Chapter Text
Every day, Bucky writes a story about his life. Little moments: the time he and Dugan drank coffee in the basement of an old woman whose son had died three months earlier; when he and Becca saved up money from bottlecaps for three weeks to buy themselves fancy ice cream cones from the shop on the corner; when Peggy relented to his badgering and danced with him at a bar when the war was dragging on and they were both drunk out of their minds; when the stray cat he saw lurking around last week let him pet her in exchange for a few scraps of gristle. He doesn’t write about Steve. He doesn’t write about HYDRA. He doesn’t write about falling.
It’s a good exercise. He needs it, sometimes- the thirty minutes he takes each evening to revel in what he remembers, the little moments that are gradually returning to him. A woman in a pencil skirt walks across the sidewalk across from him, and he thinks of when Peggy gave him a briefing wearing a skirt just like that, and he writes it down. A group of guys jostle each other on the sidewalk walking back from a bar, and he remembers this filthy joke Dugan told the Commandos, walking like that, and he writes it down. A young girl with dark hair shrieks as she chases a little boy, furious and elated, and he has this moment where he sees Becca in every crease in her shirt and strand of her hair. It’s disorienting, sometimes (always, always, always,) but it helps.
He keeps this stories folded on notebook paper in a duffel bag beneath his cot, four hundred and seventeen in total. Tributes to his personhood. I am Bucky Barnes. Not Asset, not Barnes, not James or Jim or any one of the thousands of aliases he had assumed while working for-
And he was done. He didn’t let himself go there, didn’t permit his already fucked-up brain to delve into the myriad of horrors at his own hands that he only half remembered. He couldn’t think of HYDRA, and as penance he didn’t let himself think of Steve.
Avoiding Steve, though, was difficult. His image was everywhere, red and white and blue and blazing with glory. He looked so grown up, so self assured, so confident. So happy. He was night and day to the Stevie that Bucky had grown up with, had cared for and fought for and died for. Everywhere Bucky went, he could feel Captain America’s eyes on him, evaluating, judging, watching. It followed Bucky everywhere, the idea that if he were to run into the Captain of Truth, Justice, and the American Way now, he might be deemed unworthy. Beyond redemption. Stevie, Bucky knew, would love him unconditionally. But Captain America couldn’t afford to. And so Bucky couldn’t ask.
Which was why Bucky was holed up like a coward in a shitty apartment in New York, living off overpriced coffee and hard boiled eggs. If he angled himself correctly on the walk to the bodega four streets over he could see the top of Stark tower in the distance, full of luxury and full of Steve, and sometimes he let himself pretend. (He went twice a month, on Thursdays, and it was a routine he had forced himself to adopt. The warrior in him chafed against the predictability, but the old Bucky would have liked it. Enough of that old Bucky had been killed and stabbed and buried- New Bucky couldn’t take that, too.)
But pretending was dangerous, and Bucky had had enough of dangerous things.
----------
If Steve were an object, he’d be a lighthouse. He was a man of brilliant light, born to warn and to protect, to guide and to show, to tell and to lead. His presence led men to safety, showed them the way, and they walked proudly alongside him, divine in his brilliance. If he were a bird, he’d be a halcyon; brilliant in life, steadfast in death, eyes as blue as the plumage with which he could have been so intimately familiar.
Kingfisher, Kingfisher.
In medieval Europe, halcyons had been used as weathervanes- strung up prostrate, wings spread religiously to catch gusts of wind, turning from strings.
Steve felt like he hung from a string- like those marionettes in window sills. Tenuously tethered, delicately manipulated. Frozen.
In Makah legends, a human thief had been caught and transformed into a kingfisher. It made sense; they hunted by swooping down, unexpected and deadly, and carrying away their prey. Darting, robbing.
Steve felt like a thief.
The moniker halcyon came from the Greeks, after the goddess Alcyone. She and her husband, stupid and in love, had dared to call each other the king and queen of the gods. Her husband, Ceyx, had been struck down in rage. And Alcyone, filled with sorrow, mad with grief, had cast herself into the sea.
(and Steve, heavy with sorrow and furious in grief, had cast himself into the sea.)
But the great gods could not let them be forgotten, could not let them rest in Death’s gray embrace,
(but the people would not forget him, could not let him rest in the ice,)
and so they transformed them both into the first halcyons, plumage brilliant, feathers flashing, freed to the skies.
Steve felt like a lover.
In Christian myth, the kingfisher had been the first bird to fly from the Ark, after that great deluge, and it carried the blue of the sky on its back and the rays of the setting sun on its chest.
Steve felt like a leader.
And wasn’t that poetic? Steve had never before paid much attention to words, but as the days dragged on he felt inexplicably drawn to them. Their structure resonated with him- seeing on paper who he was. Who he made himself to be.
But that was stupid. Steve Rogers might like pretty things, but Captain America had no use for them. And the world had need of Captain America; who was Steve to try to hold onto himself, when doing so was, in essence, selfishness?
Halcyon. Yeah, right. Captain America may be a puppet (and that smarted, but Steve was not so fanciful as to ignore that fundamental truth,) but he was not a thief.
And Captain America definitely could not love.
-----------
“You know, Rhodey,” Tony sighed, idly caressing an expensive glass filled with a more expensive liquid, “I think I’m ready to go back to being an eccentric billionaire. Invent a few things, spend more time with Stark Industries, make some money. Go on vacation. Relax. Tinker in a workshop full of things that aren’t more than likely going to literally blow up in my face on the battlefield. Is there such thing as an honorable discharge from superheroing?”
Rhodey snorted. “Yeah, actually. I’m pretty sure it’s called getting paralyzed mid-battle. You get a shiny medal of commendation and everything.” Tony huffed out a laugh.
“Tempting. How are the legs working for you, by the way?”
Rhodey grimaced. “Fine. No use complaining- when I learned the extent of the damage I hadn’t thought that I’d ever walk again. I’m just grateful that I’m getting that chance, however stilted.” Here he paused, giving the words the moment of recognition they merited. “But the more important question here is: how long until you trust me enough to put little wheels on the heels? I saw this kid with wheelies in the park, and I kinda feel like I’m missing out.”
And Tony grinned, crooked and wry. This was familiar territory, not skirting as close to that line of guilt and blame. Rhodey knew how he felt, and Tony knew Rhodey didn’t blame him. That didn’t, however, make it any easier.
“You just gotta be patient, Rhodes. But, as a favor to you, I’ll let you in on a secret,” Tony said, leaning closer, a conspiratorial gleam in his eye. “I have yours all ready, but I can’t unveil them just yet. See, you’re being selfish- I made customized wheelies for all of us. Wanda’s are the last- I just need a few more days to perfect the amount of sparkle. I’m going for somewhere between ‘eight-year-old’s birthday party’ and that shimmer of Pepper’s hair when she uses her fancy conditioner. Give me 72 hours, and then we’ll be the coolest superhero team this side of the Pacific.”
Rhodey barked out a laugh, reaching forward to refill his own glass. “I’m glad to hear it, Tony. But who do you think is cooler than us on the other side of the ocean?”
----------
Captain America hadn’t been on the news much lately, Bucky ruminated, keeping his thoughts forcefully detached. It made sense- although the news remained dismal as ever, there had, as of late, been very few especially shocking developments. No large scale terrorist attacks, no notable kidnappings, no explosions in once-secret HYDRA bases. Bucky supposed that was a good thing, that lack of death and destruction, but it still gnawed at him, absently and achingly. News channels were one of the very few places he could see Steve, really watch him, and not feel guilty. Television feeds ran constantly, in windows and restaurants and department stores, and watching them was not so much of a conscience decision as an inevitability. Don’t seek out Steve topped the list of carefully-crafted rules Bucky had set for himself, a list he made himself go back and rewrite whenever he drifted too close to breaking one of the entries. The Steve rule was what caught him most often, and it was the only one he would not allow himself to change. Steve didn’t need him. He didn’t deserve Steve. And, Bucky told himself, day in and day out, over cups of coffee and during restless nights, while reading newspapers and buying groceries, he didn’t need Steve either.
But oh, would Steve make everything so much easier. There were so many things about his new life that Bucky wanted to tell Steve, so many secrets and observations and jokes and pointless comments that once would have been whispered directly into Steve’s ear, as easy as the breath they accompanied. Bucky was a trained psychoanalyst, crafted to recognize and respond to the slightest of subliminal messages, to seek out and exploit motivation. He could identify what made people tick, why they acted and what they thought and when they became who they were.
But, even after all this time, he couldn’t figure out what drew him to Steve. Bucky wanted to think that it was the man’s inherent goodness, that even after all this time there was something in Bucky that could cherish that light. That could emulate it.
But Bucky knew it was likely something darker. James Buchanan Barnes could no longer be capable of anything remotely resembling altruism. Bucky had lost any claim to goodness when he- when he-
(Crckt. Crckt. Crckt.)
(“Then he will feel fear.”)
(“Shoot.”)
(“Fuck you.”)
(“Shoot.”)
(“FU--)
Bucky tore himself violently out of his lapse of control, hands shaking, breaths unsteady. He was underneath his coffee table before he was fully aware he had moved, panic blurring out the edges of his vision. His hands scrabbled fruitlessly against the wood panel floor of his apartment, nails clicking against the boards. He was Bucky, ex-assassin, in one of seven shitbox apartments he rented with money he had wired from foreign banks. (He was the Asset, waiting in a closet of a jury member, cool gun and sheer silk beneath his fingers.) He was thinking about Ste-vie, Stevie, who was hacking up a lung in the bathroom, and Bucky needed more antibiotics, and he was hit with a wave of terror and love and protectiveness so strong he could hardly breathe- No, he was tucked away in a forgotten corner of Manhattan, grime heavy on the windows, summer heat so thick he could taste it, a cell phone in his pocket, a bluetooth speaker playing folk punk in the other room. He was in a shitbox apartment in Brooklyn, fingers freezing despite three pairs of gloves, 16 and carefree, lacing up boots at least three sizes too big that Becca kept saying he’d grow into. He was-- Bucky took a deep, stuttering breath, forcing his mind into the careful order of an assassin, taking stock of his errant thoughts like pieces of a rifle, meticulously snapping them in place.
What was real? The apartment. The wood floor. The tinny speaker. The oppressive heat. The metal arm. The cell phone. The greasy windows.
What was the danger? None. No threats in the immediate vicinity. A vase had toppled off the coffee table when he had first lurched towards it, and the ceramic shards lay stark and silent on the hardwood floor. He would need to sweep, throw away the fragments. Level of priority: 3.
What was his condition? Sub-optimal. Heart beating faster than ideal. Breathing too loud- detectible. Priority level 1. One minute to correct. Re-evaluate. Status: acceptable. Blood sugar within optimal levels. Adrenaline high but rapidly fading. Hands unsteady. Distracted. Solution: unknown.
He got up slowly, avoiding the pieces of vase. Swept them up into a dustpan, shook them into the trash. Stuck to the shadows, ghosted to his bedroom. Sat on the bed. Got up. Stood, tense and on edge, near the wall of the room, vibrating with ill-managed energy.
Bucky was 16 and- no.
Bucky was freezing and- no.
The Asset- no.
Bucky, Bucky, Bucky. Steve.
And there was a shaky clarity to the other man’s name. Bucky wasn’t a person- he was a collection of people, a conglomeration of concepts and extremes, a thousand lifetimes in a body that should’ve died before the end of one, like the dozens of experiments before him. But Steve was a concept- a constant. When Bucky was Bucky, he thought about Steve. And when he was an it, an object and a weapon, he noticed the absence in his mind, the man-shaped space where something should be. Bucky still felt fluttery-- untethered from his confusion, and the thought of Steve was like an anchor. A lighthouse, and Bucky clung to that, staid in the face of his uncertainty.
Don’t let yourself think of Steve, had topped his list of rules since he dragged the man from a river of debris three years ago. It was the reason Bucky had forced himself to write out the list, over and over again, as he continuously went behind his own back, stealing moments of staring at televisions and striding past murals, glimpsing the industrial gleam of Avenger’s tower in the distance. Steve was forbidden, but he was a constant, and made weak by the echoing tremors of his terror Bucky gave himself over to temptation. His stationery was on a second hand desk in the corner, a pen resting next to it, a shabby chair waiting invitingly against the wall. Bucky made his way over to it, pulled the chair by the desk, grabbed the pen and the paper. And he exhaled, long and steady, as his flesh hand moved the ink against the paper.
Dear Steve-
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Steve could hear the clock on the wall, louder than it should be. But that could also be his hearing, much improved from his years as a kid here nearly ninety years ago. Still, the clock seemed louder than yesterday. (A trick? A trap? A hallucination? Steve almost didn’t want to know.)
He was sitting, tense and wary, perched on the edge of a firm couch situated strategically in his otherwise mostly bare apartment, gaze fixated on the cell phone in his hands. He wasn’t sure exactly who he was expecting a call from, but he was Captain America, and so if he waited long enough one would come. He, after all, had nothing better to do.
Although Steve on principle shirked from the word ‘bored,’ wary of the apathy born of laziness, it would be an apt descriptor for him now. He had already accomplished the list of tasks he had set out for himself for the day-- get up, 0530. Get dressed, brush teeth, comb hair 0545. Breakfast (two hard boiled eggs, two slices of toast, a handful of nuts and a cup of coffee) done by 0600. Run 25 miles, in 5-6-7-8 minutes per mile alternating. Lift weights 0900 for an hour, then head into the tower by 1030 for two hours of combat training. A debrief over lunch with the team (today comprised of Rhodey, Wanda, Tony, and Vision,) a manila folder of assignments, reports, articles and requests from SHIELD higher-ups, and then a walk back to his place for a shower. Now, at 1630, Steve had completed his routine and still had an hour and a half until he was to meet Clint for dinner, and he found himself back in the same hollow feeling that often occupied his evenings.
He knew how to be Steve Rogers- knew how to laugh with his friends, how to joke and drink and dance and listen, how to confide and how to bellow, how to share and how to ask. And he knew how to be Captain America- knew how to watch and wait, how to order and command, how to intimidate and inspire. But here, in this too-modern apartment on this too-modern street in this too-modern time, he wasn’t sure if he knew how to just be Steve. Who Steve was, now, without everything that had made him Steve then.
But he knew how to follow schedules, and he knew how to follow orders, and he knew how to follow directions. He should leave by 1730 to arrive on time. He should shower at 1700, choose his clothes by 1655, text Clint to confirm by 1645.
So Captain America pulled out his phone. And he sent a text. And he got ready to shower.
And Steve Rogers slipped a little farther away.
---------
Tony Stark was a busy man. He led R&D for Stark Industries, fronted PA for the Avengers with Pepper, negotiated with governments and organizations, fronted nonprofits, developed tech for the broader superhero community and somehow found time in there somewhere to be Iron Man for the not-so-occasional world-threatening disaster. But all of that- the late nights, the mounting failures, the public exaltation and condemnation, the physical and mental demands of superheroing- paled in difficulty compared to the task that currently lay in front of him. Or, more aptly, the task that currently sat in front of him, posture erect despite the deceptive give of the old couch beneath them.
“May.” Tony began, fingers tapping on his knees, clad as they were in designer jeans that probably cost more than this living room. If he was hoping a response, he was disappointed. May’s face remained carefully blank, her body still except for her slight nod of acknowledgement. Tony took a deep breath, then opened his mouth to try again.
“I know you don’t need my help here. Peter is an excellent young man, and that is entirely due to your influence.” A pointed cough, and Tony hastily amended, “And Ben’s, of course. The two of you have done an incredible job with him. And I’m not trying to take that- or Peter- away from you. But I think that-”
May’s composure broke. “You think that what, Mr. Stark? That just because you’re Iron Man, and you have, for all intents and purposes, all the money in the world, you can parent my boy better than I can? I’ve made my answer clear, and I’m not changing it. No. You might think you know my son, but I can assure you that you do not know what is best for him. If you did- and if this were really about Peter, and not the glorified Spider-Sidekick you seem to see him as, then you’d understand that however much it might itch your control complex, living here and operating as he has is what’s best for him. He has rules, and curfews, and he knows just how much he’s allowed to bend them. He doesn’t need another authority figure- and, despite the fact that you fancy yourself as some paragon of justice and responsibility, he definitely doesn’t need you. Peter has had a father-- two of them. You don’t get to waltz into our lives, just because you have money- just because you’re a man- and assume that you’re what he needs.”
Tony blinked, fighting the urge to recoil, and the stronger urge to fight back. Couldn’t she see that he-- no. This wasn’t what they needed. What Peter needed. “Fine.” Tony said, standing up. “I can’t make you let him. You’re his parent, and I respect that. But you’re Peter’s parent, not Spider-Man’s. You might want your son to stay the same as he always has, but the world needs Spider-Man. I agreed with you at first, but Peter’s proven himself as hero, and if you keep holding him back then he’ll eventually go behind both our backs to prove himself again. It’s only a matter of time before he comes into his potential. Let me help him. For him, if not for the world.”
“Get out.” May began, hands clenched into the fabric of her skirt, “Of. My. House.”
Tony was already by the door. And with a sardonic nod, he stepped out, listening as he walked down the path to the door slamming behind him. Pepper would give him hell for this later. And Peter-- that was the kicker. May had forbidden Tony from telling Peter about their disagreement from the beginning, nearly three months ago. At the time, Tony had agreed, sure it was only a matter of time until she came around. But that happened yet, and it was looking less and less likely. Peter was 17. He could make his own decisions.
And so, mind made up, Tony reached a hand into his tailored pocket, pulling out the sleek form of the latest StarkPhone. Speed Dial, number 4. Three rings. Peter should have just gotten out of school.
“Hey, Mr. Stark! What’s up? Got a mission?”
“Not quite, kiddo. Meet me at the tower.”
----------
Hey, Buck.
It’s me, Steve. The SHIELD therapist (with whom appointments are, apparently, optional for everyone but Banner and I,) recommended I try writing to you. I guess it’s supposed to help me “process my feelings” and “accept and rationalize my loss.”
I think you’d say that that’s a load of horsecrap.
I know you’re out there, somewhere. I know you’re out there somewhere, not the HYDRA assassin who wears your body. You saved me, Buck, and I know you’re alive, and I know that means you’re getting better. There’s no loss to accept. I’ll find you.
You ever think about our lives, Buck? We grew up in the depression, joined the war at 19, and I got the Serum at 21. Nearly six years later, you fall and I go on ice. I wake up seventy years later at 26, and I gotta figure by then you’re about thirty. Do you know? And now I’m 32 and you’re hell knows how old, and we just gotta keep living.
And by now it’s been over a decade with the serum for the both of us. That fucked us up more than anything, didn’t it? But I’d do it again in a heartbeat- agree to the serum. Not cause I think I’m the best man for the job, or that someone else under the needle couldn’t have done what I did. But cause had I not-- had I stayed normal and been booted pre-combat, had I stayed in Brooklyn, you would never have made it out of that HYDRA facility in the first place. You were my first mission, and you were my first decision. Go there, do that, say this. Save you? That one’s on me. Could someone else have gotten you out? Could some other super soldier have done what I did, and maybe done it better? I don’t know. But I do know that they never would have tried.
You couldn’t choose whether or not to join the military. And I couldn’t choose whether or not to follow you-- on paper, maybe, but when it comes to you it’s never really a choice at all. I’ll keep following you, Buck. You’re out there, and you’re coming back.
I saved you once. And I don’t care if it takes me the rest of the life the ice granted me. I’ll save you again.
-Steve.
(The letter got folded, crisp and meticulous, and tucked in a box beneath Steve’s floorboards. It was not the first. It would not be the last.)
A sharp knock on the door.
“Steve?” Clint’s voice echoes from the entryway.
“Coming-- give me a sec.” Steve answered, quickly replacing the board and slugging on a jacket. He felt better- more balanced, more present than he had felt before. A friend waiting at the door, the bitter rasp of wind on the windowpanes, a chill deep in his bones. It could’ve been ‘38. And that the friend wasn’t Bucky, and he had a jacket, and he’d probably end up spending twenty bucks on dinner?
Times change.
Steve hoped that maybe he could, too.
----------
Ccrtk. Ccrtk. Ccrtk.
It had only taken sixty-something years for Bucky to get used to the dark.
(The Asset could not feel fear. It could not feel dread. It could not feel unease. The Asset did not need to accustom itself to the night.)
Ccrtk. Ccrtk. Ccrtk.
He didn’t even remember when it had stopped bothering him, at which point in his convoluted timeline he had realized that not even light could provide a modicum of safety. There were a lot of things he couldn’t remember.
Ccrtk. Ccrtk. Ccrtk.
(and a lot of things he couldn’t forget)
Ccrtk. Ccrtk. Ccrtk.
HYDRA had always assumed he spent his time in the ice vacant and passive, as frozen in thought as he was in body.
(Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were aware of Bucky’s peculiar sense of half-life, and found themselves able to disregard it.)
Ccrtk. Ccrtk. Ccrtk.
Time passed slowly on ice, but it passed. Bucky’s heart moved, slowly and painfully, and his brain moved with it. Time did not feel slow around him.
Ccrtk. Ccrtk. Ccrtk.
His heart scraped a fraction of an inch smaller, breaking up the miniature ice crystals already formed inside his chest. His heart was not warm, but it was mobile. It dragged along the ice reformed inside him, pushed and shattered it, drove knifelike shards deeper into the arteries around it. Bucky could hear it, nearly as acutely as he felt it. The drag, the scrape, the movement, the pain. The ice growing and breaking, and growing again. The harsh click-and-drag.
Ccrtk. Ccrtk. Ccrtk.
Days passed between the formation and completion of each beat. Bucky’s awareness was limited- limited to the heart in his chest and the ice in his body, the memories he didn’t want and the memories he couldn’t have.
He could remember every heartbeat of the past eighty five years.
Ccrtk. Ccrtk. Ccrtk.
Nearly a century, alive in a cage, desperate and fearful and hurting and alone.
Ccrtk. Ccrtk. Ccrtk.
The darkness was inevitable. It was inescapable. And it was but one of a myriad of demons that had kept Bucky company, day after day, hour after hour, heartbeat after heartbeat.
Ccrtk. Ccrtk. Ccrtk.
No, Bucky was no longer afraid of the dark.
(a gasp, a tremor, an aborted scream)
(seven knives sticking out of a wall in his bedroom)
(four gunshots clear through the door.)
(the first time he fired a gun, he was eight. his dad steadied his hand, pointed out the rabbit, showed him how to skin it. becca had been so mad.)
(bucky wakes up)
(the asset wakes up with him.)