Work Text:
May, 2018
Fifty-fifty.
Those were the chances on that terrible day in Wakanda, when Fate took half of all living creatures. Spouses. Children. Friends. Fate showed mercy to some, and none to others.
Whether they deserved it or not.
Fate took Sam. Barton. T’Challa. Maximoff. Colonel Rhodes. Dissolved them into dust like they never existed.
But in a cruel twist of irony, Fate left Bucky intact.
Even in Bucky’s Swiss-cheese shaped brain, that day is permanently seared into his memory. He will never forget the sound of wailing Wakandans. The full forty-five minutes it took before Romanoff finally began to respond to outward stimuli again. The desperation with which Steve gripped onto his arm once they realized what had happened.
Nor will he ever forget the venom in Stark’s voice when he and Nebula made it back to Earth a few weeks later.
“I saw this coming, few years back. I had a vision, I didn’t want to believe it. I thought I was dreaming…”
Stark is weak and skinny and so angry… Bucky isn’t sure who he harbors more hostility for, Thanos, himself…
Or Steve.
“Tony, I’m gonna need you to focus–”
“And I needed you. As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It’s too late, buddy. Sorry. You know what I need? I need a shave. And I remember telling all ya’s–alive and otherwise–that what we needed was a suit of armor around the world, remember that? Whether it impacted our precious ‘freedoms’ or not. That’s what we needed.”
“Well that didn’t work out, did it?”
“I said, ‘we’d lose.’ You said, ‘we’ll do that together too.’ And guess what, Cap. We lost. And you weren’t there. And remind me, why was that? Oh that’s right. Because you were off achieving the most patriotic and heroic of deeds in becoming a national fugitive and harboring a Nazi shit-stain mother-murdering Hydra assassin!”
“Tony!” Romanoff shouts.
Steve had been soft spoken and compassionate since Stark’s return; taking the passive aggressive verbal abuse in stride with nary a furrowed eyebrow in response.
Until now.
It is as if someone flips a switch buried deep inside of Steve, sniffing out the sympathetic and supportive friend and replacing it with vengeful fire.
“Say that again.”
The unnatural stillness in his voice makes the hair on Bucky’s arm stand on end. Like the wind coming to an abrupt halt before a squall.
“Steve…”
Steve answers with a palm held toward Bucky’s face, his iron gaze fixed on Stark.
Stark sneers at him. “You heard me.”
Steve takes a step forward. Looms over Stark at his full height. “Say it again. Go ahead.”
“Both of you, stop it!” Romanoff warns.
Half of all life in the universe. Why would Fate spare him, of all people. After all the pain he’s caused–after all the pain he is still causing…
Stark stands on shaky legs.
“I’ll say a lot more. You care more about that murdering son of a bitch than you ever did this team, or anyone on it. What this world needed was the Avengers, united, stopping threats before they kill people. But that’s not what we do is it? We’re the ‘Avengers’, not the pre-vengers, right? But you left us. Broke us up. Refused to even do any avenging when it came to him. Where’s the vengeance for my parents, huh? For the countless innocent people that he murdered. You don’t care. You’re nothing but a hypocrite, Rogers. Willing to throw out all your precious principles when it suits you. So no, Captain. I have nothing for you. No coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. Fuck you and your psychotic soviet swain.”
Amidst this tirade, Bucky and Romanoff catch each other's eye, and Bucky grabs hold of Steve’s arm just as Romanoff steps in front of Stark, milliseconds before both of them do something they can never take back.
“Shut your ignorant, self-centered mouth, Stark! You have no idea—not even the foggiest clue—!”
“Steve,” Bucky pleads.
Please don’t pour more fuel onto the already flaming wreckage around them.
For the moment, the plea seems to be enough. Steve makes a visible effort to contain himself, and Bucky feels the tension in Steve’s muscles slowly begin to release.
Stark pushes past Romanoff and rips out his arc reactor, thrusting it in Steve’s palm. “Here. You take this. Shove it down Thanos’s throat, or let your Soviet assassin boyfriend’s blood-stained vibranium hand crush it for all I care. I’m done. No trust. Liar.”
And then Stark collapses.
Later, Romanoff tries to tell Steve that Stark didn’t mean it. That they were words spoken out of grief and stress and exhaustion.
Sure.
Stark meant exactly what he said. And who can blame him? Most of what he said was true.
Bucky did murder Stark’s parents, along with many, many others. Because of Steve, he has never needed to face justice for this.
But Stark is wrong about Steve, who is nothing if not the most genuine, honest, pure of heart person on the planet. He believes in righteousness, justice, and honor. He didn’t believe in the Accords because it could mean someone innocent would call for help and have no one answer. He didn’t believe in trading lives.
And for some stupid, hopelessly idealistic reason, he does believe Bucky to be capable of redemption.
Bucky wishes he could share that belief.
-
August, 2018
The first few months are…good?
He and Steve get their own place in Brooklyn. Steve shows him all the modern marvels of the future that he was never permitted to enjoy in captivity. Washing machines. Refrigerators. Coffee shops. Online shopping. Delivery pizza.
The future is amazing.
And Bucky is free, truly free of Hydra. He wakes up not from pain or abuse but simply because his body has achieved the rest it needs. He has food, warmth, shelter.
And Steve is here.
Some days, Bucky even thinks he could be happy.
Until he turns on the television.
The entire earth is in grief and turmoil and Bucky feels like an asshole, because as terrible as the Snap had been, compared to the past decades of his life, this is paradise.
But then Steve comes home from his volunteer work or group therapy or a rescue mission, ridden with undeserved guilt over not defeating Thanos, not being able to save literally everybody. He collapses on the sofa as the embodiment of selfless sorrow, and Bucky knows that true happiness is still a long way off.
-
November, 2020
Two minutes after Steve leaves for a run, Bucky texts Romanoff the all-clear. His cell rings eight seconds later.
“I know Thanksgiving is a lost cause, but any chance of convincing Steve to come to the Compound for Christmas?”
Poor Romanoff. She tries so hard to hold what’s left of them together.
“Steve has declared an indefinite boycott of all shared holiday celebrations until Stark apologizes.”
“Didn’t even the Nazis and allied forces call a temporary truce during the holidays?”
Bucky doesn’t remember, but he can imagine how Steve would respond to such a suggestion. “He’d say that for all the terrible things the Nazis did to me, they at least didn’t try to kill me.”
Romanoff groans.
It wasn’t Stark’s fault. Not really. He has a right to be angry that his parents were murdered. He has a right to hate their murderer.
“You didn’t have a choice,” Steve always says.
I know. But I did it.
It was his hands. His finger that pulled the trigger. His hands that choked the life out of Stark’s mother. His fist that bashed in Howard Stark’s skull.
“Just. Give Tony time. It’s been hard for him. Of course, it’s been hard for everyone, but I can’t help but think things may have been different if…”
“If?”
“If he hadn’t lost Rhodey.”
Oh.
“Or if Steve had lost me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Didn’t have to.”
She goes quiet after that, and Bucky feels a surge of empathy for her, because if things had gone differently that day…
The odds were fifty-fifty, for crying out loud.
If Steve had turned to dust… If Bucky had survived all alone… again.
He and Steve got lucky. Stark did not.
Neither did Romanoff.
“I’m sorry about Barton.”
There’s a brief pause, a soft, hitching breath. “It’s been two years. And I still have Lila. I'm fine.”
“You're not fine. I…know what you’re going through.”
A pause.
“Steve’s still here.” She sounds puzzled.
Bucky clears his throat. “News of Captain America’s heroic and selfless death travels even into Nazi Siberia, Nat.”
“Right. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
Something inside of Bucky goes tender at the remorseful tone of her voice. Next to Steve, she’s the best thing he has in his life. Sometimes he gets strange echoes in his head when she says certain phrases, or adapts a certain tone that makes him wonder just how acquainted they were with each other before Hydra erased her too, but she never brings it up.
Bucky can’t handle anything more than Rogers duty right now, anyway.
“Don’t apologize. That’s what Stark and Steve need to do.”
They both know they won’t.
Because of him.
“Give it another year. They’ll come around.”
“Sure.”
They give them three.
-
October 2023
Natasha calls him without any advance notice on a Tuesday afternoon in October. Her voice is barely above a rasp.
“Lang. He’s back.”
What unfolds is talks of time travel and stones and the possibility of bringing everyone back and hope.
But time travel apparently requires a genius.
“Oh no. Oh hell no. Get that Soviet assassin the hell away from my house and my family.”
Bucky knew he should have waited in the car.
Natasha tries to be the voice of reason. “Tony, just hear us out. This could be a chance to bring everyone back. Sam. Wanda. Peter. Rhodey.”
Stark doesn’t appreciate hearing the names of those they lost. He spouts off a paragraph of quantum physics jargon that adds up to the bottom line of all of them being wrong, crazy and indescribably stupid.
“You can stay for lunch if you don’t talk shop. Everyone but him.”
Steve bristles like a porcupine. “Just what do you think he’s going to do, Tony?”
Stark’s jaw hardens. He sets down his daughter and motions for her to go into the house. She does, but Bucky can see a lock of brown hair and one curious tiny eye that peeks around the door.
“Who knows. He’s running out of family to take from me! You wanna make my daughter an orphan too? Start her broody antihero origin story?”
“Tony,” Natasha hisses.
“Both of you put a pin in it already!” Banner booms. “Tony, we could figure this out. You know we could. It’s out of my expertise. I need your help! We need your help!”
Stark shrugs. “Maybe you should have thought that far ahead before you invited Joe Chill to my freaking house.”
A vein in Steve’s forehead begins to twitch. “What is it going to take for you to realize that Bucky had no control over what happened? He was brainwashed. Tortured.”
“Get in line!” Stark sneers with a scoff. “You think he’s the only one here who’s been tortured? And that makes murder pardonable, does it? News flash, Cap. I’ve been captured and tortured by terrorists too, and whadda ya know, I didn’t make any orphans during that time!”
The statement is enough to rouse a sliver of defensiveness even within Bucky. He has read the file on the Ten Rings. The origin of the first Iron Man suit. If even one day of his captivity under Hydra had been anything like what Stark endured, Bucky would have considered it a vacation.
Steve darkens into a new shade of purple. His breathing turns irregular.
“You. Have no idea. What Bucky went through.”
“And you clearly do not give a shit as to what I went through!”
“Of course I do!” Steve shouts, loud enough that Morgan disappears from her place behind the door, running into the house.
Steve makes another saintly effort to calm himself. Bucky is dubious as to the effort’s success.
“What if it were Rhodey? Would you still hold him responsible if he were the one who was brainwashed and tortured and killed your parents?”
“Don’t talk about Rhodey! He died fighting Thanos! Was turned into dust fighting for what is right, while he gets to live on with no consequence–”
Something snaps inside of Steve. He gets in Starks face and grabs a fistful of his jacket, and Bucky opens his mouth to call out when–
Stark touches his wristband, expanding it in milliseconds into armor over his wrist and hand, curling into a fist and pulling back–
Bucky’s instincts–already prickled and on high alert–push everything else deep into the background. The surrounding world fades away. Conscious thought comes to a halt. The instinct to protect outweighs the desire for peace.
The arm moves of its own accord, grabbing hold of the threat and dealing with it accordingly.
No one is ever hurting Steve again.
“James!”
“Bucky!”
Both names have been shouted several times, Bucky realizes as his surroundings fade back into view. He is unsure of how much time has passed, but he finds Romanoff clinging tightly to his right arm, Steve’s strong grip around his left. Everyone displays some variation of horror, but it’s the look on Morgan Stark’s face that sends chills down his spine.
Bucky looks down.
His left hand is wrapped tightly around Stark’s throat. Stark’s eyes are wide and his face is sweaty. Veins in the vicinity of his hairline bulge out from strain.
“Let him go, Buck.”
Shit.
Bucky releases him immediately. Stark coughs and gasps for breath.
“Tony! Are you all right?”
Bucky stares at his own hand like a foreign limb. He has never lost control like that. He didn’t know he was still capable of losing control like that.
This was just milliseconds away from going very, very badly.
Stark stands on shaky legs. “Get the hell away from my house, my wife, my daughter, and me. That goes for you too, Brutus.”
They don’t argue.
“Just remember, Rogers,” Stark yells loud enough to be heard through closed car doors. “That’s the asshole you chose over me!”
-
Banner makes an attempt at a working formula.
It does not look promising, Bucky contemplates as an infant takes Lang’s place on the platform.
“Is that Scott?”
“It’s a baby!”
“It’s still Scott!”
“As a baby!”
"He'll grow!"
Turns out time travel is not a problem the future has solved.
And then Stark shows up with a correct, theoretically functional formula in hand.
Perhaps genius is only available when necessary to be as spiteful as possible.
Stark and Steve talk outside. Bucky tries not to eavesdrop, but his hearing is enhanced and well. What can you do.
Stark gets out of the car. Stands in front of Steve for ten infinitely long seconds.
Every muscle in Bucky’s body goes stiff. He bends his knees. Calculates the required force and angle necessary to break through the glass and land in front of Steve…
“I’m willing to bury the hatchet.”
Bucky nearly falls over.
What.
Why?
“But—why? Just a few days ago—"
“I know what happened. Don’t need a reminder.”
Bucky risks a glance through the window. Stark is clearly having trouble getting words out.
“I just want peace,” he says finally. “Turns out resentment is corrosive, and I hate it.”
“Me too.”
And then Stark pulls the shield out of the trunk. Steve’s eyes go wide, and Bucky feels his pulse speed up.
What could have possibly changed Stark’s mind?
“Tony, I don’t know.”
“Why not? He made it for you.”
And you’re the only one who can wield it.
“Plus, honestly I have to get it out of the garage before Morgan takes it sledding.”
“Thank you, Tony. But, I don’t understand. Why the one-eighty?”
“What. I can’t just naturally be the bigger man?”
“Tony…”
“I didn’t…it’s not… okay. I’m still figuring some things out, all right? Let’s talk after we save the universe?”
“And what about Bucky?”
Bucky ducks down lower. Holds his breath.
Tony opens his mouth. Closes it.
“Bucky is a part of the deal, Tony.”
“I know. Truce. I promise.”
“But—“
“Later, Steve. We’ll talk later.”
-
They start having meetings. Stark refuses to meet his eyes, but Bucky supposes it’s a marked improvement over open hostility.
“Gamora found the Soul Stone on Vormir.”
“What is Vormir?”
Bucky allows himself to look at Romanoff instead, as she scribbles notes, Barton’s daughter, the only survivor of her family, beside her.
He’s caught Romanoff staring at nothing, a few times. It hasn’t escaped his notice how she never takes off the little arrow around her neck, or the small box of arrowheads that she won’t even let Lila touch. The desperate hope in her eyes ever since Lang returned…
Bucky can’t help but see himself in her—what he would have been like if Steve had been snapped away…
“A dominion of death,” comes Nebula’s raspy response. “At the very center of celestial existence.”
There’s a beat before Lang comments softly, “Not it.”
Bucky’s eyes flick to Steve on reflex.
Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
“I’ll do it,” Steve volunteers.
Damn it, Rogers.
What is it about ‘dominion of death’ that makes you want to jump in head first?
“I can go, Steve,” Natasha says. “You’re needed in New York.”
“You need to stay with Lila, and there’s no way I’m allowing her to go to some place called a ‘dominion of death.’”
“Steve…” Banner says, clearly unhappy about this development.
“It’s fine, Bruce. You, Tony and Lang are all indispensable in New York. Thor is the obvious choice for Asgard, and I am not ordering Nebula to go to the place where her sister was murdered. Nor am I ordering a raccoon there.”
“Not a raccoon,” Rocket says for the fifth time that day.
“Build a bear,” Stark contributes.
“My point is, I’m the clear choice to go.”
Not alone, you’re not. “I'm going with you.”
For some reason, it’s this statement that causes Stark to acknowledge Bucky’s existence by deigning to look at him, but he says nothing.
Truly a historic day.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, Buck,” Steve says with a soft smile.
So that’s that.
There’s more objections, but it’s futile to argue with Steve when he has made up his mind. Doesn’t matter how illogical or how unwise or how stubborn the opposition, ever since he learned to talk, Steve gets what Steve wants.
To play in the rain. Go to Coney Island. Enroll in art school. Join the Army. Disobey orders to find his missing best friend…
And now Steve wants to go to Vormir.
So off to Vormir they go.
-
Space is amazing. Steve’s eyes light up in a way that gives Bucky flashbacks to their faces pressed up against a toy store window when new beebee guns were displayed.
Once they touch down, a tall, lonely peak is the only visible landmark.
“Guess we’re hiking up a mountain.”
An uncomfortable, queasy sensation increases in Bucky’s gut with each step they take toward the peak, culminating in a skyrocketing adrenaline spike once they reach the top.
And that’s all before the unwelcome ghost of their past announces himself.
“Welcome. Steven, son of Sarah. James, son of Winnifred.”
It’s a face that Bucky had no memory of until this exact moment. He immediately has a handgun drawn in one hand and a knife in the other, and he doesn’t care how badly his body shakes from the unexpected deluge of memories and trauma, if that red-faced bastard takes one step closer…
“Schmidt! Don’t get any closer!”
Schmidt raises his hands in a gesture of non-aggression.
Yeah right.
“It has been a very long time, Captain. Much longer for me than it has been for you, I assure you. I mean you no harm. I am merely a guide, sentenced to remain here for the remainder of time, leading others to a treasure that I can never possess.”
Steve has never really talked about what happened those few moments before he went into the ice. Bucky got the gist from the history books and museums, and if Steve has some personal trauma that he prefers not to put into words, Bucky is the last person to push him to do so.
But as Steve and Schmidt hash out decades-old hatred and resentment, Bucky gets a first-row seat to just what Steve endured during that time.
“You were behind everything! You took so many lives! You were the man behind the experiments–the torture Hydra put Bucky through! First in Azzano, and then…”
“This is all the ancient past for me, Captain. Barely more than a memory–”
“Well I sure as hell remember! I remember you launching a bomb at the United States! I remember you tearing off your face! And every single day, I am reminded of what you did to my best friend!”
Bucky is too shocked by Steve’s venom to do more than watch this exchange. Even Schmidt seems to grow thoughtful.
“I do seem to remember a sort of frantic desperation in your eyes that day on the Valkyrie. And although the tesseract transported me away before the fact, I now wonder why you decided to simply go down with the plane, instead of jumping to safety. Could it be, you simply didn’t want to live?”
Steve’s chest heaves with rage. “Shut up.”
“Could it be that the pain was simply too much for you to keep living with? Despite all that you had yet to live for?”
Steve… Tell him he’s full of shit.
“Shut up, you red-faced bastard.”
But…you had Carter. You had purpose. You had the strength and ability to carry out everything you ever dreamed of, and you just…
Gave up?
“I am afraid I cannot do that, Captain. Not until I have guided you to the item you seek, and the conditions for its possession.”
“Schmidt!”
Schmidt does not react, but simply walks on, leading them to a sharp drop on the mountain, twin columns of stone extending from each side. Schmidt gestures to a narrow ledge before them and the abyss below.
“What you seek lies in front of you, as does what you fear. The Stone demands a sacrifice. In order to take it, you must leave behind that which you love.”
The churning in Bucky’s gut ramps up to violent…
“A soul for a soul.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Bucky walks forward. Peers over the ledge and into the dark abyss below, letting the full meaning of Schmidt’s words sweep over him, almost making him dizzy with dread.
But Bucky Barnes is intimately familiar with dread, and the churning in his gut begins to calm as the enormous importance of the next few minutes takes root throughout his being.
“The Stone possesses a certain…wisdom. Has made it a condition for anyone who wields it, that they may know the full significance of its power.”
“Its power. Over souls?”
“Correct.”
“Leave behind that which you… Are you saying what I think you’re saying?!”
It is poetic justice, really.
“The poignant irony is not lost on me, Captain. But it is the truth.”
“You’re lying!”
Bucky doubts it.
Honestly, it’s a more merciful and noble end than he had ever pictured for himself. It will be over quickly. Instant. And save billions of lives in the process.
It’s kind of…perfect.
If only it weren’t for Steve…
He doesn’t speak as Steve argues with Schmidt. He sits near the edge and watches the snow fly in the wind as Steve makes demands, idealistic declarations. Ridiculously optimistic loopholes.
But when he starts to beg, then Bucky decides to intervene.
“Steve,” Bucky says, standing and placing himself between Steve and Schmidt. “Come on, pal.”
They need to talk.
He sits Steve down on a rock and settles himself beside him. Flashes of memory of Steve’s broken face on the helicarrier, of him in his Romanian bolthole, his smile as Bucky woke from the Wakandan ice capsule, the horror on his face as everyone around them faded into dust…
And then there are the tattered shreds of semi-recovered memories. Hot dogs on Coney Island. Beating up some asshole on behalf of a tiny, big-mouthed Steve. Reaching for his hand while hanging on for dear life on a moving train.
“I’m with you to the end of the line, pal.”
But damn it, Steve doesn’t deserve this.
“I’m sorry, Buck. I volunteered to come here.”
“You didn’t know.”
Besides, with the current turbid state of the Avengers and their regard for one another, Bucky isn’t sure that this particular condition could have been fulfilled by many others.
“Thanos left with the stone, and without his daughter,” Steve murmurs. “What a cruel, sick joke.”
So even Steve cannot find a positive, inspirational spin on this.
“The fate of billions of people depends on one of us going over that ledge.”
And dying, he doesn’t say. No miraculous super soldier survival allowed this time.
“Whatever it takes,” Steve whispers, like he regrets saying it.
“I’m sorry, Steve.”
That seems to snap Steve out of his funk, and he turns to glare at Bucky. “Why? If you are implying what I think you are, you can forget it, pal.”
Come on, Steve. The choice is obvious.
“You know it has to be me.”
“Like hell it does!”
Swear words. This does not bode well.
“Do you seriously think I am going to just sit here quietly and let you go over that cliff? Hydra has done more damage to your head than we thought!”
“Steve…”
“No! I refuse!”
"Steve. Please. I am the clear choice. This is my chance to make up for…”
Steve glares even harder. “For what?” he snaps. “For doing something you had no control over? That’s what you need to make amends for?!”
Steve doesn’t understand. Bucky may not have had control, but he still has contributed a net negative to the world.
“This is my chance to do something good, Steve.”
"You'll be bringing back the stone that will bring back half the population of the universe! I'd say that qualifies."
“So what. You think it should be you? Do you think the world will be better off without Captain America?”
Steve clamps his jaw shut. Closes his eyes. “One way or another, I can’t see Captain America surviving this, Buck.”
Bucky swallows. “Don’t say that.”
“What I mean is, there is no Captain America without Bucky Barnes. It should be me.”
He doesn’t get it.
Bucky moves to crouch down in front of Steve, waiting until their eyes meet.
“Steve. Disregarding any personal feelings you and I may have on the matter, think about this practically. What do you think people would say if I returned without you?”
Steve frowns. “I don’t…”
“You think they would believe me if I said that it was either one of us or the stone?”
“I…”
“Do you think my past won’t come to haunt me even if I insist that I tried to stop you?”
He can see the moment Steve pictures it; Bucky returning alone. Passing along the conditions of Soul’s retrieval. Claiming that Steve gave him no choice…
Romanoff would believe him, probably. But Stark is their leader.
If he received life imprisonment, he would consider himself lucky.
“My life is forfeit either way, Steve.”
Steve’s face contorts. He curses, then jerks to his feet to pace in a fit of distress, shaking his head with an intensity that suggests he can manipulate reality with its force.
Bucky’s own face crumples like paper. The last thing he wants is to cause Steve any kind of pain, either physical or emotional, but Fate has put them in the most cruel twist of karma, with no care for the pain they have already suffered.
And yet, Bucky still considers himself lucky. The past few years, although filled with loss, grief and pain for everyone else, have been a respite.
He and Steve had clung to each other after the Snap like they were all they had left in the world, which was pretty much true. Their relationship reached a level that Bucky is pretty sure it didn’t even in the forties. Every day was a gift, one Bucky did not deserve, but he is thankful for anyway.
But one thing still troubles him.
“Steve. I want you to answer me. What Schmidt said earlier, about the Valkyrie. Was that true?”
Steve’s eyes clench impossibly tighter. “Buck… Listen…”
“No. You listen to me. You had much to live for then, and you have much to live for now. Your survival does not depend on me. Don’t you ever give up, you hear me? Don’t you ever even think about it.”
“Buck…”
“Promise me.”
“I–”
“Promise.”
“I promise! But I am not losing you, Bucky! I won’t–I can’t lose you again. I can’t. Just... let's just talk about this, okay? There has to be another way. There has to be!"
Steve has worked himself up to the brink of hyperventilation.
Bucky gestures for him to breathe. "Okay. Okay. Deep breaths, pal.”
Steve's face crumples, and he drops it toward the ground. Releases a series of deep, heart-wrenching sobs that withers Bucky’s heart into ash.
"Steve..."
Steve straightens and reaches out with a desperation Bucky has never witnessed before.
Bucky swallows hard and wraps Steve up tight. Lets him sob into his neck.
"Can't do it again, Buck," he wheezes out between sobs. "I can't lose you again. I can't. Damn the stones. Damn Thanos. I can’t do this. I can’t.”
Bucky’s heart aches in a way he didn’t know it was capable of. It’s like the cattle prod, but driven into his heart instead of his thigh or stomach.
Suddenly Steve pulls away from him. Spins around as if looking for something.
“Schmidt!”
Bucky looks around as well, but the red-faced ghost from their past is nowhere to be seen.
“We won’t do it!” Steve shouts at the sky. “You hear me?! Neither of us! You can go to hell! We’re not gonna submit to this!”
Bucky blinks in bewilderment. “Steve.”
“No! I won’t. I refuse!”
He…he’s serious.
“But, Steve. All those people. Billions of people—"
“I don’t care!” Steve shouts, voice high and distressed. “I mean, of course I do, but, no! It’s too high a price. I won’t lose you again!”
For a moment, Bucky doesn’t know how to respond. He’s been treated like less than human for so long, and for Steve to be willing to…
“I told you I would let the world burn first.” Steve’s voice has gone harder than steel. “I meant it. We’ll go somewhere else. Another timeline. Another world if we have to.”
“You know that’s not who you are.”
“Yes, it is.”
“How can you think that?”
“Because Tony was right!” Steve shouts. “I am a hypocrite! I believe in justice and honor—of course I do—but it all goes out the window when it comes to you. I can’t lose you again. I won’t.”
Bucky feels his heart swell to the point of bursting. He… means it. Steve really thinks Bucky is worth billions of lives. Worth more than his friends, his principles…
Worth losing who he is.
Steve fiddles with his GPS. “We’ll go to another timeline. One with no Thanos or Hydra. Live the lives that retired veterans should get.”
Bucky eases a hand over Steve’s.
“You’re not a hypocrite, Steve. You’re simply a man who does nothing halfway. You fight, endure, hope, and love with everything you are. You give one hundred percent for your country. For justice. For the Earth. And for your friends.
“And your friends need you, pal. You need to give Lila her father back. Natasha’s best friend back. Sam and Wanda and T’Challa and Rhodey all need you. And even if he never admits it, Tony needs you too.”
“But I need you!” Steve grabs a fistful of Bucky’s collar. “With everything I am.”
It is said with such raw convicted anguish that Bucky’s voice momentarily fails him.
“What you need is to be Steve Rogers. Your job is to save the world. Protect all those innocent people who were turned to dust.” He plants a hand on Steve's shoulder. “But my job? My job is to protect you. Always has been.”
Steve’s face crumples in distress. He drops his gaze to the ground. “Bucky…” he stretches out his arms, fingers curling into fists.
Bucky tugs the miserable man close.
“It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”
And he’s right. It isn’t fair. Steve should not be forced to make such a sacrifice.
So he won’t.
He pulls Steve tighter, arms shifting from around his shoulders to hooking around his neck, Steve’s arms tightening around his waist. Bucky allows himself to savor the moment. To think back over the last five years together, filled with both tears and laughter.
Bucky considers himself lucky to have lived them.
Steve clings tighter, and Bucky tightens his left arm wrapped around Steve’s neck.
Here at the end of the line, he hesitates, sorrow the depth of which even he has never experienced washing over him like a tidal wave, and his eyes begin to leak onto Steve’s neck.
Focus on the mission, Barnes. Even Steve’s trusting nature has a limit.
I’m sorry, pal.
The vibranium arm abruptly tightens around Steve’s neck like a noose, clamping down like a vice.
Steve goes stiff with surprise, then horror, betrayal, and Bucky wonders if a human heart can literally fracture in one’s chest.
Unmitigated super soldier adrenaline fights back, and damn it is he strong—
“... no…!”
It isn't easy. Steve is stronger, but the vibranium arm is the one part of him that can outlast him. Not only can it match his strength, but carry it out with superior endurance. Steve will tire before the arm does.
"Bu—pl...ease !" comes out in a wheeze.
I'm so sorry, pal. I can’t let you lose who you are for me. Maybe this will be the end of Captain America, but I’m not letting you kill Steve Rogers too.
You’re not a hypocrite. You’re a hero.
Steve fights with everything he’s worth. When Bucky maneuvers himself onto Steve’s back, Steve bucks like a bronco, trying to throw Bucky over his shoulder, kick his legs out from under him, even tries biting before remembering the arm is vibranium. Bucky hangs on tight and increases the pressure, whispering apology after apology against the back of Steve’s neck.
Finally, Steve hurls them both to the ground, making sure Bucky takes the brunt of the fall, and kicks and squirms and screams…
Bucky never lets go.
Gradually, Steve’s strength begins to fail. He makes a final attempt to look back at Bucky, to speak, but all that emerges are tears before he is forced to submit to the oblivious bliss of unconsciousness.
Bucky holds onto Steve long after he’s stopped fighting. Buries his face against his neck, and allows his eyes to leak. The leak shifts into a bursting deluge, worse than when they told him he was free from Hydra’s control. They sweep over him with an intensity that scares him. A lack of control over himself that makes him feel vulnerable with an ingrained expectation of punishment for feeling so. But Schmidt is still nowhere to be found, and the only witness of his agony is the golden sun in the amethyst horizon.
When there are no more tears left, he lowers Steve gently onto the hard rock of the cliff. Presses his brow to Steve's and whispers his goodbyes.
He feels at peace as he stands. The purpose for his life is finally clear, and was worth something after all.
His death will mean life for billions, a far higher number than the dozens of lives he so ruthlessly snuffed out. Wakanda will get their king back. The Avengers will be reunited, and Lila will get her family back. And Romanoff…
A new pain pierces him at the thought of Romanoff. She had become his friend, and Bucky can’t help but wonder what the future may have held for them without the constant suffocating weight of black grief, but…
She’ll have Barton back. And she’ll help hold Steve together.
The thought eases his fears somewhat.
Because the mission is Steve. Has always been Steve. Ever since they were in short pants, it was always up to Bucky Barnes to protect the little punk with aspirations larger than his own body from bullies and muggers in alleys. Nazis. Hydra. Bucky kept Steve safe from them all. And now, finally, he will protect Steve from the biggest threat to his life: his own irrepressible need to sacrifice himself.
The world needs Captain America, but it needs Steve Rogers more.
Bucky pulls his dog tags from around his neck and loops them gently through Steve's unconscious grasp.
With a final bittersweet look at his face and squeeze of his fingers, Bucky stands and walks to the edge of the chasm. He expected sorrow, even fear, but all he feels is peace.
This is what he was meant to do.
He takes a deep breath. Closes his eyes. Lifts one foot forward.
We’ve reached the end of the line,pal.
See you on the other side.
-
Steve wakes with a vicious start, as if he had been thrown into ice water. An invisible sledgehammer pounds into his skull as he struggles to sit up in a pool of several inches of water.
His eyes dart left and right. The cliff—altar—is visible far in the distance.
Bucky!
A futile, desperate search around him shows no sign of his friend, but an unfamiliar glow of light catches his eye, coming from his clenched fist. Hardly daring to breathe, he uncurls his fingers to find a golden stone pulsing gently in his palm.
Entwined around it is a chain, metal tags, and the name James Buchanan Barnes.
Steve’s breath leaves him in a shredded sob.
Damn you, Bucky. Damn you.
He stares at the entwined items through watery vision. The stone may as well be his own soul, he ponders bitterly, encased and protected by harsh, rusted metal in which no one else could see its true value.
The scream of enhanced lungs echoes far beyond the horizon, rippling down to the very foundation of the planet and the stone itself.
-
“Go away, Tony,” Steve says between swallows of Asgardian ale, courtesy of Thor’s small detour when visiting his world’s past.
“Talk to him, Steve,” Natasha grunts from just outside the door.
Some guard she is.
“No.” He downs another swig.
“This is a team effort, Rogers,” comes Tony’s voice. “Least you can do is show your face for moral support.”
Steve will pass. He can’t contribute to the science needed for the next phase anyway. His part is over.
It feels like everything’s over.
Decades worth of spy experience makes swift work of the lock on the door. Steve can hear a high-pitched ‘Have you been able to do that this whole time ?’ before Tony is shoved into the room and the door locked behind him.
Thanks a lot, Nat.
Tony heaves a long-suffering sigh. Plants himself in front of the desk, over which Steve is currently draped like a dust-caked tapestry.
“Come on, Cap. We need to talk.”
“No. We don’t.”
“We clearly do. This room looks like it has suffered at least three apocalypses and four prohibitions.” He wrinkles his nose. “And not to be rude, but you could really use a shower.”
“You’ve said all you need to. I don’t want to hear it.”
“What I have to say might surprise you.”
Steve rolls his eyes.
“Listen. I know I said…some things. Back at the ranch. But, something happened after that that Romanoff insisted I tell you.”
Steve furrows his brow. Slowly sits up.
“What.”
Tony glances away. Clears his throat. “I wouldn’t refuse to investigate the possibility of time travel and bringing everyone back out of spite, I hope you know. So I just…played with the idea. Figured it out. But before I brought the formula to you guys, I uh…gave it a test tun.”
“Okay.”
“To 1945.”
Steve blinks.
“Siberia. Where…where he was kept.”
Steve blinks in rapid succession. Even with the effects of the ale, he can feel his adrenaline spiking.
“I wanted to know what it was like for him. Know facts.”
A tiny flicker of warmth sparks from within the ice in Steve’s chest.
“I saw, well, not everything I suppose, but I saw a lot. And what I saw…it was very different from what I went through.”
Steve stares at him.
“A lot…worse…than what I went through.”
Steve doesn’t know what to say, so he just swallows. Blinks some more.
“I shouldn’t have dismissed what he went through. I know better now.”
And Steve can no longer see Tony clearly. He buries his face in his hands. Clenches them into fists.
God…Bucky…
Tony crouches beside him. Slides a cautious hand onto his shoulder. “Look. I’m not saying I would’ve ever been bffs with the guy, but… Because of him, we’re about to bring billions of people back, including Rhodey. I’m about to get my best friend back because you lost yours.”
“Thanks for close-captioning my pain, Tony.”
“I’m trying to say I’m sorry!”
Steve finally meets his gaze.
“I was an asshole, okay? What Barnes did was horrible, but he didn’t do it on purpose. But what I said, that was all me. I know it doesn't make up for your loss and I know I’ll never be able to tell him myself, but something tells me he would want me to tell you even more than hear it himself.”
He would.
Bucky would be thrilled that his sacrifice would not only bring billions of people back to life, but also his friendship with Tony.
Fixing every problem in my life even now, huh, pal.
“I know I’ve been an asshole and I know you’re still grieving, and you don’t have to forgive me, but we need you to be present for this next part, Steve. Don’t make Barnes’s sacrifice be for nothing.”
Steve swallows thickly. Slides a hand up to palm at the tags around his neck. “You would have really gotten along,” he murmurs.
“What?"
“You and Bucky. You’re both insufferable when you’re right.”
Tony, miraculously, doesn’t comment, but squeezes Steve’s shoulder instead.
Steve sighs. “Give me five minutes.”
“Good man.”
Tony pats his shoulder. Rises to his feet, coming to a stop just in front of the door. “He’d be proud of you, you know.”
Steve closes his eyes to prevent the desk from getting any wetter.
“Thanks, Tony.”
Left alone, Steve fingers the dog tags around his neck and ponders time travel, what-ifs, and alternate timelines.
Infinite timelines. Infinite outcomes. Himself and Bucky, standing on that ledge.
Fifty-fifty.
Steve stands with newfound resolve. He roughly wipes away moisture from his face and heads for the lab. Right now, the only thing that matters is bringing everybody back. Making sure that Bucky’s sacrifice meant something.
But after…
“Don’t lose who you are,” Bucky had said.
And Steve Rogers has always been, in Bucky’s own words, a ‘stubborn little punk.’
“Don’t you ever give up.”
We don’t trade lives, pal.
And I am never giving up on you.
