as Bucky cries out and the sound gets choked off.  Rumlow’s got Bucky by the neck now and he sends a toothy grin Steve’s way, his intentions clear.  

Steve doesn’t hesitate.  He throws the shield at Rumlow even as Bucky somehow leverages himself up, wrapping his legs around Rumlow’s massive arm.  He manages to loosen that deadly chokehold just enough even as Steve charges in to distract Rumlow, hit him again with a satisfying crunch that means he’s actually managed to break the monster’s ribs this time.  

"Steve!  You and Barnes need to get out of there now!"  And then there’s Hill, sounding all choked up.  

Hill.  She’s their only chance.  “Do it, Hill.  Do it now!”  

Everything explodes in a hail of bullets.  

His ears are ringing.  Rumlow’s been knocked off the carrier.  There’s chatter on the comms with Hill yelling, “Phil, get that BFG of yours aimed at Rumlow YESTERDAY.  Take him out!  Take him out!”  

Bucky.  Where’s Bucky?  

He spots Bucky pinned under a steel girder.    He’s struggling to lift it up but it’s barely moving.  Their eyes lock.  

"Steve,"  Bucky rasps.  "Get out of here!"  

"No!  Not without you!"  

Somehow, Steve manages to lift it and he can feel something give way in his body, something just break but Bucky’s free.  That’s the important thing.  Bucky’s free and clear.  Steve’s vision starts swimming, blackness creeping into his vision and he growls, tries to shake it.  It’s getting awfully hard to breathe again.  

There’s another explosion and the world tilts.  

They’re falling.  They’re both falling, this time.  

"…. Steve,  Stevie, baby, please breathe for me.  In and out.  In and out.  Baby, baby, please."

Steve’s probably coughed up half of the Potomac from his lungs and he’s so tired, so very, very tired.  But Bucky’s voice is all he hears, choked up with tears, sounding exactly the same when he’d had pneumonia that winter when he was twenty-one and was all but given up on by everyone else.

Everyone else except Bucky.

"Please, baby, don’t do this t’me.  Don’t leave.  Keep breathing for me."

There’s soft, frantic kisses in his hair, hands clutching tight at his own.  

Breathe.  In and out.  In and out.

"M’with you till the end of the line," Steve rasps out.  

Blue-gray eyes that aren’t so frighteningly blank anymore, meet his.  They’re bright with tears and filled with that same emotion that both of them had tried to deny for over seventy years.  

"You’re a punk," Bucky breathes.  But he curls over Steve protectively anyway, shielding him away from the world with his own body, the way he’s always done.  

"Love you too.  Jerk."

And that’s the last thing Steve remembers, for a very long time.  

***

"On your left," is the first thing Steve hears when he wakes up, in a too-soft hospital bed, hooked up to all the good drugs and machines to ensure that he’s firmly in the land of the living.  

Sam Wilson’s sitting at his bedside.  There’s soft music playing in the background and when Steve turns his head around to have a look, the iPod display shows “Marvin Gaye - Troubleman.”  It’s not half bad.  

Sam, of course, is a Jedi mind reader - Steve’s caught up to most of Star Wars now to make that reference - so the man rolls his eyes at him and says, “Your boyfriend Red October is just getting coffee.  Apparently, I’m the only other person the Winter Soldier will trust to babysit his - and I quote ‘trouble-magnet punk’.  Well, me and Nat anyway.  She’s getting pretzels.  We’ve got all the shifts covered.”

Steve went pink. And on general principles had to make a protest, “M’not that bad.”  

"And I’m not actually Russian," drawls Bucky from the doorway, coffees in hand.  He’s got his fair share of bandages and fading cuts and bruises.  Somebody, probably Natasha, raided Steve’s closet for clothes  that Bucky could wear because Steve recognizes that shirt and the blue hoodie and the jeans, which Nat had made Steve buy because "reasons" but had been scandalously tight on him.  

He’s also the most beautiful sight Steve has ever seen.  

Sam waves airily.  “Yeah, yeah.  All-American as apple pie.”

"I’m ethnically Romanian; Steve’s Irish. And we’re Brooklyn born and bred. But yeah, we both like apple pie." 

Bucky hands Sam his coffee and gets a “Now I see why Steve loves you, Sarge.”  

And now there’s red dusting Bucky’s cheeks and at least Steve’s not alone anymore in this blushing business, because, honestly.  It’s like the Howling Commandos all over again and any moment now, Steve’s prepared to swear that Jim’s going to say something about SNRFB that Steve’s going to pretend he doesn’t understand.  

Bucky takes a seat on Steve’s other side, sips at his coffee again before he puts it next to the iPod.  

"And that’s my cue to leave the Super Soldier Boyfriends alone.  Try to remember he’s still in recovery, okay, Sarge?"

Bucky growls and Sam, laughing, takes off.  

There’s a small, comfortable silence between them.  Bucky absently reaches for Steve’s hand, rubs a thumb over still-bruised knuckles.  

"Hey," Steve whispers, squeezing back.  

"Every memory that’s come back is all wrapped up in you, y’know," Bucky says quietly.  "I’ve done things — "  And there it is, an agonized, sobbing breath, turning his gaze away from Steve, closing his eyes.  

"It wasn’t you.  It was Hydra."

"It doesn’t change the fact that I remember myself pulling the trigger anyway."

"I know that."  

Bucky sucks in a sharp breath, looks at Steve in surprise.  Steve tugs at their joined hands and Bucky follows, gets eased into a brief, gentle embrace that has them touch foreheads together, taking a moment to breathe each other in.  

"I told you, ‘till the end of the line, remember?  I ain’t backing from that now."

"Still my little punk who don’t have enough sense to run away from a fight, huh?"

Steve takes note of the possessive my in that sentence.  He smiles.  “Always.”

They didn’t do this before, seventy years ago, even though there were so many opportunities, so many chances that they’d both carefully ignored, tried to deny.  Steve’s done with this.  Bucky’s had enough too.  There’s a brief brush of lips and the kiss deepens just a bit and God, it feels good, feels like sunshine and warmth and it’s so achingly sweet.  

Bucky pulls back after one last nibble at Steve’s lower lip, flushed and blue-gray eyes dark with want and promises for later.  Later.  

Kisses won’t magically fix everything.  Love won’t make the past seventy years of death, agony and pain disappear. They’re both still broken and still hurting and there’s as many bad days as good ones waiting for them.  

But right now, they’re together.  It’s a start.  

- end -

Chapter Text

The first thing that Bucky rediscovers about himself is that he can say “No.”  And that he can like what he wants, do what he wants, be what he wants to be.

The last one is a bit tricky, though. 

He’s not the Bucky Barnes that Steve remembers, not quite, not completely.  And sometimes, he thinks that the part of him that still is the Winter Soldier had always been there, the part that can break a human being down to simply being a target and a mission.  He can kill.  He can kill without regret, without remorse, but the difference is.

The difference is that back then, he had choices.  He could choose, he chose to follow Steve to hell and back again. He chose to protect Steve, to watch over him, when he’d been the skinny punk kid from Brooklyn with zero self preservation except for that too-big, too-kind heart.  He still chose to protect Steve even when he’d grown a foot taller and had the physical strength to match what had always been there inside of him. 

And it’s taking a while to sink in, really internalize it, but he at least knows, intellectually, that the past seventy years was a time where he had all his choices stolen away from him. 

He’s trying to live with it.  Every day.  He’s trying. 

On the good days, Bucky tries to focus on what he likes.  He likes hot dogs and ice-cold Cokes, the way he and Steve used to have them when they were kids and they’d pool their money together with some left over for chocolate ice cream.  He likes pizza - good ol’ New York style pizza - and he’d dragged Steve all over New York looking for their favorite pizza haunts, some of which, thank Jesus Christ, are still standing.

He’s actually memorized Jon Stewart’s infamous Donald Trump Pizza Rant.  He can deliver it line by line, beat for beat, accent dead on, sending Steve into stitches. 

He likes making Steve laugh.

He likes trading wisecracks with Natasha in the “mother tongue” although he knows, intellectually, that Romanian is his real mother tongue and he hasn’t forgotten this language either.  But he does it and he loves Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky and he and Nat once spent a quiet hour listening to Leila Josefowicz’s rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major.  And once he’d stolen a few moments to play on Tony’s piano - Rachmaninoff and then some lighter, popular songs that he and the rest of the Commandos would sing along to. 

He likes calling Steve “baby” - now that he can, now that he knows Steve would welcome it.  He likes the pink flush that slowly spreads across Steve’s cheeks and he knows that eventually it’ll turn into a full-blown body blush.  He likes the fact that he can trace the path of that blush with his lips and his hands and play Steve better than a piano, with the sweet noises he can coax out of him. 

He likes the fact that he’s managed to chase away that occasional, unguarded, heartbroken look that he sometimes spots on Steve’s face.  Steve tries to cover it up - sometimes with a smile, sometimes with his normal stoic “Captain America” look.  It didn’t fool Bucky then; it’s not working now.  Bucky isn’t the only one broken; he knows that Steve is just as badly off, though this is Steve and he always puts himself last, always tries to manage things on his own. 

That’s usually the time Bucky puts his foot down, tells Steve “No.”  They’re in this together or not at all. 

"You two are disgraceful," Sam tells them one day. 

Steve’s currently a happy puddle on the grass, with Bucky as his pillow.  He opens one blue eye and very eloquently says, “Mwuh?”

"Ten laps.  Just ten laps today?  I only get to hear fucking ‘on your left’ ten times instead of twenty?  You two are a disgrace.  You oughta be ashamed of yourselves."

Steve smiles, sweet and silly and Bucky just smirks up at Sam, one hand threading through Steve’s hair, making him purr.  That’s something he likes too. 

Sam just laughs at them both and goes on his way for one more lap.  In the meantime, two young-old soldiers enjoy the sunshine.

- end -