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"You know me..."
"No, I don't!" He lashed out in anger, packing as much heat behind his arm as his tired body could muster. The sound of the metal of his arm and the shield-clashing vibrated throughout his entire body, through his bones.
"Bucky," anger swelled inside him, bubbled like bile in the back of his throat, hot and bitter. He hated that name, hated the sound of it on his tongue. "You've known me your whole life." He lashed out again, blindly this time. Liar, he wanted to scream but the bubbling bile threatened to choke him, forced him to take quick and shallow breaths.
"Your name,"
No.
"Is James Buchanan Barnes."
"Shut up!!" He lashed out again, and the force of the blow knocked them both down. His heart hammered against his chest and echoed in his ears. It was like having white hot rods poking at your brain and behind your eyes. The Winter Soldier staggered to his feet and looked up behind a curtain of wild dark hair and it was to find the Captain America cowl gone. Blonde hair and blues eyes greeted him instead.
"I'm not gonna fight you." The gloved hand released its hold on the shield and it disappeared in the chaos down below. Anger bubbled up along with the bile and everything else. "You're my friend."
You're my mission.
He wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs as he charged. Instead, all that came from him was an animalistic cry, filled with anger and pain. He threw all his body weight forward and into the chest of the super soldier, ensuring that when he landed, he landed hard.
He didn't give him time to talk because he knew he'd say something that would trigger that itching in the back of his head again.
"You're my mission." He hissed. He was just the mission. The objective. The target. That's all he was, that's all the Winter Soldier was supposed to see him as.
"You're. My. Mission!" but it was no longer for Captain America's ears, but for his. He needed to hear himself say it, needed to feel those words roll off his tongue. You're my mission.
"Then finish it..." despite the utter chaos around them he heard him loud and clear as if he were in his fucking head. He froze, his arm raised and poised to strike. "Cause I'm with you...ti-till the end of the line." His eyes widened and suddenly, he wasn't pinning a beaten up Captain America down. The image of the super soldier warped and suddenly he was staring down at a frail human being. All skin and bones but those eyes were the same intense blues. Then he heard his own voice echo in the back of his mind, "I'm with you till the end of the line, bud."
Steve...
The glass beneath them shattered and Bucky's arm shot out on instinct, metal fingers tightly curling around his anchor. His eyes followed the falling body but it still wasn't that of Captain America. The Winter Soldier still saw that small Brooklyn blonde and it made watching him fall that much harder.
The impact seemed to reach his ears from all the way up here and he felt it throughout his own body. His fingers uncurled and the Winter Soldier fell.
No one would know that Bucky had been the one to drag Steve out, and no one would know that he stood there, refusing to move, until Steve's chest rose and fell in a deep breath.
No one would know that as the Winter Soldier walked away from Captain America he glanced over his shoulder and saw Steve Rogers. The skinny Brooklyn kid whose heart was too big for his body.
And no one but Steve would ever understand the look in Bucky's eyes. The look of a man with a new mission.