Work Text:
When Steve finds him, he’s sitting against their old apartment building in Brooklyn, the stench of blood and something sweet coming off him in waves. His head is bowed forward, his hair covers his face, and his metal arm is covered by a large sweatshirt, but it’s him. It’s him. Steve kneels down next to him, eyes locked on his mouth, the only thing visible of his face under that long scraggly hair.
Steve says “Do you remember?” and Bucky only laughs. It’s a heavy sound, seasoned with salty tears and bitter humor.
“No,” he says, and Steve can’t help it when his heart breaks.
“Buck-“ he starts, but he’s silenced when Bucky raises his head. Tears shine in his eyes, along with something colder—Fear. Fear and anger and confusion. His lip quivers faintly, his eyes are puffy, he leans away from Steve’s too-large body.
“Why do I keep coming back here?” his voice is so broken that Steve almost cries. He sounds lost, like a child. A sob bubbles from his throat, his entire body shaking ever so slightly. “Why can’t I walk away from this damn building?”
Steve only stares. Bucky, his Bucky, is there. He can feel it. But he’s lost in all the brainwashing and programming and complete shit that Hydra drilled into him. Steve can’t help the way his hand gently rests on Bucky’s knee, he can’t help the way he looks at Bucky in such a way that burns him to the very core. Bucky flinches away, shoving Steve’s hand away and scattering away about a foot.
“Why can’t I just kill you?” Bucky asks, and Steve has been asking himself that too. Why won’t the Soldier finish his mission? What broke in all of Hydra’s programming?
So Steve tells the truth.
“I don’t know.”
Bucky stares, analyzing him, Steve can feel it about him like an aura, the suspicion. Confusion, concern. He asks it again. “Why can’t I kill you?” and then he asks “Who are you?”
Steve smiles at him, something rattling in his chest like a million broken pieces of glass. Maybe that’s his heart.
“Bucky, it’s me. It’s Stevie. I’m Steven Rogers.”
For a moment all that’s heard is the sound of the road, cars slipping by outside their little universe unknowingly. Steve’s smile cracks as Bucky’s chin wrinkles and fat tears fall from his eyes, crying like a child, not a Soldier. There’s a moment of hesitation, withholding from each other in fear of making a wrong move. But then Steve opens his mouth to say something, and Bucky lets out a pained cry and-
And that’s when Bucky hugs him.
The first time Tony meets him, Bucky stops in his tracks. Tony looks up from his workbench, resting his screwdriver atop his blueprints as his eyes lock on Steve and the man who he’d been previously told was an enemy. Steve hovered awkwardly next to him, unsure of his intentions. Bucky—no, the Soldier, he took one, two more steps into the room and stopped.
He said “You’re Anthony Stark,” and Tony simply nodded.
“And you’re James Barnes, AKA the Winter Soldier.” Tony said this easily, his casual confidence unwavering.
“I killed your parents.”
Steve makes a surprised noise as Bucky states what he figures is obvious. Tony doesn’t flinch, only curling his fingers into a tight fist atop his workbench. His eyes harden, still locked on the Soldier, and he nods once.
“I figured you might’ve. Wasn’t sure though, the crash site was pretty convincing, I’ll give you that.” Tony lets out a huff of air that Steve assumes is an attempt at laughter. “I mean, I knew Hydra had something to do with it, I just wasn’t sure how. But man, when I heard about the ghost of Hydra, the Winter Soldier, I just knew it had to be you. Couldn’t be just anyone to take out Howard Stark.”
Silence falls for a moment, an electric stare between the two men making Steve suddenly very cautious of his best friend. Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier. Bucky’s killed people. Bucky killed Tony’s mom and dad.
“So what now?” is what Bucky asks, eyes still alight with challenge and guilt.
“What do you want me to do? Give you a trophy? You killing them doesn’t change anything,” Tony picks back up his screwdriver, looking back to his blueprints. It seems forced, Steve notes.
“I killed Howard and Maria Stark,” Bucky repeats. Steve steps to firmly plant himself next to him, casting a glance towards Tony as he looks to the Soldier.
He says “That wasn’t you, Buck” though he isn’t sure that’s true.
And Tony says “Listen to the Dorito, Elsa” though he feels a surge of hatred shoot through his veins at a glance towards the Soldier.
Bucky only looks confused, like a child lost in a crowd, like Tony just grew a second head. Nothing made sense anymore. He looked to Steve, the familiar features of a familiar face providing little comfort.
“But it was. I remember it. That was me, I killed them.”
Steve only stared back, but no words came.
“Are you saying you’re still the Winter Soldier?” is what Tony asks, still attempting to fake interest in his blueprints.
Bucky looks at the floor. “I don’t know.”
“Buck?” Steve says this with worry.
“What does that mean?” Tony looks up from his blueprints.
Bucky only stares at his feet, looking confused and scared, like a kicked puppy, unsure as of what he’s done wrong. His hair falls into his face, his hands clench into fists.
“I don’t remember who I am.”
Bucky goes silent for the next few days, remaining under the watchful eye of JARVIS for days as he sits in a containment room. Steve doesn’t like it, Natasha doesn’t care. The moment she saw Bucky inside the Avengers tower, her entire body tensed considerably, and she started barking orders at Sam, at Vision, at Steve to put him in a cell.
Well, Natasha’s always the one to call the shots, so here he is, sitting in a cell on day four with a grand total of two words said in all that time. The two words were directed at Clint when he entered, who attempted to ask a few questions before getting a firm “Fuck off” from the Soldier.
On day four, Natasha allows one person in, Bruce.
He enters slowly, one steaming mug in each hand and papers held between his lips. The cell is basically furniture-less, so Bruce stops a few feet away from Bucky and sits on the ground, resting the mugs on the ground beside him for the lack of a table. Bucky watches blankly from the bed where he sits, eyes trained on the mugs. Bruce takes the papers from his mouth and sets them face down in front of him, then slowly nudges one of the mugs towards the Soldier.
“Coffee, black,” Bruce reports, trying to sound nonchalant and failing drastically. “Steve said you like it and Clint just made a pot, figured I’d bring some so he wouldn’t drink the entire pot himself…” he seems to run out of words to babble out. “I mean, if you want some sugar or something, I can get you some…”
Bucky only stares for a beat, then tentatively slides onto the floor to sit. Bruce only watches, not daring to say anything as the Soldier reaches forward to grab the mug’s handle with his flesh hand. He holds the mug close to him for a moment, stooping over it and allowing the fragrant steam to waft into his face. His shoulders visibly relax at the scent.
“It’s a pretty good brew, I’ll give it that. I don’t normally drink this sort of thing since it increases my heart rate, but there’s no better way to chat than over a cup of coffee,” Bruce babbles more. “Or at least that’s what Clint and Tony say…”
Bucky slowly takes a sip of the beverage, allowing the familiar, earthy flavor to assault his taste buds in the most pleasant way, letting the warmth flow through his winter body, and the scent take him back to somewhere he still does not remember. Bruce watches with interest as he unwinds with that one sip.
“Do you mind if I ask a few questions?” he asks once Bucky draws away from his cup. He only stares at Bruce until he continues speaking. “This-“ he lays a hand on the papers sat before him. “is all we know about the Winter Soldier. It’s not much, but it can help us break your conditioning. For that to happen, though, we need your cooperation and your trust. Can you give us that?”
There’s a long stretch of silence as Bucky just stares into his cup of coffee, ignoring the doctor if he heard him at all. Bruce takes his hand off the file and wraps it around his mug, not drinking it but instead just holding it for warmth. He begins to speak again, and Bucky hears him, yes he does, but he has to work through these words to find meaning- meaning that makes any sort of sense.
“You’re confused, aren’t you? Scared? You don’t have the faintest idea why people keep calling you Bucky or James or Barnes? You don’t think you’re any sort of person deserving of a name and allies.” Bucky translates this into “You feel weak.”
“But you’re the Winter Soldier in the same way that I’m the Hulk, James. We’re not unhuman because of our monstrosities, we’re just people who’ve been messed up into believing we’re monsters.” Bucky thinks Bruce is trying to show him sympathy.
“Now Hydra, they messed you up, but this file,” Bruce puts a hand on the papers again. “This file can rebuild you, take the Soldier out of you, all we need is you to be willing to rebuild. We aren’t going to force you to do anything, we’ll only do something if it’ll help.” This means “We’re going to make you remember.”
And Bucky speaks for the first time in four days. “Why do you think you’re so bad?” his voice is groggy with disuse.
Bruce looks surprised for an instant, as if he didn’t expect Bucky to have his own questions, especially not that one. He says simply “When I get angry I turn into a giant green monster.”
And Bucky chuckles into his mug, though his laugh holds no joy. “And I’ve lived through more wars than I care to count. I’m never on the right side, though.”
Bruce stares for another moment before setting his mug down and holding out a hand. Bucky stares at the hand before peeling his flesh one off his own mug and grasping Bruce’s tentatively. Bruce says “I’m Doctor Bruce Banner, and I’ll be helping with your recovery.”
And Bucky nods and says “Good luck.”
Bruce likes James, that’s the first decision he comes to upon meeting him. For the next few days, he lives in the lab, being examined thoroughly by Bruce for any signs of instability or stress, but Bruce finds none. Instead what he finds is the equivalent of a six-foot tall angsting teenager with a metal arm. He’s scared yet prideful, strong and confused and angry. Oh man is he angry.
And if anyone knows anger, it’s Bruce.
Tony walks in after a few days, leaning against the wall as Bruce goes through the same questions he asks daily. “How are you feeling?” and “Did you take those pills I gave you?” and “Any memories back yet?” but the answers remain at “Nothing different” and “Yes” and “No.” Tony watches with interest as Bruce shines a light in Bucky’s eyes, watching the pupils refuse to dilate just as they had in days past. He then moves onto looking at one of the holographic screens with an image of a brain on it, colors moving across the surface of it, getting darker in certain places and lighter in others. Tony couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
“It’s getting better, but it’s working slower than I figured it would. I’m going to increase the dosage, if that’s alright with you?” Bruce looks over at Bucky, sat atop a table with his arms crossed over his chest.
“You’re the doctor here, I’ll trust your opinion,” Bucky says, and Tony almost laughs at the annoyance in it. Does he not realize how blessed he is? Doesn’t he see that Bruce is trying to help? Tony shakes his head at the amnesiac.
Bucky’s eyes lock on the billionaire, and Tony suddenly finds less to be laughing at. Cold blue eyes, yet they burn like fire. And doesn’t he know what fire feels like? Hasn’t he felt this same burn before?
“What’re you doing here, Stark?” is what Bucky spits at him. Tony only shrugs, attempting to remain chill and relaxed under that damn gaze. He hates him. There’s a bitter, bitter hatred that Tony attempts to ignore in front of Bruce, but it surges through his veins regardless.
“I wanted to see how it’s going, see Bruce’s doctor skills in action. It’s not often Bruce actually acts like a doctor,” Tony says simply, and this time it’s Bruce’s turn to chuckle.
“I already said I’m not that type of doctor, Tony, it’s science, not medicine,” Bruce doesn’t look away from the image of the brain still on the screen. “They’ve literally changed the chemical balance in his brain, and there’s ‘scars’ in a manner of speaking from the times they wiped his mind. It’s the strangest thing-“
“I’m sitting right here.” Bucky interrupts, catching Bruce’s attention from where his mind began to wander.
“Ah, sorry,” Bruce glances at him sheepishly. He turns fully towards the two other men, wringing his hands together as if nervous. “Basically, it’s science. I’m a scientist, not a doctor.”
Tony only shrugs as if he doesn’t know the difference. He glances between Bruce and Bucky as the scientist-not-a-doctor picks up a syringe from the table next to where Bucky was sat. Bucky flinches only slightly at the sight of the needle, but Tony, on the other hand, full out shivers.
“Okay, the needles are out, so I’m out,” Tony gets off the wall and starts heading towards the exit. “Have fun being a pincushion, Barnes.”
As Tony leaves he swears he hears Bucky call him a wimp-ass over the sound of Bruce chuckling.
The first full conversation Natasha has with Bucky happens at two am two weeks after Bucky arrives in the tower.
Natasha finds Bucky sat at the kitchen counter, a mug of coffee held between his metal and flesh hand. His shoulders were not tense, his hair was tied back, and a copy of Harry Potter was open in front of him.
“Who put that on your ‘catching up’ list?” she asks, leaning over the other side of the counter and nodding towards the novel.
“Clint,” Bucky looks up at her, tucking a piece of napkin in between the pages of the book as a bookmark so he can turn his attention to her. “What’re you doing awake?”
“Could ask you the same thing,” Is all Natasha gives for response. She idly picks up an apple from the fruit bowl at the end of the counter and takes a bite. She chews thoughtfully, not breaking eye contact with the Soldier who just watches her with obvious annoyance.
“For being so angry with me when I came to the tower, you sure are fine with me now,” Bucky points out, gently bringing his mug to his lips to take a sip. “Have a change of heart there, Natalia?”
She swallows her bite of apple and sets the fruit down on the counter. “Do you like being called Bucky?” she avoids his question.
“What?” he almost chokes on his sip of coffee.
“Do you like being called Bucky?” she repeats, eyes still burning into him.
He thinks about that for a moment. “I don’t mind it. Why?”
She only shrugs and straightens as if ready to leave, go back to bed, or at least her floor of the tower. Bucky stops her by asking-
“Do you really like being called Natasha?”
“Yes, in fact I do,” she floors him with the truth in her voice as she says this, because the Natalia that Bucky knew, or thought he knew, she never told the truth. Never. “Natalia belonged to the KGB, but Natasha,” she picked up the apple off the counter. “Natasha belongs to me,” Bucky doesn’t say anything, just continues hugging his coffee close to him. Natasha quirks an eyebrow at him. “So who does Bucky belong to?”
“Steve.” Bucky says this instantly with a laugh, but really, it isn’t that funny.
“Sounds like you got a crush there, Soldier,” Natasha smirks, but it’s teasing, nothing serious. The smile fades from her face. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”
“I remember you to a certain degree,” Bucky doesn’t avoid eye contact. He knows Natasha. Natasha knows him, the Soldier, or James, whoever he is. “You remember don’t you?”
Natasha unceremoniously throws the apple away with only a single bite taken from it. “Why do you think I wanted you locked up?”
“But you don’t want to lock me up now?”
“No, I don’t. You’ve gotten better,” she eyes him up and down before starting to leave the kitchen. She pauses in the doorway. “Think Bruce will let you spar with me tomorrow?”
“Yes. I don’t know why he wouldn’t.”
Natasha flashes him a smirk over her shoulder, giving a quick “Good” before leaving the room.
Bucky only sighs and goes back to his book.
After two and a half weeks, Bucky is allowed to live on Steve’s floor. Steve seems to be happy with the decision, but Bucky only seems to be tolerant of it. He spends more time on Natasha or Bruce’s floor, and only spends the necessary amount of time on Steve’s floor to do things like sleep or get dressed. Even so, there are times when JARVIS will inform him at about eleven o clock that Bucky fell asleep on someone else’s couch.
Natasha brings it up as they re-watch Lilo and Stitch for the fifth time (Bucky just really loves Stitch, okay?)
“I thought you were Steve’s Bucky,” she says as Bucky lays across the couch, his feet resting in Natasha’s lap.
“Didn’t say I like it.”
Natasha only chuckles and lets him fall asleep on her couch.
Clint doesn’t really talk to Bucky much at first, not since Bucky said “Fuck off” to him during their first meeting. He normally just ignores him as Bucky does target practice with throwing knives in the archery range. Clint typically just leaves whenever he finds Bucky in there, but when he walks in on him just sitting crossed-legged on the floor of the range, elbows on knees and head in hands, he finds himself closing the door behind him and locking it.
Bucky doesn’t look at him, just continues to focus on his breathing as he hears the footsteps approaching him. Clint kneels down next to the soldier, not quite sure how to get him to talk to him, not sure if he wants to talk to him. He starts out by saying-
“Hey,”
And Bucky just looks at him through the curtain of hair in his face. Clint clears his throat uncomfortably, not used to this intense of a silence unless it’s from Natasha, and even then it’s normally because he did something stupid and she’s mad at him.
“Do you want me to get Bruce or Steve or something?” Clint really doesn’t know what to do.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Bucky growls, and Clint is at a complete loss. Wanda he can deal with, Tony is pretty easy to help since he just needs a good sob and he’s fine, and he can even handle Thor when he gets in one of his moods. But this? THIS? Clint sighs. Never before has he had to deal with a ninety year old mopey amnesiac.
“You wanna talk about it?” Clint asks, because honestly, he’s not sure what else he can do at this point. Bucky sighs, rubbing his eyes and looking at the archer.
“Don’t know how to.” Bucky brushes hair out of his face, sighing heavily again.
Clint says “Start at the beginning.”
Bucky just laughs though his voice holds no humor and responds “Can’t remember the beginning.” He smiles kind of sadly at Clint, and for some reason Clint imagines him as a sad pit-bull puppy.
“You were brainwashed, right?” Clint asks. Bucky nods. “It felt like someone else was in control? You wanted to stop, but you just couldn’t?”
“How do you know that?” Bucky gets a slightly haunted look on his face the more Clint speaks.
“I was brainwashed too, not by Hydra, but by Loki,” Clint explains, trying to make Bucky stop looking like that. “And it comes back eventually, everything you missed. It takes a while, but you’ll get better, take it from me.”
Bucky looks at him curiously. “I see why Natalia likes you so much,” he says, and Clint feels himself flush slightly. Bucky gets a knowing smirk on his face at the sight. “Ah hah, caught in the widow’s web, are you?”
“You sound like you’re talking from experience,” Clint tries to give him the same amount of sass, ignoring the question. “You guys have a history?”
“I’ve been there before, yes,” Bucky watches Clint’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Hydra and the KGB worked pretty closely together. I trained her for a while.”
“And you say you don’t remember anything.” Clint rolls his eyes. Bucky smirks, but again, it’s tinged with sadness. “Am I allowed to ask what you’re doing on the floor?”
“Tried picking up a gun,” Bucky says, and Clint understands. “Flashbacks got the best of me, I guess.”
“Hey, if you’re tired of knives, I can teach you how to do archery,” Clint offers, and Bucky smiles.
That’s how Bucky makes his third friend.
Steve, Tony, and Bucky end up in the kitchen at five am, Bucky making coffee, Tony sitting at the counter with a tablet, largely ignoring the assassin, and Steve pouring himself a bowl of cereal.
“Bucky?” Steve asks, putting down the milk like he has something really important to ask.
“What, Steve?”
“Are you and Natasha, you know…” he seems uncomfortable.
“Are we what?”
And Tony can’t help saying “He’s asking if you two fondue.”
And Bucky laughs out loud as Steve turns bright red and Tony gets a proud shit-eating grin on his face, momentarily forgetting to hate Bucky.
Bucky acts more like Bucky. Steve tries to be happy, but he can see it’s all an act for him. He’s playing off what everyone wants him to be.
But when Bucky sleeps in the guest room on Steve’s floor, Steve still ends up having to wake him up in the middle of the night so he’ll stop screaming. Those nights Bucky just sits up in bed and leans his head into Steve’s shoulder, allows himself a moment to believe that it was all just a nightmare, none of it happened. Steve always brushes his fingers through Bucky’s long hair with one hand and grips the metal left hand with his other, rubbing slow circles into his palm.
It’s always something different when Bucky tries to explain. “I was… I was on a train and… I fell…” or “She was so young, Steve, couldn’t be more than thirteen,” or “Tony was so angry. He was crying so hard.”
Sometimes Bucky punches the wall or Steve or the lamp and Tony never asks why Steve had a black eye or a bucket of wall plaster.
Sometimes, it’s just silence as Bucky feebly grips at Steve’s sleeve and cries.
Steve falls asleep on those nights in Bucky’s bed. In the morning, Bucky’s always gone, either locked in the archery range with Clint or sparring with Natasha.
Sam says it’s not healthy. Steve says he doesn’t care. Bucky’s his best friend. Bucky was his pal, and even when I had nothing I had Bucky. Sam just sighs and asks why there’s no coffee left in Steve’s kitchen.
Sam doesn’t like the two of them in a room alone. He doesn’t trust the Soldier, despite Steve’s promises that the man before them is just Bucky. Bucky Barnes. The faithful friend. No sign of a psycho assassin.
If Sam was to make executive decisions in the Tower, Bucky would be living twenty floors away from Steve, not in the next room. He definitely wouldn’t allow Natasha to be sparring with him, or for Clint to be having long chats in the locked archery range with him, or for Bruce to be poking him with questions every time they’re within shouting distance. Sam doesn’t like Bucky. It’s a natural feeling, he supposes, when Bucky’s tried to kill him and his best friend before.
He doesn’t understand Steve’s conviction in Bucky’s sound mental state, not until the night about a month after the assassin’s arrival when he finds Steve’s sketch books lying around.
It’s all him, all Bucky, in the most unusual ways. A metal armed figure with little detail on one page, a sniper poised to shoot, Barnes, looking happier and younger, laughing the night away, a metal encased heart. He sees Bucky’s life in stages, from a young boy with the same defined jaw line to a sturdily built soldier with a gun slung over his shoulder. The dates written sloppily in the corner start about three months ago, the most recent only yesterday. Between sketches of love confessions he finds pictures of the team of course, like Tony high fiving his Iron Man suit, Thor’s hammer in an elevator, Natasha and Clint asleep on the couch, Bruce leaned over a book with the leg of his glasses held gently between his lips. But even drawings of the five others are grossly outnumbered by him. By Bucky.
Sam watches Steve more carefully after that, because he the only thing more dangerous than Steve living next to a previous enemy is Steve being in love with a previous enemy. For a week he prays he’s thought too hard about it, but the little things give him away. The way Steve plants himself next to Bucky whenever in the same room, or the looks he casts him when Bucky’s not looking, and the constant worrying over the amnesiac that all in the tower are aware of. Steve’s got it bad.
But even after a month, Bucky only looks bored at best when around Steve. For the most part he looks angry, or cold, often times dismissive or annoyed with him. He’s still the Soldier, and Sam sees that clearly. He just wishes Steve does too. The Soldier will never love Steve Rogers, he’ll never have the capability to do so. Only if Bucky comes back, the real Bucky, will there be reason to worry.
And so Sam puts up with the assassin living next to his mission. Barely.
Bucky approaches the doorway of the main kitchen one late night or early morning and finds Bruce sat at the counter, hands fisted in his hair, head on the cool marble surface of the counter. His glasses sit next to him on the counter, as does a glass of something gold yellow and a bottle of anti-depressants.
He’s about to enter, about to get Bruce’s attention and hug him until he falls asleep or realizes his mistake. But then Tony enters his field of vision. Bucky watches through the doorway, going unnoticed in the shadowy living room as Tony leans across the counter and grips Bruce’s hands. Bucky senses he’s intruding upon a private moment, but he still watches. This is what he does best: observing.
Bruce’s fingers gently release his hair, and Tony pulls them near him and kisses his knuckles. Bruce raises his head, watching as Tony’s eyes flicker shut and Tony’s lips smooth over the rough skin of his hands.
“Why?” Bruce asks Tony. His voice sounds feeble, quiet, shaky.
Tony’s eyes slide open and he stares at Bruce for a moment, lips still lingering against his hands. He says “Because I need you here.”
Tears fall from Bruce’s eyes, and Tony releases his hands in favor of wiping the droplets from his cheeks. Bruce reaches forth his hands and gently pulls him across the counter towards himself, allowing their breath to mingle and their eyes to flutter shut for a moment before pressing a slow kiss to his lips.
Bucky tiptoes away from the kitchen, not turning on any lights and being completely silent. He goes back to Steve’s floor and ends up crawling into Steve’s bed, wrapping his cold flesh and metal arms around Steve’s torso and burying his face in his chest. Steve only wraps his own warm arms around him and leans his cheek against the top of Bucky’s head.
Steve wakes up the next morning and Bucky is still there, nestled into his torso.
Bucky asks Steve as he makes coffee, “What were we before?”
“We were friends,” And Steve just stops stirring cream into the beverage to look at him. “Why?”
“That was it?”
Steve blushes slightly and says “We fooled around once or twice, but it was never serious. Now, c’mon, why’re you asking?”
Bucky still doesn’t look satisfied with the answer but simply takes another sip of his coffee. “No reason.”
When he goes into the lab, Bruce is there, tuning towards the door to see who was entering. He smiles upon seeing Bucky.
“Hey, how’re you feeling?” Bruce’s smile looks wrong and Bucky wordlessly walks up to him and traps him in a hug.
Bucky feels Bruce tense, counts to four, and then feels Bruce’s arms hesitantly settle around Bucky’s torso. Bucky hisses into Bruce’s ear “You’re not allowed to walk out on me like that, you hear me?”
Bruce flinches as he realizes what Bucky’s talking about. He simply nods into his shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
And Bucky just says “So am I.”
“You drink too much coffee, Barnes,” Natasha teases the Soldier.
He holds his mug a little closer to him, and Steve chuckles next to him. The three of them were sat in the living room on Steve’s floor, Buffy the Vampire Slayer playing on the screen though no one was really watching it. Natasha was curled on her side on the couch, her head resting on Bucky’s thigh. Steve sat next to Bucky, sketchbook in hand as he listens to their banter.
“So what? I like coffee,” Bucky bounces his knee slightly to bug her, and smirks when she makes a sound of annoyance. “Tastes like home.”
Steve flinches beside him. Natasha takes note.
“Thought you didn’t remember anything,” she points out.
Bucky sighs. “I don’t.”
Steve just continues to pretend he’s absorbed in his drawing, tracing the familiar lines of a certain Soviet. Lines turn into soft features, sharp eyes, and sleek hair. Natasha. He flips to a new page and begins drawing a cartoon style Dum Dum and Morita.
“How do you know it tastes like home if you don’t remember home?” Natasha asks, and Steve figures she’s trying to get something out of him. He’s fallen for twenty questions one too many times before.
“I just do, I don’t know why. For all I know it could be completely made in my head, but either way it’s still nice,” Bucky defends his caffeine addiction.
“I uh,” Steve opens his mouth to speak and regrets it instantly. Natasha’s looking up at him from Bucky’s lap, and Bucky himself peers at him curiously. He uncomfortably clears his throat. “I used to make coffee on the nights when you’d have a late shift at work. You never liked to come home and go straight to bed so we’d sit and have coffee for maybe an hour, then went to bed.”
Natasha gets a knowing smile on her lips, and Bucky just looks into his cup of coffee. Steve goes back to sketching, trying to pretend like his drawing was extremely important, trying to forget why he always finds himself associating the taste of coffee with Bucky.
This is a dream.
Bucky wanders through streets that are all too familiar but all too strange. The silence deafens him, the faded colors and dark hues hurt his eyes, but he continues stumbling.
He finds himself in front of a building, a tall apartment building made of brick and tears. He looks up, up to the very top of the building, and sees a figure with outstretched arms standing on the edge. The person is silhouetted by the dark, dark sun but somehow Bucky knows, just knows that it’s Bruce.
Tony stumbles against Bucky’s shoulder, looking upward at the scientist on the roof. He looks scared, so fucking scared, and then he’s screaming and Bruce is falling, falling, falling. And Bucky closes his eyes because he doesn’t want to see this, not this. Not Bruce.
So he opens his eyes in Stalingrad. Snowy streets and ruined buildings and Natasha. She’s young, maybe nineteen, and she’s walking towards him. He hears every piece of snow hit the ground, even though that’s impossible. And Natasha’s there, standing in front of him, dangerous and beautiful and-
The snow swirls viciously around him, biting at him and then there’s wind and he’s the one falling now. He hears someone scream “Bucky!” and he’s falling, hands reaching upward, reaching for the voice that he can’t place at that moment.
He hits something metal a little too hard. Pain hits him like a train. He’s screaming, his throat raw though nobody is there to hear him. A stubby man with round glasses peers down at him, and pain erupts in his left arm, burning up veins into nothing. He clutches his eyes closed, but he can still see it in perfect detail. Zola. Zola pressing needles and blades and rope into his skin. Soon the pain goes away, and he’s left feeling just the metal of the table, the throb in his arm, and the numbness in his head.
Somewhere, maybe on the other side of the room, maybe the other side of the world, someone whispers “Who the hell is Bucky?”
And then he’s in Steve’s bed. In the Tower. Home.
And Steve’s there, arms wrapped around him and legs tangled with his. Bucky nuzzles against his chest, breathing in the scent of graphite and something that he can only describe as warm.
“Steve?” he says, not expecting a response. Steve doesn’t stir, so Bucky continues. “I remember being on Zola’s table.” He waits for a moment, testing to see if Steve would wake up. He doesn’t. “I don’t remember much, Steve, but I remember that.”
For a good long moment he lets silence fall, not saying anything to fill it. He recalls being so happy that Steve was there, that Steve was with him when he got off the table. He was confused because Steve was big, but he didn’t care. It was Steve.
“When you found me…” Bucky whispers this into Steve’s chest. “I knew that I was so gone for you. But I was so fucking scared, Steve. I didn’t want to hurt you or Peggy, and I didn’t want to get hurt myself. I was such a coward…”
He allows silence to fill the darkness again, burying his face in the cloth of Steve’s shirt. He remembers when they used to crawl into bed together on nights when Steve was too sick to fight the cold off alone. Now Bucky was the one who needed to fight the cold, the winter.
Steve shifts, gently pressing his lips to Bucky’s forehead, and Bucky freezes.
“Steve?”
“Hey,” Steve’s voice is warm and soft.
“I’m sorry,” is all Bucky can think to say. He can practically feel the frown on Steve’s face as he feels Steve’s hands gently brushing up his shoulders, his neck, to settle on his cheeks.
And then there’s lips against his own, pressing a soft kiss against his mouth. It’s warm and forgiving, and leaves him hungry for more. He rests his hands against the sides of Steve’s neck, pulling him closer and pressing their chests together, feeling his heartbeat. Bucky tilts his head slightly, parting lips and letting soft noises slip from his throat.
And then Bucky wakes up on Clint’s couch.
It’s three am, there’s a blanket over him, and Natasha kneels beside the couch with her hands gripped around his wrists.
For a moment they just stare at each other, Bucky’s breathing deep as he attempts to calm himself. Natasha releases his wrists and allows him to sit up on the couch, Natasha positioned kneeling down in front of him. From here she looks almost beautiful, and Bucky thinks that if he were a different man, if she were a different woman, then maybe he’d fall in love with her. Maybe they could just be in love with each other.
“I swear to God, Barnes, if you try shrugging me off and going to Bruce’s room now then you’re not going to make it past the coffee table,” she says with a glint of teasing in her eyes. Bucky almost laughs, but instead he feels the threads holding him together snap all at once.
“I remember you,” he says. “I remember being undercover in Moscow and you found me. It was the one time I broke my programming before this.” Bucky looked her directly in the eyes, trying to show her the truth that he’s never told her before. “You kissed me in Red Square.”
“I did, yes.” Her expression was unreadable, a true spy was she.
“And then I almost killed you.”
“You did.”
Bucky sighs, dropping his head into his hands. Memories. He wasn’t sure if he liked them or not. Slender arms wind around his slumped figure, lips press into his hair. It’s not romantic, not anything. It’s just Natasha. And he’s just Bucky. Steve’s Bucky.
The memories come back all at once.
It’s like someone flips a switch (Bruce thinks hauntingly, that maybe someone did). One moment Bucky’s waking next to Bruce and Clint, headed to the movie room to watch something called Donnie Darko. Then, Bucky’s on the ground, hitting the carpet with a thud like a corpse. Bruce almost catches him, but his weight is too much and Bucky ends up falling almost directly on his face.
When he wakes up, the first thing he sees is Tony leaning over him, eyes locked on his left shoulder.
The first word that slips from Bucky’s mouth is “Howard?”
Tony’s eyes snap to Bucky’s, giving him a look so full of hatred that Bucky almost cowers. Tony meets his gaze for a few moments, then directs his eyes back to Bucky’s metal arm.
Bucky then registers that Tony has his arm opened, one of the panels removed to get at the wires and gears within. He wants to ask Tony what happened, but remains silent. He wants to ask where Steve is, and w where Rebecca is, and why the Dodgers moved to LA. He wants to ask why he wants to ask that. He wants Steve. On some level he processes that he needs Steve.
The sound of a door opening echoes in the silent lab, followed by the sound of hard soled shoes.
Natasha enters his field of vision across from Tony, giving one look to his arm before looking him dead in the eyes. Bucky feels uncomfortable under that gaze, but that can’t be right. Natasha was just Natasha. Bucky knew he could handle her on anything. He could kill her. Or kiss her. Depends on what the situation called for, really. Natasha wasn’t scary.
“What happened to you?” she asks, her voice heavy with what sounds like concern. But that’s not right either.
“I’m not… I don’t know,” Bucky blinks in confusion, thoughts slotting into his head wrong and faces that didn’t previously exist attaching to names. “Where’s Steve?”
“Him and Sam are on a mission, won’t be back until later tonight,” she says, looking him up and down. “Clint and Bruce are waiting outside the lab; they’re worried about you.”
Tony lets out a huff of air that Bucky thinks was supposed to be a laugh. “The Soldier defense squad is still going strong, huh?” Tony looks at Bucky, hatred boiling under his skin. “That’s what happened, right? Something in that Soldier in you snapped?”
“Tony-“ Natasha starts to protest, but Bucky speaks.
“I think…” Bucky interrupts, and both Tony and Natasha fall silent to look at him. “I think the Soldier left.”
Natasha and Tony exchange looks and Natasha looks back to him. “Left?”
“I feel… different…” Bucky struggles to find the word. Different is about as good of word as he can think of to describe what he’s feeling.
Tony scoffs, closing up the panel on his arm and shoving tools onto his workbench. He mutters under his breath about getting Bruce and leaves the room, leaving only Natasha standing over a disoriented Bucky. Bucky blinks up at her, feeling like he should say something but he’s not sure what. Natasha crosses her arms, eyes soft with worry in a way that Bucky doesn’t recall ever seeing.
She says, “So you remember?”
And he says, “Yes.”
And somewhere, halfway across the country, Steve turns to Sam and says, “You know, he’s one of the good guys.”
Sam only shakes his head. “Why’re you so in love with him?”
It’s nearly five am when Steve arrives home. Natasha meets him at the elevator, and tells him tersely, “It’s not bed time yet, Rogers.” The strain in her voice is enough to make Steve alert and awake.
Bucky sits on the couch on Steve’s floor- their floor. The living room alone is bigger than their meager apartment from the 40s in whole. Clint stands near the windows, one eye on the door and the other on Bucky, hands shoved in his pockets and his head filled with worry.
When Natasha and Steve enter, Bucky stands, eyes locked on Steve’s face. Natasha’s eyes meet Clint’s and she shrugs her head towards the door. With only mild hesitation, Clint follows Natasha out of the room.
Steve stands in the doorway; Bucky stands next to the couch. They both stare at each other. Steve is covered in dirt and sweat, and a line of a cut winds along his cheek. Bucky wants to hug him, wants to say something, anything, but he just stares. Breath leaves him in that instant.
He’s beautiful.
The thought strikes Bucky as odd, unwelcomed. He looks Steve dead in the eyes.
“I remember.”
Steve for a moment looks doubtful, but Bucky knows this is a defense mechanism. If someone knows one’s weakness, then they’ll use it against them. Hesitantly, Steve takes a single step into the room, licking his lips and asking-
“How much?”
“God, I remember everything, Stevie,” Bucky breathes. “I remember the apartment, and Mr. Costello’s piano, Dum Dum’s stupid j-“
In one fluid motion Steve is in front of Bucky with his arms wrapped around his torso, holding him tightly and pressing his face into the Soldier- not the Soldier’s- shoulder. His breath hits Bucky’s neck, sending shivers down his spine in a way he might describe as pleasant. He might. He does. He wraps his arms around Steve’s shoulders, pulling him closer, leaning his head against Steve’s.
Bucky whispers against his hair, “I can’t believe I forgot.”
Steve whispers back, “It’s not your fault, Buck,” He presses his lips gently into Bucky’s neck and whispers again, “It’s not your fault.”
For long moments they stand there locked in each other’s embrace. The only noise was the soft muttering of Steve, saying things like, “You’re okay,” and “You’re fine,” and “I’m sorry.” His lips gently brush against Bucky’s neck, making him hyper aware of their closeness, their proximity. He loves it. He loves him.
And again-
He’s beautiful.
How he missed it before, he’s unsure. He’s sure of it now though. Steve Rogers is the most beautiful man he’s ever met. In his ninety years he’s never met someone as stunning.
He whispers this to Steve now.
And Steve pulls back just enough to look Bucky in the eyes. Blue- fierce blue against softer tones. It’s electric. Steve licks his lips, eyes flickering over Bucky’s features.
Bucky presses his lips to Steve’s.
All Steve can think is that Bucky tastes like coffee and Brooklyn.
Tony sits in the living room at seven am watching the sun rise. He’s alone. He’s silent.
“I can’t imagine that a sorry will do much good?”
Tony turns to see who had spoken, and is met with the sight of an exhausted looking Bucky. He holds a steaming mug in his metal hand, a distinct scent leaving no doubt as of what the beverage was. A tinge of annoyance shoots through the billionaire’s body at the sight of him.
“No. No, it won’t,” Tony confirms, turning back to the huge windows to look out at the sun raising over the skyline. He hears Bucky’s footsteps near the couch and then there’s a stoop in the cushions as the amnesiac sits next to him.
“You know I hate myself for it, right?” Bucky says this, and Tony visibly flinches with irritation.
“Good. So do I.”
For a few moments they lapse into silence, eyes trained on the sky as it turns from a deep red to peach to gold. The city begins to stir below the tower’s height, people taking to the streets and taxis and buses giving an occasional honk at the morning traffic. A police siren wails somewhere far off.
Tony looks at the man next to him. Long hair, sharp eyes, strong features. He’s so broken. So gone. He’s killed people, innocent people. He killed Howard Stark. And Maria Stark. He almost killed Steve. He almost killed Natasha.
“I… I was twenty one when you… killed my mom and dad. It was a week before Christmas…” Tony ignores the pressure in his chest as he says this because it was more than twenty years ago and he’s a grown man and- “I hated him, my dad. But I still… I was so…”
“You cried at the scene,” Bucky’s voice is soft, but it speaks volumes. “I remember that day, Tony.”
“Do you?” Tony’s voice is strained with annoyance, disquiet, and resentment. “Do you really?”
“You were so angry.”
“Damn straight I was,” Tony spits, looking back to the windows. He crosses his arms tightly over his chest.
Bucky sips his coffee. “You can hate me if you want. I deserve it.”
Tony only scoffs and looks over at him. Bucky’s staring at him, eyes honest and large. For a moment he’s rendered speechless. Then he says-
“You sound like Bruce.”
And Bucky says, “That’s because we’re both monsters.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” Tony shakes his head at that. “And if you are, well, then I’m glad you have Steve.”
Bucky smiles in a sad, pitying manner and says, “And Bruce is blessed to have you.”
It’s early on a Friday morning and Bucky watches the sun rise next to a playboy philanthropist who looks exactly like his father. He sips his coffee, stands from the couch, and leaves the room.
Tony watches him leave, then picks up a tablet and begins typing.
By noon, there’s designs and schematics of a navy blue jacket with a single right arm sitting on Steve and Bucky’s coffee table. The metal arm is included in the sketch, and where the red star currently resided, there was a white star surrounded by blue, kind of like Steve’s shield.
Steve asks where they came from. Bucky just smiles and thinks that he’s right, Bruce is blessed to have him.
It’s late on a Friday night. It’s raining. Bucky and Steve stand on the roof, arms wrapped around each other, letting the rain pour over them. They gently sway back and forth to imaginary music, Bucky’s soft, melodic humming becoming a fitting soundtrack for their dance.
Steve gently whispers against Bucky’s hair, “I love you.”
Somewhere inside Bucky, a Soldier wonders why he ever wanted to kill him. Why would he put out his only light? How did he lose that much of himself? Bucky’s humming pauses as he says against Steve’s throat-
“Until the end of the line, right?”
Steve presses a kiss into Bucky’s mouth, soft lips cold and gentle. Love. This is love. Bucky loves being loved, loves loving Steve. He smiles into the kiss.
The rain keeps falling in New York City. The soft humming of an unknown song continues on. Steve’s heart beats, and Bucky’s hammers in his chest. The world moves on, going from one New York to the next.
Somewhere in this New York, a team of broken people sew each other back together the only ways they know how to.
Somewhere in the tower below them, Tony reminds Bruce again to breathe, to remember he’s beautiful, and to remember he loves him. Clint and Natasha lean against each other on the couch, wordless with their hands tangled together. Sam gently holds the photo of him and Riley, eyes gazing fondly at his best friend.
Somewhere in the tower, a cup of coffee lays forgotten next to a sketch book.
And they’re okay, somehow. They’re doing just fine.