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Bucky Barnes watches as the lawyer carefully closes the manila folder on the desk in front of her, sleekly manicured nails gently clicking on the heavy paper. She hands another folder to one of the government officials hovering around the desk, and then turns back to the three men standing on the other side of the desk. “This concludes the reading of Captain Rogers’s will,” she says steadily, though with enough solemnity that Bucky doesn’t feel slighted.
The three men each have their own stack of papers in their hands, detailing what they were bequeathed, even though none of them are in any mood to look closely at them at the moment. The lawyer was thorough enough that they have a good idea of what’s in there anyway, including the papers that all but guarantee Bucky’s freedom, compensation, and the reassurance that the government will never, ever bother him again, all per Steve’s final wishes. The lawyer and the government officials retreat to the other end of the office to conduct business, but Bucky really doesn’t give a shit what they’re saying right now.
“How are you holding up?” Sam asks quietly on one side of him.
Bucky shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says, which is the honest truth. His head’s so full of everything that’s happened in the last few weeks that nothing makes sense any more.
All he knows is that Steve’s not there by his side, and that just ain’t right.
Bucky looks over at Tony Stark, the third man involved in this will reading, and finds himself resisting the urge to punch him straight in the dick. He thinks he’s done an admirable job of tamping down the urges so far, preferring to not speak to or even look at the man at all during the reading. But now, when he looks at him for the first time today, Stark’s giving him a sympathetic look, of all things, and it takes Bucky aback.
“You know, one of the last things that Steve said to me before he...before was that I should take care of you,” Stark says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket like he can’t think of what to do with his hands.
“I can take care of myself,” Bucky spits out, unsure of how else to react in the face of such gentleness coming from the man who, not too long ago, wanted to see him hang.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Stark scoffs. “I have a different idea, in any case.”
“This I’ve got to hear,” Sam mutters, sounding about as skeptical as Bucky feels.
Instead of telling Stark to go shove his idea, which is what he really wants to do, in the spirit of benevolence, and because it’s what Steve would want him to do, Bucky just nods at him instead. “Go ahead.”
“Take the shield.”
Wait, what?
“Excuse me?”
Stark shrugs once, shoulders moving spasmodically in a jacket that probably cost more money than he’d ever earned in his entire life. “You heard me. The world’s always going to need a Captain America. Who better to take up the mantle in Cap’s memory than his best buddy?”
The offer is from so far out of left field that Bucky can barely comprehend it. He’s tempted, that’s for damn sure. It’s the best way to ensure that the idea of Captain America stays what Steve had always meant for it to be, instead of turning him into whatever flag-waver the government wanted him to be. And yet…
He’s not that Bucky Barnes any more. He’s not sure he’ll ever be again. And maybe back in the day, Bucky would have been worthy of the shield, but here and now? There are other people more qualified to carry it.
“Give it to Sam.”
“Excuse me?” Sam breaks in, eyes practically bugging out of his head.
Bucky gives him a nod. “You and I both know that you’ll be a lot better at the job than I would. And the political fall out - “
“May be a little easier to take from someone who didn’t spend years as an assassin with a kill list as long as my arm,” Stark finishes, getting a glare from both Sam and Bucky. “What? It’s not like it’s not true.”
“Man’s got a point,” Sam says. “Can I think about it? It’s a hell of a decision to make.”
“Of course.” Stark pulls a business card out of his pocket and flicks it out for Sam to take. “You know where to find me when you’re ready.”
“Thanks.”
With that, Stark walks off, leaving the two of them standing in the middle of some overly posh lawyer’s office looking like the sky’s about to fall in.
“I need some air,” Bucky says, turning on his heel and heading for the door. He marches through it and doesn’t stop until he’s outside in the parking lot, blinking in the sudden brightness. His body’s capable of handling all the extremes, so a little sun shouldn’t bother him, but after all of the emotion of the day his body’s feeling as off-kilter as his brain is. He leans against the nearest wall, feeling the stones rough against his back,
The slightest shift in the atmosphere tells him that Sam’s come up next to him, but he stands there and waits until Bucky opens his eyes once more and turns a stare in his direction. “So this day’s taken some unexpected turns,” Sam says.
“Understatement,” Bucky says, snorting.
“If you’re not going to join the ranks of the illustrious Avengers, what are you going to do?”
Bucky grins, a shark’s smile that looks like it could snap at any moment. “I’m going to go home.”
Sam just smiles back at him, like he doesn’t have any idea what exactly Bucky’s talking about.
**********
A couple of weeks later, Bucky finds himself in Brooklyn driving the brand new motorcycle down the wide expanse of Ocean Parkway, weaving in and out between the cars without much regard for the speed limit. The sun’s beating down, heavy on the back of his neck in the small gap between helmet and jacket. Late spring in the city has always been like this, Bucky knows - a harbinger of heated steamy days with no escape.
He follows Ocean Parkway all the way to the end, to the point where he can see the actual ocean glimmer through the gaps between trees and boardwalk, and takes the right turn onto Surf Avenue. He drives past new, unfamiliar sights - that Aquarium definitely wasn’t there back the last time he was in Coney Island, but that damned roller coaster certainly was. But that’s not what he’s here for.
Bucky guides the bike past the main drag, past the vibrant, multicolored amusements, the hotdog stand that’s managed to outlast time and hurricanes, past the tourists that are still pouring out of the new train station that’s a lot nicer looking than anything he remembers. A few blocks after that he hangs another right, onto West something or another street, and drives another block and a half or so. At this point the street is lined with any number of row houses, compact and attached two story dwellings with a gate and a driveway in front of each, and the occasional side yard. They’re entirely uninspiring and ordinary, which is exactly what Bucky is aiming for.
He pulls into a driveway for one of the end houses, the concrete driveway blending easily into the small, neat patch of side yard that leads all the way to the back of the house. It’s easier to walk the bike toward the shed behind at the back anyway, so he dismounts and takes care of the process of locking up the motorcycle.
This may be a quiet part of town, but it’s still Brooklyn, and Bucky doesn’t trust anyone when it comes to his new shiny.
There’s a small back stoop, made from cracked concrete and wrought iron rail with grey flaking paint. Bucky climbs the stairs and heads into the house, going through the kitchen that looks like it hasn’t been updated in about thirty years, and not stopping until he hits the living room. The TV’s blaring away in there, however it doesn’t seem to disturb the man sitting on the couch. Or rather, more accurately, the man sleeping on the couch, head tipped back onto the cushions with the occasional snore issuing forth. Bucky chews the inside of his cheek briefly, and walks over until he’s standing right in front of the man’s feet. “If you ever, ever make me do anything like that again, I’ll kill you myself, Steve.”
Steve grins slowly, apparently not as asleep as Bucky had thought. “Is it over?” Steve asks, eyes fluttering open. He looks a lot better than he did the last time Bucky had seen him - despite his clearly alive state Steve had still been badly injured in the wake of that last fight, and there were a few moments when Bucky was certain it was all but over. Steve has always been stubborn, however, so why should this latest recovery be any different?
Bucky slumps down on the couch next to him, relaxing back into the cushions decorated in a tropical pastel floral pattern he’s convinced he last saw on a job in 1987 (the furnishings came with the house, and neither he nor Steve could afford to be fussy about it). “It’s done. Got my freedom and the papers to prove it. Stark wanted me to take up the shield,” he says, eyes firmly trained on the TV.
That gets Steve’s attention, and he sits up straight, looking over at Bucky. “What did you say?”
“Told him to give it to Sam.”
Steve nods, and relaxes back once more. “Can’t think of a better person to carry it,” he says.
“Yeah. Speaking of,” Bucky reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulls out a padded envelope, “here are all of your papers. New birth certificate, license, social security card, a few credit cards. Just about anything you could need to start a new life, and solid enough that no one’ll be able to tell they’re fakes.”
“Thanks.” Steve takes the envelope, rifles through it to glance at the new paperwork. “You were able to keep my first name,” he muses.
“There’s a shitton of people named ‘Steven’ out there. One more won’t be noticed. Last name had to go though.”
“That’s all right. There’s a lot of weight to that name. Won’t mind not dealing with it for a little while.”
Bucky frowns, turning his glare over to Steve, who’s still buried in the packet of identification documents. “You’re seriously thinking of going back? When you’ve only just gotten out?”
Steve shrugs, picking the new license out of the envelope and flicking it across his fingers a few times. “I don’t want to go back, but I can’t be naive enough to think that they won’t catch up to me eventually. I need to be prepared for anything.” He meets Bucky’s gaze with that serious look that’s all too at home on Steve’s face. “And they still know you’re out there too.”
He pats the inner pocket again, hard enough so that Steve can hear the crinkle of another envelope in there. “Got my own set of documents too. A few weeks from now there’ll be an incident with a trash compactor at a junkyard a few states away from here. Another old soldier who can’t bear the weight of the guilt of what he’s done goes under,” Bucky mutters.
“But you won’t actually…”
“No.” Maybe once Bucky would have, back when the memories first started returning and filling his head up with blood and gore and decades of violence that he couldn’t take, but not now. Now, he’s got a plan to escape with Steve, throw off Stark and the government and everyone but Sam and maybe get a little bit of well earned peace and quiet and calm.
“Good.” Steve knocks his shoulder against Bucky’s metal one, like they’re ten years old again and trying to speak without getting caught on that hard and prickly bench outside the principal’s office. “So. In a month, when we can finally get out of Brooklyn without being noticed, where should we go first? We’ve got all the time in the world.”
Bucky grins, knocking Steve back. “You know, I’ve always wanted to see the Grand Canyon.”
**********
Six months later, Darcy Lewis buys a supposedly dead man a cup of coffee and a slice of pie at a diner in New Mexico late one night, claiming that he looks like he could use the pick me up.
Normally, Steve would brush off any claims of resemblance as being pure coincidence, but when she mentions how much Thor has mourned his loss it gives him pause. It’s enough of a break that Darcy can wiggle inside his walls, taking a seat opposite him in the booth, and give him a look that’s full of unexpected concern. “So I guess reports of your death were an exaggeration?” she says slyly, in a voice low enough that only Steve can hear her. The diner’s mostly empty that this time of night (or morning) anyway, and while there’s a chance that she may be hallucinating from grad school induced insomnia, she’s pretty damned certain of who’s sitting across the table from her.
“Not according to most of the world,” Steve says, hands folded on the table in front of him. “I’d kind of like to keep it that way.”
“No worries,” Darcy says, smiling in a sunny sort of way that chases the nightmare clouds away from Steve, at least for one small, shining moment, “I’m pretty good at keeping a secret.”