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“How many stops is it to Coney Island again?” Steve chews his lip as he peers past Bucky in the direction of the approaching train.
Bucky can’t help grinning at him. It’s a hot summer’s day, they’ve got coins in their pockets, there’s a pretty girl with her family who keeps glancing at them from under her eyelashes, and they’re going to ride the most incredible rollercoaster ever made, even if Steve doesn’t know it yet.
“Stevie, pal, you worry too much. It's the end of the line, remember? Get out at the last stop, easy as pie.”
“Right.” Steve blinks, grinning back at him.
“So are we doing this?” he asks as the train screeches to a stop and there’s a rush for the doors. If Steve’s too worried then he won’t insist on it; they’ll find something else to do. Stevie doesn’t go out much, there’s a risk of him getting sick around crowds, and he tires quickly, but he’s been doing well lately, and the weather’s been so warm, and they’ve been talking about doing this for a long time…
“Sure we are.” Steve reaches up and throws an arm around his shoulders as best he can, heading for the nearest train door. “To the end of the line!”
~
You're free.
Bucharest.
Journal on fridge.
He’s alert the second he opens his eyes, his heart beating strong and fast, his muscles taut and ready to move. He blinks up at the words, scrawled in his own untidy hand on a torn piece of cereal box and tacked up on the ceiling above his sleeping bag where he can see them as soon as he opens his eyes. He reads through them a few times, letting them sink in, letting out a slow breath as his heart rate slows.
If he wakes one day and his memories are gone, he hopes that note will be enough to get him caught up, enough to point him in the right direction. Every time he falls asleep he's afraid it'll all be gone the next time he opens his eyes.
Journal on fridge. That’s what he needs; he needs to note down his dream before the details slip away. It’s not just a dream, it’s a memory; he’s not so far gone anymore that he can’t recognise that, and he's had flashes of this one before. Like a key finally turning in a rusty lock, his creaky memory gives way into images of what else happened that day. They’d made it to Coney Island. They’d eaten ice cream cones, and he’d bullied Steve into riding the coaster three times, and Steve had staggered off the ride while he’d been crowing about how great it was and promptly thrown up in a trashcan.
“It’s okay, Stevie,” he’d said, rubbing his friend’s back. “ Get something in your stomach, that’s what you need now.” He’d cajoled him into buying hot dogs with their last couple of coins, and Steve hadn't taken much convincing, because the train home was a problem to be solved later, and the fun was now.
He rolls down the sleeping bag and climbs out, meaning to head for the kitchen. It had been late into the night, more like morning, when he'd finally fallen asleep, and his body can function for days on little sleep, but it has been days at this point. Standing up comes with a stab of pain in his head, one so sharp that he staggers against the wall and holds onto it, staying completely still and breathing until the pain fades back to a dull ache in the background. This happens often, and more so when he regains memories, and some days the pain never fades but only gets worse, along with nausea and blurred vision that keep him from doing anything to answer the questions that only seem to become more numerous the more he remembers. Hopefully today won’t be one of those, because it’s market day, and there are things to do.
He heads toward the kitchen and unwraps a protein bar. He doesn't want it, but he needs fuel, and he chews on it mechanically as he pours himself a glass of water. He takes it back to his sleeping bag with the journal from the top of the fridge and drinks as he sits there and scribbles down the dream. He lingers over the photograph in between the pages. He knows this man; knows him well. There are more memories scrabbling just below the surface of his mind, memories that he can’t quite get to yet. Maybe they’ll come, given time.
There are other memories too, these ones horrifically fresh. Some nights he wakes gasping from a dead sleep, sure that someone is in the room with him, ready to take him back and burn everything out of him again. The first time he’d had one of those, he’d made sure his notebooks were hidden in the floor. Sometimes he dreams of blood, pouring over his hands, pooling in between the plates of his left arm.
It’s hard to remember that this is real, sometimes. He’s here, in Romania, in the tiny flat that he managed to secure for himself by a combination of saved Hydra cash and doing odd jobs for the man who owns the building, and he’s got food. A bed of sorts. He’s got a bright green spatula that he picked up in a second-hand store for no other reason than that the colour appealed to him. It had been novel, the feeling of anything appealing to him. The pleasure of buying something for himself because he wanted it and had the means to get it. That in itself had brought back a slew of memories that had left him huddled up in pain for hours, but it had been worth it.
Mostly, he knows this is all real when he dreams. He wasn’t allowed to dream, before. After each mission he’d been placed back in cryo, waiting as the gas had been pumped in to seal him in place until they wanted him again. If it had been a multi-day mission, he’d either stood watch or he’d taken pills that his handlers had given him when they’d settled down to sleep, and he’d opened his eyes later with a dry mouth and fuzzy head and no memories of the previous hours. His dreams now are his, and no one can take them.
There’d been one particular time when he’d been out of cryo longer than planned, and they hadn't had enough supplies. They’d been snowed into a safe house, and the team had taken whatever bedding and spare clothing they could find and hunkered down until the morning. He’d stood watch, uncertain of his orders. The others had stared uncertainly back at him, with a lot of frantic whispering and nudging, and a lot of hands going to gun holsters, checking.
“ I don’t care what you do; just stop fucking staring at me,” Rumlow had complained eventually, settling down in a corner with a blanket. “ Go to sleep. Jesus. Is your brain that scrambled?”
That was an order he could follow. And he’d settled down in a corner of his own, blinking in wonder, and he’d closed his eyes, and he’d slept. He's sure that he only dreamed pictures from earlier that day, muddled, but he can still remember the novelty of sleeping naturally like the others, and that time had been something that was all his.
He finishes noting down the Coney Island dream and closes the book, placing it down beside him. There's a definite blur in his left eye now, a small spot of static somewhere near the centre of his vision.
He can't see through the papered windows, but outside there are metal poles clanging, the clack of crates being stacked up, people calling to one another in the language he already knows. The market's starting. It's a risk, going out there, it's a risk every time, but he needs fresh food, now that he’s finally able to eat and keep it down, and there's a fruit seller who sets up pretty much just across the street from his hideout, and the internet on the burner phone he's managed to grab has told him that plums can help improve memory. Whether it works or not, it's worth the risk. He'll try anything.
An insistent ache starts up behind his eye as he puts on his jacket and gloves and pulls his cap down low over his face, so it looks like it is going to be one of those days. It's okay, he can get this done and get back soon, and he can spend the rest of the day here with his journals.
He doesn't meet anyone on his way out of the building, but the street is already busy. He keeps his face turned downward, glancing up every few seconds and turning to check back over his shoulder as he crosses the street. A car passes by slowly and he shrinks back, turning his face away as his heart picks up speed. Sometimes he imagines he sees phones pointing at him, and sometimes he's not sure he's only imagining it. Hydra could be anywhere, and they want him back. They aren't the only ones; anyone who recognises him could turn him in to almost any government in the world and they'd be glad to throw him in a cell, or worse. It's no less than he deserves, but he needs a minute. He just… wants to remember, before he's taken in for good.
It feels surreal, picking up soft fruits with the hand that caused so much death, smiling his thanks at the man on the stall despite the way he's trembling inside. Sometimes, when he feels like this, it feels like he's a second away from waking up back in that Hydra safe house with Rumlow kicking him to get up with the toe of his boot. He's never going to feel safe again; he’s maybe never going to be sure that this freedom is the reality and not the dream world.
He’s waiting to cross the street, bag of fruit in hand, when he sees him. The ache behind his eye has grown by now into a full-on pulsing in the side of his head, and his back aches, his left arm a painful weight dragging him down. He just wants to get back to relative safety and sit down.
The man who’s watching him isn’t being at all subtle about it. He’s seen this one before. Broken his wings, torn up his car. The man’s been appearing everywhere he’s been going for the last week, but he’s always managed to get away from him easily without being seen. Until now. The guy might be out for revenge, but he’s friends with Steve, so maybe… maybe he's not. Either way, he doesn’t want to be found. He isn’t ready; he hasn’t remembered everything he needs to know, he can’t face the weight of expectation that Steve’s sure to place on him. It’s too late. He’s gotten careless, and now the man has locked eyes with him.
He could run.
“ Sarge! Over here!”
Running, his boots pounding against the frozen ground, his breath coming in harsh pants that send bursts of white mist into the winter air, his rifle bouncing against his side.
A roar behind him, thundering in his head, and then hands twisting in his jacket, pulling him down and to the side as a wave of heat washes over him from the explosion.
“Took your time,” someone drawls as he lies on the ground gasping for air. An accent; British. “We thought you'd stopped to have tea with them.”
“You okay?” Another voice now, coming from the same person the hands belong to, one that he knows better than his own, full of concern. Steve.
The pain in his head turns blinding. He staggers, dropping his bag, and then the cold concrete of the sidewalk is under his knees. He tangles a hand in his hair, pulling at it, trying to drown out the pain inside.
“Hey. Man, you alright?” The man is in front of him now and he wants to scramble backward and away, but the man is… he’s not touching. He’s staying at arm’s length. “We didn’t exactly get a proper introduction last time we met,” the man says, a dry note in his voice. “Sam Wilson. I’m a friend of Steve’s. You were too, right?”
Was.
He struggles back to his feet, swallowing hard against an intense wave of nausea as he moves. He’s been out in the open too long. Anyone could have seen him by now.
“Woah, steady.” The man, Sam, reaches for his arm, stopping himself, still not quite touching. “You don't look so well.” His voice is light and even. There's no pressure in it, not like he'd expected.
He doesn't bother answering.
“You dropped this.” Sam crouches and picks up the fallen paper bag of fruit, not paying attention to anything going on around him as he does so. Mainly not paying attention to the assassin standing not a foot away from his bent head. Maybe this is a dream after all. One of those dreams; in a moment he'll swing his metal fist around into that skull, or grab the man's neck, and he'll wake up with the wet crack ringing in his head, too vivid to have been solely supplied by his imagination.
That doesn't happen, and Sam gets back to his feet a moment later, handing him the bag. Those dark brown eyes are fixed on his own. He observes Sam in return, as best he can through his swimming vision.
“You got someplace safe to stay?” Sam asks, placing his hands in his coat pockets.
Safe is subjective. “Yeah,” he says.
“I know you're probably freaked out by this,” Sam says. “I'm not here to take you in. We can get you medical care. Food. Anything you need.”
“We?”
“I'm doing this for Steve. You remember Steve, right?” Sam's eyes search his own again. “He'd like to see you, but… mainly he wants you to be safe. I'm just here to help, if I can.”
He glances around himself again. No one is obviously paying attention to them, but they could be. “I need to get off the street.”
Sam blinks. “You're living on the street?”
This guy. Where did Steve find him? “No. As in, right now.” If he didn't already have a splitting headache, he'd be getting one.
“Oh. Yeah.” Sam gives a subtle glance left and right, and maybe he didn't quite give the guy enough credit for his awareness. “You need any help?”
He needs to get to the door of his building. And he doesn't feel like showing where that is. “You're in my way,” comes out of his mouth.
Sam just snorts. “You don't want me to know where you're staying? That's fair. But you know, Steve is gonna give me hell if I tell him I let you wander off looking like you're about to die.”
“So don't tell him,” he groans.
Sam isn't leaving. He hovers. “My hotel is just around the corner. Tiny little place. Owner doesn't much notice what I do. It's safe.”
He wouldn't usually agree, but his knees are trembling with the effort of staying upright through the pain in his head, and he's breathing deeply in an effort to delay the inevitable: he's going to throw up. If he can't go home, and can't make this man leave, then…
“Fine,” he mutters. “But can you… stop talking so much?”
The older lady at the front of the hotel is watching loud TV in a little side room behind the front desk when they arrive. The noise seems to drill into his skull, amplified by his hearing. He stops at the foot of the stairs, screwing his eyes shut and swallowing. He doesn't realise he's lost his balance for a second until his shoulder collides with the wall.
“You really don't look good,” Sam mutters at his side, pausing on the bottom step. “You need a hand?”
At least he's asking. The memory of hands pawing all over him as he sat still and helpless is all too fresh, and he still can't bear most touches. Sam asked him, and he hasn't tried to touch him so far. Besides, a hand would be… nice. He nods, taking a deep, shaky breath. Sam doesn't take hold of him, just offers him his arm, and together they make it upstairs.
“It's not much,” Sam says as he opens the door, as if he's showing someone into his home. “But it's got the essentials. Take a seat, or lie down, or whatever. Is it your head?”
Perceptive. “Hmm,” he agrees. He heads for the little threadbare armchair in the corner, beside a tattered dressing table, and leans on it as he scans the room. Two exits: back the way he came, or the window on the other side of the chair.
“You get that often?” Sam sits down on the corner of the bed, his hands relaxed at his sides.
Something about the guy makes it hard to be as evasive as he naturally would. “Yeah,” he admits, reaching up to massage the side of his head. “I think it's from what they did, mostly. And sometimes when I remember something…” His voice sounds slightly slurred to his own ears.
Sam nods when he trails off, and he wonders how much the man knows about that. How much Steve knows.
“Well, you can take the bed if you wanna close your eyes for a while,” Sam offers, bouncing slightly where he sits. “I don't really use it. It's too soft.”
He can understand that; it's why he's fine with a sleeping bag on the floor. “No,” he says softly, giving in and sitting down on the chair. He can't help sighing in relief as he rests his left arm on the table and takes the weight off his aching shoulder and spine. “I'm not… I can't sleep here. It's not safe.”
“I can keep watch,” Sam offers. “And no one ever bothers me here. I think I might be the only guest.”
“No,” he corrects quietly. “I mean not safe for you.”
Sam pauses for a split second. “Man, I can still kick your ass, ‘specially with the way you look right now.” He gets up, and Bucky tracks him through half-closed eyes as he picks up a glass from the table and heads into the little bathroom, filling it from the tap. He sets it down on the bedside table and picks up a paperback that's lying there. “I'm gonna head downstairs and sit in the lounge for a while. It's got a view of the front door. This room's door will lock behind me.” He closes the curtains and shuts off the flickering overhead light, and although there’s still some morning light filtering through the curtains from outside, it’s much darker like this. It helps.
“Are you going to tell Steve?” he asks as Sam heads for the door.
Sam pauses and then turns slowly, searching his face. “Do you want me to?”
“No.” The word is out of his mouth before he’s even thought about it. “No, I- I’m not ready for that. I don’t remember everything. I just need… some space. Not yet.”
“Okay,” Sam says easily.
He’s got no reason to trust the man on that, but… he does. He believes him. “Okay,” he echoes.
"You got a phone?”
He pulls the burner phone slowly from his pocket in answer.
Sam comes a few steps closer and takes it gently, then types something in before handing it back. “Now you have my number. I know we don't know each other, and you've got no reason to trust me, and I have not forgiven you for what you did to my car, man. But I meant it about being here to help. Steve trusts you, and I trust Steve.”
He nods, not trusting his voice to answer that, and not knowing the right words to say anyway. He tucks the phone away again, and Sam leaves the room without another word, the lock clicking behind him like he said it would.
He could leave now, could slip out unnoticed, maybe even through the window; this room is only on the second floor. He peers out. There's a metal fire escape out there.
He's in Brooklyn, sitting on a metal staircase with Steve, the warm afternoon air heavy in his lungs.
“How does it feel?” Steve asks, swinging his feet over the edge.
“How's what feel?” He takes a sip of the soda he's brought out with him, savouring the sweetness. He knows what Steve wants to know, but he needs a moment before talking about it.
“To know that you're going. That you'll be over there this time next week. Making a difference.” Steve glances up at him, his jaw set firm.
Terrifying. Exciting. Mostly terrifying. He reaches out to clap a hand to Steve's shoulder, taking a breath to steady his voice before he answers.
“Mostly, I'm worried.” He hides his smirk behind his bottle. “Worried about the city, what with you being left here unsupervised.”
Steve snorts and shoves him in the arm, not hard enough to have much effect, but he falls sideways anyway. “Jerk.”
He heads to the little bathroom after that and loses the water he drank earlier, and the meagre breakfast he ate, involuntary tears slipping down his cheeks as the pain in his head intensifies. He kneels on the floor for a while once it's over, leaning sideways until he can rest his head against the cool tiles of the wall. It hurts too much to move, but his whole body aches too, and the position on the floor isn't helping that. Besides that, he's vulnerable here with his back to the door.
He braces a hand on the wall and pulls himself slowly to his feet, rinsing his mouth in the tiny, cracked sink before staggering the few feet over to the bed. Maybe he could just rest here for a bit before going back. It's as safe as anywhere can be for him. He eyes the water that Sam left there. Might be drugged, but he watched him pour it, and he didn't see any movement that could have been him slipping anything in. He's been there before. He takes a cautious sip and stretches out on top of the covers fully clothed. The pounding in his head reduces slightly as he lies very still. Sam was right about the mattress being too soft, but it does take the weight of his arm for him, and the ever-present aches lessen slightly as he lies there.
Outside, the market is still going on. It sounds busier now, the voices more numerous. He focuses on breathing, in and out, slow and deep. He’ll hear if someone tries to get into the room, long before they manage to get near him. If Sam was telling the truth, he’s watching the front door down there. With his eyes closed, the minimal light entering the room doesn’t make him feel worse. The tension in his muscles relaxes a little. Time crawls by as he lies there trying not to focus on the sounds outside, just breathing, holding still.
“Alright, Jimmy, stop squirming.” The voice is gentle despite the words, and the hand on his cheek is gentle too as it turns his head this way and that to inspect the black eye he’s developing. “What have I told you about fighting, hmm?”
“I had to, Ma. That kid's twice the size of Stevie, he woulda flattened him.”
“You boys.” His mother shakes her head at him – he can't quite catch a glimpse of her face, can't pin down the pattern on her dress, but it is her, he's sure. She dips a cloth into cold water and holds it against his bruised face, bringing relief from the throbbing pain. “If one of you jumped into a fire, the other would follow, hmm?”
He's sitting up before he's fully opened his eyes, and it takes him a moment to realise that it was the soft creak of the door opening that woke him from a sleep he didn't know he'd fallen into. He hadn’t expected to fall asleep. His left arm is buzzing, ready for a fight, and his heart is pounding in time with his head, and then he locks eyes with Sam, who's wisely stayed by the door, and he exhales, his heart slowing slightly.
“Just me,” Sam says with his hands up, his room key dangling from one hand. “I'd have stayed down there for longer but I was getting hungry, and this place doesn't have food.”
“You could have gone and got some.” He swings his feet over the side of the bed, ready to get up, ready to leave. The familiar ache wakes up across his back and shoulder as his body takes the weight of his left arm again. His head still hurts, badly, but a little less intensely. He can make it back to his own place and crash there. It's not like he hasn't fought through worse pain before.
“Nah.” Sam doesn't expand on that, but he comes further in and plants himself in the armchair. “So. Level with me, man. Are you getting by okay?”
He pauses, taking in the question, the nuance of it. He can't remember the last time anyone asked him that, or anything remotely like it.
Sam seems to realise his struggle. “You said you have somewhere to stay,” he prompts. “That’s good. You getting enough to eat?”
“I am now,” he answers honestly, and Sam nods.
“And you're okay for cash?”
“Yeah. I… borrowed some. Hydra stashes.” Sam answers the wry twist of his lips with a smirk of his own. “And I work sometimes; odd jobs for my landlord. It's enough.”
They're dancing around a bigger issue, and they both know it.
“If you need any help,” Sam begins. “I know… I know you're probably scared.”
Scared doesn't even begin to cover it, but he gets what the other man means. He gives a nod, inviting Sam to continue.
“And I know you're in pain. And I can't imagine how you're feeling about everything, but I know this is not a walk in the park for you.”
He can't help it, he snorts. It's almost a laugh. If he doesn't laugh, he'll cry, and then he might never stop.
“Steve knows people. People we can trust,” Sam says. “I know it's gonna take a lot. For you to trust. I'm just saying… he wouldn't want you to suffer alone. Doesn't want that. Neither do I. Despite what you did to my car, and me. So if you want help… we can get you out of here, or we can get it to you, and nobody has to know. Think about it. That's all I'm saying.”
Well, he's not going to promise that, or that anything will change if he does, but he nods.
“Okay.” Sam leans forward and stands slowly, telegraphing his every movement. “I'm going to find lunch. I'll stay in town for a while before I move on. You want anything?”
“No. I'm good.” He’s really not hungry right now, but anyway, there's food back in his fridge, a package of hotdogs, and he’s been looking forward to tasting them since he picked them up.
“Okay.” Sam hesitates. “You gonna be alright?”
Is he? Maybe never, but for now… he’ll live. He’ll figure it out from there. ”Yeah.”
Sam gestures at the pocket where he keeps his phone. “Maybe see you around.”
Sam leaves the room, and Bucky watches through the window as the man strides away, not looking back. When he's sure that Sam's far enough away, he takes a sheet of notepaper from the table and scribbles a quick ‘Thanks’, leaving it on the bed where it’ll be seen. He grabs his bag of fruit and slips downstairs, gripping the handrail. It's not quite like the feeling of Sam's arm under his hand, warm and solid. The TV noise is still awful; still makes his head pound so hard he can barely see, but he somehow makes it outside, into the cool air, squinting and shielding his eyes in the light after the soothing darkness of Sam’s room.
Back in his darkened apartment, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, he could almost think he hallucinated the whole thing, but when he flips his phone open and looks at the two contacts there – the building landlord and Sam – he knows it was real.