Chapter Text
Natasha told him that he was a ghost story. No ghost fights so ferociously. For every punch Steve gives, the muzzled Soldier gives him two. The more he blocks the strikes of the metallic arm with his shield, the more Steve fear to reach the limit of the precious metal’s resistance. It all happens in a split of a second; Captain America’s shield hits the sophisticated bionic arm of the Winter Soldier then his face with a force that would knock out an average man. Steve grabs him and flips him over his back. The assassin gets up as soon as he hits the ground, unmasked.
Steve Rogers gasps and snaps his eye open, sweaty and heart pounding. It takes him a moment to remember where he is. He’s in his room in the Avengers tower. The grey bed cover and the sheet are on the floor, a sign that he’s been fighting in his sleep for a while now. To push back the last image of his dream, he focuses on one of his painting hanging on the wall. It’s the street where he grew up; or actually how he saw it from his window. The skinny and asthmatic kid he was couldn’t go out and play with the other children most of the time, so he spent days looking out this window, waiting for his friend Bucky to come to visit him after school. What he liked the most when doing this painting, Steve remembers, was putting up the colors. When looking at old pictures in some history books, people almost seem to think that life was all black and white back then, but he made sure to reproduce the colors of the buildings as accurately as possible.
The daylight filters through the curtains. Steve guess that he must have slept at least four or five hours. He reaches over and grab his phone off the nightstand, and check what time it is. 7:37 am. ‘Ugh…’ Ok, so it’s more like three hours if he counts all the times he woke up after turning off the lights around 3:15 am. The quick mental math confirms that he spent more time drawing than sleeping last night and the opened sketchbook and pencils left on the bedside table corroborate it.
He gets rid of his sweaty t-shirt, pulls back the comforter, and closes his eyes… Only to open them a few seconds after to look back at James’ portrait he did last night. Just an old habit. He sketches his friend’s face every time he feels sad, or alone, or overwhelmed. He has done it so many times that he knows every single detail of James Buchanan Barnes’ face; he doesn’t even need to look at the old photographs anymore. It used to soothe him; he would fall asleep dreaming of the good old days before the war… But something’s wrong with this one. He’s been struggling with James’ eyes and gaze a good part of the night. He starts to wonder if it’s possible that he just forgot how he used to look at him.
Steve sighs and frowns, rubbing his scruffy beard. He knows what’s wrong. James' eyes used to have a light in them; they used to be filled with pride, a bit of mischief and a lot more tenderness that you would have expected. But for some reasons, Steve couldn’t get them right last night. Those looked dead, just like the ones of the Winter Soldier.
Steve shivers as a flash of his vivid dream comes back to his mind. The man that came back to Steve about six months ago had nothing in common with the highly trained assassin he fought against to back on the bridge. The night he surrendered himself, the asset – Hydra’s weapon – was such in a critical condition that he almost died in Steve’s little apartment in New York. Dehydrated, sleep deprived and utterly confused, he could only mumble in Russian until he whispered ‘I knew you’ just before losing consciousness.
Steve shakes his head slightly, thinking how much happened since the night he brought the Soldier at the Avengers’ Tower to save his life. He keeps staring at James’ portrait.
‘God damn it…’ Steve feels the frustration building in his guts when he finally gets what was wrong whit this one and why he couldn’t like it. It looked too close to the man that used to be James Barnes. The light in this man’s eyes was completely gone. No matter how hard he tried, he could hardly recognise his old friend. Lately, he felt like he was sharing his apartment with a stranger.
He runs his hand over his face, rubs his eyes then pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers. It’s been six long and painful months for everyone at the Avengers Tower, and they were all exhausted. Steve can’t even remember when was the last time he had a good night of sleep. His thoughts keep crashing one against the other in his mind, and he can feel a headache building up. Super-soldier or not, the last months’ events drained him.
Of course, he knew that it wouldn’t be easy and that his friend’s recovery was going to be difficult, but… But. Steve sighs. Why is he trying to hide his deception even when he’s alone? Once the Soldier's physical condition was stabilised, Steve had moved to his apartment in the AvengersTower to look for him. He needed to be there to help with his recovery. His optimism quickly vanished though when he realized that the Winter Soldier was just a cast made out of his old friend's body with absolutely nothing left of James Barnes' spirit in it. At one point Steve started to believe that his friend would never remember who he was, but surprisingly, James’ memories began to fill the Winter Soldier's wiped mind.
Since he brought the ex-assassin at the Tower, the Avengers have been under many vicious attacks by Hydra. The evil organisation was obviously trying to recover its precious asset. Despite his fragile state of mind, the Soldier resisted Hydra’s conditioning and fought on Captain America’s side. At first, Steve was so proud of James' progress, but each attack seemed to lead to progressively harsher emotional breakdowns for his friend.
The last attempt by Hydra to get their valued weapon back happened the previous month at one of Natasha's safe houses. Having heard rumors that another strike was coming, they tried to protect the Soldier by hiding him. This time, Hydra hit different places at the same time, splitting the team up and leaving only Hawkeye and The Black Widow to protect him. Both Avengers were injured, but like he did in the last two previous attacks, James took most of the hits. Even if he hates to see his friend hurt –worries him sick in fact – it almost looks like it’s part of James Barnes’ recovery. Just like he used to protect Steve in the back alley when they were young, he keeps sacrificing his body to protect hi new friends.
With a sigh, Steve shuts tight his eyes and re-opens them, then start blinking the restrain the tears that were filling his eyes. He hates himself for this but, considering how Bucky’s been acting the last past weeks; he can’t help but having doubts. What if what appears to be a noble act of self-sacrifice from James was, in fact, an attempt to end his life? Even though he keeps telling his friend that it is not his fault, that it was Hydra's conditioning, James keeps blaming himself for all the deaths the Winter Soldier was responsible for.
Unable to bare the thought a second longer, he grabs his sketch book and throws it at his bedroom’s wall with all the strength of his arm, ruining the book and knocking the painting off the wall. He hears the frame breaking as it touches the floor and the canvas tearing.
“Stupid Jerk!” Steve shouts out of frustration to an imaginary Bucky. He takes a deep breath and calms down. That felt good actually.
The peace and quietness of his apartment feel unusual. Steve knows that he is alone in the apartment and that James is already gone to the common floor because that’s what he’s been doing every day for the last two weeks. Yesterday, Steve had told Natasha about James’ new morning routine, and she proposed to watch over their friend in the morning to give Steve some time to rest. Working on his art up until the middle of the night was not exactly what Nat was referring to when talking about getting some rest.
Things had been so crazy since James came back to his life that he almost forgot what it was like to wake up and take some time to think, not having to rush out of bed to care for his friend. Sitting on his bed in silence meant there were no sounds to hide behind, no distraction to keep him from thinking about the emotional violence of the last months. James' recovery brought joyful memories and nostalgic anecdotes, but also sad and explosive episodes of flashbacks. Every other night, Steve would rush to James’ bedroom to wake up his friend stuck in a horrific nightmare or clean after him when he was sick from the pain. He would change the wet sheets of his bed or just sit by him, stroking his hair until he would fall back asleep.
Lately, those heartbreaking moments seemed to be occurring less and less, but James didn’t look happier. In fact, he seemed more depressed than ever. Sam had told Steve that James was probably just keeping his dark thoughts to himself now, using new protective systems created by his damage brain. Doing so, he started to shut down everyone around him and became more drawn into himself.
After the attack on the safe house, he literally stopped speaking to everyone, only moaning once in a while from the pain coming from his broken ribs and the many lacerations inflicted to his body by Hydra's men. Their last strike to regain what was left of the Winter Soldier only brought more distress to James, who would now remain in complete silence for days, unresponsive and distant. He might not have been under Hydra's control anymore, but he still ended up with more blood on his hands against his will.
Steve stomach’s growls and he decides to push his thoughts to the back of his mind. He heads for the shower, leaving the softness of his bed behind. Passing by James’ bedroom, Steve sees his friend’s bed perfectly done; the blue pants and white shirt of his pyjama are folded and placed on top of one of his pillows. The room smells like it has been meticulously cleaned and disinfected. Bucky’s laptop, the only think his friend owns, his missing from the desk. If it weren't for James' PJs, nobody could tell that a man has been sleeping there for the last six months. Maybe Natasha was right; he is a ghost. The ghost of Sargent James Buchanan Barnes.