Chapter Text
Fourteen Months Ago
Bucky had not been lying when he told Alexei that he doesn’t get tired.
It just hadn’t been entirely true, either. Somewhere in between, perhaps.
He doesn’t get tired in that incremental way, feeling himself slow and get sleepy in the way that most people do. Or rather, when he does feel like that he usually just powers through until whatever the task or mission or whatever it is has been completed and then exhaustion slams into him. Not the best approach, he is aware, but it’s been his for a long time. Longer even than HYDRA, even from before the war. Burning the candle at both ends had been a necessary condition of living if he and his sisters wanted to cling onto the few hard-won luxuries that their parents had been able to get for them.
Being a soldier had actually made that last part a little easier: more regular hours and a sergeant’s pay. Until he’d shipped out, of course.
So yeah, after chasing down the Thunderbolts - seriously, what even was that name? - and then hightailing it to New York with the aforementioned unfortunately-named squad of weirdoes, followed by a battle with things that he had worked really hard on leaving behind, Bucky is not feeling tired. He’s fucking exhausted, his head staticky and his emotions running too close to the surface, thrumming behind his ribs and squeezing around his throat like a hand. Like his own hands had around throats and-
He slams his eyes shut.
No. No going back there. Not again.
He wants, in no particular order, a red-hot shower, sleep and food. He wants to go home. His apartment in Brooklyn is not all that far away, but he really wants to go home. He wants to go to DC, to that unnecessarily fancy place he shares with Sam. He wants to go home to Sam-
Shit. Sam…
Bucky pats himself down, remembers that his phone is in his jacket and his jacket - he sighs - his jacket is somewhere up on the somethingth floor of Val’s dumb tower. Watchtower. Stupid name. Their tower now, apparently. And he definitely can’t think about that now.
There’s too much press, too many people, too much noise. It’s really, really loud at the moment and he can feel everything inside himself shiver. Just the adrenaline wearing off, he tells himself.
Alexei is enumerating all of the ways in which the New Avengers - fuck his life - can be of service, be adored (as though they are somehow the same thing), to Yelena, who is listening with weary patience or maybe just indulgence. She still has her arm through Bob’s and they sort of sag together. Even so, her head turns when Bucky slides past them, picking his way past the rubble and dust and the van they had left smashed into the new drywall. Yelena raises an eyebrow.
‘Gotta get my phone,’ he says and steps onto the elevator before she can say anything else. It’s a nice elevator, as far as elevators go. Roomy. He could easily curl up on the floor and take a little nap in here. He’s slept in worse places, God knows. Hey, it’s still got some of his blood smeared on the wall! His stomach flips.
Yeah, no, definitely no naps in here.
The elevator pings and he steps off.
A lot of rubble, a lot of broken glass. The place reeks of paint, burnt gunpowder and alcohol. All of those shattered bottles. Good stuff, too. There’s an intact bottle of Chivas Regal that looks awfully tempting.
His jacket is a sad dusty crumple on the floor. He dusts it off. Yup, stripping it off in a fit of pique was definitely going to tilt the fight in his favour. Moron. He finds his phone and holy shit that’s a lot of missed calls and texts. Sam. Sarah. Cass and AJ both. Bafflingly, Scott Lang. Shuri. Yori. Ayo. Leah. Sam. Sam. Sam-
‘Just tell me you’re okay.’ Sam answers on the first ring and the worried tension in his voice is so fierce that Bucky feels a whole different wave crash through him and he sits suddenly on a bit of rubble. Or a ruined bit of furniture. Or maybe it’s a bit of furniture that’s supposed to look like that, fuck if he knows. Bucky digs his thumb into the socket of one eye, lets out a long shaky breath.
‘Buck? Bucky!’
‘Yeah.’ It comes out on another rush of air. ‘Yeah, I’m- I’m okay.’
He is. For certain values of okay. He’s held it together pretty well so far and that’s not nothing.
Sam hums dubiously. ‘You don’t sound okay.’
Bucky gestures vaguely with one hand and then remembers that Sam can’t see that. Words are needed. He manages to peel them up from somewhere, forcing them past his lips. ‘It’s been a long day. Couple days. Fuck.’ Thumb in the other eye socket. His cheeks are wet. Double fuck.
‘I get it. I’m sorry.’ He can hear Sam breathing on the other end of the line. It sounds shakier than it should. ‘Reports started coming in- It looked like being Blipped again and I thought…. What even was that?’
It’s hysteria, Bucky thinks tardily: that shivery feeling sliding between his ribs and stealing the air from his lungs. Making the world slip sideways and his vision white out at the edges. He grits his teeth against it, concentrates on the gritty feeling between the plates in his arm. It’s not a pleasant feeling but it’s weirdly grounding, normal. He’ll have to spend some time doing a proper service on it.
‘I- I can’t, Sam. I can’t. Not now. I need-’
‘Okay. Okay.’ Soothing. Bucky can still hear that quiet, deliberate breathing, tries to match his own to it. Maybe it works - he can feel his heart rate slowly tick down anyway.
‘Just tell me one thing: that what I saw on the news feed is not what it looked like?’
Bucky works a tiny piece of New York masonry out from one of his knuckle joints. ‘That depends on what it looked like.’
An annoyed huff. ‘It looked like you deliberately walked into … whatever the fuck that was.’
Oh. That.
‘Oh. That.’
Silence.
‘For fuck’s sake, Bucky..!’
‘Look, it- It was a choice. It was all we had and - and it worked. It worked. It could have been so much worse. It’s not like anyone even died today! I mean, someone somewhere in the world died, obviously, that’s just what happens-’
‘Bucky.’
‘I don’t mean to downplay it, but it is a normal thing that happens every day-’
‘Buck.’
‘But there were no casualties because of this today. Not one! No-one… No-one died, Sam. We- I- No-one died.’ His throat is too tight, scalded, words coming too high and too fast. He scrubs at his face.
There’s another long pause.
‘That’s amazing, man.’ Sam’s voice is achingly gentle. ‘Probably a first for major superhero stuff.’
Bucky pulls in a breath, straightens up from staring at the dusty toecaps of his boots and out at the Manhattan skyline, sinking into evening and lights starting to blink against the hazy purple sky. ‘I dunno, you seem to manage it all the time.’
‘Once or twice, maybe,’ Sam agrees. ‘But on that scale? No. But, you… You did so good today, Buck.’
‘Wasn’t alone,’ he mutters.
There’s another slight pause.
‘Yeah. You all did good. Gonna explain to me how that came about?’
Bucky nods at the skyline. ‘Yeah, of course. Just…’
‘Not yet.’
‘Not yet,’ Bucky agrees. ‘You still in Vienna?’
‘Uh, no. Azerbaijan.’ There’s a wince in Sam’s voice. ‘It’s become a whole thing.’
‘Shit, I’m sorry.’ Bucky scrubs at his eyes one final time and almost manages a grin. ‘Hey, you need some backup?’
‘Nah. No. We got it covered.’ Maybe it’s the distance and the not-great line but there’s something distant in Sam’s voice. Weird. ‘Hey, you better call Sarah, she’s been going out of her mind. The boys, too.’
Bucky grimaces. ‘Yeah, I will. There’s a bunch of missed calls and stuff.’
Muffled voices in the background, even more muffled thuds. He hears Sam sigh, frustration in the sound.
‘Okay. Look, I gotta go. We’ll talk soon, right?’
‘Yeah. I love you, buddy.’
That little huff of breath and the smile back in Sam’s voice, warm and welcoming and lovely. ‘Love you too, man.’
He sits on his bit of rubble/furniture/whatever. Still exhaustion but the hysteria has drained away and he remembers another feeling. Exhilaration. It had felt good, on the bike, using skills he had tried to avoid for so long for an actively good purpose. For a mission that he had effectively given himself. Feeling more like himself, in a really, really good way, than he had for a long time. Definitely more settled and certain than the endless fizzing frustration that was working in Congress. Jesus. Why had he ever thought that that was the answer? That he could be good at it, make a difference that way? Maybe in the President’s office everyone burned the midnight oil to work out problems, find solutions, save the world. They sure as shit didn’t in Congress. Hell, they probably only did that in the President’s office on The West Wing. Should’ve just bought the box-set.
So, somewhere in between that run and the return to New York was the thought that maybe when this was over he should call Sam, offer to be partners again and it’s still an incredibly appealing thought, more than appealing, but then-
Then they had walked into the Void. And they had done it together. And … and it’s different now.
The elevator pings again. He sort of expects it to be Yelena but when the doors roll open it’s Ava Starr. Hood back and her helmet retracted. Her hair is a mess, dirt marks still streaking her face but at least the grazes have been cleaned.
‘We’re getting pizza, apparently,’ she tells him. Hovering some feet away, half-angled back towards to the elevator.
‘Okay,’ he says.
They look at each other.
‘Yelena made it sound like we’re all expected to be there.’ Her head tilts slightly, eyes narrowing. ‘Alexei really wants you to be there.’
Bucky huffs out a laugh. ‘Oh, great.’ Although, it is sort of endearing, the big man’s whole-hearted and entirely sincere … fanboying? He’s pretty sure that’s the term. Like, 90% sure. He’ll have to ask Cass. On paper it should be wildly annoying and definitely inappropriate given the whole history of murder but-
Alexei takes people as he finds them. Sees the good in them, or the possibility of good. Like Steve did and Sam does and maybe that’s what it is under the boisterousness and the grandstanding. Alexei has a good heart. He looks after the little people, the ones no-one else gives a shit about.
And Bucky, God help him, has always taken one look at big-hearted idealists like that and made it his mission to keep them whole and safe.
And here he is again. Self-knowledge is a good thing. Probably.
‘Bob wants you there, too,’ Ava adds when no-one has said anything for at least a minute. Bucky squints at her.
‘Why?’
She rolls her eyes, shoulders sagging and her patience clearly wearing thin. ‘How the bloody hell should I know?’
Maybe it is just the accent, or maybe it is the exasperation in her face and the way she looks at him with a slight air of primness, but for a second she is so like Peggy Carter that Bucky feels a rush of complicated bittersweet affection for her.
This woman he barely knows, whom he had been ready to haul in front of Congress less than twenty-four hours ago, and then leave her to her fate. This woman who had been prepared to follow another woman whom she also barely knows into what looked like the literal shadow of death because, for some reason, she had trusted Yelena’s judgement without question.
Beneath the lines of exhaustion written deep into her face, there is something else. A cautious hope, almost wonder, and he knows that look, had seen it looking back at him when he had imposed himself on Sam’s mission against the Flag Smashers and somehow had started to believe that he could be more. Be better.
Ava is still waiting, a frown starting to build across her face as she watches him. ‘I thought you, being a New York native, would know the good places.’
And Ava could have delivered her message and left, Bucky thinks. But she’s still here. Expectant. A little hopeful.
Shit.
He’d told them he knew how it felt, that he’d been where they had been. Where they still are, really, because it takes more than twenty-four hours. But still. He had pointed towards something better. Least he can do is try to actually take them there.
‘Walker said something about Ace’s Pizza?’
Bucky shoves up from his piece of whatever. ‘Oh no. Chicago pizza? In New York? No. No fuckin’ way!’
Amusement twitches at the corners of Ava’s mouth, satisfaction settling over her features. And-
And Bucky finds himself smiling at her. And it feels like it’s something small and infinitely fragile in the palm of his hand, but also infinitely hopeful.
They get on the elevator. Bucky rolls out his shoulders, the weight of exhaustion lifting off him and it’s a sort of peaceable tiredness that rolls in in its place. Which is fine. It’s good. He can live with that.
'Wait, hold on.' Bucky strides across the the room, broken glass and bits of masonry scrunching under his feet. He grabs the bottle of Chivas Regal, jogs back to the elevator. Ava's puzzled expression turns into a wide and truly lovely grin when she sees his pilfered bounty.
The doors roll shut and they make the descent.