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It doesn’t hurt. Steve barely knows the feeling. Some part of him was always in pain, always hurt; now, nothing does. He steps out of the chamber on shaky legs, his muscles weak from holding themselves taut through the pain. Inside the chamber was a world he knew: being confined, being in such unimaginable pain he couldn’t stop the screams bursting from his throat. It’s familiar to him.
Outside, it’s different. There’s no pain. Everything is bright and loud and small. He’s disoriented, and some part of him wants to crawl back inside to where it’s safe. But people are waiting for him. He steps toward Peggy, her mouth bright red—so that’s what red looks like—and her eyes even brighter when she looks at him. He can smell her perfume, the metallic tang of the chamber, the starch of the technicians’ lab coats. He can hear the murmurs of the spectators, the hum of the electricity, the beat of his heart. He sees Peggy smile, and Steve thinks he might like this world a little bit.
There’s an explosion. A shot rings out. Dr. Erskine is on the floor. Steve can see the blood—red—and smell the gunpowder and hear the beat of Dr. Erskine’s heart get fainter and fainter.
He runs. Without thought, without pain, without effort. He chases the gunman down the streets of Brooklyn. Everything rushes past him in a blur, but he knows these streets well; they’ve made their mark on him as much as he’s made his mark on them. He’s going fast, but some distant part of him watches the city flash by. It reminds him that he’s still here, that this is still his home in spirit if not in body.
Afterward, Steve stares down at his hands and his bare feet, his brain catching up to what his body’s done. For once, it hasn’t given out on him when everything else in him refused to give up. His body is now whole, but he still feels empty: he’s lost a friend, a mentor. A good man, Steve thinks.
*
“Each one you buy is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy’s gun,” he says. He stands in front of the crowd, his costume too tight in some places and much too loose in others. He stares at the sea of faces, and they stare back. Steve is used to being stared at, but he can’t fight them: he has a job to do here. He tells himself he’s doing his part, like the women and children, and those who can’t—or won’t—fight. They tell him he’s not doing any less than the soldiers fighting for their country, except Steve never wants to settle for less. He’s fought for all the scraps he’s ever earned, and he’s proud of them. But now that he can do better, he must.
It’s a whirlwind tour, and he makes it across the ocean in the end. He’s in Italy when he hears about the 107th unit going missing. He makes a decision: he’s done with being a showgirl instead of a soldier. He’ll make it up to Bucky, to Dr. Erskine, to himself. No one—not even Peggy—thinks he can do it, but that’s never stopped him before.
He finds Bucky strapped to a chair, mumbling to himself. His rank, his name, his number: all that’s left of what they took from him.
“Steve,” Bucky says, and his hands on Steve’s chest send his heart beating double-time.
When they get back to base, it’s everything Steve hoped for. Fighting the enemy, being on foreign soil, Bucky and a team of good men—and a good woman—by his side. He commands: he speaks, and they listen. There is respect in their eyes, not pity or disgust or mockery.
He’s fast, he’s strong, he’s everything they made him to be in battle. But not when it matters. He’s a fighter: only that. Bucky falls a long, long way down. For all his superhuman strength and speed, Steve isn’t fast enough or strong enough to catch him.
It’s beyond anger, beyond rage, that his body, after all, fails him.
*
“This is my choice,” he tells Peggy. Some part of him hopes she believes it because he’s not sure he does. He jumped on the grenade without a thought. Maybe the serum has changed him more than he knows, because a small part of him is hesitating now, even as his hands steer toward the ocean. He can save the world—who would he become if he chose not to?
Augmentation, Dr. Erskine said, made your good qualities better and your bad ones worse. Steve doesn’t know good from bad anymore. He can see a full spectrum of color now, but all he knows is grey. He won’t betray Peggy, or Bucky, or Colonel Phillips—only himself. No concession. He’ll be the hero they meant him to be.
He’s got no right to do any less than the soldiers already gone, but part of him knows none of them had a choice. He can't make a choice: he never had one.
He listens to Peggy’s voice on the radio, crackling with static and—maybe—something else. It’s a nice voice, he thinks. He thinks about the dance they’ll never have, the jazz band playing the one-two beat, how her voice would sound with her throat against his chest, warm and husky. He closes his eyes.
*
“You should have left it in the ocean,” he tells Fury. He’s moving double-time, twice as fast as the people of the future, but somehow he’s still falling behind. He’s awake, but he doesn’t want to be. He wonders if he can take it all back, go back in the chamber and rewind time. He’s tired of someone else pressing his fast forward button.
They give him something to fight for, and a team to work with. At least some things are familiar. Still, Steve feels like he’s back in his old body, two steps behind everyone else and last one to be picked for the team. He’s running to catch up and not get left behind, but he wants to go at his own pace. He can’t, though, with all the scars and fingerprints that cover his body.
*
“You know me,” Steve tells Bucky, because Steve sure as hell doesn’t. Everything in this world is a jigsaw puzzle, each piece too blurry and close up to make out a bigger picture. Steve knows—he’s been told—the pieces fit somehow. But Bucky’s here, in sharp focus. Maybe his shape is different, but so is Steve’s. They’ll fit together anyway. He’s lost everything, everyone. He won’t lose Bucky again.
He doesn’t see the Winter Soldier, only Bucky. That’s where they’ve gone wrong. Everything fell apart when Bucky left him. He’s proud to be Captain America, but he’s prouder to have Bucky as a friend. They had nothing to give each other, but it was the best gift Steve ever had; he’s not sure he deserves it now. But he’s with Bucky every step of the way. It’s not something he’s afraid of doing, no matter the path.
“I’m not going to fight you,” Steve tells him. He’s never said—much less thought—those words before. Stop fighting, he tells himself. There’s no one here to fight.
His grip loosens on his shield, the one they made for him. He can’t hold onto it anymore. He has to choose. If he doesn’t have Bucky, he has nothing.
He’s the one to fall this time, and the last thing he sees is Bucky’s face. They’re even now: one for one. A zero sum.
*
Somehow he’s forgotten that Bucky doesn’t always play by the rules, at least when it comes to Steve. He does what Steve couldn’t. Bucky’s mind betrayed him, but his body and heart don’t. Steve feels cold metal fingers dig into his shoulder and drag him up from the water.
It hurts. He reaches up to press his mouth to Bucky’s and kisses him, sealing all their pieces back together.