Work Text:
The rain delays Bucky’s trip by three hours. Truthfully, he could’ve left earlier when it was only drizzling, but he knew it was going to come down harder, and he didn’t want to drive on slick roads, despite how half indestructible he is. It gives him time to think about where he’s going.
It’s 4 AM, and he hops on his bike and thinks about home. It’s a room with Steve, celery soup and gelatin leftovers, bright stars twinkling despite the dust in the air. Seventy years have passed, and that was where his heart was last beating.
The air still feels damp, whipping at his face and making his eyes sting. He forgot his helmet, and he’s not going back.
There are few cars on the highway this early in the day, but he zigs and zags through the road nonetheless, carving up New York until he reaches Pennsylvania, and Bucky takes a breath for the first time. A breath of cold, wet, rusty air, and he thinks it’s the best feeling he’s had since he came back up.
The sun is starting to come up against his back. Westward is good, he thinks. He wants to be buried in the Pacific, where it’s warm.
The bike needs gas, so Bucky stops for gas at a convenience store outside Columbus. He buys a pack of smokes, lights a stick, and then crushes it against the bottom of his boot. He tries to light another one, but the rain has picked up again, and it makes the cigarette fizzle out. Bucky puts the pack in the front left pocket of his pants, next to the dog tags and the broken watch that’s stuck at 7:04. He asks the man filling up his sedan for the time. The man looks at the phone in his hand and mutters, “It’s about five past seven.”
Ohio stretches for miles, and Bucky thinks about being a sniper, staying still for the perfect shot, no matter how many hours that might be. He forces his body to keep in position for the rest of Ohio, and when he reaches Indiana, he sits up straighter.
Indiana might have been home once. Maybe before his mother died, but they traveled so much afterwards that he was never able to sink his roots into the dirt again. The Winter Soldier's been all over the world, and when Bucky pulls at the ground, the Earth starts to unravel.
He’s off the I-70, just passed Shelbyville herself, when he dumps his bike and picks up an old Chevy. Forest green under the mud and rust, dents like the Moon, Bucky starts the engine, and she roars louder than a gunshot, blasting all the birds away. He adjusts the seat, tilts the rear-view mirror, sees his eyes, and thinks he’s real. He drives off with the Chevy.
Bucky goes for another half an hour before he sees Tony. He doesn’t realize it’s him at first, just sees a man get off the bus station across the street and makes a violent U-turn, horns blasting away. Tony turns his back, sticks his thumb out, and Bucky pulls up right next to him. He tries to roll down the window of the Chevy, and it gets stuck half way.
“Get in,” he mutters, and he’s not sure why he’s giving a ride to a man he only knows from pictures and family stories forty years ago.
“Just my lucky day, I got an actual serial killer for a driver,” Tony replies, but he’s reaching out to let himself in.
The door is stuck, and Bucky has to twist his body, use the metal arm to shove the passenger door open.
Tony offers no thanks, puts his seat belt on, and starts fiddling with the radio. There’s nothing but feedback from the old thing, but that doesn’t deter him from humming along anyway. The Chevy’s been loud, but there’s noise for the first time on this trip. Bucky continues it, asking Tony, “Where are you going anyway?”
“Oh, y’know, Hollywood. Got a movie to produce, models to see, beaches to lie on and get sand in my chest.” Tony taps the Arc Reactor, and its blue is a homing beacon for Bucky. He looks back up at the rear-view mirror and still sees himself.
Bucky doesn’t bother to reply, just gets the Chevy back in gear, on the road to the West again. Tony badgers Bucky with questions, but he doesn’t respond, keeping his eyes on the road and not at Tony and not at the rear-view mirror. It’s hard to drive like that, constantly distracted and not looking back, but he’s a sniper. He sits back up.
Tony needs to go to the bathroom, so they stop near Springfield. “Don’t leave without me. I’m serious,” he says, before he all but sprints inside the convenience store Bucky found. Bucky considers ignoring him and leaving him behind, and he also considers driving the Chevy into the gas pump and starting a fire that would melt some of the ice away. He sits on his hands until Tony comes back with a coffee and six Slim Jims.
“Black, for you, just like your emo eyeliner. These are for me,” Tony gestures with the Slim Jims, “but if you’re nice, I’ll let you have one too.”
They get stuck in traffic as they head into Missouri. Bucky’s butt is numb from the driving, and his head is numb from Tony’s talking, and his arm is numb because it’s still trying to hold on. He asks Tony why he’s here.
“Oh, just on babysitting duty. Cap’s orders.”
“Leave,” Bucky replies, voice rough from the cigarette he never had.
Tony moves as if he’s actually going to get out of the Chevy in the middle of the highway, and Bucky reaches out to stop him. The car behind honks for them to move up the few inches that have opened up, and both of them settle back in their seats.
“I remembered something ole Pop said. How he regretted having so much money sometimes because it isolated me from the real world, and I never suffered like he did. I thought it’d be good to slum it with the common folks, see how they get around without PJs and chauffeurs.
“But I ran into you, so I guess the mission’s a bust.” Tony makes a noise that could generously be a halfhearted laugh.
The lanes open up, and the inside of the Chevy remains silent as Bucky drives them past Kansas City.
“I was the one who killed Howard. And Maria. Your parents.” Bucky doesn’t know why he admits that. It was a whisper, grunted out like a confession on Death Row. Maybe he’s asking for penance, and God is sitting right next to him, looking outside at the flatness of the Midwest He smoothed over with His hand.
He takes a sip of the coffee, but the cup’s been empty for the past hundred miles. He doesn’t look up, and he doesn’t look over. Bucky knows Tony heard him.
It starts to rain again when Tony says, “I know.” Bucky nearly stomps the brakes right there, and wouldn’t that be funny, dying the same way you’ve killed?
Tony continues. “I’ve known for a while, actually. Back when Steve was found in the ice, I did a deep dive into him, into the man my father admired for so long. Found a little story about a friend of his. I made the connection not long after that.”
Bucky takes in a breath. He doesn’t think an apology is going to be enough, but he has to say something. The words get stuck in his throat, and he wishes he hesitated like this when he bashed in Howard Stark’s skull with his metal arm. The steering wheel is getting morphed under his grip, a new crater on the face of the Moon.
“I’m –”
“It’s okay. Well, it’s not okay, but I know it wasn’t you. Bucky wasn’t the guy who killed the old man.”
Bucky lets out his breath. When he breathes in stale car air, it starts to melt the permanent frost that’s gathered.
The Chevy breaks down outside of Boulder, and they both get out. Tony glances it over. “I don’t have any tools with me, but it shouldn’t be too hard to get her going again. Or we can borrow that station wagon over there. I’ll even leave a nice tip.”
“No. Fix her.”
Tony rolls his eyes and says, “Whatever you say.”
Bucky thinks the broken watch in his front pocket has started to tick again. Or maybe it’s his heart that’s beating.