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He knew his memory was spotty; new memories were still coming back more days than not, but there didn't seem to be any pattern to them. Large swathes of his life were still little better than a mystery to him, but some things were as clear as if they'd happened just yesterday.
He remembered winters. He did. And until that moment, he'd have sworn his memory of the way the cold would slowly seep into his bones in that tiny draughty apartment was perfect.
But clearly there was something he'd lost, because he would swear he'd never been this cold in quite this way before – the Asset did not feel cold; such human responses were a weakness not to be tolerated or considered.
And surely Boston wasn't that much colder than New York... right?
Bucky pulled his ever-more threadbare blanket higher around his shoulders and huddled closer to the wall. Unlike many of the places he'd found to crash in the last few months, most of the windows still had at least partially intact glass, but the wind still found ways to whistle past his corner.
Using the backpack containing what meagre possessions he had accumulated since breaking free as a pillow, he leaned sideways into the wall and closed his eyes. He didn't sleep these days, not really, not true sleep. He could never turn off his hard-learnt vigilance for that. But he knew that if he didn't find some rest, he wouldn't be able to keep going.
And he had to keep going. For what, he wasn't sure, but stopping was out of the question. Stopping was giving up, and he was a Barnes. It wasn't in him to quit.
He was just starting to doze off when a soft creaking noise from the next room reached his ears. Followed by a not-quite-so-soft bang as the wind slammed a door shut.
'It's just the wind,' he told himself, taking a deep breath. 'You set traps at all of the potential entrances, you're not going to be disturbed without warning.'
Just as he was about to re-close his eyes, a whisper of movement through the moonlit area of the next room caught his attention, snapping him to high alert. As he shifted under the blanket to a better offensive position, he ran through what remained of his arsenal; he'd run out of ammunition for all the projectile weapons in the middle of that last base, but his knives were still sharp. He could do some damage if needed.
The ragged figure that appeared in the door-less frame across the room a few moments later was not what he was expecting. Surely this shuffling creature could not have bypassed his alarms so easily?
Something fishy was going on; Bucky slid his left arm behind his back to grip the handle of the knife stashed there, just in case.
“Hello?” he rasped out quietly.
The stranger stopped. At this distance, even in the low light, Bucky could make out the wrinkled and cracked features of what appeared to be an elderly man. Bucky had been around too long and seen too many things to trust appearances, though, and he didn't loosen his grip on his blade.
The man seemed to be evaluating him in turn, eyes tracking across Bucky's huddled form.
“You okay? Lookin' for something?” Bucky continued when no response to his greeting was forthcoming.
More staring.
“Hey buddy, seriously, what do you want? Some of us are tryin' to sleep here,” Bucky said testily, still not entirely certain that violence wasn't going to be required.
“You do not belong here.” The voice was startlingly deep and booming coming from such an apparently frail man.
And also – what the hell?
“Uhh... I belong here just as much as you do, pal. I got here first.”
“There is a better place for you.”
Oh if only. While Bucky knew there were plenty places he could go, none of them were viable options. Some were a danger to himself, and his newly won autonomy and memories. The other... he couldn't even consider it. He couldn't put someone he cared about so much in that kind of danger. Not again. Never again.
No matter how much he missed them. Him.
“Whatever you say,” he scoffed, relaxing a little. If there was to be a fight, it would have begun already.
“It is not for me to convince you, but there is somewhere you must be, Bucky Barnes.”
'How did he know my name?' Bucky thought, shrinking back against the wall and starting to worry again. He opened his mouth to demand an answer, but the strange man continued on before he could get a word out.
“You will be visited tonight by three ghosts. Do not be afraid, you will know these ghosts when they arrive. Listen to what they say; they speak only the truth. Expect the first at midnight.”
Bucky was still spluttering in confusion as the man turned sharply about and disappeared back out of the room far more quickly than his aged appearance would suggest.
Bucky waited for the door to bang once again as the man left, but there was none, and no shadows remained in the moonlight. He was simply gone.
Bucky wasn't sure what to think. The man was clearly deranged. How he'd known Bucky's name was a mystery, or maybe it was just a guess. The mad ravings of a diseased mind. After all, as far as the general populace knew, Bucky Barnes was long dead.
And as for ghosts... Bucky knew there was more going on in the world than he'd ever have believed as a kid – his own continued existence for a start – but ghosts? Really? That was something else entirely.
Bucky's instincts were warring: to check the perimeter after the incursion (however crazy and harmless), or to stay warm. Or as warm as possible in the circumstances, anyway.
In the end, paranoia won out. There was no way he would get any rest if he didn't re-check his entrance alarms. And every room. And what was left of the closets.
He took his blankets, though.
Fifteen minutes later, he wrapped himself back up in his corner and closed his eyes, confident in the knowledge that he was, indeed, alone.
Sleep was, for once, not long in coming.
Bucky slept more soundly than usual, but awoke with a start an unknown number of hours later. It was still the dead of night, but he couldn't be sure of the time.
A moment later, he spotted the reason he had awoken so suddenly; there was a man standing just a couple of feet away. A man who... didn't entirely look solid, somehow.
“Hullo, Bucky,” the figure said.
If Bucky hadn't known the man was dead – definitely, properly, died-in-his-old-age-and-had-a-funeral dead – he'd have sworn up and down that that voice belonged to Falsworth.
The man stepped closer. The light coming from the moon outside the window was dim, but what there was was enough for Bucky to make out his features.
And damn if he didn't also look like Falsworth. Right down to the uniform beret and everything.
“Why so shocked, old boy?” couldn't-be-Falsworth asked, taking another step towards Bucky. “You were told I was coming. We checked.”
Bucky closed his eyes tightly and shook his head, but when he opened them again a few seconds later, surely-wasn't-really-Falsworth was still standing there, watching him.
“But you're dead,” he said stupidly another long moment later.
“Well by all accounts so are you,” not-Falsworth said haughtily. “Although in my case it is in fact correct. That would be how I got this whole 'ghost of Christmas past' gig, after all.”
Belatedly, an insane thought struck Bucky, and he fumbled to look at his watch. 12.02am. And this imitation-Falsworth had been here a couple of minutes...
It couldn't be. The very idea was ridiculous.
And yet.
Here it was midnight, and – if said creature was to be believed – he was being visited by a ghost. The first of three, if the mad ramblings of that possibly-not-a-harmless-homeless-man earlier had, in fact, been accurate.
“I say, you were warned about this, weren't you? I mean they told us you had been, but...” Possibly-maybe-perhaps-actually-Falsworth was looking concerned.
“I guess...” Bucky conceded, looking harder at the man in front of him. If it was a disguise, some technological tomfoolery intended to either scare him or talk him into something dreadful, it was a good one. And even in this day and age, that sort of high-tech wizardry wasn't available to many. And most of those that it was available to had been wiped out not so long ago. Bucky had made sure of some of that himself.
When the most logical explanation for something was ghosts... “It's just a little bit unbelievable.” He added.
“Well yes, I do rather imagine it is, from your side,” potentially-Falsworth agreed. “They did warn us about this, when they handed over the job, but I must confess I've already rather forgotten the speech they prepared for me to convince you. It was all rather silly, especially for a man in your position. I thought just getting on with this would work much better.”
Bucky sighed. He looked like Falsworth, sounded like Falsworth. He certainly acted like Falsworth. If it wasn't for that pesky dying-and-coming-back-as-a-ghost concept, he'd agree wholeheartedly that the man in front of him was Falsworth.
Although perhaps the more challenging question ahead of him was not who the man was, but why he was here.
(If he was, in fact, here, and not just a hallucination dreamt up by Bucky's own fractured mind. Something Bucky wasn't quite going to rule out just yet.)
“Getting on with what, exactly?” he asked warily.
“Why with being the ghost of Christmas past, of course,” maybe-imaginary-Falsworth said. “I'm going to take you on a few rather literal trips down memory lane, and you can make of them what you will.”
Bucky frowned. If the purpose of this was just to tell him a few stories about his past, maybe trigger a few memories, then there was no need for a ghost-slash-hallucination. If that was all he was after, there were dozens if not hundreds of biographies he still hadn't read. And there was always Steve...
“So you're here to talk about the old days?” It didn't sound any less ridiculous out loud.
“Oh of course not, old chap,” might-as-well-just-call-him-Falsworth said. “I said literal and I meant it, I'm going to be taking you to the old days. Special temporary power they gave us to go with the job; travelling in time and space, without even the need for some fancy wormhole.”
Bucky really wasn't sure he wanted to go anywhere with this man. Ghost. Whatever. But what did he really have to lose? Besides, the other man didn't even appear to be armed, and Bucky could easily take him down if he had to even if he was.
What was the harm in just going with it, just this once?
'It's worked out for you before,' his mind reminded him traitorously. 'You and Steve would never have...'
...which was quite enough of that. He couldn't afford such thoughts. Especially not now.
He dragged his mind back to the present, and what this apparition of his old friend was saying.
“Wait, when you say 'us'?” he said, as the repeated word suddenly struck him.
“Oh, me, Gabe and ol' Jacques,” Falsworth replied. “You'll be seeing them before the end of the night. I don't think they expected us to actually agree, because they asked all of us, even with just the three jobs requiring a candidate. We had to draw lots, just as if we were all schoolboys again in the playground. I'm not sure Jim or Dum Dum will ever speak to us again.”
“Speak to you,” Bucky said slowly. “In...?”
“The afterlife, yes. I see more of the boys now we're all dead than I did the last few years before I died. But that's beside the point. I have a lot to show you, and not much time to do it. Come on.”
This was probably completely insane, but Bucky wasn't going to let himself care. After making sure that his favourite knife was safely secured at his back, he stood up and took the hand extended to him.
Here went nothing.
The sensation even as he gripped Falsworth's hand was peculiar, more solid than he'd have expected from a ghost, but not quite... human.
Even so, what happened a few moments later was a shock. The world swirled around him, sound rushing past his ears and his head reeling.
When everything settled back into place around him, he wasn't where he'd started. Or when. That whole time-travel thing wasn't a joke, apparently.
The snowy streets around him were unmistakably the run-down Brooklyn neighbourhood he'd lived in through the 30s. The grocers on the corner that he knew had closed down during the war was right there, the same posters plastered to the walls.
Bucky stood there for several long moments, just looking. People walked past, curled into themselves against the cold and paying him no notice. For a change, Bucky himself didn't feel cold.
Falsworth took a step closer to his side. “Would you like to go inside?”
Bucky tried to guess what date exactly it was. He could just about narrow down a year, but even with the gaps in his memory he remembered a lot happening in the winter of that year. “Can we?” he checked. “We won't be in danger of changing the past or something?”
Falsworth shook his head. “They can't see us. This is just for you.”
He could be walking into anything – if Falsworth really was a ghost, really was telling the truth, this could be something he didn't even remember. Bucky couldn't resist, even if he was apprehensive.
“Okay,” he said. “Take me in.”
The walk up to the apartment was just as he remembered – dimly lit, drab and narrow. Instead of opening the front door to walk through it, Falsworth pulled him straight through the closed door – not an experience Bucky ever expected to have. And not one he planned to experience again after this was over.
Inside, strung up popcorn strands marked their attempt to decorate for the holidays. Bucky remembered that they'd hoped to be able to afford a small tree but, as with all of the following years, expenses over the winter had mounted up by the middle of December and made it an impossibility.
There was a cough from the bedroom. Compulsively Bucky headed towards it; his past self, the version of him that actually belonged in this time, was already there when he arrived, gently helping Steve to sit up and take a sip of water.
“You did this frequently, didn't you?” Falsworth's ghost said from beside him. “When you and Steve were young.”
Bucky nodded, watching himself tend to Steve. “Not so much when we were really tiny and his mom was still alive. But then it was just the two of us. I couldn't have been anywhere else, not when he needed me.”
“Sounds rather one-sided,” Falsworth said mildly.
Bucky wasn't sure how to explain it, how to explain the intense relationship he and Steve had shared even before it became more, explain everything that Steve had done for him his whole life, even at his very sickest. “He looked after me in so many other ways. It was the two of us against the world. We were a team.”
Contemporary Bucky perched on the edge of the bed, pushing damp hair back from Steve's face as he settled back into the bed, breath still wheezy but no longer coughing.
Bucky had fading memories of spending most of that winter terrified that Steve wouldn't make it to spring. Iit had been their first winter just the two of them alone, and sometimes it had seemed that even if Bucky did everything he could, it might not be enough.
Watching his much younger self now, none of that was showing; it was buried under the affection and care written all over his face.
“You loved him,” Falsworth whispered, clearly seeing everything in front of him just as clearly as Bucky could.
“Yes, I did,” Bucky responded just as quietly. 'I do,' his mind continued on, oblivious to his best attempts to ignore that fact. “The Steve in that bed there didn't know it yet, but I really, really did.”
Steve had woken up on Christmas morning that year able to breathe easily for the first time in weeks. Back then they'd called it a miracle.
In front of them, Steve had drifted back to sleep, and his Bucky was decidedly going nowhere, determined to keep watch in case he be needed.
“We should go,” Falsworth said, back to a normal tone. “I have more to show you, and time is running short.”
Bucky took one last look at the scene playing out in front of him before letting Falsworth draw him away. They weren't quite back to the front door of the apartment when the swirling, whooshing feeling overtook him again.
He expected to land back in the abandoned building he'd been sleeping in before, but instead he found himself outside, in the pitch dark.
It took his eyes a few seconds to acclimatise to the lack of light, but his nose had already told him where they were by then.
Even with everything that had been done to him, he didn't think he'd ever be able to forget the smell of German forests.
He knew almost immediately when they were too – the Commandos had been, miraculously, on leave for Christmas in 1944 – which meant this was '43, and they'd barely yet formed a unit.
He didn't actually remember this Christmas, not really. Or large chunks of this December. Most things from when Steve had come bursting into that factory to rescue them until several months into 1944 were significantly more swiss-cheese-like than anything else in his head.
“Ah, our first Christmas together. You old romantic, Monty,” he grinned at Falsworth.
He got a wry smile in return. “Well I do try.”
They didn't have to walk through the woods for long before coming across the tiny clearing where the Howling Commandos had set up camp for a few days. (Or, as Bucky remembered frequently happening when they planned to set up somewhere, a single night before the enemy got too close and they had to move.)
The camp was mostly quiet, soft snoring drifting from several of the tents set in a tight circle. With no memory of this particular camp, Bucky couldn't be sure if it was his younger self or Steve that was supposed to be on watch, but they were both awake anyway.
As they got closer, he could pick up on the actual content of the soft conversation they were having, rather than just the tone.
“I just feel so guilty,” Steve was saying, a worried wrinkle in his forehead that Bucky recognised all too well.
“Well stop,” younger Bucky told him flatly. “Jim's going to be just fine. It's a flesh wound, clean through without even hitting the bone. He'll be back to normal in no time.”
“That's not the point,” Steve went on. “If I was a proper commander, a proper trained army commander, I'd have planned it better. No one needed to get hurt.”
Bucky scoffed in sync with his uniformed counterpart. Years of Catholic upbringing had stuck to Steve but good; he had a guilt complex that just wouldn't quit.
“Don't know if you've noticed, Stevie, but we're kinda in a war,” young-Bucky said. “People get hurt. Soldiers especially.”
“Still not the point, Buck,” Steve insisted, eyes dropping. “Maybe I really am just some jumped up showgirl. I don't know what I'm doing. You'd all be better off with someone else.”
“I wouldn't be here without you, Steve.” Bucky watched himself check the surroundings carefully before reaching out to take Steve's hand. “Most of the guys wouldn't either. And I'm not just talking your ill-advised rescue last month. They're here for you.”
Steve shook his head, but Bucky just shifted closer and nudged his head back up. “Seriously. I don't think anyone really knows what we're doing here, but if it hadn't been for you today, Jim would have more than just a minor leg wound. And half of us would probably be in pieces. You can't stop everything.”
Steve shrugged. “If anyone has to get hurt, I'd rather it be me. I'll heal faster.”
Bucky sighed, noting that his younger self did the same. The stupid self-sacrificing bit really, really had to stop. Seventy years on and he was still pulling the same old stunts.
Young-Bucky was clearly already tired of it. “Despite what they implied sometimes in church, we aren't actually given troubles in order of our ability to handle them. That's just not how it works. If it did, don't you think I'd have been able to take some of those chest infections instead of you, when you were small? I mean, I would have, but that's not how it works.”
“None of us ever knew how close our dear Captain came to giving up,” Falsworth said, suddenly close by his side. “It never showed, not to us. Because he had you.”
Bucky didn't remember this particular evening, but he did remember a few other late night conversations that had gone like this, usually after a mission had gone badly. Steve always took it hard when one of them was hurt, and tended to blame himself.
By the end, Bucky had been able to pretty accurately predict a bad night, and always made sure he was ready and waiting to listen and talk some sense into him.
In front of them, Bucky and Steve curled towards each other – close enough for comfort, but far enough apart for plausible deniability.
“He was lucky to have you,” Falsworth continued.
“Not as lucky as I was to have him.”
A beeping alarm – which reminded Bucky of nothing so much as a watch alarm from the 1980s – went off from around Falsworth's neck.
“Time's up,” he said soberly, reaching over to grasp Bucky's hand.
This time, when the world righted itself around him, Bucky found himself back in his abandoned building, next to his tiny pile of belongings.
Falsworth stood in front of him and gave him a sharp nod followed by a salute. “It was good to see you again, old boy. Jacques will be here at oh-one-hundred hours.
Bucky returned the salute. Falsworth then just faded away, right in front of him, leaving nothing but thin air.
A glance at his watch told him that, despite the time-travel he'd just taken part in, he still had over half an hour before Dernier was due to arrive. That was, if he continued to take this ridiculous night at face value.
He was pretty sure he wasn't going to be able get any more sleep before then, even though he was exhausted. He wasn't sure what else to do with himself, though. Sitting there just waiting for another dead friend to show up in front of him would drive him crazy. Well, crazier.
He did another round of the entrances to make sure his sanctuary was still secure, and all of his alarms were still set.
The cold was starting to seep back in, and he curled back against the wall, pulling his blanket tight around himself. He couldn't stop thinking about the memories he'd been taken back into – seeing Steve so young and sick again, remembering how it had felt to love him so apparently-hopelessly while being terrified every day that it would be their last together.
Seeing that first winter in Europe that he hadn't until that moment remembered at all.
He didn't realise that he had actually drifted off until he woke up again. Dernier was standing over him, with that same aura of not-quite-corporeal that Falsworth had had.
“C'est longtemps depuis, mon brave,” Dernier said, a rare genuine smile on his face.
Bucky nodded from the floor. It had probably been even longer if you actually remembered all of it. “D'accord,” he replied, enjoying the fact that he could now speak directly to Dernier without having to ask Gabe for translation help. The reason he could do so was unpleasant to think about, but he was going to take the positives where he could.
“C'est mon honneur maintenant devant toi d'apparaître comme l’esprit de Noël présent,” Dernier said, snapping off a salute.
“Non, l'honneur c'est à moi,” Bucky insisted. He had no idea why he had apparently been singled out for special treatment and visits from old friends from the afterlife. “Je ne mérite pas tout cela.”
“Tu mérites plus que tu ne penses.”
“Je devine que tu veux m'emporter à tout un tas d'endroits plus?” Bucky asked, getting to his feet.
Dernier nodded. “Il y a beaucoup à tu montrer, que tu dois voir. Falsworth t'a montré ton passé, je dois te montrer ce qui se passe maintenant, ce qu'est important pour toi.”
Bucky took his hand and waited for the increasingly familiar swirling-whooshing feeling.
He wasn't anywhere that he recognised when he got back to himself. “Où sommes nous? Je ne crois pas que je suis déjà venu ici.”
Dernier smiled. “Tu n'es pas. Mais tu pourriais être ici si tu le souhaites.” He grasped Bucky by the wrist and pulled them through the closed door in front of them.
The large room around them had floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the Manhattan skyline and was full of people. Bucky recognised a few of them as various Avengers and their assorted associates. Apparently he was in the relatively recently christened 'Avengers Tower'.
The room was lavishly adorned with shiny gold and red decorations, clearly chosen to colour- coordinate with Iron Man's suit. A large tree sat in one corner, strung with tinsel and twinkly lights – also in red and gold.
He didn't actually see Steve anywhere.
Steve had always been very good at finding quiet corners at large gatherings. Back before the war he'd used it as a defence mechanism to avoid the derogatory comments he'd invariably been subject to, but Bucky hadn't expected him to be using that skill tonight. Not at what was obviously a party full of his new friends.
Without checking to see if Dernier was following him or not, Bucky wandered farther into the party, in search of that most-familiar face.
It unnerved him that he was ignored so very thoroughly – even though he knew they couldn't see him – and having an arm pass through him really was not something he'd ever wanted to experience. He didn't find Steve among any of the small groups chatting around the edges of the room or lounging on the comfortable-looking couches in the dimmer corners.
It was several minutes before he spotted the man with the wings – who he'd learned since the battle in D.C. was called Sam – roaming around the room with a look on his face similar to the one Bucky suspected was on his own.
Guessing that Sam probably knew the layout of the place better than Bucky could, he followed him. Sam still spent a few more minutes searching, wandering down corridors and onto hidden balconies that Bucky might never have thought to try.
But he did find Steve.
Sitting alone, still mostly-full glass in hand, staring out of a large window at the lights of the city.
He didn't even look away when Sam walked over to him.
“Steve,” Sam said quietly, at which Steve finally turned away from the view to look up at him. “You have to stop doing this. I'm worried about you.”
Steve shrugged. “I can't. I'm worried about him. Who knows what could be happening to him out there, what sort of state he's in.”
“I know,” Sam nodded. “But you can't let it take over your whole life. We searched for months; he doesn't want to be found. If he was in serious trouble we'd have turned him up.”
“I do know,” Steve said with a sigh. “I do. But I can't help but think about him. It was bad enough when I thought he was dead – now that I know he's alive out there somewhere?” He shook his head and looked back out the window.
Bucky wished for a moment that he was a corporeal form, that he could reach out and wipe that look from Steve's face. But in the same breath, he knew he couldn't. It wasn't safe for Steve for him to be around. Not for Steve or all of his other new friends.
It wasn't a risk he could take. No matter how much he might want to.
No matter how much Steve might want him to.
No matter how much Steve was clearly hurt by his continued absence.
Steve upset but alive was better than the alternative. It had to be.
“Come back and join the party,” Sam urged Steve. “Just for this one night. Distract yourself. You can go back to obsessing about your old buddy in the morning.”
“I'm not obsessing,” Steve insisted half-heartedly.
Sam just shot him a look.
Steve deflated. “Okay, maybe a little. But I just...” He smacked his head back into the glass of the window. “I have to know he's okay. Even if he doesn't want to be with me anymore, even if he doesn't ever truly remember me, I hate this... limbo.”
“I know you do,” Sam consoled him. “I get it. But for right now, down that drink and come pretend to enjoy yourself. It's supposed to be a party.”
“You know the alcohol won't actually affect...” Steve started.
“Yes, yes, you can't get drunk anymore. But you can give it a damn good try, come on,” Sam interrupted, wrapping his fingers around the wrist of Steve's free hand.
Steve let himself be helped to his feet and then pulled back in the direction of the main event, even if the expression on his face was begrudging.
“Je déteste qu'il est triste,” Bucky said as Steve disappeared down the corridor, correctly guessing that the presence that had re-appeared at his shoulder was Dernier. “Mais comment arrêter la tristesse?”
“Eh, je crois que tu sais bien,” Dernier replied. “Tu dois te permettre en croire.”
Bucky knew what he was suggesting – it wasn't as though he didn't think about it at least daily – but he couldn't.
Could he?
No, he really couldn't. Out of the question. Completely.
Bucky sighed.
“Donc, tu as vu tout ce que tu as besoin de voir,” Dernier said sagely. “Viens!”
There was no reason Bucky could see to stay longer. The only thing left to watch was something Bucky had already watched more times than he cared to count; Steve pretending to enjoy a party.
He nodded, allowing Dernier to take his hand, and a few disconcerting moments later, he was back in his ersatz home.
“À la prochaine fois,” Dernier said, shaking his hand. “Je te souhaite tout le bonheur.”
“La même chose à toi, Jacques, de même pour toi.”
“Attends Jones au sonnerie de la prochaine heure.” Dernier then faded away just as Falsworth had done before him.
Bucky spent the next half hour pacing, his mind ablaze. He was absolutely sure there was a point to these visits – the not-so-homeless stranger had said as much, and both Falsworth and Dernier had also hinted at it. He just didn't have a clue what that point was supposed to be.
Or, worse, he did, but it wasn't one he could let himself even hope to believe.
“You don't stop goin' around in circles you're gonna make me dizzy,” a voice said behind him, startling Bucky who'd somehow been so distracted that he hadn't even noticed Jones's appearance.
“Sorry,” he said reflexively. “I just...”
“I know, I know,” Gabe interrupted. “It's a lot to take in in the one night, but it's all for your own good. Well, for both of you really I guess but that's more'n I should be saying.”
Bucky decided it was probably best to leave that last statement alone. “It is a lot,” he agreed instead. “But I didn't think I'd ever get to speak to any of you guys again and it's been nice to be proved wrong.”
“I got to admit,” Gabe sighed, “after we all found each other up there as we, well, died, and you weren't there... we weren't sure what to think. And we'd never have guessed the truth. But it's good to see you getting past that, to find you still alive. Even if you're not really living. But we'll get to that.”
Looking at the ghostly form of Jones, something suddenly occurred to Bucky, something he couldn't believe he hadn't noticed before, even with everything else that had been going on. “Hold off,” he said. “I looked you all up, once I shook off... well... all of that. You were eighty-three when you died – the others weren't exactly young either. How come all three of you look just like you did back in '44?”
“The one perk of being dead,” Gabe grinned. “You get control over all of that. And why'd I want to look like a wrinkly old man when I can look like this?” He gestured down his own body. “The missus ain't lookin' so bad herself these days either.”
The smirk that accompanied these words had Bucky reconsidering everything he'd ever thought or been taught about what happened after death.
If the appearance of actual ghosts hadn't already been enough.
“I don't need to hear any more,” he said firmly. He'd heard more than enough of that sort of thing during the war – although, admittedly, never from Jones. But who knows how someone could change over the space of decades of life. “I'm guessing you've got something more important to show me anyway, right?”
Gabe instantly sobered. “I do. You should... probably prepare yourself. My job is to show you Christmas Future – and where I have to take you... it's not fun.”
“I've seen humanity at its worst,” Bucky replied, correcting himself a moment later. “I've been humanity at its worst. I can take it.”
Gabe looked doubtful but didn't argue. “Okay then. Come with me.” He held out his hand.
Bucky didn't recognise where they ended up. Most of the surrounding buildings were little more than rubble, those still standing looking like they could collapse at a moment's notice.
The sun was technically shining, but the haze of dust in the sky made the light dull. The smell kind of reminded Bucky of Paris during the war – gunpowder and blood, the after effects of a city fallen to invasion.
The air was frigid, and he half expected to see snow on the ground when he looked down at his feet.
“What are we...?” he started to ask, before Gabe began to walk off, dragging Bucky behind him by the wrist.
The patch of land they ended up in was definitely not any kind of proper cemetery, but there was nonetheless clearly a funeral going on. A haphazard funeral, admittedly – no flowers, the most basic of a coffin, none of the accoutrements Bucky had grown used to in his youth – but unquestionably a funeral.
Bucky really wasn't sure why they were there – he didn't recognise any of the mourners...
No, wait – just at the front, there, there was Bruce Banner. Looking significantly more haggard than he had in Bucky's last surveillance. He was alone; all those around him seemed to be giving him a wide berth, whether through respect or fear Bucky couldn't tell.
That still didn't explain why Jones had brought him here.
Until Bucky saw the details written on the piece of wood serving as a – probably temporary – grave marker: Steven Grant Rogers, July 4 1918-December 19 2019
“No,” he breathed, fighting to keep calm. “Please... It can't be...”
It couldn't be Steve. Couldn't be. Where were all of his friends? His new teammates?
He didn't realise he'd said this aloud until Gabe provided the answer. “Other than Dr. Banner, the Captain was the last survivor.”
“Survivor? Of what?”
“There was an invasion. Aliens of some sort, rather more advanced than most of the human race knows Earth is. If the Avengers had managed to defeat the advance guard, then perhaps they might have turned around and left well enough alone, decided Earth was too well defended to risk an attack.”
Bucky sighed. “But I'm guessing they didn't.” The evidence was right in front of him. As much as he didn't want to believe it – if he let himself truly believe it, he might just break down.
“No. They came close – real, real close – but these creatures are sprightly in the air, difficult to aim for, even harder to hit. And just as formidable up close on the ground. The Avengers put up a good fight, but it was a long fight. They started to tire, started to expose weaknesses. And then...”
Gabe paused, clearly reluctant to go on. Bucky knew he didn't want to hear what came next, but knew just as surely that he had to know.
Bucky turned and stared at him, as much to avoid seeing the coffin being lowered into the ground as to convince Gabe to continue the story.
“And then Steve pulled that same stupid stunt he did in Hamburg in late '44. It managed to give the rest of them enough time to make a retreat, just like it did back then, but also just like it did then, it ended up with Steve laid up in medical for days afterwards. Probably should have been longer, but there was a second attack, then a third. And when the rest of the Avengers were all gone...”
Gabe gestured to the ceremony taking place behind Bucky. “You know Steve better than anyone. When there's a fight to be fought, impossible odds and a few near-fatal wounds aren't going to stop him. Especially if there's no one else left to fight. And he won, Earth will recover, but at such a cost.”
Bucky remembered Hamburg well. He'd thought for several heart-stopping hours that they might actually lose Steve, super-serum or not. And it needn't have happened. If Steve had just stopped for a moment to discuss the idea with Bucky, the retreat could have been executed just as successfully, without nearly killing Steve in the process.
A few key shots, timed just right, was all it would have taken. Steve just had to ask. And it appeared that he'd learned nothing in all of the years since. Still the same stupid, stupid, self-sacrificing Stevie.
“It's not fair,” he choked, gaze dropping to his feet. “Not Steve, it should be me. He's worth so much...”
What was the point of doing all he could to protect Steve, staying away to keep him safe, if Steve was just going to get his fool self killed anyway?
“This isn't the way it has to be,” Gabe said simply, then.
Bucky snapped up to look at him so quickly he nearly gave himself whiplash – even in his current not-entirely-solid form. “What?”
“This is just one possible future. The future that will occur if nothing changes in the present. It is not yet set in stone.”
Bucky stepped closer. “Well what do I have to do to fix it? Tell me what I need to change to make this right, to save Steve?” Whatever it was, he'd do it.
Gabe smiled enigmatically. “I can't tell you that. I wouldn't even if I knew. You have to figure that one out for yourself.” He locked eyes with Bucky. “Although I think maybe you already know.”
Dernier had said something like that earlier, too.
And maybe, just maybe... it was a little bit true.
“If you want,” Jones said, “we can stay for the end of the service.” He waved at the crowd gathered around the graveside.
Bucky shook his head. This wasn't the future he wanted; he didn't need to see more of it.
He didn't remember the journey back. He didn't remember arriving.
The next thing he was aware of, he woke up, tucked beneath his own blankets in the abandoned little house he'd claimed as shelter, morning light streaming through the windows.
He began tucking everything he owned back into his backpack the moment he was fully awake.
He had somewhere to be, and it wasn't here.
His phone informed him that it was still only Christmas Eve – if he left now, he could get there in time for a true, long-overdue celebration.
'Hold on in there, Stevie,' he thought. 'I'm on my way.'