Chapter Text
“You said, "We were born with nothing and we sure as hell have nothing now"
When James Buchanan Barnes wakes up from the ice, he’s left with these truths – everyone he loves is dead, and he is alive. The calendar on the wall says the year is 2011, a far cry from his last breath in 1944, and he is missing his left arm. He is in a hospital bed that's far too small for his body, and his still lingering right arm is tied to the metal bedframe. These things are facts. That does not mean they make any sense.
The door to his room opens with a small noise, and suddenly a gaggle of blue scrub-wearing, faceless people are flooding in. They surround Bucky like they’re waiting to hold him down, but none of them move. They give him a wary look like they're daring him on. Unable to sit up, Bucky turns his head to get a good look around. From the corner of the room, one of them is readying a syringe.
“You’re awake; good.”
Bucky’s neck softly cracks as his head whips around to look at the voice. The man in front of his bed was dark-skinned and wore a stern expression. He was dressed in muted colors, and an eyepatch partially covered the scarred skin of his face.
“ Who– ” Bucky breathes out, his voice coming out broken and hoarse. His throat ached horribly. His mouth was dry as a desert.
“My name is Nick Fury. You’re not going to try to attack one of the nurses if they untie you, yes? It's hard to talk to someone who is lying flat down.” The man quirks up an eyebrow, looking at Bucky expectantly. Had he done that already? Was that why he was tied down?
Bucky speaks slowly, trying to look Nick in the eyes – eye. “I won’t.”
That seems like a good enough answer for the nurses, who quickly undo his bindings and step back from the medical cot. Bucky sits up slowly, trying to find his equilibrium. “My arm– where’s my arm?”
“Frost bitten and necrotic,” Nick answers easily. “Seems your jacket got shredded in the plane crash; your bare arm froze before the rest of you.”
Bucky processes that slowly, the memories coming back in a slow trickle. Right – the plane crash. Him falling in the ocean. Him dying. Except, he didn’t die. How did he not die? “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Plenty of scientists think that freezing a living body was a possible means of preserving life. You’re proof they were right.” Nick explains, and the whole thing makes Bucky’s head swim.
“I was supposed to die.” he rasps out. Bucky grabs at his shoulder, feeling the still-healing lump where his arm was supposed to be. He grates his nails over the stitches and focuses on the pain. “I was supposed to die.”
“Well, you didn’t. Most men would be grateful for this sort of opportunity.” Nick’s tone is biting. Clearly, Bucky wasn’t having the reaction to being alive that Nick was expecting. As it turns out, Bucky was nothing like Nick was expecting.
Bucky stays in SHIELD’s ICU for a week, under constant supervision and detailed watch. There were worries about how the freeze affected his body and his mind, and his adjustment to having a single arm. Doctors would occasionally come in as the nub healed, measure it out, and take notes. Height, weight, size of his right arm, and so on. Nick had explained that some scientists were building him a new, suped-up arm.
“I don’t want a new arm. I don’t want to be here.” Bucky complains to Nick, one afternoon after a nurse had left the room.
“Look, once you’re cleared medically we’ll have you stay somewhere else. This is just for now.” Nick says, his tone even. Bucky doesn’t say or do much besides complain, and it's starting to get on his nerves. You’d think the man would be grateful.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” Bucky snaps. The monitor on the wall picks up his fast heart rate. “I’m 90 somethin’ years old. Everyone I know is dead. The war’s over. I shouldn’t be here. At all.”
Nick shakes his head. “The wars far from over, kid.”
Bucky glares at him, but he looks more sad and nervous than anything. He doesn’t understand what Nick is talking about. Of course, the war was over. It’s not like Bucky hasn’t gotten history lessons in between lying around. The war ended in 1945. That he knows for sure. It's something he reminds himself of every day that he wakes up. The thought goes something like this – His name is James Buchanan Barnes, it's July 2011, and the war has been over for 65 years. He is safe. Then, a quieter thought always follows; his name is Bucky Barnes, and his best friend is dead. He is safe, and Steve is dead. The war ended without them, and Steve died for nothing.
“You know HYDRA, don’t you?” The question knocks Bucky out of whatever thought spiral he seemed to be going down. It makes his whole body tense, right down to his still half-frozen toes. Nick answers the question for himself “Well, of course you do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bucky grits out, the words tacky in his throat. He doesn’t know if Nick’s accusing him of something or blaming him.
“You worked with Captain America, didn’t you? That was his whole mission – taking down HYDRA.” Nick says, like Bucky was stupid or the ice hadn’t thawed his brain quite yet.
“I know that. Don’t try to tell me about Steve.” Bucky growls, wild like some sort of animal. Nick never shows his cards, but the man does take a step back from the cot. Puts his hands up like he's trying to calm the man down. Bucky continues, “I knew him better than you ever would. Don’t forget that.”
“Yes, yes. Brothers in arms, and all that.” The statement from Nick feels wholly dismissive. It just manages to make Bucky angrier. “There were reports about tests done on you when your division had been taken prisoner by the nazis. You remember that?”
Bucky scowls, but nods, slowly. His skin feels like it's buzzing. Of course, he remembers that. Remembers being taken, carved open, and reworked from the inside out. Remembers Steve’s horrified expression when found him. God, he remembers being just as scared to see Steve’s face.
Nick gives him a careful once-over before responding. “Do you know what exactly they did to you?”
The question is bait. Bucky knows that. He understands what Nick is actually asking. What he wants. “I’m not– like Steve.” he supplies, a sad attempt to deter Nick from the truth of the matter.
Really, Bucky wasn’t like Steve, not really. The super soldier serum seemed to affect what it deemed as lacking. For Steve, that just so happened to be Everything. For Bucky? Well, it completely rehauled his senses. He could hear a heartbeat from the other damn side of a battlefield, could see perfectly clear in the dark of midnight, could feel the change of the breeze from a single ladybug's flight. His brain had been completely rewired for sharpshooting. It was horrible.
“You’ve got the serum,” Nick says simply. ‘I’m not asking you to be Captain America. But it's important that you understand HYDRA still is around and kicking. And you know how to fight them better than anyone.”
Maybe Bucky’s mind hasn’t fully thawed, because it takes him a horribly long moment for him to realize what Nick is asking of him. “So– what? I miraculously lived through one war fighting nazis and when I wake up you want me to join another one? One super soldier dies so you just employ the next one you can find?” The question comes out sharper than intended. Nick looks away, frowning.
Bucky has no interest in fighting a modern war, but he knows this is what Steve died to do. What Steve would want to be doing if he lived, instead of Bucky, like how it should have been.
Nick looks at him closely, eye scanning over his face. Bucky’s always been an open book – he’s never been able to hide what was going on in his brain. It was one of those things that Steve always teased him for. Tell him his face came with his own special subtitles. Nick must see it too, now, with the way he’s watching Bucky’s mind work. “Let me think about it.” Bucky finally answers.
Nick doesn’t dare question his answer. He just nods, and leaves Bucky to his own means.
Another week passes, and Bucky’s up and moving properly. He’s completely thawed, and the wound that was once his arm was healing well. The nurse who keeps an eye on the wound tells him they can’t fit him for his prosthetic until it's fully healed, because of the risk of infection. Bucky understands, really, he does, but that doesn’t mean it's not frustrating. He’s grateful, at least, that he still has his right hand. It's easy to forget how many things take two hands. Basic things, like opening lids or tying shoes. It's almost humiliating when he struggles with something he’s done his whole life. The doctors say it gets easier with time. Bucky thinks that might just be bullshit. He’s had decades of time – nothing has ever gotten easier.
What's bothering him the most, right now, is holding a book. Who would ever think you could struggle to hold a book? But between the way Bucky has to hold it between his legs to keep it open and maneuver folding over the pages, it's just damn impossible. He can hardly pay attention to what he’s reading – a history book on the rise of modern tech – because the book keeps falling closed on him.
Bucky huffs when the book falls over in his lap, losing his page again. He grabs the book and grunts, throwing it against the wall. It hits the white paneled wall of his hospital room with a dull thump. Fucking book. Fucking history. Fucking future. He hates all of it. He can't help but wish Steve was here. Steve would find all this stuff fascinating.
“What’d that book do to you?” Nick asks as he enters the room. He looks down at the book on the floor, his eyebrow raised.
“Existed,” Bucky mutters, looking away. Maybe throwing the book was stupid. Whatever.
Nick bends down to pick up the book and examines it closely. “What? You don’t care to learn about the history of the iphone?” he jokes, “It's simply riveting.”
Bucky looks back at Nick, glaring at him. He knows Nick is just trying to poke at him. It's annoying as hell. That doesn’t mean he’s going to admit the real reason he threw the book. That was embarrassing.
“Look–” Nick sets down the book on a table. “You’ve been cleared medically, more or less. I want you to come with me. We’re going for a walk.”
That sounds like an utterly terrible idea. A horrible idea. But Nick doesn’t give him room to argue. He just stares at Bucky until he’s shrinking the thin blanket off and climbing out of bed.
Bucky can’t help but feel a bit of disappointment as he stands next to Nick. Look – he was a perfectly average height for when he was alive. Apparently, however, people just kept getting taller. Something about life expectancy and diets or whatever. Bucky doesn’t care about the science of it – he does care that since coming out of the ice, he’s consistently been the shortest man around. It's damn near humiliating.
Nick doesn’t comment on it as he leads Bucky out of the small hospital room and through the spiraling corridors of SHIELD’s headquarters. It's all cold metal and bland nothingness. Supposedly futuristic – though Bucky just finds it boring.
Bucky finds himself being led to a large open room filled with strangers mingling about. Some were waiting in line for food; others were sitting and conversing. Having lunch and so on. Military fashion mustn’t have changed much in the last few decades because most of the workers are dressed and recognizable enough. Scientists in lab coats and soldiers with guns. Bucky supposes he shouldn’t be surprised by the population of workers of different races and genders. Hell – he’d been bossed around by Nick for the past two weeks. Still, he can’t help but watch people curiously.
Steve would be impressed, to see how things have changed.
“You want something to eat?” Nick asks him as they walk past a queue. Bucky looks past the rows of people to eye the food. Most of what he’s eaten in his tenure at SHIELD has been flavorless blah, and he doubts this would be any different.
“No, I'm fine.” He tells Nick, who regards him with a nod and continues walking. They eventually stop at a table that two people already occupied. A woman with stark red hair and a permanent scowl and a blond man who was practically mummy wrapped in bandages both turn to look at them.
Bucky hesitates, looking over at Nick, who sits down casually. The man gives him a nod, gesturing him to sit, too. Bucky does so, frowning.
“Clint, Natasha, this is Bucky, our newest asset.” Nick gestures to Bucky, “He’s agreed to help with our…project.”
Bucky stares at them. He wants to correct Nick, that he has not agreed yet, but he doesn’t bother. He wants to at least try to make a good impression with people of the new millennium. Hesitantly, he waves.
“You’re the guy they pulled from the ice, right?” Clint asks, eyes bright and curious. “The one that knew Captain America?”
Bucky tenses, his jaw going rigid. “Yeah.” he grits out. “I knew him,” he says like it was any of this guy's business. He officially wants nothing to do with these new people. He hates that everyone wants to know about Steve and that everyone has something to say about him.
“It's nice to meet you, Bucky.” The redhead, Natasha, gives Bucky a practiced smile. Bucky nods back at her in acknowledgment.
“Its– James, actually.” Bucky corrects, voice coming out awkward. Its not that he’s not used to people calling him Bucky, but it was…weird. Steve used to call him Bucky. He’s only ever been Bucky to Steve.
Natasha nods. “I see. Then its nice to meet you, James.”
“We still need to get his gear set up, but we’re waiting on clearance from medical for that,” Nick explains to them. “Until then, I just thought it would be important for you all to meet properly, as a team.”
Bucky gives Nick an unimpressed look. “I didn’t sign up to babysit.” He tells Nick sternly.
“They may not always look it–” Nick directly stares at Clint, before turning back to Bucky “--but these two are my best agents. I assure you there will be minimal babysitting involved,”
Bucky frowns. Thinks it over. He already agreed to help, and Nick doesn’t seem to give him much of a choice here. “Whatever.”
Most of Bucky’s free time is spent watching them train and reading history books. The people at SHIELD are plenty nice to him, but they always look at him like he’s something to be studied – the soldier out of time. Clint keeps trying to show him how to use the ‘internet’ but Bucky just finds it useless and frustrating. He prefers reading a physical newspaper, thank you very much.
It turns out Natasha is just as competent as she looks. Bucky can’t help but be impressed with her abilities; he never did master sneaking around enemy territory, even with the serum boosting his senses. He likes to watch her in the training rooms in the mornings, and she occasionally will give him advice on voice displacement or his loud breathing. Bucky never even thought he breathed louder than average until Natasha pointed it out.
Clint was, well, exactly what Bucky expected. Lighthearted, lackadaisical, and absolutely terrifying with a bow. Bucky is sure that if Clint applies himself, he could be a force to be reckoned with. Instead, he puts on this casual front that's so, so annoying. He talks too much and too loud, and Bucky can’t stand it.
Finally, after plenty of medical check-ins, Bucky is cleared to get fitted for his prosthetic arm. The whole event of it is annoying; it was all too many people rushing around him, telling him to flex and stretch and raise his arms and do a spin. It ended up feeling like a shitty game of monkey in the middle. It takes a week and a half for the prosthetic to be built and finalized
“This is it,” Nick says, smiling to himself as he leads Bucky into the lab. A few engineers turn and look at Bucky, before going back to their work. That's always how it goes. Everyone wants to know him until they realize he’s just a man.
On a glass table was a metal arm. It was nothing like the cobbled-together prosthetics Bucky saw during the war. Or the ones in the history books he read. No, the arm was a solid chunk of steel, plated like armor and measured exactly to Bucky’s body.
“The arm is made out of vibranium. Strongest thing we’ve got.” Nick tells him, smiling to himself. He looks proud, maybe more so about the tech than Bucky being the one to wield it.
Bucky reaches out and runs his hand over the mech, tracing his fingertips over the small divots. There's a metallic star plated into the side of it, like some sort of decor. “Yeah, same as Steve’s shield,” he replies to Nick, before realizing that his speech was delayed enough to sound like the statement had come out of nowhere. “The material, I mean.” Bucky corrects himself quickly. “Vibranium.”
Nick nods. He gestures, and one of the scientists in the room steps over. She looks young, with dark hair up in a bun and a lab coat. “I can help show you how to attach the arm.” She says gently, taking the hulking metal object from the table and holding it out.
Bucky’s grateful he was wearing a tank top. At least he won’t have to take his shirt off in front of these strangers, or Nick. “Yeah, that’d be great.”
The scientist is gentle as she attaches the arm, step-by-step explaining it to Bucky and letting him try it. It shocks him as it presses against his skin, and she explains that it's the tech connecting to his internal nervous system. Bucky doesn’t comment on it, but he does not like that one bit.
When he’s sure the arm won't fall off from his shoulder, he shrugs. Reaches his arms out, then up, then spins them in pinwheels. The metal flows seamlessly with the movement of his body. “Wow,” he mutters, stretching his hand, his fingers, moving each little one. It was a perfect fit. It explains why Nick had such a smug look about him.
“There’s more.” Nick says cooly, and suddenly the white metal wall he’s standing next to is sliding open, revealing a plethora of star-spangled junk. Amongst other things, what catches Bucky’s attention is a costume – one that looks a bit too much like Steve’s to be a coincidence. It's a burgundy red and a deep blue, more muted colors than Steve’s original getup, with a white star plastered across his chest. Well– at least that explained the star embossment on his shoulder. The whole thing was a propaganda stunt.
“Absolutely not,” Bucky says quickly, mustering a truly nasty-looking glare toward Nick.
The man hums, his smug grin falling flat. “I thought you said you wanted to help fight HYDRA.”
Oh, that conniving mother fucker. Bucky scowls. ”Yeah. I said I’d maybe punch a few nazis, not do–” Bucky gestures to the costume “-- godforsaken showbiz .”
“It’s called the Patriot Initiative.” Nick corrects “And it's what the American people need. A reminder that people are willing to stand up to the forces that be – to HYDRA. It is a call to action, spearheaded by one of the men who started it all, by Captain America’s right hand.”
Bucky’s chest tightens with such force that he thinks he could be having a heart attack. Captain America’s right hand. Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. Steve would never let him live this down. “This is a horrible idea.”
“You want that special new arm or not?” the question lingers for a long moment. Nick raises his eyebrows; Bucky groans.
And that’s how The Patriot gets dragged into becoming The Patriot. Working with Hawkeye and Black Widow just comes naturally, and everything gets forced into place the second aliens descend from the skies of Manhattan. Being an Avenger is nothing like being with the Howling Commandos – it's a hard adjustment to make, especially when he can’t quite place why there is such a stark difference. Maybe it's because of the changing of the times, or maybe it's because the Howlies actually liked each other, and the Avengers, well– Bucky swears he ends up spending more of his energy trying not to tear Howard’s son a new asshole instead of being a so-called “hero”. Its almost fucking funny how alike Tony and Howard are. The uncannyness of it all makes Bucky’s skin crawl.
The worst part of all of it is that because Howard Stark knew Steve, Tony thinks he’s a Captain America expert. Like he can just rehash Howard’s war stories and get brownie points for it. Like Tony knows every little thing about what Bucky and Steve went through together. Bucky does his best to try not to let it get to him until Tony says something in particular one afternoon, and Bucky can’t even remember what, but suddenly he’s up in Tony’s face, snarling like an animal.
“Steve would fucking hate you ” the words come out in a low growl. Bucky’s hunched up, right in Tony’s face and shaking with rage. The taller man’s expression is a practiced unreadable. He just takes a step back from Bucky and frowns.
Tony puts his hands up defensively. He’s managed to back himself into the wall of his kitchen, somewhere between making a banana–peanut butter sandwich and telling Bucky some rehashed war story that Bucky had already lived through once. “What? All I said was–”
The kitchen tiles shatter under the weight of Bucky’s metal fist. It lands mere centimeters away from Tony’s face, close enough to knock his dopey–ass sunglasses into a tilt. “Stop fucking talking. You don’t know Steve. You will never know Steve. Stop acting like you ever could hold a fucking candle to him.”
“Boys.” Natasha speaks up, voice sharp as a knife. Bucky pulls away from Tony, scowling.
It's certainly not the end of Tony and Bucky’s bickering, however. If anything, the more they work together, the worse it gets. Its like Bucky is personally offended by the sound of Tony breathing. Most of the time, he is. Even with all their arguing, none of their fights are physical, until one day, something breaks. The something just so happens to be Tony’s jaw, in three places.
If anyone asks Bucky, he’ll say that Tony started it. Really, it was probably just circumstantial. The Avengers had just been fighting a big evil guy in the heart of Brooklyn, and Bucky was off the whole time. He maybe was hitting a little harder than he should have, snapping at his teammates sharper than normal. If it weren't for the statue, it could just be chalked up to Bucky having an off day.
The statue – a tall, looming metal cast of Captain Steve Rogers and Sergent James Barnes – stands proud in the heart of Brooklyn for anyone to visit. It is a memorial to the soldiers who had grown up in the borough, and who had given their lives for their country. Bucky didn’t even know it existed until it got knocked down in an Avengers fight.
“Why are you so weird about the Captain, anyway?” Tony asks after the fight, as the team is starting to do their best to clean up their damage. Nat sends him a wary look, but everyone waits patiently for Bucky’s answer.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bucky grits out dismissivly, as he shovels a bit of rubble off a sidewalk. He keeps looking at the statue, now fallen to the ground in ruin. His own head had fallen off; Steve’s had dented. Bucky likes to think Steve would have laughed at the sight.
“Oh come on,” Tony huffs. “I get it, you’re all old and repressed but, honestly, look at you. I’d have half a mind to think you loved the guy or some crap.”
Bucky tenses. His heart rate spikes in his chest. He can hear his blood pounding in his head. “Excuse me?”
Tony doesn’t seem to notice Bucky’s rapid change in demeanor. He continues talking, just sharing what's on his mind. He’s only rambling, not thinking much of the words leaving his mouth. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Gosh, that’d really be the love story of the century. I’m sure Hollywood would love it; it's very Romeo and Juliet.”
“ Tony, ” Bruce interrupts quickly. “I think you should stop,”
“What?” Tony scoffs. “You’re telling me the Tin Man and Cap weren’t gay? I mean, look at them,” he says, gesturing to the statue.
When asked about it later, Bucky tells Nat that he doesn’t remember tackling Tony to the ground, or prying off his armored faceplate, or breaking his jaw, nose, and skull in several places. He does, however, admit that he’d do it again, just for another six weeks of the peace and quiet that came with Tony having his jaw wired shut.
The team tries not to bring up Steve, after that. It lasts a few months, at most, before the topic arises again.
When Nick first shows Bucky Project Insight, every still–feeling nerve in Bucky’s body turns on and alert. It sounds like a terrible idea, thank you very fucking much. In Bucky’s very humble opinion, Project Insight is everything wrong with America right now.
He’s not surprised at all when the whole thing burns down in front of him, because, really, what else did Nick expect? He hired Bucky to fight nazis, and that's what he does. That's all he does, now. Just because the nazis are in his own government doesn’t change anything. The Winter Soldier, however, very much changes things.
No, The Winter Soldier changes everything.