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Cap? Where’s Barnes?
...Cap?
It was devastatingly appropriate, that the wind howled through the ravine as the Howling Commandos passed through it. The sun had long since began its descent over the Italian Alps, the temperature slowly plunging into the realm of bitterness, and yet, the Commandos were relentless - on the move, on the hunt - few other operations were as important and sensitive as this one.
It had been hours ago that Captain Steve Rogers and Gabe Jones had burst back upon their base camp, grim and intensely silent - and notably lacking Sergeant Barnes, and Cap had immediately ordered the whole lot of them down into the canyon with all due haste. Arnim Zola was in custody, that was true - in that regard, the mission had been a blinding success, and already, Dugan and Falsworth were escorting their German guest back to the main Allied camp. However - they’d been late coming back - and when Dugan had asked him why, and asked where Barnes was - all Steve had said had been -
Fell. In the ravine.
The search was tireless - from the point where they’d begun the mission, they retraced the narrow riverbed as best they could - getting down into the floor of it had been almost impossible, the rocky mountain cliffs proving almost folly to scale, but they’d managed. Time and the environment were against them - from that height, a fall like that -
This wasn’t a rescue mission - it was a recovery effort.
Beyond the environmental hazards, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that HYDRA agents were crawling around this place - they were behind enemy lines here, and in a precarious position, considering the steep walls and jagged cliff faces all around them. From any location, a sniper could have found them - but Steve refused to leave him behind. He wouldn’t make the rest of them stay, but for his part, he would not leave this gorge until he’d found Bucky Barnes - he deserved to go home as a hero, not left and lost in Axis territory, forgotten in the snow and ice. Steve spoke little as they traversed the harsh terrain, ignoring the biting cold, ignoring the way that the greys, white, and blues of the landscape made it increasingly difficult to actually parse through what it was that they were seeing. They followed the icy river, looking for clothing, disturbed snow -Steve searched with the intensity that had led him to launch a one-man assault on a HYDRA weapons facility nearly two years prior - driven, eyes intense -
The sound of Bucky’s scream as he fell, the sensation of his fingers just brushing against his hand as the bar gave way, the sight of him falling, reaching out for him as he vanished into the gorge -
If Steve stopped long enough in his desperate hunt, the thoughts became overwhelming. His breathing was short, his shoulders tense - not once had Bucky ever let him down. Then, when Bucky had needed him most, he had not been able to return the favor. Guilt boiled angrily within his gut, his jaw clenched so tightly that he was damned certain he would crack his teeth before they were done. The least he could do was see Bucky home, see him back to Becca, lay him to rest with his parents, see him to the end of the -
“Cap.”
Morita’s voice cut through the howl of the wind, and drew the attention of everyone present. Steve looked up towards him, and froze as he followed Jim’s line of sight towards -
Blood spatter on the ground, stark and red against the white snow.
The powder had been disturbed - something had hit the ground near the edge of the cliff wall, and rolled to the river - blood trailed and followed the path - then up, as if someone had dragged the body or dragged themselves away. Immediately, Steve’s heart was in his throat, and he surged forward without a sense of decorum. Past Morita and the others, he followed the smear of blood and the tracking of the body that had been dragged - someone had been here? Dragged a bleeding body that had hit the water - but who? Why?
Possibilities began to run rampant in Steve’s mind as he followed the trail - HYDRA agents? Why would they want Bucky’s body? It could have also been a wild animal, but it was almost impossible to tell - and something told him that it was no animal. The dragging marks were too wide, too irregular - the more he looked, the more it appeared less like someone had been dragged and like someone had been pulling themselves along the banks in a belly crawl.
Wait. What?
No. Impossible. No one could have survived that fall.
Steve’s heart jumped to his throat, and he hurried forward. The longer he followed, the more Steve felt his pulse race - he’d not felt so breathless since before the serum, when asthma attacks would steal his breath and leave him paralyzed and faint. He feared what he could find at the end of this trail, he feared the finality of it all-
A black boot, just barely visible behind an outcropping of rock and snow, was where the trail led and ended. Sound, his heart, his breathing all stopped in the strange split second it took for Steve to grasp what it was that he was seeing before he stumbled forward and around the rock -
It felt as though he’d been kicked in the ribs, and all the air left his lungs in a rush.
Bucky Barnes laid there, flat on his back and dusted with fresh snow. He was pale, eyes closed - the left arm of his jacket was soaked in blood and frozen river water, and contorted at an odd angle - shattered, by the look of it, and piercing the thick wool of that overcoat. His dark hair was a harsh contrast to the white he lay on, just like the blood that smeared the rock and the snow beside him, and at the corner of his mouth -
It was wrong . It was all wrong. Those lips were meant to grin, to laugh and smirk and snap back with a snarky comment. They breathed his name in the dark, offered kisses against fevered skin - never should they have been so parted with a last breath.
Steve went to his knees immediately, shaking terribly as he struggled with the desire to reach out and touch. A buzzing filled his ears, and the sound of the wind, the quiet roar of the river passing, of the Commandos coming up behind him, faded away. Touching would have been acceptable, considering the loss of a best friend - it would have been nothing any of the Commandos would have had a second thought about, but the ever present fear that had kept their love hidden for all these years still held him back for a moment. It shouldn’t have - there was no shame in loving someone so well for so long, he knew - but people didn’t understand. The world wouldn’t have understood.
Grief was a strange thing. When he had watched Bucky fall, not too long before this moment, he had been stunned. He had wept, immediately - he had finished the mission with brutal efficiency to block out the horror and loss with rage. Now, as he knelt here beside Bucky’s side, he felt...hollow. He’d never been alone, not really, until this moment - and he found he had nothing to say. Closing his eyes, Steve bowed his head and finally reached out, resting a hand softly to his chest. Leaning forward, he bought back the urge to lash out, to hunt down every last member of HYDRA in this god-forsaken ravine and avenge Bucky Barnes with harsh impunity -
A soft groan slipped from Bucky’s lips, a soft rush of visible breath from those parted lips.
Sound suddenly rushed back into the world as Steve’s head jerked up, and he stared at that pale face. Around him, he could hear the voices of the others, bewildered, confused, hopeful? But all he could do was stare as those pale eyes cracked open, just a little, and looked up at him slowly.
“...Hey…”
“Bucky. How - what?”
“...Took a...nasty spill back there. Hope you...you got the bastard for me.”
A smile, watery and perhaps just a touch hopeful, spread on Steve’s lips. He bowed his head a little and laughed softly, ignoring the dampness that had begun to smear the dirt on his cheeks. He gripped Bucky’s uninjured shoulder, and nodded, squeezing just a little. Even if Bucky was talking now, that didn’t mean he was out of the woods. The fact that he survived at all -
“You bet your ass I did. C’mon...gotta get you to the medics. That arm looks...looks pretty bad.”
“...Arm?”
Slowly, Bucky lifted his head, as if he didn’t quite remember dragging himself down a frozen riverbank with such an injury. He grimaced a little at the bone protruding from the torn, bloodied wool, and laid his head back down.
“Shit…”
Standing, Steve shifted his weight and immediately went to brace that injured arm for transport as best he could. They had to get back out of this gorge - and he was the only one with the strength to do it. Grimly, he reached up with a gloved hand and pushed some of the snow and sweat back from Bucky’s brow. The question of how he survived such a horrible fall would come later - right now, they needed to ensure he survived.
“Don’t worry, Buck. We’re getting you out of here.” Kneeling, and with great care, he went to pick Bucky up as gently as he could, minding the wounded arm, and hoisted him up onto his back with care. He had Dugan secure Bucky over his back and shoulders as best they could, and nodded.
“Okay, let’s move out.”
~*~
For Bucky, time seemed to pass in a blur. He was vaguely aware of Steve carrying him, of voices around him, of people speaking in quiet words - a cold wind, a vertical climb - but he went in and out, not entirely cognizant. His arm was shattered, this much he knew. He’d fallen from a great height - this he only remembered slightly, from the moment his last support broke free from the damaged train and he went into freefall. He recalled the impact, and distantly, thought that he might have dragged himself along the banks of the river he’d rolled into along the way, but he remembered little else. His arm was shattered, but he felt no pain. Shock, he numbly thought as cheek rested against Steve’s back, his body secured around those strong shoulders. It might have been funny, Steve Rogers carrying his injured ass out of a tight situation twice now, had he had enough mind to think about it.
When he next became aware, though, he found himself staring at a canvas ceiling. Nearby, he could hear the sound of vehicles driving through, voices talking, shouting, laughing - music piped in from somewhere, in Italian. He felt groggy, confused - but more alert than he had been before. His arm hurt - but in that way that felt numbed, thank God, because he remembered seeing that bone of his sticking out of his coat. When he glanced down, he could see it bandaged and bound - but it didn’t appear to be permanently set - and he saw a pair of muddy boots planted in the ground, a pair of legs seated in a chair, a familiar shield leaning against the chair -
“...Steve.”
“Bucky? Oh - oh wow, you’re - you’re awake - thank God...”
“...Feels like I was hit by a train rather than fell from one…” He groaned a little and finally looked up to see that handsome face, those deep blue eyes filled with concern and relief. He looked like hell, like he’d been awake for hours, and probably seated right here at his bedside the entire time. Bucky could almost see it, a whole cadre of formidable Army nurses trying to usher Steve Rogers out of the tent, and Steve planting his stupidly big feet right in the mud and refusing to budge an inch. He managed a tired smile and sighed.
“Yeah...yeah, you’re a lucky son of a bitch, Buck. I...have no idea how you managed to survive that, and right now, I don’t care, I just - I - “
Bucky opened his eyes as he heard Steve’s voice break, and frowned a little as he watched his best guy bow his head right into his hands. All the strength in the world, and a sensitive artist’s heart still beat in that soldier’s body.
“Steve - “
“I’m so sorry...I should have been faster, could have caught you in time - “
“Steve, don’t. Don’t do that...it doesn’t matter. I’m alive...right? I made it...you found me. You all hunted me down and saved my life, okay...doesn’t matter if the train had other plans, okay. I might not be in one piece, but...I’m breathing, and I still have to look at your mug when I wake up…” Steve laughed at that, just a little, and Bucky considered it a victory. He grinned a bit more, a bit roughly, and closed his eyes for a moment, just pushing back a swell of pain as best he could. He didn’t want to think about why his arm hadn’t been set and put in a cast yet. Steve provided a fine distraction from all of that, though - even if they couldn’t be close the way they wanted to be, he would take this little moment as best he could. “...How the hell did we get out of there, anyway?”
“Oh. We went back the way we came. I had Dugan secure you onto my back and carried you right back up - I’d say you weighed a ton, but I can lift whole motorcycles, so I don’t think you’d buy it…”
Bucky was quiet for a moment, taking that in. He’d seen some of Steve’s feats of strength, and he’d heard stories about the motorcycle lifting, but being told that his lover and best friend tied his deadweight body to his back and climbed a whole actual alpine cliff without a complaint…
“Yeah, well...I’m alive, so I guess I can’t complain all that much…”
Holy shit, I don’t deserve you, Steve Rogers.