Work Text:
They said, once, that the gods made a perfect person. They were happy and whole – strong and able. They were so perfect that the gods became worried that they would soon take over the pantheon, and replace the selfish gods.
So, in order to save themselves (and mostly because the gods were assholes) they split the perfect beings right down the middle, and left them in two parts. Pleased, but still butthurt, the gods then cast the two sides apart, worried that they would re-join and seek revenge on the gods for their punishment.
But that was a long time ago, everyone knows – and it’s mostly just a kids story to keep people from going insane. No one actually meets their other half, because they don’t exist. James knows that. Knows it in his bones that the stories are just to stop people from going insane when they wake up with colourful marks on their skin, bruises or aches, the phantom pains or the whispering in your ear.
They said, if you met your other half, it would stop. They said, if you never felt anything, that your other half was dead. James wished he never felt anything. He woke up each morning with livid bruises, his ribs hurt, his throat hurt. He ran a constant fever even though he was as healthy as a horse. His mom would fill him up with vitamins and good food and generally worried herself sick, because she believed. She honestly believed that out there, somewhere in the world, the other half of James was dying.
James just wished they’d hurry up and get to it.
Magical transformation, she’d whisper to him, as she read from the books scattered around his room. When you met your other half there was a magical transformation. You became perfect. Strong. Good.
But James was already strong, despite his phantom fevers and illnesses. He was strong and broad and the best of all the boys he knew. When his mom talked about his magical transformation, and he rolled his eyes at her, despite running a temperature so high his brains were cooking, she’d kiss him on the head and say – “Well maybe you’ll get some goodness in you.”
Because James wasn’t good.
Oh no. James was (as most all of his teachers and really anyone with a lick of authority, really, could tell you) a little shit. He skipped school, he stole things, and he got into fights. He didn’t pray to the gods, he didn’t believe in the stories. He kissed all the girls and most of the boys and he never once bothered to look after himself so that his other half didn’t struggle. James figured it didn’t matter – if his other half existed (and he doubted that so strongly that his mom had stopped forcing him to go to church because he always ended up arguing with the priests) then the asshole never thought about how James suffered, so why should James care?
Anyway, it wasn’t like it was real.
“When I meet my other half,” Natasha said, leaning back on the grass, the summer air crisp and brittle like it could only be in Russia, “I’m going to beat their ass so hard that they can’t walk for a month.” She’d been kept off school for a whole week because she’d woken up covered in lavender bruises. She’d missed her gymnastics tryouts – and was struggling to see the ‘good side’ of anything. “I mean it.” She said, glaring at the pale blue Russian sky like it had done her some wrong.
James shrugged. Natasha was like him in almost every way, but one: She believed. She was strong and angry and could beat most people at anything, just like him. Both of them were heading for great things, he knew. If they could just stop getting benched by phantom injuries – but she believed that somewhere out there, was her other half – and when she found them, she was going to beat the shit out of them.
“It’s not like it’s even real.” James said, smirking. He’d been off school for three days – although he’d begged and pleaded with his mom to let him go to his wrestling match. With a bright purple ‘soul mate’ bruise over his jaw and an orange one almost going from his shoulder to his hip, the other parents had glared at his mom for letting James compete with his rainbow bruises. “You look like a fucking pride flag.” Natasha had teased him, but she couldn’t say a damn thing when she looked just as bad. Her bruises weren’t as bright as his, pastel colours – pinks and purples and a little more like regular bruises – but they clash terribly with her red hair.
“It’s real.” She shot back, although there was no heat in it – they’d had this argument a million and five times, and they still didn’t agree. “He’s real.” She didn’t get the phantom sounds in her ears, the weird echoing of voices just out of reach like everyone else. It made her prickly sometimes, angry: Like her connection to her other half wasn’t as strong as it should be. Not as strong as James who could almost make out words, sometimes jerking awake in the middle of the night to a shout that wasn’t real. She didn’t tell her mom and dad that she couldn’t hear anything, just pretended – but she told James one night when they’d shoplifted a bottle of vodka and worked their way through it. He didn’t really give her much comfort, but at the time he’d been drunk and argumentative – he told her the reason she couldn’t hear was (of course) because it wasn’t real. Which wasn’t what she’d needed at that time.
They’d ended up having sex, not the first time for either of them, but their first time together. They hadn’t repeated it, although both of them knew that the entire school thought they were banging on the regular.
“Sure.” He shrugged, not an agreement, but too bored of the same fight to argue. “I got my military packet yesterday.” He told her, grinning. “I figure I could get into Spetsnaz if I give it a go.”
“Hmm.” She said, not looking up. He knew that she’d gotten her packet too – of course she had. Natasha was always a step or two ahead of him. “Spetsnaz won’t take you,” She snorted. “Not when you look like a rainbow.”
“Screw you, Romanov.”
“Not likely, Yasha.”
“Fancy meeting you here,” James said, kitted out in his gear, gun at his hip and a combat knife in his hand. Over the side of his face he had a bright blue bruise, edged with reds and greens. Natasha (or, he guessed, looking at her sequined dress, Natalia) didn’t go into Spetsnaz, and he never asked her what she actually did. She sometimes showed up in places she really shouldn’t be – like right now – and took over his operations. She outranked him, but since she’d always been the one to take the lead growing up, it didn’t piss him off like he knew it did other commanders. Which, he guessed, was why he ran into her a lot on missions.
“Oh, Yasha,” She breathed into his ear, sounding breathless and woozy and drunk, which wasn’t right. She kept her head in every situation. “Yasha, he’s here.”
“Who?” James said, “The target?”
“He’s here.” She repeated, “I saw him.”
“The target?” James repeated. He could hear the orders being barked into his ear – the Black Widow had been compromised. James looked at her, the glazed expression, how unsteady she was on her feet, and made a decision. “Coms silence required.” He hissed, before pulling out the bug in his ear. “Tasha, what the fuck?” He hissed, pulling her back into the nest he’d been set up in, well hidden – a perfect place for a trained killer. “Pull it together.” He snapped. “They’re telling me to put you down.”
“He’s here.” She said again, before blinking. “Shit, James,” She said, sounding only slightly more aware. “Shit, he’s real.”
Bucky blinked, and then blinked again. She looked… different. Her hair, which had always been red, was a shining copper, her skin pale and milky, rather than washed out. She looked…
“Where is he?” James asked, “Who is he?”
“Some American.” She said, looking at him with huge, sparkling eyes. “Some blond, stupid American.” She paused. “He’s here to protect the target we were sent to neutralise.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.” She said, “They pulled him away when we saw each other. My cover is blown, I need an extraction.”
Bucky nodded and pushed the bug back into his ear. “Winter Soldier – come in immediately!” Someone was yelling, Russian snapping over the line. “The Black Widow has been compromised. Kill on sight!”
“Please repeat,” James said, looking at Natasha. “The Black Widow has been compromised?”
“Kill on sight!” The voice on the other end of the line said, hard and cold like the winters they’d grown up in.
“Kill on sight.” He said, looking at Natasha, his friend since forever. “Confirmed. Loud and clear.”
“Yasha,” She said, drawing back, looking afraid for the first time in forever. “Yasha, no.”
He shot her in the gut.
“The Spider is down.” He said, stepping back. There was blood spray on his face, on his hands. “Clean kill.”
“Come in for debriefing, Soldier.” The voice said, sounding pleased.
“Confirmed.” He said, stepping back. On the floor Natasha writhed in pain, and somewhere, somewhere closer than he would have liked with him covered in her blood, there was a howl of pain.
“Thank you, James.” She smiled, blood on her teeth, sequined dress sticky with blood.
He nodded once, and turned. There was enough blood on him to confirm his kill shot – they probably wouldn’t bother trying to recover the body.
As he sat in his debriefing, he sure as hell hoped they didn’t look for the body. He doubted that they’d find anything other than a slick trail of blood, a ‘stupid blond American’ and his Russian Soulmate.
Things happened. James became Dimitri and Sasha and a million other people, changing his name and his history with every mission. His superiors liked him because he did what he was told – hadn’t he killed the Black Widow, his friend since birth, because he was ordered to? A man like that can go a long way, they told him. A man like him could shape the world.
James wasn’t a good person. He’d never been good. Perversely, though, he’d never been bad . He always drew a line, sometimes not where it rightly should have been, but a line nonetheless. He didn’t cross it, not once. Not even when he’d been ordered to. Which was why, when he’d been told to burn the building down, the building that had kids still inside (their parents were collateral he was willing to overlook, they’d made their choices when they’d worked against Russia) he’d been unable to do it.
Which was why he was caught.
Which was why he was wondering if he should crush the pill between his teeth and end it all. His eye was black, ribs covered in bruises, but those were his – he’d fought hard when he’d been taken in, but they’d known his escape routes, and his fighting style. They’d left a body behind, wearing his clothes, and burnt it.
“No one is looking for you.” He was told, as they beat the shit out of him, trying to stop him from fighting back. Now he was being held in a white room with a mirrored glass on one side. They’d taken his clothes, he was wearing what could only be called a set of scrubs if you were being generous, and he certainly wasn't feeling generous.
“Codename, Winter Soldier.” A computerised voice stated, and if they were expecting him to flinch they were about to be disappointed. He continued to lounge on the floor, didn't as much as blink. He’d been conditioned. He’d been treated worse by his own country – the Americans didn't scare him. “Codename, Winter Soldier, confirm.”
“Fuck you.” He grinned, in Russian.
“Not likely, Yasha.” The computer said back, Russian sounding even harsher with the computer modifying, and it was only the years of training that kept him unmoving.
He’d escaped. He had help, he knew. Some blond archer wearing purple tinted wraparounds caused some kind of diversion when James was being transferred. “Aww, arrows, no!” He’d called out, voice thick. Deaf, James realised, recognised immediately.
Well, that explained the lack of voices Natasha was worried about. He didn’t see her. He wasn’t supposed to. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to see the blond, but he did. He didn't thank him, but when he shot his captured gun, he’d hit a spot a quarter inch above his head, and he figured that counted as everything he needed to say.
DC, he realised. He’d been there before, some mission he could hardly remember, because they all ran into one another. He’d picked up a pair of trousers (pants, he mentally corrected, pants in America) and easily lifted a jacket on his way out of the building. He could disappear.
The safe house was abandoned of personnel, but the radio still worked. He listened for a few hours, chatter mostly, nothing important after the announcement that the Winter Soldier’s burnt out body had been found, with all of his identifying gear. He was dead.
He needed to get out of DC.
He liked New York. For some reason, the air agreed with him. He’d shed all of his personalities collected over the years like a snake. His American accent wasn’t half bad, although he knew he’d always sound a little like an outsider to a native. He grew his hair out, let a beard grow – he hated it, shaved it off again – and got himself an apartment. Cash was easy enough to come by, he raided a few safehouses, a couple hundred thousand American dollars that he hid in various locations and the only weapon he carried was the knife in his boot. Almost a year after he’d escaped from the American’s, he was sitting at a table in a local coffee house, when she sat in front of him.
“You took your time,” He told her, in English.
“Been busy.” She shrugged, stealing his coffee with a self-satisfied smirk. “You weren’t hard to find.”
“I wasn’t hiding.”
“Nice bruise.” She said, pointing her chin at the magenta and green bloom over his jaw. She didn’t have a mark on her, hair burnished copper and skin as smooth as baby. Everything about her screamed ‘whole’, and people shot her envious looks.
“Thanks for getting me out.” He said, leaning back in his chair.
“Thanks for ruining bikini season for life.” She nodded back at him, mirroring his easy comfort, waving a hand over where he shot her. She carried on talking, but James wasn’t paying attention. There was a guy, a short, tiny little thing, on the other side of the road from the coffee house, staring at him through the glass. He had a livid bruise on the side of his face.
“Oh shit.” He said, cutting over whatever Natasha was saying. “Oh no.”
He ran.
His name was Steve Rogers. He was the same age as Bucky, and he got into a lot of fights. Unlike James, who also got into a lot of fights, Steve got into bad fights for good reasons. He’d step in and defend kids getting bullied, women getting hassled on the street, shoplifters and muggers and a whole host of people he really needed to keep away from. James had stolen his medical records. Hospital stays as a child for pretty much everything. He’d caught scarlet fever twice, pneumonia more times that James could count, he had a twisted spine and a heart murmur, caught the flu every single year without fail. It wasn’t until James joined the army that he started getting admitted to hospital for soul-mark pains.
Bullet wounds, knife slashes, broken bones, cigar burns. That week he’d spent when his bosses thought he’d messed up a mission had almost killed Steve – they’d put him into a drug induced coma to keep him safe.
But aside from that, Steve was good. All the goodness James lacked, the gods had shoved into Steve’s tiny frail body. He volunteered, he helped out. He knew all of his neighbours, rescued cats from trees. He did odd jobs when his health allowed, and he worked teaching art therapy to war vets at a local VA.
And he’d been lumped with James as a soulmate.
James who killed. Who tortured. Who shot his best friend in the gut and left her to bleed out.
He watched Steve for weeks. Saw him change – although it took longer for him than it had taken James or Natasha. His doctors knew it was because he’d met his soulmate, although from what he could see, Steve hadn’t mentioned it at all. His heart got better, his spine shifted one night, painfully and gut-wrenching for both of them. His faulty lungs started sucking in air better than ever – he gained 10lbs.
James watched it all – felt it all – but couldn’t bring himself to go see him. The pain James had inflicted on him through the years must have been unbearable. He looked over every mission, every bone broken and every interrogation he’d ever gone through with a new eye. He had shut out the pain, trained to do so, but Steve, good, honest Steve, never got the chance.
“So, you still can’t hide for shit.” Natasha said, dropping into his nest like she belonged there, Russian clipped but amused. “I looked into your little dove.” She said, settling beside him. “He’s a saint. Cute too, if you like the blond American look.” He didn’t point out that she obviously did, going on the blond American she’d left her country for.
“He’s too good for me.”
“Probably.” She grinned. “But he’s also a little shit too – you’ve seen his record.”
He had. His medical reports were bad enough, but his police reports were nothing short of terrifying. He protested, he picketed. He broke into places and released lab animals. He’d been arrested no less than 12 times over the course of his life, although charges were never pressed. Growing up he’d been the politest rebel in New York, it seemed. “You look good, Yasha.” She said, after a long time of just looking over at the apartment Steve lived in. The she kissed him on the top of his head, and left.
“My name is James Barnes.” He said, pacing back and forth. “I’m not a good person.” He paused. “I’m James. I’m Russian. I’m not… shit.” He’d been pacing back and forth for half an hour, trying to work up the balls to rap his knuckles against the door where Steven Grant Rogers lived. “I killed people for a living. I’m bad news, I’m sorry you go stuck with me.” He said, dejectedly to the empty corridor. “I’m a wanted man. I hurt you and I didn’t think about it.”
He looked at the door and shook his head. “Fuck this.” He said, and turned on his heel, walking away. He got about as far as the second stair when the door unlocked and Steve’s voice called after him.
“I take it you don’t wanna even bother with what I think?” He said, and James felt that voice all the way down to his damn boots.
It wasn’t easy. James was jumpy and didn’t trust easy, and Steve was prickly and argumentative – but James had never been happier. He still woke up in the middle of the night to bad dreams, but Steve was there to talk him down – his years of working at the VA with his best friend paid off.
Natasha arrived unannounced once every few months or so – she’d made it clear her bosses know that she was in contact with James, and that her main focus is to bring him in. She doesn’t really try past telling him that. Her soulmate, who is the very last person James would have thought that Natasha would want to be bonded to, is a wisecracking lazy asshole who James loves from the first moment they meet. He needs to learn sign, but (shocking absolutely no one) Steve already knows it, and helps him through the basic stuff.
Sometimes Clint (Codename, Hawkeye) trades stories with James and Steve scoffs on the couch about how stupid their names are, and rolls his eyes when James and Natasha perform a fairly raunchy tango in the middle of the cramped livingroom to prove a point that, yes: Russian operatives can dance.
“She’s better than me.” James points out, “But she’s the spy, not me.”
“She’s better than you,” Steve cuts in, “Because she’s better than you at everything.”
“Not everything.” James points out, meaningfully, and still gets a kick out of the blush that works over Steve’s golden skin, the way the feeling kicks back into his own gut – exciting them both.
“Gross.” Clint signs, and makes a gagging sound.
They say, that when you meet your other half, there is a magical transformation.
Bucky looked in the mirror and saw a few things. His hair was a little thicker, skin a little clearer. For Steve it had been more obvious, the health benefits of his magical transformation were pretty extreme. He wasn’t going to die any time soon (James was pretty fucking relieved about that) but for James nothing really changed.
They say, that the God’s were worried that the perfect person, the two halves that made one perfect being, would become more powerful than the gods.
James didn’t think that was true. Strictly true.
Steve was sitting on the couch and talking to Sam (his best friend) and Natasha, feeling warm and happy – so much so that James could feel it in his own gut, squirming around like one of stupid kittens on the internet Steve was always showing him.
Steve looked over at him and grinned, before going back to his conversation.
James just thought the gods were jealous as hell.