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Thirty minutes outside Berlin, Sam moves his seat backwards. He doesn’t need to, but he’s pretty damn aware of Steve’s knuckles white on the wheel, and of the way the vibrating silence in the backseat hasn’t calmed down yet. They’ve got a long drive still, and so even if provoking the Winter Soldier isn’t the smartest thing Sam’s ever done, it’s also probably not the dumbest. Something’s gotta give.
He goes backward until he can feel Bucky’s right knee solid through the seat.
“Can you move,” Bucky says. It’s not a question.
“No.”
Steve looks quickly in the mirror, and then at Sam through his lashes. He’s silent.
“The way I see it,” Sam says, deliberate, “you can put up with a little inconvenience.”
“I’d be happy to go.” Bucky speaks through gritted teeth and starts eyeing the back window. Sam watches through the side mirror, waits to see if Bucky’s going to smash his way out of the glass. It wouldn’t be hard for Bucky to throw himself out of the moving car; they’re trundling down side roads, and the bucolic countryside would give him plenty of coverage if he wanted to run.
“Don’t, Buck,” Steve says. “We don’t want you to go.”
“Speak for yourself,” Sam says.
There’s a ticking quality now in the car, and Sam breathes through it, counts backwards: Five, four, three –
“What’s your problem, man?” Bucky’s mostly monotone, mostly level to match the way Steve’s determinedly looking straight ahead and his hands have stayed clenched like everyone’s life depends on him not letting go of the wheel.
“My problem, man, is that we’re in this old-ass Bug when we could be on a plane.”
“We’re getting to a plane,” Steve says, eyes again on the rearview.
“We’re getting to a plane slowly. We don’t need the Quinjet; we could take any plane we wanted out of Berlin, and instead we’re on a lazy drive between cities, hoping we don’t get caught.”
Bucky’s hunched over, knee still pressing tight into the small of Sam’s back. He watches Steve and doesn’t pretend not to.
“We can’t take someone else’s plane, and we can’t hurt anyone to get one,” Steve says.
“What, you care about law and order now?”
Bucky flinches, hard, and Sam keeps pressing.
“It seems to me we’re all in this because you couldn’t go along with the U.N. – fair enough, in some situations – but frankly, borrowing someone else’s plane to go stop world destruction seems less drastic than helping a suspected war criminal escape.”
Steve swings toward him now and Bucky stops breathing. “He’s not a war criminal. It wasn’t him.”
Three cars pass on the lonely road before Bucky leans forward, gets right in their space, and says, “I did it.”
“I know,” Sam says, and turns around to look him in the face. Now he’s got to be honest. “But you were compromised.”
“I did it,” Bucky says again. He’s not asking for forgiveness, and Sam doesn’t think he’s asking for punishment. He hasn’t turned himself in. He just needs them to know – needs Steve to know – what he’s done.
Steve nods once and keeps driving.
“Under international law, you’re probably not guilty,” Sam says, and Bucky finally looks at him. He’s got the same haunted eyes Sam’s seen in a hundred faces before, and it makes Sam feel just as sick now as those other hundred times, that he’s supposed to give an answer. He tries anyway. “If after this little escapade you end up before some kind of court, you could go for an insanity defense –”
“No,” Bucky says. “I knew what I was doing.”
“Okay.” Sam’s got his eyes locked on Bucky now, but he feels Steve’s breathing shift beside him. Mister Situational Awareness, Sam is. He has no idea what’s going on in Bucky’s head. “There’s always involuntary intoxication, because you couldn’t make yourself obey the law if you tried.”
“Mission objective,” Bucky says, and looks at his hands.
“Now, superior orders aren’t a defense,” Sam continues, and shifts to start fiddling with the radio. “Let’s say you’re a soldier who’s supposed to obey a higher up; if they tell you to go do something that’s wrong, the law will back you up not to obey.”
“Are we talking about Bucky, or are we talking about the Accords?” Steve’s voice is as unsubtle as his shield, and just as bitter. Sam wouldn’t want the job of carrying a symbol that bold.
He shrugs, easy, and watches the pretty fields out the window. He tries to find something other than static to listen to. “Either way. This all comes out of your war, you know.”
“I’ve had a lot of wars,” Bucky says, but he’s holding himself more uncertain now, less like he’s ready to get hit.
“It’s not enough that someone told you to do it, not if they tell you to do something wrong.”
“They told me to do a lot of wrong things.”
Sam finds a station that’s some kind of 80s pop, beat loud enough that he doesn’t have to try to understand the words. “Yeah, but you didn’t have the option to choose. That’s the difference.”
They listen through six songs before Bucky sits back again, moves himself out of Steve’s space. Steve doesn’t say anything the whole time.
*
They don’t go straight to Leipzig. Steve drives far out into the country and doubles back on himself, evasive. At one point they’re on actual dirt roads.
When they stop at a gas station, Bucky pulls his hair up under Steve’s hat and shuffles in to pay, the only one who speaks the language well enough to maybe not stand out. Steve’s eyes trace the shape of him through the grimy station window, and Sam knows he’s expecting Bucky to run.
“What kind of court would give him a fair trial?” Steve asks, not looking away from Bucky putting change on the counter. “Who’d bother to hear his defense?”
“I don’t know,” Sam says. “And I signed up for whatever’s next. But do you really want to be in hiding for the rest of your life?”
“I’m not thinking past Siberia,” Steve says, and Bucky walks back toward them.
*
They drive through the night, eating the food Bucky bought from the station and pretending to get a couple hours’ sleep each in the backseat. Leipzig’s only two hours from Berlin, but Steve says he wants to throw everyone off the trail. They can’t go straight there and they can’t stop, not when the police could investigate any parked car.
When it’s Sam’s turn, he dozes listening to the other two not saying anything, until Bucky asks low and rough, “Why didn’t you sign?”
“Sign what?”
“Don’t act stupid.”
Steve takes awhile to answer and Sam tries not to change his breathing. His sausage-and-potato-chip dinner sits like a rock in his stomach, and his neck is cramping from how he’s leaning backward. “I couldn’t trust them, after what Hydra did to you.”
“You wanted oversight during the war.”
“That was different.”
Sam opens his eyes a sliver, and Bucky’s driving now, Steve looking away from him out the window. There’s a solid wall up between them, and even though they’re talking, even though Bucky’s still here, no one’s saying what they need to. This is not my job, Sam wants to tell himself, but really, being Steve’s friend means looking out for maybe-damaged definitely-bereft nonagenarian supersoldiers every day of the week, so. It kind of is.
“I don’t trust them,” Steve says. “They just wanted to make money off me then. Now, how do I know they’re not all Hydra? Even if they’re not, who wrote the Accords? Why should I believe they’ll be easy to change, if there’s a problem with them? Everyone’s quick to sign them. Who’s read the fine print?”
Steve’s up on his military law, Sam knows. He’s clear on what’s allowed when, and how to argue governments down from deliberately putting civilians in the crossfire. Even so, he’s a pragmatic soldier and he doesn’t always stand in the light, but Sam’s a little surprised Steve’s walking away from parameters and ROEs. It’s unlike him to play the vigilante.
“I don’t want to be their weapon,” Steve says, “because I don’t trust them to know what’s needed.”
“Do you know?” Bucky asks, and turns down another familiar country road. They’ve been going in circles for hours.
“I used to.”
Sam closes his eyes again and tries not to listen anymore.
*
Mid-morning, they pass a roadside fruit stand. The colors glow in the sunlight, cherries and plums and rich citrus. It’s like something out of a fairy tale, an ache of promise out of the corner of Sam’s eye.
“I’m hungry,” Steve says a couple yards beyond the stand, and Sam doesn’t even think, just pulls the car over. The reds of the strawberries wink behind them.
Sam yanks his hat more firmly down over his forehead, Steve adjusts his sunglasses, and they all get out. Bucky’s hair is in a messy bun, more than a little ridiculous.
He smiles shyly at the farmer as they walk up, and while Sam’s lingering over the strawberries, Bucky starts counting out plums. There’s no one else at the stand, and the farmer is grinning. The air smells almost like summer.
There’s time enough to get to the Quinjet; after they buy their fruit, they lean by common consent against the Bug to eat. Sam’s watching how Bucky stands a little easier next to Steve than he sat yesterday, and how Steve isn’t so hyperaware. They’re not relaxed, but they’re less on edge from the miracle of sharing the same space. Bucky takes a bite of his plum and closes his eyes against the taste. Steve is hungry, longing, looking at his mouth. “You always liked plums,” he says.
Bucky swallows. The flesh of the fruit is a ruby in the silver of his hand. “I always did,” he agrees.
“I’m glad you came with us,” Sam says, stepping into their moment.
Bucky opens his eyes. “Yeah?”
“It’s not every day I get to see a man look that happy about a piece of fruit. It adds a certain something.”
Steve smiles, fond, like all the governments of the world aren’t after them right now. “I missed this,” he says.
“Breakfast?” Bucky asks.
“You.”
Sam busies himself watching the horizon and the road. He’s got them to this juncture. It might be enough.
He hears Bucky shift against the car. “You kissed Sharon,” he says.
“I contain multitudes,” Steve says, and Sam rolls his eyes. The farmer shrugs at him, commiserating even though back at the stand he can’t hear what’s going on.
“What do you want?” Bucky asks, quiet and level, and then there’s the thud of a half-eaten plum dropped to the ground.
Sam gets in the car, and tries not to drum his fingers against the wheel.
A couple minutes later, Bucky gets in next to him. “My plum,” he says sadly, and Sam ignores the flush on his cheeks, and how his hair is even more tangled now.
“There’s plenty,” Steve says, and passes him the bag.