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Remember walking when you thought you couldn't stand
Remember what it feels like
I know you think that they could never understand
Oh, but you don't wanna be right
And now you only wanna make it out alive
So just hold on
Driving through the valley of a great unknown
Open up the headlight
Shine on
Everyone around you has a heart of stone
But you just roll on
Just roll on
Just roll on
Just roll on
“The Great Unknown” by Rob Thomas
He was on the table. He saw it coming. The blade, the bone saw. Felt it carve into his shoulder. He screamed.
A sound, somewhere on the edge of his consciousness.
On the table again, held down this time, restraints biting into his skin. Tools, instruments and wires, held by hands without faces. They wanted him awake. They always wanted him awake. Even his head was restrained, mouth guard shoved in deep enough to bite into the back of his jaw, keeping him from pushing it out, keeping him from swallowing his tongue again or biting down hard enough to crack his teeth. He couldn’t even turn his head to see what they were doing so the anticipation of the pain never stopped until the actual pain started, lightning shooting straight to his brain from the arm that wasn’t there. Then he couldn’t hear what they were doing to him over his own screams.
A sound, coming through the screams, a voice, indiscernable, tugging at his mind. “...cky… Bu…y…ease… C’mon…” He groaned painfully, reaching out, searching for that voice. It sounded… kind… it couldn’t be for him, but he wanted to hear it more, even if it wasn’t his to hear.
His hand met something warm and soft, and the voice became clearer through the black and red fog in his brain. “...mon, Bucky… I’ve got you… You’re safe…”
Safe? There’s no safe. But, god, he wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe that voice. He groaned again, trying to go toward the voice. He felt his hand being squeezed. “I’ve got you, Bucky. It was a nightmare, you were dreaming.”
“No…” His voice came out in a croak.
“C’mon, Buck, open your eyes for me.”
He did, and the face he saw above him made his breath catch. She didn’t belong in a place like this. Not in the lab where they grinned and talked excitedly while they tortured him. Not in the dim, filthy cell where they left him in a broken whimpering heap when he passed out or they got tired of his screams. “Don’t b’lon here… not s’posed to be here…”
She touched his hand. “That’s not…” Her voice kept going garbled in his ears. “…Not in that terrible place.”
She couldn’t be here, shouldn’t be here. “Need to go…” He started pushing up from the floor. He wouldn’t let them find her.
“Go…? Please… don’t leave…”
He blinked, the world slowly swimming back into focus as she held his right hand, his world narrowing again to the singular point of his hand sandwiched between hers, one under his palm, the other rubbing circles over the the knuckles and back of it, like she was trying to warm him. Why is she here?
“Bucky…”
Why is she calling him that? They only call him soldat…
“Buck, look at me.”
He looked up from his hand to her face. Why was she looking at him like that? Her eyes… Nobody here has eyes like that… “You don’t belong here…”
“Bucky, you’re in the Tower. Avengers Tower.” Her voice was so soft… No voice here sounded like that.
“Tower…?” Did HYDRA have towers? Bunkers, castles… he couldn’t remember anything called a tower.
Her fingers stopped rubbing over his hand and raised toward his face. He braced himself, shut his eyes, jaw set for whatever was about to happen to him. He was questioning. She was a handler, had to be, and he was questioning. He couldn’t do that. She would punish him. Should punish him. He had forgotten things. They must be important things.
“Oh, Buck…” Her fingers grazed across his brow, pushing aside sweat-plastered strands of hair.
She sounded… sad? Why was she sad? He was malfunctioning, that had to be it. He was broken and she was upset that they would have to recalibrate him. That must be it. He was holding up a mission because they would have to fix him. But her hands were so gentle… why was she touching him?
“Bucky,” she cupped his jaw with her hand and it was like warmth radiated out from her touch, like the heat from embers spreading under his skin.
Bucky… Not soldat.
“Bucky, do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?”
He should know. He should know her. She’s important, he knows she is. She matters … She matters to him… He knows she does. She was looking at him like she could see inside. She was a handler, he needed to answer. He needed to answer her or she’d know. She’d know he was malfunctioning. She’d be upset if he was malfunctioning. “ Да, готов служить ”
Her face changed, she was worried. He messed up. It was the wrong answer and now she knows. She knows he’s malfunctioning. She knows that he needs to be fixed. He started shaking, and he couldn’t stop.
“Bucky, stay with me. You gotta breathe, Buck.” Her thumb moved back and forth over his cheek. Her hand lifted his to her chest, pressing it over her sternum. “Breathe with me, Bucky.”
He followed her exaggerated breaths. In, hold, out, hold. Over and over, feeling her heartbeat against his palm until he could hear it over the blood rushing in his ears.
“That’s it. Good job, Buck.” God, her voice was so gentle. “Let’s get off the floor. Can you stand?”
He nodded and did, legs shaking under him. So did she. Her eyes tightened like she was in pain. Why was she in pain? She steadied herself on the arm of the couch. His hand tightened a little, still holding hers, and she looked at him. She looked at him. She met his eyes like she was looking inside again and something in his chest told him again that she mattered.
She started leading him by the hand and he went. She wasn’t like any handler he’d ever had. Down a familiar hall and into an elevator. Up only one floor and down a hall to a familiar door. She opened the door and led him in. He knew this room. He knew her.
She led him to the couch and he sat. She let go of his hand and something like a whine crawled from his lips, feeling suddenly unmoored by the loss of her hand in his. “Shhhh…” she soothed. Why was she soothing him? “I’m just going to get you some water and a cloth to help clean you up.” She leaned down and pressed her lips to his forehead and his breath left in a shaky sigh, a tingling warmth spreading under his skin from her soft lips. “You’re safe here. I won’t leave your sight, okay?”
He nodded and she pulled away. He watched her moving around the kitchen and he remembered her. Asking if she could help, her quiet voice telling him she saw him. That he was good. He was a person to her. He wasn’t soldat here. He had a name. She knew his name.
“Here.” She came back and he took the water from her hand. “Drink.”
He did, and she took the empty glass from him, setting it aside. She knelt in front of him, nudging her way between his knees and he was lost again. “What-”
“I just want to get that shoulder cleaned up, Buck.” She raised the warm cloth to his left shoulder and he nearly jumped out of his skin. She stopped. “It’s okay, shh…” She pressed one hand to his cheek again and he felt himself lean into her touch. “That’s right, you’re gonna be okay, James.”
He took a shaky breath. James… That was his name. She knew his name. She knew him. She was good. She was so kind. She wiped the cloth over his shoulder, wiping the drying blood away. He didn’t know he had been bleeding. Always kind to him. Not a handler. She took care of him. She mattered to him because he mattered to her first.
She finished wiping his shoulder and took his right hand, carefully rubbing away the blood from around and under his nails. He watched her hands moving over his. He remembered her gentle touches, holding and caressing his hands, thumbs soothing over the dents and scuffs in shining metal, tracing fine scars and callouses. He watched the look of quiet concentration on her face and remembered mornings and evenings in a kitchen, the way she held a knife, dough stretching and folding in those hands, good smells and food he had forgotten the taste of. He knew her, he remembered her, she mattered to him. “Cookie…” he said softly.
She looked up at him, met his eyes, “There you are…”, and the relief in her eyes was like the sun coming from behind clouds as she smiled up at him. “Hey, Buck.” She set aside the washcloth. She rested her hands on his, rubbing her thumbs over his knuckles and it was like he could feel himself melting, sun on the snow, a humming glow spreading from where she touched him.
“Feel cold…” He wanted more. More of her gentle hands and smile, more of her quiet voice. He wanted her to thaw him with that look in her eyes, the one that told him he was good.
She tried to stand, and faltered halfway. She reached out without thinking and braced herself with a hand on his shoulder. He remembered her, why that movement was hard for her. She put herself in a position that would cause her pain. For him. “Cookie, I…”
“It’s okay, Buck. I’m going to get a blanket. I’ll be right back, okay?”
He felt the worry creep up inside him, tightening his chest. She was kind, she was good. He didn’t get to have that. They’d take her away. He couldn’t let it happen! He shot to his feet. He couldn’t let her go. She stumbled back, the coffee table hitting the backs of her knees and he reached out reflexively to steady her with a hand against her hip.
“Buck, what’s wrong?”
He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell her how he knew, he just knew if she left his sight she’d be gone. They’d find out about her. They'd take her away, or they’d make him hurt her. They’d done it before.
“Do you want to come with me, James?”
He nodded. Yes. Yes, he wanted to go with her. He never wanted her out of his sight. She took his hand again and led him to the linen closet beside the bathroom. She opened the door and reached up for a blanket on the top shelf, straining on her toes. Something in that movement pulled at his chest, he needed to fix this for her. He reached up and grabbed the bundle she was reaching for, pulling it down.
She smiled up at him and said “thank you” and it felt like the sun on his face. She led him back to the couch and sat next to him, perched on one knee. She reached out and smoothed his hair, tucking it behind his ears, and he felt exposed, with her eyes on him, like she could see inside his head. She was going to see, she was going to see what he was, and she’d leave. That he was a monster, that they’d killed him and remade him into a killing machine and he didn’t deserve to be looked at like that, like he was good.
“Bucky!” She took his face in her hands, and he froze. “James,” she continued more softly. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe here.” She smoothed her hands over his face, his hair, and he wanted to believe her. She reached down and picked up the blanket, draping it around them both.
Then she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her face to his hair and he melted. It was like all his nerves overloaded, his skin prickled with goosebumps and nothing had ever felt so good. A broken, quaking moan crawled up from inside him as he pressed his face against the curve of her neck.
She was soft. God, she was so soft and warm and smelled so nice and how could anything in this shit world be so sweet and lovely and why would she touch him like this, like he wasn't a tool or a killing machine, meant to take orders. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him, wanting nothing but for this to be real, to be something he could have just for a moment and pray that he wouldn’t be forced to forget the one time someone treated him like a human.
But it wasn’t one time. As his mind kept pulling itself out of the fog, he remembered other times. He knew her. She spoke to him, and touched him like this. She smiled at him like she wasn’t afraid of him. Ever. She was so sweet to him, letting him touch her, touching him like this, such a doll. Sweet as those cookies she made, best thing he’d ever tasted. He heard a little huff, like a stifled laugh, and opened his eyes. Did he say something out loud?
His face was still pressed to her neck, arms around her waist and behind her shoulders, and he was laying mostly on top of her, between her legs where she reclined into the arm of the sofa. “M’sorry…” He mumbled, starting to extricate himself.
She stopped him with a hand against the side of his neck and he looked down at her face. She was smiling at him, her eyes crinkled a little at the corners as her thumb idled over the edge of his jaw. “It’s okay, Buck. You can be here as long as you need. I’ve got you.”
“M’ heavy,” he said with a doubtful look.
“Nah. You’re good.” She pulled him gently back down.
He could have gotten up, he wouldn’t even have to fight, but he didn’t want to. He sank back down against her, curling against the plush of her body, letting her thaw him like when he and his sisters and Steve would come in on a snowy day and crowd around the radiator, laying their wet gloves and hats on top to dry. She petted his hair or stroked over his shoulders and back or her fingertips idled up and down his spine or his right arm tucked around her waist. Her touches were slow and relaxed, like she meant what she said. That he could stay as long as he needed. Thoughts and memories floated and sank back down from the surface of his mind as he listened to the slow, steady beat of her heart, and the song she quietly hummed, her cheek rested against his head. He started to think he might need this forever. Я тебя обожаю…