Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The radio was playing. A baseball game. There was something about it. Something that was nagging at his brain. He couldn’t focus on it though. Couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong.

He was so tired. Everything hurt. The lights were bright behind his eyelids. He couldn’t bring himself to open them. He wishes they would turn the radio off.

…

The nurse smiled as she fluffed his pillow and asked if there was anything else he needed. Once upon a time he would have smiled back, flirted a little. She called him Captain and he felt cold. The doctors assured him he was back to normal temperature. Only one arm lost to frostbite. Could have been far, far worse. He hadn’t seen a single medic he recognised yet. None of the Commandos had been to visit. Not even Stark or Peggy.

No one would answer his questions. Always deflecting and evading.

Something wasn’t right, he knew that, but he was so tired and so sore. The doctors told him he was lucky to be alive. Said it was touch-and-go for a while, thawing him out.

‘Even Captain America himself can’t take a dip in the Arctic and be back on his feet, fighting fit right away,” the doctor smiled.

‘He probably could have’ Bucky thought, a far weaker smile curving his own lips as he recalled his friends long held hatred of hospital beds. ‘Probably would have busted out of here by now. Took off running.’

…

He had just succeeded in his first unaided trip to the bathroom all week, glad to finally be free of the catheter, when Director Fury entered his hospital room.

The man’s bedside manner could use some work.

He laid out some hard truths.

Bucky was grateful.

The lie had been screwing with his head.

He thought back to the first day he woke. The radio. The game they’d had playing.

A piece clicked into place. That nagging thought he hadn’t been quite able to grasp whilst half dead and pumped full of pain meds. He and Steve had been at that game.

‘Steve would have caught that’ he thought.

…

Aliens were falling from the sky.

The world needed Captain America.

It didn’t seem like a convenient time to tell them that Captain America was long gone.

That the man in front of them was nothing but an imposter who had watched helplessly as their hero fell to his death, blown out of a moving train.

They gave him a new suit. This one fit. Made to measure.

He still didn’t feel worthy of the shield.

…

“Everything special about you came out of a bottle.”

Bucky had never been an easy man to rile up. Always the level headed cool one next to Steve’s hot temper, but right now he was seeing red; because Stark wasn’t talking to him. Wasn’t talking to James Barnes. He was talking to Captain America.

Sneering down at the legacy of a man who had died long before he was born and acting like it was nothing. Like everything Steve had accomplished, everything he’d fought for, was just a joke.

Bucky wasn’t going to let that stand.

“One arm is more than enough to lay you out pal,” he promised, fist clenched and rearing to go. “Even with you hiding inside that tin can.”

“Not your pal,” Stark responded, ignoring the threat entirely.

“Damn right!”

“Enough!” Banner screamed. He was holding the sceptre.

…

Fury laid a set of bloodied trading cards on the table and Bucky felt sick.

He’d been pointedly avoiding Agent Coulson ever since their first meeting. The man’s over eager hero worship grating on his nerves. Coulson had mentioned the trading cards. Had asked him to sign them. Bucky had given some vague noncommittal answer and ducked away.

He couldn’t do it.

He’d wear the suit. Throw the shield. Play the part.

But to sign his name over Steve’s image. It was too much.

It was bad enough his name was carved into the stone above Captain Americas empty grave.

Now that Coulson was dead, he wouldn't have to. He felt guilty for feeling relieved.

…

They won. Somehow.

Rallied together and made a team.

Stark offered to build him a new arm. “As good at the one you lost,” he promised. “Better even. What are your thoughts on lasers?”

Bucky shrugged.

He was still tired. Still sore.

They were still calling him Captain.

Chapter Text

Time moved faster in the future.

Or maybe just the people did.

The emergencies kept coming.

The questions kept coming.

Bucky struggled to keep his answers vague.

Keep up the charade. The legacy. He wasn’t even sure why anymore.

It had become habit.

Keeping Captain America alive.

…

“How did feel when you got the serum?” someone asked, “Did it hurt?”

He remembered being strapped to a table, cold metal beneath him, colder needles being shoved into his skin. Substances that burned like fire. He was freezing and scorching all at once. His insides and out at war with one another.

He remembered Steve, untying him, supporting him as they escaped.

Bigger; stronger than Bucky for the first time ever. Physically. He’d always been stronger in other ways.

'I joined the army.'

'Did it hurt?' he’d asked. Please God, tell me it didn’t hurt. Didn’t hurt like fire and ice and fear and failure. Like no hope and no escape. Please not Steve. Not Steve who deserved better.

'Little bit,' Steve said.

“Little bit,” Bucky said.

…

“How did you feel when you first held the shield?”

They had been in London. Steve had excitedly shown him the bullet proof disk he’d found in Stark’s lab. One of a kind he said. Some special kind of metal. ‘They’re going to paint it for me,’ he grinned. ‘To match the costume.’

It sure was something else, Bucky noted, eyes roaming over the two little scuffs where Peggy had shot at it. A damn sight better than the useless tin show prop the idiot had stormed the hydra camp with. Steve actually stood a chance at protecting himself with this one.

Bucky felt relieved.

Steve felt…

“Proud.”

…

“What inspired you to volunteer for Project Rebirth?”

Bucky hadn’t volunteered for anything. He’d been drafted. Like so many others. Forced into a war nobody was truly prepared for.

Steve had been inspired by the chip on his shoulder. His pig eared determinedness to never bow down to a bully no matter how outmatched.

'There are men laying down their lives. I got no right to do any less than them. That's what you don't understand. This isn't about me.'

Bucky still wasn’t convinced.

‘There are men laying down their lives.’

He’d nursed his friend through so many illnesses. Seen him drag himself back from the brink over and over. The priest coming and going so often they’d joked about installing a revolving door.

Steve hadn’t planned for Project Rebirth. Hadn’t planned for Captain America.

‘This isn’t about me.’

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Steve really was just that noble.

Or maybe, deep-down, Steve had known that one way or another he wasn’t long for this world, and just wanted to go out on his own terms, doing something that mattered, instead of dying in bed, coughing his lungs up and burning with fever.

Captain America had died a hero. Twice.

Steve Rogers hadn’t died at all. Hadn’t lived either. Officially. His whole existence wiped from the records. No funeral. No obituary. No one but Bucky’s parents and sisters to remember him. To wonder where he went.

He wonders if Steve would mind. That the legend outlived the man. If that would mean enough to let him rest in peace.

“I just wanted to do my part,” Bucky said.

…

“What do you think of the twenty first century?”

‘I think Steve should be here,’ Bucky thought, swallowing the words.

He isn’t even sure Steve would have appreciated the loud, sleek, hyper-technic, world of tomorrow.

He should still be here though.

He should be here, answering these questions. He should be here, being celebrated.

He should be here.

The serum had made that possible. It had given them hope.

Steve had been so sick. So often.

They never talked about it. Talked around it at best. That hollow looming reality that Steve most likely wasn’t going to grow old.

Bucky might have. If not for Hydra. If not for the ice.

Might have taken the long way.

He was healthy. Hearty. He could have lived to see this future. An old man. With every year between then and now carried proudly with him.

Steve wouldn’t have made it. Not on his own. Not before the serum.

But after. After. That impossible future was brought into reach.

Hope.

It was a dangerous thing.

Steve could have been here. Could have lived to see this bright new tomorrow Tony was so proud of.

He should be here.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Steve should be given that chance, only to have it snatched away by dying anyway.

We should have been here together.

“I like microwaves.”

…

“Captain, if I may ask, it’s well known that you rose to fame after you heroically liberated over a hundred prisoners of war from a prison camp. It is also known that prior to that rescue you were not in fact an active soldier but instead were traveling as a performer selling war bonds. It was one of these performances that led to you being in Italy at the time.”

“Is there a question here?”

“Yes, Captain of course. What I mean to ask is, during your tour you had passed through other bases before that one. No doubt had heard tales of other MIA soldiers in need of help; so, what I’m wondering is, why them?”

“Why them?”

“Why did you choose to run off on your own and save those particular soldiers? What drove you that day?”

It had been a year at this point.

A year in the future.

Wearing the suit.

Carrying the shield.

Maintaining the legacy.

His metal arm glittered under the studio lights as the interviewer leaned in, face open and polite. Three cameras surrounded the pair of them, capturing different angles.

He’d answered so many questions. So many half-truths and almost lies.

He could answer this one. Could tell them he had seen too much by that day. Had been driven to act because he couldn’t stand by and do nothing any longer. He could make up some spiel about God’s guiding hand even. People would like that.

He could keep up the act and tell them what they wanted to hear.

Captain America, hero and patriot. Doing what’s right for entirely selfless reasons.

Captain America hadn’t stormed that facility for entirely selfless reasons though. He hadn’t defied orders and risked it all for a hundred strangers. They were just a bonus.

Captain America hadn’t gone to be a hero.

He’d gone for Bucky.

Steve had gone there for Bucky.

His best friend.

Because the stubborn little punk couldn’t sit by and do nothing whilst there was even the smallest shred of hope Bucky was still alive.

‘He came for me,’ Bucky wanted to scream. He wanted to shout. He wanted the world to hear it. He wanted them all to know. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Steve wasn’t here. It wasn’t fair he’d been forgotten. By everyone by Bucky himself. It wasn’t fair that never got credit when he’d fought harder than anyone, right from the start, every day, every breath a battle to get him where he needed to be. A chip on his shoulder. A flame in his heart.

“Captain?” The interviewer prompted. He’d paused too long.

“Sergeant.”

“Pardon?”

“I was a Sergeant.”

Murmurs of confusion spread through the studio; he sat up straighter and it fell silent again, people could sense a change in the air.

“Let me tell you about a friend of mine,” Bucky said before the interviewer could interrupt, flesh and metal hands both clenched in his lap. “Bravest man I ever knew.”

The studio lights were hot on his neck. The blood cold in his veins. Shame and frustration for a year of deceit catching up with him all at once.

Freezing and scorching. Fire and ice. Fear and Failure.

“He saved me. He saved me, but I couldn’t save him.”

Steve should have been here.

Bucky started to cry.

Bucky started to talk.