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Bucky Barnes is certain of many things about his 107-year life.
He knows his name is James Buchanan Barnes, and he is from Brooklyn. He had four sisters and was raised by his mother, but they’re all gone, now. He knows his best friend is Steve Rogers, the former Captain America. He’s gone now, too. He knows that he is the Winter Soldier, or at least he used to be. He fell from a train in the middle of Europe, and he lost an arm and has a metal one now, his new one a gift from the Wakandans when he stayed with them to fix his brain after HYDRA blended it into a smoothie.
He knows he tried to kill Sam Wilson once- twice? Thrice?- and now they are friends, after being Blipped and coming back to a world that simultaneously waited and did not wait for them. He knows that Sam Wilson is his best friend, after Steve, at least- if he still counts- despite the rocky start to their relationship. He knows that he loves Sam, and has for so long. He knows that Sam loves him back, and they’re together. They’re engaged.
Bucky knows that in two weeks, one day and four hours he is meant to marry Sam Wilson.
Bucky also knows that there is a bullet in his chest.
He’s been shot.
He knows that it hurts like a bitch, and it’s bleeding like one, too.
He knows what this amount of blood means, where it leads, and what it takes away. Even for the enhanced. Even for a Super Soldier. Even for Bucky Barnes.
He doesn’t know if it’s Sam leaning over him, talking too fast, and too loud, and too far away. Bucky can’t hear him or see anything of him beyond a fuzzy outline and white and red goggles. He doesn’t know that it’s Sam, but he’s pretty sure because of the way the voice made something in his chest shudder.
But maybe that was just the bullet. Or his lungs. Or his heart, stuttering out its final beats…
He knows that there is sky above him, behind the man who could be Sam. It’s blue- or is it grey? Or was it nighttime? There are dark patches moving across the vast expanse of light, shifting, undulating like alien space ships. He hoped it wasn’t aliens again, they almost killed him last time. Maybe it was just his eyes, his brain struggling to hold on because surely he’s run out of blood by now?
Bucky knows that he has two weeks, one day and four hours until he marries Sam Wilson. He knows he loves him with his whole heart.
He doesn’t know what that muffled ringing sound is, but the man above him- the maybe Sam- doesn’t seem to react to it. He just keeps on talking- or maybe yelling, shouting for help?- and Bucky still couldn’t hear him, couldn’t make out the words beyond the chimes jingling in his brain. Maybe-Sam was pressing on Bucky’s chest, probably trying to hold the blood in, but Bucky couldn’t really feel it. He should probably be worried about that, but he couldn’t feel the worry, either. All of him is numb, inside and out, and the bells in his ears are lulling him to sleep.
Bucky knows that his name is James Buchanan Barnes, and he loves Sam Wilson.
They are getting married in two weeks, one day and four hours. He knows that. It’s branded into his brain.
Bucky knows.
And then he stops knowing.
And everything disappears behind the veil.
~~~
It’s two weeks, one day and three hours until Sam and Bucky are getting married.
Sam is sitting at Bucky’s bedside in a private hospital room, watching his fiance’s laboured breaths and wondering how the fuck everything went so goddamn wrong.
Bucky has died three times.
And he’s alive right now, but Sam can’t take his eyes off the heart monitor, waiting, just waiting for it to flatline again.
The doctors had taken out the bullet, which they would never normally do, because Bucky’s body was healing around it, and causing more problems than they needed to be dealing with. He’d had a blood transfusion already, and now he was unconscious, resting, they said. Waiting, Sam’s brain whispered.
“Sam?”
Sam jerks upright from where he’d been slouched. He tears his eyes away from the monitor to glance at the doorway, catching sight of Torres standing awkwardly, arms at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
Sam clears his throat and doesn’t try to hide the redness of his eyes or the dried tear tracks through the dirt on his cheeks. “Yeah?”
“The higher-ups want a report,” Torres replies, his voice small. He sounds so young, so apologetic, like he’s worried his very presence is agitating. “What do you want me to tell them?”
Sam squeezed his eyes shut, then remembered that he was meant to be watching for changes in Bucky’s heartrate. His eyes snapped open and he fixed his eyes back on the heartrate monitor.
“Tell ‘em what happened,” Sam croaks. His breath stuttered in his chest. “Tell them Bucky went to save that girl, and opened himself up. Tell them about the sniper.”
Torres was quiet for a moment, and Sam knew what he was going to ask next.
“Do I tell them he went against orders?”
Sam wanted to say no, wanted to say that he gave no orders discouraging Bucky’s actions, that he supported him and things just went wrong. But there was footage. They’d ask to see Redwing and they’d hear Sam shouting, “No! Bucky stop, it’s not safe! That’s an order!” He sucked in a breath. This could endanger Bucky’s entire career, but at the moment, all Sam could think of was that Bucky died. Three times. He couldn’t think about anything else.
“Yes. What’s the worst they’ll do?”
Sam knows, they might retire Bucky for endangering the mission- he didn’t have a good track record already, and this might be the last straw. But would that really be so bad?
He really isn’t thinkking straight. He can barely think at all, with that heartrate monitor beeping incessantly, a reminder of how close he’d been to losing all of this.
Two weeks, one day and three hours.
“Okay. Um…” Sam glanced in Torres’ direction again. “I can call your sister, if you want? I don’t-” Torres’ voice faltered. A pang of misery struck Sam, seeing Torres wipe his eyes with the back of his hand and clear his throat. “I don’t know how to help right now, but if you need anything, I can- I can try, I mean, I’m just worried, so if-”
“Torres.” Sam didn’t mean to sound so harsh cutting him off, but he didn’t have the emotional capacity to soften his tone. “Thank you. If you could call Sarah, tell her, that would be great, but other than that, just…try to get some rest.”
Torres nodded mutely before turning and heading out the door, leaving Sam alone with his fiance and his thoughts once more.
Sam thought he’d grown to know fear pretty well, her name, the way she gripped his heart in a metal fist and screamed in his veins. But when Bucky went down, the thing that grabbed Sam by the throat wasn’t fear, it was something worse, something he didn’t have a name for that flooded his lungs, his everything, drowning him inside of himself. And he couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think. All he could do was stare.
He’d never felt so useless in his whole life than he did in those moments, when Bucky was slipping away, and he was leaving Sam alone on this hellscape of a planet, and they only had two weeks, one day and four hours.
It was three hours now, but there had been a moment where Sam had thought that the clock was going to stop. That they’d forever be stuck at two weeks, one day and four hours, preserved perfectly in time, frozen in place by the cool embrace of death.
Sam wasn’t sure how long he sat there, silent and aching, staring mindlessly at the heart monitor as doctors filtered in and out, making observations, checking numbers, occasionally looking at the wound in Bucky’s chest. Everything sort of blurred into an endless stream as he waited and waited for his love to wake up, for Bucky’s eyes to open and for everything to just be okay. He couldn’t shake the feeling the cardiac arrest three times is too much. Bucky might be brain dead, he could never wake up, he could-
Sam’s internal rant was cut off by Bucky stuttering in a great breath.
Sam watched him, watched his face, his chest, his everything.
He watched his eyes crack open.
It was just for a second, just a fraction, but it made Sam’s heart leap into his chest. He tugged off the gloves of the suit he hadn’t bothered taking off, and took Bucky’s hand, squeezing it gently.
“It’s okay, Buck. I’ve got you,” His voice was quiet, like maybe being too loud would ruin this, tear it away from him. “I’m right here, it’s alright. Just rest, I’ll be right here with you.” Sam’s words were running into each other. He was pretty sure Bucky was unconscious again, but he just kept talking. The floodgates were open and there was no stopping the flow.
“I’m sorry this happened to you, I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. You did the right thing, even if I told you not to do it, and that little girl you saved? She’s in this hospital, too, I think. She’s fine, last I heard, but to be honest I wasn’t paying much attention to anything other than you, but you saved her from that car, Buck. And it was the right thing to do, you’re a good man, and I can’t-” Sam’s voice failed. “I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to. You need to pull through this, Bucky. You need to get better so we can get married and you can be my husband and we can go on our honeymoon to Wakanda and Shuri can tease you about your bad taste in memes.”
Sam watched Bucky’s face for any sign that he was hearing him. Of course, there was none, but Sam kept going anyway.
He checked his watch.
“We have two weeks, one day and one hour until we get married, Buck. You better not miss it.”
For a moment, just the briefest glimpse of a breath, Sam felt a pressure against his hand. The tiniest twitch of Bucky’s fingers in his.
It was the best thing Sam’s felt in his whole life.
“God, I love you. I love you and I believe in you, and I know you can do this, and I’m gonna be right here waiting. And when you wake up, I’m gonna sit with you every minute of every day and if they retire you because of this, then I’ll fight for you. And if you’re okay with retiring, I’ll be there for you with that, too. All of it, Bucky. I’ll be here, right here.”
There it was again, that slight twitch in Bucky’s hand.
“I love you, Bucky.”
Two weeks, one day and one hour.
They were gonna make it.