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The Winter Soldier turns himself in to Sam because he needs his injections. He demands them, actually.
“I need my fucking injections,” he spits, Sam pinned to the wall by the throat. Sam’s hand grips uselessly at the metal arm and with some effort he shuts his eyes, his mouth, breaths slowly through his nose. The Winter Soldier drops him and Sam splays a grateful hand against the wall, sucks in a deep clean breath and says “Okay, man. Okay.”
Steve is gone, fighting killer robots and Sam had told him he’d take on the search by himself, stalking the trail of haphazardly annihilated offices, warehouses, sometimes residential homes turned secret neo-nazi Hydra bullshit science labs. After the whole Ultron thing broke out, following the path of destruction was impossible, was never that easy to begin with, the way things got annihilated everywhere these days. If Sam hadn’t had religion snuffed out of him in Afghanistan he’d say it was a Sign and start maybe living a more holy and godly life, but based on the filthy and now fucked up motel room he found himself in with a brainwashed junkie super assassin from the 1940’s, that wasn’t going to happen. Wouldn’t stop his mama telling him, though.
“What kind of injections do you need?”
The Winter Soldier digs a couple empty vials out of his approximately a billion pockets and tosses them to Sam, who is still woozy from blood deprivation to the brain so he drops them on the carpet and has to lower himself carefully to pick them up, vision blanking. He blinks until his vision clears and he turns the vials sideways, trying to make sense of drug-peddling Hydra code which he can’t make heads or tail of, though the haphazard destruction of hidden Hydra properties does start to make a sort of desperate junkie sense now. Sam breathes nice and slow.
“You’re gonna have to tell me what these do.”
“Get them from SHIELD,” the soldier says. Sam doesn’t trust SHIELD worth shit and they were supposed to be dismantled anyway but probably weren’t.
“I don’t have any ties in SHIELD, and they’re in the wind right now. If you knew where they were, you’d’ve gone already.”
The soldier’s silence is answer enough. (Steve calls him Bucky but Sam doesn’t know if he should know better than to think that, so the jury’s still out on the “Bucky” thing, for him.)
“You tell me what these do, I give you my best guess to get as close as I can, okay?” He sounds like he had gravel for breakfast washed down with maybe fifty cigarettes.
The soldier hesitates before speaking, but when he does, it’s decisive. “CX-04 to wake up. Y-107 to rest.”
Jesus Fucking Christ they did a number on this dude. Sam wants to ask why the hell the soldier thinks Sam can fix this, but there's an opportunity here and it's not for a heart to heart. Instead, Sam says, “I do this for you, we gotta set some ground rules.”
The soldier is trained better than to balk, but he’s in the grips of withdrawal, and that super-soldier metabolism is driving him into the ground, looks like, carrying that metal arm around on nothing but amphetamine, probably. He looks like shit. He nods, more the idea of a nod than any actual movement. Sam relaxes the tiniest bit.
“One,” Sam says, and holds up one finger. “I’m helping you? No slamming me around.”
Silence. Sam takes it as a “yes, sir.”
“Two.” Sam racks his brain real quick for some ground rules because all his visualizing and mental prep hadn’t covered this situation and he was flying blind. “what I get ain’t gonna be what you’re used to. I said I can guess, and that’s all it’s gonna be. No taking it out of my hide if the first round ain’t up to spec, okay?” A variation on rule one but it doesn’t hurt to be clear. It gets him another infinitesimal nod and Sam’s lungs decide to let him have a little more oxygen and he stands up a little straighter.
"Three,” he says, but that's it, those are the rules. He clears his throat. "You got any you want to throw in?" The look he gets could peel paint off a hooker's toenails. The soldier spits something in Russian but his face is tense and ashen. "Come again?" Sam says, but the soldier clams up and gets a wild look in his eyes like rule one's about to get violated real bad real quick.
Cautiously, Sam offers, "I want to help. I want you to trust me. I want that to go both ways. I won’t tell anybody where you’re at or what we're doing unless you want me to.”
It's a hell of a guess and as the soldier breathes out through his nose Sam's life expectancy goes back up another few years. Or minutes. He'll take what's available.
“I wanna stick together," he says, gently. "You gotta give me some time to work out what you need, and we have to keep our heads down in the meantime." Another subtle balk. "Are you gonna be okay sticking together?" (until Steve gets back to sort this shit out, because what the fuck, seriously.) An implied nod, and God damn, this man did not look healthy. “Do you have a problem with any of the ground rules?” A swift shake of the head. “Do you have any other rules you want to add?” Sam waits a long time before the soldier shakes his head again. Then Sam slowly pulls his phone from his back pocket, free hand raised to placate.
“I gotta make a call. What I think is they got you on cycle of amphetamines to wake up, and they probably went old school on the downers. I know benzos don’t work on Steve, so I’m gonna try and rustle up some barbiturates. Is that cool?”
The soldier stares at him or a little bit past him, it’s hard to tell.
“Tell me it’s cool or I don’t do it,” Sam says.
“It’s cool,” says the soldier.
Sam makes the call.
*
An ex-army buddy can get him the stuff, but it’s a two day drive back to DC and the soldier's fucking antsy to put it lightly.
“You wanna drag that thing through airport security, be my guest. CIA on your ass so fast.” Sam shakes his head and the soldier fidgets murderously in the passenger seat. Man, this is not good for Sam’s blood pressure and he sends a quick word up to God just in case. At a gas station Sam had said “you want me to call Steve?” and the soldier had reacted like lightning, snatching Sam’s phone and crushing it before Sam had even had a chance to flinch. Sam had stared at the soldier, every instinct telling him to get the fuck out of there and never look back at this crazy-ass mess he called his life, and he’d said “oh hell no.” The soldier had pressed low into his seat and angled his head towards the window. “You did not just crush my four hundred dollar phone like a goddamn cupcake.” The soldier said nothing but Sam could see his pulse jumping in his throat so he let it go and threw the car in gear. “No, but that’s polite of you to ask, Sam, thank you,” Sam muttered. “Try that next time.” He’d merged onto the highway, probably driving a little too fast, but that was how he drove, alright? Get off his ass.
*
In DC Sam brings the Winter Fucking Soldier over to his goddamn house because what else is he supposed to do, he’s tired, and it’s been a long-ass everything and there’s killer robots fucking shit up. For all he knows Steve is dead.
When Sam explains the different drugs, the soldier gathers them up and disappears to god knows where to shoot up in private. Sam leans back on his sofa, then leans forward again, head in his hands, fingers pushed to the bridge of his nose like they can ward off the tired tears gathering there. He flips open his laptop and skypes his mother, since his phone looks the one on that blender infomercial now.
“Just wanted to see how you’re doing,” he tells her, smiling. By the time he signs off and shuts the computer, the Winter Soldier is standing in his hallway loose as a goose and kind of glassy looking.
“You hungry?”
The Winter Soldier doesn’t answer. Surprise. Sam stands up and heads for the kitchen. After a moment the soldier follows and sinks into a chair, gazing placidly at nothing. Sam doubts this is something the sober soldier would approve of, so they’ll have to work on dosage, but at least they’re on the right track. Sam checks his freezer for anything easy but for some reason he doesn’t think he should give Bucky frozen burritos, he doesn’t know why. Eggo, maybe. He pulls four out of the box, to start.
“What do you want me to call you?” he asks, finally, after two days on the road and a night overnight at a truckstop head cricked against the window hoping the soldier didn’t change his mind and slit his throat, but a guy’s gotta sleep, so whatever. When he woke up the soldier was hunched against the door, tense and sweating, trembling, with the door handle crushed to a pulp in his metal hand. He needed to be more careful with that fucking thing. Sam had thought anxiously about his windpipe before asking if the soldier needed to piss before they got back on the road.
Sam checks on the soldier, who hasn’t answered. Maybe now isn’t the best time, but Sam had just called him Bucky in his head, which indicates to him the game had changed somewhere along the line. He isn’t sure how he feels about that but there’s no point hiding from it.
“We can dust off your old name, if you want. James, or Bucky. Or a new one, I don’t care.” The kitchen’s starting to smell like waffles and Sam’s not sure if his stomach’s turning with hunger or nausea. The soldier’s ignoring him. “Hey?” Sam prompts.
“Soldier,” the soldier says.
“That’s not a name.”
“That’s my name,” the soldier snaps, looking at Sam with something stubborn in his eyes despite the barbiturate haze.
“That’s a job,” Sam counters. Softly, the soldier repeats, “That’s my name.” Sam doesn’t have the energy to argue, and it’s not his call. The toaster pops and Sam throws two waffles on a plate for the soldier, plops the syrup on the table, sits down with his own plate of waffles and digs in. The soldier stares at his plate in a trance.
“Eat,” Sam tells him. There’s that look, that Sam almost wants to call confusion; maybe what might be a quirk in the brow, like he’s not sure how to approach the conundrum before him. “It’s waffles.” Sam reaches for the soldier’s plate, cuts the waffles into bite size pieces and douses them all with syrup. Slides the plate back. He’d given him a fork but the soldier picks at the pieces with his fingers, bringing them slowly to his mouth, where he sucks the syrup out without chewing, like he’s not sure what to do. After about five minutes he doubles over abruptly and Sam barely gets the trash can under his face before he’s puking up waffle squares and stringy bile. Sam’s kneeling beside him with a hand between his shoulder blades saying “You’re alright, you’re okay,” and the soldier coughs and slides out of his chair, leans his weight against Sam until he’s curled over Sam’s lap staring vacantly across the linoleum. Sam gently strokes the sweat from his forehead, runs a hand over his matted hair.
“You’ll be okay, sweet pea,” he says, wondering why the fuck he would say something like that to the Winter Soldier.
*
Sam had had kind of a half-hearted plan in mind but it’s not easy to get the soldier to ease off the drugs. It’s not easy to get him to do anything.
“Man, get in the goddamn shower! You look like Oscar the Grouch. Do you live in the trash?” This last one gets Sam the evil eye, but the soldier stalks off into the bathroom and a moment later the water’s running. Sam’s not sure what kind of mental break happened he thinks he can sass the Winter Soldier, who about beat Steve into a coma, shot Nat twice, and sent Sam careening to his death off a helicarrier, almost. Whatever, he just does what works.
The soldier’s been there about three days. No word from Steve on the robot thing; they’ve gone to ground.
The soldier likes the downers, which Sam doesn’t contest. Last thing he needs is a hopped up super soldier tweaking out around the neighborhood probably killing poodles and shit. It’s gone through Sam’s head many times to break his promise, to hand this wack job off to SHIELD or the CIA or the circus or anybody else but him. He stepped up to help Steve. This was Steve’s old buddy, not Sam’s and Sam doesn’t know what the hell to do with him now he's here but try to keep him here and maybe put some meat on those bones and feed him chicken soup or something because the dude looks sick. He looked sick before Sam started enabling him with black market barbiturates, just to be clear. The soldier didn’t want to eat anything and he didn’t want to take a shit, he was farting all over the kitchen yesterday stinking the whole place up till Sam had said “dude you need to use the toilet! Go take a shit,” and then the soldier had gone and spent like an hour in there, maybe more. Sam doesn’t know what kind of fucked up shit was going on to give a guy a phobia of toilets, and he doesn’t want to imagine it either, he has enough on his plate and it makes him feel sick. The water’s running in the bathroom and Sam thinks about not wanting to take a shower and why a guy who was afraid to take a shit might not want to get into a box to get hit with water. Jesus. Sam taps on the door.
“You okay?” he calls. Not like he expected a response, so he says “I’m coming in,” and pushes the door open slowly. The soldier’s standing bare-assed next to the tub staring into the spray that Sam can tell from here is not warm; staring in the bad-waffle maybe puke way, not the warm glassy drug fix way. He’s not moving at all except a muscle in his jaw where he’s probably clenching his teeth. Sam eases around him to shut the water off.
“I don’t live in the trash,” the soldier says. Sam’s heart clenches up because this is a very, very damaged man who’s had fucked up things done to him for a long, long time, and out of everything he could have done he came to Sam Wilson (who he threw off a helicarrier one time).
“I know that,” Sam says gently. He’s standing real near the soldier on the metal side, the first look he’s had of that shoulder socket and he doesn’t want to stare because his stomach’s turning at the glimpse of wires underneath the scarred flap of skin. The rest of the dude is skinny, like fucked up, bones-showing skinny. If this were anyone else Sam would maybe settle a hand on their shoulder, offer some reassuring human contact, but he doesn’t think they’re there yet.
Sam draws the shower curtain all the way to the side, talking smoothly as he turns off the shower, then rustles under the sink for some disinfectant and a scrubber.
“You been on the road a long time, bound to look a little rough around the edges.” He sprays down the whole tub with bleach solution and gives it a quick scrub. Not like the soldier’s going to catch anything from it but it’s just habit to clean the tub before a bath since Sam never uses it and it’s got all foot germs and nasty whatever on there.
“Probably nicer to take a bath, take a load off and relax. When’s the last time you had an actual bath, right? I can’t remember the last time I had one. I should take one after you.”
He runs the water and swishes it around the basin to rinse the bleach away, then pulls the lever for the stopper and checks the water temperature with his fingertips. He stands up. “You want bubbles?”
The rigid look has gone out of the soldier and he look like he’s hearing Sam from far away, mouth slightly agape like he’s having a hard time processing, which is not just a drug thing, Sam suspects. The soldier nods once, slowly.
“You got it.” Sam goes back under the sink for his stockpile of little travel shampoos and picks one that doesn’t make his nose burn, then he drizzles it into the running bath water and a small bubble crater starts to grow. “This is some luxurious shit right here, this is five star treatment. Don’t ever say Casa Wilson didn’t treat you okay. Okay?” Sam is just talking to talk but the soldier nods like he’s entered into a solemn agreement not to spread malicious rumors about Sam’s hospitality or anything. Sam goes back under the sink for his hotel stash. (That stuff didn’t ever expire, right?) He finds Bucky a soap set and shows it to him.
“Once you get in, use this one on your body, all over, alright? Then this one - “ he checks he’s got the right one - “is for your hair. Then you rinse that out, and I guess you use this other one on your hair too, ‘cause you got long hair, I don’t know. I don’t ever use that one.” Sam sets them on the edge of the tub. “You want some privacy?”
The soldier steadies himself with a hand on Sam’s shoulder, lifting a foot over the edge of the tub. Sam goes stock still like some miraculous, rare bird has chosen him for a perch, one that breathes hellfire and damnation and is choosing not to right now so long as Sam doesn’t do anything stupid like breathe or blink. The soldier lowers his foot into the bubbles, stops, then slowly sinks his foot into the water. He shifts his weight and brings his other foot to follow, then turns so he’s facing the still-running faucet. He crouches down into the bubbles and some sickly sad part of Sam is relieved to see his genitals are still intact. He wasn’t sure and hadn’t wanted to look. Bucky sits in the tub and extends his legs a little, not a lot. His solid, scarred knees stick up above the bubbles. He’s had some nasty surgery done there, too, it looks like.
“You gonna be okay?” Sam asks.
A tight nod.
“You want this open or closed?” Sam jiggles the curtain, and the tense look glazes over. Too many questions. Okay. Sam leaves it open and backs out of the bathroom, drawing the door in but not closing it. In the hallway, he scrubs his palms down his jeans and let out a slow breath.
The pounding water shuts off. Sloshing sounds as Bucky settles into the bath. Bucky. That’s some 1940’s shit right there.
Sam retreats to the living room. It's dark. He flicks on the news on mute to see if there’s anything breaking on Ultron, but it’s the same footage that’s been looping since last week.