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In the middle of a highway, fighting for his life, Captain Winchester almost remembers how to breathe.
From far away, the Winter Soldier is a dark, masked figure with a metal arm. Not a human—just a machine designed for destruction.
From fighting distance, Dean can see that he has the most beautiful eyes. They’re blue.
His heart stops. It threatens to claw its way out of his chest. A wave of emotion and memories comes crashing over him. Submerges him. He tries to find his way back to the surface, but he doesn’t know which way is up.
He’d know those eyes anywhere in the world.
Any century.
The world is burning around them.
Castiel is here, but he isn’t.
He is a soldier, brainwashed to kill. Dean isn’t his lover like before. He’s his mission. He’s just another number, just another cold body.
Dean tries to force himself to breathe.
“Your name,” he pants, “is Castiel James Novak—”
“No,” says the Winter Soldier, the fist of his metal arm hurtling towards Dean’s face.
Half of Dean feels the impact—the other half is somewhere in 1942.
The Winter Soldier keeps hitting. Again, and again, and again.
There’s something warm dripping down Dean’s face and he can’t quite differentiate between tears and blood. He looks at Castiel’s face and suddenly every ounce of tension escapes him. He opens his palm and lets his shield slip from his grasp. It falls somewhere, falls right out of the sky, but Dean can’t bring himself to care.
He could fight back. Captain America always has fight left in him.
But it’s Castiel. It’s Castiel.
He watches Castiel’s chest heave, anger and confusion dancing in his eyes. He’s still in there somewhere.
“Cas,” Dean gasps. The harsh wind makes his eyes sting. There’s a metallic taste on his tongue. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Do it, it’s okay. I’m right here. I’m with you ’til the end of the line.”
A lifetime ago, they were just two boys.
Two filthy boys pressed against each other in alleys, the darkness eating the flush from their cheeks. Tasting salt on skin, swallowing each other down, knowing and not caring that what they were doing was wrong in the eyes of the rest of the world.
Now they’re a century old and two centuries filthier. They’ve both done unspeakable things—far worse than falling in love with the wrong person.
“Hey buddy.” Dean tries to sound cheerful and fails miserably.
His whole life is standing in front of him, wearing a new tan trench coat. Castiel always used to wear stupid trench coats… Seeing him in that instead of in the Winter Soldier’s suit makes Dean feel like he’s finally home.
Castiel is the same person he’s always been. Dean can still see the awkward boy who never understood any of his jokes. The only one who ever noticed the sadness beneath the humour, the only one who ever cared.
“I’m sorry,” Castiel chokes out. There are tears welling in his blue, blue eyes. Skyline above the ocean. He can barely look at Dean. “I would do anything to take it all back. All the pain I’ve caused.”
“It wasn’t you,” Dean affirms. “It was Hydra. You didn’t have control over your actions. They had you brainwashed. For God’s sake, you didn’t even remember your own name.”
“I remembered yours,” Castiel whispers.
Dean’s heart jumps to his throat. He watches Castiel wring his hands and waits for him to continue. Castiel looks more nervous than Dean’s ever seen him. More nervous than when Dean kissed him for the very first time.
“Before I ever remembered myself, I remembered you. You saved me, I never would’ve broken free if you hadn’t… I owe you everything, I—”
“Cas,” says Dean, taking a step forward. There’s still seventy miles between them. He shakes his head and keeps shaking it. “You don’t owe me a thing, baby, you don’t owe me a damn thing.” His voice breaks on every word. There’s a hole punched right through his throat and that’s where the love and the pain and the longing are all leaking out. “Do you know what it was like? Bein’ without you? It was like leaving behind my whole heart and both lungs.”
I was a shell, he wants to say. Nothing but flesh and some bones. Walkin’ around without my fucking soul. Not alive, not dead, but somewhere in between. And it wasn’t fair to the people that I’d learned to care for since you, but that’s just the way it was.
“I’m sorry, Dean. For everything.”
Trembling all over with the need to touch him, Dean steps forward again until they’re mere inches apart.
Castiel’s eyes widen and he backs away. “Don’t,” he says gruffly. “I don’t deserve—I don’t deserve you, I never have. I hurt you.”
“It wasn’t you,” Dean repeats. The person he loves most in the world is in pain, and it makes him ache.
“How can you be so certain? How can you be certain of anything? I don’t even know myself anymore.”
“I know you inside out. Better than I know myself.” Dean swallows the lump in his throat. “You’re the gentlest person I know. Always have been. You’re loyal. Whenever anyone gave me shit back in the day, you were there to make sure they had their asses handed to ’em. Like you were… I don’t know. My own personal guardian angel or something.” Slowly, carefully, he takes Castiel’s hand in his own. “And you’re kind—God, Cas, you’re so fucking kind.”
Castiel melts into him but doesn’t let go of his hand.
Dean can feel their hearts pounding together. He turns his head to kiss him and it tastes sweeter than it did the first time, all those decades ago. He kisses Castiel’s cheeks, his eyebrows, the lids of his red-rimmed eyes. He drops a single kiss to his metal shoulder, as if to say, I accept you just as you are, every part of you.
“Sweetheart, I haven’t had a breath of air since you’ve been gone.” Dean presses the words into Castiel’s skin with his lips. “I need you. Teach me how to breathe again.”
And he does.