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Steve and Bucky settled down together. They found themselves a nice little place in upstate New York, a decent distance away from SHIELD headquarters and the Avengers, but not too far in case anyone needed their help.
They got a dog. He was a big, fluffy golden retriever mix who they named Harry. He slept in their bed between them when it rained or thundered especially loudly. Bucky wore an engagement ring on a cord around his neck. Their wedding date was set for next May.
Bucky worked in a warehouse nearby. Steve traded in his suit for a desk job at SHIELD. There were no more worries about Hydra or handlers or saving the world. It was heaven.
Every day at six o’clock, Steve came home from work and found Bucky already home. Usually, he was making dinner, but occasionally he left that up to Steve and went outside to work in the garden or take Harry for a walk. Steve usually just ordered takeout.
After dinner, they watched a movie, or Bucky read a book in the living room or modeled for Steve, who was usually drawing anyway.
Since they both had to get up fairly early for work, they tried their best to get to bed early, too. They got ready for bed together, and they were usually both asleep by eleven o’clock.
Usually.
Bucky began having trouble sleeping. He tossed and turned all night, until three or four in the morning, when he was finally too exhausted to sleep any longer. Beside him, Steve always snored softly, hardly ever stirring.
When he did manage to fall asleep himself, Bucky had nightmares. He had no shortage of nightmare-worthy memories, and his brain put all of them to use. He often woke from them in the middle of the night or early in the morning, soaked in a cold sweat and scared out of his wits before he remembered who he was.
One or two words always echoed through his head as he lay back down and tried to get back to sleep. Longing… rusted…
Sometimes Steve woke up, too, and he tried to comfort him, but it didn’t help much. Bucky just felt guilty for waking him up, and Steve felt guilty for not being able to help.
The nightmares got worse. Steve started to lie awake at night as Bucky thrashed and muttered beside him, unsure if he was having a nightmare or just a weird dream because it would be hours before he woke up again. He was afraid of waking him up because he knew how difficult it had been for him to fall asleep lately. He needed his rest. He worked in a warehouse.
By day, he tried to get Bucky to see a doctor, but to no avail. He insisted that he was fine and that he didn’t need another therapist when he’d only finished the first round of therapy a month or two before.
One warm, spring night, it all came to a head. They’d left the windows open because the weather was pleasant, but Bucky couldn’t seem to get comfortable.
Steve slept like a rock beside him, looking angelic and peaceful in the moonlight that streamed in through the open window. He moved closer, wrapping his arm around his waist and tucking his head beneath his chin. Maybe that would help, he thought. He could hear Steve’s heartbeat where his head rested against his chest. Sleepily, Steve reached out to wrap his arms around Bucky and draw him closer.
Bucky smiled to himself. That was all it took to lull him off to sleep.
He found himself strapped into a metal chair, his head pressed uncomfortably against a metal headrest and an IV stuck into his arm. There was a mouthpiece like a bit between his teeth. He bit down on it experimentally, and it made his teeth ache.
Behind him, he heard someone talking. Chanting — in Russian.
Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak, furnace, nine, benign, homecoming, one, freight car.
He stiffened, trying to raise his hands to cover his ears or protect himself or escape, but he was strapped down. It was impossible.
The Soldier’s eyes snapped open. He was somewhere warm and dark, and someone was breathing slowly and deeply nearby. They were asleep. Fuck. He wasn’t supposed to be there.
Something was draped over him — an arm. He scrambled free of it and got up from the bed, hurrying out of the room. His head ached. He must have been drugged because he didn’t remember how he’d ended up here or even where here was.
He found himself in a kitchen, a small room with a smooth, cold tile floor. He was barefoot, and, in fact, dressed in pajamas. This just kept getting weirder and weirder. He’d never worn pajamas before in his life. His handlers were going to kill him.
They were literally going to kill him. The only thing he could remember at the moment was that damn chair, and how it had pressed into his back and the back of his head, and how much the mouthpiece and the cuffs on his wrists had hurt.
If they wanted, they could shock his brains out with that thing. He remembered they’d threatened to, just before… well, just before something. Before they shipped him out, maybe.
He didn’t have a weapon, so he grabbed the meat cleaver from the magnetic strip on the wall above the counter. He would find something better if he needed to, but it would serve the purpose for now.
Desperately, he tried to recall what his mission was. It had to be something. He was here for a reason — he even remembered them saying his trigger words.
The lights flicked on in the hall, and his head snapped up to look. Whoever had been in the bedroom must have woken up and come to check on him.
Sure enough, there was someone rapidly coming towards him: a tall, beautiful man in plaid pajama pants and a gray t-shirt, his hair sticking up at the back.
“Bucky?” The man said sleepily, pausing in the doorway.
The Soldier stared at him, unsure what to say or do, because he wasn’t this Bucky person, and this man was dressed in pajamas. He had no weapon, and he certainly wasn’t hostile.
“Bucky?” He said again, then his eyes landed on the meat cleaver. They went wide with fear, his shoulders tensed up… typical. “Bucky,” Steve said desperately, not even trying to keep the fear out of his voice. He didn’t understand — was Bucky sleepwalking? He’d had problems sleeping, sure, but this was a new one.
“Who the hell is Bucky?” The Soldier snarled, doing his best not to be fazed by the pajamas or the fear on the man’s face. This must be his mission.
Steve took a step back, raising his hands as though to protect himself from the cleaver. “You,” he said hurriedly before Bucky could do something stupid like throw the thing at him. “You’re Bucky!”
He was completely at a loss for what had happened to Bucky, or how to fix it. He supposed he was having a nightmare, but he’d never heard of anyone reacting to a nightmare like this before.
The Soldier hadn’t expected to get an answer at all, never mind such a direct one. He wasn’t sure what to do with it.
Bucky looked confused, which was encouraging. Steve took a couple of steps closer. “Can you put that down, please?” He asked, gesturing towards the meat cleaver. He didn’t want a fight — they had weapons in the house, of course, but he didn’t want to use them on his fiancé.
“No,” the Soldier said, gripping the meat cleaver tightly in his hand. The man was advancing on him, so he backed up — he didn’t know what might happen if he let him get too close. “Please… stay away.”
He stopped obediently, watching as he backed up against the counter from the middle of the kitchen floor. “Bucky, do you remember who I am?” He asked, doing his best to keep his voice steady.
The Soldier glared at him. “My mission?” He tried, doing his best not to look as confused and scared as he really was.
His mission. Bucky thought he was with Hydra again. The realization sank in slowly and he staggered backward slightly, a mixture of fear and shock making him feel as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “No,” he said, trying to be patient. “Not your mission. I’m your friend.” He figured it was best to leave the fact that they were technically engaged out of it for now.
His friend? The Winter Soldier didn’t have friends. “You’re lying,” he said because he couldn’t come up with any other explanation for what was happening. “You’re lying. Tell me the truth!”
Steve shook his head, his eyes wide with fear. Bucky was going to kill him. His own fiancé. His eyes began to water as he took a couple of steps back. He didn’t know what he could even do. He wasn’t going to try and hurt Bucky.
The Soldier advanced, glaring ferociously at him. “You’re a liar,” he insisted. Steve hadn’t answered, which only made him angrier. He held the meat cleaver stiffly at his side, wondering if he would actually be able to use it. He was used to guns and proper knives, not something as messy as a meat cleaver. Besides, some small, pitiful part of him didn’t want to hurt this man. He was… well, pretty. And he hated to see him afraid — it made his chest tighten in a way that he was sure he’d never experienced before.
“No,” Steve said desperately, reaching up to wipe his eyes. “No, I’m not, Bucky, I’m — I’m your fiancé! Look, my — my ring is around your neck.” He gestured frantically towards it, trying to jog Bucky’s memory before he did something horrible.
The Soldier looked down, and his eyes landed on the ring that, sure enough, hung on a cord around his neck. He’d seen that ring before. “Where did you get this?” He asked, taking it off and examining it, the meat cleaver hanging forgotten from his other hand.
“It was my ma’s,” Steve said, his voice quivering. “Don’t you remember…? She left it to me after she died.”
He didn’t quite understand why a ring or the mention of this man’s mother’s death could make him so emotional. His eyes welled up with tears and he quickly put the thing back on so that he didn’t have to look at it anymore.
It did sound familiar. Distantly, as though it were a dream, he remembered going to that woman’s funeral, and he might have been there when her will had been read to her few remaining friends and relatives. This man — Steve. His name was Steve. He had been among them.
“You’re… Steve,” he said slowly, blinking up at him as though through heavy fog. “I remember the funeral. And the ring.”
It had come in a little, velvet box that Steve had tucked into his jacket pocket without so much as glancing at. He didn’t remember ever actually seeing that ring, so he wasn’t sure how he knew it was that one, but he did.
“Do you remember when I gave you the ring?” Steve prompted, his heart pounding in his chest. He probably shouldn’t have been this lucky — he’d never managed to bring Bucky back just by jogging his memory before. It had always been accompanied by a few head injuries. Maybe those were unnecessary, he decided. He’d call Dr. Cho in the morning and ask her what she thought.
“No,” the Soldier said, dejection creeping into his voice. He was sure he’d have remembered if someone had proposed to him. The fact that he’d attended a funeral was strange enough, but he wasn’t engaged to anyone, for sure. This was all some weird little trick Steve was playing on him. If that was even his real name. He was the Winter Soldier. He was a weapon, not a person. He wasn’t supposed to get married.
“Do you want me to tell you about it?” Steve asked cautiously.
“Yeah.” The Soldier surprised even himself. He set the meat cleaver back on the counter behind him, well within reach if he needed it, but he didn’t think he would.
“Well,” Steve said, still standing in the doorway. “I took you out to dinner, and we walked through Central Park after, and… it was just a really nice night. I’d been carrying the ring around with me for a week, ‘cause I kept getting nervous.” He laughed sheepishly.
He could see Bucky trying to remember. He could see the gears turning in his brain as he tried to think, as he worked out whether this was true or Steve was bullshitting him, and he wouldn’t have entirely blamed him if he’d decided the latter. Their life story was insane, after all. Sometimes, he marveled over how crazy it was himself, and he even wondered whether he was remembering right.
If Bucky decided he was lying and just up and left, though, what would he do? What would either of them do? Bucky could go back to Hydra, probably. They were out there somewhere, and they’d take him. Steve still had Harry. He could support himself with his one job, but oh, God. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live without Bucky again. The first few times had been bad enough, but this would be, what, the third or the fourth?
His lip trembled and he raised his hand to cover it, not wanting Bucky to see. If he had a panic attack now, Bucky was going to get away and he would never see him again. Ever.
He dug his trembling fingers into his other arm, trying to ground himself and focus on something other than his fear. His eyes fell on Bucky, who no longer looked angry. He looked like he was thinking. He’d seen that look a thousand times. It was adorable, really, how his brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed and he stared so intently at some object in the middle distance that only he could see.
Any other time, Steve would have tried to guess what he might have been thinking about, but this time he knew.
Bucky thought he remembered that — being in Central Park with Steve, anyway. The sun had been just starting to set, and they’d taken a shortcut through the park to get to their car. They owned a car. He hadn’t thought something like him could do that.
The fog that had clouded his brain for the last few minutes was just beginning to clear. He’d been confused as to how he — the Winter Soldier — could own a car or have a fiancé. The idea of someone deciding to propose to a creature like him bordered on horrifying. He’d even been starting to wonder if this man loved him like a fiancé was supposed to. It was hard for him to decide how he felt about that, but it made him feel warm inside, which wasn’t altogether unpleasant.
More memories were beginning to surface, though. Things that definitely hadn’t happened while he was locked away in a Hydra facility. He’d walked a big, fluffy dog in the early morning sunlight with Steve by his side. They’d cooked meals together. He remembered spending some time in a hospital bed that was far too soft and clean to have been provided by Hydra.
Bucky remembered going to bed the night before, curled up against Steve’s chest, his head tucked under Steve’s chin.
Neither of them had said anything for a while. He wondered how long the two of them had been like this. He became aware of the meat cleaver that he’d set down earlier — why had he picked that up? To defend himself? To fight his way out of the house?
The Winter Soldier’s logic was quickly slipping away from him, leaving nothing but fear and shame and anger at himself in its place that made his throat close up and his eyes fill with tears.
“Bucky?” Steve said softly, and Bucky hated the fear in his voice. He might never be able to trust him again, he thought gloomily.
“Sorry,” he said, his own voice trembling. “I dunno what happened.”
Steve slowly crossed the room to join him at the kitchen counter. “Are you okay?” He asked gently. “I mean… considering what happened. Are you… you know. Back to normal?”
Bucky shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted, his voice breaking. All he could think about was what if it happened again? Steve might not be able to save him next time.
Smiling shakily, Steve reached out to pull him into a hug. It was cold in the kitchen, and he knew Bucky must have been freezing, too. He also hated seeing him on the brink of tears, especially after everything else that had happened that night. He didn’t quite know how he was going to take being touched — for all he knew, he was about to have his arm hacked off with the meat cleaver — but luckily Bucky sank back against him and rested his head on his shoulder, just like any other time. “Any time,” he said.
“I love you,” Bucky murmured, wrapping his trembling arms around Steve’s waist and burying his face in the crook of his neck. “‘M sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Steve assured him, his heart breaking a little. “We’ll call someone in the morning, but for now, you’re okay.” He expected Bucky to argue, to say that everything was fine and they knew how to deal with it if it happened again.
To his surprise, Bucky nodded. “Yeah… should call Dr. Cho. Or Shuri, or… God. I dunno.” He had no clue who might actually be able to help with this. He fell silent, his shoulders shaking with the occasional repressed sob. He hadn’t cried in years. This was just humiliating.
“You wanna take the day off work tomorrow?” Steve asked, reaching up to rub his back.
“Yeah.” He hated to miss work, but he’d hardly slept at all. “Can you stay home with me?” He asked, looking tearfully up at Steve. If he had another little episode while he was home alone, that would be it for him. There was no one else to bring him back.
“‘Course,” Steve said, a little flattered that he’d asked in spite of himself. “I don’t wanna go back to sleep, sweetheart.” He was afraid that if either of them slept, they’d wake up to something horrible. “Do you wanna stay up with me?”
Steve didn’t have to ask twice. He’d been terrified at the prospect of being asked to come back to bed, and he was glad he felt the same. “Yeah,” he said, wiping his eyes, then raising his head to kiss his cheek. “I’d love to. Do you wanna take a bath with me, my love?”
He was calmer now, no longer on the verge of breaking down completely or, God forbid, having a panic attack, but he still felt shaky and sick. He didn’t think he’d be able to go back to sleep even if he tried. Steve didn’t look much better.
They both needed to relax, and a bath sounded just about perfect to him.
“Yeah,” Steve agreed, nodding enthusiastically.
Bucky laughed, pulling away and reaching out to take his hand. “Come on, then. I was thinking about making pancakes for breakfast. Unless it’s too early…?”
“No,” he assured him. “It’s never too early for pancakes, sweetheart. And we can take Harry for a walk after breakfast.”
That sounded perfect to Bucky — maybe today wouldn't turn out so bad after all.