Chapter Text
He remembered ... water.
A lot of water, an ocean of water. No, wait. A literal ocean. The goddamn North Atlantic, speeding up at him.
He had closed his eyes. It was easy to be a coward when there was no one there to see.
Okay, so then why was – he was not in the water. Was he dead? Was this heaven? Would he even be allowed in, or would St. Peter stop him at the gate, make him watch a reel of every man dead by his hands before banishing him to burn?
He became aware of voices in the background. It sounded like a radio broadcast. Okay, it was definitely a radio broadcast, and it sounded like baseball. He listened harder.
Something was wrong. He sat up, and the door opened.
“Captain Rogers?”
Something was very wrong.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in a recovery room in New York City.”
She was lying, he was almost sure of it. Something wasn’t right about this entire situation. The radio was a dead giveaway, and there was something… off, about her, something he couldn’t quite place. If it had just been her he could have convinced himself that it was a strange war filled with strange things, but the combination of the two -- something was wrong.
“Where am I, really?” he said, giving her the option to come clean. He trusted his instincts. They had kept him alive this far, even if he hadn’t always asked them to.
She feigned ignorance. “I don’t understand.”
“The game,” he explained impatiently. “It’s from 1941. I know, because I was there.”
He stood up, ready to demand more information, but he saw some kind of remote in her hand, saw her press one of its buttons. “Captain Rogers –” she said, just as two men burst into the room behind her.
Bucky ran.
He had never been one for running, but it was really his only option. Whoever these assholes were -- and he assumed they were HYDRA with really fucking phenomenal American accents -- they had somehow managed to drag him out of the wreck of the Valkyrie and bring him back to wherever he was. He didn’t buy this New York shit. He knew New York. Being in New York brought a comfort and familiarity that he was not feeling. All he was feeling right now was panic and anger.
He had been ready to die. How dare they take that from him?
He was so focused on his panic and his anger and his running that it took him a bit for his brain to process what he was seeing. At first he thought it was another trick, like the bullshit-room they had had him in, but the more he ran and the more he saw, the more it was… familiar, in the worst sense of the word. Like the way he had felt when he saw a reflection of himself for the first time after Azzano, the eerie way he had looked so similar when he felt so irrevocably changed. He didn’t recognize it, but he knew it.
He stopped. He knew it would probably end in his death, but he couldn’t bring himself to run anymore, not with everything around him. Not with what he was seeing.
It was bright. Bright, and colourful, and loud, and there were films that seemed to be playing on nearly every surface. There were cars, too, but they were nothing like the cars Bucky knew, nothing like the one his folks had had, and they were everywhere. As he stopped in the middle of the street and gawked, he was surrounded by several black cars. The people that stepped out started controlling the crowd; they all carried weapons.
A man with an eyepatch stepped forward. He was clearly some sort of authority; Bucky could tell just from the way he held himself, from the way he approached so confidently, from the way he looked Bucky in the eye.
Bucky didn’t trust him.
“At ease, soldier,” he called out. Bucky did not feel at ease. If anything, he tensed up more. “Look, I’m sorry about that little show back there.” He didn’t sound sorry at all. “We thought it best to break it to you slowly.”
“Break what?”
“You’ve been asleep, Cap. For almost seventy years.”
As big of a shock that this was, it wasn’t actually that hard to understand. Bucky looked at the world around him and decided this man probably wasn’t lying.
“You gonna be okay?”
Was he? Was he going to be okay? Seventy years and two weeks ago he had lost his best friend. Seventy years and two hours ago he had put a plane in the ocean to save the world. He had closed his eyes and accepted death, knowing it was what Steve would have done. And he had been okay. He had been ready.
Ready to see Steve again.
Steve.
Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.
She had done it. Peggy had done it, she had rewritten history, just like he’d asked, except he had asked that under the impression that he was about to die. This -- being alive -- that changed things. He couldn’t let them think he was Steve.
Except... except. Except they didn’t want Bucky Barnes, they wanted Captain America. What would they do if they found out that the body they pulled from the ice wasn’t the hero they had grown up knowing? And what would have been the point of all of Peggy’s work, all of Bucky’s work, all of Steve’s work? They had wanted to keep Steve alive, wanted to give him the death he deserved, wanted the world to know him for the hero he was. All of that would have been for nothing if Bucky told them now.
There was also the question of how would they react, anyway, these people around him, if they found out that the hero they had likely spent so many resources on, pulling from the ice, wasn’t a hero after all? It wouldn’t be fair to them, wouldn’t be fair to Steve --
Steve,
who had given his life for Bucky. Steve, who would have been here if Bucky had been quicker. Bucky owed him this. Bucky owed him everything. He couldn’t disrespect everything Steve was, everything he had done. He had died so Steve could live.
“Cap?”
He looked back at the man. “Sorry,” he said, although realistically he had nothing to apologize for. “I was just… looking forward to seeing someone.”
He dreamed of it. He always dreamed of it.
It had happened in the Alps. It had been Bucky’s fault. It was just, well, someone had been shooting at him, and the shield was right there. The problem hadn’t been that it was too heavy, but that it was too light. He didn’t know how to balance it. That had been the problem. So he fell.
Or he should have. But Steve -- Steve, stupid, impulsive, loyal Steve. He had grabbed Bucky, flung him back in the train car, and Bucky had watched as Steve had wavered, lost his balance, and fell.
And fell.
And fell.
Time had slowed, and Bucky had always thought that was bullshit, but it was true. He had seen Steve lose balance, saw him fall out of the side of the train, saw him reach out wildly and grab the rail, but Bucky knew it wouldn’t hold him, not the way he was now. He had a brief thought of Steve before, the way he used to be, small, not even a hundred pounds. That Steve, the Steve he knew, the one he had loved before everyone else loved him, that Steve would be fine, could be held up by one rickety rail. But Steve wasn’t like that anymore, and if he were still like that he wouldn’t be here, and neither would Bucky, but Steve would have been safe, at least. Bucky would have been willing to die on that table in Azzano if it meant Steve was safe in Brooklyn.
“Steve!” he yelled, and he followed, because that’s what he did, he followed Steve, grabbing the side of the train and reaching out. “Steve, grab my hand, come on.”
Bucky tried, he did. Stretched his arm out as far as he could, felt his muscles groan in agony. He would tear himself apart if he had to, to get to Steve.
Steve met his eyes. They were blue, more blue than Bucky had ever seen. Bright with tears.
The rail fell. So did Steve.
In the dream, Bucky did what he should have done. He jumped right after him.
What had really happened was Morita had grabbed him, hauled him back and valiantly pretended not to notice the tears. The wretched, stupid shield was lying on the floor of the train. Bucky wanted to throw it, send it after Steve into the abyss.
He picked it up instead.