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Bucky goes in and out of consciousness like he's adrift in the ocean, his head dipping under the water before a wave throws him back up. He's not been shot, or stabbed, or anything else that might put him in critical condition. That's always how it felt, though. Being alone in his apartment. It was pathetic, really. He'd try not to fall asleep, and then have nightmares. Half the time he wasn't sure if he even did fall asleep, or if he'd been avoiding it for so long he was having hallucinations instead. You can't pinch yourself awake with hallucinations.
And then he'd have a therapy session, or he'd go to lunch with Yuri. Sometimes he'd miss them, leave Yuri to eat alone or he'd get a call from Raynor to get his ass over to her office or she'd call the cops on him.
At first he'd been honest with her. Honest enough, she'd told him there were certain things she'd have to report if he told her, so he didn't say those things. He didn't tell her that the couple moaning and bumping the wall with their bedframe in the apartment above his every night made him want to go up there and shoot them both dead. And he didn't tell her that sometimes he'd wake up from a nightmare with a loaded gun already touching at his temple, ready to silence his own head.
But he'd told her about the nightmares. That he'd have dreams of being the winter soldier—he didn't tell her about the dreams of Hydra, he couldn't. He told her of the dreams of killing innocent people, of killing Howard Stark. He'd told her that they were friends back in the 40s, something only Steve had known. “Friends” was a loose term, but they were friendly. Bucky used to be friendly with everyone, especially in the army.
He didn't fully recall being friends with Howard until Zemo showed the footage of him killing him in front of Tony. God, Bucky could hardly picture Howard settling down and having a kid with one woman, let alone have that kid try to kill him with every ounce of strength he had. He hadn't even remembered Howard in that infamous moment, or maybe he had. Maybe he told Hydra that he remembered, and they'd freezed it out of his head for good. Everything was at least a little bit fuzzy, it always would be, Shuri had said. Maybe that was mercy.
If he were Job in the bible—and at this point, maybe he was—, he'd have failed the test, he had no faith in a God left. Not after it all. He couldn't pinpoint the moment it went away, he doesnt think it was even the first time he'd been kidnapped by Hydra. Strapped to that table, syringes digging into him. He'd repeated his name, his number, and played over and over things in his head. Happy memories, his younger sister, Steve, life before the war. And somehow that made it survivable, and he pushed on. Thanked the Heavens for an escape.
But escape wasn’t mercy the second time. If there was a God, They would’ve let him die on that frozen cliffside.
He was back in the snow, now. He hadn’t missed the feeling—Hell, just the temperature filled him with dread. Sam had visited him in Brooklyn that New Years (he felt bad that Bucky hadn’t accepted the invite to spend Christmas at Sarah’s, knew he felt like he didn't deserve it), and questioned him on the winces he’d give whenever he moved his metal arm too much.
“When it’s colder outside, the skin here,” Bucky rubbed a thumb over where his flesh met his metal arm “gets a little tight and sore. S’not a big deal.”
There was a time when Sam would’ve thought Super Soldiers couldn’t scar, but Isaiah Bradley had shown him otherwise. It made him wonder just how many Bucky had under those layers of leather.
“I can’t imagine that was a fun time with the whole cryofreeze thing.”
“Trust me—that was the least of my problems.”
The colder weather wasn't great. God knows he loved Louisiana for its sweat-inducing, sweltering heat. And in the winter it didn't snow, at least not at Sam’s house. He trudged through snow, now, wishing he was at Sam's.
He’d been chasing a lead, something he hadn’t bothered Sam with because he was so busy these days. He was always either on a mission or doing press or having conferences, and he finally had a break. He was back in Delacroix, taking a few weeks off work. But this thread would get lost if Bucky didn’t pull on it soon, so he went on mission without him. Called in a favor from Sharon to get a jet ride close enough to where he suspected the base was, belly-flopped painfully into the snowy mountains, and found it soon enough.
It was a name on his amends list, Russian, Petrov, someone he remembered faintly from his time as the Winter Soldier. Not Hydra, but adjacent. They would sell to each other, trade. Some rich guy with a vendetta, which was never a good combination. Sharon had let him know there was talk about him in Madripoor, rumors that the old base was still being used. That it had never stopped being used.
Used for what, he wasn't entirely sure. He was mostly there for muscle, to scare them into upholding their end of the deal and then some. If it…. If it had something to do with the serum, that made it a high priority. It might not have, but he couldn’t shake the feeling.
Even as he staked out the place, hiding behind a rocky hill to see if anyone came in or out, it felt.. Strange. His other amends weren’t like this, not this far from home—though Zemo might argue that Russia was his home. He felt more disconnected from Hydra than ever these days, the Winter Soldier was a separate entity. He wasn't real, he never really was.
The snow made him feel like maybe the asset was right there in the back of his head, waiting.
It was different, being on a mission alone for the first time in years. He might've missed Sam, the witty commentary. All he had now were his mind-numbing thoughts, as he approached the entrance. The metal doors were open already, blowing wind and snow flurries into the building. It looked abandoned. There were no lights, no noise.
He stepped inside quietly, walking along the walls, crouching, waiting, and listening for long periods of time in each spot. The room was circular, much like the place in Siberia they held him at, with doorways on each side of him. He picked the one closest to him, turned the doorknob as silently as he could, slipping inside.
It appeared to be a laboratory, a stench of rot and sterilizer choking him. There were rows of cabinets and boxes of blue gloves, empty IVs, metal tables with wheels. There were files and papers littering the floors. It would've looked like a bomb went off, had anything been burnt up. He crept closer to the tables.
He’d seen so, so much worse before. Done so much worse. Pulled limbs from human bodies, shot through people's brains. For some reason this made him sweat. There were mice on one of the counters, in puddles of blood, less like just test subjects, this looked like anger motivated violence, almost. Their beady little eyes ripped from their skulls, leaving behind scabby sockets. The eyes were most likely somewhere else in this lab, in a test tube or petri dish. The fact that they weren’t rotting yet was proof enough that this base was still active, at least a little.
But where was everyone? Had they all cleared out as soon as word got to Madripoor about them?
He continued exploring the base, walking through more doors in this maze of a hide-out. In the next room, there was a wolf on a metal table, big and fluffy, his fur matted with mud. The worst part was his eyes, the lids soaked in blood, dark and black blood that stained a trail beneath each eye socket. White wolf.
What scientist here was so obsessed with taking the eyes out of animals? It was cruel, and seemed so unnecessary.
The silence just kept getting louder, the sound of his own footsteps making his heart beat fast. It was only as lit as the half-shuttered windows made it, there were green file cabinets lined up against the wall like tombstones, equal spaces between each stack. The place was dusty enough, the slips of worn paper in each file cabinet drawer had faded Russian scribbled on them, decades old now. One of them had the words “зимний солдат” written on it— Winter Soldier . This was his. A whole drawer just for him.
But why? He'd never been owned by these people, all he did was visit. At least, that's what he thought. Now that he was here, in these labs, it felt sickeningly familiar.
He ran his gloved fingers across the dust on the lip of the drawer, and pulled it open. It wasn't locked, even though it had a keyhole on the front of it. He opened it all the way, the drawer was full with file folders, colored tabs sticking out of them with more Russian words. He gingerly took one out, opened it.
Bucky wouldn't say he knew the language of Russian, only the words he had needed to. So he didn't know a lot of these. There were pictures. They'd taken his blood, 8 vials of it.
It hit him quickly, the memory, like an ocean wave he hadn’t been expecting. They'd been selling his blood. They'd taken him to one of these rooms, laid him back on one of the metal tables. He'd felt drowsy, even before they got there.
“Сколько за глаза?“ One of the agents asked as he laid facing the ceiling. How much for the eyes?
His handler replied in Russian. Not for sale. Not yet. Sooner or later, he won't need them anymore. The Red Room is perfecting their formula, should not be long now. But- uh- you didn't hear it from me, Petrov. Should this information get out, I will send him after you with both his eyes, and you will soon have none.
The agent laughed in response.
Why did they want his eyes? They already had every bit of him, every action and word. They took his blood, he didn't put up a fight. They'd strapped him down anyway. He locked eyes with the nervous scientist looming above him, in front of the blinding lights above them. He made eye contact with himself in the reflection of the man's glasses.
Bucky opened another file. It looked like they did tests on his blood. It wouldn't be the first time. But why would Hydra let them? They'd been dead set on being the only ones with the serum, why would they let these people take his blood so willingly? Did Hydra somehow know it wouldn't work? It didn't look like it had, all of these files proved to have minimal results.
He heard a metallic clang faintly, making him inhale sharply and stand straight up, frantically turning around. He walked slowly, barely picking his feet up, to the doorway.
The clang sounded again, not far from him, but this room was empty. It was another lab, this one with two separate tables, a wolf corpse on each. These ones had twin blindfolds tied tightly across their eyes, one wolf with a visible bullet hole in its side.
Clang
Was there an animal in here? If it was a wolf, he might be in trouble. If it was a person, he wouldn't exactly be shocked.
Clink
A mouse was on the side of the table, pushing scalpels onto the floor. He was sitting on a metal tray, haphazardly laid on the table on top of several strewn papers. Bucky shooed the mouse away, moving the tray to read the open file.
They were trying to copy the Red Room's mind control program, the same way they had tried to copy the super soldier serum. They were taking the animals' sight because they didn’t need sight—because they weren’t the ones in control of their own body.
He felt the pain in his leg before his brain even registered the gunshots and shouting behind him, two of the bullets hitting the walls around him. There were two men in tactical gear behind him, taking advantage of his distracted state.
The fight was easy enough—harder than it used to be, when he was younger and wasn't afraid to kill people—as these men weren't supersoldiers. Though it wasn't long before there were more, and they'd shout to each other in angry Russian, yells erupting as Bucky stabbed one of them with their own knife. He threw them across the room, they'd hit the medical equipment with a clang , and he'd keep fighting.
He took punches, didn't take more than a second to breathe, and they just kept coming. Where had all these people been hiding?
“зимний солдат” a man screamed as he entered the room, capturing Bucky's attention long enough for someone to puncture his abdomen forcefully with their knife—twisting it before sharply tearing it out.
The man that had shouted his name had to be Petrov, or at least one of his relatives. They had the same glare, the same dark brown arching eyebrows. Was this a trap?
Bucky grabbed the agent that stabbed him by the collar and threw him against the back wall. If it was, they certainly hadn't accounted for a supersoldier's strength levels.
Petrov stood in the doorway, hardly moving as Bucky was latched onto by more of his- what, employees? And then he felt something in his arm, sharply turned to see a syringe sticking out of him, and ripped it out, crushing it in his fist.
He should probably get out of here. He could keep fighting for longer, but he didn't particularly desire to stab all of these dozens of people to death for the next 3 hours.
He trudged forward, Petrov grabbing him by the arm before Bucky put him in a headlock. “Call them off,” he growled in his ear. Petrov gut-punched him, throwing him off balance enough to get socked in the face, pushing him to the floor.
The smell of gasoline filled the room, two of the agents he'd kicked were dumping gallons of it on the floors and in the file cabinets. One of them lit a match—the only light besides the windows—as he felt a foot slam against his back, pinning him to the floor.
“I was gonna do that anyway,” he mumbled against the cement floors as they set fire to the room, flipping over and strangling the person behind him. A kick to the face sent him to the floor again, and his eyes fluttered shut for half a second.
Why is that happening? He thought muddily, looking down at himself. Right, there was a bullet in his leg and a hole in his stomach. He should put pressure on that. A boot came down on his cheek, the pressure on his skull making it feel like his eyes were about to pop out of his head. He grabbed the foot with his metal hand, yanking the man down beside him and grabbing his knife by the blade. He stuck it into his chest, right over his heart, using his foot to lodge it in there.
“We're going to blow you to hell , Barnes,” the man spat hoarsely, Russian accent thick. “What you deserve.” It was Petrov he'd stabbed, he grinned up at him, face pale. Bucky looked up, only now noticing they were the only two people in the fire-filled room. He scrambled up, resisting the urge to puke, and started the mad dash to get out of there.
“For fucks sake, Sharon .”
His knees hit the snow outside as the rest of his body followed, being pushed down with the force of the explosion behind him. If they were that willing to destroy it all, they must've had it all backed up somewhere, probably a new base. When he stood up to follow them, he fell right back into the snow.
Winter Soldier- can't get enough of the snow, can you? he could hear Sam taunt in his head, as if he was really there. Can't drop the assassin gimmick? Had to go in alone.
He turned over on his back, staring at the sky. It was cloudy, dark and cloudy. Snow was falling fast with the wind. It wasn't cloudy earlier. Fuck. It didn't look like he was getting his ride home.
He had a conversation with Sharon earlier, before he boarded the plane.
“I make no promises, my guy has a strict schedule. If you miss the window, you’re going to have to find your own way back.”
“I’m not going to miss my window. In and out, I know what I’m doing.” He shrugged on a thin black coat.
“If you want to wait for Sam–”
“I know what I’m doing, Sharon.”
“Right.”
So much for knowing what he was doing.
He needed to get away from this base.
He brought his leg up to himself, assessing the damage. Those animals , he thought as he dug his fingers in to fish the bullet out of his leg, flinching harshly. That would’ve been me.
If he had stayed the winter soldier, that would've been him. That probably was him, in some alternate universe somewhere. They would've replaced his eyes with cameras, rendering his body as merely a vessel. A suit of armor to protect the evil in the world.
He ripped off a piece of his shirt beneath his extra layers, tying it painfully tight around his leg, standing up wobbly.
He forced himself to walk—practically crawl—until the base was out of sight before he dared take out his phone. Miraculously, it only looked mildly bashed to shit, and he let out a sob of relief when the screen turned on.
There were probably more practical people to call instead of Sam, but he lost a lot of blood already and wasn't thinking clearly. And Sam felt safe.
His sweat from earlier had turned to thin sheets of ice on his skin. The snow bit at him like a hungry wolf, desperate to feed her puppies human flesh for dinner. His fingers were almost too cold and numb for his phone screen to register the touch.
“-am? Sam?” he rasped out into his phone.
“Would it kill you to text me back once in a while, Buck?”
Bucky wanted to cry at the voice. He let out a whine and held the phone to his ear. “You’re gonna kill me, Sam.”
“What? Are you on your motorcycle or is it really that windy in New York?”
“I’m not in New York.”
“Where are you?”
He coughed wetly.
“ Bucky.”
James Buchanan Barnes had probably never “giggled” in his life before this moment. Maybe it was hysteria, or relief to hear Sam's voice. But he giggled, like a 9 year old.
“Dude. Are you drunk?” Sam's voice thundered out through his cracked phone.
“Yes.” he said without hesitation, and laughed at himself. He couldn't get drunk, Sam should know that. “Sam, you're gonna hate me.”
“What is it? I have the grill going, if you're just fucking with me-”
“Don't hang up-I fucked up. Sam– I fucked up bad.”
“What does that mean?”
“I'm in Russia.”
“...What? Don't tell me you shot the president again—I heard about the Trump rally-”
“No- I didn't- I was—making amends. I need you to–”
“You're cutting out, Bucky.”
Deep breath.
“Sam, I'm gonna send you coordinates of an old base I used to- I was-.. I went there to find someone I used to know. And it's gone now, and I'm out here in the snow.”
For a painful second, Sam was silent. Bucky tore his phone from his ear to make sure he didn't hang up.
“Are you hurt?”
“I- yeah.”
“How bad?” There were ruffling noises on Sam's end of the call.
His mouth felt dry.
“I can manage long enough. Few more hours. I've survived worse.”
“I'm calling Joaquin– stay on the line with me.”
Bucky kept his phone in his hand, forcing himself to crawl onto a flat rock peeking out of the snow, groaning as it brushed against his stab wound.
“Bucky? Talk to me, man.”
“M'gonna get hypothermia before bleeding out at this point.”
Sam scoffed. “Should I bother asking why you went on this mission alone?”
“It's my business, Sam.” He stared up at the sky, snow falling on his eyelashes.
“Yeah, well, now it's mine.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I didn't mean it like that. I mean- we're a team now, Buck. Don't do this to me.”
“You needed a break. This couldn't wait, I'm sorry, Samuel. If it makes you feel any better- I'm getting my punishment now.” He coughed out a laugh.
“It doesn't– it really doesn't.”
“I know.” He smiled at the clouds above him, in too much pain to hide his fondness. “And I'm sorry. I don't like dragging you out of your vacation like this.”
“I wouldn't prefer ending my vacation with a funeral.”
Bucky laughed. “Yeah, me either. It's weird; not wanting to die.”
“Yeah it is.”
…
“You coming to get me?”
“Driving, right now, trying to meet with Joaquin. I don't own a private jet, unfortunately.”
“No? That boat of yours can't fly?”
“Why do you have such a trash mouth when you're dying? I don't have to go save your ass.”
“You kinda do. Unless you want to find a replacement mission partner.”
“I don’t.”
Bucky stayed on the line for a while longer, fighting the cold weather until he lost, dipping out of consciousness and leaving Sam alone.
“Bucky?” Just the familiar voice made his whole body churn, ache. He wanted that voice on loop in his ears for the rest of his life.
Sam approached him with a run, easily spotting Bucky propped up against a rock, red stains blooming across the snow around him. “There’s blood-”
“It’s not mine.” he spat out—hurriedly, justifying himself for some reason. They were familiar on his tongue, had he said it as the Soldier?
“Then why's it dripping out of you?”
Sam turned him over on his back, and Bucky felt sick at the comforting touch.
“Sam,” he sobbed out, too cold to care how desperate he sounded. His lips were purple, his nose and cheeks pink.
“Come on, ice queen, I'm gonna get you home.” Sam tried pulling him upright by his hands, and Bucky managed to sit up before puking into the snow. Sam's hand found his back, making him grind his teeth together. Sam scanned his injuries, peeling at his torn clothes where Bucky was stabbed.
“He's lost a lot of blood, Joaquin.” Sam said, probably into his comms since Bucky couldn't see Torres anywhere. “Yeah. Hurry, please.”
A little part of him wondered if he lost 8 vials of blood. Just like old times he smiled.
“Did you…… fly here?” Bucky rasped, noticing now that Sam was in his suit, wings behind him.
“Part of the way.” Sam took Bucky’s human wrist in his hand, checking his pulse. Their faces were only inches apart, Sam crouched down in front of him. “Your breathing is slower than it should be, Buck. And the fact that you're not shivering isn't a good sign. Torres is coming to get us.” He sat down beside Bucky.
“They were gonna–” Bucky slurred, before tipping over, almost falling off the rock before Sam caught him.
“Woah- woah- here-” Sam pulled him against his side. “Don’t think about it, I’ve got you.”
“I’m sorry– Sam."
“Shh”
“I don't.. eh-” Bucky's eyes fell shut, his whole body weight against Sam now.
Torres got there soon, and Sam hoisted Bucky on his feet, slinging his arm around his shoulder. Bucky hobbled on one foot with him into the plane. As soon as they got inside, Sam started tugging and peeling at his wet clothes, Bucky swatted at him.
“I need to warm you up, man, stitch you up, too. Please.” Sam laid him down gently on the plane floor after sending Torres to find him more supplies. “I’m gonna take these wet clothes off you, okay?”
He unzipped Bucky’s coat before gently using small scissors to cut through his layers of black clothes, Bucky's eyes on him as he worked. His skin was pink and damp, cold to the touch. He peeled off his shirts, pulled them away to discard them, trying not to let his eyes linger on the rough scarring along the line of his metal arm and his skin, raised jagged scars on several parts of his torso.
Sam stripped him down completely–feeling a little bit bad about it, but would Bucky rather freeze to death?--before wrapping him in a large blanket.
He would have felt uncomfortably exposed if it were any other person, but somehow Sam's eyes felt safe. His eyes touched him with the same carefulness as his hands. The same precision.
They moved methodically, and Bucky faintly wondered if he’d done this before, as pararescue. A little part of him hoped the concerned gaze and feather-light touches were specific to this case, to him. It was intimate in a way it shouldn't be, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
“Sam,” he whispered as Sam put pressure on his abdomen wound.
“Yeah, what do you need?”
Bucky's eyes widened, and he looked confused.
“Am I gonna die?”
“What? No- you’re not-”
“Can you tell my sister? I don’t want her to– she can’t-” His head leaned back against the ground, eyes shutting. Sam scanned his face, concluding that delirium was getting to him.
“Shh- You’re okay, Buck, it’s just you and me, here.”
Bucky wasn’t aware Torres had come back, and gave Sam what he’d asked for. He felt a warm water bottle against his neck, sighing. He felt Sam’s fingers gently pet his jaw, silently asking him to open his mouth for something. He drank the warm water agreeably.
Sam soon got to work stitching him up, making him groan and tighten his grip on his blankets. His chest rose and fell with his deep breathing. There was a hand on his forehead, and someone was talking to him.
“I'll admit I'm relieved that you're shivering now, even if it makes this part harder.”
The hand fell down to his cheek, warmly cupping him, his glove discarded. Bucky closed his eyes. “Sam,” he spoke into the deafening silence.
“I'm almost done with these stitches, looks like your super-healing doesn't work very well when you have hypothermia. Speaking of which..”
Sam brought another drink up to his lips, which he sipped gratefully before making a face.
“Is this warm gatorade?”
“You're gonna drink it or you're gonna die, Buck, those are your two choices.”
“I chose die-”
Sam tilted it back into his mouth, and Bucky reluctantly swallowed it. Sam opened his blankets briefly enough to put a warm water bottle under his armpit, making him sigh in relief. He wrapped him snugly in the blankets.
“How's that?”
“Where's Torres?”
“What? He's with the pilot- what do you care?”
Bucky sighed again. “I'm so embarrassed.”
“What, you scared of losing your dark and brooding reputation? Should've thought of that before you went on this mission alone.”
“It's– Hydra business. It's my amends.”
“If your amends are a threat to your life I think maybe we need to reconsider your list. I'm not against you trying to help people that are hurting, but this isn't the way. Not alone, okay?”
Bucky hummed in reply. “The lab blew up.”
“Yeah, that's what it looked like. Did anything hit you?”
“I don't think so. I think it was a trap for me. They wanted to blow me up.”
“And did they?” Dark concerned eyes stared down at Bucky.
“They were…. They were trying to recreate the Red Room programs. They were ripping animals eyes out of their heads-”
Sam put a hand on the side of his head. “We don't have to talk about this now. I'm just happy you're okay, Buck. You scared the shit outta me.”
“I'm sorry, it's not fair to you.”
“Man, who knew all it took for you to apologize for shit was almost dying?”
“I blame it on the concussion.”
Sam put a palm above his cheekbone, the ends of his fingers in Bucky's hair.
“Did you have a concussion the last time you apologized? After we got the shield?”
Something in Bucky stirred at the word “we”. We got the shield.
“Probably. Walker got me bad.”
“You didn't say anything.”
“I don't, usually.”
“Well, thank you for calling me, this time. I'm still mad that you went out here at all, but I'm glad you trusted me to come.”
“I should be thanking you.”
“You won't be thanking me when I drag you back to Louisiana and Sarah and the boys fawn over you for a week.”
“I miss them.”
Sam looked surprised at that, petting the side of Bucky's head in a way that might've seemed weird to anyone else. He'd never treat Torres with this kind of affection, but doing it with Bucky felt natural. Bucky closed his eyes as he felt it.
“They miss you too. I missed you.”
“I miss you too, Sam.”
They both stared at each other, scared to say anything else. Sam’s hand stopped its movement, resting on Bucky’s head.
“Are you guys ready for us to get going?” Torres walked in suddenly, making Bucky and Sam turn and look at him. “Or- uh- sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt-”
“Joaquin.” Sam spoke flatly.
“RIght- I’ll- uh- go.”