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“Come on then, Captain, let’s see how many bad habits I need to train out of you,” Bucky taunts, the vaguely teasing tone ringing false and foreign to his ears. He has faded memories of the way he used to be, and he’s doing his best to mimic them for Steve’s sake. He’s not sure it’s working.
Every time he looks at Steve he feels like he’s being torn apart. Protect! one instinct screams, while another counters, Destroy!
Steve circles him in the sparring ring of Stark tower. Bucky recognizes his scrutinizing expression, and it’s been so long since he’s seen it that he feels a startlingly human jolt of nostalgia-approaching-affection.
The calculating look reminds Bucky that whatever else Steve is, he is an artist. In his mind, everything is raw material. He sees the ugliness around him- the injustice, the violence, the fear- and instead of accepting it he thinks in terms of how to mould it into something more desirable. A change of lighting, a few strokes of paint, a few bad guys rubbed out, and voila- something beautiful.
Bucky wonders what he sees. It looks like Steve is trying to puzzle him out like he’s one of those contorted Picassos and planning how to soften the lines into something closer to a Da Vinci. Bucky can practically see the worn pencil invisible in the corner of his mouth, the smudges on his cheeks and fingers.
Protect.
Steve wants his friend back. Bucky hasn’t yet told him it’s never going to happen. Apparently Steve’s hopeful expression is one of the few things that still has the ability to affect him. Still, he knows that man, as Steve remembers him, is never coming back. The thought has him suddenly thrumming with frustrated anger.
Steve drops into a crouch, muscles carefully taut and poised to spring. “You’re awfully cocky for a man about to get his ass handed to him. I’m not the kid getting licked* in alleys now, Bucky.”
Bucky. The way Steve says it sounds like please. It’s too much.
Destroy.
Bucky attacks before Steve has a chance and bares his teeth in triumph at the crack of metal-on-flesh as his fist makes contact with Steve’s forearm, raised in defense. Had it been anyone else, the hit would’ve shattered bone. Steve only laughs and spins away. For a second he hesitates at the unfamiliar reaction, at the way Steve’s excitement radiates from his entire being. Steve isn’t damaged. Bucky hurt him, but Steve is happy.
Protect, Bucky thinks, and then he attacks in earnest.
He loses himself in the challenge: the blows that land on empty air and the ones that connect, the lunge, duck, twist and dodge. The thrill of a good fight with a worthy opponent. Steve is definitely skilled, and a tendril of jealousy curls in his gut at the thought that someone else taught him to fight, as many of the moves are foreign. Oh, he recognizes a few familiar feints from the lessons he gave Steve a lifetime ago, but someone else’s style is at work here. The thought grates.
“Come on Buck, you can’t hurt me!” Steve encourages, his tone proof that he doesn’t think Bucky is really trying.
Oh, but I can, he thinks. Steve’s smile is identical to the one he’d flashed after the first fight Bucky had helped him win. Open. Guileless. Trusting.
Bucky shouts and lunges forward, executing a complicated series of moves blended from half a dozen styles of martial arts. When he spins away, Steve’s lip is bleeding. The sight brings a feral thrill. He wants to smear it into Steve’s perfect skin, make him vulnerable and recognizable again.
Steve merely shrugs and lifts the bottom of his shirt to wipe his face clean. Bucky cocks his head and watches, trying to reconcile the chiseled abdominal muscles with the slender, asthma-ridden boy who he remembers as his friend. Past and present clash and the disconnect grates, registers as wrong.
Destroy.
The next round is more violent than before. Bucky growls and attacks, and Steve counters with a sweeping motion of his leg. They go down in a disorganized tangle of limbs, all finesse gone as they grapple for dominance. Bucky isn’t thinking clearly now, is lost in the echoes of you are my mission despite the the months without re-programming by Hydra. Somehow Steve gets his arms behind his back and Bucky is trapped, lying on top of Steve and facing the glaring lights on the ceiling. Steve’s inescapable grip registers as leather manacles and everything goes red.
Someone, Bucky notes blankly, is screaming. Pointless, really. Doesn’t stop the pain. Best to just grit your teeth and conserve the energy. It takes a full four seconds for him to realize the pathetic, shredded noise is coming from his own throat.
He clamps his mouth shut and bites back a pained groan as he tries to get his bearings. His head is pillowed on something unexpectedly warm and comfortable, and steady fingers are carding gently through his hair. Something is wrong, because after a session he always comes to alone and aching. He hesitates to open his eyes. This must be a new trick. He must've shown weakness again, and this is the start of another reconditioning tactic.
Then the steady stream of, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...you're okay, please be okay," registers.
Steve's voice. He breathes a shuddering sigh of relief as reality reasserts itself. Not Hydra then. Still he hesitates to move, reluctant to face Steve after such a display of weakness. Also, the attention is such a welcome and rare indulgence. He struggles to recall the last time someone touched him without causing pain. Tries to call up the feelings it used to induce. Fails.
Steve seems to sense Bucky's awareness, because he jerks his hand away as if he feels guilty about the unsolicited petting.
The pleading noise that escapes him catches Bucky by surprise and he curls up even tighter in embarrassment, turning his face to tuck it into what he can now identify as the junction of Steve's thigh and lower abdomen. The idea that his old friend is sitting cross-legged with Bucky's head in his lap is at once mortifying and oddly nostalgic. Historically, their positions were reversed as he nursed Steve through a bout of pneumonia. Somehow, if he thinks of this as payback it feels more acceptable.
"Hey," Steve says awkwardly. "I didn't mean to trigger you. I shouldn't have grabbed you like that. Sam's gonna have my head, he's been telling me a lot about his work helping people with PTSD. Between that and my own personal experiences, I should've known better than to trap you like that."
"S'okay," Bucky mumbles, his voice hoarse. He wonders how long he was screaming. Hopes Steve doesn't tell him.
"It's not. I'm going to kill every one of those assholes," Steve vows, his tone vicious and cold.
"What happened to 'I don't want to kill anyone,'" Bucky wonders aloud. He doesn’t like the way Steve’s voice sounds. He’s used to optimism and encouragement, not...threats.
“Life,” Steve states tiredly. “HYDRA. SHIELD. Let’s just say the concept of justice isn’t as black and white as I originally thought,” he adds.
The honest reply fills Bucky with conflicting desires: to cheer and grab a gun, head out as just the two of them against all of the fucked up bastards in the world; or, to punch Steve in the face and talk some sense into him, turn him back into the man Bucky knew as his best friend. They can’t both have changed irrevocably. He grits his teeth and punches the ground with his fist.
Steve jumps, muscles tense and ready for action.
“You’re afraid of me,” Bucky states. He both loves and hates the idea.
Protect.
Destroy.
“I’m afraid of me,” Steve counters. “I’m afraid something I do, or don’t do, will make you run again. I want- You’re-” He makes a frustrated noise. “Now that I have you back, I just want you to stay.”
The unspoken with me hangs heavily in the air between them.
“Part of me wants to kill you,” Bucky whispers, giving into the unfamiliar urge to wrap his arms around Steve’s waist. He wishes it didn’t feel so strange. He tenses, bracing to be pushed away.
Instead Steve shifts carefully, as if Bucky is a wild animal he doesn’t want to frighten away. “I know,” he admits, low and unafraid. He guides Bucky up to sit so they’re facing each other, Bucky’s knees pulled up and eyes still closed.
Steve gathers him in steadily, wraps his arms lightly around his friend’s waist. His fingers move in light, soothing motions and oh, that is definitely new. Bucky reaches for the appropriate aroused, or at least pleased, reaction and comes up blank.
Still afraid to look in case he’s dreaming or hallucinating, he scoots forward until he can lean his head on Steve’s shoulder, his breath warm against Steve’s neck. He wraps his arms back around his friend’s waist again. “Part of me wants to kill anyone who hurts you.”
He leans in a bit more and breathes in Steve’s familiar scent. The man may look different, but he still smells like...not home, but something good. Something safe.
“I know,” Steve replies, shivering lightly at the ticklish brush of Bucky’s nose against this neck. “Either way, I still want you to stay.”
Bucky freezes. He’s heard that tone before. The one Steve always reserved for, “She’s some cute dame, right?” He blinks his eyes open and sits back just far enough that Steve’s face comes into focus. He recognizes that expression as well. It’s the way he looked at Peggy. The way he sometimes looked at a man in a bar somewhere, or at a fellow soldier. The one that always made Bucky clench his fist and get ready for a fight in case the guy didn’t appreciate it.
Steve doesn’t move. Barely breathes. Schools his expression back to one of friendly concern, but it’s too late. The fact that he’s trying to take it back without even saying anything sends a rush of anger through Bucky, followed immediately by a sense of inadequacy. Both are unpleasant. He reaches a cautious metal finger out to touch Steve’s jaw, but draws it back before it can make contact.
Steve’s expression falls. “Right. Well I suppose we should go, Nat is ordering pizza and-”
“I don’t think I can feel that,” Bucky cuts in, wanting Steve to stop pretending nothing has changed when everything has changed. Again. “What you want.”
“Buck, I don’t want-” Steve begins, then falters at the don’t bullshit me glare Bucky directs his way. “Okay I do, but it’s not...new. I’ve always- and I know you’re not- but I thought you were dead and then there you were, and all those months looking for you, and these past few weeks here...so fine, I want. But it won’t change anything, I swear.”
Bucky gapes at Steve, trying to process. Sure Steve had sometimes glanced at him like he was interested, but he looked at new art supplies and the telegraph boy who rode down their street every day the same damn way. And now it’s too late. “I can’t.” His throat feels suddenly tight. “I can feel anger, or hatred. Maybe a blank sort of satisfaction. But not...that. Everything else has been burned out of me. I can’t be what you want.”
“And what about what you want?” Steve asks, eyes flashing.
“To kill them all I suppose, but that could be residual programming. I don’t know what I want. I’m not even sure I can still want things for myself.” Bucky blinks, an unexpected burning sensation behind his eyes. The thought scares him, so apparently he can add fear to the list of things he can feel. The pained look Steve gives him would probably break his heart, if he still had one to break.
“I don’t believe that’s true. Sam can help you. And you have Bruce, he’d probably be a good one to talk to about what HYDRA did to your brain and how to help you recover. He’s brilliant. Or Clint, Loki did that thing to control him and it took a while, but he’s okay. He might have some ideas. Or Nat, she knows a lot about manipulation from both sides. I just- I’m not giving up on you. You shouldn’t either,” Steve says fiercely.
Bucky can see why so many people love him, are willing to follow him into battle and death. He’s so confident, so unyielding, so passionate. Bucky wants to believe him. Wants to believe that someday Steve’s arms around him will fill him with desire, and the firm body pressed against his own will be arousing. He doesn't believe, but he’s always been a good liar. And he can’t give Steve what he wants, but he can give him this.
Protect.
“Yes sir,” he salutes, slipping a bit of his old teasing confidence into his tone for good measure. “Thank you.” He tucks himself back into Steve’s arms and wishes he could have this for real. And because he knows Steve lives on hope, and has had so little of it lately, he supposes he can’t make things worse by pressing a soft kiss into Steve’s neck. I’m going to break your heart, is what it really means.
Steve responds by tightening his embrace. What Bucky hears is, I’m going to let you.
Destroy.