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In short: it’s a clusterfuck.
They’d been tracking the neo-Hydra cell for months, nigh on a year. Romanoff had gone in on three different aliases with absolutely nothing but a few new scars and a bullet-wound for her troubles (“Look, Yasha, it matches,” she’d laughed after Bucky had pinned her in training, pressing their foreheads together affectionately as her shirt had hiked up to show the new wound, fresher than the one at the other side from another time, another life, far enough for the joke to stand, at least, if not fully ring out). Daisy had been using every skill, and then every contact with skills beyond her own to wear them down on the cyber warfare front, but no dice. And maybe Phil had been keeping Bucky out of the general Eastern European theatre where he could, for now, out of respect for the man’s history, but the rest of the Avengers were on assignment, and Phil didn’t have a fucking choice.
The Winter Soldier had to go in.
And it’d been fine, at first. Barnes had charm and deep personal knowledge of the culture, the lay of the land—hell, after he’d tossed back his weight in rakia in the first night with some low-level operatives, he’d gained more respect, and access, than Natasha had managed in her whole first week. Sexist, maybe, but true.
So it’d been deep-cover, if short-term: Phil had capped the mission at two weeks, tops; they hadn’t prepped for more, and hell if Phil was going to let one of his people take even more excessive risks than normal for something that simple, that textbook. Bucky’d smirked, said two weeks would give him plenty of time to relax, and had taken off with minimal contact, orders to breaks cover only for extraction.
And then it’d all gone to hell.
Not because Bucky did anything wrong, of course not; he’d been fucking spectacular, and if they’d been just a little quicker, if they’d noticed just a little sooner, they’d have had him out: they had everything they needed and more, full access to assets and contacts for the cell and countless other splinter groups that’d keep them busy for months, at least.
But it turned out that splinter groups splinter for a good reason, and one of said groups had a beef with the Sofia cell. One they chose to act upon before Bucky could tap-out.
It’s taken them the better part of another week to find where the Slovakians had holed up, to tap their systems and get anything out of the feeds; to find Barnes trapped, restrained, and tortured, the only audio seeping through in broken, frantic Russian that Phil could mostly understand, enough to piece together the rest of the story: they wanted information, obviously, but they knew enough to threaten what Bucky held dear. Whether in the abstract or the specific, it didn’t matter. Barnes threatened, refused, and chanted numbers that spoke of every time he’d ever been a prisoner before, and once Phil had arrived on scene and take over the operation, he’d heard the recordings enough times to feel sick to his stomach whether the audio was playing, or simply repeating endlessly in his head.
“In position,” Mack finally radioed in, and Phil restrained himself from breathing a sigh of relief: not yet.
Not until Bucky was safe again.
“Move in,” Phil gave the order, and prayed to nothing because fuck knows what would be listening and waiting to screw them over, but the gesture seemed appropriate, so long as it lacked specific direction.
Too many close calls and rough shaves, they hand Barnes on board and the compound rigged to detonate. Or else: they had the compound rigged to detonate.
And they’d extracted a torture victim with too-familiar hollow eyes, too pale skin, moving too much like a frightened animal, like the shell of something infinitely more for Phil to willingly believe it was Barnes standing before him from sheer stubbornness, no—from sheer conditioning, leftover programming, lest he crumble entirely then and there—here, right in front of Phil’s eyes.
Good god.
“Bucky,” Phil goes with the personal first, because those eyes are vacant, that posture could snap in a second; but nothing.
“Agent Barnes,” he tries again, sees if duty is what he’s reverted to—Phil knows he has, in the worst of times, and so he watches the subtle straightening of Bucky’s posture, closer to attention than submission: progress, then. Maybe.
Phil can hear the med team clamoring their way, so he runs with what he’s got.
“Soldier—” he starts, unthinking.
And that’s when the shit hits the fan.
Bucky snarls, suddenly menacing, suddenly frantic, eyes suddenly darting and full of terror and resolve and a willingness to sacrifice everything in protection of a singular need: Phil knows that look.
Phil knows that look, and knows enough of the words that spill forth in rapid-fire Russian, with only broken sense, to piece together what’s going through Barnes’ mind, to figure what went on down there, what was done:
I’m not telling you anything, Bucky spits out; growls. “I’m not telling you a fucking thing, you won’t touch him, I’ll kill you, I will kill you if you touch him, I will, I’m three-two-five-five-seven-zero-three-eight, fuck you, I’m not telling you anything, don’t touch me, don’t fucking touch me, I won’t tell you, three-two-five-five-one-nine-seventeen-one-nine-seventeen, rusted, rusted, rusted—
“Barnes,” Phil tries to cut in more than once, but there’s nothing for it, Bucky just protests louder, harder; Phil tries to soothe him with his tone, tries to reason: “Agent Barnes”; tries to shock him: “Barnes!”
Doesn’t do a damned thing.
And Phil’s seen things close enough to this, and knows enough of a past that’s unthinkable to bridge the yawning gaps, to guess what Bucky’s experiencing, what he can and cannot process in just this moment. So he lifts open palms and walks slowly, watches as Bucky’s eyes narrow and his chest heaves quicker, shallower, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t retreat, just stares: cornered, but not even eyeing the exits. Holding ground but not advancing; frenzied by resigned.
“Barnes,” Phil chokes out; can’t restrain his own emotions any longer, not entirely; “Jesus Christ.”
He manages to get a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, and he braces for violence, for lashing, for recoiling: anything but what happens, which is what Phil feared from the start.
Bucky stumbles, and then collapses to the floor, puppet cut from his strings and Phil follows without a second thought, softening the landing as best he can for his agent, his colleague, his brother-in-arms in more ways than he can count by now: his friend.
“Look at me,” Phil says, soft: not a demand, not a command—a request. Something just this side of a plea.
“Director.”
The voice startles Phil, though he doesn’t allow it to show. Medical. They’d been coming. He’d entirely forgotten, everything relegated to background upon seeing Bucky like this, hurt like this: worse than the flesh, for a greater good that couldn’t be greater, not entirely, when it hurt good people, like this.
“Sir, we need to—”
“Don’t.”
Phil lifts a hand, unmoving; halts them because Bucky notices the uniforms, the instruments, and immediately starts breathing heavily, dangerously, starts to back away and Phil knows what those implements have to speak to in his hazy mind: Phil knows, and he will not allow them to be here, to pose threat longer than they’ve already done.
“Hand me that blanket,” Phil instructs instead, gesturing to a folded shock blanket in the standard kit. “And bring some water.”
It’s enough of a dismissal to be effective. Which Phil’s grateful for, to say the least.
He wraps Barnes gently, loosely: not to confine or really to do anything such a tool’s meant to manage for a physiologically standard human being, no—it’s there to wam, because like this, Phil highly suspect that Bucky doesn’t want the cold; won’t be able to grasp and hold to the facts of the real, of the now if he’s frozen in the then.
Bucky’s shivering starts to subside, and it’s only when the fist clenched in Phil’s chest begin to release that Phil realises it was ever truly there.
“Barnes?” Phil ventures, and Bucky flinches almost imperceptibly, but its reluctant, awaiting punishment, and there’s a wounded sound that’s almost inaudible that Phil picks up on just an echo of, merely the suggestion: but enough.
“James,” Phil tries again, tries to soften things, tries to ease him back into the now; into himself. “James.”
Bucky’s breath shudders, and Phil fears for a moment that they’ve turned toward the worse, that he’s made it worse—and he should have known, he never left Natasha in this long, he never left her alone, unaided, without recourse like Bucky’d had to be on such short notice, so shorthanded, they should have waited, he should have known—
“Steve.”
Bucky’s voice is harsh, hoarse, raked over coals: but it’s there.
It’s here.
“We’re going to get you to him,” Phil promises without a thought, rote and true and clear as the rising of the sun.
“Steve, they,” Bucky swallows, harsh and trembling but with jaw clenched, set strong if so fucking desperate. “Steve,” he moans out, whines and begs and demands all at once, and with the ramblings from before? God, but Phil curses the bastards who took this man, who shook and tore at the strength so hard won back and yet still thin, still fragile and they’ve pulled it taut, and Phil doesn’t know if they’d only managed to be stopped short of tearing, or if Phil’s too close, too desperate not to see the tears, the holes.
Phil curses the bastards to every fate worse than hell.
“They didn’t do anything to Steve, Bucky,” Phil tries to console, tries to convince, tries to comfort somehow, someway. “Steve is safe, in New York, his mission was successful and he’s at HQ for debrief,” Phil tries to ground things in the facts, tries to go back to his own training to debriefing in difficult circumstances: the basics, the essentials.
Necessary, here.
“We’re dark here,” Phil says without thinking, but he doesn’t need to. There’s no question. “But we’re going to re-establish comms as soon as we can, Fitz is on it now, alright? We’ll get you to Steve.”
“Furnace,” Bucky shakes his head, lost again, or almost: losing. “Furnace.”
Phil grabs for another blanket and drapes it over Bucky’s shoulders, firmer now. Meant to warm to the bones.
“Director.” One of the medics bends at his side and leaves bottles of water; he nods and turns back to Bucky, hunched beneath blankets and breathing fast, too fast: mention of Steve, mingled with the triggers, the words he’s long since told Phil were there to subdue him to keep him docile: he’s strung too tight, he’s feeling too much, and he’s caught between times and states of being and fuck.
Fuck.
“Bucky?” Phil braces firm hands, but a touch he infuses with every ounce of solidarity, every bit of care he can manage. “Bucky, here, come on, you’re okay, breathe.”
“Steve,” Bucky murmurs against, still shaking his head fervently, metronomically. “Steve—”
“Steve’s okay,” Phil says softly, earnestly, positioning himself straight in Bucky’s view, leaning and crouching and finding Bucky’s downturned gaze even when it darts, even when it moves to escape. “Breathe. You’re okay, Steve’s okay, just breathe now, yeah?” He dares to press a bracing palm to Bucky’s chest to steady with touch: visceral against the demons in his mind. “Deep breaths.”
Bucky looks up, eyes lost again, but lost in the now, and Phil can work with that. Phil knows how to lead him back from there.
“Breathe,” he urges again, and feels the way that Bucky hears him, understands as it’s enacted underneath the press of Phil’s hand. “Breathe, you’re okay. We got you out. You did the impossible, you took down their entire network and we got everything we needed, things Daisy’s been after for ages, things we sent Natasha after more than once, we haven’t been able to touch it and you got us the intel.”
He delivers the stream of information, the soft praise as rhythmically as he knows how, and he paces it only to fit the careful, gentle, unbearably gradual but perfectly real slowing of Bucky’s breathing.
“You completed your mission, soldier,” Phil says, and makes sure that last word is affectionate, is soft and warm and everything that everyone in Bucky’s life now feels so fully for the man, for all that he is. “You completed your mission.”
“Completed…” Bucky stills, his brow furrows, and Phil holds his breath as he remembers the missions, so long conflicting, that Bucky’s had with regard to Steve.
“Steve,” Bucky sucks in a breath, shaky; “Steve is…” he looks up to Phil, too trusting: Phil doesn’t deserve that much, from this man. “Safe?”
Phil sighs, and nods, and grips Bucky tighter, meaningfully at the biceps as he says, unwavering:
“You completed your mission. You were incredible, and you absolutely completed your mission.”
Bucky stares, unmoving, for the longest stretch of moments.
And then he nods—hesitant, unsure still but it’s something.
“Here,” Phil breaks the seal on one of the water bottles and guides Bucky’s left wrist to grasp it—limp, at first, but around the girth enough for Phil to hold most of the weight and lift as best he can. “Slowly.”
The water drops from Bucky’s lower lip at first, but he comes to himself enough to drink it properly, to place more strength, more steadiness into his own hold of the bottle, enough so that Phil can pull back as he drains the bottle over long moments, with Phil’s reminder to pace himself carefully reiterated every few moments.
He swallows, and smacks his lips, and Phil grabs for another bottle and extends it in offer.
“Still slow, though,” Phil gives as caveat; “else you’ll make yourself sick.”
Phil might be imagining it, but he thinks there’s an eyeroll at that, though small if there is; he thinks, but he doesn’t want to hope just yet.
The water is drained slowly, and Phil keeps a close watch as Bucky’s shoulders slump, as he head tilts back, thuds against the wall of the quinjet, eyes closed as he breathes for long moments before his lashes flutter, and his eyes meet Phil’s, exhausted.
But his.
“Phil?” Bucky rasps, and Phil smiles; fucking relieved.
“Welcome back.”
“What,” Bucky frowns, confused; “I don’t...”
Phil takes the empty bottle from Bucky’s grasp as Bucky struggles for his mental footing before looking up, uncertain but trusting Phil to weave together the gaps:
“What happened?”
“They cut your comms,” Phil says, sketching the outline and hoping that it will prompt Bucky’s memories to slotting into place, way back when to the now. “And you,” Phil pauses, breathes deep; “You went in, and they,” he shakes his head, and turns remorseful eyes to Bucky before he says, as simply as he can:
“They weren’t good to you.”
Bucky’s frown remains, deepens, and then his lips part as his eyes widen, the pieces in place again as he murmurs:
“Oh.”
Phil nods.
“Oh, oh,” Bucky scrambles, gets to his feet and starts to pace. “Fuck.” He turns swift on a dime.
“Steve?”
“Came in late last night,” Phil’s quick to reassure him. “Safe and sound in the Tower.”
The relief that suffuses Bucky’s entire body is palpable; it makes Phil ache a little, makes him will them home all the faster in kind.
“Right,” Bucky says, leaning against the wall and steadying his breathing again; Phil can imagine the horrors that’d risen in his head in those moments, enough to burn a heart.
“Director.”
They both start a bit at the lilt over the ship’s comms.
“I’m doing everything I can,” Fitz reports dutifully, if a touch distressed. “But we’ll probably be in New York before I can patch up the damage they did to our systems.”
Bucky frowns, turns to Phil.
“We’re dark, it was a covert mission. Why is he—”
“We could maybe manage subfrequency text-based transmission to Captain Rogers, if—”
“Shit,” Bucky curses under his breath, seeing what they’d tried to do, knowing himself well enough to read between the lines. “Fitz, don’t worry about it.”
There’s a silence; Fitz obviously wasn’t expecting Bucky to chime in.
“I—”
“Thanks, Fitz,” Phil picks up the exchange, eyes never leaving Bucky’s steady. “We’ll wait until we land.”
Bucky holds Phil’s gaze for a long stretch before he blinks, before he inhales deep.
“You were putting everyone in danger by compromising our position.”
“Mission’s over,” Phil shrugs. It wasn’t quite like that.
Bucky scoffs, but it’s half-heartedly, lightly indulgent:
“Mission’s never over.”
Phil cocks his head and lifts a brow; a question and a challenge and a statement of things they don’t say between them, but that are understood there nonetheless. Which is why when Bucky speaks again, Phil understands all that it means:
“Thank you.”
Phil understands, and so he can smile, and nod, and say with just as much trust, just as much certainty and meaning:
“You’d have done the same.”
Bucky laughs, once, but doesn’t argue. They don’t deal in much but truths between them, and Phil likes to think they’re both grateful for it. Phil certainly is.
“I’ll owe you,” Bucky nods significantly; “for this one.”
And Phil believes, in that moment, that he really does know Bucky Barnes enough, is truly close enough to the man that supersedes the myth and the legend but so fucking much that it’s laughable, because it’s not about drinks shared, or debts paid; and drinks aren’t about shots knocked or beers nurse, not for them, not like this.
Phil knows him.
“Aren’t we past owing by now?”
And Bucky pushes himself off the wall with a chuckle, and doesn’t hesitate when he grasps Phil’s shoulder with feeling and smiles, soft and real:
“Yeah,” Bucky says with a soft chuckle, patting Phil’s shoulder firm and solid:
“Yeah, we are.”
_________________________
It’s closer to morning than midnight, Eastern Time, by the hour Phil drags himself home.
The lights are still on, though. So Phil doesn’t hesitate in calling out, doesn’t resist the need in him just here, just now.
“Clint?”
Hair tousled, shirt worn near see-through, full pot of coffee in his hand like he’s forgotten it’s there: Clint pops his hand around the corner and grins, and Phil's hit with the same feelings that’d consumed him when he and Bucky had stepped off the Quinjet, when Steve had been waiting, had barely let Bucky get his feet on land before enveloping him, before holding him and clinging to him and kissing him within an inch of his life, all the while checking him head to toe for wounds, seen and unseen, and when Steve had been satisfied, or else overwhelmed enough and he’d fallen into Bucky’s arms, Bucky had held onto him like the ending of the world. And when Phil had finally felt compelled to look away, to give them space, Bucky’d caught his eye overtop Steve’s head and mouthed meaningfully:
Lips.
And Phil had choked back a harsh laugh, and tasted shitty whiskey on the back of his tongue and given Bucky a nod.
And so here he is. And those lips are chapped and Phil knows they’ll taste of coffee before he presses his mouth to them, before he slips his tongue past them, and he’s right.
He’s right.
Clint melts into the kiss willingly, and Phil laughs, a little hysterical at the feeling of the glass bottom of the coffee pot still in Clint’s hand settling warm on the back of Phil’s neck as Clint wraps arms around him and oh, yes.
Those lips.
When they both part for air, Phil’s keen to dive back in but Clint catches him, holds him only just far enough to look Phil in the eye.
“Hey,” he says softly, edges his nose against Phil’s chin, the line of his jaw as he cups Phil’s face. “What’s all this?”
“Just,” Phil shakes his head and leans down to kiss the line of Clint’s top lip. “Just glad to be home.”
Clint chuckles, and pulls Phil closer, and kisses him full on.
“Home’s glad to have you, too,” Clint speaks against Phil’s lips; “For the record.”
Phil nips at the corner of Clint’s mouth and whispers:
“Come on.” He grabs the coffee pot from Clint’s hand and sets it aside, crooking fingers into Clint’s belt loops to lead him along. “Bed.”
Because home’s not a place, is it, and if home’s glad to have him?
Phil’s happy to take that declaration for all that it’s worth.