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"Look, Steve. I get it. I really do. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s gone, Natasha's off somewhere, all your other superhero buddies are in New York… There's nothing left for you here," Sam says, wishing he could meet Steve's eyes. Instead he keeps his hands on his hips, looking out over the reflecting pool beneath the Washington Monument. The water is absolutely still, kind of like he feels inside. It's not a good stillness.
And he knows Steve's certain Bucky's gone home to Brooklyn, just like Steve has this iron-clad belief that Bucky dragged him out of the Potomac because of something stronger than a sense of obligation.
He doesn't ask Steve why he thinks Bucky would go anywhere Steve might actually be, considering they've been doing nothing but eating Bucky's dust for weeks, always left behind.
"It's not that," Steve says. He's looking at the reflecting pool too, because Sam is. Steve is nothing if not polite. His mouth twitches. "I mean, yeah. Fury wants me at the Avenger's Tower, and—"
"And you always go where they tell you to," Sam finishes for him. "Sorry," he says right afterwards.
Steve glances at him, but the quirk of his mouth is ironic, not bitter. "Not always. But I'm a soldier, Sam, like you keep saying. You get an order; you go. You know that as well as I do."
Sam lets out a breath, rubbing the back of his neck. He can taste how bitter his own smile is. "Nobody knows that as well as you do."
Steve actually chuckles. He claps Sam on the shoulder. "Don't think I'm not going to miss you." He shakes Sam gently. He's always gentle, for such a powerful man. "I was going to say that there's still something for me here." He turns so they're facing each other. "I don't have such a luxury of friends that it doesn't hurt each time I leave one behind."
"Yeah, well." Sam coughs a little, swallows around his dry throat. "They've got an amazing invention now called a telephone. Maybe you've heard of it."
"I may have heard of a telephone," Steve agrees solemnly. He ducks his head and his smile is a little shy. "You know, the Avengers could always use more air support." It's not the first time Steve's told him that.
Sam smirks. "I'll think about it." He's still not sure if he even means that, but he's also not sure that he doesn't. He was satisfied, helping other veterans adjust to civilian life. He was perfectly content not to go to war again.
But he's spent too long as a counsellor to lie to himself, and he knows that content and satisfied don't equal happy. And he misses his wings.
"That's all I can ask," Steve says. He claps Sam's shoulder one last time before letting him go.
"You don't have to be a soldier, Steve," Sam says. It's not the first time he's said that, either. He lifts his head, looks Steve in the eye. "Not if it doesn't make you happy."
"I don't know what would make me happy, Sam," Steve says.
"Right." Sam nods. He forces another smile. "Maybe you'll find it in New York."
"Maybe," Steve says. He holds out his hand. "Thank you, Sam."
Sam takes it. They don't shake hands so much as clasp them. "Anytime, Captain." Steve's not the first one to let go.
Sam watches him walking away: the straight back and broad shoulders that never bow despite the weight they carry, that they're always carrying. "Hey," he calls.
His voice isn't loud, but Steve stops and turns around. "What is it?"
"I hope you find him," Sam says.
He doesn't say, I hope that will make you happy, but Steve nods like he hears it anyway.
"Me too," Steve says.
"Be careful, all right?" Sam says. He means, don't trust him; don't let him hurt you again; he's not your best friend anymore.
But Steve just smiles and says, "Always," before turning around again.
And this time Sam lets him go.
Sam doesn't lie to himself, so he knows it's not a random decision when he ends up in the Air and Space Museum after leading his last group session of the day at the Veterans' Administration.
It's been a little over a month since Steve left for New York. They talk on the phone, use Starktime, exchange emails, but it's not the same. Sam misses his best friend, simple as that. The flowery prose and earnest narration at the Smithsonian Captain America exhibit doesn't seem to have much of anything to do with Steve Rogers, but it still brings the man a little closer. If only because Sam can easily imagine how much Steve would hate it.
He chuckles to himself, thinking of Steve's miserable, desperately polite expression.
The man on his right looks at him sharply, as if, out of the constant moderate din of conversation going on around them, Sam's quiet laugh is what startled the hell out of him.
Sam looks away quickly. "Sorry, man."
The easily-startled guy doesn't respond. He just kind of hunches himself further into his shapeless grey coat and continues staring at the display about Bucky Barnes.
It's a nice display—the whole exhibit is nice, Sam thinks, even if he has no idea why it's in the Air and Space Museum and not American History. It's not like Steve's an astronaut—but it's hard to see Bucky's face and not think of the dead-eyed assassin on the bridge. Or Steve's eyes as the search wore on: that desperate, vulnerable blue.
Every time they got close but were too late, every time they almost found him but didn't, it was like something in Steve tore apart. Sam had the awful feeling that eventually there'd be nothing left.
It was a relief when Fury finally ordered Steve back to the Avengers. Sam doesn't like how selfish that probably makes him.
And yet here he is, in an exhibit about Captain America, staring at the display about James Buchanan Barnes as if they haven't been chasing the guy for weeks. Sam isn't even sure what he finds so damn fascinating. It's not like he hasn't read every shred of information about the man that Steve was able to get his hands on, not to mention heard every one of Steve's stories about Bucky from before and after he became Captain America and then with the Howling Commandos. Sam already knows about how Steve and Bucky grew up together, how he took Steve in after Steve's mother died, how half the reason Steve was so desperate to get overseas was to be with Bucky. Hell, at this point, next to Steve Rogers, Sam probably knows more about Bucky than anyone alive.
Including Bucky himself, come to think, which is just damn depressing. And an excellent reason to move on right there.
"Where are you, Bucky?" Sam mutters to the portrait.
The man on his right, who's been so quiet and unobtrusive that Sam actually forgot he was there, startles and looks at Sam again.
Sam is about to say, "you can't possibly have heard that", because Jesus, Sam was barely even moving his lips and the only person he knows with bat-ears like that is Steve. And then he thinks about that, really thinks about it, and then he really looks at the guy who's been standing right fucking next to him the whole time.
He's nearly uniform grey like the sky outside, with his grey, unremarkable jacket and equally unremarkable grey cap. Just scruffy enough that most people would avoid eye contact in case he asked them for change. But his eyes are startling blue and stark and wild, and he looks at Sam and Sam looks at him, and yeah. Turns out he knows where Bucky is after all.
Except, Sam reminds himself with a slow, cold slide of fear down his spine, this isn't Bucky. This is the Winter Soldier, who's gone completely, absolutely still like an animal trying to decide whether to attack or run. And Sam is suddenly, terribly aware of all the people around them: all the tourists and the kids on their field trips; all the families with their babies and toddlers; all the sentimental fools like him come to visit Captain America on an overcast Wednesday afternoon.
But Sam has also seen that expression on the men and women who come to his counseling sessions. He's seen it in the mirror more times than he cares to count. He knows that kind of fear and pain, just like he knows that the man who was once James Buchanan Barnes could have already killed him. Killed as many people as he wanted to, and run.
He could have, but he didn't. And maybe it's foolish and sentimental, but Sam decides to take that as a good sign. It's what Steve would do after all, just like Steve refused to give up on saving Bucky even when Sam told him he should. And Sam hasn't gone wrong following his lead yet.
So he stays exactly where he is and slowly pulls his hands out of his pockets so Bucky can see they're empty, then lets them hang casually at his sides. "It's all right, you're safe," he says, speaking barely more loudly than he had before. "It's just you and me here. I came for the exhibit, like you."
Bucky's eyes flick to Sam's hands and back to his face. He doesn't look less wary, but he hasn't moved either. That and the fact everyone's still breathing probably shouldn't count as much of a victory, but Sam thinks, fuck it. He's going to anyway.
"Didn't think I'd find you here," he says casually. "Steve's in New York. He'll be real sorry he missed you. He's been looking for you for a while, but you probably know that."
Some kind of emotion flickers through Bucky's eyes, too fast for Sam to guess what it might be.
Sam waits, but Bucky doesn't say anything. Sam wants to ask him what he came here for, what's going on in his head, what he remembers, but he swallows those questions down. "Do you have somewhere to stay?" he asks him instead, because Sam knows what a man looks like when he's come unraveled by war, and regardless of what the Winter Soldier is capable of, Sam can see he's frayed to breaking. Maybe the man can't be saved, but at the very least he deserves a safe place to sleep.
Bucky nods.
Sam can't tell if he's telling the truth, but decides that it doesn't matter. "I'm just going to get my wallet, okay? It's in my back pocket." He doesn't move his hand until he sees Bucky's tiny nod again.
When he gets his wallet he flips it open where Bucky can see. He takes out a card with his name and number at the Veterans Administration, and all the cash he has on him, which isn't much. He offers them both. "There's my number, if you want help."
Sam can practically see the war going on behind Bucky's blank expression, but Sam says nothing, does nothing, until Bucky finally darts his hand out of his pocket—gloved, despite how they're indoors—and all but snatches the business card and money out of Sam's hand. He stuffs it in his pocket like he's worried Sam will try to take it away from him.
"All right," Sam says. He doesn't smile because you don't patronize ruthless assassins, but he does carefully jerk his head in the general direction of the main entrance to the building. "I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind some fresh air and a lot fewer people around. And there's a pretty good coffee place about five minutes from here. It'll be a lot quieter," he adds, because he remembers how sometimes, back when he'd first left the service, almost any loud noise would make him jump out of his skin.
"I don't want to hurt anyone," Bucky says, which is a kind of psychotic non sequitur in response to an offer for coffee. Except that Sam's pretty sure Bucky means, I didn't come here to kill anybody, just like he didn't miss how Bucky said, "I don't want to hurt anyone", instead of "I won't". And maybe the worst part is that Sam knows it's not a threat. Bucky's just telling him the truth.
So, "I know," Sam says. He shrugs. "Just figured you haven't had a decent cup of coffee in a while." Not since 1945, he'd bet. He doesn't even want to know how Bucky's been feeding himself, but the sharp lines of the man's cheekbones and hollows under his eyes make Sam sure that more often than not, Bucky hasn't been feeding himself anything at all.
Bucky just stares at him, like kindness is a concept so foreign he can't even begin to understand it.
That's really sad, Sam thinks. "I haven't forgotten how we met," he says. "Neither has Steve," he adds pointedly. "But you saved his life, and he's a friend of mine. Way I figure, I can at least buy you a cup of coffee."
Bucky swallows, but he nods.
The quick acceptance is such a shock that for a moment Sam just stands there. He expected Bucky to say 'no', and truth to tell he's a lot more worried now than elated. But he's a man of his word, and there's no way he's letting nerves sever whatever fragile connection he's created.
"Good." He gives Bucky a small smile, then heads towards the Independence Avenue exit, mentally mapping out the route. It's more productive than trying to figure out what will happen once they get there, or afterwards.
One step at a time, he thinks. Bucky being here without hurting anyone, Bucky trusting him enough to follow, is already better than he could have hoped.
All the same, he's not really surprised that by the time he's back in the museum's main hall, Bucky's gone.
Sam stares at his phone for an hour before he decides not to call Steve.
He feels like a heel, but he knows it's the right thing to do. Bucky's gone—for good this time, as far as he knows—and all that calling Steve's going to do is to upset him for nothing. Steve's got a life in New York now. Telling him about Bucky would just make him drop everything to start another search. And for what? How many more weeks of following a ghost? Of watching Steve's shoulders bow a little further under the weight of guilt and despair? Bucky doesn't want Steve to find him.
Not telling Steve maybe cruel, but false hope is far crueler. And sometimes the better choice is just the one you can stand to live with.
Steve calls him on Saturday, the way he always does after something typically crazy happens to New York. Sam's working this weekend, but he saw the squid-thing's attack on the news Friday, so he's looking forward to spending his lunch hour with Steve and hearing the details. Right now he's on a park bench under a tree in the National Mall, enjoying his thermos of coffee and a pbj sandwich.
He can see the Air and Space Museum from where he's sitting, just in case, but he's really only looking at the screen on his Starktab. Steve is regaling him with a much more hilarious version of the battle than what the journalists breathlessly described. He's a good storyteller, with an artist's eye for detail and the kind of bone-dry humor that it's easy to miss if you're not paying attention.
Sam's still laughing at the image of Natasha trying to carry off her aloof grace while dripping with squid ink, when Steve throws in, "So, there's my weekend so far. How have you been?" and Sam clams up so fast that Steve asks him what's wrong.
"I'm fine," Sam says, glad he doesn't have to lie about that, because he is. He's worried about Bucky, frustrated at him apparently being in the wind again, but physically and jobwise there's nothing. "I've just been wondering where the hell your friend is," he adds, because that's no lie either and he's happy just to be able to say it.
Steve's tentative smile dies. "Yeah," he says. "I keep telling myself that it's enough to know he's alive. I mean, I'm lucky. I know I am. Most people, if someone they care about is missing, presumed dead, they never come back."
"But it's not enough," Sam says for him, because Steve won't.
"No," Steve says on a sigh. "It should be, but it's not."
"He could come back," Sam says, as much for himself as for Steve. He wishes he could tell him that Bucky already did. But if anything, the fact that he hasn't seen Bucky in three days has convinced Sam he made the right decision in the first place. That, and the pain Steve is so bad at hiding.
It's been over 70 years for the rest of the world, but as far as Steve's concerned Bucky was missing, presumed dead less than three years ago. He was still grieving when he found out that Bucky wasn't dead after all. Except there may not be anything left of the man Steve knew.
In a way, it might be better if Steve never sees Bucky again. He can remember the man who he's convinced saved his life out of friendship, and never have to witness the wreck he's become.
But when Steve says, "Sure. He could," in that voice that only sounds of hopelessness, all Sam wants is for Bucky to return, in whatever capacity he can.
"Oh," Steve says, and the way he's obviously trying to gather himself is heartbreaking. "Before I forget. Natasha wanted me to thank you for the email." His mouth quirks in a semblance of his previous smile. "She'll respond as soon as she's not covered in ink. Which might take a few days."
Sam laughs. "Please tell me somebody has pictures."
Steve doesn't laugh, but he smiles a little wider and that's still good. "You're taking your life in your hands, but I'll see what I can do."
"Much obliged." Sam's still smiling as he signs off. Natasha doesn't write much, and when she does it's often not more than a few lines. But Sam has started looking forward to them as much as his Starktiming with Steve. Natasha's incredibly smart, and capable and beautiful, of course. But what impresses him most is her nobility. He doesn't know much about her and he purposely avoided what she put on the web. But he's talked to her enough and read enough between the lines of her emails to know how much it must've cost her to make her life public like that. She's lived through things, she's done things, that Sam's not sure he would've survived. But she's still here, still trying to do some good in the world. He admires that. He admires that a lot.
Sam is honestly certain he'll never see Bucky again. So on Monday, at first he doesn't recognize the scruffy-looking guy in the battered nylon jacket and the black watch cap hovering next to the coffee table. The last group session of the evening is over, so Sam figures that the stranger was outside the room he's just locked, debating with himself whether or not to come in. It's far from the first time that's happened. For some of them, just the idea of having to articulate the darkness in their heads is more terrifying than being under enemy fire.
It's not until he's close enough to ask if he can help him that he notices the gloves. And it's the incongruity of a man wearing them indoors as much as the familiar color that makes Sam realize that the young man who's staring at the stale coffee like he can't decide if he should shoot it or drink some is the same man from the Smithsonian.
"Hi," Sam says quietly.
Bucky says nothing but his eyes dart to the closest exit, which is a little ways down the short hallway Sam is currently blocking with his body. Sam turns and leans his back against the wall, giving Bucky room to get out. He doesn't put his hands in his pockets, just in case he has to defend himself. He has no illusions about how a fight between him and the Winter Soldier would go down, but at least he's not going to be stupid about it.
And Bucky could've killed him easily already, just like at the museum. Days ago, even, since he knows where Sam works from the business card. But he didn't.
"The coffee's not that bad," Sam says, and if his smile's a little forced he figures no one could blame him. "But I think you would've liked the coffee at the Atrium Café better."
He's not surprised that Bucky doesn't answer.
"Do you need help?" Sam asks, because that's why he gave Bucky his card—unless Bucky really is there to murder him, in which case Sam can't help but wonder if he's trying to do it with protracted silences—so he's about to ask again when Bucky opens his mouth like he wants to speak. Except he immediately shuts it without making a sound. But his eyes flash to the coffee and back and Sam mentally kicks himself.
Moving slowly, Sam grabs two of the cheap Styrofoam cups and divides the last of the coffee. There are still a few creamer cups in the bottom of the box and Sam takes one and adds it to his coffee, along with a packet of sugar. He normally only uses the cream, and it's ridiculously late for coffee besides, but he meticulously stirs in both before taking a tepid, cloying sip and then putting it aside. He moves the second cup closer to Bucky. "Cream and sugar?" he asks, but grabs three of each before Bucky can answer, which of course Bucky doesn't. "Steve uses, like, six of these," Sam says, rattling the sugar packets before he opens them and dumps their contents into the cup. "I don't know if it's a metabolism thing or a growing up during the depression thing. He loves cream too." Sam pours in the little cups of cream, then stirs until the coffee is a uniform pale brown. "Me, I prefer to know what the coffee actually tastes like. Though when it's been out all day I don't mind making an exception."
He moves well back, picking up his cup and leaning against the wall again. He takes another sip of his lukewarm, too-sweet coffee, carefully keeping his eyes ahead.
Bucky looks at Sam, then the coffee, then Sam again. Then finally he snatches the cup with both hands and drinks it so fast Sam's actually grateful it's too cold to scald him.
He wants to ask if Bucky's hungry even though he's sure he is. But Sam knows Bucky wouldn't tell him, just like he wouldn't even pour himself a cup of coffee despite how obviously he wanted one. Maybe he didn't want to show even that much weakness. Maybe his handlers punished him for trying to meet his own needs.
He's sure now that Bucky has no idea why he's even here. But he is here, and that's something. That's something pretty damn spectacular. Maybe something Sam can even work with.
"Here." He puts his barely-touched coffee on the table and slides it closer to Bucky. "Go ahead. It'll just keep me awake," he says when Bucky eyes him warily.
Bucky finally takes it, drinking it only slightly more slowly than the first one. It's really sad.
"You know, I'm pretty sure we have milk in the fridge in the break room," Sam says, as if he's just thought of it. "Come on, I'll—" He cuts himself off, because Bucky's already pale face has gone white as marble. "Whoa. What is it? What's wrong?"
"Pierce," Bucky says.
For a moment Sam is so surprised that Bucky said something that he doesn't register the word, and then when he recognizes it, it makes no sense. Until it almost does. "Pierce?" he repeats. "You mean, the head of Hydra?"
Bucky nods.
"He's dead," Sam says. He has no idea how Pierce and milk go together in Bucky's brain, but he also knows that Pierce was the asshole responsible for the man-shaped tragedy standing in front of him. He's very, very glad that he can at least tell Bucky that.
"Dead," Bucky repeats, in a voice that sounds like the word. "He's dead?"
"Yeah," Sam says. "He can't hurt you anymore."
Bucky's eyes are the only points of color on his face, which has gone blank as stone. "He didn't hurt me."
Stockholm syndrome? Sam wonders. He doesn't know if he's just stepped into a minefield; if he should back off or move forward and just hope he's putting his feet right. "Did he give the orders to the people who hurt you?"
Bucky nods.
"Then he hurt you," Sam says.
Bucky's eyes widen a fraction, then he touches the fingers of his right hand to the side of his jaw like's he's remembering a blow. When he brings his hand down it's in a tight fist and Sam straightens away from the wall, hoping to hell he's not about to have to fight for his life.
But Bucky doesn't even glance at him, just shoves his fisted hands into his pockets and stalks out with his head down, like he's going into battle.
Sam watches him leave, wishing he knew what to say.
He calls Steve, but it goes immediately to voice mail. So does Natasha's, and when Sam calls Maria Hill, she informs him archly that they're both somewhere she can't mention doing something she can't tell him about on behalf of someone she can't name. But she promises to make sure they know how very, very much he misses them.
A week later, Steve and Natasha are still incommunicado and Bucky's still gone. Sam even goes back to the Smithsonian, stands in front of the display on Bucky for nearly an hour, but the real-life version never appears. He waits until midnight at the V.A., but no half-starved, maybe-former assassin comes to glare at the ancient coffee percolator.
Sam starts bringing extra sandwiches with him to work anyway, just in case. Bucky will likely be hungry if he ever shows up again.
He's just finished his lunch on Tuesday, sitting on the same bench near the Smithsonian. He tried Starktiming Steve again, but like usual he wasn't there. Sam figures it's just as well that he wasn't able to tell Steve about Bucky, since it looks like this time Bucky's well and truly gone for good.
But as Sam's sliding his Starktab back into his bag, something makes him look up. There's no one there, of course. But Sam's sure that for a minute there was.
It's a strange combination of thrilled and apprehensive he's feeling, as he carefully looks around. Not too much, in case Bucky gets spooked and bolts again.
"I've got fresh coffee if you want some," he says to the empty air around him. Nothing answers except the susurration of the wind.
He pours a new cup of coffee from his thermos anyway, and leaves it on the bench beside him until it's time for him to go.
That night, it takes him a little longer than normal to sum up the last session and gently herd everyone out into the hallway. One of the group members is having a crisis, and Sam doesn't want him to have to leave like that. It takes a few minutes to help him get back to a better headspace, but he's at least smiling a bit when he says he's ready to go.
Even after glimpsing him earlier (maybe), Sam's still surprised to see that Bucky's there, waiting in the same place next to the scuffed plastic coffee table. But what really shocks the hell out of him is how three of the female group members are clustered around Bucky, laughing as he tells them some charmingly hilarious story from his military days, about his virginal buddy's adorable cluelessness with women.
It's very hard for Sam to remember not to just stand there gaping, or to blurt out something like, "Do you remember that?" Because Sam would bet every single medal he's ever earned that the story Bucky's telling is true, and that the hapless buddy was Steve-freaking-Rogers.
The question, of course, is whether Bucky even knows.
Wherever the story comes from though, the women are eating it up. Bucky still looks pretty rough—maybe a little worse, even, now that Sam's thinking about it—but he's wearing his black watch cap, which does a good job of hiding his likely filthy hair and really brings out the pretty blue of his eyes (and they are pretty eyes. Sam has no problem noticing that). And his disarming grin nicely blunts the effect of the scruffy beard and the smudges from lack of sleep under his eyes. Sam is certain that Bucky's audience has seen the gloves, but that they assume he's using them to hide scars. And around here there's nothing remarkable about scars.
Bucky's back in his shapeless grey jacket, but there's nothing remarkable about under-employed and -housed veterans either. And Sam can hear how cleverly Bucky is subtly altering the story so that it could have taken place whenever his audience wants it to. And his audience is enthralled with him.
The performance is impressive as hell, and more than a little frightening. Sam wants to think he's seeing the real Bucky, the effortless charmer he'd been before falling off a mountain. But Sam knows this is the Winter Soldier, who's sussed out exactly what these woman want and is giving it to them in spades. And Sam has no fucking clue if Bucky's even aware he's moving through a social situation like it's an op; or if he is aware, but doing it anyway because he doesn't know how to behave like a normal person anymore. And Sam has no idea what would be worse.
But Bucky's right here, waiting for him, and that's what Sam concentrates on when he casually strolls the rest of the way to the little group and apologizes for having to pry the gentleman away from them.
"Goodnight, Vanya!" the women chorus, and Bucky grins and waves like it's his name. And then as soon as the door closes behind them his expression goes vacant as a new room.
Sam pours himself a coffee, to buy time to figure out what, if anything, to say about what he's just witnessed. "That was a cute story," is what he goes with. He pours a coffee for Bucky as well, mostly just to not have to see his expressionless face. "You must've ribbed Steve for days." He finishes stirring in the cream and sugar and holds it out.
Bucky doesn't react to Steve's name at all, just like he didn't respond the last time Sam mentioned him. His expression stays disturbingly empty, like he's a robot that's fulfilled his programming and is waiting for the next command. And that's especially disturbing, considering it pretty much describes Bucky's existence for the past 70-odd years.
Sam's relieved when Bucky takes the coffee.
"'Been looking for you, the past couple days," Sam says. He sips at his own cup, sighing internally that it's this side of disgusting. Maybe when—if, he means—he takes up Steve's offer to join the Avengers, he'll make it contingent on getting this place a decent coffee machine.
Bucky's too busy drinking like he's just come out of a desert to answer that, not that Sam's really expecting him to. But when he finishes the cup he just puts it down and slides his hands back into his pockets. He doesn't speak of course, but something flickers in his eyes, and Sam gets the impression that maybe Bucky wants to.
Sam makes him a second coffee, wishing Bucky would ask. But when he holds it out for him Bucky takes it from his hand again. For now that's good enough.
Feral strays never ask either, when you feed them. Hell, you're lucky if they don't bite.
Comparing the near-silent man in front of him to a feral animal might not be kind, but it feels sadly appropriate.
"Hey," Sam says, making sure to keep his voice non-threatening, "if I walk into the break room, will you follow me so I can give you a sandwich?
"You can stay here," Sam tries when the only response he gets is Bucky's eyes flicking to the exits and back. "I won't make you do anything you're not comfortable with. But, you look hungry."
Bucky nods.
Sam has no idea what Bucky just agreed to: that he's hungry? That he'll stay here? That he'll follow? But he decides it doesn't matter. "I'll be right back," he says, and goes into the break room. He leaves the door open, and when he shuts the fridge and turns around Bucky's standing in the doorway.
Sam manages not to hit the ceiling.
"Sorry," Bucky says.
Sam manages not to act surprised at the apology, either. "Not a problem." He goes close enough to Bucky to hold the little ziplock bag at arm's length, ready to step out of the way immediately so the man doesn't feel in any way cornered. "It's peanut butter," he adds when Bucky takes the bag but just kind of blinks at it. "You know, peanut butter and jam? Pbj? I mean, I know it existed in the 40s. Steve told me you guys had it, back in the day. Seriously, if you're not allergic to it, you have to like peanut butter. Anything else is practically un-American."
Bucky's eyes snap to his. "I'm not—" He stops, and there's fear on his face, creeping into the practiced blankness.
"Yeah, you are," Sam says gently. "You were born in Brooklyn."
"No. No." Bucky drops the bag then squeezes his eyes shut and puts his hand over his face, scrubbing his eyes like he's in pain. "I don't—I…" He starts speaking in what Sam's sure is Russian. Sam has no idea what he's saying, but it sounds desperate and confused and afraid.
Bucky abruptly rips his hands away, staring at Sam almost accusingly. "How? It doesn't make any sense." He has a Russian accent, a lilt that weaves in and out of his words like thread.
Sam tries to tell himself that this is a good thing and not terrifying. If the layers of programming are peeling back, then eventually the real man underneath will be all that remains, right? "I know." He puts his hands up so Bucky can see they're empty. "I'm sure not much has made sense since you came after us on the bridge. But I can promise you that this is true: your name is James Buchanan Barnes, and you were born in Brooklyn. And you're safe. No one's going to hurt you." He moves to the side, giving Bucky even more room. "You can leave right now if you want. The front door's unlocked and I won't stop you."
Bucky stares at him, chest heaving like he's on the verge of a panic attack. "Don't call me James," he says, with the same accent.
"Okay," Sam says. "What would you like me to call you?"
Bucky shakes his head. "I don't know." His eyes are huge, bright with fear.
This would be the worst time to let him leave, Sam knows, but he wouldn't restrain someone in distress anyway, let alone someone who could kill him without even thinking about it. "I can understand it if you're scared," he says, "but you're okay. You're safe here and it's okay. There's nothing here that can hurt you. Why don't you see if you can slow your breathing down, alright? With me. One…" He takes a deep breath, "two…You with me?"
The answer to that is either 'barely', or 'no'. Bucky backs up a step, and Sam can tell that he's about to bolt.
Before Bucky can, Sam says calmly but firmly, "Slow your breathing down. Do what I'm doing." He starts the count and inhales again, feeling relieved and a little sick when the direct order works.
Bucky's face is sheened with sweat by the time Sam's got him up to a count of four between breaths, but he seems calm again. Sam hopes it's not an act because he doubts he could tell.
Bucky tugs off his gloves with his teeth, then yanks off his watch cap and drops it to the ground and runs his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. There's dried blood on his hand.
While Sam's still processing that, Bucky takes off the jacket next, revealing a sweat-damp tee-shirt that looks like he stole it off a clothesline. And there are bloodstains on the threadbare cloth, too. Large and obviously days old, glaring rust-red against the dingy white. One looks like a laceration, given the slit in the cloth just under Bucky's shoulder. The other is most likely a through-and-through wound from a bullet, and Sam can see that it's exactly that when Bucky uses the shirt hem to wipe the sweat from his face.
It is very, very hard for Sam not to vocalize his shock. There are dried rivulets of blood running down Bucky's arm, and the bullet wound has soaked into his pants. The jacket is long enough to have hidden most of it, and the rest was covered by the gloves and Bucky's grimy black jeans.
Sam swallows. "Those look like they hurt," he says, proud that there's only a little gravel in his voice. "Maybe we should take care of them."
Bucky blinks at him like he has no idea what Sam's talking about, but then Bucky glances over at his right shoulder and then down at his left side, as if he's just noticed the blood. Paradoxically, he seems to have completely calmed down now that he's concentrating on his injuries. "They don't impede my functioning."
Now he even sounds like a damn robot, no accent and almost no inflection in his voice. And for the first time since finding him by accident Sam really, really wishes that Steve were there; wishes desperately that he hadn't tried to do the right thing the first time and just fucking called him. He's sure that Steve wouldn't have any more of a clue how to deal with this than Sam does, but it would be so good just to not to have to fumble his way through alone.
Sam hasn't felt this overwhelmed since Reilly was blown out of the sky.
"They look like they hurt, though," he repeats. He points to the far wall of the room. "There's a first-aid kit in the cupboard. Why don't you let me get it, and we can take care of them."
Bucky looks faintly puzzled. "They don't impede my functioning."
"So you said." Sam manages to keep the acid out of his tone through sheer will. "But if they become infected, eventually they will…impede you. I'm just going to clean and bandage them. That's all."
In a heartbeat, Bucky's expression goes from puzzled to deadly.
"Okay, you take care of them yourself, then," Sam says immediately. Pick your battles, he tells himself, and he's sure there's a joke about the war in there somewhere but there'd be no one to tell even if he could find it. "Will you stay here and let me get the first-aid kit?"
Bucky still looks wary, but no longer like he's ready to kill. He nods.
Sam takes that as another victory.
Sam watches and does absolutely nothing while Bucky sits on the floor and swipes an alcohol pad over his fingers, then pours the bottle of rubbing alcohol directly onto the wounds. Sam grimaces on his behalf, but Bucky doesn't even twitch. Except Sam can see that Bucky's hands begin to shake, a physiological reaction to the pain he probably can't control. A tiny whimper escapes Bucky's throat, then he grits his teeth and finishes cleaning his wounds in grim silence.
His hands are steady again when he's ready to put on the bandage, using butterfly bandages on his arm and taping gauze pads over each of the holes through his side. When he's finished he repacks the kit neatly and sets it aside, then methodically pulls back on his shirt. He starts to climb to his feet, but then sways and falls back to his knees. He leans heavily on the wall, panting through what has to be a wave of dizziness or pain.
Of course Sam's instant reaction is to rocket upright and go to him, but he forces himself to move slowly instead, and stay well back. "Can you tell me what's wrong?" he asks. The question is automatic, even though he's sure Bucky won't, or can't, tell him. Sam's not sure Bucky's even aware enough of his own body anymore to know what's going on.
Bucky lifts his head with what looks like an effort and looks at him, but he says nothing. Sam can see he's afraid, under the grey of dirt and exhaustion. He's probably expecting to be punished or attacked.
Sam raises his palms again and retreats a step, because when predators are the most vulnerable they're also the most dangerous, and just because Bucky didn't come at him a half hour ago doesn't mean he won't now. "I'm going to get you some orange juice, okay?" he says. "That's all I'm doing. You're safe here, and the door is open. You can leave any time you want."
Sam has to turn his back on him to open the fridge, which is scary as hell but at least the three little juice bottles are easy to grab. He'll have to apologize to Madison later and pay her back, but if he tells his boss that he gave them to a homeless, injured and traumatized veteran, he knows she'll understand.
He cracks the first one and puts it on the floor near enough so Bucky can grab it without Sam getting into his space. Sam backs up all the way to the couch under the window, then sits on the arm while Bucky takes a tentative sip, then drinks the entire bottle without breathing. Sam quietly opens the second and puts it in the same place, and then the third. By the time Bucky's finished the third bottle there's a hint of color in the ashen pallor of his face and he doesn't look quite so ready to keel over. But he still looks afraid.
Sam scrubs his face with his hand, feeling exhausted himself and overwhelmed and sad. But he grits his teeth into a smile and nods at the sandwich, still lying mournfully where the bag was dropped less than a half hour ago. "You should eat. You'll feel better."
Bucky looks at him suspiciously, but takes the bag and pulls out the sandwich, now a little worse for wear from being dropped. The jam's soaked through the bread and Sam knows he wouldn't want it, but Bucky just eats mechanically, showing neither distaste nor enjoyment.
He carefully closes and folds the bag afterwards, and there's so much of the 30's waste-not-want-not attitude in that little automatic gesture that despite the whole fucking miserable evening, that's what threatens to bring Sam to tears.
Bucky looks at Sam blinking and wiping his eyes like he has no idea at all what he's doing.
"I'm all right," Sam says.
He wonders if Bucky even has the capacity to care, and then Bucky says, "Good", and Sam mentally kicks himself again.
"Thanks." Sam smiles at him, unsurprised when Bucky doesn't return it. He looks better for having been able to get some food and juice into him, but that's not saying much. "Do you remember when you last ate, before this? Or slept?"
Sam expects Bucky to either be unwilling to tell him or unable to remember, so he's a little surprised when Bucky says, "Eighty-one hours."
"That's more than three days," Sam says, appalled. No wonder Bucky almost passed out, especially if his metabolism's anything like Steve's. "I'm getting you more food," he says, planning more apologies to his coworkers. But Bucky shakes his head before Sam can stand up.
Sam figures Bucky might be nauseous, after so long without eating, but of course that's another thing he'll never say.
It's too much, all of it. Sam just wants to go home, watch something easy and mindless on television and leave all this miserable crap behind. But he can't. He can't. So he runs his hand over his hair and takes a deep breath and gears up again. Just the next five minutes, he tells himself. It's been a while since he's needed to keep himself going like that, but it's barely eleven and the night's stretching out so long it hurts. But five minutes he can do, and then the next five after that, and the next. As long as Bucky needs him to.
"Look," he says on another breath, "it's late and we got a pretty nice couch. Why don't you get your head down for a few hours?"
Bucky stares at him like Sam just offered to rip off his metal arm, then pulls himself to his feet again. It's a pretty obvious answer. But he's barely steadier now, all but swaying with his human arm leaning heavily on the wall. He needs a hospital, not to be skulking into the night like a stray cat. According to the intel Sam's read on The Winter Soldier he heals fast, but all the same Sam can't imagine Bucky'll be able to stay conscious very long if he leaves like this. And what happens after that doesn't invite thinking about.
"Wait, please," Sam says, and it feels like a miracle when Bucky does. "I get that this is a new place and it's undefended. So, I'll keep watch tonight. But you need to sleep, let your body heal."
Bucky has to know that, though going by his face Sam might as well have stopped speaking English. But he hasn't left yet, and Sam takes that and runs with it.
"You've fought me before; you know I can't hurt you. And you know I'm not Hydra or they wouldn't've sent you to kill me—"
"Steve Rogers," Bucky says. "Steve Rogers was the mission."
Sam realizes he's gaping and shuts his mouth with a snap. He wants to demand—beg—Bucky to tell him how much he remembers, if 'Steve Rogers' is attached to anything more than a man he failed to kill. But right now the priority is Bucky's survival, not his past.
"Yeah. That's true. He was," Sam says, reeling himself back to his purpose. "But when I helped him, Hydra put me in the crosshairs too. And the closest I got to you was when you ripped off one of my wings and tossed me off the helicarrier." He spreads his arms a little, hands out. "You know I couldn't hurt you even if I wanted to, and I don't. But I can keep watch." He nods at the open door. "I have an office just a couple doors down the hallway. I don't even have to be in the same room. But I promise, no one will come in."
Bucky looks at Sam, then at the door, like he's weighing options.
"You're safe here, Bucky," Sam says. "I promise, you're safe. You can sleep."
Sam says nothing after that, just waits and tries not to hold his breath at the agony of uncertainty he knows is going on behind Bucky's studied lack of expression. It feels like a piece of forever goes by before Bucky finally gives Sam a nod so miniscule he barely moves.
Sam wants to do something ridiculously unprofessional, like whooping out loud or bounding across the room to hug the man. He wishes he could tell Bucky how incredibly brave he is. Sam can only imagine how much this has cost him, agreeing to put his life into a virtual stranger's hands.
He's sure it's also a testament to just how weak Bucky is right now. Sam has no illusions that Bucky would still be here if he were physically capable of leaving.
"Okay, great," he says as matter-of-factly as possible. He gets off the arm of the couch and moves away from it, ceding Bucky the territory. "There's a folded blanket on the arm, if you want."
He stays well back as Bucky makes his laborious way across the room, keeping his arms crossed as a reminder not to try to help. Bucky's practically out on his feet by the time he all but collapses on the couch, but Sam's not surprised when Bucky makes sure he's facing the door when he lies down. He doesn't take the blanket.
Bucky's dead to the world between one breath and the next. Even asleep he looks tense, teeth clenched and his hands in loose fists like he expects to wake up needing to fight.
Sam watches Bucky for a long time, until he's sure Bucky's really sleeping and not just pretending to. And then Sam unfolds the blanket and drapes it over him, in case he's cold.
Bucky sleeps for maybe 40 minutes before he starts screaming.
Sam bolts out of his office back to the break room, but then stops in the doorframe, trying to figure out what the hell he should do.
Bucky's still on the couch, obviously fighting for his life by the way he's howling like that. At first Sam can barely tell if what Bucky's shouting is even language, but he thinks he can hear 'nyet', and something that sounds like 'pajalsta'. Everyone who's ever watched a movie in the 80s knows that 'nyet' is Russian for 'no'; it's easy enough to guess what's happening in his head.
Normally Sam would call out someone's name, if he saw them struggling through a nightmare like this. But he knows Bucky will be disoriented as fuck when he wakes up, and unlike everyone else Sam's ever counselled, he could also kill Sam long before he remembers where he is.
But Sam can't leave him like this. Even if it's only in Bucky's mind, it's like watching him be tortured and not doing anything to stop it.
Sam takes a deep breath, then calls out, "Bucky! BUCKY! WAKE UP!" and gets ready to run.
Bucky startles awake so violently that he basically tosses himself off the couch onto the floor, and it's quite possibly only that the blanket got tangled around his feet from all the thrashing that keeps Sam alive. Bucky tries to kick it off him so ferociously that it tears. He's making keening noises of fear in his throat and Sam wishes that he'd never unfolded the damn thing.
"Bucky, Bucky, it's okay, you're okay," Sam says, not even sure the terrified young man can hear him. He forces himself to keep his voice loud enough to carry but no louder, sure that anything else will just make things worse. "It was a nightmare. You're safe, you're okay."
Bucky finally kicks himself free. And it's only then that Sam realizes that he's still standing in the fucking doorway, and if Bucky wants out he's going to go right through him.
He's backing up when Bucky rockets to his feet with his fists clenched and his teeth bared like a dog. Sam can't see anything he recognizes in his eyes when Bucky charges.
Bucky doesn't shove Sam aside. He grabs him by the neck and basically drags him like that until he slams him against the wall of the corridor. Sam's got one hand around Bucky's metal wrist, the other one is trying to pry off his human fingers, but Bucky's almost as strong as Steve and Sam's about as effective as a toddler at freeing himself. He could kick, or go for Bucky's eyes, but he really doesn't want to die tonight.
He might not have a huge choice about that, though. "Bucky, it's me. Sam. You're safe. You're in D.C.," he says between gulping for air. "You had a nightmare. No one will hurt you." It's not easy to say all that with two very strong hands around his neck, but at least Bucky seems to have heard him. Whether he understood him is another issue. There's nothing rational in the cold rage on Bucky's face. "Let go. Please," Sam says, and then he lets go of Bucky, dropping his hands to his sides. "I won't hurt you."
Bucky blinks, like he's considering that. He's not any more relaxed, but his face loses some of its knife-blade expression. He says something in Russian that sounds like a question.
"I don't understand," Sam chokes. "I don't understand." He's getting lightheaded. "Please let go."
Bucky lets go all at once and backs up like Sam's caught fire. He looks bewildered and stricken, as if he's only just woken up. He clenches and flexes his hands, like he's not sure they're his, darting glances around the hallway. When he looks at Sam again it's with uncertainty and fear. When Bucky speaks again, it's in Russian.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand," Sam says, rubbing his throat. He reminds himself fiercely that this random language switching must be a good thing. It's a good thing. It's fine.
Bucky touches his own throat, looking guilty. He repeats the words in Russian again, then seems to realize it's the wrong language. His expression of surprise might be comical in some other universe. He says something else, then stares at Sam in helpless confusion.
Sam feels just as helpless here. But Bucky looks about two syllables away from panicking, and if he loses himself now Sam has no idea how he can help him get back. "Whoa, whoa. It's all right. It's all right." Sam has to stop to cough, then quickly puts up his hand when Bucky looks absolutely agonized by what he's done. "I'm fine. It's okay. I know you didn't mean it. But, you understand me, right? You can understand me?"
Bucky nods, then tries to say something else but ends up just gritting his teeth when it's the wrong language again.
"You're halfway there," Sam says. He comes a little closer, stopping well outside of Bucky's personal space. He's trying to sound sympathetic, which he is, but not that this is something he's never dealt with before. "You were speaking Russian in your nightmare, so it's in your head right now. But you still know English, so that's in there too, right?"
Bucky still looks way too wide-eyed, but he nods.
"Okay." Sam nods as well, trying to project a calm he doesn't feel. "So, here's what we're going to do. I want you to purposely talk in Russian, okay? It doesn't matter what you say. You can tell me this is a bullshit idea, I don't care. I just want you to speak in Russian deliberately. Got it?"
Bucky nods again.
"Great. Okay, go for it."
Bucky opens his mouth, hesitates, and then closes it again. He takes a breath and then says a handful of Russian words that are eloquent with despair, even though Sam can't guess what they mean.
He smiles anyway, trying to be encouraging. "All right. Now say the same thing in English. Translate it for me."
Bucky swallows. "I don't know where I'm from."
"I know," Sam says quietly. He's incredibly relieved that his ridiculous idea worked. But it's impossible to be jubilant when Bucky looks just as lost as he said he was. Sam wants to hug him so badly that he puts his arms behind his back and leans against the wall. He can't imagine Bucky considering any kind of touch to be a comfort. "And I can only imagine how terrible this must be for you. But you'll remember. I'll help you. I promise."
Bucky stares at him. "Why?"
Why are you helping me? The answer to that is so evident that for a second Sam can't even figure out what to say. He wants to tell Bucky, 'because I'm your friend', but even though he'd like to be, he knows that isn't really true. Right now, as far as Bucky's concerned Sam's just not an enemy. "Because you need help," he says at last. "And I want to help you."
Bucky's expression reminds Sam of when they first met, though it feels like years ago, not days, when he'd offered to buy Bucky a coffee. "I don't understand. People don't…help." He looks like he's struggling to even find the words to frame what's going on in his head. "People give orders. Missions. They hurt. And, other people, they don't matter. Unless they're the mission. Or they get in the way of the mission. Then they die."
Sam sucks in a breath, heart racing so fast he hopes Bucky can't hear it. "That's true too, sometimes. But not always." He's pretty sure Bucky's just said more to him in one minute than he's said all together until this moment. Sam can't believe they've gone from resetting Bucky's default language to this, but it feels like they're teetering on the edge of something huge. Something huge and so important it's terrifying and Sam has no idea what the fuck to say.
But he has a horrible feeling that if he chooses the wrong answer, Bucky's out of here. Maybe forever. And Sam has never felt so alone and inexperienced in his life, and he wishes so, so badly that Steve were here, or Natasha. Natasha would know exactly what Bucky needs to hear.
Except it's just Sam, and Bucky's waiting for him to say something.
Sam licks his lips. "You know I've never lied to you, right?"
He's not surprised when Bucky hesitates before he nods. Sad, but not surprised.
"All right. You know I've never lied to you before," Sam says. He's trying to remember every trick he's ever been taught about keeping calm, about figuring out what a client needs when they don't even know it themselves.
"I've never lied to you before," he repeats. "So you can trust that what I'm going to tell you now is the truth. And the truth is, most of what you were taught is bullshit." He sees Bucky's eyes widen, waits, but when there's no other reaction Sam continues. "The ones who did this to you, who made you into a killer—they wanted you to think that, to make your targets less human. It's easier to destroy something you don't care about, isn't it?"
Bucky nods, though he looks like this is some kind of trap. "Killing is easy."
That kind of stops Sam dead with his mouth open, but he tells himself to just figure this the hell out and closes his lips and nods. "Yeah. They trained you really well." Brainwashed, he thinks. Tortured. But now isn't the time for that. "Ending a life is simple when you don't think of the one you're killing as a person. But the thing is, people aren't objects. They're not missions. They have goals. And needs. Like sleep. And eating and drinking." He nods at the coffee table next to them, yanks up a smile from somewhere. "We like coffee. At least decent coffee. We have families, you know? I have a sister in Vermont. We dream. We have nightmares…" He glances at Bucky, who nods again. His eyes are distant, but he's listening. "Some of us hurt other people, yeah. Some of us kill. I've killed people. I've lost people I've cared about. It keeps me up at night, sometimes. It used to give me nightmares all the time."
He's worried that despite his best intentions he's veered so far off track that he's stopped making sense, but Bucky's still with him, still listening. "But the point is," Sam says quietly, "that everyone matters. And most people will choose to help, not hurt, if they get the chance."
"I kill," Bucky says it like the cold fact it is, but the way his eyes refuse to settle on anything makes Sam think that it's really a question.
"I know." Sam's still leaning on his hands. He wants to reach out so much it almost hurts: this need to make some kind of physical connection, tether Bucky to this world. "They forced you to do that. They made you do that. They hurt you until you forgot who you are, what kind of person you are. But it wasn't a choice. It was never a choice, Bucky."
Bucky looks at him. "I know what I am. The Asset."
Sam nods. "I'm sure you were, to them. That's…" He stops, because he suddenly understands what Bucky really said, and the implication is like a fist in his stomach. "You mean, that's what Pierce called you? "The Asset"? That's it? Didn't they give you a name?"
"I'm the Asset," Bucky says more slowly, as if Sam's the one who's not getting it. It'd be easier to be excited about this glimpse of personality if Bucky weren't standing there calmly insisting he's not human.
"That's a label, not a name," Sam grinds out. He reminds himself to stay calm, that Bucky won't understand that the anger's not directed at him. "You're not an asset, Bucky. You're not a weapon. You're a person. You have a name.
"Please tell me you understand that," Sam says when Bucky stays silent. When Bucky doesn't answer that either, Sam rips himself away from the wall, too upset to stay still. He runs his hand over his head with his other planted on his hip, looking at the coffee table because he can't meet the iced-over stillness behind Bucky's eyes. It's not a good stillness; it never is. "Please tell me you understand that, Bucky. That you're a person, just like I am. Just like anyone. What they did to you—"
"They gave me purpose," Bucky says simply. His voice has gone distant in a way that makes Sam jerk his head around to stare at him. Bucky's got his eyes angled away, speaking haltingly like he's following the thread of a story he barely remembers. "When they found me, I was empty. Postoy," he says in that eerily perfect-sounding Russian. "I had no name. No family. No country." Bucky's Russian accent's come back. It's like he's only repeating something somebody else told him. "Blank. White, like the snow."
He goes quiet, and Sam takes a single step closer, barely daring to breathe. "This was after you fell?"
Bucky's focused inward, doesn't seem to hear him. "They found me on the riverbank. Soldiers." His voice gets stronger as he speaks, more American. "They wrapped me in a blanket, tried to keep me warm." His smile looks wistful and he sounds like James Buchanan Barnes.
This part of the story is Bucky's own, Sam realizes. It's real: this one piece of his history before the Red Room got to him. Steve told him that Bucky didn't remember anything about his past, not even his name. Every shred of information they'd found about the Winter Soldier had only confirmed that. He was supposed to be a blank page where you scrawled anything you wanted, a weapon that could pretend to be a man.
But this is Bucky, right here. This is the man supposedly buried so deep in the shattered remains of his psyche that he'd never be able to crawl back into the light. But he's here.
Maybe this is the edge Sam could sense they'd reached. Maybe he helped Bucky find the right way to fall. But it's Steve who should be hearing it, not Sam, not when this might be the only true fragment of Bucky left.
But Sam is the only one here, so he honors it in the sole way he can, by listening.
"They couldn't do much, but they tried, you know? I couldn't understand a damn word they said, but I knew that, even with how busted up I was. They…" Bucky blinks and exhales harshly through his nose, and he looks like an ordinary young man trying not to cry. "They didn't want to give me up to the NKVD." He says the acronym for Stalin's secret police in perfect Russian. He doesn't seem to notice it. "They had to. I don't, I don't blame them. But…" His breathing's sped up, and he wraps both arms around his torso, like he's cold.
"It's okay." Sam comes a little closer. He could touch Bucky now if he reached out, but he's careful to keep his hands at his sides. "You're not there anymore. You're not in Russia. You're in Washington D.C. You're safe. No one's going to hurt you." He can't tell if Bucky's able to hear him.
Bucky shakes his head. "They were supposed to be our allies, right? And they said they'd help me remember who I was, help me get home. But they just took me to this place, and, and it was like some kind of hospital. And they strapped me down so I couldn't move. And they stuck me full of needles. Like Zola. Just, worse. Whatever junk they put in me hurt. It hurt so fucking much. And they wouldn't let me sleep or eat, and they just…" His breath hitches and he starts crying.
Sam opens his mouth to say something, but he can see by Bucky's eyes that he's not with him anymore. "I didn't do anything," Bucky says, and his voice is pleading now, broken. "I don't understand. I don't understand. Why are you doing this? Stop. Please, stop. It hurts."
Fucking hell, Sam thinks. "Bucky, can you hear me?" he says, gentle but firm, trying to bring him back. "Bucky, look at me. Come on, look at me. You're not in Russia, Bucky. You're in Washington—"
Bucky hollers something incoherent with terror and rage, striking out at whomever Sam represents in the waking nightmare he's reliving. Sam sees it coming and dodges, but he's not fast enough to avoid a desperate and panicked super-soldier with decades of training. Bucky's metal fist only clips Sam's left shoulder, but it's still more than enough to spin him and send him sprawling face down on the floor.
He only loses a few seconds, lying there and trying to breathe when it feels like Bucky's pulverized his entire left arm. But by the time he flips over to call out, Bucky's already gone.
Sam checks every place in the city he can think of where someone with specialized military training would go to ground. Bucky's not in any of them, and there's no trace he ever was. Despite how he's still bloodstained and has to be running on fumes, it's like he never existed. By the time dawn finally rolls around Sam's exhausted and no closer to finding him.
Steve still won't answer his phone. Sam calls him fifteen times before he gives up and tries Natasha. Now he's worried about Steve as well as Bucky and hopes to hell Natasha won't make it a trifecta, but she won't pick up either.
After the twentieth time he finally grits his teeth and calls Hill. Sam's degenerated to pacing the perimeter of the Air and Space Museum, which hasn't opened yet. The pacing is a habit he thought he'd gotten out of a while ago because he suspected it only made him more anxious, but here he is, doing circuits of the building. The bruise on his shoulder is throbbing in painful double time along with his heartbeat, waiting for her to pick up. He's made it around the museum twice and called her four times before he finally hears the click and her voice.
"I'm not your answering service, Wilson," Hill says in that impatient way she has, and Sam is so grateful to hear it that he could go to his knees.
"I need to speak to Steve or Natasha. It's urgent," he says.
"They're not available."
"I kind of figured that when they didn't answer their phones. That's why I called you." Sam doesn't bother with patience because he knows Hill won't care. "I really have to get ahold of them. Steve especially, but—"
"I kind of figured that after the fourth time you called," Hill interrupts, "but they're still not available. And unless this is actual Avengers' business—"
"It's Bucky," Sam says.
"Who the hell is Bucky?"
Sam stops dead in surprise, but there's no reason Hill would know. She never fought the Winter Soldier, other than in the abstract while she was helping them bring the helicarriers down. "Bucky? Steve's friend? Didn't you see the exhibit at the Smithsonian?"
"No," she says. "I have better things to do than stalk Captain America. And you have ten seconds before I hang up."
"It really is Avengers' business," Sam says immediately. "I wouldn't be calling otherwise. But it's about Steve's friend and it's really damn important, and I have to talk to him."
Hill pauses for a painful second. "All right," she says. "Hang on. I'll call you back." And the line goes dead.
It rings again less than five minutes later, but Sam doesn't recognize the number when it comes up. He answers anyway. "Steve?"
"Sorry, Fluttershy," comes the clipped reply. "But Capsicle's indisposed at the moment. This is Iron Man. Maria said you needed an Avenger and luckily I'm the coolest one. So, what's so important that you're clogging up Steve's voicemail? He still has trouble using that, you know. He'll probably need a new phone."
Sam's heard enough about Tony Stark that he knows to ignore the bullshit. He wants to ask where Steve and Natasha are, but he's sure he doesn't have time to wade through whatever Tony decides to answer. "What do you know about the Winter Soldier?"
Stark pauses for longer than Hill did, and there's something in the silence that hums like tension over the air between them. "I know he's some kind of brainwashed cyborg-assassin who used to be Steve's BFF until he fell out of an airplane or something. And that he killed my parents. Please don't tell me he's holding you hostage because I really, really don't want to be responsible for blowing up Steve's psycho ex-boyfriend."
"I'm sorry about your parents," Sam says, meaning it. Steve told him about that, but Sam didn't expect Stark to mention it so casually. He wants to tell Stark that he's sure Bucky doesn't remember what he did, that he'd be devastated if he knew. But he doubts Stark would care.
"He did me a favor," Stark snaps, but goes on before Sam can do more than blink in shock. "But awesome though this bewildering chat is, I'm kind of busy, so…"
"I need to find him," Sam says. "He's in a bad way and I'm worried he's going to hurt himself. I was hoping Steve might know where he'd go."
"I thought the deal with the Winter Soldier was hurting other people," Stark says.
Sam winces. "He's not the Winter Solider anymore. He's remembering things. Who he was. He came to me for help."
"And yet he went all Snoopy, Come Home on you."
Sam doesn't know the reference, but it's easy to get Stark's meaning. He grits his teeth. "He was at my work and had a flashback and bolted. I'm worried about what he might do to himself. Or anyone he thinks might be trying to hurt him."
"You sure you want to find him?"
"Yes," Sam doesn't entirely grind out. "He spent over 70 years being tortured and treated like he wasn't even human. They turned a good, decent man into a weapon, and I'm not going to abandon him now that he's finally getting pieces of himself back. He deserves better than that. Hell, even if he wasn't Steve's friend, he deserves better than that."
"He tried to kill Steve. He might kill you," Stark says.
At least the reply to that is easy. "That wasn't his choice. And even then he didn't kill him. He pulled Steve out of the Potomac and saved his life. And he could've killed me at least four times so far, but he hasn't hurt me once." Except for his throat and shoulder, but Sam refuses to count those.
He can practically hear Stark thinking in the next wave of silence. He doesn't start pacing again only because he's too tired and in too much pain.
"You know Steve will kill me if I help you get yourself killed, right?" Stark says on a sigh. "Of course, he'll also kill me if I don't help you find his buddy. Damn it. All right. Let's find crouching soldier, hidden rampage." There's another pause, and Sam can easily imagine Stark rubbing his forehead, maybe pacing too. "J.A.R.V.I.S.," he suddenly barks. "Start compiling surveillance video in D.C. What is he looking for?"
Sam realizes he's talking to him. "White male in his 20s, about 5' 11", brown hair down to his collar or a bit longer, scruffy. Blue eyes. Dingy white tee-shirt covered with bloodstains, though he might've gotten rid of it. And his left arm is made of metal, with a painted red star on the shoulder."
"You didn't think maybe you should have led with the arm?" Stark asks incredulously. "J.A.R.V.I.S., you heard Tinkerbelle. Find me a bleeding, metal-armed killer."
"Beginning from what date?" The cool, cultured British accent has to be J.A.R.V.I.S.
"11:30 pm, yesterday," Sam says before Stark needs to pass on the question.
"Compiling," J.A.R.V.I.S. says. "And sir, Ms. Romanoff is calling."
"Natasha?" Sam lifts his head, feeling ridiculously buoyed just from her name.
"About damn time. Put her through," Stark says. Then, to her: "You don't call, you don't write…"
"Steve's injured," she says. "He got out of surgery ten minutes ago. They're hopeful, but they said the next 24 hours will be critical." There's only the tiniest tremor in Natasha's voice to tell Sam she's affected by this at all. Given what he knows about her, she might as well be screaming.
"Jesus," Stark says. He sounds exactly as blindsided as Sam feels. "What the hell happened?"
"He pushed me out of the way of a tank shell," Natasha says. "He caught the brunt of it."
"What?" The word is a reflex. Sam heard everything, he just can't understand it. "But, his shield—"
"He'd thrown it," Natasha says simply. "We got out and then he collapsed." She takes a breath. "But he made it this far. And he's still alive."
"What were you doing?" Sam asks, as if hearing the reason will make it feel any more real. He knows all about shock and denial, but this is still almost impossible to believe.
"We've been helping Fury smoke out Hydra in Europe. We must've missed a double agent, because they were waiting for us in Germany."
"Where are you?" Sam's thinking about funerals and last goodbyes, and America without its captain and him without his friend. 24 hours is like forever and no time at all. The thick ache in his throat has nothing to do with Bucky's rough handling.
"Landsthul," Natasha says. Sam can hear the weariness in her voice. "We were supposed to be back by now."
"No fucking kidding. Fury told me you'd be gone a week," Stark says. "Fucking S.H.I.E.L.D. Sam, I can pick you up at Dulles in less than two hours."
Sam nearly says, 'sure'. In his shock he's almost forgotten why he called Steve in the first place. But, "I can't," he says. "I have to find Bucky."
"Why?" Natasha demands. "You already looked for him. What are you talking about?"
"It's not like before," Sam says, speaking fast. "He came to the V.A. last night, but he ran when I was trying to help him."
"That was stupid," Natasha snaps. "He could've killed you."
"I know," Sam says. "But he didn't. And last night was the third time I've had contact with him. He could've killed me anytime he wanted, but I've never been in danger." That's not quite a lie, but it skews close enough to one that Sam winces. "He doesn't want to hurt anyone. But he's confused and scared. Last night when he bolted he thought the NKVD had him. He was terrified out of his mind. I can't leave him like that, Natasha. Not even for Steve. And Steve wouldn't want me to."
"I know," Natasha says, after a silence just long enough to flay him. "But Steve doesn't know what Bucky really is. Some things can't be saved, Samuel."
There's something warming in the way she says his full name, but he has to shove that aside. "Steve knows Bucky pulled him out of the river. And maybe you're right, maybe he can't be saved." A few weeks ago Sam would've said the exact same thing. "But I really think he can. And I have to try."
"You don't understand," Natasha grits the words at him. "He will kill you. He will kill you, if you try to help him. Hydra will take you both."
"Wait, wait, wait," Stark interrupts them before Sam can even figure out what the hell to say to that. "No one's taking anyone. I'll go with bird boy and make sure Bucky's not running with scissors, all right? Hopefully by then we'll find out that Steve's in the clear, anyway."
"Good," Natasha says. "Call me when you find him. And Tony, if you let either of them get hurt, I'll kill you."
"And there is the Black Widow I know and fear," Stark says.
"Excuse me," J.A.R.V.I.S. slides in as smoothly as if he was waiting to be cued. "But I believe I've found Sergeant Barnes."
The bank is one of the older, stately ones that didn't survive the crash of 2008. It looks completely innocuous in the light of early morning: just another building waiting to be sold or torn down. Tony makes some noises about buying it, how it'd make a cool theme for a dance club.
Sam lets him talk. He's pretty sure this is just Tony's way of dealing with tension, and they're both so tense right now he figures one good scare would snap them in half. Tony insisted on coming with him even after Natasha hung up. Sam hadn't wanted to wait that long, and he wouldn't have if Natasha hadn't basically ordered Tony to do it. He likes the fact she's worried about him, even though he knows anything that worries the Black Widow this much should probably scare the shit out of him.
He is scared, but not for himself. He's frightened for Bucky, and of what they'll find once they get inside. He's worried that Tony will do one of the typically reckless, dumbass things Steve's told him about and trigger Bucky into violence. He's terrified for Steve.
Sam's exhausted and his shoulder still aches, and he blames that for how hard it is to wrap his mind around the idea that Steve might actually be dying in an American military hospital half way around the world. Captain America survived a plane crash and being frozen for more than 67 years. He survived aliens and being shot and beat up and falling out of a goddamn flying ship into the Potomac. He can't have gotten this badly hurt because he didn't have his shield at the wrong moment.
"You need to stay here," Sam tells Tony again. "He doesn't know you. You come in looking like a bad sci-fi movie and he might go ballistic." The lobby is all pink marble and white archways and gold accents, everything covered with six years' worth of dust and the sad, ominous quiet of abandoned buildings. His voice seems to echo no matter how softly he speaks, and he has no idea why Tony doesn't sound like an entire cavalry coming through. It doesn't look like anyone has been there. If the new convenience store across the street hadn't put in a security camera, Sam's sure they'd never have found Bucky at all.
"Hey, the stealth armor is state of the art," Tony protests, though at least he keeps his voice low. His faceplate is up, which goes a long way to blur some of the menace, but the blue-black gleam of his suit still looks like something out of any number of nightmares. It's all-too easy to picture how it'll go down if the Winter Soldier sees Iron Man, and there's not one scenario Sam can think of where it doesn't end very, very badly.
"I'll remember that when he's tearing it off you along with your arms," he says.
Tony snorts, indignant, but he stays silent until they get to the doorway for the stairs. "No, seriously. I need to come with you. Natasha will kill me if I let her favorite Gelfling get perforated."
Sam's the same generation as Tony, and yet he keeps getting blindsided by his references. It's hard to imagine how Tony and Steve could even tolerate each other, let alone be friends. The only things they seem to have in common are bravery and self-sacrifice. Maybe that's enough.
"You'll have to lose the armor. And stay outside of the room," Sam says, because it's easier than arguing and he knows that if he ignores Tony the other man will just follow him anyway.
"Sure. Lose our only advantage against the Terminator. I have absolutely no problem with that." Tony rolls his eyes. He gestures at the door. "After you, Eddard."
Sam can't help the tiny smirk as he eases the door open. "'Not sure if I should be pleased or insulted that you just made me a Stark."
"Both. Definitely both," Stark says, grinning, just before they hear the scream.
Tony and Sam look at each other, then they bolt down the stairs.
The stairs going down to the vault in the basement are ordinary concrete and Tony's footfalls echo like bullets now that he's not trying to be quiet. Sam's not sure how glad he should be that J.A.R.V.I.S. told them the stairwell was the only way in or out. He can feel his pulse slamming painfully in his abused throat and shoulder by the time they get to the huge, round metal door. It's still open because it only locks from the outside.
Bucky's still screaming.
Tony's faceplate snaps down as he leaps over the edge of the round door of the vault, Sam right behind him. The electricity's still on down here, which he hadn't expected, but it's good because it means they can easily see Bucky near the middle of the room, tearing something big and metal apart with his bare hands. It looks like it might've been a chair at some point. There's a large cylinder near the opposite wall, dull military green and lying on its side. Big enough to hold a man. Its hatch has been yanked off so violently the metal looks like torn paper. The cylinder itself is full of blood-smeared dents like Bucky was stomping on it. His shredded, bloodstained tee-shirt is lying on the floor. Every other object that was in the vault has been so thoroughly destroyed that Sam can't even begin to tell what it was.
The room is pretty much covered in dried blood. So is Bucky: new rivulets replacing the old ones running down his right arm. His flesh and bone hand is so bloody Sam has no idea where it's coming from. There are gashes going up his arm and over his bare chest and cuts and blood smears on his face and in his hair and even seeping out of his wrecked boots, like he was so intent on his destruction that he didn't care or notice that he was slicing himself up to get it.
He sounds like a soul in hell, so much rage pouring out of his throat that he barely seems human. And when he sees Iron Man bursting in, Bucky hurls a hunk of metal right at his face.
Tony blasts it aside with one of his repulsors but Bucky hurls himself at him right behind his makeshift projectile and tackles Tony to the floor. Sam's able to throw himself out of the way before he gets flattened. He lands rolling and wincing and comes up on his feet in time to see that Bucky's pinned Tony by kneeling on his arms and is whaling on him with his left hand. It sounds like a hammer striking tin.
"Bucky, no!" Sam yells, but there's no one there to hear him. Bucky's teeth are bared in a rictus of fury, and he's snarling something that barely sounds like language.
Tony turns his hands palm down and fires his repulsors into the floor, which dislodges Bucky enough for Tony to free one arm. He grabs Bucky by his metal bicep and heaves him into the nearby wall.
Tony and Bucky scramble back to their feet at the same time. Bucky rushes Tony again, a jagged piece of metal in his left fist. Tony lifts both his hands, repulsors whirring as they charge.
Sam slides in between them with his hands out and Tony at his back. "Bucky! Stop!"
And Bucky sees him. Instead of stabbing Sam he back-peddles, moving so fast he skids on the smooth, blood-spattered marble and ends up on the floor. He rolls back to his feet immediately, fixing Sam with his wild blue eyes, chest heaving.
"Bucky, it's Sam. It's Sam. You're safe. You're safe. No one's going to hurt you. Do you recognize me?"
Bucky doesn't respond. He's still gripping the piece of metal, eyes flicking between Sam and Tony just behind him.
"Lose the suit," Sam orders Tony without taking his gaze from Bucky.
"You've got to be kidding me," Tony says. The armor makes his voice sound entirely like a machine. Bucky whips his attention to the suit, obviously startled.
"Lose. The. Suit," Sam repeats. "You're scaring him."
"He's scaring me," Tony grouses, but then his suit opens and he steps out of it, dressed in nothing more sinister than jeans and a black Megadeth tee-shirt. "Hi." He smiles wanly and wiggles his fingers.
Bucky's eyes widen a little bit, but he doesn't change his defensive stance or drop his weapon.
"This is Tony," Sam says. "He's a friend of Steve's." He doesn't say Tony's a friend of his because he refuses to lie to Bucky and he barely knows the man. "You're safe," he says again. "You're safe. You're in Washington D.C. and no one's going to hurt you. It's just me and Tony here. We just want to help."
Bucky snarls something in Russian.
"Don't look at me," Tony says when Sam glances at him. "I only speak crazy in English." He taps the tiny radio in his ear. "J, I need a translation."
"'Take one more step and I'll fucking gut you,'" J.A.R.V.I.S. says in Sam's ear. The incongruity between the AI's posh accent and the words is jarring.
"Well, that's not very nice," Tony murmurs.
Sam ignores him. "Tony was defending himself, Bucky. But you can see his armor's off. He can't do anything to you now, and he won't. Neither of us will. We're not going to hurt you."
"Handlers always say that," Bucky spits. His Russian accent's so thick it sounds like English is his second language. His left hand is utterly still, but his right fist begins to shake. "You will not take me again. You will not."
"Really not planning on it," Tony says.
"Tony, shut up," Sam tells him. "Bucky, my name is Sam Wilson. We met at the Smithsonian, do you remember?"
Bucky blinks, tilts his head a little. His nod is barely a twitch. "You're the man with the coffee."
"That's right," Sam says, relief gusting his voice. "My name is Sam. The coffee's from the V.A. You came there a couple times. Do you remember that?"
Bucky nods again.
"I'm glad," Sam says. He's grateful. He was almost certain Bucky and Tony would end up killing each other. "So, you know I'm not a handler. Tony isn't one either. We're not going to hurt you. Can you put your weapon down? Please?"
"No," Bucky says, but he relaxes a tiny bit. He glances at Tony again. "He looks like Howard. I don't know him."
"Howard Stark was my father," Tony says, and for once there's nothing flip or sarcastic in it.
Bucky looks at him sharply, but if he remembers anything about how Howard died, nothing he does indicates it.
Sam licks his lips, trying to figure out where the hell to go from here. "Bucky, do you know where you are?"
Bucky looks suspicious, but he nods. "The vault. They kept me here."
"Yeah," Sam says. "Looks like you did quite a number on the place. I can understand how angry you must be, after what they did to you."
The grin Bucky gives him is nothing but a feral show of teeth. "They were waiting, before, when I came to see if Pierce was dead." The Russian accent is still weaving through the words. "The handlers, they knew I'd come back. I always come back. They told me to get in the chair again."
"What chair?" Tony says.
"I wouldn't do it," Bucky says. His voice is full of ice and knives. "They tried to make me."
"Is that how you were wounded?" Sam asks him.
Bucky nods. "I killed them all. They can't hurt me anymore."
The copious bloodstains make more sense now. Sam assumes that Bucky hid the bodies like any intelligent assassin. He's pretty sure now that's why Bucky didn't show up again until days later, when he all but keeled over in the break room. But Sam doesn't really want to know for certain. "Good," he says. He doesn't feel guilty for how much he means it.
"How many were there?" Tony asks. He hasn't moved anything but his head, looking around with an expression of horrified admiration.
"Fifteen."
"Fifteen?" Tony parrots. "Holy shit. Remind me not to throw you any surprise parties."
"Tony, Stop talking," Sam says to him before he turns back to Bucky. "Do you remember leaving the V.A. last night?"
He nods.
"I was worried about you," Sam says. "Tony helped me find you."
He realizes that was exactly the wrong thing to say when Bucky backs up a step, staring at Tony with panic flashing through his eyes.
"For Steve," Tony says quickly. "Steve Rogers? Captain America? Your best friend? He wanted us to find you. To make sure you're okay."
Bucky shakes his head. "He's not my friend. He's nothing. He's the mission." He sounds American again, but he bares his teeth, shifts like he's ready to attack. "You're lying."
"Bucky, if you remember me than you know I don't lie, right?" Sam says. He ignores how Tony kind of just did; the sentiment is true enough anyway.
"Everyone lies," Bucky says.
"Yeah, sometimes. But have I ever lied to you?"
Bucky looks at him with narrow-eyed consideration. "No."
"Okay. Good," Sam says on a breath. "Steve Rogers is your friend, Bucky. Hydra wanted you to kill him. They forced you to come after us on the bridge, and to try and stop him on the helicarrier. But he's your friend. Steve Rogers is your friend."
"He's my mission."
"What mission?" Tony cuts in. "You don't have a mission. You killed all your handlers. There's no one left who could give you one."
Bucky blinks at him. He opens his mouth, closes it. He looks lost. "No. You have to complete the mission. Always. If you don't, they hurt you. I…I'm the Asset. I need…I…"
Abruptly Bucky's eyes shoot wide and he backs to the wall farthest away from them. He goes into a fighting stance, completely and terribly alert. The red smeared around Bucky's face accentuates the sudden deathly pallor of his skin.
"Bucky, what's happening?" Sam asks him. "What's wrong?"
"Stay back," Bucky spits. He's shaking so hard his teeth are chattering. "J-just keep the fuck away from me. I-I can't…" He switches to Russian mid-sentence
"J, what's he saying?" Tony says.
"I'm afraid the syntax is jumbled, sir, but the general idea is that he's expecting some kind of punishment for failing his superiors. I fear, sir, that your statement about missions has made him perceive you as a threat."
Fucking Tony, Sam thinks. "Tony, get out. Get out of here."
"Um, no." Sam doesn't take his eyes away from Bucky to look at him, but he can hear Tony's footsteps and he's sure he's edging closer to his armor. Bucky's eyes are fastened on Tony like a hawk and he keeps adjusting his grip on the piece of metal. "I'm not a handler," Tony says to him. "I'm sure as hell not Hydra, and I'm really, really not interested in fighting you. But I will defend myself and Sam. You get it?"
"F-fuck you," Bucky says.
"You're making it worse," Sam hisses at Tony. He slides in front of him like he had earlier. "Bucky. Bucky, look at me. Look at me, please." He's not sure Bucky's looking at anything in the room right now, but when his eyes flick in his direction Sam goes with it anyway. "I swear to you, you're safe." It feels like he's said some variation of those words a thousand times. "No one here's going to hurt you. You can stand down, Bucky. You don't need to protect yourself. You're safe."
"No." Bucky shakes his head frantically. "No. I'm not safe. I'm not safe. Let me go."
"Okay," Sam says. It's the last thing he wants to do, but he steps to the side, turning a little to tug Tony with him. "Come on. Let him leave."
"What? We just found him," Tony protests, though he doesn't pull against Sam's hold on his arm. "We're just going to let him walk out of here? Seriously? He's covered in blood. What if he drops dead?"
"If he wants help he knows where to find me." Sam stops them only when another step back would have them tripping over the wreckage of the chair. "Go ahead," he says to Bucky. "It's okay. We won't stop you."
Bucky looks warily at both of them but he steps away from the wall. He walks carefully toward the round vault door, keeping his eyes on Tony and Sam the whole time. But he's only taken a few steps when his eyes go unfocussed and the improvised blade slips from his hand to clatter on the floor. Bucky sways, then drops to his knees.
"Jesus Christ!" Sam chucks his caution and races over to him, skidding to his knees in time to catch him as Bucky's eyes roll back and he pitches forward. "Help me," he barks at Tony, even though Tony's already there, his hands wrapped securely around Bucky's metal arm. Together they lower him carefully to the marble, unfolding his legs so he's on his back.
"Okay," Tony says a little breathlessly, "what the hell just happened?"
"You saw what happened. He's injured, and he's had about 40 minutes of sleep and one lousy meal in the last three days," Sam says. "He's also stressed as hell and scared out of his mind."
"And you were seriously just going to let him leave?" Tony sounds disgusted.
Sam bristles but holds it in. "Do you think I wanted to? What would you have done? Physically restrained him? How would that have helped?"
"He'd be physically restrained," Tony says like it's obvious. He yanks a multi tool out of a nylon belt holster with the word 'Starktool' on it, then lifts Bucky's left arm, carefully rotating it in his hands. "This is really gross. He smells like a dead goat. A blood-soaked, dead goat."
Sam ignores that too, though he can't exactly disagree. He has no idea if Bucky can get infections anymore, but getting him clean somehow needs to be a priority. "What are you doing?"
Bucky groans, rolling his head back and forth on the floor as he struggles his way back to consciousness.
"Helping," Tony says. He glances worriedly at Bucky but immediately goes back to deftly removing a metal cover on his arm that Sam hadn't even seen. "Keep him calm, will you? He probably wouldn't appreciate this."
"Shh, it's okay," Sam says to Bucky while he's glaring at Tony. He pets Bucky's hair—it's disgusting, but he's dealt with worse—gambling that it's not the kind of touch Bucky would associate with punishment. It seems to work, at least a little. Bucky's weak thrashing slows down.
Tony's holding his multi tool in his teeth with his fingers deep inside Bucky's arm. He's muttering quietly to himself about lousy Soviet workmanship. "This is horrible," he says around the tool. His fingers stay gentle despite the vehemence of his words. "Unbelievably, utterly horrible. When's the last time anyone upgraded this thing? Never mind. I'm sure he doesn't remember." He swipes his tool from his mouth and squints as he carefully nudges it inside. "But seriously, he might as well have a broom handle with a hook on it..."
He twists something, and Bucky lets out a soft breath and sags into complete unconsciousness.
"Bucky? Oh, my God." Sam checks Bucky's pulse. He's no expert, but he's had first aid training and he can tell it's strong even if it's beating too fast. He whirls on Tony. "What the hell did you do to him?"
Tony shrugs. "Just a bit of biofeedback. Enough to put the kid out for a few hours. Hopefully long enough to get him wherever he needs to be. I vote shower." He snaps his multi tool shut with a smug lack of repentance that makes Sam want to punch his teeth in.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Sam demands. "I said you weren't going to hurt him!"
"I didn't." Tony's actually indignant, like Sam's insulted his integrity. "He's asleep, that's all. He looks like he could use it. And I don't know about you, but personally I'm not too thrilled with the idea of transporting an alert, mentally unstable assassin anywhere. Are you? This way he gets some sleep and we don't get killed. It's win/win."
Sam runs his hand over his hair. "And what happens when he wakes up with no idea where he is? How can we expect him to trust us after that?"
Tony claps Sam on the shoulder. "Hey, we wanted to help him, right? So, this is helping." His expression darkens. "And honestly? Between keeping all of us alive or making Bucky comfortable, I'd fucking duct-tape him to the roof of your car if I had to. This way we get to avoid that."
Sam takes a long, deep breath. "All right. Damn it."
Tony just grins. "J.A.R.V.I.S., open the suit, please. I need to carry Sleeping Bloody over here, and he looks heavy."
"I still think you're crazy," Tony says. He's leaning against Sam's kitchen counter, his fingers tapping restlessly on the edge.
"Yeah, I heard you the first twenty times," Sam says, handing him a mug of coffee. "I still think it's a better idea than taking him all the way to New York."
"Avengers Tower has a fully-staffed medical suite, and access to the best head-shrinkers in the world, including ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. And a room that can contain the Hulk," Tony counters. He sips his coffee. "Hey, this is good."
"Thanks," Sam says dryly. There's a creak from somewhere and both he and Tony go still, listening. But whatever it is, the noise isn't Bucky moving around. "New York is also about a three hour drive from here. And at least this way he'll wake up in a city he recognizes."
"He grew up in New York."
"In a city he recognizes." Sam drinks some of his own coffee; it really isn't bad.
Tony snorts. "In a guest room of a house he's never been in before."
Sam shrugs. "At least he can get out whenever he wants." He eyes Tony. "I can't help him if he doesn't trust me. And he won't trust me if he wakes up in a locked room in a building in New York. He sure as hell won't trust any of your world-class shrinks either."
"Fine. I get it. Whatever. You know he probably has fleas, right?" Tony gives an obviously mock-shudder before he drinks more coffee. "You'll have to get your car fumigated."
Sam just rolls his eyes, not bothering to answer that. Iron Man had carried Bucky out of the bank and bundled him into the back of Sam's car. It'd been an anxious drive to Sam's house, but Bucky hadn't woken up, not even when Iron Man carried him into the house and up the stairs and then put him on top of the covers of the guest bed. Sam wanted to at least clean out his multitude of lacerations, but he remembered how badly Bucky had reacted to his offer to help with his wounds back at the V.A. Sam didn't want to find out what would happen if Bucky woke up with someone else's hands on him. The graze and the knife slash are healing all right; hopefully the smaller cuts will be fine.
In the end all they'd taken off were Bucky's boots and socks.
The last time Sam checked on him, the kid was still dead to the world. That was over two hours ago, though. Sam expects to hear Bucky screaming any second.
He drinks more coffee, glances at the clock on the stove. "Do you think we should call Natasha?"
"I really doubt Steve's kicked the farm in the last half-hour, Junior birdman," Tony says, though the way his mouth twitches shows that he's just as worried as Sam. He takes another gulp of coffee, then checks his watch as if it'd have a different time than the stove. "God, I can't stand waiting."
"You don't have to," Sam says. "I mean, you were all set to fly to Landsthul. Just go."
Tony frowns at him. "Sick of me already? I'm hurt." He shakes his head. "Sorry, flyboy, but I'm not leaving you alone with Bucky Banzai."
Sam tries not to sigh but it ends up as a yawn anyway. "I'll be fine, Tony. He's not going to hurt me. Worst case scenario, he'll just rabbit again."
"No, that's the best case scenario. Worst case scenario is that he'll go completely and utterly medieval on your ass before he does a Wile E. Coyote through the wall. And I am not explaining to Capsicle or Natasha that I left you all by your lonesome with the howling-mad commando so I could go vigiling at his bedside. Besides." he slurps his coffee. "German food sucks."
"No it doesn't," Sam says, then yawns again.
"American hospital food in Germany sucks," Tony amends. "And go take a nap already. You keep making me yawn when you yawn. I hate that."
Sam rubs an eye with the heel of his hand. He really is exhausted. He hasn't slept, and he knows he needs to be alert enough to deal with Bucky whenever he wakes up. "All right. If Madison calls—"
"I'll tell your boss that my lover is still sick but that I'm taking great care of him so she doesn't have to worry. And he pinky-swears he'll pay for the orange juice." Tony eyes Sam over the rim of his mug, eyebrows raised pleasantly in challenge.
"I am not two-timing Pepper, Stark," Sam says. He shakes his head. "Steve didn't give me nearly enough warning about you."
Tony smirks. "No one ever gives enough warning about me." He juts his chin at the living room. "Go lie down, snookums."
Sam sighs. He finishes his coffee and puts the mug in the sink. "Wake me up as soon as he does, all right?" He knows he'll wake up if Bucky screams. "Or if you hear anything from Natasha."
"Of course," Tony says. His smile fades as they both contemplate what a call from Natasha might mean. "We should tell him about Bucky. I mean, Natasha should, as soon as he's awake. It's weird that he's the only one who doesn't know."
"I tried to," Sam says. Now he wishes more than anything he'd never kept the information from Steve at all. Maybe Steve would've been more careful, if he'd known it was possible to see his friend again. "Bucky still doesn't remember him."
Tony shrugs like that's completely immaterial. "It'll be fine. Captain Amicable will win him over with his big, patriotic blue eyes and they'll be besties again in no time. You'll see."
Sam's pretty sure that Tony's trying to convince himself as much as Sam that there's going to be a happy ending here, but he's too tired to argue even if he didn't want to believe it. So, "Sure," he says, then glances at Tony's Iron Man suit, which somehow transformed itself into a briefcase that Tony slid under the kitchen table. "Just, don't freak him out."
"I never freak people out," Tony says. "Can I give him a bath? 'Cause, you know, he really needs a bath. Or at least a sheep dip. Can I give him a sheep dip?"
"You can give him a sandwich, if he's hungry," Sam says, walking out of the room. "And coffee. He likes that."
"What about disinfectant spray?" Tony's cheerful question follows after him.
Sam wakes up on the living room couch in the slant of late afternoon sunlight, feeling groggy and barely more rested than he did when he lay down. Tony's sprawled on the loveseat, his fingers flying over the screen of a Starktab. Sam's Starktab, as a matter of fact. Sam can't tell if he's working or playing, but whatever's on the screen looks complicated.
"Well, hello there, Tinkerbelle," Tony says, not even glancing away from the tablet. "Sleep well? You snore like a bulldog with a deviated septum, by the way. Just saying."
"You already used Tinkerbelle," Sam says. He sits up, rubbing his eyes. The pain in his shoulder has dialed down to a dull ache, which is a relief. "What time is it?"
"Little after five," Tony supplies immediately. "Bucky's still in la-la land, but Nat called. Steve hasn't woken up yet, but they already upgraded him from 'critical' to 'serious but stable'. Not that 'serious' sounds much better, really. But I have it on good authority that it is. I'm sure they'll upgrade him to 'fair but middling' in a couple hours."
Sam stares at him. He reminds himself to breathe. "So, Steve's all right?"
"Kind of? Mostly?" Tony shrugs. "I mean, I Googled it, and 'serious' isn't all that awesome, but it's still better than 'critical'. And considering it's nowhere close to 24 hours, I figure it's okay? And Nat seemed worried-inscrutable instead of scared-inscrutable, so. Probably okay."
"Thank God," Sam says on a heavy gust of air. He gets to his feet, giving his head a quick shake, his heart still fluttering with the almost painful flood of relief. He heads into the kitchen and drinks a couple glasses of water from the tap, goes to make more coffee but sees that the pot is nearly full. "How's Bucky?" he asks when Tony comes into the room.
"Seemed fine. Out like a Soviet-era light," Tony says. He grabs a single mug from the cupboard and pours coffee for himself. "I checked on him like, three minutes ago."
"That's good," Sam says. He waits a moment, then gets himself a mug when it's obvious Tony isn't going to. "I'm surprised he was able to sleep that long."
"I'm a genius," Tony says like it's the only explanation. He walks to the fridge and opens the door, peering inside like he owns the house. "Hey, you got anything to eat in…" He stops, looks up at the ceiling and then at Sam. "Is that the shower running?"
"Yes it is," Sam says slowly. "You said he was asleep."
"He was! Well, I thought he was." Tony gestures vaguely at his eyes. "You know, his eyes were shut and he was all deep-breathey and stuff."
"Apparently not," Sam says. He'd left some toiletries with a tee-shirt, hoodie and a pair of sweatpants folded on the dresser with a note, in case Bucky wanted to change. But Bucky actually using the shower is unexpected. "Do you think he's snowing us?"
Tony absently shuts the fridge door. "You mean, turn the shower on but actually climb out a window? I've done that." They're both still staring at the ceiling. "Should we go check?"
"I can think of less embarrassing ways to die," Sam says. He looks at the stove clock. "Let's give him twenty minutes." Sam normally uses less than half that time himself, but Bucky has a lot of blood to wash out. "If the shower doesn't turn off I'll go see if he's really in it."
"What if he likes long showers?" Tony asks, but doesn't protest more than that.
Eleven and a half minutes later, the water stops running. Tony and Sam look at each other again.
"Okay, now what?" Tony says.
"We wait," Sam says, because he has no idea beyond that. "If he wants to come down, he'll come down."
"What if he's plotting to kill us with Q-tips?"
"He's not plotting anything, Tony," Sam sighs. "He's trying to get clean." Maybe trying to remind himself what it's like to live a normal existence. Sam goes to the fridge and pulls out a carton of eggs and a package of bacon. Not exactly dinner food, but it's easy to make and it tastes good and it's recognizable.
He has Tony wash and slice some apples while he cooks, both of them listening for Bucky but trying not to be obvious about it.
The eggs are just about overcooked when Bucky comes down the stairs.
Sam glances at him, careful not to stare. Bucky's shaved, and he looks young and vulnerable in the hoodie, with the sleeves yanked all the way down and his hands in the pouch in front. Sam wonders if he's trying to hide his arm. Bucky's feet are bare, but bandaged. The largest cut on his forehead has two neat butterfly bandages holding the skin together. He's less pale for having a few hours' sleep, but his eyes are still shadowed, holding a darkness that Sam can only guess at.
"Hey, you're just in time for dinner," Sam says. "Come sit down and I'll serve you." He doesn't ask if Bucky wants anything to eat because he knows it's pointless.
Bucky hovers on the bottom step, silent and assessing. Then he moves carefully around Tony in the small kitchen, freeing his hands into loose fists. Sam's not surprised when Bucky sits where he has the best view of the room.
He gives Bucky a generous portion of bacon and eggs, gives somewhat less to Tony and himself—he made plenty—then goes to the fridge and grabs the carton of orange juice and the bowl of quartered apples. "Could you get us each a fresh coffee, please?" he says to Tony, whose idea of helping set the table had apparently began and ended with a plate and fork each. Sam gets the glasses out of the cupboard and portions out the juice.
"I haven't had eggs for dinner since the last time I went on a bender," Tony says musingly, looking at his plate. "Then again, I think that was three in the morning. So maybe it qualified as breakfast."
"If you don't want it, feel free to make yourself something else," Sam says as he sits down. He quietly takes four apple slices out of the bowl and puts them on the corner of Bucky's plate. "My mom always used to make waffles for dinner on Fridays." He forks up some of the eggs. "I think I was ten years old before I found out that they were actually breakfast food."
He can't tell if Bucky's listening, but he didn't start eating until Sam did. Sam has no idea if that's 1940s politeness or him just making sure that the food's safe to eat. It's sad either way.
They eat mostly in silence. Sam puts hot sauce on his eggs and then has to endure Tony's ribbing about it, which somehow segues into trading stories of awful school lunches. But that dies off pretty quickly. It's hard to keep up a light conversation next to Bucky's oppressive quiet. He drinks and eats like someone starving but trying not to show it, and then when he's finished he sits quietly with his hands on the table, like he's waiting to be dismissed. He eyes the food Sam left on the stove like he's still hungry, but he doesn't say anything.
He won't say anything, Sam knows. It makes his stomach clench like he's eaten lead.
"You can have more if you want," Tony says to Bucky.
Bucky looks at Tony and fear flashes through his eyes before the impassive curtain drops again. He doesn't say anything.
Sam takes a breath, searching for the right words, but Tony beats him to it.
"You're allowed to want stuff, you know," he says. "Seriously. No one's going to beat you up or stick matches under your fingernails if you take more bacon. Look." He stabs the last piece of bacon off Sam's plate and takes a large bite of it. "See? No problem."
Sam gives Tony a mild glare. "Don't do that. It's rude. He's right though," he says to Bucky. "If you want more food, or anything, you can just ask for it." He's about to add that Bucky could just get it himself if he wants, but decides that's a bad idea. He has a feeling that the Winter Soldier is used to stealing; he doesn't want Bucky to think of this as a mission. "Would you like more food?" he asks gently.
Bucky hesitates, eyes darting like he's looking for a trap, but he nods.
"Thanks for telling me," Sam says. He takes Bucky's plate, fills it and brings it back, then gives him the last of the apples too. Bucky watches him the whole time like he's waiting for something terrible to happen. He hesitates before he eats as well, probably for the same reason.
"I wish Steve were here," Tony says softly.
Sam nods.
Bucky glances up at the name, but he doesn't say anything.
Sam makes Tony help him clear, but Tony says Bucky just watching them is making him nervous, so Sam asks him to wash the dishes. He's worried that Bucky doesn't want to but isn't able to refuse, but Bucky goes right to the sink and starts running the water like he doesn't mind. Sam hopes he doesn't mind.
It's disconcerting, watching Bucky hold the plates and glasses with the same hand he's used to rip metal apart. He doesn't talk while he works, which isn't surprising, but he's careful and meticulous—probably too careful and meticulous—and everything gleams when he puts it in the dish rack. Bucky dries his hands just as carefully, then looks at Sam like he's waiting for further orders.
"Thank you. You did a great job," Sam says, hoping he sounds appreciative rather than patronizing.
Bucky just looks at him. "This is your house."
Sam blinks. "Yes it is."
"Am I a prisoner?"
"What? No, of course not," Sam says immediately, horrified. But Tony laughs.
"Sorry," he says when Sam and Bucky both look at him. "It's just, seriously? What part of the comfy bed, bacon and hot shower screams 'captive' to you?" He shakes his head. "If you think this is imprisonment, I have a cave in Afghanistan I'd love to show you."
The way his eyes go distant for a moment tells Sam all he needs to know about the cave in Afghanistan. He knows as much of that story as anyone who followed it in the media does, but he wonders if Tony's ever actually talked to anyone about it. He bets not.
Bucky just seems confused. "Then why am I here?"
Tony crosses his arms, lifts his eyebrows. "Um, bleeding to death in a wrecked basement ring any bells?"
"It didn't impede my functioning."
Tony stares at him. "Jesus, that's terrifying. Look, Skynet, we gave you a place to crash, that's all. And you're functioning a hell of a lot better now than you were, unless you think being passed out on the floor didn't impede anything."
Sam's fairly sure that Tony's not actively trying to bewilder Bucky with the jargon, but Bucky doesn't look any closer to getting it. "That wasn't me," he says.
Tony blinks at him, looking completely derailed. "It sure as hell looked like you."
Bucky blinks back. "That wasn't me. I'm the Asset."
"Okay. This is officially creeping me the hell out, here," Tony's nearly gaping. "Your name is Bucky. You know that, right? Please tell me you know that."
Bucky switches his gaze to Sam, ignoring Tony entirely. "Are you going to assign me a mission?"
"Fuck, no!" Tony blurts.
"No," Sam says, tightly but far more calmly. "You needed a safe place to sleep, so we brought you here. That's all. We just want to help you, Bucky. Do you remember what I said about that before?" He hates talking to Bucky like he's a child, but Bucky is so erratic right now that Sam has no idea what he may or may not remember.
"You said most people choose to help."
"Yeah. Exactly." Sam nods quickly, relieved. "We're choosing to help you. That's all this is. We just want you to be all right."
"Why?"
Sam manages to not close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose. He can't imagine the years of abuse that would lead to that simple question, or Bucky's complete inability to grasp the answer. "Because you deserve to be all right," he says. "You deserve to be able to sleep without nightmares, and to know your name and where you're from. You deserve to have a place you feel safe in, and to be able to say you want something. You deserve to be happy."
"Wow, Oprah, that was beautiful," Tony says. "If that was a little too Hallmark for you," he continues to Bucky, "Sammy means that we know you were a decent guy before the Soviets and Hydra got their claws into you. Hell, Capsi—Steve Rogers—talks about you like you're made of kittens and rainbows. What those bastards did to you was evil and wrong and you didn't deserve any of it. So, you know." He shrugs. "We're trying to help you get your head on straight."
"They gave me purpose," Bucky says.
"You had a purpose," Sam says, unable to help the anger bleeding into his voice. "They stole it from you. They forced you to take the purpose they wanted, not you. You never wanted any of it, did you?"
Bucky looks like he can't understand a single word Sam just said. He turns wordlessly from Sam to Tony, as if trying to piece together some kind of answer from their faces. "It hurts," he says finally. "If you fail. They hurt you."
Tony swears under his breath. He slides his palms up over his eyes and into his hair. "I can't do this," he says. "I cannot take any more of this." He looks at his Iron Man suit as if he wants to put it on and just jet away. Sam can't blame him. "No one is going to hurt you, Bucky. Can you get that? Can you get that at all? No one is going to point you at anybody and pull the trigger anymore. The Soviet Union is dead like dinosaurs. Hydra is nothing but flailing wreckage. The war is over, Bucky. The war is over and we won and you can go home."
Bucky stares at him blankly, then walks out of the kitchen into the living room.
Tony blinks after him, then looks at Sam. "What'd I say?"
"Nothing," Sam says on a sigh. "It's okay." He goes after Bucky, shaking his head.
Bucky is sitting at one end of the couch with his bare feet flat on the floor. He's hugging himself, staring at some fixed point on the worn wood.
"Hey," Sam says. He crouches in front of him, trying to catch Bucky's eyes. Bucky refuses to look at him. "Can you tell me what's going on?"
"The vault," Bucky says. "I go back to the vault, after the mission. And the chair. Then the cylinder."
"You destroyed them," Sam says. "You don't have to go back there anymore."
"I always go back," Bucky says. He finally looks at Sam and his eyes are haunted. "Why do I go back? I hate it. I hate it. They…my head…" He squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head violently like he's trying to physically throw away a thought. His breathing speeds up like he's on the verge of another panic attack. "It hurts," he breathes. "It hurts. It hurts."
"Hey," Sam says again. "Hey. Hey, look at me." Bucky doesn't. "Bucky! Look at me!"
Bucky snaps his head up, blinking.
"You're in Washington D.C. In my house. No one's hurting you. You're safe. You're safe," Sam says, making his voice kinder. "Do you know where you are?"
Bucky jerks a few too-quick nods. He's still breathing too fast.
"Great," Sam says. "We're going to do that breathing thing again. You remember?"
Bucky nods again, then obediently copies each of Sam's breaths until he calms.
"Better?"
Maybe the real question should be, 'not worse?', but at least Bucky gives him another couple of head bobs in reply.
Tony walks in, surprisingly quietly. He has a half-full glass of orange juice. "Here." He doesn't quite thrust it at Bucky. "I remember that my mouth would get dry, sometimes. With the, uh, breathing."
"You don't have to have it, if you don't want it," Sam says.
Bucky takes the juice.
Tony turns the television on and chooses a movie from the cable list seemingly at random, though he's too busy playing with the Starktab to watch it. Sam had already figured Tony's the kind of person who always needs some noise around him, probably to distract him from the noise in his head. If Tony were Sam's client he'd try to help him with that, but Tony's not and Sam knows better than to even try.
He can't tell what Bucky thinks about the chattering of the TV. Bucky's eyes are on the screen but Sam doesn't think he's actually watching it. It's a black-and-white comedy, probably from the 30s by the clothes, so maybe not such a random choice after all. But Bucky doesn't even crack a smile.
He's so still that Sam, who is watching the movie more-or-less, has no idea Bucky's fallen asleep until Tony does a double take and then catches Sam's attention to point at him. Bucky's hands are hidden in the hoodie pouch and he's still sitting upright. The only obvious tell that he's asleep is that his eyes are closed. It doesn't look comfortable.
Tony arches his eyebrows, clearly asking what they should do. Sam shrugs. He wants to get Bucky back upstairs where he'll be more comfortable, but at the same time he knows how precarious this peace is and doesn't want to shatter it by waking him.
Tony shrugs in return, then goes back to whatever he was doing on his Starktab. It's early, but Sam's still tired and he wants to go to bed himself. His own, actual bed. But he's reluctant to leave Bucky like this with only Tony to watch out for him. He likes Tony, but as much as he knows the man's heart is in the right place, so far he's only managed to make every volatile situation worse.
Sam settles on a (very) quick shower and then brushes his teeth and changes into the kind of pj pants and tee-shirt he doesn't mind collecting the paper in. He goes back downstairs with a sleeping bag and boots Tony out of the loveseat, pointing to the kitchen.
Tony grumbles halfheartedly about lousy hosts but goes, taking the tablet with him. Sam grins to himself and stretches out as best he's able on the loveseat with the sleeping bag, leaving the couch to Bucky. He'd like to give Bucky a blanket, but he remembers how badly that turned out back at the V.A. He doesn't want to make the almost-certain nightmares worse.
The loveseat isn't very comfortable, but despite how tired Sam is, he doesn't feel much like sleeping anyway; there's too much going on in his head, and very little of it pleasant. He texts Natasha to find out how Steve is doing. He's not surprised that she's awake even though it's got to be at least two in the morning over there. It's very easy to imagine her in Steve's room, her deceptive calm as she watches over him.
She says that Steve's still improving, faster than the doctors thought he could. She told Steve about Bucky, but wishes she hadn't because now all he wants to do is leave.
Sam grins at the little screen, sure now that Steve will be all right. He asks if they were able to get his shield back after the fight and how Natasha's doing, and he tells her about Tony's chaotic, uncertain kindness.
Tony's a beautiful idiot, Natasha writes back. I'm fine. Have the shield. Easier than fishing it out of the Potomac. Hate hospital food. Cap keeps trying to get up. V. annoying. He's OK but in a lot of pain. Med's don't work. You safe?
Sam's smile widens, his heart thumping like a kid. Yes, he responds. B is asleep. T breaking my Starktab. He hesitates, thumbs just above the little phone keys, then writes, Miss you.
She answers: Sap. :) And right after that: me too.
Sam's face breaks into a full-blown grin. He starts a message asking her if she'd like to meet him for dinner some time once she and Steve are back in the U.S. and everyone's healthy. But he's only two words in before Bucky starts murmuring in Russian.
Immediately Sam rockets off the couch, dropping the phone onto the cushions. Bucky's voice is louder now, angry. He's moving like his hands are bound, struggling to get free. He tips himself over onto the couch and his eyes shoot open.
"Bucky?" Sam says, but Bucky's not awake. He growls something, struggles harder and kicks out viciously at whatever he's trying to escape from. Then he gasps and cries out, arching like he's being hurt.
Tony comes barreling into the room but stops at Sam's outstretched arm. "What do we do?"
"Bucky, WAKE UP!" Sam shouts the way he did the first time, but whatever Bucky's dreaming has too much of a hold on him and he continues to fight against the phantoms in his head.
Tony shouts something in Russian and Bucky gasps and sits bolt upright.
Tony taps his ear. "J.A.R.V.I.S.," he explains softly to Sam.
"Bucky, you okay? You with us? You had a nightmare. You're safe. You're okay," Sam says.
Bucky looks at them both wildly and Sam has a vivid recollection of Bucky's hands around his throat. "It's Sam and Tony," he says. "We're not going to hurt you."
Bucky says something that's obviously a question, but he's speaking Russian again.
Fuck. Sam can't tell this time if Bucky wants to speak English but can't, or if he doesn't remember English at all. Sam looks at Tony. "What'd he say?"
"Um." Tony squints, listening to the AI's translation. "He doesn't understand what you're saying. He wants to know if we rescued him from the Russians."
"What?" Sam turns back to Bucky, bewildered. "Bucky, you're speaking Russian. Do you know that?"
"Yeah. No clue what you're saying," Tony says a moment after Bucky's reply. "J.A.R.V.I.S., how do I say 'you're speaking Russian' in Russian?" His face screws up in concentration as he listens, then haltingly repeats a few words that even Sam can tell are badly mispronounced.
Bucky frowns. He's obviously confused as hell, but at least he's not panicked or angry. Yet.
That he might actually panic only gets more likely when Bucky says something back, speaking rapid-fire and looking at Tony like he's lost his mind.
"He thinks he's speaking English," Tony says.
"Okay, that's bad," Sam says. He smiles at Bucky, trying to be reassuring. "How the hell do we get him to speak English if he thinks he's speaking English?"
"Hit him on the head again?"
Sam's phone pings behind him to say he's got another text, and he sucks in a breath. "Keep talking to him. I've got an idea."
He snatches up his phone, barely paying attention to Tony's halting questions and Bucky's puzzled replies. Please stay calm, Bucky, he thinks. Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm. The text is from Natasha, asking if he's all right. Perfect. "I'll be right back," he says and darts into the kitchen to grab his Starktab off the table. Tony's opened about 40 apps, but it's still working fine so he calls her via Starktime.
She picks up almost immediately. She looks tired and harried and worried and her hair is messy and her eyes have streaks underneath them. Sam can only see how beautiful she is, and he can't stop the idiot grin on his face, despite everything.
"Sam." She smiles back, though it's as weary and pale as the rest of her. "Just a moment." She turns her head. "Steve, if you try to get up again I will kill you. I will absolutely kill you. Stop. Fucking. Moving." She waits a second, then turns back to the screen with a sigh. "What is it?"
Sam wishes he could just talk with her. Later, he promises himself. He can hear Tony mangling Russian and Bucky's increasingly frustrated answers in the background. "It's Bucky. He's speaking in Russian and he can't understand English and I need you to talk to him before he gets lost in his head. Can you do that, please?"
Her eyes narrow dangerously, but all the blood seems to have drained from her face. "Is he the Winter Soldier?"
"No. We're all fine," Sam says quickly, answering the unspoken question. "I'm pretty sure he's himself. Just, with the wrong language."
"Which self?"
Sam opens his mouth, then realizes that he can't actually answer that. "Bucky," he says at last. "But we can't talk to him."
She takes a deep, fortifying breath. "All right."
"Did he say 'Bucky'?" Steve says. Sam can't see him, but he sounds shockingly weak, worse than when he'd woken up in the hospital after the helicarriers went down. "Is Bucky there?" There's so much hope and concern in his voice that Sam winces.
Natasha gets up. "It's just Sam," she says to Steve. Sam can tell she's walking to the door. "Remember, I will kill you," she adds to Steve as she goes through. Sam can hear her locking the door behind her. "Put him on."
"Yeah, sure. Hang on." Sam goes into the living room but stops himself before he just shoves the tablet into Bucky's hands. "Tony, tell him there's someone on this…television who'll be able to talk to him."
Tony garbles something that Bucky seems to understand. He looks dubious, but holds his hand out for the tablet. Sam gives it to him. Bucky looks impressed at the device, and then he looks at Natasha's face and his expression dissolves into blank astonishment, and then goes completely still. For too long of a moment he stays like that. Natasha says something but he either can't hear or can't register it. She repeats it, more loudly, and then all at once Bucky shakes himself like he just startled awake, and he looks at her like he's never seen anything more precious or perfect in his life.
"Natalia?"
Sam can't see Natasha's face, but he can feel the weight of her answering silence. And then, in a voice so hitched with shock it hardly sounds like hers, she says:
"Vanya?"
And Bucky smiles.
They talk for two hours.
Sam spends most of the time pacing in the kitchen, biting his tongue so he won't ask Tony to ask J.A.R.V.I.S. what they're saying. He knows J.A.R.V.I.S. will tell them if there's a reason to be concerned. Sam refuses to intrude on Natasha's and Bucky's privacy any more than that.
"They know each other? How the hell do they know each other?" Tony looks about as blindsided as Sam feels. It's not the first time he's said it.
"I don't know," Sam grinds out, again. "I didn't read her files."
"Yeah, well, I did." Tony's leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed and glaring into the living room like a parent on prom night. "There was nothing about the two of them coming in from the cold. How do they even know each other?"
"I don't know," Sam says. "I don't know. Steve said the closest she got to him before the bridge was when he shot her to get at the guy she was protecting."
"Sounds like some of my relationships." Tony scratches his chin. "The Black Widow and the Winter Soldier. Doesn't exactly have that 'Sonny and Cher' ring to it."
"She was a Russian secret agent before being recruited to S.H.I.E.L.D.," J.A.R.V.I.S. points out. "It is possible that she and Sergeant Barnes met during that time."
Sam hasn't read anything about the Winter Soldier that said he was let out of cryostasis for more than days at a time, but that doesn't mean it's true. They obviously have a history, no matter how improbable. The kind of history that made Bucky smile like he was a real, honest-to-God person. The kind of history Sam's trying not to be jealous of, but he's adult enough to admit that yeah, he is.
Except he's not sure who he's jealous of. Not Bucky—Natasha called him Vanya, just like the name he used with the three women back at the V.A. Sam had assumed it was an alias then, but he thinks of all the times Bucky's slipped randomly into Russian and he's not sure anymore. Natasha used it like it was his actual name, like Vanya was a completely different man. And he called Natasha 'Natalia'.
Bucky's called himself 'the Asset' twice now, not to mention switching languages and behavior seemingly at random and having a really bad reaction to being called 'James'. Sam doesn't know what to do with that, except wonder just who the hell is sitting in his living room.
"I think Bucky might have dissociative identity disorder," he says numbly. He looks at Tony. "I can't even believe I'm saying that. It sounds like something out of a movie. I've never worked with a client who was diagnosed with it. I don't even know any counselor who has."
"I'm pretty sure I told you not to bring him here," Tony responds.
"Yeah, you did." Sam leans against the counter next to Tony. He rubs at his eyes with his fingertips. "I don't know what I'm doing, Tony." It's nothing he hasn't been feeling for days, but it's somehow still worse to admit it out loud. "I'm so far over my head I'm just, drowning. I feel like I'm drowning. I'm a social worker. I run group sessions for veterans at the V.A. I have no idea how to deal with this. I don't even know who that is in there. Bucky? The Asset? Vanya? How can that even work?" He drops his hands and looks at Tony beseechingly, despite how he knows that Tony has no more answers here than he. "And how is he supposed to come back from that? Getting his brain ripped apart? I mean, he didn't even know what language he was speaking. How could he not know he wasn't speaking English? And he thought we'd rescued him from the Russians." His laugh barely qualifies as one. "I don't even know which Russians he was talking about." He blinks, then wipes his eyes with the heel of his hands. "How the hell am I supposed to help him, Tony? What the hell am I meant to do?"
"Whoa, hey. First of all, no offence but you're freaking me out." Tony pats Sam's back awkwardly. "Second, um. I have no idea. Seriously. Not a clue. But I do think that what you're doing—you know, the care and feeding stuff—I think that's helping. At the very least it's got to be better than living under a bridge or in the vault of evil or whatever the hell he was doing. And he nodded when you offered him more food at dinner and he hasn't tried to kill us even once since we brought him here. That's got to be progress, right?"
Sam's laugh is real this time, even if it's a little too wet. "Thanks."
Tony thumps him on the back again. "Anytime. I'm the king of pep-talks. Anyone will tell you."
"Tell you what?"
Bucky's standing in the kitchen entranceway, carrying the Starktab. He holds it out to Sam. "She hung up." He looks awake and alert and completely, utterly normal.
"Oh. Okay." Sam takes the tablet and slides it distractedly onto the counter. He knows how good Bucky's ears are; he wishes he knew how much Bucky heard. He can't imagine him not being upset by it, but Bucky only looks mildly curious. He definitely doesn't look like he's been speaking to his lover who he hasn't seen in God knows how long.
Next to him, Tony shuts his mouth with a snap. "You're speaking English."
Bucky blinks at Tony. "So are you."
"So," Sam says casually, "what did you and Natalia talk about?"
Bucky shrugs one shoulder. "Normal stuff. I haven't seen her in a while." He sounds like Natasha's an old neighbor he ran into at the grocery store, not the woman he called Natalia with reverence in his voice. For the life of him Sam doesn't know if he's lying.
"How long a while?" Tony asks, just as casually.
Bucky opens his mouth like he's about to answer, then closes it again. "I don't know," he says. "A few years, I guess?"
It really is a guess; that much Sam can tell. "I'm sure she can catch you up on everything when you see her again."
"Sure," Bucky says, but then he frowns like something's wrong. "But, she's not…"
"Not what?" Sam asks.
Bucky goes quiet, unfocussed and Sam takes a silent, fortifying breath as he waits for this fragile moment of equilibrium to burst.
"I don't know," Bucky says at last. He shakes his head helplessly. "I don't know."
"Hey, hey, it's all right," Tony jumps in. He grins. "We all know people who aren't something. There're all kinds of things I'm not. You'll figure it out, or Nat'll tell you. Don't worry about it."
"There's something missing." Bucky scrapes his fingers through his hair. "There's always something missing. Why can't I remember?"
"You're tired," Sam says. It's true, though as a factor in Bucky's fractured memory it's probably so minor it's ridiculous. He makes himself smile. "You need a decent night's sleep. Everything's always easier in the morning, anyway. Come on." He starts to lead the way to the stairs, but stops and turns back on a sudden thought. "I'm sorry. I should have asked. Do you want to sleep?"
Bucky goes still.
"Whatever you want, Bucky," Sam says. "Just let me know."
Bucky swallows. "I can't."
"It's okay," Sam says. "It's okay. We'll work on it." He finds a smile somewhere. He reaches out to put his hand on Bucky's shoulder, only really registering what he's doing when Bucky jerks back. "Sorry," he says immediately. He checks the stove clock. It's just a little past nine, but Sam's exhausted too. "I'm going to go to bed myself anyway. So, why don't you take the guest room again? Come on." He starts towards the stairs, completely unsurprised when Bucky follows him.
Sam collects a pair of pjs while Bucky brushes his teeth with the toothbrush Sam gave him along with the razor. Bucky shaving hadn't surprised him, but somehow his cleaning his teeth does. Maybe it's the mundaneness of it, like Steve or Natasha eating breakfast. Sam hadn't entirely expected they would.
Bucky comes back into the hallway minty-fresh and looking way more like a kid Sam collected from a youth shelter than a super-villain. He blinks at the armful of clothes Sam hands him: dorm pants and an old tee-shirt and sweatshirt.
"To sleep in," Sam explains. "The sweatshirt's in case you get cold." It's one of Sam's favorites and he picked it especially, but he doesn't bother mentioning that. It's not like it could give Bucky any particular comfort through his nightmares.
"Thank you," Bucky says. The words have almost no inflection. Sam figures it's because Bucky still doesn't get why Sam's treating him like a human being.
"I'll be just down the hall." Sam points needlessly in the direction of his room. "If you need anything, just let me know." Not that Bucky would let him know, but Sam feels compelled to make the offer anyway.
Bucky nods.
Sam's tempted to say, 'please don't kill me in my sleep'. He knows Tony would. But either he trusts Bucky or he doesn't. So he just smiles and wishes him goodnight and watches as he silently pads into the guest room and shuts the door.
Sam takes a pillow and another set of pjs downstairs. Tony's on the couch bundled under the sleeping bag, still messing with the Starktab. Sam enjoys dropping the pjs and pillow on Tony's head before handing him another spare toothbrush and pointing him in the direction of the downstairs' bathroom. While Tony's gone, Sam rescues his Starktab and calls Natasha again.
There's no answer.
All the doors in Sam's house lock from the inside, but they're easy to open from the outside if you straighten a paperclip and slide it into the round hole in the center of the knob. Sam made sure he had a straightened paperclip on the bedside table before he went to sleep.
That was about an hour and a half ago. Now Bucky's thrashing and howling through another nightmare and Sam is willing his hands steady as he jimmies the door open.
He leaves the paperclip in the knob as the door swings inward, then throws on the light and hisses for Tony to stay out of the doorway. Sam isn't going to make that mistake again.
Bucky's on top of the covers, still in the sweatpants Sam gave him earlier, though he replaced the hoodie with the sweatshirt. As usual his eyes are wide open and he looks terrified. He's gone silent but he's breathing fast and hard like he's just finished a fight.
"Bucky, wake up," Sam says. "Bucky!"
All of a sudden Bucky throws his arms up and screams like his soul's being ripped out. He jolts awake, then flips over and curls into himself, shaking so hard Sam can see it easily from the other side of the room.
"Bucky." Sam goes to him, prepared to leap back or run, but Bucky doesn't look at him, either unaware or uncaring of Sam's proximity. It's impossible to see Bucky's face through the fall of sweat-damp hair, but there's a barely-present hitch in his breathing that makes Sam think he might be crying. He pets Bucky's hair the way he had back in the vault, hoping that the impersonal but painless touch will sooth him.
As soon as Sam's fingers brush his forehead Bucky flips over again and bolts upright, moving too fast for Sam to do more than gasp before Bucky grabs the front of his tee-shirt with both hands, gripping the worn cloth so tightly that Sam can hear stitches pop.
Tony yelps and rushes over, but Sam holds out his hand to stop him. "It's okay," he says quietly to both of them. Bucky's head is bent, his fists trembling around the strained folds of Sam's shirt. He is crying, wracked with it, but he's completely silent except for each tight, caught breath.
He's not using Sam the way someone might seek comfort from a friend. Sam's just an anchor here, a bulwark against the violence of Bucky's emotions. Bucky isn't even touching him, it's just the cloth of his shirt.
Sam tentatively puts his hand on Bucky's back. He's prepared to yank it away, but Bucky doesn't react. Sam starts rubbing his back, telling him that it's okay, that it was just a nightmare and Bucky's safe in D.C. All the standard words meant to reassure and calm that Sam's already sick of repeating. But he has nothing else.
Tony's retreated. Sam kind of wishes he could too.
Five more minutes, he thinks, and rubs Bucky's back and tells him it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
Sam counts out five minutes twice before Bucky takes a last shuddering breath and stops crying. He lets go of Sam's shirt immediately, sitting cross-legged on the bed with his face turned away while he wipes his eyes.
"Sorry," he rasps.
"Don't apologize," Sam says. "Crying's nothing to be ashamed of." He puts his hand on his back again, but Bucky stiffens so Sam lets go immediately. "Do you want to tell me what you were dreaming?"
Bucky's still looking away from him. He shrugs. "I fell." He mutters words in Russian that sound completely derisive, swiping angrily at his eyes. He shucks off the sweatshirt, then jerks up the left sleeve of the tee-shirt underneath. There're circles of sweat under his armpits and around the shirt collar. Bucky clenches his jaw, still murmuring in Russian, then purposely digs his nails into the scarred skin attached to his mechanical left arm. Only the pull of air through his gritted teeth hints at how much it has to hurt.
"Whoa! Hey, don't do that. Don't do that." Sam grabs Bucky's wrist before he thinks about it. Bucky is far stronger than he is, but he obediently lets Sam pull his arm back. There are four bloody crescent-shaped gouges in the crease right before the skin disappears under the metal. "What are you doing?"
Bucky glares at him, spits something else in Russian. "I cannot be weak. I will not be weak." His voice is tinged with the Russian accent Sam's come to hate. "Weakness is death."
"Crying isn't weak," Sam says, "it's natural. It's human. You're a human being. You're allowed to want things. You're allowed to feel. You're sure as hell allowed to cry."
"I'm the Winter Soldier. I don'tfeel," Bucky makes the word sound obscene. "I act."
"You're not the Winter Soldier," Sam says. "You're James Buchanan Barnes."
He expects another argument, not the fear that Sam's also come to hate clouding Bucky's eyes. "I'm not," he says. He sounds American again, but his voice is hushed with barely-leashed panic. "I'm not. I'm not James. I can't." He looks at Sam like he's begging him to make it true.
Sam traps the instant denial, the of course you're him behind his teeth. "Okay," he says. "It's okay. You don't have to be him." His gut clenches at the idea of Bucky being anyone else, because so far the alternatives have been horrific. But he won't force anything on Bucky, and right now that includes a name.
Bucky nods, looking marginally calmer.
"Um."
Startled, Sam swings his attention to the doorway. Bucky's startled as well, which says a hell of a lot for how upset he is, that he didn't see or hear Tony hovering just inside the room.
Tony lifts his hand, showing off the multi-tool. "I was just thinking, maybe you wanted to sleep without waking up from your own screaming every five minutes."
Sam can practically feel Bucky's wariness. His eyes are fixed on the multi-tool. "You used that before. To incapacitate me."
Sam winces. He was sure Bucky was too out of it to notice at the time.
But Tony just spreads his hands. "Yeah, well, it was way better than you going berserk in the back of Sam's Subaru. And you were able to sleep. I'm not going to force you. It's not like I could anyway. But…" He lifts and drops a shoulder. "I know what it's like, to dread going to sleep, because you know it'll be hell and you'll wake up even more exhausted. I know what it's like to hate your own brain because it starts fucking with you as soon as you close your eyes."
"Me too," Sam says.
Bucky looks back at him, but stays quiet.
"I used alcohol," Tony says. "I used…a lot of alcohol, to try to stop it. Sometimes it even worked. But, if you're anything like Steve that won't help you anyway. And, uh, it creates its own problems." He jiggles the multi-tool again. "This will let you sleep, but that's all. And it's just, sleep. You won't dream, but that's it. Believe me, I really wish someone had been able to do that for me."
"You can say no," Sam says. "You can leave, if you want to. Though I hope you won't. We just want to help."
Bucky looks at his arm, the red streaks that have at least stopped bleeding. For a moment Sam thinks he might even say yes, but when he shakes his head, Sam's not surprised.
"Okay," Tony says on a sigh. "I get it. You're being an idiot, just for the record, but I get it. I'm going back to bed."
"Goodnight," Sam says to his back.
Tony huffs. "As if."
The rest of the night is just as hellish as Tony predicted. Around four am and the fifth time Bucky's woken himself up with his own cries, Sam thinks, fuck it, and goes and lays down on the bed next to him. Bucky's apparently either too distressed or too exhausted by that point to care. Only the white of his open eyes in the dark lets Sam know he's even awake.
"Go back to sleep," he says. "I'm not going to do anything. I'm just here."
Bucky rolls onto his side. "M'not cold."
Sam smiles a little. That was one of the many things Steve told him about: how he and Bucky would occasionally share a bed and body heat in the freezing New York winters. "I'm just here," Sam says again. "Go to sleep."
Bucky closes his eyes.
Sam dozes next to him, until he's woken up by Bucky moaning in fear.
"It's okay, it's okay," Sam says. He cards his fingers through Bucky's hair. "You're safe. Go back to sleep."
He's actually astounded when Bucky does.
Sam has no recollection of falling asleep himself, but he wakes up with his hand still on Bucky's head and daylight streaming in through the window. What was nothing stranger than necessity last night feels incredibly awkward now, and Sam leaves as quickly and quietly as possible.
It's 10:37 in the morning by the time he's washed and dressed, so Sam's not surprised that Tony's up and wearing his clothes from the day before.
"I fixed your washing machine," he says, not looking up from the Starktab.
"Thanks," Sam says, a little thrown. He had no idea there was anything wrong with it. He gets the sliced bread out of the fridge, absently thinking he needs to go shopping at some point, but leaving Bucky for that long doesn't seem feasible. "You eat anything?"
"I finished the can of whipped cream." Tony glares at the tablet and moves or deletes something.
Sam rolls his eyes. "You can make your own toast." He comes over to the table while he's waiting for the bread to heat. "What are you doing with that, anyway?"
"Catching up on several months' worth of paperwork. Pepper's sure there's something terribly wrong with me."
"Those look like apps you're messing with."
Tony shrugs. "I got bored. You needed an update, like, stat."
"I pretty much just use it for emails." Sam hears the toast pop up and gets a plate from the cupboard. He puts two more slices in. "Have you heard anything from Natasha?"
"Nope." Tony puts the tablet aside then looks at Sam. "But, you know that dissociative identity disorder thing you were talking about? Well, I made a list of Bucky's alternate personalities."
Sam blinks. "Okay." He takes a bite of toast, chewing while he decides how to think about that. This stuff is so far above his pay grade it might as well be on the moon. "What do you have?"
"Four, so far." Tony makes a face. "Maybe four." He counts on his fingers. "Bucky, which is his default setting. Then there's the Winter Soldier, who I figure is the emergency backup personality. And may or may not also be the guy Nat called Vanya."
Sam nods. "I was wondering that myself." The other toast pops up and he puts the bread slices on a plate and starts slopping peanut butter on them. "If it's the Winter Soldier every time Bucky's speaking Russian. Like, maybe they bleed into each other." Part of him still can't even believe they're having this conversation at all, let alone debating how it might actually work.
Tony makes a face. "I don't have a fucking clue. Oh. Thanks." He takes the plate of peanut-butter toast from Sam. "I don't know—maybe Bucky's been timesharing his head so long that there's no difference between him and the Rooskie version anymore." He takes a bite.
"If you'll forgive the intrusion, sirs, I believe I may be able to clarify that," comes J.A.R.V.I.S.' crisp voice. Sam automatically slaps his ear before he realizes that the source is Tony's suit, still under the table.
"Cool," Tony says around another mouthful. "What you got, J?"
"I am fairly certain that it wasn't the Winter Soldier speaking when Sergeant Barnes became agitated in the vault. The intonation and accent were slightly different from when he threatened you, as if the speaker were fluent, but not using their native language."
"Okay, that's entirely strange," Tony says. "What about in the living room, when Bucky thought he was speaking English?"
"The accent and intonation were also distinct. But during his conversation with Natasha, there was no difference in Sergeant Barnes' use of Russian from when he threatened you."
"So…the Winter Soldier wanted to gut me, but it was someone else when he went Private Hudson on us?" Tony says.
"Do you have to do that?" Sam asks, exasperated. "Who the hell are you even talking about?"
Tony looks at him like Sam's the one who's talking out of left field. "Private Hudson? Aliens? "Game over, man!"? You've never watched Aliens?"
Sam closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "So, J.A.R.V.I.S.," He says on a breath, "you're telling us that all Bucky's identities can speak Russian?"
"The possibility correlates with the available information," J.A.R.V.I.S. says.
"Thanks," Sam says. He just wishes he knew what the hell that meant. Maybe the identities are slowly integrating, the longer Bucky's free. Maybe they all just learned Russian. "Bucky also called himself 'the Asset'. I'm pretty sure that's Hydra's doing. I think he's the one who actually came at you in the vault. Before the threats."
"You mean, wolf-boy with the rage issues?" Tony shudders. "That one's scary as fuck." His eyes snap wide and he sits up in his chair, staring at Sam. "Wait. You're telling me that's the same guy who was asking us if we had a mission for him? Why the hell are we even still alive?"
"Because he's not a mindless killer, Tony," Sam says, trying to be less exasperated before it segues into true irritation. "He's just lost. Maybe the most lost." He's remembering the short, brutal conversation about Pierce. How Bucky—not Bucky; the Asset—wouldn't get himself a lousy cup of coffee. "He attacked you because he thought your suit meant you were a threat to him. Just like I said he would," he adds pointedly. "And he asked us if we had a mission for him because he can't even conceive of us feeding him otherwise."
Tony scrubs his face with his hands. "I think I'm losing track of just how fucked up this all is." He takes a deep breath. "And that, coincidentally, brings us to number four. Who's apparently the kid who never gets picked for dodge ball with the speech impediment."
"You mean, James?" Sam asks. "The one Bucky, if it was Bucky, said he couldn't be last night?"
"Got it in one, Tink," Tony says. "I'm pretty sure he was the stutterer who freaked out in the vault, too. That sure as hell wasn't the Winter Soldier, anyway. Or the Asset either, apparently. Especially if he wasn't speaking the same Russian."
"I don't know. It's possible," Sam says. "That wasn't a stutter, though. He was shaking because he was scared."
Tony snorts. "No kidding. One of these things is sure as hell not like the others. He picks up his remaining half-piece of toast, but just kind of fiddles with it, staring at the plate. "I keep wondering, which one of them killed my parents."
Sam freezes, then finishes chewing and swallowing his toast with a mouth that's suddenly gone dry. "The Asset," he says. "Hydra had him by then."
"Yeah, I figured." Tony nods distantly. "I keep wanting to hate him. I mean, he killed my parents. And yeah, my dad was an alcoholic asshole and my mom was…" He trails off, then shrugs like it somehow doesn't matter. "But they were my parents." He looks at the wall, his eyes fixed on some distant point in his past. "For years, I kept imagining what I'd do if I ever found the guy who murdered them. How I'd kill him after I made him beg for his life." When he looks at Sam his face is suffused with hurt. "And then I found out he was the best friend of my dad's fucking beloved dead war hero. And I just—" He closes his eyes and sucks in a long breath, then goes back to staring at the wall. "It's like some colossal cosmic joke. Captain America's former sidekick killing the man who helped make us both what we are." Tony moves his mouth in something almost like a smirk. "What a fucking thing to have in common."
"I'm so sorry, Tony," Sam says.
Tony shrugs. "Sure as hell kyboshed my righteous vengeance." He makes the same almost-smirk again. "Even if he wasn't Steve's buddy, what they did to him…" He shakes his head. "That poor, fucked-up kid didn't do anything."
"No, he didn't," Sam agrees quietly.
Tony sighs and pushes the remains of his toast away from him. He crosses his arms and looks directly at Sam. "So, how long are we going to keep doing this?"
Sam knows exactly what he means, and he almost says, 'as long as I need to,' but he didn't miss Tony's "we", and he's also very much aware that Bucky's in no better shape this morning than he was in yesterday, other that maybe physically. So, "I don't know," he says. "He's not getting what he needs here."
Tony snorts. "No shit. He needs a fucking battery of psychologists, and maybe brain surgery." He points his chin at the tablet. "I've been doing some research, as well. All the stuff I could find on brainwashing from what Nat made public. There's nothing about fixing someone afterwards. Like, not a damn thing. Let alone anything about it fragging someone's personality like this." He pulls his plate back, then takes a big bite of toast and chews it like he's mashing his frustration between his teeth.
Sam puts his empty plate in the sink, then dumps the old coffee grounds into the garbage disposal and rinses the filter and the pot. "Thank you."
Tony shrugs. "I wasn't sleeping anyway."
Sam reassembles the percolator, then turns around to make sure Tony can see him. "I mean, for everything. You coming here to help. Putting your life at risk for a guy you don't even know."
"Oh." Tony looks away, shrugs again. "Not like I had anything better to do. And everyone knows, when Cap's sad an angel loses her wings." He takes another bite of toast.
"Well, I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate it," Sam says. "You're a good man, Tony."
Tony chews for a long time before he swallows. His last bite of toast suddenly seems to require all of his attention. "Yeah, well. You don't really know me."
"I know what you've done," Sam says. "That's good enough."
"Then you have low standards," Tony says. He shoves the last piece into his mouth and chews with single-minded determination.
Sam wants to say something else, but he knows when he's lost an argument.
"Is Bucky still asleep?" Tony asks a minute later.
"I think so." Sam notes that Tony didn't use one of his ridiculous epithets. "I think in the end he was so exhausted that the nightmares stopped waking him."
"Maybe," Tony says like he doesn't really believe it. "So, what do we do with a problem like Bucky? I mean, much as I adore you, I can't keep blowing your boss off forever on your behalf. And pretty soon we're going to have to let the kid leave."
Tony can't stay at Sam's place indefinitely either, much as Sam appreciates him not mentioning that. "I don't know," he says again. The coffee's ready so he gets two mugs and pours, giving himself time to think. "It's possible he'll feel comfortable enough here to be willing to stay. And if he trusts me, I might be able to find people with the right kind of experience to help him. Like, maybe at the V.A. offices in Virginia. Or Maryland… "
"Are you kidding me?" Tony gapes at him. "We're not talking Forrest Gump, here. Even if his every twitch since 1945 wasn't still classified, which it is, what the hell do you expect your colleagues to do with someone who still thinks he's a Soviet assassin half the time? Music therapy?"
Sam grits his teeth in annoyance, running his hand over his hair. Tony's right, of course. It doesn't make it any easier to hear. "I did say, 'maybe'. But I'm clutching at straws here," he says, keeping his voice level. "I don't know what to do."
"I do. Avenger's Tower," Tony says flatly. "Like I said—fully staffed medical suite, and the best head-shrinkers in the world."
"We can't imprison him, Tony."
"We can't let him keep living like this either," Tony counters easily. "If you can even call this a life. Sometimes it's cruel to be kind." He toys with his empty plate, pushing it around in a circle with his finger. "I know I wouldn't want to live like this."
"Me neither." Sam takes a breath in resignation. Tony's right and Sam can't think of anything better. It feels like a betrayal anyway. "I'll talk to him," he says. "Maybe I—"
Someone knocks lightly on his front door.
"Oh, fuck," Tony says quietly, as if knows exactly who's out there. He stands anyway, striding to the door so Sam is the one following him.
"Who is it?" Sam asks, though he has a feeling he knows just as well as Tony does.
And no, he's not surprised when Tony yanks the door open and Steve Rogers is standing on Sam's porch, leaning heavily on Natasha Romanoff.
"Because he doesn't know you," Sam says for what feels like the 50th time. "Every time we've mentioned your name, either he ignores it entirely or he says you're the mission. Not his friend, not even Captain America. Just some guy he was told to put a bullet through."
"I don't care," Steve says. He's limping back and forth across the kitchen, which didn't feel cramped with Tony and his personality in it, but now feels absolutely claustrophobic even though it's just him, Steve and Natasha in the room. Tony's in the living room, on the phone with Pepper. Sam envies him a great deal at the moment.
"He might attack you," Natasha says. She's sitting at the table with her legs stretched out and her heels resting on another chair, though it's clear she's anything but relaxed.
"I don't care."
"We care," Natasha says. "And Fury will care. You just got out of surgery. You should still be in the hospital."
"He's my friend. Do you really think I give a damn if he takes another swing at me?"
"Bucky might," Sam says.
Steve stops pacing, as if that actually got through to him. He turns around to look at Sam, putting his hand on the counter. Sam can't tell if it's for balance or support. Maybe both.
He looks like hell, exactly like only his being Captain America saved him in the first place. His face is covered with small lacerations, with one scarily big one that goes in a straight line from his left temple to underneath his chin. That one has stitches in it. His right arm is still in a cast. Natasha said there are bolts holding his bone together. Anyone else would've needed the arm amputated. His left arm doesn't look much better, but the real damage is all under his now too-loose khakis and the tee-shirt with the symbol for the 86th Medical Group on it.
Natasha told Sam and Tony just how bad it was, with Steve standing miserable in the background. How she couldn't believe Steve managed to get out of the Hydra base, even with her help. How she still can't believe he survived. The one reason she agreed to help him get back to D.C. is because she knew he would've just gone by himself.
Right now, though, Steve's leaning on the counter but Sam knows there's nothing physical about his pain. He swallows. "Does Bucky know who he is?"
"No," Sam says, because Steve won't want him to sugar-coat it. "I'm sorry," he adds when Steve looks like Sam hit him. "He has moments. I guess. He's told me some things that are real memories. But..." He flutters his fingers near his head. "It's all mixed up. Sometimes he thinks he's the Winter Soldier. Sometimes he's Hydra's Asset. Sometimes he's convinced the Russians have started training him."
Natasha flinches. Steve runs his hand over his face. It seems to take an effort for him to look at Sam again. "I have to see him, Sam."
"I know."
Tony comes striding in like either the world's best or worst distraction. He's grinning. "Okay, kids, listen up. My girlfriend is officially the smartest person on the planet." He points at Steve with the hand holding Sam's cell phone. "What would be the one place, besides the Avenger's Tower, where your buddy could get re-Buckyfied? Not to mention faster and likely with 90 percent less flashbacks and screaming?"
Steve doesn't look like he's been hit this time so much as stabbed.
"What the hell, Tony?" Sam exclaims.
"Whoops," Tony says, all puppy-eyed. "I'm sorry. I thought you knew."
"It's okay. I'm all right," Steve says, even though his voice wavers. "I just…" He takes a breath and looks up. His attempt at normalcy is heartbreaking. "What place are you talking about?"
But it's Natasha who answers. She's pulled her heels off the chair in front of her and is sitting straight, her beautiful eyes round with something like surprise and admiration. "Asgard. You want to take him to Asgard."
Tony grins at her. "Exactly." He tosses Sam his phone. "Pepper's talking with Dr. Foster and her studly god-like boyfriend as we speak, making the arrangements." His grin dips a bit. "Hopefully Thor can convince his daddy to let us bring an amnesiac kill—Bucky to Asgard."
Steve looks like he's too afraid to hope. "How do you know Thor's people can help him?"
"I don't," Tony says. "But, if anyone can, it's them," he goes on quickly at Steve's expression. "Jane's experienced their medicine. It's beyond anything available on Earth right now, and I'm including Stark Industries in that so you know I mean it. And Thor's sure they can."
Steve stares at Tony a moment longer, as if he's searching for something on Tony's face. "That's a good idea," he says at last. "Thank you, Tony."
"Thank Pepper. She's the one who thought of it."
Steve nods, his mouth curling in a semblance of a smile. "I will. We're not forcing him, though. If Bucky doesn't want to go, he doesn't have to. We'll find another way."
"All right," Sam says, though privately he hopes they won't have to find another way. He only knows about Thor from the news and what Steve's told him, but considering the Asgardians have technology so advanced it seems like magic, he's willing to believe it will work.
Maybe it's wishful thinking. Except, Sam is well acquainted with what therapies are available for people with PTSD, Stockholm syndrome, amnesia, and what he's frighteningly certain is dissociative identity disorder. But Bucky has all four at once, and possibly more trauma-related emotional issues that Sam isn't even aware of. And that doesn't include the actual brainwashing, which Sam didn't even know existed in the real world outside the terrifying and failed C.I.A. experiments of the 1950s.
All he knows for sure is that he's not experienced enough to deal with it. He has no idea who would be. Maybe someone from S.H.I.E.L.D., like Tony said.
He's also sure that Steve has no real understanding of just how damaged his friend is. The truth is that they may not be able to give Bucky a choice, not with this. Not if the only treatment available on Earth will take years, if it even works at all.
Suddenly Steve whips his head around, looking at the stairs just beyond the kitchen door. Bucky's almost at the bottom step, walking so lightly Sam doubts he would've heard it.
Natasha stands up. Steve grips the counter, like he's trying to keep himself from moving. Bucky comes into the kitchen. He's still in his tee-shirt and sweats, walking slouched with his hands in his pockets, like he's trying to hide himself. His eyes flick from Sam to Tony, then graze over Steve like he's not even there. Then Bucky sees Natasha and it's like all of a sudden he's alive.
"Natalia!" He rushes to her but stops right before he could touch, as if he can't believe she's real. Then he says something soft and sweet in Russian, cupping her face. Natasha looks completely undone, her eyes glistening, but she nods at whatever he tells her. Then Bucky leans in and kisses her like that's the only thing he's ever wanted; the only thing he's ever allowed himself to want. And Natasha kisses him back.
"Well, I suppose we should've seen that coming," Tony says.
"Yeah," Sam says, rough. This shouldn't surprise him at all, after what he's witnessed the night before. It still feels terrible. He wants to be happy for her, for both of them, but he can't. He knows that this is Vanya he's watching meet his long-lost love again, which means that on some level it's not even true. Bucky, the real man somewhere inside him, likely doesn't know Natasha at all.
But it sure as hell looks true. And Sam knows it's small and childish and beneath him, but he's so jealous of Bucky right now that it feels like his chest is boiling with it. It's all he can do to do nothing, to say nothing, to just let Vanya and Natasha (Natalia?) take what little happiness they can.
It still feels like a kick in the stomach when it's Natasha who takes Vanya's hand and leads him back upstairs.
"Holy shit." Tony blinks. "Did you guys see that? You saw that, right? They're totally going to bump uglies up there, aren't they?"
"Tony, shut up," Sam says. "It's none of our damn business what they're doing."
"Shouldn't it be?" Tony asks. "Seriously, there's got to be consent issues, or something. I mean, who the hell was Natasha even kissing?"
"Leave it alone, Tony," Steve says, sounding infinitely weary. He limps into the living room.
"Am I wrong?" Tony asks Sam. "I don't think I'm wrong, here."
Tony's genuinely worried, and Sam suspects that Tony's the only one out of all five of them who actually has his head on straight about this. "You're not wrong," he says seriously. "But what can we do about it? Rush in there like jealous boyfriends?" That hits a little close to home. "They're both adults, and Natasha knows what she's doing. Hell, she fought the guy. If she was worried about him I really don't think she would've taken him upstairs. And we know how awful the last few days have been for Bucky. We should let him be happy for as long as he can."
It's nothing different than what'd he told himself, but saying it out loud doesn't make Sam feel any better.
Tony looks completely unconvinced. "That's not Bucky being happy."
"I know," Sam says. "But it might be the closest we're going to get."
He goes after Steve before Tony can reply.
Steve's sitting on the couch, on the same end Bucky seems to prefer and with the same overly stiff posture, though it's probably from his injuries. The sleeping bag is carefully folded on the loveseat with the pillow on top of it. Sam's absolutely sure it was Steve who did that.
Steve's looking at Sam's stupid Starktab, specifically at the wallpaper. Tony probably changed it while he was on the phone, because Sam definitely doesn't remember seeing the picture of him sleeping next to Bucky with one arm curled under his own head as a pillow, and his other hand in Bucky's hair. Tony must've taken the picture early in the morning, because the light's not nearly as bright as when Sam woke up. Both he and Bucky look ridiculously peaceful, which is so different from how the night actually went that it's laughable.
Steve's face doesn't make Sam feel like laughing.
Steve looks devastated. Shattered, the way Sam imagined he'd end up when they searched for Bucky and never found him. He's gripping the edges of the tablet so hard that Sam can see the metal frame denting.
"That was early this morning," Sam says. "Bucky kept having nightmares, so bad that he'd wake himself up. At around four am I just tried touching his head whenever he got restless. It seemed to calm him down. I didn't know I'd fallen asleep too." He tries for a smile. "Tony obviously found it hilarious." Fucking Tony.
"I'm glad you could help him," Steve says.
"It's not much," Sam says. He takes a breath. "Steve—"
Steve puts the tablet down none too gently on the coffee table and looks away, clenching his jaw so hard Sam can see the muscles jump. "You're right. I shouldn't've come here." He blinks tears onto his cheeks then rubs them impatiently away with the side of his hand. "He won't even look at me, Sam."
"I know," Sam says. He sits down on the couch so that he's facing Steve's battered profile. "He doesn't remember you."
Steve shakes his head. "It's more than that. At least when he was trying to kill me he knew I was there." He looks down at his hands, lying loose and empty in is lap. "He saved me. He pulled me out of the river. Why would he do that, if now he can't even see me?"
"I don't know," Sam says. He wants to tell Steve that he thinks Bucky can see him, but that Bucky won't, except he doesn't know what good it'll do. "I wish I did."
"Yeah." Steve nods slowly. "Do you think it's because he blames me?"
"For what?"
"On the train, one of the Hydra goons hit me with this big laser gun. Knocked the wind out of me for a minute. Less. But next thing I know, there's a huge hole in the side of the train, and Bucky's hanging…" Steve stops, breathes deeply a few times. "When he fell, I was almost close enough to grab his hand. He still had his arms up, reaching for me. The way he screamed…"
"Steve, don't do this," Sam says. "It's not your fault."
"I didn't look for him," Steve goes on, relentless. "I wanted to, but Zola had told us about Schmidt's plans to bomb the U.S., and we didn't have time. I promised him…myself, that I go look after, when Schmidt was defeated. I'd find his—I'd find him. But then the plane crashed, and I never got the chance. And then when I woke up, it'd been so many years… He was dead. Gone. Just like everything else. There didn't seem to be any point in looking, anymore."
"You made the best choice you could, Steve," Sam says. "And it was. Clinging to a world that doesn't exist anymore, no one can live like that. And you had no reason to even imagine he was alive."
Steve shakes his head. "I can't help thinking, what if he knew, somehow, that I never looked for him? If, all those years, he was waiting for me. Waiting for me to come find him. But I never did."
"That's bullshit and you know it," Sam says, purposely harsh so Steve will actually look at him. "He doesn't remember you. He already had amnesia when they found him. And then, well, we both know what the Russians and Hydra did."
"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" Steve asks, incredulous.
"No. It's supposed to make you remember that it's not about you," Sam says. "It can't be," he goes on, making his voice gentler. "Your guilt—your completely misplaced guilt—isn't going to help either of you, but especially not Bucky." He puts his hand on Steve's arm. "We can't change the past. You know that better than probably anyone. All we can do is the best we can with what we have. And Bucky needs you here and now. Not killing yourself with remorse over something long gone that you had no control over."
Steve looks at him for a long moment, then nods, swallows. "Yeah, okay," he says. It may be just to get Sam to shut up, but Sam will take it.
"We're going to get through this," Sam says. He uses 'we' because this isn't just Steve and Bucky's gantlet anymore, hasn't been for a while. "It probably doesn't feel like it right now, but we will. Bucky's already better than he was. It may take some time, but we'll get there."
Steve nods again, but it's distant and his eyes are back on his empty hands in his lap. "I didn't know he and Natasha had any kind of history."
"She knows how to leave things behind," Sam says. Maybe she's a little too good at it, but it's still one of the things he admires about her.
"Yeah," Steve says. There are words in black sharpie on his red fiberglass cast: "get up and you die". Steve traces them with a finger. "If I tell you something, can you keep it a secret?"
"Of course."
Steve licks his lips. "I've wanted to kiss Bucky like that for at least 80 years."
"I know," Sam says. "It's okay," he adds quickly when Steve snaps his gaze to him. The shock and fear in his eyes aren't any less tragic for all that Sam expected to see them. "We were practically living in each-other's pockets for weeks, Steve. I saw how you looked at his pictures, how you looked when you talked about him." He grins a little. "I know what love looks like, man."
Steve's marginally less anxious. "You never said anything."
"There was no reason to," Sam tells him seriously. "As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't change a damn thing."
"There are people who wouldn't agree with you."
"Yeah," Sam says. "I know, though there are less of them now then there were 70 years ago. I don’t give a shit about them, and you shouldn’t either. The only ones who matter are your friends, and they won't care. Trust me."
"You don't know that," Steve says, but he looks like he wants to believe him.
"Sure I do," Sam says easily. "They've fought with you. You've saved the world together. They know who you are. Believe me, knowing someone's got your back no matter what is a lot more important than who they want to knock boots with." He smiles again and arches his eyebrows. "How much do you want to bet that Natasha already knows too?"
"She's pretty smart." Steve's answering smile is thin, and falls a second later. "Bucky seemed really taken with her."
That's a very typical Steve Rogers 1940s understatement, but Sam just nods. "I don't think that was Bucky, though. She called him 'Vanya' when they were talking last night."
"That's short for Ivan in Russian," Steve says. He looks helplessly at Sam. "Is that who he is now? What if he never remembers who he was?"
"He'll remember," Sam says. It's not a lie, but there's more conviction in it than he really feels.
"I miss him so much," Steve says, and he sounds just as lost as Bucky.
"I know," Sam says. He moves his hand to tug on Steve's shoulder, and Steve comes willingly enough. He's a big man and it's an awkward angle for a hug and Sam doesn't want to hurt him, but it works out okay. And maybe it's Sam who holds on just a little too long this time, but this is all the comfort he can give, and right now it's not just Steve who needs it.
Steve looks up before Tony clears his throat. He's standing in the entranceway to the kitchen, hands in his pockets, all fake nonchalance. "Hey, kids. You seem to have everything under control here, so. I was thinking it's time for me to head back to New York. Make sure things get set up at the tower for…everything. You know, in case Fabio doesn't come through." He bobs his shoulders, pastes on a grin. "Be nice to get a change of clothes."
"You sure?" Steve says as he slowly gets up.
Tony nods quickly. "Yep. Don't want to wear out my welcome, and all that. And you guys all know the care and feeding of the Buckster better than I do, so…"
Sam stands as well. "You've been incredible, Tony. I wouldn't've been able to help Bucky without you."
That gets another shoulder bob and fake grin. "Well, you know. Coolest Avenger, here. Finding strays is all part of the service."
"Thank you, Tony," Steve says with the kind of painful sincerity that would sound fake from anyone else. "I can't tell you how much it means to me, you looking after him."
"Then don't," Tony says. "Don't would be good." He lifts his head up so that he can look the taller man in the eye. "And, um. I may have heard what you said. About Bucky and, kissing. And I just want to tell you that Sam's right. I don't care." His mouth twitches in a frown. "I mean, I do care. But not in a bad way." He hesitates, like he's steeling himself. "You're my…you're my teammate. You should be happy."
Sam laughs. He can't help it. Tony's so earnest and so honest and yet so capable of lying to himself. Lost in his own way too, and lonely despite being surrounded by people who love him. Sam included, though he can't say when that happened, exactly. Maybe when Tony was doing his best for Bucky and trying so hard not to care.
It's the kind of thing that either makes you laugh or cry, so Sam laughs. He holds out his hand. "Jesus, Tony. Come here, you idiot."
Tony hesitates, then finally walks all the way into the room and lets Sam envelop him.
"Oh, awesome. Group hug," Tony says when Steve wraps them both in his big arms too. "This is in no way incredibly awkward or embarrassing."
"Suck it up, Tin Man," Sam says.
Tony promises he'll call as soon as the tower's ready or he has information from Thor, whatever comes first. Then he puts his suit on and jets into the sky.
The house seems strangely empty without him, considering there are still four people in it. There are no telltale sounds coming from Bucky's room, and if Steve can hear anything Sam can't, he doesn't mention it. He goes out of his way to be a good guest in ways Tony didn't bother. He helps make lunch, cleans up without complaint, all the while radiating tension so heavy Sam almost wonders how he can move. It doesn't help that he's obviously in bad pain and there's absolutely nothing either of them can do about it. Just looking at him makes Sam's shoulder ache again in sympathy, but he can always go take some painkillers. Nothing will work on Steve outside a steady drip of high-dose morphine.
They try to play chess on the Starktab. Whatever Tony did, the tablet works amazingly, but neither of their heads are in the game. By the time Natasha finally comes down the stairs, Sam and Steve are in the kitchen, drinking coffee and failing at having a conversation.
Natasha walks right to the table and picks up Steve's barely-touched coffee, taking a long drink while she pulls out the third chair with her foot. She sits down and leans back, stretching her legs out. "Good coffee," she says. "He's asleep. And we haven't spent all of the last five hours fucking, before either of you don't ask about it."
Sam shuts his mouth by taking a long drink of coffee. "Didn't think it was any of our business."
"You don't owe us anything, Natasha," Steve says.
"Not about that." She takes another sip of coffee. "But I do owe you this. I was born in 1928. I first met the Winter Soldier in 1954, while I was being trained by the Red Room."
"Okay," Sam says. The fact that he's only surprised and not floored by this probably says a lot to just how crazy last few weeks of his life have been.
Steve says nothing.
"All we knew about him was that his name was Ivan, and that he was a loyal Comrade and very, very good. Only the best of us were chosen to train with him. I was made extremely aware of just how privileged I was. Vanya was my age, but he seemed infinitely older. Worldly. He was tough. Hard-edged. He demanded perfection, the way all our trainers did. But he was never cruel. He was kind," she says, and there's a small, wistful curve in her smile. "He could be gentle, when no one else was watching. And funny. But mostly he was kind. I wasn't used to kindness anymore. Not by then. I don't think he was either, really. But with me, he was kind."
"Did you love him?" Steve asks the question that Sam can't quite make himself say.
"Love is for children," Natasha says, but then her expression softens. "But…as much as I could, maybe. And him as well. Vanya was the only thing that made the Red Room bearable. Long after he was gone I held onto my memories of him. Hoarded them as the one good thing that was mine."
"I'm sorry," Steve says.
Natasha shrugs, but when Sam takes her outstretched hand, she grips his back, hard. "It was a long time ago."
"What happened to him?" Sam asks.
Natasha drinks more coffee. "One day in 1957 he just wasn't there anymore. I knew better than to ask what had happened. I just assumed he was dead. Killed on a mission by the evil Americans."
"That must've been hard," Sam says.
"It was," Natasha says simply. "But what was worse was the next time I saw him. It was in 1963. We were paired for a mission. He didn't know who I was. He never knew who I was, ever again." She swallows, and Sam can see how ruthlessly she forces back the tears threatening in her eyes. "And then, before the bridge, the last time I saw him he shot me."
"Did you know who he was?" Steve asks.
Natasha turns to Steve, straightens her spine. "Yes. I recognized him at the Smithsonian exhibit."
Sam scrubs his face with his free hand. "No offence, Steve, but I think I hate that exhibit."
Steve's eyes are huge when he looks at Natasha. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because he wasn't your friend, Steve," Natasha says. Her voice is calm, but she's squeezing Sam's hand tightly enough to hurt him. "He was the Winter Soldier. And then he wasn't even that anymore. And I knew one of us would likely have to kill him."
The healing cuts on Steve's face are bright red next to the pallor of his skin. "You would've let me… You would've killed him? Your lover? Knowing who he was?"
Natasha nods, her jaw working. "Just like he would have killed us."
Steve explodes out of his chair, then hisses and has to catch himself when his leg doesn't entirely hold him. He regains his balance before either Natasha or Sam can move. He points towards the stairs, his arm a rigid, furious line. "So, it's fine for you to spend five hours doing God knows what with the same man who shot you twice, but you didn't think I deserved to know that my best friend was still alive?"
"There was nothing of James Barnes left alive," Natasha says with icy calm. "Not when I knew him, not when he shot me, and not when he tried to kill us. He was dead, Steve. Just like Vanya."
"You're wrong."
"Not then, I wasn't." Natasha stands as well, goes to face Steve. She's so much smaller than he is, and yet she's the one with all the power here, composed while he's close to raging. "If I'd told you right away who the Winter Soldier once was, what would you have done when he came for us on the bridge?"
Steve tries to stare her down. "What was necessary, just like I did on the helicarrier."
"You almost died on the helicarrier. You would have died on the bridge. And then we would have died too."
Steve looks gutted. "Do you really think I'm that selfish?"
"I think you're that selfless." Natasha reaches to take Steve's hand but he jerks away. She clasps both her hands demurely behind her back instead. "I think you're too good a man to understand that sometimes people can't be saved."
"Is that why you went upstairs with him?" Steve demands. "Because he can't be saved?"
Natasha's hands tremble behind her back, but her voice is utterly steady. "I went upstairs with Vanya to say goodbye."
"Yeah? Well, I never got to!" Steve's shouting by the last word, then punctuates it by swinging around and driving his right fist into the wall. Through the wall.
He pulls his arm out slowly, wincing in pain. The fiberglass cast is cracked and covered with drywall dust. He looks at his hand, then the hole, then at Sam. His expression of shocked remorse is almost comical. "Sam. I'm sorry. I'll fix it. I—"
Bucky comes flying into the kitchen and has Steve on the floor in less time than it takes Sam to realize he's even in the room.
"Bucky, no!" Sam leaps out of his chair with a vague idea of physically hauling Bucky off Steve, but Natasha grabs his wrist to stop him. She gives her head a shake when he looks at her.
Bucky has one bent knee on Steve's torso, grinding into his diaphragm. His right hand is like a vice around Steve's throat, and his left is raised like an axe ready to fall. Sam can see the urge to act, to kill, in every trembling line of Bucky's body, but Bucky doesn't move.
Steve's not doing anything, though Sam's not sure how he can breathe. "I'm not going to fight you, Bucky," he rasps.
Bucky looks over his shoulder at Sam. "Do you want me to kill him?" There's no Russian accent in his voice; this is the Asset speaking, nothing human behind his flat blue eyes.
"No." Sam manages to keep his voice even despite the bolt of terror in his chest. "Steve just punched the wall, Bucky. He didn't hurt us. We're not in danger. Let him go."
"Steve Rogers isn't a threat," Natasha says, and Bucky's eyes snap to her. Sam can't tell if there's any recognition in them. "Please, James, let him go."
"Don't call me that," Bucky snarls at her.
His raised hand wavers and instantly Steve uses the tiny leeway to wrap his hand around the one Bucky has at his throat and yank it off him then shove Bucky away.
Bucky's back on his feet immediately, looming over Steve with his fists clenched. But all that Steve does is lever himself upright so that his back's leaning against the nearest cupboard.
"I'm not going to fight you," he says again. He coughs, rubs his throat, then looks up at Bucky. "I'm not going to fight my best friend."
"I'm not your friend," Bucky says.
Steve just nods. "Yeah, you are. Your name's James Buchanan Barnes, but everyone calls you Bucky. We grew up together."
"No," Bucky says. He backs up a step. He looks enraged, but Sam can tell he's afraid. "I don't know you. I don't know you. You're the mission."
"Then why didn't you kill me?" Steve sits up straighter but he doesn't stand, just looks calmly up at Bucky, easily ceding him the freedom to attack or flee. "You pulled me out of the river, Bucky. You could've let me drown but you didn't. You saved my life.
"You do know me, Bucky," Steve says. "Your name is James Barnes, and you're my best friend and I love you."
Bucky backs up another step, his breath quickening. Natasha quietly moves closer to the hallway, prepared to grab him if he makes a run for it.
"No," Bucky says, and the word's tinged with horror. "No. I'm not James. I'm not him. I can't be him. I'm not!"
"You are," Steve says, plaintive. "Please, Buck. You just need to remember."
"Shut up! Stop saying that!" Bucky spits through his teeth. "I'm not James. I'm not James. I can't be James."
"It's okay to remember, Bucky," Sam says. "You're safe. No one's going to hurt you."
"I'M NOT SAFE!" Bucky yells, but when he looks at Sam his expression is pleading. "I'm not safe. I'm not safe." His breath is shuddering, so fast it's difficult for him to talk. "James is weak. He hurts. It hurts. It h-hurts. I can't s-stop it." He clutches the sides of his head, eyes clenched tightly shut as if he's in physical pain. "Stop it. Please, stop."
He drops to his knees, gulping air, begging for a respite that never came.
"Bucky!" Steve all but throws himself down next to him, and Bucky grabs his shirt the way he had Sam's after the nightmare. Steve pulls Bucky against him and at first Bucky goes rigid, then he falls against Steve's shoulder, letting the other man take his weight.
"I'm sorry," Bucky says. He's crying now; every breath sounds like it hurts. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Steve. I'm so sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry."
"Shh, it's okay," Steve says. "It's okay. I'm all right. I'm all right, Bucky."
Bucky moves back enough to be able to see Steve's cut face, his wrecked cast. "Did I do this?"
"No!" Steve shakes his head. "No. The, uh, our fight was weeks ago. All of that healed. This was something else."
"Oh." Bucky looks only marginally relieved. He pushes himself away from Steve though he stays close, both of them now sitting on the floor. He puts his back against the wall with his knees pulled up. He cleans his face with the heel of his right hand, then wraps his arms around his knees. His eyes are fastened on the floor, not looking at Steve or anyone. "I thought maybe they wiped me again."
Sam sees Natasha's mouth go tight out of the corner of his eye. "Pierce died before he could do that to you."
"Okay," Bucky says. He doesn't sound relieved, like Pierce having existed at all is immaterial.
"Do you remember tearing the chair apart?" Sam asks him.
Bucky nods. "It hurt."
"I know," Sam says, though he has no idea if Bucky means the lacerations he got doing it, or what it felt like when the chair was used on him. Maybe both.
"Do you remember who you are?" Steve says. He reaches to touch him, but Bucky shifts farther away. Steve just drops his hand onto his leg.
"Bucky," Bucky says. But there's something rote to it, like he's just repeating what he's heard so many times.
"Your real name is James."
Bucky closes his eyes and a minute shudder goes through his shoulders. "Okay," he says, but his voice is dead.
Steve puts his elbows on his knees and puts his face in his hands for a moment. When he lifts his head he twists his mouth into a sickly attempt at a smile. "You always liked 'Bucky' better anyway."
"I don't remember," Bucky says.
Sam's phone starts blasting Enter Sandman, startling everyone before Sam scrabbles it off the table to answer it. The number is as mysteriously part of his contacts list as the ring tone, but he doesn't need to look at the name. "What is it with you and scaring me out of my skin?"
"Keeps life interesting," Tony says. The grin in his voice is so huge he sounds manic. "And speaking of interesting, guess what large, hairy god of thunder just beamed onto my roof?"
"Thor's in New York," Sam relays to the others, though all three probably heard it. "So, what happens now?" He wouldn't classify the bang in his chest as hope, exactly, but it feels close.
"What happens now is that you all get your heroic asses over here, so Thor can get his buddy to transport us to Asgard and Bucky can get his non-invasive brain surgery." There's a 'duh' tacked on to the end, but Sam looks at Steve and Bucky and he doubts it'll be as simple as that.
"Thanks, Tony," he says, hoping the other man can hear how much he means it. "I'll call you back as soon as we've discussed it."
"'Discussed it?'" Tony parrots on an incredulous screech. "What the hell is there to discuss? How happy Bucky will be once he doesn't have a death-match going on in his head?"
"I'll call you back," Sam says again, then hangs up before Tony gets into a full tirade. He puts his phone down, then picks it up again and turns it off. He puts it down again with far more care than it needs, trying to figure out what to say. "Thor is a friend of ours. He's…" he looks helplessly at Natasha, because saying 'he's an alien', or 'he's a god', probably won't make this an easier sell.
Natasha shrugs.
"Thor's people made the Tesseract," Steve says. "Do you remember the Tesseract? How Hydra used it to power their weapons?"
"No."
"Oh." Steve flounders, face shuttering with misery. "Well, Thor's people have much more technology than we do. Like Howard Stark's stuff. Only without blowing up or crashing." He tries a smile again but it fades when Bucky just looks at him blankly. "They have a way to give you your memories back. So you'll know who you are again."
"James Barnes," Bucky says.
"Yeah." Steve nods. "But it won't just be a name. You'll have a past to go with it."
Bucky hugs his knees more tightly. "I don't—" He doesn't get farther than that. He lifts his head, looking at Sam the way he had after the nightmare of falling. "I can't be James."
"It's who you are," Steve says.
Bucky shakes his head. "No."
It's obvious that if Steve keeps insisting, Bucky's going to degenerate into panic, so Sam shushes Steve with a look before he can say anything else. "Can you tell us why you can't be James?" he asks gently.
"He's weak."
"You've said that before," Sam says. "But I don't understand. Why is he weak?"
"He hurts," Bucky says. It's damn creepy listening to Bucky refer to himself in the third person.
"How? Do you mean physically?" Natasha says.
"Yeah." Bucky nods. "He was broken when they found him. And then they broke him again. And again. And again." He's becoming more agitated, breath speeding up. "They hurt him. He's always the one they hurt. If he fights, if he doesn't fight… It never matters. He's weak, he keeps the pain and they break him. Over and over and over. I can't be him. I can't…"
He bares his teeth, then drives the fingernails of his right hand into the seam of his left, gouging at the vulnerable flesh before any of them can stop him.
"Whoa! Hey, cut it out!" Steve wrenches Bucky's hand away from his shoulder. Bucky yanks his arm back, scrambling to his feet. He all but growls down at Steve, rubbing his right wrist. There's blood to the first joint of each of his fingers.
Steve stands up more slowly, wincing. His expression is stricken. "You shouldn't hurt yourself."
Sam clears his throat, manages not to flinch at the way the noise instantly gets the full, deadly glare of Bucky's attention. He's sure it's the Asset staring at him. "I can understand why you don't want to remember what happened, Bucky," he says. "No one would want to have to remember going through that kind of pain. But if you're not willing to remember all the awful things, you won't be able to remember any of the good, either. You had a whole life before the Red Room. Don't you want to know about it?"
"We had a lot of fun together, growing up," Steve says. He swallows. "I don't want you to never know about it."
Bucky keeps silently rubbing his wrist. He doesn't seem angry anymore, but when he looks at Steve his face is unreadable. "You said you love me." He sounds like he has no idea what the word even means.
Steve nods. "Yeah. I did. I do."
"Did I love you?"
Steve's smile looks like pain. "Yeah. I mean, as a friend. We grew up together. We were close. I really missed you."
"I don't remember."
"I know," Steve says. He blinks and his eyes are rimmed with red. "But I hope, maybe you'd want to."
Bucky doesn't answer.
Natasha strides forward and snaps at him in Russian. "Did you forget everything you learned, too?" she berates in English when he looks at her. "You want to run away from your pain like a little boy. A man embraces it, but you're hiding from your own self in fear." She has her hands on her hips, her chin up, sneering impiously down at Bucky despite the difference in height. She sounds like she's channeling one of her Red Room instructors from decades ago. Bucky's certainly staring at her like she is. "I thought better of you, but now you reveal yourself for the coward that you are."
"Hey!" Steve barks, all shock and anger. They both ignore him.
Bucky glares at her. "You know me, Natalia. I'm not a coward."
Sam's seen this rapid switch of identities often enough by now that he's not surprised, but he hears Steve gasp softly. Even Natasha blinks before she glides back into the role she's taken.
"Then prove it, Vanya." She crosses her arms and now her stare is pure challenge. "Show us what kind of man you are. Will you let Thor's people make you whole? Or would you rather stay as the shattered, useless thing you are now?"
Bucky—Vanya—lifts his chin, rolls his shoulders back like a soldier. "I'll do it," he says. His voice is strong, accented with Russian.
Natasha smiles, thawing. "Good. That's the man I know." She looks at the stove clock. "We'll leave tomorrow. It's too late now. You should go back to sleep. You look like you're about to drop dead."
He does, or close enough that Sam can't disagree. But Bucky narrows his eyes. "I'm fine."
Natasha arches an eyebrow.
Bucky glowers at her, then heads back upstairs, muttering in Russian.
"That was impressive," Sam says in the ensuing silence.
Natasha just gives him a thin smile before she looks at Steve. "You should join him," she says to him. "You still need to heal. You shouldn't be out of bed as it is."
Steve's cheeks flush, but his eyes are narrowed. "You manipulated him."
Natasha stares back at him evenly. "I presented his choice to him in a way he could understand. And he made the right one."
"You called him a coward."
"He was acting like a coward," Natasha shoots back. "Sometimes life hurts. You can either run from it and die, or face it and live. He was choosing death. All I did was make that clear to him."
"Steve, your friend is in a hell of a lot of pain right now," Sam says. "I know you don't want to make it worse, but letting him stay like this isn't going to make it better. And I agree that Natasha forced his hand, but everything she said to Bucky is true."
Steve looks at them for a moment, then drops his head, running his fingers through his hair. "I don't know what to do."
"Steve," Sam begins, but Steve just shakes his head, cutting him off.
"Don't. It's okay." Steve closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and it's like Sam can see him burying his frustration, his sorrow and fear. "You're right," he says to Natasha. "I'm sorry." He gives them both one of his thin, tight smiles that really isn't one. "I am tired. I could use a rest." He walks towards the living room, cradling his arm and limping badly again.
"Steve," Natasha says, and her voice is so gentle it almost hurts to hear it.
Steve stops, looks at her.
"Go to him, Steve," she says. "He wants to remember you."
Steve nearly smiles, then limps into the other room.
Natasha comes back into the kitchen and sits at the little table, giving Sam a nod of thanks when he passes her a mug of fresh coffee in place of the one she never got to finish. She blows off the steam, then takes a long sip. "You make good coffee."
He smiles as he sits down with his own. "One of my many talents." He glances towards the living room. He can see the hem of Steve's jeans and his bare soles pointing up. He's lying on his back, picking apart what's left of his cast. "How's Bucky?"
Natasha gives a small, graceful shrug. "Still sleeping."
"Good. He needs it." He sips his own coffee, but it's too hot. "We'll have to wake him up soon, though. He hasn't eaten or drunk anything since yesterday night."
"He's gone for longer on less," Natasha says with the offhanded certainty of someone who's witnessed it.
"I know," Sam tells her. "But I'd rather not have to scrape him off the floor when he passes out again."
Natasha winces, then tilts her head in a kind of shrug of agreement. "If he's hungry, he'll come down."
"No he won't."
"I'll make him, then."
Sam grins ruefully. "I'm sure you will." He folds his arms on the table and drops his face into them. "I haven't been this exhausted since Afghanistan. I'm going to need a year's vacation once this is over."
Natasha pets his hair. "And possibly a new house."
Sam smirks tiredly. He relaxes under her touch for a moment, then pulls his head up and looks at the very large hole Steve made in his wall. "I should take a picture and send it to Tony."
"I already did," Natasha says. She looks blandly at him over her mug when Sam raises his eyebrows at her.
"Remind me to stay on your good side." Sam smirks, but the way the one she gives him in return doesn't reach her eyes drops his smile from his face. "How are you?"
Her blink is artful. So is the casual way she lifts her cup to her lips to hide part of her face. "I'm fine."
"No you're not."
Even her eye-roll is pretty. "I'm good enough, then. If you need the truth so badly."
Sam doubts that actually is the truth, but he lets it go. "After Afghanistan, I figured out that it's hard to be honest with yourself and still lie to other people."
Natasha wraps her hands around her mug, looking down at the black liquid. "One of the first things Vanya ever taught me was that the truth was just like any other tool, to be manipulated as needed. Ironic, I suppose, in retrospect."
"I'm sorry Bucky can't be the man you knew," Sam says.
She lifts and drops one shoulder, but her expression is real and sad. "He was never the man I knew."
"Does that make it easier?"
"No." Natasha shakes her head. "But I already mourned for him, then mourned again when he didn't remember me. By the time he shot me he was the enemy." She takes another sip. "It was painful, seeing Vanya again. Good, but painful. Like reopening a badly-healed wound."
She stretches her arm out on the table, just enough to be a casual, unintentional thing. But when Sam puts his hand over hers, she slides their fingers together and holds him just as tightly as before.
"Did it help?"
"Yes." Natasha nods, a smile ghosting her lips. "I was never able to say goodbye, before. I'm glad I could do that. Most people don't get that much."
It reminds Sam of how Steve told him he felt lucky that Bucky was even alive. Her voice has the same resignation.
"I'm sorry he can't be the man you loved."
"Love is for children." But she doesn't meet his eyes.
"I don't believe that," Sam says. "I believe that sometimes love hurts, sure. Sometimes it chews you up and spits you out and leaves you feeling that maybe not even dying would be worse. But that's how adults feel, Natasha." He gently tugs her arm closer to him when she tries to pull away. "Do you think you were being childish, when Vanya loved you?"
Natasha swallows, and her eye that he can see glistens. She doesn't wipe the tear away, as if it won't exist if she doesn't acknowledge it. "I think only children expect to get what they want."
"What do you want, Natasha?"
She doesn't answer, but she doesn't let go of his hand. Instead she holds it tight, tight, tight.
They leave for New York early in the morning. Tony's private airplane is waiting for them at Dulles airport, but Bucky flat-out refuses to take it. He won't say why, but Sam knows it's because he won't be able to escape if he feels he has to.
Steve clearly knows it too, by the easy way he suggests that the two of them can take the car he and Natasha rented. The depth of Bucky's relief and the way he tries to hide it is tragic. Except Bucky doesn't want to ride with Steve, either. He doesn't trust him enough.
Steve nods and smiles and does his best to pretend he doesn't mind. He goes with Natasha on the plane, and Sam ends up driving with Bucky.
Sam isn't entirely sure how that happens. He knows Bucky would be just as fine alternately brooding or trying to stay awake in the passenger seat if it was Natasha driving. And Sam's not an Avenger. But everyone acted like it was a given that he'd go along and somehow he just did.
Tony calls (to make sure they didn't get lost on U.S. Route 1, apparently) and tells him that Steve and Natasha arrived safe and sound, and that Tony called Madison and she said Sam shouldn't worry about coming back until he feels better. Sam doesn't want to know what Tony said to her.
Thor is huge and boisterous and when they meet he lifts Sam off his feet in a bear hug. "Thank you for giving succor to the Captain's shield brother," he says. "You are a true and worthy friend."
Getting to Asgard is easier than it was getting to New York, except for how they all have to hold hands in a circle like school children. Bucky holds hands with Natasha and Sam, looking like it takes all of his will not to just cut and run.
And then there's a blast of light and suddenly they're on an alien planet.
Sam would love to see more of it than the incredible bridge shimmering in rainbow colors, or the palace that's larger and grander than anything he's ever imagined. And Thor wants to show them around like a good host. But everyone's so antsy that Thor just ends up taking them straight to the healers instead.
Sam expects Natasha to stay, but she doesn't. She gives Bucky a hug, murmuring something to him in Russian that makes him nod and hold her even more tightly. Neither of them let go for a long time. She kisses him when she does: a chaste press of lips that is no less eloquent for its finality or longing. She touches his face once before she turns away, then walks out of the room. She's wiping her eyes, but she doesn't look back.
Two pleasant, elderly women come through a pair of gigantic wooden doors to collect Bucky. He's is clearly terrified, looking over his shoulder at Sam like he expects to never see him again. Sam isn't sure why he doesn't bolt. Maybe because he knows he wouldn't be able to get back to Earth, or maybe because he can guess the Asgardian warriors could take him in a fight. Sam hopes it's because Bucky wants to remember.
The women stop and one of them leans down and whispers something to him, and he relaxes a little bit after that.
Just before the doors shut entirely, the other woman says that once he's settled under the Soul Forge, if Bucky wants the men with him they'll be asked to come in. It still feels terribly final when the doors close behind her retreating back.
Sam doesn't know if Bucky will ask for anything, stressed as he is.
Steve's out of his chair in the cavernous waiting room and pacing the instant the doors close. His limp isn't as bad and most of the cuts on his face are gone, but Sam hopes he'll be able to get healed here too, once Bucky's all right.
"He's going to be fine," Sam says.
Steve stops and looks at him, miserable with worry. "You don't know that."
"I don't think Thor would've agreed to this if he wasn't sure the healers could help," Sam says. "I trust him."
"You just met him."
"True," Sam says. "But you've known him for a while, haven't you? And you trust him. And I trust you."
"You shouldn't," Steve says. "I have no idea what I'm doing."
Sam stretches his legs out. He's not relaxed, but borrowing trouble at this point won't help anything. "I'd say you've done pretty well so far. Bucky's alive, and he's here."
"That wasn't me," Steve says. He huffs out a breath. "That was you. And Natasha and Tony. But it was really you." His eyes are painfully bright. "If you hadn't talked to him, taken him in…I don't know what would've happened." He swallows. "You saved his life. And mine. I'm not even sure you understand the magnitude of that, what you've given me. Even if he never remembers anything. I can't ever thank you enough."
"Yeah, you can," Sam says. He slaps his hand into Steve's and lets Steve pull him to his feet. "You already did. But if that's not enough, then just keep doing the same stuff you're doing. And be happy. You deserve to be happy, Steve."
"Yeah, okay," Steve says. He laughs, though Sam's not sure what part of it he found funny. And then Steve pulls Sam into a hug. "You deserve it too, Sam," he says. "Don't forget that."
"I am happy," Sam says, thinking of Natasha's green eyes, and Thor's welcome, and Tony's stupid nicknames, and Steve's rare, genuine smiles, and Bucky trusting someone enough to let them help.
"I am happy," Sam says again as Steve gently pats his back. "This has been a pretty good day."
Steve's head snaps up and he lets go of Sam. "Did you hear that?"
"No," Sam says. He tilts his head, straining his ears. There's something, but it's faint. "Sounds like…banging?"
The massive doors crack open, and one of the two women from before steps out, hurrying towards them. She doesn't look happy. "There's been a problem," she says.
"Oh, fuck," Steve breathes. He goes with Sam to follow the woman's quick, agitated steps back inside, but hesitates at the doors.
"Come," the healer says to him. "He was asking for you."
Steve gasps, looks at Sam with something like hope, then goes with them the rest of the way into the room.
The first thing Sam sees is the bank of windows, showing one of the typically breathtaking views of Asgard and pouring sunlight into the large, airy chamber. He guesses that the Soul Forge is what most of the healers are clustered around. It looks like an operating table crossed with a work of art, far more beautiful than threatening. Bucky's not on it.
He's on the far end of the room in front of another set of magnificently imposing doors. By the shallow dents in the thick metal, it's pretty clear that he tried to smash his way through when he couldn't get them open. Now he's standing in front of them, hands in tight fists at his sides and his chest heaving. He's white as death, breathing way too fast and trembling so badly Sam's astonished he can still stand.
Only one of the women is anywhere near him, speaking quietly but firmly, trying to pull him back from whatever hellish place he's gone. It's obvious she's done this before, but it's just as obvious that it's not working.
"Bucky!" Steve skids to a halt when Sam grabs his arm, making sure he doesn't get too close.
Bucky looks at Steve when he hears his name. "S-Steve?" All Sam can see in his eyes is fear.
"I'm here," Steve says. He lifts his hands with the palms out, the way Sam's done so many times. "What's wrong, Bucky? What happened?"
Bucky swallows. "Help me."
"Of course," Steve says. "But you have to tell me what's wrong."
The healer who was trying to talk Bucky down edges next to Sam. "He was apprehensive at first," she explains to him and Steve, "but we explained many times that the Soul Forge is painless, and he seemed to understand. But when it was time for him to lie down on it, suddenly this terror overcame him."
"No one's going to hurt you," Sam says. "We want to help. But we need to know what's wrong. Can you tell us what's wrong?"
Bucky drops into a defensive stance, glaring at Sam. "You said I was safe," Bucky spits at him. "You said I was safe." His eyes are liquid with terror but he sounds enraged, like Sam completely and utterly betrayed him. "You said no one was going to hurt me again."
Idiot, Sam mentally snaps at himself. "This isn't Bucky," he murmurs to Steve.
Steve nods like he already got that. "James?" he says.
Bucky jerks his attention back to him.
"You are safe, James," Steve says. He almost takes another step, then catches himself. "The Soul Forge is going to heal you, help you remember so you'll know who you are."
Bucky shakes his head. "I don't want to remember. It hurts."
The healer has quietly retreated. It's just the three of them now, though Bucky's entirely focused on Steve.
"I know," Steve says. He eases himself down to the floor as he talks, until he's sitting cross-legged, looking up at his friend. "You're the one who takes all the pain. That's not very fair."
Bucky shrugs. "I have to."
Sam sits down too, moving as quietly as possible.
"You don't have to, James," Steve says. "You don't have to be the only one to hurt anymore. The Soul Forge will put all the separate pieces of you back together. That's why we came here, so the healers could help you."
"They're not going to help me," Bucky says. He sounds weary, like after so long he has no hope left. "It will hurt. It always does." He kind of slides down the wall and sits hugging his knees, hiding behind them. "Everything hurts. I'm not safe. Not ever—"
"Hey," Steve says, gentle but still enough of an order to focus Bucky's attention. "You remember me. Right, James?"
Bucky nods. He blinks, letting tears run down his face. He sniffs and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. Now that Sam's certain of which identity this is, it's clear that James is younger than the other iterations in Bucky's head. His entire aspect is childlike, like someone with no resources whatsoever to handle all the agony he's been apparently quarantined to contain.
The idea that Bucky would have actively done this to himself makes Sam's blood run cold. The idea that Bucky had to in order to survive is even worse.
"You're my friend. I'm sorry I tried to kill you."
"It's okay, James," Steve says. He smiles, though it's nothing but sad. "I know you didn't want to. But if you remember who I am, then you know you can trust me."
Bucky goes still, then gives Steve a slow, uncertain nod.
Steve's smile is a bit wider this time. "So, what if I let the healers use the Forge on me first, so I can show you that it's all right?"
Bucky snaps his head up, looking at Steve wide-eyed. "No! I can't let you do that." He stands up shakily. "That's for me. It's my job. I'm the one. You can't do it." He pushes himself away from the doors. Terror is sketched out in every tense, trembling line of his body but he goes towards the Soul Forge anyway. Sam doesn't think he's ever seen someone so brave.
Steve steps in front of Bucky and puts his hands on his shoulders. "This isn't your job, James," he says. "This is my choice. You don't have to protect me."
Bucky blinks at him. "But—"
"How about you let someone else be the strong one for a change?" Steve says. He smiles again, wistful. "You always protected me. This time let me protect you."
Bucky sniffs again. "I'm not strong."
"Good God, Bucky." Steve pulls him into his arms. Sam hears Bucky's shocked inhale, but Bucky doesn't resist. "You're the strongest man I know."
Bucky lifts his arms to wrap them around Steve's back then holds him desperately. He drops his head onto Steve's shoulder, his breath catching as he shakes in anguish instead of fear. "I want it to stop," Bucky says. "Please. Help me. I just want it to stop."
"I know," Steve says. "I know. We're trying to help you, James. We want it to stop too. But you have to let the healers do their work. It's not going to hurt. I promise, it won't hurt. I'll go first if you want, to show you. But you have to let them use their machine."
Bucky lifts his head and Steve lets go of him so Bucky can step away. He sniffs, swallows heavily a few times and wipes his eyes. "You promise it's not going to hurt?"
Steve nods. "I promise," he says solemnly. "Like I said, I'll go first. I don't mind."
Bucky looks at him, taking in the calm certainty on his face. "It's okay," he says. "I believe you."
"You sure?"
"Yeah." Bucky nods. He looks more resolved than relieved, but when he goes to the Soul Forge he walks like an adult instead of a scared child. And he barely hesitates before he climbs onto the table and lies down. But as soon as Steve offers his hand Bucky grabs it like a lifeline.
"You'll be fine," Sam says, because Steve looks like trying to find more words will break him.
When Bucky reaches up with his left hand Sam takes it immediately, though he's concerned that Bucky might accidentally crush his fingers.
"As we have said, there will be no pain," the elder says to Bucky. "Neither of the body nor the mind. There will always be memories that bring sadness, fear or anger, but they will feel distant. Unpleasant but not overwhelming."
Bucky manages a tiny jerk of a nod.
The elder smiles at him. "We are ready. May we begin?"
Bucky manages to nod again.
Now that they have his permission, the healers move with brisk efficiency. They pull some kind of intricate latticework into place that doesn't cover Bucky's body so much as hover over it. One of the healers touches it somewhere and it begins glowing with soft orange light. Then another healer settles what looks like a helmet over his head, though it's formed out of woven filaments in silver and gold. It makes Sam wonder if everything the Asgardians make is this unearthly mixture of art and function.
Sam doesn't see this turn on either, but he hears a gentle thrumming and yellow and orange lights begin to chase each other over the filaments covering Bucky's forehead and eyes.
Bucky gasps and goes limp, both his hands sliding out of Steve's and Sam's.
"Bucky!" Steve looks like he's about to bound forward and yank the helmet off. "What's happening to him?"
One of the healers puts her hand on his chest. "Do not fear, Steven. Your friend is well."
"S'okay," Bucky murmurs. He sounds half-asleep.
"Bucky?" Steve takes Bucky's lax hand in both of his.
Bucky gives him a soft, dreamy smile.
It's hard to tell how much time passes. Sam takes deep breaths and watches the lights playing along the wires, trying not to be affected by Steve's nervousness on top of his own. Steve looks like he's about to vibrate out of his skin. Sam's never seen him so afraid. Not even for his own life, not even for the lives of millions. Nothing has made him look like this: like he's sure he's about to lose everything.
Sam almost doesn't notice when the flashing lights finally slow, then stop. Bucky's hand moves purposely in Steve's, pulling free. One of the healers quickly lifts the equipment away.
Bucky blinks a few times, coming fully alert, then he looks at Steve.
"I thought you were smaller," he says.
For a second Steve looks confused, terrified, devastated. Until Bucky starts to grin.
Steve blinks at him, then his eyes go wide.
"Bucky?" he says, hushed.
"Right here, stupid," Bucky says.
"You took the stupid with you," Steve says. And then Bucky rockets upright and into Steve's arms.
Sam watches them laughing and crying and holding each other like they'll never let go again, and he thinks, yeah: today is pretty damn good.
Sam detaches his wing harness, lets what's left of it fall mournfully to the floor. He thinks about picking it up, but that would require bending over. Which requires moving.
He decides to get it later.
He hauls his sorry, sorry ass one inch at a time until he's far enough away from the carnage in the arena that he can flop down without worrying about getting trampled. It's not really an arena. It's a training and exercise space that Tony added to the secret underground lair part of Avengers Tower, where the team can work out and/or kill each other without bothering the neighbors.
The exercisers/combatants left in the arena are Steve, Bucky, Natasha and a guy named Clint who should've been murdered by any of the others at least an hour ago, but keeps on holding his own in the mayhem. He actually seems to be having the most fun.
The chaos started with a perfectly reasonable obstacle course that degenerated into a game of keep-away with Steve's shield and gleefully beating the shit out of each other. Often at the same time. Sam unintentionally set it off when Steve threw his shield at a robot that dropped out of the ceiling. Sam flew into the path of the shield by accident and then caught it in self-preservation. Then Bucky put up his hands and yelled, "Here! Over here!", and Sam unthinkingly tossed it to him, sure he'd give it back to Steve.
Except Bucky whooped and ran off with it.
Steve swore and took off after him, neatly dodging more of Tony's robots until he was close enough to throw himself at Bucky. Bucky tossed the shield to Clint before he went down.
Things kind of went downhill from there.
Sam tried to stay out of it, but then Natasha threw the shield to him and, well. He couldn't let her down by just handing it back to Steve. And then when he threw the shield to Clint, Clint threw it right back to him. And then Natasha put her hands up for it and Sam wasn't going to refuse to throw it to her. And really, it wasn't Sam's fault.
But then Bucky was inexplicably on Steve's side again, because he pretty much ran up the wall and caught one of Sam's wings. Sam's new harness comes from Tony, so it's a lot more durable than the one Sam had on the helicarrier. This meant that the wing didn't tear out, but Bucky, Sam and Sam's harness all crashed together to the floor.
Bucky broke Sam's fall because Sam landed on him. While Sam stayed there to make sure the sound Bucky was making was laughter and not a death rattle, Steve ran up and grabbed his shield back. Then Natasha tripped him. Sam staggered to safety while Steve was on the ground in a tug of war over his shield with Natasha and Clint.
Sam mostly doesn't fall on his ass, then lies on his back and stretches out because that way he can pretend everything hurts less. He hears Steve shout, "Bucky! God damn it!" and Bucky yelling, "Olly, olly, oxenfree!" at the top of his lungs and then the unmistakable sound of the shield hitting something and Natasha's evil laughter.
Sam smiles to himself and closes his eyes, only to crack them open a minute later because Bucky's peering down at him.
"Unless you've come to put me out of my misery, I don't want to know you," Sam says.
"I came to check on you. You all right?" Bucky asks.
"Yes," Sam says, because Bucky's genuinely worried and Sam may be sore but he's still intact. "I'm pissed that you broke my wings, but I'm fine." He takes Bucky's offered hand and lets Bucky pull him upright.
Bucky sits cross-legged beside him. He rakes his fingers through his wet hair. It's still collar-length, but neater, reminiscent of the style Sam remembers seeing in Bucky's war photos. Bucky pushes his goggles up onto his forehead and rubs at the red lines they left on either side of his nose. The goggles, like most of his uniform, look a lot like what he wore as Hydra's Asset. Some differences are that there's more brown than black, and that he doesn't use the piece that covered his mouth and nose.
The biggest difference is the flash on his metal shoulder. Instead of a red star it's the same design as on Steve's shield. The media think that's just because Bucky's Captain America's sidekick. Sam is one of the few people who know how much more it means than that.
Bucky still looks intimidating as hell, though: all shadowy dark menace where Steve is bright, bold hope. And Bucky still uses the Winter Soldier as his code name, as if in purposeful contrast to the hero born on the Fourth of July.
The Asgardian healers kept his memories from hurting, but Bucky still embodies the legacy of his past. Some things get easier over time, but they never go away.
"I kind of forget, sometimes, that it's just practice," Bucky says. His eyes are on the arena, following Steve's every move. "I know I can get carried away." He gestures at his head, making a face. "It's the stuff they did in there. Now it's like, all or nothing. I didn't mean to hurt you."
"Believe me, I didn't much notice a difference between what you did and Clint winging Cap's shield at my head," Sam says. He pats Bucky's shoulder, making sure Bucky's aware of it beforehand. "You owe me a set of wings, though."
Bucky snorts. "Two."
Sam blinks at him, surprised. "You remember that?"
The look Bucky gives Sam is like the winter he's named for. "I remember everything."
"Of course you do." Sam sighs. "I was just hoping you wouldn't."
Bucky shrugs, but he hunches in on himself, looking at the padded floor. "No kidding."
"Are you okay?"
The words are too simple for what Sam means, but Bucky seems to understand anyway. He shrugs again, then brings one knee up and rests his right forearm on it, and then his chin on his arm. "Most of the time," he says. His eyes are on the arena again. It looks like Steve's learning a move from Clint, with Natasha offering guidance. Steve looks in their direction and waves.
Bucky grins at him and waves back, but as soon as Steve's attention is off him his smile dies. "Most of the time, it's just like the healer dames said." He taps the side of his head with two fingers. "Everything's still in there, but what the Russians and Hydra did… That's…far away. Like it happened to someone else and I'm just watching." He smirks humorlessly. "It gets pretty weird sometimes, especially when it's all the stuff that never really happened. Like me growing up Russian. Talk about a double life. But I still know who I am and everything."
"I'm glad," Sam says.
Bucky nods. "So, that's most of the time. But sometimes, I can't…keep it away. The stuff that happened, what I did. It creeps in. Like, I'll wake up in the middle of the night convinced I'm running an op, but I can't remember what it is. Or that they're going to come for me, strap me down and brainwash me again." He swallows. "Or, or I'm falling."
Sam gently squeezes his shoulder. "Does Steve know?"
"Sure," Bucky says. "I know I've woken him up a couple times. But we don't talk about it, or anything. He's got enough problems without me adding to them."
"You should tell him," Sam says. "He loves you. He's probably worried about you but doesn't want to pry."
Bucky shrugs. "I guess." He watches Steve slowly working through a move with Natasha. Bucky has a small, sad smile on his face. "I keep waiting for him to wise up and eighty-six me."
Sam stares at him. "Why?"
Bucky gives an incredulous smirk, like it's so obvious it's not worth mentioning. "Maybe you didn't notice, but I got a lot of blood on my hands."
"I noticed," Sam says. "Maybe you noticed that I have a lot of blood on my hands too. So does Natasha. So does Clint, or Tony or Thor. So does Steve."
"Not like I do." Bucky shakes his head. "Nat got away from the Red Room a hell of a lot sooner than I did. I don't know much about Clint, but I know he didn't kill half as many people as I did. Tony…" Bucky quirks half a smile. "Tony's an idiot. But he's a good guy. He thought he was doing the right thing. And Thor's a frigging prince. And you and Steve were soldiers."
"So were you," Sam says. "And unlike you, and Natasha, the rest of us chose to kill. You didn't."
"Sure I did," Bucky says it like it's a given, but he hunches in a little further, wrapping both his arms around his raised leg like he's trying to hide. "I knew exactly what I was doing."
"Yeah, you knew." Sam nods. "But that doesn't mean it was a choice. Tell me: of all the people you killed, how many did you want to die?"
Bucky's face closes up like the thought hurts. "None."
"There you go," Sam says. "Out of all of us, you and Natasha are the only ones who had no choice about what you did. I could've walked away, Clint could've. So could Thor or Steve. Tony did, but it took him almost dying to recognize his mistakes."
Bucky scowls at him. "Steve helped save the whole damn world."
"I know," Sam says seriously. He smiles. "Believe me, I know. I was there for one of the times. But that's the point, Bucky. Steve chose to do that. He chose to volunteer to be given the super soldier serum. He chose to go AWOL to rescue you. He chose to lead the Howling Commandos. You chose to follow him. You never chose to be abducted and forced into becoming an assassin."
"Fuck I didn't." Bucky snorts, angry. "I could've walked away any time. Just fucked off on them and gotten on with my life. But I never did. I kept going back like some stupid mutt who can't get enough of being kicked."
"Is that what happened?" Sam asks. "You just told me you remember everything. Do you remember thinking that? That you could just walk away? Ever?" he adds when Bucky doesn't answer.
"I should've," Bucky says.
"Bucky." Sam jostles his shoulder to make him look at him. "I am absolutely certain that if there was any way, any way at all, to get yourself away from them, you would've. The fact that you didn't only means that you weren't able to. I know that whatever they did to condition you also made it impossible for you to run away." He hazards a smile. "After all, you were one hell of an investment. There's no way they would've risked you just fucking off on them."
"I wish I had," Bucky says. "God. Every damn day. I wish I'd just run. Or blew my brains out." He rips his goggles off and rakes his fingers through his hair.
"I'm glad you didn't blow your brains out," Sam says, hoping Bucky can hear how much he means it. "I'm really glad you're here." He jerks his chin at the arena. "And I'm damn sure Steve is. Not to mention your other teammates."
Bucky nods vaguely, fiddling with his goggles.
Sam sighs, lets it go for now. "Maybe you should talk to Steve about how you're feeling."
"Yeah, right," Bucky scoffs. "Like he needs to hear my bellyaching."
"I think he'd want to."
Bucky shrugs again. He looks up finally, but his eyes are on his three teammates still in the arena. "What the hell are they doing now?" He slips his goggles back on and gets to his feet, transparently ending the conversation. "Hey! Hey, Steve! What the hell are you doing? You want to break your neck?"
Sam watches sadly as Bucky jogs away.
"Did Bucky destroy your wings again? That's it. Now the next ones I make you will totally include laser-guided missiles." Tony sits down beside Sam and hands him a bottle with 'Starkade' on the label. "Drink up."
Sam dutifully opens the bottle and takes a long drink, then blinks at it. "What flavor is this?"
"Black cherry." Tony squints at the arena. "What are they doing over there?"
"Hopefully not killing each other," Sam says. He takes another swallow and grimaces. "This is terrible."
"It's fantastic. Captain America loves it."
"Are you sure he's not just being nice?"
Tony looks affronted, then cups the side of his mouth and hollers, "Hey, Steve!"
Steve is standing talking to Natasha and Clint, with his arm across Bucky's shoulders. He looks at Tony, who waggles his own bottle of Starkaid. "You like this, right?"
Steve gives him a thumbs-up.
"See?"
Sam rolls his eyes. He drinks some more then grimaces at the bottle again. "So, how much of that conversation did you hear, anyway?"
"Not much," Tony says.
Sam looks at him sidelong. "And by 'not much' you mean…"
"All of it," Tony confirms with a nod. "And I think you're totally right. Bucky needs to talk to Steve."
"Thank you?"
"You're welcome. But he won't. Or, at least he won't without more nagging. Which is why you need to move to New York and be the team counsellor."
Sam blinks at him. Then blinks again. "I can't," he says finally, once Tony's words have completely caught up to him. "I'm not allowed to counsel my friends. It's unethical."
"Yes." Tony nods with mock-seriousness. "Because the Avengers are such a paragon of ethics. Look," he barrels on before Sam can try to argue. "I bitch to Bruce, like, all the time. He hates it. It's awesome. But the point is, we still work together and eat shwarma and fight evil and I still mock him mercilessly whenever possible. It doesn't change anything."
"That's not the same thing. That's not him counseling you in a professional capacity. That's him being a friend."
"So be our friend."
Sam nearly spits out his horrible black cherry drink. "You did not just say that."
"Oh, I totally did, Rainbow Dash." Tony grins, then huffs out a long, put-upon sigh. "Fine, then. Come work as a counsellor at Stark Industries. We've been hiring loads of former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents so the company is, like, full of traumatized veterans. You'll have a field day."
"I can't wait," Sam says dryly. Except he knows he doesn't sound nearly as sarcastic as he intended. He takes another drink because he doesn't want to look too eager. Then wonders why he cares. "I assume I'd also be in on the fighting-evil gig."
"Provided you can keep Bucky from wrecking your wings every time I make you new ones, sure." Tony slugs back more of his Starkaid with apparent enjoyment. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "So?"
"So, what?"
"So, are you in?"
"I don't know," Sam says. He gives up on the drink and puts the cap back on. "I have a life back in D.C. I can't just leave the V.A."
"You have more of a life here," Tony says. "And you can leave the V.A. if I agree to help find your boss Madison a replacement for you. Natasha misses you," he adds, elaborately nonchalant. "I mean, she doesn't say so, but I can tell. She pines. So does Steve. He cries, you know. And making Captain America cry is like killing puppies. It's inhuman. You should be ashamed of yourself."
"You are out of your mind, you know that?" Sam laughs. "I don't know if I could handle working for you."
"A-ha! You practically just said yes!" Tony points at him in triumph. He cups his mouth again. "Hey, Natasha! Your boyfriend is moving to New York!"
Natasha starts walking towards them.
"Tony!" Sam exclaims, aghast. "I didn't say that!"
"Oops," Tony says innocently, taking a drink. "Guess you'll just have to break her heart, then."
"Fuck you, Tony."
"I thought you weren't two-timing Pepper. Oh, hi, Natasha." Tony smiles sweetly at her. "Sam and I were just discussing what color to paint his floor of the tower."
"I like blue," Natasha says. She sits gracefully on Sam's other side and leans back on her hands. "Are you really moving in? Or is Tony just being an ass again?"
"Hey, I'm never an ass. That's slander. I'm hurt."
Natasha looks at Sam, her expression completely bland except for one elegantly arched eyebrow. "Are you moving to New York?"
"Yes," Sam says, glaring at Tony, who just grins at him. "On one condition."
"Anything for you, Celestia."
"The V.A. office where I work needs a better coffee machine."
Tony looks at him blankly. "That's it?"
"That's it." Sam nods firmly. "Well, that and the other stuff you said."
"Cool." Tony slaps him on the back. "Welcome to the team."
"You'll probably live to regret it," Natasha says, smiling. But she leans against him, and puts her arm around his back.
Epilogue
Sam's former V.A. office gets a large donation from Stark Industries. Enough to hire two social workers to replace him. Tony also donates a new, expensive coffee machine.
So expensive, in fact, that Tony insists it's too good for the crappy plastic folding table. And then replacing the table somehow involves renovating the entire building.
There's a plaque in the new foyer, dedicated to the Howling Commandos.
Natasha approves of the blue on Sam's floor. She says that's her reason for spending so much time there.
Bucky does talk to Steve, eventually, with lots of Sam's encouragement. As a friend. Tony is annoyingly smug about it.
Sam really doesn't mind.
END