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It took months to track down Bucky.
He was squatting in some abandoned apartment, living on old food and water bottles and not making a single sound.
Steve crouched down a few feet from him. “...Buck?”
He was almost unrecognizable. Unshaved, hair dirty, eyes sunken. Bucky eyed Steve skittishly without a word.
Steve shifted.
“Buck, it’s me. Remember me? It’s okay.”
The other man continued to stare out from the corner of the room. But he never said a single word.
It took an hour to coax Bucky out of the corner.
It took another for Steve to convince him that he was safe, that it was alright to come with them.
Throughout the ordeal, Sam stood by the door of the apartment. He was a calm presence that did as much to convince Bucky as Steve’s words. But finally, they were leaving.
Bucky still never said a word.
Steve wasn’t sure how many possessions his best friend could have acquired while on the run; though he had assumed it would at least include clothes. But Bucky only filled his backpack with a toothbrush . . . and books.
He had travel books. He had dictionaries. History books. Narratives, biographies, autobiographies . . . mostly about World War II. There were stacks of newspapers, printed in more languages than Steve could count, and bound together with rubber bands or colorful hair ties.
Sam said that the newspapers meant Bucky was catching up on current events, and staying caught up.
The books Bucky took the most time with--touched with the most care--were the novels. Judging by their lovingly worn-down covers, they had been read repeatedly.
10,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The Time Machine. The Hobbit . . .
Steve recognized almost all of the novels. Even their cover art brought back warm memories.
Those books had been Bucky’s favorite novels, back when they were young.
Did Bucky remember reading them aloud when Steve was sick in bed? Or when they would climb up to the apartment roof in summer, looking for the slightest breeze, and Bucky would read while Steve drew the skyline.
A flicker of hope lit up inside Steve’s chest.
Bucky stopped packing the books into his bag. He turned his head and looked at Steve with wary eyes.
Bucky would only continue packing after Steve and Sam moved to the far side of the room.
Steve and Sam took Bucky to one of Natasha’smany secret apartments.
“There’s no way you use all these, Red,” Sam told her. “You paranoid at all?”
Steve dropped what he was doing, to stare from Sam to Natasha in alarm.
After looking at Sam with hard eyes for a moment, Natasha made a sassy, teasing remark. But the look in her eyes was eerily similar to Bucky’s.
It was a two-bedroom apartment. The couches in the main room were a soft, faded blue, and situated before a small TV. Next to the couch was a tall, cream-colored bookshelf, and directly across the room, three windows peered out on a quiet street.
Finally, trying to keep his voice cheerful, Steve smiled. “This is it.” He put his shield against the wall by the front door. “You like it, Buck?”
Sam and Steve waited for a reaction from Bucky as he stepped over the threshold, footsteps silent. His eyes lingered on the bookshelf, before tracking every corner, makeshift weapon, and escape route. Not a word was spoken.
“. . . Buck?” Steve tried again, softly.
Bucky hesitated. He looked at Steve and offered one curt nod, still standing in the center of the room with his backpack over one shoulder.
It was silent as a field of snow in the apartment. The former Winter Soldier had not said a single word since they found him. All of his communication to Sam and Steve had been with nods, or movement, or the white fear in his eyes.
In spite of the chill and silence, Steve’s bright smile toward Bucky never wavered. But his heart did sink, and the cheerfulness that finding his friend had caused suddenly began to feel hollow.
Bucky didn’t want to be touched.
Steve eagerly acquiesced to every one of Bucky’s wishes--trying to give him the freedom that HYDRA had denied him for seventy years. So, the first time Bucky disappeared into his room and shut the door, Steve just swallowed and let him go.
Sam didn’t stay all the time. He still had to work at the VA. Steve remained in the apartment with Bucky, and spent the days trying to gently jog his memory.
“Do you remember the Commandos?” Steve asked hopefully one night. Another morning, he said, “That time your sister took us to the movies was neat. Remember that, Buck?”
Bucky’s mouth did not open. Occasionally he nodded, or shrugged, or gave some other non-verbal answer. But when Steve asked those questions about the past, even Bucky’s silent responses went away.
Steve realized his mistake only after mentioning his mother . . . when he saw Bucky’s right hand begin to shake. The words caused him pain, but he stolidly absorbed them. He listened to Steve without fighting back . . . just as HYDRA had trained him.
Horrified with his own mistake, he consulted Sam. And at the therapist’s suggestion, Steve began sharing memories not as questions, but as simple stories--where he didn’t expect Bucky to answer.
The advice made no difference. It seemed that Bucky had nothing to say.
Bucky had nightmares.
Even from the other end of the hall, he often woke Steve with the screaming.
When he calmed down, he was always ashamed and embarrassed. And sometimes, a dampness in Bucky’s bed indicated why.
Sam came by the apartment, usually every day, to check on them and help where he could. Steve told him worriedly of the night terrors, hoping Sam would have a solution.
“If he would talk about ‘em, they might not be so bad.” Sam leaned back in his kitchen chair. He looked across the room at Bucky, who was walking slowly back and forth before the bookshelf. “But he’s not talkin’.”
Bucky began to sit in the living room during the night, when he couldn’t go back to sleep. Steve soon found him on the couch, surrounded by stacks of books plucked from the cream-colored shelf; and pretty soon, all Bucky wanted to do was read.
Steve saw the old Bucky reemerging. His throat choked up when Bucky began to read The Hobbit, with the same endearing look of concentration on his face.
Sometimes, Bucky read from sunup to sundown. He read books after having nightmares, when he should have been getting rest.
A few weeks later, Steve cleared a section of the bookshelf. He encouraged Bucky to add his favorite novels to the collection, which he did.
Bucky read like a madman. It was as if he couldn’t fill his head with enough ideas. And watching him, Sam slowly began to think.
“If he doesn’t wanna tell us what’s wrong,” Sam whispered, “maybe he’ll show us.”
He arrived at the apartment one day with three spiral notebooks, each one a different bright color.
Being careful not to invade his personal space, Sam offered the notebooks to Bucky. “You can put whatever you want in ‘em.”
Bucky’s brow creased. For a long while, he stared at the notebooks in bewilderment.
Steve sat in an armchair across from Bucky. He pulled out a sketchbook and flipped to an unfinished drawing on one of the middle pages, hoping an example would help Bucky. Not wanting Bucky to feel watched or pressured, Steve began to draw.
The apartment stayed quiet, save the scratching of Steve’s pencil. Bucky stared at the notebooks on his lap, seemingly lost in thought.
On the second day, Bucky picked up a pen. It was progress.
He sat for hours with an empty page before him, drawing nothing.
During that time, Steve drew a detailed sketch of the apartment around them, and three different views out the window. He tried not to glance at Bucky too often.
On the third night, Steve was ready to give up.
That was when Bucky’s hand began to move.
Steve blinked in surprise, and couldn’t help staring. He wondered what pictures would emerge, whether they would be comforting or appalling--and that was when he realized Bucky wasn’t drawing. He was writing.
His pen flew across the lines of his page, and he looked more animated than Steve or Sam had seen him in weeks.
Bucky didn’t raise his eyes from the page for five minutes. When he was done, he handed Steve the notebook, marked with fifty lines of scribbled blue writing in the form of bullet notes.
Steve’s eyes widened. He didn’t want Bucky to feel like he had to share everything he wrote. But when Steve looked up hesitantly, the quiet man on the other end of the couch was staring at him expectantly.
So he read.
-I remember the Commandos.
This was followed by a list of names, and a few descriptions written alongside them. The longest note was written about Dum Dum Dugan, and focused mainly on the stupid ruddy hat he used to wear.
-I remember going to the movies. We saw The Wizard of Oz.
-Your name is Steven Grant Rogers.
Bucky wrote about how Steve used to draw all the time--on sidewalks and napkins and the margins of books--and he wondered, the note explained, if Steve still did that.
He wrote that Steve had grown taller since the old days, but still looked exactly the same and he couldn’t understand why other people didn’t see that.
The list ended with two short sentences. They were the first original thoughts that Bucky had expressed in a long, long time.
-I don’t want to draw.
-You draw better than me.
Steve looked up slowly. All this time...when the only words Bucky said out loud were screamed during his nightmares...he actually had so many thoughts and memories stuffed inside his head.
Steve choked up when he told Bucky, “That list is great, Buck. It’s really great.”
Bucky looked at him intently, his gray eyes laser-focused. There were so many words there, straining to be heard. But Bucky didn’t speak.
“What is it, Buck?” Steve asked softly.
Bucky’s gaze flicked to the sketchbook in Steve’s lap. The drawing of the front door peered up from the page. When Steve’s expression remained blank, Bucky slowly reached out.
He touched his list of memories, then touched the empty white page beside it.
Steve finally understood. “Yeah...yeah, sure thing.”
Bucky stayed perfectly still. He watched as Steve read through the bullet note list, thought for a moment, and began to draw.
Twenty minutes later, Steve finished a sketch of a tiny blonde boy, crouching on a playground and scratching designs into the pavement with a jagged white rock. Beside it, Steve rewrote one of the notes from Bucky’s list: You were drawing with a white rock on pavement when we met.
Bucky was amazed. He touched the pencil marks gently.
Finally--because Steve shared many of the same memories--Bucky had a way to see, and sort through, the jumbled pictures in his head.
When Steve told him about the notebook, Sam was relieved. “This’ll be good,” he promised. “It’ll be real good for him. I still wish he would talk, though…”
“He’ll get there when he’s ready,” said Steve.
He hoped.
A routine began to develop in the apartment. Bucky would spend time scribbling in his notebook, and when he was done, show the writing to Steve. At first, Bucky only expressed himself in bullet notes. Over time, though, it changed to sentence fragments; then complete sentences; and, finally, to long, swooping paragraphs.
Steve always picked a few memories from Bucky’s writing, and illustrated them. He tried to choose specific images that they had both seen, to make the memories easier for Bucky to recognize (that was Sam’s idea). Sometimes, it helped. The illustrations sparked new memories in his head, and Bucky added on to his memory lists.
There was a sketch of Steve and Bucky together as teenagers; one of the apartment building where Bucky’s family had lived; and one of two women, one blonde and one brunette.
Bucky stared at the brunette. Her gray eyes were just like his, and the expression looked similar, too.
Steve watched him anxiously. “That’s your mother,” he explained.
Bucky blinked. Something soft and warm lit up behind his eyes.
When Bucky was awakened by nightmares, he reached immediately for his notebook and pen.
By the time Steve heard the screaming and got across the hall to check on him, Bucky was already sitting up, shoulders hunched, writing furiously. The next day, Bucky seemed alright--other than his dark-rimmed eyes and fatigue.
Steve expected to see at least one of the pages that Bucky wrote during the night. But they never appeared. Steve tried not to let it bother him, even though he could see the pages, with folded corners that were sometimes torn from Bucky’s shaking hand.
“We don’t even know all the crap that went down when he was with HYDRA,” Sam reminded Steve when they were alone. “He might not wanna talk about it for awhile. It’s okay. He’s getting there.”
Steve had to work hard to accept that Bucky didn’t trust him anymore--at least, not like he used to. Even though he understood why, it still hurt.
The nightmares that plagued Bucky subsided a little. The frequency with which he woke up screaming in the night decreased.
It was selfish, but Steve missed hearing the sound of his friend’s voice.
Bucky and Steve filled up an entire notebook with their memories. On the left page, Bucky wrote what he remembered with small, swooping handwriting. On the right, Steve illustrated the words with lifelike detail. There were drawings of alleyways, children’s toys, Christmas trees, food, clothes. Anything that Bucky remembered. He began referring back to the words and drawings when he had bad days.
He wrote to Steve, on a loose piece of paper, that the drawings helped him stay grounded in the present.
Sam and Steve often sat down with Bucky just to talk. They took turns sharing stories, hoping that it would encourage Bucky to jump in and speak.
He never did.
“It’s kind of funny,” said Sam. He was having dinner with Bucky and Steve in the apartment, and flipping through the notebook of drawings and memories. Sam held the page up, and pointed out the drawing of Bucky and Steve as teenagers. “Cap’s been an artist for seventy years. The damn Smithsonian has your work.” He turned to Bucky. “So then what are the odds that you turn out to be a really good writer?”
Steve glanced at Bucky, and shrugged. “I don’t know.” He was smiling. “Kind of...matches, doesn’t it?”
Bucky looked back and forth between them, listening to the conversation. His eyes were bright and present.
“Yeah…” Sam sipped from his soda can. “You both--no. It...it shows that you--”
Sam couldn’t think of the word. Neither could Steve.
“It’s complementary,” Bucky said quietly.
Steve and Sam both turned around in surprise. For the first time in months, Bucky had finally spoken.
His voice was quiet and scratchy, but it was still Bucky. It was still the voice of Steve’s best friend. Bucky looked back and forth between Steve and Sam, almost waiting.
“Yeah,” Steve said softly. His blue eyes were instantly wet. “That’s right, Buck.”
Sam began to grin from ear to ear. “Well I’ll be damned.”
They sat at the table as the windows grew dark. Sam and Steve joked around, feeling lighter than they had in months. Every once in awhile, their jokes drew quiet huffs of laughter from Bucky.
After dessert, Steve opened to the first page of a brand new notebook. A new leaf.
Bucky tilted his head at it. “Can we keep writing?” he asked--still unsure about using his voice. “And...drawing?”
Steve smiled. He nodded, and pushed the first page toward Bucky. “We sure can.”
It didn't matter what went wrong after that. Steve knew it would be okay, and Bucky reminded him of that everyday.